Star Wars : New Jedi Order
                                           Emissaries of the void
                                                    by Greg Keyes                             

                   Chapter 1 : Battle on Bonadan

Well, that's interesting, Uldir Lochett thought, as a pair of feminine legs in 
black tights came hurtling over his left shoulder. Above the tights he was 
vaguely aware of a dark yellow skirt and, even farther up, a young, 
determined face framed in short dark hair. But it was the feet that held 
his attention as they hit square in the center of the table at which he and 
his companions sat, shocking their drinks into brief suborbits. Then the 
feet were gone, propelling legs, yellow skirt, and all an estimated two 
meters up and one out toward the balcony above them. Searing flashes 
of weapon fire hissed by, and Uldir found his hand groping at an empty 
holster.  

"Stop her!" Someone behind Uldir shouted.  

Two of his three companions, Uldir saw, were also reaching for weapons 
that weren't there. The third, a human woman with startling platinum hair, 
brushed a fleck of Corellian whisky from the long scar beneath her left 
eye.  

"I need a new drink," she noted, as another volley of yellow streamers 
seared by, striking the synthewood balcony the girl had managed to 
grab. The patrons of the In the Red cantina were diving away from the 
newly declared war-zone, but the music from the band continued to blare 
cheerfully over the sound of weapon fire.  

"I hate locals," Leaft growled, thumping the curled fist of his foot on the 
table and scowling as only a Dug can scowl.  

A glance over his shoulder confirmed what Uldir already suspected: The 
girl's pursuers were Corporate Sector Authority law enforcement, the only 
people on Bonadan allowed to carry weapons. From the color and 
intensity of their beams, he figured they were using a stun setting, and in 
any event their target was definitely the girl, who was now significantly 
above them, putting Uldir and his companions well out of the line of fire. 
He relaxed a little, settling his amber gaze on the girl as she heaved 
herself up, wondering what she had done to provoke such a strong 
reaction from the local constabulary.  

"Very impolite," Vook said, apparently agreeing with the Dug. His flat, 
noseless Duro face was unreadable, but his tone, as usual, was 
melancholy, as if even this put him in mind of his lost homeworld.  

"I hate vacations," Leaft said, thumping the table again.  

It wasn't exactly a vacation. A close scrape with a Yuuzhan Vong 
interdictor on the Hydian Way had left the transport the unlikely quartet 
shared with a sputtering hyperdrive and no shields at all. They had 
managed to limp to the Corporate Sector, a rimward territory still 
essentially neutral in the conflict between what remained of the free New 
Republic and the fierce extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong, who were gobbling 
it up system by system in their religious crusade of conquest. Left with 
nothing to do while repairs were effected, Uldir figured they could all use 
a little time off, and consequently the four soon found themselves on the 
galasol strip, a colorful collection of overpriced cantinas and casinos near 
the spaceport.  

The fleeing girl was dressed like the attendants Uldir had seen earlier 
that evening at the Blue-Shift Luck casino, but if she was really a game-
girl, she was a nimble one. As he watched, she flipped over the balcony, 
twisting deftly between the several lines of fire directed at her, and 
crouched behind a now abandoned table. The CSA lawmen clustered 
below the balcony, firing up.  

"That's probably a mistake," remarked Vega Sepen, the platinum-
crowned woman.  

"Tactically unsound," Vook agreed, gravely.  

"One unarmed short human against four corp-clowns," Leaft sneered. 
"Not worth the price of admission."  

"She's not that short," Uldir corrected, crossing his arms and lifting the 
square tip of his chin toward the balcony. "She's a girl."  

"Uh, oh," Vega murmured.  

"Don't discuss human gender," the Dug growled. "The whole idea 
sickens me. Urr . . . Captain." He added that last a little sullenly, probably 
remembering one of the many formal reprimands he'd gotten lately from 
superiors.  

About that time, the table the girl was hiding behind suddenly came over 
the balcony rail. It hit three of the security men squarely and nicked the 
fourth. With a fierce grin, the girl turned and ran off across the upper level 
toward an exit.  

"She's getting away," Vook noticed.  

"Yeah," Uldir said. "Maybe not."  

Vega must have seen the expression on Uldir's face.  

"Not our fight," she cautioned. "We're rescue fliers, not bounty hunters."  

"Well, we can't fly without a ship, and I'm bored," Uldir said. "Anyway, 
she owes me for these drinks." With that, he pushed back his chair, 
closed up his flight jacket, and leaped onto the table.  

"This won't turn out well," he heard Vook mournfully predict.  

Uldir followed the girl's example, launching himself from the table. He 
caught the balcony, swiftly pulled himself up and over and ran toward the 
exit through which she had vanished.  

The exit led to an upper story, open-air courtyard. There, beneath a rusty 
evening sky, he found a trail of angry and confused patrons cursing after 
his quarry as she clambered up the output cable of the ion shield that 
filtered Bonadan's polluted air into something approaching pleasant. 
Uldir's opinion of the young woman's athletic prowess rose another 
notch, offset by the growing suspicion that she was probably some sort 
of burglar or spy. Maybe she had stolen something from the casino, or 
had been attempting to. Whatever it was, he was determined to find out.  

He skipped to his right to avoid tripping over a fallen Rodian, but that 
brought him face-to-face with an immense Barabel male gnashing a set 
of very sharp teeth some half a meter above his own meter-and-a-half 
frame.  

"Sorry," Uldir grunted at the scaled tower.  

The Barabel's black reptilian face contorted. "You insult me?" He flexed 
his claws, and it occurred to Uldir that the Bonadan police couldn't 
confiscate natural weapons.  

The Barabel had teeth, claws, and sixty kilos on him. Uldir had his fists 
and the best unarmed combat training the Search and Rescue Corps 
could provide.  

So he ran, dodging behind a stumbling-drunk Togorian as the Barabel 
took a swipe at him. The big lizard tried to correct for Uldir's sudden 
movement and instead hit the white-furred humanoid, who yowled and 
lurched to face her antagonist. Uldir thought he wouldn't mind seeing 
how that turned out, under ordinary circumstances, but once again he'd 
lost sight of the thief.  

He went up the cable hand-over-hand, pulling himself onto the rooftop. 
From here he couldn't see the galasol strip, but he could hear it in a blare 
of music ­ Uldir and his companions had arrived during a sort of local 
festival thrown by one of the new execs of the corporate sector. They'd 
had to push their way through a parade dominated by floaters bearing 
likenesses of the various leaders of the CSA, distributing free gambling 
chits for adults and trinkets for the kids. His vantage now overlooked the 
uglier side of Bonadan, the warehouse district that lay behind the flashy 
facade of the strip.  

"How in the . . . ?" Uldir began, then realized he was talking to himself, 
something he considered a bad sign. But how had she made that jump? 
It was four meters to the air lane the barges traveled in if it was a 
centimeter.  

She was running toward the next barge up, which was separated from its 
companion by only a meter or so, and the line of barges went on as far 
as the eye could see.  

"Carbon flush," he swore. If he could not make the jump, he'd lost her, 
but it sure wasn't worth seeing if he could make the jump, so that was 
that.  

He heard a hiss behind him and turned to see the Barabel coming up fast 
and decided it was worth finding out after all. He took ten paces and 
leaped with all of his might. At the last instant, he had the sudden sinking 
feeling he wouldn't make it, followed swiftly by the sinking feeling of 
gravity having a joke on him. He'd jumped long enough, but not high 
enough. He wouldn't even scrape the side of the barge going down.  

He almost didn't see the multi-sensor cable dangling in front of him, but 
at he last instant he did, and he wrapped his hands around it, wincing at 
the friction burn he produced killing his momentum. Swearing a silent 
thanks to whatever fates protected fools and starpilots, he started pulling 
himself up, ignoring the sibilant string of unintelligible curses the Barabel 
was howling after him.  

On top, he took a moment to catch his breath, and for an instant he stood 
awestruck by the evening. Bonadan's primary was a giant red egg yolk 
smeared against a stark ebony horizon of eroding hills and slag heaps. In 
the melting glare of that light, the plexisteel towers of the spaceport 
appeared to be molded of living lava. Plumes of black smoke drifted up 
from distant refineries, pancaking into clouds made luminous by the 
dying light of the sun, stretching shadow fingers toward the horizon of 
night. In the deep of the sky the actinic flares of ion drives winked here 
and there as ships arrived and departed. The ore train he stood on 
stretched far away, like some sort of magical path above the barren 
landscape.  

There was nothing admirable about the ecological mess the Corporate 
Sector Authority had made of a once-lush planet, but there was beauty in 
everything, even devastation. The Force was present even in a 
wasteland. 

The barges were strictly planetary, their anteriors open to the air. He 
didn't recognize the ore ­ he hoped it wasn't radioactive ­ but it certainly 
made for bad footing, so as he started after the girl, he ran along the 
raised metal lip of the barge. The narrowness of it didn't bother him ­ as 
a boy the spaceports on Coruscant and pretty much everywhere else in 
the galaxy had been his playgrounds, and he'd spent many an hour 
doing far more foolish things on far more precarious surfaces.  

To his satisfaction, his quarry didn't seem to have noticed him yet. She 
was taking her time, certain she'd lost her pursuers. He jumped the meter 
to the next barge, and then the next, closing all the while, confidant that 
the steady hum of repulsorlifts would mask his approach. Besides, the 
girl had stopped now, lifting up her dress to reveal something taped to 
her leg. She began working at the adhesive, tearing it off in strips.  

Ah-hah, he thought. Now we'll see what you've stolen.  

When he came within five meters, however, the girl stopped what she 
was doing and spun on her heels to face him.  

"Stay there!" she shouted over the thrum of the barges. "I will defend 
myself."  

"Oh, I'm sure of that," Uldir said. "I saw what you did to law enforcement 
back in the cantina."  

She lifted her chin, and he suddenly realized she was kind of pretty, with 
her dark eyes and short brown bangs. And young ­ maybe younger than 
he. She certainly did not look like the glamorous ideal of a galasol game-
girl ­ more like someone's kid sister playing dress-up.  

"What business is that of yours?" she demanded, looking him over. 
"That's not a CSA uniform."  

"You owe me four drinks," he said. "Besides, I just have this odd feeling 
you're up to no good."  

"You're wrong there," the girl replied. "You have no idea how wrong."  

"Explain my error, then. I'll be happy to listen."  

She smiled faintly. "You don't need an explanation," she said.  

It occurred to Uldir that he really didn't. Now that he had met her, she 
seemed an honest sort. Whatever problem she had with the CSA was 
probably a misunderstanding. He shrugged and was starting to walk 
away when he got it.  

"Hey!" he said, turning.  

A lump of ore thudded into his shoulder with enough force to knock him 
down. He bounced back up, fast, but she was already there. Now that he 
knew what she was, he wasn't surprised.  

Nor did he get a chance for more conversation. She was in midair, 
aiming a kick at his solar plexus.  

Training took over. Flying kicks were good for taking opponents off of 
speeders, or maybe if they were paralyzed, but they stunk against 
someone standing with balance and a little presence of mind. He spun 
aside and chopped at the back of her neck as she hurled past ­ except 
she didn't hurl past. Instead, she touched down and pivoted, turning the 
kick into a wheel that caught him on the same target he'd been aiming for 
on her. He rolled with it, tumbling roughly over the ore, coming up to find 
her already on top of him. In her haste she had gotten sloppy, however, 
and he blocked her next kick and drove stiffened fingers into her midriff. 
She wheezed and fell back roughly onto the ore.  

"Listen ­ " he began, but before he could get more out, she gestured with 
her left hand, and another chunk of rock leapt up from about a meter 
away and popped him in the forehead. He sat down, hard.  

"Ow," he said, rubbing his head. "You didn't have to do that. I'm ­ "  

He noticed it before she did, maybe because she was stunned from his 
punch and maybe because she was concentrating on him. He dove 
toward her. She jerked her hands up defensively, but he caught them 
and hauled her to her feet just as several white-hot flashes melted pits 
through the ore she'd been lying on.  

"Fliers!" he shouted.  

Sure enough, five atmospheric security fliers were descending toward 
them, spraying blaster fire. Uldir suddenly found himself face-to-face with 
the girl, still holding both of her hands. She seemed to study him for 
about a nanosecond, then broke free and began running again. Uldir 
followed, blaster fire warming his heels.  

The girl ran to the edge of the barge, followed it for a few seconds, and 
then leaped out into space.  

"Wait!" Uldir shouted. Too late. He came skidding to a halt, peering over, 
hoping she'd dropped onto some tall building, but there was nothing but 
a sixty-meter plummet to the drab, one-story duraplast outskirts of the 
spaceport.  

A bolt came near enough to curl his eyebrows, and he gathered that he 
had become a substitute target. Several more shots spanged around the 
barge's edge, and with a wordless curse he jerked back into motion, 
dropping back into the barge so he could use the raised lip as limited 
cover. His hand itched for his blaster, but that was still on his ship.  

The pilots were smart. Four stayed back, laying down a sort of perimeter 
of fire that kept him boxed on the barge. The fifth zoomed in lower, 
focusing on hitting him. He tried to clear his mind, feel the shots coming 
before they did, but his Jedi training had been mostly wasted ­ he had no 
natural talent for the Force. Still, now and then, his luck was unusual 
enough to suggest that Master Skywalker's academy had left him with 
something.  

