Apocalypse Read online

None of the Queen Mother’s other advisers would have dared to question her judgment, but Trista and Taryn Zel—and Jedi Knight Zekk, too, now that he and Taryn were a couple—were members of something called the Lorellian Court. Allana suspected that the Lorellian Court was an ultrasecret unit of Hapan Security. But she knew only three things about the organization for sure: First, she was forbidden to mention its existence, even to her grandparents. Second, she could trust anyone who flashed the secret face-code. And third, she would be introduced to that court on her eighteenth birthday.

  When the Queen Mother did not immediately reply, Trista said, “Majesty, four wings is half the task force’s fighter complement—and those twelve-jays are older than we are.”

  “Those twelve-jays are being flown by Sith pilots,” Tenel Ka said. “Until we understand their capabilities, I want to err on the side of caution.”

  The tone of command in the Queen Mother’s voice was unmistakable.

  “Four wings it is.” Trista inclined her head, but made no move to leave. “I also have a message from Lady Maluri.”

  Tenel Ka gave a weary sigh. “Must I?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Trista said. “She asked me to relay her concern that risking Hapan lives to protect Jedi younglings is a flagrant misuse of royal authority.”

  Tenel Ka rolled her eyes. “Please remind Lady Maluri that the Sith attempted to assassinate her queen,” she said. “Inform her that if she is not willing to punish such an affront to Hapan sovereignty, then I will replace her with someone who is.”

  “With pleasure, cousin.”

  Trista bowed and started to withdraw, but Tenel Ka raised a finger to stop her.

  “And see that this is the last time Lady Maluri needs to be warned about the astonishing lack of affection she displays for her queen,” Tenel Ka added. “Tell her I threw something.”

  Trista smiled. “I’ll make the situation clear, Majesty.”

  Tenel Ka nodded, and Trista departed.

  After she was out of earshot, Allana caught her mother’s eye. “You’re risking a lot to help Grandma and Grandpa evacuate the Jedi academy,” she said. “Lady Maluri can’t be the only noble who doesn’t like helping the Jedi.”

  Her mother thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, that’s correct. I am risking a lot—my life, and probably even yours.” She looked out the observation bubble again. “And what reason would I have for taking a risk like that? What is the only reason I would risk your life?”

  Allana did not need to ponder the answer—it had been drilled into her since she was old enough to remember the phrase. “To protect the realm.”

  “That’s right,” her mother said. “Had the Sith succeeded in their assassination attempt on me, there would have been a war of succession—a war that you’re not ready to fight.”

  “I know,” Allana said. Sometimes it seemed like her life was just one long lesson. But she always did her best to pay attention, because she knew that someday trillions of lives would depend on her decisions. “And while our people were fighting one another, the realm would have been an easy target for outsiders.”

  “For the Sith,” her mother corrected. “Whether Lady Maluri and her friends care to admit it or not, the Lost Tribe is already making war on us. All I’m doing now is lining up allies.”

  “And nobody is a better ally than the Jedi,” Allana agreed. She turned back toward the cloud-swaddled planet hanging beyond the transparisteel. “Which is really good, because the Jedi are our friends. And Grandpa always says that you have to stick by your friends—no matter what.”

  “Your grandfather is very wise,” her mother agreed. “And he’s right. Even if the Sith hadn’t attacked me, we would have found …”

  But Allana was no longer listening, for a small hole had just opened in the Ossan clouds. It started to expand rapidly, growing from the size of her fist to larger than Anji’s head in the space of two breaths, and suddenly Allana felt her stomach rising. The hole swelled to an enormous black pit, and she realized she was falling, plummeting into a darkness deeper than space. A damp, fetid smell filled her nostrils, and the rush of passing air whispered in her ears.

  Except it wasn’t a whisper. It was more of a hiss, like the sound of an angry Barabel, and Allana realized she wasn’t falling at all. But she wasn’t standing on the Dragon Queen II, either. She was in a dark corridor beneath the Jedi Temple, peeking through an open hatchway into a murky room filled with a huge nest of rodent bones.

