by Greg Keyes
And it started talking to him. In Yuuzhan Vong.
He felt his ears flatten back. He wanted to yank the thing off, get those voices out of his head, but he had to do this, to prove–
Prove nothing. He was Leaft, a Dug, a warrior. He had nothing to prove. He just had to do this, save the boss, save Vega.
He remembered hearing it was a lot easier to fly one of these things
if you knew the language, but it had been done before without that
knowledge, and by a human. For him it should be no trouble at all. He closed his eyes.
“Fly!” he said. “Reverse engines!”
Nothing happened, except his legs felt funny and the voice was
growing louder in his head. “Fly, you stupid thing!”
Nothing.
Frustrated, he stamped his foot.
G‑forces smashed him back into the couch, and suddenly he saw stars and the transport, receding.
That was a start. The wrong start.
“No!” He yelled at the hood. “Not the ‘skip, the transport!”
He fought down panic. The circle of nothingness was very near.
But then he understood. The ‘skip wasn’t obeying his thoughts‑it couldn’t understand them. But it understood his body, his voluntary nerve impulses.
He closed his eyes again, flexed his manipulating digits, and the ‘skip went into a spin. He grunted happily. He could control the ‘skip. But how to take control of the transport?
“Well,” he mused aloud, “If the ‘skip is like my body, what’s the transport to me?”
Another body? Right. And that voice. The one trying to talk to him‑that would be the coordinating device or whatever they called it.
He focused on the voice, and began talking to it, reaching for it, stretching .. .
He touched something, but it slipped away. Biting back another yowl of frustration, he reached again
And got it. Suddenly his body seemed bigger, and he could feel himself pushing, pushing toward the black hole, because the last pilot had left the drive on.
So Leaft needed to push away.
So he did, and agony tore at him. The momentum was too great to simply check, even with the Yuuzhan Vong gravity drive. It would tear him‑the transport‑apart.
Of course, he was a pilot‑he ought to know he couldn’t just reverse his way out of a black hole. So he had to angle, keep going toward the hole but angle, just keep above the event horizon, stay away from where space curved into a perfect circle.
He was panting. At this range, even a small course change was hard. But it was happening, it was happening, but fast enough? He wasn’t sure.
The sick thing was, he was starting to enjoy flying the thing. Controls couldn’t move a ship like this, couldn’t make it respond they way your very muscles would. He felt like he was running down a funnel, already so fast that if he tried to stop he would fall over himself and plunge to where the deepening slope of the funnel became a sheer drop. He had to run so his momentum carried him along the wall of the funnel, not down it. That would be an orbit.
He managed it, his muscles screaming, but it wasn’t enough to simply orbit. He had to get away, to go back up to the rim, and over itwithout all of his limbs tearing from their sockets.
Gravity clenched at him, and he heard the dovin basal’s silent scream of protest as they slowed, slowed
And sped up again.
Leaft howled with pain and joy. He howled at the dead star that could not beat him. He howled to live.
And because he had done it.
He relaxed, and his body felt small again. For a long moment he sat there, blinking and confused, because the black hole was still there, larger than ever. The transport wasn’t there any more, though. Well, no, there it was, accelerating away ...
“Oh, flupp,” Leaft groaned.
His mother had been right, after all.
“He did it!” Vega shouted. “We’re out! We’re clear!”
Uldir realized he was shouting, too, and that his fingers had gone to sleep they’d been clenched so tight. He slapped Vega on the back, and in a woozy instant realized it had somehow turned into a hug.
Vega realized it too, and she stepped back, her eyes avoided his. “Let’s not get carried away, huh?”
“Yeah.” He cast a glance at Klin‑Fa and Bey. He was sitting down, now, in one of the chair‑things, and Klin‑Fa stood by herself, her face flushed, relieved‑and something else. Again, Uldir felt movement in the Force, something so big even his diminished senses could sense it.
Something wrong.
“What was that?” He asked, before he thought better of it.
“What was what?”
“Something in the Force.”
“I didn’t feel anything.”
Uldir stared at her for a moment. “I guess I was wrong,” he murmured. “Must just have been the relief.”
“I thought the ship would pull apart for a while there,” Bey said. “But I have to admit, your guy did it:”
‘He couldn’t have managed it off without your help,” Uldir said.
“Thank you.”
The Jedi smiled faintly. “I hoped it would work. I felt it would.”
“Before this love fest goes to far, we ought to check on Vook,” Vega reminded them.
I Oh, right,” Uldir pulled out his comlink.
“Vook, you there?”
“Here, captain,” Vook promptly replied.
“How’s your situation?”
“Not bad. The enemy craft retreated a few moments ago. We’ve taken only minor damage. I see you got the transport working.”
“Yep. Leaft’s flying it. Can you meet us? “
“Yes, sir, I have you on scope. Distance‑555,892 kilometers.”
“I’ll have Leaft alter course to meet you.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Leaft, you copy that?”
But from the Dug’s comlink, there was no signal whatever.
“Boss, give it up,” Vega said, her voice as soft as it ever got.
Uldir blinked his eyes at the stars. “It’s only been a few hours. He could be anywhere.”
