STAR WARS - THE NEW JEDI ORDER - Destiny's Way

by Walter Jon Williams

  "I have to change now, and run," Jaina said. "I've got dispatches to deliver to headquarters." She gave Jacen a look. "And I've got a personal message from Admiral Kre'fey to Uncle Luke. He wants Jedi."

  Jacen was pleasantly surprised. "At least someone wants us."

  She took a more formal uniform out of her duffel, disappeared into a bedroom to change, and then returned only to head for the door.

  "We'll talk later, right?" she said as she paused on the threshold. "I want to hear everything." And then she was gone.

  Jacen gazed at the closing door in surprise as his mind tingled with the sensation of the fading twin bond. He had expected more from his first meeting with his sister, much more.

  She wasn't avoiding him, Jacen thought. Not exactly. But she definitely needed some time to get her thoughts together before she could face him.

  He thought he knew why.

  Jacen shared with his guests some jewel-fruit he found in the refrigeration unit, and then the two astrophysicists said their good-byes.

  Luke and Mara returned before Jaina did. When Jaina finally arrived, she was taut and high-strung, her neck and shoulder muscles rigid with tension. First she delivered Kre'fey's request for more Jedi pilots to Luke, who was pleased to hear that someone in the military was willing to take Jedi. He asked about Jaina's action at Obroa-skai, and from there gently drew her into a discussion of her activities since the fall of Coruscant. Particularly the battles at Hapes, and the way she'd used the Yuuzhan Vong's own dovin basals against them, to sow confusion and destroy the invaders.

  And her state of mind at the time. The obsession. The fury. The darkness.

  Jaina looked at Jacen with bleak eyes and said, "I thought you were dead. You and Anakin both. It didn't matter to me how many others were sent to join you. I was ready to go myself."

  It was easier, Jacen thought, for Jaina to speak to Luke and Mara than it would have been to speak to him alone. Luke had known that.

  "More than through anger or lust for power," Luke said, "the dark enters through despair. Through the belief that, in the end, there is nothing but pain and sorrow and death, and that nothing we do truly matters." He gave Jaina a look. "I'm here to tell you that we do matter. And that despair is an illusion that the dark casts before our eyes."

  Jaina lowered her eyes. "Thank you, Uncle Luke," she said.

  Jaina and her duffel moved in to share Jacen's room. He wanted to talk to her before sleep, but she said she was exhausted from her long journey from Kashyyyk; she'd talk to him in the morning.

  Jacen fell asleep at once and dreamed of the coral reef. He was awakened two hours before dawn, with the arrival of his parents. Half awake, he stood in the door while his father howled his happiness like a Wookiee, picked Jacen off the floor, and whirled him around as if he were a two-year-old.

  Leia's emotion was less demonstrative but no less powerful, and Jacen felt it through the Force even as his father twirled him through the air. When Jacen found his feet again he embraced his mother, and he sensed the force of Leia's profound thankfulness.

  It was she whose faith had never faltered, he knew. Her husband had deserted her and returned a changed man; the New Republic she had created had betrayed itself; one of her three children had been killed, another torn away into captivity, and she had watched the third slide toward the dark side.

  Leia alone held firm. Leia alone insisted that Jacen was alive. And now Jacen stood within the circle of his mother's arms, and let her know that her faith had not been in vain.

  The hours that followed were exuberant and very emotional. Han was almost bouncing off the walls in his joy, at least when he wasn't trying to conceal a tear in his eye.

  C-3PO moved Han and Leia's belongings into their bedroom, and Jaina and Jacen's gear out. The twins sacked out on the floor of the front room. C-3PO, with nowhere to go, propped himself against a wall and shut himself down. No sooner had Jacen closed his eyes than he heard a respectful tap at the door—Leia's Noghri bodyguards, who hadn't been taken to Bastion, were now reporting for duty.

  They were placed outside in the corridor, and an hour later knocked again, this time because Vergere had been released from detention and had nowhere else to go.

  Jacen was delighted to see her, but clearly the apartment was too crowded, even after Jaina volunteered to shift to bachelor officers' quarters. But fortunately Jacen had a mother who was a Princess and had connections.

