by James Luceno
“You think I wasn’t aware of his emotional state? His feelings were lit up like a landing circle!”
While the two Jedi argued, Ben watched the spaceport security team approach the helpless starfighter. Then he felt a surge of despair from its pilot, despair and determination—
“Get back!” Ben astonished himself with the volume of his scream, with the fact that he was screaming without meaning to, with the fact that he was running forward with no voluntary control of his legs. “Run! Run!”
The security agents froze at his first cry and looked back at him. Apparently the force of will he was projecting and his proximity to Lieutenant Samran were enough for them. They turned away from the Y-wing and began running.
There was a hum from the starfighter, and Ben saw ignition within its missile tubes. There was a sudden expulsion of flame, missiles punching out of their tubes and into the duracrete just in front of the starfighter—
And then the Y-wing exploded, propelled into metallic confetti by a hemispherical wall of flame and concussive force.
As if in slow motion, Ben saw the wall of energy swell out toward him. He dropped to the permacrete-covered ground, wrapped his robe tightly around him, and focused his mind on the blast he could still visualize. He saw the point where it would hit him. He pressed against that spot, willing it to weaken, to slow—
It hit him. He felt himself pushed as if by a giant hand, a hand radiating ferocious heat. He rolled and skidded backward, then came to a stop.
There was no sound. His ears felt as battered as if a wampa had boxed them. But he felt oddly peaceful, as though he had been exercising all morning and was ready for a rest.
Languidly, he threw his robe off his face and stood up.
The Y-wing was gone. Where it had been was a crater, and the duracrete barrier that had stood before it was interrupted by a rough-edged gap many meters long.
The buildings nearest the explosion were still standing, but they leaned away from the source of the blast, their metal skeletons bent, the exterior walls facing the blast dented in or missing entirely.
Everywhere there were bodies, some of them licked by flame, and Ben thought for one cold moment that his effort had been too late. But one of the burning men suddenly began to roll on the ground, smothering the flames rising from his back and shoulders, and a woman a few meters from him stood up on shaky legs.
Ben saw Jacen racing toward him, but then Jacen, seeing that his cousin was not badly hurt, veered off toward victims who were still unmoving.
Ben chose a nearby group of security personnel and moved toward them, his steps unsteady at first, then gaining in balance and sureness as he ran.
An hour later, Ben sat in a hangar. A brightly painted but antiquated shuttle dominated the center of the building. Ben had his back against a corrugated durasteel wall, which flexed slightly as he leaned against it. Other rescue workers sat against the same wall, drinking cups of caf some of their number had provided, exchanging gruesome stories of explosion disasters of the past. Mostly they left Ben alone, but they had brought him caf and told him he’d done well. And now the crisis was over, and the medics and firefighters were resting and replenishing themselves for a few minutes before returning to their respective bases.
Jacen and Nelani reentered the hangar through the main sliding door. They spotted Ben and headed his way. Jacen sat beside his cousin while Nelani remained standing.
“Guess what?” Jacen asked.
Ben could hear him clearly enough now, a very faint ringing in his ears the only remnant of the effects of the explosion. “What?”
“No dead.”
Ben looked at him, startled. “None of them died?”
“Not one. Well, not counting the crazy man in the Y-wing. But it seems that every one of the security men and women will make it. Not one seems to be in critical condition, thanks in part to their body armor, but mostly to you.”
“Lubed,” Ben said.
Nelani said, “While Jacen and I were arguing about procedure, you were doing what a Jedi should—being mindful of the Force.”
“So we get to take note of your example today, instead of the other way around,” Jacen continued. “I also thought you should have a reward.”
“What reward?” Ben asked.
“The rest of the day is yours. Nelani and I are returning to Doctor Rotham’s now. You can accompany us, you can go sightseeing, you can check out a groundspeeder and improve your piloting skills, whatever you like. You have enough credits to get by, and you know how to get to Doctor Rotham’s, I believe.”
Ben nodded. He didn’t let it show on his face, but his mind was spinning—the rest of his day left to his own devices, unsupervised! That was indeed a reward. And, he was dimly aware, it was also a sign of trust. “Thanks,” he said.
