Reunion (41 page)

The Sullustan looked offended at the suggestion that it might not. “Of course! Why?”

“That means the outer lock can’t open if there’s a breach in the inner lock.” She snapped on her lightsaber. “Stand back.”

Her bodyguards and the Sullustan moved to the far side of the air lock bay. Leia raised her lightsaber and channeled all her energy along it. She would need every iota of strength she had to drill through a half-meter-thick transparisteel sheet.

Yellow-hot sparks flew in all directions as she brought the tip of her lightsaber in contact with the window. A trickle of molten transparisteel ran down the surface, and she felt the blade sink slowly into it, one centimeter at a time. The Ugnaught looked up and hastened his efforts to escape, but she didn’t let herself think about him. His actions were beyond her control right now; she had to focus solely upon the job at hand. She narrowed her awareness down to the blade itself, sending her will in waves down to the very tip as it worked its way through the transparisteel. There she concentrated on breaking chemical bonds, setting chunks of complex materials free, burning deeper and deeper. Her being dissolved in that fire until she seemed no longer to exist. Everything hinged on one incredibly simple task, and she
became
that task. There was nothing else of her left.

An alarm sounding in her ears dragged her reluctantly back to her physical surroundings, thinking she’d made it through the window and thereby activated the breach failsafes. But there was still resistance at the end of her lightsaber. She looked up from the glow of her blade and saw red warning lights flashing, but they weren’t from
any alarm she had triggered. The exterior air lock was open and the air lock was empty.

She couldn’t believe her eyes. It wasn’t possible! Yet there it was, undeniable. The Ugnaught had escaped, leaving the door jammed open behind him so they couldn’t follow. The same failsafes that might have stopped the traitor now stopped
her
. She couldn’t open the inner door while the outer was ajar. All of her efforts had been for nothing.… She deactivated her lightsaber.

“Can you move the base without Ashpidar’s authorization?” she said, turning to the engineer.

“Yes, but—”

“Just do it. Get it out of here now! It doesn’t matter where. I’ll get the
Falcon
moving, too, perhaps as a decoy. Any chance at all is better than none!”

Gantree blinked wide, frightened eyes at her. Leia sensed the Sullustan’s fear, but she didn’t have time to reassure her. If they were going to save the relay base then—

Something clattering in the air lock distracted her. She turned in unison with the Sullustan to see that the Ugnaught had returned. Through the thick, Esfandian air that had filled the chamber it was hard to tell exactly what was going on, but it looked as though he’d tripped headlong over the threshold and now lay sprawled faceup on the floor. As Leia watched, he struggled to his feet, edging away from the open air lock with his back to the window. Seconds later, Leia saw the cause of his fear.

A human-shaped figure in an enviro-suit stepped into the air lock, a glowing violet lightsaber raised, ready to strike.

Relief tightened Leia’s throat. “Jaina!”

“I came as soon as I could,” came her daughter’s voice over the intercom.

“You felt me?”

“Felt that something was wrong. I homed in on you
just in time to catch this little one trying to set up his pet villip.”

At that moment, the Ugnaught feinted and made a break for the door. Jaina gestured with her free hand and he flew against a wall, arms and legs spread wide.

Another figure appeared in the door. Leia sensed the two talking to each other, although she couldn’t tap into their internal comm system without wearing a suit of her own.

“Droma says there’s something going on above,” Jaina said as the two of them worked at the obstruction holding the external door open. “Looks like the fighting’s started again. We’ll let ourselves in while you go check to see if Pellaeon’s sent some telemetry.”

Leia nodded, her relief at the timely rescue turning once again to worry. Whatever had broken the stalemate, it couldn’t bode well for the Imperial forces. They were still outnumbered.

Besides, this wasn’t the way the plan was supposed to go. If Jaina and the others had successfully destroyed the transponder tower, making it look as if the relay base had been destroyed, there should be no reason for Commander Vorrik to stick around any longer. He could leave, mission accomplished and honor intact, leaving the Galactic Alliance to sift through the wreckage. So why was he still here?

