Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Force Heretic II - Refugee - Book 18

by Sean Williams

  "Freedom?" Jaina echoed. "We'll be slaves!"

  "Immortal slaves! What are a few years of servitude in

  exchange for eternity? They will pass as though mere moments!"

  Suddenly it became all too clear why Cundertol had betrayed Bakura to the Ssi-ruuk.

  "Is that what they've promised you?" Leia asked. "Immortality? You sold out your planet and people for a promise of longer life?"

  Cundertol's smile was wide and amused. "Actually, Princess, they didn't promise me anything. I worked it out for myself. They didn't come to me seeking a bargain; we met halfway. From there, it was just a matter of working out the details."

  Jaina shook her head. "Surely you can't be that naive! If you think it's going to happen like"

  "Not going to happenit's already happened! If you refuse to accept the truth of it, then I cannot help you. Your fate is already sealed."

  The Keeramak clicked its claws, and half the P'w'eck moved forward through the ranks of Ssi-ruuvi guards. If there was going to be a fight, then clearly these were to be sacrificed first. Jaina felt sick to her stomach. As bad as it was to be facing captivity and entechment, it felt worse to know that her only hope of escaping would mean having to fight and possibly kill slaves.

  Lwothin, even more fidgety than usual, led the contingent. He turned to the Keeramak and inclined his head in what Jaina took to be a gesture of respect and subservience. The mighty Ssi-ruu uttered a deep, powerful warble that she didn't require C-3PO to translate for her. As far as she was concerned, it could have meant only one thing the Keeramak was ordering the P'w'eck guards to subdue the prisoners.

  Lwothin nodded his long, reptilian head and raised himself to full height. Jaina tensed, her lightsaber igniting with a press of her thumb as she braced herself for the assault. With a cry that both surprised and terrified her in equal measures, Lwothin brought up his paddle beamer and fired point blank.

  The engines of Jag's clawcraft were running hot. Despite that, it was still firmly tethered to the V'sett fighters that had captured him and being drawn inexorably toward a growing knot of captured Bakuran and Galactic Alliance vessels. Comprised of more than one hundred fighters, the knot was being drawn through a narrow hole in the shields of the massive carrier Eninurfg'ka. Two Fw'Sen picket ships accompanied them, making certain there was no trouble. The vast, curving sweep of the carrier's bow loomed over him, making him and his fate seem powerfully insignificant.

  Clicks came over the comm as he joined the formation of captured fighters. Bound tight by powerful tractor beams, all he and his squadronmates could do was signal each other as they were dragged to their doom. Nearby he could make out the pilot of the Y-wing in her cockpit, hands visibly poised over her controls, a grim expression on her face. Jag had no doubt from the look in her eyes as she stared through her cockpit canopy at him that, given the opportunity, she would fight backto the death if need be. Her eyes held the same dark determination he felt in his heart.

  Not that such an opportunity would eventuate. Once they were on the other side of those shields, that would be it. There would be no hope of rescue then.

  I'm sorry, Father, he thought, wishing there was some way that Baron Soontir Fel could hear him. And his mother. They'd had such hopes for him. All his life he had struggled to prove himself worthy in their eyes. The slow-maturing child of aliens in a fiercely competitive society, growing up in the shadow of Thrawn and his father's ambition. How could he ever have suspected that he would meet such a fate as this?

  "This is Captain Mayn." The voice came clearly over the comm unit. " I'm addressing you on an open frequency. The jamming has been interrupted to let me relay orders from the ground. All fighters must stand down or planetary bombardment will begin immediately. They have paralysis weapons that can knock out an entire city. Salis D'aar will be the first target. Therefore, in the best interest of innocent civilians, I am asking for all resistance to cease."

  Jag listened to the words with growing amazement. Could this really be Todra Mayn speaking? The thought of just giving in to the Ssi-ruuk turned his insides to water.

  "If we stand down now, Captain, then they're as good as dead anyway," Jag said over the same frequency.

  "We have an assurance from the Ssi-ruuk that, once the planet is under Imperium control, we shall be treated fairly."

  Jag jerked the yoke of his ship to fight the dreadful tug of the tractor beams. "Like the P'w'eck were, you mean? As breeding stock for droid fighters?" "Anything is better than dying." He could tell by the way his engines were shrieking that they weren't going to last much longer at full throttle. If he was going to blow them, to end it quickly rather than in the mental cage of a droid fighter, then he was going to have to do it soonwhile he still had engines to do it with!

