The Joiner King (70 page)

One of the soldiers made a quick check, then returned. “It’s uncleared forest, sir,” he reported. “The landspeeders couldn’t get through it, but we could move through on foot.”

“Negative.” Jamira shook his head. “We’d lose all cohesion in the woods and the Vong would hunt us to death.” He turned to look out the shattered front viewport. “We’ve got to get back to the landspeeders somehow, then take another route around the roadblock.” He looked grim, and pressed a hand to a wound on his thigh. “Tell Colonel Tosh he’s got to give us covering fire as we break out. But we’re still going to lose a lot of people once everyone gets into the street.”

Jaina became aware that her comm unit was bleeping at her. She answered. “This is Solo.”

“This is Colonel Fel. Are you in difficulty? The other Jedi seemed to think so.”

Relief sang through Jaina at the sound of Jag’s voice, though the relief was followed immediately by embarrassment at its intensity. She struggled to keep her voice calm and military as she answered. “The column’s run into an ambush and has been pinned down,” she said. “What’s your location?”

“I’m with Twin Suns Squadron in orbit. We’re on standby, waiting for you and Lowbacca to rejoin us. An enemy fleet has appeared and the situation has grown urgent. It’s imperative that the landing force return to orbit as soon as possible.”

“You don’t say,” Jaina snapped, her relief fading before annoyance at Jag’s pompous tone.

“Stand by,” Jag said. “I’ll lead the squadrons on a bombing and strafing run and blast you out of there.”

“Negative,” Jaina said. “The Vong are right across the street, too close. You’d hit us, and we’ve got civilians here.”

“I still may be able to help. Stand by.”

“Jag,” Jaina said, “you’ve got too many rookies! They’ll never
be able to stay on target! They’re going to splatter a hundred civilians, not to mention the rest of us!”

“Stand by, Twin Leader,” Jag said, insistent.

Annoyance finally won over relief. Jaina looked at General Jamira in exasperation. “Did you hear that, sir?”

Jamira nodded. “Even if he can’t do a strafing run, starfighters might keep the Vong’s heads down. We’ll wait.”

“General!” Pwoe’s commanding voice rang from the back of the room. “This is absolute folly! I demand that you allow me to negotiate a surrender for these people before those fire-happy pilots blow us all to pieces!”

The Quarren stalked forward. Jamira faced him, straightening, and winced as he put weight onto his wounded leg.

“Senator,” he said. “You will oblige me by remaining silent. You are not in charge here.”

“Neither are you, it appears,” Pwoe said. “Your only hope, and the hope of all under your command”—with his cuffed hands he made a gesture that encompassed the soldiers, the civilians, and the prisoners—“is to surrender at discretion. I shall undertake the negotiations entirely at my own risk.”

“
Surrender at discretion.
” Jaina was surprised by Thrackan’s sarcastic voice coming from the back of the room. Her cousin rose from the chair he’d occupied and limped forward. She could see that the long muscles of his back had also been sliced open by a razor bug.

“Up until now I’d thought the
Jedi
were the most pompous, annoying gasbags in creation,” Thrackan said. “But that was before I met
you.
You take the prize for the most preposterous, self-important, prolix fiasco I have ever seen. And on top of that—” He stared at close range into Pwoe’s indignant eyes. “On top of that, sir, you are a
fish
! So sit down and shut up, before I take a
harpoon
to you!”

Pwoe drew himself up. “Your display of rank prejudice is—”

Thrackan waved a hand. “Can it, Chief. Nobody’s listening to your speeches now. Or will ever again, I guess.”

Pwoe returned Thrackan’s glare for a long moment, and then his gaze fell, and he retreated. Then Thrackan turned his scowl on the others—Jaina, Jamira, and the rest. “I’m not a Vong collaborator,
no matter what the rest of you think. And I’m not about to let a subaquatic imbecile sell us out to the enemy.”

With an air of painful triumph, Thrackan dragged himself to his seat.

From above came the peculiar creaking roar of a claw fighter, passing slowly overhead. Jaina could imagine Jag in the pilot’s seat, flying the clawcraft inverted to give himself a better view of the scene below. When Jag’s voice returned, it was thoughtful.

“Our forces are on the north side?”

