by Greg Keyes
They reached the fissure, a cleft that dropped slantwise into the
asteroid for about twenty meters. Because of the angle, at the bottom of it
they could see only a narrow slice of starscape. That was good, because it
meant only a small slice of the starscape could see them.
"Now what? Anakin asked.
"Now we wait." Corran carefully shrugged off the metal case he'd worn
like a backpack. "With the survival kit, we can hold out for maybe three
days. Hopefully the fleet will move out before then, and we can activate the
emergency beacon. Given considerably more luck, a ship will happen by and
pick us up."
"That's a lot of luck," Anakin remarked.
"Well, if nothing else, maybe this will teach you that luck isn't the
bottomless well you seem to think it is," Corran said.
"We might have tried to run for it," Anakin said peevishly.
"You saw what happened."
"I can fly better than a computer."
"Not that much better," Corran said.
"But now we're stuck here. This fleet must be the danger Kelbis Nu was
trying to warn us about. If we wait for it to leave, it'll be too late to
warn Yag'Dhul."
"Well, you have a blaster and a lightsaber," Corran said dryly. "Given
your opinion of yourself, you might as well take on the fleet with those."
Anakin felt Corran's sarcasm like a physical blow, and it stung. "I'm
sorry," he said. "I thought I was doing the right thing."
"No doubt," Corran replied.
"Captain Horn," Tahiri said suddenly, "if it weren't for Anakin trying
to do the right thing, your kids would be Yuuzhan Vong captives right now.
In fact, along with me and the rest of the candidates, they would basically
be Yuuzhan Vong. He got us out of that; he'll get us out of this."
Corran was silent for a moment. "You know I'm grateful for what you did
on Yavin Four, Anakin. Tahiti's right. But I'm afraid you learned the wrong
lesson there, and Tahiri along with you. You can't stroll up to every
reactor going supercritical and walk away again. You aren't immortal, and
you aren't invincible. So far your quick thinking and strength in the Force
have just barely managed to counterbalance your recklessness. But one day,
the fraction is going to tip on the other side of the line. Maybe it already
has. If you don't come to terms with that, you're going to get a nasty
surprise."
Anakin thought of Chewie, of Daeshara'cor, of Vua Ra-puung, the Yuuzhan
Vong who had saved his life. All dead now. "Everyone gets a nasty surprise
someday," he said. "I'd rather get it standing up than lying down."
"Getting killed isn't the only danger, Anakin. You rely heavily on the
Force. It informs your every action. Just now you pulled Tahiri and me back
to the surface of the asteroid with it, when you might have done so with
your hand."
"And I might have drifted off with you. It was easier, more certain."
"And you made that decision reflexively, without thinking. In emergency
situations, in battle, you make a lot of decisions like that. If you make
the wrong one-"
"I'll go to the dark side," Anakin said. "So I keep hearing."
"Being cavalier about it won't help."
"Captain Horn, I've thought about the dark side for most of my life. My
mother named me after the man who became Darth Vader. The Emperor touched me
through her womb.
Every night I had nightmares that ended with me in my grandfather's
armor. With all due respect, I think I've probably thought a lot more about
the dark side than anyone I know."
"Probably, Inoculation doesn't make you immune,"
"It does in medicine," Anakin said.
"I'm guilty of a bad analogy then. I do not stand corrected on the
point."
"This is going to be a fun three days," Tahiri said.
A standard day passed, though of course they only knew that by their
chronometers. The asteroid wheeled slowly, about once every four hours.
Anakin spent much of his time watching the fleet through the narrow window
the fissure left them, trying to estimate how many ships there were. With
electro binoculars, he managed to reckon at least four capital ship analogs
and as many as thirty smaller warcraft. That wasn't counting coralskippers,
of which about one-third were at any given time flying patrol. The rest
remained docked to their larger brethren.
Anakin drew his lightsaber and closed his eyes, concentrating, trying
to feel the Yuuzhan Vong ships through the blade's lambent heart. They were
there, a faint presence, with none of the clarity offered by the Force. On
the other hand, the Force offered nothing at all where the Yuuzhan Vong were
concerned.
"You can feel them," Corran's voice burred.
Anakin turned. Corran was pulling himself gingerly along the fissure
wall.
"Yeah. A little."
"I wonder if we can get our hands on a few more of- what did you call
them?"
"Lambents."
On Yavin 4, the crystal in Anakin's lightsaber had been destroyed by a
close brush with the singularity of a dovin basal. Pretending to be a slave,
working the fields that grew various sorts of Yuuzhan Vong greenware, he'd
been assigned to work a field of lambents. The plants produced small living
crystals that the Yuuzhan Vong used for hand
torches and valence inputs. The crystals were controlled via a
telepathic bond formed when the crystals were harvested. Anakin had bonded
with a lambent and used it to rebuild his lightsaber, with the unexpected
result that he could now occasionally sense the Yuuzhan Vong and their
living servants. It had given him the edge he needed to survive Yavin 4 and
rescue Tahiri.
