Star by Star (46 page)

Anakin’s answer was sharp, if not quite angry. “
Kane a bar.
”

The Yuuzhan Vong’s saggy eyes looked more confused than angry, but he lowered his amphistaff toward Anakin’s chest. “
Yaga
?”

Anakin pointed his lightsaber and thumbed the activation switch. The crimson blade shot through the guard’s throat and came out through his neck, narrowly missing the warrior behind him. This second Yuuzhan Vong hurled himself backward and opened his mouth to shout the alarm, but was interrupted by the
snap-hiss
of Alema’s silver lightsaber slicing through his head.

Anakin switched off his holoshroud and made assignments, sending Jacen, Ganner, and 2-4S to watch the entrance and Jaina, Raynar, and Eryl to dispose of the remaining ysalamiri. Everyone else, he led down the corridor toward the torture sounds. When he reached the doorway and peered around the corner, he found himself staring at a Yuuzhan Vong’s vonduun-crab-armored chest.

The warrior gave a startled cry and started to bring his amphistaff around, but Anakin was already slashing his lightsaber across the Yuuzhan Vong’s throat. He thrust-kicked the collapsing body back into the chamber, then heard the telltale drone of thud bugs coming his way and dived to the floor. He rolled over his shoulder, trying to scan the chamber as he moved. There was an ysalamiri tree in one corner and two figures spread-eagle against the rear wall, and two more figures moving on his right. He came up with his lightsaber in a high guard—then dropped flat as Tesar’s minicannon bolts began
whumpf
ing past his head.

The ysalamiri tree erupted into splinters, and Anakin’s contact with the Force returned as the ysalamiri itself was vaporized. He heard the drone of a thud bug coming his way and allowed his Jedi senses to guide his lightsaber around to deflect it, then spun toward the source and found a Yuuzhan Vong charging him with amphistaff in hand. Before Anakin could parry, a bolt from Tesar’s minicannon hurled the warrior across the room, and Alema rushed in to thrust her silver lightsaber through the shattered armor.

Only one Yuuzhan Vong remained, smaller than most and thinner, with a spectral female face and a variety of hooked and
serrated talons protruding from her eight fingers, wrists, and even elbows. A shaper. Anakin stood and started toward her, but a web of shimmering energy lines crackled into existence around her body before he had taken two steps. He thought it was a personal shield of some kind—until her eyes widened and she spat something angry.

Anakin focused his thoughts on the web and felt the familiar energies of the Force, but colder and tainted with darkness. He glanced toward the back wall, where the two prisoners still hung spread-eagle, each bleeding from a profusion of wounds. One, a powerfully built woman with dark hair and darker eyes, was glaring at the shaper, quietly mouthing words Anakin did not understand.

The Yuuzhan Vong tried to pluck a strand of the Force energy from her body and succeeded only in severing three fingers. The dark woman smiled, and the web slowly began to shrink, slowly cutting into the shaper’s flesh.

Anakin was overcome by a deep sense of wrongness, of hatred and anger … and evil. This woman was acting not out of wartime necessity, but out of bloodlust and vengeance. He started toward her. “No! This is wrong.”

She ignored him, and the Yuuzhan Vong screamed in anguish. Blood began to patter on the floor, and something larger, as well. Anakin glanced back to see small cubes of flesh dropping off the body of the female shaper.

“Stop!”

Anakin raised the butt of his lightsaber and stepped forward to enforce his command, but the Yuuzhan Vong’s scream ended abruptly in a wettish plopping sound. When he glanced back, he found her body heaped on the floor in diced sections. The smell was as horrible as the sight, and he had to fight not to vomit.

That was when Jacen’s voice came over his earpiece. “That frigate’s sending down a shuttle, Little Brother.”

“O-okay,” Anakin gasped. “Keep me … posted.”

There was a pause, then Jacen asked, “Is something wrong?”

“We’re fine,” Anakin said. “Just a surprise. I’ll tell you later.”

An acknowledging click came over the comlink, then Anakin turned to find Alema at the back wall, already freeing the dark woman from the blorash jelly holding her in place.

“… a fascinating technique,” the Twi’lek was cooing. “Do you think I could learn it?”

“No, you couldn’t,” Anakin said. “That attack was cruel. Unnecessarily so.”

