The Unifying Force (65 page)

“Less than half what it took at the start of this war.”

“Yeah, I suppose we’re all back to fighting trim.”

Tendra stretched out her left hand and patted Lando’s slight paunch. “He means, most of us,” she said into her headset.

Lando cocked an eyebrow at his wife, then said, “Where’s that poisoned vessel, Wedge?”

“Tell your scanners to look due north-northwest.”

Tendra tasked the instruments to provide a close-up view. Defended by a ring of eight coralskippers, the six-armed slayers’ vessel was swooping down toward the south rim of the canyon. As many Red Squadron X-wings were in close pursuit, needling the enemy with lasers and torps. But instead of answering them with plasma missiles, the skips were devoting all their power to fashioning shielding singularities to protect the poisoned craft.

All the levity had left Wedge’s voice when he said, “There’s no stopping it now.”

Lady Luck
’s proximity alarms began to blare again. Lando watched the friend-or-foe identifier cycle in apparent bewilderment, then he glanced around the sky.

“Wedge, our scanners are showing unfriendlies, but they’re not registering as skips.”

“Because they’re not,” Wedge said flatly. “Whatever they are, they’re rising out of the forests—hundreds of them!”

Lando leaned toward the forward viewport. A swarm of insectile ships, showing green wings and red carapaces, was corkscrewing up toward the Smugglers’ Alliance ships. As they drew nearer, singularities formed to both sides of
Lady Luck
. The yacht pitched violently to port and began to slide for the surface. Lando lifted his hands from the control yoke and turned to his wife in wide-eyed confusion.

“That’s not me piloting!” He commed Wedge. “We’re caught up in some kind of tractor beam. It’s dragging us down!”

“Wish I could help,” Wedge said a moment later. “But they’ve got me, too.”

Corran had been the first to spot the ships—or creatures—rise from the tampasi east of the canyon. He, Kyp, Lowbacca, Cilghal, and the rest of the downed Jedi pilots were gathered on the landing platform now, watching the red and green craft dart through the sky like maidenflies, making use of grasper claws and dovin-basal-like gravitic anomalies to bring down Red Squadron starfighters and Smugglers’ Alliance ships alike.

A few kilometers east of where the Jedi were grouped,
Lady Luck, Wild Karrde
, and two X-wings were descending to treetop level.

“We don’t know what they are, Lando,” Corran was saying into his comlink. “We’ve never seen them before.”

“Another of Sekot’s surprises,” Talon added to the conversation.

“Here’s a piece of good news,” Kyp interrupted. He pointed to the southern sky. “Sekot’s chasing the skips, too.”

The southern sky was a frenzy of insectile craft. But unlike the Alliance ships, the coralskippers were not going quietly to ground, and many of the swift darters were being annihilated by plasma missiles. A sudden growl from Lowbacca brought everyone about-face to see Danni Quee and Magister Jabitha approaching the landing platform, trailed by a crowd of perhaps one hundred wary Ferroans, who had emerged from the shelters.

Kyp met the two women halfway. “You spoke with Sekot?” he asked Danni.

Her “yes” was breathy with awe, but she offered nothing more.

Corran looked hard at Jabitha. “Who’s piloting the insect craft?”

“Sekot,” the magister said.

Corran gave his head a confused shake. “I thought the idea was to keep the fight from the surface?”

“Only until Sekot was ready to launch the grappler ships,” Danni explained at last. “Sekot’s promise to Jacen was that the planet would only fight without fighting.” She saw from
the expressions that greeted her that she’d opened the floodgates. “Sekot is only interested in welcoming the Yuuzhan Vong home.”

“Home?” Corran and Kyp said at the same time.

There wasn’t time for further explanation. Dozens of coralskippers were being hauled down into the boras by grappler ships—all except for the poisoned vessel, which six unpiloted insectile craft were tugging back up the gravity well.

The Jedi, Danni, Jabitha, and some of the Ferroans hurried into the forest to be on hand when the coralskippers landed. Two kilometers along, the ragtag group was joined by Lando, Tendra, Talon, Shada, Wedge, and several other Red Squadron and Smugglers’ Alliance pilots.

