Rebirth: Edge of Victory II

by Greg Keyes

  But here, suddenly, in the least flattering way he could imagine, the Solo genes were finally showing.

  “Don’t go, son,” Han murmured, but there was no one to hear him but the sleeping weapons.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Corran flicked on his lightsaber and began helping Anakin cut into the ridge on the Yuuzhan Vong ship. Tahiri got the idea and joined them. Together, they sawed a hole deep into the ridge before Anakin’s knees began to buckle from his rapidly increasing mass.

  Suddenly a chunk of the ship broke free and fell inward, pushed by the same acceleration that was about to kill the three Jedi. Atmosphere blew out, curtains of ice crystals sparkling in the starlight as Corran leapt through the gap, pulling Tahiri with him. Anakin followed.

  Normal weight returned instantly as they entered the ship, probably due to the same gravity-bending dovin basals that drove the craft.

  Anakin looked around him to see where they were.

  In the mingled glow of their lightsabers, Anakin made out a dark grotto, walls haphazardly patched with luminescence. Even as he watched, however, the light faded as the bitter cold and vacuum that slunk in with the Jedi killed whatever plant or creature manufactured it. The chamber’s function was difficult to determine. The roof was very low, no more than a meter and a half, and it rambled on for a considerable distance. Black columns or tubes ran from floor to ceiling every two meters or so. The columns bulged in the middle, and Anakin thought they were pulsing faintly.

  Corran gestured for the two younger Jedi to touch helmets with him.

  “Someone will show up to check the hull breach soon,” he told them. “We need to be ready.”

  “I’m ready,” Tahiri said. “Really ready. This is a lot better than sitting on some old rock, waiting for them to find us.”

  Anakin sensed a bit of annoyance from the older Jedi as Corran went on with his analysis. “I’m guessing this section, whatever it is, is sealed off, else there would still be air whistling through. We need to find the lock.”

  “Too late for that,” Anakin said as his lambent lisped a faint warning. “We’ve already got company coming. Close.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I feel them.”

  Corran nodded. “May the Force be with you,” he told them. Then he moved off to crouch near one of the pillars.

  Light appeared toward the far end of the chamber: six lambents like the one in Anakin’s sword. In their light he saw six shadowed bipeds stepping through a typical Yuuzhan Vong dilating lock. He took deep breaths, relaxing his muscles one by one, preparing for the fight.

  Closer, he saw they wore rust-colored formfitting suits—creatures really, of course, probably some vacuum-hardy variant of the ooglith cloaker. Their faces were visible, however, through transparent masks. To Anakin’s surprise, only two of them revealed the facial scars of warriors. Two others had the more delicate tattoos he had come to associate with shapers. Indeed, their cloakers bulged conspicuously around their heads, doubtless due to the tendril-bearing creatures they wore as headdresses. The remaining pair had the look of workers or perhaps slaves.

  The two warriors set themselves in guard stances while the shapers examined the hole.

  Anakin felt rather than saw Corran creep forward, not toward the group of Yuuzhan Vong, but toward the door they had entered through.

  Moving carefully but as quickly as he could, Anakin followed, tapping Tahiri on the shoulder to get her attention.

  Come on, he suggested in the Force, hoping she got the sense of it.

  She did. The three crept through the darkness behind the repair party. In the vacuum, their feet made no sound at all.

  They had almost reached the lock when Anakin felt the tingle of approach behind him. He turned in time to see a warrior loom up silently, amphistaff arcing toward Anakin’s head.

  Anakin leapt back at the last instant, nearly letting the weapon graze him. He flicked his lightsaber on, and it blazed to life. The warrior’s eyes went wide with surprise.

  He didn’t know what he was facing, Anakin guessed.

  Whatever his feelings, the warrior didn’t hesitate long. He renewed his attack, spearing with the sharp end of the weapon. When Anakin caught the attack in a circular parry and pressed to bind, the staff suddenly went limp, escaping his net of light. It came flicking in an arc toward his face, now semirigid.

