Dark Tide 1: Onslaught (29 page)

The trooper shook his head. “Just some old guys, sir.”

“And you let them in there? Why didn't you stop them?”

The soldier winced. “I tried, but they took my blaster away from me.” He turned the weapon enough to let Gavin see that it had no power pack.

The colonel nodded. “And your comlink?”

“They took that, too. They told me to wait here for you, otherwise I'd be guilty of abandoning a post, sir.”

“Yes, do that, wait right there.” Gavin steered the youth to the side and opened the door to his office. He knew walking in there was foolish, but he dismissed the possibility that his visitors were assassins. The Yuuzhan Vong didn't seem to operate that way.
Besides, dying now might just be easier than fighting a war.

The two visitors looked up from where they had seated themselves in the easy chairs. On the table before them sat three tumblers, two of which had been filled from the decanter of Corellian whiskey Gavin kept hidden in the bottom drawer of his desk. The two men smiled at him, and he began to laugh.

The trooper glanced into the room. “Are you all right, sir?”

“Yes, Private, you're dismissed.”

“Here,” one of the visitors said, and lofted the soldier the clip and comlink that had been appropriated from him.

Gavin closed the door behind the trooper, then shook his head. “He described you as ‘two old guys.' ”

“No respect among the young anymore, is there, Tycho?”

“None, Wedge, none at all. Probably the fault of the command staff.”

Gavin poured himself a glass of whiskey. “What are you two doing here?”

“We heard from various sources that you're going to be going to war.” Wedge Antilles raised his glass. “We're too old to fly, but not to help out. You need us, you've got us.”

“You may want to reconsider that offer. This isn't going to be pretty at all.”

Tycho Celchu shook his head. “War never is, Gavin. Let's just hope, together, we can make it very short.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Jacen Solo turned from where he had been leaning on the balcony railing and faced his little brother. “Couldn't sleep?”

Anakin shook his head as he emerged on the Solos' balcony. “Nightmares.”

“Of?”

“Dantooine.” Anakin rubbed sleep sand from his eyes. “I keep having this dream where I'm cutting down reptoids right and left, but it's never enough. They still overrun the refugee camp. When we get there—'cuz you're in the dream, too—we find a lot of dead people. Chewie and Dad and Mom are among them.”

Jacen sighed. “That's a nasty one.”

“What do you think it means?”

The older brother shook his head and turned to lean on the balcony railing. “After my experience on Belkadan, I've given up trying to figure out what dreams mean. Yours could mean anything. You're still dealing with Chewie's death. By the same token, since Mara wasn't among the dead, could be you're congratulating yourself over having saved her. I don't know.”

Anakin joined his brother at the railing and stared out at the lights moving through the Coruscant cityscape. It was hard to believe a month had passed since he had left for Dantooine with Mara. “Mine is clearly a dream. Yours could have been a vision. Uncle Luke thinks it was.”

“Right, but the future changed, so I got drowned and tortured.” He half smiled at his brother. “And since we left Belkadan to come save you, it was probably you that set the future in motion that got me.”

“So I could be dead and you'd be happy?”

“Not what I said, Anakin.” Jacen caught a quick flash of sadness from his younger brother. “And Dad wouldn't be happy if you were dead, either.”

Anakin snorted. “Have you seen him yet?”

“No, you?”

“No. Threepio thinks he's ‘inspecting' cantinas here. Inspecting the bottom of glasses, more like.”

Jacen sighed. “I'm not sure I don't envy him.”

“What?”

“I'm having nightmares, too, Anakin. Nightmares of Dantooine.”

“Like mine?”

“Sort of.” Jacen scratched at the back of his neck with his right hand. “I'm there, like you, killing and killing and killing. I'm a gatekeeper. The reptoids really need to get to the other side of the gate, and I'm only letting them through in pieces.”

“That's what you had to do.”

“Did I?” Jacen ducked back as an inebriated swoop jockey buzzed them. “What we did wasn't noble, it was just butchery. While the control vehicle had them under its sway, they marched forward like droids and we just took them apart. Then, when Uncle Luke destroyed the control vehicle, they went berserk. They were beasts and we just slaughtered them.”

