Dark Tide 1: Onslaught (25 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Huddled in the rocks within sight of the Yuuzhan Vong camp, Corran glanced over at Jens. The student tech sat with her back to a big rock, her knees drawn up, with a blocky remote balanced on them. She flicked a couple of switches on the device, and a small spherical probe started to hum as it rose from the ground. An antenna telescoped up, and a small suite of sensors deployed themselves from the bottom.

Corran nodded to her, and she sent the probe arcing around to the left, to come in at the camp from the north. The little black ball floated gently down into the camp. It circled several of the smallest shells, then darted directly toward the midsize ones. In front of the one that housed the two Yuuzhan Vong warriors, Jens used a strobe to flash the area, then started the sphere retreating to the north.

The two warriors boiled out of their shells and pointed at the probe. One dashed back into his shell, returning with weapons, armor, and the Yuuzhan Vong equivalent of sandshoes. He dressed himself while still watching the probe, giving the other one a chance to run into his shell and arm himself. When he returned, the two of them began to stalk off after the probe, which had disappeared into the dunes north of the lake bed.

Corran looked at Jens. “Keep them occupied. Once we enter the large shell, get Trista up and flying. She'll be here in five minutes. She laces the area with the killscent bombs, picks you up, and gets us out. If we are
not
out in that time, consider us dead and get going. No questions, right?”

Jens nodded. “Good luck.”

“Thanks, you too.”

He looked past her to Ganner. “Ready?”

The younger man nodded and vaulted himself up over a boulder. Corran cut around the stone that had hidden him and ran as best as his sandshoes would allow. Ganner reached the safe sand first and bent to hit the quick release on his bindings. He dropped the sandshoes there and sprinted toward the big shell. He brought his lightsaber to hand, but didn't ignite it.

Corran kicked himself free of his sandshoes, but scooped them up with his left hand. He ran after Ganner and reached the large shell only a couple of steps behind him. Corran tossed the sandshoes aside at the entrance, then pulled his own lightsaber. He left it unlit, but his right thumb hovered over the ignition button.

Ganner had paused inside the large shell's throat. The walls and floors—every surface, really—were smooth and varied in color from a dark ivory to a soft pink. Darker gray spots dappled the walls at various points, but Corran could discern no pattern to them. The walls also seemed faintly luminescent, but he allowed as how that might just be sunlight somehow pouring through the shell.

Ganner stalked forward and down a set of steps into the main chamber. Off it ran a number of tunnels that Corran assumed led to other smaller chambers, all of which made him wonder what sort of creature had grown the shell. While the flooring was very smooth, it wasn't particularly slippery. The only sound they heard came from their own breathing and the rasp of sand beneath their boot heels.

The grand chamber opened up as they came around a curve in the stairs. Ganner gasped and took a step back. Corran's eyes narrowed, but he made himself step past his aide and onto the main floor. He looked at the two students and really hoped they were dead.

The two of them hung from racks, bound ankle, thigh, and wrist. Their heads remained lower than their feet, and their limbs were locked rigidly. Both men had been stripped of clothing. Little maggot-white crablike creatures the size of a sabacc deck walked across their backs, pinching them with little claws, or digging needlelike appendages into their flesh. Little bloody rivulets striped the men's flesh and colored the floor.

Beneath them something that looked like more like a tongue than a slug slowly moved across the floor, cleansing it of the blood.

Corran reached out with the Force and got a sense of the students. They were in a lot of pain, but their sense within the Force was coming through strong and unadulterated. They might have been beaten up and tortured, but they were not yet dying.

Ganner stepped forward and waved a hand in Vil's direction. The pinchers flew off his back and smashed into the wall. They descended into a glistening, slimy pile at the base of the wall. Ganner ignited his lightsaber and pulled it back for a blow that would clip one of the rack arms off, partially freeing Vil.

Corran caught a spike of pain from Vil and held his hands up. “No, Ganner, wait.”

“We don't have time to wait, Corran.”

“The pain spiked in him after you cleared off the pinchers. Do the same for Denna. See if the same thing happens.”

Ganner nodded, and the pinchers on the other student flew off. Pain spiked in Denna, and Corran caught the related tightening of the arm restraints. “I thought so. The rack keeps them in a constant level of pain.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.” Corran stared at Ganner with disbelief. “We're dealing with Vong logic here. I don't know what they are thinking or why they do what they do. We just have to find a way to get these guys out of these restraints.”

