by James Luceno
Nom Anor nodded. “I understand, Prefect. I have a new plan in mind, which I intend to launch once the fleet has been relocated to Hutt space.”
“Do not disappoint me.”
“You have my word. What’s more, we may have found a potential ally on Coruscant. Someone as yet unknown—though highly placed in the New Republic military or intelligence divisions—reached out to us through my agents.”
“Interesting,” Prefect Drathul allowed. “Learn the identity of this one.”
“I will do so.”
“One final question, Executor. Have we underestimated these infidels?”
Nom Anor scoffed. “Only their blind good fortune.”
* * *
“We were lucky,” Droma called down to Han from the roof of the Falcon. “Some minor scoring around the aft heat exhaust vents, but nothing a bit of plasteel and paint won’t remedy.”
“We don’t have the time for that,” Han said from the floor of Docking Bay 3733. “Besides, I like her scratched and imperfect.”
The Falcon sat on its hard stand, umbilicaled to diagnostic monitors, pressurizers, and tanks of coolant and liquid metal fuel. They had spent more than two days going over the ship, inside and out, making repairs where necessary and generally tidying up. Droma had shown himself to be an able mechanic, although slightly better at intuitive problem solving than he was with hydro-spanners or macrofusers.
“Come to think of it, a paint job might not be such a bad idea,” Han said a moment later. “After what happened in the Bilbringi system, opticals of the Falcon are probably plastered inside every Yuuzhan Vong warship and coralskipper.”
“Provided the paint job turns out better than your beard.”
Han frowned and grabbed hold of his chin. “You want to talk about follicle disasters, if those mustachios of yours get any longer, you’ll be tripping on them.”
Droma climbed down off the roof and jumped nimbly to the floor. Han tossed him a rag and watched as Droma cleaned his hands, then used the bristly edges of his hands to clean his velvety fur.
Aware of Han’s gaze, Droma paused. “What?” he asked.
Han concealed a grin. “Nothing. How ’bout you unhook the outboard power feeds while I take care of the refueling lines?”
Droma shrugged. “Fine with me.”
“Then I guess we’re all set.”
Droma studied him for a moment. “Will Leia be coming by to see you off?”
“I don’t think so.”
“A pity. I wanted to tell her good-bye.”
“Next time,” Han said, then quickly added, “Not that there’s likely to be a next time.”
“Well, then, tell her good-bye for me—the next time you see her.”
Han scowled. “All I’m saying is that I don’t want you making yourself too comfortable in the copilot’s chair.”
“I know better than to do that.”
“I’m just trying to make clear that this isn’t a permanent arrangement. You and me, I mean. It’s just till we find your family.”
Droma smiled faintly. “What happened to the tab I was running for you?”
“Look, chum, humans don’t believe in life debts. When somebody does us a favor, we return it and the slate’s wiped clean. I help you locate your clanmates, then we both go our separate ways, understand?”
“As opposed to what—my flying around the galaxy with you in this relic?”
Han sniffed. “You weren’t saying that when we went after Reck.”
“I was just being polite. I had you figured for the type who’d be sensitive about his ship.”
“Sure you did.”
They fell into an awkward silence, which Droma broke. “I’ll see to the power feeds.” He had started for the stern when Han called out to him.
“Hey, Droma. We’ll find your sister, you know.” Han allowed a grin. “Even if we have to search half the galaxy.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Luceno is the New York Times bestselling author of the Star Wars novels Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, Cloak of Deception, Labyrinth of Evil, as well as the New Jedi Order novels Agents of Chaos I: Hero’s Trial and Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse, The Unifying Force, and the eBook Darth Maul: Saboteur. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with his wife and youngest child.
