Star by Star Read online

  A shudder ran down Numa’s lekku, and she glared at Alema out of the corner of a slanted eye. “You do have a way of springing to the most alarming explanation, sister.”

  “Alarming, but no less likely.” Alema pointed to the vidscreen, where the voxyn was bounding down the corridor toward the nearest lift tube.

  Numa studied the image for a moment, then said, “You seem to have a point. Perhaps we should shut down.”

  They took a moment to meditate, then began to pull in on themselves, shutting down their presence in the Force. When they could not even feel each other, Alema looked back to the vidscreen. The voxyn had just reached the lift tube. It slapped the activation pad with a front claw, then pushed its foresection into the cylinder and allowed the repulsor current to pull its long body up into the shaft. She traced the lift to an officers’ deck outlet less than a hundred meters away, perhaps twice that distance by the time the creature found its way through the corridor grid.

  “No good, sister. It still senses us.” She turned toward the satchel holding their jumpsuits and lightsabers. “We can catch it as it steps out of the tube.”

  “Then what?” Numa asked. “The scarheads will know Captain Pollux was lying to them.”

  “They’ll know anyway when it comes scratching at his door.” Sorry there was no time to change back into her jumpsuit, Alema pulled her lightsaber from the travel satchel and activated its silver blade. “And I’d just as soon take a few Yuuzhan Vong with us.”

  “No.” Numa reached over and shut down Alema’s lightsaber. “I won’t have that, not after New Plympto.”

  Frustrated by the planet’s stubborn resistance, the Yuuzhan Vong had released a life-destroying plague that wiped the whole world clean. The sisters and a few thousand others had waited out the destruction inside a small fleet of intrasystem ore freighters, then sneaked into space after the enemy abandoned the dead world.

  “They’re Yuuzhan Vong, sister,” Alema said. “Do you think they’ll just forgive the captain’s lie?”

  “Hardly.” Numa returned to the console. “We must make them think their creature is wrong.”

  She called up a hologram that showed the Yuuzhan Vong frigate floating half a kilometer beyond the Nebula Chaser’s docking bay. At only two hundred meters, the enemy craft was a mere fraction of the starliner’s size, but the weapon nodules bristling along its flank left no doubt about its destructive capabilities.

  Alema saw at once what her sister was thinking. “We’ll pick our escape pod on the way.”

  She returned her lightsaber to their travel satchel and tossed the bag to Numa, then grabbed a datapad from the captain’s bunkside table and comlinked it to the offbridge vidconsole. The sisters left the captain’s suite and scurried toward the opposite end of the officers’ deck. At the lift tube, Alema consulted the datapad and found the voxyn splashing through a Damp Deck basin two levels below. Its yellow eyes were fixed on the ceiling, tracing their path.

  “It knows we’re moving,” Alema said.

  “But its sense of distance is poor.” Numa was ever the optimist. “Where are we going?”

  Alema called up a display of midship escape stations, then chose the one most directly opposite the Yuuzhan Vong frigate. “Engineering deck, Bulkhead Forty-two.” She performed a sectional security scan and found a team of Yuuzhan Vong smashing a droid in gravitational control. “We’ll have to trick a squad of scarheads.”

  “Alternate?”

  Alema checked the other escape stations, then shook her head. “Nothing, unless we leave the Chaser’s sensor shadow.”

  “Out of the question.” Numa’s lekku curled inward at the tips. “We’ll have to go bare.”

  “Bare?” It was the term they had used on New Plympto for caching their weapons and disguising themselves as slaves. “You must be brightsick. I’m not leaving my lightsaber behind!”

  “You would risk the lives of everyone aboard?” Numa pulled her lightsaber from their travel satchel and twisted the handle open, then plucked the Adegan focusing crystal from its mount and secured it over her navel with a few drops of fleshglue. Through her filmy shift, the golden jewel looked like a dancer’s decoration. “Do you think such selfishness worthy of the memory of Daeshara’cor?”

  Alema coiled her lekku, then let them slap against her back. Though not exactly their Master, Daeshara’cor had certainly been the sisters’ deliverer. During one of the Jedi’s rare visits to Ryloth, she had recognized the Rar sisters’ innate Force talents and rescued them from one of the darkest ryll dens in Kala’uun, then arranged their transport to the Jedi training academy. Alema sighed and held out her hand.