Corran's comlink buzzed. “Horn, go ahead.”

“Jens here. The Yuuzhan Vong are headed back your way. They stopped chasing the probe.”

“Not good. Buzz them. Do something to attract their attention. We need some time.”

“You won't have much. Trista is inbound.”

“Sithspawn!”
Corran's nostrils flared. “No time to play, no time to think.”

Ganner raised his lightsaber again. “We cut them free.”

“And if one cut won't do it? The restraints tighten and pop their arms out of their shoulder sockets or tear them clean off. No good.”

“What do we do?”

Corran raked fingers back through his brown hair, then stepped up to Denna and stabbed his stiffened fingers deep into the man's armpit. Through the Force, he could feel a jolt of pain running through the man. He also saw the rack's restraints slacken slightly.

“That's it. They're being held in a constant level of pain. If the rack senses too much, it lets the pressure off. We have to put them in more pain, a lot of pain, to get the rack to release them.”

The younger Jedi frowned. “How? Beat them up? Break some bones? Stab them with lightsabers?”

“It would do the trick, but it would kill them, obviously.” Corran smiled grimly. “I will just have to make them think they're in pain.”

Ganner's head came up, and he gave Corran a respectful nod. “Ah, yes. Get to it.”

“Not that easy.” Corran began to roll up his left sleeve. “It will take some work.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ever broken a limb?”

Ganner nodded. “My leg.”

“You remember it hurt, right?”

“Yes.”

“But you don't remember how
much
it hurt. The mind is like that. You forget the really sharp pains so you'll continue going on. Women forget the pain of childbirth or we'd all be only children.” Corran sighed. “I can project pain into them, but I've got to feel it to get it right.”

“How?” Ganner's question came very tentatively.

Corran moved between the two racks and stood facing Vil, with Denna behind him. “You face Denna. When the machines slacken fully, you've got to make one cut, get the restraint straps. You do him, I'll do Vil.”

“Okay.”

“Now the hard part.” Corran extended his left forearm toward Ganner, with his hand open and palm up. “One of the other Force abilities I have is pretty rare. I can, under certain circumstances, absorb a certain amount of energy without much damage to myself. To get the pain I need, I want you to press your lightsaber against my forearm. Not too hard—I like the limb just fine. Just hold it out, maybe, and I'll move my arm up into it.”

Ganner's jaw dropped. “You can't be serious.”

“You want to save these two or not?”

“But—”

“But nothing. Are you ready?”

Ganner nodded and extended the lightsaber.

Corran could feel the buzz of it against his flesh as he slowly raised his arm. The blade's heat vaporized hairs, filling the area with the stink of singed protein. Corran knew that scent was nothing compared to what would follow. He swallowed, once, hard, then flattened his hand and raised his arm another centimeter.

Silver agony flashed right up his arm and into his brain. By reflex he started to use a Jedi technique to shunt the pain away, but then stopped himself. He concentrated, soaking in the energy of the blade. He looked out through slitted eyelids and saw his flesh reddening, then beginning to blister. Smoke rose from it, and the pain built. Then, as he saw the first hint of charring, he latched onto the Force and poured the torment out and into the students.

One second, two, three. Corran let the burning sharpness flow through him and into Vil and Denna. They twitched while he trembled. They shrieked while his flesh crackled. His clenched jaw ground his teeth together, and he tasted blood.

The racks slackened, dropping each student half a meter toward the floor. The restraining straps snapped taut, all glossy and black like wet leather. Corran ignited his own lightsaber and whipped the blade around, severing each strap, then he dropped to his knees and fell over Vil's prostrate form.

Gasping for air, Corran tried to employ the Jedi technique for shunting away pain, but he couldn't focus enough to do it. The world began to swim and darken at the edges. He was mindful enough to thumb his lightsaber off, then he wavered between complete collapse and the need to get up, get moving.

He heaved his torso upright and would have gone all the way over but Ganner caught the collar of his robe.

“Corran, are you—?”

“Functional? Yes.” He let the worry in Ganner's voice appeal to his own sense of vanity, injecting steel into his spine.
It just wouldn't do for Ganner to see me as weak.
He struggled to get his left foot under him, and Ganner reached for his left arm to help him up, but Corran hissed a warning. “Don't touch the arm.”

“How bad is it?”

“Pretty, ah, crusty, I guess.” Corran was thankful his sleeve had slipped down over the arm, but his blackened fingers told him more than he needed to know. He staggered upright, then hugged his left arm to his chest. “How are they?”

