Dark Tide 1: Onslaught (15 page)

“With me, Deuce?”

A double click coming back through the comm channel confirmed Nevil's understanding of his role. Gavin came up on the port S-foil and pulled back on the stick to run his X-wing in at the killer coralskipper. He plotted a course that would pass behind it and kept adjusting it to tighten the distance between them without arrowing straight in at it.

The coralskipper was intent on tracking one of the X-wings. Gavin identified the ship as belonging to Lieutenant Ligg Panat, a Krish female who had just joined the squadron. The Krish were well known for their love of games, and the way she was flying made Gavin think she was taking the Yuuzhan Vong on her tail a bit too lightly. She was managing to juke her ship around, making it hard to hit, but she still couldn't break away cleanly.

“Seven, this is Lead. On my mark, reverse throttle, break port.”

“Lead, I can handle—”

“This is an order, Seven. On my mark. Mark.”

Ligg reversed her thrust and rolled to the left, making it look as if she'd just nudged her ship out of the Yuuzhan Vong pilot's way. The coralskipper shot past her, then rolled out right and came up. The Yuuzhan Vong ship's nose came around, and the coralskipper lined up for a head-to-head run on Gavin's fighter.

That sent a jolt through Gavin.
Why would it do that? If it uses its black holes to shield itself, it can't take down my shields, so its plasma shots won't get through. If it takes down my shields, I can dump a torp down its throat. Makes no sense.

Realizing that if he couldn't tell what the enemy was planning, going along with the enemy's plan was stupid, Gavin triggered a burst of flickers at the incoming target. The cloud of red energy needles flew out and, as he expected, curved in together into the black hole the coralskipper had erected to protect itself. What he hadn't expected is that the void would intercept them that far forward.

Gavin kicked his fighter into a snap roll to starboard, then jammed the throttle full. Sparks shot from the inertial compensator panel as the X-wing grazed the edge of the black hole. Catch screamed, and Gavin hugged the stick back to his chest. The X-wing shuddered and engines whined, but his speed started dropping.
I'm getting sucked into that thing!

Gavin reversed thrust on his fighter, then ruddered the nose around to point at the black hole. The screaming engines fought the black hole's pull, but surrendered precious centimeter after centimeter to it. He flicked the weapons control over to proton torpedoes and emptied his magazine of six into the black hole. One after one the torps dived into the gravitic anomaly, and somehow the black hole managed to contain the vast energy their explosions released.

But, Gavin noticed, his rate of descent into the black hole slowed.

He flicked his thrust forward. The fighter picked up speed, attracted by the black hole and pushed by the engines. Then he pulled back on the stick and used the velocity he'd acquired to shoot past the black hole's edge.

More sparks shot through the cockpit, and his shields collapsed. His sensor screens blinked for a moment, then came back on full, but he couldn't see the coralskipper. “Catch, where is it?”

Nevil's voice came through the comm speakers in his helmet. “Thanks for distracting it, Lead. Seven and I angled in and got it. Not a pretty kill, but a kill.”

“Thanks, Deuce. Flight leaders, report.”

“Five here, Lead. Eight lost an engine and will have to be picked up, otherwise we're fine.”

“Good, Five. Nine, what about Three flight?”

Alinn Varth's voice came through heavy with emotion. “Lost two, Lead. The one that almost got you dropped that big black hole on his tail as Eleven was closing. Dinger flew into it and never knew what hit him. Twelve got ripped up by it. Tik is extravehicular, negative life signs.”

“Do a tight flyby to check. We'll have the
Ralroost
recover him.” Gavin glanced at his sensors again. “Snoop, got any more skips in the area?”

“Negative, Lead, but those hulks could be full of them.”

“I copy that, Snoop. Reel in the pods and go back to the admiral. Give him the data, have him send someone back for us.”

“As ordered, Lead. May the Force be with you.”