“It looks like the coralskipper he was in launched. Boss–Uldir– no way a ‘skip had the power to escape the gravity well at that range.”
Uldir felt his jaw lock. “I should have done it.”
“That’s stupid, and you know it. He got the job done. The same would have probably have happened with any of us, except that if you had done it, it would have left me in charge. That wouldn’t be any good at all.”
“You did fine when you were in charge back in the Wayland system.”
“Maybe, but I hated it. I don’t like command.”
“Really?” Uldir said, feeling very cold. “Well, neither do I. I like flying. I like the job. But being responsible ...” He gasped, fighting the tears back. “I am responsible, Vega. I have to be. I’m in charge. I brought us here.”
“Leaft was responsible too. He knew that. We all know it. Come on, Boss. Is this really the first crewmember you’ve lost? The first friend?”
‘No. No. Not by a long shot. I even had to kill one once–at least I thought he was my friend. But that was his choice. Leaft died because of my choices.” He swung on her. “And they’ve all been wrong, haven’t they? Every decision I’ve made since meeting Klin‑Fa Gi has been wrong.”
“No.”
“What? You’ve disagreed with me every step of the way.”
“Yeah. But you were right, I was wrong. You’ve been so torn up about Leaft you haven’t looked at what the Jedi found on Wayland. It’s bad, and we have to stop it. We might not be able to as it is, but if we spend another hour looking for Leaft, that’s an hour less we have to do what we can. You want Leaft’s death to have meaning? Then quit moping and get us moving.”
“To where?”
“Thyferra. They’ve found a way to destroy bacta–and worse.”
Uldir stiffened.
“Right,” he said, wearily. “Let’s go. But when this is over–”
“Save that for when it is over, Boss,” Vega said.
“Sure.” He glanced back at the stellar panorama, where their rotation was bringing the black hole back into view.
“I hope it hurt,” he whispered.
“What?”
“He didn’t like the thought of going out without feeling it”
She nodded. “That’s Leaft.”
He turned to go, and noticed that Vega’s eyes were catching the light from the control panel. They glistened.
Relieved to be back aboard the No Luck Required, Uldirfound Bey and Klin‑Fa hunched over something that looked like a sphere with short, stumpy tentacles. The tentacles writhed, slightly. On the surface of the sphere itself, odd symbols formed and dissipated.
Klin‑Fa looked up. “Hi,” she said, softly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Uldir brusquely replied. “I’ve laid in a course for Thyferra. Now tell me why exactly.”
“The slave ship?”
“Vook’s flying it. He had the same problem Leaft must have had, but he figured out how to correct for it. When we finally raise someone, we’ll have them taken off our hands. Now, what have you got there?”
Bey spoke up. “What the Yuuzhan Vong found on Wayland was a biochemical sequencing of Bacta. At some point the Emperor must have been considering neutralizing it, but his scientists never got that far. The Yuuzhan Vong did.” He pointed to the screen. “They’ve developed an agent, something like a virus. It attacks the alazhi plant bacta is made from.”
“It kills it?”
“No, something much more subtle. The virus mimics the active chemicals and bacteria in alazhi and then goes quiescent. Absolutely undetectable, unless you know exactly what to look for. It stays there when it’s brewed with kavam to produce bacta. But when the bacta is introduced into a living subject, it activates at a low level. It’s a sort of time bomb. A few weeks after bacta treatment, the subject drops dead in a few hours. They’ve tested it on a wide sampling of species already. There’s no cure, and no reversing the process. Once infected, the alazhi plants will pass the virus on genetically. You see what this means?”
Uldir nodded. “Everyone uses Bacta. We’ve been using it so long, it’s replaced most conventional medicine.”
“Exactly. If they had gotten away with this without anyone knowing, imagine the number of injured who would have been infected.” “Millions, maybe, if there’s a new Yuuzhan Vong offensive,” Uldir said. “Which the evidence points to,” Vega added.
“Yeah, this isn’t good,” Uldir allowed. “How is this virus being delivered?”
“That’s a little fuzzy,” Klin‑Fa admitted. “But from what we’ve got here, my best guess would be an operative. The virus spreads very quickly. If it was introduced to one of the major alazhi plantations, it would infect the whole planet in days.”
“They might have already done it,” Vega observed.
“They might have,” Klin‑Fa conceded, “but I don’t think so. There’s s timetable here. It looks like we have about forty hours.”
“We can make Thyferra in thirty,” Uldir said. “But then we still have o find the agent carrying the virus. Considering the Yuuzhan Vong ability to disguise themselves–it sounds impossible.”
“We start with the largest, most centrally located plantations,” Bey said. “The only good thing about not being able to sense the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force is that it makes it easier to pick them out when they’re disguised. It’s like they’re not there.”
“It’s worth a try,” Uldir said. “Meanwhile, we get the word out. If we I, at least they’ll know not to use bacta from now on.”
“The loss of bacta is going to be a hard blow to recover from, especially in wartime,” Vega observed.
“True,” Uldir said. “So we don’t let it happen. We stop them. Keep on the hyperwave and HoloNet. Let somebody know what’s going on. We need help on this, and if something happens to us, this secret can’t die with us.”
