Rebel Stand: Enemy Lines II

by Aaron Allston

  Love,

  The Wraiths

  Only then did Viqi sink down to the carpet. Only then did she begin to cry.

  The ziggurat was a series of high, broad steps. The Jedi leapt up to the next step, ran its width, and then leapt up to the one above, again and again, until they reached the roof.

  From here they could see the hole in the ziggurat roof widening. With every moment that passed, more tons of rubble poured up and out of the hole and flew out to pour onto surrounding kilometers of buildings. Some streams diverted to hose coralskippers out of the air. The lines of giant boulders still danced their merry circles around Nyax.

  Luke led the others off at an angle, to where each of the boulders in turn dipped down to within meters of the ziggurat’s surface. As the next one swept low, they leaped, propelling themselves farther with use of the Force, and landed atop the irregular duracrete surface.

  Luke could feel it as Nyax detected them. The pale giant rotated in the air to face them, his smile changing from one of simple pleasure to one of malice. “This is going to be bad,” Luke said.

  Mara nodded. The wind at this altitude whipped her hair into a life of its own, making it look like a candle flame in a strong breeze. “Any ideas?”

  “I have one.” Tahiri knelt to improve her balance while she stared ahead. In the distance, this stream of boulders took a sharp turn, then moved to within a few meters of Nyax’s position and beyond. “Just past that point. Distract him. I’ll finish him.”

  Luke cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’ll finish him. How?”

  There was something in Tahiri’s eyes that sent a chill down Luke’s spine. “He could fight the Jedi just by feeling us in the Force,” she said. “He couldn’t feel the Yuuzhan Vong, so he had to watch. Well, I’m both.” She rose and turned away from Luke and Mara, then took the long leap to the next flying boulder back in line. She raced its length, then leaped again to the third boulder down.

  “What do you say we take her at her word?” Mara said.

  “I’m too tired to argue.”

  Their boulder reached the end of its straightaway course and turned. It turned more violently than its predecessors had, but Luke and Mara could feel Nyax’s intentions in the Force; they kept their feet planted and did not budge.

  As their vehicle came closer to Nyax, Luke stretched forth his hand. He snatched a portion of the rubble stream from beneath them, bent its course, sent it hurtling toward Nyax.

  Nyax reacted without moving, regaining control of the stream, hurling it at Luke.

  Luke leaned over backward, rotating his boulder with him. The oncoming stones crashed into its side and bottom as the rotation continued.

  Upside down, clinging by virtue of her enhanced Force strength, Mara ignited her lightsaber and hurled it. It twirled under the flow of boulders, almost invisible through the dense rain of duracrete; then, as it came within meters of Nyax, it twirled up and at him.

  His expression changed to one of startlement. With none of his own blades active to protect him, he slipped sideways, out of the lightsaber’s path, then turned to watch it as Mara directed its flight. She sent it around in a long loop, preparing it for another approach.

  Mara and Luke came upright as their boulder completed its rotation, and Luke could feel Nyax’s attention on him, too, waiting for his attack. Luke made it, shoving in the Force, trying to hurl Nyax off balance and onto Mara’s blade. The attack was a success, but Nyax activated all his blades as he was shoved, and with contemptuous ease he swatted Mara’s lightsaber away.

  Power flowed through Nyax, such power as no being alive had ever felt. He could reach down into this world, reach through the false crust beneath him, through the natural stone crust beneath that, all the way to where stone turned to sluggish fluid and through to where superheated metals ran like river water. He could crack this world in two, could force the meaningless worker-things to convey him to another, and crack that one, too.

  And he was tired of these creatures. They were weaker than he, but so stubborn. Even inventive.

  Nyax raised his hands. He would crack the stone they rode on and send it and them hurtling down into the ruins.

  Something slammed into his back, just below the point where his internal armor plate protected him. His eyes snapped wide. He had not felt it coming. He used his power to overcome the pain.

  A second thing struck him. He felt bones in his lower back shatter. Numbness flowed across his legs. He exerted greater control over himself, desperately trying to force sensation into those limbs, as he turned.

