Balance Point (37 page)

Leia drove Nom Anor against a wall, wrestling to unhook her lightsaber with her claw-contained hands. His nails raked her arms. She hit the activation stud, extending the ruby-red blade. It barely missed the Yuuzhan Vong’s foot, burning a hole in the duracrete flooring.

Powerful hands wrenched her away, piercing her arms with knifelike claws. The warmaster’s guards dragged her off her treacherous researcher.

In the middle of her office floor, Randa lashed and quivered, fighting the tightening cord with his neck muscles. “Leia,” he gasped. “Betrayed you … it’s … my nature … I’m … sorry …”

The priestess’s drummer beat a crescendo. The garrote creature tightened again. Randa’s huge eyes bulged.

Leia struggled uselessly against her guards. Those close to Randa now had dented and gouged battle armor.

The warmaster stepped around her massive desk, kicked the Hutt’s motionless tail, then ordered his guards, “Take it to the kitchens.”

Four of them dragged the huge body away. If Randa had been older and heftier, they probably couldn’t have budged him, but their physical prowess was staggering.

Nom Anor fiddled with the handgrip of her deactivated lightsaber. “We will study this abomination,” he told her, brandishing it. “We will take it down to small pieces and improve our defenses against it.”

He thrust it back into his belt.

The remaining guard, the priestess, and her musicians formed a circle around Leia.

Get away, get away, get away
. She thought it at the Yuuzhan Vong, at Jacen, at Jaina—at Han, hopefully in the
Falcon
by now.
Warn the Duros, warn the fleets. Get away
.

The priestess raised her left arm again. Another red garrote creature rolled down to her wrist.

Something else grabbed Leia from behind and flung her to the ground. Something heavy and sharp fell across her legs at the knees, blinding her with a double explosion of pain. She bit her tongue.

They struck again. And again …

A scream echoed down the stairwell. Jacen flung himself out his compartment’s door.

Two alien warriors stood in the passage, one outside the office door where that scream had come from, one closer.

Jacen leapt up three stairs at the closer warrior. The armor itself could be killed, he reminded himself. The vulnerable point was under the warrior’s arms.

But at the end of that arm, a black amphistaff coiled like a hook, narrowing its inner edge to bladelike hardness.

The Yuuzhan Vong attacked, taking advantage of his elevation. Jacen couldn’t anticipate the warrior’s strategy. He could only watch shoulder twitches, subtle shifts of
feet. The other’s first swing drove Jacen back down into a crouch. He sprang up quickly, stepping past his enemy with his lightsaber at shoulder height. Using his body as a fulcrum, he slashed for the armor’s weak spot.

The warrior dodged as the door guard pounded downstairs. Off the bandolier on his chest whizzed three silvery creatures.

Jacen backswung, pushing his pommel toward the warrior’s chin. The Yuuzhan Vong swung his amphistaff down, aiming for Jacen’s neck. Jacen ducked aside and skewered the first thud bug with his glimmering, ice-green blade. The leering warrior spun on one foot, driving his amphistaff toward Jacen’s midsection.

Jacen leapt aside, planting a kick as the amphistaff swept past. The warrior lost his balance and flew over the banister.

Jacen stood gasping for one second, then swung at the thud bugs, dimly aware that the other guard had vanished into Leia’s quarters.

The second bug came at his chest. Now he missed the flow of the Force. He backstepped and swung, feeling half-blind. Somehow, he connected anyway. The bug skittered to the ground.

Its partner buzzed toward his head. He ducked, but not quite in time. He felt fire on his scalp as the creature slashed past, slitting his cap. He brought up his lightsaber, trying to stab it.

Without the Force, he just wasn’t fast enough. He caught it on the backswing.

Ignoring his scalp wound, he dashed the rest of the way to the office. Panting, he burst in.

His mother lay sprawled on the floor. From her knees almost to her feet, her SELCORE-blue uniform was darkening rapidly with blood. She pushed up on her forearms, opened her eyes, then furrowed her forehead.

“Go,” she groaned. “Get away!”

To his horror, three sluglike creatures rolled back and forth alongside her legs, cleaning up the visible red flow.

Beyond her stood the biggest Yuuzhan Vong he’d ever seen, and a small one all in black. Three musicians, covered with tattoos, and a midsize one—with his mother’s lightsaber tucked into his belt—stood aside.

