The Unifying Force Page 27

ith the armada's rotation, the distal ends of several tentacles had whipped themselves into ensnaring loops. Starfighters trapped in the loops twisted and swerved to avoid scudding coralskippers, but they were fast running out of maneuvering

  room.

  The overwhelmed deflector shields of Jaina's X-wing were barely viable, and Cappie was probably beyond repair. Each tongue of plasma or missile of molten rock landed like a punch. Despite the harnesses that fastened her to the padded seat, she was flung like an insect trapped in a shaking bottle. Singularities yawned to all sides, ready to swallow anything she launched, but that hardly mattered, since the starfighter's fire-control computer had yet to shed enough heat to come back on-line.

  A numbing explosion jolted the ship.

  Jaina glanced out the right side of the triangular canopy to see the mated ends of the starboard S-foils disintegrate, and the laser cannon go whirling off into space. The power of the blast sent the starfighter mto a wing-over-wing roll that the fusial thrusters and attitude jets 'Vere unable to correct. Flights of coralskippers pinwheeled in front of ber, and fireballs geysered inward on spiraling trajectories.

  The out-of-control tumble reeled her out of a follow-up deluge of

  ess

  plasma from the core formation of capital ships. The E-wings took th brunt of it, along with Ijix Harona's Scimitar Squadron of highly vul nerable A-wings, and Gavin's Rogues. Caught by the inferno, tw dozen craft were blown clear of the tentacles, half of them vanishin before they reached clear space. Farther out, Star Destroyers and attack cruisers raced alongside the armada, but with so many starfighters churning between them and the enemy war vessels the couldn't risk firing without destroying countless Alliance craft.

  Jaina's flailing right hand found the inertial compensator and dialed it to maximum. As the cockpit instruments came back into focus, she saw that the display screens were white with noise. The battle net was unadulterated static.

  "... around to bearing . . . ecliptic ..."

  Jaina tweaked the comm controls to find a clearer frequency.

  "... on squadron leaders and withdraw."

  Withdraw, Jaina thought.

  Fine for those pilots who could. But scores of fighters were incapacitated, many in worse shape than Twin Suns One. Only by virtue of their marginally intact shields were they bearing up under the constant barrage, like bar brawlers curled on the floor against repeated kicks from gangs of opponents.

  "Dovin basal singularities have been diverted to the forefront of the armada," Alliance control was saying. "Destroyers will be attacking the flanks in an attempt to induce the dovin basals to shift focus, so that Harbinger, Guardian, and Viscount can resume fire. All pilots, try to maintain formation on withdrawal. Rally at six-six-one ecliptic with battle groups Iceberg Three and Four."

  By then the armada had moved well past the system's captured comet and was bearing toward Sep Elopor, a ringed gas-giant with more than thirty small moons.

  Auxiliary battle groups in advance of the tentacled cluster were already beginning to disperse, in part to deflect the battle from Mon Calamari itself, but also to convey the impression that the Alliance had recognized that it was outmatched and was on the run, determined to save as many of its ships as possible.

  A third surge of plasma spewed from the armada core.

  Taina called on the exhausted thrusters to propel the X-wing out . tumble and through a broad bank. At the same time, she reset

  • ertial compensator and got her bearings. She was still inside the

  circle of coralskippers and pickets, but Chiss clawcraft and Y-wings 1 e hammering away at the slowly contracting perimeter, creating it holes for the trapped starfighters. Jaina saw Jag's clawcraft destroy "h e coralskippers in a blur of corkscrewing maneuvers and laserfire.

  She sent him silent gratitude.

  With firing zones opening once more, bombers followed the res-

  •ued starfighters into the gaps they fashioned. In response, coralskip-

  ,ers were commanding their dovin basals to deploy defensive voids to

  ounter the infiltration. No sooner did the gravitic anomalies shift,

  however, than Harbinger and Guardian strobed salvos of ranged-

  weapons fire against the least defended of the tentacles. Coralskippers

  were lanced and vaporized, pickets fractured and cracked open like

  seedpods, expressing puffs of atmosphere and more.

