Dark Tide: Onslaught Page 14

  “I’m not, but my world is.” Lando freed himself from her arms, tossed his cape back over his shoulder, and waved a hand out over the cityscape. “It’s all over, Leia.”

  The pure anguish in his voice arced pain through her heart. She followed his gaze and looked out over a city that she remembered as being pristine during her first visit, with high towers that made this portion of Dubrillion look as if it had been transplanted from Coruscant. The gentle sweep of archways and the elegantly worked decorations on the buildings had reminded her of images from Coruscant while her father was yet a child.

  Now it is Coruscant after Thrawn and the Emperor’s return. The proud towers had been shattered, with fires guttering from the tops of some. Buildings had holes melted and blasted into them. Faint breezes teased draperies that hung out through broken transparisteel viewports, and down below, on the various causeways and streets, people moved listlessly along carrying their most precious possessions on their backs or in their arms.

  Lando sighed. “The Yuuzhan Vong returned a week and a half after you left. They took up a position near the asteroid belt and watched us. Every so often a squadron of their coralskippers descends and hits a particular location. We fight back, of course, and get some of them, but less and less with each strike. It feels like they’re using us to cull the weak and stupid from their ranks, leaving only the best and smartest and bravest behind to fight again.”

  He slammed his right fist into his left palm. “I don’t like their attacking us, but I like even less being mocked.”

  Elegos appeared beside Leia. “Administrator Calrissian, what you see as mocking you could be a healthy respect for your defenses here. Your people did stop an earlier assault.”

  Lando nodded grimly. “We did, but these Yuuzhan Vong fight differently. It was the difference between dealing with crack Imperial troops and some local Imp-wanna-be militia. These fighters are much better and, yes, more cautious, but they’re just putting the polish on the force pike before they drive it into our guts.”

  Leia put a hand on Lando’s shoulder. “They didn’t harry us as we came in.”

  “They don’t. They pick off a few of the outbound ships, but mostly let them run, too. At least, they do now. I think they expected a New Republic response by now.” Lando gave Leia a sidelong glance. “You’ve got nothing from Coruscant to offer us, right?”

  She jerked a thumb toward Elegos. “Meet Senator Elegos A’Kla. He’s here on an official fact-finding mission.”

  “Better find your facts fast, Senator, before the Yuuzhan Vong melt them down with plasma blasts.”

  Leia shivered. In all the time she’d spent with Lando, even when Darth Vader had usurped his command of Bespin, she’d never heard him so frustrated. She was willing to put part of it down to his not wanting to have to start over yet again, but she knew that was only a tiny piece of what was going on inside him. Lando always looks for ways to work around the system, whatever system that is, but with so little data on the Yuuzhan Vong, he can’t find an opening to defeat them.

  Leia glanced around at the other spaceport towers. “Things look pretty empty. Everyone fleeing?”

  “Those who can, have.” Lando shook his head impotently. “I had guards come up on the causeway here because your arrival will draw a lot of folks who want to get away.”

  “How are your defenses holding up?” Elegos craned his neck and looked around. “I don’t see much in the way of turbolaser batteries or concussion missile launchers.”

  Lando’s face brightened a little. “Nor will you. The Yuuzhan Vong hit the fixed sites pretty early on. Everything else is mobile and in hiding. When they come in we try to harass them with fighters and steer them into areas where our mobile guns can engage them. They’re learning, so they’re making it tough, but we can shuffle things when they’re not looking down on us and set up new ambushes.”

  “That’s good as a stall tactic, but it won’t win a war against them.” Leia’s eyes narrowed. “We can do better.”

  “Really? That mean you have a spare Death Star lurking around that will pulverize the asteroid belt and their command ship?”

  “Command ship?” Elegos’s head came up. “You’ve seen a big ship from them?”

  “Yes, lurking near the asteroid belt.” Lando waved them on to follow him. “Come on down to my central defense facility. I can show you as much holo on that ship as you want. We did make an attempt at taking it out, but our fighters never got close enough.”