  The Solo family, with C-3PO, moved to another apartment along with the Noghri. Jacen hoped Vergere might come along, but Luke rather firmly stated that she would remain as his guest.

  It was probably a good idea, Jacen reflected later. When his parents found out what Vergere had actually done to him when he was a prisoner, they wouldn't have looked at the little alien kindly. Jacen would hate to have to get between Vergere and Han's blaster.

  The move took much of the day, and as soon as it was over Jaina had to report to Fleet Command to see if any decision had been made about Kre'fey's request for Jedi. She wasn't back until very late.

  The next morning, Jacen rose, seated himself at the foot of his bed, and began to do his Jedi meditations and exercises. Calling the Force, using it to help modify his bodily state, slowing or speeding his heartbeat; shifting blood flow to his muscles, as if for combat; to his internal organs, as if wounded or short on air; or to his skin, to help radiate excess heat and cool the body.

  He sensed Jaina waking as the Force radiated from him, and likewise sensed her resentment. With a sigh, she climbed out of the bed, joined him on the floor, and merged her meditations with his.

  They synchronized breathing and heartbeat, lifted small objects, and then engaged in a mental lightsaber fight, sharing a mutual mental image of themselves in battle with one another, visualizing every move, every parry, the shuffle of their feet on the ground, the thrumm of the lightsabers, the impact as the blades grated against each other. Jaina's fight was methodical and cool, utilizing minimal energy, content to back away until she saw an opening for an absolutely ruthless riposte. Jacen permitted himself more freedom, making wild attacks and lunges, spinning in and out of range, striving to do the unexpected. As a result he got nailed more often than not, and in the moment of his "death," he sensed his sister's steely resolve.

  Afterward, as a calming exercise, Jacen sent his Force-sense radiating outward, sensing his sleeping parents in their bed, the two Noghri (one on guard, the other asleep), the sparks of life in the adjacent apartments. Seeking the wondrous, dynamic complexity he'd found on the reef, Jacen sent his Force-sense floating even farther,

  down into the deeps surrounding Heurkea Floating City, sensing the masses of microscopic life, the swarms offish that had adopted the city as their home, the deepwater pelagic fish that darted into the city's shadow to prey on the smaller fish . . .

  Jaina pulled away. Jacen opened his eyes in surprise and saw her getting to her feet.

  "Sorry," she said. "I can't go there right now."

  He blinked at her. "Why not?"

  She reached into the closet and took out her uniform. "I've got to stay focused on my job. I can't let my mind go floating around in the ocean, I've got to stick with what I can use."

  "It's life, Jaina," Jacen said. "The Force is life."

  Jaina looked down at him. Anger smoldered in her eyes. "Life isn't what I do anymore," she said. "What I do is death. I kill, and I try not to get killed myself. Anything else—" She waved her hand, "-—is a luxury."

  "Jaina—" Jacen began.

  "Every second I spend floating around the ocean," Jaina said, "I'm getting weaker and the Vong are getting stronger. So what I'm going to do—" She opened the door. "—is take a shower, get into my uniform, and go to headquarters to see if Admiral Sow has a message for me. And if he doesn't, I'm going to find some pilots and talk tactics, so that maybe I can learn a trick or two that will keep my squadron alive through another fight. I'll see you later, maybe."

  "It's all abo
ut balance, Jaina," Jacen said, but she was gone, and the refresher door shut behind her.

  Jacen rose and sadly began to change into his clothes. Later, after breakfast, he told his mother what Jaina had said. Leia sighed.

  "Jaina and I already had this argument at Hapes," she said. "I begged her to get some leave, get away, get some perspective. But she wouldn't, and I know how far I'd get if I repeated my arguments now."

  "Uncle Luke said that despair was access for the dark," Jacen said.

  Leia shook her head. "Jaina's learned about the dark now," she said. "She's been there, and I can't believe she'd go again. What I fear now is that she'll set herself" one impossible task after another until she breaks."

  Jacen looked at his mother. "No one in the family's like that, I'm sure."

  She laughed. "Of all the things Jaina could have inherited from me, she had to pick my work ethic." She reached out and took Jacen's hand. "Jaina's tough, you know. She'll get through this— and it will help that she has one less brother to mourn."

