Star by Star (59 page)

“If some traitor told them we were out here, why not?” A Friendly Hutt was an old Imperial tactic in which they tried to trick their quarry into giving away its position. “But we have to take the chance. This is no time to be a coward—not with the war hanging in the balance.”

Han did not add “and not when our children are risking their own lives,” but Leia heard him just the same. As he started to bring the rest of the
Falcon
’s systems on-line, she activated the subspace transceiver and entered the coordinates provided.

“This is the
Millennium Falcon—
”

“Thank the Force!” Wedge Antilles exclaimed. “We’ve been
trying to raise you for an hour. I thought something unfortunate had happened.”

Han and Leia glanced at each other, but said nothing about Anakin. “We had a couple of skips sitting on us.” Leia’s fingers flew across the computer input. “Here’s the data we promised.”

As she spoke, the first bursts of battle static appeared on the sensor display. The assault fleet itself was too distant to be detected through the nebula gas even with active sensors, but Han could tell by the fire that there were only a few hundred vessels attacking. Still, scores of Yuuzhan Vong frigates and corvettes vanished into stars of dispersing energy before they could organize themselves into a picket wall. The
Falcon
was too distant from the battle to detect anything as small as a starfighter, but Han knew they were present by the sparks of explosion static that appeared all too frequently between the Yuuzhan Vong vessels.

By now, the New Republic fleet had its own surveillance craft watching the battle, but Han and Leia held their position and continued to relay data to the oddly placed command post. In a conflict this size, information was more valuable than ships, and both combatants placed a premium on destroying, blinding, or misleading enemy reconnaissance vessels. That made the
Falcon
, as an undetected observation asset, more important to the attack than any three Star Destroyers.

Slowly—painfully—the Yuuzhan Vong frigates and corvettes overcame their initial disorganization and started to hold the starfighters at bay. With this threat brought under control, the big capital ships left their places in the heart of the formation and went forward to support their smaller companions. As they drew into range of the New Republic’s own capital ships, bright bars of energy began to flash back and forth across the data display, at times lighting it up so brightly Han could not see anything else. Eventually, the battle began to drift in the wrong direction, and Han knew their long wait had been for nothing.

He activated the subspace microphone. “Wedge, are you getting this?”

“We are, Han—but you’re the only asset still showing the situation in the heart of the protostar. Please stay on station.”

“What for?” Han grumbled. “Sovv didn’t bring enough ships. Tell him to break off and save what he can.”

“Negative, Han.” Wedge did not sound nearly upset enough. “We can’t do that.”

A Yuuzhan Vong destroyer analog pressed the attack too hard and erupted into a two-second flare of light, and frigates and corvettes continued to vanish at a steady rate. But the battle continued to drift in toward New Republic lines. Soon, a discernible gap appeared between the capital ships participating in the attack and those that had remained behind to protect the huge ship tenders. In a gesture of what had to be the ultimate disdain for the New Republic commanders, a quarter of the big ships re-docked with the supply vessels and continued to reprovision.

“Now, that is just too arrogant,” Wedge commented. “Admiral Sovv needs to teach them a lesson.”

“I hope he scolds better than he counts,” Han muttered.

“Han …” Leia cautioned.

Han ignored her and continued bitterly, “Our message said there were a thousand ships—and more arriving every minute!”

“But I had only nine hundred ready for action,” a pinched Sullustan voice said. “And your message also said to hurry.”

Leia closed her eyes and let her chin fall. “Admiral Sovv, please excuse my husband’s impatience.”

“No apology is necessary,” Admiral Sovv said. “We’ll be out of contact for eight minutes, but I’m sending you our order of battle. Can you have a tactical update ready when we make contact again?”

Instead of answering, Leia turned to Han with an expectant expression.

“Uh, sure thing,” Han said. When Leia scowled, he added, “Admiral.”

“Good.” This from Wedge. “And we have a request from Eclipse. They’ll be looking for the yammosk and would appreciate any guidance you can give them.”

“Tell them we’ll try to narrow the possibilities down to no more than a hundred ships.” Han rolled his eyes as Wedge and the admiral signed off, then turned to Leia. “I guess Luke must have found his boarding harpoons.”

