Balance Point (35 page)

As if on cue, he heard a soft
crack
overhead. Then a
crackle
that seemed to go on for a full minute. Gravel sprinkled his leather helmet.

“Don’t panic,” he muttered to Romany. “Not yet, anyway …”

Unbelievably, no one cried out. Far behind, a section of ceiling dumped itself on refugee heads. He heard gasping noises, saw and felt a press of bodies surge toward him. But even the children stayed quiet.

“What’d you do to them, Romany?” he demanded.

The Ryn shrugged. “They know if they’re heard, we’re all dead. They’ve been running so long they’re starting to get good at it.”

Mentally Han cursed the Yuuzhan Vong. He turned and moved on.

At tunnel’s end, daylight shone faintly. Droma had scavenged an old cargo-stacking frame off the hauler and painstakingly pushed it along the cliff’s base toward the tunnel. As he moved it, he—and a growing number of refugees—kept stacking hay over it, creating a tunnel. Han was able to move this largest group yet onto the hauler without being seen from outdoors.

As they streamed past—human, Vor, Vuvrian, here and there a Gotal and a Snivvian—he ducked against the hay frame with Droma. Now that it was time to say good-bye, he didn’t want to do it.

Neither did Droma, evidently. “If we can break orbit, I’m going to head out the Trade Spine. Senex-Juvex might still be taking refugees.”

“You’ve changed,” Han said bluntly. “What happened to the loudmouth I met back at Ord Mantell?”

“Guess he died,” the Ryn said somberly. He pulled off his red and blue cap, knocked straw out of it, and replaced it at the usual angle. “With about half of his clan.”

“If I find any stragglers, I’ll put ’em on the
Falcon.”

“Right,” Droma said. “You know,” he said wistfully, “I really wanted to meet Luke Skywalker.”

Han laughed shortly. “You did. On board the
Queen of Empire—
”

“Not to
talk
with him.”

Han shrugged. “I’ll send him along someday.” He backhanded the Ryn’s bristly upper arm. “Keep your scanners up.”

“You know, Solo, for such a mouthy human you’ve got a good heart.”

The line’s end passed them by. Droma fell in with the stragglers, hustling them along. They’d agreed he would wait for Han to signal when the
Falcon
was ready to run for open space. Han would escort him to the jump point,
then head in his own direction—with Leia and the kids. He thumbed the comlink, but once again, none of them answered.

He was turning toward the tunnel when Droma came dashing back. “Comm unit’s dead,” he puffed. “Transmitter seems to be functioning, it’s just the voice pickup. Let me patch in your comlink.”

Han hesitated, then decided he could talk to the kids from the
Falcon
—and it was high time he got there. He handed Droma the link. “We were about even on that running rescue total,” he said. “I think you owe me, now.”

“Put it on my account,” Droma said.

Leia’s prison door opened wide enough for a clawed hand to reach down, leaving a pitcher of water and a bowl full of something that squirmed. Randa snored softly in his corner. She sniffed the water. It seemed all right. She took a cautious taste, rolling the sip over her tongue, listening hard for the infant danger sense that protected Luke and Mara so effectively. She sensed no warning, so she drank thirstily. Then she considered the bowl. No matter how hungry she got, she couldn’t face
that
.

She nudged Randa’s midsection with her foot. “Hey,” she said. “Dinner.”

He came awake quickly, blinking his huge black eyes.

“It’s something you’d like.” She shoved the bowl into his small hands.

“Oh,” he exclaimed. “It’s been so long.”

She turned away, repulsed by his appetites.

A faint pinging that had gone on for several seconds finally caught her attention. It seemed to be coming from the conduit.

She pressed closer. In blink code, she heard letters
formed by long and short groups of pings. R-M-E. Pause. C-A-N-Y-O-U-H-E-A-R-M-E. Pause.

By this time, she’d found her pebble again. She pinged back, “W-H-O-I-S-T-H-I-S.”

“Jaina,” the answer came. “What floor you on?”

Exultant, Leia stretched out through the Force. There, indeed, was her daughter. From Jaina’s mind came images of Luke hiding shipboard, docked at Bburru, and of Mara speaking with the Duros military command—but nothing from Han. For secrecy’s sake, Jaina had switched off her comlink.

Laboriously, Leia spelled out the warmaster’s threefold threat as she formed explanatory images in her mind. The others
must
know about the incredible danger to the Duros cities, word for word, exactly as the warmaster threatened. Also the impending enslavement of refugees, and the promised strike on the Core.

