CRYSTAL VALLEY, NAM CHORIOS
THREE STEALTHX STARFIGHTERS DESCENDED TO WITHIN A HUNDRED meters of the ground, circling protectively while a shuttle settled onto the road adjacent to the topato field, its wings rising into landing position. Ben picked Valin up again and they headed over to the road. The boarding ramp was down before they arrived, the pilot, Taryn Zel, waiting. She steadied Ben as he carried Valin up into the shuttle.
Luke looked overhead. “Jaina, who’s that up there with you?”
“You’ve got Zekk and Tyria Tainer.”
“Tyria, get down here.”
“Yes, Grand Master.” One of the StealthXs abruptly veered and descended on repulsors. Moments later it settled into place in front of the shuttle, its repulsors kicking up a small dust storm. The canopy rose.
Luke called up to the lean blond woman in the cockpit. “I’m stealing your starfighter.”
Her face fell. “Yes, Grand Master.”
Ben, returning to the bottom of the ramp, scowled at his father. “Dad, you’re in no shape to fly in combat right now. None of us should do it.”
Luke put his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Your uncle Han, a very wise man—”
“Ha!”
“—once said, ‘Never tell me the odds.’ ”
“I wasn’t telling you the odds.”
“Well, don’t.”
Tyria dropped onto the road, walked over, and ruefully handed Luke her helmet. “It’s great to see you, Grand Master. Welcome back.”
“Thanks.” Luke headed off toward the StealthX. “See if you can teach my offspring not to be so protective of his elders, would you?” He donned the helmet, sprang with more effort than he cared to admit up onto the S-foil and then into the cockpit, and ran through an abbreviated checklist. As the cockpit came down, he gave Ben a thumbs-up. Then he engaged his repulsorlifts and was airborne.
As he started to rise, something shot out of a nearby dust cloud, a familiar ball shape with extrusions, red and menacing—Ship. It rose at a tremendous rate toward the dark sky. Luke could feel Abeloth within the craft. The pain she was experiencing was like heat radiating from her in the Force. The loss of Callista, the loss of Nenn, the unexpected blow of the tsil’s death, all in close proximity, had hurt her badly.
Heedless of the damage his thrusters might cause to surrounding crops, Luke tilted his StealthX back on its stern and put everything the starfighter had into acceleration. Jaina and Zekk dropped in behind him.
Brief reports flew at Gavar Khai like heat-seeking missiles.
“Two frigates destroyed, two crippled. Damage throughout the remainder of the flotilla. We’re still four minutes from being clear of the planet’s gravity well.”
“Communications restored with Captain Annax. Our gunship crews are drawing off the enemy starfighters so she and her units can escape.”
Khai stared, heat and rage building inside him, but did not let that anger emerge in his voice. He would save this emotion, cherish it for use later. “Order withdrawal of all our forces on Nam Chorios.” A smile he knew to be bleak crossed his lips as he did the responsible thing. “Order all forces that have been on the ground to go through full decontamination, with emphasis on droch detection, before reintegrating with the main force. Or we will destroy them ourselves.”
“Yes, sir.”
Khai’s frigate shook from a particularly forceful laser strike. Shield power was diminishing; laser hits were having a greater effect.
He would not run the numbers to gauge whether they’d last long enough to get him to safe hyperspace jump distance. He would trust in himself, in his commanders, in the Force.
But he knew he had just been mauled. He had relied too much on reports that the Jedi were fragmented, distracted by their political folly on Coruscant. He’d done so because he had wanted to believe it, wanted to think of his enemy as organizationally and tactically inferior.
He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Kyle Katarn’s voice crackled in Luke’s ears. “Gold One to all squadrons. New danger, new danger. Herkan Base is coming alive. Its weapons are now training on your location, Gray One.”
Luke gritted his teeth. Abeloth had somehow assumed control of that NovaGun station, a far-from-impossible task for one Force-user who could marshal others.
Jaina acknowledged instantly. “Understood. Command of Gray Squadron is now with Gray Ten.”
Luke checked his sensor board. Herkan Base barely registered, a distant blip above him. Yet he felt no menace from it.
He felt no menace even when it fired on him. The bright flash of light illuminated the sky immediately above his cockpit. The air superheated, expanded, hammering at his StealthX, sending a shudder through the starfighter and a jolt through Luke’s control yoke. The R2 unit in back squealed.
