Rebel Stand: Enemy Lines II

by Aaron Allston

  “You’re tired,” Mara said. “And this makes you more susceptible to Force powers. He meddled with you, certainly … but once you get some sleep you’ll be more fit to face him.”

  Mara knew little, other than from observation and studies in psychology, about comforting those who were hurt. Most of what she knew she had learned since Ben had been born. Luke so seldom needed comforting—his wisdom and his humor had always provided him with a durable armor against life’s cuts and blows. But sometimes events got past that armor—Ben’s kidnapping, Anakin Solo’s death. Now it was this eerie visitation by someone who’d come within a centimeter of tricking him into taking a fatal plunge. And at such times Mara could do little but stay close, act as an anchor for him to hold onto.

  “I don’t think so,” Luke said. “I’m certain being tired made it easier for him to transmit all that despair and the mental compulsion through the Force, yes. But I also have a sense that he’s powerful. And I know I’ve seen his face somewhere. I—” Luke’s next words were cut off as he yawned.

  Mara gave him a stern look.

  “I know, I know. I need sleep. I’m tired.” He stretched out on the cot. “Tired, and I have to admit it, scared of something that could sneak up on me and plant a Force-based suggestion in my mind. As though I were some spice addict with no resistance, no training.”

  “Tired and wounded in pride.”

  He grinned. “Well, maybe.”

  “Get some sleep, farmboy. You’ll feel better—and think better—once your power cells are recharged.”

  “True.”

  In minutes, Luke was asleep, his breathing regular. But Mara lay awake long after that, her own Force senses extended in an alert screen, attuned to detect any flicker of hatred or despair that might drift their way from the thing that wanted to take her husband’s life.

  Borleias

  The sun named Pyria was just a tiny bright dot in the forward viewport, no more a draw to the naked eye than one well-illuminated planet usually is from the surface of another. It certainly was not sufficient to distract Han and Leia from their tasks.

  “Got it, thanks.” Leia leaned back from the comm board. “Borleias Control has given us the map of known locations of dovin basal mines. They’re not too confident about the extent of their knowledge.”

  Han looked at her and cracked his knuckles. “So, they think there’s a fair chance we’ll be dragged out of hyperspace before we quite reach Borleias’s mass shadow. Well, you tell ’em that it’s not going to happen.”

  “And it’s not going to happen because …?”

  “Because I’m going to fly around them. What did you think?”

  “I think we’d better have weapons on-line and ready.” Leia trotted aft and climbed into the topside laser turret while Han activated the concussion missile launcher. Once she had her comlink activated, she heard her husband’s complaint, “You have no faith in my abilities.”

  “Of course I have faith in your abilities.” She took the turret for a practice spin and began the self-test of its computer targeting system. “I also have experience with theirs.”

  Space twisted before them and then almost instantly snapped back to normal. But Borleias did not dominate the viewport as it should have. The sun was somewhat larger, a bright globe.

  Then they were in a loop, centrifugal force crushing Leia down into her gunner’s chair before she could shout to Han about the coralskippers she saw closing on the Falcon from astern. She watched the universe to either side rotate as they went upside-down to their original arrival orientation, and overhead she could see the two distant gleams of the oncoming skips.

  Leia began firing the topside lasers as fast as they could charge, and the skips sent streams of plasma at the Falcon. They gained relative elevation in what was probably originally an attempt to follow the Falcon’s loop, but the maneuver ended up putting them on a collision course with the Falcon.

  Han’s words came over the comm, muffled as if uttered through clenched teeth: “Going starboard.”

  Leia chose a starboard target and concentrated all her laser fire on that skip. Its voids did well against her barrage, intercepting every bolt, but her concentration of fire on the area of the pilot’s canopy doomed the coralskipper—Han’s concussion missile, fired a moment later, detonated against the skip’s hull, vaporizing the smaller craft.

  Han sent the Falcon into a mad spin along its long axis. A shower of plasma projectiles flashed harmlessly by—mostly harmlessly; a clank and the sudden sound of damage alarms was proof that at least one of them had managed a graze.

