Star Wars: New Jedi Order Book 8b: Emissary of the Void

by Greg Keyes

  “I know about Shapers,” Uldir said, bluntly.

  “Good. That saves me some time, then. Anyway, they put us to work tending a qahsa, a living information storage system. A few months ago, they brought us here, to Wayland.”

  “What are they doing here?”

  ‘The Yuuzhan Vong are intensely interested in the Jedi. They don’t exist in the Force, and none of them can sense it, yet they can see that it exists because of what we do with it. They fear us–so far as I can determine, several different sects of Shapers were put to work on the Jedi ‘problem’. They found out about the Emperor, the dark side, and Wayland, and they came here looking for clues. Clues about how to destroy the Jedi.”

  “And you think they found something.”

  “They found something, yes. Not what they were looking for, but something deadly–not just to Jedi but to all of us.”

  “What exactly did they find?”

  ‘That I don’t know. But it was important, and they were convinced it would strike a decisive–perhaps final–blow against the new Republic. They coded what they had found into a portable qahsa and put it on a ship bound for Tsavong Lah’s vessel. Bey and I made our move; we managed to board the ship and sabotage the dovin basals. The ship went wildly off‑course and crashed in the Corporate Sector. Bey and I managed to escape and ... ah, borrow a ship. We made it to Bonadan and hid out, built new lightsabers, and tried to get in touch with the New Republic.

  “But we discovered the execs were colluding with the Yuuzhan Vong. We also discovered that the qahsa we had stolen was useless.”

  “How so?”

  “It was coded–genetically. Imagine it as locked, able to be opened only by an incredibly complex biochemical key. We had the secret, but not the secret needed to read the secret.” She shrugged. “So I had to come back here.”

  “Wait a minute. What about this Bey fellow? And the qahsa?”

  The other Jedi’s name didn’t taste good in his mouth. Something about the way she said it bothered him.

  “We decided to split up. We both knew the odds of making it back to Wayland and out again were slim. We figured that even without the genetic key, New Republic scientists might be able to crack the code. So Bey flew toward Coruscant, and I made plans to return to Wayland. The local enforcers caught up with me before I managed to leave, and then you came along.”

  “I see. And you couldn’t have told me this a long time ago?”

  “What reason did I have to trust you? The Yuuzhan Vong have allies everywhere.”

  Uldir shrugged. He couldn’t deny that.

  “And now?” He asked.

  “Now I don’t have any choice.”

  “Wait just one minute,” Uldir said. “There’s a tailwind I don’t like here. You said your partner took the qahsa to the New Republic, so he should have told this same story, ultimately to the Jedi. But Master Skywalker is aware of none of this. He still thinks you’re dead.”

  Her eyes dropped.”That’s because Bey never made it to Coruscant. That was the other thing I found out when I was in the Shaper compound–he’s been captured. He was here up until a few days ago, for interrogation. Now he’s being transferred to a slave convoy.”

  “And he still has the coded message.”

  “He ought to. It’s small, easily hidden‑and there is no indication in the Shaper records that they found it on him.”

  “And that thing on your back is the key.”

  “Correct.”

  “So, let me guess–you want me to take on this slave convoy for you. Based on a story from someone I know to be a liar–a story which, even if I choose to believe it, gives me no assurance that the threat to the galaxy is as dire as you make it out to be.”

  Klin‑Fa Gi stopped and turned her dark eyes directly on him.

  “I know I’ve given you every reason to distrust me. I know you don’t like me, but what I’m telling you is true. Whatever the Shapers are planning, it’s important. They estimated the number of deaths in the millions or even billions. That much, I did hear.”

  Her earnestness sent a tremor along Uldir’s spine.

  I

  Tsaa Qalu could smell the Jedi and her companion as if they were inches away, though they were more than ten meters from him. He followed them easily, noiselessly, and when their pitiful eyes glanced in his direction, he could tell they saw nothing but vegetation.

  Of course they did not see him. He was a Yuuzhan Vong hunter, gifted by the gods to track, to see and not be seen, until the moment his claws came down upon their throats, and often not even then.

