THIRTEEN
By the time Jaina reached the vicinity of the Sernpidal system, her X-wing felt like a suit of clothes she’d been wearing for way too long.
In fact, her clothes felt that way, too, but more so.
Jedi meditation techniques and isometrics made the long hyperspace jumps bearable, but nothing could hide the fact that there was no room on an X-wing for a shower. Or room to stand up, to walk, to run.
That’s not likely going to happen anytime soon, she chided herself. So concentrate!
She was near her goal now. Somewhere down there—or so the tracer told her—was Kyp Durron. Or his X-wing, at least.
Or merely the tracer beacon, if Kyp was more clever than Uncle Luke imagined. Jaina started sweeping with longrange sensors.
Kyp wasn’t at Sernpidal anymore, but a system several very strange jumps away. The star at the bottom of the gravity pit was old, a white dwarf that at this distance was barely brighter than its much more distant, hotter cousins. It was wreathed with a lazy torus of nebulas ejected when the star collapsed into its present pale form. Jaina had appeared in the inner fringe of the gas cloud.
She punched up the stellar survey and found a brief entry more than two hundred years old. The star had a number but not a name. Six planets. The nearest to the sun was a lifeless rock; the next three were sheathed in frozen carbon dioxide and water ice. On the outer planets, the ice got more exotic: methane, ammonia, chlorine in various compounds. The largest planet, a gas giant, had picked up its own nebula from the outbound gases expelled from the parent star.
No known intelligent life in the system, no known life at all. No resources that couldn’t be found more easily elsewhere, and no reason to come back.
But Kyp Durron had come here.
She followed the beacon in, dropping from above the plane of the elliptic. It took her to the fourth planet, a rock half the size of Coruscant that made Hoth seem like a hothouse. She tried not to fidget.
She hadn’t expected to come in unnoticed, and she didn’t. As she was making orbit a pair of X-wings rose up to meet her. One had the beacon in it.
A few moments later, she answered what turned out to be Kyp’s hail.
“Amazing,” he said. “Simply amazing. Jaina Solo, you continue to find ways to surprise me.”
“Hello, Kyp.”
“I’d ask you what could have possibly brought you to this place, but I almost don’t want to know. If the Force guided you, it’s almost too frightening.”
“How so?”
“Because I was just about to come looking for you and Rogue Squadron,” Kyp answered, sounding sardonic.
“Really.”
“Yep. I’ve found something, Jaina—something I can’t handle with my Dozen. Something that could strike a death blow to the New Republic if we don’t deal with it now, while we can.”
“What are you talking about?” Jaina asked.
“I’d rather tell you in person. Follow me in—we don’t have much down there, but it’s better than the cockpit of an X-wing.”
Kyp and his followers had melted tunnels and caves through the water ice and sealed it, then sifted an oxygen-nitrogen mix from higher up, where the planet’s atmosphere had condensed when its primary went cold.
“We keep it right at freezing in here,” Kyp explained, “so our humble home doesn’t melt.” He handed her a parka. “You’ll want that.”
“To tell you the truth,” Jaina said, “the cold feels good. Almost as good as it feels to stand up.” Her legs were having a little trouble finding their stride in the lower gravity.
“Well, like I said, it’s not much, but we like it,” Kyp said.
“Kyp, what are you doing all the way out here? This whole sector must be crawling with Yuuzhan Vong.”
“Oh, they aren’t far, though you’d be surprised by their numbers, I think—but they aren’t here. No worlds to colonize, no slaves to be had, no machines to be destroyed.”
“Except you, your people, and your ships.”
“Good point. But there are a lot of these played-out star systems near the Rim. This one isn’t even particularly rich in ore because the star died with a whimper—no supernova to spew heavy metals all over the place. I don’t see them looking here when all of their efforts are focused on the Core.”
“You think they’ll push toward the Core?”
Kyp rolled his eyes. “You’re smarter than that, Jaina. The Yuuzhan Vong are taking a breath, that’s all, hoping their collaborators will do some of the work for them. But they’re building up everywhere. And what I’ve found out here—”
“Yes, you mentioned that.”
“First things first, Jaina. Do you mind telling my why you’re here? And, in all seriousness, give me a little hint as to how?”
“Master Skywalker sent me to talk to you.”
“Really? He has something new to say?”
“He and Mara fled Coruscant after Borsk Fey’lya ordered their arrest.”
Kyp blinked, and his brow creased.
“Come in here and sit down,” he said. He ushered her into what was obviously his war room—a portable sensor sweep, a tactical display, and star charts were its furnishings. He pulled up a collapsible chair for Jaina and one for himself.
