Star by Star (81 page)

“This one shall keep the information in mind,” Tesar said. “And also where it came from.”

Tesar passed his minicannon to Ganner, then removed his jumpsuit and slipped over the rim of the basin on all fours. His rough scales camouflaged him against the yorik coral’s dark background, and he moved with such slow reptilian grace that it immediately grew difficult to pick him out.

Jacen filled his mind with an image of his cramped cell in the Shadow Academy and allowed himself to feel again the terror of the kidnapping, his fear and confusion when he realized he no longer controlled his own destiny. Never far from the surface even this many years after the event—and perhaps made more accessible by his anguish over Anakin’s loss—the emotions returned easily. When a cold sweat began to bead on his forehead, he reached out to the voxyn, infusing her with his own feelings, urging her to flee.

The voxyn screeched and sent two escorts reeling despite the protective membranes in their ears, then turned to run and found a third warrior blocking her way. She snatched him up and bit him cleanly in two. The shaper raced after her, calling out commands, trying to calm her. Jacen urged the beast not to trust her “tormentor.” She whirled and spat acid, but the shaper was quick enough to dodge and let one of his escorts be hit instead.

Jacen unclipped his lightsaber. “I’ll need to concentrate on the voxyn, so we have to do this without the battle meld. May the Force be with you, my friends.”

Taking her own lightsaber in hand, Tenel Ka stepped over to kiss him—and was cut off by Vergere.

“And with you, Jacen Solo.” The little creature shooed him down the slope. “Now go, before your quarry escapes.”

Jacen looked over her to Tenel Ka and rolled his eyes, then flashed the Dathomiri a lopsided grin and pushed up his breath mask. Using the Force to descend the basin’s inner rim in two bounds, he landed undetected behind the last stunned escort. Thinking he could knock the lurching warrior unconscious rather than kill him, he reached out to pull off the Yuuzhan Vong’s helmet—and saw his mistake when the fellow spun on him.

Jacen thumbed his activation switch. The weapon sprang to life in front of the approaching arm and severed it at the elbow, but losing a limb would never stop a Yuuzhan Vong. Jacen turned his weapon ninety degrees and drew the blade across his foe’s neck. The warrior collapsed in a heap.

“
Jacen
?” The voice on the comlink belonged not to Jaina, but to Zekk. “That you?”

“Who else?” Jacen continued forward, tried not to be disappointed that he wasn’t talking to Jaina. “What’s your condition?”

“A few injuries, but everybody’s stable,” Zekk reported. “We have Lowbacca—and Anakin’s body.”

“And Jaina?” Jacen asked, concerned by what Zekk left unsaid.

Zekk paused, no doubt surprised Jacen would need to ask. “She’s here, Jacen.”

Something in Zekk’s tone hinted at the cold darkness Jacen found whenever he reached out to his sister, but he was happy enough for now to hear she was still alive. “Good. Wait there—somebody’s coming for you.”

Jacen risked a glance at the frigate. Whether or not the ramp guards realized who he was, the sudden appearance of a single Jedi had proved too much of a temptation. Leaving one warrior on-station, the other three were racing after him, amphistaffs in hand. Behind them, Tesar Sebatyne’s dark figure was creeping into the shadows beneath the frigate’s nose, gathering himself to pounce on the last sentry.

Jacen raced after the shaper and fleeing voxyn. The minicannon roared once, then twice, and two of his pursuers fell. The third dropped under a torrent of T-21 bolts. Jacen did not even
look back. By now, Tesar would be boarding the frigate, the others rushing to join him.

The voxyn pulled away fast, the shaper less so. Jacen reached out with the Force, this time to soothe the voxyn. Not a chance. With plasma balls bursting and lasers flashing just a few hundred meters away, the queen continued to run. He tried to call her hunting instincts into play. No good either. Where her clones were trained to stalk Jedi, she was trained only to preserve her own life. Jacen pulled one of two thermal detonators from his belt, thumbed the fuse to the first click, and used the Force to hurl it into her path.

The queen whirled away from the silver ball, found her handler in the way, and slapped him aside. Jacen saw an arm fly in one direction and the rest of the shaper tumble in another, then the voxyn was racing toward him, head rising to belch acid. He activated his lightsaber and charged to meet her.