  His third antagonist, the smaller female with the yellow hair, rode another boulder, lying upon it and gripping it with one hand. She looked at him with alien mercilessness in her eyes. She barely registered in his special senses—she must have closed herself off to the power, reducing his ability to detect her, his ability to anticipate her moves.

  Something was wrong. He had the pain under control. He was full of the power. He should be able to make anything happen, anytime.

  He did not understand, for he had not been trained in the ways and use of the Force, that the catastrophic failure of the body’s functions could interfere with use of the Force. All he did understand was that his control over the boulders, over the debris flow from the ever-widening hole beneath him, was faltering.

  The yellow-haired female held up a third missile. It had legs that writhed as she held it.

  Nyax gaped at her. It was one of the alien creatures, one of the types flung by the warriors he could not feel. Her type was not supposed to use this. Only the flat-nosed aliens were.

  It was unfair. She had cheated.

  Before she could throw it, Nyax lost control. He fell, screaming, into the pit he had created.

  All at once, the boulders came crashing down onto, and often through, the ziggurat roof. Luke and Mara leapt free, using their augmented power to soften their landing, and rolled up to their feet, looking among the rain of multi-ton missiles for a head of blond hair.

  “There,” Mara said, and sprinted. The distance of a ballplaying field away, Tahiri lay atop a small dome. But as Luke watched, as a boulder arced down toward her, the young Jedi leapt free. The boulder crashed through the dome and was gone.

  “Face to Mara, Face to Mara, do you read me?”

  Luke skidded to a halt and pulled out his comlink as his wife reached and embraced the younger Jedi. “Mara’s a little busy right now, Face.” He leapt to one side and a mass of ferrocrete the size of a Y-wing smashed into the roof beside him. “For that matter, so am I. What is it?”

  “Tell me that the whole mess with the fountain of rock was you.”

  “It was.”

  “We’re inbound. So are a couple of Vong capital ships. You want a lift?”

  “We do.”

  “We’ll be there in two.”

  The three Jedi leapt from the ziggurat roof edge to the stubby wing of the Ugly Truth. They squeezed in through the open hatch. Before they were buckled into their restraint couches, Kell had heeled over in a stomach-churning dive into the avenue below. Luke had a glimpse of the construction droid, thought they were going to plow right into it, and then they were level again and accelerating along the avenue.

  “So,” Face said, his tone conversational. “Is property damage on a massive scale normal for Jedi?”

  “That’s just if you’re friends with them,” Kell said. “Wait until you’re married to one.”

  “We need to go back,” Luke said. “Nyax isn’t dead.”

  Face and Kell exchanged a glance. “Are we saving him or killing him?”

  Luke sighed. “Just getting in his way.”

  Kell shook his head and gained altitude. As soon as he reached rooftop level, he looped around again, back toward the ziggurat.

  Nyax lay in pain at the bottom of the pit.

  He’d never known what pain was before he met those three with the power. Now there was nothing but pain.

  He would find them
, and he would kill them. He must do so soon because he could feel his strength ebbing. No matter how much strength he drew from what lay behind the black wall, he could feel himself failing. Soon he would sleep.

  He extended himself, finding the minds of every living thing his power could detect. Where a mind was strong and complex enough to hear him, to obey, he looked through that creature’s eyes.

  In the first few moments, he could see only a blur of superimposed images. Then he learned to subtract some, overlap others, remap the image into a coherent one in three dimensions.

  The power-wielders who had hurt him were not visible. But two chunks of coral he could not feel with his own power, big ones, were approaching him from two different directions.

  His enemies had to be aboard them, hidden by whatever power they possessed to block his senses. Since they never gave up, they must be coming back after him. They had to be aboard because he would not sleep until they were dead.

  He roared out his pain and sent ton after ton of rubble into the sky.

  Kell lost altitude and slid to a landing on a rooftop four kilometers from the ziggurat. From here, they could see the two Vong mataloks, cruiser analogs, approaching from north and south.

