Dark Tide 1: Onslaught (14 page)

Jacen frowned. “Villips? Their communications devices?”

“I think so. Different sizes for different needs, I suppose.” Luke sighed quietly. “So much to learn about them.”

From the cover of large rocks, they watched as slaves waded through the turgid water, using ladles to pour water over the villip plants. One, an older man whose spine sprouted horny growths, could barely lift a dripping ladle to bathe a villip. The ladle slipped from his fingers, and he tried to catch it. He lunged forward to grab it, but lost his footing and went down in the water.

The man started splashing in a panicked manner, churning the water into a yellow-brown froth. Several of the other slaves started shouting. They vocalized in a high range that rose above Luke's ability to hear, though the anxiety pouring off them slammed into him in waves. Several started for the drowning man, high-stepping through the gelatinous fluid as fast as they could.

A harsh whip crack froze them in their places. Appearing at the western edge of the lake, backlit in the dying sun, stood a tall and lean figure. His right hand snapped out and forward again, cracking the whiplike weapon in his hand. After the second snap, the whip became a staff, and the figure brandished it over his head, pumping it upward the way one of the Sand People would triumphantly pump a gaffi stick.

The Yuuzhan Vong—Luke knew it was one because the figure didn't exist within the Force framework—dashed forward, splashing his way into the lake. He artfully cut between villip stalks and reached the row where the man was striking for the surface. The man reached out as the Yuuzhan Vong extended the amphistaff toward him. The man grabbed at it, then recoiled, with his hand sliced open. He started to scream, but fluid boiling up out of his throat sank it into a gurgle.

The Yuuzhan Vong lunged with the amphistaff, driving the sharp, flattened end through the man's chest. As he pulled the amphistaff back, the man came halfway up out of the water, then slipped from the staff. The Yuuzhan Vong stabbed him twice more, then stepped back away as the man flopped into the water one last time. The body bobbed there for a second, then, leaking air from lungs and mouth, slowly sank from sight.

The Yuuzhan Vong raised the amphistaff and shouted something. The slaves understood enough of it to cower. The amphistaff then slacked for a moment before coiling itself around its owner's arm. The Yuuzhan Vong strode from the water, then beckoned over two slaves, a man and a woman. They pulled off the rags they wore and dried the Yuuzhan Vong's legs.

A siren of sorts echoed through the hills. The Yuuzhan Vong shouted another order, and the slaves formed themselves into a rough line. They began to trudge off to the south. The Yuuzhan Vong took one last look at the villip paddy, then strode off along the path his slaves had taken.

Luke felt an emotional chill coming from his nephew. “I'm sorry you witnessed that.”

“I'm sorry for the man who died there.” Jacen shook his head. “The Yuuzhan Vong I faced when rescuing Danni—they were formidable, but nothing like that one. He had no mercy at all in him.”

“No, just a cold, efficient killer. He was bigger than the one Mara fought, longer and leaner. I wish I had seen more than just a silhouette.”

Jacen smiled. “We'll get to see them up close soon enough.”

Luke shook his head. “I certainly hope not.”

The younger Jedi blinked. “But we have to do something for the slaves.”

“Do we?” Luke's expression sharpened as disbelief rolled out from Jacen. “Remember why we're here.”

“To save the New Republic, and those people are part of the New Republic.” Jacen pointed to the south. “You can feel how much pain they're in, how much damage the Yuuzhan Vong have done to them. How can you not think of moving to free them?”

“I do think of it, but I also know it's not practical, not at this stage. We have a lot to learn here. It's not a satisfactory choice, but a necessary one.”

Jacen's head came up. “Freeing them will doom the New Republic? Or will it merely make your mission to save your wife that much tougher?”

Luke stiffened, but choked down the outrage his nephew's question had sparked in him. It helped that he could read the horror in Jacen's eyes, but the question had still stung bitterly. “Is that what you think the real reason for our being here is? You think I would come here just to save Mara?”

“I think, Uncle Luke, that you love her so much that you'd do
anything
to save her.” The youth glanced down. “I'm sorry for saying what I did. I didn't mean it.”

“Actually, Jacen, you did mean it. It is a paradox. We have to allow some people to be in pain so others can avoid it. It's an easy choice when you're the one who will be hurting, but tougher when others have to suffer. You have to agree, though, that we can do nothing right now. We don't know enough about the Yuuzhan Vong presence here; we don't know enough about the slaves; we don't even know if they
can
be saved. For all we know, they've agreed to this treatment.”

