Luke didn"t notice. A strange bliss had fallen on him.
Now everything changes, he thought.
"It"s the turning point." The words fell from his lips without volition. And even as he spoke, he came to the realization that he didn"t know the place, amid all the great stars of the universe, from whence the words had come.
Chapter 4.
Jaina Solo sat alone at the controls of her ship, the tendrils of the alien hood fixed to her face. Her attention was focused on the ship"s displays, where she expected her quarry to appear.
Her quarry was Shimrra, Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong.
Kill this one, she hoped, and the Yuuzhan Vong invaders might fall like a house of cards.
Word had flashed from New Republic Intelligence only three standard days earlier that the Supreme Overlord was expected at the library world of Obroa-skai. Obroa-skai had been conquered, and the contents of the library were now being translated into the Yuuzhan Vong language. Yuuzhan Vong priests had been placed in charge of the library; there were Yuuzhan Vong soldiers on the ground to protect their interests. Yuuzhan Vong ships were common in the system, and the planet was home to a yammosk that would coordinate any alien pilots in the area.
If anyone consulted the library any longer, it was the enemy.
Possibly Shimrra himself was coming to view a critical piece of information that had just been translated. Obroa-skai had become an enemy a.s.set.
And if Jaina had her way, it would become an enemy graveyard.
So Jaina hovered here, with the bulk of the gas giant Obroa-held masking her from any detectors on the library planet, and waited to spring her trap.
Just this one last effort, she thought, and maybe it"s all over. If Shimrra were killed, the Yuuzhan Vong might collapse. And even if the enemy didn"t fall apart, Shimrra"s death would serve as revenge for the fall of Coruscant, and give the New Republic a much-needed breathing s.p.a.ce.
Jaina badly wanted an end to the war. She had been on the front lines literally since the first day. Then she had been joyful, confident, certain of her abilities, of the power of the Force and the order of the universe. Since then the war had taught her much. It had taught her doubt, terror, anxiety, fear, and anger. She had learned the limits to the Force, and to Force mastery.. The war had shown her the darkness that lay within her, and how easy it had been for the darkness to overcome her, to drive her to fury, vengeance, and slaughter.
Most of all, the war had taught her sorrow. Sorrow for her lost brothers Jacen and Anakin, for Chewbacca, for her wingmate Anni Capstan, for the Hapan Queen Mother Teneniel Djo, for all the warriors who had died fighting alongside her, for the Jedi lost to the Yuuzhan Vong"s relentless program of extermination, for the billions of nameless refugees who had been caught in the conflict and destroyed, or dispossessed of all they had owned or known.
She had learned her own fragility. She had been blinded in battle and learned the frustration of the invalid. She had been captured by the enemy. She had learned how easy it was for her to die, and how easily the universe would permit such a thing.
Jaina had learned too much, and in too short a time. She needed a rest in order to try to understand it all, to reconcile herself to her new knowledge and to her new reality.
But there was no time to rest. Her work was too critical, her expertise too necessary. She would have to win the war first, and then work out what it all meant.
If, of course, the war didn"t kill her first.
There was a howl from Lowbacca on her comlink.
"The Vong have been late before, Streak." Though not often enough, she thought.
[You don"t suppose that New Republic Intelligence has once again drop-kicked their brains and sent us out here for nothing?]
"That wouldn"t surprise me."
[In which case we can return to base, take a nice long rest, no?]
"That would, surprise me."
"Huuuh."
"But if New Republic Intelligence is rightT Jaina said, more to herself than to her lieutenant, "then this is it. This is like the destruction of the second Death Star, with the Emperor on it."
"Hrr." [Then let the Supreme Overlord come!]
Even as Lowbacca growled his impatience, Jaina sensed a distant trembling through her connection with the alien frigate, a shudder like a groundquake in the ether, her ship"s dovin basals responding to the gravity surge that marked the arrival of a great many ships from hypers.p.a.ce.
"Lowie," she said, "I think you just got your wish."