  “If we must.”

  Numa placed Alema’s lightsaber in her palm. Alema removed the Adegan crystal and secured the silver jewel over her own navel. They tossed their Jedi robes and the remains of their weapons into a disintegration chute, then stepped into the lift, descended twenty levels to the engineering deck, and left their satchel on the floor halfway across the tube threshold. Though a far less obvious act of sabotage than smashing the actuation panel, it was just as effective. A collision override circuit would hold the tube static until the safety hazard was removed.

  “Time to look flighty,” Alema said.

  She called up a banal emotidrama on the datapad, and the sisters started toward Bulkhead 42. As they advanced down the corridor, they peered into each room they passed and called loudly for someone named Travot. When they reached inducer control, a Yuuzhan Vong warrior stepped out to confront them. With only three long scars on each cheek and a single disfigured ear, he was clearly a warrior of low rank. The sisters pressed themselves against the corridor’s far wall and, doing their best to look shocked and repulsed, started to ease past.

  He blocked their way with a lowered amphistaff. “Where do you go?”

  “To s-see Travot?” Numa made her voice sound frightened and tentative. “He works in the coil room.”

  “The coil room?” the Yuuzhan Vong echoed.

  Alema shrugged and glanced back to her datapad, as though unable to resist the emotidrama. “His workstation.”

  A second Yuuzhan Vong with the crooked nose and scar-laced face of a minor officer stepped into the corridor. He scrutinized the sisters briefly and, seeing there was no place beneath their dancing shifts to hide a lightsaber or anything else, pointed back the way they had come.

  “This ship is under seizure. Return to your berthings.”

  Numa and Alema put on looks of fear and confusion and remained where they were.

  “Obey!” the subordinate said.

  “We c-can’t,” Alema said.

  “They sealed off the staff deck,” Numa said. “And they closed our lounge.”

  “See?” Alema called up a schematic of the ship and shoved the datapad at the officer. “We don’t have anyplace to go.”

  “Do not pollute me with your profane devices!” The officer knocked the instrument from Alema’s hand and smashed it beneath his heel, then motioned to someone inside the room. “Bring the infidel machine shaper.”

  A third Yuuzhan Vong appeared in the doorway with a bruise-mottled human female. One eyelid had split open and covered the side of her face in coppery-smelling blood.

  “You have one called Travot in your squad?”

  Numa saw her sister catch the engineer’s eye and give a barely perceptible nod, using the Force to plant the suggestion that the woman knew Travot. Taking full advantage of the Yuuzhan Vong’s insensitivity to the Force, Alema reached out and felt the presence of more than a hundred beings in the immediate area, most of them frightened, a few angry or in pain. She did not feel the invaders, of course; the Yuuzhan Vong were as invisible to the Force as it was to them—but she did feel the voxyn’s hungry presence descending toward them. It had found another lift tube.

  After a moment of confusion, the engineer finally said, “There’s a Travot in engineering, but he’s not on my crew.”

  The officer considere
d the two sisters, no doubt trying to puzzle out the proper procedure for dealing with them. Alema decided to help him along by simply assuming the answer she wanted—a subtle means of enticement both she and her sister had put to good use in the ryll dens of Kala’uun.

  “Engineering is just down there, isn’t it? At Bulkhead Forty-two?”

  “That’s right,” the engineer said. “Bulkhead Forty-two.”

  Alema stepped to her sister’s side and eyed the amphistaff blocking their way. The subordinate looked to his officer, who scowled and waved him down the corridor.

  “See to it and return.”

  Not waiting for the warrior to lead the way, the sisters slipped past his amphistaff and started down the corridor. The bulkheads appeared to be simple structural arches that spanned the passage every ten meters, but each one contained a thin durasteel door that would descend automatically at the first sign of a pressure drop. The doors could also be triggered by voice, but the crew had wisely refrained from using the code to seal off the Yuuzhan Vong search parties.

  As they scurried down the corridor, Alema reached out with the Force again and felt the voxyn behind them, on the same level and coming fast. They were at Bulkhead 33, still ninety meters from the escape pod.

