by James Luceno
“The Praetorite Vong will walk across the galaxy, one system at a time,” Danni added, and as she was the expert among them on their enemies, those words rang ominously indeed.
“How else can we beat it?” Luke asked in all seriousness. “What can we do, here and now, to defeat the yammosk?”
“I’ve got some heat charges that would do some damage to that ice crust,” Lando offered.
“If we could even get them to the right places on the surface past those gravity wells,” Han said.
“I don’t think they’d do much good anyway,” Danni put in. “The yammosk is down deep, where the water is warmer from the volcanoes.”
“Too bad we couldn’t just shut the volcanoes off and freeze the thing,” Jacen added.
Then came a short pause, and Luke started to break it by asking how much damage Rejuvenator had been able to inflict with her laser batteries, taking that line of questioning to the point with Danni and Jacen to learn if they, since they were under that ice crust, had even felt the pounding. He was cut short, though, by a surprisingly animated Anakin.
“We can,” he said, and when his father returned with a “huh?” he added, “We can shut the volcanoes off. Or at least we can freeze the water around them.”
“How’re we going to do that?” Han asked. “It’s already about as cold around that planet as it can be.”
“Almost,” Anakin said slyly. “But not quite.”
“Absolute zero?” Luke asked. “How are we going to do that?”
“Evaporation,” Anakin replied.
“Huh?” Han said again.
“Nothing steals energy faster,” Jacen agreed, remembering the science lessons Anakin was recalling, lessons that he and Jaina, too, had been taught at the Jedi academy.
“If we can speed up the evaporation around the planet, we’ll cool it down,” Anakin said.
“And how do we do that?” Han asked skeptically.
“You infuse the process with energy,” Jaina explained. “Like the energy of sunlight drying up puddles.”
Han snorted. “If we can get that amount of energy out here, we can just use it to destroy the planet,” he reasoned.
“Unless we turn the yammosk’s energy back in on the planet,” Danni said suddenly, and except for Han’s increasingly predictable “huh?” there came a few moments of dead silence, as the others all considered the logic of the notion.
“Lando?” Luke called.
“Why’re you asking me?” the man came back.
“When you were on Nkllon, you did some serious energy reflection,” Luke replied, a sly note edging his voice, showing that he thought he might be on to something.
“You mean the sunlight?” Lando asked. “We did more hiding from it than turning it back. Running behind the panels of the shieldships, and—” He paused, and those on the Falcon’s bridge with him saw his face brighten.
“Shieldships,” he said evenly.
“I thought they were all destroyed,” Danni said. She had heard the tales and had not seen the great ships in close orbit to Destrillion.
“Well, I had to build a few more,” Lando replied, and his tone gave Luke the image of the man’s always wry grin. “Couldn’t lose the technology, after all.”
“Get them out here as quickly as you can,” Luke ordered. “There’s mountains of mist around the planet already, from the pounding Rejuvenator gave to the place. And if we turn right back after being so routed, we might catch our enemies by surprise, perhaps even with many of their fighters away from home, heading out to find the remnants of our fleet.
“You’d better bring back Kyp and all the starfighters and gunships we can manage, too,” he added. “Just to help protect the shieldships while they move in close and do their work.”
“Already making the call,” Lando assured him.
They set up a rendezvous at a nearby planet, one where Jaina, Jacen, and Danni could get out of the Merry Miner and go aboard the other ships, with Jacen taking Lando’s place in the Falcon’s bottom gun pod, Danni going to the Jade Sabre with Jaina and Mara, and Luke going back in the Jade Sabre’s hold, prepping his X-wing for the coming fight.
It took a while for the lumbering shieldships to get there from their docks at Destrillion. The fleet that had come out to run guard for the ships was nowhere near as large as Luke and the others had hoped. Although Kyp Durron had returned with a large squadron of starfighters, none of the Ranger gunships had joined his force, their commanders opting to wait for more New Republic firepower to arrive.