“Or had someone make them,” Leia said. “I only hope they work on yorik coral.”

Used legally and illegally across the galaxy by security forces, pirates, and anyone else who wanted to storm a ship, boarding harpoons were a recent development. Basically giant hypodermics filled with coma gas, they melted through a target’s hull with a megaheated tip, then lodged themselves in the hole, extended a flexiglass membrane to seal the vacuum breach, and injected the gas. Depending on a ship’s size and recirculation system, everyone aboard could be rendered unconscious in anywhere from a minute to a quarter hour. For the sake of the Jedi who would be using them, Han hoped it would be closer to a minute.

They spent the next few minutes scanning the heart of the protostar, identifying high-priority targets, calculating ranges and hit probabilities, estimating how quickly the capital ships on the front line would be able to disengage and return to the heart of the protostar. In less than five minutes, they had a situation report that clearly suggested it would be wise to attack cautiously and conservatively, despite the advantage of surprise. It was not exactly the decisive blow Han had hoped for, but there was no arguing with facts.

Then Leia frowned, said something didn’t “feel” right, and began to work the computer again. Han scanned and rescanned the entire Bantha and stared at the data display without blinking. Everything felt right to him. He even managed to narrow the likely yammosk ships down to three destroyer analogs and half a dozen big cruisers.

Leia was still working the computer, muttering softly to herself and taking notes in a datapad, when New Republic contacts began to blizzard onto the sensor display, jumping almost directly into battle because of the protostar’s dispersed mass shadow. By the time Admiral Sovv’s flagship emerged from hyperspace, the lead vessels were already bleeding starfighters and pouring turbolaser fire into the Yuuzhan Vong capital ships.

The communications officer quickly established a comlink, and Leia sent the tactical update on an encrypted data channel. While they waited for Wedge and Admiral Sovv to digest the new information, Han was surprised to see the Yuuzhan Vong
capital ships remaining close to the ship tenders instead of rushing out to engage the incoming fleet and buy time for their comrades to return from the forward battle.

He opened a voice channel. “Wedge, maybe you should have your forward elements hang back. Those rocks are hiding something.”

“Yes, they are,” Leia said, finally looking up from her datapad. “But don’t hang back. Those ships haven’t provisioned yet. That’s what they’re hiding.”

Admiral Sovv was on the channel at once. “Are you sure?”

“I am, Admiral. Our computer issued an identifier to each contact, and I just ran a full history of each one. None of them has docked with the tenders.”

“I see,” Sovv said. “Your recommendation would be?”

Before answering, Leia looked to Han. If her analysis was right, the tactics that followed from their report would be too conservative, perhaps even give the enemy a chance to disengage and escape. But if she was wrong … she was not. Han could feel it.

He nodded.

Leia smiled at him, then she said, “Go for sabacc, Admiral. Our recommendation is bet the fleet.”

“I see.” Sovv was barely able to choke out that much; Sullustans were seldom happy gamblers. “An unusual way to put it, but … thank you for your suggestion.”

Han winced, then checked to make sure they weren’t transmitting. “That’s what’s wrong with putting Sullustans in command. They’re more interested in building careers than winning battles.”

“Not this one, I think.”

Leia pointed at the display, where the largest part of the New Republic fleet—including all of the Star Destroyers and most of the cruisers—were peeling away from the ship tenders and fanning out toward the far edge of the Bantha. Their turbolasers were already flashing, pouring bolts into the rear of the Yuuzhan Vong battle line. Several cruiser analogs and two destroyer-sized vessels began to break up instantly. Others quickly followed when they turned to meet this new threat and were assaulted from behind by a now-lethal decoy force. The two walls of New
Republic ships began to come together, smashing the disorganized Yuuzhan Vong between them.

In the core of the protostar, a swirling cloud of smaller vessels swarmed the tenders and their escorts. The Yuuzhan Vong held their attack until the enemy was almost upon them, then loosed a wave of fire so intense that Han and Leia could actually see the glow, lighting the heart of the Bantha like the star it would one day be. The sensor display required nearly a minute to clear, and when it did, a full quarter of the New Republic contacts had simply vanished.

