Star by Star: Star Wars (The New Jedi Order)

Chapter 2

A mere kilometer beyond the transparisteel wall, the antenna-strewn horizon plunged away into a
bottomless abyss of tumbling asteroids and drifting stars. Tiny blue halos winked into existence and
slowly swelled into the backlit rectangles of enormous cargo barges returning with loads of
durasteel from outlying fabrication plants. Crew transports laced the darkness with long tails of ions, racing from
task to task on more than a hundred orbiting dry docks, and
enormous welding droids traced ship skeletons in brilliant
spark storms.

On the way in, Han Solo had counted nearly five hundred war-ships under
construction in the old Bilbringi Shipyards. They were mostly escorts,
corvettes, and other small stuff that could be finished in a hurry, but
there were also two Imperial-class Star Destroyers. While these huge
ships probably would not be ready before the Yuuzhan Vong captured the
facility, the hulls were nearly closed and the drive units already
mounted. Clearly, young General Muun was a Sullustan with a plan, just
the sort of careful deskpilot who always impressed Coruscant Command—and
seldom failed to exhaust Han’s limited supply of patience.

Wishing he could use one of those Jedi calming techniques his son Jacen
was always talking about, Han forced an insincere smile and turned
toward the center of the room. Leia sat on a small couch with the
general, her face glowing with the same stunning brown-eyed intensity
that had caught Han’s eye so long ago. Though he would never understand
how she had kept that fervor burning so brightly through thirty years of
service to the galaxy, it had become a mooring for him, the one constant
that never seemed to change through so many decades of struggle, loss,
and death. Now, when occasionally her legs—healed from her near-fatal
ordeal on Duro but still sometimes weak—tired and stumbled, the pain of
almost losing her made his heart stop, and he swore he would never, ever
shut her out again.

". . . hundred thousand lives are at stake, General," she was saying.
"The Vray are a gentle species. Without an escort, the evacuation convoy
will be defenseless against the Yuuzhan Vong."

"And how many lives will the New Republic lose if Bilbringi falls before
the fleet is completed?" Muun asked. His heavy Sul-lustan jowls rippled
gently as he spoke, but his feelings remained otherwise hidden behind
his flat mask of a face. "Whole worlds will perish, and that will mean
millions."

"She’s only asking for twenty ships," Han said.

The general turned his black eyes on Han. "She is asking for five
cruisers and fifteen corvettes—a quarter of Bilbringi’s defense, and the
Yuuzhan Vong are already probing our outer security posts." "We’re
letting you keep the Dauntless." Han spoke in his most reasonable tone.
"And the other ships will be back in a week stan-dard. . . two, tops."

"I am sorry, no." Muun shook his head and started to rise.

A buzz sounded from the secure comm station on the general’s desk.
C-3PO, who had been standing behind the couch, raised his head and
inquired, "Would you like me to take that for you, General?"

Muun nodded. "Unless it’s urgent priority, I’ll reply in a few minutes."

"Thanks, Threepio," Han said. Any interruption would only reduce their
chances of getting the escort. He dropped into a seat opposite Muun.
"You seem to be forgetting who you’re talking to, General."

Leia’s brown eyes flashed in alarm. "Han—"

"It wasn’t so long ago she could have demanded the ships," Han
continued. "If anyone deserves—"

"I know what the Princess deserves." Muun reluctantly re-turned to his
seat. "I studied the history vids at the academy."

"History vids?" Han growled. "So they activated you when? About last
year?" He glanced through the transparisteel dome at the bustling dry
docks. "You must have had some test scores to get a command like this."

An indignant shudder ran through the Sullustan’s jowls, but before he
could reply, C-3PO spoke again.

"Excuse me for interrupting, but there is a Yuuzhan Vong emissary asking
to see Princess Leia."

"What?" Han and Leia asked together.

"Tell him no," Han said.

And Leia asked, "How did he find me?"

C-3PO spouted a millisecond of digital squeal into the comm station. The
reply came a moment later.