  Two sprays of rubble leapt from the hole in the ziggurat, each going after one of the mataloks. Nyax’s aim was getting worse; in the first few seconds of the attack, neither Vong ship took a hit.

  And both fired, raining plasma projectiles as numerous as raindrops into the ziggurat.

  Luke jerked as he felt his flesh burn. He looked at his arm, but no blackness appeared there, no seared flesh. It was Nyax, his pain being transmitted to all close enough to feel it, and he could see that pain reflected in the faces of Mara, Tahiri, Danni, even Kell.

  Then the rubble streams hit the mataloks. They poured across the vessels, some small portions of them being swallowed by voids, the majority eating away at the yorik coral as though it were sugar. The mataloks sideslipped, desperately trying to avoid the streams of destruction, but the rubble blasts tracked them, followed them, wore them down.

  A constriction in Luke’s chest, one he had been unaware of until now, suddenly loosened, vanished. “He’s dead.”

  “Lord Nyax?” Face frowned back at him. “I don’t think so. Look, more rubble than ever is flying out of there.”

  “Luke is right,” Mara said. Her voice had a distant quality as she tried to interpret what she felt through the Force. “Nyax is gone. But he’s imbued his surroundings with some of his hatred. Some of his last intent.”

  The mataloks rose above the rubble-stream, launching a new volley of plasma before the blasts tracked them, tore into them again. In the distance, more Yuuzhan Vong capital ships raced toward the disturbance.

  “It’s going to continue,” Luke said, “as long as some part of him is there. As long as some part of him can exert his will on his surroundings, and that wellspring of the Force allows it to happen. But he’s gone.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s go home.”

  “Not quite yet,” Kell said. “You hear this?” He dialed up the comm board, and suddenly everyone could hear a noise—sniffing. No, sniffling. Weeping. “This is from an open comlink Face left behind for stragglers. Back where the Ugly Truth was. So someone’s there.”

  “And I bet I know who,” Face said.

  Viqi, leaning against the side of the airtaxi for support, finally heard the hum when its volume rose higher than the sounds of her own distress. It sounded like repulsors, and the noise floated in through the shattered viewport. She moved up to it to look.

  The Ugly Truth drifted up into her view, hovering mere meters away.

  Her heart lifted, then as swiftly sank. Through the ship’s viewport by its access hatch she could see Mara Jade Skywalker staring at her. The woman’s features were expressionless, but icy hatred of Viqi Shesh showed in her gem-green eyes, and that hatred froze Viqi in her place.

  Can I even ask her for mercy? Viqi asked herself. Can I stoop that low?

  The answer was simple.

  Of course I can. And once I am free again, once I escape, I will make her suffer for that indignity. Viqi composed herself and began rehearsing the words she would say. Pleas for her life.

  “Viqi. I knew you were lying. I knew you would return here.”

  Unbelieving, Viqi turned.

  Denua Ku, his front a solid smear of blue-black blood, stood leaning against the doorway into the apartment. He coughed, a racking, painful sound, and blood dribbled from his mouth. His head hung low.

  But it did not matter. He was still more than a match for her, and he held his amphistaff in his hands.

  “I will now kill you, Viqi.” He took a faltering step toward her. He was already almost within reach with his amphistaff.

  Viqi could hear the sound of the Ugly Truth’s side hatch powering up to open. She knew it could not open in time. Cold resolve flooded her, knowledge that she could inflict hurt in her own inimitable style one last time.

  “No, you won’t,” she said. “Yuuzhan Vong can’t kill me. Noghri can’t. Jedi can’t. You’re all beneath me. There’s only one thing in the universe that can kill Viqi Shesh.”

  She turned and stepped out through the shattered viewport.

  Luke and Mara watched her fall. Luke even felt it when she died, a faint diminishment in the Force.

  “How about that,” Mara said. “I get my wish.”

  The Yuuzhan Vong warrior who had confronted Viqi raised a handful of razorbugs to hurl at the Ugly Truth, then fell over on his back. His chest heaved once. Then he was still.

  Shaken, Luke settled back in his seat and strapped in. “Now we can go.”

