Vector Prime

by R. A. Salvatore

  All the frequencies jammed with cries from the escorting starfighters and cruisers, screams that shields were gone, calls for help.

  Another glittering explosion filled the Falcon’s viewscreen, a cruiser blasted apart. And then another, smaller, as a starfighter got cut to pieces.

  “What’s taking them so long?” Han growled, aiming his frustration at Lando.

  Lando held up his hands helplessly. “I don’t even know what we’re trying to do,” he insisted.

  “Threepio, you got any answers?” Leia started to ask, but she ended with a scream, and Han yelled, “Left!” as a group of coralskippers rose up before them suddenly, firing away.

  The top cannons thundered a response, and Jacen, in the lower pod, got one and then another. But there were too many, and they were flying too well, crossing each others’ trails with such precision and coordination that the Falcon’s gunners couldn’t find many open shots.

  Han winced as the Falcon jolted from hit after hit. “Come on!” he growled at his console when the shields went away, momentarily, and the lights blinked.

  Another shieldship, this one on the back side of the planet from the Falcon, exploded.

  “We should break off,” Lando remarked.

  “We can’t,” Leia retorted sharply. “This is our chance.”

  A third shieldship went away, and that chance seemed a longer shot by far at that moment.

  But then a pair of coralskippers, in opposing spins before the Falcon, came together with a devastating explosion.

  “Nice shot,” Han called.

  “I didn’t,” Anakin replied.

  “Me, neither,” Jacen said.

  Han and Leia looked at each other, then at Lando.

  Another pair of coralskippers nicked in a close cross, both spinning off wildly. To one side, Anakin blasted apart one enemy fighter, and then another, and then another, and Jacen got one on the other flank.

  The calls from the other ships filling the channels seemed to reflect similar, sudden successes.

  “It’s working,” Leia breathed.

  “We’re still outnumbered,” Han reminded, and as a poignant exclamation point to his remark, a fourth shieldship blew apart.

  Han put the Falcon up on end, cannons blazing as it zoomed through a host of coralskippers.

  “Turn her back!” Anakin called. “We can get every one of them before they get near our shieldship.”

  But none of the three in the cockpit were even listening, nor was Jacen, who had stopped shooting. They all just stared ahead, at the planet.

  The fog around the planet lifted, the view of the icy world becoming more and more clear, until within a span of seconds, there was not a wisp of vapor in its atmosphere.

  Han’s breath came back to him, and Leia gasped in delight as a familiar form grew before them, the Jade Sabre breaking out.

  Before they could even begin to call out to Jaina, though, the planet seemed to grow fuzzy and distorted, as if they were looking at it through a glass globe.

  “The Mezzicanley Wave!” Anakin squealed. “The fourth state of matter! It’s got to be freezing below it. The water’s got to be solidifying, at least!”

  “That’s why these guys can’t coordinate their attack anymore,” Jacen added. “Their war coordinator’s in a deep freeze.”

  Indeed, many of the coralskippers, confused perhaps, had broken from the battle and were zooming back toward the planet, presumably to protect their base. And as Han and the others watched, the planet’s rotation slowed, and slowed even more.

  “Unbelievable,” Han muttered.

  “It won’t last for long,” Jacen explained. “The energy’s gone, so the evaporation’s done.”

  “And what happens when the planet starts up again?” Han asked ominously.

  “Well, with the expansion created by the ice . . . ,” Jacen began, and that was enough for Han, who got a typically bad feeling about this.

  “Luke,” Leia whispered breathlessly.

  “Get out of here! Get out of here!” Han cried through all channels. “Full retreat!” And despite Leia’s continuing plea for her missing brother, Han brought the Falcon screaming around, pointed her nose away from the fourth planet—which was beginning to rotate faster again—and punched the throttle, slowing only long enough for the Jade Sabre to come zooming by.

  It hit Han then, and hard. The reality of what he was doing, of his retreat, so much like the retreat Anakin had pulled on Sernpidal, leaving Chewie behind. He almost turned the Falcon back around, plunging toward the planet in a desperate search for Luke.