"The Yuuzhan Vong emissary refuses to reveal that information to the
picket officer, but he does swear in the name of Yun-Yammka to do you no
harm. He wishes to discuss the fate of some refugees."

"No," Han said.

to the Yuuzhan Vong, he was determined not to lose his wife. "Or maybe
you’ve forgotten Elan and the bo’tous attempt—or how close you came to
losing your legs last year on Duro?"

"I haven’t forgotten," Leia said evenly. She turned to their host. "But
I’m sure General Muun wants to hear how the Yuuzhan Vong knew I was
here—almost as much as I do."

The Sullustan nodded. "Indeed."

"You can’t let a Yuuzhan Vong into Bilbringi!" Han said, realizing that
Muun was his best hope of preventing Leia from taking such a risk. "The
ship counts alone—"

"Will be of use to our enemies only if they are accurate." The Sullustan
did not even look in Han’s direction. His jowls lifted into a sort of
stiff grin, and he said to Leia, "We have been waiting for just such an
opportunity."

"Then it is my pleasure to give it to you." Leia turned to C-3PO. "You
may relay to the Yuuzhan Vong that we will grant him safe passage."

"As long as he presents himself unarmed and unmasked," Han added glumly.
Leia’s Noghri bodyguards, waiting in the corridor outside Muun’s office,
would like this even less than he did, but they stood no chance at all
of changing her mind. "And if there’s any funny business—" "He has
already promised honorable conduct," C-3PO replied. "Though, if you ask
me, a Yuuzhan Vong’s promise is worth precisely as much as a Jawa’s."

General Muun stepped over to his desk and opened a comm channel to his
security chief. "Commence Operation Restbreak. This is not a drill."

Han and the two bodyguards spent the next two hours converting one of
the base’s old Imperial interrogation chambers into an interview room he
considered safe enough for his wife. The main safety feature was the
transparisteel panel through which the discussion would be held, but
there were also the biosensor arrays

Leia flashed him a scowl, then said to C-3PO, "Tell him I’ll send
instructions shortly."

"Have you gone spacesick?" Han knew he would never win this argument,
but he had to try. Having already lost his best friend to monitor the
Yuuzhan Vong’s body state, the negative air pressure to confine any
poisons he might release to the original room, and a "void button" that
would open the chamber to the near-vacuum outside.

General Muun’s preparations were just as thorough and twice as fast. He
had barely given the order before the orbiting dry docks began to fall
dark and still, making the shipyard look more and more abandoned. By the
time the picket ship appeared above the planetoid, only three
dilapidated dry docks remained in operation, skeleton crews scurrying
about their work as though rushing to put the final touches on half a
dozen inconsequential corvettes. The vast majority of the dry docks were
not even visible, and the few that could be seen contained only
half-built craft that appeared to have been abandoned in the haste of an
over-early evacuation. Whether or not the general deserved his command
at such a young age, Han had to admire his cleverness; based on what
could be seen from the surface, the Yuuzhan Vong would be in no hurry to
attack the Bilbringi Shipyards.

C-3PO announced the emissary’s arrival, then a dozen guards entered the
interrogation chamber with their charge. The Yuuzhan Vong had been
afforded few diplomatic courtesies; something that looked like an
artificial eye had been confiscated and now rested in a security
officer’s hand, and in place of his own clothes, he wore a thin fleet
watchcloak with the hood up. In his hands he carried a spongelike
creature that resembled the villips Yuuzhan Vong used to communicate
over long distances, though this one was larger and more gelatinous. The
shipyard science officers had screened the creature for every known form
of Yuuzhan Vong attack and con-firmed it to be an organic communication
device, but Leia’s Noghri bodyguards, Adarakh and Meewalh, insisted on
performing their own inspection, sniffing, prodding, and squeezing the
thing until Han thought it would burst. He put his hand over the void
button anyway; until someone could tell him how an overgrown proto- zoan
could send messages across the galaxy as efficiently as the HoloNet, he
wasn’t taking anyone’s word for anything.