Jacen rose. He and Nelani headed back out the way they’d come, heads bowed together as though they were renewing their argument, leaving Ben to figure out what he wanted to do with himself.
Though he didn’t know it, Ben was right: the two Jedi Knights began quarreling again as soon as they reached the exit from the hangar, though they handled their disagreement more civilly than before. “I really wish,” Nelani said, “that you’d given me another minute or two with Huarr. I’m really curious about this ‘Force ghost’ business of his.”
“Students,” Jacen said, in a tone that suggested his one-word argument should settle the whole matter.
“Yes, yes, the students in their quarters were in danger, I’m not disputing that. But couldn’t you have surreptitiously squeezed the ends of his missile launching tubes closed? That way, if he’d fired, same result, but until then, I’d have been able to talk to him. Maybe I could have gotten to the root of his craziness.”
They reached the anonymous gray speeder that had brought them to the spaceport. They hopped in, Nelani behind the controls.
“I suppose I could have,” Jacen admitted. “It didn’t occur to me, and it does beg the question of whether someone who threatens the lives of thousands of innocents deserves any consideration whatsoever.”
“Maybe he deserved consideration for being a war hero.” Nelani activated the repulsors and sent the speeder skyward.
Jacen made a dismissive gesture. “My father is a war hero, too. I don’t recall him ever doing what Huarr did.”
“And Huarr never smuggled spice for Hutt crimelords, either.”
Jacen shook his head. “Sometimes it’s a disadvantage having a father so famous they make holodramas about him.”
Nelani grinned. “With you, I have to exploit any conversational advantage I can get my hands on.”
“You’re definitely not the late-blooming Force-sensitive I taught lightsaber technique to.”
“I’m glad you noticed.”
Jacen ignored that remark, as well as the rather personal tone with which it had been communicated. “It’s time we turned our attention back to Doctor Rotham and those tassels.”
“Not just yet. I’ve been trying to turn your attention to me.”
He grinned. “You really have gotten bolder.”
She nodded. “Learning how to, and having the ability to, cut gundarks in half went a long way toward overcoming my shyness problem. And being a Jedi, the only Jedi assigned to this world, means I have very little time of my own, so I tend to get to the point rather quickly. Does that bother you?”
Jacen shook his head, but kept his attention on the terrain—long banks of warehouses graduating to blocks of low-rent businesses—speeding by beneath their vehicle. “No, but there’s someone …”
“Someone occupying that particular place in your life?”
“Yes.”
She made a chiding noise. “Well, then, let’s just spend a little time together. Which, incidentally, I wanted very badly to suggest seven years ago, when you were teaching me lightsaber technique, but I was too self-conscious.”
Jacen smiled and offered no further explanation.
&nb
sp; Nelani shook her head, a gesture of mild regret, and fell silent.
chapter twenty-six
CORUSCANT
It was like a replay of their first conference from days earlier, with Cal Omas, Admiral Pellaeon, and Admiral Niathal occupying the same seats at the conference table when Luke was escorted into the chamber. They and their aides looked up as the Jedi Master entered, and even before he seated himself, Omas said, “So it appears you have good news for us.”
Luke looked startled. “What makes you think that? If I may ask.”
“Your expression,” Omas said. “You were smiling. In these times, a smile from a Jedi is a hopeful sign.”
“Oh.” Luke let his expression fall into more serious lines. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mislead you. I just had some good news about my boy, Ben. He managed to save a number of lives on Lorrd just a few hours ago.”
Niathal nodded, her protruding eyes surprisingly adept at projecting cool displeasure. “Admirable. I’m sure he’ll grow up into a fine Jedi Knight … years and years from now, when this new Corellian crisis is behind us. For now, though—”
“For now,” Pellaeon interrupted, “we could use some more universal hopeful signs from the Jedi.”
“I’m not sure about hopeful,” Luke said. “Useful, perhaps. As you probably saw in the report I forwarded, there’s little doubt that Thrackan Sal-Solo sabotaged the Toryaz Station conference—or, at least, through his inaction permitted it to be sabotaged.”
