Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime (52 page)

“Tractor beams? Gravity-well generators?”

“Different, sir.” The Duros frowned as a wash of data filled his holograph with overlapping spheres of color. “Focused, tighter beams, more powerful.”

The
Free Lance’
s turbolaser batteries opened up, sending long streams of sizzling red bolts at the asteroid. The shots looked to be on target, then deviated sharply in their flight. The bolts sharpened their angle of attack, coming together nearly half a kilometer before they hit the asteroid. Xhaxin expected the beams to flash through that new focal point and still hit the target, but instead they vanished.

“What happened? Guns, sensors, what happened?”

His gunner, an Iotran named Mirip Pag, shook his head in disbelief. “We had firing solutions, Captain. We were on target.”

The Duros, Lun Deverin, stabbed a quivering finger at a small sphere in a holograph. “A gravitic anomaly pulled the shots in. It’s as if they’re using a black hole to shield themselves.”

Xhaxin turned to look at the data and watched as the sphere in question expanded and moved toward the frigate. At the moment of contact, a jolt ran through the ship. Alarms began to sound, announcing that the starboard shield had collapsed.

“Come about to a heading of 57 mark 12, ahead full. Shear off whatever that beam is.”

“Another one coming in, Captain. It will take the aft shield …”

Pen Grasha, the
Free Lance’
s starfighter control officer, shouted above the warning sirens. “Captain, our fighters are having their shields stripped. Their blasters and lasers are not getting through to the enemy.”

The Duros waved a hand, then grabbed his sensor station in a tight grip. “Brace for impact. They’ve fired upon us.”

Impact?
Xhaxin turned toward the viewport and saw a sizzling golden ball of something—plasma?—flash past. It caught the frigate in midmaneuver, hitting just port of center. The port shield caught the blast, but collapsed in seconds, sending a shower of sparks through the bridge and skittering one crewman across the floor. A heartbeat later whatever had gotten through the shield slammed into the
Free Lance
’s armored hull.

Thank goodness we have extra armor
. Xhaxin had devoted a lot of resources to reinforcing the armor on the frigate. It had stood up to shots from an Imperial Star Destroyer before, and they’d lived to tell about it.
We also ran away so we could tell about it
.

The impact momentarily knocked the ship’s artificial gravity generators out of phase, so Xhaxin flew from his feet and into Dr. Karl. Within a second, gravity returned, dropping both of them to the deck, but neither landed too hard. Xhaxin rose to one knee and helped the doctor up into a sitting position as he turned to look at the Duros. “What was that?”

“I don’t know, Captain, but it’s still eating into the hull.” The blue-skinned alien paled. “I project a hull breach on deck seven in twenty seconds.”

“Evac the area and close the bulkheads.”

“More shots incoming!”

No! This can’t be happening!
Xhaxin’s hands, both flesh and metal, convulsed into fists. He pushed aside the despair and panic raging through him.
Time to be the sort of man that causes a crew to be so loyal
.

“Pen, recall our fighters. Load those without hyperdrives first. Khwir, plot me a jump out of here.”

The Twi’lek’s lekku palsied. “The gravitic anomalies are constantly shifting. Calculating a jump solution is impossible.”

“Are they enough to prevent us from jumping?”

“No, but—”

Xhaxin snarled, then staggered to a knee as another shot from the asteroid shook the frigate. “Then jump blind. Send the coordinates to our fighters, but jump blind.”

“Captain, a blind jump could kill us.”

“A blind jump
might
kill us.” Xhaxin stabbed a finger at the viewport. “They
will
kill us. Do it, Khwir, do it, now!”

“As ordered, Captain.” The Twi’lek started punching coordinates into the navicomputer. “Ready to jump in five seconds, Captain. Four, three …”

Xhaxin looked at the viewport and saw a glowing golden ball expanding to fill it. He didn’t know who his attackers were, why they were there, or how their weapons functioned. As he pondered those things the view of space exploded. In that moment, somehow he knew that while having the answers to his questions might bring him some inner peace, the same would not be said of the New Republic.