By James Luceno
The ROBOTECH series
(as Jack McKinney, with Brian Daley)
The BLACK HOLE TRAVEL AGENCY series
(as Jack McKinney, with Brian Daley)
A Fearful Symmetry
Illegal Alien
The Big Empty
Kaduna Memories
THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES
The Mata Hari Affair
The Shadow
The Mask of Zorro
Rio Pasion
Rainchaser
Rock Bottom
Star Wars: CLOAK OF DECEPTION
Star Wars: DARTH MAUL, SABOTEUR (e-book)
Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos I: Hero’s Trial
Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse
Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force
Star Wars: LABYRINTH OF EVIL
Star Wars: DARK LORD—the Rise of Darth Vader
Star Wars: MILLENNIUM FALCON
STAR WARS—The Expanded Universe
You saw the movies. You watched the cartoon series, or maybe played some of the video games. But did you know …
In The Empire Strikes Back, Princess Leia Organa said to Han Solo, “I love you.” Han said, “I know.” But did you know that they actually got married? And had three Jedi children: the twins, Jacen and Jaina, and a younger son, Anakin?
Luke Skywalker was trained as a Jedi by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. But did you know that, years later, he went on to revive the Jedi Order and its commitment to defending the galaxy from evil and injustice?
Obi-Wan said to Luke, “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire.” Did you know that over those millennia, legendary Jedi and infamous Sith Lords were adding their names to the annals of Republic history?
Yoda explained that the dreaded Sith tend to come in twos: “Always two, there are. No more, no less. A Master, and an apprentice.” But did you know that the Sith didn’t always exist in pairs? That at one time in the ancient Republic there were as many Sith as Jedi, until a Sith Lord named Darth Bane was the lone survivor of a great Sith war and created the “Rule of Two”?
All this and much, much more is brought to life in the many novels and comics of the Star Wars expanded universe. You’ve seen the movies and watched the cartoon. Now venture out into the wider worlds of Star Wars!
Turn the page or jump to the timeline of Star Wars novels to learn more.
ONE
It was morning in Gyndine’s capital city, though that fact was scarcely evident to anyone on the surface. The rising sun, when glimpsed at all, was a blanched disk behind roiling smoke belched from flaming forests and buildings. Sounds of battle reverberated thunderously from the surrounding foothills, and a hot scouring wind swept down across the landscape. A crepuscular darkness, ripped ragged by flashes of blinding light, ruled the day.
The artificial light was supplied by warriors and war machines, coursing over scorched ground, streaking through the racked sky, in orbit above the madness. Through leaden clouds allied and enemy fighter craft pursued one another doggedly, adding sonic claps to the strident score of combat. East of the beleaguered capital, beams of energy stabbed mercilessly at the surface from on high, fanning out like shafts of profuse sunlight or concentrated into dazzling curtains that set the horizon glowing red as a frozen dawn.
Loosed by advancing enemy contingents, missiles of superheated rock assailed what remained of the city, holing surviving towers and toppling those already gutted by fire. Hunks of shattered ferrocrete and twisted plasteel tumbl
ed onto cratered streets and clogged alleyways. A few civilians dashed desperately for shelter while others huddled, paralyzed with fear, in gaping, fire-blackened maws that were once entryways and storefronts. In some quarters, ion cannons and nearly depleted turbolaser batteries answered the missile barrage with darts of cyan light. But only in the environs of the New Republic embassy were the enemy projectiles deflected, turned by a hastily installed containment shield.
Dangerously close to the shield’s shimmering perimeter, a thousands-strong mixed-species throng, massed behind stun fencing, pressed to be admitted. At the edges of the crowd droids perambulated in a daze, keenly aware of the fate awaiting them should the invaders overrun the city.
Were the stun fence the sole obstacle to safe haven, the crowd might have panicked and stormed the embassy grounds. But the perimeter was reinforced by heavily armed New Republic soldiers, and there was also the force field itself to consider. An umbrella of energy, the lambent shield had to be deactivated before it could be safely breached, and that occurred only when an evacuation ship launched for rendezvous with one of the transports anchored in local space.
Ashen faces masked with cloth against the mephitic air, Gyndine’s would-be evacuees did all they could to ensure their survival. With arms extended protectively around the shoulders of terrified children or clasped tightly to tattered bundles of personal belongings, they pleaded with the soldiers, tendered bribes, inveigled and threatened. Ordered to remain silent, the grim-faced troops offered neither comforting looks nor words of encouragement. Only their eyes belied the seeming dispassion, racing about like taurill or angling imploringly toward the one person who could accede to the entreaties and demands.