"Right, lambents. If we could build more lightsabers like yours, it
could be a big help to us."
"I don't know. Uncle Luke examined mine. He couldn't get the lambent to
react to him at all when he turned the lightsaber on."
"Because it's bonded to you?"
"I don't think so," Anakin replied. "The Yuuzhan Vong use lambents
attuned to other Vong. You'd think my lambent would react to other humans,
since I attuned it. Anyway, to get more, we'd have to stage a raid on some
Yuuzhan Vong ag planet. That would probably be too aggressive, for Jedi." He
fought and failed to keep an ironic tone from the statement.
Corran had reached him now. The mirrored faceplate of the vac suit
still gave back only stars, but he could feel the older man's serious
expression.
"Anakin, switch to a private channel."
"Hey!" Tahiri broadcast, from somewhere.
"I need to talk to Anakin alone," Corran said. "It won't take long."
"Better not. It's spooky enough out here without you guys getting all
secretive on me."
They changed frequencies. "Look, Anakin," Corran began. "I was a little
hard on you back there. But I want you to understand that it's not just
about you. You may not know it, but all of the younger Jedi and a lot of the
older ones look up to you. The buzz is you're the next Luke Sky-walker, at
the very least."
"I don't encourage those rumors," Ana
kin said. "I don't like them."
"I believe that. It's also irrelevant. They're starting to
emulate you. Tahiri, back on Eriadu and on Yavin Four- classic Anakin.
On Yavin Four, Sannah and my son, Valin, were trying to be like you when
they pulled their foolish stunt. All the candidates want to be like you, but
the fact is, most of them can't. They don't have the raw strength or the
talent to pull themselves out of the kind of scrapes you get into. Part of
being a Jedi is setting an example."
"I know that," Anakin said.
"And believe it or not, you can still learn a thing or two from your
elders."
"I know that, too, Corran. I'm sorry if I've been disrespectful." He
paused. "And I'm sorry I led Valin into danger. I didn't mean to. It never
occurred to me that he would follow me."
"But he did," Corran said gently. "He's lucky you were there to get him
out of it. As Tahiri was lucky on Eriadu."
"Yeah. Corran?"
"Yes?"
Anakin deliberated a moment before continuing. "About Tahiri."
"You're worried about her."
"Yes."
"Want to explain why?"
Anakin almost did, but then he shook his head. "I want to think about
it some more. And I want to talk to her."
Corran chuckled softly. "Well, we've got nothing but time. I'm sure
you'll find an opportunity soon enough. Just give me the sign if you want me
to switch channels."
"Thanks. And Corran?"
"Yes?"
"I do respect you. But you flew with Rogue Squadron. Weren't you ever
the least bit reckless?"
Corran's mirrored face stared back at him. "Yes," he said. "And one
day, hopefully, you'll be able to understand something about what it cost
me."
It didn't take long for Tahiri to come over, curious as to what he and
Corran had been discussing.
"Why are they just sitting there?" she asked, waving a gloved hand at
the visible stripe of stars and ships above them.
"Any number of reasons," Anakin replied. "They may be waiting for more
ships, or for some sign from their gods."
"Yeah." She stepped forward a little too hard and bounced up. She
steadied herself against the slanting stone. "Are we going to make it
through this?" she asked.
"Yes," Anakin said, without hesitation.
"I thought so." She nevertheless sounded a little scared.
"Come here," he said.
She moved until they could touch.
"Switch off your comm and touch your helmet to mine." It's not that he
didn't trust Corran not to listen, but after all, the man had been in
espionage most of his life.
Tahiri did as he said, and their helmets met with a soft chunk. He
couldn't see her face, but he could imagine it there, centimeters from his
own. He could almost see her eyes.
"What's the big secret?" she asked. Coming through two layers of alloy,
her voice sounded distant and metallic.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Sure."
"Do we need to talk about what happened back on Eriadu?"
She didn't answer.
Anakin hesitantly pushed on. "That was a Yuuzhan Vong battle cry. When
you broke in to rescue me."
"I know. It just sort of ... came out. Anakin, all of the words they
put in me are still there. The other stuff faded, or most of it. But their
language-I still hear it. Sometimes I think ink."
"It, um, worries me."
"It shouldn't. I'm okay."
He wound up his courage a little tighter. "I should have told you this
a while back," he said. "I waited because you already had enough to worry
about, after we got off Yavin Four."
"What?"
"I had a vision about you. At least I think it was a vision."
"Go on."
"You were grown up. You were, umm, scarred up and tattooed like Tsavong
Lah. You were Jedi, but dark. I could feel the darkness radiating from you."
"Oh."
"It worried me."
"And you didn't tell me this? You didn't think I should know?"