  Then the second coralskipper was past, behind them, and beginning a long loop around.

  Han did not follow; he turned back toward Borleias and put on a burst of speed.

  Leia felt her jaw drop in surprise. She keyed the comlink. “Hey, you,” she said. “What have you done with my husband? The one who laughs in the face of death, then takes it out for drinks and dinner?”

  Han sounded pained. “That pilot is just trying to lure us back to his pals. Do I look that dumb?”

  She frowned, considering.

  “Am I that dumb?” he asked.

  “Well, no, certainly not.”

  Grinning, Leia returned her attention to the sensors. They showed the remaining coralskipper tightening its turn as its pilot realized that the Falcon was not pursuing; it would be coming up behind them soon. Distortions in the wire-frame image showed the locations of dovin basal mines, the gravitic organisms capable of yanking ships out of hyperspace.

  That wire-frame was continuing to update, continuing to distort, and she frowned at it, trying to comprehend what she was seeing. “Straight down,” she shouted, “relative to our current orientation. Move it, flyboy!”

  He moved it, pointing the Falcon’s nose straight “down.” The hard maneuver hauled Leia up out of her seat, and she could hear the restraining straps creaking against her slight mass.

  “All right, we’re pointed down,” Han said. “You are one crabby, grumpy wife. What’s that all about? Why not straight for Borleias?”

  “More mines that way. And we’re being followed by one.”

  “Followed by a mine?” Han spared a glance for the sensor board, for the distortion Leia had seen, the distortion that was closing on the Falcon’s position. “Not fair. Leia, how’s our pursuer?”

  “Rotate, please, he’s coming in under us.”

  Han obligingly spun the Falcon again on its long axis, and Leia began firing on the second coralskipper.

  Now that the Falcon was no longer maneuvering, except for the juking and jinking Han performed to keep enemy projectiles from hitting it, the transport was outdistancing the dovin basal mine pursuing it. And they were coming up on the outer fringes of the gravitic effects of the closest dovin basal mines.

  Leia sprayed the skip with fire and noted that its protective void tended to recenter itself over the pilot’s compartment each time the craft maneuvered to match one of the Falcon’s twitches. She concentrated her fire there, waited until the Falcon made another sideslip, then jerked her aim toward the coralskipper’s bow. The audio interpreters built into the Falcon’s sensor system gave out the sound of an explosion and the coralskipper’s blip disappeared from the screen.

  “Good shot,” Han said over the comlink. “How about coming back up here and plotting us a course back to Borleias?”

  “Give me a second. You are one crabby, grumpy husband.”

  Wedge frowned throughout Han’s and Leia’s account of their return to Borleias. “I don’t like this notion of dovin basal mines that pursue you.”

  “Me, either,” Han said. “I’m going to draft a strongly worded letter to the Yuuzhan Vong high commander and insist he stop using them.”

  Tycho, on the other side of the conference table, offered up a rare smile. Leia merely gave her husband an arch look.

  “Actually, we know his name now,” Wedge said. “Their local commander. Czulkang Lah. We got the
information from some of the reptoids that were involved in their big push on us, after we freed them from their control seeds.”

  “Lah,” Leia said. “From the same domain as Tsavong Lah?”

  Tycho nodded. “Even better. He’s Tsavong Lah’s father. An old, fierce, terrifying warrior and teacher of warriors. He’s like the Garm bel Iblis of the Yuuzhan Vong.”

  “And if we can beat him,” Wedge said, “really beat him, it may suggest to the Vong that their gods aren’t really as anxious for them to win as they supposed.”

  “Back to the mobile mines,” Tycho said. “It does beg the question of how long they’ve had them, and why this is the first instance we’ve run into of them being used.”

  “Right.” Wedge considered. “Han, Leia, when you were making the insertion into Hapes a few weeks ago, you became convinced that the dovin basal mines didn’t just drag things out of hyperspace. You said you thought they registered every ship’s unique mass characteristics and communicated that information to the Vong leaders. Let them build up a sort of Vong database of our ship movements.”