Alema spun on him, her pale Twi’lek eyes as cold and hard as a Hothan lake. “You may lecture me about cruel when a voxyn has burned the flesh from
your
sister’s face.” She turned back to the dark woman, who was now free of the wall. “Perhaps I want to be cruel.”

The woman gave her an encouraging smile. “There is nothing wrong with vengeance. It is a noble emotion—a powerful one.”

“Spoken like a true Nightsister,” Zekk said, stepping into the chamber. He glanced from the dark woman to the young man, who was still hanging on the wall behind her. “Hello, Welk.”

Welk, a blond-haired human a year or two older than Anakin, narrowed his eyes at Zekk. “Hello, traitor.”

“You two know each other?” Anakin asked.

Zekk nodded. “From the Shadow Academy. Welk here was Tamith Kai’s best student—after Vilas died, of course.”

“After you killed him,” Welk corrected, glaring at Zekk. “And Zekk was the Darkest Knight—our leader, until he betrayed the Second Imperium at Yavin Four.”

Anakin frowned at this. Though he had been too young to participate in the defense of the Jedi academy when Tamith Kai’s Dark Jedi attacked, many of the Jedi Knights on his strike team—including both of his siblings, Lowbacca, Tenel Ka, and Raynar—had fought valiantly in the battle. They would not be happy to learn that they had just risked their lives to save one of the attackers.

Tesar, who had never even
been
to Yavin 4, was the first to object. “We risked our lives to save
Dark
Jedi?” The Barabel trained his minicannon on the pair. “Blaster boltz!”

“Check that, Tesar.” Anakin pushed the minicannon down, then turned to the dark woman. “Are there any Jedi—”

“
We
are Jedi,” she replied. Though she was oozing blood from a hundred different wounds, the pain seemed to trouble the woman no more than it would a Yuuzhan Vong. “But in answer to your question: not alive. We were the ones you sensed when you entered the system.”

“All the same, there’s no harm in looking around.” Anakin nodded to Tesar and his hatchmates. “Be careful.”

“Do as you wish, young Solo.” The woman smiled. “But there is no need to doubt us. We will be happy to help destroy the voxyn.”

“How do you know—”

“You are certainly not here to rescue us.” Leaving Welk pinned on the wall behind her, she started for the door. “My name, by the way, is Lomi Plo. Perhaps I should start by telling you what we know of this place.”

Anakin raised his brow. “You aren’t holding that to bargain? What makes you think we won’t leave you?”

Lomi regarded him coldly. “And who would be the dark one then, Anakin?”

Anakin was still trying to figure out how she knew his identity when his earpiece activated again.

“We’ve got trouble, Little Brother.” This time it was Ganner on the other end. “That shuttle? You won’t believe who’s on it.”

“
I
don’t,” Jacen added. “It looks like Nom Anor!”

Talfaglio lay dead center in Han’s cockpit display, a point of fire just three light-years distant. That meant the light in his eye had been created three standard years ago, before the Jedi had become an endangered species and the Yuuzhan Vong had pulled a moon down on Chewbacca. Though seldom one to live in the past, Han would have given his life to ride that orange ray back to its birth, to add one more being to the thousands he had saved on Sernpidal that day. He no longer blamed himself or anyone else for the Wookiee’s death, and he was even past wishing he had never tried to rescue anyone in the first place. He only wanted his friend back. He only wanted a galaxy safer for his children than it had been for him, a galaxy where a man and wife could go to sleep at night reasonably sure the world would still be there at dawn.

Some things were too much to ask.

Leia, who had been curled up in the
Falcon
’s Wookiee-sized copilot seat, opened her eyes and sat up straight. There was no grogginess or confusion to her actions; she had not slept—not really—since Anakin’s strike team had departed for Myrkr. Neither had Han, for that matter. She slipped her crash webbing over her shoulders and began to cinch it down.

Han activated a self-test routine to warm the
Falcon
’s circuits. “What’s happening? You sense something from Luke?”

“Not from Luke.” Leia closed her eyes, reaching for her children in a way Han could never share. “Anakin and the twins. They’re in the middle of it now, something dangerous.” She paused, then added, “I think our turn will come soon.”

Han started to activate the intercom, then recalled who would
be manning his guns and looked over his shoulder. As expected, the Noghri were standing quietly in the back of the cockpit.