  Almost.

  But he could not. If he had been alone, then there would have been no hesitation, but he was not alone, was responsible for more lives than his own.

  As Anakin had been.

  All the rest of the fleet broke off, too, turning tail and running, with the shieldship tug pilots releasing their lumbering shields and running off for all their lives.

  Great quakes rocked the surface of the planet; a chasm appeared, a long canal exploding and running with supersonic speed from pole to pole.

  And then the whole planet blew, a shattering, sparkling explosion of ice crystals, spinning out, catching the Helskan sun’s rays in a myriad of sparkles and colors.

  Out of that widening cloud came a single black speck, a single X-wing running with all speed, surfing on the very edge of an overpowering wave.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Connection and Coincidence

  “Oh, vocalize!” Luke heard C-3PO say to R2-D2 as he walked back to the room Lando had given him and Mara back on Dubrillion. He rounded the corner, coming in sight of the droids, just as C-3PO bonked R2-D2 on the dome.

  R2-D2 responded with what should have been a long and single-noted “ooooo,” but it came out as “oo . . . oo . . . oo . . . ee.”

  “He’s just being stubborn, Master Luke,” C-3PO insisted, and he moved to bonk R2-D2 again, but Luke, barely containing his smile, moved over and caught the protocol droid by the arm.

  “I don’t think Artoo has recovered from our flight through the cold and ice,” Luke explained.

  “Beeoo . . . ee . . . oo,” R2-D2 agreed.

  “I think he’s got the hiccups,” Luke added with a wink, and he headed away, straight for his room. The fight with the scattered Yuuzhan Vong forces was going quite well. Many had been destroyed with the planet, for many had swooped down in a foolish attempt to protect their home base and had not escaped the blast; and more importantly, the binding force that was the war coordinator was gone. Now the remaining enemy forces were no more than rogue squadrons, and Kyp Durron, among many, many others, including considerable firepower from the New Republic, was out on the hunt.

  At least he could rest easy that the mop-up of the Praetorite Vong was in good hands, Luke thought as he entered the room. Mara wasn’t there, and he had to work hard to suppress the urge to go and find her. She hadn’t recovered from the ordeals of the past weeks, particularly from the spell that had come over her in the last battle. Her illness was winning now, Luke knew, and as far as Mara was concerned, her battle had to be a private thing. That pained Luke profoundly, the helplessness, standing by and watching the woman he loved so dearly fight against this inner monstrosity.

  Luke turned his thoughts outward. He couldn’t help in the private struggle, perhaps, but what about the more general fight? He held up a vial, one containing the molecular-transformation beetle they had pulled from Belkadan. Mara had felt within her a definite attraction for the thing, as if her disease had reached out to it. That sensitivity might have been misinterpreted, Luke realized. Mara might have been reacting to the fact that she merely felt sicker in the sick climate of the transformed Belkadan. Or it might have been well founded. Was it connection or coincidence that the disease within Mara and the others had shown up when it did, so near to an extragalactic invasion? Was it an inadvertent—or perhaps even purposeful—insinuation of some foreign disease into the galaxy by the Yuuz
han Vong?

  Luke didn’t know, but he intended to try, at least, to find out. If there was some way, any way, that he could help his beloved wife, then he had to try.

  He bowed his head and closed his eyes, strengthening his resolve. He had so many important issues to attend, the resurrection of the Jedi Council not the least of them. He had to operate on so many levels now, as statesman, diplomat, warrior, scientist, and husband. Mara had talked seriously about flying away for a while, of going to Dagobah, perhaps, or some other wild and Force-filled place, where she could find an even deeper level of meditation, an even deeper understanding of these things happening within her. Luke, of course, had offered to go with her, but she had politely, but firmly, refused.

  This was her fight—this part of it, at least.

  Luke blew a long and helpless sigh.