  Anakin launched himself forward and under the attack. As he passed by the warrior’s right side, he lifted his weapon parallel to the floor in a cut across his opponent’s face. The energy blade sliced through the mask, and the warrior fell back, flailing, air and blood mingling and freezing in a mass around the cut.

  The other warrior was battling Corran, while Tahiri tried to work the lock.

  Corran’s dual-phase weapon moved in tightly controlled arcs, always where it needed to be. That fight was nearing its end, too. Corran had stripped a long patch of cloaker from his enemy’s arm. It was already healing, but vacuum and frostbite had done their damage; the arm hung uselessly. Corran parried a flurry of increasingly wilder and more desperate attacks. Taking the last in a parry that pushed his opponent’s staff high above their heads, he then turned his point down and drove it into the warrior’s exposed armpit. The blade sank deep, but the warrior still brought his weapon down, cracking solidly against Corran’s head. Both men fell away, Corran with his hands to his helmet, the Yuuzhan Vong writhing in death throes.

  Anakin spun to face their remaining enemies, but none was moving toward them. Not warriors, he thought. But still dangerous, he amended, remembering the deadly tools on the shaper Mezhan Kwaad’s hands. Still, he ought to feel them approaching, if they tried.

  Anakin knelt by Corran. The amphistaff had dented the helmet of the vac suit, but worse, a crack had formed between the metal and the transparisteel—he could tell by the rime of frost forming on it. Corran was already struggling for consciousness.

  Tahiri was still working at the lock. Anakin pressed his gloved hand over the crack, wishing he had a patch, but those were in the emergency pack, on the other side of the room past the Yuuzhan Vong. By the time he went there and got back—assuming he didn’t have to stop and fight—Corran would be dead.

  He increased the feed of Corran’s oxygen in hopes of keeping the pressure high enough to prevent his blood boiling.

  Pale light fell across them, and he looked up to see that Tahiri had finally cycled the lock. He dragged Corran through, and within seconds the smaller chamber beyond was pressurized. They passed through the inner lock more easily and into another corridor, this one still illuminated by the phosphorescent fungi.

  Anakin quickly worked Corran’s helmet off. The older man was red-faced and had a nasty bump on his head, but otherwise seemed to be in pretty good shape. Within a minute he was standing, albeit shakily.

  “Thanks, Anakin, Tahiri. I owe you both.” His head jerked this way and that. “We need to keep moving,” he said. “A ship this size could have a hundred warriors on it.”

  “I’ve never been so glad to be wrong,” Corran admitted later. In under an hour they had defeated the remaining five warriors on the ship and rounded up and incarcerated the rest of the less military Yuuzhan Vong. Now the three Jedi sat in the control room, or what passed for it.

  The ship—if by ship one meant the available living space—was actually quite small. The bulk of the vessel was the concealing stone of the asteroid and vast caverns of greenware that none of them could even guess the function of.

  “We were lucky,” Corran said. “If we’d been most places on the surface, we would have had to cut through fifty meters of rock. As it was, we were on the cooling fin—at least that’s my guess as to what it was.”

  “This must be some sort of scout ship,” Anakin guessed.

  “Or a surveillance craft,” Corran said. “At the moment, that’s not the most important question. We need to know three things, fast.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “One: does the rest of the fl
eet know we’ve captured it? Two: where is it going? Three: can we fly it?”

  “Tahiri?” Anakin said.

  Tahiri had settled into the chair facing what Anakin knew from experience to be a bank of indicators—embedded lumens, several villips, patches of varying texture and color that were probably manual controls. The real key to flying the craft rested in the loose cap Tahiri held in her lap. Called a cognition hood, it established a telepathic link between pilot and ship.

  “I can fly it,” she said softly.

  Corran grimaced. “Why not let me try it? We still don’t know what hidden dangers using that thing might have.”

  “I’ve flown one before,” Tahiri said, “On Yavin Four.”

  “It has to be her,” Anakin said. “She speaks and thinks in the language, for one thing. Since the scientists have my tizowyrm, she’s the only one of us who can. And …” He trailed off.

