Remnant: Force Heretic I (16 page)

“But Captain—” Keten started.

Yage cut him off sharply. “May I remind you, Commander, that right here and now I outrank you,” she said. “I am ordering you to stand down, and I expect you to comply without debate.”

There was a long pause before Keten finally came back with, “I shall submit to your authority, Captain, but I would like it to go on record that I do so under protest.”

“Duly noted, Commander,” Yage said. “Yage out.”

The armed transport and its contingent of fighters accelerated to a lower orbit, leaving
Jade Shadow
to face the new arrival.

“Requesting permission to dock,
Jade Shadow
,” Captain Yage said over the comm.

“The same Captain Yage Pellaeon told us to look out for,” Luke reminded Mara.

“That’s not the highest recommendation,” Mara said, “but it will have to do.” Speaking into the communicator, she said: “Feel free to match velocities and extend your umbilical, Captain. Welcome aboard.”

Jacen went back through the ship to ready the air lock.
Jade Shadow
was relatively cramped, given the extra
equipment she had been fitted with along with the supplies required for their extended mission. There were five staterooms, a passenger bay, a galley, and a common area leading off a central, looping corridor. The bridge and common room were the diamonds in the corridor’s ring. The main air lock hatch with its dummy door was located on the port side.

As he passed through the passenger bay, he was met by Danni coming the other way.

“Is everything okay?” she asked quickly as he passed.

“Better than it could have been,” he said. “I’m just going to greet the locals now.”

He hesitated at the entrance to the main corridor, looking back at the scientist. So far throughout the trip, Danni hadn’t really had a chance to contribute in any way. He couldn’t blame her for looking and sounding so anxious.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to join me, would you?” he asked.

Her worried expression dissolved into a grateful smile as she followed him out of the passenger bay, obviously pleased to be finally doing something. When they reached the air lock, Jacen double-checked that his lightsaber was at his side, just in case this Captain Yage was not as reliable as Pellaeon had suggested she would be. From the corner of his eye he caught Danni watching him. He faced her fully when he saw the apprehension on her face.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Why do I keep allowing myself to get talked into these things, Jacen?”

He frowned, confused. “I didn’t think I talked you into anything,” he said. “I just thought you might like to come along and greet—”

“No, not here!” she said. “
Here
—on this mission.”

Jacen nodded, understanding the core of her reservations. “The locals can’t be that bad, can they?” He tried to ease her concerns with a smile.

She shrugged. “I’ve never actually met Imperials before. But I do remember the stories my parents used to tell me.” She paused, her eyes flitting nervously from the air lock to Jacen. “They can’t
all
be monsters, can they?”

“No. They’re human, Danni, just like us.” He leaned against the bulkhead next to her, enjoying the momentary quiet the two of them had been granted. “You know, I wonder sometimes what it’ll be like when the war is over. What do you suppose we’ll do when we’re not being asked to do stuff like this?”

“We’ll go back to doing whatever it was we did before all of this started, I guess,” she said.

He laughed a little at this. “It’s been so long now that those days before the Yuuzhan Vong arrived are starting to blur. It gets harder and harder each day to recall just what it was like back then.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” she said. “A break with the past. If we can get the Empire to join up, that’ll make the Galactic Alliance something truly new. Who knows? We might just find galactic unity yet.”

“That’s all well and good,” he said, “but I wonder about the small things, too. What
I’ll
do, not just what happens to the galaxy.”

“You’ll do what Jedi Knights seem to do best,” she said. He studied her for a second. “Which is?”

“Get into trouble, of course,” she said. Despite her nervousness, she forced a smile.

He smiled in return, glad that her mood had lightened. “I’d just as happily settle for a quiet life somewhere. There’s a lot left to think about. A lifetime or two’s worth, in fact.”

“It could get lonely.”

“It could indeed.” He thought it nothing more than a flip comment until his gaze met hers. Suddenly he found it hard to look away.

“Jacen?” Mara’s voice from his comlink snapped him out of it.

“Yeah,” he said, straightening. “I’m here.”

“Ten seconds,” she said. “I’ll disarm the outer hatch when the umbilical is pressurized.”