  Leia nodded. “That’s right. And Jaina used their reliance on those mass characteristics against the Yuuzhan Vong while she was there.”

  “My guess,” Wedge said, “is that this mobile dovin basal mine came after you because it recognized you, specifically the Millennium Falcon. Another ship, they might devote fewer resources to capturing or destroying, but loss of the Falcon and the Solos would be a big morale hit for our side.”

  Han and Leia exchanged a glance. Han’s expression was cocky, but Leia could see that he recognized the danger if Wedge’s theory was correct.

  “Meaning,” Leia said, “that any ship belonging to one of our side’s, well, celebrities might be detected as such at any time, wherever it goes.”

  “Something to keep in mind.” Wedge turned to Tycho. “Call Cilghal in for a meeting later today or tomorrow. And Jaina and her psychological warfare advisers. Maybe we can use this to our advantage.”

  “Are we done here?” Han asked. “We have some important things to do. Like running down Jaina before you monopolize her. We’d sort of like to spend some time with her. It’s why we keep coming back here. Not to look at your face.”

  Wedge gave him a toothy grin. “Watch that insolence. I might just have to call you up to active service, General Solo.”

  Leia lay in her bed. Yes, it was too hard, too lumpy, and light-years away from the quarters that had been her home for years, but this was her bed, and just knowing that it was a place she could return to again and again gave her pleasure out of proportion to its characteristics. She’d flopped onto it, fully dressed, luxuriating in possession if not in comfort, the instant they’d entered their quarters.

  Someone knocked on the door. Leia lifted her head and looked at Han on the other side. He stared at her, expectant.

  “Your turn,” she said.

  “Why mine?”

  “Because I said it first.”

  “Can’t argue with that logic.” Han rolled to his feet and pressed the access panel beside the door. The door slid aside, revealing a tall, awkward-looking man; the man’s left arm was in a sling.

  “Ah, hello,” their visitor said. “I’m Tam Elgrin.”

  “I know who you are.” Han shook his hand. “You spied around for a while, and then decided to quit. Headaches ever since.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Come on in.”

  Leia rose. The quarters she shared with Han were not large or well-furnished, but the two of them could make a pretense at civilization. “Can I get you something to drink, Tam?”

  “No, I’m fine. I’m, uh, here to talk to you about Tarc.”

  “We saw him just a few minutes ago,” Leia said. “He mostly talked about you.”

  Han waved him toward a chair. “So talk.”

  A rap at his door awakened Kyp. Still clothed—he’d settled in only to rest, and was surprised to find that he’d nodded off—the Jedi Master rose and activated the door. It slid out of the way to reveal Piggy. The Gamorrean pilot leaned against the door frame, arms crossed, a tough-guy posture.

  “It’s the Great One,” Piggy said.

  Kyp rubbed sleep out of his eyes. “What about her?”

  “She wants to see you.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  “Where?”

  “On the roof.”

  Kyp gave the Gamorrean a closer look. Piggy wasn’t normally so taciturn. In fact, he sounded more like a bar bouncer than himself. Kyp reached out with a whisper of his control over the Force and reassured himself that he could sense the pilot, that this Piggy wasn’t a Yuuzhan Vong warrior in an unusually distinctive ooglith masquer disguise. “I’m on my way up.”

  Kyp emerged onto the biotics facility’s roof, an uneven surface of external equipment housings and rough textures. It was now dark, a glow in the west attesting to how recently the sun had set.

  “Over here.” That was Jaina’s voice, and when Kyp turned he could see both her and Jag Fel sitting atop a condenser-unit housing. He could barely identify them by sight; they were nothing but silhouettes. There were more, smaller, silhouettes where they sat—something that looked like a basket, something that looked like a bottle.

  Kyp snorted. “You’re having a picnic?”

  “That’s right.” There was amusement in Jaina’s voice. “And the Goddess commands you to attend.”

  “You’re getting strange, Goddess.” Kyp sprang up to the unit housing top, landing directly into a cross-legged sitting position to match Jag’s. Jaina was stretched out on her side, facing the two of them.

