by Greg Keyes
"That's why we'll shoot them out of space, Shada my dear," Karrde answered.
"And our shields—"
"Will hold up long enough."
"Long enough for what?" Shada said. "Without hyperdrive—"
H'sishi suddenly grated out a yowling snarl.
"What's the matter, H'sishi?"
"I can give you something better than a working hyperdrive, Captain," the Togorian said.
"And what might that be?"
Her toothy grin nearly split her head in half. "The rest of our fleet, sir."
"You asked what I was waiting on, Shada? Don't ever doubt that the gods favor me. How far out are they?"
"Umm, urr." H'sishi was suddenly more sober. "Two hours at least, sir."
"Well," Karrde said cheerfully. "Then I'm taking suggestions on how to stretch the—it's what, eight minutes now? Into the two hours we need."
The hull suddenly rattled.
"E-wings on us, sir," Dankin reported.
"Well, don't keep them waiting. Show them what this helpless old transport has in store for them. Shada, you have the bridge."
"You're leaving in the middle of a fight?"
"It won't be a long one. When that capital ship catches us, give me a call. I need to talk to Solusar."
Four hours later, a weary Imsatad appeared on Karrde's screen.
"You're a fool, Karrde," he opined.
"What does that make you, Captain?" Karrde replied. "In any event, our positions are now reversed. I have considerably more firepower than your little flotilla."
"And yet, as you once observed of me, you're still here, which means you aren't finished," Imsatad said. "What do you want?"
"By my count, four of the young Jedi are still missing. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
"As a matter of fact, I wouldn't."
Karrde stood and locked his hands behind his back. "I can be a very serious man, at times, Captain Imsatad. This is one of them. I gave my word to deliver the Jedi students and their teachers safely from the hands of scum like you, and I intend to do that. Not in part, but in full."
"You're endangering our work here," Imsatad said. "The Yuuzhan Vong will not stop until they have all the Jedi. If we do the work for them, show our good faith—"
Karrde cut him off with a mordant chuckle. "The Yuuzhan Vong have conquered half of our galaxy in an unprovoked crusade. What about this obligates us to show them good faith?"
"Listen, Karrde. I was at Dantooine, with the military. I saw what they can do. We can't stop them. We can't. This is simple self-preservation. Besides, they weren't unprovoked. It was the Jedi who started this war, and it's the Jedi who continue to provoke it."
Karrde sighed and returned to his seat. He tapped his fingers on the armrest. "I don't know if you really believe that sump muck, and I don't care. But it's good you bring up self-preservation, because you are now faced with a crisis in that department."
Imsatad lifted his chin defiantly. "If you suppose I have your missing Jedi, you won't destroy my ships."
Karrde gestured, and Kam Solusar strode into view.
" Let me introduce you. This is Kam Solusar, one of the teachers at the Jedi academy whose curricula you have so rudely interrupted. He is a Jedi, and they can sense one another. Did you know that?"
Imsatad's eyes flicked back and forth between the two. "I've heard such things."
"None of the children are on your ship, Captain," Solusar said in a voice that could saw through bones. " Nothing prevents us vaping you."
Imsatad blinked, twice. " I do what I do for the good of the galaxy," he said.
"Yes, you've said that already," Karrde said. "Personally, I think you might best serve the galaxy as star food."
Imsatad massaged his forehead. "What do you want?" he asked wearily.
"I want all of your ships grounded so I can conduct a ship-to-ship search."
Imsatad shrugged. "I don't have the children you seek. You may search my ships. Give me eight hours to get them all on the ground."
"You have five." Karrde signed for the connection to be severed.
"He's hiding something," Solusar said. "I can't sense what."
"He doesn't think he's beaten?"
"No, that's the strange thing. He feels utterly defeated. But he is being deceptive about Anakin and the others."
"You really think they're still alive?"
"Anakin is, I'm certain of that much. And Tahiri. If they are alive, Sannah and Valin must be. After all, the Peace Brigade didn't come here to kill them, but to capture them."