Those commanders were in error, Luke knew, for as he considered the level of the rout at the Helska system, the coordination of the enemy force, and the sheer power of the energy field protecting the planet itself, he understood that the New Republic would never rally enough of an armada to win out there. And likely, those Ranger gunships and the others who opted to remain at Destrillion would see more fighting from the Yuuzhan Vong gone on the offensive than those with Luke trying to surprise the planetary base.
Still, he considered retreating back to Dubrillion with his makeshift fleet, digging in their heels there, and trying to hold out long enough for battle cruisers and Star Destroyers to arrive—though if they came in scattershot, he realized, they would run the risk of being picked off one by one by the Yuuzhan Vong force. Perhaps they should try their cooling plan with the entire fleet, or as much of the fleet as the councilors would send, assembled. But there was the rub, for Luke understood, above all else, that paralyzing, bureaucratic, self-serving council and could hardly count on them acting prudently and correctly.
Even with the disappointments, then, Luke knew that they had to press on, and quickly. The aliens had not been caught by surprise with the first assault, and without any element of surprise this time, the plan had little chance of working.
They came in hot, on the very edge of disaster, plotting coordinates and speeds that brought them out of hyperspace practically as a singular unit, and right near the fourth planet of the Helska system. So close, in fact, that a pair of ships, the one cruiser that had joined the fleet and a starfighter, slammed right into that planet, so close together that another pair of starfighters clipped wings and went spinning and exploding away, one of them taking out a third in the process.
Luke, who had ordered the dangerous jump, could only wince at the losses, and at the notion that they were acceptable losses, for this ragtag fleet could not have done it any other way.
For now, suddenly, and before any Yuuzhan Vong had risen against them, they were already moving into place, the six great, umbrella-shaped shieldships falling into orbit around the ice planet and decreasing that orbit with each rotation.
At first, the pilots of those shieldships reported little energy, but then, suddenly, as if the war coordinator had simply flipped a switch, each of the pilots cried out that the energy readings on their honeycombed hulls had suddenly soared. The yammosk had awoken to the threat.
And the coralskipper swarm rose up, not nearly as large as the one that had previously countered the fleet, for Luke’s hope that many would be out on the hunt proved well founded.
“Cover for the shieldships,” Luke called through all channels. “Give them the time they need.” He left it at that, not adding that neither he, nor Anakin who had originally suggested this, nor any of Lando’s scientists who had signed on to the idea, had any notion at all of how long that might be.
Luke’s X-wing led the Falcon and the Jade Sabre into position, protecting one of the shieldships as it worked to deflect the energy back at the planet, while the other fighters similarly went to their positions, some holding defensive arrays while others, using decoy as defense, charged the coralskippers, then vectored away, bringing pursuit after them and thus away from the shieldships.
That would be Luke’s tactic, as well, as soon as he had the other two ships in place, only he intended to take it to a higher level, intended to dive right down into that atmosphere, turbulence, energy, and all,
bringing as many coralskippers as possible to the defense of their immediate home.
* * *
Prefect Da’Gara rushed to join with the yammosk when word sounded of a second attack. At first, the prefect feared that the first attack might have been a ruse, and that this second fleet would prove much larger and stronger, despite all the indications and reports that there were no mighty enemy ships remaining in this region of the galaxy.
When the yammosk communicated to him the truth of the attackers, though, that this force was minuscule compared to the previous one, and that the only notable additions were the giant shieldships, vessels the fleet attacking Destrillion had inspected and, after determining that they were not military, had ignored, Da’Gara was at a loss.
Why would they come back?
The only logical answer seemed to be tied to the escape of the prisoner, Danni Quee. Was this a rescue mission? Was Danni Quee, then, still on the planet?
Was this entire attack merely a ruse to allow the young woman some cover as she tried to get off planet?
And why the giant shieldships?
