FicWad

*Title: Love Ignites the Galaxy, Star by Star (*working title only, though it may become the permanent title by default).

Chapter Eight: The Great Escape

Rating: Uhm, probably a borderline R (?), for the overall work, though I suppose that's debatable . . . PG-13ish, maybe, for this part (?)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the lovely characters from the Star Wars ’verse, more’s the pity! What I do have is an extremely contrary muse that refuses to shut up and leave me alone . . .

Summary: The future is never a fixed thing. Though certain actions taken at particular possible points of divergence can, seemingly, preclude the possibility of specific future pathways ever coming into existence, other unexpected choices can have extremely powerful repercussions with far-reaching effects upon the possible probable pathways that the future might yet take . . . and sometimes the spreading ripples of those effects can be so powerful that even the present and a part of the past can be altered, if enough raw energy is poured into the process of causing those effects. For Tahiri Veila, the possibility of swaying the current balance of power in the galaxy from darkness and despair back to light and hope seems worth any sacrifice necessary . . . even if she will have to give up her own life and the life of her unborn son to accomplish this. Will her sacrifice be enough to change the shape of the future, though, or will evil yet find a way to triumph, in this the worst and most wide-spread of all galactic wars?

Story/Author's Notes: For general notes on this story and proposed series, please see the entry on this NaNo project, at http://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/140023.html

Specific Chapter/Part-Related Notes: There's some overlap here with events at the beginning of the EU novel /Dark Journey/.

Specific Chapter/Part-Related Warnings: N/A.



Star Wars
The Rebirth of the New Jedi Order
Love Ignites the Galaxy, Star by Star


Chapter Eight: The Great Escape

27:06:02 After the Battle of Yavin (~1,028 After Ruusan Reformations or ~25,029 After Republic’s Founding)

They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally, they became heroes.

– Princess Leia Skywalker Organa Solo, former Senator of Alderaan and former Chief of State of the New Republic, circa a month following the Battle of Yavin



They bring the Ksstarr around again. The targeting mask on Jaina’s face shows three yorik coral corvettes coming straight at them. Behind the trio, the worldship is silhouetted against Myrkr, a huge gray disk overlapping an even larger green disk. She can see other ships already starting to lift off, to join the pursuit.

“Anakin!” she yells frantically around the targeting mask. “More are coming after us! Use the detonator!”

“But – ”

“Anakin!”

“Oh, for – give me that!” she hears Tahiri growling somewhere behind her.

Three heartbeat later, and an explosion blossoms from the worldship so brightly that Jaina is blinded by the dazzle.

Cursing the bad timing, Jaina blinks her eyes rapidly, hoping to dispel the after-glare, and raises her left thumb. The control glove on her hand activates the mask’s targeting reticle – basically a set of increasingly blurry rings – and, when she can see again (or at least mostly see), she fixes her gaze on the rightmost blur and, working mainly through trial and error, with no time to try to access her memories to figure out what the strange flashes in the viewfinder mean, runs her right hand through an awkward finger dance that eventually brings each concentric ring into focus. When the center disk shows a clear image of her target, she makes a fist with her left hand. From the other side of the blastule comes the loud plop of the plasma gun’s automatic loader, and then the deafening bang of the actuator charge ionizing the medium. Jaina’s mask goes dark, and the blazing sphere streaks away.

The viewfinder clears two seconds later. Her plasma ball is arcing toward her target – and a long line of enemy rounds is streaking back toward her.

“Incoming!” she yells.

Eryl Besa puts the frigate into a tightly spiraling rising turn, and they swing away from the attacking ships.

“/Eryl/!”

Lowbacca cuts her off with an urgent bellow.

“A /fleet/?” Jaina cries out, shocked at how familiar this all suddenly seems.

She cranes her neck around, and a dozen oblong flecks appear in her targeting mask, streaking in from the edge of the system. Her heart plummets. It isn’t a fleet – not/ exactly/ – but if they try to stick around long enough to pick off their pursuers (and, maybe, make sure that Nom Anor and Vergere are both dead), they could be surrounded and trapped by the Yuuzhan Vong.

A flurry of plasma balls blaze past under the Ksstarr/’s belly, then one slips past Tesar at the stern shielding station and impacts the hull. /Hard. The frigate shudders.

Eryl’s voice comes to her through the mask. “Jaina, what do you want to do?”

Jaina cannot answer. There’s really only one thing to do. But how can they leave now, knowing that the Sith could still be alive? The Ksstarr shudders again. A wet pop sounds somewhere aft, a door valve sealing against a vacuum breach.

“Jaina!” Eryl yells.

“I – ”

The words catch in her throat, like she’s choking. She automatically closes her fist and sends a plasma ball streaking furiously out into space.

“Better for us if we flee,” Tenel Ka quietly notes. “Given that she’s failed in her mission to capture you and Jacen, Vergere may well be discredited. The Yuuzhan Vong may even do us the favor of killing her, themselves.”

“And also, she doesn’t know that we know she’s a Sith. She wants to turn someone, remember? She has to be able to seduce one of us into embracing her way of seeing things, to do that. So she might even come to us, rather than return to the Warmaster empty handed,” Tahiri adds, her voice sounding surprisingly steady for someone who’s just detonated a series of bombs that’s utterly destroyed a worldship with the Force along only knows how many sentient beings aboard it. “We should drop our masking, in the Force, and let her sense us, if she’s still out there, so she’ll know that we’re all still here.”

“I hate leaving this undone,” Jaina finally grates out, feeling as if the words are broken glass and slicing her throat to ribbons on their way out of her.

“I know. And I understand. Truly, I do.” Eryl turns the ship away. “But Ganner made a promise, and I intend to help him keep it. It’s not worth risking all of our lives to go after someone who may not even be on one of those ships.”