  In a room down the hall, Leia Solo packed her belongings. She, too, had so much work ahead of her, she knew. She had seen these extragalactic aliens, the Yuuzhan Vong, up close, and understood that the threat, though apparently ended on any large scale, could not be ignored. There might be other invasion forces, other war coordinators with even larger forces at their disposal—and next time, they might not be fortunate to find such an enemy so unwittingly vulnerable beneath the ice crust of a watery world.

  Leia appreciated how close they had come to complete disaster, how easily, had they not found a way to destroy the planet, the Praetorite Vong might have marched across the galaxy, one sector at a time, with the New Republic never really coordinating enough firepower to stop them, and with the stubborn and often ignorant councilors of the New Republic never really understanding until it was too late that they had to pay attention to this threat.

  That would be Leia’s job now, her unavoidable duty despite her personal preference to stay out of it all. She had three children who, though they had proven themselves quite capable, even heroic, surely needed her. She had a sister-in-law battling in the fight of her life, and a brother who might need her support.

  And she had a grieving husband, a man devastated by the loss of his dearest friend.

  But wouldn’t all of that be moot if the Yuuzhan Vong came back, in stronger numbers and better prepared, and the New Republic wasn’t ready to meet them?

  “Ambassador Leia,” the woman whispered, not liking but grudgingly accepting the seemingly inevitable title, one that the council would bestow upon her, declaring her to be an ambassador of Dubrillion and the nearby sectors, including the Helska system, of the Outer Rim.

  She could only hope Borsk Fey’lya and his cronies would listen.

  Halfway across the galaxy, another representative set about his latest task.

  Nom Anor knew of the disaster of the Praetorite Vong. He heard the stories coming in from the Outer Rim, and that, combined with his inability to contact either Yomin Carr or Da’Gara, confirmed to him that the invasion force had been battered and scattered.

  Now there were Yuuzhan Vong warriors running throughout the galaxy, and he had no way to control them. He had done his part for Da’Gara and the yammosk, had kept the main bulk of enemy warships paralyzed here at the Core and hardly turning their eyes to events at the Outer Rim. And still, the war coordinator, the Praetorite Vong, had failed.

  At first, Nom Anor feared that his people might have underestimated their enemies, but then, as more complete reports of the truth of the disaster had rolled in, he came to understand that ill fate alone had ruined the day.

  But it was not over, Nom Anor knew. Not at all. The Praetorite Vong was but a fraction of what his people could throw this way.

  Now the Yuuzhan Vong executor went back to his work. He was on a small planet, a relatively unknown piece of real estate, but one with a brewing civil war and a mounting hatred for the New Republic.

  He’d stir that brew.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Eulogy

  The Millennium Falcon glided in quietly and slowly, the dead ball that had been Sernpidal wobbling before them, off balance, off its orbit.

  Leia stood beside Han on the bridge, saying nothing, allowing him this moment of solitude and reflection.

  And he needed it. He had spent the last days keeping himself too busy to face this inevitable moment, had tried to avoid it in the hopes that time would lessen the pain.

  It hadn’t. Not a bit. Looking down there, at the last place he had seen Chewbacca alive, Han could find no escape and no reprieve. Now he did think of his friend, fully. He pictured so many of the moments he had spent with Chewie, mostly expressions on the Wookiee’s face, or a particular, peculiar howl, and no specific events. The events didn’t seem important. Just the inflections in Chewie’s voice, the looks he gave to Han, often argumentative, always with respect and honest love.

  Han glanced over at Chewie’s empty copilot seat, seeing his friend there again in his mind’s eye, picturing him clearly, so vividly, and forcing it even deeper, focusing a mental image of Chewbacca so crystalline clear that he almost fostered the sudden belief that he could will the Wookiee back from the dead, that because he, Han, couldn’t accept the loss, it couldn’t be so.

  But it was, and Chewie was gone, and Chewie wasn’t coming back.

