Reunion: Force Heretic III

by Sean Williams

  A knot eased in him, but he did not allow himself to relax. “Ngaaluh is a master of deception. You could not tell that she was lying simply by looking at her. Her prattle about this mysterious Commander Val could be nothing more than a distraction, to draw attention away from herself.”

  Kunra shrugged. “That’s possible,” he said. “I am not as skilled as you in exposing lies.”

  Nom Anor narrowed his gaze. Was that sarcasm he heard in Kunra’s voice? Perhaps they were in league together, he thought: the two closest to the Prophet plotting to unseat him and presenting a united front when the attempt failed.

  Certainly Ngaaluh seemed keen to attack Shimrra—and she had received the mysterious courier that day …

  “She remains useful,” he said, coming to a similar conclusion about Kunra even as he spoke the words. “While she remains so, I can live with my doubt. And I can take precautions. It takes more than a coufee in the dark to kill me, now more than ever.”

  “That is eminently so.”

  Nom Anor ignored the smugness in Kunra’s tone, just as he had ignored the sarcasm. “And our work continues. When is my first congregation here due?”

  “Whenever you feel up to it.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be up to it? Tell—” He hesitated, then quickly chose Shoon-mi’s replacement. “Tell Chreev he’s now the chief acolyte. He will make arrangements immediately in the morning. I see no reason to pause and give people reason to worry.”

  The former warrior smiled. “I agree. Now would be the wrong time to lose momentum.”

  That’s enough, Nom Anor thought. Saving my life doesn’t automatically give you a premium on my ear.

  Nom Anor pointed at the door, but bit his tongue on harsh words. The time would come to teach his strong arm a lesson in humility. “Go. You have done enough for one day.”

  Kunra bowed with barely sufficient reverence, and left.

  The ride down was bumpy. Jag’s hands itched to take control of the ship and smooth out their descent, but he couldn’t. Although both sides knew that Collaborator was a ruse, it was important that the pretense was maintained. The rechristened picket ship would, therefore, spiral unpowered down to the upper atmosphere, at which point atmospheric drag would begin to decelerate it. Only when they were safely out of sight would Tahiri bring the barely skyworthy craft to an inelegant landing. It certainly wasn’t the way Jag preferred to fly, but it was important he didn’t interfere.

  That everything went without a hitch didn’t surprise him, however. With the hopes of both sides riding on the mission, fighting had enjoyed a tense lull since the mission’s launch. Only the occasional skirmish marred Esfandia’s dark skies.

  Something rattled violently from behind him. “Are you sure everything’s securely stowed back there?” he called out to Arth Gxin, the Imperial sergeant who had volunteered for the mission.

  “Positive,” the sleek, black-haired man responded. Gxin looked more like an aristocrat than a dirt flier, but Pellaeon had assured Jag that he was the best atmospheric pilot he had. “Something’s probably just worked loose in the wreckage, that’s all.”

  Jag nodded, satisfied by the explanation. It wasn’t as if any of them could get up to look, anyway. They were firmly strapped in, and would remain that way until their flight path had leveled out.

  They were a diverse group, and among them they represented just about everyone who had a stake in the outcome of the battle. Jag and Jocell stood for the Chiss; Gxin came from the Empire, as did the six military-issue speeder bikes they’d brought with them on the mission; the Galactic Alliance was represented by Jaina and Enton Adelmaa’j; and Tahiri carried the Yuuzhan Vong inside her now. They were a motley crew, it was true, but together Jag was sure they’d be able to teach the Yuuzhan Vong ground forces a thing or two about atmospheric combat.

  His idle reveries were interrupted when something seemed to hit them, spinning the ship into a tumble. He looked over to Tahiri, who was studying the meager range of instruments before her with a look of fierce concentration.

  “Almost there,” she whispered. Her knuckles were white as they gripped the armrests of her crash couch. “Got it!”

  Her hands came up to the controls, and Jag took that as his cue to join in. Together they wrestled the decidedly unstreamlined shape of the Collaborator under some semblance of control. Their altitude dropped alarmingly through the dense layers of Esfandia’s atmosphere, and he imagined he could feel the air around them heating up. The coordinates marking the location of the relay base—as given to Jaina by her mother—vanished around the bulge of the planet, followed a second later by the rendezvous point. They had one more turn around the world before they had to put down.

