by Greg Keyes
“Accelerate half speed,” he said.
“New estimation for maximum firing range, two minutes,” Cel said.
“Thank you.” The Yuuzhan Vong in the outer system seemed to be holding their ground, perhaps suspecting he wanted them to abandon the interdictor. That was fine; he didn’t want a two-front battle.
He continued to study the tactical readouts, and saw something else strange. Some of the coralskippers were breaking formation, streaming toward the insystem interdictor, probably anticipating his push for it.
Then he saw that wasn’t what they were doing at all. They were dropping into its artificial gravity well at steep angles.
“They’re doing the Solo Slingshot!” Lieutenant Cel exclaimed.
Even as she said it, the first of the skips slingshoted around the massive spicule, whirling with terrific speed toward the Alliance battle group.
“Minimum range.”
“Fire when ready. Clear a lane to the lead capital ships.”
Laserfire stretched out between the two fleets, and plumes of plasma rushed to greet them. The coralskippers, meanwhile, were arcing in with unnatural speed on parabolic vectors that did not cross the fire lanes being opened. That meant the enemy starfighters were going to be in the heart of the fleet in just a few moments.
“Tell the starfighters to drop formation as needed. I don’t know what they’re doing, but it can’t be good.”
“I’m never going to let Dad forget this,” Jaina grumbled. “He taught them a new trick!”
And not a bad one. The skips were screaming down into the middle fleet, and at twice their usual speed, speeds the starfighters couldn’t match, with the possible exception of the A-wings. In the squadrons under her command, that meant the Scimitar Squadron.
“Is that some new sort of skip?” Alema Rar asked. “Something looks strange about them.”
“Look like plain old skips to me,” Jaina replied.
She watched as a clump of skips tore past Wraith Squadron, hammering them hard and zooming past them before the Wraiths could get off more than a couple of shots. And now their trajectory was bringing them into Twin Suns territory, where they were escorting Mon Mothma.
She did a quick calculation.
“Twin Suns, on my mark, turn to point oh-oh-seven-one and go full throttle. Scimitar Leader, we’re only going to get a few shots at them as they go past. Then they’re yours, if you can catch them.”
“Turn our tails to the enemy?” Ijix Harona asked incredulously.
“They’ll overshoot you before you reach full acceleration,” Jaina explained. “Then you’ll be behind them at almost matching speed.”
“Copy, Twin Leader,” Harona replied. “I understand. Shouldn’t have asked.”
“What about our tails?” Twin Two asked.
“On my mark, tendi maneuver. Three, you’re the fan.”
“Copy.”
“Copy,” Jag said. “We’ve got it.”
Now they were building toward full acceleration, flying along the projected flight path of the fast skips. She could almost feel them coming up behind. Three, two—
“Go!” she said.
Three cut his jets and flipped around, firing. Since she and Two were still under acceleration, he was quickly positioned as a shield between them and the approaching skips. After the skips got past him, they had time for a single quick shot at Jaina and her wingmate. She, on the other hand, had built up speed approaching two-thirds that of the skips, so she had the leisure for quite a few shots at them once they were past her and before they were out of range.
She got one in her sights and used a proton torpedo while it still made sense, then needled it with laserfire until the torp got there and blew it into molten slag.
Jaina narrowed her eyes. There was something strange. The vessel she had just destroyed looked like every other she had ever put her sights on—except that something was trailing behind it.
“Twin One,” Rar asked, “did you see what that was attached to it?” Her tone very much said, “I told you so.”
“Don’t know,” Jaina replied. “I didn’t really see it until the detonation. Looked like a tail.”
“Skips don’t usually have tails,” Rar responded.
“It might have been a cofferdam.”
“Mine’s got one, too,” Jag said. “I thought I saw something bleeding out of it.”
Stifling an uneasy feeling, Jaina used lasers as the skips pulled ahead, and nailed one right through the dovin basal. In the flare she saw that this one had a tail as well. Or a big sack of some sort, now empty.
Several more skips flared as they approached the A-wings.
Now the skips had a choice. They could either retain their speed, but end up with A-wings on their tails, or they could—
“They’re slowing down,” Jag said.
“Yep. Scimitars, break off. You don’t want them behind you now. Come back to the party.”
“Copy, Sticks,” Harona confirmed.
The A-wings peeled out of formation and scattered. Jaina dropped in behind a skip and started firing, lasers only. The skip juked and jinked, its dovin-basal-generated voids absorbing her shots. So intent was she on getting the skip firmly in her sights that she almost didn’t see the thing in time. Her reflexes did, though, yanking at the stick as what she thought was a half-meter-wide chunk of rock was about to smash through her cockpit. She rolled, and it scraped centimeters from her screen.
It kicked as it went by.
Cursing silently, she chinned her microphone. “Be advised, Mon Mothma control. The skips are dropping grutchins.”
Grutchins were insectlike creatures the Yuuzhan Vong had developed that could survive for a time in vacuum. Their mandibles secreted a solvent that could cut through hull metal.
“That explains the suicide runs,” Jag said. “There must be grutchins everywhere, and the fleets haven’t even engaged. They’re probably going for the Star Destroyers.”