Jacen glanced out at where the man's body had returned to the surface and floated there placidly. “I can't imagine his death was part of any bargain.”

“You're probably right, but we are not in a position to do anything for the slaves.”

“But, to do nothing, that's not . . . not being a Jedi.”

The flesh around Luke's eyes tightened. “I thought you were the one who didn't want any part of these missions. I thought you were the one who decided the essence of being a Jedi was to go off and study your relationship with the Force.”

“I . . . I did, but—”

The Jedi Master cut him off. “Jacen, you have to understand something, something very important. As smart as you are, as much training as you have, as much of the galaxy as you've seen, you still are only sixteen years old. You only have sixteen years of experience.”

Luke sighed. “Having more experience doesn't mean making difficult decisions are easier, but it does let you know that sometimes the tough decisions must be made.”

Jacen's expression hardened into an impassive mask. “I understand, Master.”

You use the word
Master
with the same tone a slave might use to address his owner.
Luke shook his head. “We need to get back to the ExGal facility before darkness falls completely. Without being able to sense the Yuuzhan Vong through the Force, we're more vulnerable at night. Besides, going back there will give both of us time to process what we've learned today, and think about what we need to find out in the future.”

Jacen shrugged. “It's a plan, Uncle Luke. A plan.”

A ripple of dread ran through Luke at the tone of his nephew's voice, but the Force brought to him no vision of what might yet happen on Belkadan. He reached out and settled a hand on Jacen's shoulder. “Just remember, some problems have no easy or elegant solution. The Yuuzhan Vong are clearly one of
those
problems.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Trapped in the cockpit of his X-wing as it hurtled through hyperspace, Gavin Darklighter had nothing to do but sit and wait. For as long as he could remember, he'd never liked having to wait for his fighter to revert to realspace. That dislike had increased when he became Rogue Squadron's commander.
Prior to assuming command I only had myself to worry about. Now I have a lot more to concern me.

Unconsciously he twisted the silver ring on his right ring finger, even though it and the fingers that moved it around were sheathed in heavy flight gloves. The ring had the Rogue Squadron crest on it—a crest he'd designed when he first joined the squadron. It also sported the quadruple-dot rank insignia of a colonel on either side.

Tycho Celchu and Wedge Antilles had given it to him upon his assumption of command. They had chosen to retire after peace had been won with the Imperial Remnant, and both had evidenced great pride in welcoming Gavin into a position that only they and Luke Skywalker had held in Rogue Squadron. They'd had the ring made up specifically for him, and presented it to him on a special “commander's night out.”

Gavin smiled as he remembered the quiet, elegant dinner in one of Coruscant's better restaurants. The three of them comported themselves as would gentlemen, not at all living up to the reputation of fighter pilots everywhere. The calm dignity with which Tycho and Wedge spoke to him and discussed various issues told him that they had accepted him as a peer and had full confidence in his abilities to lead the Rogues.

Wedge had looked at him over the rim of a snifter of Corellian brandy. “Biggs was with us at the start, and you were with us when we restarted Rogue Squadron. In many ways the Darklighters and their victories and sacrifices are more emblematic of Rogue Squadron than anything Tycho and I have done. It's certainly the right thing to have you in charge.”

Wedge's pride and faith in him had seen Gavin through some early rough spots. With peace came the retirement of many of the pilots. In addition to Wedge and Tycho, Corran Horn, Wes Janson, and Hobbie Klivian had all opted to retire. Peace also brought with it an economic boom that lured pilots away with offers of lucrative pay for interstellar goods transport. Still, a lot of new young pilots vied for positions in the squadron, and weeding them out made for a very difficult job.

And let me know what Wedge faced when he rebuilt the squadron back when I joined.
Luckily for Gavin he had a good command staff to help him out. Major Inyri Forge had been with the Rogues almost as long as he had. Major Alinn Varth came from a military family and had been flying most of her life. With each of them in command of one of the flights, the new pilots were quickly molded into a superior fighting team. Gavin wasn't certain if his Rogues could have defeated the old Rogues in a head-to-head simulation, but he knew they'd give them a run for their money.

But will that be good enough?

A cold lump sat in Gavin's stomach. Based on Xhaxin's information, Admiral Kre'fey took the
Ralroost
out toward the rendezvous point where the pirate said his people were ambushed. They launched a probe droid toward that point, but the data it sent back was inconclusive. Gavin pointed out, and Kre'fey had agreed, that the droid really didn't have the programming or database necessary to be able to analyze the area for the presence of the Yuuzhan Vong. “If there isn't something big and anomalous there, it isn't going to see anything to report.”