“Thanks, Snoop.” Gavin watched the X-wing recover the sensor pods, then accelerate and vanish into a bright flash in the sky. “Listen up, the rest of you. Keep your eyes open and sensors scanning. We don't know why there were only a half-dozen skips here, or if there are more in hiding. I don't want to be surprised. We did okay for our first engagement with them, and I don't want Admiral Kre'fey to show up here to discover we somehow managed to turn a victory into a defeat.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Leia intended to be the first person to disembark from the
Lambda
-class shuttle,
Fond Memory,
when it touched down on Dubrillion, but her Noghri bodyguard, Bolpuhr, beat her to it. He growled at the two men in body armor who came running at the freighter along the narrow causeway that led to the main landing tower. Ignoring him, the two of them turned and set up a position on the causeway to hold people back, then they parted and let a harried Lando Calrissian slip past.

Leia ran down the landing ramp and hugged Lando fiercely. “I'm so happy to see you're not hurt.”

“I'm not, but my world is.” Lando freed himself from her arms, tossed his cape back over his shoulder, and waved a hand out over the cityscape. “It's all over, Leia.”

The pure anguish in his voice arced pain through her heart. She followed his gaze and looked out over a city that she remembered as being pristine during her first visit, with high towers that made this portion of Dubrillion look as if it had been transplanted from Coruscant. The gentle sweep of archways and the elegantly worked decorations on the buildings had reminded her of images from Coruscant while her father was yet a child.

Now it is Coruscant after Thrawn and the Emperor's return.
The proud towers had been shattered, with fires guttering from the tops of some. Buildings had holes melted and blasted into them. Faint breezes teased draperies that hung out through broken transparisteel viewports, and down below, on the various causeways and streets, people moved listlessly along carrying their most precious possessions on their backs or in their arms.

Lando sighed. “The Yuuzhan Vong returned a week and a half after you left. They took up a position near the asteroid belt and watched us. Every so often a squadron of their coralskippers descends and hits a particular location. We fight back, of course, and get some of them, but less and less with each strike. It feels like they're using us to cull the weak and stupid from their ranks, leaving only the best and smartest and bravest behind to fight again.”

He slammed his right fist into his left palm. “I don't like their attacking us, but I like even less being mocked.”

Elegos appeared beside Leia. “Administrator Calrissian, what you see as mocking you could be a healthy respect for your defenses here. Your people
did
stop an earlier assault.”

Lando nodded grimly. “We did, but
these
Yuuzhan Vong fight differently. It was the difference between dealing with crack Imperial troops and some local Imp-wanna-be militia. These fighters are much better and, yes, more cautious, but they're just putting the polish on the force pike before they drive it into our guts.”

Leia put a hand on Lando's shoulder. “They didn't harry us as we came in.”

“They don't. They pick off a few of the outbound ships, but mostly let them run, too. At least, they do now. I think they expected a New Republic response by now.” Lando gave Leia a sidelong glance. “You've got nothing from Coruscant to offer us, right?”

She jerked a thumb toward Elegos. “Meet Senator Elegos A'Kla. He's here on an official fact-finding mission.”

“Better find your facts fast, Senator, before the Yuuzhan Vong melt them down with plasma blasts.”

Leia shivered. In all the time she'd spent with Lando, even when Darth Vader had usurped his command of Bespin, she'd never heard him so frustrated. She was willing to put part of it down to his not wanting to have to start over yet again, but she knew that was only a tiny piece of what was going on inside him.
Lando always looks for ways to work around the system, whatever
system
that is, but with so little data on the Yuuzhan Vong, he can't find an opening to defeat them.

Leia glanced around at the other spaceport towers. “Things look pretty empty. Everyone fleeing?”

“Those who can, have.” Lando shook his head impotently. “I had guards come up on the causeway here because your arrival will draw a lot of folks who want to get away.”

“How are your defenses holding up?” Elegos craned his neck and looked around. “I don't see much in the way of turbolaser batteries or concussion missile launchers.”