Luke grimaced. “This is Gray Ten. Herkan Base is probably firing on automated programming. No emotions or intentions to detect. Gray One, Gray Two, go evasive and stay that way.” He hated issuing that order. They’d been steadily catching up to Ship. Evasive flying would slow them.
And Ship—the Sith meditation sphere—plowed on straight ahead, not weaving, safe from the NovaGun.
The distant laser fired again. The sheet of deadly brightness passed between Luke and Jaina. His stomach flip-flopped in that instant, as Jaina’s StealthX disappeared in the light, but Luke did not feel a sudden pain or loss, just a moment of alarm from her. Then the brightness faded and she was still there.
“Gold Three to Gray Ten, incoming.” It was Raynar Thul’s voice, and Gold Three was on the sensors, just past the NovaGun. “Using shadow bomb, be alert.”
“Set it to detonate with proximity detector.” Luke twitched his StealthX to one side and another laser barrage flashed by, occupying the space where he would have been. “Cripple her and then we can vape her, don’t go for the instant kill.”
“Understood … Launching.”
Luke didn’t feel anything through the Force, but that was proper. Raynar had launched his shadow bomb, a proton torpedo warhead without thruster, with a telekinetic touch through the Force. At this range, and with sufficient delicacy on Raynar’s part, Luke shouldn’t have felt anything. And Abeloth shouldn’t feel it, either. If she kept to her present course—and she would, so long as the NovaGun kept offering her protection along that exit vector—she’d run right into the explosive device.
“Gold One to Gold Three.” It was Kyle Katarn again. “Be advised, the NovaGun is rotating axially. Its guns can bear on you—”
The NovaGun flashed again, but its attack came nowhere near Luke, Jaina, or Zekk. Luke saw a needle of laser light travel laterally from the orbital base. There was a second flash, not a visible one—alarm through the Force.
The transponder signal from Gold Three winked out on Luke’s sensor board. Then it was there again, flickering.
“Gold One to wing, Gold Three is extravehicular.”
“Gold One, White Four.” It was Taryn Zel’s voice. “I’m on a different outbound vector, away from Herkan Base. Should I move in to get Gold Three?”
“Negative, negative, Herkan Base’s own personnel will do that. Stay clear of the engagement, your shuttle isn’t meant for combat retrievals.”
Luke ran distances and speeds through his head. Ship should be reaching the vicinity of Raynar’s shadow bomb just about—
Abeloth must have felt it, perhaps just a touch of expectation from Raynar or one of the others. Ship vectored.
It must have come close enough to the bomb to trigger its proximity fuse. A globe of brightness blossomed ahead. Ship, a tiny, irregular dot, entered it, angling through its outer reaches, and emerged from the far side, trailing flame and sparks. Luke could feel pain in the Force, distant pain, but couldn’t tell whether it was Ship or Abeloth or both.
Counting on Abeloth’s distraction to slow her reactions, Luke took a maximum-range shot. He saw his quad-linked lasers converge on that tiny dot. He felt more pain, knew he’d scored a hit.
Then the universe lit up.
His R2 unit squealed in droid distress. His StealthX shook and spun, the nighttime sky suddenly replaced by Nam Chorios, then sky again, Nam Chorios. In his left peripheral vision he could see that his port-side S-foils were gone, their struts ending in stumps still trailing molten composites.
The inertial compensator wasn’t enough to handle the sudden stresses of his spin, and his weakened body wasn’t, either. He saw his vision contract. Everything went gray—then black.
Luke awoke in a bed, a prefabricated duraplast ceiling above his head. He looked around.
This was a good-sized cabin, dimly lit, not a hostel chamber but something like it. The furnishings were generic and innocuous like those of a hostel, but there were no viewports showing local scenery, no wall-mounted holos showing exotic locales.
To his left, on another bed, his back to Luke, was Ben. He was still, breathing slowly.
Luke looked right. There, in a comfortable padded chair, sat Jaina.
Luke blew out a sigh of relief. “Where are we? And what’s happened?”
“These are Very Important Person quarters on the Alliance Navy supply ship Verity, which has been our tender since the StealthX wing was stationed here.” Jaina’s disinterested wave took in their surroundings. “You want the bad news or the good news?”