Running at the head of the pack, Kyp and Corran ignited their lightsabers as soon as they saw the coralskippers and grapplers drifting down between the massive trunks of the balloon-leafed boras. The first of the coralskippers settled into the loamy shade like sculptures in a garden. Dovin basals housed in the blunt noses of the vessels sent slender blue-veined feeders into the soft ground. In response, creepers and vines writhed to touch the coarse hulls of the skips. Some writhed into the seams that defined the edges of the mica canopies and popped them open.

Shucking out of their cognition hoods, four Yuuzhan Vong leapt from the cockpit cavities, brandishing short amphistaffs. The Jedi stepped in to engage them, but stopped short when they saw the amphistaffs slip from the hands of the enemy pilots and slither off into the lush woodland. Breather masks and shoulder-borne tactical villips dropped from the pilots like ripe seedpods. Two dozen thud bugs burst from one pilot’s bandolier and took to the treetops.

The Yuuzhan Vong gazed at the Jedi like bewildered children. Caught between worlds, unacquainted with surrender, they did as they had seen their captives do and fell to their knees, their heads bowed in disgrace and their wrists pressed to their opposite shoulders.

Kyp was the first to deactivate his lightsaber; the rest followed.

Cilghal loosed a joyful exhale and put her arm around Danni’s waist. “These warriors will be the first converts,” she said. “This ground will become a hallowed place.”

Transfixed by the scene, Kyp clapped his hand on Corran’s shoulder and muttered, “A world has been saved from destruction.”

Dying rapidly, the yorik-trema was no longer accelerating but tumbling through space. Whatever flora was responsible for providing breathable atmosphere was failing, as the interior walls’ bioluminescent lichen already had.

“It doesn’t want to respond to me,” Jaina said from the controls. The hull’s transparency was filmed by a thickening cataract, but Han and Leia could still discern the distinctive shape of the
Millennium Falcon
, racing to come alongside, escorted by two battle-scarred X-wings.

“Come on, Mara,” Han said through gritted teeth. “Use the tractor beam.”

“That won’t help,” Jaina said as she tugged the flimsy cognition hood from her head. “Our only chance is to get aboard the
Falcon.”
Her eyes roamed over the irregularly pulsing control console. “There’s just enough life left in this ship for it to extend an umbilical.”

“Oh, no,” Han muttered. “Not again.”

Jaina tweaked one of the organiform control arms that grew from the console. Accompanied by wet, squishy sounds, the central section of the craft’s cramped deck softened, and an osmotic membrane began to form. Han glanced at the expanding circle in growing dismay, imagining the craft’s intestinelike cofferdam flailing in space as it attempted to vacuum-seal against the
Falcon
’s portside docking ring or dorsal hatch.

Abruptly the freighter snagged the yorik-trema, stopping it from tumbling. The deck membrane irised open, and a nauseating odor invaded the cabin space.

Han clamped his right hand over his mouth. “How do we know the umbilical’s properly sealed against the hatch?”

“It’s not the tightest fit, Dad,” Jaina said, “but it’s one we can survive.”

Jacen peered into the confined, throbbing tube. “Guess we’re going to have to crawl.”

Han’s face fell. “Ah, this is too much—even for me.”

Leia glanced at him. “I’ll go first, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Only thing that’s gonna make me feel better is an EVA suit.”

Leia stroked his whiskered face. “Be brave, darling.”

Lowering herself to the deck, she wormed through the membrane and began to elbow-crawl through the tube. Han took a deep breath and followed, his hands disappearing to the wrist in the slime that covered the floor. Two minutes later Leia disappeared from view, and Han’s hands touched the comforting solidity of the
Falcon
’s air lock.

One by one, coated with slime and reeking of putrid organics, the four of them squeezed into the freighter’s portside docking arm, where Kenth, Harrar, C-3PO, and R2-D2 were waiting.

“Oh, my,” the protocol droid said. “I’ll activate the sonic shower at once.”

R2-D2 rocked on his feet, whistling and tooting.

