Star by Star (67 page)

Yuuzhan Vong—their feet fully intact—poured in five abreast. He dropped the first rank from fifteen meters out, his blaster pistol singing out twice between each step, every bolt burning through a face or a throat. The volcano cannon roared again, and a sphere of white fire blossomed in front of him, seemingly from nowhere. Anakin dived and rolled into the wall, hit boots-first, sprang into a back flip, returned to his feet ten meters from the explosion.

“Anakin!” Jaina’s cry resembled a scream.

Go
! He commanded her through the Force.
She’s getting away
!

The blaster sang out in Anakin’s hand, dropping Yuuzhan Vong as fast as it could fire. More warriors poured in. A razor bug buried itself in his shoulder, his jumpsuit half disintegrated by the Force energy escaping his body and no longer offered much protection. He allowed the impact to spin him around, fired again and once more, heard the depletion alarm. The Yuuzhan Vong hurled handfuls of thud bugs and rushed, already pulling amphistaffs off their waists.

Anakin threw the blaster pistol at the first and dropped him and leapt the second, thumbing his lightsaber to life in the air. He landed in front of the entrance and began a whirling dance of slash and parry, blocking once and striking twice, every attack a killing blow. His aura was burning so brightly that he cast shadows behind his foes. He batted the blade left to right, overpowering two blocks to open two throats, then sent another warrior tumbling with a hook kick to the head.

And still they came, piercing Anakin in three places, one amphistaff sinking its fangs into his flesh. The Force scalded the poison from his system before he felt it, and the new wounds troubled him less than the old one—but there were a dozen more warriors behind them, and he could not hold forever. He killed another, then another, took a crippling slash to his thigh, and gave ground. The Yuuzhan Vong rushed, trying to slip past to the right.

The longblaster roared from the pen area, blowing a head-sized hole through one Yuuzhan Vong and a fist-sized hole through the one behind him. Anakin launched himself into a back flip and landed five meters away. His aura flickered wildly as his cells began to burn and burst. He hazarded a glance over his shoulder and saw Jaina peering over the pit wall, tears streaming down her cheeks, the longblaster propped against her shoulder. Jacen was beside her, likewise weeping, trying to pull her away.

Go
! Anakin said through the Force.
I can’t hold
.

The Yuuzhan Vong charged again, and Jaina fired. Another warrior fell, and the rest came. Anakin flipped another five meters back—then felt someone, a Yuuzhan Vong, creeping along the far wall of the grashal. He retreated until he could see the figure: the Jedi impostor, perhaps thirty meters distant, dragging a heavy cargo pod toward the strike team’s makeshift opening.

The warriors arrived again, and Anakin had to defend himself. Purple blade ticking back and forth, blocking and parrying and slipping strike after strike, he faded two steps and saw an opening. He brought his feet up and planted his heels in the center Yuuzhan Vong’s chest. His lightsaber flashed twice, cleaving the skulls of the adjacent warriors, then he kicked off, launching himself into a series of Force-assisted cartwheels.

Anakin continued far enough to see where the impostor had come from, a work area near the queen’s pen. Dozens of tendrils lay stretched along a workbench, each ending in a small cloning pod, some open, some closed. It looked like a tissue transfer station.

That was what the impostor had, a cargo pod full of voxyn tissue, enough to clone a million. Anakin’s aura flashed and dimmed, flashed again and dimmed more, his cells rupturing in
chain reactions, the cycles coming faster and faster as less of him remained to contain the energy. He felt himself not exactly departing, but melting back into the Force. He pulled his last thermal detonator off his harness and thumbed the timer three clicks.

Go now
.

“Anakin, I can’t!” Jaina commed.

Anakin raised the detonator so his brother and sister could see.
Thirty seconds
. He released the trigger.
Take her, Jacen. Kiss Tahiri for me
.

With the charging warriors almost on him again, Anakin threw the detonator across the grashal. He wasn’t conscious of using the Force to guide it, but he must have, because it hit the impostor in the head.

Anakin was too busy parrying to see what happened for the next few seconds, but when he finally managed to spring away from his attackers—he was no longer strong enough to flip or cartwheel—the impostor was gathering himself up, rubbing his head and searching for what had struck him. Even from thirty meters, his broken nose and misshapen eye orbit identified him clearly as Nom Anor.

