Conquest: Edge of Victory I (31 page)

“Long-range sensors tell us some sort of transport just broke the atmosphere of Yavin Four,” Karrde told him.

“Only moments ago, I felt an incredible surge in the Force,” Solusar said. “I’m sure Anakin was involved, and I think Tahiri, as well.”

“Can you feel them now? Are they on that transport?”

“I think they must be,” Solusar replied.

Karrde shook his head. “Not good enough. If I commit that deeply into Yuuzhan Vong territory, there is every chance not a single ship in my fleet will come back out. I need to
know
. What if it’s just a Peace Brigader or two who’ve been hiding on the far side of Yavin?”

“It’s Anakin,” Solusar replied.

Karrde let his shoulders relax. “Well. That’s better. As long as you
sound
certain,” he said. “Fine.”

He turned to his crew. “This looks like what we’ve been waiting for, people. Our mission has changed. Up until now we’ve just been surviving, picking off strays. From what I gather, the Yuuzhan Vong have been using us for target practice and to thin the stupid from their gene pool.

“They’ll behave differently when we push to intercept the ship out there. They’ll probably hit us with everything they’ve got, and we’ll be in a position to get hit. We can forget backup from the New Republic; we’re on our own. If there are any doubts about this course of action, I need to hear them now.”

Silence, as he swept his gaze around the bridge and the screens depicting the captains of his other ships.

“When have we ever not been with you, Captain?” Shada asked from the
Idiot’s Array
.

A chorus of cheers punctuated Shada’s remark.

Karrde’s chest tightened with pride. “All right, people,” he said. “Let’s go to work.”

   A series of bleeps and whistles greeted Anakin as he came aboard the transport.

“Hey, Fiver,” he said. “I’m glad to see you, too.”

“Get back to work, you lazy little droid,” Vehn snapped over his shoulder from the pilot’s seat. “And you, hotshot, pick a cannon. Let’s see if we can shake this crud.”

“I’d feel better at the controls,” Anakin said, watching Yavin 4 dwindle to starboard.

“After what you did to her last time?” Vehn said. “No, thanks. No vapin’ thanks at all.”

“Your ship,” Anakin said.

“Ramming right it is.”

Anakin looked over the pilot’s shoulder at the screen. “Nice lead,” he remarked.

“Yeah. Those Vong ships take longer to pull out of an atmosphere. Out here they’re gaining, though.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Fly real fast until we get away.”

“That’s it?”

“Hey, I’m improvising. You gonna complain about me saving your butt?”

“No,” Anakin said, “I was thinking about thanking you. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Stop it. You’ll make me cry. If you have a plan, let me hear it.”

Anakin looked at the starfield. He was weak, very weak, but he thought he felt something.

“Give me long-range sensors,” Anakin said.

“Sorry, no can do. We were working on those when the creepy twins back there told me they ‘felt’ you needed help. We cut the repairs short and hot-jetted it.”

“Sannah, Valin,” Anakin said, gesturing them forward. “Concentrate. Do you feel something out there?”

“Sure,” Valin said, after a minute. “Kam Solusar is out there, somewhere.”

“Yes,” Sannah said. “I feel him, too.”

“I’m too weak to be sure, and so is Tahiri. Tell Vehn where.”

Valin studied the space around him for a moment, then pointed at around ninety degrees to starboard. “There.”

“ ‘There’?” Vehn asked. “That’s supposed to be a direction?”

“Do we have hyperdrive?” Anakin asked.

“No.”

“Then I suggest you set course where Valin tells you. Otherwise, we’re going to end up as star food.”

“It’s better than being captured again,” Tahiri said.

“Well, fine,” Vehn said. “The little creeps have been right so far, today.”

Anakin started to take the copilot’s seat, but Vehn placed his hand in it. “That’s Qorl’s,” he said.

“I’ll give it up,” Qorl said. “Every Solo I’ve ever known was a better pilot than me.”

“Don’t be silly,” Anakin said. “Even if that were true, you’re in better shape than I am to fly. Sorry to presume. You two seem to make a good team.”

The two men glanced at each other.

“Qorl gave me a certain … perspective on things,” Vehn said.

“With my boot, more often than not,” the old man said. But he was smiling, too.

“Well,” Anakin said awkwardly. “Thank you both. You came through for Tahiri and me when you could have just run.”

