THIRTY-NINE

“Eleven, you’ve got two on your tail.”

“Thanks, Ten,” Jaina answered, “but tell me something I don’t already know.” She jiggled the etheric rudder, watching the trails of superhot gases whip soundlessly past. Off to starboard, she caught a glimpse of the battle at Wampa, but the flashing lasers and long plumes of incandescence didn’t tell her anything except that someone was still trying to cook the rock.

She took a hit. The starfield tumbled crazily, and her cockpit was suddenly hotter than the midday double suns on Tatooine. Sparks crackled across her console, and every hair on her body stood at attention.

My engines are gone, she thought. I’m dead.

Interestingly, the thought did nothing to frighten her. Her only regret was that she wouldn’t get to see the big show at the end.

   “Captain Solo, the Yuuzhan Vong ship is hailing us,” C-3PO shouted excitedly. “They must have a modified villip on board.”

“You tell them I’m a little too busy shooting down their ships to answer them,” Han replied, flipping the Millennium Falcon ninety degrees to squeeze thinwise through a tightly formed wedge of skips.

“They seem quite eager to communicate,” C-3PO persisted.

“Well, tell them we’ll call back.” He’d been forced away from the interdictor by seemingly endless swarms of coralskippers. Now the monstrous ship was following them, trying to establish the dovin basal equivalent of a tractor lock. In desperation, Han drove for the freighters, figuring he could at least use them as shields.

He hadn’t had time to check on Karrde lately, though the barked commands over the open channel told him the information broker was still alive, at least.

He made the largest of the freighters, dodging its insignificant defensive lasers with ease, and once there looped around to face his pursuit, a determined snarl on his face.

He blinked. There was nothing there. Not a single coralskipper had followed him.

“Sir,” C-3PO said, “the commander of the Yuuzhan Vong warship Sunulok has called his ships back. If we do not answer his hail, he will commence hostilities in sixty seconds.”

Han checked his sensor display. The coralskippers had retreated to the vicinity of the interdictor, which was now at a stop relative to the Falcon. He estimated he was outside of the Sunulok’s tractor range—barely.

He eased back half a klick, to see what would happen. The ships didn’t budge, though he noticed Karrde hadn’t had any such reprieve. Off to his port, that battle raged on. It looked like Karrde was losing.

“Better let me talk to ’em, Threepio,” Han said. “I don’t think letting them speak to a droid is going to make them any happier.”

“Indubitably, sir.”

Keeping a careful eye on both the viewport and sensor displays, Han keyed on the comm.

“Sunulok, this is Princess of Blood. You ready to surrender, yet?”

The Yuuzhan Vong were not.

“This is Warmaster Tsavong Lah. You waste my time with nonsense,” the warmaster grated.

“Hey, you called me. What do you want?”

“You deny me visual, skulking coward,” he said. “But it avails you nothing. You are Han Solo, and your vessel is the Millennium Falcon.”

Well, I wonder who he bought that information from? Han thought. So much for the anonymity of piracy. “You’re callin’ me a coward?” Han exploded. “You’re the scum who had his underlings cut my wife.”

“She was not worthy to fight me. Neither was your Jeedai son.”

“Listen, scars-for-brains, I couldn’t care less how you explain your weak knees and yellow belly. We had a good fight going here. You want to finish it, or you want to call it quits? Either way is fine by me.”

“Jacen Solo is with you. I want him. Alive. When I have him, you’re free to go.”

“Oh, sure. I’ll just put him in an escape pod and send him over.”

“Dad?” Jacen’s voice came up from the intrasystem channel. “Dad, maybe it’s not a bad idea. If I can get him to duel me …”

Han ignored Jacen and turned to C-3PO. “You got a read on that radiation signature yet?”

“Yes, sir, but I’m afraid it’s not very helpful. It’s very low grade—the cargo pod contains liquid hydrogen enriched with tritium.”

“Cheap reactor fuel,” Han grumbled. “Industrial waste. I was hoping for a cargo of ion mines, or something.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” C-3PO said.

“Infidel,” Tsavong Lah roared. “There is no sign you are preparing an escape pod.”

Han’s jaw dropped. “This guy doesn’t have any sense of humor at all. He really thinks …”

Well, let him think it, then. He opened the channel for a reply. “Just give me a sec, will you? He is my son, after all.”

“You have two minutes.”

Han chewed his lip, thinking furiously.

Leia called up from below. “Han, couldn’t you put a concussion missile in the escape pod?”

“Nah, they’ll catch that,” he said. “Waste of a missile we’ll probably need.”

“It’s got to be me, Dad,” Jacen said. “I’m going back there.”

“Oh, no you’re not.” Han swung on C-3PO. “Jettison both escape pods. Now. Right now. Aim them both at the Vong ship.”

“Sir, I’m not sure which—”

“There,” Han said, pointing. He cut the engines back in and began creeping back toward the freighter and the Yuuzhan Vong ship it nearly eclipsed. Two escape pods suddenly went tumbling across his field of vision.

