Emissary of the Void

by Greg Keyes

  storm,'' she reminded him.

  'Me?'' Uldir growled. 'I was just trying to make the best of a bad

  situation, and you were no help. Maybe if you weren't so closed-mouth about

  what it is you're up to . . .''

  'Uh-uh,'' she said. 'I can't trust you.''

  'Not even now?''

  'No.''

  'That's just great.''

  'Why don't you stop whining and call your shipmates?''

  'I could do that, but those fliers would get a fix on us. If my friends

  aren't around, we'll only get caught faster.''

  Klin-Fa slowed to a halt and gave him a glance as hard as durasteel. 'Fast

  or slow, makes no difference,'' she said. 'Either your crew found some way

  out here or not. Either we'll get caught or we won't. What, do you have a

  cushy retirement planned?''

  Uldir returned her glare, but she was right. He keyed on the comlink.

  'This is catchhawk one,'' he said. 'Catchhawks, do you copy?''

  Static drizzled for a moment, then the voice of his second-in-command, Vega

  Sepen, answered him.

  'I hear you boss-boy. You're still alive, I guess.'' There was nothing in

  the tough Corellian woman's tone that suggested she'd been worried about

  him.

  'I'm in a bad spot, two, right between a supernova and a black hole. Did you

  manage to find some legs?''

  'Ah . . . sort of,'' Vega replied.

  'Great. Got a fix on me?''

  'Sorry. Don't have that sort of equipment on board, I'm afraid.'' There was

  a background gabble he couldn't quite make out -- Vega talking to someone

  else -- and some sort of music. Then Vega's voice came back. 'Vook thinks he

  can triangulate with our comlinks. Can you keep sending?''

  'Sure,'' Uldir said. '_Asyui-ln_.''

  'Understood. We'll get you boss-boy, sit tight.''

  'What's that music?''

  'Nothing.''

  'What in the Force are you flying, two?''

  Vega didn't answer.

  'If you keep sending, they'll be able to track us,'' Klin-Fa snapped.

  'Shh.'' He laid the comlink under a nearby rock. 'I know that.''

  'But your friends -- '

  'My friends know that_asyui-ln_ means 'not' in Dug.'' Uldir replied.

  'They'll look in a radius around the signal. Now, come on.''

  'Wait,'' she said. In the next instant, she bounded up the side of the

  ravine, just as Uldir noticed the sound of the flier returning. Klin-Fa

  reached the lip of the chasm as the patrol vessel came over. Blaster fire

  kicked up dust around her feet, but she dodged lightly, and her lightsaber

  was suddenly on. In the next instant it was a whirling disk of brilliance,

  shearing through the nose of the flier. More blaster fire from somewhere

  else made a spectral bridge over the arroyo top, but by then, Klin-Fa had

  dropped back below the rim, the deadly lightsaber returning to her hand and

  extinguished.

  _Illustration by Mike Huddleston_

  'Carbon flush!'' Uldir breathed. Then she was rushing past him.

  'Move!'' She shouted.

  They ran down the arroyo, cutting over a low rise into the next, then

  doubling back.

  Right into a patrol, four humans with enforcement blasters and a Yuuzhan

  Vong. They were less than two meters away.

  'Hey!'' One of the humans shouted.

  Uldir didn't think. He hurled himself low and hard at one of the humans,

  feeling the heat of blaster fire scorch his back. He hit the man in the

  waist and they went down. Uldir hoped the others would be reluctant to shoot

  for fear of hitting their comrade. The two men rolled, and then rolled some

  more as Uldir suddenly realized that his mad tackle had taken them down yet

  another slope. Rocks dug angrily at his back as his opponent tried, with

  moderate success, to club him with the butt of his blaster. Fortunately, the

  blows were glancing, and by the time they fetched against a stone large

  enough to stop them, Uldir had managed to get one of his hands free for a

  sharp uppercut. He felt teeth snap together, and the officer went limp.

  Blaster fire cracked the stone that had arrested them. Frantically, Uldir

  dove away, at the same time searching for the officer's weapon. He found it

  a meter away, rolled and caught it up, then trained it back up the slope.

  Another shot dug into the sand centimeters from his knee. Uldir fired,

  missed, scrambled to his feet and ran up the slope shooting. His third shot

  hit an officer in the sternum and kicked him back out of sight.

  By the time he reached Klin-Fa, she had taken out the remaining officers and

  was in a swirl of motion with the Yuuzhan Vong. Like all of his kind, the

  warrior disdained the use of mechanical contrivances -- he fought with an

  amphistaff, a living weapon that resembled a snake, at turns rigid and sharp

  and flexible and whip-like. Klin-Fa was having a hard time countering the

  furious, complex attack. Uldir raised his blaster to change the odds.

  At the same moment, another flier came over the ridge, blasters pumping.

