The niggling thought that even the sharpest teeth could be blunted with time followed her as Jade Shadow raced through hyperspace to the rendezvous point.
Jacen took the navigator’s seat in Jade Shadow’s cockpit when they emerged from hyperspace a discreet distance from Yaga Minor. The planet was known for shipyards that serviced the Imperial Remnant, and via the screens he looked on, impressed, at the vast orbital frameworks that dwarfed Yaga Minor’s single, small moon. Everything from microwelders to self-contained ore smelters was being used to create ships for the ever-growing fleet. Two half-completed Star Destroyers hung in the spindly embrace of one of the shipyards; the others were in the process of building various freighters, frigates, tugs, and TIE fighters. An engine-testing range near one of the yards flashed every color of the rainbow—and beyond—as vessels ran through their paces before being released into service.
When Jade Shadow arrived, the remains of the fleet stationed around the Imperial capital and its neighbor, Muunilinst, were slowly coming into orbit around Yaga Minor—disheartened by the retreat but determined to fight back. The first of the survivors docked their ships alongside the Golan III Defense Platforms orbiting the planet, while those needing repairs headed for the yards. It wasn’t long, though, before the available berths were full. Yaga Minor wasn’t designed to accommodate the entire fleet at once, not even one reduced by the surprise attack on Bastion.
Jade Shadow’s long-range sensors detected three Star Destroyers arriving from Bastion, neither of them Chimaera or Superior. Jacen waited anxiously for any sign of Gilad Pellaeon. If the Grand Admiral didn’t survive the battle of Bastion, Jacen didn’t fancy their chances of bringing around the Imperials. Pellaeon had so often been the voice of reason in the proud isolationist state. If anyone was going to convince the Moffs to join the Galactic Alliance, it was going to have to be him.
“How long do we wait for him to appear?” Danni asked Jacen quietly from behind, not wanting to startle him. She still looked nervous. Their escape from Bastion had been much narrower than Mara had let on, he knew, and Danni was Force-sensitive enough to have guessed it. Indeed, their trip thus far, from Mon Calamari across Yuuzhan Vong-occupied territory, had been enough to put anyone on edge. Once he would have felt safe upon reaching the Imperial Remnant, but the attack on Bastion had dispelled that comfort.
“To be honest,” he said, “I don’t know. What I do know, though, is that Gilad Pellaeon is a survivor. If he can get out of there, he will.”
Proximity alarms bleeped and Jacen turned his attention to his aunt’s voice as she explained who they were to a squadron of TIE fighters that had noticed Jade Shadow lurking in the planet’s outer orbits. But there was none of the usual Imperial hostility in the squadron leader’s voice, as he was expecting. If anything, the pilot seemed relieved that Jade Shadow wasn’t an advance vessel from the Yuuzhan Vong, scoping out Yaga Minor for the next wave.
My enemy’s enemy is my friend, Jacen reminded himself. If Gilad Pellaeon didn’t make it, then at least they would have that going in their favor.
His relief was short-lived, however, when another call came over the subspace band.
“Unauthorized vehicle identifying itself as Jade Shadow,” said the deep, guttural voice through the comm unit. In his voice Jacen detected nothing but officiousness. “Please respond.”
“This is Jade Shadow,” Mara replied. “What is it now?”
“You are required to state your intentions and prepare to be boarded.”
“What? We’re on a peaceful mission.”
“That remains to be seen,” the voice continued. “Do as you’re told immediately or your engines will be disabled.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Mara snarled. “Who am I talking to? Which idiot sent you?”
“I am Commander Keten and I represent Moff Flennic of Yaga Minor. You are violating Imperial space and will be fired upon if you do not obey its regulations.”
Now this was more what Jacen had come to expect of the Imperials. He moved back through to the cockpit to find Luke and Mara conferring over how to respond to the commander’s demands. Through the massive transparisteel canopy, Jacen saw an armed Imperial transport moving to match orbits, accompanied by a dozen TIE fighters.
