by Greg Keyes
Han was wide awake now. “What kind of drones?”
“We don’t know what they do, if that’s what you mean. But it can’t be good. Figured I’d give you a heads-up. You might mention it to the military, too.”
“Yeah, I might,” Han said. “Is that all you can tell me?”
“At this time, yes. We’re trying to track one of them, but they’re slippery.”
“Some kind of weapon?”
“If I knew that I would tell you. But the Vong are excited about them.”
“Thanks,” Han said. Then more heavily: “And Droma, if this is you—I don’t appreciate the subterfuge. I mean, security is security, but I thought the two of us—”
But he was talking to a dead comm.
“Who was that?” Leia asked, from behind him. He hadn’t heard her approach, but he wasn’t surprised, either.
“One of our pals in the Ryn network, I think. Maybe Droma. You heard?”
“Yes.”
He reached for the comm. “I’d better pass this on.”
But when he tried to call control, he got put on hold.
ALL CIRCUITS RESERVED FOR MILITARY PURPOSES.
He frowned at the device, and then started for where he’d left his trousers.
“I’m going down there,” he said.
“I’m right with you.”
They arrived to a tense but relatively quiet situation room. They were greeted briefly by Sien Sovv.
“The first wave is about to go in,” the Sullustan said. “Under Antilles. He should be coming out of hyperspace in five minutes.”
“Mind if we stay?” Han asked. “When you’ve got a spare minute I have something to brief you on.”
“Of course you may stay. Your daughter is with Antilles, isn’t she?”
“Last I heard. But that’s not why I came down.”
“Can it wait, then?”
“I think so,” Han said.
He watched Sovv return to control, feeling itchy. He hadn’t spent much time in situation rooms—he’d always been on the other end of things, mostly ignoring everything he heard from control. Sure, battle computers were great, but they didn’t feel anything. They didn’t have instinct to help them out.
“General Sovv!” someone shouted.
“What is it?”
“Admiral Pellaeon hasn’t reported in, sir. He was supposed to alert us when he had reached position for the Bilbringi jump.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The HoloNet relay in that area seems to be down.”
“Can you boost the signal from the next nearest?”
“I can try.” The comm technician frowned and fiddled with something. “Sir, transmission coming through from HoloNet relay Delta-aught-six!”
“Put it on.”
An excited voice crackled over the comm. “… some kind of ships, very small. They look Vong, but don’t fit any of our profiles. We can’t get them all. Six of them have—” Loud static replaced the voice.
Small ships? The drones his unknown caller had warned him about?
“We’ve just lost touch with Gamma,” another communications officer reported. He punched wildly at his controls and then looked up, his face very pale. “Sir, the HoloNet’s down. I can’t find a live relay anywhere.”
“General,” Han said, “I think my news just became a lot more important.”
“The HoloNet is down,” General Sovv confirmed twenty standard minutes later, in a hastily convened meeting of the war council. “The cause is undetermined, though there is some evidence that it’s due to a new Yuuzhan Vong weapon—some sort of drone.”
“Some evidence?” Han interrupted. “You heard the report from Tantiss Station.”
Sovv conceded that with a nod. “We assume the other stations were destroyed in the same way,” he said. “Whatever the details, it seems clear that this was an extremely well-coordinated strike at the heart of our communications network. The timing is … suspicious.”
“But not conclusive,” Bel Iblis said. “They may have known we were planning to strike—they probably did—but not where. By taking down the entire HoloNet, they jeopardize our success whatever our target.”
“I tend to agree,” Sovv said. “An examination of when the relays went off-line indicates that the first to go were not those nearest Bilbringi. In fact, the process seems to have started some time ago, albeit in sectors we aren’t for the most part in communication with anyway. Still, your whole point remains valid. Without the HoloNet to coordinate the other two fleets, General Antilles is very much on his own.”
Jaina, Leia thought. But her daughter was still alive. She could feel that much.
