by Greg Keyes
"Looks like all of your education wasn't a waste," Han remarked.
"Wow," Leia said. "That could be a good countermea-sure against those
voids."
"Not really," Han said. "It would only work if the hydrogen density was
like it was-it was still serniliquid. In another few seconds, it would have
dispersed enough that it wouldn't have done anything. If the Sunulok had
been moving, they would have whipped through it in a second. No, we had the
perfect setup, and since I'm pretty sure the Sunulok survived, the Vong
probably won't let that happen again. Nice thought, though."
Jacen was about to add something else when the Force blindsided him
with agony. He must have cried out, because both of his parents looked at
him at once.
"What is it, Jacen?" Leia asked.
"It's Aunt Mara," he replied shakily. "Something bad is happening to
Aunt Mara."
Aunt Mara! Jaina felt the pain and despair hit her like the heavy end
of a hammer. She shook her head, not sure where she was. Had she blacked
out?
Stars tumbled by, and her astromech chirped frantically.
Oh, right. She'd been flying into the Yuuzhan Vong super-weapon, when
it exploded.
Aunt Mara! The spike in the Force was fading, but the impression
remained of Mara unraveling like a rotten phil-fiber.
Jaina balled her fists in frustration. Mara was hundreds of parsecs
away, and here she was in a dead ship.
I can't help her now, Jaina thought. Got to help myself first.
She and her astromech managed to kill the tumble, but they were still
without engines. Far behind her she could make out the wink of laserfire
through a cloud of gas that must be the debris of the Yuuzhan Vong weapon.
We did it!
She was drifting sunward, but was outside of the asteroid field and in
no obvious or immediate danger. At least she didn't think so until she
noticed, ahead of her, a heart-shaped chunk of yorik coral. A big hunk.
After a few missed beats of her own heart, however, she saw it wasn't
under power. In fact, what it looked like more than anything was a dovin
basal. Alone, unattached to a ship.
"You think it's flotsam?" she asked the droid.
It whistled a noncommittal reply. It was too busy to care about space
junk.
Curious, Jaina adjusted her sensors, and noticed something else
strange. The dovin basal had a twin, about a hundred klicks away, in the
same orbit. Inward, toward the primary, another pair-and another, and
another. It was a sort of corridor of dovin basals stretching from the
Yuuzhan Vong superweapon almost to the star in the center of the Sernpidal
system.
"Oh, no," she said. "No, Kyp, you didn't. Not even you would..."
No, of course he would. And he had made her part of it. And she had
brought in Rogue Squadron.
She wanted to throw up. If she hadn't been in a sealed cockpit with
limited room to do so, she probably would have.
The astromech informed her that it had managed to rig a new antenna.
Jaina opened a channel.
"Rogue Leader, you out there?"
Static, and then Gavin Darklighter's voice. "Jaina? Jaina, thank
goodness you're alive."
"Copy, Rogue Leader. Can you send somebody to pick me up?"
"Absolutely. We're finished here."
"Colonel Darklighter, you might want to come yourself. There's
something here I think you should see."
FORTY-THREE
Luke.
Luke awoke to his name and found Mara's hand on his arm. Her eyes were
clear, and her lips were quivering as if she were trying to speak.
"Mara," he murmured. "Mara." He had more to say, but he couldn't get it
out. / love you. Don't die.
Her head inclined, very slightly. He took her hand and felt the pulse
there, stronger than it had been in days, but irregular.
Now. We have to do it now. "Do what? Mara, I don't understand." Now.
Her eyes closed again, and her pulse dropped away. "No! Mara!"
When Darth Vader had suddenly realized that he had a daughter as well
as a son, Luke had felt a desperation that was the palest reflection of
this. He'd hurled himself at the black-armored figure that was his father,
battering him with his lightsaber until he cut Vader's arm off. In doing so
Luke had taken a decisive step toward the dark side.
Now, though his body did not move, he hurled himself at Mara's disease
with the same blind, desperate fury, battering against it with the Force,
trying to shatter the slippery, mutable compounds of which it was made. The
electrifying strength of anguish drove him on, and the fact that he was
trying to do the impossible meant nothing. He clenched his fists until the
veins stood out on his arms, attacking something he couldn't see.
That wasn't there to see. No. Luke, no. Not this way.
Luke fell away, trembling. "How then?" he shouted, maybe at Mara, maybe
at the universe itself.
"Luke!" Cilghal was standing in the doorway. "I felt-"
"She wants me to do something, Cilghal," Luke snarled. "She diverted
some of her energy to wake me, and a little more to stop me from. . . What
does she know, Cilghal?"
"I don't know, Luke," Cilghal said. "But you've been telling your
students attack is not the answer. Trust yourself- you're right. You need to
calm yourself."
A retort got hung just inside of his throat. How could Cilghal possibly
understand?