This time, he didn't think he would be as lucky as usual. When a sixth 
flier rose up from below the barge, scarcely two meters to his right, he 
was sure of it. He winced as blasters fired.  

But the bolts seared over his head and struck the flier harassing him at 
close range, and his focus suddenly changed, centering on the yellow-
and-black-clad figure at the controls of the newly arrived vessel. The 
figure was gesturing impatiently.  

"You don't have to tell me twice," Uldir muttered. Still dodging the more 
distant fire, he ran toward the flier and jumped in. The instant he was on 
board, the girl punched the throttle, weaving through a net of white bolts.  

"Thanks," Uldir said.  

"If this is a trick, you'll regret it," the girl snapped. "Why were you chasing 
me?"  

"I didn't know you were Jedi."  

The girl banked crazily and dropped low toward the landscape.  

"I think you really want altitude, here," he added.  

"Yeah? You want to fly?"  

"Um ­ okay."  

"Great." She let go of the controls, leaving Uldir to dive for them before 
the flier smacked into a transmission tower. Meanwhile, she went back to 
work on whatever was strapped to her leg.  

"Didn't know I was Jedi? That's why everyone else is after me."  

"I thought you were a thief," Uldir explained, nosing up in time to avoid a 
serious insult from coherent light and charged particles. "Why are they 
after you?"  

"Because I'm Jedi. Are you stim-pickled? Don't you know every planet in 
the galaxy is scrambling to turn us over to the Yuuzhan Vong?"  

"I'm aware of that," Uldir said, dryly. "I nearly got turned in myself."  

She laughed. "You're no Jedi."  

That stung more than Uldir cared to admit. "Hey, be nice to me. I saved 
your skinny . . . er, your skin."  

"And I returned the favor," she reminded him. "We're even now. So. Why 
would anyone try to turn you in?"  

Uldir flipped a lock of his chestnut hair away from his eyes. "I'm a rescue 
flier," he said. "An ex-partner of mine turned out to be Peace Brigade, 
and he found out I once attended the Jedi academy. He arranged an 
ambush I was lucky to get out of. That was right after the Yuuzhan Vong 
warmaster announced that if all the Jedi were turned over to him, he'd 
stop conquering the galaxy." He shook his head. "As if anyone could 
really believe that."  

"You attended Master Skywalker's academy?" The girl asked, skeptically.  

"Is there another?"  

"No."  

"I didn't have any aptitude for the Force, though," Uldir added.  

"So much is obvious," the girl said.  

"Yeah, I think you mentioned that," Uldir said, veering sharply to port, 
where the police fliers were trying to flank him and doing a pretty good 
job. "Hold on a second," he said. "We'll have to fight a little, here." He 
glanced over his shoulder. "My name is Uldir, by the way."  

"Klin-Fa Gi, at your service," she said grimly. "You almost got me killed, 
Uldir. Don't do it again."  

"I'll try not to, Klin-Fa Gi. Stay down. We're going to take some hits."  

"Not if I have anything to say about it."  

For the second time that night, she leaped past him, landing with feline 
grace on the prow of the speeder. She stood there, a perfect target for 
the two fliers they were barreling toward. Then a snap-hiss carried over 
the wind, and a sliver of yellow energy appeared in her left hand, cutting 
quickly into a figure eight and sending a pair of blaster bolts humming off 
into the wastelands.  

So that's what was taped to her leg, Uldir concluded. Klin-Fa must have 
walked in front of one of the weapons sensors that Bonadan was lousy 
with.  

"I guess I have shields now," Uldir murmured, thumbing the blaster fire 
controls on his stick and jinking starboard. His shot was dead on, frying 
the opposing flier's stabilizer. It went spinning off. Uldir hoped the pilot 
would get the flier under control before it hit the ground below.  

That's one, he thought, as Klin-Fa executed another crazy series of 
parries that left their flier unscathed by enemy fire.  

As he'd noticed before, the pilots weren't stupid. Contrary to the usual 
tactics of aerial combat, they were now trying to get underneath them, 
where the Jedi's lightsaber wasn't. He let the flier drop, hoping that Klin-
Fa could keep her footing, afraid to do any really tight turns.  

Shadowed wasteland came up at them, endless hectares of chemical-
blistered ground cut into fractal patterns by violent erosion. Bonadan's 
primary was now a thin red lens on the horizon, and a little north of that 
lightning serpentined inside an anvil-shaped cloud. The wind tasted of 
water, grit, and unwholesome carbon compounds.  

The storm gave him an idea, though, so he flattened his course toward 
the thunderhead. Rain would stymie eyesight, and lightning would 
confuse instruments. Maybe even the eye-in-the sky droids the patrol 
was undoubtedly tapping into. If he and Klin-Fa got through that, maybe 
he could circle back and find the No Luck Required before the security 
fliers picked up the trail. If the ship was repaired, then they might be able 
to get off-planet before the port authority shut them down. If . . .  

He grinned tightly, remembering what Vega would say: "If" is just a short 
way of saying, "we're doomed."  

"Are those guys Peace Brigade?" Uldir shouted to the girl.  

"You mentioned them before," she shot back. "I never heard of them."  

Uldir arched an eyebrow. That was surprising. "They're a collaborationist 
organization," he told her. "They figure we can't beat the Yuuzhan Vong, 
so they might as well join them, get in their good graces while it's still 
possible. Sometimes they infiltrate local law enforcement."  

Klin-Fa snorted. "Nobody in the Corporate Authority ever needed 
prompting when there was any potential for profit, and the 'zecs don't 
deal with middle-men unless they have to. There's a Yuuzhan Vong 
executor on this planet even as we speak. I'm guessing the 'zecs cut 
their own deal."  

"What? But that violates the neutrality pact."  

"I'll bet it doesn't. CSA attorneys can find a loophole when there isn't 
even a loop."  

The cloud loomed, but the fliers were getting too close. He dipped lower, 
dropping into one of the arroyos that crawled downhill toward the 
spaceport.  

"I guess you can fly," Klin-Fa conceded reluctantly, leaping over the 
cockpit to land on their stern, now the most threatened portion of the 
ship.  

"You don't say?" Uldir retorted. "Gosh, I'm glad you told me. I'd never 
have known. Now I'm all beaming and confidant. I just know I can get us 
out of this."  

She ignored the sarcasm. "Rescue flier, huh?" she mused. "Who do you 
rescue?"  

"Jedi, mostly."  

Klin-Fa blocked a bolt aimed for their rear stabilizer and shot him a 
strange look. "What?" She asked. "Who do you work for?"  

"The paychit comes from the New Republic Search and Rescue Corps, 
but that's sort of a cover. The orders come from Master Skywalker, 
ultimately. He's been organizing a network to move Jedi out of danger for 
months."  

"I wouldn't know about that," she said. "I've been . . . out of touch. I didn't 
even know about the warmaster's ultimatum until yesterday."  

That explained why she didn't know about the Peace Brigade either. 
"Where were you that you didn't hear about that?" Uldir asked.  

Her eyes narrowed. "You'll understand if I don't just volunteer that 
information."  

"Hey, you're the Jedi. Can't you tell if I'm lying, or a threat?"  

She hesitated. "I've been fooled before," she admitted. "Just understand 
this ­ I'm on a mission, also for Master Skywalker. I've discovered 
something of utmost importance, a dire threat to the New Republic."  

"But you won't tell me what it is?"  

"No."  

Uldir was impressed at how impassive she remained. Though his crazy 
course through the canyons had them temporarily free of blaster fire, it 
couldn't be easy for her to keep her footing, yet she hadn't even blinked. 
She had liquid helium in her veins, this girl.  

"We're about to plow straight into a storm," he said. "Maybe you ought to 
get back into the cockpit."  

"Storm? No. Maybe you ought to ­ watch out!"  

Uldir jerked on the stick, mentally tasking himself for becoming 
distracted. One of the security fliers had somehow worked its way up a 
side canyon and was now quite suddenly in front of him. Blaster fire 
scorched along their underbelly, and the craft jerked like a harpooned 
toukfin. The power system whined, and all of the indicators on the board 
went dead. The flier dropped as Uldir frantically jiggled at the re-route to 
emergency systems.  

The power failure lasted only an instant, but it was a gut-plunging one, 
and he was now on a collision course with the offending flier. He banked 
hard to port, momentarily forgetting he had a passenger balanced on his 
prow. Klin-Fa didn't seem to mind ­ she deftly shifted to stand on the 
narrow part of the flier now presented to the sky, crouched, and cut 
downward at the other vehicle. Uldir saw a shear of sparks before the 
impact. It was a glancing blow, and their opponent went gyring away 
missing a good chunk of its nose. Uldir was vaguely aware of the 
crunching sound it made as it plowed into a canyon wall, but most of his 
attention was focused on avoiding the same fate. The repulsors 
sputtered again, and with a silent curse he rose out of the arroyo, unable 
to trust his craft enough to maneuver there anymore.  

It was then, facing the black wall of the storm, that he realized he didn't 
see Klin-Fa. His last maneuvers must have dislodged her. 

He dug into a sharp turn ­ hoping to spot her and hoping as well that her 
Jedi abilities had helped her survive the fall ­ when a shout from below 
got his attention. He saw the young Jedi clinging to the craft's magnetic 
mooring lock by the fingers of one hand.  

"Hang on!" Uldir locked the course for the storm and reached into the 
dash compartment, coming out with an enforcement special blaster. 
Then he climbed out of the cockpit and onto the nose of the craft, waving 
his arms for balance.  

The three remaining fliers were catching up quickly, and the air was 
brittle with ionized death. Uldir dropped to his belly and reached over the 
brink, grasping Klin-Fa by the wrist. She locked her own fingers around 
his wrist in turn and dangled in space, whirling her lightsaber to deflect a 
blaster bolt that would have cut her in half. Uldir stood, hauling her up, 
watching in amazement as she continued to fend off attacks. With his 
free hand he grimly fired at the lead police craft, which was coming in 
way too fast. He grazed it twice, then hit the cockpit a glancing blow that 
must have hurt the pilot, because the craft peeled off suddenly. Then two 
concussions in a row rocked his flier so badly that Uldir nearly lost his 
footing. He swung the Jedi back onto the bow just as the first of the rain 
spattered around them.  

"Back in the cockpit!" he shouted. The craft was beginning to list weirdly 
toward starboard, indicating a probably fatal malfunction in one of the 
stabilizers.  

Another bolt hit them as they made it to the crash seats, and then, as if 
they had passed under a curtain, the rain was driving so hard Uldir 
couldn't see anything. He flipped on the weather shield, and the water 
began sheeting off against its field, but visibility didn't increase in the 
slightest.  

An eighteen-headed dragon of lightning howled around them, and Uldir's 
neck hairs pricked to attention. The sound was like the implosion of a 
planet.  

"Sithspit!" Klin-Fa shouted. "What have you done to us?"  

"You don't see our friends anymore, do you?"  

"No. They'd know better than to fly into a sweeper storm."  

"A what?"  

"Bonadan has weather control stations all over it. You don't think this is 
natural, do you? They generate these on the outskirts when the air gets 
too caustic for the miners. The rain and lightning precipitates some of the 
crud they put in the sky every day."  

"Oh. Your point?"  

"My point is, it's more concentrated and violent than a normal storm, jets-
for-brains. The funnel around the eye is designed to create maximum 
ionization."  

"Maximum ­ uh-oh."  

It had been getting darker, but in the not-to-distance he saw sheets of 
lighting dancing like nebula veils.  

"So we don't want to go there, huh?" Uldir grunted, frantically pulling the 
stick starboard. Nothing happened. The ship was carrying them nowhere 
but the heart of the storm.  

"No. So get us out of here already," Klin-Fa shouted. Even through the 
windscreen, the sound of the storm was almost deafening.  

"I can't. I locked the controls when I went out to get you. They're still 
locked."  

"Well, unlock them, vac-brain!"  

Uldir continued flipping switches. "Not happening," he said.  

"Well, what, then?"  

"Hang on, I guess."  

He pointed the blaster at the rear repulsor assembly and fired.  

"Are you insane?" Klin-Fa shrieked.  

"I wasn't before I met you," Uldir replied. "Now I'd need a professional 
opinion." He fired again, and the flier seemed to sag against the wind. 
The bow dropped nearly perpendicular to the ground.  

"Like I said," Uldir remarked, as another net of lightning crackled 
completely around them, "hang on."  

He felt a tingle then that did not come from the lightning, and he 
recognized it as a movement in the Force. He might not be sensitive 
enough to actually wield it, but he had been around the most powerful 
Jedi in the galaxy, and had learned to recognize its use.  

Especially now, when it felt somehow wrong. He looked at Klin-Fa and 
found her eyes shut and her face utterly composed. For some reason 
that was momentarily terrifying. Then he didn't have any more time to 
think about it, because they hit the ground, skipped, tumbled, and hit 
again. The screen went down, and rain was suddenly smothering them. 
After that, darkness.  

                                      * * *  

Uldir woke spitting water from his mouth and feeling the painful itch of it 
in his lungs. One of the flier's running lights shone murkily from beneath 
the surface. Other than that, the darkness was broken only by the terrible 
white and red flares of lightning that grew more extreme with each 
second. The rain was mixed with hail now, which struck painfully against 
the bare skin of his face, and the thunder was an almost uninterrupted 
roar. The torrents unleashed from the sky were continuing to sculpt the 
arroyo he'd crashed in as it had been doing since the natural vegetation 
of Bonadan had given up its tenuous hold on existence. The flier was 
fetched up against something and filling quickly with water.  

