Star Wars: New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse Read online

  AGENT OF CHAOS II

  HERO’S TRIAL

  JAMES LUCENO

  A Del Rey® Book

  THE BALLANTINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  NEW YORK

  A string of smashing victories by the forces of the sinister aliens known as the Yuuzhan Vong has left New Republic resources and morale stretched to the breaking point. Leia Organa Solo, estranged from her husband, Han, oversees the evacuation of refugees on planets in the path of the merciless invaders. Luke Skywalker struggles to hold the fractious Jedi Knights together, even while one of them undertakes a bold but reckless undercover mission.

  Manipulating their alliance with the amoral Hutts, the Yuuzhan Vong leave a cunning trail of vital information where New Republic agents are sure to find it--information the desperate defenders cannot afford to ignore: the location of the aliens' next target.

  Then Han Solo stumbles into the dark heart of raging battle, thus beginning a furious race against time that will require every skill and trick in his arsenal to win...

  For Carmen, Carlos, and Dimitri—13 years after

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For looking over my shoulder and enriching this book, heartfelt thanks to Shelly Shapiro, Sue Rostoni, Dan Wallace, and Alex Newborn..

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Anakin Solo; Jedi Knight (male human)

  Beed Thane; archon of Vergill (male human)

  Borga Besadii Diori; Hurt ruler (female Hurt)

  Brand; New Republic commodore (male human)

  Chine-kal; commander, Creche (male Yuuzhan Vong)

  Droma; spacer (male Ryn)

  Gaph; refugee (male Ryn)

  Han Solo; captain, Millennium Falcon (male human)

  Jacen Solo; Jedi Knight (male human)

  Kyp Durron; Jedi Master (male human)

  Leia Organa Solo; New Republic ambassador (female human)

  Luke Skywalker; Jedi Master (male human)

  Malik Carr; commander (male Yuuzhan Vong)

  Melisma; refugee (female Ryn)

  Nas Choka; supreme commander (male Yuuzhan Vong)

  Nom Anor; executor (male Yuuzhan Vong)

  Prince Isolder; Royal House of Hapes (male human)

  Randa Besadii Diori (male Hurt)

  Roa; prisoner (male human)

  Sapha; prisoner (female Ryn)

  Talon Karrde; liaison (male human)

  Viqi Shesh; senator (female human)

  Wurth Skidder; Jedi Knight (male human)

  ONE

  It was morning in Gyndine’s capital city, though that fact was scarcely evident to anyone on the surface. The rising sun, when glimpsed at all, was a blanched disk behind roiling smoke belched from flaming forests and buildings. Sounds of battle reverberated thunderously from the surrounding foothills, and a hot scouring wind swept down across the landscape. A crepuscular darkness, ripped ragged by flashes of blinding light, ruled the day.

  The artificial light was supplied by warriors and war machines, coursing over scorched ground, streaking through the racked sky, in orbit above the madness. Through leaden clouds allied and enemy fighter craft pursued one another doggedly, adding sonic claps to the strident score of combat. East of the beleaguered capital, beams of energy stabbed mercilessly at the surface from on high, fanning out like shafts of profuse sunlight or concentrated into dazzling curtains that set the horizon glowing red as a frozen dawn.

  Loosed by advancing enemy contingents, missiles of superheated rock assailed what remained of the city, holing surviving towers and toppling those already gutted by fire. Hunks of shattered ferrocrete and twisted plasteel tumbled onto cratered streets and clogged alleyways. A few civilians dashed desperately for shelter while others huddled, paralyzed with fear, in gaping, fire-blackened maws that were once entryways and storefronts. In some quarters, ion cannons and nearly depleted turbolaser batteries answered the missile barrage with darts of cyan light. But only in the environs of the New Republic embassy were the enemy projectiles deflected, turned by a hastily installed containment shield.

  Dangerously close to the shield’s shimmering perimeter, a thousands-strong mixed-species throng, massed behind stun fencing, pressed to be admitted. At the edges of the crowd droids perambulated in a daze, keenly aware of the fate awaiting them should the invaders overrun the city.

