FORTY-FOUR

“Wow,” Anakin said, when he saw the ship waiting for them in berth thirteen. They’d squeaked by two groups of ooglith-cloaked Yuuzhan Vong prowling the halls, apparently still searching for them, and had expected a fight when they reached the ship—if the ship was even still there. It was, and the Yuuzhan Vong weren’t.

“Maybe Nom Anor and his bunch got caught when the air went out,” Corran speculated.

“Wow,” Anakin repeated.

“Don’t gawk,” Corran said. “We don’t have time for it. It may take us some time to figure out how to work this thing. There is still a fleet out there, remember?”

“Right,” Anakin said. “Sorry.”

But it was hard not to be impressed. The Givin ship was simple, elegant, nearly all engine, about the size of a light transport. A bundle of spindly cylinders protruding from a relatively enormous engine torus made up the core of the ion drive, though three more extended on booms from the side of the main assembly. These last weren’t fixed, either, but could be maneuvered in a complete sphere. Forward of that was the hyperdrive assembly, and almost as an afterthought, it seemed, a crew section and cockpit that was nearly all transparisteel.

On board they found that only the sleeping compartment could be pressurized. The life support unit was thus commensurately underpowered, so they remained in their suits. The controls were a complete mystery until Corran pointed out they were laid out mathematically according to Ju Simma’s theorem. Once that was understood, the ship was weird to operate, but not particularly difficult.

Corran took the controls and unlocked the docking bolts.

“Here we go,” he said. “The pitiful laser this thing has won’t be of much use in a fight, so we’re just going to run, unless anyone else has a better suggestion.”

“But the station—” Tahiri began.

“Is doomed. And the best hope for the Givin is reinforcements from Coruscant.”

“I was thinking about Taan.”

“I’m sorry,” Corran said. “But the Yuuzhan Vong will probably retrieve her. If she’s lucky … Anyway, we’re out of this, just as soon as I can get us out. Let’s see, where would the inertial compensator be?”

Anakin pointed to a logarithmically scaled input. “I’m guessing that’s it.”

“We’ll see. Strap in and hang on. I hope this thing has the legs it advertises.”

It did. Anakin could barely restrain a whoop when they blew out of the dock. If he had been flying, he wouldn’t have been able to keep it in.

“An A-wing couldn’t touch this thing,” he said.

“It’s not all about speed,” Corran said.

“If you’re running, it is,” Anakin replied reasonably, as they streaked past a patrol of coralskippers. They turned late, like a herd of startled banthas, and began pursuit. Within a minute the skips must have been under top acceleration, but they looked almost as if they were standing still.

As Anakin studied the sensor readouts from the copilot’s station and began calculating a series of jumps, he began to feel less cheery.

“We’ve got some ahead of us, closing. Heavy cruiser analogs, two of them.”

“We’ll see how well the Givin build shields, then,” Corran replied.

Minutes later, Corran was juking and jinking through heavy fire. The shields held admirably well, but as predicted, the laser was useless. Corran cut the ship onto a course perpendicular to Yag’Dhul’s ecliptic plane, fighting for enough distance from the planet and its three massive moons for a safe jump, but they ran into trouble there, too, in the form of more Yuuzhan Vong ships.

“Thick as gluttonbugs,” Corran remarked.

“I can lay in a short jump,” Anakin said.

“In an unfamiliar ship? Very dangerous.”

“What choice do we have?” Anakin replied.

In response, Corran turned back toward Yag’Dhul, diving toward the thick of the fighting, where the delicate-looking Givin ships were taking on twice their number of Yuuzhan Vong vessels. To Anakin, it didn’t look like a very good place to be. “We should jump,” Anakin repeated.

“Anakin, I was flying when you were nothing more than a fight brewing between Han and Leia. Before that, even. Give me credit for knowing a thing or two.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Program the jump, just in case. But we’re not going to try it unless we run out of options.”

They whipped through the Yuuzhan Vong perimeter, shaving as near the big ships as Corran dared—which was pretty near—and dancing evasively through skips. Anakin took potshots with the laser, and though he never managed to get through the void defenses the ships generated, it still felt better than doing nothing.

“We’re going to make it,” Corran said. “The ships up front are too busy to—” He broke off as every single Yuuzhan Vong ship ahead of them suddenly turned and began accelerating in their direction.

“Sithspawn!” Corran sputtered, pulling up hard to avoid a coralskipper that appeared intent on taking them out with its own mass.

It dodged by them, not even bothering to fire. In utter confusion, Anakin watched the rest of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet race past them, out toward interstellar space.

“The ones farther out are jumping,” he reported, studying the sensor readouts. “They’re running. I don’t get it. What could the Givin have done to light their jets like that?”

“It’s not the Givin,” Corran replied, his voice edged with astonished relief. “It’s something else.”

   “Recalled?” Nom Anor spat, staring incredulously down at the villip and its portrait of Qurang Lah. “But we are near victory! Their defenses crumble.”

“Meanwhile, an infidel fleet desecrates and obliterates our primary shipwomb.”

“Impossible,” Nom Anor said. “Their ridiculous senate could not possibly have approved of such a strike without my knowing. Even if the military launched such a campaign without senate approval, my sources would have informed me.”

The commander snarled a sort of smile. “It would appear, Executor, that Yun-Harla has abandoned you. Opinion is that you are perhaps not as clever and useful as you make yourself out to be. You have been outmaneuvered by the infidels. They set a trap, and you led us into it for them.”

“Absurd. If there is an attack on the shipwomb, it is unrelated to this mission.”

“Not unrelated at all, since you had us commit our reserves for this battle. Had they remained at the shipwomb, they would have been sufficient to repel the infidels. As it is, we have only a narrow chance of reaching the battle in time to salvage anything.”

“Then let us remain here. We have now demonstrated to the infidels that we intend to continue our conquest of their galaxy—unless we finish here, we will have nothing to show for that tactical loss.”

Qurang Lah showed his sharpened teeth. “The loss is yours, Executor,” he said. “You may be sure that the warmaster will hear a most complete version of how you’ve bungled this entire business.” His eyes narrowed. “Let me speak to Shok Choka.”

Nom Anor kept his face impassive. “He was slain by the Jeedai. All of your men were.”

The commander’s face pulled into an incredulous frown. “All of them? And yet you made it safely back to your ship?”

“I was separated from your warriors and the Jeedai when the Givin emptied their station of atmosphere.”

Qurang Lah held his stare for another moment. “Yes,” he said softly. “The warmaster will hear much from me.”

Before Nom Anor could begin another rebuttal, the villip cleared, leaving him to pace the decks of his ship in frustration.

Not to mention trepidation.