“This one agreez with you,” Tesar calls out. “We all do, though there are thoze who may not like to admit it.”

Mask filling with tears of frustration, Jaina snarls, but lets the others reach out to her and take her into the meld with them, carefully reversing the manipulations that have made them so small in the Force that not even Vergere could truly sense them. For just an instant, she feels a flicker of surprise, and then it’s gone again, and can feel nothing except her own bitter anger and overwhelming exhaustion and lingering shock over all that they’ve gone through on this mission.

“We’ll deal with you, eventually,” she promises, finding the strength to speak. “You just wait. We’ll come for you, yet.”

***

Generally speaking, it’s not good to skim a planetary surface with a ship’s artificial gravity fully activated. The conflicting perceptions of up and down play havoc with most species’ sense of balance, and Leia can feel the effects in her own queasy stomach and spinning head. She can also hear over the intercom, and smell in the circulation system, the effect it’s having on the passengers. Unfortunately, there’s nothing to be done about it. With the holds packed full of unrestrained passengers and the Falcon dodging and swinging through Coruscant’s hoverlanes and a skip squadron nosing their tail, they need some way to hold everyone on the floor. If that means Leia has to sanisteam the entire ship later, she’ll consider it a privilege to be alive to do it.

Han rolls the Falcon upside down and bobs over a bridge, then finds two skips coming at them head-on and has to dive for the dark underlevels. Both laser turrets chuff as Meewalh and a gunner from the palace pour fire over the stern. One of them hits, and a deafening rumble shakes the towers. Unfortunately, though, their success has no effect on the number of magma balls streaking down all around them.

Leia pulls herself back to the center of the oversized copilot’s chair, checks the map on her vid display, and curses violently. “Missed our turn.”

“I knew that.”

“Of course, dear.”

Han levels the Falcon out and heads back. The upper quad cannons chuff constantly as Meewalh rips viciously into the bellies of half a dozen surprised skips, then Han stands the /Falcon /on its side and banks into the narrow side lane, and Leia is forced to grab the arm of her chair to hold herself up where she can still see the map display.

“Left in three, two – ”

“Got it.”

Han flips the /Falcon /over on its other side, and then they’re shooting through the dank catacombs beneath the Great Western Sea. Meewalh and the palace gunner take out another pair of skips. Han splashes the /Falcon /through a swirling waterfall, makes three quick turns, and the skips are gone.

“Not bad for an old man.” Leia centers herself in her chair. “Maybe Corran can teach you to fly an X-wing when we get out of this.”

“If Eclipse has any left,” Han wryly replies.

They pick their way through the dark maze of mildewed buildings and mossy pillars that support the lake bed, then poke the /Falcon/’s nose out from under the ferrocrete beach and hover on their repulsor engines. Directly ahead lies the smoking ruins of a planetary turbolaser battery. The weapons themselves are melted to slag. The massive support structure looks more like a meteor crater than a building.

“This the one?” Han’s voice is full of disbelief.

Leia checks the display. “This is it.”

Han curses.

Leia can tell what he’s thinking, that he’s terrified they’re too late; yet, knowing she has other resources, he waits and says nothing else. He’s the same Han, certainly, but somehow attuned to her in a way the old Han could never have been. She’s beginning to like this – really like it.

Leia closes her eyes and reaches for her brother, trying to let her sense of his presence lead her to him, as it had that time on Bespin when Darth Vader took his hand. After a moment, she raises her arm and, without looking, points in the direction she/ feels/ him.

“There,” she declares.

“You mean right over there?” Han asks. “Where that drop ship is coming down?”

Leia opens her eyes and sees a small mountain of a Yuuzhan Vong drop ship descending towards the towertop she’s pointing at. “Yes,” she sighs. “That would be about right.”

***

Pirouetting on her good foot, Mara raises her bacta cast and hook-kicks a Yuuzhan Vong in the temple. He drops, and she continues her spin and slashes her lightsaber across the one behind him, then ducks an amphistaff striking from the right and sees Luke leave himself wide open in order to run her attacker through. She brings her blaster under her arm and fires twice, once to either side of Luke’s head, and burns holes between the eyes of two Yuuzhan Vong rushing to attack him.

Luke just smiles and sweeps the feet from beneath a fresh warrior as he skips in to attack. For each warrior they kill, though, a dozen more rush forward to die. They launch themselves into side-by-side backflips and come down in the middle of the turbolaser crew’s firing line, snatching up blasters to start laying down fire. The Yuuzhan Vong charge falters, then dribbles to an end as the crew members also open up with their blaster rifles.

A junior officer – one of two remaining to the battery – steps over to them. “We’re out of here – going under.”

“No!” Mara immediately insists. “The Falcon can’t find us inside a building.”

“Won’t much matter.” The officer points up into the sky, where a thousand-meter drop ship is moving into position over the building. “Like the lady said, ‘Fight until you can fight no longer.’ Your friends aren’t coming. We’ll do more damage below.”

The drop ship starts to rain firejellies, melting hand-sized holes into the durasteel roof. One lands too close and draws an alarmed whistle from R2-D2, and Mara and Luke begin to use the Force to redirect those coming in their direction.

“What do you think?” Mara hurriedly asks Luke. She knows he still feels Leia searching for them. “Maybe we’re just drawing them into a world of hurt.”

The drop ship’s belly hatches open and start to dangle lines, reptoid slave-soldiers already sliding down. A dozen ropes land on their building alone.

Luke raises his blaster and opens fire. “We have to stay. Han and Leia won’t leave until they know one way or another.”

Mara shrugs, sighs, and finally nods. “Fine. Ben is safe. I’ll trust the Force for the rest.”

