Star by Star Page 35

  Though no one said as much, all of their thoughts were on Ulaha alone in the Exquisite Death, with five corvette analogs and a host of skips on her tail. Though the Bith was growing more distant in the battle meld, Anakin could feel her consumed with the tasks at hand, weary and in pain, but without fear—at peace, even. Daring to hope Ulaha’s tranquility meant she was escaping, Anakin raised the electrobinoculars as soon as the search craft were gone and combed the darkness above for the Exquisite Death, but it was an impossible task. Even if he were looking in the right direction, by now the Bith and her pursuers would be too distant for electrobinoculars to detect.

  The strike team resumed its march. Ulaha’s presence continued to fade, then finally vanished altogether. Anakin could tell by the surge of anxiety in the battle meld that the same fear had leapt into the minds of all the Jedi.

  Tahiri asked, “Is she—”

  “No,” Jacen interrupted. “We would have felt that.”

  “Maybe she jumped to hyperspace,” Anakin said. “Two-Four-S?”

  “Negative,” the droid reported. “Exquisite Death still within sensor range.”

  Then the music started, a reedy, haunting melody that came to Anakin inside his mind. Though there was a mournful hint to it, the strain was more tranquil than sad, and perhaps the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. He turned and found the others staring skyward, some with heads cocked listening, others with a tear or two running down inside their face masks.

  “Exquisite Death and pursuers decelerating,” 2-4S reported. “Analysis suggests tentacle arrest.”

  No one seemed to hear the report. “I wish …” Jaina fell silent as the song drifted into a flighty passage and began to gather energy. “I wish I could record this.”

  “Yes,” Jacen said. “I’m sure Tionne would like it for her archives … it’s a sad loss for the Jedi.”

  Anakin could not tell from his brother’s flat tone whether Jacen was criticizing or just saying aloud what they all felt. There was no question of Ulaha surrendering the Death. Even were she to survive the boarding party’s initial assault, she could not endure another breaking.

  The music repeated its opening refrain, but more powerfully now and without any hint of sadness, then rose to a robust crescendo …

  In the sudden silence, Tahiri gasped.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  In the dim planetglow shining down from Myrkr’s emerald face, the flattened senalak shafts looked more like ice spikes than any security system Anakin had ever seen. The rigid stalks were only knee-high and no thicker than a finger, but as Jovan Drark’s invisible Force wave pushed a safe furrow through the field, their blunt blue caps released a meter-long strand of thorns. The barbed cord would flail around in the vacuum for a couple of seconds, presumably entwining and capturing—if not killing—whatever had disturbed it.

  Had Alema not warned them about the trap, the strike team would have entered the security field completely unprepared. Given the trap they had already flown into aboard the Exquisite Death, Anakin was beginning to wonder if they were really prepared for this. Ulaha had given them less than a 50 percent chance of success, and as far as he could tell, things were not getting any better. He was beginning to wonder if coming after the voxyn queen had been such a good idea after all.

  “Anakin, this has to be done—and you’re not making it any easier with that big negatude.” Tahiri was crawling along behind Anakin, her blond hair spilling out behind her faceplate. “So they were expecting us. You dealt with it, and now they aren’t.”

  “Sorry. Thought I had that stuff closed off.”

  “You did.” Tahiri rolled her eyes. “This is me, Anakin.”

  The last of the senalaks fell to Jovan’s Force wave, and they found themselves at the edge of the spaceport. Basically a huge pit thirty meters deep and a kilometer across, it was surrounded by a cavernous colonnade sealed behind a transparent membrane and accessed by a ring of air-locked valveways. Twenty biotic berthing bays lay spaced evenly across the floor, all covered by retractable carapaces and sized to accommodate corvette-analog vessels.

  On the near side of the spaceport, the latest rescue transport to return from the space battle was just berthing, the two halves of the bay carapace rising up to press themselves against the lumpy hull. Though Anakin and the others had not been able to see the battle as they stole across the worldship’s pocked surface, the steady stream of rescue vessels returning from space told them that their comrades had put up a good fight. They also knew the outcome; 2-1S had burst-commed a final situation report to 2-4S, and they had all felt Ulaha’s death—one of the reasons, no doubt, for Anakin’s “negatude.”