The yammosk held a theory about that: The enemy was going to try to use these ships to defeat the energy field about the planet, perhaps to turn the energy back on the planet in the hopes of defeating the dovin basal gravity wells or the tracking of the surface cannons. The war coordinator was not worried, for despite the proximity of the great umbrellalike ships and the fact that they were reflecting energy back at the planet, it could still feel the consciousness of the coralskippers, could still guide the battle.
Prefect Da’Gara’s fears went away in the face of the confidence of the war coordinator. In addition, the yammosk sent out the call to the nearest of those coralskipper squadrons that had already departed the system, out hunting.
Even without their return, the war coordinator estimated that the enemy fleet would be repulsed in short order, or utterly destroyed if they stayed in the region even briefly. The biggest danger, then, seemed to be that Danni Quee might find some way to get off planet. That would be unfortunate, Prefect Da’Gara felt, for he had an affinity for the woman and wanted to study her further.
But it really made very little difference. The enemy, in desperation, apparently refusing to admit the truth of their previous routing, had returned, and the outcome this time seemed even more assured.
Thus, when reports that a lone starfighter, an X-wing class, had broken into atmosphere and was running fast and strong low to the planet, Prefect Da’Gara ordered a huge portion of his coralskippers to take it out and, in the process, to conduct a search of the surface for the escaped prisoner.
Maybe they could win again and he could keep Danni.
Luke’s hull sensors, and R2-D2 in back, indicated that the temperature had begun to drop. Not dramatically, but noticeably. The thin air around him was tingling, alive with energy, the yammosk’s own assault combined with the reflective power of the ever lower shieldships. A tremendous fog was coming up from the icy surface of the planet as the energy altered the state of the matter—and, to the heightening of Luke’s optimism, that fog was dissipating almost as fast as it was rising, a mounting cycle of evaporation.
Also, the fog gave him some cover, which he needed. For all of his flying skills, Luke was into it thickly already with a host of coralskippers, the craft spinning and attacking from many angles all at once, acting as a singular opponent.
He didn’t even worry about his laser cannons or his torpedoes. His tactics here were purely evasive, ducking and then rising suddenly in a tight loop, then plunging down the back side of that loop into the fog. Most of his instruments were useless now, caught in the web of pure energy, and so he was flying purely on sight and on instinct, falling to the Force, the one great sensor the energy power of the yammosk couldn’t seem to fully intercept.
Flying in the opaque fog, feeling the mounting cold, and hearing R2-D2 chattering out a host of undecipherable beeps and whistles, Luke cut fast to the side, narrowly avoiding a collision with one coralskipper, then dived down halfway through that snap turn.
Then, knowing the planet was rushing up to squash him, Luke Skywalker pulled for all his life, tightening the turn, hoping he could level off and come around before plunging full speed into the ice.
Jaina felt the adrenaline pumping as the Jade Sabre got into it hot and heavy with the coralskippers. She was piloting, with Mara handling the main guns and Danni Quee trying to help out wherever she could.
Jaina had to use conventional methods rather than the Force to coordinate her flying with that of her escort ship, the Millennium Falcon, for her father was piloting that one. But Han was a great pilot, and Jaina had never before appreciated just how great. He and the Falcon took the point position, with the Jade Sabre running cover for him, and it seemed to Jaina that every turn, every dip, and every rise Han executed put yet another coralskipper into the gun sights of either Jacen at the bottom gun pod, or Anakin thundering away up top.
Even with all of that wondrous flying, though, the Falcon was overmatched, with too many coralskippers buzzing about. Now Han had to use his speed—and trust that Jaina would keep up with the even faster Jade Sabre—to stay ahead of the coralskippers, to keep them chasing him around and leaving the shieldship alone.
And they seemed to be doing that, Jaina noted, with this one and with all the shieldships, as if they didn’t understand the potential danger. Given that level of detachment, she went through a brief moment of doubt, wondering if the plan had any chance at all, if the energy would be enough, if the evaporation would be enough, and if it would even matter to the volcano-warmed water, in any case.