That fact really left them with no choice but to send in a T-65R reconnaissance X-wing. While it would collect data in all of the ranges that the probe droid did, the living pilot would be able to direct it toward anything that felt suspicious. Rogue Squadron was flying along to provide cover; they had spent most of the time outbound in the
Ralroost
running through simulations of battles with the coralskippers.

When it came down to it, Gavin was of two minds concerning the mission. Returning to an empty point in space where some pirates and fleeing Imperials had been ambushed weeks ago was probably an exercise in futility. There was no logical reason for the Yuuzhan Vong to maintain a presence in that area since it had no resources, no planets—nothing to see, nothing to conquer, nothing to hide behind. All of that had argued against the mission. The fact that the point in space from which the task force was traveling provided access to a number of inhabited worlds both in the New Republic and the Remnant—where the Rogues would be far more valuable in helping evacuate people—also diminished the mission profile.
Why go somewhere that is out of the way when we might be needed to respond to trouble quickly?

A vague argument for the mission could be made on the slender chances that some people had somehow survived the attack and remained trapped in drifting hulks. More likely was the idea that by collecting data on any ship hulks in the area the New Republic would be able to assess the capabilities of Yuuzhan Vong weaponry. What little they knew already trickled some dread into Gavin's guts, but the strategies they'd come up with to work around the Yuuzhan Vong defenses worked well in simulation.

Catch whistled and started a ten-second countdown to reversion. Gavin settled his right hand on the stick and positioned his left on the throttle lever. He watched the white tunnel of light that extended beyond his fighter's nose suddenly develop cracks, then disintegrate into a black field with stars studding it.

“Rogues, report.”

All the pilots reported in and formed up in their three flights. The recon X-wing, which had the designation Snoop, climbed above the squadron's flight plane and slowly deployed the twin sensor pods from the rear of the fighter. The T-65R had no weapons because sensors filled all the available space in the craft, but in a fight the pilot could jettison the pods and end up with a very fast and maneuverable ship that could keep him out of trouble.

“Pods deployed. Sensor run commencing now.”

“I copy, Snoop.”

Without a word being said the rest of Rogue Squadron fanned out, leaving One flight trailing behind and below the recon ship. Two flight, under Inyri's command, moved to starboard and up, while Major Varth's Three flight moved ahead and down to port. The Rogues kept the comm chatter to a minimum so the computers on Snoop wouldn't have to filter their calls out.
Unless there is an emergency, this run should be silent.

Gavin looked ahead and dialed up the gain on his sensors to see if he could spot any debris from the ambush. Because there was no large mass—star or planet—in the area to pull the debris toward it, he expected to see plenty of wreckage. In the distance, nearly ten kilometers away, he did catch sensor blips, but nothing his targeting computer could recognize as being a ship.

Catch gave out with a low moan, and new targets started to scroll up on Gavin's secondary monitor. The half-dozen targets were spilling like droplets of water from a cracked cup, appearing from the blips that were all that remained of the ships that had been ambushed. Gavin shivered, thinking of times he'd seen insects crawling from within corpses.

“Heads up, Rogues, we have contacts at 354 mark 20. S-foils in attack position.” Gavin checked his sensors. “Snoop, come about and orbit here, pull in all the data you can on the fight, then hyper out if we can't stop them from coming after you.”

“As ordered, Lead.”

The new sensor database package on the X-wings allowed them to target the coralskippers, but not very easily. Since each ship was grown in a different environment, it had different characteristics. Not all of them had the same chemical composition in the hull, nor the same shape exactly. The computers had to account for a wide range of variables, and Gavin couldn't be certain that his computer might not lock onto some chunk of rock and designate it a target.

Which means we have to move in close.
Gavin nudged his throttle forward and saw his wingman, Captain Kral Nevil, come up on his port wing, then they both nosed their ships down and cruised in at the coralskippers. Gavin brought his aiming reticle over one of the coralskippers heading toward him, but the computer refused to give him a proton torpedo lock until they hit the one-kilometer range. It went from red to green instantly, accompanied by Catch's shriek, so Gavin hit the trigger, then pulled up and inverted the craft.

The proton torpedo rode an azure flame to the target, and the coralskipper made no attempt to evade it. Instead, nearly ten meters away from the target, the torpedo shrank from a dot of light to something smaller, like a distant star, and the supernova of light Gavin had expected to see never showed up.

