Kell adopted an expression of disdain. “No countersign, indeed. What sort of holodrama is this, anyway?”
“You’re going to do what? ” Mara asked. Her voice had not risen to carry through the doors and into the conference room, but it had become sharper. It was loud enough to startle Ben, but the baby merely looked up from her arms, gurgled, looked at Luke, and reached out for his father. Luke gave him the pinkie of his natural hand to grasp.
Luke steeled himself. “I’m going to Coruscant.”
“Your visions?”
“They’re getting worse and more frequent. Whatever is happening there, it’s building. Getting stronger. Or going to build, going to get stronger—I don’t know if I’m seeing the present or the future.”
“Or the past. You could be seeing something about Palpatine’s rise to power.”
He shook his head. “There wouldn’t be a sense of urgency to the visions.”
“Well, send someone else. This is an Intelligence-style mission. Sneaking around in the dark. Not exactly suited to a fighter pilot with a glowing sword.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should invite some Intelligence types along. But since it’s a matter of the Force, there has to be a Jedi there.” He gave her a reassuring grin. “Everything’s better with a Jedi around.”
“Where did you learn that smile? Have you been practicing in front of a holo of Han Solo? Listen, I’m not objecting to a Jedi going on this mission. But it can’t be you. You can’t go.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t go. I have to stay with Ben.”
“It has to be me, Mara. With the galaxy falling apart and the Jedi needing leadership, and with so many of them looking at anyone but me because they believe I’m some sort of passive, prematurely ancient wise man on a mountaintop, I think it would be a good thing for them to hear that I’ve led a mission into Coruscant. They’ll have to rethink my outlook and my opinions.” It occurred to Luke that Leia would probably be pleased with the political slant of his reasoning … and then he realized that he was once again playing in Leia’s battlefield, the universe of politics, where she was a master and he was usually a floundering novice.
“Don’t do this, Skywalker.”
“I have to. Come with me.”
“I’m needed here.”
“That’s what your feelings are telling you. What does the Force tell you?”
Her eyes flashed. “It doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Then you’re not open to it. You’re afraid of where it will lead you. You’re afraid it will tell you that you need to step away from Ben, however temporarily.”
Mara’s face closed down, allowing no emotion to escape beyond the event horizon of her features. “I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid that my husband is becoming some sort of dried-up desert mystic, cut off from human emotions.”
Luke sighed and abandoned the argument. “The offer’s open until I leave.” He cocked his head toward the conference room door. “We need to join the rest.”
Luke took his customary chair beside Wedge at the head of the table. Mara, still stony-faced, sat beside Han and Leia.
No one was talking; instead, everyone watched Iella Wessiri as she moved the length of one wall, slowly and rhythmically waving an electronic device beside it. The lights on the device blinked a steady pattern in white.
Wedge waited until Iella finished. She nodded at him to indicate that the chamber was free of listening devices.
“Two hours ago,” Wedge began, “a refugee ship arrived from the direction of the Hapes Cluster. It had been part of a fleet heading toward Hapes. The fleet had been assembled in considerable secrecy, but the Yuuzhan Vong intercepted it, and this ship was the only one to escape. This coincides with word we’ve received from Talon Karrde today that the Vong are becoming much more adept at tracking refugee traffic.
“I suspect that the New Republic fleet groups, under direct control of the Advisory Council, are going to be unable to devote their resources to this problem. So I’m going to devote some of ours. I’m looking for ideas.”
“The first step,” Luke said, “has to be to figure out what the Yuuzhan Vong are doing. How they’re getting their accurate information about refugee ship movements. It could be that they’ve infiltrated one of the Yuuzhan Vong into the refugee ship network … in which case you’ll want a Jedi to travel on some of those voyages to try to find a crew member who can’t be detected in the Force.”
“Good point,” Wedge said. “Anyone else?”
Danni Quee waved from the back of the room. “They could be using some sort of tracking creature.”