  Free of the enclosing tentacle at last, Jaina searched for the rest of her squadron. Twin Suns Four, Five, Six, Nine, and Ten were nearby, but she had no means of communicating with them. She reached out with the Force for Lowbacca, Alema Rar, Octa Ramis, and the Wild Knights, hoping that they would be able to interpret her distress call and relay her message.

  But it was Jag who arrived. Twin Suns' X-wings were suddenly forming up on Jag's clawcraft, and he in turn was leading them to her.

  The fighting was the most intense at the perimeter of the fluttering tentacles. Alliance frigates and corvettes were trading fusillades with Yuuzhan Vong escort vessels and cruiser analogs— mataloks—opening dozens of new fronts along the flanks of the cluster. Starfighters and coralskippers pursued one another through blinding volleys of fire, as the capital ships continued their longdistance duels.

  Even so, the armada managed to maintain its yammosk shape. Then, without warning, three groups of enemy war vessels peeled way from the core, carrying countless coralskipper tentacles with them.

  It was as if the yammosk had undergone mitosis.

  Jaina considered briefly that the Yuuzhan Vong had decided t divide the battle into separate arenas. Instead, the coralskippers of th newly created flotilla began to return to the waiting arms of their ca riers, in a kind of reverse deployment.

  "Three battle groups have detached from the main cluster" Alliance control reported over the battle channel. "Coralskippers ar withdrawing. Monitoring the new cluster for possible microjump to Mon Calamari. Primary planetary defense is at Code Red, with all shields raised. Iceberg Three attack squadrons will regroup and stand by for jump coordinates."

  Jaina watched the smaller of the two clusters streak sunward and disappear.

  "Enemy secondary has jumped. Waiting for verification of hyper-space vector ..."

  Jaina's breath caught in her throat. If the new cluster jumped directly to Mon Calamari—

  "Iceberg Three attack squadrons are re-formed and in position . . ."

  Jaina waited in her crippled ship. Time seemed to drag out, even while the battle continued to rage around her.

  Then the voice of control returned: "Vector confirmed. Secondary flotilla has jumped for the Perlemian Trade Route. HoloNet transceiver ships at Quermia transit point are under attack. Primary flotilla is accelerating for Sep Elopon and Mon Eron. All starfighter wings regroup."

  Out of the fight, Jaina pivoted the X-wing to starboard in an effort to observe the re-formation of the scattered squadrons. Twin Suns survivors were flying with Rogue Squadron, and Blackmoon and Scimitar were similarly mingled. Vanguard was down to six clawcraft, but Jag was still leading them.

  She sent him luck as the fighter wing streaked off to reengage.

  Then she coaxed what life she could from the damaged fusial engines and crippled shields and followed him.

  Under guard of six warriors who could barely stay on their feet, Team Meloque, including Han, had been herded into the yammosk

  and left there to marinate in blorash jelly while the female •r and the cadre of slayers departed Caluula. From deeper inside minshal had come the sounds of at least three craft lifting out of

  their berthing spaces.

  An hour had passed since then, and something strange was begin-

  to happen to the blorash jelly. Though it had held everyone fast

  •hen they had first been thrown into it, the jelly was losing viscosity.

  When it liquefied to the point that Leia could sit upright, she immedi-

  HV st
arted to crawl on hands and knees toward Han, who had been

  returning slowly to consciousness the whole while.

  The first words out of his mouth were "What stinks?"

  Leia ignored the question and clamped her arms around his chest,

  hugging him to her.

  He blinked, stretched his eyelids open, blinked some more, and began to glance around. "You're getting blorash all over us."

  Leia put her face close to his. "Just my way of making sure we stay together — no matter what else happens."

  "Welcome back to the fun," Page yelled from across the chamber.

  Han raised his right hand in a curt wave to the captain, Kyp, Wraw, and Meloque, who were more or less sitting up in the adhesive pool. He cut his eyes back to Leia. "You want to tell me about the what efepart?"

  "Commander Malik Carr plans to sacrifice us to the yammosk."

  Han looked past Leia to the circular yorik coral basin that housed the creature, then beetled his eyebrows in uncertainty. "Malik Carr . . ."

  "From the Peace Brigade convoy," Leia said. "The one who promised Judder that . . . well, that something like this would happen."