  Leia dropped into step with Lando, leaving Elegos to trail behind them and Bolpuhr leaping ahead to lead the way. “It’s got to have a weakness. We can find it and exploit it.”

  “I hope so.”

  “We will, Lando. We must.” Leia sighed. “It’s the only chance Dubrillion has.”

  Jaina pulled a comlink from the bulkhead recharger station on the Fond Memory. She handed another to Danni. “My mother has headed off with Lando. We can explore a bit, if you want, stretch our legs.”

  The blond woman accepted the device and clipped it to the lapel of the blue jacket she wore. “Sorry to take so long to find my jacket. You should have gone with her.”

  “That’s okay. Being cooped up with her for the trip out here was enough for now. I don’t need to be there while she’s being ‘Princess Leia.’ ”

  Danni blinked with surprise. “But, your mother, she . . .”

  Jaina nodded and led the way down the landing ramp. “I know, she defeated the Empire and kept the New Republic safe. Oh, don’t look at me that way. I know what she did, and I love her dearly.”

  “Sounds as if there is a but coming in there somewhere.”

  Jaina sighed as they stepped past the guards on the causeway and cut toward a set of stairs that would take them lower in the city. “Didn’t you want to move out of your mother’s shadow?”

  “My mother cast a very small shadow, I guess.” The woman’s green eyes sparkled. “She is an astrophysicist who got me to be looking out toward the stars. She kept a low profile, trying to pass beneath the sensors of the local government or the Empire or whichever warlord claimed our world in any given week. From her I learned to marvel at distant worlds and systems. That’s a big chunk of the reason I joined the ExGal Society.”

  “Your mother must be proud.”

  “She is. I think she’s pleased I chose to follow in her footsteps.”

  “Taking after your father didn’t interest you?”

  “They split up when I was young. He was a bureaucrat, very much into rules and regulations that seemed pointless.” Danni shrugged. “At least, with science, the rules you have to follow have reason behind them and produce results. I don’t much care for bureaucracy, which was part of the fun of being with ExGal: the edge of the galaxy was about twenty times closer than the nearest bureaucrat.”

  Jaina exited the stairs and stepped over a small pile of debris that had spilled into the street from a nearby building. She could have shifted it out of the way with the Force, but she didn’t. In fact, she found herself pulling the Force back in because the pure misery of the people of Dubrillion clawed at her spirit. She understood their fear and pain, but the sharpness of it threatened to rend her.

  “At least you had some sort of choice, Danni. With my parents I could be a smuggler who saved the galaxy or a diplomat who saved the galaxy.”

  “And you chose to become a Jedi.”

  Jaina shifted her shoulders uneasily. “That choice was pretty much made for me. My brothers and I are very strong in the Force.”

  Danni arched an eyebrow as she pulled abreast of Jaina. “You regret being a Jedi?”

  “No, not at all.” Jaina hesitated, then sighed. “It’s something neither of my parents became, so it let me have something to myself. That’s part of being a twin too, I guess; everyone expects we’ll be alike even though we’re fraternal, not identical.”

  “I think I begin to see what you’re saying.” Danni offered her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Jaina
Solo. So, tell me, just who are you?”

  Laughter erupted from Jaina. “I don’t know who I am. I’m only sixteen. I know parts of it. I know I’m a really good pilot, and I’m not bad as a Jedi. I know I’m getting tired of being my mother’s daughter and my father’s daughter; and part of me even knows that it will take time for me to emerge from their shadows. I also know that there are folks out there who think I’m going to be the salvation of the galaxy because I’m a Jedi, and others who think I’m doom on two feet for the same reason.”

  The older woman hooked an arm through Jaina’s right elbow. “I remember when I was sixteen. I was all elbows and knees and pretty sure I knew all there was to know about anything worth knowing.”

  “Uh-huh. And now, at the ripe old age of, what, twenty-one, you know how foolish you were back then?”

  “Twenty-one, yes. And, yes, I do think I was not as wise then as I am now. Jaina, I remember not wanting advice.”

