by Greg Keyes
“Maybe I did make some sort of metalinkage, but if I did I think it’s more of a translation from one to another. I can’t be sure. All I know is, I can use it. But if I lose my lightsaber, or it’s destroyed, or the lambent dies—I still want to be able to fight them.”
Corran placed a hand on Anakin’s shoulder. “Anakin, I understand you’ve been through a lot. The Yuuzhan Vong have taken much that was precious from you. I’ll always be grateful for what you did for my children, and so I’m telling you this as a friend. You need to control your emotions. You can’t allow yourself to hate.”
Anakin shook his head. “I don’t hate the Yuuzhan Vong, Corran. My time with them helped me to understand them. More than ever, I think they must be stopped, but I promise you, I do not hate them. I can fight them without anger.”
“I hope what you say is true, but anger is a quick-change artist and a trickster. More often than not, you don’t see it for what it is.”
“Thanks,” Anakin said. “I appreciate the advice.”
Corran again looked slightly skeptical. Then he motioned toward the droids. “These droids were a good idea. I’d be happy to help you repair that one.”
“That’s okay. Like I said, I have plenty of time on my hands.”
Corran smiled. “Getting a little deck fever?”
“I’m ready to get back out there, if that’s what you mean. But Tahiri still needs me.”
“You’re a good friend to her, Anakin.”
“I haven’t been. I’m trying to be.”
“Tahiri won’t get over her ordeal in a few months. She needs more time. I think she’ll understand if you have to go.”
Anakin dropped his gaze from Corran’s. “I promised her I would stay a while, and that’s what I’m going to do. But it’s hard, knowing what’s going on out there. Knowing my friends and family are fighting while I’m here doing nothing.”
“But you aren’t doing nothing; you just said it yourself. You’re still a part of the defensive effort. Protecting the Jedi students is important. Jumping randomly around the galaxy is probably the safest thing we can do, but there’s no telling when the Yuuzhan Vong or one of their sympathizers will pick up our trail. If they do, we’ll need everyone we can get.”
“I guess so. I’m just so restless.”
“You are,” Corran agreed. “I’ve noticed you’ve been kind of itchy. That’s why I was looking for you, in fact.”
“Really? What for?”
“We need supplies. Obviously, if we’re trying to keep our location secret we can’t take the only red Star Destroyer in the galaxy into an inhabited system. I was going to take one of the transports out. I thought you might like to go. Hopefully it will be a boring trip, but—”
“Yes,” Anakin said. “I’ll do it.”
“Good. I could use a copilot. I’ll meet you in the docking bay tomorrow, say after morning meal?”
“Great. Thanks, Corran.”
“No problem. See you then.”
THREE
Jacen watched the ship approach as if in a dream. It remained a black presence against the stars—it had no running lights. It must be in the shadow of the Millennium Falcon, he thought.
The Force told him there was nothing there at all.
It gradually moved from the umbra into the distant orange light of the nameless star a parsec below them, and now he could see details. Distances were deceiving in space—he couldn’t tell how large it was. It was spicular, like two cones with their bases pushed together. Where the cones met, three finned, heartlike structures projected. These Jacen recognized as dovin basals, living creatures that bent space, time, and gravity around themselves. There could be no doubt it was a Yuuzhan Vong ship, for it was made—rather, grown—from the same yorik coral Jacen had seen so many times already. Its surface was roughened by numerous small welts, as if the ship had contracted Bakuran fever bumps.
When he realized the bumps were coralskippers, the Yuuzhan Vong equivalent of starfighters, he suddenly grasped the scale. The thing was the size of a Dreadnaught.
And it was coming for them. It was almost certainly what had yanked them so brutally out of hyperspace.
Jacen snapped out of his fog of confusion and pushed away from the bulkhead. He was in the dorsal gunner’s turret. He’d been sitting there in contemplation before the sudden terrifying jolt. His head was bleeding, but not critically, so far as he could tell.
He pulled himself quickly along the rungs of the ladder into the main cabin. He fought the feeling of falling; it had been a while since he had done any zero-g training.