No sooner had Kenth dogged the hatch than Mara came running through the forward compartment, calling over her shoulder to Tahiri and the Noghri that everyone was safely aboard.

“Where’s Uncle Luke?” Jacen asked.

Mara grabbed him by the arm and hauled him into the aft cabin space, where Luke was laid out on one of the small sleeping platforms. Han, Leia, and Jaina crowded in behind them.

Jacen kneeled by the bed and carefully removed the dressing Kenth had placed over the deep puncture wound in the left side of Luke’s chest. Luke’s face and hands were white. His lips and the beds of his fingernails were slightly blue. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow.

“Shimrra’s amphistaff,” Mara said anxiously.

Jacen looked up at her and nodded. “I saw him get stabbed.”

Mara pressed her hands to her eyes and began to cry. Jacen took her tear-moistened hands in his and brought them to Luke’s chest wound. He held them there for a long moment,
removing his hands only once, to convey some of his own tears to Luke’s wound.

Luke’s chest heaved as he took a sharp inhalation, and his eyelids fluttered open. Sobbing openly, Mara laid her head on his chest, and slowly Luke’s left hand rose to caress her red-gold hair.

“I’ll live, my love,” he said weakly.

Leia kneeled down to wrap her arms around her son and Mara and cry with them. Swallowing the lump in his throat, Han put his arm around Jaina’s shoulders, then the two of them all but fell on top of Leia and Jacen.

C-3PO and R2-D2 appeared at the hatch in time to see the Skywalkers and Solos in a weeping tangle. The astromech made a fluting sound that was at once rejoicing and forlorn.

“I know, Artoo,” C-3PO said quietly. “There are few occasions when I envy humans, but this is certainly one of them.”

PART FOUR
THE NEW ORDER

Two meters above the ground, the military speeder twisted through the ruins of the sacred precinct, closing on operational headquarters at the northern edge of what had been—only two years earlier—the Legislative District. Admiral Kre’fey perched on the back of the rear seat, his snow-white fur rippling in the wind and his short command cloak snapping behind him like a flag. To either side of him sat his Bothan aides. A human lieutenant had the repulsorcraft’s controls, and beside him was a Twi’lek gunner, her hands on the trigger mechanism of a front-mounted repeating blaster. A torrential rain had just ended, and the winding paths the Yuuzhan Vong called streets were running with water. The speeder shot past columns of drenched infantry soldiers with mud caked like clay to their boots or bare legs. If nothing else, the rain had washed some of the cinder and yorik coral grit from the air.

Kre’fey had never evinced a great fondness for Coruscant, but it was only fitting that he tour the prize that had cost the Alliance so many lives. Estimates of battle casualties put the number of dead at close to five million, with twice that number of wounded. More than three hundred capital ships had been destroyed, along with some eleven thousand starfighters.

The death toll for the entire war was almost incalculable, though the figure most often quoted was 365 trillion.

Now that Sien Sovv had designated Generals Farlander and Bel Iblis as occupation commanders, Kre’fey anticipated that he would be shuttling back to
Ralroost
before nightfall.

With the shattered Yuuzhan Vong armada still arrayed two million kilometers away, Alliance battle groups remained anchored
above Coruscant. When it had finally come, the ceasefire had had less to do with loss of discipline or coordination among the enemy than something closer to loss of hope—to a palpable sense of desperation and gloom. In the aftermath of Shimrra’s death, hundreds of vessels had self-destructed or hurled themselves against Alliance ships as living missiles. Other vessels had deserted, jumping to hyperspace for star systems yet unknown. With hundreds of functional dovin basals continuing to deploy shielding singularities, Alliance landing craft and shuttles were being forced to adhere to strict descent corridors. Even so, the sky above the sacred precinct was filled with relief and patrol ships, and more were coming down the well every hour.

Orphan Coruscanti of diverse species lined the boggy byways and stood dozens-deep at makeshift medical stations, supply depots, and identity verification centers. As Kre’fey’s convoy of speeders made their way south from Westport, humanoids and aliens would turn to welcome “the liberator of Coruscant” with waves, cheers, and sloppy salutes.