“Then all that fighting we did at Esfandia was for nothing?” she said.
“We don’t know if Esfandia is still up or not—all the relays linking it Coreward are gone, though. We’re as cut off as the fleets.”
“General Antilles is no fool,” Bel Iblis said. “The other fleets have orders not to make the jump to Bilbringi without his go-ahead. When he realizes he’s lost his lines of communication, he’ll retreat, as per his orders.”
“If he can,” Han said. “But if they were expecting the attack—or even if they weren’t, and they have interdictors—he’ll have to fight his way out.”
“Can he do that?” Leia asked.
“No,” Sovv replied. “Our intelligence tells us that the Vong fleet at Bilbringi is too strong for Antilles to defeat without backup.”
“And the Vong haven’t lost their communications,” Bel Iblis pointed out. “They can call for backup anytime.”
“What will Pellaeon and Kre’fey do when they don’t hear from Wedge?” Leia asked.
“They will hold their positions for a time, but when they’re sure no communication is forthcoming—”
“Oh, it’s forthcoming,” Han said. “Which force is larger?”
“Beta—the Imperials.”
“Where is it?” Han demanded.
“That’s classified, Captain Solo,” Sovv said.
“Classified?” Han sputtered. “This whole thing has already gone south, General. I say we need to salvage what we can.”
“What do you propose, Solo?” Bel Iblis asked.
“We don’t have the HoloNet. Hyperwave’s not good enough for those distances. The only thing we have faster than light is ships, and the Millennium Falcon is the fastest ship there is.”
“He’s right,” Leia said. “We need to set up a courier service, and fast. It’s not just this battle, either—the Yuuzhan Vong will certainly take advantage of this blackout to strike. We could lose whole star systems without knowing about it.”
“Yeah, but they are already too thin to keep the systems they have,” Han said. “But our main concern right now—”
“—is the fleet,” Sovv replied. “Quite right. General Solo, if you’re willing, I’m putting you in charge of a courier service to the fleet. Find four other ships, military or otherwise, but people you trust. Reestablish the lines of communication between Antilles, Pellaeon, and Kre’fey. I’ll also take suggestions on someone to head up a more widespread emergency information service. As it stands now, we are in a vacuum, and everything we have won is in jeopardy.”
EIGHTEEN
“Well?” Corran asked Nen Yim. “What can you tell me?”
They had made four more jumps since Nen Yim had given them the assessment of the ship’s living engines, and each had been rougher than the last. The vessel’s pain had gone from a pinprick to an aching throb, and Corran was happy that most of the ships he flew hadn’t had feelings. Sure, it handled well—when it wasn’t sick.
“The deterioration is marked,” Nen Yim said. “The dovin basals were damaged by the Imperial ship, and the gravitic strains of repeated jumps have worsened their condition.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before the repeated jumps?” Corran asked.
“It took a few passes through darkspace before I could be certain. Also �
��” She paused, and her tendrils writhed like snakes. “Also, I think my coupling of a Yuuzhan Vong drive with a ship designed for an unliving drive may have been imperfect and contributed to the deterioration. The wound only hastened this. Each time we jump, micro gravitic anomalies appear inside or very near the dovin basals.”
“Eating them from within,” Corran said. “Wonderful. Can this be repaired?”
For the first time since Corran had met her, Nen Yim actually seemed apologetic. “No,” she said. “Not with the resources available here. Also, it is clear that my understanding of Sekotan biology is flawed, or this would not be happening. I need more samples.”
“I don’t think it’s biology,” Tahiri said. “I think it’s the Force.”
They both turned to her. “Explain,” Corran said.
“This ship exists in the Force,” Tahiri explained. “You can feel it, can’t you, Corran? And the nearer we get to Sekot—”
“The stronger the connection becomes,” he agreed. “Yeah, I’ve felt that.” It was as if the ship was eagerly returning to a long-lost family.