She had not learned to love the captured Yuuzhan Vong frigate as she had her other ships. Jaina had learned her ships through her hands, by tearing them apart and putting them back together: she had learned to love every component, every servo, every power cable, every rivet. The captured ship, on the other hand, couldn"t be taken apart, not without killing it: it was a single organic whole and had to be approached as such. The interface through the cognition hood was difficult, the organic ship systems were complex and frustrating, the dovin basals used for propulsion and defense were as baffling as they were effective. Her other craft had been fighter craft: agile, fast, and responsive. The Yuuzhan Vong frigate Trickster was huge, and though it was fast, maneuvering it was like maneuvering a city block. Changing course seemed to take forever. And there was no way to dodge or evade enemy fire: she just had to hope that the ship"s defenses were strong enough to take the hits and survive.
But if she couldn"t love the frigate, she had learned to respect it. She respected its toughness, the wholeness of its design, its ability to repair itself, its stubborn refusal to die even when it had been shot to pieces in combat against its own kind. In fighting around Hapes, the ship had been wounded almost to the death, but somehow, with the care of the Hapan scientists who were studying Yuuzhan Vong life-forms, it had survived and repaired much of the damage, though not all. Yet despite the fact that some of the ship"s damage was beyond repair, despite the torn yorik coral and the dovin basals that had died, it was still as willing as ever to risk itself at Jaina"s behest.
Jaina named it Trickster. The name proclaimed her a manifestation of Yun-Harla, the Cloaked One, the Yuuzhan Vong Trickster G.o.ddess. As such the name was a slap in the face to Yuuzhan Vong religious orthodoxy.
Though the guise had proved useful-at both Hapes and Borleias, it had given her a clear tactical advantage-it also only added to the considerable number of enemy who wanted very badly to kill her.
A thought at which she could only shrug. So what else was new?
"Let"s go, Lowie."
Lowbacca, through his alien cognition hood, ordered Trickster to accelerate, sweeping out from behind the Obroa-held gas giant and into view of any enemy detectors. Directed gravitational energy began to throb from the dovin basals built into the frigate, and even though some of the dovin basals had been killed at Hapes, the huge living craft began a ferocious, smooth acceleration that any New Republic vessel would be hard put to equal.
Jaina followed this call with a coded message sent through the New Republic subs.p.a.ce communicator that Lowbacca had implanted in the frigate. Target arrived. Let"s start the party.
It was only then that Trickster"s sensors got a full reading on the fleet that had just arrived in the Obroa-skai system.
Jaina felt the hairs on the back of her neck p.r.i.c.kle as she looked at the display. Eight frigates the size of her own. Two huge transport craft. More coralskippers and picket ships than she could count.
And one enormous ovoid vessel, glowing in the displays like a burning, unwinking eye. Not as big as a worldship, but larger than anything else in the Obroa-skai system other than planets and moons.
The personal command ship of Supreme Overlord Shimrra, Jaina thought. Oh yes. New Republic Intelligence was right.
Another wave of gravity pulsed over the ship. These were the commands of the yammosk, the Yuuzhan Vong war coordinator that executed the will of the enemy commander. Lowbacca allowed Trickster to obey the yammosk"s commands to alter course for the enemy, but slowly, as if the frigate were damaged, or unable clearly to understand its instructions.
The yammosk no doubt verified that the frigate was damaged, a fact that would make its lack of communication with the fleet more convincing.
And then the party started. Dropping out of hypers.p.a.ce, as if they"d been following Trickster, came the forces of the New Republic.
Nine flights of fighters. Four Corellian gunships. Three Kuat Systems Republic-cla.s.s cruisers. A refurbished Lancer-cla.s.s frigate captured from the Empire during the Rebellion. And two MC80B Mon Calamari cruisers, both wildly different in appearance but possessing a world-shattering complement of turbolasers, ion cannons, and their own ten squadrons of fighters, all of which now came boiling like swarms of stinging insects from their scalloped hulls. All under the command of General Keyan Farlander, the Agamarian hero of the Rebellion, and all appearing just behind Jaina, with the Obroa-held gas giant only partially masking their appearance.
This, Jaina thought exultantly, is a real battle.
And they were following her plan. Hers. For a moment her own fierce joy overcame all doubt, and she basked in the glorious sensation of power. Shimrra, you better watch out.