  He could have them now–he’d meant to, moments before–but as he listened to their grotesque speech, his plans began to change. When he was sure, he stopped and waited for their voices to recede until even his god‑sharpened ears could not hear them.

  Soon the sound of his subordinate warriors grew behind him. They did not see him either; only one warrior in a thousand was chosen to incarnate the hunter and wear the cloak of the Nuun. The photosensitive bacteria that lived symbiotically in the surface of the cloak mimicked his surroundings perfectly.

  Still, it irritated him to hear Yuuzhan Vong moving almost as clumsily as despised infidels.

  He revealed himself with a low growl, and they turned fiercely to face him. He let his cloak relax, allowing to his fellows to see him.

  “Tsaa Qalu!” his subordinate hissed. “Are they near?”

  “They are near enough.”

  “What is your command? Shall we fall upon them?”

  “No. There is a greater hunt here than the capture of a single Jedi and her companion. A much greater hunt, and more glory for the Yuuzhan Vong.”

  “But our orders...”

  Tsaa Qalu snarled and chopped his hand. “Shaper’s orders,” he said, voice wet with contempt. “I have the authority to supersede them. I do.”

  “A belek tiu. Of course.” the subcommander saluted.

  “Yes, of course. Prepare my ship. We will pursue this quarry to the stars.”

  “We’ve got skips,” Leaft said.

  Vega could see that for herself. The frigate had launched about a dozen of the starfighters, and they were forming up for a run on the No Luck Required.

  “That leaves us exactly no place to go,” Vega noticed.

  “Wrong,” Leaft snorted. “It leaves us to find the weakest attacker and go through him.”

  “Riiiight,” Vega said. “Any nominations?”

  “The coralskippers. Starboard flank.”

  “I don’t think so,” Vega said, throwing the ship into a series of evasive maneuvers as long‑range plasma bursts plumed by them. “The Frigate we might be able to outrun; the drone ship can catch us, I’m sure of it. Either way, if we try to fight through that perimeter of skips, we’ll get nailed from behind by one of them.” As she spoke, she stenciled the vacuum with the forward lasers.

  “If only we knew why the drone ship is attacking us,” Vook’s voice came from the turbolaser.

  “Who knows?” Leaft snapped. “It’s more than a century old. It might be a thousand.”

  “No,” Vook said. “The crashed ship wasn’t that old. It was a late Old Republic vessel, I’m sure of it.”

  “Yes, but that thing was in it,” Vega pointed out. “It could have been cargo, or a special weapon–it’s a complete unknown. We don’t even know for sure what got it so angry with us.”

  “It didn’t like my taking the fuel,” Leaft said.

  “So it would seem.” A thought occurred to her. “Leaft, you were closest. Where did this thing come from? Was it inside the wreckage?”

  “Urr?” He scratched his head. “I–I don’t think so, no. I think it was behind it, in its shadow. Yes, I think I saw it rise up from behind.”

  “That was my impression, too,” Vega said. “Maybe it’s not even contemporary with the Republic ship. Maybe it came along later, for the same reason we did–to scrounge spare parts. Maybe it couldn’t find enough and went into some
sort of hibernation mode.”

  “Until we came along,” Vook said. “And now it wants our parts.”

  “Are you shooting, down there?” Leaft snarled. “I’ll never understand this preoccupation you beings have with pointless speculation.”

  Vega was almost prepared to agree with the Dug, as the ship was struck almost simultaneously by a plasma burst from a coralskipper and a laser blast from the automated ship. She could probably put her brain to better use flying.

  But then an idea occurred to her with nearly blinding clarity.

  “You like to gamble, don’t you Leaft?” She asked, absently.

  “Of course,” the Dug said. “Provided the game is fixed.”

  “Sorry, no such assurance here.”

  “I don’t–what in the name of space are you doing?”

  “Powering down,” she replied, as the ship plunged into darkness and the engines coughed off‑line.

  “Are you completely insane?” Leaft screeched. He was drowned out by multiple impacts against the hull that would have pasted them both against the bulkhead if they hadn’t been strapped into crash couches.