Anakin grabbed hold of Jacen's left wrist. “But you had no choice. If you didn't kill them, they would have killed lots more refugees.”

“Yes, I know that. I acknowledge it. I take responsibility for it, but I still have to ask myself what does doing that have to do with becoming a Jedi Knight?” He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “How did that bring me closer to understanding the Force? How am I now a better Jedi Knight than I was before?”

Anakin's hand slipped from Jacen's wrist. “But the job of a Jedi is to safeguard people. There's no more noble a reason to do anything. You risked your life to save others.”

“Did I? Do you honestly believe any of those reptoids could have seriously hurt us? Over half of Colonel Bril'nilim's soldiers survived that assault. They aren't Jedi. We didn't need to be using lightsabers there, Anakin. We could have been using vibroblades or simple clubs.”

He turned and opened his arms. “And was saving those refugees all that special? We stopped them from dying, but to what end? Does this make them better people than those who died? Are they more noble? Will they learn from this experience and make the universe a better place?”

“I don't know, Jacen. That's the future—”

“Which is always in motion.”

“Right. What I do know is that we kept some of them alive. That's enough for me.”

Jacen nodded slowly. “I know it is, Anakin. I wish it was enough for me, too.”

“I don't understand.”

“I know.” Jacen lowered his voice to a whisper as anguish poured off Anakin. “Look, Anakin, you did wonderfully on Dantooine. You learned a lot. You took good care of Mara. You kept her alive under very difficult circumstances. You really
are
a hero because of all that and everything you did to fend off the reptoids. I'm not trying to take anything away from you or what you did. I want you to understand that.”

“Okay.” Anakin folded his arms across his chest. “What about you?”

“That's just it. I don't know.” He pressed his fingertips to his temples. “I thought that going off on my own would be the key to getting closer to the Force; but then I saw the slaves and had to act. The Force sends me a vision and I act on it, only to have things go wrong. But, from that wrong came the right of saving you and Mara on Dantooine, and being there to help hold off the reptoids. It's as if I'm walking around in a circle, circling around the goal I want. Sometimes it seems as if I need to be alone, and others I'm thrust into the heroic mold that has shaped and consumed Uncle Luke. I know there are other approaches, but I don't know if they are right for me.”

Anakin frowned for a moment. “Sounds like you're trying to plot a course without knowing what your final destination is.”

“Huh?”

The younger Solo boy made a circle in the air with his right index finger. “You said you were circling your goal, but you never defined it. You never said what it was. Me, I want to be a Jedi Knight, just like Uncle Luke and others before him. I don't know what you want, and I don't think you do, either.”

Jacen nodded. “That's how I feel, but I think it's because I want to be something
more
. I don't know what it is, but I guess I think there's something more to the Jedi order than we've been able to recover. I know it's out there, but I don't know what it is.”

“Then it could be that going off and thinking about it isn't going to get you closer to your goal.”

Jacen cocked an eyebrow at Anakin. “How is it that you're so philosophical all of a sudden?”

The younger boy blushed. “On Dantooine, when Mara made me stop using the Force like a crutch, I had a lot of time to think about things. I realized I was using the Force too much. Uncle Luke uses it like an adviser or sometimes a power source. Others use it like a vibroblade, some like an opinion poll, and yet others like a whole variety of tools. I thought a lot about all that, and I guess I chose to follow in Uncle Luke's footsteps.

“That's not an easy path.”

“Easy isn't for Jedi.” Anakin smiled. “Of course, trying to find your own path is much more difficult. Maybe what you have to do is to walk a bit on the other paths and see how you can weave bits and pieces of them together.”

Anakin's comment found echoes in Luke's admonishment that Jacen was still young and lacking in experience.
Perhaps I do need to explore more of the Jedi ways
and
get to know myself better.
He realized that while he was more judicious in his use of the Force than Anakin, he didn't really know how he would function without it.
Can I truly discover how to integrate myself with the Force if I do not know who I am without it?