“Also a good point,” Wedge acknowledged. “What do we do about that?”
Danni considered. “Tracking creatures will probably be using gravitic fluctuations to signal their presence. I can build a detection device similar to what I’m using to track yammosk activities. If we mount it on a refugee vessel, it can record gravitic flux and determine whether a creature like that is aboard. But if the vessel doesn’t survive the trip and we can’t retrieve the recording, that does us no good.”
Corran Horn spoke up. “So we make sure that the vessel survives. We put together a surprise for the Vong and then run the vessel on missions until they decide to take it. This has an additional benefit; the Yuuzhan Vong are preying pretty much at will on refugee ships. If Yuuzhan Vong vessels assigned to this duty start disappearing, they may have to rethink their operations.”
“Good,” Wedge said.
Corran continued, “But if the Yuuzhan Vong aren’t using gravitic tracker creatures, we still have to figure out where the holes are in the security of the refugee network. We’ll have to root out the problem the old-fashioned way.”
“Well, it looks like we have some tactics to employ,” Wedge said. “I think we’ll need a volunteer to coordinate this effort, and that volunteer can work with me and Tycho to assemble a mission. Anyone?”
Lando’s hand was, to the surprise of the others, first in the air. “I think it’s about time I made a lot of Vong look bad,” he said. “In my own inimitable way, of course.”
“Of course.” Wedge grinned at him.
“I’ll need communications access to Talon Karrde, Danni’s device, a starfighter squadron, maybe a Jedi or two, and a lot of brandy. I can’t stress the brandy part enough.”
Wedge gave him a dubious look. “I think we’ve accomplished what we needed to here. Does anyone have anything else?”
“I do.” Luke gave Mara an apologetic look. “I’m going to Coruscant. Something’s happening there, something outside the activities of the Yuuzhan Vong, and I have to look into it. I suspect that once I’m there, I can find a way to get offworld, but what I don’t know is how I’d get to the planet’s surface.”
“Intelligence can get you there,” Iella said. “We’ve been thinking about putting a team on the ground there—we need to set up Resistance cells on Coruscant. We can combine the two missions.” She gave him a wicked smile. “I’ll give you that extremely annoying mechanic.”
“Thank you so much,” Luke said, deadpan.
Domain Lah Worldship, Myrkr Orbit
He was a warrior of the Yuuzhan Vong, his face so thoroughly scarred and tattooed that the decorations all but hid his wrinkles of age, his augmented vonduun crab armor concealing the leanness of active venerability. In his hands, coiled like a long rope, was an amphistaff of unusual type—far longer, much more slender than the standard Yuuzhan Vong weapon.
One did not often see a Yuuzhan Vong warrior this old. Most had gone to a noble death long before achieving this age.
He walked behind the black coral benches of his teaching chamber, behind the rows of his students, warrior-officers clad only in loincloths. At the head of the chamber, blaze bugs took on the form of a planet, of its defensive platforms and screens, of attacking Yuuzhan Vong forces.
“See there,” he said. “The upper right quadrant of the world Coruscan
t. The stream of ships against the visible screen, how it flares into incandescence and disappears. These ships held our enemies’ refugees, and they disappeared because we ordered them into a region of space protected by the enemy’s passive defenses. When they could no longer bear the notion that their innocent relatives were being consumed by their own defenses, they lowered those defenses, and we entered their world-sanctuary.” The blaze bugs altered their configuration so that the stream of ships passed through the shield, now accompanied by colors suggesting Yuuzhan Vong attack craft. “Now, what was the most important piece of information we needed to implement this plan?”
For a moment there was silence. Then a young warrior, his body scarcely graced by scars or tattoos, stood. He remained rigid, his back to the elderly instructor. “We needed to know where their passive defenses were.”
The elderly Yuuzhan Vong drew back his coil of amphistaff and then snapped it forward. The pointed tail cracked out and stabbed into that warrior’s back, punching a hole into the flesh over his shoulder blade. As the elderly one yanked his living whip back, the hole bled.