  Peering out among the bones were dozens of tiny heads. They had stubby snouts and long, flickering tongues, and their slit-pupiled eyes were shining with fear and anger. They began to pour from the nest, leaping and screeching and clawing. Allana backed away—and found herself trapped against a wall.

  The young reptiles never reached her. A storm of blaster bolts erupted behind her, pouring through a durasteel wall to send the little creatures flying back into their nest, charred and smoking and dead.

  Allana screamed, calling for Tesar and Wilyem to return to their hatchlings. But the Barabels never came. The nest vanished in the murk, and Allana realized she was back aboard the Dragon Queen II, locked tight in her mother’s arms. Pressed flat to the observation bubble was Anji, growling and clawing at the transparisteel.

  “Allana?” her mother gasped. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Allana glanced around, her confusion only growing as she recognized the familiar opulence of the Royal Stateroom. “Mom, I have to talk to Master Sebatyne—now!”

  Her mother cocked a brow. “Master Sebatyne?” she asked. “But she’s on Coruscant—in the middle of a battle, most likely.”

  “That doesn’t matter. They’re killing the—” Allana stopped herself, realizing she couldn’t say more without breaking the promise she had made to Tesar Sebatyne, that she would never, ever reveal the existence of the Barabel nest beneath the Jedi Temple. “Someone is blasting my friends’ young ones!”

  “What friends?”

  “My friends on Coruscant,” Allana said. “They need our help!”

  “And we’ll get it to them,” her mother assured her. “But we can’t help anyone until you calm down. Now, start from the beginning and tell me everything.”

  Allana took a deep breath and held it briefly, using a Jedi relaxation technique to clear her mind and drive away the panic. Because panic was the enemy—her aunt Jaina was always telling her that. Panic had killed more people than all the blasters in the galaxy, and it would go on killing, even after there were no more wars.

  After a couple of breaths, Allana felt calm enough to explain what she had seen—how she had been looking out at Ossus when a hole opened in the clouds, and how she’d fallen into it and found herself standing in a darkened corridor deep in the basement of the Jedi Temple.

  “But that’s all I can tell you,” Allana said. “I promised to keep the rest secret.”

  “Promised whom?”

  Allana scowled. “Mom! We don’t have time for the Grees Gambit,” she said. “Hatchlings are being killed.”

  Her mother’s expression grew more patient than concerned. “Allana, you know you weren’t actually in that corridor, don’t you?”

  “I … I know,” Allana said. “It was another Force vision, like the one I had on Klatooine.”

  Tenel Ka considered this, then said, “You’re clearly very strong in the Force. That’s two visions in less than six months.”

  Allana didn’t know whether to be overjoyed—or scared to death. Her father was Jacen Solo. She had not known him well, but she had read enough about his life to know that Force visions had led to his downfall, and she certainly didn’t want to follow him to the dark side. But she also knew that Grand Master Skywalker had Force visions, too, and that he seemed to accept them as guidance from the Force.

  Neither of which told Allana what she should do. “If it’s a Force vision, then I’m supposed to make sure it doesn’t happen, right?” she asked. “Like I did when I saw the burning m
an with you?”

  Her mother’s eyes flashed in alarm, but she didn’t tell Allana she was wrong. Instead, she merely turned her palms up in a gesture of helplessness.

  “I wish I knew,” she said. “Every vision means something different. All I can say for certain is that this one means you’re strong in the Force.”

  Allana considered this, recalling something she had overheard Luke Skywalker tell her grandmother, that Jacen had turned to the dark side because he thought it was his destiny to change what he saw. The last thing she wanted to do was make the same mistake—but she couldn’t ignore what she had seen happening to the hatchlings, either. Letting them die seemed even worse than trying to change the future.

  After a moment, Allana frowned up at her mother. “Mother, that’s not much help,” she said. “How am I supposed to know what the Force is telling me to do?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t telling you to do anything,” her mother said. “Force visions aren’t commands, Allana. They’re just glimpses of a future that’s always in motion. The most important thing about them is what you do after you’ve had one. That’s what determines who you’re going to become inside—and who you become is far more important to the future than any one choice you’ll ever make.”

