The Unifying Force Page 24

  i to scout the trail. Halfway to the valley floor, Han spurred his . bu to come abreast of Wraw's.

  ° "I figure you spend a lot of your time hanging around with life characters," Han said. "But everyone here is on the same side,

  understand?"

  "You're one to talk about consorting with low-life characters,

  Solo."

  Han forced a smile. "I got over it, pal. So maybe you should look

  to me as an example."

  The Bothan nodded. "I'll give it thought."

  Han fell back to ride alongside Leia.

  "Why do you even bother?" she asked.

  "Well, either I'm going to change his mind, or I'm going to change his face."

  "You still won't be rearranging the person inside."

  "Maybe not, but I'll feel a whole lot better."

  Leia heard rapid hoofbeats up ahead, and a moment later Kyp

  rode up.

  "Yuuzhan Vong. They're climbing out the valley." He pointed down through the trees. "Just there—at that stand of broadleafs."

  "Is there a way to avoid them?" Leia asked.

  "No. And we can't afford to fight them here."

  Han rose up on his stirrups and motioned to an outcropping of rocks below the next switchback. "Looks like a decent ambush point."

  Kyp nodded. "That's my thinking, too."

  They hastened through the switchback and into a gulch, where Sasso and Page were waiting. Ferfer led the mounts away, and everyone else scrambled to take up firing positions in the boulders on both sides of the trail—Han, Leia, Page, and Meloque on one side; Wraw, Sasso, and Kyp on the other.

  Han sighted down the barrel of the military blaster; Page did the same with the DC-15 rifle. Meloque wrapped her huge hand around e w°oden grip of the antique sidearm. Leia took hold of her hghtsaber, but didn't activate it.

  Shortly they heard the patrol approaching. First to appear were a

  trio of bissop hounds. Low-bodied creatures, they moved in a wad dling motion, their long snouts sniffing the air and ground, and the' clawed feet leaving distinctive tracks in the dirt. Behind them walk H three Yuuzhan Vong warriors armed with amphistaffs and bandolie of thud and razor bugs. Two were sporting shoulder-mounted tactic I villips. Behind them came three warriors on riding beasts as large a< grutchyna but as sedate as rontos.

  "I'll take the tracker on the right," Page whispered to Han. "You take the one in the middle. Go for the villips first."

  Page waved a signal across the canyon to where Kyp and the others were concealed.

  Then everyone hunkered down to wait for the patrol to move into the crossfire.

  The bissops lifted their snouts toward the boulders just as the first blasterbolts were raining down on them. Han's and Page's shots blew the two small villips to pieces, while sizzling red bolts from across the ravine knocked two warriors from their mounts. But even though taken by surprise, the Yuuzhan Vong were quick to counterattack. Razor and thud bugs swarmed into the air, and—rearing and snarling— the three bissops surged up into the rocks.

  By then Han, Page, Leia, and Meloque were already in motion, firing on the run and scampering for new positions. A bolt from Han's heavy blaster shattered the skull of a charging bissop. A second bolt caught one of the trackers squarely in the chest, blowing a smoking hole in the warrior's vonduun crab armor and sending him flying backward, to be trampled underfoot by a confused quenak.

  Running down the opposite outcropping, Wraw came within a meter of being bissop fodder, but a well-placed shot from Sasso dropped the beast before it could snap at the Bothan a second time.

  Kyp front-flipped down onto the trail ahead of the patrol. Lightsaber ignited, he fought his way through a hail of razor bugs to take the fight to the remaining warriors. Han was astonished to see the Jedi's blade neatly cleave a rigid amphistaff, then, on the reverse stroke, sever the head of the warrior himself. Still in the rocks,

  s similarly engaged in fending off a stream of frenzied bugs.

  e was cowering below her, afraid to show her head. Pull-

  •he frightened Ho'Din to her feet, Leia led her to a safer position,

  twice to send return flights of bugs smashing into the

  vrii1'1 "&

  rocks.

  Han emerged from the boulders to see Kyp kick a coufee out of

  hand of the only Yuuzhan Vong left standing, then pierce the war-• r through the neck as he was running for his mount, as if in an tempt to flee. A blur of motion drew Han's attention to the left, and he swung around, flattening himself to the ground. The last of the three bissops hurdled him and bounded up into the rocks, close to where Meloque was crouched, staring distractedly at her heavy-gripped blaster.