In the dull light, he made out Klin-Fa Gi, slumped unconscious, her face 
just out of the water. He felt for her pulse and, to his relief, found it 
strong. When he failed to wake her, he got her in a swim carry, holding 
her from behind so her head would remain above the surface. Even as 
he did this, the level and speed of the flood rose, and swiftly. He had to 
get to higher ground; that much was obvious. Not too high, though ­ 
lightning had a lofty aim, and Uldir already felt like he was on a target 
range for a tactical air-to-planet assault force.  

The current took him, and it was far too strong to fight. He pointed his 
feet downstream, using his boots to protect him from rocks and other 
obstacles. This was awkward, as it put Klin-Fa on top of him, and his 
head went under with regularity. He'd been trained for this sort of 
situation, however, as part of his preparation for rescue flying, and the 
little voice of panic that threatened to become a shout kept relatively 
quiet. All he had to do was keep his head, he told himself. And his arms, 
and his legs . . .  

When he started to feel the shock of the lightning, that became more 
difficult to do. Nightmare images of stone and turbid water strobed every 
few seconds, so he had almost a continuous view of his surroundings 
now. Kicking from a protruding rock, he aimed himself at what looked like 
a slope that might take him above flood capacity. He nearly missed it, but 
he managed to get a clawhold on a rock and ­ pulling against the 
immensely strong current ­ drag himself and the Jedi onto the incline. He 
lay panting there for a moment until a bolt struck so close that he felt the 
hot spray of spalled stone on his cheek. With a grunt, he got Klin-Fa on 
his shoulder and made for what looked like a sort of overhang.  

His luck held; it was indeed a small cave in the side of the canyon. It 
went in deep enough to be dry. He hoped it was also deep enough not to 
conduct a lightning strike, and high enough that the flood wouldn't fill it, 
because he didn't have a joule of strength left. He lay in the darkness, 
trying not to flinch at the barrage outside, promising himself that the next 
time a girl upset his drink he'd just buy another one.  

Outside, it seemed the planet was burning, the thunder become like the 
sound of a fusion drive blowing in atmosphere. He closed his eyes 
against the glare and waited for it to pass.  

It did, finally, and an eerie calm settled as the eye went over. Then Uldir 
was treated to another fireworks display, courtesy of Bonadan weather 
control.  

When the lightning finally receded, he began to realize he was cold. Was 
it winter here? Did Bonadan have a winter? He couldn't remember. 
Maybe when the renewed search found them, they would find a couple of 
frozen corpses.  

By the light of a glowstick he had in one of his many pockets, he 
examined Klin-Fa with the small medpack he always carried. A nasty 
swelling on her head indicated the cause of her continued 
unconsciousness, but otherwise she seemed sound ­ he couldn't find 
any evidence of broken bones or internal bleeding.  

He gave her a broad-spectrum anti-inflammatory and antibiotic, made 
her as comfortable as he could, then turned to his remaining resources.  

That consisted more-or-less of his comlink. He handled the small cylinder 
thoughtfully for a moment, considering. It had been modified with a trace-
scrambler ­ though any searchers in the area would know he was 
transmitting, it would take a security decryption to allow them to 
triangulate. The CSA probably had pretty decent technology in that area, 
but he could probably transmit for thirty seconds or so before they had 
enough data to either unscramble the message or pinpoint his position.  

It was getting colder. It was worth the risk. He keyed it on.  

Static roared, probably due to the nearby storm. Still, after a second, he 
made out a distorted version of Vega Sepen's voice.  

"Hey, boss-boy," she said. "You really should follow my advice now and 
then."  

"Listen, Vega," Uldir said. "The girl was a Jedi, turns out. We've eluded 
pursuit for the time being, but we're down in the outback, maybe fifteen 
klicks southeast of town."  

"Those aren't very good directions."  

"Just look for wherever the police fliers are shooting," he said.  

"With what? The ship's still in dock."  

"I trust you, Vega. You'll think of something. Gotta go, before they trace 
this."  

"Okay. Good luck, boss-boy."  

"I hate it when you call me that."  

"I know." The signal crackled out, and Uldir keyed off the comlink. He 
was probably still safe, but the next time he used it they would find his 
location in seconds.  

Klin-Fa stirred and moaned. He touched her forehead and found it cold. 
He'd actually started shivering himself, from the wet and the falling 
temperature. With a sigh, he drew off his jacket. He lay next to the young 
Jedi, spooning against her, and covered them both with the jacket. It took 
a long time before the contact began to feel warm.  

                                        * * *  

He woke with dark eyes centimeters from his own.  

"Did you enjoy that?" Klin-Fa asked.  

"Huh?"  

"Snuggling up against me? Is that your idea of a good time?"  

"Hey, I was just trying to keep us warm. Keep you warm."  

She almost smiled. "Relax, jets-for-brains," she said. "I know what you 
were doing, and thanks. Just don't get any ideas."  

Uldir realized their bodies were still touching, and he felt suddenly and 
completely uncomfortable. "What? No, of course not."  

She tapped his forehead with her finger. "Right. I didn't think there was 
that much danger of an idea popping out of there, but you never know."  

"Hey, I was doing more thinking than you were last night."  

"I bet you were."  

"That's not what I meant." His face felt tingly.  

She sat up. Harsh yellow-white light glared through the entrance to the 
cave. "Where are we?"  

"Somewhere in the badlands south of town. Our flier went down, you 
may remember."  

"I remember you flying into a sweeper storm."  

"Hey, how was I to know? For that matter, how did you know?"  

"I'm from here," she growled.  

"Bonadan?"  

"No, this cave. Yes, Bonadan. I grew up on this miserable hole."  

"Hey, everyone has to grow up somewhere."  

"Yes, but they don't have to go back. I did, worse the luck."  

"Why?"  

"You and your questions. Are you a pilot or a reporter?"  

"A pilot," Uldir said.  

"And where's your ship?"  

"I ­ ah, I don't know."  

"Not much of a pilot then, are you? Looks like its up to me to get us out of 
here."  

"Well, it is your planet."  

"Don't remind me." She started toward the entrance, then froze.  

"What?"  

"Come here," she whispered. "Be quiet."  

He went with her to peek through the cave entrance. Beyond was the 
gully that they'd both nearly drowned in the night before. It was dry now, 
silted with fresh alluvium, and they could see about half a klick down it. 
Near the bend, up toward where the flier had gone down, he could see 
eight figures on foot, moving down the arroyo in their direction.  

"Search party," he said.  

"Yes," she replied. "See that one third from the left?"  

"I'm not blind."  

"I am, where he's concerned," Klin-Fa replied. "I can't feel him in the 
Force. That can only mean one thing."  

Uldir nodded. "Yuuzhan Vong," he said. "Things just got a whole lot 
worse."  

As if to underscore the remark, he heard the whine of fliers overhead, 
several of them. 



                       Chapter 2 : Dark Tidings                                              

                                                                          

"What a nice start to the day," Klin-Fa Gi commented, cutting her dark 
eyes at Uldir. Her sarcasm wasn't lost.  

"At least we're alive," he said. "That was anything but a given last night."  

Klin-Fa's mouth settled in a thin line. Uldir wondered if he would ever see 
the young Jedi smile. She was pale, her short brown hair matted and full 
of silt from the flood they had survived the night before, and the bump on 
her forehead had gone a shade of purple he'd heretofore seen only in 
certain nebulae. Still, he felt if she smiled, she'd be pretty.  

Annoying, almost insufferable, but pretty.  

"Yes, we're alive," she admitted. "Bravo. Terrific job. Now if you'll just 
take care of that search patrol and the ­ what? Eight enforcement fliers? 
Maybe I'll forget that if it weren't for you I wouldn't be in this mess at all."  

That was a little too much. "CSA was chasing you before I ever laid eyes 
on you," Uldir said. "Without me they'd have you by now."  

"Doubtful," Klin-Fa retorted. Then she sighed. "Also irrelevant. Do you 
have any weapons?"  

"No. I lost the blaster." My hands were full saving you from drowning, he 
silently finished.  

"At least I still have my lightsaber."  

"Yeah," Uldir said, eyeing the ever-nearing search party coming down 
the arroyo toward the cave where Klin-Fa and he were hiding. "Look, I'll 
admit you're pretty handy with that thing, but against these odds ­ "  

"The Force can prevail against any odds," she insisted firmly. "Anyway, 
it's not like we have a choice. They'll find us soon enough. Unless you 
have a plan."  

"I do, as a matter of fact. Sit tight until the rest of my outfit shows up. 
They're bound to be here soon. If you want to use the Force, try to 
project the thought that we're in a different direction."  

Klin-Fa's mouth twisted as if she'd just chewed a sour thom, but she 
eased her head in a reluctant half-nod. "That might work ­ even at this 
distance, I might be able to project a suggestion. But it won't fool that 
Yuuzhan Vong down there." She lifted her chin toward one of the 
members of the search party. Even from this distance, Uldir could make 
out the scars and tattoos that marked him as a member of the 
extragalactic invaders bent on conquering the galaxy ­ and doing a more 
than competent job of it so far.  

"True," he admitted, "But he doesn't know where we are. He'll have to 
trust his local guides."  

Klin-Fa grunted what he guessed was agreement, took a deep breath 
and closed her eyes. She reached out her arm, and the fingers of her 
right hand fluttered slightly. Uldir felt the Force in motion, which had the 
affect of deepening his frustration with the whole situation. He'd studied 
at the Jedi academy but left it a failure, having no natural aptitude for the 
Force. The most his training had left him with was a slight ability to sense 
Jedi when they worked with the Force, and what some would say was an 
uncommon sort of luck. Still, the experience had taught him something 
important ­ sometimes it didn't matter how hard you wanted something, 
you weren't going to get it. You lived with what you did have and took 
pride in your real assets, not the ones you wished you possessed. He'd 
thought he was over useless self-remonstration at his failure, and he had 
been. He really had ­ at least until Klin-Fa Gi had bounced off the center 
of his table in a local cantina, pursued by law enforcement officials of the 
Corporate Sector Authority. Her attitude had managed to wake the old 
resentment in him. Why did someone like her have such strong affinity 
with the Force, while he could only hear it whisper?  

It wasn't fair, which made him even angrier, because he knew the 
universe wasn't fair.  

But it ought to be balanced. That was what the Force was all about, 
right? And there was something very unbalanced about Klin-Fa Gi. When 
she had used the Force to cushion the crash of their atmospheric flier, 
he'd almost thought he sensed something dark.  

Her eyes were still closed, and Uldir studied her. She didn't look evil, in 
her tattered yellow skirt and black leggings. She looked young and intent.  

Ah, what do I know? Uldir asked himself. I couldn't tell a Sith from Master 
Yoda himself, not with my puny senses.  

She'd said she was on a secret mission for Master Skywalker. He'd 
believe her until proven wrong. Anyway, she was Jedi, and Uldir's job 
was to rescue Jedi from the Yuuzhan Vong and their agents. He might 
not be able to use the Force, but no one had ever said he wasn't good at 
his job. There wasn't a better rescue pilot in the business.  

Of course, right about now it would be nice to have something to pilot.  

he group of searchers was pointing up the other side of the arroyo. He 
heard shouting, and then they broke into a trot.  

"You did it," Uldir breathed.  

"Yep," she said. "It won't fool them for long." She started forward, out of 
the cave mouth.  

"Hang on," Uldir said, waving vaguely upward. "There're still the fliers to 
consider."  

"You consider them. You're the pilot."  

"No. We should wait on my people, or make some kind of plan."  

She pushed a straggling lock of hair from her face. "Hey, you had a good 
idea, jets. Don't spoil it by thinking too much."  

"Now, listen ­ hey!"  

Too late. She'd already sprinted from the cover of the cave and was 
starting up the arroyo slope in the opposite direction in which she had 
sent the search party.  

"Vaping Moffs!" Uldir snarled, and did the only thing he could do, the 
thing he'd been doing from the start of this whole mess ­ he started after 
her.  

He came over the lip of the ravine in time to see her vanish down into 
another one. Bonadan had lost most of its natural life forms to the brutal 
industrialization of the Corporate Sector, and without roots and rhizomes 
to hold them in check, erosion had fast furrowed the highland soils 
outside of the spaceport, peeled back their planetological history, and 
turned them into a badlands.  

Somewhere, Uldir heard the whir of fliers, but he didn't see them. They 
were probably conducting some sort of grid search. They likely had 
satellite intelligence, too. The broken nature of the terrain gave them a 
chance, but only a small one.  

He caught up to Klin-Fa Gi as she hit the bottom of the next ravine at a 
dead run. "Where do you think you're going?" He snapped, trying to keep 
his voice down and match her pace at the same time.  

"Away," she said. "Away from the Vong."  

He got it then. "You're scared of them. The Yuuzhan Vong."  

"Scared? No. I'm scared of nothing. But my Jedi powers are useless 
against the Vong. If I fight, I might lose, and I can't afford that. The galaxy 
can't afford it. My mission cannot fail."  

"Hey, I've dealt with Yuuzhan Vong before," Uldir chuffed. "They aren't 
invincible."  

"It's great you feel that way. Why don't you go hold 'em off for me?"  

"Maybe I'll just do that," Uldir snapped. "It's better than ­ down!" He 
yanked her against the wall of the ravine, just as the shadow of a flier 
moved across their feet. The steep angle protected them, mostly, but 
Uldir still held his breath.  