The New Republic forces had been hovering just four light-hours, waiting for Jama"s signal to make the smallest possible hypers.p.a.ce jump into the Obroa-skai system. They appeared slightly out of range of Trickster, as if they"d misjudged their return to normal s.p.a.ce. It should look to Supreme Overlord Shimrra like a perfect chance to ambush the ambushers.
More commands came from the yammosk, too many and too complex for Jaina to even attempt to decode. Through the weird perceptions gained through her hood, she saw the enemy fleet deploying, the heavy ships rolling ponderously into position behind darting swarms of coralskippers that flashed like schools of fish against the blackness of s.p.a.ce, all moving with the simultaneity and impossible precision gained from coordination with the yammosk"s controlling intelligence.
But they were doing what Jaina had hoped they would do. Perhaps encouraged by their modest advantage in firepower, they were maneuvering to engage the New Republic forces.
Jaina had feared that if the New Republic fleet had simply leapt into the system and attacked, the Yuuzhan Vong would have clumped up around Shimrra"s command ship, and the New Republic forces would never have been able to get to the enemy leader. But instead the damaged Trickster"s leaping first into the system made it seem as if the New Republic, not the Yuuzhan Vong, had been surprised, that they had jumped into the system in pursuit of a wounded frigate and found instead a task force.
The Yuuzhan Vong war psychology was based on attack, on the calculated ferocity of an all-out offensive. Jaina had hoped to trigger that psychology, and she had succeeded.
For the moment there was nothing for her to do but follow the yammosk"s orders. She leaned back in the huge command chair that had been configured for an armored Yuuzhan Vong warrior and tried to relax her muscles, control her breathing. She let Force-awareness, always on the edge of her perceptions, flood her mind with its focused clarity.
She felt Lowbacca"s nearby presence, under the hood that gave him command of the frigate"s navigation. Her other lieutenant, Tesar Sebatyne, had his efficient predator"s mind focused on controlling the frigate"s weapons systems. Farther afield Jaina sensed the grim, reliable Corran Horn leading Rogue Squadron, and Kyp Durron flying at the head of his re-formed Dozen. Kyp"s reflex, on sensing her through the Force, was to project concern, and she made a point of sending him warm rea.s.surance.
Since Jaina"s involvement with Jag Fel, Kyp had been a nurturing presence, almost parental, and neither he nor Jaina quite knew how to reconcile his new persona with his earlier smoldering ident.i.ty as the angry young man of the Jedi.
Then, lastly, Jaina sensed a less familiar presence, the Anx Jedi Madurrin, who served on the bridge of the Mon Cal cruiser Mon Adapyne, ready to use her Force link with the other Jedi to aid the New Republic.
Other friends, she knew, would soon be engaging the enemy, friends who weren"t Jedi and whom she couldn"t feel through the Force. Friends in Blackmoon Squadron and Saber Squadron, not to mention the hypersecret Wraiths, flying snoopships that could outrun anything in the enemy inventory.
Jaina basked for a moment in the pleasure of those she had trained with, served with, those who had shared her triumphs as well as her despair ... At Myrkr she had learned the power of the Force-meld that could come when a number of Jedi united their minds and thoughts, becoming stronger than if each stood alone, and for a long moment she rejoiced in their unity.
Jacen! she thought, his presence a song in her mind, and then she fought her way clear of Force-awareness and of the sudden surges of contradictory emotion that streamed through her.
A Wookiee howl came into her comlink.
"I don"t know what that was about!" She hesitated. "I must have lost it for a second. Sorry."
Lowbacca grunted his rea.s.surance.
"I opened to the Force, and I must have opened to-to something else as well."
Tentatively, Jaina reached out again to the Force, and felt nothing but the warm concern of her friends.
Everything"s fine, she tried to send to them.
But she couldn"t help but echo Lowbacca"s question. What was that about? What had she opened to, that caused the flood of memories and emotions connected with her dead twin?
Distantly she perceived the orders of the enemy yammosk, saw the Yuuzhan Vong fleet instantly carry them out. There was no hesitation in the enemy, no sense of indecision or fear. Wish we could say that about ourselves,, Jaina thought.