A moment later a dull thud echoed through the hull as the Imperial transport sealed an umbilical to attach the two craft. Pressure readings on the far side of the air lock rose steadily once the noise died away. Less than a minute later, Jacen heard a gentle hiss as the air lock broke its seal and swung open.

He glanced at Danni. Her face was set in a determined mask, with no sign of the vulnerability he had sensed a moment before. But she tensed noticeably as three people in Imperial uniform stepped through the air lock. The one in the lead, a solidly built woman in her forties with black hair bound tightly into a bun, Jacen assumed to be Captain Yage, with the two male officers following close behind, their blaster rifles at the ready, her bodyguards.

“Welcome aboard
Jade Shadow
,” Jacen said pleasantly, stepping forward. He introduced himself and Danni, keeping his hands respectfully behind his back at all times. Yage bowed perfunctorily to each of them in turn, but made no effort to introduce her male companions. “We’d like to thank you for your assistance back there.”

“Not at all,” the captain said. “I have never been fond of time-wasting bureaucracy—particularly from the likes of officious idiots like Keten.” She smiled tightly. “That’s off the record, of course.”

“Of course.” Jacen waved the guests through to the
common area, where Mara and Luke stood, ready to greet them. Off to one side stood Saba and Tekli. Jacen noted the way Yage’s bodyguards started in alarm at the sight of the enormous Barabel, their rifles rising slightly. Yage was startled also, he was sure, but she was professional enough to suppress any sign of her surprise. Saba rumbled slightly in her throat, and the troopers lowered their weapons.

Yage inclined her head politely to the two nonhumans when introduced, but quickly returned her attention to Luke and Mara.

“So at last I meet the legendary Skywalkers,” she said, stepping forward to shake their hands. “I’ve certainly heard a lot about you.”

“All untrue, I’m sure,” Mara said pleasantly.

“I hope not. Gilad speaks very highly of you both.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard if Grand Admiral Pellaeon has returned from Bastion,” Luke said.

A shadow seemed to pass across Captain Yage’s face. “I’m afraid that Fleet Intelligence is in disarray following the Yuuzhan Vong’s attack.”

“Have you learned anything more about how the enemy managed to do so much damage so quickly?”

“I already know why. We were taken disgracefully off guard by the attack. Our spies had reported that the fleet approaching us was headed for Nirauan, not here at all, but I guess our spies weren’t as reliable as we’d thought. Even so, we should have been ready. Anyone with half a brain should have seen the flaw in the reasoning that, if we hadn’t been attacked yet, we were unlikely to be attacked at all. Our refusal to join with the rest of the galaxy in resisting didn’t make us safe. That type of logic didn’t work for the Hutts, so why should it have worked for us?”

“It seems to me,” Mara said, “that you’re paying the price for the council’s lack of foresight.”

“Perhaps now the Moffs will see reason,” Jacen added.

Yage half turned to look at him. “You think so? You’ve already seen what Moff Flennic thinks of you. He might try to resist the Yuuzhan Vong, but he’ll never join the people who took the Empire away from him.” She looked at each of them in turn, her gaze finally coming to rest on Luke. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To try again to get us to join you. We already have a treaty. What more do you want?”

“Ideally,” Luke said, “we’d like the Empire to become part of the Galactic Alliance—but that’s one for our respective legal representatives to argue out. For now we’d simply like us to agree to help each other before we continue on with—”

“We can fight well enough without your help,” Yage quickly pointed out. She may have been more courteous and diplomatic than Keten, but she still carried the Imperial pride. “We’re ready for them now.”

“You won’t get far using your existing techniques,” Mara said. “Our greatest minds have been working on a way to counterattack using the yammosks that make the Yuuzhan Vong so hard to beat. We can give you those techniques—”

“In exchange for what?” the captain interrupted, a slight suspicion gently curling the corners of her mouth.

“Absolutely nothing,” Luke said. “I’m not a diplomat, Captain. I’m a Jedi, I stand for life and peace, and I would never hold anything back for the sake of political point scoring. I’d rather get about the business of saving lives.”

A thrill went through Jacen at his uncle and former teacher’s words. They rang true to the new philosophy of
the Force that he was trying to determine. Captain Yage, however, was not as easily impressed, and raised a skeptical eyebrow at the Jedi Master.