  Perhaps five kilometers beyond the landing pit rose the hive-shaped grashal peaks they had seen from space. Anakin did not need to stretch out with the Force to know that was where the voxyn were kept. He could feel their hunger clearly, coming straight from that direction. The Jedi prisoner was another matter. He could not sense him—or her, or them—at all, even when he exerted himself.

  “Ysalamiri?” Alema asked. She crawled up beside him on the side opposite Tahiri, stopping so that the shoulder of her vac suit touched his. “If they’ve got a Jedi, they’d need ysalamiri.”

  Anakin was not really surprised to have the Twi’lek anticipating him. During the trip from the drop zone, the strike team had found itself acting in such harmony that, at times, it seemed they were sharing thoughts.

  “I don’t think he’s dead,” Tahiri said. “I realize we don’t know who he is or anything, but I still think we’d know.”

  Anakin did not think so, but there was only one way to find out. He turned to call for the ysalamiri mating pheromones Cilghal had supplied—then grimaced when Jacen was waiting to press the capsule into his glove.

  “This is getting weird,” he said. “Tesar could have said something.”

  A grin showed in Jacen’s eyes. “Try it from my end.” He grew more serious, an aura of distress rising around him. “Anakin, before we start, there’s something—”

  “Not now, Jacen.” Anakin looked away. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Jacen’s feelings, but he had seen at Centerpoint Station what happened when he listened to his brother. “I need to do this my own way.”

  “I know. I only want to—”

  “Please.”

  Anakin flicked the capsule toward the far side of the landing pit, where a service crew was busy moving provisions out of an open air lock. In Myrkr’s greenish planetglow, he quickly lost sight of the tiny capsule, but felt it stop when it entered the lock and came to the inner valve. A few minutes later, the crew finished its task and entered the air lock together. Anakin started to tell the others to be ready, then thought better of it. They were.

  The outer valve was just closing when 2-4S reported, “Incoming vessel, enemy, frigate analog.”

  The report meant the ship’s arrival was imminent—as marvelous as YVH war droids were, their sensor package lacked the power for deep-space detection. The news sent a prickle of danger sense down Anakin’s spine, but he refused to be rushed. Until he knew where the Jedi was being kept, entering the spaceport would only place the captive—and themselves—at risk.

  Finally, a swarm of distant squiggles scurried out of an archway about a third of the way around the colonnade. More than a dozen Yuuzhan Vong followed, stooped over and half stumbling as they attempted to retrieve the escapees. One of the warriors grabbed a squirming form, then jerked his hand back and stomped the creature. Ysalamiri had sharp teeth.

  It did not take long before all eyes—at least all eyes visible through transparent membrane—were fixed on the disturbance. Anakin backed away from the edge and stood. When he turned to order the holoshrouds activated, he found himself facing a long line of what looked like Yuuzhan Vong.

  “I suppose you know the plan, too?”

  “Straight to the ysalamiri house,” Bela—or was it Krasov—answered.

  “Then back—”

&nbs
p; “To steal the rescue shuttle,” Ganner finished. “We’ve got it, Jedi. Two-Four-S and I will cover the descent.”

  “Well, then.”

  Anakin activated his own holoshroud and stepped over the edge, dropping alongside the wall and using the Force to cushion his landing. When he did not feel any surge of Yuuzhan Vong alarm through the lambent crystal, he turned to find himself standing before a rancor-sized air lock, a warren of murky tunnels and murkier doorways barely visible through its translucent door valves. He could feel a handful of Yuuzhan Vong somewhere back in the darkness, but his sense of them was too fuzzy to tell whether they were alarmed by his sudden appearance—or even aware of it.

  Alema, Tesar, and the others began to arrive beside him. Knowing the Twi’lek to be the most experienced at infiltrating enemy lines, he assigned her to lead the way through the air lock, while he kept an eye on the rest of the spaceport. The landing pit appeared even larger from the floor than from above. In the murky green light, the excitement at the opposite end was visible only as a mass of shadows scurrying around behind the window membrane, and even figures in nearby warrens were difficult to see unless they were silhouetted against a patch of bioluminescent wall lichen. Only the rescue vessel, sitting pinched in its biotic berthing bay, was distinct and easy to see.

