Balance Point (10 page)

His hand tightened.

“But simply … staying alive isn’t everything. Don’t you see? We’re only trying … to prevent the subtraction of life.”

“You’ve added to mine, Mara,” he said softly, dryly. “Come get some rest.”

Crowded around a tracking screen in the hardened control shed, Jacen, Han, and the Ryn Piani watched a small blip grow on the tracking screen, while Randa sulked in a corner and Droma stared out the viewbubble. A tickling sensation finally thrust itself into the back of Jacen’s mind.

“It’s Jaina,” he confirmed.

Han crossed his arms, frowning. “How is she?”

Jacen examined the feeling. “Mad,” he concluded.

One of Thirty-two’s snakelike cofferdams was extended to the med runner. Jacen and Han stood at the foot of its landing ramp as the hatch opened. First off was a Mon Cal pilot, wearing the tri-circle insignia of the New Republic medical service. She had long, feminine webbed hands. “Captain Solo?”

Han stepped forward. “You’ve got my girl, I hope.” His voice echoed oddly inside the cofferdam.

“Her attendant’s helping her forward. Sign here, please.” The pilot thrust out a datapad.

“Nope,” Han said. “Not till I see her.”

Watching over his father’s shoulder, Jacen spotted a dark gray coverall, dark hair chopped surprisingly short, and his sister’s face, half covered by some kind of mask.

Jaina batted away her droid-attendant’s extended
limb. “I can walk down a ramp. Hi, Dad. Hello, Jacen. Thanks for coming to pick up the pieces.”

She walked down, limping slightly. Han embraced her, rocking from foot to foot. Then Jacen slipped his arms around her shoulders. Until he knew more about her injuries, he didn’t want to squeeze.

“I’m not a skeleton leaf,” she growled, tightening her grip. Her fingers dug into his triceps.

“Here are your instructions.” The medical droid presented Han with a second datapad.

Jaina turned away. Two curved, darkened lenses hung from a soft headband, with several connectors alongside. Jacen hoped the meds hadn’t had to implant anything under her scalp to make the thing work.

“You can see well enough to recognize us,” he said. “That’s not bad.”

“I can tell you apart through the Force. What I see is shadows and darker shadows. It’s getting better.” She shut her mouth firmly, but only for a moment. “I can already make out shapes on a threat board. Sending me here was a waste of fuel—unless you’ve heard something I haven’t.” She folded her arms and glared at Jacen. “Am I terminal or something, and they just haven’t told me?”

“No,” Jacen exclaimed. He couldn’t resist stretching out through the Force. His sister’s presence pulsed red-hot—an ember, not a flame. “No, you’re healing well. They just didn’t want to risk you in combat. Or risk that you’d endanger someone else,” he added, trying to push her anger away. Standing beside her made him edgy, almost as if the ground were vibrating.

“Not you, too.” Jaina pulled off her mask and pushed her face closer to his. Her eyes did look cloudy, the pupils faintly gray.

Finished with the medical team, their dad clapped an
arm around her shoulder. “Come inside, sweetie. I’ll get you settled before I head back to the pumping station.”

They found her a cot in a hut with an elderly Ryn woman, whose husband had died on the
Jubilee Wheel
over Ord Mantell, and who was glad for company. As Han hurried off, Jaina grudgingly let Jacen stow her belongings under the shelter’s second cot. She turned her head toward the small window.

“I can see fine, if there’s enough light.”

“That’s a problem in Thirty-two,” Jacen admitted. “The cloud cover doesn’t let much in.” And these SELCORE shelters had just one door and one window. “A little light gets in through the roof panels,” he added, gesturing upward.

These huts were suited only for domed environments. One good storm would blow off the roofs, then wash the mortar out from between mud bricks that reinforced the synthplas walls.

“How long did it take to get used to the stink?”

Jacen’s face warmed. He glanced at the older woman seated on the other bunk. Jaina wasn’t just smelling Duro’s atmosphere. The Ryn had this odor …

“That’s partly me,” the Ryn said bluntly.

“Less than a day.” Jacen got the words out quickly. “And, Clarani, you know it’s not you in particular. Your people just have a different body chemistry.”

Jaina shook her head slowly. “Sorry,” she muttered. “You’re generous to take me in. The last thing you need is an ungrateful kid in your house.”

“Don’t worry.” Clarani gestured left and right, taking in the door they’d left open for light—and the small window, with its primitive shelf-row storage. “I’m tired of sleeping alone.”