Leia Organa Solo caught one such glance now, aimed her way by a human soldier posted close to what had become the communications bunker. With her face smudged and her long hair captured under a brimmed cap, it was unlikely that anyone in the crowd recognized her as onetime hero of the Rebel Alliance and former chief of state, but the sky-blue combat overalls—bloused sleeves emblazoned with the emblem of SELCORE, the Senate Select Committee for Refugees—identified her as everyone’s best chance for rescue, their purveyor of deliverance. As it was, she couldn’t venture within five meters of the stun fence without having wailing infants, necklaces of prayer beads, or rushed missives to offworld loved ones extended to her in dire urgency.
She didn’t dare make eye contact with anyone, lest in her gaze someone read hope or evidence of her anguish. To provide some measure of equipoise, she drew deeply on the Force. But more often than not she paced unswervingly between the bunker and the leading edge of the shield, eager for word that another evacuation ship had landed and was waiting to be filled.
Ever in her wake moved faithful Olmahk, whose native gray ferocity made him appear more stalker than bodyguard. But at least the diminutive Noghri looked at home among the chaos, whereas C-3PO—his normally auric gleam dulled by soot and ash—was positively dismayed. Lately, though, the protocol droid’s apprehension had less to do with his own safety than with the larger threat the Yuuzhan Vong posed to all machine life, often the first to suffer when a world fell.
A forceful explosion rocked the permacrete under Leia’s feet, and a swirling globe of orange fire mushroomed from the heart of the city. A searing wind laced with droplets of even hotter rain tugged at Leia’s cap and jumpsuit. Created by the energy exchanges and conflagrations, microclimatic storms had been washing across the plateau all night long. Hail mixed with cinders lifted from Gyndine’s ruined surface pelted everyone, blistering exposed flesh like acid. Even through the insulated soles of knee-high boots, Leia could feel the ground’s aberrant heat.
A loud sizzling sound made her swing toward the shield in time to see it evanesce in undulating waves of distortion.
“Evac ship away,” a soldier reported from the communications bunker, both hands pressed to the outsize earmuffs of his comm helmet. “Two more headed down the well.”
Leia raised her eyes to the tenebrous sky. Defined by running lights as oblate in shape, the departing ship raised itself on repulsor power, then shot upward on a column of blue fire, escorted by half a dozen X-wings. Lying in ambush, a cataract of coralskippers vectored in from the foothills to give chase.
Leia whirled to the soldiers posted at the stun fence. “Admit the next group!”
Crushed shoulder to shoulder, cheek to jowl, folks at the forward edge of the crowd—humans, Sullustans, Bimms, and others—were funneled through the embassy gates. With the shield lowered, enemy projectiles that would have been deflected plummeted like fiery meteors, one of them striking the east wing of the Imperial-era embassy and setting it ablaze.
Leia clapped the evacuees on the back as they streamed toward a shuttle craft idling on the landing zone. “Hurry!” she urged. “Hurry!”
“Shield repowering,” the same comm officer relayed from the bunker. “Everyone back.”
Leia gritted her teeth. These were the worst moments, she told herself.
Soldiers at the gate resealed the cordon and scanned the vicinity for evidence of field disruptors. In response the crowd surged forward, railing against what had to seem the inequity, the arbitrariness of it all. Folks closest to the front, fearing they would miss their chance at salvation by one or two persons, tried to worm or force their way past the soldiers, while those in the rear shoved and scrambled, determined to fight their way forward. Leia saw that it was futile, and yet the crowd refused to disperse, hoping against hope that New Republic forces could keep the invaders at bay until every civilian and noncombatant was evacuated.
“Mistress Leia,” C-3PO said, approaching in haste with his hands raised and his photoreceptors glowing, “the deflector shield is weakening! If we don’t leave soon, we’re sure to perish!”