  Were the stun fence the sole obstacle to safe haven, the crowd might have panicked and stormed the embassy grounds. But the perimeter was reinforced by heavily armed New Republic soldiers, and there was also the force field itself to consider. An umbrella of energy, the lambent shield had to be deactivated before it could be safely breached, and that occurred only when an evacuation ship launched for rendezvous with one of the transports anchored in local space.

  Ashen faces masked with cloth against the mephitic air, Gyndine’s would-be evacuees did all they could to ensure their survival. With arms extended protectively around the shoulders of terrified children or clasped tightly to tattered bundles of personal belongings, they pleaded with the soldiers, tendered bribes, inveigled and threatened. Ordered to remain silent, the grim-faced troops offered neither comforting looks nor words of encouragement. Only their eyes belied the seeming dispassion, racing about like taurill or angling imploringly toward the one person who could accede to the entreaties and demands.

  Leia Organa Solo caught one such glance now, aimed her way by a human soldier posted close to what had become the communications bunker. With her face smudged and her long hair captured under a brimmed cap, it was unlikely that anyone in the crowd recognized her as onetime hero of the Rebel Alliance and former chief of state, but the sky-blue combat overalls—bloused sleeves emblazoned with the emblem of SELCORE, the Senate Select Committee for Refugees—identified her as everyone’s best chance for rescue, their purveyor of deliverance. As it was, she couldn’t venture within five meters of the stun fence without having wailing infants, necklaces of prayer beads, or rushed missives to offworld loved ones extended to her in dire urgency.

  She didn’t dare make eye contact with anyone, lest in her gaze someone read hope or evidence of her anguish. To provide some measure of equipoise, she drew deeply on the Force. But more often than not she paced unswervingly between the bunker and the leading edge of the shield, eager for word that another evacuation ship had landed and was waiting to be filled.

  Ever in her wake moved faithful Olmahk, whose native gray ferocity made him appear more stalker than bodyguard. But at least the diminutive Noghri looked at home among the chaos, whereas C-3PO—his normally auric gleam dulled by soot and ash—was positively dismayed. Lately, though, the protocol droid’s apprehension had less to do with his own safety than with the larger threat the Yuuzhan Vong posed to all machine life, often the first to suffer when a world fell.

  A forceful explosion rocked the permacrete under Leia’s feet, and a swirling globe of orange fire mushroomed from the heart of the city. A searing wind laced with droplets of even hotter rain tugged at Leia’s cap and jumpsuit. Created by the energy exchanges and conflagrations, microclimatic storms had been washing across the plateau all night long. Hail mixed with cinders lifted from Gyndine’s ruined surface pelted everyone, blistering exposed flesh like acid. Even through the insulated soles of knee-high boots, Leia could feel the ground’s aberrant heat.

  A loud sizzling sound made her swing toward the shield in time to see it evanesce in undulating waves of distortion.

  “Evac ship away,” a soldier reported from the communications bunker, both hands pressed to the outsize earmuffs of his comm helmet. “Two more headed down the well.”

  Leia raised h
er eyes to the tenebrous sky. Defined by running lights as oblate in shape, the departing ship raised itself on repulsor power, then shot upward on a column of blue fire, escorted by half a dozen X-wings. Lying in ambush, a cataract of coralskippers vectored in from the foothills to give chase.

  Leia whirled to the soldiers posted at the stun fence. “Admit the next group!”

  Crushed shoulder to shoulder, cheek to jowl, folks at the forward edge of the crowd—humans, Sullustans, Bimms, and others—were funneled through the embassy gates. With the shield lowered, enemy projectiles that would have been deflected plummeted like fiery meteors, one of them striking the east wing of the Imperial-era embassy and setting it ablaze.

  Leia clapped the evacuees on the back as they streamed toward a shuttle craft idling on the landing zone. “Hurry!” she urged. “Hurry!”

  “Shield repowering,” the same comm officer relayed from the bunker. “Everyone back.”

  Leia gritted her teeth. These were the worst moments, she told herself.