  Unable to get a clear shot at the retreating beast, Page shouted to

  Meloque: "Kill the hound!"

  She glanced at the escaping bissop, then in bewilderment at Wraw. "It's just an animal—

  "Kill it!" Page repeated.

  «T V>

  Bolts from Wraw's weapon stopped the bissop dead, just short of its disappearing over the rim of the gulch.

  "Butchers," the Ho'Din said as sudden quiet descended. She staggered out of the rocks, and down onto the trail to join Leia and the others. "Butchers!"

  "Bissops are trained to return to base," Page said calmly. "Another patrol would have picked up our trail in no time flat." Meloque heard him out, then nodded dully.

  Six Yuuzhan Vong, two lizard-hounds, and one quenak lay sprawled in the dirt. Page moved from warrior to warrior, making cer-Q that each was dead. He put the convulsing quenak out of its nisery with a single bolt, then did the same to three amphistaffs. Wan squatted down beside the warrior he had shot in the chest, n regarded the thirty-year-old weapon that had supplied the lethal "I never knew these old blasters packed such a wallop." ihey don't," Kyp said from where he was crouched near another

  warrior. He rapped his knuckles against the breastplate of tu Yuuzhan Vong's living armor. "Inferior armor, inferior weapon inferior troops." He glanced around. "Even the bissops were slow "

  Leia glanced at Sasso in sudden uncertainty. "Another side eff of the heat wave?"

  The Rodian shook his head in perplexity.

  "Let me get this straight," Wraw said. "You're disappointed because we won too easily?" He snorted a laugh. "I'm beginning; to wonder if all of you aren't sympathizers."

  "He's right." Page said. "We can use every bit of luck we get."

  "I've played enough sabacc to know luck when I see it," Han said "and this wasn't it." He scanned the boulders and nearby trees. "They could be luring us into a trap."

  Kyp glanced at him. "Something else is going on here," he said.

  a

  •BUnr

  i imward of the Tion Hegemony, Jaina watched the Yuuzhan Vong armada revert from hyperspace once again. One moment it appeared that ten thousand stars had been eclipsed; the next, that that part of the galaxy had gained a new star cluster.

  Cappie shrilled and squeaked, underscoring its obvious distress by spotting the cockpit's display screen with countless glowing bezels. In the same instant, two cinder-black A-wings that had been Jaina's starboard companions for the past hour fell away in stealth, and made the jump to lightspeed.

  Despite the glowing threat-assessment screen and her previous sightings of the armada, Jaina was staggered by the sheer number of ships the Yuuzhan Vong had amassed. Close-ups of the vessels provided by the starfighter's long-range scanners showed their pitted hulls to be marked and etched with cryptic symbols and blackened With what looked like war paint but was probably blood. Many displayed slender tendrils of yorik coral, from which flew sail-like battle standards. Evidenced by melt circles and areas of carbon scoring, some the ships were clearly veterans of earlier campaigns, uprooted from ccupied systems throughout the invasion corridor. Others looked Fv commissioned—newly grown—including an enormous rose-:olored oval that had to be the flagship.

  HH3

 
; The fact that the Yuuzhan Vong had essentially entrusted hun dreds of conquered worlds to the protection of patrol craft and ground troops meant not only that they were willing to risk every thing they had gained on one conclusive battle, but also that thei intent was nothing less than the obliteration of the Alliance fleets.

  Cappie sent another transmission to the cockpit, and Jaina clutched the control yoke in pulse-quickening anticipation.

  A pyrotechnic display of globular explosions began to fire-brighten the leading edge of the mobile cluster of ships, and a dozen bezels disappeared from the display screen. Again the Yuuzhan Vong had moved headlong into an expansive arc of smart mines that had been sown at the jump point. But as had occurred at the Perlemian transit point, the explosions began to taper off almost immediately, until there were only isolated bursts, and many of the undetonated mines disappeared, vacuumed into immense singularities created by dovin basals.