***

“Hey, where’s everybody going?” Han demands of nobody in particular – least of all Leia. “Wouldn’t you think they could stay in one place for five minutes?”

The tower is one of those mirrsteel jobs with a stepped roof, but of course the lightsabers and blaster flashes had been on the wrong side when Leia finally spotted Luke and Mara and the battery crew. It’s taken five minutes of wild flying to circle the area and approach from Luke’s side of the roof, and now the New Republic crew members are all running for the stairwell.

“Tighten your crash webbing,” Han orders. “And arm the concussion missiles.”

“The concussion missiles?” Leia gasps. “Han -“

Han takes his eye off the rooftops long enough to glance over at her. “Yeah?”

Leia swallows nervously and then reaches for the arming switches. “How many?”

Han grins at her crookedly. “How many do you think?”

“All of them.” Leia starts flipping toggles.

Han brings them in fast and low, streaking under the drop ship barely three meters above roof level. Too slow to react, the big vessel releases a volley of firejellies that does far more harm to the reptoids on its drop lines than to the well-shielded /Falcon/. Han slams the decelerators and – hoping that the Force will make those two move fast enough that he won’t accidentally ion-scorch Luke or Mara – brings the ship up on its tail.

“Launch!”

Leia hits the launcher. The first pair of missiles flash away and slam into the drop ship’s belly before the shielding crews can react. The shock wave bangs the /Falcon /down on its tail, and she launches the second and third volleys. By the time she hits the fourth wave, the massive vessel is belching fire from its drop hatches and raining shards of yorik coral from its hull.

Meanwhile, the New Republic troops have reversed course, racing for the /Falcon/. Han can’t see Luke and Mara, but feels sure they’re already running up behind.

“Get the boarding ramp.” Han sets the/ Falcon/ down on its struts. “And make it – ”

Leia, though, is already rushing down the outrigger access tunnel. Meewalh and the palace gunner open up on the reptoids with the quad cannons. Han lowers the retractable repeating blaster for good measure. He keeps expecting the drop ship to lay down a suppression barrage, but soon realizes that the real danger is being crushed beneath the flaming boulders that keep crashing down around the Falcon/. Maybe there /is such a thing as overkill.

Han withdraws the retractable blaster. As soon as the status light indicates that the ramp is rising, he lifts off and streaks out from under the drop ship, diving into the hoverlanes and shooting under the Great Western Sea, navigating more by sensor and display map than by what he can actually see. They’re about halfway across when Luke enters the cockpit with Mara, Leia, and R2-D2.

“Thanks for the lift.” Luke clasps Han’s shoulder warmly and automatically slips into the copilot’s seat. “We were beginning to think you wouldn’t make it.”

“The hoverlanes were murder.” Han glances at the map on Leia’s display and starts to ask Luke to find a good place to break for orbit, but then thinks better of it and hitches his thumb towards the back of the cockpit. “Sorry, kid, but that seat belongs to Leia.”

Luke’s face falls. “I’m sorry.” He stands up and fishes a piece of flimsiplast from his pocket. “I just needed to give this to you.”

An uneasy silence falls over the cockpit. Luke starts to hand the flimsiplast to Han, then catches himself and turns to Leia instead.

Han rolls his eyes. “Look, I didn’t mean anything. I just need my copilot in her own seat and you on the belly gun. That’s all.”

The relief in the cockpit is thick enough to taste, and Han’s content to leave it that way. The last thing he wants is someone apologizing for whatever happened on Myrkr. That only would have cheapened it, implied that Anakin maybe died for nothing.

“Will you guys get to it?” Han demands. “Mara, maybe you can see about reloading the missile launchers. We’ve got a lot of people on this tub who’d like to get out of here.”

“Sure.”

Mara and Luke steps aside so Leia can slip into her chair, then Luke hands her the flimsiplast and explained where it came from. By the time he’s finished, the Falcon is already streaking out from beneath the far side of the Western Sea. Han takes it down deep in the hoverlanes and starts to bob and weave through broken-down bridges. Leaving R2-D2 to plug into the droid socket, Luke and Mara retreat to their combat posts.

Leia looks over, slanting an eyebrow at him. “My seat, huh?”

“You’ve been doing all right.” Han eyes the huge copilot’s chair – Chewbacca’s old chair – then quietly adds, “If we get out of here alive, we’ll make it official and get you a seat that fits.”

Leia’s eyebrows practically touch her hairline. “Now that would be something.” She studies the flimsiplast, checks the chronometer, and then punches in a set of coordinates. “Take us up, flyboy.”

Han lays on the power and pulls the yoke, and the /Falcon /quickly streaks out of the tower canyons and up into the opalescent sky.

They’re past the drop ships and assault ships before the Yuuzhan Vong have time to react, but a cruiser analog tagged as the Kratak drops skips and moves to cut them off as they leave the upper atmosphere. Luke and Meewalh sound off with the quad cannons. R2-D2 chirps and whistles, searching the comm channels for a friendly voice.

Han activates the intercom. “Mara, how are those – ”

“Three loaded.”

“That’ll do.” Han tries to sound confident. “Stand – ”

R2-D2 trills wildly, and then suddenly Danni Quee’s familiar voice is breaking in. “/Falcon/, break to ten degrees. Continue with all due speed – and /don’t fire those concussion missiles.”/

Han obeys instinctively . . . then looks at his tactical display. Nothing but skips ahead. “Uh, ten degrees doesn’t look good.”

/“It will.” /This from Lando.

Mara is instantly on the channel. “Calrissian? What are you doing? I don’t want – ”

“Your package is safe with Tendra,” Lando replies. “Aboard the /Venture/.”

Han looks over. Leia can only shrug and wave the flimsiplast Luke gave her.