“What do you want to do?” Luke was saying.
Mara looked uncertain. “I don’t know. I need time to think.”
“Time we don’t have, my love,” Luke said.
“I don’t see what the problem is,” Jacen put in. “Why not just let them board? It’s not as though we have anything to hide.”
Luke nodded. “He’s right, Mara. And it will be a gesture of goodwill, besides.”
Jacen felt warmed by his uncle’s support. Mara, however, was not as convinced. She shook her head, rejecting the idea.
“I know Flennic’s type,” she said. “He’ll have a chip on his shoulder bigger than a Super Star Destroyer. Let him get ahold of us and we’ll end up in some shipyard sweatshop for the rest of our lives.”
“Which might not be that long if the Yuuzhan Vong keep coming this way,” Luke returned wryly.
“Please respond immediately,” the commander said shortly. “Or we will be forced to take action.”
A smile touched Mara’s lips as an idea sprang to mind. “With the Jedi we have on board, all we have to do is get Keten here and we can make the problem go away.”
Into the comm unit, she said: “We see your point, Commander. Our passenger space is limited, but we’d be pleased to welcome you aboard. When you see for your own eyes that—”
Keten cut her off with a chuckle. “You don’t honestly think that I’d be the one coming aboard, do you? I’d sooner stick my head in a drive tube than take my chances with your Jedi mind tricks. No, the boarding party will consist solely of Mark Five security droids.”
Mara cursed under her breath. “Well, there goes that idea.”
“You can hardly blame him for being suspicious,” Jacen said. “You were intending to use those Jedi mind tricks, after all.”
His uncle sighed. “Well, we can’t very well turn him down now,” he said. “Not after agreeing to be boarded.”
The communicator bleeped. Another transport was edging closer.
“This is Captain Yage of Widowmaker,” a woman’s voice said over the comm. “Commander Keten, you may stand down. I shall be boarding this vessel myself, seeing as you will not.”
“But Captain—” Keten started.
Yage cut him off sharply. “May I remind you, Commander, that right here and now I outrank you,” she said. “I am ordering you to stand down, and I expect you to comply without debate.”
There was a long pause before Keten finally came back with, “I shall submit to your authority, Captain, but I would like it to go on record that I do so under protest.”
“Duly noted, Commander,” Yage said. “Yage out.”
The armed transport and its contingent of fighters accelerated to a lower orbit, leaving Jade Shadow to face the new arrival.
“Requesting permission to dock, Jade Shadow,” Captain Yage said over the comm.
“The same Captain Yage Pellaeon told us to look out for,” Luke reminded Mara.
“That’s not the highest recommendation,” Mara said, “but it will have to do.” Speaking into the communicator, she said: “Feel free to match velocities and extend your umbilical, Captain. Welcome aboard.”
Jacen went back through the ship to ready the air lock. Jade Shadow was relatively cramped, given the extra equipment she had been fitted with along with the supplies required for their extended mission. There were five staterooms, a passenger bay, a galley, and a common area leading off a central, looping corridor. The bridge and common room were the diamonds in the corridor’s ring. The main air lock hatch with its dummy door was located on the port side.
As he passed through the passenger bay, he was met by Danni coming the other way.
“Is everything okay?” she asked qui
ckly as he passed.
“Better than it could have been,” he said. “I’m just going to greet the locals now.”
He hesitated at the entrance to the main corridor, looking back at the scientist. So far throughout the trip, Danni hadn’t really had a chance to contribute in any way. He couldn’t blame her for looking and sounding so anxious.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to join me, would you?” he asked.
Her worried expression dissolved into a grateful smile as she followed him out of the passenger bay, obviously pleased to be finally doing something. When they reached the air lock, Jacen double-checked that his lightsaber was at his side, just in case this Captain Yage was not as reliable as Pellaeon had suggested she would be. From the corner of his eye he caught Danni watching him. He faced her fully when he saw the apprehension on her face.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Why do I keep allowing myself to get talked into these things, Jacen?”