“Advised,” the voice of control said.
Jaina, meanwhile, had flown straight into one of the release trails. She kept up a steady stream of laserfire, blazing any of the bugs that got in front of her. The remaining skips suddenly broke formation, curving up from her operational horizon.
Something thumped against her hull, and Cappie, her astromech, reported a grutchin on the hull. Snarling, Jaina pulled the stick, hard, and pushed the drive to maximum, then rolled like crazy, trying to detach it before it could start making a meal of her starfighter.
Why couldn’t the Yuuzhan Vong use normal weapons? Concussion missiles, lasers. Why did it always have to be miniature volcanoes and giant bugs?
To her satisfaction, her particular bug-nemesis of the moment lost its grip and fried on the way through her ion trail.
In the meantime, of course, one of the skips had taken the opportunity to latch onto her tail, so now it was volcano time …
“We’ve got close to two hundred grutchins on the hull, sir,” Cel informed him.
“Electrify it,” Wedge said.
“They’ve already tried, sir. It’s not working.”
“Not working—great.” Yes, the Yuuzhan Vong were adapting. Not good.
“Seal off the outer sections and get people in vac suits with blasters in there.”
Of course, that wouldn’t stop them in the engine areas.
The Yuuzhan Vong capital ships had drawn up in a defensive formation and were no longer pushing forward. Wedge had his ships nearly stationary as well, and both sides were keeping their starfighters close, the grutchin carriers aside. For the moment, it was a long-range game. That would probably change soon—the Yuuzhan Vong were waiting to see how well their grutchin stunt had worked. When they knew, they would renew their attack.
That meant his starfighters would be free for a short time.
“Have some starfighters make close runs on our capital ships,” he told control.
“Sir, with all due respect, the grutchins are atta
ched to us. Some of the pilots are bound to miss, and they could easily do as much damage as the bugs.”
“I don’t want them firing. I want them to singe the things off with their exhaust.”
The officer’s eyes widened. “That will take some pretty precise flying.”
“Then pick the squadrons well. And fast, because soon we’ll need them against skips.”
“I have him, Twin Leader,” Jag said. Even as he did so, glowing chunks of yorik coral bloomed out into the void.
Jaina breathed a sigh of relief. That pretty much did it for the fast-skip wave.
“Thanks, Four.” She glanced down at the new battle orders scrolling.
“Uh, guys,” she said. “You aren’t going to believe this, but …”
TWENTY-THREE
Nen Yim glanced at Yu’shaa. He’d been working quietly on the task she had given him, entering the genetic sequences of various flora and fauna into her qahsa. Now he seemed to be having trouble.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It ceased granting me admittance,” he said. Somewhere in the distance, something mewled, and another something chattered a response. The sky was clear and the air still.
“Did you try to access data forbidden to you?” Nen Yim asked.
“Not too my knowledge, Master Yim. I was merely attempting to enter the freman signatures you asked me to.”
“Pheromone,” Nen Yim corrected. “It may be my security prohibitions were too broad. Let me see it.”
He handed her the bulbous living memory in compliance.
“No,” she said. “Because it is not keyed to you, after a time it rejects your entry.” She examined a bit further. She could reset his temporary access, but would only be forced to perform the same task again in a few hours.
She could key him to the qahsa, but she hesitated to do so. She had stored the protocol data on Sekotan biology in it. In the wrong hands—
But the Prophet had proved himself useful, and only someone well versed in the shaper’s arts could understand what they found there, much less use it. By the pattern of his rejected implants, she gathered that before being Shamed, Yu’shaa had been an intendant.
Time was of the essence. With Yu’shaa performing the simple tasks, she was making great progress with the more complex analyses. “Come here,” she said. “I will make you familiar to it.”
That done, she was able to work for a time in peace.
Until Harrar came, standing rather imperiously waiting for her attention. She reluctantly gave it to him. If he knew anything about shaping—and he certainly did—then he already knew she was a heretic. If she was to do her work, there was no hiding it any longer.
“Yes?” she said.
He gave her an uncomfortable little bow of recognition. “I was wondering where your researches were leading you,” he asked. “Whether you’ve come to any new conclusions.”
Always that question. What did he think conclusions were, fruit to be pulled from a tree? “It’s premature to say anything definitive,” she said.
“I understand that,” he replied softly. “But I’m hoping you will keep me apprised of new developments.”
She could tell this approach pained him a bit. Harrar was used to giving orders, not cajoling. After all, short of Shimrra, the priests were the voice of the gods.
“There have been a few developments,” she allowed, “though they are at the level of data rather than conclusion.”
“Go on, please. Anything new must be worth hearing.”
“But the telling costs me time, when I might be reaching those conclusions you desire.”
Harrar’s expression flattened. “Jeedai Horn tells me it may be a long while before anyone finds us. I shouldn’t think the hurry is so great you can’t spare a few words concerning your progress. After all, I did arrange this trip.”
“Yes, I’ve been meaning to ask you something about that,” Nen Yim said.
“Perhaps if I answer your questions, you can answer mine,” the priest said.