  Jacen tried to smile. "At least I've given her that," he said.

  Four days into his term of office, Cal Omas summoned Admiral Ackbar and Winter to the former resort hotel that now housed the executive branch of government. The meeting was small; the only other guests were Luke, Ayddar Nylykerka of Fleet Intelligence, New Republic Intelligence chief Dif Scaur, and Supreme Commander Sien Sow.

  YVH droids patrolled the corridor outside. Scaur's people had thoroughly swept the room for listening devices, and so had Nylykerka's, who sneaked in later without Scaur's knowledge. The room was small, with no viewports; a small white marble table, scalloped like a seashell, held indentations for each of the guests. On one wall, a little fountain tinkled and chimed, emitting a mild scent of brine.

  Ackbar wore his old uniform. His skin was gray and his hands trembled, and Winter had to help him to his feet as Cal entered the room. But his voice was firm as he congratulated Cal on his appointment, with none of the slurring that Luke had heard before.

  "I would like to thank you all for agreeing to meet with me," Ackbar said. "I know that you're all very busy trying to put the new government together."

  "We're never too busy to meet with one of the greatest heroes of the Rebellion," Cal Omas said. "You were my commander for many years, so please don't think I'm going to start pulling rank on you now."

  "It was Borsk Fey'lya who insisted on your retirement," Sien Sow said. "Please understand that no one in the Defense Force wished you to go—and least of all myself."

  "That's very kind," Ackbar said. His trembling hands keyed a datapad on the table before him. "Though the retirement was welcome in one sense. I now possess a great deal of time to think. And I have been thinking a great deal about the Yuuzhan Vong, the greatest menace to the security of the galaxy since Palpatine." He splayed his huge hands on the marble table. "My speculations aren't completely uninformed because I have . . . friends . . . within the government who have provided data." He looked up at the others. "Nothing secret has come my way, but some analyses have found their way to me."

  Luke glanced into the polished tabletop and viewed the reflections of Nylykerka and Dif Scaur, both of whom were being careful to maintain innocent expressions. Admiral Sow's jowled face was likewise bland.

  "And of course I've been in the service a great many years, all at the highest level," Ackbar continued. "And I understand how the service works. Even the service under Borsk Fey'lya." He nodded his huge head. "So let's open the survey with our military.

  "We are growing stronger," he began. "When the war started, contracts were awarded in order to increase in our force strength. More capital ships, more fighters, more transports, larger ground forces. The shipyards at Kuat, Talaan, Corellia, and here at Mon Calamari have been disrupted by the war but not fatally injured, and now they are delivering new capital ships, while many contractors dispersed throughout friendly space are delivering large numbers of smaller craft."

  It took a while, Luke knew, First you built droids. And then the droids built a factory—not for warships, but for more droids. Then the first set of droids, plus the new droids built by the factory, built another factory, and that built ships, while the first factory continued to build new droids to build new factories to build new droids to build new factories to build ships. You could keep going forever building new factories, new droids, and new ships, provided supplies weren't interrupted and someone was willing to pay for it all. Once the cascade started, it just kept growing, and the only way to stop it was to destroy all the factories, ships, and droids, because if just one droid survived, that droid could start the cascade all over again, by building another droid.

  What this meant was that new ships were coming into service, and they'd keep coming, in geometrically increasing numbers as the largely droid workforce brought new factories on-line.

  "We also have many new recruits," Ackbar went on. "Despite the efforts of the Peace Brigade and others favoring surrender to the Yuuzhan Vong, many idealistic citizens have volunteered for the military. Many of these have been drawn from refugee populations who prefer the hazards of battle to the tedium of refugee camps— and the refugees, who have seen their homeworlds destroyed or occupied, provide a highly motivated brand of recruit, who wish to win back their homes and take vengeance on the enemy. The bottleneck in making use of their volunteers hasn't so much been their numbers, but the necessity of building training camps in safe areas and staffing diem with qualified instructors. But this has now been done."