“Are you kidding? And have the little creeps back there slag my brain?” Vehn said.

“Anyway,” Qorl reminded them, “we’re not out of this yet. Twice I’ve been shot down on Yavin Four. My luck’s not so good when it comes to getting out of this system.”

“True,” Anakin said, “but we’re a lot nearer than we were.”

“Speaking of which, we’re gonna have words with some Vong in about half an hour,” Vehn said.

“They’re catching up that fast?”

“No. These are already out here.”

“I’ll take the turret gun,” Anakin said.

“Right. Give ’em an argument at least,” Vehn said.

   “The transport has been engaged by Yuuzhan Vong, sir,” H’sishi reported. “They’ve taken a few hits, but they’re still coming, right for us.”

“How soon?” Karrde asked.

“If we plot a straight course, less than twenty minutes. But if we do that, we’ll be perfect targets for the blockade that’s forming up down there.”

“Yes, but if we go around, we’ll never reach them before that destroyer analog. Dankin, plot it straight in, and have the
Idiot’s Array
, the
Demise
, and the
Etherway
escort us.”

“Sir, they’re hardly our best-armed ships.”

“But they’re the only ones who can keep up with us, aren’t they? Keep her steady.”

“Very good, sir. We’ll be in their range in ten minutes. Unless they have something we don’t know about, which seems to be almost a given with the Vong.”

* * *

Anakin watched the third coralskipper spin off to port. He hadn’t destroyed it—his first two shots had been sucked in by the gravitic anomalies its dovin basal projected and the third had only tapped it—but the smaller craft didn’t have the speed to stay with the transport. They were more than nuisances, but not much more at this point.

It was the destroyer analog coming in from above starboard that bothered him, that and the fact that they couldn’t see much beyond it. For all they knew, there could be an entire fleet between him and Talon Karrde. If Karrde was there at all. He tried once again to reach out for Kam Solusar’s familiar presence and thought, briefly, that he had found it. But Kam might be light-years in that direction—or it might be wishful thinking. He couldn’t be sure.

What
was
sure was that very soon the destroyer was going to catch them. He hoped Vehn had a few tricks up his sleeve.

   “Direct hit on the
Idiot’s Array
, sir,” H’sishi reported.

“Shada, are you there?” Karrde asked, over the comm.

“Still here, boss. They tickled us, but we can still keep up.”

“One more hit like that and you’re ions,” Karrde disagreed. “Peel off. You’ve done enough.”

“Sorry, boss. Can’t hear you. Something wrong with my comm unit. Hang tight, we’ll get you there.”

The power on the
Wild Karrde
suddenly dimmed and reasserted itself, and a distant vibration shivered the hull. The two ships still running escort weren’t keeping everything off of them; the
Demise
had flamed out in the first exchange, probably with all hands.

Good people. He would mourn them later, when he had time.

He saw the
Idiot’s Array
take her final hit, right
through the engines. Plumes of plasma streamed from her, and atomic devils danced in the ruined aft section.

“Get out of there, Shada!” he shouted into the comm.

No answer came.

“The
Idiot’s Array
is still keeping pace with that destroyer, sir,” H’sishi reported. “I don’t understand it. Her engines are gone, and their reactor is building to critical.”

Karrde blinked. “Shada!” he snarled. Then he snapped at Dankin. “Alter course two degrees to starboard and brace.”

“What’s she doing, sir?”

“She’s got a tractor lock on them. She must have diverted all of her power to that. Everything.”

An instant later the
Idiot’s Array
vanished in a sphere of pure white light, taking most of the Yuuzhan Vong destroyer with it.

“Shada,” Karrde murmured again, feeling very tired. He’d lost more friends than enemies through the years. He’d faced death himself enough times that he had no illusions; one day the game would go against him and he would die. But somehow, of all the people he knew, he’d imagined that Shada would outlive him.

“One destroyer down,” he gritted, “and one to go.”

“We’ve just lost the
Etherway
, sir,” H’sishi said.

“Destroyed?”

“No. Her power grid is down.”

“Then it’s just us.”

“Yes.”

“Against all that.”

“Unless you want to wait for everyone else, sir, I—sir, behind us!”

Karrde saw the ship appear on the screen; sheer conditioning kept his heart from jumping up into his throat.