  "You have to trust me, Jag." Captain Mayn's voice was thick with tension. "They have Jaina."

  So? he wanted to yell back at her. Is one life worth more than that of an entire planet?

  But he couldn't say it. His heart tore at the idea that Jaina might be hurt. With numb fingers, he throttled back and let the alien shield slip over his craft. The shield

  itself was invisible to all but his instruments, but he imagined it as the maw of some mighty beast waiting to swallow him. Once ingested, fierce gastric juices would remove his soul and dispense with his useless carcass afterward. . .

  Then the barrier slammed shut behind them, and they were inside. In the awkward stillness and silence, it felt like an entirely different universe. Outside, beyond the barrier, skirmishes lit up the starry backdrop as pockets of resistance still fought the Ssi-ruuvi invaders. The picket ships, once they had delivered their cargo, returned to patrolling the area. Inside the Errinung'ka's shield there was only stillness. Caught in the web cast by droid and V'sett fighters, the captives could do little more than curse their misfortune. And wait.

  Everything suddenly stopped as the Keeramak, without a single noise of complaint, crumpled to the floor.

  There was a split second during which the Ssi-ruuk were so stunned by Lwothin's actions that they did nothing at all. They simply stood there gawping at the Keeramak lying on the ground, oozing a gray, viscous fluid from the paddle beamer wound in its chest. The P'w'eck were quick to take advantage of the Ssi-ruuk's confusion, and other paddle beamers began to flash in the dimly lit tunnel. For a moment, Jaina was confused, too, but that didn't last. It was obvious what was happening Lwothin and the P'w'eck were rebelling against their Ssi-ruuvi masters!

  The Ssi-ruuk were better trained and better equipped than the P'w'eck, though, and they soon regained the advantage, fighting back with frightening ferocity. Jaina had no doubt as to whose side she was on, and when a Ssi-ruuvi warrior leveled his beamer at Lwothin, she quickly slashed out with her lightsaber and knocked the weapon from the creature's hand. It swung around, attacking her with three raking claws, and she barely managed to duck a decapitating blow. The saurian was hugebut she had sparred with Saba Sebatyne enough times to know the kind of things a tail could do in combat. And there was still the Force, guiding her every move, tweaking her instincts. Fighting the Ssi-ruuk, thankfully, wasn't like fighting the Yuuzhan Vong, whose every intention was hidden from view.

  She ducked and rolled, kicking up into the Ssi-ruu's midriff. It whuffed explosively and staggered backward, It used its tail to keep its balance, swiftly regaining its footing and lunging at her again. But she was out of the way before it could strike out, rolling under its sweeping talons once again. She came around its side, two-handedly slicing across the creature's neck. It fell to the floor with a shriek, spraying blood.

  Another warrior howled and tried to skewer her with a shot from its beamer. Her lightsaber was unable to deflect the beam as effectively as it would a laser shot, but sh e did manage to bend it harmlessly into a wall. A P'w'eck leapt onto the warrior's back and brought it down. Jaina pulled the beamer from its grasp and threw it over to Vyram, who deftly snatched it from the air and aimed it at Cundertol'
s face.

  He fixed the Prime Minister with an unflinching stare. "I won't hesitate to pull this trigger if that blaster so much as gives Malinza a bruise."

  Neither moved as the fracas around them came to a surprisingly quick conclusion. The shock of their leader's death seemed to eat at the Ssi-ruuk's initial confidence. As the last of the surviving warriors allowed herself to be subdued, the Prime Minister lowered his weapon to his side.

  "You ruined it," he said, looking emptily down at the Keeramak. "You ruined it for all of us!"

  "Yeah?" Han said, looking around at the P'w'eck collecting weapons and distributing them among the Baku-rans. The paddle beamers were awkward to handle, but having something to fight with was better than nothing at all. "I don't see anyone else complaining."

  The advance leader of the P'w'eck Emancipation Movement spoke urgently in his lyrical voice.

  "Lwothin asks that you contact our fighters immediately," C-3PO translated. "He says that the jamming has been interrupted to allow you to speak."

  "What am I supposed to tell them?" Leia asked.