“Trust me,” Danni earnestly insists, making Han smile a little, in spite of himself.

R2-D2 tweedles, and then the Jedi wing appears on the tactical display, streaking in the skips’ flank.

“Copy.” Han continues towards the converging coralskippers, a slightly maniac gleam in his eyes. “What have we got to lose?”

The enemy closes another few seconds and starts to fire. Luke and Meewalh answer, and the Kratak /rush to join the battle. The first plasma balls blossom against the forward shields. Then the Jedi wing reaches range and open fire, and half the skips vanish. The cruiser suddenly has other concerns and veers away from the battle, and the skips fall into chaos. Four wheel around to try to meet this new challenge, all moving in different directions with no hope of concentrating their fire. Another pair collide. The six skips in the lead continue forward, oblivious to the danger behind. The Jedi wing looses another volley, and then nothing lies between the /Falcon and freedom.

“Think you can put the bird through there, you old pirate?” Lando comms, his smug smile practically audible over the comm. “Even you ought to be able to handle that.”

Han is speechless. A disciplined skip squadron doesn’t dissolve into a mess that would have embarrassed a swoop gang; yet, that’s clearly what just happened. He pilots the /Falcon /past the few remaining skips. The /Venture /appears on the tactical display, and he automaticlaly veers towards it. Finally, unable to take it any longer, he asks, “Did that really happen back there?”

“I think so,” Luke replies over the intercom. “A yammosk has just been jammed.” He switched to the general comm channel, then adds, “Danni, Cilghal, congratulations. Your success came too late for Coruscant, but it gives me hope for the future.”

“It gives us all hope,” Leia adds. “Thank you.”

The rest of Eclipse’s forces quickly add their congratulations, then Luke comes on the channel again.

“Let’s form up on the /Venture /and proceed to the rendezvous,” he says, the order delivered in such a mild tone that it feels more like a suggestion than an outright command. “And be careful. With Coruscant captured, the responsibility for keeping the New Republic alive will fall to the Jedi.”

Han swings the Falcon into line with the rest of the convoy, then starts to calculate whether they can make even the short jump to the rendezvous site with so many passengers aboard. “Leia, how many troopers did we pick up on the roof?”

When there’s no answer, Han looks over to find Leia lost in meditation, her face weary and full of sorrow. His heart instantly rises into his throat, for it’s a look he’s seen on her face only once before. He reaches over and shakes her arm, fright making him grab her a little harder than he intends.

“What?” he demands. “Not the twins?”

For another moment, Leia’s face remains weary and sad, but then her expression grows fearfully calm . . . and, a heartbeat later, she gasps, jolting in her chair like someone has shocked her with a live wire.

“/Leia/!”

“Oh, Han! Oh, thank the Force!”

“What? /What/?” he asks, shaking her again.

“They’re /still alive/!”

He freezes, unable to even hope. “The twins?”

“Anakin! And Jaina! And – and – ”

“ . . . Jacen?” he hesitantly asks.

“I – I think so. I – yes. /Yes./”

A sob escapes him before he can quite clamp down on it. “Then what – ?”

“They’re alive, but they’re in trouble. Terrible trouble.”

“Artoo, give me a line to the /Venture/,” Han orders. “We’ll dump this bunch and go after them, Leia. Just you and me.”

Leia places her hand on his and sorrowfully shakes her head. “No, Han. Even if we knew where to look – and could reach there alive – it doesn’t feel like that kind of trouble. They must rescue themselves.”

Han scowls darkly. It sounds like Jedi trouble, and that’s the worst kind of all. “And if they don’t?”

“They will.” Leia closes her eyes and holds his hand tightly in hers. “/They will./”

***

A sunrise corona limns one edge of the planet Myrkr, setting its vast northern forests alight with a verdant glow. Viewed from space, the planet appears as lush and green as Yuuzhan’tar, the long-lost homeworld of Yuuzhan Vong legend.

Two Yuuzhan Vong males stand at the viewport of a priestship, deep in contemplation of the scene before them. One is tall and gaunt, with a sloping forehead and sharp, aristocratic features scarred by many acts of devotion. These marks, and his cunningly wrapped head cloth, identify him as a priest of high rank. His companion is younger, broader, and so physically imposing that a first glance yields no perceptible boundaries between armor and weapons and the warrior who wears them. He strikes the eye in a single blow, leaving an indelible impression of a complex, living weapon. His countenance is somber, and there’s an intensity about him that suggests movement even though he stands at respectful attention.

The priest sweeps a three-fingered hand towards the scene below. “Dawn bright death of mortal night,” he recites.

Harrar’s words follow the well-worn path of proverb, but there’s genuine reverence in his eyes as he gazes upon the distant world. The young warrior touches two fingers to his forehead in a pious gesture, but his attention is absorbed less by the glowing vision of Myrkr than by the battle raging above it.

Silhouetted against the green world is a fist-sized lump of black yorik coral. This, an aging worldship housing hundreds of Yuuzhan Vong and their slaves and creature-servants, looks to be nothing more than lifeless rock. But as Harrar’s priestship draws closer, he can make out signs of battle – tiny coral fliers buzzing and stinging like fire gnats, plasma bolts surging in a frantic, erratic pulse. If life is pain, then the worldship is still very much alive.

“Our arrival is timely,” the priest observes, glancing at the young warrior. “These young /Jeedai /seem determined to prove themselves a worthy sacrifice!”

“As you say, Eminence.”

The words are polite, but distracted, as if the warrior has scant attention to spare for them. Harrar turns a measuring gaze upon his companion. Discord between the priest and warrior castes is growing more common, but he can discern nothing amiss in Khalee Lah.