  Put down was, of course, a euphemism. The plan was to ditch the ship entirely, in order to confuse pursuit. Collaborator’s reentry path would stand out like a fire breather on an ice floe, and he had no doubts that the Yuuzhan Vong ground crew would immediately converge on its terminus. If all they found was a burning wreckage, then all the better.

  Glad that the locals had been warned to keep well out of their way, Tahiri applied some final adjustments to Collaborator’s trim and announced that he was happy with the vector. Jaina unclipped her safety harness and she stood cautiously, fighting the constant bucking of the floor beneath her.

  “All right, let’s get those speeders warmed up.”

  The six of them headed back to where the vehicles rested in makeshift harnesses. Jag donned his armored enviro-suit’s helmet and enabled his maser communications systems. He could communicate with anyone via the suit’s speakers and mikes, if they were close enough; for long-distance communication, while comm silence was being maintained, a microwave laser network could keep everyone in line of sight in touch.

  “Testing, testing.”

  “Loud and clear, Colonel Fel.” Sergeant Gxin was already in the saddle, flicking switches. His enviro-suit was as black and shiny as his hair. “All systems green.”

  “Green for go,” Jocell echoed, two speeders along.

  Jag took the speeder between them and punched its repulsor engine into life. The air was rapidly filling with the high-pitched whining of machines eager for freedom. One by one, they all confirmed their status.

  “Charges armed,” Jaina said. “We are go in three, two, one.”

  Jag felt the explosion through his suit. It was immediately overwhelmed by the shock of the hull breaking apart. In no time at all the alien hulk had cracked open completely, as per the plan. They were sucked out, one by one, into a swirling hurricane. Jag fought the turbulence, feeling his speeder kick in as he approached the hard ground below. He didn’t have time to note the locations of the others, but the maser system kept tabs on all of them, displaying their locations as red dots on his helmet’s display.

  A thundering boom signaled Collaborator’s ungentle crash landing on Esfandia, a safe distance away.

  “Everyone okay?” Jaina’s voice came clear and clipped over the maser intercom. The dots converged on hers as everyone confirmed that they’d exited the ship safely.

  “We’re a little off target,” she said, taking the center position of a triangular aerial formation. Jag, from the rear starboard point, could see her checking map data and triangulating on navigation signals broadcast by Imperial ships high above. “Our heading is thirty degrees south, five kilometers. Sergeant Gxin, you lead the way.”

  The Imperial gunned his speeder bike in that direction, quickly accelerating to maximum velocity. The rest followed close behind. Jag checked his weapons as he flew, single-handedly steering his speeder over the undulating, rubble-strewn plains. As well as the fixed cannon on his speeder bike, he had a heavy blaster pistol holstered at his side, a belt of thermal detonators, and his charric slung across his back. Webbing held four 4HX4 land mines securely on either side of his saddle. Only when he felt sure that their rough landing hadn’t damaged his mini arsenal did he take the time to actually look around.

  As
viewed through the light enhancers built into his helmet, the sky appeared burnt orange and muted. Heavy wind pulled at him, but it wasn’t the usual sort of air he would find on a planet of this size; Esfandia’s atmosphere, primarily methane and hydrogen, was normally associated with gas giants. Although Jag couldn’t actually feel the cold, he was acutely aware of its presence just millimeters from his skin. If his enviro-suit were to fail, his blood would freeze in seconds. All in all, it wasn’t the most hospitable environment he’d ever visited.

  Gxin led them dodging and weaving through a forest of slender columns that resembled the trunks of petrified trees. What they were actually made of, though, Jag couldn’t tell—nor did he have the time or the inclination to stop and find out. As far as he was concerned, the sooner he was off the planet the better.

  A thin spire rose out of the gloom ahead. Twenty meters tall, its tapering, geometric lines distinguished it from the “tree trunks” in the area. This, Jag knew, was the transponder rendezvous point. They approached it cautiously, Gxin decelerating as they came around the transponder’s wire-framed, expanding skirt. Jag kept his eyes peeled, conscious of the many hiding places in and around the main structure. Jaina had said something about a traitor among the expedition; if that person had managed to overpower Han and the others, he could well be waiting for them now, intending to pick them off one by one as they arrived.