“Yes, but—”

“The Yuuzhan Vong are regrouping—they’ll be launching another assault in a few minutes. I’ll commence a bomb run with our two squadrons to break up the attack. Tell your people to stay under cover, and be ready to run.”

“No!” Jaina said. “I know my rookie pilots! They don’t have the experience!”

“Stand by, Twin Leader. And tell those soldiers standing on the dead animal to take cover.”

Jaina almost dashed the comlink to the ground in frustration. Instead she gave a despairing look to General Jamira, who was looking at her with a furrowed, thoughtful expression. Jamira raised his own comlink to his lips.

“Fighters are about to make a run. Everyone is to get under secure cover, and prepare to run for the landspeeders on my command. Tosh, get your people off that creature and under the speeders’ shields again.”

And then, with weary, silent dignity, General Jamira took shelter beneath a table. The others in the room did their best to follow suit.

The roar of starfighters floated through the broken viewports. Jaina, remaining on her feet, stepped to the viewport and took a quick look out.

Black against the western sky was the Chiss squadron, the craft flying nearly wingtip to wingtip, echeloned back from the leader in a kind of half wedge.

Of course
, Jaina thought in admiration. Jag Fel would be in
the lead, flying along an invisible line down the battlefield between the Yuuzhan Vong and the New Republic troops: The others were echeloned onto the Vong side of the line—as long as they maintained their alignment on the leader, their fire
couldn’t
hit friendly forces.

Laser cannons began to flash on the Chiss leader, then on the others. Bolts fell on the street and on the roofs of the buildings opposite, a clatter of high-energy rain. Jaina dived under the nearest table and found Lowie already taking up most of the room.

“You know,” she said, “sometimes Jag is really—”

Her thought was left unfinished. The first wave seemed to suck the air from Jaina’s lungs, then transform it into light and heat that Jaina could feel in her long bones, her liver and spleen and bowel.

Twenty-one more detonations followed the first as the Chiss unloaded. Whatever was left of the restaurant viewports exploded inward. Storms of dust blasted in from the street, and bits of debris. And then there was a silence broken only by the ringing in Jaina’s ears.

Slowly she became aware that her comlink was talking at her. She raised it to her lips.

“Say again?”

“Hold your positions,” came the faint voice. “Twin Suns is next.”

Tesar would be in the lead position, with the rest echeloned in the same formation Jag had used. Jaina had no fear that any of the fire would go astray.

“Hold your positions!” Jaina called. “Another strike coming!”

There were sixteen runs this time, two from each of the X-wings remaining. Jaina coughed as wave after wave of dust blew in the viewports.

Again there was silence, broken only by the sound of sliding rubble from the buildings opposite. As she blinked dust from her lashes Jaina could see General Jamira rise painfully from his position under one of the tables, then raise his comlink to his lips.

“Soldiers, take up positions to cover the civilians! All non-combatants to the speeders—and then the rest of us follow!”

Hands tore the rubble off him, and Maal Lah saw the sky where he had thought he would never see the free sky again. He wheezed as he coughed dust out of his lungs. “It’s the commander!” someone called, and a host of hands joined to rip the debris away, then lift Maal Lah free of the wreckage.

Maal Lah gave a gasp at a sudden, nauseating wave of pain, but he clenched his teeth and said, “Subaltern! Report!”

“The infidels made their escape after the bombing, Supreme Commander. But they’ve left hundreds of dead behind.” The subaltern hesitated. “Many of them our Peace Brigade allies.”

Pain made Maal Lah snarl, but he turned the snarl into one of triumph. “The treacherous infidels deserved their fate! They should have died fighting, but instead they surrendered and left it to us to give them an honorable death!” He managed to turn another grimace of pain into a laugh. “The invaders feared us, subaltern! They fled Ylesia once they had felt our sting!”

“The Supreme Commander is wise,” the subaltern said. Dust streaked the subaltern’s tattoos, and his armor was battered. His eyes traveled along Maal Lah’s body. “I regret to say, Supreme Commander,” he said slowly, “that your leg is destroyed. I’m afraid you’re going to lose it.”

Maal Lah snarled again. As if he needed a young infant of a subaltern to tell him such a thing. He had
seen
the duralloy beam come down like a knife, and he had felt the agony in the long minutes since …

“The shapers will give me a better leg, if the gods will it,” Maal Lah said.