“Mom! Dad!” His voice rang in the silent ship. A primitive part of him cringed at the sound, warning him that the predator outside would hear him. It couldn’t, of course, not through the vacuum, but human instincts were older than space travel.
He got no answer. Frantic now, he pushed himself through the darkness to the cockpit.
He found them there, and for a heart-stopping moment thought they were dead, so still were they in the Force. But both were breathing.
“Dad!” He gently shook his father’s shoulder, but got no more than a reflexive response. Still gently, fear overcoming reluctance, he probed a little in the Force, suggesting the older man awake.
Han Solo stirred. “Huh? Whzzat!” Then he jerked fully alert, saw Jacen, and pulled back his fist.
“It’s me, Dad!” Jacen said. Next to him, his mother began to stir, too. He couldn’t feel anything seriously wrong with either of them. They had both been strapped in their crash couches.
“Jacen?” Han murmured. “What’s going on? What happened?”
“I was hoping you knew. As near as I can tell, we’ve been interdicted by a Yuuzhan Vong ship. It’s out there right now. I don’t think we have much time.”
Han rubbed his eyes and looked at the control panel, where a few feeble lights were still clinging to life. He let out a long, low whistle.
“That’s not good,” he said.
“Han? Jacen?” Leia Organa Solo sat straighter in the crash couch. “What’s happening?”
“The usual,” Han replied, flipping switches. A few more indicators came on. “Power system’s off-line, artificial gravity off-line, emergency life support on its last legs, big ship full of bad guys outside.”
“A really big ship,” Jacen added.
“Just like old times.” Leia sighed.
“Hey, I told you it would be like a second honeymoon.” Han’s voice dropped lower and grew more serious. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” Leia said. “I’m wondering what made us black out.”
“Probably the same thing that fried the power couplings,” Han remarked. Then his eyes widened. “Oh, no.”
“I told you it was big,” Jacen said, as their lateral drift brought the Yuuzhan Vong ship into view.
“Do something, Han,” Leia said. “Do something now.”
“I’m doing, I’m doing,” he muttered, working at the controls. “But unless someone wants to get out and push …”
“Why aren’t they doing anything?” Leia wondered.
“They probably think we’re dead in space,” Han replied. “They may be right.”
“Yes, but—” She stopped. Two of the coralskippers had detached from the larger vessel and were coming toward the Falcon.
Han unbuckled himself. “Take my seat, Jacen. I had a shielded power core installed, but the couplings have to be changed.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You don’t know the Falcon well enough. You two stay up here. The second I give you power, go, and I mean, go.”
“We’re too close. They’ll snatch us with their dovin basals.”
“They’ll snatch us for sure if we sit here.”
He kicked back through the doorway and was gone, swallowed by the darkness beyond.
The coralskippers continued to approach, in no apparent hurry.
“Mom, look,” Jacen said, pointing. Against the starfield
were some brighter sparks, drifting in a nebulous lens.
“What is it?”
“Something reflecting the light from the primary. A bunch of somethings.”
“Ships,” Leia said. “Other ships they’ve interdicted.”
“Uh-huh. Must be a dozen or more.”
“Well.” She sighed. “I guess we found out something useful on this trip. This isn’t a safe route to smuggle Jedi through.”
A series of curses drifted from somewhere in the back of the ship.
“Han?” Leia shouted.
“Nothing. Hit my head,” the answer came back.
Another few moments of rummaging about, and then another, more colorful set of curses.
“It’s going to take at least half an hour,” Han called.
“We don’t have that,” Leia whispered. “They’ll be boarding us any minute. If they even bother, and don’t just cut us to pieces.”
“They’ll bother,” Jacen said. “The Yuuzhan Vong hate to waste good slaves and sacrifices. I guess we’d better get ready to meet them.” He unclipped the lightsaber from his belt. Leia unbuckled herself and drew her own weapon.
“You let me deal with this, Mom. You’re still favoring that leg.”
“Don’t worry about me. I was doing this before you were born.”
