TWENTY-THREE

Larger than the Death Star, Centerpoint Station hung gray-white and ominous between Talus and Tralus, drawing its power from the gravitic output of the so-called Double Worlds. Rotating slowly around an axis defined by two thick polar cylinders, the station had been designed to act as a gravity lens capable of directing amplified bursts of repulsor energy through hyperspace, sufficient for the capturing of distant worlds or the destruction of far-flung stars. Its surface was a mishmash of boxy superstructures as tall as skyscrapers and force-bubble pressurization access ports the size of impact craters. A bewildering tangle of piping, cables, and conduits coursed in all directions, winding through multi-storied forests of parabolic antennae, conical arrays, and setose projections. A prominent feature was the remains of a crashed spacecraft that had been macrofused to the hull and converted into living quarters.

“I was the first person to greet your uncle Luke, Lando Calrissian, Belindi Kalenda, and Gaeriel Captison when they came aboard,” Jenica Sonsen told Anakin, Jacen, and Ebrihim while a turbovator smelling of fresh paint conveyed them along a dark-pink tunnel toward the station’s core.

“I think we met you on Corellia afterwards,” Jacen said.

“You did. I’m delighted that you remember.”

“The simulated gravity is increasing,” Q9 interrupted in Basic, speaking through a vocoder the droid had adapted to form words like a mouth. “The increase is obviously a consequence of our traveling away from the axis of rotation.”

“Thank you, Queue-nine,” Ebrihim said, in deference to the droid’s oft-stated opinion that machines should be useful at all times and in all places.

Sonsen smiled at the exchange. “It has long been our hope to provide Centerpoint with artificial gravity, but for the time being, we’re relying on centrifugal gravity. Perhaps if we’re successful in assisting in the war effort, the New Republic will finally allocate the funds necessary to despin the station. But even without artificial gravity, the Mrlssi have done wonders to make Hollowtown and many other areas perfectly livable.”

She was an upbeat, handsome woman, with black curly hair, a long, thin face, and expressive eyebrows. Eight years earlier, following Centerpoint’s unexpected flare-ups—which had not only destroyed two distant stars with precise hyperspace shots but had also incinerated thousands of colonists who had been living in Hollowtown—Sonsen had been left in charge of the station, while survivors fled for the safety of Talus and Tralus. Since then she had headed up the cartography team that was slowly mapping the complex interior of the immense orb, a task Sonsen herself doubted would be completed in her lifetime.

“Did your team get along with the archaeologists who were deported?” Jacen asked.

Sonsen frowned. “They weren’t deported, so much as removed for their own safety. But, yes, of course we got along. All of us are interested in learning whatever we can about the species who built Centerpoint and assembled the Corellian system. I’m afraid, however, that the archaeologists may have erred by making a political issue of their removal. If, as the Centerpoint Party advocates, each of Corell’s five worlds should be treated as a separate entity, then it stands to reason that this station—which is certainly not indigenous to the system—should also be considered independent. As a result, I believe that Centerpoint may remain in New Republic hands for some time to come.”

Ebrihim opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it and fell silent for the remainder of the ride through the station’s two thousand levels of decks.

Originally a power-containment battery, Hollowtown was an open sphere, measuring sixty kilometers in diameter. The curving walls had once seen homes, parks, lakes, orchards, and farmland, basking in the overhead radiance of Glowpoint—a kind of pilot light for the entire station. But except for a few that housed scientists and the archaeological team before them, the houses had been dismantled. The only concession to what had once existed were the adjustable shadow-shields, installed to simulate night.

Positioned along the spin axis on both sides of Hollowtown were large cones ringed by six smaller cones, given the names North and South Conical Mountains. The arrangement of the cones was the geometry needed for a particular type of old-style repulsor.

Sonsen pointed out the sights as she ushered everyone to a small, well-shielded control room that had remained concealed during the station’s occupation, and had been discovered only by accident when a group of Mrlssi had been searching for a place to install a life-support monitor.

Consistent with the plumed avians from which they were descended, the limpid-eyed, diminutive Mrlssi had a talent for rendering extremely large spaces habitable, as they had proved to Dr. Ohran Keldor, who had employed some one hundred of them at the Imperial Maw Installation near Kessel. In Hollowtown, the fine-boned Mrlssi were more in evidence than any other species, though there were none in the control room itself when Sonsen and her charges entered.