Jacen reached out and tousled his brother's hair. “Look, one thing, no matter what I think about what we did at Dantooine, I was proud to have you at my side. I don't know what I'll be in the future, Anakin, but I know you'll be a great Jedi Knight. I have confidence that you will succeed, no matter what life throws at you.”

Anakin sharpened his eyes. “Are you really Jacen, or some Yuuzhan Vong in an ooglith masquer?”

Jacen threw an arm around his little brother's shoulders. “For now, I'm Jacen Solo.”
What I will be in the future, however, is anyone's guess.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“So there I was, feeling like I was floating, and I was thinking to myself, ‘So, this is what it's like to die a Jedi and fade from existence like my grandfather.' ” A sheepishly grinning Corran Horn toweled bacta off himself. “Then I noticed that despite the numbness I still had a touch of pain from my hand. I also realized I was being bumped around a bit, which didn't strike me as appropriate for a disembodied spirit, but I couldn't open my eyes, so I hung in for the ride.”

Luke shook his head. “Which is when you discovered that Ganner had returned and was lifting you above the slashrats and out of the shell.”

Corran nodded. “Yes. Against my orders he had Trista bring the
Dalliance
around, they lased the top off the big shell, and hanging from the landing ramp, Ganner pulled me up. If he hadn't . . .”

Corran's wife, Mirax, tossed Corran a robe from the hospital room's small wardrobe. “If he hadn't, he'd be running from me. It's also a good thing they stuck you in the bacta tank on the
Dalliance
. That venom would have killed you otherwise.”

“Sure, but imagine their surprise if it hadn't worked.” Corran gave a last rub of his hair with the towel. “They put me in, then only find torn up clothes.”

Mirax arched an eyebrow at her husband. “And that is funny,
how
?”

“I would have been amused.”

“The dead, apparently, find almost anything entertaining.”

Luke nodded toward Mirax. “We need to know if what Dr. Pace alleged about Jedi appropriating artifacts is true. I appreciate your looking into that for me.”

“Gladly, Master Skywalker.” Mirax frowned. “The items I've brought you have solid pre-Empire provenance. The current anti-Jedi sentiment has depressed the collector prices on that material, while the market for Imperial trinkets is spiking. No accounting for taste, of course, or sense, but if the collectors weren't meant to be skinned, they wouldn't act like nerfs.”

“Do let me know what you learn in this regard.” Luke had no doubt that some Jedi were overzealous in their pursuit of things that could link the current order with the one that the Emperor had all but destroyed.
But to be stealing mementos from people . . .
“While finding items that expand our knowledge of the Jedi is important, doing it at the expense of people and the image of the Jedi is too high a price to pay.”

Corran shrugged the evergreen robe on and cinched it with a black tie around his waist. “I think the attitude is that we're the Jedi and these relics belong to us, regardless of who found them. I don't agree with it, but I do understand it.”

“I understand it, as well, Corran, and I'm torn. I think having the items to study is valuable, but I'm also not certain if we have the resources and expertise necessary to make the most of them.” Luke stroked a hand over his jaw. “Dr. Pace and her students have the background and knowledge to be able to put a lot of this material in perspective. I think we need the help of scholars, which means we need to make certain Jedi don't see them as despoilers and thieves of our artifacts.”

Mirax laughed. “Does it strike either of you as ironic, then, that the mission to Bimmiel ended up being one that stole Yuuzhan Vong artifacts out from under the Yuuzhan Vong's noses?”

“That observation had occurred to me, yes, Mirax.” Luke pressed his fingertips together. “The little warning sign they left outside the ExGal facility included a skull and broken machinery, which makes me believe they consider both warnings of death.”

Corran climbed up on the hospital bed and pulled a couple of pillows behind his back. “I don't understand the technophobia, either. They clearly can produce items through biological means that do everything our machines can. The only difference is that their machines are living.”

“That's a significant difference, though, Corran. Perhaps, in their past, there was a war waged with droids on one side and the Yuuzhan Vong on the other. It might have almost wiped them out, so they have a pathological hatred of machines.” The Jedi Master pulled a chair away from the small room's single round table and sat. “Who knows? In any event, they might actually view us as evil, since we rely on machines so much.”