The son of Warmaster Tsavong Lah stands tall among the Yuuzhan Vong. His skin’s original gray hue is visible only in the faint strips and whorls separating his numerous black scars and tattoos. A cloak of command flows from hooks embedded in his shoulders. Other implants add vicious spikes to his elbows and to the knuckles on his hands. A single short, thick horn thrusts out from the center of his forehead – a difficult implant, and the mark of a truly worthy host. Harrar knows himself honored, given that this promising young warrior has been assigned to his military escort, but he’ss also wary and more than a little intrigued. Like any true priest of Yun-Harla, goddess of trickery, Harrar relishes games of deception and strategy. His old friend Tsavong Lah is a master of the multilayered agenda, and Harrar expects nothing less from the young commander.

Khalee turns to meet the priest’s scrutiny. His gaze is respectful, but direct. “May I speak freely, Eminence?”

Harrar instantly begins to suspect Tsavong Lah’s purpose in sending his son to a Trickster priest. Candor is a weakness – a potentially fatal one. “In this matter, consider the Warmaster’s judgment,” he advises, hiding words of caution in seeming assent.

The young male nods solemnly. “Tsavong Lah entrusted you with the sacrifice of the twin /Jeedai/. The success of his latest implant is still in the hands of the gods, and you are his chosen intercessor. What the Warmaster honors, I reverence.” He concludes his words by dropping to one knee and lowering his head in a respectful bow.

This is hardly the message Harrar intends to send, but Khalee Lah seems content with their exchange. After a few moments, he rises and directs his attention back to the worldship and the battle raging around it.

“In plain speech, then. It appears the battle is not going as well as anticipated. Perhaps not even as well as Nom Anor reported.”

Harrar’s scarred forehead creases in a scowl. He himself holds a dubious opinion of the Yuuzhan Vong spy. Nom Anor enjoys the rank of Executor, though, and is therefore not to be lightly criticized. “Such words veer dangerously close to treason, my young friend.”

“Truth is never treason,” Khalee Lah flatly – calmly – replies.

The priest carefully weighs these words. To the priesthood of Yun-Harla and among certain other factions, this proverb is an ironic jest, but there’s no mistaking the ringing sincerity in the younger male’s tones. Harrar sighs, inwardly, and schools his face to match the warrior’s earnest expression. “Explain.”

Khalee Lah points to a small, dark shape currently hurtling away from the worldship at an oblique vector to the priestship’s approach. “That is the /Ksstarr/, the frigate that brought Nom Anor to Myrkr.”

The priest leans closer to the viewport, but his eyes are not nearly as keen as Khalee Lah’s enhanced implants. He taps one hand against the portal. In response, a thin membrane nictitates from side to side, cleaning the transparent surface. The living tissue then reshapes itself, exaggerating the convex curve to provide sharper focus and faint magnification.

“Yes,” the priest murmurs, noting the distinctive knobs and bumps on the underside of the approaching ship. “And if the battle against the Jeedai is all but won, as Nom Anor reported, why does he flee? I must speak to him at once!”

Khalee Lah turned towards the door and repeats Harrar’s words as an order. The guards stationed there thump their fists to opposite shoulders and quickly stride off to tend to their commander’s bidding. Soon, the swift click of chitinous boots announces a subordinate’s approach. A female warrior garishly tattooed in green and yellow enters the room, a crenellated form cradled in her taloned hands. She bows, presents the villip to Harrar, and places it on a small stand. The priest dismisses her with an absent wave and begins to stroke the sentient globe. The outer layer peels back, and the soft tissue within begins to rearrange itself into a rough semblance of Nom Anor’s scarred visage. One eye socket is empty and sunken, and the bruised eyelid seems to sag into the blue crescent sack beneath. The venom-spitting plaeyrin bol that once distinguished Nom Anor’s countenance is gone, and evidently he has not yet been permitted to replace it.

Harrar’s eyes narrow in satisfaction. Nom Anor has failed repeatedly in his duties, but never once has he accepted responsibility for his actions. In a manner most unworthy a Yuuzhan Vong, he has instead foisted the blame off on others. Harrar himself has suffered a temporary demotion for his part in a failed espionage scheme – one for which Nom Anor merely received a reprimand, even though his agents played a significant role in the plot’s failure. In Harrar’s opinion, the blurred face testifies to the truth that the gods’ justice will, in time, always be served.

The image of Nom Anor, imprecise though it is, nevertheless manages to convey a sense of impatience, perhaps even anxiety.

“Your Eminence,” Nom Anor begins.

“Your report,” Harrar breaks in curtly.

Nom Anor’s one eye narrows, and for a moment Harrar thinks that the Executor will protest. As a field agent, Nom Anor is seldom required to answer to the priesthood. His silence stretches beyond the bounds of pride, however, and Harrar begins to fear that Khalee Lah’s suspicions have fallen short of the grim truth.

“You have lost?”

“We have losses,” Nom Anor corrects. “Two /Jeedai prisoners held on the worldship were freed. They are apparently escaping, as are several of the others.”/

Harrar promptly looks to Khalee Lah. “You have sighted the infidels’ escape ship?”

The warrior’s eyes widen, and, for a moment, his scarred face holds horrified enlightenment – a fleeting emotion that swiftly darkens to wrath.

“Ask who flies the /Ksstarr/: the Executor or the infidels?”

This possibility has not occurred to Harrar, and he is so shocked that he cannot quite stop the too quick, too loud intake of breath he makes. He quickly relays the question through the attuned villip.

“Some of the /Jeedai managed to commandeer the frigate,” Nom Anor admits. /“We are pursuing, and feel confident that we will add the capture of this ship to our other victories.”

/Capture. /Harrar’s gut tightens, for that single word confirms the identity of at least one of the escaping /Jeedai/.