  Soldiers at the gate resealed the cordon and scanned the vicinity for evidence of field disruptors. In response the crowd surged forward, railing against what had to seem the inequity, the arbitrariness of it all. Folks closest to the front, fearing they would miss their chance at salvation by one or two persons, tried to worm or force their way past the soldiers, while those in the rear shoved and scrambled, determined to fight their way forward. Leia saw that it was futile, and yet the crowd refused to disperse, hoping against hope that New Republic forces could keep the invaders at bay until every civilian and noncombatant was evacuated.

  “Mistress Leia,” C-3PO said, approaching in haste with his hands raised and his photoreceptors^glowing, “the deflector shield is weakening! If we don’t l^ave soon, we’re sure to perish!”

  As many would that day, Leia thought.

  “We’ll leave on the last ship,” she told C-3PO, “not before. Until then, make yourself useful by cataloging names and species.”

  C-3PO lifted his arms higher and skittered through an abrupt about-face. “What’s to become of us?”

  Leia exhaled wearily, wondering, as well.

  The bombardment had commenced two days earlier, when a Yuuzhan Vong flotilla had arrived unexpectedly in the nearby Circarpous system from enemy positions in Hutt space. A slapdash attempt had been made to fortify the sector capital, but with fleets and task forces already committed to safeguarding major systems in the Colonies and the Core, the New Republic had little to offer worlds of secondary importance like Gyndine, despite its modest orbital shipyard.

  By the same token, there was no rhyme or reason for the Yuuzhan Vong attack—beyond continuing to sow confusion. With the recent fall of several Mid Rim worlds, Gyndine, because of its relative remoteness, had been thought ideal for use as a transit point for refugees, and indeed many of those outside the fence had been shipped in from Ithor, Obroa-skai, Ord Mantell, and a host of enemy-occupied planets. It was becoming clear that the Yuuzhan Vong delighted in pursuing displaced populations almost as much as they delighted in sacrificing captives and immolating droids. Even the ground assault on Gyndine seemed to be their way of proving themselves as adept at seizing worlds as they were at poisoning them.

  The voice of the comm officer put a quick end to Leia’s musings. “Ambassador, we’ve got a live surveillance probe feed from the field.”

  Leia hesitated, then ducked into the bunker, where a reduced-scale hologram, dazzled by noise, had the attention of the several men and women gathered there. It took her a moment to make sense of what she was seeing, and even then part of her refused to accept the truth.

  “What in the name of—”

  “Fire breathers,” someone said, as if anticipating her amazement. “Rumor has it the Yuuzhan Vong stopped off at Mimban so the things could fill up on swamp gas.” Leia’s quivering legs urged her to sit, and as she did she brought a hand to her mouth. Parading out of sunrise like the harbingers of a new and dreadful dawn, came a legion of enormous bladderlike creatures, supported on six stubby legs and equipped with arrays of flexible proboscises from which gushed streams of gelatinous flame. “The methane and hydrogen sulfide have to be mixing with something they carry in their guts to produce that liquid fire,” a woman at the controls of the holo-projector commented, more intrigued than horrified. “They’re also exhaling antilaser aerosols.” Yet another example of the enemy’s genetically engineered monstrosities, the thirty-meter-tall fire breathers didn’t so much march as loll over the terrain, like loosely tethered lighter-than-air balloons, incinerating everyone and everything in their path.

  Leia could almost smell the nidor of the carnage.

  “Whatever they are, they’ve got thick hides,” the comm officer said. “Can’t be taken out by anything less than a turbolaser beam.”

  Unable to slow the advance of the deadly blimps, Gyndine units were abandoning entrenched positions and falling back in droves toward the city. Strewn about were fire-blackened war machines of all variety—tank droids, aged Loronar mobile turbolasers, even a couple of AT-AT walkers, tipped over, headless, collapsed on the ground with legs splayed.

  “They’re withdrawing!” Leia said harshly. “Who issued the retreat order?”