“You!” the middle-sized Yuuzhan Vong exclaimed. “The craven one! I thought you remained on Bburru.”

Jacen gaped. The Yuuzhan Vong
knew
the Duros had detained him? CorDuro hadn’t just sold out. It was collaborating!

Holding his lightsaber at the ready, Jacen stepped around Leia and said, “Let her go.” A fully trained Jedi could’ve controlled blood flow to her own wounded extremities, letting enough through to oxygenate her nerves and muscles, but not enough to bleed to death. Obviously, Leia couldn’t.

But Jacen could barely stand, he was so dizzy. The room spun and tilted around him.

“Craven still,” the warmaster exulted. “You stand there looking, instead of trying to strike us down. Look, then. Look well.”

The warmaster reached toward the small, black-robed individual and said something Jacen didn’t understand. Her eyebrows lowered fiercely. She uncoiled something red from her left wrist and gave it to the warmaster.

He dangled it between two claws. “Ambassador Organa Solo, straighten your spine and compose your face. Meet destiny with courage, and inspire this young coward.”

The black-robed one stretched out her arms. Her musicians started their ugly, throbbing tune again.

The room spun faster.
Stand firm, Jacen
, he heard.

He could not fight this darkness. Not without the light of the Force. And the darkness must be fought!

Jacen reached inward and outward for the devastating, ravishing energy that was too large to comprehend, too mighty to use without being changed forever. He balanced himself around his glimmering blade—and charged.

Mara sprinted back up the crowded Port Duggan shipyard arm. Wuht had committed to scrambling the DDF, but plainly, something had gone terribly wrong planetside. Leia’s agony made the Force ring, like gaffi sticks crushing Mara’s knees and calves.

At the end of her own dock, a CorDuro group barred the way. Mara considered her blaster, unhooked her lightsaber instead, and tipped it up against her right wrist. A flick of her hand would drop it into her grip.

“Excuse me,” she said, shouldering into the group of guards.

“Whoa, there,” the nearest, a squint-eyed human, said. “This docking arm has been closed. Off limits.”

“My ship is docked there,” she said. “And I’m leaving.” This time, she threaded her words with a hint of subliminal command. “Let me through.”

“All ships on this arm have been co-opted by Duro Defense.” A Duros stalked forward. “Sorry. You’ll have to find another ride.”

“You’ll have to find another ship,” Mara said blandly. “You’re not having any luck getting mine open, are you?”

“Oh,” the Duro said. “Slip 16-F? We just monitored an X-wing snubfighter launching out of your main bay.”

“Right,” Mara said. “And the hatch’s lock is rather
unconventional, for good reason. If I’m going to claim diplomatic status, you probably want to see my papers.” It was an old dodge, and she really didn’t expect it to work.

The Duros extended a knobby hand.

“They’re on board,” Mara said. “Come with me.”

He walked her up to the slip. Unfortunately, he brought his goons. Mara frowned. She didn’t have time to make this a pleasant farewell.

She touched her in-port lock’s corners in rapid order, then pressed her thumb to the center—but that was just for show. Luke had embedded a second locking mechanism under the plating, inaccessible to any non-Jedi. She levitated the hidden mechanical catch, and the hatch swung open.

A voice behind her said, “Now freeze.”

Utterly unsurprised, Mara spun left. With one motion, she bent her knees slightly and dropped the lightsaber into her palm. Before the next heartbeat, she’d ignited it. “Don’t make me—”

A uniformed Duros stood just behind the near human, pointing a blaster at her. Mara’s left leg straightened, sweeping the human off balance. Her blue blade followed around as the Duros fired. Mara deflected the shot, leapt backward into the
Shadow
, and then shut the hatch.

Clanging noises reverberated from the outside. She dropped into her seat, secured herself, and signaled the docking cables to release.

They didn’t, of course.

“If that’s the way you want it,” she muttered. She brought up the repulsors and hit the transmitter. “Docking authority,” she said crisply, “this is
Jade Shadow
in 16-F. If you don’t want your slip torn apart, I’d release the cables.”

Someone babbled at her. By then, her engine lights had turned green. Keeping one hand on the braking lever, she twitched her throttle rods once, twice, in warning.