“Out cold. We'll have to drag them—”

A sharp hiss and a whip crack cut Ganner off. Corran slowly straightened up and glanced at the stairway back to the lake bed. The two Yuuzhan Vong warriors stood on it, tall and daunting, their maroon armor and greenish leathery joints accentuating their alien nature. The lead warrior barked an order at the two Jedi and punctuated it with another whip crack of an amphistaff.

Corran forced a bit of a laugh. “Looks like they don't like the dragging idea, Ganner. Seems another plan will be required to get us out of here.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

From out of nowhere the image of her husband flashed into Leia's head, and her question was answered. With a grim smile, she pulled her blaster and pumped two shots into the first of the Yuuzhan Vong. The red bolts hit him shoulder and chest, spinning him about. Thick pus sprayed from the ooglith masquer, drenching the second warrior. The third leapt toward Mara, his claws rending the air between them.

The second warrior flicked a hand at Leia even as she brought her blaster to bear on him. Something thin and sharp spun through the air and caught her in the right forearm. Pain shot up to her shoulder, and she lost her grip on the gun. As it fell toward the ground, she stooped to get it with her free hand, then looked up to see her attacker leaping toward her.

On her knees, Leia reflexively raised her left arm to fend off the Yuuzhan Vong, but the warrior never reached her. Bolpuhr, little more than a gray blur, tackled the Yuuzhan Vong in midair. The two of them hit the ground hard and rolled, with the Yuuzhan Vong finally succeeding in throwing the Noghri off him. Bolpuhr arced through the night and bounced once before rolling into the red tangle of tent and corpses.

The Yuuzhan Vong he'd tackled got up and took a step toward Leia, then faltered. He fell to his knees, with the ooglith masquer sloughing off slowly. The hilt of a Noghri dagger protruded from the Yuuzhan Vong's breastbone, and when the Yuuzhan Vong fell face forward, Leia caught the glint of the blade's blackened tip stabbing out of the alien warrior's back.

Beyond the dead warrior, Mara faced her foe with a fierce expression on her face. She'd reversed her grip on the blue lightsaber, letting the blade parallel her right forearm. She extended her left hand, then crouched, waiting and watching. The Yuuzhan Vong likewise crouched, his hands flexing. He hunched his shoulders and shifted his weight.

Mara took a half step forward and ducked her head toward him. The warrior leapt at her, but Mara had already pulled back from her feint. His claws flashed through where her head should have been. Mara pivoted on her right foot and brought her right arm around in a stroke that passed through where the warrior's belly was. The ooglith masquer melted away from the blade's searing touch, then the warrior's flesh smoked as the blade opened him from hip to hip.

Mara spun away from him, yet the Yuuzhan Vong still scratched her right thigh as he collapsed. Coming around full circle, she slashed the blade low and cleaved it cleanly through his neck. His body convulsed, and his head, which rolled a meter or two away, gnashed his teeth for the remaining seconds of life.

Mara ran to Leia. “How badly are you hurt?”

Leia shook her head, then started as the thing in her arm sprouted legs and tried to pry itself from her flesh. Mara reared back and tapped the razorbug with the tip of her lightsaber, killing it. Leia batted at the dead bug with her left hand and finally knocked it loose from her flesh. “Yuck!”

Mara tore the sleeve from her robe and quickly wrapped it around Leia's arm. “We'd better get that looked at.”

“Later. There might be more Yuuzhan Vong with the refugees. We have to check—” Leia looked up. “Where's Bolpuhr?”

“I don't know.” Mara stood and helped Leia to her feet. “He was back over here, wasn't he, near the tent?”

“Yes.” Leia ran over to the ruins of the tent, then stopped and sank to her knees again. “Emperor's black bones, no.”

The Noghri lay on his back, his sightless eyes staring up at the sky. The Yuuzhan Vong's claws had sliced deeply into Bolpuhr's neck and chest. The Noghri, who had been tireless and fearless in his duty, looked smaller in death, more childlike and fearfully innocent.

Leia shivered.
If the Yuuzhan Vong can kill Noghri with their bare hands . . .
She shook her head and closed Bolpuhr's eyes. “This is worse than anything we've faced before, isn't it, Mara?”

