Dark Tide 1: Onslaught (7 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Through the doorway to the bedroom they shared, Luke Skywalker caught a glimpse of his wife reclining on the bed. She lay there very comfortably, her red-gold hair spread around her head like a halo. Her chest rose and fell regularly and gently—peacefully, really—prompting him to realize how little peace they had known in their life together.

Beside her, on the bed, lay a few folded garments that needed to be stuffed into the traveling bags at the foot of the bed. Hers were mostly full, and two bags had been set out for him. Luke smiled, appreciating her thoughtfulness, and admiring her for taking the extra effort to get his bags out, despite the draining fatigue that was part of her illness.

He entered the room quietly, hoping not to disturb her, but her eyes flickered open. “Luke. Good, it's you.”

“Who else would you have expected?”

She smiled, a bit haltingly, but with enough strength to send a thrill through him. “Anakin. I don't want to be late for our departure.”

“Don't worry about that. Anakin is a very understanding boy.” Luke set aside the folded garments and seated himself at Mara's feet. “How are you?”

One corner of her mouth tucked itself into a smirk. “You're the Jedi Master, you tell me.”

Luke reached out through the Force toward her and quickly encountered the defenses she'd set up. It felt as if she'd wrapped herself in thorns, then cobbled together body armor from starship hull plates. Beyond that were kilometers of wrappings holding her in all tight. Each line of defense brought his probe up short, then a little, tiny gap opened, allowing him to move deeper and deeper.

Finally, beyond the wrappings and past an ocean of images, hopes, and fears, he reached Mara's core. When he experienced her through the Force this way she always appeared to him to be white-hot, flaring brilliantly. She was the most vibrant and alive person he'd ever known—something made all that much more remarkable since the Emperor would have tried to dampen down her vitality while she was in his service.

The illness she had contracted had sapped some of her strength, but her resilience kept it at bay. He could feel the Force flowing through her, constantly rebuilding the damage done and keeping the disease beaten back. While the initial encounters with the Yuuzhan Vong had distracted her and allowed the disease to advance, she had made a major effort toward recovery.

She is not yet whole again, but she is gaining in strength.
Luke gave her a smile. “I'd say you are doing very well, my love.”

Mara sat forward and reached out to stroke Luke's cheek. “I'm doing better, but not well enough.”

“Give it time, Mara.” He kissed her on the wrist. “Impatience is handmaiden to despair.”

“And despair is of the dark side.” Mara nodded slightly. “I understand, Master Skywalker.”

Luke shook his head. “You know what I mean.”

“I do, Luke, and I know why you warn me that way. Your empathy and caution are two of your more endearing qualities.” She lay back down, drawing her knees up to give Luke more room.

Luke rested his chin on her right knee. “You don't mind having Anakin accompany you to Dantooine?”

She shook her head. “I
can
go it alone, if you need him elsewhere.”

“If you don't want him with you, I can find another assignment for him.” The Jedi Master kissed her kneecap. “I don't want you burdened with something that's really my problem.”

“Luke!” Mara's voice gained in volume and developed a little of an edge. “When we married, your problems became my problems.”

“Yes, but Anakin is part of my family, and the way you grew up, you didn't have a chance to—”

Mara spitted him with a green-eyed stare. “Want to consider again what you're saying there, Raised-as-an-only-child Skywalker?”

Luke laughed silently for a moment. “Point taken.”

“Take this one, too. When I agreed to marry you, I knew what I was getting into. We agreed to share our lives, which means we agreed to share all of the problems as well as the joys.” Mara closed her eyes for a moment. “I like Anakin. I can sympathize with what he is going through.” She opened her eyes again. “He feels responsible for Chewbacca's death. At one time I felt responsible for the Emperor's death. Both of us have lost someone who was part of the foundation of our lives. If I can help him through that, well, he won't have to go through the things I did to find his way back out again.”

She glanced up at Luke. “Of course, I imagine he's not thrilled at being saddled with a sick old lady heading to a backwater world for a rest cure.”

“Actually, he accepted the assignment very willingly. I told him I was entrusting you to his care. He shouldered that responsibility very positively. He's done a good job requisitioning all the things you'll need on Dantooine.”

Mara's eyes flashed. “I caught that burst of caution from you, Luke. What is it?”

“I clearly need to work on control more.” He sighed. “You know the star charts. Dantooine is fairly well Rimward. It could be in the Yuuzhan Vong invasion corridor—if there is one. Sending you and Anakin out there all alone—”

“Is probably the best shot you have at getting some scouting done so you can assess the scope of the invasion.” Mara scooted back, sitting up and piling pillows behind her back. “As we've discussed, the attacks we've already dealt with were decidedly unmilitary. There was no reconnaissance in force, no establishment of forward bases that could be supported, none of the things we'd expect from an invasion. Whatever is going to be following this up will now have to work more cautiously because they know we're alerted.”