“Don’t Yuuzhan Vong lives count to you, Jedi?” she asked.

Luke didn’t recoil from her response. “The Yuuzhan Vong are the aggressors, and our help won’t guarantee their defeat. What you do with this information is up to you.”

“To be honest, Skywalker, if it
was
up to me, I’d use it quite happily,” she said. “But things will be grim without Gilad to champion your cause. The hard-liners will always believe that the Empire in its glory days could have withstood the invaders with ease, and that your weakening of our strength has led directly to our destruction. If destroyed we must be, then we will go down with pride.” Her voice was steeped in bitterness. “The last refugees from Bastion arrived some time ago. We’re not expecting any more. If Gilad had survived, I’m sure he would have been here by now. With that in mind, you might be better off assuming that he won’t be here to help you.”

The mood in
Jade Shadow
turned instantly grim. “Then we shall need to make alternative plans,” Luke said. “We’ll need to talk to Flennic, even if he’s not prepared to listen to us. Can you get us to him without turning us over to the likes of Keten?”

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I can try,” she said. “With Gilad out of the way, the anti-Galactic Alliance forces will be in ascendance. Add to that the fact that the Moff Council will be in tatters after the attacks on Bastion and Muunilinst, and you’ll see why I hesitate to guarantee you anything at the—” She stopped as her comlink buzzed. “Excuse me.”

Captain Yage turned away to take the call, exchanging a few simple words with the person on the other end. Before she had finished talking, before he had even seen her face, Jacen knew something was wrong. He could sense a powerful emotion radiating from her.

“What’s gone wrong?” he asked when she clipped the comlink back on her belt.

“That was my second in command on
Widowmaker
,” she said. “A shuttle just made it from Bastion containing injured ferried from
Chimaera.
” Her troubled eyes met Luke’s. “Gilad was on board.”

“That’s good news, isn’t it?” Jacen said.

She shook her head. “Not really,” she said. “He’s in a coma, and he’s not expected to live.”

Anakin’s mother came to see Tahiri the day before the
Millennium Falcon
was due to leave on its mission to patch up the communications gaps in Galactic Alliance space. Jacen and the others had left two days earlier, leaving a surprising hole in Tahiri’s life. Since she’d learned that she had been intended for that mission, she felt as though she had let everyone down. She wasn’t doing much to help the war effort by huddling in Master Cilghal’s infirmary, that was for sure. Jaina came when she could, but she was too busy organizing Twin Suns’ departure to be wasting time with the sick. Anakin’s sister had said it was not a problem, and that she didn’t mind taking time out to visit Tahiri, but Tahiri felt guilty nonetheless for inconveniencing her. She had caused Jaina enough trouble as it was.

So when the Mon Calamari nurse announced that Princess Leia herself had dropped by to visit, Tahiri was more than a little surprised—as well as embarrassed.

“How are you feeling?” Anakin’s mother pulled up a
seat and sat close to the edge of Tahiri’s bed. Mon Cal’s sun was setting, sending brilliant colors through the window and across the middle-aged stateswoman. There were many lines on her face, but they came from laughter and kindness and compassion. It was easy to see why Han Solo loved her. She was still very much a beautiful woman, with her eyes being her most outstanding feature. And whenever Tahiri looked into those eyes, she felt she could see Anakin staring back at her.

“I’m fine, thank you,” Tahiri lied, blinking back the tears that were welling up.

Leia narrowed her eyes in friendly accusation.

Tahiri relented with a smile. “Okay,” she said. “It’s true that I have seen better days. I’ll admit that much. But I’m just more tired than anything else. Even the small trip to see
Jade Shadow
off kind of took it out of me.” She shrugged. “Other than that, I think I’m doing all right.”

“There’s no rush,” Leia said. “The important thing is that you get well. Cilghal tells me that you’ve put on weight, which is good news. She believes that your weight loss constitutes the total of your physical symptoms. Once you think you’re ready, you’re free to leave.” She paused, allowing space for Tahiri to speak. When nothing was said after a few seconds, Leia asked, “Do you think you’re ready?”