NINE

Jaina came awake suddenly, though no sound disturbed her trancelike state. She sat up, senses alert for whatever had roused her.

But the ship was quiet, eerily so. For someone accustomed to the hum and roar of engines, the silence of the Yuuzhan Vong frigate was disconcerting. Jaina wasn’t sure exactly why she’d expected anything different; after all, what sound did gravity make when it bent? Would a black hole make a giant slurping noise whenever a dovin basal sucked up a proton torpedo?

She rubbed the nape of her neck with one hand and then stretched, drawing in a long breath. And realized why she’d awoken.

A faint, sharp odor filled the air, a scent she couldn’t equate with any other she knew. Jaina pushed herself off the coral bench and hurried to the cockpit.

Starlines spun into view as the ship came out of its hyperspace flight. The odd scent must have been some sort of sensor.

The stars focused into sharp points, but faint lines remained—starlight refracted from some metallic, as-yet-unseen object.

In the pilot’s seat, Zekk sat bolt upright, leaning toward the viewport. “Incoming!” he snapped.

Jaina spun toward the pilot’s seat and leaned down to peer over Zekk’s shoulder. A motley collection of ships—some of them Hapan vessels, some more suited to pirates and smugglers—sped purposefully toward them.

Ganner slipped into the gunner’s chair, his handsome face grim at the prospect of firing upon allies.

Zekk touched his hooded head to Jaina’s. “You want to take this?”

“I’m going back to the escape pod. Unless Tenel Ka gets to Hapes, this could be the first party of many. Ganner, no matter what, you’ve got to protect her. That comes first.”

“I know my job,” he said.

Jaina gave his shoulder a brief squeeze to show that she understood his dilemma, then she hurried to the stern of the frigate. Tenel Ka was lowering herself into the black, seed-shaped escape pod, listening intently to Tahiri’s swift-flowing advice. Tesar, Alema, and Tekli stood by.

The blond girl glanced up at Jaina’s approach. She straightened and backed away.

“You’re the closest thing we’ve got to an expert,” Jaina reminded her. “This is no time to defer. Report?”

Tahiri grimaced and shrugged. “She’s as ready as she’ll ever be. I’d rather go myself, but it’s her world.”

“Tenel Ka?”

The warrior confirmed readiness with a somber nod.

“No lights,” Jaina reminded, nodding toward the fluorescent, lichenlike life-forms gathered in small colonies inside the escape pod. “Head for the outskirts of the royal city. It’s been two standard hours since sunset, so you’ve got at least a shot at secrecy. Get down as fast as you can, as close to the city as you can without drawing attention. We’ll keep them busy and give you as much time as possible.”

Tenel Ka looked to Tahiri. The young Jedi helped the one-armed woman pull the cognition hood over her head. Tahiri stepped back. The pod’s opening irised shut, and the small vessel rose slightly from the floor.

The Jedi backed away. A door closed between them and the pod, and an exterior portal opened. The escape pod sped silently out into the dark vacuum.

Jaina headed for the cockpit, but came up short when Tahiri stepped into her path. The blond girl looked fragile but resolute.

“What can I do?”

“Go find Lowbacca,” Jaina suggested. “He’s still working on the tracking system. You know the Yuuzhan Vong language better than any of us. Maybe the ship will be more talkative if it’s got a good listener.”

Color drained from the young Jedi’s face, but without hesitation she took off in search of the Wookiee.

Jaina understood Tahiri’s fear, and respected the girl’s refusal to pamper it. Anakin had told her a few things about Tahiri’s rescue from Yavin 4. They’d stolen a ship, and the cognition hood had attempted to bypass Tahiri’s true identity to pierce the “memories” the shapers had implanted.

Interesting, she mused.

The frigate shuddered and pitched as Hapan missiles bombarded it. Jaina staggered through the corridor, bouncing from one wall to the other as the ship rolled and jinked.

She struggled to the cockpit and ripped the pilot’s hood from Zekk’s head. “You said I was doing just fine,” he said, showing a flash of wry humor.

“Obviously, I lied,” she replied in kind as she tugged the controls over her own head.

He quickly yielded the seat, but continued to gaze anxiously at the viewport as Jaina settled in.

The ship’s sensors flooded her with information, none of it good.

“Hyperdrive’s out,” she announced as she spun the ship in an evasive maneuver. “Dovin basal is about played out. Looks like we get to choose between shielding and running.”

“Run,” Alema suggested.

