Remnant: Force Heretic I (2 page)

“This one should have been here,” she whispered. It was a foolish notion, she knew. Even had she been here she wouldn’t have made any difference to the—

All thoughts ceased.

She saw them.

Slipping around the limb of the planet, a small contingent of coralskippers—four in all—were breaking from low orbit, where they had been out of her scanning range. They were escorting a ship the likes of which she’d never seen before: a huge, vaguely ovoid mass, its movement slow as it labored against the pull of Barab I’s gravity. It reminded Saba of a bloated balloon ready to burst.

Whatever the ship was, it and its escorts were all that remained insystem of the attack fleet that had destroyed her world. A mopping-up squadron, perhaps. Whatever. It didn’t matter. If there had been a hundred Yuuzhan Vong battle cruisers out there, her response would have been the same …

She allowed the grief inside her to rise unfettered, feeling it blossom into a rage that felt perfectly satisfying, immediately easing her emotional pain. That pain, she knew, could be eased still further by action.

Gritting her razor-sharp teeth, Saba veered off to intercept the coralskippers. They didn’t see her at first, clearly assuming that all resistance had been quashed. She was able to get in close before they realized she was even there. Only when she was practically on top of them did the skips break formation, three of them peeling away to come about on an attack vector. It was too late for the skip closest to the balloonlike ship: she emptied a round of laserfire into it, crying out in rage as she did so. She didn’t really expect such a crude attack to achieve anything except to get their attention, so was surprised when the coralskipper exploded in a violent flash of crimson that flung shards of the craft far and wide.

The explosion had the unexpected effect of clearing her mind. The skip must have been already damaged, its dovin basal disabled from recent battle with the Barabels. Such a simple victory, so soon in the battle, startled her. Perhaps, she thought, she hadn’t expected victory at all. She had simply gone into the fight expecting to die—no,
wanting
to die. Her people were dead, and so deep down she reasoned that she should be, too.

Now she was in a fix—and one she might not be able to get herself out of. Two of the remaining skips were coming at her from behind, unleashing streams of molten
plasma in her direction. She didn’t want to die, and her reflexes agreed. She avoided the fate of her fellow Barabels by rolling her X-wing and skewing down and around her attackers. Some of the plasma reached its target, however, instantly depleting her shields.

She didn’t have time to check if the skip had stayed on her tail. Her R2 unit tootled an urgent warning: off to her port side another skip was coming in fast. She pulled up sharply, rocking unsteadily in her cockpit as plasma balls flickered past. Saba winced. That last shot must have sheared a millimeter of paint from her wing.

She barely had time to thank her droid for the heads-up before the first two skips returned to make another pass at her. It was too much, she knew; if she remained on the defensive like this, then sooner or later they were going to get her—and out in the open, she had no choice but to
be
defensive.

With this in mind, she moved her X-wing nearer to the larger Yuuzhan Vong craft. She kept her flying tight, swooping in close to the massive, bulbous vessel, feeling the craft’s dovin basals tugging at her shields. They weren’t as effective as the dovin basals on the other ships she’d come across in action; these no doubt had a different purpose, although she couldn’t guess what that might be.

Sweeping under the belly of the thing, confident that she was safe on at least one side, Saba gave pursuit to the skip whose buddy she had destroyed. It tried to shake her by swerving abruptly from side to side, but she was able to stay on it long enough to get a bead on its dovin basal. When her target-lock flashed, Saba loosed one of her torpedoes. She had done this enough times to sense when she’d fired a good shot, and the second her finger squeezed the trigger, she knew she had the skip beaten. The torpedo detonated on target, effectively downing the skip’s
defenses and allowing her to blast the rocky craft into oblivion with a hail of laserfire. She called out in delight as the coralskipper fell apart in a stutter of explosions.

She was quick to bring her emotions into check, however, when she banked her X-wing to come back around and once again saw her planet burning. This was not a time for celebrating, she reminded herself.

Another warning from her droid. This time she didn’t even pause to check where the attack was coming from; she just rolled her X-wing in toward the main ship. The surface of the thing seemed to move in strange and subtle undulations as she passed near it—almost like a sac filled with water—although at all times it remained as rough as the exterior of the coralskippers. She noticed something else, too: huge tentacles that unfurled from the stern of the craft, flailing around as though reaching for Saba’s ship.

“What iz this?” she said aloud, not really expecting a reply. Nevertheless, the R2 unit behind her tootled a response. She didn’t need to check her translator to know that the droid didn’t have enough information to be able to give her a proper answer.

She kept herself close in to the huge ship, veering constantly to avoid the writhing tentacles. She swung around the underside of the vessel when one of the skips came in too close and risked taking a couple of potshots at her. She avoided the attack easily enough, and the plasma shot harmlessly into the space away from the balloon-ship. The skips wouldn’t fire if she stood between them and their charge.

What iz it
? she asked herself again. And why were the skips being so careful around it? It had no defenses to speak of, except for the small escort of coralskippers, and its only weapon seemed to be the tentacles that constantly
lashed out at her. If there
was
anything else, then why didn’t they use it?

There was no time to dwell upon the matter, though. Time was running out for her. She couldn’t stay defensive indefinitely. Others from the fleet would soon be making their way back to assist their comrades, she was sure.

She pitched the X-wing again, jinking to avoid one of the tentacles while at the same time spraying a cover of laserfire at one of the incoming skips. The shots were easily absorbed by the dovin basal’s black hole, but it was enough to make the pilot swerve out of her way. That bought her a few valuable seconds to get herself into a better position. She pulled her fighter up into a backward arc, coming around the top of the massive saclike vessel and down onto the skip that had just swung past. She didn’t wait to get the dovin basal properly in her sights this time; she simply fired. The torpedo detonated too soon to be of any use. Saba silently cursed her rashness; a wasted shot!