  Lwothin sang again. "Oh, my," 3PO said. "He wants you to tell them to offer no resistanceto allow them to be captured!"

  Leia opened her mouth, but her husband spoke his mind first. "No one's giving any such order!"

  Lwothin explained his plan as best he could in the limited time. When he had finished, Jaina watched Leia glance down at the body of the Keeramak, the look in her eyes suspicious and dubious.

  "How can I be sure that you're not asking me to send those fighters into a trap?"

  "You cannot," the P'w'eck sang in reply via C-3PO. "But if you say nothing then those pilots are as good as dead anyway. This is their only hope." The P'w'eck's eyes were luminous behind their rapidly flickering triple eyelids. "The time for lies and traps has passed. We stand before you now as allies and equals. We will not betray you."

  Every instinct in Jaina's body screamed out to believe him. For the first time, she felt as though they had reached the heart of the conspiracies surrounding Bakura. Leia clearly felt the same. With a brisk nod, she activated her comlink and called Pride of Selonia.

  The conversation was brief and to the point. The next message Jaina heard over the comlink was Captain Mayn's general broadcast to all the Galactic Alliance fighters.

  "This is Captain Mayn. I'm addressing you on an open frequency."

  When she was finished, Jag's voice came back with

  "If we stand down now, Captain, then they're as good as dead anyway."

  At the sound of his voice, something inside Jama suddenly relaxed. When Lwothin had described the fighting taking place in orbit above Bakura, her first thought had been of Jag, wondering whether he had been among those killed. Or worse, captured for entechment.

  "I have an assurance from the Ssi-ruuk," Mayn went on, maintaining the pretense of surrender, "that, once the planet is under Imperium control, we shall be treated fairly."

  "Like the P'w'eck were, you mean? As breeding stock for droid fighters?"

  "Anything is better than dying."

  There was a high-pitched groan over the open line as though of a fighter undergoing stresses it hadn't been designed for. Jaina waited for Jag's reply, but it didn't come. She could feel his uncertainty and desperation as though he were standing next to her. His concern for her burned like a small but intense star.

  Captain Mayn clearly sensed it, too.

  "You have to trust me, Jag," she said. "They have Jaina."

  The lie cut Jaina deeply, but she knew immediately that it was the right thing to say. If anything could make Jag defy his deepest, most ingrained instincts, then that would be it. His concern for her ran deepdeeper than he had admitted aloud.

  He didn't reply, but she knew that he had capitulated.

  "I presume you know what you're doing, Princess," the voice of Captain Mayn added on a private channel.

  Leia adjusted the comlink to reply on that same channel. "I do, Todra." She glanced at Lwothin with the threat of murder in her eyes. "Trust me on this."

  Time seemed to have frozen. Caught in the web of the Ssi-ruuvi shields, Jag vibrated with tension. He had no way of knowing what was happening on the ground or elsewhere in orbit. The jamming had returned not long after the end of Mayn's transmission. He felt isolated and powerless, like all the other pilots trapped in their fighters around him, waiting for their captors to move in and take them . . .

  Then something strange happened. His sensors registered a slight lessening of the tractor beams holding him in place. Suspecting that some of the Ssi-ruuvi escort may have dropped away now that they were safe within the shields, he checked his scope. Their escort hadn't moved.

  A second later, the tractor beam readings dropped again. He flexed his controls and found that his clawcraft had retained a measure of mobility.

  He sat for a moment, fighting the impulse to pull loose. What was the point? If he did break free, what was he supposed to do? The shields around the carrier would stop him from escaping anyway, so it seemed a pointless exercise.

  But then there was yet another dip in the readings, and this time he couldn't help himself he found his hopes rising. It couldn't just be him, surely. The grip of the Ssi-ruuk on their captives was slipping. A rush of excitement thrilled through him as he realized what must be going on.

  The P'w'eck droid ships that had accompanied the Bakuran fighters on the "honor guard" flights were slowly redirecting their tractor beams. Having delivered an undamaged attack force behind the shields of the enemy, they were now seeing them freegradually, so the Ssi-ruuk wouldn't notice. The P'w'eck were rebelling against their mastersfor real, this timeand using Bakuran firepower as their weapon!

