The Joiner King (68 page)

Thrackan shrugged and began again. Before he was half finished the doors burst open and a swarm of armored warriors ran out. Jaina started as she recognized Yuuzhan Vong. Then she saw that the warriors had raised their hands in surrender, and that they weren’t Vong, just Peace Brigade wearing laminate imitations of vonduun crab armor. In their lead was a Duros officer, who ran up to Thrackan and saluted.

“Sorry that took so long, sir,” he said. “There were some Yuuzhan Vong in there, intendants, who thought we should fight.”

“Right,” Thrackan said, and ordered the warriors into the hands of the landing force. He turned to Jaina, his look dour. “My loyal bodyguard,” he explained. “You see why I decided to head out on my own.”

“Why are they dressed in fake armor?” Jaina asked.

“The
real
armor kept
biting
them,” Thrackan said acidly, and sat down again.

“We need you to lead us to the bunker where your Senators are hiding,” Jaina said. “And to the secret exit they’ll use for their escape.”

Thrackan favored Jaina with another bitter glare. “If there was an escape hatch from that bunker,” he asked, “do you think I’d be
here
?”

The bunker turned out to have a huge blastproof door, like a vault. Thrackan, using the special comm relay outside the bunker to talk with those inside, failed to persuade them to come out.

General Jamira was undeterred, sending for his engineer company to come down from orbit and blast the door off the bunker.

Jaina felt time slipping away. None of the delays so far had been critical, but they were all beginning to add up.

Maal Lah restrained the instinct to duck as another flight of enemy starfighters roared overhead. The villip in his hands retained the snarling image of the dead executor he’d used to try to command President Sal-Solo’s useless bodyguard, and whom the Presidential Guard had killed rather than obey.

The cowards would be thrown in a pit and crushed by riding beasts, he promised himself.

The damutek grown on the outskirts of the capital to house his troops had been destroyed early in the attack, fortunately after he’d gotten his warriors out. But since then they’d been forced to remain in cover, pinned down by the accursed star-fighters that patrolled at low altitude overhead. Fighter cover had been so heavy that Maal Lah had been unable to move even a few of his warriors toward the city center to guard the Peace Brigade government.

He gathered that the Peace Brigade fleet had surrendered—more candidates for the pit and the riding beasts, Maal Lah thought. His own small force of spacecraft had at least gone down fighting. And now, he suspected, Ylesia’s government was about to fall into the hands of the enemy.

But even considering these developments, Maal Lah found himself content. He knew that the New Republic forces were about to suffer a surprise, and that the surprise should draw the heavy fighter cover away.

And once he could safely move his warriors, there would be more surprises in store for the raiders of the New Republic.

And many blood sacrifices for the gods of the Yuuzhan Vong.

Jacen and Vale brought their limping X-wings aboard Kre’fey’s flagship
Ralroost.
By the time Jacen powered the fighter down he knew that the Peace Brigade forces had folded like a house of cards, both in space and on the ground, and that the New Republic forces were digging the last of the leadership out of their bunker.

Those who had nothing in common but treason, he thought,
had no reason to trust one another or fight on one another’s behalf. There was no unifying ideology other than greed and opportunism. Neither was likely to create solidarity.

He dropped to the deck, breathing gratitude that the raid was a success. It had been his idea to capture the heads of the Ylesian government, and his fault that Jaina had volunteered to go in with the ground forces. If the mission had gone wrong he would have been doubly responsible.

Jacen first checked out Vale to make certain she was all right, then inspected their X-wings. Both would require time in a maintenance bay before they would fly again.

“Jacen Solo?” A Bothan officer, very much junior, approached and saluted. “Admiral Kre’fey requests your presence on the bridge.”

Jacen looked at Vale, then back at the officer. “Certainly,” he said. “May Lieutenant Vale join us?”

The Bothan considered the question, but Vale was quick to give her own answer.

“That isn’t necessary,” she said. “Admirals make me nervous.”

Jacen nodded, then followed the Bothan out of the docking bay toward the forepart of the ship.

And then he felt the universe slow down as if time itself had been altered. He was aware of how long a time it seemed to take for his foot to reach the floor, aware of the long space between his heartbeats.