“Warn Mara,” she concluded, sliding back into signaling mode. “Use GOCU transmitter. Hurry, then come back. Randa prisoner also.”

Jaina pinged back, “Get you first.”

“No. No. Warn Mara first. Get Han, come back,” Leia answered.

Silence. The warm echo at the back of her mind faded, cooled, vanished. She counted off almost a minute. Then, “OK,” Jaina pinged back.

Leia sank back down, dropped the pebble, and rested her elbows on her knees.

Four armed Duros waited for Mara at the top of the lift.

“Charming,” she said. “A welcoming committee. I need to speak with the admiral.”

“You’re under arrest,” the Duro wearing the most stripes on his collar snapped.

“On what charge?” Mara demanded.

“Trespassing on military property, to starrrt.”

“Mm.” Mara flexed her hands, holding them close to her blaster and lightsaber. “Tell you what. You can try to lock me up, in which case either you’ll end up on the floor or else as Yuuzhan Vong sacrifice bait … or you can take me to see Admiral Wuht first. If he still wants me locked up, I’ll go peacefully. Think you could handle that?”

The lead Duros’ eyes blinked once. “This way,” he ordered.

She followed him, ready to make a break the moment he took a wrong turn. But less than a minute later, the escorts marched her into a private dining room, where a Duros sat next to two burly humans. The Duros’ charcoal-gray uniform had filigreed epaulettes, white shoulder cords, and a row of stars around his collar.

“Admiral,” Mara said. “My name is Mara Jade Skywalker. I urgently need to speak with you.”

Admiral Wuht cocked his long head to one side. He glanced at his human guests. “Interesting,” he said. “These gentlebeings just predicted that you, or one of your kind, would force your way in to see me within the hour. And here you are.”

Mara got a good look at the humans. The nearer one wore close-cropped hair and sat with his shoulders slumped. The other had a bizarre, distant look in one eye, probably a malfunctioning prosthetic. They openly wore the clasped-hand Peace Brigade insignia, one hand recognizably human, the other hand completely tattooed.

They always left off the claws.

“Good,” she said. She leaned both hands on the back of the nearest repulsor chair. “Admiral, I don’t know what you’ve been told about the chances of a second
Yuuzhan Vong attack on this system, a final one, but we have reason to believe it’s imminent.”

“They are coming to take possession of the planet’s surface,” the slump-shouldered human said. “They have no interest in the Duros’ cities, and there is no reason we cannot coexist peacefully with them.”

Mara glared. “So you sold them what, half a million refugees to be sacrificed?”

He spread his hands. His bad-eyed friend slipped both hands under the tabletop.

Mara got a grip on her lightsaber, beneath her long tunic. “I know you’ve been told to believe they have no use for your orbital cities, and that they’ll leave them alone,” she told the admiral. “I assume you struggled with the decision to let them take hundreds of thousands of lives, down there, once
this
slime got to you. But your own people are your priority, and this is war. Am I close?”

The slumped one crossed his arms. “I think it’s time you left, Green Eyes.”

Mara shook her head. “We transmitted back to Coruscant,” she said. “We requested reinforcements. They turned us down.”

Again, the admiral’s glance flitted sideways. His large eyes narrowed, then he looked at her again. “Please make your point, Jedi Jade Skywalker.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t already seen it,” she said. “Have you heard how they destroy technology? Did you see that creature out there, chewing on Orr-Om? Don’t you realize they consider technology—all technology—to be an abomination, an offense against their gods? Can you really believe they would leave you your cities?”

“We have been given those assurances,” he answered. “It is as you say. My responsibility is to my people. Sadly, I cannot help evacuate your downside settlements. We
did try to warn SELCORE against colonizing that surface. Duro swallows everything that touches it.”

“So get out of here,” Bad-eye said.

“I’ll leave when it’s time to go.” Mara watched his shoulders. If they twitched, she was ready. “First—”

The comlink on her belt toned, and from a distance she felt Jaina’s urgent concern. The girl’s timing was execrable.

“My apprentice is trying to rescue Ambassador Organa Solo, who has been taken prisoner down there,” she explained, raising the comlink left-handed. “Mara here,” she said. “I’m with Admiral Wuht.”

The instant she confirmed Jaina’s voice, she flicked the comlink, turning up the gain.