“I can't fault your logic, but I don't like the idea of having you on the front line.”

“But Dantooine isn't a serious military target. That's why the Rebels chose it as a base, only to abandon it later. And that's why Tarkin didn't destroy it with the Death Star.”

Luke shrugged uneasily. “That's assuming
their
sense of targets is the same as ours. You remember what they did on Belkadan. Maybe their selection criteria are different from ours.”

“All the more reason we need to have people scouting far and wide, to figure them out.”

The Jedi Master shook his head. “There's basically no way that you won't be able to twist my concerns around into proof that you and Anakin
should
be sent to Dantooine, is there?”

“It is only because I know you so well, my love.” Mara crooked a finger, beckoning him closer.

Luke stretched out on the bed, resting his upper body on his elbows. “You do know me, Mara, better than I know myself.”

“But not as well as I will know you when we're old and gray together.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. “And I know your concern for me, and for all the other Jedi heading out, is simply a mechanism you use to avoid thinking about the dangers you will face. After all, we are going to worlds where the Yuuzhan Vong
might
appear.
You
are going to a world where we already know they've been, and we have no clue as to what you will find on Belkadan.”

“All I want to find there is something to help cure you. You said you felt a connection between the plague there and your illness. If I can track down something that will be more helpful—”

She pressed a finger against his lips. “You will, Luke. Facing all we've faced, there is no way I'm letting some ague kill me. If the cure comes from Belkadan, great. If we have to find it elsewhere, that's fine, too. The key thing is to find out for certain if my illness is connected to the Yuuzhan Vong. If it is, when I get healthy, the Yuuzhan Vong will pay.”

Luke raised his face and kissed her on the lips. “When, ah, you and I were on the opposite side of things, that sort of spirit made me a bit fearful of our finally having to face each other in combat. Now I almost feel sorry for the Yuuzhan Vong.”

“They brought it on themselves. No one invited them here.” Mara returned his kiss, long and fiercely. “Don't you worry about me, Luke. Take care of yourself and Jacen. Anakin and I will do just fine.”

He nodded. “I know you will.” He kissed her again. “I will miss you terribly, you know.”

Mara ran her fingers back through his hair. “And I will miss you, too, husband. But, our being apart from time to time is something I also accepted when I became your wife. We part now so we can be together forever. Not the best bargain in life, but not the worst, either. And, for now, husband mine, it is a bargain I am more than happy to accept.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

As his X-wing cleared the dorsal launch bay on the Bothan Assault Cruiser
Ralroost,
Gavin Darklighter tugged back on the stick and rolled to starboard to watch the rest of the squadron emerge. The Bothan Assault Cruiser was one of the latest additions to the New Republic fleet. While slightly smaller than a
Victory
-class Star Destroyer, and possessed of leaner and less angular lines, the
Ralroost
boasted 20 percent more firepower than a Vic and almost half again as much in terms of shielding and armor. The ship had been designed to take a severe pounding and still hammer an enemy.

Gavin recalled the discussion he'd had with his wife and his sister when the Bothans announced plans to build the Assault Cruisers. Peace had been declared with the Imperial Remnant, so the ships were seen as either a foolish allocation of resources, hints at future Bothan aggression, or, as far as Sera and Rasca were concerned, a gross waste of money. Given that peace reigned in the galaxy, both of them thought the money needed to build one of the ships could be better spent on healing the scars of decades-long war.

Their arguments had been persuasive, but Gavin had reserved judgment, and as he looked down at the ship, he was glad the Bothans had built it. The fighter hangars were amidships and had launch apertures that would let the fighters head up or down, as needed, to get into battle. The dual launch paths also meant recovering fighters after a battle was faster, and Gavin very much appreciated that detail.

He keyed his comm unit. “One flight on me. Five, you have two, and, Nine, you have three.”

His two subordinate commanders, Major Inyri Forge and Major Alinn Varth, acknowledged his command, and not for the first time did the incongruity of having female voices linked to those flight designators strike him. For almost the whole of Gavin's time in the squadron, Nine had been Corran Horn, and Five had been Hobbie or Janson or Tycho Celchu.
Then again, Lead was almost always Wedge, but now I'm the leader.

The flights spread out and turned toward the center of the star system. It wasn't much to look at, with an asteroid belt separating two small, very hot planets from three larger gas giants. None of the planets themselves supported life, though the largest gas giant did have some moons that were almost hospitable—if one could tolerate a low-oxygen, high-nitrogen mix for breathing.
If not for some mining done in the asteroids, and the fact that traffic from Bastion uses this as a nav point to the Corporate Sector, this would be another dull spot on star charts.