  “They changed my brain,” Tahiri said bluntly. “I can fly it. You can’t, Captain Horn.”

  Corran sighed. “I don’t like it, but you might as well give it a try. At this point I have to admit you two have a lot more practical knowledge than I do when it comes to Yuuzhan Vong technology.”

  Tahiri nodded and placed the cap over her short golden hair. It writhed and contracted to fit. Her eyes clouded, and sweat started on her brow. Her breath chopped raggedly.

  “Take it off,” Corran said.

  “No, wait,” Tahiri said. “It was just a little different that time. I can handle it. I’m adjusting.” Her brow furrowed in concentration. “The ship’s name is Stalking Moon. A hyperdrive jump has been laid in. It’s coming up in about five minutes.”

  Two organisms suddenly waggled to life, and between them appeared a hologram, showing something that might have been a map, complete with unfamiliar icons. One, shaped like a three-pointed star, was highlighted in red and moving rapidly. A few of the others were moving as well.

  “That’s the fleet,” she said. “The fast-moving thing is us.” Her head turned toward them, though her eyes were hidden by the hood. “I don’t think anyone is following us.”

  “Can you tell where the jump is taking us?”

  Tahiri shook her head. “There’s a designation. It translates to something like ‘next prey to feel our talons and glory.’ ”

  “Yag’Dhul?” Anakin speculated.

  “We’ll see soon enough,” Corran replied. “If so, this ship may have been sent ahead to make tactical maps or something. We may be the first of the fleet to arrive. Anakin, you may get your chance to warn Yag’Dhul.”

  “True,” Anakin said. “If the—who lives at Yag’Dhul, anyway?”

  “The Givin,” Corran said.

  “The Givin don’t blow us out of the sky. We are, after all, in a Yuuzhan Vong ship.”

  “Well, there is that,” Corran said. “But we have a better chance there than staying here. If Yag’Dhul is where we’re going. We’re headed back to a Yuuzhan Vong base, for all we know.”

  “You want me to try and stop the jump?” Tahiri asked.

  Anakin watched Corran consider that. Then the older Jedi shook his head in the negative.

  “No,” he said. “We’re in this deep. Might as well see what the bottom looks like.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  It was hard to read a Mon Calamarian. With their bulging, fishlike eyes and wide lips, they looked, to the untrained human eye, perpetually surprised or amused. They lacked the same complex facial muscles that humans had evolved for nonverbal communication, their species being possessed of another set of semiotic tools for that purpose.

  Nonetheless, Mara somehow saw the horror on Cilghal’s face when the healer entered the medical chamber Booster had allowed her to set up.

  “Oh, no,” Cilghal murmured. Her partially webbed digits fluttered in agitation. “Please, Mara, recline.” She indicated an adjustable medical bed.

  “No problem,” Mara said. Her knees had gone flimsy on the short walk over from her quarters. Her mental image of herself had morphed into a huge bloated thing balanced on ridiculous, straw-thin legs.

  What she saw in Cilghal’s clinical mirror fit no image of herself at all, past or present. Her eyes were sunken into gray pits, their emerald color faded to a sickly yellow. Her cheeks were hollow, as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Her skin was so pale the vessels stood out like topographic maps of a river delta on Dagobah.

  What a beauty, Mara thought. I could dance in Jabba’s palace again, if I could dance. Of course, I’d attract a different type of admirer than I did last time …

  Wait’ll Luke sees this. He’s going to have a meltdown. Unwilling to run the risk that some slicer could trace a HoloNet communication back to the Errant Venture, Luke had taken his X-wing out to contact several eminent physicians and transmit Mara’s latest test results. He’d been gone three days.

  “I need to know what it means, Cilghal.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Hot, cold. Nauseated. As if nanoprobes are trying to carve my eyes out from behind with microscopic vibroblades.”

  The healer nodded and placed her webbed hands so gently on Mara’s abdomen that it might have been sheets of flimsiplast that floated there.

  “Three days ago, when you went into meditation, how did you feel?” Cilghal asked.