  By the time Anakin had completed his survey, Ganner and 2-4S were on the floor behind him. They followed the others through the air lock and let their faceplates and breath masks hang over their collars, leaving their throat mikes and earpieces in place so they could communicate quietly. Anakin took the lead and began to hurry along the colonnade at the fastest pace he could without drawing too much attention; the power packs in their holoshrouds would last only two minutes before growing unreliable and needing to be changed.

  As they went by the rescue ship, they also passed a rampway leading down to a bustling work level under the landing pit. An unarmored Yuuzhan Vong started up the slope, gesturing at them and calling in his own language. A wave of alarm shot through the strike team, but it was quickly quelled when Jacen used the battle meld to direct everyone’s attention to Alema’s unruffled composure. The Yuuzhan Vong reached the door and said something more insistent.

  Tahiri’s voice sounded in everyone’s earpieces, giving the proper response. Ganner, who had the most Yuuzhan Vong–like voice, stepped out of line and faced the scarhead.

  “Pol dwag, kane a bar.”

  “Kanabar?” the Yuuzhan Vong asked.

  There was a moment’s pause while Tahiri gave the reply, then Ganner said, “Dwi, kane a bar!”

  “Yadag dakl, ignot!”

  The Yuuzhan Vong raised both arms in a rude gesture, then disappeared back down the ramp.

  “What was that about?” Anakin whispered.

  “Ganner called him the dung of a meat maggot,” Tahiri said. “I told him to say kanabar, not kane a bar.”

  “Kane a bar was better,” Tesar rasped. “How do you say slime under my scales?”

  This drew a chorus of sissing from the Hara sisters—and an order from Anakin to save the jokes. 2-4S reported that the incoming enemy vessel was indeed a frigate analog and had gone into orbit around the worldship. The prickles returned to Anakin’s neck and did not subside. With a frigate in orbit around the worldship, they would have to be careful about the timing of their escape.

  They reached the dark archway leading into the ysalamiri warren. Anakin knew instantly they were in the right place, for the air stank of unwashed bodies, old blood, and even fouler things. The battle meld vanished three steps into the tunnel, and he saw that the passage ahead was lined with walking trees similar to those they had seen aboard the Death. Most had broken claws protruding from the trunks, but a handful of the trees still had ysalamiri clinging to them. A pair of Yuuzhan Vong warriors stood behind a yorik coral lobby counter, adroitly plaiting a living cord into a braided whip and somehow ignoring the anguished screams rolling up the corridor.

  As Anakin approached, both warriors stopped work and crossed their arms over their chest.

  “Remaga corlat, migan yam?” the taller one asked.

  Anakin walked straight to the gateway.

  “Remaga corlat?” the tallest guard asked again, now pulling his amphistaff off his waist and stepping to block Anakin’s way.

  Anakin’s answer was sharp, if not quite angry. “Kane a bar.”

  The Yuuzhan Vong’s saggy eyes looked more confused than angry, but he lowered his amphistaff toward Anakin’s chest. “Yaga?”

  Anakin pointed his lightsaber and thumbed the activation switch. The crimson blade shot through the guard’s throat and came out through his neck, narrowly missing the warrior behind him. This second Yuuzhan Vong hurled himself backward and opened his mouth to shout the alarm, but was interrupted by the snap-hiss of Alema’s silver lightsaber slicing through his head.

  Anakin switched off his holoshroud and made assignments, sending Jacen, Ganner, and 2-4S to watch the entrance and Jaina, Raynar, and Eryl to dispose of the remaining ysalamiri. Everyone else, he led down the corridor toward the torture sounds. When he reached the doorway and peered around the corner, he found himself staring at a Yuuzhan Vong’s vonduun-crab-armored chest.

  The warrior gave a startled cry and started to bring his amphistaff around, but Anakin was already slashing his lightsaber across the Yuuzhan Vong’s throat. He thrust-kicked the collapsing body back into the chamber, then heard the telltale drone of thud bugs coming his way and dived to the floor. He rolled over his shoulder, trying to scan the chamber as he moved. There was an ysalamiri tree in one corner and two figures spread-eagle against the rear wall, and two more figures moving on his right. He came up with his lightsaber in a high guard—then dropped flat as Tesar’s minicannon bolts began whumpfing past his head.