The shadow moved on.  

"That was too close," he said. "Next pass we might not be so lucky."  

"Fine," she said. "What do you think we ought to do? Your friends don't 
seem to be showing."  

"I can signal them," he said, indicating his comlink.  

"You're just now thinking of that?"  

"No," Uldir said reluctantly. "I called them last night."  

"Last night? They're taking their time."  

"Our ship's in dry-dock. It might have taken them all night to get it out. 
Besides, it's not like I had exact coordinates to give them."  

"Maybe you would have if you hadn't had the stupidity to fly into a 
sweeper storm," she reminded him.  

"Me?" Uldir growled. "I was just trying to make the best of a bad situation, 
and you were no help. Maybe if you weren't so closed-mouth about what 
it is you're up to . . ."  

"Uh-uh," she said. "I can't trust you."  

"Not even now?"  

"No."  

"That's just great."  

"Why don't you stop whining and call your shipmates?"  

"I could do that, but those fliers would get a fix on us. If my friends aren't 
around, we'll only get caught faster."  

Klin-Fa slowed to a halt and gave him a glance as hard as durasteel. 
"Fast or slow, makes no difference," she said. "Either your crew found 
some way out here or not. Either we'll get caught or we won't. What, do 
you have a cushy retirement planned?"  

Uldir returned her glare, but she was right. He keyed on the comlink.  

"This is catchhawk one," he said. "Catchhawks, do you copy?"  

Static drizzled for a moment, then the voice of his second-in-command, 
Vega Sepen, answered him.  

"I hear you boss-boy. You're still alive, I guess." There was nothing in the 
tough Corellian woman's tone that suggested she'd been worried about 
him.  

"I'm in a bad spot, two, right between a supernova and a black hole. Did 
you manage to find some legs?"  

"Ah . . . sort of," Vega replied.  

"Great. Got a fix on me?"  

"Sorry. Don't have that sort of equipment on board, I'm afraid." There 
was a background gabble he couldn't quite make out ­ Vega talking to 
someone else ­ and some sort of music. Then Vega's voice came back. 
"Vook thinks he can triangulate with our comlinks. Can you keep 
sending?"  

"Sure," Uldir said. "Asyui-ln."  

"Understood. We'll get you boss-boy, sit tight."  

"What's that music?"  

"Nothing." 

"What in the Force are you flying, two?"  

Vega didn't answer.  

"If you keep sending, they'll be able to track us," Klin-Fa snapped.  

"Shh." He laid the comlink under a nearby rock. "I know that."  

"But your friends ­ "  

"My friends know that asyui-ln means 'not' in Dug." Uldir replied. "They'll 
look in a radius around the signal. Now, come on."  
 
"Wait," she said. In the next instant, she bounded up the side of the 
ravine, just as Uldir noticed the sound of the flier returning. Klin-Fa 
reached the lip of the chasm as the patrol vessel came over. Blaster fire 
kicked up dust around her feet, but she dodged lightly, and her lightsaber 
was suddenly on. In the next instant it was a whirling disk of brilliance, 
shearing through the nose of the flier. More blaster fire from somewhere 
else made a spectral bridge over the arroyo top, but by then, Klin-Fa had 
dropped back below the rim, the deadly lightsaber returning to her hand 
and extinguished.  

"Carbon flush!" Uldir breathed. Then she was rushing past him.  

"Move!" She shouted.  

They ran down the arroyo, cutting over a low rise into the next, then 
doubling back.  

Right into a patrol, four humans with enforcement blasters and a 
Yuuzhan Vong. They were less than two meters away.  

"Hey!" One of the humans shouted.  

Uldir didn't think. He hurled himself low and hard at one of the humans, 
feeling the heat of blaster fire scorch his back. He hit the man in the waist 
and they went down. Uldir hoped the others would be reluctant to shoot 
for fear of hitting their comrade. The two men rolled, and then rolled 
some more as Uldir suddenly realized that his mad tackle had taken 
them down yet another slope. Rocks dug angrily at his back as his 
opponent tried, with moderate success, to club him with the butt of his 
blaster. Fortunately, the blows were glancing, and by the time they 
fetched against a stone large enough to stop them, Uldir had managed to 
get one of his hands free for a sharp uppercut. He felt teeth snap 
together, and the officer went limp.  

Blaster fire cracked the stone that had arrested them. Frantically, Uldir 
dove away, at the same time searching for the officer's weapon. He 
found it a meter away, rolled and caught it up, then trained it back up the 
slope. Another shot dug into the sand centimeters from his knee. Uldir 
fired, missed, scrambled to his feet and ran up the slope shooting. His 
third shot hit an officer in the sternum and kicked him back out of sight.  

By the time he reached Klin-Fa, she had taken out the remaining officers 
and was in a swirl of motion with the Yuuzhan Vong. Like all of his kind, 
the warrior disdained the use of mechanical contrivances ­ he fought 
with an amphistaff, a living weapon that resembled a snake, at turns rigid 
and sharp and flexible and whip-like. Klin-Fa was having a hard time 
countering the furious, complex attack. Uldir raised his blaster to change 
the odds.  

At the same moment, another flier came over the ridge, blasters 
pumping. Swearing an Ettian curse he'd never quite understood but liked 
the sound of, Uldir dodged into cover behind a shelf of rock and fired 
back. His bolt ricocheted off of the side of the flier, and the answering 
shots pulverized his shelter. He could see the pilot grinning through the 
windscreen. Snarling, he broke out at a run, firing as he went. He couldn't 
get a proper bead, and his shots all either went wide or glanced off the 
tough metal of the flier. The pilot was having no such trouble aiming ­ 
hovering, his front-mounted blasters followed Uldir like a pair of fiery 
footsteps, getting closer. One bolt hit so close it caused him to stumble, 
and in a strange moment the world seemed to go entirely still. Uldir felt 
his finger depress the trigger a final time, and then the weapon went 
flying from his hand as his face smacked against the ground. He spat out 
the taste of blood and metallic dirt, waiting for the inevitable.  

The inevitable didn't come. Warily he glanced back up. The flier was still 
hovering, but the pilot wasn't smiling anymore ­ he was slumped 
sideways in his seat, and there was a neat hole in the windscreen.  

"Wow," Uldir breathed. Sometimes his luck surprised even him. He 
picked up the blaster and turned toward the sounds of combat, fearing 
what he would see.  

Klin-Fa was in his line of fire, but as he watched, she ducked beneath the 
whipping amphistaff and swept her leg at the Yuuzhan Vong warrior's 
foot. She clipped it, putting him slightly off-balance. He took a long retreat 
to correct for it, but Klin-Fa leapt high into the air, flipped over her 
opponent's head, and struck down at the same time. To his credit, the 
warrior caught the blow in a behind-the-back parry and spun to riposte. 
Klin-Fa, however, landed in a split, and the blow whistled over her head 
as she drew her blazing weapon through the Vong's midsection. He 
gaped and fell in two cauterized halves.  

He still took another swing at her, but the Jedi was back on her feet, 
dancing out of range.  

"For Yabeley," she snarled. Uldir wondered who or what Yabeley was.  

The Yuuzhan Vong watched her go, black eyes glittering with hatred.  

"Jeedai," he growled. "Your days are drawing to a close."  

"Not as quickly as yours," she said. Her voice was colder than night on 
the dark side of an airless moon.  

The Yuuzhan Vong spat blood. "Your blow was skilled," he said. "I salute 
you. But you will die. All of your kind will die. Even your own kind has 
turned against you."  

Klin-Fa gestured contemptuously at the downed officers. "These cretins 
are not my kind," she said. "I don't claim kinship with anyone foolish 
enough to believe the Yuuzhan Vong will stop their conquest of our 
galaxy simply because they turn Jedi over to you."  

The warrior smiled strangely. "It is not your galaxy," he said. "You have 
merely infested it for a time. We have come to end the infection, in the 
name of glorious Yun-Yuuzhan."  

"Our galaxy," Klin-Fa repeated, firmly. But the Yuuzhan Vong did not 
hear her. His gaze had wandered beyond the stars.  

Klin-Fa extinguished her saber and clipped it to her belt.  

"Hey," Uldir said. "Nice moves. But we're not out of this yet. I hear more 
fliers coming."  

"Let them come," Klin-Fa said, grimly.  

They did, three of them, and soon Klin-Fa was acting as a living shield, 
deflecting bolts as Uldir tried to hit the fliers or their pilots at some critical 
point. These pilots didn't hover, however, but began spreading out to 
encircle them. When that was done, it would be all over. Klin-Fa couldn't 
block fire from every direction.  

A bolt sang through her defenses and scorched Uldir's ear. Klin-Fa 
gasped as a second scored along her thigh, and the fliers tightened in for 
the kill. Uldir and Klin-Fa stood back-to-back.  

"Thanks for trying," Klin-Fa said. It sounded as if she really meant it.  

"No problem," Uldir replied. "It's my job." He wanted to say something 
else, but what it was exactly eluded him. He fired four shots at the 
nearest flier instead.  

"Do you hear music?" Klin-Fa asked.  

"Now that you mention it, yeah. I thought I was losing it." Two fliers had 
him firmly in their sights, now. He could try and dodge, but that would 
leave the Jedi's back unguarded. He repressed the urge to close his 
eyes. He'd watch death come for him, thank you, and stare it down until 
the last second.  

Except that the flier didn't fire. Instead, it was forced to turn at a barrage 
of small-arms fire sizzling against its hull. In fact, all of the fliers were 
under attack. One didn't turn fast enough to meet the new threat, and lost 
its aft stabilizer and repulsorlifts within a few heartbeats of one another. It 
wobbled and then dropped like a stone. One of the others banked up and 
caught it in the belly, dropped low and limped away smoking. Uldir fired 
after it, as something rather strange showed itself over the edge of the 
arroyo.  

A pair of gigantic eyes was staring down at them, set into a head at least 
a meter-and-a-half wide. From its gaping mouth, music was blaring. 
Stranger still, a figure seemed to be dancing on the head, spinning out 
streamers of bright green light.  

"What in ­ " he began, before it finally started making a twisted sense as 
he noticed the light was not streaking off randomly but harassing the 
remaining flier. The dancer was a Dug, balanced on one forepaw and 
firing blasters with his other three hand-feet.  

"It's Leaft!" he shouted.  

A thicker series of bolts joined the Dug's wild firefight with the flier, and 
Uldir made out a platinum-haired woman standing beside the head, 
which he could now see was mounted on some sort of hover-platform. 
That was Vega and her blaster rifle.  

"Come on!" Uldir told Klin-Fa.  

"That's your crack team of rescue pilots?" She asked, skeptically.  

"You better believe it."  

"Why are they riding on exec Lounha's head?"  

"I'm sure they have a good explanation," he replied.  

The two ran through a decreasing volume of skyborn fire until they 
reached the floater. Vega gave Uldir a hand up without looking at him, at 
the same time stitching red bursts through the windscreen of the last flier 
still in sight. It went down, leaving a blaze of flame across the far wall of 
the canyon.  

"That's three to your two," she called up to Leaft.  

"Hurr. Human luck," the Dug snarled down. "Next time ­ "  

Vega ignored her companion. "Vook," she called into the gigantic head. 
"We've got the boss. Now get us out of here."  

"Doing!" The Duro called.  

At an excruciatingly slow speed, the floater began drifting back toward 
the spaceport.  

"This is insane," Klin-Fa said. "Where are we going on this thing?"  

"Farther than you were going on foot," Vega said, dryly. "You okay, 
boss?"  

"I'm fine," Uldir replied. "But she has a point. One of the fliers got away, 
and besides, they must be in contact with their headquarters. We can't 
fight off another half-dozen fliers on this thing, let alone something 
bigger."  

"Hey, we did the best we could," Vega said. "This was the only thing we 
could find on short notice."  

Despite himself, Uldir cracked a grin. "A float from the parade? You were 
always good at improvising, Vega, I'll give you that."  

"You better believe it," Vega replied. "And I'm not done yet."  

"What's that mean?"  

"I got a call from Uvee right before we picked you up. He finally got the 
ship out of dry-dock. It's on the way."  

"Uvee?" Klin-Fa asked. "Another one of your aces?"  

"Our astromech," Uldir clarified.  

"An astromech flying a ship? Alone?"  

"He's not your ordinary droid," Uldir replied.  

"No," Klin-Fa said. "I don't expect he would be."  

                                       * * *  

The No Luck Required arrived about ten minutes later, flying a little 
erratically and landing with a bump that set Uldir's teeth on edge. He 
hadn't wanted to say so in front of the Jedi, but he'd had his own doubts 
about whether he would ever see his ship again after Vega's casual 
announcement ­ though he'd modified the UV-002 droid to fly the ship in 
emergencies, the reality was pure theory until now.  

Though the landing was a little rough, the droid seemed to have done 
okay, and it was good to see the rugged transport. They abandoned the 
floater and crowded up the landing ramp. Uldir went straight to the 
controls, where the readout was scrolling, Uvee talking to him from his 
mooring station.  

Hi boss-boy. How did I do? the droid translator read.  

"You did great, Uvee," Uldir said, making a mental note to keep Vega 
away from the astromech in the future. He hated being called "boss-boy." 
"Perfect."  

Shall I take us to orbit? "That's okay," Uldir quickly replied. "Take a rest. 
I'll get us out."  

