Edge of Victory 2 Rebirth

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