As many would that day, Leia thought.
“We’ll leave on the last ship,” she told C-3PO, “not before. Until then, make yourself useful by cataloging names and species.”
C-3PO lifted his arms higher and skittered through an abrupt about-face. “What’s to become of us?”
Leia exhaled wearily, wondering, as well.
The bombardment had commenced two days earlier, when a Yuuzhan Vong flotilla had arrived unexpectedly in the nearby Circarpous system from enemy positions in Hutt space. A slapdash attempt had been made to fortify the sector capital, but with fleets and task forces already committed to safeguarding major systems in the Colonies and the Core, the New Republic had little to offer worlds of secondary importance like Gyndine, despite its modest orbital shipyard.
By the same token, there was no rhyme or reason for the Yuuzhan Vong attack—beyond continuing to sow confusion. With the recent fall of several Mid Rim worlds, Gyndine, because of its relative remoteness, had been thought ideal for use as a transit point for refugees, and indeed many of those outside the fence had been shipped in from Ithor, Obroa-skai, Ord Mantell, and a host of enemy-occupied planets. It was becoming clear that the Yuuzhan Vong delighted in pursuing displaced populations almost as much as they delighted in sacrificing captives and immolating droids. Even the ground assault on Gyndine seemed to be their way of proving themselves as adept at seizing worlds as they were at poisoning them.
The voice of the comm officer put a quick end to Leia’s musings. “Ambassador, we’ve got a live surveillance probe feed from the field.”
Leia hesitated, then ducked into the bunker, where a reduced-scale hologram, dazzled by noise, had the attention of the several men and women gathered there. It took her a moment to make sense of what she was seeing, and even then part of her refused to accept the truth.
“What in the name of—”
“Fire breathers,” someone said, as if anticipating her amazement. “Rumor has it the Yuuzhan Vong stopped off at Mimban so the things could fill up on swamp gas.”
Leia’s quivering legs urged her to sit, and as she did she brought a hand to her mouth. Parading out of sunrise like the harbingers of a new a
nd dreadful dawn, came a legion of enormous bladderlike creatures, supported on six stubby legs and equipped with arrays of flexible proboscises from which gushed streams of gelatinous flame.
“The methane and hydrogen sulfide have to be mixing with something they carry in their guts to produce that liquid fire,” a woman at the controls of the holoprojector commented, more intrigued than horrified. “They’re also exhaling antilaser aerosols.”
Yet another example of the enemy’s genetically engineered monstrosities, the thirty-meter-tall fire breathers didn’t so much march as loll over the terrain, like loosely tethered lighter-than-air balloons, incinerating everyone and everything in their path.
Leia could almost smell the nidor of the carnage.
“Whatever they are, they’ve got thick hides,” the comm officer said. “Can’t be taken out by anything less than a turbolaser beam.”
Unable to slow the advance of the deadly blimps, Gyndine units were abandoning entrenched positions and falling back in droves toward the city. Strewn about were fire-blackened war machines of all variety—tank droids, aged Loronar mobile turbolasers, even a couple of AT-AT walkers, tipped over, headless, collapsed on the ground with legs splayed.
“They’re withdrawing!” Leia said harshly. “Who issued the retreat order?”
Even as the words left her mouth, she was sorry she had uttered them. Those officers who weren’t scrutinizing her were suddenly studying their hands in unease. Could she blame the troops for retreating when that was precisely what the New Republic had been forced to do almost from the start of the invasion—withdrawing toward the Core, as if the density of the star systems there afforded protection? Who could say any longer which actions were just, and which were dishonorable?
Exiting the bunker without a word, Leia found a shaken C-3PO waiting for her.
“Mistress Leia, the most distressing news has reached me!”
Leia could barely hear him. In the few moments she had spent in the bunker, the battle had advanced to the outskirts of the capital. The crowd was more agitated than before, surging forward and from side to side. Through a gap in the city’s skyline, Leia thought she could discern the bobbing form of a Yuuzhan Vong fire breather.