Her sister-in-law slowly shook her head. “If it is, chances are we won't have much longer to worry about it. Look, go to the refugees and see if you can sort out who the Yuuzhan Vong are. Maybe these were the only three to get in. I'll check tents in this area and hold the perimeter. I'll comm if there is trouble.”

“I don't want to leave you here alone.”

Mara gave her a brave wink. “I have the Force. I'm not alone. Move it. I don't want you here stealing more of my fun.”

Luke Skywalker stared out into the darkness. Detonations from proton torpedoes and concussion missiles were drawing closer. He could feel the shock waves vibrate through him. In the backflashes he saw the huge vehicles moving closer, ever closer. Plasma bolts filled the air with an orange glow and, more often than he wanted to acknowledge, exploded something in the air. Fiery wreckage would tumble from the sky and scatter fire and debris across the ground, doing some damage, but generally only illuminating the horde coming at them.

Luke dried his left palm on his cloak, then unfastened the garment and whirled it off behind him. He gripped his lightsaber tightly in his right hand, again and again looking down to make sure the heel of his hand was over the activation plate. He reached out with the Force to gauge the distance to the front and could feel the line of Yuuzhan Vong slaves broadening as they approached the camp.

One of the troopers stationed nearby looked over at him and smiled. “If you're nervous, I guess there is no problem with me being nervous.”

Luke thought for a second and then nodded. In all the battles he'd fought, even Hoth, he'd been involved in one-on-one, man-and-machine fights. Flying an X-wing or piloting a snowspeeder demanded neither less nor more courage than fighting on the ground, but it was more impersonal. His shots broke other fighters or brought down Imperial walkers, and if his foes survived, that was okay. It was part of the game, part of what made such combat noble in the eyes of many.

But ground warfare was not noble. The object of the exercise was to kill as many of them as possible before they killed you. It was intimately personal because your target was another living being, not some machine encasing him. You succeeded when he dropped, and, yes, while an enemy might surrender, that was not viewed as anything nearly as noble as a pilot who was shot down and captured.

This is just going to be killing, pure and frighteningly simple.
Luke could feel the frayed troops coming in, only five hundred meters distant. Beyond that line, fighters made strafing runs on the ground troops. Hails of red and green splinter shots flickered through the night, vaporizing soldiers. Luke caught flashes of pain from those who died, but not a whit of anxiety or fear from the survivors.
They're marching to their deaths uncaring or unable to care about what will happen to them.

Off to the right Colonel Bril'nilim gave a signal, and the freighters began opening up. Elegos's shuttle rose and hovered in a forward position, with the fire from its laser cannons and blaster cannons pulsing out scarlet energy projectiles that warmed the night as they passed. The shipfire burned furrows through the Yuuzhan Vong ranks, thinning them, but not nearly enough. In the backlight of distant explosions or the burning of corpses, Luke could see the Yuuzhan Vong troops had come even closer.

When the Yuuzhan Vong soldiers reached the two-hundred-meter mark, the troopers started shooting. Their blaster fire came slowly, cautiously, fired without a hint of panic. Red bolts lanced out, striking silhouettes. Some of the Yuuzhan Vong troops spun before falling. Others just collapsed, and yet others sighed and sat, then flopped over as if exhausted and retiring for the day.

At a hundred meters the Yuuzhan Vong troops began to run forward, so the troopers' firing became more hurried. They still struck their targets, but gaps in the lines filled immediately as the wave of Yuuzhan Vong soldiers rushed ever closer. Smaller and stockier than the Yuuzhan Vong warriors Luke had fought, these troops looked reptilian, like Trandoshans but more compact. They did sprout a pair of calcifications from their foreheads, more domes than horns, and Luke suspected it was through these that the Yuuzhan Vong controlled them.

The large vehicles began pulsing plasma out toward the breastworks. Shots pounded into the ground, shaking it, pitching dirt and debris into the air. Shots that fell short plowed through the mass of Yuuzhan Vong troops. Those shots that were on target splashed against shuttle shields or the fortifications. In the latter case the shots blasted the fortifications apart, scattering troopers and, worse yet, opening gaps in the line that allowed the Yuuzhan Vong troops to pour into the compound.

Luke sprinted to the nearest gap and ignited his lightsaber. The green blade hissed and spat as he cut right and left, chopping down the reptilian troopers. The Yuuzhan Vong troops were armed with small amphistaffs, which froze themselves into a sharpened hook shape that clutched at arms and legs, cutting as the soldiers drew the amphistaffs back. The lightsaber couldn't slice through the amphistaffs, but the troops were too slow to prevent Luke from lopping off limbs or stabbing through chests.