Something had just changed. Jacen let the Jedi meld that had been sitting quietly in some back room of his mind come to the fore, and he felt surprise and consternation in the minds of the other Jedi, a confusion that was soon replaced with grim resolve and frantic calculation.

Jacen’s foot touched the deck. He took a breath. He was aware that a Yuuzhan Vong fleet had just entered the system, and that his plan for the Battle of Ylesia had just gone terribly wrong.

“I think we’d better hurry,” he told the startled Bothan lieutenant, and began to run.

*   *   *

The huge cutting beams of the engineers’ lasers were chopping the vault door into scrap. Jaina shrank away from the bright light and heat. She could sense panic through the vault doors, panic and flashes of desperate readiness from those preparing themselves for hopeless resistance. A few blaster bolts came spanging out of the torn vault, but the lasers were shielded and the blasters did no damage.

Jaina looked at the troopers preparing to storm the Senate bunker, and she thought that was a lot of firepower to subdue a group who might be no more prepared to resist capture than their army or fleet. She found General Jamina and saluted.

“Sir, I’d like to be first into the vault. I think I can get them to surrender.”

Jamira took barely a second to consider the request. “I’m not going to tell a Jedi she can’t be the first into a tight spot,” he said. “I’ve seen what you people can do.” He nodded. “Just be sure you call for help if you need it.”

“I will, sir.”

She snapped the general a salute and trotted back to the vault door. The cutting was almost done. Melted duralloy had frozen on the floor of the anteroom in the shape of a waterfall. Jaina stood next to Lowbacca, who gave her a significant look as he unclipped his lightsaber. Jaina grinned. Without a word he’d shown he understood her plan, and approved.

Jaina ignited her own lightsaber as the laser finished its final cut. With a shove of the Force she pushed the final chunk of the vault door into the interior, where it rang on the floor. Blaster bolts flashed out of the hole, and someone inside shouted, “
You people keep out!
”

Jaina leapt through the door headfirst, tucked into a somersault, came out on her feet. The blasterfire sizzled after her, allowing Lowbacca to follow through the hole without being targeted.

The room was bare duracrete, with no furniture and few fixtures: the Peace Brigade Senators were huddled in corners, shrinking away from those who were determined to fight for their freedom. Blaster bolts came at Jaina thick and fast. She leapt for the nearest shooter, parrying blasterfire with her lightsaber.
Bolts ricocheted off the hard walls and ceiling, and someone cried out as he was hit. The shooter was a big Jenet, and snarled at Jaina as she came for him.

She sliced the blaster apart with her lightsaber, then kicked the Jenet in the teeth with an inside crescent kick. She followed through with a heel hook that dropped the Jenet to the floor.

She saw Lowbacca grab a couple of other shooters, a pair of fighting Ganks, and bang their heads together. Peace Brigade Senators scuttled and huddled for cover. Another blaster went off, and Jaina parried the bolt back into the shooter’s knee. The Force powered a jump that took her the six meters to the Ishi Tib shooter, where she kicked the blaster out of her hand; and then the Force seized the blaster and smashed it into the face of another shooter. His own bolt went wild into the crowd of Senators, and there was a scream. Lowbacca leapt on him from behind and smashed him in the head with one massive furry hand.

There was silence, except for the sobs of one of the wounded. The room stank from the ozone discharge of weapons. Armored New Republic troopers began to enter the room, weapons directed at the Brigaders.

Jaina brandished her lightsaber over the cowering group, its loud
thrummm
echoing in the small room, and called, “Surrender! In the name of the New Republic!”

“On the contrary,” a commanding voice said. “In the name of the New Republic, I call on
you
to surrender.”

Jaina looked in surprise at the tall, cloaked figure that rose from a huddled group of Brigaders, at the arrow-shaped head and writhing face-tentacles.

“Senator Pwoe?” she said in surprise.

“
Chief of State
Pwoe,” the Quarren corrected. “Head of the New Republic. I am present on Ylesia in order to negotiate a treaty of friendship and mutual aid with the Ylesian Republic. I call upon New Republic forces to cease these acts of aggression against a friendly allied regime.”