"Fliers, four clicks," Vook said, from tactical.  

"That's just fine," Uldir said. "They can chew our exhaust." He punched in 
the drive, turned the ship skyward, and left Bonadan in a bloom of ions.  

Only much later ­ two jumps from Bonadan ­ did he relax, and then not 
much.  

"We still don't have shields," he noticed.  

"No," Vook said. "And the hyperdrive is ­ undependable. The repairs 
were not completed."  

Uldir blew out a breath and nodded. "Well, you take what you get," he 
said. "At least we have some drive capability. Where can we set down to 
finish repairs?"  

"Well, there's Shelter," Vega said. "That's close."  

"Yeah. And in the Maw. I won't try that run with a testy hyperdrive."  

"Good point. How about Mon Calamari?"  

"Sounds prudent."  

"No!" Klin-Fa interrupted. "We can't spare the time for that. You have to 
plot a course for Wayland, immediately."  

"Wayland?" Uldir said. "What in blazes are you talking about?"  

"And just exactly who are you?" Vega asked, her gaze tracing 
uncharitably up the Jedi's figure.  

"And what in space makes you think you can tell us what to do?" Leaft 
added, edging close to her, his teeth barred.  

Klin-Fa tensed, but otherwise ignored the threatening Dug.  

"I suppose introductions are in order," Uldir allowed. "Everyone, meet 
Klin-Fa Gi. She's a Jedi, if you haven't figured that out already. Klin-Fa, 
this is my crew ­ Vega Sepen, Leaft, and Vook Gehu."  

Vega nodded her platinum tresses curtly. Leaft continued to growl, and 
Vook turned his flat face toward her and nodded absently. "Pleased to 
meet you," the Duro said. He didn't sound pleased ­ he sounded doleful. 
Vook always sounded doleful.  

Klin-Fa wasn't distracted. "I have to get to Wayland," she said.  

"It's important."  

Uldir grinned sardonically. "But you won't tell me why."  

"I can't. I've explained that."  

"You want me to space her, boss?" Leaft asked, in a helpful tone.  

"Yes," Uldir returned, "but you'd better not. Klin-Fa, Wayland is in 
Yuuzhan Vong occupied space, in case you haven't heard. I'm not taking 
a ship in this condition there unless I have ample reason. You've given 
me no such reason."  

"I'm on a mission for Master Skywalker. That should be reason enough."  

"Sure. If I believed you, but I'm not sure I do. Trust goes both ways. You 
want me to take you to Wayland? Tell me why."  

"I can't."  

"Fine. Then we're going to Mon Calamari. Meanwhile I'll try to contact 
Master Skywalker and see what he has to say about this."  

"You're making a mistake."  

"I've been making mistakes since the moment I first saw you. Why 
should things be different now?"  

"Because the fate of the galaxy depends on what we do now, that's why. 
There's no time to lose."  

"So you say," Uldir said, shrugging.  

Klin-Fa's face registered barely concealed fury, and again Uldir felt 
something a little troubling in her presence. The feeling faded as she 
composed herself and vanished when she quirked a little grin, the first he 
had seen. He was right ­ it made her prettier.  

"I guess I wouldn't believe me, either," she admitted, reluctantly. "Fine. 
When you contact Master Skywalker, he'll confirm what I've said. But you 
ought to do it quickly."  

Uldir raised his eyebrows in surprise. "That sounds almost too 
reasonable."  

She shrugged. "What choice do you leave me? I'm at your mercy."  

"Great," Uldir said. He glanced at his filthy clothes. "I'm glad that's 
settled. We've got a long hyperspace jump ­ I for one, could use a 
'fresher. You could probably do with the same."  

"I suppose," she conceded.  

"You can go first. Vega will find you a change of clothes."  

                                     * * *  

An hour later, feeling considerably more human, Uldir met with Klin-Fa 
again in the ship's small lounge. She looked smaller in one of Vega's 
black jumpsuits, and younger, too.  

"Maybe we got off on the wrong foot," Uldir said. He stuck out his hand. 
"I'm Uldir Lochett. Pleased to meet you."  

She grinned wryly and took his hand. "Pleasure," she said.  

"You'd better watch that," he said.  

"What?"  

"That's twice now you've smiled. It might ruin your look."  

"If you'd been through what I have . . ." she began, but trailed of, her 
gaze going muddy, lost in a past that Uldir knew nothing about.  

"Yeah," he said. "Well, if you ever feel like talking about it, I'm a good 
listener."  

"Right. The soul of concern." She shifted. "So this is a Jedi rescue ship."  

"Yep. My little kingdom."  

"Looks kind of beat up."  

"Well, we don't like to attract attention. But she can do the job, when 
she's in good condition."  

"You're proud of her," Klin-Fa noticed.  

"Sure. And of my crew. You won't find better."  

"I don't deny the four of you seem to get through, somehow."  

Uldir couldn't tell if that was a compliment or not. He let it pass.  

"Want a look around?" He asked.  

"Well, you've seen one transport . . ."  

"Nah. C'mon."  

"Shouldn't you be trying to contact Master Skywalker?" She asked.  

"Vega's working on that. We have to bounce the signal around a good bit 
and put it through several layers of encryption. Takes time."  

"Not too much, I hope."  

"No. I expect an answer in an hour or so."  

She sighed. "Fine. I guess I'll take that tour."  

"Okay." he stood and started leading her around. "The chassis is an old 
Corellian medium transport," he explained, "but we've made a few 
changes."  

He took her up the shaft into the turbolaser turret.  

"Nice," she said, when she saw the armaments.  

"Turbolaser is state-of-the-art," he replied. "Cesium vapor, and packs a 
real mean punch. We can also target proton torps from here, as well as 
from the central panel. And there's an extra layer of plating."  

"But just one turret?"  

"Yep. I sacrificed the other for something better."  

"What's that?"  

"The best part. Come back up."  

She followed him to an access hatch.  

"This used to be the cargo hold," he explained, keying the hatch open. 
"Between that and the missing second turret, we made room for these."  

He finally had the pleasure of seeing her surprised.  

"Starfighters!" She breathed.  

"Yep," Uldir said, gesturing at the sleek little ships. There were four of 
them, nestled in a rotating frame. "We can only launch one at a time, but 
we can still get them all out in under a minute, if we have to."  

"A-wings," she noted, sounding somehow disappointed.  

"You know your ships," Uldir said. "They came out of the shipyards as A-
wings. Now they're a little something special ­ each has room for a 
passenger and emergency medical equipment. Sometimes we have to 
get into tighter places than the No Luck Required can go."  

"You use them to extract Jedi?"  

"And place them. We're not only in the rescue business ­ sometimes we 
ferry Jedi into Yuuzhan Vong space, when a mission calls for it."  

"Interesting. Things have changed a little since I've been away."  

"I guess so."  

"I see you sacrificed the escape pods, too," she mused. "But I suppose 
the A-wings can serve the same purpose."  

"Yeah. It's never come to that, but that's part of the plan. Number one 
there is even hyperspace capable, so if we have to split the mission or 
send for help, we've got the extra legs to do it."  

"Fine," she said. "You've impressed me." As if to belie that, she yawned. 
"Now, with all of this, do you have a spare bunk? I haven't slept in ­ well, 
I guess a week. I think I'll take the rest of that hour to have a nap."  

"No problem," Uldir said.  

After showing her to her bunk, Uldir went back up to where Vega sat at 
the controls.  

"Nice new friend you've got there," the Corellian commented.  

Uldir nodded. "Not bad with a lightsaber."  

"From what I saw, I'd say spectacular," Vega corrected. "Cute, too."  

"That I hadn't noticed."  

"No, of course not. You just instantly recognized her as Jedi in need of 
aid and chased after her."  

"I thought she was a thief," Uldir said, defensively. "I thought I'd help the 
local authorities catch her. I didn't know they were the bad guys."  

"Yeah," Vega said. "Speaking of which, I think we can mark the whole 
Corporate Sector down as unfriendly now. I did some checking up on 
that new exec, the one whose head we borrowed. From what I was able 
to glean, I'm guessing he's been in secret negotiations with the Yuuzhan 
Vong for two weeks now."  

"Given that there was a Vong in the search party, that's not surprising. 
And Klin-Fa said there was an executor on Bonadan."  

"Well, things just keep getting better and better don't they?"  

"Just makes things more interesting," Uldir said.  

"You can say that again. And you probably will. There's more hot 
systems every day."  

"It'll turn around, eventually," Uldir said. "Now that Master Skywalker has 
plans in motion."  

"You put an awful lot of faith in him," Vega said.  

"It's not faith. Faith is something you accept without proof. Master 
Skywalker and the Jedi have proven themselves time and again. It's the 
government of the New Republic that's gumming things up."  

"Don't be too sure," Vega said. "The Jedi are all well and good, but they 
aren't invincible." Her tone became somehow more cautious ­ and more 
leading. He knew Vega, and knew she was about to make a point of 
some sort, probably an unpleasant one.  

"What?" He said.  

"The Jedi. If even one of them turns to the dark side, we could have 
bigger troubles than the Yuuzhan Vong."  

"That's true, but I don't think it's likely." He tilted his head in suspicion. 
"You have a reason for bringing this up?"  

"Sure. Just how much do you know about this Klin-Fa Gi?"  

He hesitated.  

"Well?"  

"It's just ­ I got some disquieting feelings from her, back on Bonadan."  

"What do you mean?"  

Uldir frowned. "I'm not sure. Probably nothing."  

Vega twisted her mouth. "Look," she said, "I know you've got a little of 
this Force thing ­ ""Very little. What I have isn't dependable."  

"Maybe not. But don't let a pretty face distract you from what it might be 
telling you."  

He turned to her seriously. "What are you saying?"  

"Well, I got a feeling from her, too. Not one of your mystical ones ­ just 
the suspicion that something doesn't add up about her. And Wayland ­ 
why Wayland? I can think of only two possibilities, right off hand, to 
explain why a Jedi would want to go to Wayland."  

"I haven't had time to think about it all," Uldir admitted. "Fill me in."  

"Wayland is where Emperor Palpatine's secret toy-box was. All kinds of 
nasty dark side things on Wayland."  

"Not anymore," Uldir said.  

"Wrong. I've read the reports. Some of the Emperor's devices are still 
there ­ buried, yes, but still there."  

"Buried under a mountain," Uldir corrected.  

"Yes. But the Yuuzhan Vong are there now, and they have a way of 
digging things up, don't they?"  

Uldir acknowledged that with a tilt of his head. "But the Yuuzhan Vong 
don't exist in the Force," he pointed out. "Even if they found some kind of 
dark side weapon, they wouldn't be able to use it."  

"Probably not ­ but they might be able to learn something about the Jedi 
that will be of use to them." she held up a finger. "So that's one possibility 
­ they've studied the Emperor's old tech and are developing some sort of 
anti-Jedi weapon. Our new friend learned of this somehow and is off to 
foil their evil plot."  

"You mentioned two possibilities."  

Vega unfolded a second finger. "The other possibility is that they've 
found something Klin-Fa Gi thinks she can use herself."  

"You're saying she's gone dark."  

"I'm saying she's angry. Even I can see that. And aren't you always 
telling me that anger is of the dark side?"  

"I think she lost someone," Uldir said. "She mentioned a name, when she 
killed the Yuuzhan Vong warrior. And I'd be angry too, if my home planet 
was doing its level best to turn me over for sacrifice."  

"Does the reason she's angry really matter? So she feels justified in 
whatever she's planning. Would that make it any better?"  

"But if Master Skywalker ordered her to Wayland ­ "  

"Well, that's the problem," Vega said. "He didn't."  

"What?"  

She tapped a readout. "This came in just before you did. Klin-Fa Gi was 
killed on Gyndine, or presumed so, two months ago. And Master 
Skywalker doesn't know anything about any mission to Wayland."  

"Oh. Carbon flush."  

"Yeah. You see."  

"What does Master Skywalker want us to do?"  

"Bring her in for debriefing, as soon as possible."  

Uldir nodded wearily. "I guess that's what we'll do, then."  

"Where is she now?"  

"Taking a nap. Or at least ­ " he paused. "Does the air smell funny to 
you?"  

Vega's eyes widened, just as Uldir felt his ears pop.  

He turned quickly to his instruments. "Vaping Moffs! We're losing air 
pressure."  

At that moment, the ship shuddered as if struck, and the lights went out. 
Cursing, Uldir brought emergency power online. "We've dropped out of 
hyperspace!" He said.  

"Interdicted?"  

"No. The drive failed."  

"I bet it didn't just fail," Vega said.  

"I bet you're right," he agreed. "Vega, get back there. Don't be afraid to 
shoot."  

"It's too late," the Corellian told him.  

But Uldir saw that, too. A-wing one was just crossing their field of view, 
under full acceleration. An instant later it vanished into hyperspace.  

"Vook!" Uldir shouted. "Get that vector!"  

"Got it, boss," the Duro's voice replied. "But we have our own troubles."  

The air was getting really thin now. "She's opened us to space," Uldir 
growled. "That little ­ "  

"And sabotaged the hyperdrive," the Duro added. "We aren't going 
anywhere, sir. We're stranded here."  

"Nearest planet on slower-than-light?" Uldir asked, grimly.  

"Two years away, sir. The stars are sparse out here."  

"Like I said," Vega drawled. "Things just get better all the time."  



