Hero's Trial: Agents of Chaos I (29 page)

She nodded, seemingly unruffled by the pressure of his hands. “I am against the use of bacterial weapons. Such a tactic demeans the Yuuzhan Vong.”

Han tightened his grip and held her gaze. “Don’t toy with me, sister. I was at Sernpidal and Dubrillion. I know exactly what you people are capable of, and a little thing like disease wouldn’t rattle the Yuuzhan Vong conscience for a moment.”

She raised her head haughtily. “It prompted me to secrete myself in an escape pod and allow myself to be captured by your forces.”

Han looked over at the woman’s wondrous companion. “And you?”

Vergere regarded him calmly. “I am with her.”

Han let go of Elan and jerked a thumb toward Droma. “Yeah, well, he’s with me and that doesn’t say a whole lot.”

“I couldn’t have put it more delicately,” Droma muttered.

Vergere looked at Droma, then Han. “I’m Elan’s familiar. Where she goes, I follow.”

Han ran his hand down his face. Out of nowhere another choice had been forced on him. By remaining on the
Queen
he might be able to finish the business with Reck, as Roa had put it. But if Elan was who she claimed
to be, her safe conduct to Coruscant could mean a cure for Mara’s illness.

He blew out his breath. Reck would have to wait.

“Maybe you are worth the effort after all,” he said at last. “Which means we should be thinking about getting you some different clothes.” He glanced at Droma. “Think you could rustle up new outfits for these two?”

Droma rocked his head from side to side. “Provided that they’re not particular about size or fashion.”

“They can’t afford to be.” Han paused to study Elan in earnest. “Is that the real you or are you wearing one of those living body sheaths?”

“I am adorned with an ooglith masquer.”

Han nodded. “Well, a Yuuzhan Vong in a masquer fooled the members of the ExGal team on Belkadan. Let’s see if it works as well with the Peace Brigade.”

The
Queen
shuddered concussively as the corvette fastened herself alongside.

“The raiders will hook up with the survivors of the team that hit Showolter and begin a deck-by-deck search,” Han said, his nose all but pressed to the transparisteel bubble. “They might sweep with sensors or dose the ship with obah or some other disabling gas.” He whirled from the view. “We need to move fast.”

“Where to?” Droma asked.

“The docking bay. Our only hope is to make off with one of their own ships.”

A hatchet-faced Peace Brigade member met Reck Desh and his heavily armed escort as they emerged from the docking bay. Reck was outfitted with only a hand blaster, but his riot-helmeted cadre carried stun batons,
stun nets, flechette launchers, and other antipersonnel weapons. By Reck’s side marched the Yuuzhan Vong overseer he’d persuaded to join them in the retrieval operation, cloaked to conceal the telltale markings of his kind.

“Bridge is secured?” Reck asked as he brought everyone to a halt.

His confederate nodded. “But we’ve got problems. Which do you want to hear about first?”

Reck glanced around. “Where’s Darda? Has he got them?”

“Darda’s dead. The Rodian took a beam, too, but he’ll live. Capo being the only one who’s seen the defectors, we had him patched up. He’s waiting for you in sick bay.”

Sudden blood mottled Reck’s face. “The two of them tried to take on the Intelligence team?”

“There were only three agents. Capo swears that two of them are dead, and the third is badly wounded. Besides, Darda insisted on it.”

“And Capo listened to him,” Reck grated. “I’ll deal with him later.”

“This was supposed to be in and out,” the hulking human to Reck’s left said. “There isn’t time to search the entire ship. I say we abort.”

Two of the other men grumbled agreement.

“Stow it!” Reck told them. “What else?” he asked the bearer of bad news.

“A Yuuzhan Vong ship has shown up.”

“What?” Reck stared in disbelief, then swung to the Yuuzhan Vong among them.

The enemy operative nodded. “I was compelled to
reveal the nature of this operation to my superiors. It’s likely that the ship has been sent to support us.”

Reck gestured broadly and furiously. “That ship’s going to draw New Republic forces into this! They’ve got too much to worry about to bother with chasing pirates. But with the Yuuzhan Vong involved—”

“Maybe the ship can buy us the time we need to flush out the defectors,” the sharp-featured messenger said. “Even if New Republic forces do show. So long as we’re the ones to return the defectors, nothing’s changed, right?”