  Luke knew that building training camps and training recruits ran along the same lines as building ships and droids, except that military instructors couldn't be built as easily as droids, or turned out hi a factory. Still, in addition to the instructors the military possessed at the beginning of the war, there were a great many veterans of the Rebellion who had returned to the colors, and were busy training the next generation in every tactic they knew.

  "The drawback to so many new ships and personnel is that they are untried," Ackbar continued. "Successful actions against the Yuuzhan Vong have been few, so there is no standard fleet doctrine based on consistent success in battle. Now that New Republic research groups have succeeded in -at least temporarily canceling the advantages given the Yuuzhan Vong by their—" He glanced at the datapad. "—their 'yammosks,' " his pink-whiskered lips working delicately at the alien word, "we may take greater risks with our new forces, but still we will be putting raw recruits up against seasoned enemy veterans, and in the normal course of events may expect to take heavy casualties.

  "Our problems have been compounded by failures in intelligence," Ackbar continued. The two intelligence directors, Luke saw, received this judgment without surprise. "We were invaded by an unknown enemy of unknown force, of a species unknown to us, and impelled by unknown motives. We could not infiltrate them, we could not scout their homeworlds, we could not even speak their language. Even the famous and highly regarded Bothan secret services were able to accomplish nothing. Small wonder that we could not predict their actions. That lack has, to a degree, been remedied, with better knowledge of the enemy and with agents now in place on enemy worlds.

  "So much for our capabilities." Ackbar paused, and one large hand loosened his collar. "I should like to continue with an analysis of the enemy."

  He paused, perhaps waiting for a question, then went on. "The Yuuzhan Vong invasion of our galaxy has a religious justification," he said. "Perhaps the leadership cynically uses religion to camouflage other, less noble reasons for the assault, but there is no doubt that most Yuuzhan Vong sincerely believe that their gods have given our worlds to them. Because they have no doubts on this score, they form a highly motivated, dedicated, tenacious, and ideologically unified corps of invaders. While the experience of Jacen and Anakin Solo suggests that the Yuuzhan Vong have divisions among themselves, and disagreements among their leadership, they nevertheless present a united front to all outsiders. Our attempts to divide or cor
rupt diem have been fruitless. As far as I know—and my knowledge on this score is necessarily incomplete—we have been unable to turn a single Yuuzhan Vong into an informer or spy. While it is possible that Yuuzhan Vong religious faith and ideology may weaken as a result of contact with us, with occasional defeats, and with a galaxy more complex than their ideas can sustain, we can't count on being able to divide one group of Yuuzhan Vong from another as a means to our victory."

  While Ackbar spoke, Winter quietly rose from her place, walked to the tinkling fountain set in the wall, and soaked a handkerchief in seawater. She returned to Ackbar and efficiently swept moisture onto Ackbar's graying skin.

  Dif Scaur gave a ferocious sneeze. Ackbar paused for a moment, then continued. "The enemy's greatest successes have been in the realm of intelligence. The galaxy was thoroughly scouted before the first attack. Spies and informers were placed or recruited throughout all target areas. Our government was penetrated at its highest levels. Agents such as Nom Anor had stirred civil conflict that distracted us from the real threat of invasion. Enemy agents, puppets, and collaborators were able to keep us thoroughly off balance throughout the critical early months of the assault. Even now we have no certain knowledge that our most closely guarded secrets are not in the possession of the enemy. The knowledge that the Yuuzhan Vong may be fully aware of our movements has paralyzed our leadership, and tended to make them overly cautious."

  Luke glanced at Sien Sow. His heavy-jowled face was expressionless, but Luke sensed no resentment of this analysis in the Sullustan.

  "Material losses are irrelevant to the Yuuzhan Vong," Ackbar continued. "Apparently their ships are grown and harvested like interstellar fruit. They can have as many warships as they can find Vong, and Vong collaborators, to crew them.

  "And as for crews," Ackbar said, "I have on my datapad some estimates of initial Yuuzhan Vong strength, and their casualties thus far in the war. These are approximations, since we really don't know the strength of any extragalactic reserves, nor do we have anything but estimates of Yuuzhan Vong casualties, and these may be exaggerated." He cleared his throat. "They often are. You may view these figures, if you like, on your own datapads—I am prepared to send them to you."