The instrument-filled chamber did hold several humans, a Selonian, two Verpine, and a Duros, but in spite of the diversity, the curious mix of robed Jedi, Drall, and bullet-headed droid brought activity to an abrupt halt and caused all heads to turn. Since arriving onstation, Anakin had grown accustomed to being the focus of intense scrutiny, but the gray-haired man who muscled his way through the control room crowd set him back on his heels. With the beard that Han had been growing the last time Anakin saw him, the man looked more like Han than Han himself—if a few centimeters taller and more thickly built.

“You’re Jacen, and you’re Anakin,” he said, pointing to each in turn. Mostly to Anakin, he added, “You don’t remember me, do you? I’m hurt. I’ll bet that even your droid remembers.”

“You were responsible for confining Master Ebrihim and Masters Anakin and Jacen within a force field on Drall,” Q9 supplied. “Whereas I was responsible for releasing them.”

The man planted his hands on his hips and laughed heartily. “I’d forgotten all about that.”

“You’re Thrackan Sal-Solo,” Anakin said at last, “Dad’s first cousin.”

Thrackan made his face long. “And your cousin, as well, boys.”

“You not only took us hostage,” Jacen said, “you forced our father to fight a Selonian female—just for your amusement.”

Thrackan spread his hands in a placating gesture. “Han and I have a long history. He probably never told you about the time he beat the stuffing out of me when we were kids. You might say that I was just paying him back. But, you’re right, it was wrong of me to do what I did. Sometimes when you’ve been remembering an injustice for years and years, revenge begins to get the best of you.”

Thrackan’s eyes narrowed. “It took me the better part of eight years in Dorthus Tal prison on Sacorria to realize that, but I have realized it, and I’m a changed man as a result.” He gestured broadly. “That’s the only reason I’m here on Centerpoint. As part of my rehabilitation, the powers that be felt that I could demonstrate my newly attained self-awareness by pitching in—by offering my technical expertise in service to the cause. By standing shoulder to shoulder with the New Republic against the Yuuzhan Vong.”

He snorted a self-deprecating laugh. “Of course, you two wouldn’t know how the past can plague a person. You’re Jedi. You’re not subject to the banal emotions that trouble ordinary folks. Anger, hatred, guilt, the desire for retribution … such things mean nothing to you. Why, even the Yuuzhan Vong have simply failed to see the error of their ways and can probably be brought over to the side of the Force. Am I right? Otherwise you’d be shoulder to shoulder with us in the trenches, ready to fight—ready to spill whatever amount of Corellian blood that runs in your veins.”

“We’re here to help,” Anakin said firmly.

“Are you now?” Thrackan shook his head in amusement. “It’s a marvelous irony that it took a galactic war to reunite the old gang”—he motioned to one of the humans and the Selonian—“and to bring you boys back to the station you originally helped to shut down.” Again his glance favored Anakin. “I have you to thank personally for banishing our illusions of a free and independent Corellia. But, tell me, do you still think we were wrong to make a grab for freedom?”

“Your methods were wrong,” Jacen said before Anakin could respond.

Thrackan waved his hand. “Methods. You realize, of course, that the New Republic has essentially abandoned Corellia since the crisis. And knowing Ebrihim”—he regarded the Drall with obvious distaste—“I’m sure you’ve been apprised of Coruscant’s plan to use Corellia as a battleground.”

“We’ve heard the rumors,” Jacen said.

Thrackan sneered. “That’s your mother talking. What about you, Anakin? Are you here on a tour, or are you really willing to do what’s necessary to safeguard Corellia from attack?”

Anakin considered it. “That depends on what you have planned for Centerpoint.”

Thrackan adopted a look of puzzlement. “What we have planned is an interdiction field. What else could we hope for?”

“How about the ability to vaporize every unwanted ship—Yuuzhan Vong or otherwise—that shows itself here?” Jacen chimed in. “The Watchkeeper was destroyed by one shot from the repulsor on Selonia, and Centerpoint has a thousand times the firepower of all five planetary repulsors combined. It can create a compression wave strong enough to induce a star to explode.”

Thrackan looked to a pale, thin-faced technician. “This is Antone,” he said. “He was also here during the crisis. In fact, he had family at Bovo Yagen, the star that would have been destroyed if Anakin hadn’t intervened in time.”

“Centerpoint can indeed induce stars to go nova,” Antone said. “The Triad caused the explosions of EM-1271 and Thanta Zilbra, but those results cannot be duplicated.”

“You’re saying that Centerpoint can’t be used as a weapon?” Jacen asked.

Antone shrugged. “Frankly, we’re not sure. In order to loose a burst of repulsor power from the South Pole, the station has to reorient its spin axis, then go through a series of power surges, pulses, transient events, and radiation releases in advance of actually firing. When Centerpoint destroyed EM-1271, Glowpoint’s energy spikes killed thousands of colonists.”