Jaina was so taken aback that she barked out a surprised laugh. Pwoe, an avowed foe of the Jedi, had been a member of Borsk Fey’lya’s Advisory Council. When Fey’lya died in the
ruin of Coruscant, Pwoe had declared himself Chief of State and began to issue orders to the New Republic government and military.

He might have gotten away with it if he hadn’t overplayed his hand. When the Senate reconvened on Mon Calamari—ironically, Pwoe’s homeworld—they’d issued an order calling on Pwoe and all other Senators to join them. Instead of obeying, Pwoe had issued an order
to the Senate
calling for them to join him on Kuat.

The Senate had been offended, formally deprived Pwoe of any powers, and conducted their own election for Chief of State. Eventually—and after a full measure of the usual skulduggery—the pro-Jedi Cal Omas was elected. Since then, Pwoe had been traveling from one part of the galaxy to another, trying to rally his ever-diminishing number of supporters.

“This peace treaty is vital to the interests of the New Republic,” Pwoe went on. “This typical Jedi violence is on the verge of spoiling everything.”

Jaina’s grin broadened. Apparently Pwoe had grown so desperate that he’d decided that he could only regain his prestige and following if he came to Mon Calamari waving a peace agreement.

“I’m very sorry to disturb any important treaties,” she said. “Perhaps you would care to step outside and speak to General Jamira?”

“That will not be necessary. I call upon the general and the rest of you to leave Ylesia at once.”

The Ishi Tib, lying at Jaina’s feet, began a gradual movement aimed at freeing a weapon concealed somewhere within her robes. Jaina stepped on her hand. The movement ceased.

“I think you should speak to the general,” she said, and turned to the dozen soldiers who had been quietly entering the room during the course of this discussion. “Please escort Senator Pwoe to the general.” Two armored troopers marched to either side of Pwoe, seized his arms, and began carrying him toward the vault door.

“Take your hands off me!” he boomed. “I’m your Chief of State!”

Jaina watched as Pwoe was carried away. Then she bent to relieve the Ishi Tib of her hidden blaster, and straightened to address the rest of the Brigaders.

“
And the rest of you
”—she raised her voice—“should file out of the room one by one, with your hands in plain sight.”

Soldiers searched and scanned the Brigaders, then cuffed them, before they were allowed out of the vault. Engineers entered and began preparing explosives to destroy the bunker once it had been evacuated. Jaina and Lowbacca waited in the bare room as the Brigaders slowly left.

They were aware of the change in the Jedi meld at the same time, the sudden vast surprise at the appearance of a new enemy.

Here’s where it all goes wrong.
The thought sang at the back of Jaina’s mind.

She looked at Lowbacca, and knew that the Wookiee shared the knowledge that their time on the ground had run out.

Maal Lah gave a roar of triumph as the patrolling starfighters suddenly throttled up their engines and pointed their noses to the sky. The arrival of a Yuuzhan Vong fleet had given the infidels better things to do than cruise the air above Peace City.

It was time to meet the enemy, but Maal Lah knew that the battle was lost at the city center. There was no point in reinforcing the Peace Brigade’s failure.

Another course recommended itself. The commander also knew where the New Republic forces were at the present. He knew that eventually they would have to retreat to their landing zones outside of town.

Between these two places he would make his killing ground. And conveniently, the quednak stables happened to be nearby.

He called into the shoulder villip that communicated with his warriors. “Our hour has arrived!” he said. “We will advance to meet the enemy!”

Jacen arrived breathless on
Ralroost
’s bridge to find Admiral Kre’fey already making his opening moves. An enemy fleet had
leapt out of hyperspace, and Kre’fey was placing his own ships between the Yuuzhan Vong and the ground forces on Ylesia.

“Welcome, Jacen,” the white-furred Bothan said, his eyes still fixed on the holographic display that showed the relative positions of the fleets. “I see you understand there’s been a new complication.”

“How many?” Jacen said.

“Their forces are roughly equal to ours. But so many of our personnel are inexperienced, I would prefer not to engage.” He raised his eyes from the display. “Fortunately my opposite seems in no hurry to begin a fight.”

Indeed this was the case. The Yuuzhan Vong weren’t moving to attack, but were instead hovering just outside Ylesia’s mass shadow.