“Take the turrets—and tell See-Threepio to lock himself down,” he said. “We’re helping Lando and the Wild Knights with the yammosk hunt, so when Corran sends us in, it’ll be hot.”

The two Noghri dipped their heads and retreated down the corridor. Han watched them go, a little unnerved by the shadow that came to their black eyes whenever combat was at hand, but still grateful for their presence. Over the last fifteen years, the Noghri had saved Leia’s life uncounted times and rarely left her unprotected—which was more than he could say for himself. He still found it hard to understand what had come over him after Chewbacca died, why mourning his friend’s loss had meant withdrawing from Leia and the kids.

“Remind me to thank those guys,” he said.

“You have,” Leia said. “At least a dozen times.”

Han gave her a crooked smile. “Yeah, but they never say ‘you’re welcome.’ ”

For the first time in days, Leia laughed, then Corran Horn’s voice came over the comm speaker.

“Time to wake up, people. Outlying sensors show a Yuuzhan Vong assault fleet moving into the Talfaglio system.”

Leia stretched over and armed the depressurization safety on Han’s combat suit. “I’m scared, Han.”

“Me, too.” Han reached across and lowered her flash visor. “But what can you do? They’re adults now. They get to pick their own fights.”

Eclipse had managed to put pilots in fifty of its new XJ3 X-wings, and over half of them were Jedi. Another two dozen Jedi were operating blastboats and other support craft. Given that Luke was risking half the galaxy’s Jedi and most of its Masters on a single operation, he should probably have been nervous. He was not. The Force was with them in a way he had never before experienced, a presence so tangible he could almost see it shimmering against the velvet starlight.

Not too calm, Skywalker
.

Mara’s voice was so clear in Luke’s mind that it took him an instant to realize she had not spoken over a comm channel. He glanced at her X-wing, floating close enough that their S-foils almost touched. He wanted to tell her there was nothing to worry about, that Ben would be losing no parents today, but such a thought would have implied a vision of the outcome he had deliberately avoided seeking. If the Force wanted to show him the future, fine; if not, it was better to trust it and take what came. Whatever that was, making this attack was the right thing. He could feel it.

So can I
, Mara added.

Luke raised a brow. Through their bond, each could usually sense what the other was feeling, and it was not even uncommon for them to receive short, semiarticulated thoughts. But this was something new; Luke’s contemplations had barely risen to the level of consciousness when Mara sensed them. Perhaps the presence of so many powerful Jedi was gathering the Force, drawing it together in the same way a cloud of gas became a star.

“More like a lens gathering light,” Mara said. “The effect of so many Jedi concentrating on a common purpose.”

“This is really something.” Luke added a long thought question to test the limits of their mental link; when his only reply was an impression of curiosity, he asked aloud, “I wonder if the old Jedi Councils focused the Force like this?”

“It certainly would have helped them see clearly—but it might have had its drawbacks.”

Luke sensed an uncommon moment of embarrassment in his wife as Mara’s mind flashed from the cognitive union they were experiencing to a more physical kind, and he found himself sharing in her hope that nobody else was picking up the connection.

If they were, they had the good sense not to say so.

Smiling both inwardly and outwardly, Luke glanced at his tactical display and saw the enemy assault fleet lumbering into the Talfaglio system. The deliberate approach, he suspected, had less to do with a fear of space mines or ambushes than allowing the hostages plenty of time to contemplate their doom. There were four cruiser analogs, a warship analog, a skip carrier, and twenty frigates. The carrier would have at least two hundred
coralskippers, and the five largest vessels would have their own squadrons, as well.

Ouch
, Mara thought.

Luke was not worried. The Jedi were there to break the blockade and buy the refugee convoy time to escape, not destroy the fleet. There was one aspect of the mission that would need rethinking, however. He asked R2-D2 for an open channel.

“This is Farmboy.” His call sign had been picked by Mara. “Operation Safe Passage is still a go, but there are too many hostiles for the Yammosk Action. Repeat, Yammosk Action is—”

“Hold a moment, Farmboy,” Corran said. As the Jedi battle controller, he was aboard the Wild Knights’ freighter,
Jolly Man
, using a new subspace eavesdropping suite to monitor the Talfaglion sensors. “We have company exiting hyperspace.”

“Company?” Luke’s heart did not sink; there was nothing in the Force to suggest an ambush. “Who?”