He frowned, confused. “I didn’t think I talked you into anything,” he said. “I just thought you might like to come along and greet—”
“No, not here!” she said. “Here—on this mission.”
Jacen nodded, understanding the core of her reservations. “The locals can’t be that bad, can they?” He tried to ease her concerns with a smile.
She shrugged. “I’ve never actually met Imperials before. But I do remember the stories my parents used to tell me.” She paused, her eyes flitting nervously from the air lock to Jacen. “They can’t all be monsters, can they?”
“No. They’re human, Danni, just like us.” He leaned against the bulkhead next to her, enjoying the momentary quiet the two of them had been granted. “You know, I wonder sometimes what it’ll be like when the war is over. What do you suppose we’ll do when we’re not being asked to do stuff like this?”
“We’ll go back to doing whatever it was we did before all of this started, I guess,” she said.
He laughed a little at this. “It’s been so long now that those days before the Yuuzhan Vong arrived are starting to blur. It gets harder and harder each day to recall just what it was like back then.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” she said. “A break with the past. If we can get the Empire to join up, that’ll make the Galactic Alliance something truly new. Who knows? We might just find galactic unity yet.”
“That’s all well and good,” he said, “but I wonder about the small things, too. What I’ll do, not just what happens to the galaxy.”
“You’ll do what Jedi Knights seem to do best,” she said. He studied her for a second. “Which is?”
“Get into trouble, of course,” she said. Despite her nervousness, she forced a smile.
He smiled in return, glad that her mood had lightened. “I’d just as happily settle for a quiet life somewhere. There’s a lot left to think about. A lifetime or two’s worth, in fact.”
“It could get lonely.”
“It could indeed.” He thought it nothing more than a flip comment until his gaze met hers. Suddenly he found it hard to look away.
“Jacen?” Mara’s voice from his comlink snapped him out of it.
“Yeah,” he said, straightening. “I’m here.”
“Ten seconds,” she said. “I’ll disarm the outer hatch when the umbilical is pressurized.”
A moment later a dull thud echoed through the hull as the Imperial transport sealed an umbilical to attach the two craft. Pressure readings on the far side of the air lock rose steadily once the noise died away. Less than a minute later, Jacen heard a gentle hiss as the air lock broke its seal and swung open.
He glanced at Danni. Her face was set in a determined mask, with no sign of the vulnerability he had sensed a moment before. But she tensed noticeably as three people in Imperial uniform stepped through the air lock. The one in the lead, a solidly built woman in her forties with black hair bound tightly into a bun, Jacen assumed to be Captain Yage, with the two male officers following close behind, their blaster rifles at the ready, her bodyguards.
“Welcome aboard Jade Shadow,” Jacen said pleasantly, stepping forward. He introduced himself and Danni, keeping his hands respectfully behind his back at all times. Yage bowed perfunctorily to each of them in turn, but made no effort to introduce her male companions. “We’d like to thank you for your assistance back there.”
“Not at all,” the captain said. “I have never been fond of time-wasting bureaucracy—particularly from the likes of officious idiots like Keten.” She smiled tightly. “That’s off the record, of course.”
“Of course.” Jacen waved the guests through to the common area, where Mara and Luke stood, ready to greet them. Off to one side stood Saba and Tekli. Jacen noted the way Yage’s bodyguards started in alarm at the sight of the enormous Barabel, their rifles rising slightly. Yage was startled also, he was sure, but she was professional enough to suppress any sign of her surprise. Saba rumbled slightly in her throat, and the troopers lowered their weapons.
Yage inclined her head politely to the two nonhumans when introduced, but quickly returned her attention to Luke and Mara.
“So at last I meet the legendary Skywalkers,” she said, stepping forward to shake their hands. “I’ve certainly heard a lot about you.”
“All untrue, I’m sure,” Mara said pleasantly.
“I hope not. Gilad speaks very highly of you both.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard if Grand Admiral Pellaeon has returned from Bastion,” Luke said.