  “They’re going to cut us to pieces! The next volley–” he broke off.

  “Urr. They’ve stopped shooting.”

  “Sure,” Vega drawled. ‘The Yuuzhan Vong would rather have us as captives. The drone ship wants our spare parts. Neither has any interest in blowing a dead ship out of space.”

  “You don’t know that. That was a guess!”

  “The drone stopped shooting, didn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Vook confirmed from below. “I can see it. It’s still coming fast, though.”

  “So is the frigate,” Vega said. “The coralskippers are backing off.”

  The frigate loomed alongside them, and as they watched, an opening dilated in the side of the craft and a wormlike tube began to extrude from it..

  “You were right,” Leaft admitted. “They’re going to board us. Nice going. You must be so happy.”

  “I can’t be wrong about this,” Vega said.

  “I’m deeply comforted by your confidence,” the Dug replied.

  Vega didn’t answer. She watched the tube stretch across the intervening space, breathing through the tightness in her chest.

  Then the drone appeared in the upper starboard quadrant of her view, its twin lasers slicing through the Yuuzhan Vong boarding mechanism.

  “See?” Vega said, trying not to let her jubilation show.

  An instant later, the frigate returned fire, and space was once again an arabesque of plasma blasts and laser fire.

  “That’s perfect,” Vega murmured. “I don’t think we’ll wait around to see who wins.” She began flicking switches, and the ship’s systems hummed and burred back to life.

  She spun the ship thirty degrees and kicked in the drive.

  “We’ve still got skips on us,” Vook said. The turbolaser was pounding again.

  “Skips we can deal with,” Vega replied.

  “There are quite a lot of them,” Vook said.

  “Then we’ll shoot quite a lot of them,” Vega snapped. Her jubilation was beginning to fade. The odds were better than they had been, but they still weren’t good.

  They improved a few seconds later, however, as two A‑wings suddenly appeared from the direction of the sun and began dicing yorik coral.

  “It’s the boss!” Leaft shouted.

  “And someone else,” Vook said.

  The comm crackled. “I thought I told you guys to stay out of trouble.”

  It was Uldir. Relief flushed through Vega like engine coolant.

  “We did our best,” she said. She glanced at the frigate and the drone, still locked in combat. “I even arranged a show for you.”

  “Yeah. Remind me to ask about that sometime.”

  A few moments later, what remained of the coralskippers retreated back to the frigate, which was suffering heavy damage from the drone. Vega opened the fighter bay and cycled both of the smaller ships in. Then she jumped a light year into the outer system, changed vectors, made another short hop, and then a longer one, to put a few parsecs between them and Wayland.

  Only then did she relax. Marginally.

  She looked up to see Uldir standing in the doorway. The Jedi was with him.

  Leaft noticed her at about the same time and was out of his crash couch in a blindingly fast flurry of appendages. Hurling himself forward with his long upper limbs, he struck Klin‑Fa in

  the chest with both of his lower foot‑hands, uttering a wordless snarl. The Jedi, stunned, flew back into the common room and slammed into the bulkhead. Leaft kept coming after her.

  “Leaft!” Uldir snapped. “Stop. Now.”

  The Dug paused over the crumpled body, his eyes effulgent with fury. “She’s got this coming,” he snapped.

  “Not without my say‑so,” Uldir said. “Stand down, Leaft. I mean it.”

  For a moment, Uldir thought he was going to have to draw on the Dug, but then, with a snarl, Leaft retreated a few steps. Klin‑Fa moaned and sat up, her breath coming in painful‑sounding wheezes. Uldir felt a brief urge to help her stand.

  He suppressed it.

  “The Dug’s right,” Klin‑Fa managed, wiping blood from a cut lip. “I had that coming.”

  “And a good deal more,” Vega said. “Boss‑boy, why isn’t this carbon flush in stuncuffs?”

  “I’ll explain that soon enough,” Uldir replied. “I want a status report first”

  Vega’s lips compressed in anger, but when she spoke her tone was controlled.