  Han grimaced. "Could be worse. I mean, at least we're away from those blasted flitnats."

  Leia shook her head at him in a tolerant manner. "It doesn't take V°u long to get back into character, does it?"

  'Hey, I know this role by heart." He smiled weakly, then grew 'en°us. "But tell me something. How come I'm supposed to be dead, and instead all I've got is numb lips, a sore throat, and a headache?"

  ••HI

  "We're not sure. But the reason has something to do with Calunl «

  "They picked the wrong planet to occupy," Wraw said, rnov' toward them. His fur rippled in a kind of delight.

  "Everything's sick," Leia went on. "Not just the winged-star Everything here—the warriors, the dilating membranes, even th slayers' amphistaffs—which means that their venom is probably al weakened."

  "Slayers?"

  "The enhanced warriors."

  Han nodded. "No wonder they were able to take us like they did." His eyes snapped open, as if he had just recalled something "Sasso. Ferfer."

  "Dead," Leia said, almost swallowing the word.

  Han hung his head, then stiffened in her embrace. "Where are our weapons?"

  Leia stretched out her arm. "There."

  Han followed her forefinger to where the weapons had been dumped in a heap on the far side of the chamber, close to where half a dozen Yuuzhan Vong guards were either dozing or passed out. Every weapon, including the two lightsabers, was smeared with red blood, perhaps fresh from Sasso and Ferfer.

  "If this blorash keeps liquefying at the same rate," Leia said, "we should be free in no time."

  She barely got the sentence out when Malik Carr shuffled into the chamber, accompanied by two ordinary warriors and a priest. The six sleeping warriors woke up and attempted to come to attention, but most of them were too weak to stand, let alone snap their fists in salute.

  Their amphistaffs sprawled sluggishly beside them.

  "Stay where you are," Carr commanded, as the pair of warriors who braced him lowered him to a shallow step that encircled the yammosk basin. Seeming to sense the commander, the yammosk itself stirred, extending two tentacles over the rim of the basin and resting the tips on Carr's horned shoulders. The tentacles were a sickly shade of green and covered with large blisters. Carr caressed one of them.

  Breathing laboriously, the priest picked up one of the military rers and handed it to Carr, who, with some effort, squeezed off a bolt into the domed ceiling.

  "Still functioning—as you appear to be," he said in Basic, gazing

  his captives. His filmed eyes focused on Page. "And I thought Sel-

  -is 3. terrible place. You've no obligation to tell me, Captain, but

  •hit is it that is peculiar to this cursed world that has brought illness

  and death on us?"

  Page shook his head in ignorance. "Maybe the insects we call vineed-stars. But a lot of the ones we saw were also dead or dying. So

  are Caluula's flitnats."

  "Something about their deaths, then," Carr mused. "If it's true, Captain, then you will have a powerful weapon to use against us. Although I heard rumor of one such weapon that affected our warriors on Garqi."

  "Pollen," Wraw answered for Page. "The product of a semisen-tient tree from a world you destroyed. Ithor."

  Carr struggled to make sense of it. "Is there some relationship between those trees and the winged-star insects?" "No," Meloque said.

  Carr inhaled raggedly. "I'm dying," he said in disbelief. "Neither in battle nor honorably, but of disease. Life turned against other life. It is something unknown to us, because we are symbiotic with all life— our biots, our weapons, our foodstuffs . . . We don't die of disease, or of starvation. Many of us live three times as long as the human species m this galaxy, and yet we have been felled by another living thing."

  He almost grinned. "Yun-Harla is either laughing or outraged. Who can tell anymore? I suppose I should take some measure of comfort in the fact that I will see all of you die first, but somehow the fight "as gone out of me. You are infidels, yes. You are ignorant and primi-ve, and you have chosen to consort with machines, as if they were lv'ng beings. But though I pity you for that, I no longer hate you r it. However, you do need to die, if only on the off chance that °ur sacrifices will persuade the gods to spare the life of our war c°ordinator."

  He turned slightly and lifted his gaze, as if to the yammosk. "A you even capable of directing a flight of coralskippers? I think n poor creature. But I know that, like me, you will die trying."

  The priest groaned in pain, doubled over, and collapsed on th floor. The six guards also appeared to have died. Thud bugs ere from the warriors' bandoliers and expired.