Reck tugged at his jewel-studded lower lip for a moment, then nodded. “Time the passengers knew the score.”

The messenger pointed to a comlink on the bulkhead. “We can tie into the public address system.”

Reck took the comlink in hand while one of his men fiddled with the channel selector. The man nodded when he found the proper channel, and Reck switched on the handheld device.

“Attention, all passengers,” he began in Basic. “Just to set all of you at ease, we have no designs on hijacking, piracy, or turning you over to the Yuuzhan Vong. We’re looking for two passengers in particular—a human-looking female and a nonhuman female, probably in the company of a wounded human male. If they want to come forward and save everyone a lot of grief, they should report to the bridge. If anyone has information on their whereabouts and is interested in collecting a substantial reward, they should also come to the bridge.

“If no one comes forward and we’re forced to conduct a deck-by-deck search, we’re going to go hard on everyone,
and you just might end up in enemy hands after all.” Reck paused briefly. “Oh, and a note to the two we’re searching for: we have ways of identifying you. If you think you can hide or lose yourself in the crowd, think again.”

An ovoid of yorik coral, nubbed with cone-shaped projectile launchers and propelled by a dovin basal of the highest caliber, Commander Malik Carr’s personal ship was the swiftest vessel in his flotilla. From the bridge, Nom Anor addressed villips consciousness-joined to the commander and Harrar. His view through the crystalline viewport took in not only the Peace Brigade’s gunship and the
Queen
, but also several cratered planetoids and the distant sun beyond them, all in near syzygy.

“I have my agents under surveillance,” Nom Anor updated. “The capabilities of the dovin basal aboard the gunship have been neutralized, and I have commanded our own dovin basal to prevent the gunship from separating from the starliner. Should the Peace Brigade succeed in locating Elan, any attempt at embarkation will fail.”

“That corvette may carry fighters that will be able to launch,” Harrar’s villip relayed with a grimace.

“Three vessels have already done so and have docked aboard the liner. I will utilize our dovin basal to thwart their return to the gunship.”

“House a dovin basal in a remote to accomplish both tasks and prepare to withdraw,” Commander Malik Carr’s villip relayed. “By the time your agents discover what has happened, New Republic ships will have come to the liner’s rescue.”

Harrar’s villip spoke. “No doubt your misguided operatives are aware of our presence. When they realize that they are unable to launch, they will wonder why you aren’t coming to their assistance and they may attempt contact.”

“Let them wonder,” Nom Anor snapped. “I’m only interested in persuading the New Republic to conclude that the actions of the Peace Brigade are simply another attempt on our part to retrieve Elan.”

He was interrupted by his second on the bridge, fists snapped to opposite shoulders in apology for the intrusion.

“A ship emerging from hyperspace, Executor.” The subaltern pointed out the viewport in the direction of the nearby primary. “Our signal villip identifies it as a New Republic cruiser-carrier.”

Nom Anor addressed the villips. “The arrival of that vessel should simplify matters. As suggested, I will position the dovin basal in a remote. The Peace Brigade will attempt to flee and be apprehended, and Elan will remain in custody.”

He swung to the bridge officer. “Make ready to engage the enemy’s starfighters, as well. You may disapprove of this, Subaltern, but you’re going to have to make it appear as if you were chased off. You have my word that your losses will not be held against you.”

Still recovering from the bruising it had taken at the battle of Ord Mantell, the cruiser-carrier
Thurse
winked into realspace at the Rimward edge of the Bilbringi system, X-wings tumbling from her launch bays like bedevilers from an agitated nest. Between the cruiser and the distant blip that authenticators had recognized as a Yuuzhan Vong warship floated the
Queen of Empire
, with what appeared to be a seasoned corvette nursing at one of the starliner’s airlocks.

Apex of the fighter formation that gradually assumed shape, Wing Commander Kol Eyttyn chinned the helmet switch that opened the command net.

“
Thurse
, we have visual on the Yuuzhan Vong ship. Low-profile coral oval. Looks to be frigate class or thereabouts. Reminds me of the stones I’d skim across water in the carefree days of my youth.”

“Let’s see that it doesn’t come skimming this way, Commander,” the voice of the cruiser-carrier’s captain said in his left ear.

“That’s affirmative.”