Karrde nodded thoughtfully. "I'm going to have the Idiot's Array come alongside. She's a corvette and her captain is one of my best. I want to get these children we have aboard safe on Coruscant, now."
"An excellent idea, though they won't be safe on Coruscant, not for long."
"No. Luke Skywalker has another plan in the works for that."
"I'm staying until we find the rest," Solusar said.
"I imagined you would. And Tionne?"
"The children need one of us."
"Very good. I'll arrange the transfer, now."
Solusar nodded and held out his hand. "I didn't thank you before. I'm glad I didn't kill you."
Karrde grinned wryly and took the proffered hand.
"The perfect gift for the perfect occasion, that's you, Solusar."
"Sithspawn," Shada snarled from across the bridge.
"What? What is it?"
"Karrde, if you're going to get those children out of this system, I suggest you hurry."
"What? More Peace Brigade?" He stared at the long-range sensors. Blips were appearing—lots of them. "H'sishi, what do we have there?"
The tactician looked up grimly. "Yuuzhan Vong, sir, lots of them. At least two warship analogs and a whole lot of smaller ships."
Karrde gripped the back of his chair until his knuckles turned white, cursing inwardly, trying to keep his face calm.
"How long?"
"No more than an hour, sir."
"Long enough to get the Idiot's Array away. Do it now, and have the Demise run with her."
"What about us?" Shada asked.
"We can't fight them head-on," Karrde said.
"Anakin and the rest are still down there," Solusar snapped. "If you're thinking of leaving them—"
Karrde cut him off with a wave of his hand. " I'm thinking of no such thing. If we leave this system, they'll button it up so tight only the New Republic Fleet could get in here. But our tactics will have to change. And we need reinforcements. Shada, I want you on the Idiot's Array. Bring back whatever it takes."
" You're crazy if you think I'm leaving you here."
"We'll be fine. It's a big system, and we're not without resources. If the Yuuzhan Vong plan on occupying Yavin Four, we can makes things very unpleasant for them. You ought to know by now, Shada, that if there's anything I'm good at, it's surviving. Now go. We have no time to argue about this."
"I'll be back," Shada promised. "Of course you will. And I'll be here to meet you. Now get going."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Anakin watched the distant dots buzzing around the crash site. They'd been there for hours, but in the last few minutes they'd been leaving, one by one. He felt a constriction in his belly. If he had one of those fliers, he could get back to the temple and find Tahiri.
And do what? Leave Valin and Sannah with Vehn and a sky full of flitters? Try to drag them all along on another aerial battle and then a rescue?
No. He couldn't pin all of their hopes on that.
He felt a tremor in the tree, and his hand went to his lightsaber. But then he felt Valin, below him, climbing up.
The younger boy reached him and settled in the crotch between two branches. As he watched, the last of the flitters seemed to be moving off.
"You should have stayed in the cave," Anakin told Valin.
"Maybe," Valin replied. "But I didn't." He nodded at th
e departing craft. "I thought they would search longer," he said.
Anakin shook his head. "Two days is longer than I thought they would give it. They're after the bigger prize— the rest of the students. They've got a time limit, remember? When the Yuuzhan Vong show up, they've got to be successful or gone. The last thing the Peace Brigade would want the Vong to know is that they were the ones who spoiled their mother lode." He motioned down. "Get
back in the cave, though. They might make a last-minute sweep."
"Anakin, why do the Yuuzhan Vong want us so bad?"
Anakin blew out a breath. "I'm not sure. Mostly because they hate us. The fact that they don't seem to exist in the Force cuts both ways. We can't sense them or affect them directly, but we can do things they can't understand. And we're the ones who have hurt them most. I guess the last stroke was when Jacen humiliated their warmaster."
" But those guys with Vehn weren't Yuuzhan Vong."
"No, they're worse. They think by turning us in they'll get the Yuuzhan Vong to stop their conquest at the planets they have."
"Will they?"
Anakin snorted. "Senator Elegos A'Kla turned himself over to them. He hoped he could come to understand them, forge a common bond of trust, something to begin the process of finding a peaceful solution."