When the executor’s gaze fell on the silver sphere, his real eye grew as large as his plaeryin bol. He reached down.

Anakin used the Force to nudge the sphere away, then caught an amphistaff in the ribs and went down hard, letting his lightsaber fall from his hand. His aura was only a faint glow, flickering between dim and nonexistent. The maelstrom inside was dying away now, flowing back into the Force.

Nom Anor rushed for the detonator again. Anakin waited, waited until the executor was almost on it, then reached out with the Force one last time, rolling the sphere toward the cargo pod.

He did not hear the angry curse that followed, nor did he see Nom Anor fleeing at a dead run.

By then, Anakin was gone.

“No way they’re coming for Eclipse, not with the armada that left Borleias,” Kenth Hamner was saying. Now serving as the official liaison between the Jedi and the New Republic, he had arrived an hour before to report some alarming Yuuzhan Vong fleet movements. “Even if they
could
bring that many ships in here, it would take a standard year to stage through the hyperspace gauntlet.”

The Jedi’s best tacticians were gathered in the Eclipse war room, studying the three displays Luke had put up. One hologram showed the array of hyperspace routes spraying outward from the planet Borleias. Another showed the tortuous route into Eclipse, along with the planet itself hidden behind its screen of asteroid belts and gas giant neighbors. The third hologram showed the entire Coruscant system, and it was to this map that everyone’s eye kept drifting—specifically, to an obscure cluster of comets on the capital planet’s side of the system.

Mara pointed into the swirling mass of comet tails. “And there are uncharted asteroids orbiting with the OboRins?”

“We’re keeping an eye on them,” Kenth said. “We can take them out anytime.”

No one suggested that the asteroids might be anything but reconnaissance vessels. Corran Horn, who was one of the Jedi studying the display, had confirmed not long before that space rock was a favorite camouflage for Yuuzhan Vong scout ships.

“This is it, then,” Luke said.

He adjusted the holoprojector, annulling the displays of the Borleias hyperspace routes and the Eclipse system—then, when his connection to Anakin suddenly began to strengthen, failed to enlarge the Coruscant map. He flashed on an image of Yuuzhan
Vong charging past a tangle of burning vines, of a purple blade ticking back and forth, of a golden light burning in a dark place. Luke could feel that his nephew was calm and focused, in harmony with the Force and himself—but weak and growing weaker.

“Master Skywalker?” Corran asked. “What is it?”

Luke turned away and did not answer. He knew that Saba Sebatyne had felt the Hara sisters die, and others were gone, too—he could not feel
who
, only that there was a growing Jedi absence in the Force. Now the strike team was losing Anakin, as well—and Luke had sent him, had sent them all.

“Luke?” Mara was standing behind him, taking his hand.

Luke let her, but reached out for Jacen and Jaina, found them filled with sorrow and horror, fear and rage, but alive, at least, and strong.

Then Anakin was gone.

Luke felt like the Yuuzhan Vong had reached inside and torn his nephew out of his own body. There was a black void in his heart, a tempest so fierce and cold he began to shake uncontrollably.

“Luke, stop!” Mara’s fingers dug into his arm and jerked him around to face her. “You’ve got to shut it down. Ben will feel you. Think of what this will do to him!”

“Ben …”

Luke covered Mara’s hand with his and drew in on himself, dampening his presence in the Force—and losing his connection to the twins. Unable to contain the anger rising up inside him, and unwilling to inflict it on his son, he turned and brought his hand down on the holoprojector.

“Master Skywalker!” Kenth gasped.

“It’s Anakin,” Mara said.

“Anakin? Oh …” The room broke into groans and startled outcries, then Corran managed to ask, “Master Skywalker … what can we do?”

What indeed, Luke wondered. He looked to Mara, struggling to regain his composure and focus his thoughts. The question was not what they
could
do, but what they
had
to do.

“Anakin …” Luke choked on the words, tried again. “Anakin died for a reason.”

Corran and the others waited in silence, and looked to him expectantly.

“What we need to do is prep our battle wings,” Mara said, taking charge. She turned to Kenth. “And get in touch with Admiral Sovv. We’re going to need a place to berth when we get to Coruscant.”