Nen Yim leaned away from her work, forcing her tendrils to relax into a neutral posture.
“When we first met, you said that you could not arrange my escape yourself, for fear of being noticed.”
“That is true. An escape engineered by me would have failed.”
“Yet here you are; you came along. Won’t that be noticed?”
Harrar seemed suddenly to relax, as if he had expected another question, a more difficult one.
“I am believed to be on the Outer Rim, meditating over our conquest where it began. A subordinate of mine took my ship there. I should not be missed. You arranged to make your abduction appear as a kidnapping as well, yes? We have both covered our trails.”
“I give my deception only a small chance for success,” Nen Yim replied. “When I return to Yuuzhan Vong space, I fully expect I will be executed.”
“And yet you plan to return.”
“Of course. Our people must know what has been discovered here.”
“What Ekh’m Val discovered has been quite effectively repressed,” Harrar pointed out. “What makes you think your discoveries will fare any better?”
“I will find a way,” Nen Yim assured him.
Harrar crossed his arms and looked at her with approval. “You mean what you say. You see no personal gain in this at all. I believe you may be one of the most admirable people I have ever known.”
“Please do not mock me.”
“I do not mock you,” he said, his voice suddenly a bit angry. “I am trying to express respect. If you reject it, the respect remains all the same. Each caste seeks to elevate itself over another, each domain competes with the others, individuals betray and murder one another in a blind, groping desire for elevation. In the galactic deeps, it nearly tore us apart. I hoped when we had a real enemy to face, we could turn that aggression outward, and so we did, but now it comes to haunt us again. It has become more than a habit; it has become how we live.”
“Are we not taught that competition breeds for strength?” Nen Yim asked.
“Of course,” Harrar answered. “But only to a point, if there is not also cooperation.”
Nen Yim twisted her tendrils into an ironic mode. “And there is the lesson of Zonama Sekot,” she said. “The lesson you and I both seem to agree our people must learn.”
Harrar relaxed again.
“Take a seat,” Nen Yim said. “I will explain what I see here as best I can.”
Harrar settled into his usual cross-legged position and waited.
“The diversity of species here is quite low,” she began. “Much lower than one would expect in a natural ecosystem.”
“What could cause such a thing?” Harrar asked.
“Mass extinction, for one. Some catastrophe or series of catastrophes that served to wipe out many of the species.”
“That’s an interesting fact, but—”
“No, it’s more than an interesting fact,” she averred. “The ecosystem functions as if it were fully diverse. Species have filled roles they were not designed for.”
“I’m not sure I entirely understand.”
“After any mass extinction, many ecological niches are opened, and species take advantage of these empty niches, adapting through natural selection to fill them and benefit from them. Eventually, after millennia, a ravaged ecosystem becomes healthy again, and as diverse as the one that was impacted.”
“Isn’t that what you said is occurring here?” Harrar asked.
“No. Not at all. For one thing, the extinctions here are very recent. There hasn’t been enough time for the sort of adaptation I speak of to take place. For another, species here are not adapting to fill ecological niches—they remain adapted to their own niches, the ones they evolved to fill, and yet they also perform the environmental tasks of extinct species—for no benefit to themselves.”
She waited a moment to let him absorb that, enjoying the sudden breeze and the smell it brought, a sort
of dusty golden scent.
“Perhaps an example will help,” she began again, “There is, for instance, a plant with a kind of tubular blossom. The only possible way for it to reproduce is for an arthropod or other small creature to enter the tube of one plant, and then enter that of another, carrying with it the sticky secretions of the first. The plant entices this insect with an edible fluid, nourishing to the insect—and, I suspect from certain clues, important to that insect’s life cycle.”
“That makes sense,” Harrar said.
“Yes, except that I can find no insect that feeds on the fluid. Yet I have seen them pollinated, by another insect whose primary role in the ecosystem is feeding on carrion. Its life cycle, from egg to nymph to adult revolves entirely around carrion. Yet they make time to enter these flower tubes with enough frequency to pollinate them, at no benefit to themselves.”
“Perhaps you have not yet discovered the benefit.”
“If this were the only example of such behavior, I might agree with you. However, I find more than half the animals I have examined play roles in this life-web that are plainly unrelated to their life cycles and physical design. More interesting yet, I have discovered that each species practices some form of reproduction control. When a particular sort of moss becomes scarce due to its consumption by a kind of beetle, the beetles begin disposing of their eggs without fertilizing them. In other words, the ecosystem of this planet is homeostatic—it seeks to remain in absolute balance. It manages to do so even after enormous extinction events.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“For a worldship, yes, because each life-form is engineered to play a certain role and the system is guided by intelligence—by a rikyam at one level, and by shapers at the next. Mutations are eliminated, as is undesirable behavior. But in the natural ecosystems I’ve studied from data collected in this galaxy, that’s not how things normally work. Each individual organism fights to maximize the number and survivability of its own offspring. Mutations come along that have advantages and are perpetuated. Such systems are in a constant state of flux; they are not—cooperative. The evidence is that this world was once like that—like a wild planet—but it is no longer.”