  Jag clicked three times in rapid succession to call for attention. The captured Twin Sun pilots clicked in immediately. There was a growing rustle over the comm indicating that others were noticing the change and wondering what was going on. He didn't have much time; he would have to act fast before the Ssi-ruuk noticed.

  When the tractor beams dropped once more, he clicked twice, then twice again. It was the squadron's code for "attack," and the response was instantaneous. Jag and his pilots pushed their ships from a standing start to full throttle at virtually the same instant. Tearing free of the weakened forces binding them, they roared out of formation and swooped around to attack the unprepared Ssi-ruuk. The V'sett fighters were, much to their surprise, caught in the droid ships' tractor beams, reducing their maneuverability. Within seconds, it was over. The Ssi-ruuk were destroyed and the tractor beams holding the remainder of the captives fell away completely.

  The formation immediately dissolved into chaos. Communications cleared. Jag opened his comm on all frequencies, hoping to regain order before the jamming returned.

  "Stay calm, people!" he ordered. "Maintain your original formations! Do not fire on the droid ships! I repeat, do not fire on the droid ships. They're piloted by the P'w'eck, remember, and they're on our side. They were the ones who got us here."

  "What's so good about here?" one of the Bakuran pilots returned.

  "Here we have a target," Jag replied, turning his claw-craft in the direction of the alien carrier. "We're inside the shields, and their squadrons are outside. They can't call for reinforcements without opening themselves up for attack from Selonia or Sentinel." He grinned in anticipation of the battle ahead; it was so obvious, now that he saw it. " They've given us a chance, people, so let's not waste it!"

  The dramatic triple reversal of the P'w'eckfrom enemy to ally, then to enemy and now back to allyleft the Bakuran pilots understandably confused, but they obeyed Jag's orders and left the P'w'eck alone. Flights of threes and fives re-formed and swooped down from the inner edge of the shields to attack the carrier. Jag gathered the remnants of Twin Suns around him and did the same. The carrier bays weren't completely empty, and a dozen V'sett fighters soon rose to meet them. Six droid fighters came in close pursuit. Caught from behind, the Ssi-ruuk's defensi
ve charge was soon scattered.

  "Go for the tractor beam generators," Jag instructed the pilots swarming around him, searching for targets. "Then make strafing runs across the deflector-shield projectors. Try to keep structural damage to a minimum. We have friends in there, and I'd rather not lose a single one of them to friendly fire."

  Then he was down in the maelstrom, finding targets and launching laser bolts as fast as he could. He made a couple of passes at the ion cannons that ringed the carrier's bulging waist and managed to destroy three. Others from his squadron cleaned up the rest.

  The response from the carrier was sluggish, and he put that down to the P'w'eck who were revolting both inside and outside the ship. But he wasn't fool enough to believe that this advantage would last indefinitely. At 750 meters long, the carrier would have been a formidable opponent for even a hundred fighters.

  Still, he thought, any amount of damage they could inflict upon the carrier would be something. The more they could do here, he figured, the less work there'd be for Jaina later.. .

  Word of the breakout of the Galactic Alliance fighters came from Selonia within moments of the airwaves clearing. Jaina, however, had no time to hear the details. A sudden blur of motion caught her attention. Thinking that one of the Ssi-ruuvi captives had made a break for it, she whirled with her lightsaber at the ready, but instead all she saw was the back of the former Prime Minister sprinting off down the corridor. Vyram was lying on his back, rubbing his right forearm.

  "I'm sorry," he said, clambering to her feet. "He moved so quickly!"

  Jaina didn't wait; she immediately set off after Cun-dertol. They couldn't let him escape. If he got to a communicator, the plan would be exposed and Jag could be captured for real. She followed the rapid pad-pad of his footsteps along the dusty corridors as he looped around the others and headed up toward the hole Harris's bomb had blown in the stadium.

  She soon realized what Vyram had meant about the Prime Minister being quick. Cundertol's speed was impressive.

  The sound of his footsteps ahead veered off in a new direction. Two corners and fifty meters later, she understood why. A squadron of P'w'eck who had overthrown their masters came down the tunnel toward her, blocking the exit to the stadium. Cundertol hadn't wanted to run into them, so he had ducked down an alternate tunnel, probably heading for the exit Malinza and the others had tried before. Jaina didn't hesitate; she turned down into the tunnel, too, startling the P'w'eck squadron as she ran past but not stopping to explain herself.