When Jaina raised a hand to adjust her mask, Jacen spotted a tremor. She really had been through it.

“So bring me up to speed,” he said casually. “What have the Rogues been up to, and who fried your X-wing?”

“I did. That’s the worst of it.”

“You?”

She sighed. “I was chasing a skip. At Kalarba,” she added.

“Yes, they told us. I guess Druckenwell’s gone, too?” That had been a major Imperial manufacturing center.

“And Falleen. They’ve reached Rodia. It’s the heavy end of the hammer, pounding and pounding.”

“Unbelievable,” Jacen muttered, wondering if the Falleen had fought to the last drop of green blood or else used their infamous pheromones to buy a measure of freedom.

Jaina didn’t offer details, and this wasn’t the time to press. “I stayed a little too close to a cruiser that was under attack,” she said. “When it blew, I … caught some radiation. I should be fine in a couple of weeks,” she insisted. “No permanent damage.”

“Good.”

In return, Jacen gave her a fast explanation of Thirty-two’s water purification project, the ancient pit mine that had filled with toxic groundwater, the settlement’s nominal partnership with Gateway beyond low, blasted hills, and their supply problems. CorDuro Shipping, contracted by SELCORE to deliver supplies to the refugee domes, had missed two shipments this month and been late with the other eleven.

“There’s plenty of work here,” he added. “Mechanical stuff. Your specialty.”

She snorted. “Save it for somebody who doesn’t know how to vape skips, Jacen. They’re taking this galaxy
away from us. The forces need every decent pilot we can get. That’s where you ought to be. Even Dad.”

She sounded disturbingly like Randa—anxious, angry. Again he thought of his vision, and the potential repercussions of one step in the wrong direction.

“Instead of stuck here, taking care of helpless folks?” Clarani put in. “Think again, young woman. Who were you fighting to save? You’re not out there playing death-tag for fun and excitement.”

“True.” To Jacen’s surprise, Jaina’s voice sank. “And I worry … a little … that when I get back in an X-wing, I’ll punk out.”

“Not you,” Jacen said.

“It’s different now.” She laced her fingers on the lap of her dark gray coverall. “Did they tell you I lost Sparky?”

“No.” Jacen turned toward the Ryn woman. “Sparky was her personal droid. She’s had him—”

“A while,” Jaina said. “Long enough to start depending on him. I know they’re just mechanical, but … he was great.” Her shoulders slumped.

Jacen shook his head.

“Never having owned a droid,” the Ryn woman said, “I might not seem sympathetic. But we’ll all lose more than we already have, before all this is over.”

“You ended up EV?” Jacen asked.

Jaina nodded.

He compressed his lips. Losing a fighter around you and going extravehicular did terrible things to the comforting illusions that kept fighter pilots rushing into those cockpits. At the back of their minds, it was always the other guy who got shot up—the one who just wasn’t as quick, or as good in a clinch shot, or as sharp-eyed. He stared at Jaina’s mask.

“Want dinner?” he asked. “Part of the stink is what we’ll eat tonight.”

Jaina shook her head. “My day cycle just shifted. It’s almost midnight where I’ve been. I just want to sleep.

“Do me a favor,” she added, looking straight at him. Jacen felt her emotions shift subtly. “I want to spend the night in a healing trance. Give me a push. I can’t get as deep as I want, without you.”

He hesitated.

“I know,” she said. He had the sense that her stare, such as it was, didn’t waver. “The whole galaxy knows you’ve been trying not to use the Force. This is me, your sister. I need to get well.”

“You’re right.” Embarrassed, he shoved his reluctance aside. “I’ll help. But you need to know that it’s gotten worse.”

“Why?” she demanded. When she tilted her head up and frowned, she looked almost exactly like their mom.

“I saw … this vision.” He described it for her.

She listened, nodding—but she asked again for his help. He couldn’t refuse. Soon she lay in a deep healing subsleep, her chest rising and falling so slowly that a stranger might have worried that she wasn’t breathing.

But when he looked with his spirit, he saw that her legs, right side, and left hand were all targets of an intense effort. Around and through her eyes, energy flowed with particular intensity. Bacta, that miraculous microscopic healer, had done such a good job on her tissue injuries that she wouldn’t have any visible scars. She wouldn’t limp much longer, either.

I’d be a good healer
, he complained to himself, but he knew the answer to that. Just because he was skilled in an area, that didn’t make it the call on his life. People who told him he was lucky to be so broadly “gifted” didn’t have to make his decisions.