  Jaina pressed her chin to the helmet's microphone stud. "Quermia controller, this is Twin Suns One. The beast has arrived and opened the packages we left."

  "Did the packages come as a surprise?" "Not for long enough to give the beast any pause." "What is the status of your companions?" "Heralds are away."

  "Can you corroborate the beast's current vector?" Jaina keyed a short request to the R2-B3 droid, which replied with tones and buzzes that became text on the display screen. "Bearing toward jump coordinates for Mon Calamari." "Copy that, Twin Suns One. You are green to depart, and reposition to Mon Calamari Extreme. Rendezvous at Iceberg Three, with Vanguard, Scimitar, and Rogue Squadrons."

  Jaina signed off the command net and switched over to the tactical frequency. "All pilots, this is Twin Suns Leader. Instruct your droids to set coordinates for Mon Cal Extreme. Jump to lightspeed at my zero count. Ten, nine, eight, seven . . ."

  Jaina sat back in her chair and waited for the X-wing's Incorn hyperdrive to engage. The jump would be Twin Suns' third and final

  had first observed the armada emerge from hyperspace. All

  since - .

  . staging points between the Perlemian Trade Route and Mon

  1 mari had been strewn with mines months earlier, primarily to dis-

  raee enemy forays. But Alliance command hadn't expected an tnaAn to use the transit jump points, and now every fleet strategist , s pondering why the Yuuzhan Vong hadn't jumped directly from he Trade Route to the Mon Calamari system. Had the enemy com-•litted another tactical blunder, or were they merely testing the 'aters? Perhaps they suspected that the Alliance had positioned forces at jump points convenient to Mon Calamari, in the hope of outflanking the armada once the battle commenced.

  At each transit point Jaina had sent updates to a frigate stationed at Quermia, which was serving as a hyperspace transceiver. The frigate relayed the intelligence to the MCCC Fleet Annex. But a redundant system was also in place, in the form of courier ships, some of which had jumped to Quermia, and others to Mon Calamari. By now other couriers were certainly alerting the battle groups designated for Toong'l and Caluula, where withdrawing elements from the armada would be prevented from jumping to the aid of soon-to-be embattled Coruscant.

  The transit to Mon Calamari would also be the longest of the three, so Jaina took advantage of the lull to center herself in the Force. She thought briefly of her parents, executing a mission on Caluula, and of Jacen, wherever he was. But she didn't attempt to reach out to any of them. Everyone had their separate duties to perform, and she knew instinctively that the scattered members of her family were thinking of her, just as she was them. Nor were there any Jedi among Twin Suns for her to touch through the Force. With Kyp on Caluula, as well, Octa Ramis had been assigned to lead the Dozen, and both Lowbacca and Alema Rar were commanding their own squadrons. Madurrin, Streen, and some of the other Jedi were stationed on those capital ships that were essential to defending Mon Calamari itself against the enemy onslaught.

  Having set her inner chrono to rouse her before the X-wing

  erted from hyperspace, she returned to full awareness just seconds

  Ofe Cappie signaled her with a ready tone.

  She took a calming breath and waited for the stars to reappear

  Mon Calamari Extreme was just that: the far reaches of the st system, where the armada would likely decant. Iceberg Three was th code for the penultimate of the system's eight satellites—a misshape chunk of frozen waste; in fact, a captured comet—destined at sorn point in time to collide with the outermost planet. Silhouetted against the small white spheroid were dozens of Alliance cruisers, destroyers and carriers, along with hundreds of starfighters.

  It struck Jaina that nearly every vessel that had been in production for the past forty standard years was represented in one form or another, from Rendili StarDrive Dreadnaughts to Kejuvenator- class Star Destroyers.

  And the gathered ships constituted only the outer circle of defense.

  Despite the fortifying exercises she had taken herself through during the hyperspace flight, Jaina realized that her heart was pounding and her hands were trembling.

  This is actually going to happen, she told herself with a stubborn measure of disbelief. The end of the war and the fate of the galaxy might well be decided over the course of the next few days.

  "Welcome back, Twin Suns Leader," a recognizable voice said into her helmet earphones.

  "Thanks, Wedge," she said. "I feel like I've been away for a week."