Standing near the head of the senate chamber, waiting to be invited to the dais by Chief of State Borsk Fey’lya, Leia Organa Solo found herself a bit nervous. Years rolled back—decades, in fact—reminding her how she had felt when she first entered the Imperial Senate as the youngest person ever elected to such high office. She’d stood as a candidate to help her father, Bail Organa, continue his opposition of Palpatine and the madness that would permit things like Death Stars to be created.

I was young then, very young, and understandably nervous
. She looked around at the massive chamber and across the sea of senators filling it. It didn’t have the grandeur of the old chamber, the one in which she had first served, but she felt a rich sense of tradition in it from the New Republic’s days. Back in the Imperial era—after Palpatine had seized full power—there were no more than a handful of non-humans in the chamber, and then they were just aides to human senators. Now the humans were in the minority, much as they had been in the Old Republic. She could see Senator Viqi Shesh of Kuat and one of her telbuns, and Senator Cal Omas from Alderaan, but beyond them she had a hard time seeing more humans.

And it’s not just age catching up with my eyes
. She smiled to herself, not wanting to be reminded of how much of her life had already passed by. Much of it had been spent here on Coruscant, helping form the New Republic into the star-spanning confederation of worlds that had emerged from the Empire’s shadow.
Or I was out fighting the Empire, being shot at. In here the attacks were more subtle, but almost as lethal
. She shivered as she recalled the old senate chamber even being bombed once.

Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw Danni Quee, the young woman who barely two months ago had survived an attack and capture by an aggressive alien group that had assaulted several worlds on the galaxy’s Outer Rim. Danni had been working at a research site used to monitor space beyond the edge of the galaxy and had collected some evidence to suggest the invaders had actually come from another galaxy. Their ruthless tactics, coupled with the sheer economics of mounting an invasion from a distant galaxy, suggested to Leia that the aliens had to be intent on taking a great portion of this galaxy for their own. She’d come to the senate to apprise the New Republic of this threat and enlist aid for the Rim worlds that would be facing the brunt of the alien onslaught.

Beside the petite, brunette woman stood Bolpuhr, Leia’s Noghri bodyguard. The Noghri were devoted to Leia and her brother, Luke, because of their efforts to repair the damage done to the Noghri homeworld of Honoghr by the Empire. In their gratitude, the Noghri warded Leia and her family with a fierce loyalty that was second only to that of a Wookiee with a life debt.

The pitch of Borsk Fey’lya’s voice shifted out of a deep drone to something a bit higher. Leia remembered how his voice would rise when he felt stressed. It brought her head up, and she focused her attention on what the Bothan was saying.

“… And so, it is my distinct pleasure to welcome back to this chamber a woman who has been more at home here than anyone else in the senate’s history. I present to you Leia Organa Solo, envoy from Dubrillion.”

And about time, too
, Leia thought.
You’ve been giving me the runaround long enough
. She’d been trying to get this audience for weeks.

Fey’lya turned away from the podium and waved her forward. The Bothan had chosen to wear a sand-colored robe that was only a shade or two darker than his cream-colored fur. Violet piping that matched his eyes trimmed it. Leia found the robe reminiscent of the simple garments Mon Mothma used to wear when addressing the senate or the people, but somehow it failed to grant the Bothan the air of simple nobility it had given Mon Mothma.

Leia had chosen to wear black boots and slacks, with a cerulean tunic. She also wore her hair up, letting her entire outfit and demeanor hint at the martial encounters that were the basis for her report. She knew it made her distinctly underdressed for the opulent senate, but she also hoped it would make some of those present harken back to the days when battle dress was the order of the day and decisions had to be made quickly.

“Thank you, Chief Fey’lya. Esteemed senators and honored guests, I bring you the greetings and well wishes of the people of Dubrillion. It is their wish I inform you of a grave crisis in the Outer Rim. A previously unknown species has launched a series of attacks in the Rim. They wiped out the ExGal-4 station on Belkadan, attacked the world of Dubrillion, destroyed the New Republic ship
Rejuvenator
at Helska, and annihilated the world Sernpidal by crashing its moon into it. We managed to locate the alien base at Helska 4 and destroy it, but this does not end the threat.”