“If that's their attitude, they just would have loved seeing Jens going over the Yuuzhan Vong body with a digitizer and scanning microscope.” Corran narrowed his eyes. “That's not the most disturbing aspect of them, however, to my mind. We have the whole slave issue. The slaves we saw were probably picked up on the Rim and once came from the New Republic. I don't recall seeing any of the reptoids you described their using on Dantooine.”

“Yet you had the six Yuuzhan Vong who infiltrated the compound and tried to murder the refugees.” Mirax leaned back against the transparisteel viewport through which sunlight poured. “I don't understand why they would do that if these other troops were designated to assault the compound.”

Corran shrugged. “Well, could be they were like Ganner and decided to disobey orders to seek their own glory.”

Luke arched an eyebrow at Corran. “You think that's why Ganner came back for you?”

“Part of his reason, yes.”

“And you don't like being in his debt at all, do you?”

Corran's expression soured. “It's not as bad as being in Booster's debt, but it does rankle a bit.”

“You'll get over it.” Mirax gathered her long black hair at the back of her neck and twisted it into a knot. “Do you think the Yuuzhan Vong were out for personal glory, or something else?”

“Given how poorly they fought, there is no question they were inexperienced.” Luke sighed. “Yet, even at that, they killed a Noghri, which isn't easy. Forensic examination of their bodies has shown very little in the way of scarring, tattooing, and broken bones that both the Bimmiel body and some of the other specimens we've had do. Either they struck out on their own, or they were given the infiltration assignment as a means for advancement, I would guess.”

Corran flexed his left hand. “There is another thing I'm not sure I understand. The racks that they had the students in—and the one you've described as holding Jacen—they were designed to inflict pain. Not too much, not too little, just pain. We both saw Yuuzhan Vong slay slaves rather ruthlessly and, in my case, for sport and, yet, something more. The scarring, tattoos, and broken bones—just having come out of my last bit of bacta tank therapy may give me a bad perspective on things, but pain and recreation don't go hand in hand for me.”

“The killing of slaves might not seem like recreation to the Yuuzhan Vong, just something some of them take to very well.” Luke opened his arms. “We all know there are some Jedi who like using the Force more than others. As for the broken bones and the other things, you've the friend who is a Gand findsman. You know what he went through to achieve that rank among his people. Perhaps the injuries, tattoos, and scars are rank signs among the Yuuzhan Vong.”

Mirax raised a hand. “Being that I make my living trading in artifacts of cultural significance, it's my sense that most of those signs remain external. The scarring and tattoos make sense, but broken bones? Especially when they destroy symmetry? It doesn't seem right to me.”

Luke shrugged. “It doesn't need to seem right to us, just to the Yuuzhan Vong. Pain and scarring and the rest may serve some higher purpose in their culture. The fact that they have these rack creatures that inflict pain so exactly points that out. I don't know if you noticed it on Bimmiel, but on Belkadan, the rack holding Jacen would have easily accommodated any of the Yuuzhan Vong warriors I saw.”

“Now that you mention it.”

The Jedi Master continued. “I think it is very important to note that their attacks on Dubrillion and Dantooine definitely pointed toward action meant to test us and train soldiers. They're clearly intelligent and seem driven. Leia told me that Lando's assessment of the first wave of Yuuzhan Vong and the second is that the second are definitely more highly trained and skilled. This could be reflective of learning from the first series of attacks or a hint of what might come through in a third wave.”

Corran sighed. “I didn't like the second wave. The idea of a third, or even a continuation of the second—I'm not looking forward to it at all.”

“It doesn't please me, either, but to imagine they're just going to go away after this round of attacks is as foolish as the senate's belief that the Yuuzhan Vong would not come back after the first.”

“I know, Luke, I know.” Corran hugged his arms around himself. “And I'll be there, doing what you need done. Nice to know we'll have the New Republic backing us up this time.”

“I agree, Corran.” Luke exhaled slowly. “For the good of the galaxy, I hope that will be enough.”