Once everyone was satisfied, the escorts pushed the emissary into the
room’s single chair, then left and locked the door.

Leia stepped to the transparisteel. "I am Leia Organa Solo."

"Yes, we have met before, on the planet Rhommamool." The emissary’s
voice was throaty and arrogant, and it instantly caused Leia’s face to
go white. He set his creature on the table and peeled back his hood,
revealing a smashed Yuuzhan Vong face with one empty eye socket. "And at
Duro, we even worked together for a time."

"Cree’Ar?" Leia’s hand dropped instinctively to her lightsaber— the one
Luke had made for her years ago. Tsavong Lah had destroyed her other
lightsaber on Duro. "Nom Anor!"

"You have an excellent memory." The Yuuzhan Vong glared at Leia coldly.
"How is your son Jacen? And Mara, is she still in remis-sion? As you
know, I have a special interest in your sister-in-law’s condition."

Han felt the void button tickle his palm and realized he was dangerously
close to pressing it. "Keep talking, fella." During the fall of Duro,
Nom Anor had attempted to kill Mara and Jaina, tried to orchestrate the
deaths of Leia and Jacen, and before that he had infected Mara with a
deadly disease that had required more than two years to overcome.
"There’s nothing I’d enjoy more than vaccing you."

Nom Anor’s smile remained snide. "Before you hear what I came to say?
Besides, I do not think Leia Organa Solo the type to break a promise of
safe passage."

"My promise, not Han’s," Leia said. "And his self-control isn’t what it
used to be. How did you know I was here?"

"With the Vray evacuating, where else would you look for a convoy
escort?" Nom Anor gestured at the creature on the desk.

"If I may?"

"The Vray have been evacuating for weeks," Leia said, continuing to
press for an answer. Han doubted Nom Anor would tell them if there was a
spy inside Bilbringi, but what was left unsaid would prove just as
useful to General Muun. "We’ve only been here a few hours."

"We are, of course, watching Bilbringi—and that is really all I am going
to say on the matter." Without asking permission this time, Nom Anor
coaxed his creature awake with a brief stroke. "Tsavong Lah wishes you
to see this."

The creature melted into a flat disk, then began to glow with yellow
bioluminescence. The light coalesced into a long starship with a blocky
stern and the distinctive hammerhead bridge of one of the Corellian
Engineering Corporation’s large civilian cruisers. Judging by the lack
of efflux from the ion drives and the open doors of its docking bay
deck, the ship was standing dead in space.

"The starliner Nebula Chaser," Nom Anor said. "The image is current."

Han’s heart leapt into his throat. The Nebula Chaser was the ship Mara
and Jaina had gone to meet. The mission was supposed to be simple, a
quick rendezvous in a safe sector and then home— but something had
clearly gone wrong. He put on his best sabacc face and forced himself
not to look in his wife’s direction.

"Very impressive," Leia said. Though she had to be just as worried as
Han, her voice remained dry and mocking. "You’ve learned to transmit
holograms. I’ll look forward to your holo-dramas on the ’Net."

"The Yuuzhan Vong have made living light for centuries," Nom Anor
snapped. "I am showing you this ship because the war-master thought you
might wish to trade."

Here it comes, Han thought. He moved his hand away from the void button,
not trusting himself to resist if Nom Anor announced the Yuuzhan Vong
had his daughter.

"Tsavong Lah thought wrong," Leia said. Her voice was a little too cold,
the only hint of the ice ball that had to be filling in her stomach.
"I’d rather trade with a Hutt."

"The Hutts do not have what you want." Nom Anor stabbed a clawlike
finger into the hologram. "There are ten thousand refugees aboard, and
their peril is your doing."

"I doubt that. If this is what Tsavong Lah wished me to see, our
business is done."

Leia turned her back on Nom Anor and stepped away from the
transparisteel. It was all Han could do not to remind her that their
daughter’s life might be at stake, but he held his tongue, knowing she
was only trying to undermine their opponent’s confidence.

She made it as far as the door before Nom Anor called, "You can save
them." He rose to peer over the living light. "Just tell me where to
find the Jedi base."