  “It’s not just a picnic.” Jaina took the bottle and poured some of its contents into a glass, one of three mismatched glasses beside the basket. She handed the glass to Kyp. “We need to talk. The three of us.” She poured two more glasses and handed one to Jag.

  Kyp sniffed dubiously at his glass. “Paint thinner?”

  “We’re not that lucky,” Jag said. “While we’ve been waiting, I’ve been determining its effects on local insects. One hundred percent deadly.”

  “Hush,” Jaina said. “This is the finest example of the Borleias distiller’s art. It’s dereliction of duty to be drinking it when another Vong barrage might start at any minute. That means it’s going to taste wonderful.” She took an experimental sip.

  To her credit, she did keep her reactions from her face. But through the Force Kyp could feel her physiological reaction as nerve endings in her throat protested the intrusion of the homemade brew.

  Though blind to the Force, Jag had to be familiar enough with Jaina to sense what she was experiencing. His shoulders shook with silent laughter.

  “Anyway,” Jaina said. Her voice sounded as though she’d suddenly transformed into an elderly mechanic. “We’ve got a problem, Kyp. You and me and Jag.”

  “I wasn’t aware of any problems.”

  “Then why do you yank yourself out of our Force connection the instant it’s not absolutely vital to our current task? It’s like dancing with a partner who jumps back past arm’s length and brushes himself off at the end of every dance.”

  “That’s … an interesting comparison.” Kyp glanced at Jag, but the younger man hadn’t reacted to Jaina’s phrasing, and Kyp couldn’t see his face. “Maybe you and I should talk about this some time. Privately.”

  “And maybe not. Jag’s part of this situation. He was the one who suggested this talk.”

  Kyp felt himself grow annoyed, and became even more annoyed with himself for indulging in such a predictable reaction. “He did, huh? Direct confrontation. That is the Fel family approach, isn’t it?”

  Jag took a sip of the homebrew and made a noise that suggested he’d just been punched. After a moment, he said, “I come from more than one family line, Kyp. Some of them are sneakier than others.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means … that whatever you expect t
his meeting to be, it probably isn’t.”

  “A nice enigmatic reply.” Kyp sipped from his glass. Whatever the fluid was, it seemed to be part alcohol, part pepper, part rotted fruit. His eyes watered. “Wait a second. You two took the antidote before I came up here, didn’t you?”

  Jaina snorted. “Would you mind if I cut straight to the power cable?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “A while back, you manipulated me. I didn’t like it. On Hapes, I dragged you into some situations you didn’t care for. I gave you plenty of trouble. We both lied to each other about what we intended and what we meant. Well, I thought, when you decided you wanted to join my squadron, that it meant you’d forgiven me. When I accepted, it meant I’d forgiven you. Did it mean that, or didn’t it?”

  “It did.”

  “So are we partners, or aren’t we?”

  “Well, we are. At least so long as Twin Suns Squadron holds out.”

  “No, don’t do that.” Jaina let some exasperation creep into her voice. “Every time we link through the Force, I can feel you preparing yourself for the day you have to cut loose and run. Believe me, I understand that. I was doing the same thing until just a few weeks back. For reasons equally as dumb. And you break the link fast so that I won’t know what you’re doing, not that it’s done you any good. I want you to quit doing that. I want you to quit thinking about going off and being by yourself. I know your brother’s dead, your family’s dead, your last squadron is dead, and I’m sorry. But you don’t have to leave, and you don’t have to be alone.”

  “Uhh …” Kyp struggled to come up with an answer, the right answer. “I also don’t want to be in the way. In your way. Between you and, you know.”

  Jag extended a hand. “Colonel Jagged Fel. Glad to meet you.”

  “Shut up, you. Jaina, it’s uncomfortable.”

  “Yeah, I know. Jag and I are partners, too, and something more besides, and you’re here, and you were sort of chasing after me for a while, and it’s got to be confusing. It is to me as well. Is it going to make you leave?”

  “It should.”

  “Then you should leave now and stop wavering.”