“No one wants to risk a repeat of that catastrophe,” Thrackan said.

Jacen looked at him. “If it’s true that you’re only interested in fashioning an interdiction field, then you should be able to do that yourself. During the crisis, you were the one placed in control of Centerpoint’s jamming and interdiction field capabilities.”

“Yes,” Thrackan said slowly, “but the crisis was resolved before I got to try my hand at operating Centerpoint. What’s more, things have changed since your uncle Luke and the others shut Centerpoint down. Now neither of those systems is responding the way they once did.”

Antone cleared his throat meaningfully. “One problem is that the station’s barycenter point is no longer stable. Centerpoint has always moved about to stay properly positioned and oriented, but the repositioning maneuvers have become erratic.”

“In other words,” Thrackan clarified, “we haven’t been able to initiate an interdiction field on demand.”

“Only Anakin can do it,” Antone said nervously. “As a result of his activation of the Drall repulsor, the entire system imprinted on him.” He looked at Anakin. “On your fingerprints, your DNA, perhaps even your brain waves. I’ve been proposing this for eight years now, but no one was interested in having you return here until now.”

“There’s only one way to find out if Antone’s theory merits further investigation,” Thrackan said. He gestured toward what was obviously a special console. “Take the controls, Anakin. Let’s see where it goes from there.”

Jacen and Ebrihim threw Anakin troubled looks, to which Anakin responded with a nod, meant to be mollifying. But even as he moved toward the console—with every tech watching—Anakin could feel the system beginning to respond to him.

Vague memories of his experiences inside the Drall repulsor surfaced as he sat down and ran his hands over the console. After a moment, as had happened long ago on Drall, he seemed to glimpse a virtual array of switches and controls and linkages, all of which had little to do with the knobs and levers and dials that covered the control panel.

Hesitantly, he placed his hands on the console.

A tone sounded and a flat spot on the panel began to twist and shimmer, then swell upward, forming itself into a handle like a spacecraft’s joystick.

When Anakin reached for it, the handle reshaped itself to fit his left hand, and everyone in the room—even Jacen—gasped.

In his mind, as if on a display screen, Anakin could suddenly read specs on power ratings, capacitance storage, vernier control, targeting subsystems, safety overrides, shielding constraints, thrust balancing, geogravitic energy transfer levels …

Unexpectedly, a graphic display appeared in the air over the handle—a hollow wire-frame cube made up of smaller, transparent cubes five high, five across, and five deep. As Anakin manipulated the joystick, the grid of smaller cubes began to take on color—greens and purple—to the accompaniment of activation tones.

Everyone but Thrackan was speechless. “You’ve done it, boy, you’ve done it,” he enthused.

Anakin moved the control stick forward, and a cube of blazing orange appeared. He experimented with minute adjustments that made the cube flicker or brighten. Then he pulled the stick down as hard as he could.

Indicators registered an incredible burst of power, and the control room began to shudder. In Hollowtown, Glowpoint came alive and a display of blinding lightning blazed from it to the South Conical Mountains.

“The station is reorienting!” a technician reported.

“It’s armed!” Antone exclaimed in awe. “It’s capable of firing!”

A dozen separate conversations broke out in the control room, silenced only by the arrival of the New Republic officer in command of the project.

“An urgent message from Commenor,” the colonel announced to Sal-Solo and Antone. “Yuuzhan Vong advance elements are departing Hutt space. Fleet Intelligence estimates thirty-six standard hours until they’re at our doorstep.”

In groups of three and four, at times escorted by gunboats and squadrons of Miy’til fighters or vintage X-wings, the warships of the Hapan fleet reverted to realspace over the planet Commenor, on the Rimward edge of the Core. Arrayed in a sweeping arc, the sleek Nova-class battle cruisers and Olanjii/Charubah double-saucered Battle Dragons were a vibrantly colored counterpoint to the New Republic’s fleet of Star Destroyers, lumpish Mon Calamari vessels, and unembellished Bothan warships.

Gazing at the assembled armada from the shuttle that was conveying her and Isolder from the prince’s deep-carnelian Song of War to Commodore Brand’s flagship, Leia felt as if she and everyone she held dear were trapped in the current of a tumultuous river that was sweeping them into unknown regions, scattering some, leaving many abandoned on ravaged shores, and carrying others over the falls to oblivion … The feeling had accompanied her from Hapes, troubling her through all the long hours of talk with Isolder, who was seemingly as enthralled by the prospect of going to war with the Yuuzhan Vong as he had been by the chance to trade punches and kicks with Beed Thane.

