Refugee: Force Heretic II (5 page)

Luke nodded curtly and said: “I am leader of a peaceful mission from the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. We are in the middle of an emergency. I lost two of my crew in a ground fight with the natives of the planet below, and a third is seriously injured. If we don’t get back to orbit in time, he’ll die. Your arrival into this system has put my squadron on full alert, and means our
docking procedures will be that much more complicated. If I should lose another because of your interference, I will be extremely—”

“Please do not threaten us, Skywalker,” the Chiss woman responded calmly, staring unblinking from the flickering holofield. “Our intention is not to impede your docking procedures, or any other of your procedures. I require only that you meet with me in person at the earliest possible convenience.”

“Of course,” Luke said. “We’ll arrange it as soon as I return to the
Widowmaker.”

“When or how you arrange it is irrelevant. Know, however, that I will not remain in this system for long. Comply with my request, or face the consequences.”

The image winked out.

“Well, you heard the commander,” Luke said to the pilot, who had watched the show with interest. “I guess we’d better get moving …”

“All X-wings,” came Jaina’s voice over the subspace combat channel, “lock S-foils in attack position. Clawcraft: arm and target approaching vessels. Battle plan A-seven.”

“Copy that,” Jag returned on behalf of Twin Suns’ Chiss pilots.

Leia watched as the formation of fighters split into three groups—two pairs and a triplet, Galactic Alliance and Chiss fighters flying alongside each other with perfect precision. The calm command in her daughter’s voice made her proud; no matter how surprised by the sudden attack Jaina must have been, she didn’t let it show. Neither was there any suggestion of concern for the fact that her squadron hadn’t had any experience in combat against Ssi-ruuvi fighters.

Any sign of composure that General Panib had displayed
earlier now evaporated totally in the face of this abrupt turnabout of events.

“Please, wait,” he urged frantically. “There’s been a terrible misunderstanding!”

“You bet there has,” Han said. “One we intend to clear up for you very shortly. Those ships belong to the enemy, and we’ll knock them out of your skies if they come anywhere near us. You got that?”

“More launches,” Leia said, registering fighters coming from
Defender
. “A-wings and B-wings, this time; not Ssi-ruuk.”

Han glanced at the scanner board. “Those had better be coming to help us, Panib.”

“Falcon
, I beseech you not to order your ships to open fire!” All semblance of calm had left the general’s voice; only panic remained. “All these ships comprise a peaceful envoy to ensure your safe passage to orbit.”

“All of them?” Han snorted. “Yeah, right. If enteching humans and using them to fly those fighters heading our way constitutes peaceful behavior, then I don’t think we’re speaking the same language. Those fighters have precisely thirty seconds to turn around before we start opening fire.”

“Han, look at this,” Leia said, studying the display before her. It showed one of the Ssi-ruuvi vessels up close. The image was fuzzy but clear enough to make out some details. “Do those engine housings look familiar to you?”

Han frowned at the image. “What about them?”

“They look an awful lot like ion jets to me.”

“So?”

“Since when did the Ssi-ruuk start using standard engines on their fighters?”

“What are you saying, Leia?”

“That there’s more here than meets the eye,” she said. “You’ll note also that our transmissions are not being jammed.”

Han’s frown deepened as his instincts conflicted with what Leia was suggesting. “It has to be a trick,” he said, shaking his head. “They want us to drop our guard.”

Leia wasn’t convinced. “It doesn’t add up, Han. If they really wanted to do that, then why not just let us land first and
then
attack us?”

She could almost see the thoughts behind his eyes racing through his mind. What if Panib
was
telling the truth? A mistake could be extremely costly.

Then there was the matter of the mysterious intruder on the secure comm channels. He had been silent since the Ssi-ruuvi vessels had launched. If their intentions had been to stir things up between Panib and the visitors, in order to ensure the worst possible reception of the alien fighters, then they had certainly succeeded.

“The pilots of those ships aren’t human,” Tahiri said, breaking into the discussion softly. Leia turned to face the young Jedi; the girl’s eyes were still closed, as though meditating. “They’re definitely alien. And—” She hesitated for a second, then her eyes flickered open. “Everyone’s heard the stories about the Ssi-ruuk and how awful entechment is. It’s supposed to be agony, right?”