Then she cut the brake and roared out of dock, trailing the cables and a good-sized chunk of the dock’s exterior bulkhead. Metal banged against her port-side hull, and she winced at every crash and crunch. Her external sensors confirmed electromagnetic locks on each of the three trailing cables. She couldn’t do much to those.

Besides, an X-wing streaked skyward like a shining dart. “Anakin,” she exclaimed, “I’m coming at you. Got some unwanted debris along my port side.”

“I see it,” her nephew’s voice came. “Put your shields up, and I’ll—”

“Shields are already up.” She steered away from Bburru, into open space. “At minimum extension. Crease my ship and you’re bantha fodder.”

A blast of laserlight barely missed her port side. She checked her scanners as Anakin flashed past under the
Shadow
’s belly.

“Good try,” she said, “but it’s still there.”

She couldn’t fight coralskippers or go to lightspeed trailing that piece of garbage.

The she heard another welcome voice, sensed another strong presence in the Force. “Hold course, Mara. I’ll get it.”

She clenched both hands on the stick and throttle. From behind, a brilliant light shaft passed so close that the canopy’s radiation shield momentarily darkened. Another XJ fighter followed the energy blast, S-foils deployed in combat configuration.

“About time you showed up, Skywalker,” she murmured. “Thanks.”

*   *   *

Jacen slipped deeper into the Force, committing himself utterly. Though the building seemed to be both spinning and tipping, his senses flooded with a reverent, joyous sense of thanksgiving and homecoming. Yes, he was small. Small people had to offer their hands, or else for all the Force’s magnificence, it could do little. He longed to fall into that vortex. To serve the light, and transmit its grandeur.

Wait
, he sensed again.

Ignoring his throbbing scalp wound, he slashed at the warmaster’s arm as it dangled the red garrote creature over Leia. The big Yuuzhan Vong drew back and dropped it. Writhing, it curled up on the rough floor.

The warmaster whipped out a short, snake-headed baton and held it against his forearm.
“Do-ro’ik vong pratte!”
he shouted. He circled left, taking Jacen’s measure.

This one’s armor was different. Those scales grew out of his body, giving no clue where its weak spots might lie. Jacen still couldn’t sense him in the Force, but now he felt a rippling of anticipation. He would know, microseconds ahead of the moment, where and when the muscular alien would attack.

He also knew that amphistaffs could spit venom. He backed out of range.

“Coward,” the warmaster growled. “Unworthy.”

Jacen sensed his mother’s weakening presence. He buried his worry and used a light, slightly mocking tone to answer, “I’m just not stupid.”

Sensing an odd flicker in the Force, he brought his lightsaber up to parry. In the next instant, the short black baton stretched its mouth wide, revealing four white fangs against a cottony membrane. A stream of venom sprayed at him. It boiled and hissed against his shining green blade.

That might be all the poison it could eject for several seconds. Jacen swept in, centering his lightsaber, then slashing wide and down.

The warmaster deflected his cut with the baton, whipping it away from his body, spinning and jerking. Jacen leapt back. At the corners of his vision, the priestess and her musicians edged toward the wall. The middle-sized Yuuzhan Vong had vanished, taking Leia’s lightsaber. A door guard paced closer, holding something between hands that suddenly bristled with elongated claws.

Binding jelly?
Jacen had time to wonder.
Extendable fighting claws?
“How many of you does it take to kill someone you call coward?” he taunted.

“You are beneath me,” the warmaster said. “You are not worthy to die at my hand.”

Now
, a voice whispered at the back of Jacen’s mind.
Fall in, and stand firm
.

Staring the warmaster fully in the face, Jacen dived into the magnificent depth. The galaxy spun and tipped around him.

Seemingly at the galaxy’s very edge, the black-robed priestess raised her hands.

Jacen stepped over Leia and raised his own. Power flowed through him, around him, inside him.

A decorative iron sconce flew off the wall, piercing one crab-harp with a
spang
. A chair slid past the warmaster. The alien gave it only a glance, but it struck his door guard broadside, toppling him.

From another corner, several massive equipment lockers rose into the air. Leia’s focus cooker floated, hovered a moment, and then joined the spinning vortex with Jacen and Leia at center.

Finally, Leia’s massive desk started to slide. It struck the befuddled warmaster, knocking him toward the north window. Jacen half saw one musician fall, struck
by the same sailing wall sconce that had pierced his compatriot’s crab-harp.