  “I’m cold, sister.” Alema rubbed her bare arms. “Do you feel that chill?”

  “Quiet,” their guard ordered. “Your complaints are an insult to the gods.”

  Alema’s palm ached for her lightsaber.

  The faint clatter of claws on metal echoed down the corridor behind them. She looked over her shoulder and saw a distant ripple of darkness bounding down the sterile tunnel.

  “What’s that?” she gasped, finding it difficult to pretend she did not know. “What’s it doing?”

  Numa glanced back, then let out a convincing shriek and raced down the corridor flailing her arms. Alema screamed and started after her, leaving their astonished guard to stomp after them yelling for them to stop. As they passed Bulkhead 38, he cried out in astonishment, then yelled something angry in his own language as the voxyn bowled him off his feet.

  Alema did not even glance back. “Close Bulkhead Thirty-eight!” she yelled. “Authorization code: nebula rubantine!”

  The bulkhead door clanged down behind her and sealed itself with a hiss—then tolled deeply as the voxyn slammed into it. Alema knew that closing the door would draw attention from the Yuuzhan Vong commander—but so would allowing the voxyn to catch them. She hoped that the thing had broken its neck, but there was no such luck. It was up and slamming itself into the durasteel almost instantly.

  They passed Bulkhead 42. Numa turned toward the outer wall and slapped her palm against the escape bay door-pad.

  “Attention: You have requested entrance to an escape pod launching bay.” The computer spoke in the same cheery female voice it used to announce dinner seatings. “Are you sure you wish to proceed?”

  “Yes!” Numa said.

  “If you proceed, an alarm will sound in the security—”

  “Override alarm, code: Pollux eight one six!” Alema called. “Confidential departure.”

  “Override accepted.”

  As the launching bay’s iris hatch swirled open, a soft pop sounded from Bulkhead 38, and Alema knew the hermetic seal had been broken. Her first thought was that someone on the bridge was raising the door, but then she heard the muffled voice of the female engineer.

  The door rose, and the voxyn came scurrying down the corridor, sensory bristles on end, white tail whipping back and forth. The creature’s yellow eyes were fixed on the floor and it was licking the air with a long forked tongue, and Alema’s hand ached more than ever for her lightsaber.

  “Ready the escape pod,” Numa ordered, pushing Alema into the launching bay’s bluish light. “Now, sister.”

  Alema found herself looking into the nozzle of the escape pod’s primitive rocket engine. It was barely a meter across, just large enough to start the hundred-person capsule toward the nearest habitable planet.

  In the corridor, Numa called, “Close Bulkhead Forty-two! Authorization code: nebula rubantine!”

  “The bulkhead emergency code is temporarily suspended,” the computer returned in its sweet voice. “Please report valid emergencies to any engineering supervisor.”

  “Override!” Numa ordered. “And disarm safety sensors! Code:

  Pollux …”

  As Numa finished the authorization code, Alema slipped past the rocket nozzle to the side of the pod. A sickening crunch sounded out in the corridor, but she could no longer see what was happening outside the bay. She pressed her palm to the escape pod’s activation pad. The hatch slid open, revealing a starkly lit interior crammed with ten cramped rows of acceleration chairs. There was no cockpit or viewport, only a droid pilot stationed at the craft’s single control panel.

  The droid pointed to the chair farthest from the door. “Welcome to Escape Pod Four-twenty-one. Please take your seat and wait for the other passengers. There is no need—”

  “Prepare for a cold launch.” Alema would have preferred the speed of a hot launch, but the flare of rockets would be noticed on the bridge—and however faint their fast-dwindling hopes of escaping unnoticed, she still had to try. “On my command. Authorization code: Pollux—”

  “The override authorization code has already been given,” the droid said, turning to its duties. “There is no need to repeat the override authorization code once the launching bay is entered.”

  A wet burping noise sounded from out in the corridor, then Numa screamed. Alema stepped out of the escape pod and saw her sister staggering into the launching bay, arms raised to cover her face. She missed the center of the hatch and stumbled over the rim, then fell with her feet across the threshold. Her face and chest were covered in sizzling brown mucus, and her lekku were thrashing against the durasteel floor.