Leia nodded, still remembering the look on Luke’s face when he had been rescued from the mighty Ssi-ruuvi vessel in which he’d been held captive, years ago. Exposure to the perverted entechment technology, and to the life energy forcibly removed from those taken captive in battle with Bakura, had touched him profoundly.

“Well, these minds aren’t suffering,” Tahiri said. “They’re clean.”

“What are they, then?” Han asked.

“I don’t know,” Tahiri said. “I’ve never touched minds like these before.”

When Leia stretched out her senses, she, too, could detect no trace of anything malevolent in the approaching fighters.

“I don’t care if their minds are as serene as Alderaanian snow,” Han growled. “They’re still attacking us!”

“Are they?” Leia asked. It was all too easy to assume. “We don’t want to start a war by accident—not if there’s an alternative.”

“And what if you’re wrong, Leia? I don’t want them to end up using Jaina as target practice out there.”

“Nor do I, Han.” She touched his hand in reassurance, then spoke on the secure subspace comlink to the squadron: “Twin Suns, fall back to flank
Selonia
and
Falcon
. You are instructed not to fire unless we are fired upon. Understood?”

“Understood,
Falcon.”
Apart from the slight hesitation in Jaina’s voice, the order was accepted and acted upon immediately. In the face of the rapidly approaching swarm of Ssi-ruuvi fighters, the combined Chiss and Galactic Alliance squadron peeled away and swooped back to cover their command vessels.

Han squirmed in his seat but didn’t say anything more. Leia shifted uneasily in her seat also. She felt reasonably confident that she was doing the right thing, but she couldn’t help feeling nervous at the same time. The last time she had come face to face with Ssi-ruuvi fighters had been on a war footing. She remembered the strength of the fighters’ shields and their maneuverability in dogfights—and perhaps more vividly she remembered how the alien capital vessels would collect survivors with their “trooper scoopers” in order to suck out their life energies and hurl them back at their former allies …

“Gunners standing by,” announced Captain Mayn on
Selonia
as the fighters came within range.

Leia held her breath.

On the scanner board, she saw the alien fighters break formation and scatter to adopt a defensive wall around the incoming vessels, just as an escort would do. No shots were fired, and they stayed a discreet distance from both
Falcon
and
Selonia
. When the second contingent of ships arrived, the A-wings and B-wings slotted into the existing pattern with only a small amount of jostling.

She exhaled with a heavy sigh.

“Thank the maker,” C-3PO said from behind her.

“You can say that again, Goldenrod.” Han leaned forward to trim the
Falcon
’s course slightly, a motion designed to disguise the relief he was feeling, Leia knew. “We’re not out of the woods yet. In case nobody has noticed, we’re now effectively caught.”

“But at least we didn’t start a war,” Leia said. “And this way, we just might get some answers.”

“What if we don’t like what we hear?” her husband asked wryly.

Leia shrugged. “We’ll deal with that as it happens.”

Han turned to the comm. Panib, who had been frantically trying to attract their attention over the subspace channel, sounded like he was going to sob with relief.

“Thank you,
Falcon
. You won’t regret this.”

“We’ll reserve judgment on that until we hear what’s going on,” Han said.

“I understand,” the general responded. “But first I must once again ask that you state your intentions.”

Han put a weary hand to his forehead. Leia gave in.

“We’d like to set down at Salis D’aar,” she said, “and meet with Prime Minister Cundertol.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Panib said. “The Prime Minister is unable to meet with anyone at the moment.”

“I don’t understand, General,” Leia said. “Why—”

“Bakura is currently operating under martial law,” he explained without allowing her to finish her question. “I shall be in charge until the crisis is over.”

“Then perhaps we should meet with you,” Leia said. “Whatever this crisis is, I’m sure we can do something to help you out of it.”

“Your help would indeed be welcome,” the general said, although he didn’t sound overly enthusiastic. “However, Salis D’aar is unsafe for you at the moment. Dock with
Sentinel
and I shall take a shuttle to meet you within the hour. I’ll explain everything then.”