                     Chapter 3 : War on Wayland 


Space was about to kill Uldir Lochett and his crew in a most unpleasant 
manner. Although it wasn't the first time the void had tried to snuff him out ­ not 
by a gigaparsec ­ Uldir still had plenty of objections.  

"We're losing atmosphere, fast," He muttered, combing his fingers through the 
switches and indicators at the helm of his transport, the No Luck Required. "But 
where?" His voice already sounded unnaturally thin, and his eardrums felt like 
they were going to explode. How soon before his blood started to boil?  

Stop thinking about that. That's not helping.  

"Where do you suppose?" asked Vega Sepen, his first officer, her eyes flashing 
like corusca gems beneath her platinum bangs. "It's not complicated. Your 
girlfriend jammed the starfighter bay open."  

"Well, seal if off!" he snapped, returning the Corellian's glare. "And do not call 
her my girlfriend."  

"Touchy," Vega said. "You shouldn't let one little spat bust up a good thing. I 
mean, she only sabotaged our hyperdrive, stole our only hyperdrive-capable 
starfighter, and left us bleeding air."  

"Yeah? You sound jealous to me, Sepen," he snapped.  

"Oh, yes, of course," Vega said, studying the system indicators. "I've got the big 
hurt for you, all right. I'm going to make my move as soon as you're out of 
diapers."  

Her voice sounded weird. The falling pressure, probably.  

"Boss . . ." Vega went on, in a more normal tone.  

"What?"  

"It won't seal."  

"Sithspawn!" He raised his voice, trying to project it through the thinning air. 
"Vac suits, everyone, now!" He rose to his feet and found his legs wobbly. He 
suppressed a giggle as the situation suddenly seemed amusing. Was harder-
than-corundum Vega Sepen actually jealous of the rogue Jedi? Vega was like a 
tough older sister ­ there had never been anything between them.  

Nor was there anything between him and Klin-Fa Gi. She had been an irritating 
mynock on his hull from the second they met, and that was before she had tried 
to kill him and his crew.  

Another funny thing, this one a real side-splitter. He was pretty sure he didn't 
have time to make it to the storage lockers before passing out. Why hadn't he 
thought of the vac suits first? Where was his brain?  

Oh, right. Starving for oxygen.  

He couldn't help it. He laughed at that one. The galaxy was the best practical 
joker ever.  

He was still chuckling when he tripped over Leaft. The Dug had collapsed in a 
pile, his limbs sticking up at odd angles. His normally ferocious face actually 
looked sort of cute with no surly consciousness to animate it. And he had 
brought some blankets to curl up on, or was it laundry?  

No, those are the vac suits, you idiot, some stubbornly rational part of Uldir 
snarled. You forgot. Leaft didn't.  

His vision was blurring. He didn't have long. He put the helmet on first and 
twisted the feed valve, then started shimmying into the suit. The fresh air 
smelled good, but his lungs couldn't get much of it ­ not enough pressure, 
without a seal between suit and helmet.  

A bunch of black holes suddenly appeared in the bulkhead. Yuuzhan Vong 
voids? Were they under attack, now, on top of everything else?  

"That's it," he muttered. "I give up."  

He did, too, as the black holes devoured the ship, the light, and finally Uldir 
Lochett.  

                                            * * *  

He awoke to the hiss of air in his helmet. The flat face of a Duro was staring at 
him with concern. The Duro was wearing a vac suit. It took him a confused 
moment to understand that it was Vook, the fourth member of his crew. It took 
only another heartbeat to recall his last memories.  

"Leaft, Vega! We have to ­ "  

"Already done, Boss-boy," Vega's voice sounded tinny in his helmet transceiver. 
"We're all okay. Leaft's a little on the puny side ­ "  

"I'm fine," the Dug snarled. He sounded more groggy than convincing.  

"Good work, Leaft, going for the suits," Uldir said. "Next time, remember to put 
yours on first. Always."  

"Hrrm. Basic training. Wasn't thinking straight, though." Leaft sounded 
chagrined, which was a rarity. "Thinking like a human," he added. That was 
more like Leaft. Uldir was relieved.  

"Vook was thinking straight, at least," Vega said.  

Vook looked embarrassed, but said nothing.  

"Okay," Uldir said, wobbling to his feet. "Let's see what's wrong and fix it."  

"And then?" Leaft growled.  

"Then we go get our starfighter back and make a certain Jedi experience a 
great deal of remorse."  

                                         * * *  

Uldir was with Vook in the engine crawlway, puzzling over the defunct 
hyperdrive, when Vega stuck her head down from above.  

"We got the outer doors sealed," she said.  

"And the inner?"  

"Well, it's good news and bad news," Vega allowed. "The bad news is she cut 
through the inner doors with her lightsaber, so we're going to have to patch 
them. Leaft's on that. The good news ­ I guess this is good news ­ she didn't 
jam the outer doors on purpose. She banged the mechanism with the A-wing 
when she took off."  

"Then she didn't intend for us to die," Uldir mused.  

"Think not? So you plot she hasn't gone over to the dark side?"  

"If she were truly rogue, she would hardly have any compunction about killing 
us. She could have torped us, for that matter, to make sure of it."  

"I think you're still woozy," Vega said. "She stranded us in Vong space without a 
hyperdrive, twenty light-years from anywhere. She cut the hyperwave antenna, 
too, so we can't call for help. That in itself is a death sentence. A slow, cruel 
one. Very dark."  

"Maybe she figured we could fix one or the other."  

"She knew we were already in bad shape, that we needed supplies to effect 
repairs." Vega cocked her head. "Don't forget, she's on her way to Wayland. 
She must be after some of the Emperor's old toys. Even if she hasn't given in to 
the dark side, she must be right at the shatter zone."  

"Yeah," Uldir assented. "I'll give you that. We just have to hope she hasn't gone 
over. At least the Jedi still have a few friends left. A Dark Jedi could lose them 
what little support they have. It would be all the hard-liners in the Senate need 
to make the policy of turning Jedi over to the Yuuzhan Vong legal."  

"That could be the least of it, if she finds any of the Emperor's weapons," Vega 
said. "We know from experience how much damage a single Dark Jedi can do."  

"Yes," Vook said softly, "but if that damage were to the Yuuzhan Vong, it is to 
be desired."  

"Vook . . ." Uldir throttled his immediate retort. The Duro had lost his homeworld 
to the Vong. He was understandably upset.  

"I can't imagine how you must feel, Vook," Uldir said. "But the dark side can 
never be the answer. I didn't learn a lot at the Jedi academy, but I did learn 
that."  

Vook blinked slowly and was silent for a moment.  

"I can repair the hyperdrive," he said, apparently dodging any debate.  

"You can?"  

"Yes. She cut through one of the motivator-engine linkages. That's easily 
repaired. However, when we dropped from hyperspace, the resulting surge 
spread out over the rest of the system and fried the remaining motivators. I can 
realign the one good one to handle the engines, but only for two, maybe three 
jumps. Then it burns out, too."  

"That's terrific," Vega said. "Can we make Mon Calamari?"  

"Yes."  

"No," Uldir said. "We're going to Wayland."  

Vega fixed him with her steely eyes. "And just how will we leave, once we get 
there? Don't forget, the Yuuzhan Vong have a base on Wayland, too."  

"We'll deal with it when the time comes," Uldir replied. "As it is, my last 
instructions from Master Skywalker were to bring her in for debriefing. That's 
what we're going to do."  

"You're not thinking with your head, boss," Vega said.  

"And that's enough of that." Uldir said. " It's not funny anymore." He turned to 
Vook. "How long until it's done?"  

"Three hours, maybe four."  

"Fine. Get to it. Vega, you'll help me get us as battle-ready as possible." He 
raised his voice. "Leaft, how are the repairs on the inner doors coming?"  

"Faster if you'd let me work in peace," the Dug's voice came back over the 
intercom.  

Vega was still staring at him. Her eyes and the set of her frame told him she 
was unhappy with his decision. He didn't like to resort to pulling rank, if he could 
help it. It was always better when your crew agreed with you. But in this case he 
wasn't going to entertain any discussions. He would not, could not be 
responsible for giving a Dark Jedi even the slightest opportunity to resurrect any 
of the Emperor's old technology. Not even if it killed them all.  

                                         * * *  

The No Luck Required dropped out of hyperspace with a bone-jolting thud. The 
inertial compensators whined and g-force tried to suck Uldir's brain out of his 
right ear. A great green world filled most of his view, far too near.  

"Nice jump, boss," Vega said.  

"What happened?" Uldir demanded, of no one in particular. "We're lucky we 
didn't end up starfood, coming out this close to a singularity."  

Vook answered. "The motivator failed during the jump," he said. "We are no 
longer hyperdrive capable."  

"Well, at least you got us here. Good work, Vook."  

"Yes sir," Vook murmured, and added, "We're doomed now, sir."  

"No we're not," Uldir replied. "I want you to start exploring options. See if you 
can cannibalize enough parts to put together one jump, to anywhere. Scan the 
system for any hulks we might be able to salvage from. Anything. Just get me 
one more jump, Vook."  

The Duro's expression remained unreadable, but he shrugged. "Okay," he said.  

"Boss," Vega said, "I've got three objects turning our way."  

"Perfect," Uldir said. "What are they?"  

"Coralskippers."  

Uldir toggled on the intercom. "Leaft, you hear that?"  

"Yes," the Dug grunted. "I'm in the turret already."  

Uldir flipped to long-range scanners. There were the skips, all right. Like all 
Yuuzhan Vong tech, the skips were living creatures, modified by advanced 
biotech into deadly killing vessels. Uldir had dealt with enough of the small 
furies to know that even one was a problem ­ three made for a very bad day 
indeed.  

"It could be worse," he sighed.  

"I've got a corvette analog coming around the planetary horizon," Vega said. "I 
estimate we have about eight minutes to handle the skips before were have it to 
deal with, as well."  

"Ah," Uldir said. "So worse. Remind me not to say that again."  

"What would be the point in that?" Vega asked. "You don't seem to be handling 
advice all that well these days, even your own."  

"And you're plotting a course toward insubordination, fast," Uldir snapped, 
starting the ship on a series of evasive maneuvers. "Vook, we've still got full 
maneuverability?"  

"In sublight, yes."  

"Fine."  

"Permission to speak, sir," Vega said stiffly.  

"Vega . . ." he sighed. "What?"  

"You don't need me here ­ you've got Vook for fire control and repair and Leaft 
for the turret. Let me take out a starfighter. Even the odds a little."  

"That's a fine idea."  

"Great." She reached for the buckles of her crash harness.  

"Two minutes until maximum range," Vook said.  

"Wait," Uldir said. "I meant taking a starfighter out is a good idea. But I'm taking 
it. You assume command of the No Luck Required."  

"Boss, that's ­ "  

"Listen to me. We can't slug it out with every skip in the system. Try to cover my 
exit with a barrage ­ dump some garbage, too, and I'll go out cold silent. Then I 
want you to get going ­ hide someplace, on the planet, in orbit running silent ­ 
whatever. Once I'm clear of the fight, I'll find Klin-Fa Gi, grab her, and bring her 
back."  

"Right. Grab a Dark Jedi."  

"I'm the only one of us with any Force sense at all," Uldir said. "So I'm the only 
one who even stands a chance of even finding her." he paused. "Anyway, I 
brought her on board. It was my decision to come after her. I'll take the 
consequences."  

Vega looked like some nasty insect had stung her inside her mouth.  

"I don't like it," she said.  

"You don't have to. I'll find you, don't worry."  

"One minute," Vook said.  

"Rotate fighter two," Uldir said. With that, he left the helm and hurried toward 
the starfighter bay.  

                                          * * *  

A globular bolt of plasma greeted Uldir as his A-wing cleared the fighter bay. He 
jerked reflexively at the stick ­ forgetting he was powered down ­ but he was 
still inside of the No Luck's shields, which the blast spread across in rainbow 
fluorescence. Gritting his teeth, he let the tiny ship drift in the cloud of released 
garbage. He watched as a spread of proton torpedoes from the Luck winked 
into silent fiery starlets, accompanied by a fusillade of energy bolts from Leaft's 
position in the turret. His finger itched on the power-up switch. Had the 
coralskippers seen his ship emerge and targeted him specifically, or was the 
near-miss merely coincidence? He would know in a few seconds. He had drifted 
clear of the shields, now, and though the A-wing had many non-factory 
modifications, its shields were not upgraded. A single solid hit and he wasn't 
merely out of the action, he was dead.  

But the skips were too busy to notice him, thanks to his crew. One was already 
carrying a livid wound where one of Leaft's lasers had singed along the yorik 
coral, heating it to incandescence. As he watched, another took the fringe blast 
of proton torp. For a moment, he thought the fight would be over quickly.  

No such luck. He watched, drifting and feeling helpless as the skips closed to 
their most effective range and the tables turned. Leaft still needled at them with 
deadly accuracy, but the shots stopped dead in space meters from the organic 
starfighters. The Yuuzhan Vong ships didn't have shields as such ­ instead, the 
same dovin basals that furnished their gravitic drive opened tiny singularities 
which swallowed anything they touched ­ concussion missiles, torps ­ even the 
coherent light and particles of a blaster bolt vanished into them without a trace. 
They had their limits of course, and Republic pilots had learned a trick or two 
about slipping the occasional shot through those gravitic defenses, but it was no 
easy going. Meanwhile, the skips bombarded the No Luck Required with gobs 
of supercharged plasma, fired from what look for all the world like miniature 
volcanoes set in the rough surface of the coralskippers. Now they avoided the 
arc of the turret gun, diving in close. Vega couldn't effectively fire missiles from 
that range, both because she wasn't likely to hit and because the resulting 
concussion would damage the transport as well.  