“True to our pirate roots, the Hapans prefer swift, ruthless strikes,” he had told Leia more than once during the voyage. “Hurt an enemy at the start of an engagement and he is yours, for as the fight progresses, his fear of you will intensify and will become your ally.”

Each time he said it, Leia had recalled Ithor and Gyndine, and the ruthless tactics the Yuuzhan Vong had employed. But the real source of her apprehension was the vision she had had following the Consortium’s vote. Whenever she shut her eyes, vague images of destruction played at the edges of her awareness, as if massing for a full-scale assault. Anyone else might have been able to explain the dark images as owing to concerns for the lives of close friends and loved ones, but Leia was too attuned to the Force to dismiss them so expediently. She was convinced that the Force had shown her a possible future, while declining to provide her with a clear sense of just which paths were to be avoided. It helped slightly to be home, but in fact, proximity to Coruscant had not alleviated her anxiety. And she had yet to hear from Han, not even by a message delivered through the kids or Luke.

“What power we have marshaled,” Isolder said from the shuttle’s passenger cabin window, where he stood with his fingers pressed to the transparisteel panel. “I doubt that even the Yuuzhan Vong would fail to be impressed.”

“Oh, they’d be impressed,” Leia said, joining him. “But instead of fazing them, a display like this would only goad them on.”

Still, as she scanned the hundreds of capital ships anchored in local space—more than a hundred of which had trailed the Song of War from Hapes—she couldn’t help but be overwhelmed.

Painted to symbolize the Consortium worlds they represented, the Battle Dragons consisted of large dorsal saucers linked to smaller ventral ones by dozens of slender rotation struts. Ion and hyperdrive engines were wedged astern, and the bridge sat aft on the dorsal face of the upper saucer, the perimeter of which was studded with ion cannons. As a means of compensating for the ship’s relatively slow weapons-recharge rate, the equally distributed cannons were mounted on a drive disk that allowed them to be rotated for fire as need be. Sandwiched between and affixed to both saucers of the Battle Dragon were sixteen massive pulse-mass mines, each of which was capable of simulating the effects of mass shadows, thus hindering ships from making jumps into hyperspace.

By contrast, the Nova-class battle cruiser resembled a mountain climber’s two-pronged ice claw, with the ship’s viper-headed bridge occupying the distal end of what would be the tool’s long handle. Exceptionally fast, well shielded, and equipped for long-range reconnaissance, the cruiser boasted twenty-five turbolasers, ten laser cannons, and ten ion cannons, and could carry twelve Miy’til fighters and six Hetrinar assault bombers.

While the shuttle was docking inside the heavy cruiser Yald, Leia tried to arrange things so that Isolder would emerge on his own, followed by his contingent of mostly female honor guards and command staff, but the prince wouldn’t have it. He insisted instead that Leia walk by his side, a pairing she knew would not only become an endlessly repeated visual bite on the HoloNet, but also prove a source of amusement for those now-aged New Republic officers who had been in favor of her marrying Isolder so long ago.

Even so, she managed to put on her best face as she and Isolder descended the shuttle ramp arm in arm, to the strains of a Hapes march endowed with equal measures of pomp and circumstance by a well-rehearsed hundred-member military band. Leia had disengaged herself by the time they reached the deck, but she could tell by the expression on Commodore Brand’s craggy face that even he was a bit nonplussed by the regal formality of their arrival.

At Brand’s back stood rank after rank of soldiers at attention, saluting sharply when the music concluded.

“Welcome aboard, Prince Isolder,” Brand said, stepping forward and extending his hand.

Isolder threw his short cape over one shoulder and took hold of Brand’s hand—nearly crushing it in his grip, Leia was sure.

“Good to be here, Commodore.”

Brand smiled uncertainly as he turned to Leia. “Ambassador Organa Solo, welcome home. And on behalf of the New Republic, thank you for all you’ve done.”

Leia inclined her head in a courtly bow. “Thank Prince Isolder, Commodore. He was very persuasive in winning over the … Consortium.”

Brand nodded stiffly. “Your support might very well stem the tide, Prince Isolder. But our victory will not be earned lightly.”

“We are prepared to earn it, Commodore,” Isolder assured him. “Just tell me where to direct my forces.”

The command staffs of both groups moved to the tactical information center, deeper in the ship. During a private moment, Brand asked Leia about the voyage from Hapes. She repressed an urge to confide in him that it had been unsettling, and instead dismissed it as uneventful.