Lando's face brightened a little. “Nor will you. The Yuuzhan Vong hit the fixed sites pretty early on. Everything else is mobile and in hiding. When they come in we try to harass them with fighters and steer them into areas where our mobile guns can engage them. They're learning, so they're making it tough, but we can shuffle things when they're not looking down on us and set up new ambushes.”

“That's good as a stall tactic, but it won't win a war against them.” Leia's eyes narrowed. “We can do better.”

“Really? That mean you have a spare Death Star lurking around that will pulverize the asteroid belt and their command ship?”

“Command ship?” Elegos's head came up. “You've seen a big ship from them?”

“Yes, lurking near the asteroid belt.” Lando waved them on to follow him. “Come on down to my central defense facility. I can show you as much holo on that ship as you want. We
did
make an attempt at taking it out, but our fighters never got close enough.”

Leia dropped into step with Lando, leaving Elegos to trail behind them and Bolpuhr leaping ahead to lead the way. “It's got to have a weakness. We can find it and exploit it.”

“I hope so.”

“We will, Lando. We must.” Leia sighed. “It's the only chance Dubrillion has.”

Jaina pulled a comlink from the bulkhead recharger station on the
Fond Memory
. She handed another to Danni. “My mother has headed off with Lando. We can explore a bit, if you want, stretch our legs.”

The blond woman accepted the device and clipped it to the lapel of the blue jacket she wore. “Sorry to take so long to find my jacket. You should have gone with her.”

“That's okay. Being cooped up with her for the trip out here was enough for now. I don't need to be there while she's being ‘Princess Leia.' ”

Danni blinked with surprise. “But, your mother, she . . .”

Jaina nodded and led the way down the landing ramp. “I know, she defeated the Empire and kept the New Republic safe. Oh, don't look at me that way. I know what she did, and I love her dearly.”

“Sounds as if there is a
but
coming in there somewhere.”

Jaina sighed as they stepped past the guards on the causeway and cut toward a set of stairs that would take them lower in the city. “Didn't you want to move out of your mother's shadow?”

“My mother cast a very small shadow, I guess.” The woman's green eyes sparkled. “She is an astrophysicist who got me to be looking out toward the stars. She kept a low profile, trying to pass beneath the sensors of the local government or the Empire or whichever warlord claimed our world in any given week. From her I learned to marvel at distant worlds and systems. That's a big chunk of the reason I joined the ExGal Society.”

“Your mother must be proud.”

“She is. I think she's pleased I chose to follow in her footsteps.”

“Taking after your father didn't interest you?”

“They split up when I was young. He was a bureaucrat, very much into rules and regulations that seemed pointless.” Danni shrugged. “At least, with science, the rules you have to follow have reason behind them and produce results. I don't much care for bureaucracy, which was part of the fun of being with ExGal: the edge of the galaxy was about twenty times closer than the nearest bureaucrat.”

Jaina exited the stairs and stepped over a small pile of debris that had spilled into the street from a nearby building. She could have shifted it out of the way with the Force, but she didn't. In fact, she found herself pulling the Force back in because the pure misery of the people of Dubrillion clawed at her spirit. She understood their fear and pain, but the sharpness of it threatened to rend her.

“At least you had some sort of choice, Danni. With my parents I could be a smuggler who saved the galaxy or a diplomat who saved the galaxy.”

“And you chose to become a Jedi.”

Jaina shifted her shoulders uneasily. “That choice was pretty much made for me. My brothers and I are very strong in the Force.”

Danni arched an eyebrow as she pulled abreast of Jaina. “You regret being a Jedi?”

“No, not at all.” Jaina hesitated, then sighed. “It's something neither of my parents became, so it let me have something to myself. That's part of being a twin too, I guess; everyone expects we'll be alike even though we're fraternal, not identical.”

“I think I begin to see what you're saying.” Danni offered her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Jaina Solo. So, tell me, just who are you?”