"They killed him," Valin said quietly. "I heard about that."
"And sent his polished bones back to us."
" But then my dad killed the Yuuzhan Vong who killed Elegos."
Anakin hesitated. He hadn't thought through where his example might lead.
"Yeah, "he said briefly.
"But now everyone hates my dad, and not the Yuuzhan Vong."
Anakin shook his head. "No. It's not like that. It's just—it's politics, Valin."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know. I hate politics. Ask my brother, next time you see him, or my mom."
"But—"
"What it means," Anakin interrupted, "is that your father, Corran Horn, is a good man, and everyone with
even a little sense knows that. The problem with people is that a lot of them don't have any sense, and a lot of others are liars."
"You mean they would say my dad was bad even if they didn't think so?"
"You got it, kid."
"I'm not a kid."
Anakin looked into the determined young face, and suddenly saw what Kam, Tionne, Uncle Luke, Aunt Mara—all the adults in his life—must be used to seeing by now on his face.
"Maybe not," Anakin replied. "But here's what I was trying to get around to saying a minute ago. The Yuuzhan Vong have never shown the slightest tendency to keep their word. I don't think they even believe lying is wrong. And Elegos—well, it was a worthy try, and I honor him. But what the Yuuzhan Vong want from us is our worlds and our people as slaves. They believe our machines are abominations, and they won't rest until they've all been destroyed. The only way to avoid fighting them is to surrender and let them do whatever they want with us. That's the only terms of peace they can understand. The Peace Brigade think they can do something in between. Elegos was brave, noble—and wrong. It cost him his life, and that was his to spend. The Peace Brigade are cowards and they're stupid, and they want to spend our lives. Our lives are not for them to spend."
Valin nodded, then smiled a little. "You talk more than you used to. Tahiri said she would rub off on you eventually."
It struck Anakin that Valin was right. He'd been practically pontificating, something he wouldn't have dreamed of doing a few years ago except maybe in an argument with his siblings or Tahiri. It was something he wasn't good at, didn't like, avoided like raw cobalt. His father had once joked that it was easier to drag a neutron star
with a landspeeder than it was to drag two words out of him.
But more and more, people seemed to want something like this from him. Some of the things he had done had gotten around, and he guessed he had something of a reputation. That part was fine, and though he wouldn't say so out loud, he sort of liked it. It made him feel that he could be like Uncle Luke, back when he was young and fighting the Empire—like a hero, though he knew he wasn't really that.
He felt a pang, and suddenly knew where these thoughts were taking him.
"Why did you and Sannah and Tahiri come to help me, Valin? Why didn't you go on with Kam and Tionne?"
Valin looked up at him with guileless eyes. "We want to be like you, Anakin. We all do. And you—you would never have run from a fight."
Anakin's lips tightened and his eyes felt gritty and hot. That settled that. He'd lied when he told Sannah and Valin that the Yuuzhan Vong and the Peace Brigade were responsible for this mess. Like Chewie's death, like Centerpoint, this was his mess, Anakin Solo's mess.
But this time he would clean it up. Somehow.
"Doesn't look like they took much," Sannah observed, as they picked through the wreck of Vehn's transport. Four days had come and gone since the crash, and a day since they had seen the last of the flitters.
"Why should they?" Valin asked. "There's not much left they would want."
"No," Anakin said. "There's plenty. It would have taken too much time to salvage it, that's all."
"But you think you can?" Vehn sneered from where he sat, cuffed hands resting on his knees.
"I can fix it," Anakin replied. "The hyperdrive is fine."
"That's great. We'll just go to lightspeed from here. At
least no one would have to worry about disposing of our remains. And we sure wouldn't have to worry about the Vong anymore."
"If Anakin says he can fix it, he can fix it," Valin snapped.
"Shut up, you smelly little Hutt," Vehn grunted. "I may be your prisoner, but that doesn't mean I have to listen to your smart mouth all day. I—hey! Ow!"
Vehn was suddenly scratching furiously at his legs, then thrashing on the ground.