  "Terrific work, Jaina. Your rally point is Iceberg Three, at four-seven-nine ecliptic. You're to stand by until the seeding's concluded."

  "Copy, Alliance control. Standing by."

  Instructing Twin Suns to form up on her, Jaina led the squadron to its assigned coordinates, at fixed orbit over the frozen spheroid, in the company of a wing of starfighters made up of Rogue, Vanguard, Scimitar, Blackmoon, and Tesar Sabatyne's Wild Knights.

  "Hey, Sticks," another familiar voice said.

  Jaina opened a channel to Gavin Darklighter. "How long have you been sitting here, Rogue One?"

  "Too long. Was Intelligence correct about the number of Vong ships?"

  "I think they underestimated."

  Before Gavin could respond, Wedge broke in. "Group and uadron leaders, the beast is at the gate. I know you're all eager to -elcome it, but you're going to have to wait your turns."

  The comm fell eerily silent, then erupted in chatter as the Yuuzhan Vong war vessels began to emerge: cones and polygons, aceted and smooth, bone white to reddish black, craggy with plasma launchers or strung with coralskippers. More rapidly and in increasing numbers they came, filling local space and eventually blotting out jylon Calamari's distant sun. Just when it seemed that the last of them had reverted, still more appeared.

  Somewhat removed from Alliance forces, and almost as if performing for an audience, the vessels began to tighten up, maneuvering into positions that ultimately created an oblate mass of yammosk carriers and destroyer and cruiser analogs. From that mass—emerging from berthing cavities in the largest ships or dropping from anchorage on yorik coral branches—streamed hundreds of picket ship analogs and coralskippers, deploying to forge the multitude of short and long tendrils that were meant to simulate the tentacles of a yammosk.

  To Jaina the final arrangement more closely resembled a flaring star, or perhaps the spiral arm galaxy the Yuuzhan Vong were determined to overwhelm. But whatever the armada's form, beast was the description that fit it best.

  Then the immense organism was on the move, tentacles elongating from the hub as the cluster advanced on Mon Calamari, acutely aware of the reception party that awaited it, but resolute in its purpose.

  "All group and squadron leaders," a male voice announced over the battle net, "seedships have arrived."

  Alliance command might have borrowed the term from the

  uuzhan Vong, but the reference was not to the vessels that initiated

  le process of worldshaping; it was to the several dozen unarmed and

  £motely pi
loted freighters that gushed from behind Iceberg Three

  launched straight for the armada. Plasma missiles assaulted the

  Py container ships from all quarters, though armor plating kept

  st of them intact until they were within the embrace of the longer

  tacle of skips and gunboats assigned a number or letter. Twin

  tentacles. There they surrendered their payloads of thousands of prou droids.

  With wide-domed heads and dangling mechanical legs, the Pr bots were marine in appearance, and indeed they spread out lik school of deep-sea creatures riding the currents of a rising tide.

  Normally the Yuuzhan Vong wouldn't have wasted firepower o droids, but each probot had been programmed to mimic the propul sion signatures of Alliance starfighters, so the coralskippers and pickets had a field day, slagging the probots with fiery projectiles, or simply dismembering them by collision. The Alliance might as well have been providing the yammosks and coralskipper pilots with practice for acquisition and targeting, but in fact each probot was contributine; invaluably to Alliance command's goal of clearing fire lanes to the heart of the armada.

  Many of the battles fought during the long war had been decided not by firepower or kill ratios, but by the ability of Yuuzhan Vong biots to detect mass signals and to manipulate gravity. As intelligent as the yammosks were, they were evenly matched by the crunching power of battle analysis computers, combined with the targeting skill of pilots. The dovin basals were a different animal. For a time the Alliance had managed to outwit them by employing decoys, stutterfire lasers, and the Jedi-propelled shadow bombs, but those advantages had recently been lost.

  Still, the Alliance had one powerful weapon in its arsenal: invention.

  Gleeful as they were about decimating the probots, the Yuuzhan Vong were unaware that each droid had been tasked to calculate entry points and targeting solutions for the starfighters. Transmitted to Alliance command's computers, the data were collated and relayed to group and wing commanders, and on to squadron leaders and pilots.