  “Grandpa calls that Lando’s Dodge,” Allana said, none too happy with her mother’s advice. “He says people use it when they don’t know what to tell you.”

  Her mother smiled. “Well, the truth is that I don’t know what to tell you. You have to decide for yourself. That’s the way the Force works.”

  “But what if I choose wrong?”

  “Listen to your heart, and you won’t,” her mother promised. “No one can see the future, Allana—not even Grand Master Skywalker. But we shape it every day with the choices we make. All you need to do is listen to your heart. Your heart tells you what is right and just. If you do that, the future will take care of itself.”

  Allana did not need to listen long. “That’s pretty easy,” she said. “I can’t turn my back on my friends. I’ve got to warn them about the danger to their young ones.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” her mother said. “Do you think you can warn Master Sebatyne through the Force?”

  Allana thought for a moment. She could usually find her mother in the Force, even across all of the light-years that separated Coruscant and the Consortium. And sometimes she could find her grandmother. But she had never been able to locate Barv, or even Jaina, and she knew them a lot better than she did Master Sebatyne.

  Finally, she shook her head. “I don’t think I can.”

  “In that case, we would have to use the HoloNet,” her mother said. “And if we do that, the Sith might intercept the message. Would that matter?”

  “That would be very bad,” Allana said instantly. So far, she had heard nothing to indicate that the Barabel nest had been discovered. But if the Sith intercepted a message warning Master Sebatyne of the danger to the hatchlings, they would be certain to mount a thorough search. “It would ruin everything.”

  “Then maybe we should wait until after the evacuation is finished,” her mother said. “As soon as your grandparents return, we’ll ask Princess Leia to warn Master Sebatyne through the Force. Will that be okay?”

  Allana thought for a moment, then nodded. “I think it has to be.”

  THE GRAY MIASMA THAT FILLED ACADEMY SQUARE WAS MORE STEAM than fog. It condensed on the climate-controlled coolness of the Falcon’s flight deck canopy and ran down the transparisteel in long shimmering runnels, and it was impossible to see anything outside clearly. Woodoo Hall, just twenty meters away, was a crooked gray box, and the long line of beings emerging from it were shapeless swirls in the fog. The rest of the convoy—eleven Olanjii Sharmok-class troop transports arrayed at various points around the parade ground—were not visible at all.

  It was going to be a tough run—maybe the toughest run Han Solo had ever made. The Sith were going to send the best pilots they had, and in the dense fog their Force abilities would more than neutralize the Hapan advantage in equipment and training. The sooner the convoy ran for the safety of the Battle Dragons’ turbolaser umbrella, the better its chances of survival would be.

  Han activated the intercom and opened a channel to the Falcon’s rear freight ramp. “Are we loaded yet?”

  The din of a hold being loaded quickly came over the cockpit speaker, then Leia said, “Almost, Han.”

  “That’s what you said ten minutes ago.”

  “Ten minutes is almost,” Leia said. “We’re working as fast as we can back here.”

  “Well, work faster,” Han said. “I don’t like this fog. Things can hide in it.”

  “Things like us, Captain Solo,” a silky Hapan voice said. “Will you stop worrying? You’re beginning to show your age.”

  “Sweetheart, you’re confusing age and experience again,” Han replied, deliberately using a term that would rile a proud Hapan woman like Taryn Zel. “And my experience tells me that if you don’t get moving back there, we won’t have a chance to hide. We’ve been on the ground thirty minutes already.”

  Leia’s voice came over the speaker, sharp as a vibroknife. “Han, how many students are we collecting?”

  “Three hundred and twenty-two,” Han replied. He had been over the logistics of the operation a hundred times, trying to convince himself they could get it done before the Sith arrived from their not-so-secret staging base in the Colsassan moons. “But that’s only twenty-six point eight students per transport. It shouldn’t take—”

  “And how many family members do they have?” Leia interrupted.

  “Nine hundred and twenty-three,” Han said. “It still shouldn’t take—”

  “And support staff?”

  “Twelve hundred, give or take,” Han said. “But they were supposed to be—”

  “And how many thousands of tons of matériel are we loading?”

  “Don’t talk to me about the matériel,” Han said. “I wanted to vape that stuff.”