  The ysalamiri tree erupted into splinters, and Anakin’s contact with the Force returned as the ysalamiri itself was vaporized. He heard the drone of a thud bug coming his way and allowed his Jedi senses to guide his lightsaber around to deflect it, then spun toward the source and found a Yuuzhan Vong charging him with amphistaff in hand. Before Anakin could parry, a bolt from Tesar’s minicannon hurled the warrior across the room, and Alema rushed in to thrust her silver lightsaber through the shattered armor.

  Only one Yuuzhan Vong remained, smaller than most and thinner, with a spectral female face and a variety of hooked and serrated talons protruding from her eight fingers, wrists, and even elbows. A shaper. Anakin stood and started toward her, but a web of shimmering energy lines crackled into existence around her body before he had taken two steps. He thought it was a personal shield of some kind—until her eyes widened and she spat something angry.

  Anakin focused his thoughts on the web and felt the familiar energies of the Force, but colder and tainted with darkness. He glanced toward the back wall, where the two prisoners still hung spread-eagle, each bleeding from a profusion of wounds. One, a powerfully built woman with dark hair and darker eyes, was glaring at the shaper, quietly mouthing words Anakin did not understand.

  The Yuuzhan Vong tried to pluck a strand of the Force energy from her body and succeeded only in severing three fingers. The dark woman smiled, and the web slowly began to shrink, slowly cutting into the shaper’s flesh.

  Anakin was overcome by a deep sense of wrongness, of hatred and anger … and evil. This woman was acting not out of wartime necessity, but out of bloodlust and vengeance. He started toward her. “No! This is wrong.”

  She ignored him, and the Yuuzhan Vong screamed in anguish. Blood began to patter on the floor, and something larger, as well. Anakin glanced back to see small cubes of flesh dropping off the body of the female shaper.

  “Stop!”

  Anakin raised the butt of his lightsaber and stepped forward to enforce his command, but the Yuuzhan Vong’s scream ended abruptly in a wettish plopping sound. When he glanced back, he found her body heaped on the floor in diced sections. The smell was as horrible as the sight, and he had to fig
ht not to vomit.

  That was when Jacen’s voice came over his earpiece. “That frigate’s sending down a shuttle, Little Brother.”

  “O-okay,” Anakin gasped. “Keep me … posted.”

  There was a pause, then Jacen asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “We’re fine,” Anakin said. “Just a surprise. I’ll tell you later.”

  An acknowledging click came over the comlink, then Anakin turned to find Alema at the back wall, already freeing the dark woman from the blorash jelly holding her in place.

  “… a fascinating technique,” the Twi’lek was cooing. “Do you think I could learn it?”

  “No, you couldn’t,” Anakin said. “That attack was cruel. Unnecessarily so.”

  Alema spun on him, her pale Twi’lek eyes as cold and hard as a Hothan lake. “You may lecture me about cruel when a voxyn has burned the flesh from your sister’s face.” She turned back to the dark woman, who was now free of the wall. “Perhaps I want to be cruel.”

  The woman gave her an encouraging smile. “There is nothing wrong with vengeance. It is a noble emotion—a powerful one.”

  “Spoken like a true Nightsister,” Zekk said, stepping into the chamber. He glanced from the dark woman to the young man, who was still hanging on the wall behind her. “Hello, Welk.”

  Welk, a blond-haired human a year or two older than Anakin, narrowed his eyes at Zekk. “Hello, traitor.”

  “You two know each other?” Anakin asked.

  Zekk nodded. “From the Shadow Academy. Welk here was Tamith Kai’s best student—after Vilas died, of course.”

  “After you killed him,” Welk corrected, glaring at Zekk. “And Zekk was the Darkest Knight—our leader, until he betrayed the Second Imperium at Yavin Four.”

  Anakin frowned at this. Though he had been too young to participate in the defense of the Jedi academy when Tamith Kai’s Dark Jedi attacked, many of the Jedi Knights on his strike team—including both of his siblings, Lowbacca, Tenel Ka, and Raynar—had fought valiantly in the battle. They would not be happy to learn that they had just risked their lives to save one of the attackers.