“So maybe this ship is rejecting the engines, because they don’t exist in the Force, and the closer we get to Zonama Sekot, the stronger that rejection becomes.”
“That seems unlikely,” Nen Yim said. “The Force, whatever it may be, should not govern simple biological reactions. The links between the Sekotan ship and our engines should work.”
“Yet they don’t, and you don’t know why,” Tahiri said, a little too smugly for Corran’s tastes. Still, he was impressed with her reasoning.
“Granted,” Nen Yim reluctantly acquiesced.
Tahiri leaned against the bulkhead and crossed her arms. “Look, you said it yourself—you need a guess to start from. You’ve been asking why Yuuzhan Vong and Sekotan technology are so similar. Turn that around—how are they different? Because if Sekotan life-forms exist in the Force and Yuuzhan Vong life-forms don’t, somewhere, somehow, there must be a big difference.”
Nen Yim’s tentacles contracted, writhed briefly, and settled against her head.
“It’s a place to start,” she admitted.
“That still doesn’t help us now,” Corran pointed out. “If we’re stranded in space without any means of communication, that’s going to remain speculation.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Oh, and plus, we’ll die.”
“The engines can stand another jump, maybe two or three, if we do it soon,” Nen Yim offered.
Corran sighed, looking at his charts, which were easily as speculative as the topic they were discussing. He suddenly, powerfully, missed Mirax, Valin, and Jysella, and even that nasty father-in-law of his. In fact, it was actually kind of handy, having a father-in-law who might drop in with his big red Star Destroyer to save the day.
Wasn’t likely to happen this time, though.
“It’s risky,” he said, coming back to the moment, “but I believe I could get us to the system in one more jump, assuming there’s not an uncharted black hole in our path. But if Tahiri is right, as soon as we arrive, the engines will fail, if they don’t fail during the jump.”
“But we’ll be there,” Tahiri said. “And even if we can’t land, Master Skywalker, Jacen, and Mara can help us.”
“The alternative is to stay here and wait for the dovin basals to die—or to attempt another destination,” Nen Yim said.
“Well, maybe if we’re going away from Zonama Sekot …” Corran began.
Nen Yim shook her head, a very human gesture. Corran wondered if she had learned the negative from being around Tahiri and him. “Even,” she said, “if we accept the young Jeedai’s idea as a working hypothesis, it would only predict the rate of deterioration to slow if we go elsewhere. The damage already done will not heal.”
“Three jumps, then, best-case scenario?”
“I don’t understand that phrase, but I would expect no more than three jumps. Fewer would be better.”
“Fine,” Corran said. “We go ahead, then. Everybody to crash couches. This could get rough.”
It got rough.
Even before reversion, something felt wrong, and the instant they hit normal space the stars went out again as the ship somehow made an extra microjump of its own. In the jolting, Corran was reminded of a stone skipping on water, and hoped it was a poor analogy and they didn’t keep on jumping.
Existence rushed back, but there were no stars—instead, enormous bands of roiling red and yellow filled their tumbling view.
Tumbling … and falling down a gravity well, Corran realized. They were caught in the pull of a titanic planet, at least the size of Yavin 4, probably larger. The controls and the ship’s feelings told him that one of the dovin basals was completely off-line—or in shock, or dead, or whatever—which meant they weren’t going to be doing any starhopping anytime soon. The other two were working, though one was fading fast.
“Come on, baby,” Corran grunted, trying to get the wild spin under control and establish a stable orbit. But something was throwing everything off, and the pull was so strong …
There was another pull, too. The ship felt it, felt Zonama Sekot, and it wanted to go home.
He managed to kill the tumble and roll, which made it at least possible to get their bearings. His sensors were showing another planet, this one roughly the size of Corellia, about a hundred thousand klicks away. And there was something else, too, something in orbit around it. A moon? They were too far away to tell.
“We’ve got a chance,” he said. “If we can get close enough to Zonama Sekot, its gravity well will have a stronger pull on us than the big planet. If the engines quit now—well, we’re all going to gain some weight.”