"When you killed the shaper, I saw the look in your eyes. The look she
had."
"By she you mean me, of course. The she I might have been if you hadn't
rescued me."
"Something like that."
"You don't think . . . you don't still think that could happen to me?
That I could end up like the me in your vision? How could I? You saved me
from them, stopped them before they finished."
"I thought so. Think so. But when you came through that door speaking
Yuuzhan Vong-"
"It's nothing," Tahiri insisted. "It's just words. And I would never
hurt you."
That rang strange. "Who said anything about you hurting me?" Anakin
asked.
"I just assumed, in your vision, I was threatening you."
"No," he said, a little suspicious but not willing to push it. Had she
had a vision, too? She somehow didn't sound surprised at his. "No," he
continued, "it was like I was looking through someone else's eyes, not my
own. I don't think I was there. But whoever was-you said something about
them being the last. Just before you killed them."
"Anakin, I'll never join the Yuuzhan Vong. Believe it." Even through
two helmets, her voice rang with utter conviction.
"Okay," he said. "I just wanted to tell you. I thought you ought to
know."
"Thanks. Thanks for not keeping me in the dark."
"You're welcome."
Their helmets were still touching, and she didn't say anything else. He
was glad he couldn't see her face, because he would have had to look away.
And yet he wished he could see it.
Her gloved hand came up slowly. He took it and felt something almost
like an electric jolt. They stood that way for a long time, until Anakin
felt suddenly very . . . awkward.
He was about to let go when the asteroid suddenly began to vibrate, a
faint tactile buzz coming from everywhere. At the same time, Anakin felt
weight, dragging him not toward the surface of the asteroid, but against the
wall of the fissure.
"What?" He suddenly thought to switch his comm back on.
". . . under acceleration!" Corran was shouting.
It took only an instant for the implications of that to sink in. Then
Anakin flicked on his lightsaber. The blade limned the stone around them in
purple light.
Anakin sliced through the stone, five strokes that set a chunk of
nickel-steel floating to butt against the new "down" of the fissure wall.
The stone went down only about twenty centimeters. Below that was yorik
coral.
"This is a ship, too!" Corran shouted.
To prove him correct, the g forces continued to mount.
NINETEEN
Jaina was awakened by a blaring horn and the arrhythmic thumping of
running feet. She sat up, trying to remember where she was.
The walls, ceiling, and floor were of blue-black ice. She'd been
sleeping in her flight suit inside a thermoskin. Right, she had it now.
Kyp's hideout.
The other two people sleeping in the chamber-a human female named Yara
and a disheveled Bothan whose name she had forgotte
n-were clambering to
their feet. Jaina shrugged on her parka and followed them into the corridor
and down to the command center.
Kyp was there, calmly giving orders. He saw Jaina and smiled, and she
felt that funny little twist in her stomach again.
"Good morning," Kyp said. "Sleep well?"
"Not bad, considering my bed was a block of ice," she replied. "What's
going on?"
"Yuuzhan Vong recon just popped into the system. Not much of an outfit,
but I don't want them to find us here. If we hurry, we can jet out the back
way before they're any the wiser." He locked his gaze on her. "That means
I'm going to have to ask for your decision-now. If you won't take this to
someone in the military, I'll have to do it alone. I'll never convince them,
but I have to try."
His sincerity and urgency burned fiercely in the Force. Jaina
remembered the column of sunfire, creeping toward the Yuuzhan Vong weapon.
It wasn't as if Kyp didn't have proof. She at least owed his evidence a
hearing, didn't she?
"I'll go to Rogue Squadron with it," she said. "It's the
only place I know where I might still be welcome, and Colonel
Darklighter will know what to do. But I'll need your data."
"Packed up and ready to go. And I'm going with you, just to make sure
you get there."
"That might not be a good idea. If Uncle Luke isn't safe on Coruscant,
I can't imagine you would be."
"Or you, for that matter," Kyp added. "After all, you were last seen
fleeing with them. I was hoping you could arrange a rendezvous someplace
else."
Jaina hesitated. "We could try that-I could send a message to Colonel
Darklighter. But what if the Yuuzhan Vong or the Peace Brigade traces the
communication?"
"You're a smart young woman. I'm sure you can think of someplace you
and Darklighter know that you can refer to obliquely." "Sure, probably."
Kyp's grin expanded again. "Good." He jerked his head in the direction
of the bay. "I took the liberty of refueling your X-wing and giving it the
once-over. I'm afraid there's no time for you to give it a personal
inspection. We've gotta haul jets."
"Okay," Jaina said, "but if I flame out from a cracked nacelle, I'm
holding you responsible."
"Don't worry. I prefer my friends uncooked. Especially my more
attractive ones."
"Boy, you've been practicing that flattery stuff, haven't
you?" Jaina shot back. "I've already agreed to help you. No