Jacen was about to lodge another protest when he saw the expression on her face. She wouldn’t be budged.
As they passed the lounge, a growl that made Jacen’s hair stand on end prompted him to ignite the cold green glow of his lightsaber. Two sets of black eyes blinked at the light.
“Lady Vader,” one snarled. “We fail you.”
“You failed no one, Adarakh,” Leia told her Noghri bodyguards. “Something put us all out.”
“Your enemies are about, Lady Vader?” the second Noghri, a female—Meewalh—asked.
“They are. Adarakh, you’re with me. Meewalh, you help Jacen.”
“No,” Jacen said. “Mom, you need them more than I do. You know it.”
“The first-son speaks right, Lady Vader,” Meewalh agreed.
Leia’s eyes flashed at the insubordination. “We don’t have time to argue about this.”
That was confirmed a heartbeat later when something bumped against the hull, followed by a second, similar impact.
“What’s that?” Han called up.
“Just get us some power,” Leia called back. “Fine. Both of you, with me. Jacen, watch yourself. None of this not-using-the-Force nonsense.”
“I’m over that, Mom.”
She kissed Jacen quickly on the cheek. “Watch out for my boy.” Then she pushed toward the cargo lifter, where the first impact seemed to have been. The Noghri went silently after her, as nimble in free-fall as on foot.
Jacen shifted the grip on his lightsaber and found a handhold to steady his weightless body as he tried to figure out where the second boarder was.
Within seconds, something began gnashing and grinding against the outer bulkheads, enabling him to locate it in the lounge. Moving slowly, he flattened as best he could against what would be the ceiling if the gravity came back on.
Must be grutchins, he thought. Yuuzhan Vong technology was all biologically based. They used modified insectoid creatures to hull ships. There would be fumes from the acid, then, and maybe worse, but there was no time to seek vac suits. If the Yuuzhan Vong were simply going to open the ship to space, they’d all had it. But if the enemy wanted the Solos dead, they would have blasted them while the ship was powered down, since they had, at best, contempt for nonliving tech and no use for the Falcon whatsoever. Knowing the Yuuzhan Vong, they were eager for live captives, not freeze-dried corpses.
Jacen calmed his mind and waited.
Not much later, a hole appeared in the wall. As predicted, an acrid, choking stench came through, but not the feared explosive decompression of the cabin. Jacen stayed out of visual range until something poked its head through an opening wide enough for a human to step through.
Jacen flicked on his lightsaber.
Something like a huge beetle was revealed in the viridian light of his blade. Jacen drove his point into its eye before it could even twitch. For what seemed a long moment, the energy blade refused to penetrate beyond the first few centimeters. The creature yanked its head back and forth violently, but Jacen kept the point on until, finally, with a sputter, it pushed in. The beetle spasmed and died.
Jacen came off the ceiling and, avoiding the steaming edge of the hole, hurled himself through the breach.
A flexible coupling had attached itself to the outside of the ship. It was about twenty meters long. Halfway down its length a Yuuzhan Vong warrior pulled himself along by means of a series of knobs protruding from the sides. Jacen kicked against the projections nearest him, accelerating toward the Vong.
His enemy was humanoid, with black hair plaited and knotted behind his head. His forehead sloped sharply down to dark eyes above swollen purplish sacs and an almost flat nose. He wore the characteristic vonduun crab armor and carried an amphistaff coiled around one wrist. A savage grin appeared on his scarred and tattooed face, and he duplicated Jacen’s move. The amphistaff straightened, pointing at the young Jedi like a lance.
When they were only about four meters apart, the staff spit something at him. If past experience was a guide, it was almost certainly poison.
Jacen reached for the whirling droplets in the Force, but it felt as if he were reaching through syrup. He stopped it within a few centimeters of his face, at the same time kicking the tube wall obliquely so that he hurled up to the top of it. The warrior passed beneath him, running face-first into the suspended toxin. Grimly, not looking back, Jacen pulled out of the tumble his maneuver had resulted in and propelled himself toward the open hatch beyond. Behind him, the warrior stifled a hoarse cry.