“Capture!” Khalee Lah echoes derisively. “Better to reduce the defiled thing to coral dust! What Yuuzhan Vong pilot would wish to enjoin with an infidel-tainted ship?”

“At least one /Jeedai has fallen to our warriors,”/ Nom Anor continues, seemingly oblivious to both the priest’s epiphany and the warrior’s scorn. “It is only a matter of time before the others are captured or killed as well. They cannot escape – ”

“At least one of the Solo twins is aboard that ship. Where is the other?” Harrar brusquely cuts in to demand.

The silence holds for so long that the villip begins to invert back to its original form.

“We are in pursuit,” Nom Anor says at last. “The /Jeedai /will not be able to fly a ship such as the Ksstarr well or long.”

“It is an outrage that they fly it at all!” Khalee Lah interjects, all but spitting in his fury.

Harrar sends him a stern glance to quiet him before turning back to the villip. “I assume that you have not captured any of these other Jeedai/, given that you have not spoken of making arrangements for others to hold any prisoners and it is said the /Jeedai can communicate with each other over long distances, without either villips or mechanical abominations to aid them, and any such prisoner would warn the others of your approach.”

Khalee Lah sniffs scornfully. “What manner of hunter hangs bells around the necks of his bissop pack?”

This remark, impolitic though it is, surprises a smirk from Harrar. In his opinion, Nom Anor has been tainted by his long proximity to the infidels’ decadence and weakness. The image of the Executor plunging through muck and swamp water on the heels of a pack of fierce lizard-hounds is both incongruous and strangely appealing.

The Executor, though, takes the time to consider Harrar’s observation. “You have a military escort?”

“Twelve coralskippers accompany the priestship, yes. Do you wish us to break off in pursuit of the fleeing Jeedai?”

The villip face-shape rolls downward and then upright again in a semblance of a nod. “As you rightly observed, the risk of contact between these /Jeedai is considerable. That is why the Jeedai in the other ship – the Exquisite Death – was destroyed. I will report as much directly to the Warmaster.”/

“The ‘other’ ship?” Khalee Lah exclaims, snarling. And then, after a moment, he quietly growls, “And so the glory of any victory we may claim here will go to the Executor, while his failure is thrust upon the priest.”

Harrar turns away from the villip. “You are learning,” he observes softly. “But for the moment, let us disregard Nom Anor’s ambitions. You were assigned to accompany me to Myrkr, no more. It is my task to oversee the sacrifice of the twin Jeedai/. I /must pursue. You are not obligated to accompany me.”

The warrior, though, does not require any time to consider. “These/ Jeedai/, these Jaina and Jacen Solo, fly upon a living vessel. That offends me. They have escaped from a worldship. That should not have been possible. They are twins, which is rightly reserved as the province of the gods, or a portent of greatness. That is blasphemy. I would pursue those two to the most wretched corner of this galaxy if it meant adhering myself to a pair of molting grutchins.”

“Forcefully argued,” Harrar dryly notes. He turns back to the waiting Executor. “We will retrieve Jaina and Jacen Solo.”

“You hesitate. Are you certain you can succeed?”

“It is the Warmaster’s command,” Harrar simply replies. He glances over at Khalee Lah and adds, with a touch of asperity, “And a holy crusade.”

His sarcasm is (more’s the pity!) utterly lost on Khalee Lah. The warrior merely inclines his head in grave agreement, his face shining with something that Harrar has occasionally glimpsed, but never quite embraced, and a sudden chill shudders its way down the priest’s spine. Fervor such as Khalee Lah’s has always struck Harrar as vaguely dangerous. The warrior’s faith holds a Shaper’s art, imbuing Harrar’s facetious words with the sly irony the priest has always associated with his goddess. And is it not said that Yun-Harla reserves her most cunning tricks for those who serve her best?

He is still contemplating this possibility when a painfully bright flash of light flashes into brief existence above the verdant green disk of Mrykr, replacing the sight of the aging worldship with its dazzling splendor.

When the light has faded, the worldship is gone.

“Impossible,” Khalee Lah breathes, too shocked, at first, to even snarl. “/Impossible/!”

Harrar feels a shiver of something – perhaps premonition, perhaps awe, perhaps fear – shake through him, lancing him like a spear in the gut. “These /Jeedai/,” he slowly replies, “seem to specialize in impossibilities.”

Snarling, Khalee Lah whirls away from the viewport, shouting for his warriors as he goes.

***

A burst of plasma flares towards the stolen Yuuzhan Vong frigate, and Jaina instinctively responds with one of her own. It streams off towards the incoming plasma bolt like a vengeful comet. The two missiles meet like waves from opposing oceans, casting sprays of bright plasma into the darkness, and Eryl throws herself roughly to one side, straining the umbilical on the pilot’s gloves in her attempt to pull the ship aside from the killing spray. Fortunately for the Jedi, their Yuuzhan Vong pursuers are also forced to turn aside; unfortunately, this moment of relative peace (with no immediate danger, no obvious target or threat, coming at them) is quickly over. All too soon, another incoming streak of molten gold causes Eryl to mutter a curse and wrench the ship’s nose up and hard to port. The alien ship rises in a sharp, gut-wrenching arc, but plasma still scorches along the frigate’s underside, sheering off the irregular coral nodules with a shrill, ululating screech.

The Yuuzhan Vong apparently don’t appreciate having another of their worldships destroyed by a pack of /Jeedai/.