  “As you can see, we’re hyperdrive capable again. I’ve put some space between us and Wayland.” She glanced at the con. “Other than that, we’ve suffered some minor battle damage, nothing that a little time in drydock won’t fix.”

  “That’s terrific,” Uldir said, meaning it. “I don’t know how you managed it, but great work. I’m proud of all of you.”

  Vega nodded curtly. “We just did what you told us too.” Her voice was flat. Inwardly, Uldir sighed. The ship wasn’t the only thing that needed patching up, it seemed.

  “Plot another jump,” Uldir said, “toward the Hydian Way, then rimward.”

  ‘The Hydian Way?” Vega repeated, incredulously. “That’s still Yuuzhan Vong territory.”

  “I’m aware of that. When you’re done, meet me in the lounge. The rest of you, too. Klin‑Fa has some things to tell you, and we have a decision to make.”

  “Boss,” Vega drawled, when the explanations were done, “with all due respect, it’s my opinion that you’ve lost your mind.”

  “Or had it lost for you,” Leaft speculated, shooting Klin‑Fa a look that was pure venom.

  “I understand your reactions,” Uldir said. “But I think we need to do this.”

  Vega rolled her eyes. “Leaving aside the fact that we are in no way equipped to take on a slave convoy, I ask you–once again–to consider the source.”

  “I have, believe me,” Uldir replied. “But if what Klin‑Fa says even might be true, we have to risk it.”

  “Let someone else risk it,” Leaft said. “Someone with the guns to live through it”

  “Who?” Uldir said. “Given the way the New Republic has been dragging its heels, we can’t count on them. They think we have a truce with Yuuzhan Vong. Anyway, you all know what the intelligence situation is like on that end. Two minutes after we reported this to the military, the senate, or anyone else in the Republic, the Yuuzhan Vong would know we were on to them. They have too many collaborators and too many spies.”

  “Granted,” Vega allowed. “But we aren’t the only ship Master Skywalker has at his command. What about Booster Terrik and the Errant Venture? He’s got the firepower needed for this sort of operation.”

  “We’ll certainly try to contact Master Skywalker,” Uldir replied.

  “I don’t think he would send the Errant Venture, because the Jedi candidates are on it–he wouldn’t want to risk their lives. B
ut sure, if we can get help we will. But we can’t wait for it. Right now, the ship with Gandan on it is only a few days ahead of us, and we know where it’s headed. Soon that won’t be the case.”

  “We can’t fight a whole convoy,” Vega said.

  Klin‑Fa cleared her throat. “If we hurry we won’t have to–just the slave transport and its escort.”

  “That’s still a lot of ship,” Vega said. “The No Luck Required isn’t a warcraft–it’s a rescue vessel.”

  “I think we should do it,” Vook said.

  All eyes turned to the Duro. He returned their gazes impassively.

  “The Jedi’s story aside,” he said, “we know for certain what the Yuuzhan Vong do to captives. If we have a chance to save sentient beings from their depredations, it is our duty to do so.”

  “Vook,” Vega began, “We all know how you feel about this–”

  “I doubt it,” the Duro said, softly. “I very much doubt it.”

  Silence settled on them. It was several long moments before anyone spoke.

  “Urr,” Leaft finally growled. “Who wants to live forever, anyway?”

  “I do,” Vega answered. “But to space with it. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER V:

  A Perilous Plan

  AS THE NO LUCK REQUIRED TUMBLEDlaconically though the void, Vook Gehu watched the stars drift across his view, remembering a Duro maxim older than some species.

  If a star should but blink, it would miss all of our history.

  The stars did not care who won this war. They did not care if Vook was freeze‑dried in vacuum or blasted into vapor. That he would die without companions did not trouble them.

  Vook found an odd comfort in that.

  He checked to make sure the emergency transponder was working properly. It was, pulsing a steady distress call. He hoped it would be answered soon, or this would all be moot.

  He needn’t have worried. Five minutes later, a response came, and Vook’s blood seemed to drop to the temperature of surrounding space. He searched the stars a few more moments before he found the newcomer–an irregular darkness that was not a distant nebula, but something much nearer.