“Understood,” Han said. Leia noted the look of skepticism on his face. “Just don’t try and tell us that the Ssi-ruuk are now the good guys, though, because I can tell you now we won’t believe you.”

“Not the Ssi-ruuk,” Panib said. “The P’w’eck.”

Realization dawned, then, for Leia—and from Han’s face, she could tell it had for him, too.

“Okay, General,” she said. “We’ll see you within the hour.”

The comm went dead.

“The P’w’eck?” Tahiri repeated. “Weren’t they the slaves of the Ssi-ruuk?”

“They were indeed,” Leia said.

“But how—?”

“I guess that’s what we’re about to learn,” Han said, the tension in his posture already easing. He reached forward to punch a new course into the
Falcon
’s command board. “In the meantime, let’s show these reptoids how to fly.”

Leia relayed the situation to Captain Mayn as Han sent the
Falcon
streaking toward
Sentinel
. While she could understand his readiness to accept the immediately obvious explanation, she preferred to reserve judgment until she’d heard what Panib had to say. Nothing, she knew, was ever quite as simple as it seemed.

Only by force of will was Jacen able to hold on to the contents of his stomach as he watched Tekli operate on the injured stormtrooper. The man lay facedown on the operating table, naked to the waist and fed by numerous intravenous drips and tubes. They had barely reached
the
Widowmaker’s
medical bay in time. Had it not been for Luke and himself propping up the trooper’s defenses with large amounts of the Force, the alien invader would have probably overtaken his immune system completely and effectively killed him. As it was, Saba Sebatyne still had to strengthen the stormtrooper while Tekli tried to isolate the organism, carefully cutting through and around delicate tissues with her vibroscalpel. It was difficult and dangerous work, but after almost forty-five minutes of painstaking surgery, Tekli seemed to have finally exposed the problem.

The centipedelike creature the stormtrooper had been force-fed on Munlali Mafir had turned out not to be a “meal” at all, but rather, as Hegerty had suspected, an uninvited guest. The juvenile Jostran had survived the acids in the man’s stomach long enough to burrow its way into his abdominal cavity and locate his spine. Once there, it had used the tips of its many legs to infiltrate nerves and tunnel into his spinal column. It had been working its way up to his skull, gradually taking over his body as it went. Tekli had caught it at the very top of the man’s spine, just as it was about to invade his brainpan. Its central body had already sent dozens of hairlike tendrils snaking into delicate neural tissues, and these were making extraction exceedingly difficult. Tekli didn’t doubt that the creature had numerous defense mechanisms designed to discourage removal. The filaments could physically damage nerve cells during extraction, or they could excrete any number of chemicals designed to kill as much tissue as possible around themselves. Only with the help of Jacen was she able, strand by strand, to finally save the stormtrooper from a horrible fate. Jacen attuned his mind to that of the Jostran and kept it docile while Tekli worked, finding it much easier when it was on its own rather than in a pack of eleven.

Jacen couldn’t shake the ghastly thought of what might
have happened as Tekli scooped up the wriggling body of the alien and dropped it into a tissue sample container. Hair-thin tendrils trailed it like roots from a plant.

“Well done, my friend,” he said. “Master Cilghal would be proud of you.”

“Thank you, Jacen,” Tekli said, stepping back from the table and removing her gloves, leaving a medical droid to suture the patient’s wound. “But perhaps we should save congratulations until the anesthetic wears off.”

The Chadra-Fan’s ears were limp with fatigue and her fur appeared dull. It was clear that the intense concentration required for the operation had taken a lot out of her.

“You’re exhausted,” Jacen said.

She nodded. “I feel as tired as you look.”

Jacen acknowledged the comment with a tight smile. He hadn’t had time to change from the gear he’d worn on Munlali Mafir. He’d only had time to wash the dirt and sweat off his face and hands. In all, he suspected he looked as exhausted as he felt.

They left the patient in the care of Imperial meditechs. Outside the surgery, they met Lieutenant Stalgis waiting in the narrow corridor. He had removed his helmet—revealing a long, lined face that suggested an age much older than his thirty or so years—but like Jacen, he hadn’t had time to fully refresh himself yet.

“How is he?”

“He’s fine,” Jacen reassured him. “He just needs time to recover from the surgery.”