  And those images continued: Chewie running back from the gun pod; Chewie chasing Anakin down the landing ramp on Coruscant after yet another misfiring of the repulsor coil; Chewie hoisting all three of Han’s kids high into the air, not so many years ago, when they were not so little, just to prove that he could still do it. Han saw his favorite cap sitting under the copilot console, a cap Leia had given to him not long after the birth of the twins, emblazoned with the stitching Congratulations, it’s a BOTH! on the front. How many times had Chewie stolen that old and ragged cap recently, plopping it on his furry head, stretching the band.

  Han reached down and picked it up then, and turned it over, seeing the brownish blond hair of his Wookiee friend plastered inside.

  All those memories drifting by, and always ending with the same, stark realization that there would be no more of them, that the book was closed, that those hairs on the cap were the last ones Chewie would ever put there.

  With the typical protectiveness of a father and husband, Han’s thoughts drifted to his children. He had caught them many times over the last couple of days blinking back tears, staring off into space, and he didn’t have to ask them what they were thinking about. It was worse for Jaina and Jacen, he knew, and though that truth first surprised him, he came to understand it. Anakin was fifteen, a very personal and selfish age, and even with the added weight of guilt over Chewie’s death hanging on his shoulders, the boy was too personally absorbed to fully appreciate the reality of the loss. The twins, though, had gone past that egocentric view of the universe, had a better-developed sense of empathy. And so Han had gone to his kids, all three, individually, and had told them all the comforting clichés that everyone heard through their youth whenever a loved one was lost.

  How much emptier those words seemed to him now, coming from himself!

  For a moment, after each session with his mourning kids, Han wanted to be the little one again, wanted a parent or a mentor to tell him all those comforting clichés, wanted the words to come from a wiser source than he.

  He had that source, somewhat, in the person of the woman standing next to him, in his wonderful wife. Leia had loved Chewie as much as he had, and though she was not as often physically close to the Wookiee, and though she didn’t have as many particular memories of Chewie as Han did, her grief was no less, he knew. And yet she had buried it within her, had put her own feelings back for now so that she could help Han attend to his.

  He knew that.

  “How close do you want to get?” Leia asked at length, and only then did Han tune in to the image on the screen before them and realize that Sernpidal had grown quite large. They hadn’t come here to try to retrieve Chewie’s body—of course, that task was beyond them, beyond anyone.

  Han had come here, and Leia had
readily agreed to it, because he needed this moment.

  “What are we going to tell Chewie’s family?” Han asked.

  “The truth,” Leia said. “That he died a hero.”

  “I never thought—” Han began quietly, his voice breaking apart.

  Leia looked at him gently, allowed him the moment to compose himself.

  “I had built this bubble around us,” Han tried to explain. “Around all of us—you, me, Chewie, the kids, Luke, Mara, even Lando. Heck, even the stupid droids. We were all in it, you know? In it and safe, a cozy family.”

  “Invulnerable?” the ever perceptive Leia asked.

  Han nodded. “Nothing could hurt us—could really hurt us,” he went on, and then his voice broke up and he just shook his head and blinked away the tears—and when that didn’t work, he wiped them away—and stared out at wobbling Sernpidal. He knew that Leia understood, that he didn’t have to say more. And even though it made no sense, she didn’t disagree. This should have, logically, happened a long, long time ago, after all. And if not to Chewie, then certainly to one of the others, Han, perhaps, most of all. They had been living on the very edge of disaster for so very long, fighting battles, literally, for decades, running from bounty hunters and assassins. Even the first time Han and Leia had met, on the Death Star, of all places, and in the gallows of the place to boot! So many times, it seemed, one or more of them should have died.

  And yet, in a strange way, that close flirting with death had only made Han think them all the more invulnerable. They could dodge any blaster, or piggyback on the side of an asteroid, or climb out a garbage chute, or . . .

  But not anymore. Not now. The bubble of security was gone, so suddenly, blown apart by a diving moon.

  “Even Mara,” Han said, and Leia turned back to regard him, though he continued to stare straight ahead. “Her disease couldn’t kill her,” he went on. “I knew it wouldn’t. Even with the reports of those other people dying, she’d live, because the others weren’t in my bubble and she was. Mara was, and so she’d win out.”