Screen chatter from the R2 unit socketed behind the cockpit canopy told him that short-range scans had
picked up a flock of Yuuzhan Vong fighters—skips. Eyttyn chinned open the tactical net.

“Blips are enemy vessels, coralskipper designation,” he told the pilots of the gathered squadrons. “Enable countermeasures and deflector shields. Inertial compensators to maximum boost. Keep in mind we’re sacrificing laser yield for increased bursts. That means mixing it up at close quarters, so listen to your group leaders and stick to your wingmates.”

Eyttyn called on the life-maintenance system controls to expand the starfighter’s inertial compensator field. While the volume of protection afforded by the enhanced field had been determined to be sufficient for tricking the compensator into treating Yuuzhan Vong–created gravitic anomalies like any others, the field could be overwhelmed by large dovin basals or a confluence of singularities, such as might easily be fashioned by three or more skips.

The same held true for the sensor database package developed in the wake of engagements in the Outer Rim. While the retrofitted tracking adjunct augmented a pilot’s ability to target coralskippers, substantial variations in the size and shape of the fighters limited the effectiveness of the array. As ever, an X-wing was only as good as its pilot and droid.

Eyttyn increased the gain on the sensors and, with his thumb, flicked weapons control to lasers, quadding them up so all four would fire with a single squeeze of the stick’s trigger.

“Red and Green Squadrons will lay back to deal with assaults directed at the
Thurse
. Blue will form up behind
me to take the fight to the command ship. All other squadrons will break on my command.”

Eyttyn tightened his seat harness and waited for the droid to affirm that the coralskipper swarm was within range; then he flipped a switch that locked the X-wing’s S-foils in attack position and gave the word to engage.

Almost immediately the coralskippers opened fire with their volcano-like guns, loosing a storm of fiery projectiles. The opposing sides met in a dizzying contest of feints, rolls, and loops, punctuated by torrents of laser-fire and streams of deadly plasma. The tactical net grew cacophonous with warnings, exuberant outbursts, and shrill cries for help.

“Blue Four, skip locking onto your six.”

“Thanks for the heads up, Three. I think I can shake him.”

“I’ve got your flank, Four.”

“Blue Eight, can you give me a fix on Blue Ten?”

“Negative, Ten. Things are fast and furious just now.”

“Watch your starboard, Five. Three skips angling in!”

“Scissor right, Five, they’re on you!”

“I can’t shake them! Shields down to 30 percent!”

“Hold tight, Five. I’m on my way!”

Though loud in his right ear, Eyttyn ignored what cries he could. For Blue Squadron it was going to be a matter of avoiding hits and conserving firepower. While individually piloted, the yorik coral fighters were thought to answer at least in part to organic elements aboard the command vessels—what the enemy called yammosks, or war coordinators—like the droid ships of old. Eyttyn knew better than to expect that Blue Squadron could take out the ship, even with proton torpedoes, but as
New Republic forces had proved time and again, distraction was often enough to sow turmoil among the coralskipper pilots and slow the responses of their craft.

Yuuzhan Vong fliers relied less on evasive tactics than on the capabilities of their shield-nullifying dovin basals, in any case. As he maneuvered through the swarm, Eyttyn could feel the influence of that macabre, biogenetically hatched technology tugging at the X-wing’s shields with invisible fingers. The R2 unit could feel the tug, as well, and signaled its dismay with flurries of translated code that scrolled across the cockpit display screen.

Another thing to ignore
, Eyttyn told himself.

With two skips closing on him, he rolled the X-wing up on its stabilizers and veered away to starboard. In the same instant, his wingmate peeled away in an abrupt bank, then dived to rejoin Eyttyn on the original approach vector. Another pair of coralskippers swooped beneath him, but only one came about in pursuit and was easily evaded.

Eyttyn glanced at his range finder. Already the frigate was growing larger in his canopy, but it had yet to open fire, and probably wouldn’t until Blue Squadron began their runs against it.

Off to Eyttyn’s left, Blue Four began to wobble under the influence of two skips that had fastened themselves to the X-wing’s tail. Eyttyn’s wingmate dropped back to loose a burst at one of the craft, but it refused to take the bait. Hoping that Blue Four’s lead pursuer might cut across his own path, Eyttyn decreased velocity, but the coralskipper pilot divined Eyttyn’s tactic and was in and out of his sights in a flash.