The crisis with the villip safely averted, her thoughts turned out to the rest of the planet, and beyond. The battle may have been won, but the course of the war was still very much to be decided.

Something anxious and troubling chewed at her stomach. What had gone wrong?

A chill went down Jacen’s spine.

“You’ve decided to fight,” he said, trying to fathom the words coming from his former teacher with the same
veneration as if Vergere herself were speaking. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

“That is not what I said.” Sekot turned on him and fixed him with a piercing stare. “I said that I had a choice, and that I have tried both of the options already. I fought off the Far Outsiders. Then, I fled the fire of the inner galaxy, seeking the outer darkness so that I might be alone—so that I might be safe. And for many years I was just that. Then you came to disturb my peace.”

“The Yuuzhan Vong came first,” he reminded the living planet.

“You both invade my Sanctuary.”

“But with different intentions.”

The image of Vergere’s feathered eyebrows went up in surprise. “You presume a lot, young Jedi,” Sekot said. “Without knowing what the Far Outsiders said to me, what they demanded of me, or what they tried to take from me, you seem confident to speak of their intentions.”

Jacen bowed his head apologetically. “You’re right, of course.” He raised his eyes to meet those of Vergere. “Nevertheless, you must have seen something different about us. You allowed us to land, after all; the Yuuzhan Vong you simply destroyed.”

“The Jedi have never openly meant me harm, and I have learned much from you in the past. There is much I have left to learn, and you can help with that, under the right circumstances. Many people here remember your kind, and would have been keen to have you here, but for your war.”

“We’re here in search of peace, not war,” Jacen said, injecting every word with as much sincerity as he could muster.

“How can I give you peace?”

Jacen shook his head. This was the question that had haunted him ever since his teacher’s death “I don’t know,”
he admitted. “But there has to be something, otherwise Vergere would never have sent us in the first place.”

“I could give you weapons to help you fight your war,” Sekot said. “The Far Outsiders are invisible to the life flows that the first Magister called the Potentium and that you Jedi call the Force, but that does not make them utter abominations. Ever since their first attack, I have been examining fragments of destroyed vessels, seeking to understand the principles by which they operate.”

“Back-engineering their technology,” Danni said.

“Precisely. Much that I found was confusing and disturbing, but I took what I could and made it my own. My living ships and weapons bear similarities to those of the Far Outsiders, and few of their weaknesses.”

Jacen felt his breath catch in his throat. Was this why Vergere had sent them to Sekot? Part of him was excited by the thought of beating the Yuuzhan Vong at their own game, but it didn’t ring true with what he remembered of his teacher. He doubted she had intended for them to find superweapons to help destroy the Yuuzhan Vong. A deeper understanding of their enemy, yes, and perhaps a new weakness, but not another means of wreaking slaughter.

“What’s wrong, Jacen?” Sekot asked him. “You don’t look pleased.”

“I guess I’m not,” he said. “I don’t think that’s why we’re here.”

“You’re not here to get our help in the war?” Jabitha asked.

“We are, yes. But not like that.”

“Then how? What else do we have to offer you?”

“I don’t
know.
”

The image of his teacher crooked one eye higher than the other in a distinctly avian gesture. “I am a force unlike anything you have come across before,” Sekot said. “Are you trying to tell me that were I to offer myself as a
weapon in your fight against the Far Outsiders, you would turn me down?”

Jacen felt Saba and Danni staring at him, and for a moment two words warred with his thoughts.

Yes
—because he was tired of death and destruction and the endless cycle of violence. A military victory for the Galactic Alliance would require the utter genocide of the Yuuzhan Vong species. How could he possibly live with himself if he was in any way responsible for something like that?

And
no
—because he could see no other way to defend those he loved. If there was no other option but military might, he couldn’t stand by and watch his friends and family be slaughtered. His conscience would be clear to turn down the offer of such a weapon, he knew, but what was a moral victory if in the end it meant the deaths of trillions?

The weight of the future might rest heavily upon what he would say next, yet Jacen felt incredibly small at that moment. With a word he could change the course of the war, and therefore the destiny of his people.

“Well?” Sekot prompted. “What is your answer?”

“No.”