  “And replace it with what?” Leia demanded. “The academy is moving—perhaps permanently. People are going to need a place to sleep. The students are going to need training equipment. The technicians are going to need tools and parts, and we don’t have the resources—”

  “All right, all right,” Han interrupted. He knew Leia’s side of the argument as well as his own. With the GA government in the hands of the Sith, the days of unlimited funding were gone. The Jedi Order was going to need everything it could carry off of Ossus. “I just wish we didn’t have to take everything.”

  “It wouldn’t be a problem if you hadn’t insisted on waiting until the last minute,” Taryn pointed out. “Commander Luvalle wanted to start this operation four hours ago.”

  “What she wanted to do was spoil Luke’s play on Coruscant,” Han retorted. During the planning session, he and Luvalle had butted heads repeatedly, with the commander arguing that thirty minutes on the ground wasn’t enough time, while Han insisted they couldn’t begin the evacuation until after the Jedi had launched the attack on Coruscant. “How sure are you she isn’t Sith?”

  “Quite sure, Captain Solo.” There was a coolness in Taryn’s voice that suggested she had better things to do than defend the commander’s reputation. “If you don’t mind, we’re busy back here. Princess Leia will inform you when the cargo is stowed.”

  A sharp pop sounded from the speaker, and then the intercom fell silent. Han’s jaw dropped, and he spun around in the pilot’s chair, looking toward the back of the flight deck where R2-D2 was monitoring the comm station.

  “Did you hear that?” he demanded. “She deactivated me!”

  R2-D2 spun his dome toward the front of the flight deck, then emitted a long series of urgent whistles.

  “What’s wrong?” Han demanded. C-3PO was out on loan, helping Raynar Thul figure out exactly what Abeloth was—and, with any luck, where she had disappeared to—so Han didn’t have anyone to translate the little dro
id’s beeps and whistles. “If she used a blaster on that intercom station, she’s riding out of here in a strut well!”

  An alert chime sounded from the main display, and Han turned around to find a message from R2-D2 scrolling across the screen. THE NEWS IS WORSE THAN THAT. VHORK LEADER REPORTS THAT A WING OF SKIPRAY BLASTBOATS HAS RECENTLY EMERGED FROM HYPERSPACE.

  Han’s heart began to pound ferociously, but he forced himself to remain calm. Vhork Squadron—named for a giant Daruvvian hawk that took a dim view of airspeeders encroaching on its territory—was the best starfighter squadron in the Hapan Royal Navy, and that was why they were flying top cover for the mission.

  “Okay,” Han said cautiously. “So Vhork Squadron is moving to engage, right?”

  R2 gave a negative chirp, then followed it with an explanatory note: INTERCEPTION FAILED. THE ENEMY ACTIVATED A JAMMING DEVICE AND DROPPED INTO THE ATMOSPHERE. VHORK LEADER REPORTS THREE TARGETS ELIMINATED, BUT THE OTHER BLASTBOATS ESCAPED, FORTY-SEVEN SECONDS AGO.

  “And they’re just telling us now?”

  VHORK SQUADRON IS ATTEMPTING TO REACQUIRE THE ENEMY, AND HER MAJESTY HAS DISPATCHED FOUR MIY’TIL WINGS TO SUPPORT THE EFFORT.

  “Okay, plot a launch vector and have the starfighter wings assemble at the other end. We’ll bring the Sith to them.”

  R2-D2 gave a confirming tweedle, then Han slapped the activation switch on the Falcon’s comm unit and opened a channel to the rest of the convoy.

  “Listen up …” He relayed the details of the report he had just received. “My guess is we’ve got about five minutes before those blastboats pop out of the rift valley and start vaping anything with an ion drive. So get your cargo stowed, your hatches secured, and launch …”

  Han checked his primary display for the vector.

  “… local north at a seventy-degree climb. Don’t stray out of that ascension corridor, or you’ll be entering the free-fire zone.”

  “What free-fire zone?” a Hapan pilot asked. “No one mentioned any free-fire zones in the briefing.”

  “Plan B,” Han said. “Our fighter cover is going to zone defense.”