The next morning, he spotted her ambling up the alley, trailing one hand along the rough wall of the nearest hut.
He grabbed her other hand and guided her to a mess area. Ryn of all ages congregated around five females with site-built cooking pots. Jaina sniffed the air.

Jacen touched her elbow and guided her to a place in line. “Looks like—” He glanced into the nearest pot. “Mm, breakfast phraig.” He lowered his voice and muttered in Jaina’s ear, “SELCORE must’ve gotten a contract for some planet’s entire phraig harvest …” He trailed off as the nearby cook spotted them.

“The Rogue pilot,” she exclaimed.

Up and down the serving line, Ryn heads turned. Two leather-winged Vors stared down pointed faces. A family of humans set their trays aside and applauded.

Jaina’s lips twisted.

“You to the front of the line, missy,” the cook said. “Maybe we can’t do anything for your wingmates, but you tell them—when you get back—that Camarata said thank you.”

When Jaina tried to protest, Jacen elbowed her. “These refugees can only give you a touch of special treatment. It’s all they have. Let them honor Rogue Squadron, if you don’t want it for yourself.”

He guided her to the front of the line, steadied her bowl while one of the women ladled a dipper full of pale-brown steamed grains, mixed with a few bits of dried fruit. Then he got himself a bowlful and grabbed two mugs of imitation caf.

They took a seat on a long slab of duracrete. Jaina gripped her spoon halfway up the handle and got a bite into her mouth.

“Bland,” she said, “but not bad. I’m sorry I was lousy company last night.”

“This can’t be real easy for you.”

“Always understanding everybody else’s viewpoint, that’s my little brother.”

He smiled wryly. For about two years, she had been taller.

She shook her head, then turned aside, so he saw the reflection of a Ryn family on her faceplate. “I hate this,” she said. “I’m the older sister. The ace pilot. Did you know, I almost got as many kills in the last three weeks as the squadron’s top ten percenters? Do you realize what that means to me?”

“Yes. You’re one of the hottest pilots there ever was.”

“I’m scared to lose that, Jacen.”

“Of course. But I read your diagnosis pad last night. You really are expected to get better. Fast.”

“Then why did they send me here?” Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“I told you last night. The med facilities are bursting.”

“Yeah,” she said. “And do you know they haven’t been able to raise Mom?”

“I don’t understand that.”

“Well, they didn’t try real long and hard. But I hope nothing happened to her.”

“We’d know if …” Jacen trailed off.

“So where is she?”

He shrugged. “Working refugees. She could be here on Duro, and we’d never know it. We can’t keep the comm cables up, the murk’s too thick for line-of-sight, and we haven’t gotten a good antenna from SELCORE yet.”

Jaina finished her breakfast and patted the duracrete, looking for her mug.

As Jacen shoved it toward her hand, he spotted motion at the edge of his field of vision. An immense, tan-colored blob of motion.

“Uh-oh,” he murmured.

“What?” Her head whipped around.

“Randa,” he said quickly, “our resident Hutt. Wants
revenge on the Yuuzhan Vong. He’ll try to get you into his own plans for combat. He’s been working on me.”

“Tell him I can’t.”

“You tell him,” Jacen said. “Here he comes.”

Two days later, Jacen adjusted his breath mask and leaned against Thirty-two’s duracrete main gate, waiting for the CorDuro supply shuttle. The gray dome faded toward a foggy height. SELCORE couldn’t afford to equip its refugees with costly enviro-suits, only cheap chem suits and cumbersome rebreathers like Jacen’s. There were times when he’d gladly blast off again.

Randa’s offer rose back to his mind, but he rejected it. If he turned to aggression, that would betray everything he’d promised to stand for, not to mention his vision.

But couldn’t he fight without using the Force?

On his right, the sealed end of a retracted, tube-shaped cofferdam lay along one edge of a blasted-out crater. That tube could be run out to mate with a freighter’s cargo hatch. Thirty-two had been promised a load of chemical fertilizers for its hydroponics operation. Without them, the new crop of foodstuffs would wither in the tanks.

Still, it didn’t take a Jedi Master to realize this freighter wasn’t coming. Frowning, Jacen slipped into the wide gate, a modified airlock. He paused to let air currents whisk most of the crud off of his clothes, sloshed his boots in a settling tub, then paced up the dome’s edge to the control shed.