With circles under his eyes almost as dark as his glassy black Sullustan pupils themselves, General Yeel’s vidimage suggested that of a chubby-cheeked Yuuzhan Vong child—a
spoiled
chubby-cheeked Yuuzhan Vong child. Han banged the heel of his palm on the comm desk—out of vidcam pickup—and pasted a forbearing smile on his face.

“I’m not saying installation security is lax, General Yeel,” Han said. He was with Lando in the study of his Eastport apartment, trying to do the New Republic a favor and finding it impossible as usual. “But Viqi Shesh was on NRMOC. She could have slipped an infiltrator onto a shielding crew anytime in the last two years. Why take a chance?”

“Do you have evidence of that, Solo?” Not
General
Solo, or Retired General, or even Han, but just
Solo
. “If you have evidence, I will institute a review at once.”

“I don’t have evidence. That’s the point.” Han ran a hand over his brow. “Look, what could it hurt to assign a couple of YVHs to every generator station? This is a great deal.”

“Yes,
free
is a great deal,” Yeel replied. “What’s wrong with them?”

Lando slipped into the vidcam’s view. “Nothing is wrong with them, General, I assure you. I’m a loyal citizen of the New Republic doing everything he can to help.”

Yeel looked doubtful. “Wasn’t it a YVH droid that failed to protect Chief of State Fey’lya when infiltrators attacked
him
?”

“That was a glitch in the demonstration program,” Lando said patiently. “The droids I’m donating to the New Republic will be combat ready—
fully
combat ready.”

“That is what frightens me, Calrissian.” Yeel blinked twice, then placed his arms on his table and leaned toward his vidcam. “Chief of State Fey’lya asked me to take your call, and I have. But I am
not
going to put new technology into my generating stations
without a full compatibility evaluation—and Planetary Shielding will not be conducting any evaluations until we know where the fleet at Borleias has gone. I’m sorry, Calrissian—”

An anguished wail echoed down the corridor, so shrill and frenzied that Han did not recognize the voice as human—much less Leia’s—until he was already out of his chair and snatching his blaster holster off the table.

“Leia!”

If anything, the wailing grew louder and less human. Han raced down the corridor to Leia’s private study, where he found Adarakh and Meewalh flanking the desk and looking uncharacteristically confused and helpless. The furred image of the Bothan general of the Orbital Defense Command was staring out of the vidscreen, looking confused and inanely repeating “Princess Leia? Princess Leia?” Leia herself was lying on the floor, curled into a fetal ball and screaming something incomprehensible.

When Han saw no obvious threat in the room, he knelt at Leia’s side and grabbed her arm. “Leia?”

She did not seem to realize he was there. Her eyes were rimmed in red and her tears were pooling on the floor, and the only thing Han could get out of her was a long “—aaaaaaa—”

The Bothan general continued to repeat “Princess Leia? Princess Leia?”

Lando came into the room and, ignoring the comm unit, put a hand on Han’s shoulder. “What is it?”

Han shook his head and looked to the Noghri.

“Lady Vader was speaking with General Ba’tra,” Meewalh explained. “She was explaining how Lady Risant Calrissian is already on her way with a thousand Hunter Ones, then she suddenly stopped speaking—”

Leia grasped Han’s arm and began to sputter, “Aa … aaa …”

And Han knew. Anakin was gone.

And Leia had felt him die.

“Princess Leia?” Ba’tra droned. “Princess, are you—”

Finding the DL-44 still in his hand, Han used it to blast the comm unit silent. It felt so good that he turned the weapon on the holopad and blasted that, too—and then the security system vid bank and anything else that crackled and made sparks when a supercharged particle beam burned a hole through it.

“Han!” Lando cried. “Han? What are you doing?”

“He’s dead.” Han shot a datapad off Leia’s desk, then sent Lando diving by swinging the blaster around to target a holographic wall panel. “They killed our boy.”

Han pulled the trigger and watched the pinnacles of Terrarium City erupt into a spark storm, then Adarakh was on him, trapping his blaster arm in a control lock and wrenching the weapon away. Han collapsed to his haunches and began to sob, now too weary to be angry, too certain of the look in Leia’s eyes to doubt the truth.

Leia did not seem to notice any of this. Still wailing in anguish, she gathered herself up and ran from the room. Han watched her go, realized somewhere in the back of his mind that Ben was crying. Lando squatted at his side. Blaster arm still locked in Adarakh’s grasp, Han looked over at his old friend.