Anakin straightened. "Stay away from him. It's a trick!"
"Trick?" Vehn screamed. "I'm being eaten alive!"
That's when Anakin noticed Valin was laughing. So was Sannah, but she was hiding hers behind her palm.
"Valin, are you doing that?"
"He deserved it."
"Stop it. Right now. Immediately."
"I just—"
"Now."
"Yes, sir," Valin said. And he didn't sound sarcastic.
Anakin knelt by Vehn. A swarm of multisegmented worms a centimeter in length were detaching themselves from the pilot's arms and face, leaving purplish welts behind. Vehn pushed at them frantically, but when Anakin moved to help him, he jerked away with a hoarse rasp of anger.
When they were all finally off, Vehn turned his head toward Valin. His chest was heaving.
"You did that, didn't you? With some kind of Jedi magic." He rose clumsily to his feet. "I hope the Vong do get you. The whole lot of you."
"Yeah?" Valin started. "Well—"
"Valin!" Anakin said a little sharply. "Keep quiet and listen. You know better than that. I know you know better than that, because we had the same teachers." He turned on Sannah. "And you were laughing. You think
it's funny to use the Force to torture a helpless captive for no better reason than that he called you a name? "
Sannah reddened. "No," she said.
"Valin?"
"No," the boy said. "I guess not."
" There are times to use the Force in self-defense, Valin, and there are times when defense means attack. And if I have to squeeze Vehn's brain to learn what we need to rescue Tahiri, I might even do that. But torture for the sake of torture—never."
Valin nodded and sat down. To Anakin's surprise Valin didn't look so much sullen as reflective. In fact, like a flash, for an instant, he looked almost impossibly like his father, Corran. It was so bright and true that Anakin wondered if it was a real vision of an older Valin or just a striking resemblance.
He cleared his throat. "Let's just get to work, shall we? The engines aren't as bad as they could be. I
think with parts salvaged from the other ships we can get it limping, and that's all I need—a way to orbit. At the very least we can get the comm unit fixed."
Anakin actually had his doubts about this, but it would give them something to do while he figured out how he was going to get halfway around the moon to find Tahiri. If they were occupied, they wouldn't worry as much. Meanwhile, Talon Karrde must have arrived by now.
And Tahiri—she was still here, and he was pretty sure she was even still on Yavin 4, not in orbit.
Still, it galled him. It made his very bones ache not to set off on foot, though in his head he knew that it would take him months to cross the wilderness separating him from the Great Temple. Maybe he needed the work as much as Valin and Sannah.
With a sigh, he went to see what the power cell couplings looked like.
Something beeped and whistled. His hand was already
on his lightsaber before he realized the sound was coming from his wrist comm. He was being hailed.
He stared at the comm for a moment. It could be a trick by the Peace Brigade, an attempt to triangulate his location. It might be Talon Karrde, trying to find them.
Reluctantly, he acknowledged, and words began to scroll across the display.
PURSUIT EVADED. X-WING BADLY DAMAGED. AWAITING FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
"Fiver!"
AFFIRMATIVE.
"Fiver, lock on this signal and come straight here. Where are you?"
252.6 KILOMETERS FROM YOUR PRESENT POSITION.
"Great. How long will it take you to get here?"
20 STANDARD HOURS.
"What? Why?"
REPULSORLIFT MOTIVATION ONLY. SHIP BADLY DAMAGED.
"But you're okay?"
OPERATIONAL.
"Good. Good going, Fiver. Get here as soon as you can. We need you."
AFFIRMATIVE, ANAKIN.
"Anakin?" Despite everything, Anakin grinned. The astromech hadn't been memory-wiped lately. He was starting to develop a few quirks. Flying the X5 X-wing alone—a task Fiver wasn't really built for—had probably contributed. In fact, Anakin couldn't believe the little droid had really done it. He'd thought he was sacrificing his ship and Fiver as a diversion. Finding that it hadn't worked out that way was an unexpected break. He now not only had more parts to work with, but an astromech droid to help with repairs.