The fingers of Jaina’s right hand slide quickly to the side and circle around as she deftly brings her latest target into focus. She jams her left hand forward in its glove and squeezes it into a fist, releasing a burst of plasma at the attacking coralskipper an instant before it can launch a second round of plasma. Jaina’s missile strikes the Yuuzhan Vong ship in that minuscule interval between shielding and attack. Shards of black coral explode from its hull, and the snout heats to an ominous red as molten rock wash over it, cracks fissuring through the Yuuzhan Vong pilot’s viewport. Again Jaina fires, once again timing the attacks with skill honed through two long years of war with too many missions. The coralskipper’s projected gravity well swallows the first missile, but the second proves to be too much for the severely compromised hull, and the ship breaks apart, spilling its life out into the emptiness of space.

“I know that feeling,” she mutters.

Like a child probing morbidly at the empty, bloodied place where a tooth used to be, Jaina keeps finding herself reaching out through the Force, straining beyond the comfortable boundaries of power and training and ability as she seeks for her brother. No matter how deeply within herself she goes, though, searching out the place within her that has always been her twin’s, where Jacen has always resided, though, there is only darkness, unfathomable as space. It is as though Jacen is simply /gone/. And, though she knows that Jacen’s comatose body is resting comfortably (or at least as comfortably as can be expected, considering the circumstances) on a litter somewhere behind her on the ship and she knows that it’s possible that he might still wake from whatever this is that he’s fallen (or been plunged) into, Jaina feels not merely bereft but sundered, as though she has physically been cut away from her twin brother.

It does not help that, the instant she finally released her hold on the technique that makes a Force-sensitive’s presence in the Force too small for others to be able to notice, she was all but overwhelmed by the shocked, grief-stricken, and frantically worried sense of her mother, who promptly reached out with all of the (not inconsiderable) power within her, in a desperate effort to determine the location and status of her children. Leia seems to think that Jacen is dying, and her fury and guilty regret and sorrow are the absolute last things that Jaina needs right now. She’s still far too busy trying to process everything that’s happened, everything she’s learned, and her own grief and anger and almost overwhelming sense of self-loathing to be able to deal with her mother’s issues right now.

She almost lost Anakin, to this damned mission. She would have lost him (and Jacen, too, to be perfectly truthful. They might’ve eventually gotten Jacen’s body back, but he never would have been the same. It never would’ve been her brother, her twin, again. Not really), if not for the other Tahiri. She could still lose him, if they don’t get their act together and get the frell out of here before one of those enemy ships damages their frigate enough to capture it – and them.

“Blaster bolts! Eryl! I need to switch places with you! Somebody get me Ganner!”

“Why do you want /him/?” Zekk only petulantly demands, scowling.

“Someone has to take my place as the gunner.”

Zekk starts to protest, but another barrage cuts him off. Eryl zigzags wildly to avoid incoming fire and puts the ship into a tumbling evasive dive. The force of the maneuver makes Jaina brace her feet against the irregular coral floor and automatically steel herself for the punishing buildup of g-force. She expects her cognition hood to bulge out like the jowls of a Dagobian swamp lizard, but it remains comfortably in place, and she finds herself shaking her head, belatedly remembering that the internal gravity of a Yuuzhan Vong ship is far more complex and adaptable than those of similarly sized New Republic ships. Even so, for several moments speech is impossible, and she finds herself oddly grateful for those moments. She’s not assimilating the knowledge Tahiri gave her nearly fast enough and the Yuuzhan Vong are evidently taking their attempted escape a lot more personally this time around.

She really is not in the mood for a whiney Zekk, on top of everything else.

As soon as she can speak again, she insists, “I need Ganner. He did this before, and that means he can do this again.”

A look of concern crosses Tenel Ka’s face, but she shrugs off her restraints (wincing, slightly, and cradling her still sore and somewhat fragile arm close to her body) and rises from her seat to comply with the request. In moments, she returns with the older Jedi.

“C’m’ere,” Jaina beckons. She stands up without removing either the gloves or hood. “No time for a learning curve this time, either: you’re stuck working with me until you get the feel of it. The seat’s big enough for both of us.”

After a brief hesitation, Ganner slips into the chair, and Jaina quickly resettles herself in his lap. He chuckles and links his hands around her waist, his hands so big that they practically span the whole of her middle. “This could still get to be a habit, you know.”

“Just hold that thought,” Jaina replies as she sights down an incoming skip. “It’ll keep your hands busy.”

A surge of annoyance comes across the meld from Zekk, but Jaina understands Ganner’s flirtation for what it is, and she could care less what Zekk thinks. Ganner is tall, dark, and so absurdly handsome that he reminds Jaina of the old holovids of Prince Isolder. The scar across his cheek only serves to heighten the overall effect. When Ganner really turns on the charm, his pheromone count could probably easily rival a Falleen’s, but Jaina knows a shield when she sees one. Not all that long ago, Jacen had disguised his thoughtful nature with labored jokes. It’s likely for the best to leave Ganner’s particular defenses safely intact, no matter how corny some of his lines might be.

“Put your hands in the gloves and rest your fingers on mine,” she directs, a momentary sense of déjà vu making her head swim a little.

As Ganner obediently wriggles his hands into the flexible gloves, Jaina reaches out for him through the Force. She may lack Jacen’s empathy, but she can still convey images to Ganner using her own Force talent. As she aims and fires, she forms mental pictures of what she sees – the battle as viewed through the greatly expanded vision granted by the cognition hood, the blurry concentric circles that make up the targeting device. Through the Force, she feels the grim intensity of Ganner’s concentration, senses a mind and will as focused as a laser. Soon, his long fingers begin moving with hers in a precise duet. When she thinks him ready (and a part of her can’t help but realize that it takes far less time, this time around), she slides her hands free, then tugs off the hood as she eases out of his lap. She pulls the hood down quickly over Ganner’s head, and the Jedi jolts as he makes direct connection with the ship. He collects himself swiftly, though, and sends plasma hurtling to meet an incoming ball. The two missiles collide, sending plasma splashing out into space like festival fireworks.