She disgorged her acid at three paces. Jacen launched into an airborne round-off, and the brown spray shot past below. Then the detonator crackled behind him, and he found himself swinging at empty air. He landed lightly and sprang into a half twist that brought him around facing the same direction as before, and his heart rose into his throat. No voxyn, only the brilliant flash of the detonator shrinking in on itself. Blinded, Jacen brought his lightsaber around in a block-and-slash and reached out to locate his quarry.

She was off to the side, moving away slowly. He blinked the dazzle from his eyes and found her crawling out onto the basal-comb, angling away from the battle, angling away from Jacen, her body so broad she had to straddle the wall between the cells. He left his T-21 slung on his shoulder and started after her. He had only a handful of shots remaining, and the bolts would not penetrate her thick scales anyway.

Tenel Ka’s voice crackled over the comlink. “Frigate secured. We have a way home, but also a complication.”

Lowbacca rumbled a question.

“
How
does not matter,” Tenel Ka replied. “When we found the communications officer, he was in contact with the spaceport.”

Jacen groaned inwardly, then asked, “Vergere?”

“She said she had no wish to be atomized, then departed,” Tenel Ka said. “She seems to be following you.”

“Check. You hurry.” Jacen reached the basal-comb and had to slow. The walls between cells were a half meter wide, but so steeply crowned that running over them was like running on a board’s edge. “Shuttle first.”

“Us?” Zekk complained. “You
do
know the Yuuzhan Vong are chasing you?”

Jacen had no time to look. He was gaining on the queen. “Shuttle first,” he repeated. “I have to finish here.”

The voxyn stopped at the next cell convergence, where the walls met to form a sort of island, then whirled. Jacen leapt across the dovin basal and landed at her rear flank, tottering and activating his lightsaber. The voxyn screeched, but could not bring her head around far enough to assault Jacen. He danced forward and brought his blade down behind her forward leg.

Internal organs began to slip from the gap, leaking blood into the air and filling it with toxic fumes. Jacen slashed sideways, taking the second leg off at the joint, then thrust deep and brought the blade up. The voxyn pulled away, retreating onto the adjacent wall so she could turn on him. He leapt across to stay behind her—then heard a razor bug droning in his direction.

Jacen dropped into a squat and brought his weapon up to block, and the bug crackled out of existence. The voxyn continued to retreat until she could face him again. Jacen launched himself into a back flip and came down on the cramped convergence behind him, dared to glance away from the queen.

The stolen frigate was already sweeping across the basin toward the crashed shuttle, the forward ramp hanging open for quick boarding. Nom Anor and his warriors were within a hundred meters now, some staring up at the stolen frigate with gaping jaws, others still crawling toward Jacen, but all too distant to have thrown the razor bug.

A shiver of danger sense drew Jacen’s attention in the opposite direction. He turned and saw a large Yuuzhan Vong flying at him across the cell.

“No,
Jeedai
!” The figure extended a single arm.

Jacen swept his lightsaber up and cut the fellow through at the
waist and did not even recognize him as the shaper until an eight-fingered hand caught hold of his breath mask and nearly jerked him over. He lowered his head, and the breath mask came off. The Yuuzhan Vong’s torso tumbled into the cell beside him, angry eyes glaring up, and barely touched the dovin basal before the creature reacted with its only defense. A tiny gravitic singularity sprang into existence, then the shaper’s corpse collapsed in on itself and disappeared in a flash of dancing color.

The acrid smell of toxic blood reminded Jacen of the peril he faced without a breath mask. He looked up to find the queen staring at him from two meters away, eyes expressionless and black, the Force heavy with her grim resolve. The creature knew why he was here. She was not angry, not hateful—only determined to save herself. Jacen did not want to kill her—he had never wanted to kill any animal. Perhaps she sensed that in him.

Jacen’s head started to spin. He had to finish this. Flicking his lightsaber to hold the creature’s attention, he dropped his free hand toward his last thermal detonator. The queen came bounding. He pulled the detonator off his harness. She stretched forward to snap at his head, then surprised him with a claw to the shoulder.

The talons bit deep, launched him off his perch. The detonator flew, inactivated, from his hand, and the dovin basal appeared beneath him, rising fast. He whipped his legs over his head, flinging himself to the opposite side of the cell. Landing dizzy and off balance, Jacen continued in the same direction, this time flipping higher to buy more time.