  Swearing an Ettian curse he'd never quite understood but liked the sound of,

  Uldir dodged into cover behind a shelf of rock and fired back. His bolt

  ricocheted off of the side of the flier, and the answering shots pulverized

  his shelter. He could see the pilot grinning through the windscreen.

  Snarling, he broke out at a run, firing as he went. He couldn't get a proper

  bead, and his shots all either went wide or glanced off the tough metal of

  the flier. The pilot was having no such trouble aiming -- hovering, his

  front-mounted blasters followed Uldir like a pair of fiery footsteps,

  getting closer. One bolt hit so close it caused him to stumble, and in a

  strange moment the world seemed to go entirely still. Uldir felt his finger

  depress the trigger a final time, and then the weapon went flying from his

  hand as his face smacked against the ground. He spat out the taste of blood

  and metallic dirt, waiting for the inevitable.

  The inevitable didn't come. Warily he glanced back up. The flier was still

  hovering, but the pilot wasn't smiling anymore -- he was slumped sideways in

  his seat, and there was a neat hole in the windscreen.

  'Wow,'' Uldir breathed. Sometimes his luck surprised even him. He picked up

  the blaster and turned toward the sounds of combat, fearing what he would

  see.

  Klin-Fa was in his line of fire, but as he watched, she ducked beneath the

  whipping amphistaff and swept her leg at the Yuuzhan Vong warrior's foot.

  She clipped it, putting him slightly off-balance. He took a long retreat to

  correct for it, but Klin-Fa leapt high into the air, flipped over her

  opponent's head, and struck down at the same time. To his credit, the

  warrior caught the blow in a behind-the-back parry and spun to riposte.

  Klin-Fa, however, landed in a split, and the blow whistled over her head as

  she drew her blazing weapon through the Vong's midsection. He gaped and fell

  in two cauterized halves.

  He still took another swing at her, but the Jedi was back on her feet,

  dancing out of range.

  'For Yabeley,'' she snarled. Uldir wondered who or what Yabeley was.

  The Yuuzhan Vong watched her go, black eyes glittering with hatred.

  '_Jeedai_,''
he growled. 'Your days are drawing to a close.''

  'Not as quickly as yours,'' she said. Her voice was colder than night on the

  dark side of an airless moon.

  The Yuuzhan Vong spat blood. 'Your blow was skilled,'' he said. 'I salute

  you. But you will die. All of your kind will die. Even your own kind has

  turned against you.''

  Klin-Fa gestured contemptuously at the downed officers. 'These cretins are

  not my kind,'' she said. 'I don't claim kinship with anyone foolish enough

  to believe the Yuuzhan Vong will stop their conquest of our galaxy simply

  because they turn Jedi over to you.''

  The warrior smiled strangely. 'It is not your galaxy,'' he said. 'You have

  merely infested it for a time. We have come to end the infection, in the

  name of glorious Yun-Yuuzhan.''

  '_Our_galaxy,'' Klin-Fa repeated, firmly. But the Yuuzhan Vong did not hear

  her. His gaze had wandered beyond the stars.

  Klin-Fa extinguished her saber and clipped it to her belt.

  'Hey,'' Uldir said. 'Nice moves. But we're not out of this yet. I hear more

  fliers coming.''

  'Let them come,'' Klin-Fa said, grimly.

  They did, three of them, and soon Klin-Fa was acting as a living shield,

  deflecting bolts as Uldir tried to hit the fliers or their pilots at some

  critical point. These pilots didn't hover, however, but began spreading out

  to encircle them. When that was done, it would be all over. Klin-Fa couldn't

  block fire from every direction.

  A bolt sang through her defenses and scorched Uldir's ear. Klin-Fa gasped as

  a second scored along her thigh, and the fliers tightened in for the kill.

  Uldir and Klin-Fa stood back-to-back.

  'Thanks for trying,'' Klin-Fa said. It sounded as if she really meant it.

  'No problem,'' Uldir replied. 'It's my job.'' He wanted to say something

  else, but what it was exactly eluded him. He fired four shots at the nearest

  flier instead.

  'Do you hear music?'' Klin-Fa asked.

  'Now that you mention it, yeah. I thought I was losing it.'' Two fliers had

  him firmly in their sights, now. He could try and dodge, but that would

  leave the Jedi's back unguarded. He repressed the urge to close his eyes.

  He'd watch death come for him, thank you, and stare it down until the last

  second.

  Except that the flier didn't fire. Instead, it was forced to turn at a

  barrage of small-arms fire sizzling against its hull. In fact, all of the

  fliers were under attack. One didn't turn fast enough to meet the new

  threat, and lost its aft stabilizer and repulsorlifts within a few

  heartbeats of one another. It wobbled and then dropped like a stone. One of

  the others banked up and caught it in the belly, dropped low and limped away

  smoking. Uldir fired after it, as something rather strange showed itself

  over the edge of the arroyo.

  A pair of gigantic eyes was staring down at them, set into a head at least a

  meter-and-a-half wide. From its gaping mouth, music was blaring. Stranger

  still, a figure seemed to be dancing on the head, spinning out streamers of

  bright green light.