Ganner’s crow of triumph is swallowed by the ship’s groan and shudder. Several bits of plasma have splashed the frigate despite its shielding singularity and Eryl’s attempts at evasion.

“Come on,” Jaina urgently insists, hurrying over to the pilot’s station. “Let me have her.”

Eryl, though, just shakes her hooded head and puts the ship into a rising turn. “I don’t know. Are you sure you – ”

“Get out of the seat, Eryl,” she demands in cool, controlled tones. “I know more about these ships and I can do this a lot better than you. I’m okay. Let me have the controls.”

The older, redheaded woman hesitates for a heartbeat longer, then rips off her own hood and rises. Her green eyes met Jaina’s, filled with such a turmoil of sorrow and concern that Jaina automatically slams shut the Force connection between them, unable to deal with the distraction of an expression she is intimately familiar with, having seen it in her mother’s eyes many times during the terrible months that followed Chewbacca’s death, when her father had been lost in grief and guilt. There’s no time for this now.

And besides, it’s not like Jacen’s actually dead – at least not yet.

Jaina slides into the pilot’s seat and lets herself join with the ship. Her small fingers move deftly over the organic console, confirming the sensory impulses that flow to her through the hood. Yes, this is the hyperdrive analog, and over here is the forward shield. The navigation center remains largely a mystery to her, but Lowbacca tinkered a bit with the Exquisite Death and the young Wookiee has a history of taking on impossible challenges. This task lies right along his plotted coordinates.

Suddenly the shriek of warning sensors sear through Jaina’s mind. A chorus of wordless voices come at her from all over the ship, and the details of their situation engulf her in a single swift flood. Several plasma bolts are streaming towards them, converging on the underside of the ship, at a spot that is, so far, a favored target. Coralskippers have moved into position aft and above, and others are closing in from below and on either side. Another ship is coming at them straight on, still at a distance but closing fast.

No matter what she does, they cannot possibly evade the disabling barrage.

So Jaina takes a page out of her own book and does the only thing that she can, holding course and flying straight towards the incoming plasma bolts. At the last possible moment, she throws the vessel into a fast-rolling spiral. The plasma flurry skims along the whirling ship, not dealing much damage to any one part. When the scream of plasma grating against living coral has ceased, she fights the ship out of the roll and keeps heading straight on towards the oncoming skip. “Lowbacca, get up here,” she shouts. “Ganner, you know the drill! Clear me a lane.”

The Jedi gunner promptly hurls plasma at the coralskipper directly in their path. As its dovin basal engulfs the missile in a miniature black hole, Ganner releases another. His timing is perfect, and the skip dissolves in a brief, bright explosion.

Jaina quickly diverts the dovin basal to the front shield, and instinctively flinches away as a spray of coral debris clatters over the hull. She glances back over her shoulder in Eryl’s general direction. “Eryl, you play dejarik much?”

“Play /what/?”

“That’s what I thought,” she mutters, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Much like Zekk in that other time, while Eryl has been concentrating merely on avoiding each immediate attack, the yammosk-coordinated fleet has been thinking several moves ahead, and has neatly maneuvered the stolen ship into a trap. Jaina’s never been fond of dejarik or any of the other strategy games Chewbacca had insisted upon teaching her, but for the first time she can really see the Wookiee’s point about how useful learning them can be.

Lowbacca pads up and howls a query, which Em Teedee translates as, “Master Lowbacca asks if you would be kind enough to explain why you’ve requested his presence.”

“Get on navigation,” Jaina replies, jerking her head towards a rounded, brainlike console. “Hyperspace jump. Destination anywhere but Myrkr. You managed it alright, in that other time. You think you can input coordinates for us this time around, too?”

The Wookiee settles down and regards the biological “computer,” pensively scratching at a place on his right temple where a black streak runs through his ginger-colored fur.

“/Now /would be good,” Ganner prompts.

Lowbacca growls a Wookiee insult that makes the translator droid fuss and twitter about like a miniature Threpio before reaching forward to tug the cognition hood down over his head. After a moment, he extends one of his retracted climbing claws and carefully slices through the thin upper membrane. With astonishing delicacy, he starts to touch neural clusters and rearrange slender, living fibers, grunting in satisfaction with each new insight. Finally, he turns to Jaina and woofs a question.

“Set course for Coruscant.”

“Why Coruscant?” Alema Rar instantly protests. Her head-tails, which are mottled with darkening bruises, start to twitch in agitation. “That planet is /falling/, Jaina! There’s nothing we can do for anyone there.”

“But it’s where the Jedi are. And we have information they need. If we get someone’s attention there, they can follow us out to Hapes,” Jaina quickly explains. “And we /need /to go to Hapes. We have work to do there – people to save. So. How’s it coming, Lowbacca?”

The Wookiee makes a couple of deft adjustments, then signals readiness by bracing his massive paws on either side of the console and uttering a resigned groan, which Em Teedee translates as, “Master Lowbacca expresses the opinion that this is likely as good as it is going to get, without more time and equipment to work on this system.”

Jaina doesn’t even wait for the fussy little droid to stop talking before kicking the ship into hyperdrive. The force of the jump throws her back into the oversized seat and strains the umbilicals attaching her hood and gloves to the ship. Plasma bolts spread out into a golden sunrise haze; stars elongated into brilliant lines; and then silence and darkness engulf the Jedi, and a floating sensation replaces the intense pressure of sub-light acceleration. Jaina pulls off the hood and collapses back into her seat, sighing with relief.

Coruscant is the next logical move on the dejarik board, and it looks like they’re going to get there in one piece, after all, despite the best efforts of the Yuuzhan Vong to stop them.

If their luck continues to hold, they might just manage to do this, after all.

***