  Alema did not experience Numa’s pain, as she had heard sometimes happened between Force-sensitive siblings, but she did receive a heightened impression of her sister’s thoughts. Numa was afraid of being blind, but more than that, she was frightened they would be unveiled as Jedi and cause the deaths of yet more innocents. And she was angry—angry at her own carelessness in letting the creature surprise her.

  “Sister!”

  Alema sprang toward Numa and saw the voxyn pinned beneath Bulkhead 42, struggling to pull itself forward. Though its torso was pressed almost flat, she was astounded to see it moving at all. Bulkhead doors had safety sensors precisely because they closed with so much force; they had sensor overrides because it was sometimes necessary to crush anything beneath them to save the ship.

  As Alema neared her sister, the creature swung its broad snout in her direction and sprayed a jet of brown saliva through the hatchway. Prepared by the attack on her sister, she opened herself to the Force and, with an almost unconscious wave of her fingertips, sent the stream washing back toward her attacker. The voxyn, fast as a blaster bolt, closed its eyes and turned away before the mucus struck.

  Alema hardly cared. Numa’s thoughts were growing disorganized and distant, her cries fading to groans. Alema grabbed her sister beneath the arms, smearing her own fingers in the burning mucus, and tried not to think about what the stuff was doing to Numa’s face and eyes.

  “Find your center, sister.” She pulled Numa into the launching bay. “Let the Force flow into you.”

  Numa fell completely quiet, her mind alarmingly calm—and then the calmness vanished, leaving in its place only a lingering peace and a vague sense of emptiness. Alema cried out and started to look down, then felt the mucus burning into the bones of her fingers and knew she did not have the courage.

  Alema carried her sister’s body around to the escape pod hatch and glanced back toward the door, where the voxyn, still trapped beneath the bulkhead, continued to watch. One side of its head was covered in the residue of its acid mucus, the scales beneath pocked and smoking as they continued to dissolve. The heads of several amphist
affs appeared in the narrow gap next to the creature’s head and began—hopelessly—to pry.

  A part of Alema—the part not mourning her sister, the part that was still a Jedi Knight—realized her last faint hope of slipping away unnoticed had vanished. The Yuuzhan Vong would hear the whir of the closing hatch and feel the thump of the pod’s separation. Still, she could do nothing but go on. Pollux’s life was forfeit—even if she surrendered, she knew the Yuuzhan Vong better than to think the commander would forgive his lies—but it would take time to destroy a ship as large as the Nebula Chaser. Perhaps, if she launched quickly, the frigate would be forced to pursue the escape pod instead of attacking the starliner. It was her best hope—her only hope.

  She looked back toward the hatchway. “Close launching bay—”

  The voxyn’s snout—all of the creature Alema could still see—turned toward her and opened half a meter. A deafening shriek filled her ears, then the fist of a powerful compression wave slammed her in the stomach. She suddenly felt dizzy and sick, and in the next second she was slumped against the escape pod, cradling her sister’s dead body in her arms. She felt something warm trickling out of her ear and touched it with a fleshless finger; when she lowered her hand, the tip of the bone was red with blood.

  Alema tried to rise, nearly retched, then dropped back to her haunches, head spinning and stomach churning. Still holding Numa in her lap, she kicked her way through the escape pod door.

  “Launch!” Alema gasped. “Launch right now!”

  The pod hatch closed, the lights dimmed—and that was all. The capsule remained eerily silent and still. Puzzled, Alema dragged herself past a row of acceleration chairs and looked forward. The droid pilot was facing her, vocabulator flashing rapidly as he endeavored to explain proper launching procedure. Alema could not hear a word.

  “Override!” she yelled. “Authorization code—”

  The escape pod shot forward, hurling Alema into a durasteel chair-mounting. She had already given the authorization code.

  Jaina missed the launch. She was staring at the heads-up display, trying to bring the Shadow’s comm array into perfect alignment with the Nebula Chaser’s tight-beam antenna. With the starliner drifting dead only twenty million kilometers in front of an orange sun, the task would have been difficult under the best circumstances. With the presence of a Yuuzhan Vong frigate limiting them to air thrusters, it was nearly impossible.