  Tahiri gave him a look that suggested he had taken leave of his senses. “Before, you said ‘go home.’ I thought this was your home. Coruscant.”

  “No.” Luke put an arm around her shoulders, his other arm around Mara’s. “I thought it was, but I was wrong. No matter what color the sun is, no matter what the furniture is like, home is where my family is.”

  Tahiri nodded, considering that. She settled against him, face against his shoulder, and closed her eyes as if to sleep.

  And for the first time since they’d made landfall on Coruscant, she smiled.

  Face said, “Ready for a run to space, Explosion Boy?”

  “Always ready, Poster Boy. Hold on to your awards.” Kell lifted off, turned away from the ziggurat, and accelerated to full atmospheric speed.

  SIXTEEN

  Borleias

  Luke’s expedition returned to a Borleias that was changed—at least in the vicinity of the biotics building and the other areas held by New Republic forces.

  On the surface, everything looked worse. Luke and Kell had to pilot the Ugly Truth through layered defenses—dovin basal minefields and coralskipper patrols—that surely would have led to the destruction of a vehicle controlled by lesser pilots. Outlying buildings around the biotics building had been smashed by frequent capital ship bombardments. Round-the-chrono coralskipper squadron sorties against the ships in orbit had reduced the Lusankya to a flying wreck, had battered the other cruisers and Star Destroyers. Blackmoon Squadron, one of the elite units quartered out of the biotics building complex, had lost three pilots only today, including its commander and second-in-command. The pilots, soldiers, and crews ran on caf and stubbornness, some barely able to stay on their feet as they came on duty.

  But in his first hours home, Luke was able to peer beneath the surface.

  Kyp Durron welcomed Luke back with an unambiguous smile and handshake; when he’d heard the tale of Lord Nyax, he offered no criticism of Luke’s handling of the matter.

  Han and Leia seemed at ease with one another, no lingering tension flavoring words they exchanged. They told Luke that, with the likelihood very high of an all-out push by the Yuuzhan Vong in the Pyria system, they were postponing their next resistance run in order to give Jaina whatever support they could.

  Jaina was different, too, somehow
at ease. She did not burn any less brightly for the loss of her brothers, she did not fight any less fiercely against the Yuuzhan Vong, but she was in balance, no longer leaning toward the dark side. She smiled easily and often.

  His family, recently torn apart and flung in all directions, not yet reassembled, was healing.

  It was the biotics building’s mess hall, but was not being used for that purpose now, and would never be used for that purpose again. Its tables were all arrayed with chairs only on one side so they could face the head of the room, the seats occupied by General Wedge Antilles, Colonel Tycho Celchu, and Luke Skywalker. Now those tables were filled with divisional heads, squadron commanders, ship captains, spies, Jedi.

  “The Starlancer project,” Wedge said, “is a laser-based superweapon roughly analogous to a Death Star main gun, with two important differences. The first difference is that it distorts space and time to accelerate its destructive force through hyperspace, allowing it to be used as a first-strike weapon against enemy star systems light-years away.” Muttering from those who were not in on the Starlancer secret filled the air, but could not compete with distant detonations—the Yuuzhan Vong bombardment was now nearly continuous, the New Republic forces not numerous or rested enough to beat it back as in weeks past. Even now, squadrons of tired pilots were defending the biotics facility from that pounding, but could not defend it completely.

  Wedge pointed to an area of empty air and a hologram image filled it. It was a trifling bit of sleight of hand, Tycho standing by to activate the holoprojector at the right moment, but there was, Wedge thought, a certain amount of dash to it. And he could see Iella at the back of the room, smiling at his display.

  The hologram showed star-filled space. Then four irregular vehicles zoomed into view. Three were identical; they looked like Y-wing cockpits merged to the join of sixty-degree angles made of wide pipe, with a third pipe splitting the angle into two thirty-degree angles. The fourth vehicle was similar, but had three pipes radiating from a central hub at the cockpit’s stern. A fourth pipe emerged from the hub at a ninety-degree angle to the plane they suggested.