But she was right, of course. It was easy to remain calm when nothing
upsetting was happening.
"I know," he admitted, his breathing evening out. "But I know I have to
do something. Now, or she'll die."
"Let me try," Cilghal said. "Maybe I can understand what she wants."
"No. It has to be me. I know that."
He calmed himself further, sloughing off his darkening emotions,
cleansing himself with deep, slow breaths. Only when he felt truly centered
did he reach out toward Mara again, probing her gently through the Force
rather than attacking her disease.
Attack is not the answer.
But she was so far gone. There was nothing to defend, except.. .
And suddenly, he thought he understood. One part of Mara was
well-better than well, free of all disease. That's where he needed to be,
not waging warfare, but strengthening, defending from the one fortress that
still stood.
He reached out again, this time as lightly as one of Mara's caresses,
into the place where their child rested, and there he found his wife,
wrapped around the baby like a dura-steel wall.
"Let me in, Mara," he said aloud. "You have to let me in." He laid his
hand on her arm, squeezing gently. "Let me in."
Skywalker?
"It's me, I think I understand, now. I'll do what I can. But you have
to let me in."
The wall wavered, but held. Had he guessed wrong? Had she herself
already forgotten, her memory erased by the pain?
"I love you, Mara. Please."
He trembled, still touching her arm. He couldn't force her. He wouldn't
if he could.
Come on, Luke.
The gate opened, and
he felt another pulse, another life. He reached
for his son.
The child stirred, as if recognizing his father's touch. He reached
back, and Luke felt little tickling thoughts, like waking laughter and
amazement. It was a voice both familiar and infinitely strange. It was a
voice becoming real.
"I love you. I love you both," he breathed. "Take my strength."
He and Mara joined like fingers twining, and like a tiny third hand,
the unborn child linked with them as well. A human child. His child. Mara's
child.
The mutual grip grew stronger, but it wasn't the desperate strength of
combat or the raging power of a storm. It was a calm, enduring, and at the
same time fallible, mortal embrace-the embrace of family long separated.
They mingled, each with the other, until Luke felt his identity blur,
and he began to dream.
He saw a young boy with hair of pale red-gold, tracing lines in the
sand. He saw an older boy, kneeling by a river course, rubbing a smooth,
round stone between his fingers and smiling. The same boy, perhaps ten years
old, wrestling with a young Wookiee.
He saw himself, holding the boy, watching glowing lines of traffic move
through the sky of some strange world-like Coruscant, but not Coruscant.
He did not see Mara, though he looked, and that brought a new note of
discord to his thoughts.
Always in motion is the future, Yoda had once told him. Still, he
reached farther, searching for Mara, farther along that uncertain, shifting
path. The boy grew older; he was at the helm of a starship of strange design
. . .
All futures exist in the Force, a familiar, impossible voice suddenly
said. You do not choose the future so much as it chooses you. Do not look
for answers there.
"Ben?" Luke croaked, stunned. It couldn't be Ben, of course. That time
was long gone, and his old Master was truly one with the Force, unreachable,
and yet...
But it didn't matter whether it was Ben, the Force, or a part of Luke
himself that had just spoken. It only mattered that he had glimpsed what
might be, and only the tiniest part of that, but it was only what might be.
He couldn't let it concern him-now was not the time for searching or
speculation, for both were active manifestations of doubt, and he could
afford no doubt right now. Doubt was more deadly than the Yuuzhan Vong
disease. It was the only real limitation a Jedi had.
He let the images slide away, and felt again only the moment, three
hearts beating, three minds becoming one.
Hi there, Luke. Glad to have you back, Mara seemed to say. And then
they were expanding, extending outward in every direction, like a galaxy
being born. Like anything being born. Like life itself.
FORTY-FOUR
"Wow," Anakin said, when he saw the ship waiting for them in berth
thirteen. They'd squeaked by two groups of ooglith-cloaked Yuuzhan Vong
prowling the halls, apparently still searching for them, and had expected a
fight when they reached the ship-if the ship was even still there. It was,
and the Yuuzhan Vong weren't.
"Maybe Nom Anor and his bunch got caught when the air went out," Corran
speculated.
"Wow," Anakin repeated,
"Don't gawk," Corran said. "We don't have time for it. It may take us
some time to figure out how to work this thing. There is still a fleet out
there, remember?"
"Right," Anakin said. "Sorry."
But it was hard not to be impressed. The Givin ship was simple,
elegant, nearly all engine, about the size of a light transport. A bundle of
spindly cylinders protruding from a relatively enormous engine torus made up
the core of the ion drive, though three more extended on booms from the side
of the main assembly. These last weren't fixed, either, but could be
maneuvered in a complete sphere. Forward of that was the hyperdrive
assembly, and almost as an afterthought, it seemed, a crew section and
cockpit that was nearly all transparisteel.