  The younger woman smiled. “So you’ll give it to me anyway.”

  “My point is, Jaina, that people have a choice when they start to look at who they are. Some people decide they want to be like others. They use them as examples, try to do the things they do, and do their best to follow in their footsteps.” Danni smiled. “I was like that with my mother.”

  “And the other type of people, they try to be the opposite of someone?”

  “Right, and the problem with that strategy is simple: There are a million ways to be unlike someone, and the potential for disaster is unlimited because instead of choosing a path and adjusting it to make it right for you and the circumstances, you push all that away.” Danni gave Jaina’s arm a squeeze. “You may not want to be your mother, you may ache for the day when you won’t be seen as her daughter, but that doesn’t mean your mother doesn’t have a lot of admirable qualities that you might want to embrace.”

  Jaina nodded, letting Danni’s words bounce around inside her mind for a bit. She knew she was both disappointed and relieved by her mother’s failure to learn more about the Force. Being a Jedi already gave her a piece of identity that her mother didn’t have. And, in being a pilot, she did seem to have picked up one of her father’s better traits. And Mom’s commitment to the causes that catch her up is certainly admirable. Her relentlessness and willfulness, while annoying to me, are good traits, too.

  Jaina shot Danni a sidelong glance. “So, this wisdom thing, that kicks in when, about seventeen or eighteen?”

  “Maybe, with a good role model.”

  “Good. I guess I can take my pick from some of the best.” Jaina smiled. “I may not know who I am, but I think you’ve pointed me to a good path for finding out.”

  “It’s the least I can do for half the team that saved me from the Yuuzhan Vong.”

  The two of them stopped as they rounded a corner and came upon a crowd of people gathered before a government food storehouse. Armed security troops stood at the doorway. A couple of frantic clerks beseeched the people to disperse. They announced they were waiting for a shipment of supplies and would be setting up local relief centers in neighborhoods. They said no one would be getting food directly from the storehouse, but the sentiment voiced by some in the crowd supported the idea that the troops and bureaucrats wanted to keep the food only for themselves.

  Danni shivered. “These people—there’s such need.”

  Jaina slowly opened herself to the Force and felt the desire and urgency pouring off the crowd. She abruptly turned Danni around and headed back toward the spaceport. “I know you’re Force-sensitive. I should have steered you clear of here.”

  “Did you feel it, Jaina?”

  “I did, when I opened myself to it. I’d shut some of it out just because it hurt so much, which is why I didn’t skirt this place.”

  “You can do that? You can shut things out?” Danni frowned. “I mean, I thought the Force was vital for the Jedi.”

  “The Force is vital for everyone, but negative emotions are the bane of the Jedi Knight. Too much of that can frustrate you, lead you to despair and rash acts that are of the dark side.” Jaina stretched her senses out and located the distant spark that was her mother. “I can show you how to screen a lot of the negative stuff and teach you a few more of the simple telekinesis exercises, but first I want to find my mother. She ought to have a clue as to how desperate things are getting here.”

  “You’re right. Thanks for getting me out of there.”

  “No problem.” Jaina gave her a quick nod. “That’s for calibrating my compass. Now that I’ve got a better idea where I’m going, perhaps I can actually get there.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The University of Agamar students had been very resourceful in dealing with the conditions they discovered on Bimmiel, Corran decided. Once the sand started to fly, they developed broad, flat footgear that could be buckled to the bottom of boots, expanding the size of a walker’s footprint. It distributed enough of the walker’s weight that he didn’t sink into the sand. A second iteration of the design included a compartment beneath the heel that could be filled with the dead-slashrat scent—referred to, rather accurately, as stink—so slashrats wouldn’t track folks out scouting around.