  A snarl of speeder engines from Jag’s right brought him around in a tight turn. The triangular formation dissolved to present as dispersed a target as possible. Jag kept one finger on the trigger while ducking to target whoever was approaching out of the murk.

  A buzz of static sounded in his earpieces as his comm located and locked on to a signal.

  “—else could it be using these frequencies? You worry too much, Droma.”

  “That’s what has kept me alive this long.”

  “And there I was thinking it was because of your good looks and charms.”

  “Dad?” Jaina’s voice cut across the chatter. “Your signal is coming in loud and clear.”

  “As it should be. We’re right on top of you.” Five more speeder bikes appeared out of the gloom. The size of the riders varied greatly. “Welcome to Esfandia,” her father said, pulling his speeder bike up to a halt next to Jaina’s. “Glad you could make it, sweetheart.”

  “Likewise,” Jaina replied. The relief at finding her father all right was obvious in her voice.

  “What do you think of Esfandia so far?” he asked.

  “Not the kind of place I’d spend a holiday.”

  “I wouldn’t say that too loudly,” Droma put in. “You might offend the locals.”

  As the wake of the speeder bikes settled, shadowy circular shapes drifted in from the gloom. Jag was startled until he realized that this was what Droma had meant by “the locals.” The indigenous life-forms of Esfandia seemed to float like kites in the thick atmosphere; every now and again one would collapse in upon itself, as though clenching like a fist, and then suddenly shoot forward. He assumed they were sucking in the thick air and then blasting it out a rear vent in order to propel themselves along. It wasn’t the most graceful means of propulsion he’d seen, but it seemed effective nonetheless.

  “Don’t they know it’s dangerous being around us?” Jaina asked.

  “We’ve tried telling them that,” Droma said. “But they followed us anyway. They can put on quite a turn of speed when they want to.”

  “The Cold Ones may be curious,” Han added, “but they’re not stupid. Mark my words, they’ll get out of the way when things really heat up.”

  “How close are we to being ready?” Jaina asked.

  Han introduced the communications tech they’d brought along to reprogram the massive transponder. He explained that it would take the man about half an hour to bypass the automated systems and give the transmitter its new instructions.

  Jaina nodded. “Get started immediately, then. We’ll prepare the perimeter.”

  She dismounted her speeder bike to dole out the mines with the help of Adelmaa’j, her father and Droma, and a Klatooinian security guard from the relay base. Jag unloaded his mines, then swept the area with Jocell to make sure it was clear. This proved more difficult than he’d first thought. What with the dim light, the dense atmosphere, and the irregular terrain, there were a thousand ways they could miss someone sneaking up on them. The only good thing was that sound carried a long way here, allowing them a good lead time before an airborne strike arrived. But even that could work against them: the sound of their engines would be audible for a much wider range, increasing the chances that one of the Yuuzhan Vong ground teams would find them before they were ready.

  Only once did the sensors on his suit detect anything remotely threatening. A hissing rumble, like a blast of white noise from a long way away, rose out of the background static. It didn’t sound like a tsik vai, the Yuuzhan Vong equivalent of an airspeeder, but Jag called an alert just to be on the safe side. As his repulsor engines wound down, the approaching sound seemed almost deafening against the background moan of the wind. It doubled in volume before peaking, then slowly trailed away.

  “Yorik-trema,” Tahiri said. “One of the landing craft. This is a hostile environment, so its hold will be full of tsik seru rather than the usual ground troops.”

  “And they are?” Jag asked.

  “Tsik vais equipped with plasma blasters, designed to move fast and make nuisances of themselves.”

  “Any other weapons?”

  “Netting beetles, razorbugs, needle thorns—anything the pilots can carry.”

  “Great. Thanks for the tip.”

  Jaina’s voice was taut as she made a stab at reassurance. “It’s gone past us, and that’s all that matters. We should be safe now.”