Omas’s mouth turned downward. “Unfortunately, the difference between those two behaviors is the difference between the most serious sort of crime and a noncrime.”
“Noncrime.” Luke looked appalled. “You’re joking.”
“No.” Omas, for this moment, looked like a man impervious to humor—certainly not a generator of amusement. “Assuming that he did not pay for the information offered in the message he received, can you prove that he took the message seriously? That it was credible to him? Because he can always claim that he did not consider it a credible offer, that it was a communication from a crank, and therefore did not need to be acted on in any capacity.”
Luke shook his head, unhappy to be thwarted by so negligible an obstacle. “Still, if a strike team were able to capture him and bring him to Coruscant, a criminal trial based on the assumption that he did buy the information could drag on for months. Or longer. Keeping Sal-Solo out of commission during all that time. And that would be a boon to the peace process.”
The others exchanged glances. “That,” Niathal said, “is a far more pragmatic suggestion than I expected from a Jedi. I like it.”
Luke leaned back. “Jedi are among the most pragmatic beings in the galaxy. We tend to operate under the assumption that it’s better to get things done than to observe all the niceties—we consider justice to be of more consequence than law, for instance. Even justice is often overrated. Sometimes the imposition of justice prevents redemption.”
“We’ll consider that recommendation,” Omas said. “But we have to consider it against the precedent it sets. If we kidnap a planetary ruler, even a subruler who theoretically still belongs to our own government structure, despite our evident right to bring a suspected criminal into custody for trial, it opens a pragmatic precedent for the kidnapping of rulers within the Galactic Alliance. I might, in effect, be setting the stage for my own eventual kidnapping.”
“We might have the blessing—even the unofficial blessing—of Sal-Solo’s chief rival on this,” Luke said. “My sister reports a surreptitious meeting with Prime Minister Denjax Teppler, and a subtext of the meeting was apparently Teppler’s concern that he’ll survive, both politically and as a living being, only so long as Sal-Solo views him as an asset.”
Pellaeon snorted, his expression amused but derisive. “That’s what I love about politics,” he said. “We and a Corellian puppet ruler might have to conspire to remove a politician who’s an impediment to us both before we can make headway in the peace process. How much sense does that make?”
Luke spread his hands, palms up. “I can’t always make sense at the tables of politics. Let’s see … I’ve finished bringing the underaged Jedi trainees off Corellia, removing them as potential targets for retaliation. Mara came away from Coronet with information about Corellian midlevel government officers that you might be able to use as leverage on them—a matter for Intelligence. My report included evaluations from many of the Jedi elsewhere in the galaxy, all pointing to a rise in support of Corellia’s position in specific planetary systems. And that’s most of what I had to report.”
Pellaeon nodded, his manner brisk. “Were you planning to remain on Coruscant, or return to Corellia and resume control of your squadron?”
“I was planning to return to Tralus.”
“We would appreciate it if you would stay here for a few days more, until we have a better sense of how the Jedi would best be posted during this crisis.”
Luke nodded. “As you wish.”
“And I’m sorry about your boy.”
Luke’s eyebrows rose. “Sorry?”
“I don’t mean about his accomplishment. I mean about his involvement.” Pellaeon gave Luke a wry smile. “The young go through wars and think that the experience is enough to teach them to fear such conflicts. And then, years later, their children go to war, and suddenly the parents learn what fear really means.”
“True enough,” Luke said, and, taking Pellaeon’s words as the beginning of a dismissal, rose. “And I’m glad that you’re still able to comprehend that fear.”
CORELLIAN SYSTEM, ABOVE TRALUS
“He’s on our tail! He’s on our tail!”
Syal Antilles didn’t reply to the Sullustan gunner’s musical, trilling shout. She simply slapped the control yoke to the left.
The Aleph-class starfighter didn’t bank to port. Instead, there was a kick to the starfighter’s side as thruster ports all along the starboard hull vented energy. The starfighter slipped to port, its orientation and forward speed not noticeably changing. Syal slapped down on the yoke’s top and the Aleph lurched again, this time dropping with stomach-jolting suddenness several meters as ports on the top of the hull vented.