Jaina did her best, dodging through an ever-shifting minefield of strobing lasers and proton torpedoes. Doggedly she led their attackers away from Hapes, away from Tenel Ka.

Alema let out a sigh of relief. “You’re losing them! Good work.”

Jaina surveyed the skies behind, using the sweeping peripheral vision granted by the hood. The distance between the Yuuzhan Vong ship and its attackers was steadily growing. But they kept firing, though they were well out of range. Jaina noticed the subtle shift in their vector, and traced their new path to a small black dot—a ship so small that it would be imperceptible had it not been backlit by killing lights.

“Hutt slime! They found Tenel Ka,” Jaina said. She threw the ship into a tight turn and hurtled back into the fight.

“Looks like she’s picked up a swarm of Hornet Interceptors,” Ganner said. “Get me in closer. I can kill them from here, but not disable them.”

A concussion missile sped toward the ship. Ganner sent a burst of plasma out to intercept it, and Jaina jinked sharply to avoid the resulting explosion.

“The Hapan pilots don’t seem to share your concern,” she shot back.

The older Jedi sent her an incredulous glance. “So what are you saying?”

Jaina hurtled past a pair of Hapan ships, which also changed course and continued pursuit. “If you want to talk, fine, but yield the chair to someone who wants to shoot!”

“Just line them up and hold steady,” he said.

She brought the frigate around in a rising loop, then dived down between the two pursuing ships. A flurry of laserfire kept the dovin basal busy, but Jaina held a steady course to allow Ganner a clean shot.

Twice he fired, clipping the pursuing ships with plasma bolts. One of the Hornets exploded into shards of metal; another managed to evade the shot. But the flying debris ripped through the thin metal of the third ship’s wings, sending it into an out-of-control spiral.

A surge of dismay came from Ganner, and his next shot went deliberately wide.

“We’re under attack,” Jaina reminded him.

“I might have hit that ship!”

“Sure, if it was the size of a battle cruiser! If you’re not going to hit them, at least give them an argument.”

The older Jedi turned away, his jaw clenched and his thoughts carefully shielded.

Meanwhile the Hapan ships continued to batter the Yuuzhan Vong vessel. Tesar did his best with the shields, but the shots were too many and too close. Again and again the ship shook as laserfire chipped at its hull. Worse, Jaina sensed that the overburdened dovin basal was nearing the limit of its strength. The escape pod soared off into the darkness, and none of the Hapan ships followed.

Now that Tenel Ka was safe, Jaina swung around and poured all the energy the ship could muster into an apparent retreat. The Hapan ships gave pursuit for several moments, then abandoned the effort.

“They’re off to spread the word about us,” Alema said somberly.

The Twi’lek pointed to the viewport. Beyond, tumbling slowly amid a drift of metallic debris, was one of the ships Ganner had accidentally destroyed. The Hornet was largely intact—only the rear segment of its insectoid body was missing.

“If we’re going to salvage that ship for parts, we haven’t much time.”

“The comm system! Good thinking,” Jaina agreed.

She turned back toward the battle scene. After a couple of experiments, Tesar managed to calibrate the dovin basal to use just enough gravity to pull in the damaged ship.

The ship was unpiloted—perhaps the pilot had had time to go EV. But the controls looked to be intact, and Lowbacca acted positively cheerful at the prospect of working with circuits and metal.

It didn’t take him long to find what they needed. Bellowing triumphantly, he strode into the cockpit, lugging the disembodied comm unit and an attached power pack. He set the device on the floor, set hailing frequency, and handed the speaking unit to Jaina.

“This is Lieutenant Jaina Solo, a Rogue Squadron pilot, flying a commandeered enemy frigate. Come in.”

She repeated her hail several times before an answering crackle came over the comm. “I never thought that static could sound so good,” she murmured.

“This is Hesha Lovett, captain of the Hapan royal vessel,” a female voice announced. “We’ve had reports of a Yuuzhan Vong ship. Yours, Lieutenant Solo?”

“I don’t like to brag,” Jaina said dryly. “We’re seeking permission to land. The sooner we get out of this thing, the happier we’ll be.”

There was a moment’s silence, then the comm crackled to life again. “By all means, Jaina. All of Tenel Ka’s friends are welcome on Hapes, however they may choose to arrive.”

Jaina jolted with surprise. The resonant, cultured voice with the crisply clipped accent was unmistakably that of Ta’a Chume, Tenel Ka’s grandmother.

She quickly scoured her mental database for the proper way to address Hapan royalty. “Thank you, Queen Mother. I wasn’t sure we’d find a welcome. We were forced to fire upon Hapan ships.”