Leia glanced at Han, clearly wondering whether Nom Anor meant they could
save the refugees or Jaina and Mara, then said, "There is no Jedi base."

Nom Anor sighed theatrically. "Princess Leia, you discredit me again in
the eyes of Tsavong Lah." He let his chin slump. "I advised him you
would never sacrifice so many to save so few, but he believes you are
willing to sacrifice more—much more—to protect the Jedi."

As Nom Anor spoke, a salvo of plasma balls streaked into the hologram
and erupted against the shieldless starliner, opening flash-melted holes
in the durasteel hull. Dark clouds of speck-sized flotsam and
atmospheric vapor began to jet into space, and another salvo of plasma
boiled into view. Many of the balls entered through the same holes as
the previous fusillade and tore through the ship’s interior bulkheads.
The clouds darkened as more flotsam poured into the cold vacuum, then
the image shifted, magnifying the breach area and revealing the specks
to be the tumbling, pressure-ruptured bodies of the ship’s passengers.

"Truly, the wisdom of Tsavong Lah is as boundless as the galaxy itself."
Nom Anor rolled his one good eye as though sharing a joke, then gestured
at the starliner. "They are dying because there were Jedi aboard. If the
Jedi do not want more to die, they will surrender within one of your
standard weeks."

"More?" Han knew it was exactly the question Nom Anor wanted him to ask,
but he could not restrain himself. He had to know what had become of
Jaina. "How many more?"

"Your scouts will confirm that our fleets have surrounded the world of
Talfaglio; for the next week, all refugee ships are being held in orbit.
If the Jedi surrender, the convoy will be allowed to leave. If the Jedi
do not, it will be destroyed." Nom Anor glanced down at Han’s hand,
which was hovering over the void button, then added, "As they will if I
fail to return."

"You expect the Jedi to surrender?" Han asked. He was too relieved by
Nom Anor’s failure to mention Jaina or Mara to feel any real outrage at
the deaths of ten thousand strangers. Maybe he should have felt guilty
about that, he didn’t know, but all that mat-tered at the moment was
that Jaina and Mara were safe. "Won’t happen, fella. I might as well get
things started."

Han locked gazes with Nom Anor and lowered his hand toward the void
button, grinning crookedly and taking his time to give Leia a chance to
stop him. The Yuuzhan Vong met his gaze with a sneer and did not look
away, even when Han’s palm touched the button. He paused there, waiting
for Leia to stop him, but she said nothing. Han glanced over and saw her
glaring at the emissary, her brown eyes burning with raw rage.

"What are you waiting for?" she demanded.

"Really?"

Leia nodded. "Do it."

The edge in her voice unsettled Han, and it occurred to him that Nom
Anor might have failed to mention Jaina or Mara for another reason—a
reason Leia had already thought of. It was entirely possible the pair
had been aboard when the Nebula Chaser was destroyed, and the Yuuzhan
Vong simply did not realize who they had killed.

Han pushed the void button, and a seal hissed open along the edge of the
ceiling panel. Nom Anor’s one eye grew wide.

"Are you mad?" He jumped to his feet. "You’ll kill millions!"

Leia reached over and depressed the void button again, stopping the
ceiling panel where it was. "Not us, you."

The air continued to hiss out of the chamber, causing the image of the
Nebula Chaser to flicker out of existence as the villip creature curled
in on itself. Nom Anor glanced at the ceiling, then back to Leia, his
gruesome face slack with surprise. She waited until he pressed his
fingers to his ears, then hit the void button again and closed the
panel.

When Nom Anor took his hands away from his ears, Leia said, "Go back to
your warmaster and tell him how you were treated. Tell him the Jedi
accept no responsibility for the lives he threatens, and that any
emissary issuing a similar threat will not be returned."

Nom Anor nodded, if not meekly, then at least not haughtily. "I will
tell him, but that will change nothing." He went to the door and waited
until it opened, then added, "The warmaster believes this will work, and
he has not been wrong yet."