“That was uncommonly stupid,” he murmured. “Even for Fey’lya. Do you think our chief of state is working with the Peace Brigade?”
“Master Skywalker doesn’t think so. Neither do I.”
“Huh,” Kyp said dubiously. “So what is Master Skywalker doing now?”
“Aunt Mara’s pregnant, you know. It’s not long before her time comes. Uncle Luke’s hiding out with Booster Terrik. He intends to find a planet to build a Jedi base on.”
Kyp’s eyes narrowed. “A base for what?”
“To operate from. A place where endangered Jedi can go, a place for them to strike from.”
“Jaina,” Kyp said, “choose your words carefully. What do you mean by ‘strike’? Don’t put words in the Master’s mouth just because you think I want to hear them.”
Jaina looked down at the floor. “No,” she said, “he’s still not advocating what you’re doing. He’s trying to build a network to pass people and information in and out of Yuuzhan Vong space. A system of places like this, and ships—”
“But no direct action. No bringing the fight home to the Yuuzhan Vong.”
“Not exactly—not the way you mean. But, Kyp, he is doing something, and he needs your help.”
Kyp shook his head. “I think he sent you out here to find out what I’m doing.”
“Partly. But he also sent me to bring you back into the fold.”
Kyp rubbed his jaw thoughtfully for a moment. “I don’t object to what Master Skywalker is doing. I have my bolt-holes and contacts, but they’re limited, scattered, one day at a time. I don’t have the resources or the leisure to build and maintain a stable network. If Luke does, that’s great. I wish he would take a more active hand, but this is more than I was starting to think he would do. He’s right; I can be of help to him, in certain sectors. And I’ll do it—I’ll meet with him. But Jaina, I need something from you in return.” He frowned. “Though this arrest business changes things.” He mulled that over a bit and shrugged. “I’ll lay it out for you anyway. I’m not on good terms with any of the military leaders. I need someone who is. Is that still you?”
Jaina thought back to her last encounter with Rogue Squadron. And Wedge Antilles, so far as she knew, was still on the side of the Jedi.
“They might listen to me,” she allowed.
“Or your mother.”
“What do you need, Kyp?” Jaina asked wearily.
He looked at her as if for the first time. “It can wait a few hours,” he said. “Why don’t you get cleaned up? We sank an old cargo tank to use as a warm room. There’s a hot tub of water calling your name.”
“That sounds really, really good,” Jaina said. “That’s not a proposition I’m prepared to refuse, anyway.”
The rogue Jedi’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “When you’re done, we’ll discuss what other propositions you might find interesting.”
That did something tickly to Jaina’s stomach. She tried to ignore it.
Clean and in a change of clothes, Jaina spent half an hour limbering up, enjoying the luxury of motion. Then she rejoined Kyp in the tactical room. A few more of his Dozen—plus however many now—were in evidence. They nodded at her when she entered.
“That better?” Kyp asked.
“A lot better,” Jaina told him. “Solar diameters better. Parsecs better. So. What’s up?”
“I like that,” Kyp said. “You get to the point.” He gestured for her to take a seat.
“Like I said earlier,” he began, as she settled into the reinforced flimsiplast chair, “we’ve been mostly taking things day by day. Harassing Yuuzhan Vong convoys, providing aid to resistance movements, keeping our receivers tuned. The problem was, nothing we could ever do was enough. We were no more than ore mites, irritating the Vong. The other thing I realized was how little we really know about them. How many are there? Where do they come from? Are they still coming? So a few months ago I decided to spend some time on an extended recon. We began at the Rim, where they first entered, then visited Belkadan and Helska. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t as hard as I expected, either. I found a few answers. I found a lot more questions. But Sernpidal—Gavin Darklighter took Rogue Squadron to Sernpidal. After.”
Jaina stiffened.
“Right,” Kyp said. “You were with him, weren’t you? What you saw was confidential, not something for crazy Kyp Durron to know. But when people see strange things, Jaina, they talk.” He leaned forward on his elbows. “I’ve been known to accuse the New Republic and the Jedi of being slow to act, of having their priorities confused. Sometimes I’ve been right; maybe other times I’ve misstated the case. This time …”
He tapped on a holo display, and the Sernpidal system appeared. An adjustment, and a small section of it came into tight focus—a crescent of debris.
“The remains of Sernpidal.”
Jaina suddenly felt her throat closing and tears welling behind her eyes. She’d thought she had a handle on this, on Chewbacca’s death, but seeing the wreck of an entire planet, knowing somewhere in that jumble of rocks were the molecules that had once knit together into a person who had lived and loved, had held her when she was young—it stung. In some ways, Chewie had been a bigger part of her life than her own mother.