The system didn't even have a name, which struck Gavin as appropriate, for it had been largely without any notoriety for as long as folks had visited it. That had changed within a week, when a freighter stopped to scout the asteroids for any salvage. Fighters of unknown origin had jumped the ship, but the freighter got away and reported the incident. Admiral Kre'fey had taken his
Ralroost
out to investigate. Rogue Squadron shifted from playing pirates to becoming pirate hunters and shipped along.

Gavin punched up an analysis program and loaded it into his targeting computer. “Catch, push sensors. We know there were snubfighters out here, but I need to find their base.”

The droid warbled his understanding quickly.

Inyri's voice crackled through the comm speakers in his helmet. “Lead, we have transient contacts in the asteroid belt, 247 mark 30. They're shadowing us.”

“I copy. Got enough to identify them?”

“Matches aren't coming up easily, so I'm guessing uglies.”

“Keep an eye on them.” Gavin thought for a second, then nodded to himself. “On my mark, all Rogues will break onto course 270 mark 27. We're aiming for the big asteroid there, the one that's slowly rolling.”

Confirmations of the orders came back to him over the comm unit.

Gavin reached up and flicked a switch that locked the fighter's S-foils in attack position. He studied his sensor scopes but got nothing.
Well, if they won't show themselves easily, we'll just have to root them out ourselves.
“Rogues, on my mark, three, two, one,
mark
.” He kicked his X-wing up on its port stabilizers and eased the stick back, then leveled out and saw the rest of his flight cruise in behind him.

He switched his comm unit over to the command frequency he shared with the
Ralroost
. “Rogue Leader here. We have contacts and are investigating.”

“Understood, Rogue Leader. Good hunting.”

Gavin forced himself to take a deep breath, then to exhale slowly. While he trusted Inyri's judgment about the ships they'd be flushing from the asteroids, he couldn't shake the sense of dread that came with the memory of his first sim encounter with the coralskippers.
Even though we've run sims against skips, coming up against them for real will be very dangerous.

From behind the big asteroid burned opposition. Catch painted contact after contact on Gavin's secondary monitor. All of the ships were, in fact, uglies, cobbled together from parts of older fighters. They included TIE-wings, which were TIE fighter cockpits married to Y-wing engine nacelles; X-ceptors, which were X-wing bodies with TIE interceptor wings; and triple-finned tri-fighters, nicknamed clutches because the ball cockpit was held in the grip of the three fins' forward edges. All the ships were as common in pirate fleets as hydrogen was in the galaxy, and all of them could be very deadly.

Gavin dropped his targeting reticle on the lead clutch and flicked his weapons over to lasers. He linked them for dual fire, then glanced at his targeting monitor. The range to target scrolled down quickly, but that concerned him less than another detail the sensor scan provided him.

The clutch had no shields. There was no reason any pilot going into combat wouldn't bring his shields up to full power. The tri-fighter was known to possess shields—which was one of the reasons it had become a successful pirate-ship design. Without shields the pirates would never stand a chance against the Rogues.

“Catch, get me their tactical frequency.” Gavin nudged his stick to the right and triggered a burst that burned red past the clutch's nose. “Five, you show any shields on these guys?”

“Negative, Lead. Hulls are weak, too.”

What's happening here?
Gavin lined up another shot at the clutch and waited for it to fire first. The clutch kept coming, closing well within optimal range, then finally shot a green laser bolt at Gavin's X-wing. The energy sent a static hiss through the comm unit's speakers as it dissipated against the shields. It had done less damage to them than it should have, and only one of the two lasers on the clutch had fired.

And the only reason a pilot has to get that close is if he's shooting with visual data—his sensors must be out.

The clutch flashed past, and Gavin rolled to starboard, then hauled back on the stick and started chasing the clutch. He inverted, then dived and goosed his throttle to follow the tri-fighter through its evasive maneuvers. He switched his lasers over to quad fire, then settled his middle finger on the stick's secondary trigger button.
This modification was meant to use against the skips, but could be of use here, I think.

He lined up his shot, then pulled the secondary trigger. The lasers cycled quickly, producing a hail of down-powered laser darts that stippled little burn marks all over the clutch's fins. The fire gnawed away at the pirate ship, burning off black-and-white droid-fist insignia emblazoned there.

The clutch rolled to port, then climbed sharply. Gavin chopped his throttle back, inverted, and started to climb after the clutch. He let the pirate fighter climb into his sights, then sprayed more laserfire over the ship. These bolts struck on the forward canopy and clearly surprised the pilot. The clutch jerked to starboard, then one of the ion engines belched a long jet of flaming exhaust. The other engine flared for a moment, then both shut down.

Gavin started to cruise in for a closer look at the fighter when a heavy turbolaser bolt slashed through the void between him and it. Catch shrilled a warning, so Gavin rolled to port and dove toward the large asteroid that had been his goal.