Leia closed her eyes. “Han, did I—”

“They’re Yuuzhan Vong, Leia,” he said. “You know they’re going to fight back—with rocks, if need be.”

They watched in apprehension as the tender escorts continued to lace the heart of the Bantha with plasma balls and magma missiles, sometimes taking whole frigates out in single volleys. Finally, though, the fire began to dwindle, and the destroyer analogs started to take hits. Whole squadrons of New Republic starfighters darted past the lumbering vessels to pelt the defenseless ship tenders with proton torpedoes and concussion missiles. It took only a few minutes of this bombardment before the core of the protostar lit up again even more brightly as one supply vessel after another disintegrated in the heat of its own detonating cargo.

A few minutes later, Luke’s voice came over the comm unit. “Han, can you come down here? We’ve got some cargo we need you to drop off at Eclipse.”

“Live cargo?” Leia asked. Danni Quee had been trying to capture a live yammosk since before Booster had told them about the fall of Reecee.

“That’s affirmative,” Luke reported.

“Sabacc!” Han said. “Pure sabacc!”

Anakin’s anguished body was screaming for a stop, a trance, any kind of escape. But that was not possible, not with Nom Anor and his company coming up the passage. The Yuuzhan Vong were hanging behind now, just far enough so even the Barabels had lost their sound, but Anakin could still feel the enemy through the lambent, a cold aura of anger and malice pressing the strike team onward, always pushing, always threatening.

The Yuuzhan Vong had been back there since the slave city, harrying the Jedi whenever their pace lagged, assailing them with bug attacks and provoking them into firing their weapons. Though the assaults had escalated, Nom Anor had not changed tactics. He was still beleaguering the strike team, still wearing it down, still trying to take a few prizes alive.

And Anakin had given the one-eyed spy no reason to try anything else. He had avoided the trap at the AT-AT, only to wander into the ambush in the slave city like some dustkicker straight off a moisture farm. Distressed by the plight of the inhabitants, he had allowed Nom Anor’s impostors to sneak up on the strike team. Now Eryl and Jovan were dead. Anakin should have remembered Nom Anor’s predilection for subterfuge and foreseen the attack, should have at least kept the crowd away from his Jedi. He should have been more careful. He—

Jaina thumped him behind the ear. “Stop that.”

“What?” Anakin rubbed his ear, then his concentration slipped and pain roared through him in waves of fire. “And thanks for caring.”

“You can feel sorry for yourself,” Jaina said. A thin line stretched diagonally across her forehead where Tekli had sealed the gash over her eye with synthflesh. “You were reckless,
Anakin, and you paid the price—and that’s not the point. You need to stop blaming yourself.”

The distant rustle of Yuuzhan Vong feet came up the passage. Anakin tried not to let it weaken his concentration and asked, “Who should I blame?”

“The war,” Jaina said. “Do you think Uncle Luke sent us here to train? This is important. If people die, people die.”

“That’s a little cold.”

“I’ll cry at home.” Jaina hazarded a glance over her shoulder, then said, “Maybe you made a mistake, maybe you didn’t. But start focusing on the mission, or more people
will
die.”

Jaina held his eye for a moment, then the distant rustle of feet grew louder, and they concentrated on running. The strike team passed one of the waist-high tunnels that descended into the warrens of the “feral” voxyn. According to Lomi and Welk, the ferals were creatures the trainers simply lost. Eventually, the beasts found their way to the slave city—the only consistent source of prey in the training maze—and laired in these caves. With an irregular shape, acid-pocked walls, and an overpowering stench of decay, the tunnel certainly seemed like something the creatures might have excavated. Everyone except the Barabels donned their breath masks.

Anakin wore his for perhaps a thousand steps before he pulled it off and discovered that, while the air was fresher, his breath came no easier. He began to feel feverish and realized that his pain was creeping up on him, eating through his Force defenses. Something serious was wrong.

Clearing his mind as he ran, Anakin opened himself completely to the Force. Though hardly a talented healer, he knew his own body well enough to follow the ripples of disturbance down into his wound, to feel that something had come loose inside. He reached under his equipment harness and touched a wet bandage. When he withdrew his hand, his palm was crimson.