  Even as the words left her mouth, she was sorry she had uttered them. Those officers who weren’t scrutinizing her were suddenly studying their hands in unease. Could she blame the troops for retreating when that was precisely what the New Republic had been forced to do almost from the start of the invasion—withdrawing toward the Core, as if the density of the star systems there afforded protection? Who could say any longer which actions were just, and which were dishonorable?

  Exiting the bunker without a word, Leia found a shaken C-3PO waiting for her.

  “Mistress Leia, the most distressing news has reached me!”

  Leia could barely hear him. In the few moments she had spent in the bunker, the battle had advanced to the outskirts of the capital. The crowd was more agitated than before, surging forward and from side to side.

  Through a gap in the city’s skyline, Leia thought she could discern the bobbing form of a Yuuzhan Vong fire breather.

  “It seems,” C-3PO was saying, “that Gyndine’s citizens are laboring under the impression that you are deliberately discriminating against folks of former Imperial persuasion.”

  Leia’s jaw dropped and her brown eyes flashed. “That’s absurd. Do they think I can pick out a former Imperial on sight? And even if I could—”

  C-3PO lowered his voice conspiratorially. “In fact, there is some statistical justification for the claim, Mistress. Of the five thousand thus far evacuated, an overwhelming percentage have been inhabitants of worlds whose early loyalty to the Rebel Alliance is well documented. However, I’m certain that owes to nothing more than—”

  C-3PO’s explanation was swallowed by a deafening explosion. Electricity danced wildly along the periphery of the energy dome, and the shield disappeared. At once, the telltales that lined the stun fence flickered and went out. A frightened gasp rose from the crowd.

  “The field generator has been hit!” C-3PO said. “We’re done for!”

  The crowd surged again, and the soldiers closed ranks. Weapons powered up with an ominous whine.

  C-3PO began to back toward the embassy gates. “We’ll be crushed!”

  With lethal efficiency, Olmahk moved to Leia’s side. She was about to caution him to remain calm when one of the soldiers panicked and fired a sonic weapon at point-blank range into the crowd, dropping dozens and sending the rest rushing in all directions.

  Without thinking, Leia ran to the dazed soldier and yanked the weapon from his lax hands. “We’re supposed to be rescuing these people, not injuring them!”

  She threw the weapon aside. Drawing her hand across her forehead, she inadvertently dislodged the brimmed cap, spilling her hair to her shoulders. Wending her way back to the bunker, she grabbed the nearest comlink and demanded to be put through
to the task force commander.

  “Ambassador Organa Solo, this is Commander Ilanka,” a basso voice responded shortly.

  “We need every available ship, Commander—immediately. Yuuzhan Vong forces are entering the city.”

  Ilanka took a moment to reply. “I’m sorry, Ambassador, but we’ve got our hands full out here. Three more enemy warships have exited hyperspace on the far side of the moon. Whatever craft are on the surface will have to suffice. I urge you to load and launch. And, Ambassador, I strongly suggest you get yourself aboard one of them.”

  Leia thumbed the comlink off and scanned the crowd in alarm. How can I choose? she asked herself. How?

  A storm of blazing yorik coral meteors battered the embassy and neighboring buildings, setting fire to all they touched. The inferno triggered an explosion at a fuel dump near the landing zone, fountaining shrapnel far and wide. The right side of Leia’s face screamed in pain as something opened a furrow in her cheek. Instinctively she brought her fingertips to the wound, expecting to find blood, but the airborne fragment had cauterized the wound in its white-hot passing.

  “Mistress Leia, you’re injured!” C-3PO said, but she waved him back before he could reach her. Peripherally she saw that a tall sinewy human was being ushered forward, his arms vised in the grip of two soldiers. Beneath a soft cap he wore low on his forehead, the man’s face was bruised and swollen.

  “Now what?” Leia asked his custodians.

  “An agitator,” the shorter soldier reported. “We overheard him telling people in the crowd that we’re only extracting New Republic loyals. That anyone with an Imperial past might as well kiss his—”

  “I understand, Sergeant,” Leia said, cutting him off. She assessed the captive briefly, wondering what he could possibly have to gain by spreading lies. She had her mouth open to ask him when a meaningful sniff from Olmahk put her on alert.