Kyp felt her grief and gave her the space of a few moments to adjust. Then he pointed to the holo.
“They did it to make ships,” he said softly. “They grow the ships as they grow all of their tools. They feed the young ones on broken planets.” He looked significantly at Jaina. “You knew this, right?”
She nodded.
“Right. Coralskippers, bigger ships, all of the things we’ve seen already. But then there’s this.”
He magnified yet again.
As they looked at the image, Kyp continued. “Gavin Darklighter saw the Yuuzhan Vong growing a ship the size of the Death Star. Why didn’t anyone think that was a serious thing?”
The … thing … portrayed in the holograph was clearly a Yuuzhan Vong ship. It had the same organic look to it, and in color and alternating textures rough and smooth was much like the larger ships Jaina had already seen. But in form it was quite different.
It spidered across the sky, a huge, multilegged monster with each leg—or arm, or whatever—curving in the same direction, so the whole thing looked like a mad sculptor’s attempt to portray a galaxy. It was beautiful and terrible, and it made her mouth dry to look at it.
“It didn’t look like that before,” Jaina said. “It was just an ovoid.”
“What you and Gavin saw was hardly more than a seed,” Kyp said. “That thing could swallow Death Stars for lunch. And no one has done anything.”
“We’ve had our hands sort of full,” she replied, aware that her voice was hushed. “How did you get this? Surely after Rogue Squadron’s recon, the Yuuzhan Vong buttoned up the system.”
“Oh, indeed they did,” Kyp replied. “And for anyone besides someone trained as a pilot and a Jedi, I would say it was nearly impossible. But I’m the guy who guided your father through the Maw, using nothing but the most rudimentary command of the Force, and I’ve come a long way since then. Fluctuations in gravity are always squirreling little hyperspace entry points in and out of existence, spalled off larger ones. The Sernpidal system has been unstable since they destroyed the planet, which is how Darklighter got in. The Yuuzhan Vong have mostly corrected their earlier mistakes, but they can’t cover all of them, especially those near the primary—and also when they’re creating their own gravitic anomalies.”
“Maybe because they think no one would be stupid enough to jump that close to a star?”
“Stupid or not, it worked. Despite that they very nearly interdicted me. I lost a wingmate and made a jump out that nearly shredded me near a neutron star.” He grinned again. “But it was worth it. I got a good, close look.”
“You know what it is?”
“Yes. The whole thing isn’t on-line yet, but they were putting some of its systems through trials while we were there.”
“So what is it?”
“A gravitic weapon.”
“Like a dovin basal?”
Kyp laughed. “Dovin basals, the big ones, can pull down a moon. They can generate anomalies that resemble quantum black holes. This thing could collapse a star.”
“How do you know that’s what it is? Why haven’t we seen something like this before?”
“It’s taken them a long time to grow it, Jaina. They couldn’t grow one out there in the void between the galaxies, could they? And maybe not just any planet will do—maybe there was something special about Sernpidal. But remember, this was one of the first things they did when they began the invasion of our galaxy.”
“There is some evidence they’ve been out on the Rim for at least fifty years,” Jaina pointed out.
“I’ve seen a little evidence of that, too. But they weren’t ready to invade, then. Blowing up a planet might have attracted someone’s attention.” He held up his hands. “I don’t know. I only know one thing—that thing has to be stopped, now, before it’s operational.”
“I still don’t understand how you can know what it is,” Jaina said. “You’ve never been shy about jumping to conclusions.”
Kyp tapped the holo console again. The view zoomed out.
“This is time lapse,” he said softly. “Remember that Sernpidal was a hundred and fifteen thousand kilometers from its primary, which is still the approximate position of this weapon.”
Jaina watched, at first not understanding what she was seeing. From the primary’s corona, a small flare erupted, something she had seen happen on numerous occasions around numerous stars.
But the flare kept going, first a full solar diameter, then two. And as it grew longer, it gathered strength rather than diminishing, became a ribbon of superheated hydrogen and helium, dimming and cooling as it went but still clearly visible. In the artificial quickness of time lapse, it was only moments before the streamer reached the gigantic Yuuzhan Vong construction.
“Emperor’s black bones,” Jaina breathed.
“You see?” Kyp said. “Extrapolate. Only about an eighth of its systems seem to be ‘alive,’ yet it can generate a gravity well powerful enough and focused enough to pull enormous quantities of solar atmosphere over a hundred thousand kilometers. The dovin basal on Sernpidal pales to absolute insignificance next to that. Think of the size of the singularities it can create—big enough to swallow a ship? A planet? If we let them take that thing out, nothing can stop them.”
Speechless, Jaina could only nod in horrified agreement.