"Go, Vega, go!" He muttered. "What are you waiting for?"  

But then the Luck's drive kicked on and a stream of hot ions engulfed one of the 
coralskippers, whose pilot had clearly forgotten that an ion drive made an 
effective if short-range weapon in itself. The voids couldn't swallow all of that. 
The skip flared orange, yellow, blue ­ and was gone.  

"That's it!" Uldir muttered, watching the No Luck Required dwindle with 
astonishing speed. The remaining skips went after her, of course, though they 
had little chance of catching her if she didn't let them. Unless the Vong fighters 
were hyperdrive capable, which he didn't think they were.  

The corvette analog probably was, but it wouldn't go faster-than-light until it was 
a little farther from the planet. But if they spotted him . . .  

He resisted holding his breath as the larger ship cruised by only eight kilometers 
off his lower starboard. If it noticed him, it gave no indication.  

New light caught his eye, as some of the junk ejected with him hit Wayland's 
outer atmosphere and began to burn. One eye still on the passing cruiser, he 
reached for his stick. It wouldn't do for him to hit the atmosphere wrong. Too 
shallow an angle and he'd skip off into space. Too steep and he'd be 
incinerated. Time for a little course correction.  

He didn't bring the ship to full power, instead firing maneuvering thrusters from 
independent power sources. That steepened his approach. He reached for the 
stick ­ and gaped at what he saw on his sensors.  

Three little blips, launched from the cruiser, all headed his way.  

So they had been watching the jettisoned junk, and he had revealed himself.  

No use cursing the void, his grandmother used to say. It'll get you in the end, 
and you might as well be on good terms. He went to full power, dropped his 
nose, and dove planetward. The skips accelerated after him.  

"That's right fellows," Uldir grunted. "Bring those flying rocks into the soup with 
me."  

He bumped through high-altitude clouds of ice crystals that shattered the light 
from Wayland's primary into rainbow and diamond. He flattened his descent a 
little, noting that the less aerodynamic coralskippers were dropping behind his 
speedier ship. Their weapons, effective enough in space, lost range in 
atmosphere. He could probably outrun them easily enough.  

He rolled into a tight turn. He couldn't afford to take that chance ­ he could 
outdistance the skips, all right, but they could keep him spotted until craft more 
apt for atmosphere could vector in on him. Uldir had met a few of their fliers, 
and some were pretty nasty. If he didn't want to have to deal with fighting the 
Vong the whole time he was searching for Klin-Fa Gi, he'd better do something 
about this now.  

He aimed his prow at the coralskippers as they hit the turbulence he'd just 
passed through. He opened up with laser cannons, not really thinking to do 
much damage at this range, but hoping the brief opening and closing of their 
voids would roughen the air around them and sap some of their energy 
reserves. When he was in range, he gave them the present he'd been planning 
on ­ a concussion missile. The weapon was one of his own modification, 
equipped with a gravitometric sensor. As soon as it sensed a void, it would go.  

It blew some ten meters from the lead skip. At such short range, in an 
atmosphere, a concussion missile had considerable authority, expanding air in 
a supersonic sphere that slapped the lead coralskipper back the way it had 
come. The other two had begun peeling away, but not far enough, and both 
went tumbling. Uldir braced for the milder jolt when the wavefront reached him 
and began using his laser cannons in earnest, stinging one of the tumbling 
skips. From his peripheral vision he noted the lead skip falling planetward, 
apparently unchecked by its gravitic drive. The third skip he could no longer 
see, but instinct told him he had a few seconds before it picked up his tail.  

Yellow plumes of vaporizing coral sent the skip ahead of him pitching and 
yawing, making it more difficult to hit, but it didn't seem to be using its voids at 
all. He almost had a solid lock, but that's when the warning in his head went off 
­ time was up. He yanked on the stick up and port ­ and felt blood rush to his 
head. He'd been right ­ streamers of plasma boiled by where he'd been. He 
tightened into a loop. Both skips were below him, now. He noticed with 
satisfaction that the fire from the one behind him had struck its brother a 
glancing blow, and it was burning.  

Almost laconically, Uldir drilled the final skip and then sprinted toward the forest 
far, far below.  

                                         * * *  

When he was a few meters above the treetops he leveled out and called up a 
map of the planet. It was well detailed, but few features were actually named. 
One of them was a dot in the northern hemisphere on the big continent labeled 
"Mount Tantiss." Wayland had been the Emperor's secret for many years, listed 
on no star chart due to ­ of all things ­ an ancient clerical error. Mount Tantiss 
had been his arcanum and storehouse. Grand Admiral Thrawn had tracked the 
planet and the mountain down after the Emperor's demise, bent on finding 
weapons that would help him reclaim what the Empire had lost. Later, Master 
Skywalker and some of the other heroes of the Rebellion had found it as well 
and destroyed the mountain with a seismic explosion.  

If Klin-Fa Gi was really a Dark Jedi, the ruins of Mount Tantiss were probably 
where she was headed.  

He brought up the transponder overlay. Not surprisingly, it confirmed his 
suspicions ­ the A-wing seemed to be motionless on exactly that spot. Grimly 
he changed his heading to take him there, keeping a wary eye on long-range 
sensors. 

                                         * * * 

Uldir found the A-wing abandoned and hidden by a makeshift covering of huge 
leaves fallen from the canopy above. He took a deep breath, listening, 
watching, and smelling the jungle around him, trying to reach out with the 
limited Force ability he commanded.  

From above, Wayland had looked much like Yavin 4, where he had attended 
the Jedi academy. Here, on the ground, the similarities seemed superficial. 
Although both Wayland and Yavin's moon had land masses covered mostly in 
jungle, Wayland's rose higher and stratified into two canopies. The air of Yavin 
4 had been spiced with the scent of blueleaf. Here the atmosphere lay heavily 
on the forest floor, musky and ripe with decay, whirring, buzzing, and click-
clackering with the sounds of unfamiliar fauna. He remembered how dangerous 
the jungles of Yavin 4 had been, and there he had known something of what to 
expect. This world he did not know at all. The sounds around him might be 
harmless insects or the Wayland equivalent of Yavin's piranha beetles, which 
could strip a person to the bone in the time it took a Toydarian to beat its wings.  

Still, he was pleased to discover that Klin-Fa Gi seemed even more out of her 
element here ­ her trail of scuffed leaf litter and bent or broken understory was 
easy enough for him to pick up. It led, as he suspected, up through the foothills 
surrounding what had once been Mount Tantiss. Somberly, he shouldered a 
survival pack, his blaster, and a few concussion grenades and set off after her.  

At least, he hoped it was her.  

It wasn't long before Uldir found evidence that he was indeed following the Jedi 
and not some strange and clumsy beast. Unfortunately, that evidence came in 
the form of the five corpses ­ sentients, by the look of them, two different 
species. Neither of the species were Yuuzhan Vong, which meant they were 
probably locals. Whoever they were, they had been killed by a lightsaber ­ few 
weapons left the same distinct, cauterized slashes as a Jedi's signature 
weapon.  

Grimly, he studied the scene for details. Three of the dead were of a tall, 
ectomorphic species with six limbs, of which four apparently functioned as 
arms. They had flexible snouts and their skin ­ where bare of the hides and 
bone ornaments they wore ­ glistered like an insect's carapace.  

The other two were squat, powerful in appearance, and naturally armored with 
bony plates on their rounded backs. Like those they lay beside, they seemed to 
have been basically bipedal.  

Uldir had never seen either species before, not in the space lanes or among 
slaves that the Yuuzhan Vong used as shock troops. That wasn't surprising ­ 
there were plenty of beings in the galaxy who weren't space-going, either 
because they didn't have the technology or the inclination, and he remembered 
from his all-too brief scan of the files on this planet that it was supposed to have 
several intelligent species, all at an essentially stone-age level of technology.  

When he saw what they gripped in their dead hands, however, Uldir's blood ran 
cold. Now he understood something about why they had died. At first glance, 
their weapons resembled clubs, spatulate on one end and pointed on the other, 
about thirty centimeters in length. Uldir had seen such weapons before, but 
even if he hadn't he would have noted something strange in the way that they 
slowly wriggled, flexing from side to side like Hothan glacier worms. They were 
alive, and unmistakably of Yuuzhan Vong biofacture.  

He studied the bodies more carefully, searching for other signs of the Yuuzhan 
Vong, wondering if these creatures had been slaves or willing allies. He found 
no sign of the coral implants the invaders used to control unwilling subjects, 
which seemed to suggest they were allies.  

Still, there were many means of control, and Yuuzhan Vong knew most of them.  

As he reached to turn one of the short, armored sentients over to inspect his 
underside, he suddenly realized that something was wrong. The forest sounds 
around him had changed, with most of the animal life having fallen silent. He 
drew his blaster ­ casually, as if he really only meant to brush the side of his 
trousers.  

"Lay down shame weapon!" A piping voice commanded in heavily accented 
Basic. "Lay down shame weapon or breathe-not you, offworlder!"  

To emphasize the point, a quivering shaft appeared as if by magic in the tree 
nearest him. Uldir hesitated ­ he had seen arrows before. They had a primitive 
but effective way of making holes in people. On the other hand, he had a 
blaster, which made bigger, more efficient holes. But the voice was behind him, 
and he didn't know how many there were . . .  

Whoever it was could have killed him already. He might as well see what the 
odds were, and what they had to say. He raised his arms slowly, turning toward 
the voice. He did not lay down the blaster.  

The speaker was a stripe of color in the underbrush, hard to see, but Uldir could 
make out that it was one of the slender, six-limbed humanoids. Uldir breathed 
slowly and deeply, his eyes tracking through the strange leaves for others.  

"Lay down shame weapon," the creature said again.  

Uldir kept the weapon above his head, pointed at the sky, but did not do as 
demanded. He nodded his head at the corpses. "I didn't kill your friends," he 
said. "I found them like this. I'm in pursuit of the one who did this."  

He heard faint rustlings in the brush all around him, and his heart sank. He had 
probably lost his opportunity to shoot his way out of the situation, if he'd ever 
had one.  

Looking at the dead, however, he found part of him was glad of that.  

The creature made a faint trumpeting sound. "If kill Cut-Up-Wish-to-bes, not our 
enemy," he stated. "Lay down shame weapon. Not tell again."  

"I won't be defenseless," Uldir said. "I know what the Yuuzhan Vong do to their 
captives. I won't be taken captive."  

Another trumpeting sound, this one trilled. An answering call came from 
someplace to his left.  

"We not friends of the Cut-Up-People," the sentient said, emphatically. "Never 
we fodder them."  

Uldir could see two more of them now, both of the stockier race. They bore 
bows, arrows, and stone axes with wooden hafts, like the one who had been 
speaking. None of them carried anything that looked like Yuuzhan Vong 
biotech. Uldir's shoulders relaxed a tick. Deliberately, he returned his blaster to 
its holster and raised his hands, palm outwards.  

"The Yuuzhan Vong are my enemies," he said. "If you are also their enemies, 
we are friends."  

The thin figure swayed forward. "Outworlders not friends," he said. "They bear 
shame, and bear it upon us."  

"I came here only to find the one who left this trail," Uldir said. "When I have her, 
I will leave. I mean you no harm." He indicated himself. "My name is Uldir 
Lochett."  

The creature regarded him for a moment. "You offer name?" He said at last.  

"Yes. I offer my name."  

The being seemed to consider that for a moment. "I offer in return. I am called 
Txer. I am leader of the Free People."  

"Pleased to meet you, Txer."  

Txer then said something in his native language, and several of the others ­ 
Uldir now guessed about fifteen ­ responded to him. It seemed to be a debate, 
of sorts, and he suspected the point debated had something to do with whether 
Uldir got to keep breathing or not. Finally Txer chopped both of his upper hands, 
and silence fell. He moved closer to Uldir, until they stood only about two 
meters apart.  

"You follow the one who made this trail. She is strong."  

"Yes," Uldir said.  

"We hear her battle with Cut-Up-Wish-to-bes. Come to see. Hear your shame-
thing land, watch you. You come only for her? Is truth?"  

"Yes," Uldir replied.  

"Why follow her? If they who fight Cut-Up-People your friends, why not her? 
Your words have Offworld poison in them, maybe."  

"It's complicated," Uldir said. "Yes, she is enemy to the ­ er, Cut-Up-People. But 
I fear she seeks something here, something the Emperor left. Do you know of 
the Emperor?"  

Txer trilled loud and long, then babbled again in his own language. A few of the 
others responded, sharply, and all of the creatures Uldir could see brandished 
their weapons. His hand itched toward his blaster.  

"Dark man," Txer said, finally. "She seeks the things of the Dark Man."  

"Yes, I suppose so," Uldir replied.  

"So do Cut-Up-People," Txer replied. "They make holes, deep and long, in 
cracked mountain."  

"Yes," Uldir said. "They look for his secrets. So does the one I follow."  

"Must not to allow," Txer said, his voice a thin wisp. "Cut-Up- People bad. Dark 
man worse. All things of shame, his. I remember." His luminescent eyes 
narrowed. "Also remember some outworlders who broke mountain, buried his 
things. You cousin to them?"  