  Leia realized that the blorash had lost all its binding qualities Th entire place seemed to be dying at the same time.

  The yammosk issued an earsplitting screech of agony. It tentacles flailed for several seconds; then the bloated beast bobbed lifelessly to the surface of the agitated pool.

  Malik Carr hauled himself to his feet and lifted one of the amphistaffs, which hung over his hand like a length of rope. "As docile as a mascot." He looked at Page. "You have won the day, Captain. I salute you."

  The commander toppled like a tree.

  Page lifted himself from the jelly and hurried over to him. Kyp and Meloque clambered onto the step to regard the yammosk.

  "It's dead," Meloque pronounced.

  A sudden commotion broke out in the antechamber. Kyp and Leia called their lightsabers to them, activating the blades while Page and Wraw hastened for the blasters.

  "Hello?" a voice called out.

  Into the basin room walked Lando Calrissian, Talon Karrde, and Shada D'ukal, wearing armorply combat suits, white helmets, and knee-high boots, and armed with lightweight blaster rifles. Lando's bipedal YVH 1-1A droid brought up the rear.

  The Hero of Taanab brought his fingertips to his brow in an informal salute. "Kyp. Captain Page." He flashed his bright, trademark smile at Meloque. "Sorry, I haven't had the pleasure."

  "Meloque," she told him.

  "Agent Wraw," the Bothan said curtly, clearly vexed by the trio's sudden appearance.

  Leia stared at them in astonishment. "What in the galaxy . . •"

  "Leia, so good to see you," Lando said. "We just wanted to show that the Smugglers' Alliance has more to offer than hunter

  •n r mouse droids. Booster, Mirax, and Crev Bombassa send their

  regards.'

  "Errant Venture is here?" she said, referring to Booster Terrik's

  personal Star Destroyer.

  Karrde nodded. "We came prepared to fight a war."

  "What's the situation upside?" Page asked.

  "Peaceful. We only had to deal with a small skip carrier and a couple of patrol craft."

  "Patrol craft?" Page said.
"Caluula was supposed to be a major staging area for Mon Calamari."

  Lando nodded. "That's what we thought." He glanced at Han. "Booster's not too happy having expended so much fuel on a mission Wild Karrde could have handled. In fact, we would have been here sooner, if we hadn't ended up in a firefight with the Peace Brigaders at the spaceport."

  "The Brigaders are all right? Healthy?" Meloque asked.

  "Healthy enough to have delayed us," Karrde said. "Momentarily, that is."

  Leia showed Han a skeptical look. "You knew about this."

  He shrugged. "I didn't trust this whole operation from the start. I figured we'd been compromised somehow, so I wanted to make sure we had backup. Sorry I didn't tell you."

  "That's against orders, Solo," Wraw said harshly.

  "So bring me up on charges when we get back to Mon Calamari."

  "Don't think I won't try."

  Lando glanced from the Bothan to Han. "Has it been this way from the start?"

  "Pretty much."

  Lando watched Han struggle to his feet. "Are you all right, Han?"

  "He was bitten by an amphistaff whose venom wasn't working," %P said.

  Lando glanced at Malik Carr, the priest, and the warriors. "We've •en this everywhere we've been—at the spaceport, in the streets . . . ^t's going on?"

  Page gestured to the Yuuzhan Vong. "They caught something. d not just the warriors. The yammosk, the weapons—

  "Oh, no," Kyp interrupted in a tone of tragic realization. "QL no." Blood rushed from his face, and his expression turned grim "T know what happened here. I probably knew from the moment we s the crashed coralskipper, but I didn't want to believe it." He looked everyone. "And may the Force help all of us if I'm right."

  veryone was scrambling for shelter. From his perch on the rim of the abyss, Luke could see hundreds of Ferroans massed at the mouths of the tunnels below, the combined light of dozens of glow sticks creating halos around each entrance. Through Magister Jabitha, Sekot had issued the alert that the planet was preparing to make a final jump to hyperspace. Luke could feel Zonama shuddering as the core hyperdrives heated up. He could sense the tension and uncertainty in the boras, the seed-partners, the myriad creatures the vast tampasi supported.