There was no time to bemoan her luck. She quickly brought her ship around again to pursue the lucky skip. It released blazing plasma from its side cannons. A handful of the globules struck her forward shields. The ship shuddered under the impact, and she snarled as her R2 unit reported a further 12 percent depletion to her shields.

Determined, Saba went after the skip, doggedly tailing it around the body of the larger vessel and keeping its dovin basal at all times in targeting reticle. Finally, with a lock on her target, she went to depress the firing trigger. At that moment the remaining skip crested the top of the main craft, loosing a volley of plasma. She brought the X-wing sharply around, heading directly for the incoming skip, her forward shields taking the full brunt of the hot plasma and being reduced still further as a result.

A tentacle whipped after her, snaking through the vacuum to strike. Instinctively, she pushed the nose of her ship down, leaving the coralskipper behind her to plunge broadside into the thick and unyielding appendage, effectively stripping half the craft’s hull from nose to tail and causing it to spin out of control. Saba pursued it, pounding the damaged skip with laserfire, not stopping until it disintegrated into a ball of vapor.

An exclamation of joy died in her throat when, a split second later, she saw the remaining skip abruptly emerge from the vapor cloud of its fallen comrade. Saba moved easily enough to avoid it, missing the craft by about five meters. She swung her X-wing smoothly and deftly, a confidence returning in her that had been missing since the battle had begun. Now that she had reduced the odds, she felt she had a much better chance of survival. All she had to do was stay focused—and be mindful of those tentacles!

The skip tried to lead her away from the main craft. She didn’t mind anymore. With only the one skip remaining, she no longer felt the need to use the huge vessel as a shield. Without the others around to trouble her, she could take this last one out with little difficulty.

She chased the skip for several thousand kilometers out from the tentacled vessel, waiting for a decent shot. The skip opened up with its plasma cannons, filling the space in its wake with streams of molten plasma that rained down upon Saba’s X-wing.

Her R2 unit whistled a warning: her shields were totally depleted. It didn’t matter; Saba had to stay on target until the opening came. When it did, she stutterfired at the skip’s dovin basal and launched a single torpedo. A perfect shot, she knew—the instinct confirmed a moment later when the dovin basal overloaded and the skip
was left defenseless. The alien pilot attempted desperately to evade Saba’s pursuit. But it was no use. She depressed the firing button of her laser guns, and watched in satisfaction as the bolts made their way into the rear of the enemy craft, quickly tearing it apart with a blinding flash.

Saba found herself wanting to laugh out loud at the victory. It was an emotion empty of joy, containing only bitterness and grief. What was victory when her planet hung burning behind her and her people were dead?

She hissed savagely as she brought her X-wing around to attack the remaining Yuuzhan Vong vessel. It swelled before her like a hideous, living moon—a target almost impossible to miss. She didn’t bother with her targeting computer. She simply aimed and fired, releasing her three remaining torpedoes into the huge ship with grim satisfaction.

They sank easily into the hide of the craft. Three detonations occurred in quick succession, deep within its belly. A rent appeared in its side, outgassing fire. The tentacles flailed crazily, as if in pain.

“For this one’s home,” she whispered. “For this one’s people.”

She banked for a final pass to finish off the ship, her heart racing as she thrilled at the thought of her impending revenge on the enemy. It was a moment she would savor for many years to come, even as she grieved for those she had lost.

Laser bolts peppered the side of the craft, widening the rent and creating numerous new ones. To Saba’s surprise and disappointment, however, the ship didn’t explode. Instead, the sac burst from top to bottom, stretching like a fruit left too long in the sun. From the tear poured a strange translucent gel, followed by what appeared to be a thousand six-pointed stars.

Stars?
She relaxed her grip on the laser cannon trigger. How could that be? There were thousands of them, tumbling into space, glinting in infrared starlight. They couldn’t be weapons, or the strange ship would have deployed them earlier. They couldn’t be bounty, either, for nothing of value on Barab I matched those peculiar shapes …

She reduced speed, coming in cautiously for a better look. Her R2 unit plucked one star at random from the jumbled mass and brought it up on her display. A sickening sensation flowered in her gut as she saw just what the points of the “stars” were.

Two arms, two legs, a head, and a tail.

Nothing of value
 …

The thought rang in her mind as the horror of what had happened sank in. The Yuuzhan Vong didn’t value metals or jewels. Their biological sciences had no use for Barab I’s usual bounty. They did, however, take captives—and they had to transport them somehow.

My people!

Saba watched helplessly as the ship continued to spill its contents into the cold vacuum of space. Her entire being shuddered to a grief that burned more intensely than the fires raging on the planet below. Her last thought before tears obscured her vision was a despairing, soul-tearing cry:

What have I
done?

“I say we fight on!”

The voice echoed through the vast, domed hall that was serving as a replacement for the Grand Convocation Chamber on Coruscant, where the Senate had previously met. With Coruscant currently in the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong, Mon Calamari had been selected as a temporary capital and now played host to the representatives of the Galactic Alliance—a group much smaller than a full meeting of the Senate had once been, before the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, but still several hundred strong.

They responded to the call to fight in the fashion preferred by their individual species. There were whistles, grunts, shrieks, and subsonic rumbles. Some waved appendages; others stamped their feet. And others still, Leia Organa Solo among them, remained silent. She stood completely motionless, gently extending herself into the Force to feel it crackle and flare from the conflicting emotions of those gathered around her.