He pulled the drive levers back, and the ship throbbed in protest. The air suddenly smelled foul, like burning hair and fish oil.
“Not much more,” he whispered to the ship. “But more.”
The second dovin basal suddenly hummed awake—he could feel it like a heart near breaking, sending pulses of agony through everything else, but the ship suddenly surged forward. Then the heart did break, and the indicators went dark. Only one engine remained now.
“What now?” Tahiri whispered. “Did we make it?”
“I don’t know yet. We’re right at the break point.”
“Maybe we should all go stand on the side of the ship nearest Zonama Sekot,” Tahiri said.
“Funny,” Corran said, and without even thinking he reached over and mussed her hair.
She jerked away as if he had attacked her.
“Sorry,” he said.
“No, it’s my fault,” Tahiri said, going red. “It’s just—” She broke off helplessly.
“The head,” Nen Yim explained. “In Domain Kwaad, we do not touch the head.”
Corran regarded the snakelike coils on hers. “Yes, I guess not,” he said.
I have to let go, he thought. Whatever she is, Tahiri isn’t Anakin’s little friend anymore.
Of course, that happened even without Yuuzhan Vong interference. He wasn’t even sure what sort of music Valin liked these days, but it probably wasn’t what he remembered.
Yes, when he got back from this he was going home, for a long time.
Or, rather if he got back …
He looked at the instruments. “Oh, yes,” he said. “We made it.” He pointed at Zonama Sekot. “We’re falling that way now.”
“You did it,” Tahiri said.
“The ship did it,” Corran replied. “Of course …”
“What?”
He flashed her a smile. “Of course, we are still falling, and while the jolt at the end won’t be quite as hard, it’s still going to smart.”
“It’s always going to be something with you, isn’t it? Tahiri said. “You’ve got a dovin basal left.”
“For how long? If we can’t find Luke—”
“I’m trying,” Tahiri informed him. “I’ve been trying since we got here. But all I can sense is that planet. It’s so strong in th
e Force it drowns everything else out.”
“I’ll try, too,” Corran said. “It may be our only hope. Shaper, if there’s anything you can do for that last dovin basal …”
“I will attend to it,” Nen Yim replied.
They watched the moon grow. Both Jedi continued to reach out through the Force, but if Jacen and the rest were there, Tahiri certainly couldn’t sense them. It was like listening for a voice in a sandstorm.
“Perhaps it isn’t the right planet,” Harrar suggested.
“It is the planet,” the Prophet averred. “The planet of prophecy. Can’t you feel it?”
Harrar frowned. “I feel—” He snapped his head side to side. “No, nothing.”
“This ought to be the place,” Corran replied. “The ship certainly thinks it is.”
He checked his long-range sensors again. Whatever was orbiting the planet had moved behind the horizon now. He wasn’t sure, but the last read on it had looked suspiciously like an Imperial frigate.
Luke had been escorted by an Imperial frigate, or so Kenth had told him. If he could somehow make orbit a little lower and faster than the ship, they could eventually catch it.
And maybe get blasted out of space. Unless he could hang some sort of sign out declaring his peaceful intentions. The Imps still might shoot him down just for the fun of it.
Looking at his trajectory, he suddenly realized that he didn’t even have a choice.
“Ah, Sithspit,” he grumbled.
“What is it?” Tahiri asked.
“Remind me to never fly a ship that has a mind of its own, especially a homesick one,” Corran said. “It’s got us on a landing vector.”
“That is what we want, is it not?” the Prophet asked.
“Yes, but it would be nice to land near our friends,” Corran replied, “especially since I’ve a feeling we won’t be taking off again—not in this ship.”
“I suggest survival is our first priority,” Yu’shaa answered.
“Point. Okay, folks, we’re about to say a close hello to Zonama Sekot. I suggest you all strap back in. The slow part of this trip is over.”