“Hornet Interceptors,” the woman said dismissively. “Pirates, most likely. The scouts who witnessed the battle were nearly as displeased by their presence as they were by yours. Is my granddaughter with you?”

Actually, Jaina was hoping that she’d been picked up by the Hapan scouts. “Well, not exactly. She went ahead in an escape pod to prepare the way for us. We didn’t have any other way to communicate until we pulled in one of the Hornets and salvaged its comm.”

“I will alert all patrols to watch for my granddaughter’s arrival. By all means, land at the royal docks and come directly to the palace. I’ll make sure the officials are expecting you, and that they do not try to channel you through the refugee camps.”

“Refugees?”

“Yes,” the former queen said, expressing a considerable amount of distaste with a single word. “You will be my guests, however, you and your friends. I will meet you at the palace.”

It occurred to Jaina that the former queen mother seemed surprisingly, perhaps suspiciously, eager for their arrival.

Her first impulse was to ask why. A childhood spent under the tutelage of a fussy protocol droid, however, was not easily dismissed. Leia Organa Solo’s daughter exchanged a few moments of proper small talk with Ta’a Chume, speaking as carefully and listening as intently as she’d observed her mother do over the years. But Ta’a Chume was no less skilled, and when the communication ended, Jaina had to admit it was a draw.

She slumped back in the pilot chair. “Ta’a Chume is up to something.”

“How do you know?” Ganner asked.

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “She always is.”

A joyful Wookiee bellow split the air. Lowbacca came whirling into the cockpit, spinning Tahiri in some sort of exuberant dance. He set her down and swept one paw toward the navibrain in a dramatic gesture.

“We did it,” Tahiri said obligingly, but without spirit.

“You found Tenel Ka?”

Lowbacca grinned and slipped into the navigator’s chair. He yanked the hood down over his head, and his massive shoulders hunched in anticipation. Moments passed, and Jaina could sense his surge of anxiety through the Force.

Using the cognition hood, she switched her focus to navigation. The answers that came to her yielded a faint mental picture, a shadow of what Lowbacca must have been seeing.

“The escape pod is moving away from Hapes!” she said. “Either she’s off course, or someone picked her up.”

The Wookiee moaned an agreement, then began to set course for pursuit.

   Tenel Ka felt the sudden jolt of contact, heard the scrape of grappling hooks finding purchase on the irregular coral hull. The moment of capture unleashed a flood of raw, recent memory. Pain and loss and fury—all the emotions engendered by her days in Yuuzhan Vong captivity—flooded the Jedi in a torrent.

She heard a mechanical whir and realized its meaning. Small drills busily bolted the ship to the grappling arms to ensure retrieval. No Yuuzhan Vong would sully their hands with such machines.

Reassured, she removed the cognition hood and smoothed her warrior’s braids into place as best she could.

Now that the burden of flying the pod was lifted from her, Tenel Ka eased the shields she’d placed between herself and the tiny living ship. Fiercely independent, she used the Force only when necessary. To her way of thinking, maintaining some distance between herself and the Yuuzhan Vong or any of their creatures was absolutely essential.

Suddenly her unshielded mind flooded with a familiar mixture of warmth and humor, friendship and frustration.

“Jacen,” she said wonderingly, recognizing the presence that meant more to her than any other.

For a moment Tenel Ka knew complete happiness, something she had deemed illusive since the day she’d realized that when Jacen looked upon her, he saw only an old friend. But happiness was a gift as fleeting as it was sweet. The light that was Jacen faltered, then blazed up into an agonizing white heat.

Tenel Ka, despite her stoic courage and superb conditioning, shrieked in rage and pain.

Her reserve shattered, and a lifetime of emotions carefully controlled and shielded erupted like a Dathomir volcano. Mindlessly she thrashed at the walls of her prison, pounding the coral with her one fist, determined to get out, to reach Jacen, to fight and die to free him.

Then the light was gone, and its absence was a blow more devastating than the first.

For a long moment Tenel Ka sat in the sudden darkness, stunned and silent. Her lips moved, shaping words of denial that she could not force past the unfamiliar lump in her throat.

The escape pod jolted heavily against the ship. Cutting tools hummed as they dug through the coral shell. Tenel Ka wearily regarded the discarded cognition hood. If she put it back on, she could open the hull with a thought. Her emotions were so raw that she could not bear the thought of joining with the ship.