“Sit,” said the old one. “What you have just received is a Czulkang Lah pit. Everyone who studies with me receives several. They become badges of honor, a sign that you have survived instruction with Czulkang Lah. But the more hopeless among you receive many pits, countless pits, and rather than it being a badge of honor, such scars tell other officers that you were an idiot. I recommend you not gather unto yourself too many. Now, who will answer the question I asked?”
No one stood or spoke.
The old warrior sighed. “All stand, all but the one who had the courage to venture an answer.”
All the students, except the one still bleeding, rose. Czulkang Lah lashed out at them, methodically and rhythmically cutting two pits in each back. The warriors he struck did not cry out; none offered any sound more dismayed than a grunt. But they would remember this day and how their fear of offering a wrong answer had earned them their teacher’s ire.
When he was halfway through the group of thirty students, one who had not yet been struck spoke up, saying, “We had to know that the enemy would sacrifice all to save a few. We had to know how they thought.”
“You, sit.” Czulkang Lah continued his whip-cracking, sparing the one who had last spoken. When all but that one had bloody backs, he said, “All sit.
“Now, all think. Tudrath Dyn is correct. We had to understand their weaknesses … and their strengths. Their ability to train great warriors despite their daintiness concerning death and pain. Their hateful love of machinery … and their correct evaluation of that machinery’s effectiveness. We had to know. Else we would not have beaten them on Coruscant. Else we would not beat them elsewhere.”
A warrior with a bloody back stood. “May I ask a question, Warmaster?”
“I am not Warmaster,” Czulkang Lah said. “Not for a lifetime. Yes, you may ask. I punish wrong conclusions … not curiosity.”
The warrior asked, “How can one understand the ways of the enemy without learning to think like the enemy? And if one learns to think like the enemy, is that one not infected with his thoughts, and a danger to the Yuuzhan Vong?”
“A good question. Sit.” Czulkang Lah walked around to stand before his students. “The answer is as you suspect. For our theoretical tactician to think like the enemy is to be infected with his wrongness. If the infection is not too great, the tactician can cure himself by reimmersion in our ways. If the infection is too great, he can find a way to die honorably, knowing that his sacrifice has enriched us. So his infection is not a problem unless he passes it on to others. Remember—and this is the lesson that the enemy on Coruscant did not understand—individual survival is not important. As soon as you dispassionately place yourselves among those whom you are willing to send to certain death, you take another step toward strategic wisdom.” He glanced past the ranks of his students at the figure, a distant silhouette, who had just entered the coral-lined chamber. “We are finished for now. Go.”
They rose and marched, nearly silent on bare feet, from the chamber, glancing but not staring at the visitor, who remained at the rear, in the shadows, wrapped in a voluminous cloak.
When they were gone, Czulkang Lah moved forward. “Is it you?”
Tsavong Lah unwrapped himself from his cloak.
“Father.”
Czulkang Lah offered a nod of acknowledgment. “Son. Or is your visit as warmaster?”
Tsavong Lah moved to stand beside his father. “As warmaster and son. As son I ask, how do you fare?”
Czulkang Lah bared his teeth; their irregular and broken lines had been glimpsed through his slitted lips previously, but were now clearly revealed. “How do you think? I am old. But for my augmented armor, I could barely move. Aches befall me that have nothing to do with the marks I have put on myself over the years. And I am little but an honored prisoner here, unable to lead, and begged by my son not to die.”
“This has changed.”
“You no longer wish me to teach?”
“I wish you to lead.”
Czulkang Lah did not bother to conceal his surprise. He leaned away from his son as if the few centimeters of additional distance would give him a better view. “Tell me.”
“We have been somewhat embarrassed by a garrison defending a world at a hyperspace crossroads. Borleias, I am sure you know her.”
“Pyria system. Staging point for the assault on Coruscant.”