“Admiral, this is Jaina Solo. Gateway dome still has a GOCU link in the tunnels, and Mom’s people hooked it to an external rectenna array. Mom’s being held in the admin building, by a Yuuzhan Vong they’re calling warmaster. He has told her they’re going to destroy the Duros’ cities. All of them. She said it was urgent to warn you.”

Mara glared at Bad-eye, whose good eye had widened considerably.

“He said that verbatim, Jaina?” Mara asked. “Or was that just an inference? This is extremely important.” Mara held the comlink at arm’s length, making sure everyone in the room could hear Jaina’s reply.

“She took the time to quote him. He told her, ‘We will purify this world of the abominable machines in their orbits,’ ” Jaina confirmed. “And from here, they mean to take the Core. If Admiral Wuht can’t hear me, tell him one more thing. We found evidence that CorDuro Shipping has been working with the Peace Brigade for a long time, probably in exchange for a warning to get one city prepped to leave orbit. Sir, if you want to protect the
Duros people, evacuate them to that habitat. Start building its momentum now, because you won’t get much time. There aren’t many of us who can help you insystem, but we’ll help the DDF fly cover for its getaway—” Static interrupted the transmission for several seconds.

“Go again, Jaina. We missed that last part.”

“Mom says to hit Gateway dome as soon as her people are out. This guy is high in their ranks. You’ve got to take him, kill him.”

“Can you get back to Leia?” Mara asked.

“Excuse me, Admiral. I’ve got to get personal.” Jaina’s voice sounded strained. “She ran me off, Mara. I went back for her, but—”

“She had to get us that message.” Mara stared at Bad-eye. His left shoulder was drawing back, just slightly.

“Jacen’s …”

Bad-eye’s blaster cleared the table. Mara used her lightsaber to deflect the bolt. She tried to aim it back at him, but missed by several centimeters.

He toppled anyway.

She backstepped, nearly bumping her escorts, and spotted a holdout blaster in Admiral Wuht’s right palm. Now he held it trained on Slump-shoulder.

“You, sir,” Wuht said, “are under arrest. Guards, deal with him. I need to speak with Jedi Jade Skywalker.”

To Mara’s deep satisfaction, two Duros from her escort squad carried Bad-eye out of the dining room. The other two escorted Slump-shoulder.

Mara fingered her comlink. “Jaina?”

No response. Jaina must have left the GOCU station.

Admiral Wuht clasped his knobby hands. “You were right,” he told Mara. “We have been betrayed. Somehow, we must cancel the stand-down without alerting the traitors.”

“And hurry your people to that other city.”

He nodded. “Urrdorf. My forces are shorthanded. How many Jedi have fighter ships insystem?”

Luke on the
Shadow
, shortly to be in an X-wing. Anakin, out on patrol. And herself. “Only three,” she admitted. “But Captain Solo has the
Millennium Falcon
planetside, and that’s quite a ship.”

Admiral Wuht’s eyes didn’t brighten much. “Then at least we might delay them,” he murmured, “and evacuate a few more of your people and mine.”

Anakin watched his sensors with half his attention, listening to the Force with the other half. He knew where his mother was, and Jaina, and his aunt and uncle. The Yuuzhan Vong battle group seemed to have lost interest in stray ships patrolling inside the roiling fringe of Duro’s atmosphere. His job was to watch for a second wave of attackers. He’d set his astromech, Fiver, to scan space.

He’d picked up the early model R7 droid, most advanced of all the astromechs, on a hunch. R7 droids were notorious for working poorly with any fighter but an E-wing, and it had taken Anakin five attempts and two weeks of tinkering, but now his backseater was as sleek and dependable as his uncle’s R2, but fully armored and capable of multitasking at blinding speed.

Anakin Solo would settle for nothing less.

His present course kept Orr-Om in view. The monstrous creature that coiled around it looked like a space slug, thick-hided for survival in vacuum, with a mouth easily eighty meters wide. A squadron of coralskippers escorted Orr-Om as it drifted lower in orbit. Anakin doubted he could do anything to help anyone still inside that habitat.

But if he could blast that creature off, he might keep it
from feeding again, on Bburru, or Rrudobar, or any of the other orbital cities.

On the tactical frequency, he could faintly hear transmissions between some officer on board the Mon Cal
Poesy
, on Duro’s far side, and an E-wing patrol. They sounded just as frustrated by Admiral Wuht’s stand-down as he was.