A quick glance at his secondary monitor did show a gravitic anomaly, which confirmed that the coralskipper had somehow created a small black hole, which it used to swallow the missile. The energy from the explosion couldn't escape the void; hence the coralskipper remained undamaged. Being able to generate black holes wasn't the same as having shields, but in some cases could be even more effective.

“Lead, the black-hole idea seems to be right. Do we tip our hand?”

“Yes, Deuce. Rogues, new combat programming now.” Gavin hit a switch on his combat console. “Catch, start allocating the power.”

The droid dutifully tootled as Gavin rolled out to the right, then came around for another run at the coralskippers. He flicked his weapons over to laser fire and quadded them up, so all four would fire at once. As he came in at one of the rocky pods, he hit the trigger once and pulsed a red-gold burst of energy at the fighter, but another black hole blossomed and swallowed the laserlight.

Smiling, Gavin tightened down on the auxiliary trigger button beneath his middle finger on the stick. The X-wing's lasers began cycling very fast—faster than they would have in single-fire mode. Each bolt burned with a scarlet intensity, yet was shorter and decidedly less powerful that those in the first burst he'd fired. As long as he held the auxiliary trigger down in quad mode, the lasers would produce a cloud of shots that wouldn't do much damage, but were next to impossible to distinguish from the heavier bolts.

His target positioned a void to pick off the scattered shots from his fighter, then another to absorb the damage Nevil was pumping out. The coralskipper began some evasive maneuvers, rolling to port and climbing back against the angle of their attack, but it didn't fly as gracefully as the coralskippers had in simulation. Gavin let his own fighter flash past, then pulled back on the stick and came over in a loop, before he rolled out to port and came back around on that same ship.

He came in on its tail and triggered off a long burst of flickers. The coralskipper positioned a black hole above its tail, but Gavin noticed that, this time, the hole was closer to the coralskipper and had a smaller focal point. Some of the splinter shots that were headed long, past the craft's nose, were bent down by the force of the black hole, but not trapped by it. They struck the coralskipper's nose, burning tiny pits in it.

The coralskipper shifted to port and started to roll as more flickers scored it. Gavin rolled to port, as well, and chopped back his throttle, matching his speed to that of the coralskipper. He dropped his crosshairs on its tail, then hit his main trigger and delivered a full-powered quad volley at point-blank range.

The quartet of bolts converged on the coralskipper, and only one of them got sucked into the diminishing black hole. The other three burned into the cockpit assembly. They reduced the crystalline canopy to molten stone that melted through the pilot. Their energy unabated, the bolts superheated the coralskipper's mineral flesh, producing a geyser of rock vapor that jetted back out of the cockpit and propelled the dead fighter deeper into space.

Gavin rolled to starboard and away from the dying ship, then felt a jolt run through his fighter. Another gravitic anomaly had hit him and tugged at his shields.
That's how they strip shields off ships.
He punched a button on the life-maintenance system controls. “Boost it to 100 percent and expand the field to thirteen meters, Catch.”

The droid did as commanded, and the shiver that had gone through the X-wing quit. Gavin smiled broadly. To avoid the wear and tear of gravity and inertia on the pilots and fighters, each X-wing came with an inertial compensator built in. It allowed the X-wings to perform very high-speed, high-inertial maneuvers without structural damage to the ship and physical damage to the pilot. By expanding the area covered by this field to thirteen meters—putting it out beyond the shields—the compensator treated the Yuuzhan Vong gravity beams like anything else stressing the fighter.

If enough ships locked onto the fighter, they would eventually demand more energy output than its engines could manage, causing the field to implode and the ship to be ripped apart. Gavin goosed the throttle forward and broke to port, pulling away from the coralskipper that had tried to lock onto him. Suddenly a bright light flashed and the coralskipper disappeared from his rear screen.

“Who got it?”

Nevil answered. “Locking onto you and having you slip away must have tired it or confused it. I dropped a proton torpedo in. Coralduster.”

“Good, on me.” Gavin brought his X-wing around and back up to the main body of the dogfight. A glance at his secondary monitor showed two Rogues failing to respond on the comm frequency. A flash of orange confirmed at least one pilot was outside his ship. Elsewhere he saw a coralskipper tight on an X-wing's tail, lacing the shrinking aft shield with plasma blasts.

“Snoop, report.”

“Good here, Lead. I'm clear. Got it all, including the one that took Eleven and Twelve.”

“Which one?”

A pulse of data from the T-65R brought a specific coralskipper up on his targeting monitor. It didn't look that different from the others, but as he flew toward it, he could tell by the way it moved and maneuvered, it had a hot hand on the stick.