He turned his head at a series of sonic booms: the infidel landers leaping skyward from their landing field.

“They
think
they’ve escaped, subaltern,” Maal Lah said. “But I know they have not.”

Before the enemy fire blew the building down on him he had been in contact with his commanders in space, and devised a strategy that would give the enemy another surprise.

Was it possible to die of surprise? he wondered.

As a tactician, he knew that it was.

Jacen stood in silence and held the Jedi meld in his mind. The last of the landing party was leaving Ylesia, with Jaina and Lowbacca, and the enemy commander still had not made his move. Instead he continued to extend his flank, shifting a constant trickle of ships into the void. Admiral Kre’fey matched each enemy deployment with one of his own. Both lines were now attenuated, too drawn out to be useful as a real battle line.

But why?
Why had the enemy commander handicapped himself in this way, drawing out his forces until they were no longer able to fight cohesively? He had similarly handicapped Kre’fey, that was true, but he wasn’t in a position to take advantage of it. What he should have done was attack immediately and try to trap the ground forces on Ylesia.

In Jacen’s mind he could feel the Jedi pilots in their patrolling craft, scattered up and down the thinned-out enemy line. He felt their perceptions layered onto his, so he knew as well the positions of most of the fleet. And through their unified concentration on their own displays, he understood where they were in relationship to the enemy.

Why?
Why was the Yuuzhan Vong commander maneuvering this way? It was almost as if there were a piece missing.

A missing piece. The piece fell into place with a
snap
that Jacen felt shuddering in his nerves. With some reluctance he banished the Force and the comforts of the meld from his mind, and he called up his Vongsense, the strange telepathy he had developed with Yuuzhan Vong lifeforms during his captivity.

An immeasurably alien sense of
being
filled his thoughts. He could feel the ememy fleet extending its wing out into space, the implacable hostility of its every being, from the living ships to the breathing Yuuzhan Vong to the grutchins that waited packed into Yuuzhan Vong missiles …

Jacen fought to extend his mind, extend his senses deep into space, into the void that surrounded the Ylesia system.

And there he found what he sought, an alien microcosm filled with barbarous purpose.

He opened his eyes and stared at Kre’fey, who was standing amid his silent staff, studying the displays.

“Admiral!” Jacen said. “
There’s another Vong fleet on its way!
” He strode forward among the staff officers and thrust a pointing finger into the holographic display. “It’s coming right
here.
Right behind our extended wing, where they can hammer us against the other Yuuzhan Vong force.”

Kre’fey stared at Jacen from his gold-flecked violet eyes. “Are you certain?”

Jacen returned Kre’fey’s stare. “Absolutely, Admiral. We’ve got to get our people out of there.”

Kre’fey looked again at the display, at the shimmering interference patterns that ran over Jacen’s pointing finger. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, that has to be the explanation.” He turned to his staff. “Order the extended wing to rejoin.”

A host of communications specialists got very busy with their microphones. Kre’fey continued staring at Jacen’s pointing finger, and then he nodded to himself.

“The extended wing is to fire a missile barrage
here.
” Kre’fey said, and gave the coordinates indicated by Jacen’s finger.

The capital ships on the detached wing belched out a gigantic missile barrage, seemingly aimed into empty space, and scurried back to the safety of the main body. When the Yuuzhan Vong reinforcements shimmered into realspace the missiles were already amid them, and the new arrivals hadn’t yet configured their ships for defense, or launched a single coralskipper.

On the displays Jacen watched the havoc the missiles wrought on the startled enemy. Almost all the ships were hit, and several broke up.

Kre’fey snarled. “
How can I hurt the Vong today?
We’ve answered that question, haven’t we?”

One of his staff officers gave a triumphant smile. “Troopships report the landing party has been recovered, Admiral.”

“About time,” someone muttered.

Since the wing was contracting inward anyway, Kre’fey got the whole fleet moving in the same direction. The newly arrived Yuuzhan Vong were too disorganized, and too out of position, to make an effective pursuit. The first arrivals charged after
Kre’fey, but they were strung out while Kre’fey’s forces were concentrating, and their intervention had no hope of being decisive.