Star Wars The New Jedi Order - The Final Prophecy - Book 19

by Greg Keyes

  The male human, a fellow she guessed to be about as old as her father,

  with hair that might have once been red but had faded to auburn and silver,

  came forward with his hand out.

  "I'm Lieutenant Prann," he said as he shook her hand.

  "We spoke a moment ago. These are my associates, Zam Ghanol and Hiksri

  Jith."

  Ghanol was the other human, an older wiry woman with gray hair and a

  crooked nose. Jith was the Rodian. Both shook her hand.

  Prann flashed her a big smile. "I really can't say how glad we are to see

  you..." He glanced at her insignia.

  "...Colonel?..."

  "Solo," she replied.

  "Solo? Not the one from the holos? Jaina Solo?"

  "'Fraid so," she replied. "And I hate to be rude, but could we cut

  straight to the situation? I need to assess this station and report to General

  Antilles as soon as possible."

  "Of course," Prann said. "It's just such a surprise and such an honor. If

  you'll follow me, please?"

  "If you don't mind me asking, Lieutenant Prann, what in blazes are you

  people doing here?"

  He uttered a short chuckle. " I suppose that does require a little

  explanation, doesn't it? We were part of a crew sent out here to overhaul the

  station." He paused as the turbolift came and they stepped into it. "You might

  have noticed it's way out here."

  "Yes," Jaina said. "I was wondering about that."

  "In fact, we didn't know it was here for years. It was cloaked, you see."

  "Cloaked?"

  "Yep. The theory is that Grand Admiral Thrawn cloaked it for some reason,

  back when he cloaked all of those aster-oids to blockade Coruscant. It showed

  up missing in the later inventory, but nobody could find it. When a Yuuzhan

  Vong invasion looked imminent, however, we wanted every advantage we could

  get, of course. One of the brass guessed it might be cloaked and sent us out

  here with an old crystal grav-trap to find it. As you can see, we did, but-our

  bad luck-the invasion started while we were out here. We had taken the cloak

  down, but didn't have the shields working. A flight of skips came out here and

  pretty much fried our transport-you may have noticed the damage to the docking

  bay."

  Jaina nodded. The lift opened, and Prann gestured for her to step out

  into the fire control area, where several other sentients waited-two more

  humans, a Twi'lek, a Barabel, and a Toydarian. Over banks of controls, through

  a broad viewport, she could see the distant battle as a series of tiny winking

  lights. The seeming smallness of it didn't fool her-a lot of people were dying

  back there. It made her itchy to be so far away.

  "Anyway," Prann went on, "we managed to get one of the turbolasers on-

  line and the shields up. We gunned down the skips and put the cloak back on-it

  was the only thing we could think of to do. There was a whole fleet out there.

  The Vong apparently thought we'd gone to hyperspace-seems they don't know

  Golans don't usually come equipped for that."

  "But that was more than a year ago," Jaina said.

  "You're telling me. We've just been waiting, tinkering with the station.

  Everything works fine, by now, at least those things we had the parts to fix.

  This thing has a terrific power core-had to, to run the shield for so long. We

  floated a small probe out on an insulated cable so we could see what was going

  on, which as you've probably guessed wasn't much that was helpful to our

  situation-just the Vong setting up shop."

  His grin broadened. "This morning, though, we swept and saw your fleet.

  We dropped the field, hoping you would spot us. We've got limited sublight

  communications, but no hyper-wave or HoloNet." He grinned again. "And here you

  are." It was about then that Jaina understood something was wrong. The feeling

  in the Force that she took as relief at the end of a long, dangerous isolation

  was there, but seething beneath it was something hungry.

  She was reaching for her lightsaber when something hit her, hard. Her

  hand, midway to her weapon, suddenly re-fused to obey her commands, and the

  room spun dizzily. She tried to focus and use the Force, but the dizziness got

  worse, and she was vaguely aware that her legs weren't holding her up anymore.

  She didn't feel the deck when she hit it, but she had a strange view of boots

  and legs moving her way. She heard faraway sounds that resembled thunder, but

  which she understood to be speech. Then-Then she woke, strapped down to a

  table with some sort of webbing, her head pounding, and everything still

  doing a slow spin.

  "Sorry about that," she heard Prann say. "Sonics leave I you with a

  terrible hangover without the benefit of ever having the fun."

  He was standing a meter away. The Toydarian stood across the room with a

  blaster trained on her.

  "I hear Toydarians are more resistant than most species to Jedi mind

  tricks," Prann said. "I hope we don't have to test that. I'd like to see all

  of us walk out of this healthy."

  "Prann, what's going on?" she managed. "Who are you really?"

  "Oh, that name's as good as any."

  "What are you, Peace Brigade?"

  His eyebrows squinted together. "Colonel Solo," he said, "now you're

  hurting my feelings. That pathetic bunch of collaborationists? Hardly. I'm a

  liberator."

  "Of what?"

  "Technology, actually."