He came down on his heels, vision closing, nostrils burning. He fell backward onto a convergence. His shoulder was throbbing already, but at least it still supported the weight of an arm.

A trio of coralskippers streaked past overhead, their noses pouring plasma balls toward the center of the basin. Coughing, fighting to stay conscious, Jacen sat up and saw the stolen frigate lumbering skyward beneath the bombardment. It launched a magma missile, which vanished into a shielding singularity the instant it neared a skip. With a large-enough crew, the frigate would overwhelm the smaller craft easily. With a handful of Jedi, it would be torn apart piecemeal.

Jacen activated his comlink, but was interrupted by a familiar burping sound. He rolled over his good shoulder and came unsteadily to his feet. A fan of brown mucus landed where he had been lying, then the voxyn began to advance. The acrid stench of her blood staggered him, made his lungs burn and his head spin, and nearly sent him tumbling down onto a dovin basal.

The queen reached the convergence and stopped. They were separated now by a sizzling pool of her acid. Jacen brought his lightsaber to middle guard, tip angled forward, his wounded arm hanging limp. Behind the voxyn, the hundred-meter bulk of a yorik coral corvette swept in and cut him off from the rest of the strike team. They were battling now, his friends and a whole flotilla of arriving Yuuzhan Vong.

A wave of nausea dropped Jacen to a knee. Eager to press the advantage, the voxyn gathered herself to spring.

A thermal detonator splashed into the pool of acid. The fuse had not been activated, but that was all Jacen saw before the silver casing sank into the sludge.

“Could that be important?” Vergere called. She was coming toward him, thin arms extended for balance. “I saw you drop it.”

Jacen’s jaw fell. “How did you—”

“No time.”

Vergere pointed. The voxyn was scrambling along the edge of the convergence, fleeing the silver sphere. The detonator could never ignite without a properly set fuse, but what did the queen know about detonators? All spheres of shiny silver were spheres to be feared.

Jacen sprang feet-first, caught the queen dead center, heels driving high into her ribs, forcing her over the edge. She dug her claws deep into the yorik coral and saved herself. Jacen landed beside her, hard, and the breath left his burning lungs. The darkness began to rise inside him.

No,
tried
to rise. He stabbed his lightsaber into the yorik coral and began to cut it from beneath the queen’s claws. Still intent on escaping the detonator, she released her front leg and reached for the adjacent wall, then her support began to crumble, and her front quarters slipped into the cell. She brought her tail around, the poisonous barb driving for Jacen’s neck. He ducked behind
his wounded shoulder, took the tip in an open gash, felt venom pulsing into his torn flesh. Hot. Stinging.

Too weak to kick, Jacen pushed with the Force. Another leg came free. The queen, also weakened by injury, slipped deeper. A foot grazed the dovin basal, then she was plummeting over the edge, collapsing in on herself, shrinking out of sight.

Jacen did not see the final flash of color. The barb tore free of his shoulder, and he was overwhelmed by dizziness, collapsing backward onto the convergence. Something began to sizzle, and his hand began to burn, then someone lifted his arm and propped him up.

There came a terrible thunder overhead, a firestorm so bright it lit the darkness behind Jacen’s closed eyelids. He heard a voice calling—a voice he had known all his life, yet one that now seemed as alien as that of any Yuuzhan Vong.

“Jacen?” A pause, cold and demanding. “Jacen, answer me!”

A delicate hand brushed back Jacen’s hair, took the comlink from his head. “You can do nothing for Jacen now,” a second voice said—also familiar. “Save yourselves.”

“Vergere?” the first voice demanded. “Is that you? I want to talk to my brother—”

The demand was clicked silent. Jacen opened his eyes and saw a delicate, four-fingered hand flinging his headset into the air. In the sky far above raged a battle, a Yuuzhan Vong frigate trying to blast through a screen of Yuuzhan Vong corvettes.

Jacen was confused, but only for a moment. The frigate was Nom Anor’s, stolen by his friends, now trying to reach him. He struggled upright and saw a one-eyed Yuuzhan Vong leading several dozen warriors through a rain of plasma balls and magma missiles. Toward him. He tried to roll, found himself restrained by a four-fingered hand.

“No.” Despite the apparent frailty of the hand, its strength was irresistible—at least in Jacen’s condition. It took his lightsaber from his grasp, then unclipped Anakin’s from his equipment harness and took that one as well. “You have won your battles. Now you pay.”