Laughter erupted from Jaina. “I don't know who I am. I'm only sixteen. I know parts of it. I know I'm a really good pilot, and I'm not bad as a Jedi. I know I'm getting tired of being my mother's daughter and my father's daughter; and part of me even knows that it will take time for me to emerge from their shadows. I also know that there are folks out there who think I'm going to be the salvation of the galaxy because I'm a Jedi, and others who think I'm doom on two feet for the same reason.”

The older woman hooked an arm through Jaina's right elbow. “I remember when I was sixteen. I was all elbows and knees and pretty sure I knew all there was to know about anything worth knowing.”

“Uh-huh. And now, at the ripe old age of, what, twenty-one, you know how foolish you were back then?”

“Twenty-one, yes. And, yes, I do think I was not as wise then as I am now. Jaina, I remember not wanting advice.”

The younger woman smiled. “So you'll give it to me anyway.”

“My point is, Jaina, that people have a choice when they start to look at who they are. Some people decide they want to be like others. They use them as examples, try to do the things they do, and do their best to follow in their footsteps.” Danni smiled. “I was like that with my mother.”

“And the other type of people, they try to be the opposite of someone?”

“Right, and the problem with that strategy is simple: There are a million ways to be unlike someone, and the potential for disaster is unlimited because instead of choosing a path and adjusting it to make it right for you and the circumstances, you push all that away.” Danni gave Jaina's arm a squeeze. “You may not want to be your mother, you may ache for the day when you won't be seen as her daughter, but that doesn't mean your mother doesn't have a lot of admirable qualities that you might want to embrace.”

Jaina nodded, letting Danni's words bounce around inside her mind for a bit. She knew she was both disappointed and relieved by her mother's failure to learn more about the Force. Being a Jedi already gave her a piece of identity that her mother didn't have. And, in being a pilot, she did seem to have picked up one of her father's better traits.
And Mom's commitment to the causes that catch her up is certainly admirable. Her relentlessness and willfulness, while annoying to me, are good traits, too.

Jaina shot Danni a sidelong glance. “So, this wisdom thing, that kicks in when, about seventeen or eighteen?”

“Maybe, with a good role model.”

“Good. I guess I can take my pick from some of the best.” Jaina smiled. “I may not know who I am, but I think you've pointed me to a good path for finding out.”

“It's the least I can do for half the team that saved me from the Yuuzhan Vong.”

The two of them stopped as they rounded a corner and came upon a crowd of people gathered before a government food storehouse. Armed security troops stood at the doorway. A couple of frantic clerks beseeched the people to disperse. They announced they were waiting for a shipment of supplies and would be setting up local relief centers in neighborhoods. They said no one would be getting food directly from the storehouse, but the sentiment voiced by some in the crowd supported the idea that the troops and bureaucrats wanted to keep the food only for themselves.

Danni shivered. “These people—there's such need.”

Jaina slowly opened herself to the Force and felt the desire and urgency pouring off the crowd. She abruptly turned Danni around and headed back toward the spaceport. “I know you're Force-sensitive. I should have steered you clear of here.”

“Did you feel it, Jaina?”

“I did, when I opened myself to it. I'd shut some of it out just because it hurt so much, which is why I didn't skirt this place.”

“You can do that? You can shut things out?” Danni frowned. “I mean, I thought the Force was vital for the Jedi.”

“The Force is vital for everyone, but negative emotions are the bane of the Jedi Knight. Too much of that can frustrate you, lead you to despair and rash acts that are of the dark side.” Jaina stretched her senses out and located the distant spark that was her mother. “I can show you how to screen a lot of the negative stuff and teach you a few more of the simple telekinesis exercises, but first I want to find my mother. She ought to have a clue as to how desperate things are getting here.”

“You're right. Thanks for getting me out of there.”

“No problem.” Jaina gave her a quick nod. “That's for calibrating my compass. Now that I've got a better idea where I'm going, perhaps I can actually get there.”