Laserfire from behind raked through empty space to the starboard side of the Aleph, then traversed to port but missed the starfighter again as it dropped.
Zueb Zan, the Sullustan in the cockpit’s right-hand seat, finally got the Aleph’s starboard-side turret spun around and facing aft. A graphic image of the X-wing pursuing the Aleph jittered briefly in Zueb’s targeting brackets. The Sullustan fired, and red wire-image versions of laser blasts converged on the X-wing. In the monitor showing Syal and Zueb a holocam view of the Aleph’s stern, they could see a live feed of the real laser beams hitting the real X-wing, but the beams were pallid, far below combat strength, and the snubfighter’s shields soaked them up without difficulty.
“That’s a confirmed kill,” the X-wing pilot reported. “Good job, Antilles. Zan.”
“Thank you, sir,” Syal responded, mechanically. She began a quick check of her diagnostics boards, all but ignored during the mock battle, and saw no impairment to the Aleph’s fighting abilities other than a slight energy drain from shield and laser usage.
The X-wing accelerated in a way the Aleph never could, causing Syal to bite her lip in envy, and pulled up to the Aleph’s starboard side. “Opinions?” the pilot transmitted.
“I’m still not used to the lateral thrusters,” Syal said. She worked hard to keep a tone of complaint from creeping into her voice, though complaining was precisely what she wanted to do. “It’s just not the same as high-speed jinking.”
“Maybe not,” the X-wing pilot said, “but you’re handling them very well. You made me miss you. Zan?”
The Sullustan considered. “Starboard turret sticks,” he said. “If it keeps doing that, we’re going to get our butts shot off.”
“Well, talk to your chief mechanic.”
The Sullustan
’s lips twisted, an expression of dissatisfaction. “Wanted to know if turrets on the other Alephs were sticking. If so, bad sign.”
“I’ll ask. All right, this run is done. Bring her in.” The X-wing abruptly veered away, banking back toward Tralus and the vessels orbiting her, including the Mon Cal carrier Blue Diver, Syal’s new home.
Jealous, Syal watched the nimbler snubfighter maneuver. She slowly began to turn in its wake. Her Aleph starfighter was capable of getting up to tremendous speeds—Eta-5 interceptor speeds—in atmosphere, but was so much more massive than the sort of craft she used to fly that simple banking maneuvers took much longer. The lateral thrusters with which she’d been dodging incoming fire just weren’t the same as native nimbleness. She clicked her comm board over to receive only and said, “I still hate it.”
“Me, too.” Zueb nodded vigorously, causing the fleshy folds of his face to wobble.
“It’s like flying a freight speeder. Which I’ve done.”
“On Corellia?”
Syal nodded. “Just a job. To save up credits for my education.”
“Your father is a famous retired general and you have to pay for your own education?”
“Not exactly. Every credit I put into my education fund, he matched with four. But I had to earn. That’s the Antilles way: no easy path.” Oriented on a course to intercept Blue Diver’s orbit, she switched control over to the black-and-yellow R2 astromech situated in the well between and behind the pilot and gunner’s seats. “By the way, thanks.”
“For?”
“Not making a deal of my being Corellian. Or being a famous general’s daughter.”
Zueb waved her remarks away. “I’m taking long view. You’re not Corellian daughter of famous general. He’s father of famous Twee test pilot. Just wait.”
Syal grinned. “I like your attitude.”
Test pilot. Her father had done some of that, too, over the years, but probably hadn’t done so in a vehicle like the Aleph. By comparison with the X-wings that her father so loved, the Aleph-class starfighters were flying tanks. Heavily armored two-crew craft with overbuilt generators, the Alephs had been designed in the last months of the Yuuzhan Vong war, more than a decade before, as a one-to-one match for the Yuuzhan Vong coralskipper, a massive single-pilot organic starfighter protected by thick shells and by voids, mobile singularities that could slide in front of incoming lasers or missiles and swallow them completely.