  'What in -- ' he began, before it finally started making a twisted sense as

  he noticed the light was not streaking off randomly but harassing the

  remaining flier. The dancer was a Dug, balanced on one forepaw and firing

  blasters with his other three hand-feet.

  'It's Leaft!'' he shouted.

  A thicker series of bolts joined the Dug's wild firefight with the flier,

  and Uldir made out a platinum-haired woman standing beside the head, which

  he could now see was mounted on some sort of hover-platform. That was Vega

  and her blaster rifle.

  'Come on!'' Uldir told Klin-Fa.

  'That's your crack team of rescue pilots?'' She asked, skeptically.

  'You better believe it.''

  'Why are they riding on exec Lounha's head?''

  'I'm sure they have a good explanation,'' he replied.

  The two ran through a decreasing volume of skyborn fire until they reached

  the floater. Vega gave Uldir a hand up without looking at him, at the same

  time stitching red bursts through the windscreen of the last flier still in

  sight. It went down, leaving a blaze of flame across the far wall of the

  canyon.

  'That's three to your two,'' she called up to Leaft.

  'Hurr. Human luck,'' the Dug snarled down. 'Next time -- '

  Vega ignored her companion. 'Vook,'' she called into the gigantic head.

  'We've got the boss. Now get us out of here.''

  'Doing!'' The Duro called.

  At an excruciatingly slow speed, the floater began drifting back toward the

  spaceport.

  'This is insane,'' Klin-Fa said. 'Where are we going on this thing?''

  'Farther than you were going on foot,'' Vega said, dryly. 'You okay, boss?''

  'I'm fine,'' Uldir replied. 'But she has a point. One of the fliers got

  away, and besides, they must be in contact with their headquarters. We can't

  fight off another half-dozen fliers on this thing, let alone something

  bigger.''

  'Hey, we did the best we could,'' Vega said. 'This was the only thing we

  could find on short notice.''

  Despite himself, Uldir cracked a grin. 'A float from the parade? You were

  always good at improvising, Vega, I'll give you that.''

  'You better believe it,'' Vega replied. 'And I'm not done yet.''

  'What's that mean?''

  'I got a call from Uvee right before we picked you up. He finally got the

  ship out of dry-dock. It's on the way.''

  'Uvee?'' Klin-Fa asked. 'Another one of your aces?''

  'Our astromech,'' Uldir clarified.

  'An astromech flying a ship? Alone?''

  'He's not your ordinary droid,'' Uldir replied.

  'No,'' Klin-Fa said. 'I don't expect he would be.''

  * * *

  The_No Luck Required_ arrived about ten minutes later, flying a little

  erratically and landing with a bump that set Uldir's teeth on edge. He

  hadn't wanted to say so in front of the Jedi, but he'd had his own doubts

  about whether he would ever see his ship again after Vega's casual

  announcement -- though he'd modified the UV-002 droid to fly the ship in

  emergencies, the reality was pure theory until now.

  Though the landing was a little rough, the droid seemed to have done okay,

  and it was good to see the rugged transport. They abandoned the floater and

  crowded up the landing ramp. Uldir went straight to the controls, where the

  readout was scrolling, Uvee talking to him from his mooring station.

  _Hi boss-boy. How did I do?_the droid translator read.

  'You did great, Uvee,'' Uldir said, making a mental note to keep Vega away

  from the astromech in the future. He hated being called 'boss-boy.''

  'Perfect.''

  _Shall I take us to orbit?_'That's okay,'' Uldir quickly replied. 'Take a

  rest. I'll get us out.''

  'Fliers, four clicks,'' Vook said, from tactical.

  'That's just fine,'' Uldir said. 'They can chew our exhaust.'' He punched in

  the drive, turned the ship skyward, and left Bonadan in a bloom of ions.

  Only much later -- two jumps from Bonadan -- did he relax, and then not

  much.

  'We still don't have shields,'' he noticed.

  'No,'' Vook said.
'And the hyperdrive is -- undependable. The repairs were

  not completed.''

  Uldir blew out a breath and nodded. 'Well, you take what you get,'' he said.

  'At least we have some drive capability. Where can we set down to finish

  repairs?''

  'Well, there's Shelter,'' Vega said. 'That's close.''

  'Yeah. And in the Maw. I won't try that run with a testy hyperdrive.''

  'Good point. How about Mon Calamari?''

  'Sounds prudent.''

  'No!'' Klin-Fa interrupted. 'We can't spare the time for that. You have to

  plot a course for Wayland, immediately.''

  'Wayland?'' Uldir said. 'What in blazes are you talking about?''

  'And just exactly who are you?'' Vega asked, her gaze tracing uncharitably

  up the Jedi's figure.

  'And what in space makes you think you can tell us what to do?'' Leaft

  added, edging close to her, his teeth barred.

  Klin-Fa tensed, but otherwise ignored the threatening Dug.