The coralskipper wasn’t big, but it was big enough for two. He could see the second warrior, just poking his head out. This time, there was no aerial joust; the Yuuzhan Vong waited for him, feet braced against something behind him, his amphistaff in guard position.
They met in a stir of blows that killed Jacen’s momentum and set him bouncing around the coupling, trying to reorient. The Yuuzhan Vong didn’t budge, but continued to strike at Jacen in a measured, conservative way. Jacen found he had to fight one-handed and use the other to anchor himself. He kept his lightsaber extended and his movements small. The next time the Yuuzhan Vong struck, Jacen nailed him in the back of the hand. The warrior grunted and released the staff. With a snarl, he launched himself at Jacen.
The sudden attack took the young Jedi by surprise. The warrior managed to get his wrist in a lock, and the two went tumbling back through the tube. Too late, Jacen realized his lightsaber was still on, slicing through the wall of the coupling like tissue.
Needles were suddenly under his skin, trying to push themselves out. Desperate, Jacen brought his elbow up beneath the Yuuzhan Vong’s jaw. He felt teeth clack together, and his opponent let go. The slit, now five meters long, yawned into space, and the warrior floated right through. A moment later, the body of the first warrior followed him.
Black spots dancing before his eyes, Jacen managed to grab one of the knobs, but the slit was only a meter away and the pressure of an atmosphere was pushing him toward it. He was going to black out, and he knew it. Grimly, he flicked off his lightsaber and hooked it into his belt, then reached with his other hand and started pulling himself against the wind. His strength was fading fast, however, and even if he made it, it would only be a matter of time before the Millennium Falcon was empty of atmosphere.
But he wasn’t going to make it. He had failed, not just himself, but his mother and father, as well.
He reached once again in the Force, trying to pull his mass back toward the Falcon. He managed the connection, but space had seeped into his head, and darkness with it.
He went out, so far as he could tell, for only a second. Wind was still whistling by, but it had faded to a
thin shriek, and in the spots still dancing before his eyes he saw what had saved him. The coupling—alive like all Yuuzhan Vong technology—was sealing itself. As he watched, the last few centimeters of the tear zipped themselves together.
Mom! He could feel the hammering of her pulse behind him, and pain in her not-quite-healed legs.
He propelled himself back into the Millennium Falcon, pushing himself madly toward the cargo lift area.
It took him an instant to sort out that that battle was over, too. The Noghri were still dismembering one of the Yuuzhan Vong boarders. The second floated near Leia; his head was drifting a few meters away. Han seemed to have just come in, brandishing a blaster.
“Jacen?”
“Got both of ’em,” he acknowledged grimly.
“Great. Leia, you keep watch. Let us know if they send anything else our way. Jacen, you check out those skips and figure out some way we can accelerate without opening ourselves to space.”
Right, Jacen thought. The minute the drive went on, the coralskippers would exert their inertia. At some point acceleration would make them massive enough to tear the couplings, no matter how strong they were.
“I’m on it, Dad. And hang on before you engage the drive. I have another idea.”
“Always thinking. That’s my boy.”
FOUR
Nen Yim pushed up through the clear membrane and stroked the pale, feathery coils of the ship’s brain, the rikyam, with her shaper’s hand. She trembled, her specialized fingers twitching. Once those digits had been the legs of a crustaceanlike creature, bred for no other purpose but to be hands to shapers. Its animal origins were still obvious; her fingers—narrower, slimmer, and stronger than those of the average Yuuzhan Vong—protruded from beneath a dark, flexible carapace that now served as the back of her hand. Two of the “fingers” ended in pincers; another had a retractable blade. All were studded with small, raised sensory nodes that tasted anything they touched. Nen Yim’s training as a shaper required that she know by taste all elements and more than four thousand compounds and their variants. She had known the quick, nervous flavor of cobalt with those fingers, savored the pungency of carbon tetrachloride, wondered at the complex and endless variations of amino acids.