“Will do, Boss,” Vega replied.
“Are you busy?”
Uldir turned from the controls and saw Klin‑Fa standing in the entrance to the bridge. She was just brushing her dark bangs from her eyes, and something went odd in his chest.
“Where’s your friend?” He asked.
“Sleeping. He’s still not in very good shape:”
“What happened to him?”
“He’s not sure. Something that hurt a lot, that’s all he remembers.”
“Well, those are the Yuuzhan Vong we all know and love. ‘Life is pain.’ Sometimes I think they’re right.”
“Life is a lot of things,” Klin‑Fa said. “Pain is certainly one of them, but it’s not the sum of it.” Her voice lowered. “I’m sorry about the Dug.”
“His name was Leaft,” Uldir said, more harshly than he meant to. “And yeah, so am I:”
“It wasn’t for nothing.”
“Thanks, but that doesn’t really help.”
“I know. I lost a friend, too.” she paused. “There were three of us, originally. Bey, me, and Yabaley.”
“I heard you say that name back on Bonadan. When you killed the Yuuzhan Vong warrior.”
“Yes.”
“You were angry.”
“He was my friend. He...” Her gaze flicked off, as if seeking advice from someone in the corner. “He was more than a friend, really. The Yuuzhan Vong killed him not long after we were captured. They tortured him to death. I felt him die.”
Uldir felt his cheeks grow warm with shame. “I’m sorry. I knew something...”
“I know what you think. Back on Wayland, you made it clear you thought I had gone over to the dark side.”
Uldir nodded. He had studied at Master Skywalker’s Jedi academy but had shown no real talent for the Force. Still, he sometimes ha some sensitivity to the Force, and he had an odd sort of luck it was difficult to put down to mere chance.
“I sensed something dark on Wayland,” he said. “And on Bonadan. I thought it was you.”
‘Wayland’s seen a lot of the dark side. I felt shadows there too. Bonadan–well, I think I came close, Uldir. I felt it–the power of the dark side, the attraction of it. I wanted to kill them all. But I stepped away from it. “
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“You helped.”
“I don’t see how.”
“You’re a decent guy. You may not be strong in the Force, but there are more important things than that. You’ve got a lot of them. I was starting to go a little crazy. Everywhere I went, everyone I turner ended up being stupid or corrupt or an enemy. You didn’t. I–ah–I guess you renewed my faith, or something.”
“I wish that had translated into trust a little earlier on,” Uldir said.
“I’m trying to thank you.”
“I know. I appreciate that. I just–” he pursed his lips angrily. “Why did you kiss me?”
Her eyes widened, and then she chuckled. “That sure came from a hidden vector.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I kissed you because I wanted to.”
“Because I’m a decent guy.”
“Sure.”
He stood up and took a step toward her. She seemed to hug herself harder. “And what if I kissed you?”
She looked away. “That’s not such a good idea, right now. Bey–”
“Right,” Uldir murmured, turning away.
“If you’ll let me explain–”
“We’re reverting to realspace,” Uldir said. “It’ll have to wait. And you don’t owe me any explanations anyway.”
She was starting to say something else when the stars came back–the stars and more.
“Sithspit!” Klin‑Fa gasped.
Uldir didn’t say anything–he just punched the ion drive to maximum and put the ship into a spin to avoid the Yuuzhan Vong frigate he was about to smash into. He managed it, barely, but space was thick wit
h ships, laser fire, and plasma trails.
“What’s going on?” Vega came rushing in from the back.
“We dropped into the middle of a battle, looks like,” Uldir grunted, unnecessarily.
“Where are we?”
“The Yag’Dhul system,” he replied, as the ship shuddered under the impact of a plasma projectile. “I was staging our last jump from here. Looks like the ceasefire has been broken. We’re at war with the Vong again.”
“I’d say so,” Vega said, dryly. She shot Klin‑Fa a nasty look. “Move over, sweetness. I need the copilot’s seat.”
Klin‑Fa moved silently away.
“Work out the last jump, before we get fried,” Uldir said.
“I’m working,” Vega said. “Yag’Dhul is a complex system. All those moons. At least we don’t have the transport to worry about any more.”
“True.” They’d left the transport and the refugees on it in what Uldir hoped was neutral space, fearing they might run into a situation like this.
Well, not like this. What he’d feared was an interdictor or something, not a whole vaping fleet.
Uldir opened up with the forward guns and keyed on the intercom. “Leaft–”then he stopped cold.
“It’s okay boss,” Vega said, without looking up. “I was wondering why he wasn’t in the turret too.”
But then the turret did begin firing. Not with Leaft’s dead‑sure accuracy, but a coralskipper exploded in incandescence.
“Who’s down there?” Uldir asked.
“That would be me,” Klin‑Fa’s voice came back.
“Good going. Keep it up. Uvee, how are things?”
Systems deteriorating, the astromech droid’s translator screen read.
“Well, what else is new?” Uldir muttered, just as a Yuuzhan Vong ship swung into view. Upwards of fifty coralskippers detached and started their way.