Because he could feel the slave troops through the Force, killing them proved far too easy. He knew where they would be, what they wanted to do. A parry here and a stroke to the head, or a block, then a riposte to the heart. He wasn't fighting troops as much as he was battling for time. If killing each one took three seconds or five, he couldn't possibly stop them all. Meter by meter he was being driven back by the sheer weight of the assault, and even with the Force to strengthen him, he couldn't kill them fast enough.

Unless I can think of something to do, it's over, it's all over.

Leia ran to the center of the camp and immediately appropriated a blaster carbine from one of the refugees standing guard. She found Danni and pulled the woman aside, then waved Lando over. “I need your help.”

“You're bleeding,” Lando said.

“It's nothing, for the moment anyway. I need you to use the Force. You can feel emotions, right?”

Danni nodded stiffly. “I've been trying to shut things out. They're all afraid here.” She glanced down. “Like me.”

“Look, there may be Yuuzhan Vong among them, using ooglith masquers to pretend to be people. We have to find them.”

Danni blinked and raised a hand to cover her mouth. “Yuuzhan Vong here, hidden here?”

Leia grabbed the young woman's left shoulder. “Steady yourself, Danni. You can do this. You
must
do this.”

Lando drew his blaster pistol and checked the power pack. “How will we find them?”

“If Danni can feel fear and hatred, she'll be able to spot those who are feeling nothing. Follow my lead, then move through the crowd.” Leia looked at the four hundred assembled refugees and shook her head. “It's not going to be exacting work, but note those who aren't giving any fear off. We segregate them. Since we can't feel the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force, they're going to be the ones we want.”

“I don't know.” The young woman took a second, then swallowed hard and nodded. “I'll do my best.”

Lando nodded. “Let's go.”

Leia steeled herself, then triggered a series of blaster shots into the air. People reflexively ducked down, and a wave of terror pounded her. Leia looked out over the crowd and set her face in a grim mask. “The Yuuzhan Vong are incoming, and stopping them is going to be harder than we thought. If you have anything you want to say to others here, your last words, you'd better do it now and be quick about it.”

A roiling storm of fear broke over the refugees, with wails and sobs punctuating it like soft thunder. Leia nodded at Danni and Lando, then the three of them began to move through the crowd, gridding it off, searching for those who found nothing to fear in Leia's announcement.

Jacen's green blade slashed right and left as he and Anakin attacked the flank of the Yuuzhan Vong thrust driving Luke back. Jacen didn't care about finesse or skill; he just set about butchering soldiers. What he was doing, he knew, had nothing to do with being a Jedi. Yes, he could feel it when the sparks of life winked out, but the Yuuzhan Vong slave troops felt less like living creatures to him than droids made of flesh and blood.
They are alive in the same way plants are. They might once have been individuals, but now they are just puppets, lethal puppets.

Jacen lashed out to his right with the lightsaber, burning a gap in a soldier's spine. The soldier collapsed at Anakin's feet. The younger Jedi leapt back, then scythed his blade low, though the legs of a Yuuzhan Vong trooper. That one went down and tripped up two others. Anakin dispatched them with quick thrusts to the backs of their necks, then flicked his left hand in Jacen's direction.

Beyond Jacen a trooper flew back, as if he'd been hit in the chest with a metric ton of transparisteel. The telekinetic blast cleared a path to Luke's side. Jacen slipped into it, keeping the gap open, then Anakin joined him. In a line the trio of Jedi fended off the soldiers, cutting them down and pressing them back toward the gap.

As their stand halted the thrust at that gap, Elegos's shuttle ruddered around and laced an inferno of laser and blaster fire into the column of Yuuzhan Vong soldiery. Jacen raised a hand to shield his eyes as row after row of little reptoids vanished in a brilliant blaze of light. Those Yuuzhan Vong soldiers untouched by the shuttle's lasers came on, but the Jedi dispatched them easily enough.

Elegos's action gained the Jedi some breathing room. Luke flicked his comlink on. “Thank you for the save, Senator.”

“My fire was not effective against the larger vehicles, so I employed it where useful.” The Caamasi's voice filled with gravity. “We are fortunate that the troops cannot shield themselves with voids.”

Anakin laughed. “Are you joking? One good push and one would back into the void of the one behind him, and so on and so on. Pretty soon they'd be all gone.”