A crack fissured through the pod, and a chunk of coral tumbled into Tenel Ka’s lap. She pushed it aside and un-clipped her lightsaber from her belt.

“Stand aside,” she ordered, marveling at how cool and controlled her voice sounded.

A rich, glowing turquoise light leapt from Tenel Ka’s lightsaber. She made short work of cutting through the hull and then rose quickly, her weapon held unthreateningly low but ready, just in case.

At least a dozen people gathered around the pod, all of them human, all of them recognizably Hapan. Tenel Ka’s long-ago ancestors had been pirates who vied with each other to find and capture the most beautiful mates possible. What started as a peculiar measure of cultural status became a sort of selective breeding. In general, the people of Hapes were taller and more attractive than inhabitants of other worlds in the Hapes Cluster. All of her rescuers were tall and fair, though some looked decidedly the worse for wear.

They stood silent, perhaps from the surprise of finding a Jedi warrior instead of the expected Yuuzhan Vong. Tenel Ka’s cool gray eyes swept over them.

Several of the crew wore crimson, which proclaimed them members of the royal guard. She noted several hard-knock civilians, too, all of them wearing worn or faded red clothing. Even those who sported the white uniform of the Consortium Navy had some bit of red about them, even if just an enameled pendant or a bandanna. This ersatz statement of solidarity set off warning sensors in the back of her mind.

“What is this ship?” she demanded.

One of the men, a tall blond man who bore a faint resemblance to her father, gave her a mocking bow. “Welcome to the Starsprite, Princess. You’re aboard a Beta Cruiser, formerly of the Hapan navy.”

Tenel Ka’s eyes narrowed as she took this in. The Beta Cruiser was a small battleship, far more maneuverable than the much-larger Hapes Nova-class cruisers. They’d been employed in large numbers at Fondor. Few had survived. Most likely the crew of this one was a diverse company of survivors: deserters from the Battle of Fondor as well as smugglers who saw their livelihood being swallowed by the Yuuzhan Vong invasion.

She wasn’t surprised at his greeting. Not many Hapans would fail to recognize a one-armed Jedi with redgold hair as their reluctant princess. Since they were pirates and deserters—not exactly men and women of honor—Tenel Ka assumed they planned to ransom her for the best deal they could get. But even as this thought formed, it was pushed aside by the animosity that radiated from them all.

Understanding flooded her in a quick, scalding rush. “You are Ni’Korish,” she snarled, naming the faction inspired by her great-grandmother, a queen mother who hated the Jedi and had done her best to eradicate them. “I heard rumors of an attempted coup, an attack by cowards who lurk in shadows. That would be you?”

Her captor responded with a mocking bow.

“Tell me, how did the Ni’Korish fare? Is my mother yet alive?” she demanded.

“Regrettably, yes,” the leader returned. “But she won’t hold the throne for long.”

Tenel Ka sent him a grim smile. “You do her an injustice if you think she will abdicate in exchange for my return, and you insult me if you suggest I would buy my freedom at that price.”

He returned her smile, but his was even harder and held a reptilian leer. “We would never insult the queen mother or her Jedi daughter. The Yuuzhan Vong, however, are not so concerned with matters of honor and protocol.”

His meaning was clear. Tenel Ka’s lightsaber snapped up to guard position. “I will not be taken.”

“Princess, you wound me!” he protested, placing one hand over his heart. “We will return you to Hapes unharmed. Although we might be deserters, we are not traitors. All we require is your assistance in hunting down Jacen and Jaina Solo. If you’re a true princess of Hapes, you’ll gladly help us repay those who turned Centerpoint upon the Hapan fleet.”

A surge of wrath boiled through Tenel Ka, but she kept her composure. “Do you know what befell a New Republic ambassador who fell into Yuuzhan Vong hands? He was slain, his bones decorated with gems and gold and sent back to his friends. I would not deliver an enemy to such a fate, and never a friend!”

His expression darkened, and he glanced at a knot of uniformed men. “Then I’m afraid we’ll have to make do with you. If Jaina Solo thinks the same way you do, she might be willing to trade herself for your freedom.”

“She won’t get the chance.”

Before any of the Hapans could draw weapons, Tenel Ka’s turquoise blade leapt toward them like a proton torpedo.

For a moment everyone in the cargo hold scuttled back, intimidated by the wrath in the Jedi’s gray eyes and the blazing weapon in her hand.

Then the Ni’Korish leader pulled a vibroblade from his belt, and others remembered that they, too, held weapons.

They advanced, quickly encircling Tenel Ka.