  Ten minutes later, the comm tech announced that the transponder was ready. Tahiri gave him the message, the last piece of the puzzle. It was shorter than Jag had expected, and utterly incomprehensible. The subtleties of the Yuuzhan Vong language, which sounded to his ears like nothing more than a series of guttural grunts and painful throat clearings, eluded him completely. He had to take on faith that it said what Jaina intended.

  “One more mine to place,” Han said, the sound of digging coming over the comm. There was a grunt, followed by, “Well done, Droma. You’ve just earned your passage on the Falcon.”

  “Passage nothing. Give me a good lawyer and I’ll sue you for damages.”

  “Back on the speeders, people. This thing’s set to go off in three standard minutes, once I give the word. You know what you have to do.”

  Jag circled the transponder for one final check, and made sure everyone’s navigation systems were updated with the location of the mines. He didn’t want anyone stumbling into one by mistake.

  “We need to hurry. Vorrik won’t wait forever,” Tahiri said. “The longer my message takes, the more frustrated he will become.”

  “Then let’s get under way. Start the timer ticking … now.”

  The eleven speeder bikes accelerated away from the transponder, scattering the Cold Ones in their wake. Jag had no qualms about that. Scaring the natives was the best thing to do given the circumstances. In a very short time, the area around the transponder was going to become very unsafe for everyone.

  Sergeant Gxin led the retreat to safer ground. He’d scouted the area during the preparations and found two ideal locations for speeders to hide in waiting. One was an overhang hollowed out by winds. Jaina left Jag, her father and Droma, Jocell, and the comm tech there while she took the rest to the second location, a kilometer away.

  When the sound of their engines faded, there was less than thirty seconds to go. Jag used the time to load his charric, fastening it to the saddle by his right thigh so that it was easily accessible should he need it.

  Barely had he finished doing this when the giant transponder awoke with a blast of static to relay Tahiri’s message to all the Yuuzhan Vong hanging in wait above Esfandia
.

  Pellaeon glanced up from the charts before him as an alarm sounded on the bridge of Right to Rule.

  “Report.”

  “Audio signal from the ground, sir.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  The voice of the young female Jedi filled the bridge, spitting and snarling in the Yuuzhan Vong language. The electromagnetic radiation carrying the message radiated from a point on Esfandia’s surface and out into space. No one with ears could miss it for millions of kilometers—which was the idea, of course. Pellaeon had no idea what the message contained. He had to trust Jaina Solo’s assertion that Tahiri was saying what she was supposed to. If she did, then the effect would be instantaneous.

  Ten seconds passed. Twenty. Every sensor at Right to Rule’s disposal was focused on the source of the signal. It was hard to see anything through the thick smog Esfandia called an atmosphere. Through a confusion of random heat impressions and radar images, he tried to detect any sort of coherent reading. Was that a speeder bike wake? Did a Yuuzhan Vong lander cast that sort of shadow?

  When it came, there was no mistaking it.

  Bright orange heat blossomed on the infrared scan. It flowered to white intensity, then faded to a red background.

  “We have a detonation,” his aide called.

  “I’m picking up flashes,” a telemetry officer said. “High-energy weapons fire.”

  “Where?”

  “Multiple sources, all around the target.”

  Pellaeon’s aide looked up at him. “It’s started, sir.”

  “This isn’t right,” the Magister said.

  “Quiet!” Senshi pushed the lightning rod harder into Jabitha’s temple, provoking a wince of discomfort. “I want to hear what the Jedi have to say.”

  Jacen took a deep breath. He could sense everything focused on him: the Ferroans surrounding them, the boras whipping angrily overhead, Saba watching tense and puzzled beside him, Senshi, the Magister—perhaps even Sekot itself. What he did next would be critical.

  His options were limited. He and Saba could easily use the Force to take out the Ferroan kidnappers, but that would leave Danni and Jabitha at Senshi’s mercy. He could knock Senshi’s weapon aside, removing Jabitha from the immediate threat, but could he be quick enough to stop the other Ferroans from firing their weapons? Using his lightsaber was a possibility, but the question was, what would he do with it? How would that help Danni? No, there had to be a solution that didn’t involve aggression …