  "Ah," Jaina said. "You're a thief and a smuggler." Prann shrugged his

  shoulders. "What I do is more like emergency salvage. I haven't taken anything

  the Vong wouldn't have destroyed anyway. Remember Duro? We got some good stuff

  there, in hit-and-run raids after New Re-public forces pulled out. If we

  hadn't it would have been wasted. The Vong sure weren't going to use it."

  Her head was starting to clear. "So you came here after the Vong took

  Bilbringi?"

  "Nope, this job was a little different. Most of my story was true-except

  that it was Vel, here, who discovered the missing station in the shipyard

  databanks. I'd heard a story that one of the Golans disappeared right before

  the New Re-public forces invaded. A few of us got jobs in the shipyards, and

  Vel managed to slice into the old Imperial records." He beamed. "One of the

  best slicers in the business."

  "Ah, just average," the Toydarian replied. He didn't take his gaze off

  Jaina.

  "He's very modest," Prann added. "Anyhow, he found an old encryption that

  suggeste d the station had been cloaked-apparently Thrawn was keeping it in

  reserve as a little surprise, but when Thrawn died the station was lost,

  because he obviously didn't share the information with his command structure.

  We were able to reckon a general sector and calculate for drift and then we

  sort of-urn-borrowed a crystal grav-trap detector from the Bilbringi dry docks

  to find it. After that, the story is more or less the one I already told you."

  "So what do you want with me?" Jaina asked. "Why did you stun me?"

  "Well, frankly, Colonel Solo, I don't want anything from you, especially

  trouble. But I need to borrow some parts from your X-wing."

  "You can't all escape in a single X-wing."

  "No, we can't
. We're going to escape in the station itself."

  "Come again?" Jaina said. "I thought you said it isn't equipped with

  hyperdrive."

  "No, I said Golans aren't usually equipped with hyperdrive. This one

  wasn't, either. But how do you think we were planning on salvaging a space

  station without the Bilbringi authorities noticing?"

  "You brought your own drive," Jaina realized.

  "Yes. We almost had it installed when the Vong showed up and torched our

  transport. Unfortunately, the motivator was still on the transport. No

  motivator, no hyperdrive." He held his palms out. "So-we've been waiting."

  "You can't use an X-wing motivator to jump a station this size," Jaina

  pointed out.

  "No, but we can cobble one together from seven."

  Jaina jerked at the webbing. "Leave my squadron alone!"

  "Hey, calm down," Prann said. "They're all okay. We hit them with ion

  beams, hauled them in with tractor beams, and stunned them with sonics. And

  that wasn't easy-not with the Wookiee and that crazy Twi'lek. Look, I'm not

  trying to make any enemies, here."

  Jaina could only stare at him in the face of such an absurd statement.

  "We were hoping you would all dock," he continued, "and make the whole

  thing easier, but we've been working out contingencies for a while now. Not a

  lot else to do here, you know."

  "Look, Prann," Jaina said, "General Antilles needs this battle station."

  Prann laughed. "I'm sorry, Colonel, but we've all invested a little too

  much in this baby to just hand it over to be destroyed. Do you know how much I

  can get for the cloaker alone? No, forget it. In a few hours we'll be ready to

  jump. Meanwhile, we've put the cloak back on."

  "And what about me?"

  "You're a bit of a problem. I know enough about you to know that the

  longer I keep you around, the better the chance you'll be able to use those

  Jedi powers of yours to-well, I don't know, do I, and that's the problem. On

  the other hand, I don't want to kill Han Solo's daughter. I mean, I respect

  the guy, and I know he's already been through a lot."

  "You're just afraid he would hunt you down and kill you," Jaina said.

  "Yeah, that, too. Look, I'm a businessman-this is business. Once we've

  got the hyperdrive working and jump out of here, we'll put you all off

  someplace safe - with your starfighters. Okay?"

  "No," Jaina said, "not okay. Who are you going to sell your cloaker to,

  Prann? The Vong? Because they're going to be the only ones around to buy it if

  you don't help us here."

  "That's a little dramatic, don't you think?" Prann said.

  "I mean, there's still plenty of market for this sort of thing in the

  Corporate Sector-heck, in lots of places. A small planetary government is what

  I'm looking for, one afraid they'll soon need negotiating power. If this

  battle here goes sour, it'll only make the market that much better."

  "Until there is no market," Jaina snapped. "Until the Vong have

  everything, because Huttoads like you are still trying to make a profit rather

  than doing what they can to help us win."

  Prann's smile vanished. "We sat out here for a year surrounded by Vong,"

  he said angrily, "in constant fear that they would find us. Sure, they can't

  see us when we have the cloak on, but we can't see them either. Every single

  time we pushed out the probe we all got the shakes. And who knew what the Vong

  have that might detect us at any second? Do you know what it's like to be

  surrounded by that kind of pressure every day for a year and not be able to do

  a single thing about it?" His face was getting redder, and his voice was

  rising. "After what we've been through-sister, you can keep your platitudes.

  I'm taking this station, I'm selling it, and I'm going to take my share and

  retire to some little backwater so far away the Vong won't reach it in my

  life-time and sip cool drinks on a hot beach."

  "There's no place that far away," Jaina said.