“Correct. The garrison defends the world with savagery and tactical brilliance. We are not sure why. Examination of one of their technical facilities in the system we captured indicates that they are developing something there, some new weapon to use against us, but unfortunately their scientists were able to destroy most of the evidence before they fled. The resources they bring to bear, tactics I cannot explain, all suggest that something is afoot there. I need someone to go there, root out the mystery, and then destroy the garrison … and to do so in such a way that our embarrassment is forgotten and theirs is legendary.”
“No. Find someone else.”
“Why?”
“When I succeed, it will have been just a bittersweet taste of what I once knew. I will not do this unless, once all is done, I retain a command, return to what I know best.”
Tsavong Lah hesitated, and Czulkang Lah continued. “You fear that I will bind the loyalties of officers, of whole domains, to me, and take from you the rank you once took from me. But I will not. I opposed you years ago because I opposed coming to this galaxy, attacking these infidels. But we are here now. I have no reason to oppose you, plot against you. All I demand is that you give me a reason to continue living.”
His son hesitated a moment longer, then nodded. “When Borleias has fallen, you will retain command, and the stories of new exploits will be added to your legend, as they should be. For now, I wish you to take Domain Hul and all her resources to the Pyria system and do what I have described.”
“It will be done.” After a moment, Czulkang Lah added, “I am pleased that you came in person to ask.”
“No matter what our disagreements, you remain a hero to the Yuuzhan Vong, and to your son. I owe you no less.”
NINE
Deep-Space Rendezvous Point
The Gallofree personnel transport Jeolocas dropped out of hyperspace exactly where she was supposed to, so far from any star system and from any widely known hyperspace route that the only thing her occupants should have seen was the surrounding expanse of stars and nebulae in all their color and purity.
Instead, as the whirling lines of hyperspace travel straightened and then foreshortened and Jeolocas dropped into realspace, clearly visible from the bridge was a Yuuzhan Vong frigate analog, an oblong mass of glistening red-and-black yorik coral, less than twenty kilometers away, easy firing distance.
Jeolocas’s captain, a young man from Corellia who had grown up on the exploits of famed Corellian pilots like Han Solo and Wedge Antilles
, suddenly felt the kinship he’d always known with those heroes fade away to a cold recognition of his own mortality. For the first time in his life, he felt no ambition to see an enemy spacecraft in his targeting reticle, to dogfight with enemy pilots in the thick of battle. In fact, the merchant corps he served suddenly seemed more dangerous than he could endure. “We’re dead,” he said, his voice a croak.
The officer next to him, a Twi’lek female with pale blue skin, merely smiled. “Not unless you want to be.”
“What?” He stared at her, looking for any sign that she was distressed, confused, surprised in the least. He saw none. He didn’t know her well—hadn’t known her prior to a day ago, when she’d been assigned to this mission on the direct recommendation of the Talon Karrde organization—and now he understood that everything he had known about her, her name, her service record, all had to be a lie. He looked around the interior of the command pod and realized that she’d sent the other five ship’s officers off on various duties just prior to arrival, leaving the two of them alone here. “You knew they’d be here.”
“That’s right.”
“You’re Peace Brigade, you sold us out—”
“It doesn’t matter who I am. It only matters that you do as you’re told.”
He drew his service blaster. He’d practiced his draw for years until it was as smooth as shimmersilk and faster than the eye could follow. He’d practiced it until Han Solo himself, had he ever met the man, would have been impressed with his speed and deadliness.
As he brought the weapon up, he felt a sharp pain in his wrist.
He looked down. His hand was empty, bent back at a bad angle. His blaster was in the Twi’lek woman’s hand and tucked barrel-first under his chin. She looked slightly more serious now, as if deciding whether to forgive him for the minor transgression of trying to kill her. The pain from his wrist jolted up to his elbow, then made more leisurely progress up to his shoulder while he stared, uncomprehending. He cradled his injured hand.
Rebel Dream: Enemy Lines I Page 13