  “Sick. I already knew it was coming back. I thought if I was alone, in total concentration and without distraction, I might be able to control it like I did before.”

  “This is not like before,” Cilghal said. “Not at all. The rate of molecular mutation has increased fivefold. It’s much worse than before you began taking the tears. It might be because so many of your body’s resources are tied up in the pregnancy; it might be because the serum weakened your ability to fight without it.” She closed her eyes, and Mara felt the Force in motion, within and about her. “It’s like dark ink, staining your cells. Spreading.”

  “The baby,” Mara demanded. “Tell me about my son.”

  “The Force burns bright in him. The darkness hasn’t reached there. Something keeps it at bay.”

  “Yes!” Mara whispered, clenching her fists.

  Cilghal’s eyes wobbled together so her gaze met Mara’s. “It’s you, isn’t it?” the healer said. “You’re putting everything into keeping the disease from entering your womb.”

  “I can’t let it,” Mara said. “I can’t.”

  “Mara,” the healer said, “you are declining at a terrifying rate.”

  “I only have to last until the birth,” Mara pointed out. “Then I can start taking the tears again.”

  “At this rate, I’m not sure you will survive the birth,” Cilghal told her. “Even if we induce it, or do it surgically. You’re already that weak.”

  “I don’t lose,” Mara told her ferociously. “I’ll be strong enough when the time comes. It can’t be much longer, can it?”

  “You aren’t listening to me,” Cilghal said. “You could die.”

  “I am listening to you,” Mara replied. “It’s just that what you’re telling me doesn’t change anything. I’m going to have this baby, and he’s going to be healthy. I’m not going back on the serum. I’ve come through tougher things than this, Cilghal.”

  “Then let me help you. Let me lend you some of my strength.”

  Mara hesitated. “I’ll report every day for monitoring and whatever healing you can accomplish. Is there anything else I can do?”

  “More than once a day,” Cilghal said. “I can strengthen the power of your body to fight. I can cleanse it of some toxins. I can fight the symptoms. But the disease itself … there’s nothing. No, I can think of nothing else to do.” Despair and failure seemed to drift from the healer.

  “I need your help, Cilghal,” Mara said. “Don’t give up on me yet.”

  “I would never, Mara.”

  “Good. I need to eat, but I’m not hungry, and I can’t keep anything down. I’m sure you can help me with that, right?”

  “That I
can help with,” Cilghal replied.

  “It’s one thing at a time, old friend,” Mara said. “Every parsec begins with a centimeter.”

  Cilghal nodded and went off to gather some things from storage. Mara lay back, suddenly dizzy, wishing she felt half of the confidence she espoused.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Master Kae Kwaad was as lean as one of Nen Yim’s shaping fingers. He walked with an odd limp and a strange twist to his shoulders. His headdress was a ropy, unkempt mess. He wore a masquer to conceal his real face, a fashion among the Praetorite Vong but not common among shapers of any domain for decades. The masquer portrayed young, clear features, with scarlet-tinted yellow eyes. His real age was difficult to determine, though his skin had the smoothness of relative youth.

  “Ah, my adept,” Kae said as Nen Yim made the genuflection of greeting. “My willing adept.”

  Nen Yim tried to keep her expression neutral, but she heard something in his voice that suggested a leer behind his masquer. And the way his eyes traveled over her—what sort of master was this? Masters were above the carnal, beyond it.

  No, she remembered. That was what was taught, but her old master Mezhan Kwaad’s downfall had had much to do with her forbidden affair with a warrior. Masters were supposed to be lustless. Supposing it did not make it so.

  The master brought up the seven shaping fingers of his left hand and touched them to her chin. To her distraction, the fingers seemed cramped, or paralyzed. “Yes,” he murmured. “A very talented adept, I’m told.” He noticed her regarding his hand. “Ah,” he mused. “My hands are quite dead, you see. They died some years ago. I do not know why, and the other masters did not deign to replace them.”

  “That is unfortunate, Master.”

  He chucked her under the chin. “But you will be my hands, my dear—what was your name?”

  “Nen Yim, Master.”