Leia looked up at her audience and was surprised at how many senators seemed to be bored, as if she were the narrator for some Kuati manners-play.
Well, I’ve not told them anything they don’t already know, but now they have to acknowledge it and deal with it
. She cleared her voice and glanced at the datapad on the podium for her notes.

“On Belkadan, Luke Skywalker found evidence of an ecological disaster that radically altered the atmospheric composition of the world. This disaster has been traced to an alien agent who was present on the world and slain there after he attacked Mara Jade Skywalker and my brother. The evidence seems to suggest that the aliens were preparing the world to be used as a base for invasion.”

Before she could continue, a hunchbacked, saurian senator representing the various Baragwin communities stood slowly. “If it would please the senate, I would ask the speaker if she is the same Leia Organa Solo who undertook to mediate the Rhommamool-Osarian dispute.”

Leia’s eyes narrowed as she lifted her chin. “Senator Wynl is well aware that I am the same person who went to try to broker peace in that conflict.”

“And was it not the action of a rash Jedi Knight that forced the Osarians to launch the attack that embroiled the system in war, killing Nom Anor, the Rhommamoolian leader, in the process?”

Leia held her hands up. “With all due respect, Senator, the Rhommamool-Osarian conflict has little or nothing to do with the invasion I’m talking about.”

Borsk Fey’lya turned toward Leia from his position on the dais to her right. “Little or nothing? This would suggest there
might be
some sort of a connection.”

She nodded uneasily. “When the invader attacked Mara, he first tried to destroy Artoo—the R2 astromech droid my brother uses. The alien was shouting the same sort of antidroid rhetoric that the Red Knights of Life on Rhommamool used in their crusades.”

The Bothan blinked his violet eyes. “So you are suggesting that these Red Knights are behind the poisoning of Belkadan, the destruction of Sernpidal, and the attack on Dubrillion? And they had weapons sufficient to drag a moon from orbit, yet were not able to defend their leaders against an attack by the Osarians? Am I understanding you correctly?”

“No, I don’t believe you are, Chief Fey’lya.” Leia let a hint of iciness enter her voice. “I don’t believe the alien on Belkadan was influenced by the Red Knights, but it is possible that the Red Knights are part of a covert plot to disrupt the New Republic.”

Another senator, this one a Rodian, stood. “You would have us believe, Envoy, that your effort failed because of a conspiracy born from outside the galaxy?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

Niuk Niuv, the senator from Sullust, rose to his feet. “I don’t believe it is, either. I believe you are trying to deflect us from the threat the Jedi present to the New Republic. It was a Jedi who raised the tension level of the Osarians, triggering that war. You tell us a Jedi reported to you about this alien, and about what he said. I am not so stupid that I cannot see the effort of a Jedi to turn us away from trouble their order has spawned.”

“The Jedi on Belkadan was my brother, Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master!”

“And who would more want to have the errors of his disciples forgotten?”

Leia forced her grip on the podium to slacken. “I am well aware of the controversy surrounding the Jedi, but I ask you, in all good conscience, to focus beyond that debate and concentrate on what I’m telling you. An invasion has been mounted from outside this galaxy, and it will destroy the New Republic if you do not act to stop it now.”

A human senator Leia failed to recognize rose to speak. “Forgive me, but it is a well-known and long-established fact that a hyperspace disturbance on the edge of the galaxy makes travel into or out of the galaxy impossible. This supposed invasion could not have taken place.”

Leia shook her head. “If that barrier does exist, they found a way around it. They were here, and there is ample evidence of their invasion in the Outer Rim.”

The Quarren, Pwoe, rose and brushed fingertips over his pointed chin. “I am confused, then, Envoy. You told us that you had been part of an effort to destroy the invading force. I was led to believe you had been successful.”

“We were.”

“So there have been no more sightings of these invaders since then?”

“No, but that—”

“And do you have evidence to link them to the Red Knights other than hearsay about comments by a creature that is now dead?”

“No, but—”

“You do have physical evidence of the invaders?”

“Some. A couple of bodies, a couple of their coralskippers.”

Fey’lya smiled, flashing sharp teeth. “Coralskippers?”

Leia closed her eyes and sighed. “These aliens appear to rely on genetically engineered biomechanical creatures. Their fighter craft are, well, grown out of something called yorik coral.”