The climb after the clutch had taken him above the asteroid's horizon, exposing him to the ship that lay hidden behind it. He vaguely recognized it as a Nebulon-B escort frigate, but that was only from the general profile. The ship had been hammered badly, with gaping holes opened in the hull. His sensors showed some flickerings of shields, but they remained weak enough that Gavin knew a strafing run by his X-wing would punch through and do serious damage.

“Catch, put their tactical frequency on comm channel four.” The requisite button on his comm unit began to glow, so Gavin punched it, intensifying the light. “This is Colonel Gavin Darklighter of the New Republic. Identify yourselves and stand down, or you
will
be destroyed.”

“This is . . .” The voice coming through the speakers started bold and defiant, but faltered quickly, weakening sharply. “This is Urias Xhaxin of the
Free Lance
.”

“Lead, break port.”

Without thinking, Gavin juked his fighter left, then saw green laser bolts blaze through the space he'd just left. A TIE-wing dived through, followed closely by Rogue Two. Kral Nevil's quad burst burned one of the Y-wing nacelles from the ugly, leaving the pirate fighter to spiral down and explode against the asteroid's craggy surface.

“Thanks, Two.”

“Just my job, Lead, watching your back.”

“Captain Xhaxin, order your forces to stand down. They can't fight us. Your ships are all damaged. You don't want a slaughter any more than we do.”

Weariness weighed heavily in the man's reply. “You're right, of course. There comes a time when you have to stop fighting. I'll give the order, Colonel.”

Gavin punched up the squadron's tactical frequency. “The pirates will be standing down. Fire only if fired upon.”

Kral's X-wing came up on Gavin's port side. The Quarren pilot got a look at the frigate, then glanced in Gavin's direction. “It looks reef-raked in high seas, Colonel. What could have done it?”

“I don't know, Two, but I don't think we'll like the answer when we get it.”

Gavin saw to the recovery of the pirates to the
Ralroost,
then joined Admiral Kre'fey in his ready room. Aside from the two guards standing inside the door, the Bothan admiral was alone with the pirate leader. “Ah, Colonel Darklighter, thank you for joining us. You've spoken with Captain Xhaxin.”

“I have.” Gavin turned to the seated human and offered him his hand. “Thank you for ending the fight so quickly.”

The pirate glanced up, his dark eyes filled with exhaustion and something else. The man looked haggard. His long hair and neatly trimmed beard were white. It and his pale flesh contrasted sharply with his black uniform, and save for the red of bloodshot eyes, the man could have been a simple black-and-white holograph. “I should thank you for letting me permit my people to live.”

Traest Kre'fey waved Gavin to a chair. “You may not know this, but Urias Xhaxin has quite a history with the
Free Lance
. He operated as a privateer raiding Imperial shipping, then continued to prey on Imps during the warlord period. Since the peace he's been out here, on the Rim, taking off the occasional unreconstructed Imperial making a run for the Remnant. Pickings have been slim, and his choice of targets has made him a low-priority issue for the New Republic.”

Gavin nodded slowly. “I remember seeing a holodrama about him once.”

Xhaxin snorted. “Purest fiction. A holojournalist came out to report on my activities. She had some romantic idea of what we were doing. She was disappointed, so she created her fantasy and someone committed it to holo.”

Traest's head came up. “I take it what happened to you recently on the Rim wasn't a fantasy.”

“Not mine.” The man hugged his arms to his chest. “I set up an operation to lure in people wanting to travel in a convoy to the Remnant. They met on Garqi and departed on a schedule I'd devised, to a point of my choosing. I intended to capture them all. We arrived just before the last ship was supposed to get in, and found the ships already under attack. The things hitting them—I guess they were ships . . . I'd never seen their like before. Gravitic anomalies all over. They shot plasma that ate into ships. They oriented on us almost immediately.”

The man's eyes focused distantly and his voice shrank. “I did what we could, but there were too many of them. We plotted a blind jump out, then another, which landed us here. My hyperdrive motivators blew, and the structural damage—well, I don't know if the
Free Lance
could ever hit lightspeed again. I know I don't have the resources to salvage her.”

Xhaxin looked up at Traest. “So, Admiral, you've caught me. I don't think the old Imperial bounty is still good, but I'm certain someone will pay for my carcass. Other than that, I'm useless. If I weren't, I'd not have lost my command.”

“Oh, no, Captain Xhaxin, not at all.” Traest nodded at Gavin. “Colonel, if you would see Captain Xhaxin to guest quarters, I would be obliged.”

Xhaxin raised an eyebrow. “I don't understand.”

“You met and fought with an enemy we're going to be seeing a lot more of—much more than we want. Your understanding of their tactics and nature is worth far more than any bounty.” The Bothan smiled carefully. “I need to know what you know. I need to understand what you understand. If we can't learn how to deal with this threat, you'll find that, all too quickly, your
Free Lance
could be left the most powerful ship in the whole of the New Republic.”