The ship that had appeared, almost on top of them, was an Imperial Star Destroyer.

A
red
Imperial Star Destroyer.

“Message, sir,” Dankin said.

“Put it on.”

A bearded human face appeared. “Well, Karrde,” he growled. “I suppose I’ll be pulling you out of this mess, as well. I hope you have something appropriate to compensate me with.”

“Booster Terrik!”

“None other.”

“I’m sure I can dig something out of my warehouses.”

“Never mind that. Where’s my grandson?”

“We think he’s on the transport that big Yuuzhan Vong ship’s about to swallow.”

“That’s all I wanted to know. See you on the other side, Karrde.”

“The other side of what?”

“The nebula I’m about to make.”

The screen went dark.

“All right, everyone,” Karrde said. “We’ve got a new game here. Let’s play it well.”

   Anakin kept the turbolaser pumping steadily, causing plumes of molten yorik coral to spew from the destroyer analog. It didn’t seem to notice, even at extreme close range, which was where they were—a few tens of meters from its surface.

He had to admit Vehn wasn’t doing a bad job of flying—dropping in close to avoid the big guns, playing an elaborate spiral dance around the ship’s axis, dodging out from the gravitic embrace of the dovin basal. If they cleared the big ship by much, their luck would change. One good hit by one of those big plasma cannons would be the end of them.

“Heads up, back there,” Vehn’s voice crackled. “They’re launching coralskippers.”

Anakin saw. The Yuuzhan Vong didn’t localize their fighters in bays, but kept them attached all over the outside of the ship. Anakin had nailed a few of the inactive ones already. Now they were detaching in swarms.

“You’ll have to keep them off, Solo,” Vehn said, his voice tinged with desperation. “If I try to outrun ’em, we’ll be sitting pretty for the destroyer.”

“Understood,” Anakin replied. He didn’t have time to talk after that; everything in him focused on the weaving, organic forms of the enemy. He couldn’t begin to count them.

They came, and he shot them. He fell into a one-two-three rhythm—first shot to draw out a gravitic anomaly, second shot just outside its event horizon. It would move to intercept, and he would fire even wider on the other side. Sometimes it managed to swallow all three shots, but often the coherent light blazed just far enough outside the singularity to merely bend around it. Once he got the timing right, he could land that crooked third shot where he wanted it.

But he couldn’t shoot them all. The transport bucked and complained as molten plasma did its damage. Ignoring the tremors, Anakin fought on in grim silence.

Vehn, too, kept his silence—the occasional curse aside. They were all beyond talking now.

An enemy shot got through Anakin’s barrage, glancing from the turret cockpit, leaving a molten streak on the transparisteel. Anakin traced after the offender, but it was gone. He whirled back to take one of three crisscrossing his field of vision and hit it solidly. It spun, then straightened.

Toward him. With quiet calm Anakin fired at it, watching it come closer. A singularity gulped his first shot, and the second bent wide. The third beam hit dead center. The skip flared out of existence, but the debris came on, smacking into the cockpit in a hundred meteoric shards.

Hairline fractures spidered everywhere.

One more hit, and I’m breathing vacuum
, Anakin thought.

But he certainly couldn’t leave the turret. He checked to make certain the lock behind him was sealed, closed
off from the rest of the ship. There was no need to take everyone with him.

He took out two more skips, but then three dropped into a wedge headed straight for him. He took a deep, calming breath and began firing, but he knew he wasn’t going to get them all.

In fact, he had fired only two shots before the damaged laser overheated and went into temporary shutdown. Anakin watched impassively as the skips approached. He reached out in the Force, hoping to find debris to throw at them.

He wondered what it was going to feel like when his blood started boiling.

He felt them in the Force at the same time the coralskippers vanished in a searing white haze, and two X-wings whipped around the expanding cloud of gas and molten coral. His comm crackled.

“Need a hand, little brother?”

“Jaina!”

“This is some mess you’ve gotten us into, Anakin,” a masculine voice replied.

“Jacen! Where … how …”

“Explanations later,” Jaina said. “Who’s flying that crate?”

“That’s me,” Vehn cut in.

“Get out of there, fast,” Jaina said. “We’ll keep these pups off you. Corran Horn’s out here, too. I almost pity the Vong.”