On board they found that only the sleeping compartment could be
pressurized. The life support unit was thus com-mensurately underpowered, so
they remained in their suits. The controls were a complete mystery until
Corran pointed out they were laid out mathematically according to Ju
Simma's theorem. Once that was understood, the ship was weird to
operate, but not particularly difficult.
Corran took the controls and unlocked the docking bolts.
"Here we go," he said. "The pitiful laser this thing has won't be of
much use in a fight, so we're just going to run, unless anyone else has a
better suggestion."
"But the station-" Tahiri began.
"Is doomed. And the best hope for the Givin is reinforcements from
Coruscant."
"I was thinking about Taan."
"I'm sorry," Corran said. "But the Yuuzhan Vong will probably retrieve
her. If she's lucky . . . Anyway, we're out of this, just as soon as I can
get us out. Let's see, where would the inertial compensator be?"
Anakin pointed to a logarithmically scaled input. "I'm guessing that's
it."
"We'll see. Strap in and hang on. I hope this thing has the legs it
advertises."
It did. Anakin could barely restrain a whoop when they blew out of the
dock. If he had been flying, he wouldn't have been able to keep it in.
"An A-wing couldn't touch this thing," he said.
"It's not all about speed," Corran said.
"If you're running, it is," Anakin replied reasonably, as they streaked
past a patrol of coralskippers. They turned late, like a herd of startled
banthas, and began pursuit. Within a minute the skips must have been under
top acceleration, but they looked almost as if they were standing still.
As Anakin studied the sensor readouts from the copilot's station and
began calculating a series of jumps, he began to feel less cheery.
"We've got some ahead of us, closing. Heavy cruiser analogs, two of
them."
"We'll see how well the Givin build shields, then," Corran replied.
Minutes later, Corran was juking and jinking through
heavy fire. The shields held admirably well, but as predicted, the
laser was useless. Corran cut the ship onto a course perpendicular to
Yag'Dhul's ecliptic plane, fighting for enough distance from the planet and
its three massive moons for a safe jump, but they ran into trouble there,
too, in the form of more Yuuzhan Vong ships.
"Thick as gluttonbugs," Corran remarked.
"I can lay in a short jump," Anakin said.
"In an unfamiliar ship? Very dangerous."
"What choice do we have?" Anakin replied.
In response, Corran turned back toward Yag'Dhul, diving toward the
thick of the fighting, where the delicate-looking Givin ships were taking on
twice their number of Yuuzhan Vong vessels. To Anakin, it didn't look like a
very good place to be. "We should jump," Anakin repeated.
"Anakin, I was flying when you were nothing more than a fight brewing
between Han and Leia. Before that, even. Give me credit for knowing a thing
or two."
"Yes, sir."
"Pro
gram the jump, just in case. But we're not going to try it unless
we run out of options."
They whipped through the Yuuzhan Vong perimeter, shaving as near the
big ships as Corran dared-which was pretty near-and dancing evasively
through skips. Anakin took potshots with the laser, and though he never
managed to get through the void defenses the ships generated, it still felt
better than doing nothing.
"We're going to make it," Corran said. "The ships up front are too busy
to-" He broke off as every single Yuuzhan Vong ship ahead of them suddenly
turned and began accelerating in their direction.
"Sithspawn!" Corran sputtered, pulling up hard to avoid a coralskipper
that appeared intent on taking them out with its own mass.
It dodged by them, not even bothering to fire. In utter confusion,
Anakin watched the rest of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet race past them, out toward
interstellar space.
"The ones farther out are jumping," he reported, studying the sensor
readouts. "They're running. I don't get it.
What could the Givin have done to light their jets like that?"
"It's not the Givin," Corran replied, his voice edged with astonished
relief. "It's something else."
"Recalled?" Nom Anor spat, staring incredulously down at the villip and
its portrait of Qurang Lah. "But we are near victory! Their defenses
crumble."
"Meanwhile, an infidel 'fleet desecrates and obliterates our primary
shipwomb."
"Impossible," Nom Anor said. "Their ridiculous senate could not
possibly have approved of such a strike without my knowing. Even if the
military launched such a campaign without senate approval, my sources would
have informed me."
The commander snarled a sort of smile. "It would appear, Executor, that
Yun-Harla has abandoned you. Opinion is that you are perhaps not as clever
and useful as you make yourself out to be. You have been outmaneuvered by
the infidels. They set a trap, and you led us into it for them."
"Absurd. If there is an attack on the shipwomb, it is unrelated to this
mission."
"Not unrelated at all, since you had us commit our reserves for this
battle. Had they remained at the shipwomb, they would have been sufficient
to repel the infidels. As it is, we have only a narrow chance of reaching
the battle in time to salvage anything."
"Then let us remain here. We have now demonstrated to the infidels that