  "I'm willing to look," Prann replied.

  Jaina focused the Force on the Toydarian. "He's crazy," she told the

  Toydarian. "Stun him and help me out of this."

  The Toydarian blinked, looked briefly confused, and then laughed.

  Prann smiled, too, his tirade apparently over. "So it's true, then. Good.

  Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to help get those motivators coupled

  together. Vel, I've changed my mind. Take her to fire control and watch her

  there. I can't spare you just to be a guard during this. Just-keep an eye on

  things, and don't let her talk to anyone."

  "I want to see my pilots," Jaina said.

  "After we've made the jump," Prann told her. "Not before."

  With that he left the room.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  "Nothing," Corran grumbled, folding down to rest on a log. "I must have

  looked for ten kilometers in every direction, and there's no sign of natives."

  "Maybe there aren't that many," Tahiri said, reaching up to pick an

  oblong fruit with a serrated corona of leaf at the top. They had dubbed it a

  pingpear, and it was one of the eight fruits that Nen Yim had identified as

  edible and nutritious. Since their food stores were limited, Corran had

  insisted that they eat native food when possible. The gathering expeditions

  also gave them an opportunity to talk away from the Yuuzhan Vong without

  leaving them too long unobserved.

  "Or maybe we had the misfortune to crash in the one uninhabited region

  they have left," Corran said. "It doesn't matter-we can't stay here forever.

  I've been trying to think of a way to attract the attention of that Imperial

  frigate, if nothing else."

  "Any thoughts on how to go about that?"

  He nodded. "Yes. I'll have to go to the one place I've been avoiding."

  "Oh. The giant hyperdrive."

  "Right."

  "Which you don't want the Yuuzhan Vong to know is a giant hyperdrive

  because you're afraid it will disillusion them somehow."

  "You get two marks," Corran said. " But it's the only sign of

  civilization around. There might be someone tending it. Failing that, there

  might be other things-a hyperwave, for instance, or even a subspace

  transceiver. And Harrar's been after me to check it out, anyway."

  "How do you think he'll react when he finds out what it is?"

  "You tell me."

  She thought about that for a moment, trying to recall how she had felt

  when she'd gone to the top of the ridge a few days before.

  She held up the pingpear. "It's like discovering a perfect piece of fruit

  has a nasty worm in it-after you've already taken a few bites."

  Corran nodded. "That's what I figured. Still, we have to do something,

  and I can't imagine he'd let me go without him, not as curious as he's been

  about it."

  "How far away do you think it is? "

  "I eyeball it at about twenty klicks."

  "Yeah, that's what I figured, too," Tahiri said. "So when do we start?"

  "We don't," Corran replied. "Harrar will go with me. I need you to stay

  and look after the other two."

  "Again? I'm sick of baby-sitting. Don't you trust them yet? They're

  completely moon-eyed over this place, both of them. Harrar is the one we ought

  to worry abo
ut."

  "I do worry about Harrar. That's why I'm keeping an eye on him. But the

  other two-they're still the enemy, Tahiri. No matter how well we seem to be

  getting along with them as individuals, we can't lose sight of the fact that

  our goals might be quite different."

  "I understand that. It's just that Nen Yim and the Prophet are boring.

  All they do is poke at bugs and twigs all day. Why don't you let me go and you

  stay here, if you think someone has to?"

  "Because this is how I want it, that's why. Brush up on your meditation

  technique and practice your lightsaber footwork."

  "That's all I've been doing for the past week."

  "Well, life is hard," Corran said, more sarcastically than he needed to.

  "Sometimes you actually have to spend a week without going into battle. I'm

  sure you can handle it."

  "Yes, sir," Tahiri replied, unenthusiastically. She felt a knot of hurt

  and resentment in her belly. Why was Corran treating her this way? Couldn't he

  see it hurt?

  "So Harrar and I will start in the morning," he went on.

  "It shouldn't take us more than a day or a day and a half of walking, but

  I can't say how long it will be before I figure out if there's anything useful

  there-maybe an hour, maybe days. I need you to stay alert here."

  "For what? Vicious fruit?"

  Corran looked up, his eyes sharp. "I don't know," he said. "But the

  longer we're here, the itchier I feel."

  "Maybe you're bored, too."

  "It's more than that. I've got a bad feeling about this whole deal. But

  there's nothing I can do about it until I have some way to contact Luke."

  "If he's still here."

  "I think he is. I get occasional glimpses."

  "So do I," Tahiri said, "especially of Jacen. But the F orce doesn't care

  how far away they are. They could be back on MonCalamari."

  "That's not how it feels," Corran said. "You're going to have to trust

  I've learned a thing or two over the years." The angry tone startled her.

  "Corran, I know you're a more experienced Jedi than I am."

  "Not the impression you give."

  "I'm sorry if I-" The knot, growing since she had first seen him again,

  exploded. She felt warmth on her face and realized to her utter shame that she

  was crying.

  "Sometimes I don't express myself very well, I think," she said. "I mean,

  I've just integrated two personalities. I don't have this all worked out yet."