“Hopefully, it’ll take ’em a few seconds to figure out there’s no one on board,” Han said. He fired his forward lasers. “Goldenrod, take a deep breath. If this doesn’t work …”

“But, sir, I don’t breathe, of course I—oh, no!”

   Anakin, Tahiri, and Corran followed the Givin through the cramped corridors of the Yag’Dhul space station, their footing upset by ever-more-violent explosions.

“Do you have any idea where we’re going?” Anakin asked Corran.

“The basic layout hasn’t changed that much,” Corran said. “We’re headed down toward the berths.”

“Yes. Going to the berths,” the Givin said helpfully.

They reached an axis a few moments later and piled into the turbolift, which, at the Givin’s command, whirred them down toward the anterior berths. Power flickered, and the lift jarred to a halt, only to start again a moment later when the lights came back on, albeit dimmed.

“I’ll be sorry to see this place go,” Corran murmured.

Anakin caught a thread of wistfulness in that, something like he got from his father now and then. Almost … almost as if Corran wished he were younger again.

Which was ridiculous. The older you got, the more people took you seriously. Anakin was very much sick of being treated like a kid, especially by people who knew less than him.

Mara … Mara had treated him more like an adult. And Mara was dying, and there was nothing he could do. He almost wished the turbolift would open to a bunch of Yuuzhan Vong, so he’d at least have someone to …

That’s not a wish, he realized. That’s the lambent.

“Guys,” he said quietly, “you’d better activate your lightsabers.”

At least Corran didn’t ask questions, this time. He just did it.

The door whisked open, and there they were. Six Yuuzhan Vong with amphistaffs.

“Me first,” Corran said, leaping out, lightsaber blazing. Tahiri was a blur, and Anakin right behind her when he realized he only counted five Yuuzhan Vong warriors outside.

But the lambent said six.

He spun—almost in time. The Givin struck him across the bridge of the nose with a tightly balled fist, propelling him from the turbolift into the enemy-filled room beyond. His body struck Corran in the back of the knees. Surprised, the ex-CorSec Jedi still managed a shoulder roll, though Anakin caught a bright glimpse of pain from him as an amphistaff struck a glancing blow. Head ringing, Anakin brought his radiant weapon up in a high parry he knew he had to make, felt the sharp thwack of a staff across it. Still aware of the danger at his back, he then threw himself to the side. He rolled up to see Tahiri doing a high, Force-aided flip to land in a protective stance beside Corran. Anakin rose and threw the most powerful telekinetic blast he could at the group of Yuuzhan Vong.

If they had been any other species, it would have pasted them to the wall. Instead, two fell and the other three staggered as if in a high wind. Tahiri, unable to affect them at all, found another solution; a stack of cylinders in the corner suddenly flew into the already off-balance warriors, sending the rest of them down. Only the Givin, who had stepped back from the action, kept his feet, and he was laughing, a harsh, very un-Givinlike laugh.

From side corridors, eight more Yuuzhan Vong filed into the far side of the room from where the Jedi now stood against a bulkhead, lightsabers bristling out like quills.

The Givin reached up, touched the side of his nose, and something oozed off, revealing the Yuuzhan Vong beneath.

“A good effort, for infidels,” he said, taking an amphistaff proffered by one of the newcomers. He looked squarely at Anakin. “Not the Solo the warmaster wishes most, though after Yavin Four your worth has risen immeasurably.”

“I don’t know you,” Anakin said.

“No. But your mother and I have met. I am Nom Anor, and you may consider yourself my captive.”

“We’d rather not jump to that conclusion, if you don’t mind,” Corran said.

“The odds are against you.”

“You must not know much about Corellians,” Corran said.

“Don’t be tiresome. You three have earned respect. If you were not infidels, I might even call you warriors.”

“I can’t say the same for you,” Corran said. “What about it, Nom Anor? Me and you, man to man.”

“Duel you as you dueled Shedao Shai? And if I win, the rest of you would surrender?”

“No. But you could prove you aren’t afraid to face me.”

“Sadly, my duty to my people forces me to decline your offer,” Nom Anor said.

Tahiri suddenly began shouting in Yuuzhan Vong. The warriors looked at her, first puzzled, then angry. One turned and spat something at Nom Anor.

“What did you say?” Anakin asked.

“The warriors with him don’t speak Basic, and they don’t have tizowyrms. They didn’t realize that Nom Anor was turning down a challenge. I told them you were the slayer of Shedao Shai.”

“Good going, Tahiri. Now what?” Corran asked.

“The head warrior of this bunch—Shok Choka—wants to take up the challenge.”

“Tell him I accept,” Corran said.

“No,” Anakin said. “Tell him I accept. Tell him I slew many warriors on Yavin Four. Tell him I fought with Vua Rapuung. Tell him I demand my right to combat, or I will carry their names as cowards to the gods.”

Nom Anor was shouting himself hoarse in Yuuzhan Vong, but the warriors seemed to have almost forgotten he existed. It would have been funny if the situation hadn’t been so deadly.

As Tahiri translated, Anakin stepped out, lightsaber blazing. The other warriors fell back, forming a ring. Shok Choka stepped into it.