No time to ponder, though, for as the Falcon broke off, the Jade Sabre found herself fully engaged. Now it was Jaina’s turn to show her stuff, and the young pilot went at the task full ahead. She cut a barrel roll, coming out right in the path of a coralskipper, and Mara let the guns fly, blasting the thing apart.
Jaina cut a turn inside the explosion, bringing her about thirty degrees and into another exchange. This time, the coralskipper got off a couple of shots, but the Jade Sabre’s shields handled the hits, and the return fire overwhelmed the smaller craft.
Another turn, another shot. A dive and sudden climb, another shot.
A snap roll, putting them right in line with another approaching craft, and …
Nothing.
Jaina took the missile hits, snap-turning to the side, cutting back onto the course of the Millennium Falcon, which had sped around the far side of the shieldship.
“Why didn’t you take him?” she asked Mara, and when there came no response, Jaina glanced to the side.
Mara was slumped in her seat, her head lolling to the side.
The shock stunned Jaina. She dived over the woman, screaming, “Aunt Mara!” But the situation was too hot for such inattention to the controls.
And so they got hit, again and again, and by the time Jaina could get back to the controls and try to straighten the Jade Sabre out, her shields were nearly gone, and one drive was sputtering, and one bank of attitude jets was shut down.
And the planet was coming up fast.
Jaina fought with all her strength; behind her, Danni rushed onto the bridge, asking what she could do to help.
The Jade Sabre tumbled down, out of control.
Luke pulled with all his strength and cried out for R2-D2 to help him. The droid’s response came back sluggish and undecipherable, though, for R2-D2, outside of the protective canopy, was too cold.
Luke closed his eyes, continuing to pull but expecting to slam into the planet at any second.
The nose came around, slowly, slowly, and back to horizontal, and the X-wing shot along, skimming the surface. But with the deadly ice only a couple of feet below him, Luke could not yet breathe easier.
He fired his repulsor coils just to get some lift, then angled up, zooming out of the fog, back into the swarm of coralskippers. Again he didn’t bother to fire off his lasers, jus
t wriggled and spun, weaving his way through the tangle.
Then he was out of the group, though many had turned on his tail to give chase.
Luke sensed that it was growing colder, that the temperature was dropping faster and faster, though without his sensors, he couldn’t begin to measure the actual rate, or begin to guess the bottom end of that drop or the final effect.
He could only hope.
And then he saw the Jade Sabre spinning down, breaching the atmosphere and dropping out of control, and his heart sank.
Han and Leia brought the Falcon screaming around the edge of the shieldship, guns blazing—and blazing, too, was the converse side of that shieldship, facing the planet, glowing with radiated energy.
Before they could begin to comment on that, though, another sight caught their attention and held it fast, dropping their hearts and their hopes: the Jade Sabre tumbling, disappearing into the atmosphere.
And there was nothing, nothing at all, that they could do for her, for Mara and Danni, for their daughter.
Luke throttled her up to full, estimating an intercept course for the falling ship. He saw her try to straighten, saw one engine straining against the fall, and knew that someone, at least, was still at the controls.
But he knew, too, that whoever that was, the effort would be in vain, for that one drive didn’t have the power to break this momentum in time.
Unless …
Luke pushed his X-wing out to full, angling at an intercept course right below the falling ship. Then he flipped his X-wing over, coming through in a rush, and just as he passed under the Jade Sabre, just before the two ships collided, he fired off every one of his repulsor coils, sending a jolt of propulsion at the underside of that falling ship.
With great satisfaction, Luke spun his ship back over and saw the Jade Sabre climbing again, back off planet. But the maneuver had cost him altitude and had put his momentum, once again, downward. He was confident that he could level off and break the dive, but the situation had changed suddenly, for the atmosphere about him had changed.