A shadow seemed to pass across Captain Yage’s face. “I’m afraid that Fleet Intelligence is in disarray following the Yuuzhan Vong’s attack.”
“Have you learned anything more about how the enemy managed to do so much damage so quickly?”
“I already know why. We were taken disgracefully off guard by the attack. Our spies had reported that the fleet approaching us was headed for Nirauan, not here at all, but I guess our spies weren’t as reliable as we’d thought. Even so, we should have been ready. Anyone with half a brain should have seen the flaw in the reasoning that, if we hadn’t been attacked yet, we were unlikely to be attacked at all. Our refusal to join with the rest of the galaxy in resisting didn’t make us safe. That type of logic didn’t work for the Hutts, so why should it have worked for us?”
“It seems to me,” Mara said, “that you’re paying the price for the council’s lack of foresight.”
“Perhaps now the Moffs will see reason,” Jacen added.
Yage half turned to look at him. “You think so? You’ve already seen what Moff Flennic thinks of you. He might try to resist the Yuuzhan Vong, but he’ll never join the people who took the Empire away from him.” She looked at each of them in turn, her gaze finally coming to rest on Luke. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To try again to get us to join you. We already have a treaty. What more do you want?”
“Ideally,” Luke said, “we’d like the Empire to become part of the Galactic Alliance—but that’s one for our respective legal representatives to argue out. For now we’d simply like us to agree to help each other before we continue on with—”
“We can fight well enough without your help,” Yage quickly pointed out. She may have been more courteous and diplomatic than Keten, but she still carried the Imperial pride. “We’re ready for them now.”
“You won’t get far using your existing techniques,” Mara said. “Our greatest minds have been working on a way to counterattack using the yammosks that make the Yuuzhan Vong so hard to beat. We can give you those techniques—”
“In exchange for what?” the captain interrupted, a slight suspicion gently curling the corners of her mouth.
“Absolutely nothing,” Luke said. “I’m not a diplomat, Captain. I’m a Jedi, I stand for life and peace, and I would never hold anything back for the sake of political point scoring. I’d rather get about the business of saving lives.”
A thrill went through Jacen at his uncle and f
ormer teacher’s words. They rang true to the new philosophy of the Force that he was trying to determine. Captain Yage, however, was not as easily impressed, and raised a skeptical eyebrow at the Jedi Master.
“Don’t Yuuzhan Vong lives count to you, Jedi?” she asked.
Luke didn’t recoil from her response. “The Yuuzhan Vong are the aggressors, and our help won’t guarantee their defeat. What you do with this information is up to you.”
“To be honest, Skywalker, if it was up to me, I’d use it quite happily,” she said. “But things will be grim without Gilad to champion your cause. The hard-liners will always believe that the Empire in its glory days could have withstood the invaders with ease, and that your weakening of our strength has led directly to our destruction. If destroyed we must be, then we will go down with pride.” Her voice was steeped in bitterness. “The last refugees from Bastion arrived some time ago. We’re not expecting any more. If Gilad had survived, I’m sure he would have been here by now. With that in mind, you might be better off assuming that he won’t be here to help you.”
The mood in Jade Shadow turned instantly grim. “Then we shall need to make alternative plans,” Luke said. “We’ll need to talk to Flennic, even if he’s not prepared to listen to us. Can you get us to him without turning us over to the likes of Keten?”
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I can try,” she said. “With Gilad out of the way, the anti-Galactic Alliance forces will be in ascendance. Add to that the fact that the Moff Council will be in tatters after the attacks on Bastion and Muunilinst, and you’ll see why I hesitate to guarantee you anything at the—” She stopped as her comlink buzzed. “Excuse me.”
Captain Yage turned away to take the call, exchanging a few simple words with the person on the other end. Before she had finished talking, before he had even seen her face, Jacen knew something was wrong. He could sense a powerful emotion radiating from her.
“What’s gone wrong?” he asked when she clipped the comlink back on her belt.
Remnant: Force Heretic I Page 12