Dozens of officers and technicians were already gathered in the high-ceilinged TIC, seated at duty stations or clustered around light tables and plotting panels. Once Isolder, Leia, and the rest of the new arrivals were seated, Brand came right to the point.

“These are our most recent hyperspace probe reconnaissance images from Hutt space,” he began, gesturing toward the holograms resolving above one of the chamber’s many projector wells. He turned to address himself specifically to Isolder and his commanders. “What may look like an asteroid field is actually a fleet of warships. This storm of smaller asteroids spiraling toward the fleet are coralskippers, grown on the surface of the planet below.”

“Grown?” one of Isolder’s female officers asked.

Brand nodded. “With the permission of the Hutts, the Yuuzhan Vong transformed the planet to serve as a sort of weapons garden, similar to the ones at Belkadan and Sernpidal, from which these fighters have been harvested and equipped with the organic devices that both propel and shield them.”

A new image took shape in the well’s cone of projected light: a close-up view of the coralskippers attaching themselves like barnacles to the spindly arms of an enormous Yuuzhan Vong carrier analog. Elsewhere warships were maneuvering into battle groups, encircled by swarms of coralskippers.

“The enemy is massing for a strike,” Brand remarked unequivocally, “and judging by the numbers of ships involved, they have their sights set on a target of greater significance than Ithor, Obroa-skai, or Gyndine. We have determined that target to be Corellia, which we have deliberately left inadequately protected in the hope of inviting an attack.”

Leia’s eyes widened in alarm as a holographic image of a moonlet-size sphere resolved above the projector.

“Centerpoint Station is the heart of Corellia’s defense,” Brand went on. “A repulsor and gravity lens, the station is capable of creating an interdiction field that will stretch from Corell clear to the frontier of the Outlier systems. At this moment, the station is on standby alert and prepared to initiate the field on our command.”

“Commodore,” Leia interrupted.

Brand turned to her and nodded. “Yes, Ambassador, your sons are already aboard Centerpoint. I apologize if some of this comes as a surprise, but all information regarding Centerpoint has been issued on a need-to-know basis.”

Leia looked away from Brand to hide her distress. She also refused to acknowledge Isolder’s inquisitive stare.

“When the Yuuzhan Vong fleet emerges from hyperspace in the Corellia system, the interdiction field will rob them of the ability to go to lightspeed, and will essentially hold them fast. When that much has been achieved, many of the warships anchored here, and at Kuat and Bothawui—all of which have been retrofitted with hyperwave inertial momentum sustainers produced by the Fondor shipyards—will launch, penetrating the interdiction field at its farthest extreme, and advance through a series of microjumps to engage the enemy.”

Brand swung to an ancillary holoprojector, above which was displayed a schematic of the HIMS. “For those of you unfamiliar with the hyperwave sustainer, the device relies on a gravitic sensor to alert a ship to an impending interdiction field, as well as to initiate a rapid shutdown of the hyperdrive. Simultaneously the sustainer allows for the creation of a static hyperspace bubble, which, while incapable of furnishing thrust, holds the ship in hyperspace while it is carried forward by momentum.”

Brand turned to his audience. “Our ships will have one heck of a time trying to maintain formation, but they will be able to get the drop on the enemy fleet.”

He looked over at the Hapans. “Prince Isolder, since your ships are not HIMS-equipped, your command will be responsible for preventing Yuuzhan Vong vessels from attempting an escape through the Outlier systems. The reasons for assigning you this task are twofold. Your Battle Dragons carry pulse-mass mines, which can effectively extend the limits of Centerpoint’s interdiction field. To assist you in this, we are placing at your disposal four Immobilizer 418A Interdictor cruisers. But more important, your ships’ weapons-linked battle computers provide for pinpoint accuracy against single targets, which is precisely what is required to dumbfound the dovin basals that protect Yuuzhan Vong vessels.”

“Ordinarily we prefer swift, ruthless strikes,” Isolder said. “But if surgical strikes are called for, then you shall have them, Commodore.”

Leia managed not to wince. She knew, though, that she could take no more of Brand’s briefing. His every gesture and assumption filled her with dread, no less so than Isolder’s brash eagerness and posturing self-assurance.

Retreating from the surrounding din, she reached out with the Force for Anakin and Jacen, then for Jaina, Luke, Mara, and some of the other Jedi. Each returned a subtle resonance, which, if nothing else, allayed her concerns temporarily. But when Leia tried to reach out for Han—whom she could sometimes feel, even through his denial of the Force—all she got back were images of a raging torrent and a plunge into measureless blackness.