“Bad. That way I have something to look forward to afterward.”
She grinned, then became serious. “Abeloth got away. Zekk and I had to draw off fire from the NovaGun so it wouldn’t finish you. By the time we were sure it wouldn’t fire on disabled craft on ballistic courses, Ship had entered hyperspace.”
Luke gave her a chiding look. “You shouldn’t have worried about me. You should have gone after her.”
“I know this Jedi, he pretends to be all wise and mysterious but he’s really kind of a farm boy inside, he used to tell me, ‘Trust in the Force.’ Zekk and I trusted what the Force had to tell us—and we protected you. So live with it.”
Luke sighed. “I hate being hoisted on my own words. More bad news?”
“Well, some of the Sith frigates got away. But we really hammered them before they went.”
“And the good news.”
“We managed to get you dunked in bacta for the first time in forever. And you’ve finally had some good sleep. Really, at your age, you should start taking better care of yourself.”
He glared, not meaning it.
She continued, “Valin and Jysella are back to normal, the Theran Listeners are back to normal, everyone has checked out droch-free. Raynar’s fine. Injuries but no fatalities on our side in the Sith engagement.”
Luke lay back and thought about it.
Abeloth had escaped again. All his preparations, all his planning, an operation that could have ended for all time the danger she posed—all that had been for nothing.
No, he corrected himself, it wasn’t for nothing. Abeloth had been hurt again, weakened. Perhaps worse than before; he didn’t know what the one–two punch of Raynar’s shadow bomb and his own lasers had inflicted on her or Ship.
And the loss of Callista. Clearly that had pained her more than the death of any previous avatar. More than losing a remote body, she’d lost something that had been part of herself.
And Callista—finally, truly, Luke knew that she was free. Free of the uncertainties that she had endured in the last part of her mortal life. Free of the loneliness and misery she had endured for thirty years after her death. Free to be one with the Force.
He smiled up at Jaina. “I’m still a little tired. Maybe I’ll get some more sleep.”
“Good answer.”
KLATOOINE
The Millennium Falcon broke orbit, exited the planet’s gravity well, and entered hyperspace, bound for Coruscant. Han was at the controls; Leia, though in the copilot’s seat, performed no ship’s tasks. She had Allana in her lap.
Behind them, R2-D2 tweetled.
C-3PO, in the seat behind Leia, sounded distressed with his reply. “That’s not at all funny, Artoo.”
Allana looked over the back of Leia’s seat to see the protocol droid. “What did he say?”
“He said I had an explosive temper. I find his word choice thoughtless.”
R2-D2 tweetled again.
“No, I do not blow up at the slightest provocation.”
Tweetle.
“I am not going to pieces over this. Enough.” C-3PO stood. “The Manumission Mandate Militia may be correct. I think I have been far too accommodating for far too long. I am now going to assert my independence and individuality.”
Han glanced over his shoulder at the droid. “And how, exactly, do you plan to do that, Goldilocks?”
“Why, I think I’ll formulate Mistress Amelia’s next lesson plan.”
“That’s not exactly—”
“And I’ll do so without following the recommendations of the Alliance Department of Education. I shall do it my way.”
Han gave him a mock scowl. “You interrupted me.”
“Oh. So very sorry.” C-3PO headed aft.
R2-D2 followed, tweetling.
“What do you mean, I’m a ball of fire today? Artoo, I’m warning you …”
When they were gone, Leia hugged Allana even more tightly. “Are you all right, sweetie? You’ve been very quiet.”
“Uh-huh. I was just kind of wishing we hadn’t come to Klatooine.”
“I know. Bad things happened. But imagine how much worse they might have been if we hadn’t come. If your grandpa hadn’t been very clever, the Klatooinians might have stayed slaves, or lonely freedom fighters, a lot longer.”
“Yeah, I know. When you’re the only one who can fix something wrong, it’s your duty.”
“That’s right.”
“But sometimes I like it like this. Just flying around in the Falcon. No duties.”
Han grinned. “Tell you what, kiddo. When I’m too old to do anything but brag and flirt, I’ll give you the Falcon, and you can fly around and hide from duty.”
“Do I have to take Threepio?”
Allana didn’t quite understand why Han and Leia started laughing and couldn’t seem to stop.