The word seemed to echo in Luke’s mind as he imagined generations of children who might not live if the Galactic Alliance failed in the fight against the Yuuzhan Vong—children such as his own son, Ben. He saw every species of the galaxy enslaved to the biological slave machine of Supreme Overlord Shimrra—every cell screaming rebellion, but every limb yoked in an endless cycle of pain and despair. With such images in his mind, could he really afford to turn down the means to the galaxy’s salvation that Sekot might bring?

“You
would
accept such an offer?” said the image of
Anakin Skywalker, face tipped forward as though seeking reassurance that he’d heard correctly.

Luke nodded slowly, deliberately. “I would.”

But even as he spoke the words, he couldn’t help but wonder if, in accepting the offer, he might be straying too close to the dark side, or encouraging Sekot to do so …

“Then consider the offer made,” Sekot said, smiling broadly.

Behind Luke, the Ferroans gasped as one. This they hadn’t expected—and neither had Luke.

“What about all this talk about wanting peace and to be left alone?” Mara asked. She made no attempt to hide her suspicions.

“I still desire those things,” Sekot said. “I just know that I cannot have them here, or while the Far Outsiders trouble this galaxy. So my offer is for my benefit as much as it is your own.”

“But, Sekot,” Rowel spluttered, “what of
Sanctuary
?”

“Sanctuary has already been irreparably shattered,” Sekot answered. “You see, the escape of the coralskipper from the moon M-Three was not entirely fiction. One vessel
did
manage to escape my net during the attack, and we must presume that that ship is returning to its masters to report on my whereabouts.”

The words provoked a look of both horror and surprise on the faces of Darak and Rowel. Horror for Sekot’s decision to help the Jedi, and surprise, perhaps, because even their godlike planet had not been able to prevent one of the enemy’s ships from escaping.

Sekot must have seen this in their expressions, too.

“I guess I am not as all-powerful as you think me,” it said to the Ferroans. To Mara and Luke it added: “Nor you. Is that a sobering thought?”

Pellaeon observed the demise of the transponder with something approaching satisfaction. The explosion showed
as a white-hot dimple bulging up through the dense atmosphere, accompanied by a sharp electromagnetic crack. It was unmistakable, even through the flash and scatter of the battle above.

Now, Vorrik
, he thought.
Let’s see what you’re really made of. Will you turn tail and flee, or have I stung your pride enough to make you stay around, for one final humiliation
?

Kur-hashan
seemed to hover, indecisive, as the news sunk in. Pellaeon wondered what was going through the commander’s mind. What secret agenda had been confounded? Pellaeon didn’t doubt there was one. Expending so much energy to knock out a single communications nexus just didn’t make sense. They could have destroyed it days ago simply by pounding the surface of the planet back to molten slag. That they hadn’t could only mean one thing: they wanted the base intact.

Pellaeon smiled as
Kur-hashan
began to come about, preparing for all-out attack.

“Send the signal,” he instructed his aide. “I think it’s been long enough.”

Secrets within secrets …

Imperial and Yuuzhan Vong forces clashed anew, a thousand bright flashes lighting up the dark world below. TIE fighter hunted coralskipper; capital ships turned their prodigious energies against each other; shields burned a million different colors, dissipating deadly forces in all directions. From the planet below, the skies of Esfandia would be burning bright, as they never had before.

Pellaeon stood firm on the bridge as
Kur-hashan
bore down on him. The hideous, mottled hull grinned like a dreadful death mask. He imagined Vorrik’s rage and anticipation building behind it. An infidel might defy the great commander, but victory in the end was assured. As far as Vorrik would have been concerned, it was only a
matter of time before his superior forces swept those in his path to the edges of the universe, like dust.

A ripple of worry spread across the bridge. For the briefest of moments, Pellaeon wondered if Vorrik might be right, if he hadn’t miscalculated the timing or gotten the message wrong. A thousand and one things could have gone awry, which was why he hadn’t shared the truth with anyone but his aide.

Then, just as the grinning skull of
Kur-hashan
seemed to bulge out of the screen at him, a telemetry officer spoke up.