Her own mind was gnawing at her situation, trying to deduce enemy intentions from their deployments. The plan for the upcoming battle had been largely hers, and it was based on several a.s.sumptions, none of which Jaina could be sure still applied.
She could no longer have complete confidence in the a.s.sumption that the Yuuzhan Vong hadn"t realized that Trickster was no longer one of their own ships. She"d already used the frigate for deception, and it was perfectly possible that they would be wise to her by now.
Part of her plan was also based on the use of decoy dovin basals that could attach to enemy ships and identify them as enemies to their own side. This had been a spectacular success in the Hapes Cl.u.s.ter and in the Battle of Borleias, but sooner or later the Yuuzhan Vong would learn to ignore or counter the false signals.
The most crucial element of the plan were the yammosk jammers developed by Danni Quee. These would override the signals of the Yuuzhan Vong war coordinator, preventing the eerie, single-minded, instantaneous maneuvering that had been the hallmark of enemy victories.
If the Yuuzhan Vong had worked out a way to counter the jammers, then Jaina was leading a New Republic fleet to certain destruction, with Supreme Overlord Shimrra as a highly interested spectator in yet another glorious triumph for the Vong . . .
Let it all work just one more time.
Both fleets were maneuvering now. They were no longer hurtling directly toward one another on opposing tracks: both had altered course in order to avoid the Obroa-held gas giant and to approach at a far more acute angle that would allow wide fields of fire to the capital ships"
broadside guns. Among the enemy was a swarm of coralskippers that seemed dedicated to guarding the presumed flagship of Overlord Shimrra, which itself hovered somewhat behind the action, screened by other fleet elements. And the flagship itself guarded the large transports, which took station on its far side.
And between the fleets, Jaina"s frigate-apparently ignored by both sides-fled across the gap, heading toward the presumed safety of the Yuuzhan Vong squadrons.
More orders came to Trickster courtesy of the enemy yammosk.
[We"re being ordered to take station astern of the enemy flag,]
Lowbacca said.
"Well," Jaina judged, "that"s about perfect."
[Shall I comply?]
"Yes. But act naturally-you know, slow and clumsy."
Lowbacca answered with a snarl, but Jaina could hear the laughter in it.
Jaina relaxed again into the Force, integrating the picture she received through the alien cognition hood. Both sides were nearing the point of no return, the point at which missiles and fighters would start swarming across the gap between the squadrons.
Jaina watched the ships move across s.p.a.ce, tried to gauge the movement.
Now, she sent through the Force. She felt Madurrin receive the order, relay it verbally to others on the flagship.
On receipt of the signal, a device on one of Wraith Squadron"s snoopships began pulsing out gravity waves that interfered directly with the signals of the enemy yammosk.
And then, when the enemy war coordinator was no longer able to communicate with the elements of its fleet, the New Republic fleet undertook one more maneuver. Each fleet element altered course to drive directly for the largest enemy ship, Shimrra"s personal vessel.
Shimrra was now the sole target of more than one hundred New Republic craft. If the Yuuzhan Vong yammosk was jammed, the enemy would not be able to coordinate a response in time, and because of the proximity of Obroa-held"s gravity field, the enemy couldn"t escape into hypers.p.a.ce.
Jaina sat, trapped in what seemed an eternal moment of suspense, while she waited to see if the jammers worked, if the enemy responded.
She could dimly perceive the jammer through her connection to the dovin basals of Trickster, the rhythm of its transmissions overriding the sendings of the enemy yammosk.
And then she felt another rhythm intrude on the first, and saw the enemy ships respond, swinging in a unified response to the New Republic"s maneuver, every" single ship in the enemy armada altering course at the same instant.
No! Jaina thought, horrified. It can"t be!
The jammer had failed-or rather it had worked for only a few moments, producing a hesitation in the enemy countermaneuver.
At least the enemy maneuver had been delayed. Their position was no longer ideal.
Despair flooded over Jaina. Get out of here., she thought through the Force-meld. Get away from Obroa-held and into hypers.p.a.ce now! It wasn"t actual words she sent, but a frantic tumble of images and impulses and emotions that reflected her own anxiety.