  The sandgales picked up again shortly after the Jedi’s arrival, trapping them in the cavern with the field team. Corran quickly established that he and Ganner would take watches at the cave mouth, especially at night, when their Force senses could make picking out the approach of slashrats much easier. The fact that these watches also tended to be cold meant none of the students lamented giving them up. Because the students had infrared monitoring equipment that allowed them to spot the heat that slashrats gave off—thereby rendering them technologically visible at night—an undercurrent of comments started about how stupid the Jedi were to rely on archaic practices and the Force when technology worked just as well and allowed a full division of labor.

  The criticism annoyed Ganner, but Corran didn’t mind it. As he explained to Ganner in the dead of the night, “If they think we’re a bit slow, they’ll believe themselves superior. This makes us much less of a threat in their eyes. Since we’ll be living with them for a while, having them think us more buffoon than brute won’t be bad.”

  Ganner had his own ideas about how to improve relations with the students, which resulted in Trista spending part of the watches talking with him in hushed tones that were punctuated by far too many giggles. Ganner’s getting along with Trista did have a curious effect on the rest of the company. Males in the group who found her desirable didn’t pick on the Jedi too much, lest they risk offending her. Her female friends remained neutral toward the Jedi, or at least toward Corran. The others, including Dr. Pace, seemed to take the budding romance as a sign that Ganner was human—or manipulable—and that eased some tension.

  The week of storms did allow Corran to learn more about the Yuuzhan Vong body and artifacts the team had discovered. At his suggestion they looked at the artifacts and confirmed that the weapons and armor were, or once had been, living creatures.

  The fact that the Yuuzhan Vong had been on Bimmiel before and, perhaps significantly, during the exit half of the orbit, suggested to Corran that if they returned, they would be very well suited to local conditions since they knew what to expect. He felt certain they had returned and were in the area: as martial a people as they seemed to be, he could easily imagine them coming to recover the remains of their fallen comrade. Corran had no idea why it took the Yuuzhan Vong fifty years before returning to recover the body. Perhaps this one was an early scout. However, if his hunch was true, everyone in the university field team was in serious jeopardy.

  As the gales died down, Corran made plans for himself and Ganner to recon the area. They waited until nightfall, strapped on sandshoes, and headed out to the east, toward the shores of what, during the time of the Imperial survey, had been a lake. Their progress was not fast, but the sandshoes did allow them to keep moving without having to dig themselves out of deep san
d.

  Corran and Ganner crouched downwind of a discovery. Two dunes over, painted in silver and gray by the moon’s light, there boiled a ball of slashrats savaging some other creature. The predators made angry little growls as they shot up through the sand and dived back down into it, or slithered back and forth, wagging their heads in fights over scraps of carrion. Watching them feed, Corran almost felt sorry for the Yuuzhan Vong they’d attacked.

  More curious than the battling was a sharp, sour scent that wafted to them on the wind. Corran wrinkled his nose. “That’s worse than stink.”

  Ganner nodded. “That’s killscent. Trista says the slashrats exude it when they’re making a kill. It lets others know food is in the area. They’ll close in, herding the shwpi back toward the main kill site. Some experiments showed that the slashrats will ignore stink to get at killscent. While the students could synthesize it, they don’t for fear of inviting a feeding frenzy.”

  “Wise idea.” Corran got up and started moving around to the south. “We skirt the killball and keep going. I’m getting faint glimmerings of stuff farther on.”

  “As am I. Strange things.”

  The two Jedi continued on in silence—at least, audio silence. When one is attuned to the Force, the emotions playing through another can feel as sweet as music sounds, or as harsh as breaking transparisteel looks. Excitement tinged with resentment trailed off Ganner, so Corran decided to give fewer orders and invite Ganner’s input on little choices, like how to work around a rising line of stony outcroppings that capped the hills overlooking the lake. Ganner gladly took the lead, and once they had removed their sandshoes, they made good progress through the rocks.

  At the pinnacle they paused, then slipped into shadows and descended toward the sand-strewn lake bed. They kept behind cover as much as possible, assuming that if the Yuuzhan Vong were there, they would have had the equivalent of infrared monitors available to them. At the base of the rocks they stopped and studied the flat expanse before them.