"Sort of," Uldir replied.  

Txer tilted his long head thoughtfully, then spoke some more to his people.  

"We also follow this trail," he said, simply.  

"I'll appreciate your help," Uldir replied.  

"Not to help you," Txer said. "To watch."  

                                           * * * 

They traveled for the rest of the daylight through steadily steepening terrain. 
Twice, for no reason Uldir could tell, they hid in thickets, remaining utterly silent 
until some unspoken signal released them to walk again. That night they 
camped in the cavernous shelter of the gnarled roots of a fantastically huge 
tree.  

"Why do you call my weapon a shame weapon?" Uldir asked Txer, as the light 
faded to nothing.  

"Is shame to use. Not from life." He paused, searching for words. "Machine," he 
said at last, as if the word bit him on the way out of his mouth.  

"Oh," Uldir replied. It made sense ­ these were people who lived simply off what 
the land provided. Given that the Empire had been here, most of their 
experiences with technology had probably been of the negative sort.  

"Is that why some fight for the Cut-Up-People? Because they also hate 
machines?" That was putting it mildly, of course. The Yuuzhan Vong considered 
all "dead" technology to be an abomination, and those who used it so unclean 
as to deserve extermination. Their conquest of the galaxy was more of a holy 
war than one for territory ­ they had long since conquered worlds enough for 
their people to live on.  

"Wish-to-bes think like this, yes," Txer replied. "They say Cut-Up-People like us. 
They are not. Life is for respect. They do not respect life. They break it, twist it, 
make it as they want, make it foul. They do same to us."  

"You're right about that," Uldir told him. "I've seen it happen, on world after 
world. And in the end, those who help them suffer more than those who resist 
them."  

"Offworld wisdom we do not need," Txer said, stiffly. "Free People see this for 
themselves. Need not your eyes to see."  

"I understand that," Uldir said.  

"We fight them, like we fought Dark Man," Txer went on.  

Stone weapons against the Vong? Uldir thought. That was an uneven fight. 
Unless the equation changed, the Free People were doomed.  

"I should go on alone, when the light comes," Uldir said. "I don't want to put your 
people in danger."  

"We fight them," Txer said firmly. "And if you lie, we fight you too. We fight until 
offworlders all gone, or until we all die. Sleep now. Tomorrow we enter Cut-Up 
territory, and then no sleep."  

Uldir spent a restless night trying not to worry about his crew, hoping they were 
still alive and had managed to find a hiding place. He did not think Klin-Fa Gi 
would stop to sleep, and he felt her drawing ahead of him, and that made him 
even more anxious.  

When he did sleep, his mind built dreams whose architecture was darker than 
the night.  

                                         * * *  

"The jungle looks sick," Uldir remarked the next morning. The upper canopy 
looked ragged and skeletal, and the lower was covered with what looked like a 
fine mold or dust.  

"Yes. Will get sicker," Txer assured him.  

It did. Soon they were walking through only the memory of a forest; the mighty 
trunks were still there, but no hint of green or color of blossoms was anywhere 
in evidence ­ only a drab, charcoal gray.  

"What did this?" Uldir asked.  

Txer rubbed his mouth. "Not know. No one living has seen what does it. No one 
dead talks about it."  

A kilometer later the trees became charred stumps, obviously scorched by 
some high heat. The burned zone went off to his left and right for as far as he 
could see.  

Two kilometers later, even the stumps were gone, and they stood on a high 
ridge looking across a shallow valley at what remained of Mount Tantiss.  

Under force of the seismic disruption, the peak had shuddered and collapsed. 
This side of the mountain had slumped and become a rolling, churned slope of 
talus. On this vast jumble of basalt, at about the same level he now stood on, 
grew the Yuuzhan Vong base.  

Five of the living compounds looked to be star-shaped, or at least radially 
symmetrical. This sort of structure Uldir had seen before, in records taken by an 
erstwhile smuggler named Talon Kaarde. Called damuteks, the Yuuzhan Vong 
had grown some on the ruins of the Jedi academy when they'd captured the 
Yavin system a few months earlier. Uldir's old friend Anakin Solo had fought his 
way through a damutek and had reported a lot of useful information about them.  

"I think those are Shaper compounds," Uldir told Txer.  

"Shapers?"  

"Yes. The Yuuzhan Vong are divided into castes. The Shapers are the ones 
who make their biotech ­ ah, who twist life into the shapes they want. You 
understand?"  

"Yes. Have seen ­ not as cut-up as those who fight. Have hair like nest of brvol-
snakes."  

"Shapers, right. Those compounds are their laboratories. But what's that thing?" 
He indicated something that resembled a squat cylindrical tower, albeit a 
crooked one. It was huge, at least a hundred meters high and nearly that in 
diameter. Like the damuteks, it looked as if it were made of coral. Unlike them, 
its upper surface seemed to be perforated with hundreds of openings, each of 
which must be a meter or so in diameter.  

Uldir lifted his macrobinoculars and examined the base of the thing more 
closely, but he couldn't tell much else except ­ yes, it seemed to be slowly 
rotating, as if boring into or out of the ground.  

"It's a drill," he muttered.  

"Makes holes," Txer said. "We think, anyway."  

"A big hole. That's some kind of giant worm, I'd guess, or was before their 
Shapers got hold of it."  

"But one thing we never reckon," Txer said. "If digging, where puts-it rock?"  

Uldir looked at Txer, reminding himself that primitive didn't mean stupid.  

"That's a good question," he replied. "I guess it digests the rock, somehow, 
breaks it down. He shrugged. "Doesn't matter. But look, see those capillaries 
connecting the mine to the rayed compounds?"  

"Yes."  

"Those must be ways down into the mines the worm is digging. If they find 
anything, they'll bring them up through there. Which means I'll find Klin-Fa Gi 
either in the mines or in one of those compounds." He sighed. "In other words, 
she could be almost anywhere down there."  

He moved the macrobinoculars down, and the multitudes of figures moving 
amongst the compounds resolved into recognizably Yuuzhan Vong shapes, but 
there were plenty of Myneyrshi ­ the tall spindly race ­ and Psadans, the 
armored ones ­ as well. There were also more than a few humans, of which 
Txer's band also included a number ­ the descendants of a long-lost colony, if 
he understood their story correctly.  

He focused on the nearest group, who seemed to be tending some sort of 
plants that grew on slope, just above where the burned zone ended. They were 
about a hundred meters away, and Uldir saw no Yuuzhan Vong guards.  

"Maybe I can pass for one of them," Uldir speculated. "If they've caught Klin-Fa, 
there ought to be talk about it. If they haven't, there might be talk about that 
too."  

But looking up at the complex, he didn't feel much hope. He didn't have the 
leisure time to insinuate himself into the Yuuzhan Vong camp the way Anakin 
Solo had done on Yavin 4 ­ Vega and the rest were out there, possibly fighting 
for their lives, waiting for him to finish his mission here and get back into space. 
Every second he spent here was a risk not just to his own life but to his crew's, 
and for that matter to everyone he and his crew might have rescued if they 
weren't here chasing one rogue Jedi.  

"Jedi," he murmured, and Txer narrowed his eyes.  

"What Jedi?" He asked, suspiciously. "You Jedi?"  

"No, I'm not. The one I chase."  

Uldir closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to ignore his body, his thoughts, 
his immediate surroundings, to feel through the living Force around him. To 
search for Klin-Fa Gi. She was probably the only living Jedi on Wayland, and 
the Yuuzhan Vong did not appear in the Force at all. Klin-Fa ought to stand out 
like a Wookiee at a Tintinna wedding, even to his less-than attuned senses.  

The sounds around him faded thin and were forgotten. In the outward-reaching 
eye of his mind, he was a sphere, expanding, not so much taking in all that he 
touched, but reminding himself that he was already a part of it.  

He felt the belt of sickly life behind him, growing stronger as it marched away 
from the Yuuzhan Vong settlement. He felt the verge of death and pain he stood 
on, and the odd blankness of the Yuuzhan Vong themselves. He felt the 
fractured stones of Mount Tantisss.  

Part of him was excited. He'd never commanded this sort of clarity in the Force, 
even on his best day at the academy.  

And yes, better still, there, a flicker, he felt Klin-Fa Gi, and it seemed she was 
near. He felt her heart pounding, sensed danger, a goal reached, something 
desired found . . .  

Then a black spike of anger and despair struck him between the eyes, and a 
shriek of hatred that was somehow more the taste of salt and bitter Jiqui peels 
than a sound.  

His tenuous hold on the Force snapped, replaced by another sensation, a sort 
of burring in his bones.  

It took him a moment to understand the feeling was coming from beneath him, 
up through his feet, that it was the ground trembling. And it was growing 
stronger. He opened his eyes, gazing at the ruined mountain, at the terrible 
Vong-thing growing into it.  

Something was different, but it took him a moment to place it. Then he saw, but 
still didn't understand. The tower was larger, puffy, bloated looking.  

"Txer," he said, "Run. Now." He bolted down the hill, across the blasted 
landscape toward the Yuuzhan Vong settlement.  

"Why?" Txer shouted from behind him.  

"Just do it!" He didn't have time to explain that he wasn't quite sure why, but that 
if he waited to think it through they would all be dead.  

A glance behind him showed Txer and his Free People still hesitating. "Come 
on!" he howled.  

Txer started forward. After that, Uldir kept all of his attention on the rocky path 
and the rumbling in the planet that grew stronger with each footfall. He ran, 
hoping the Free People followed ­ hoping his luck hadn't betrayed him at last.  

He'd reached the bottom of the foothill they'd stood upon and just started up the 
slope toward the damuteks when he heard shouts from the sentients behind 
him. The Psadan, who were basically armored spheres, were mostly rolling 
down the hill. The Myneyrshi were having a bit more trouble with their delicate 
looking legs. As they started uphill, however, their positions were reversed. The 
Myneyrshi pulled themselves gracefully up the slope with their six limbs, while 
the Psadan began to lag behind. It was Txer who first shouted and exclaimed, 
and Uldir followed the direction the fellow indicated with his gaze. The vibration 
in the ground was rattling his teeth, now.  

The tower bristled. From each of the hundreds of openings on its upper surface, 
a snaky tube emerged and lengthened, arcing in unison out over the valley and 
toward the foothills in what looked like slow motion, but which, given the 
distances involved, was probably quite fast. Each of the tubes was headed for a 
slightly different destination. Many of them seemed to be coming straight toward 
Uldir.  

Uldir quickened his pace.  

"What is?" Txer asked.  

"We have to make it out of the burned zone!" Uldir shouted. "To the first of the 
Yuuzhan Vong gardens."  

He glanced up, and could see the dark mouths of the tubes facing down now, 
like cave worms coming to take a bite out of him. How low did they have to get? 
The sky was full of the arcing shafts now, some aimed far beyond the ridge. It 
might have been curiously pretty if he didn't remember the perimeter of 
destruction, if the burned zone didn't fit so well with the geometry of what he 
was seeing.  

They were about to find out what the drilling-worm digested rock into, and he 
didn't think they were going to enjoy the enlightenment.  

The end of the scorch-zone was just ahead, but the Psadans weren't doing so 
well. One stumbled, and Txer supported him. Another slipped back near Uldir. 
He bit his lip. If he paused to help the Psadan, he might die, which was one 
thing, but then he would fail his mission, which was altogether another. He 
couldn't . . .  

No. Whatever else his mission was, first and foremost it was to help his fellow 
being in need.  

He put a shoulder under the Psadan's stout arm, and together they struggled 
toward the strip of green ahead. They had maybe thirty meters to go ­ some of 
the Myneyrshi had already reached it.  

The sky was a vault of black cords now, and an opening wide enough to 
swallow Uldir was dropping swiftly toward him. He didn't think it would swallow 
him, though. He wondered, in fact, if he would feel much of anything.  

The smaller rocks on the hillside were actually rattling now, from the pressure 
building below them. Any moment now . . .  

Uldir's foot struck a rock wrong, and he slipped down, his ankle twisting painfully 
as the Psadan's weight fell disproportionally on him. Grunting apologetically, the 
Psadan tried to lift him into a carry.  

"Too late," Uldir muttered.  

He didn't see the yellow-and-black clad figure until she was beside him, until her 
strength had flowed into him and he and the Psadan were practically carried 
forward to the edge of the Yuuzhan Vong fields by the power of the Force.  

"You're an idiot, Uldir Lochett," Klin-Fa-Gi informed him.  

The Free People shouted as one, as out and across the valley the hundreds of 
tubes coughed out a fluorescent orange haze. The smell was lightning against 
stone, hot copper hitting water. The haze collected in low spots, cooling to blood 
red and then nearly black, rolling over the hills in an expanding torus which left 
the Yuuzhan Vong base and gardens ­ and thankfully, Uldir Lochett ­ 
untouched in the center.  

"What is it?" Txer asked, waving at the terrifying sight.  

"Mining vents," Klin-Fa Gi said, briskly. The Chom-Vrone chews up rocks and 
digests into a state of semi-plasma in a process a lot like the weapons their 
skips use. When it has a full load, it spews it in a perimeter around their 
settlement, as you see. Keeps things clear and undesirables out."  

"Yeah," Uldir grunted. "Or almost all of them, anyway." He noticed that she had 
a few new wounds, though none of them looked serious. She also had 
something strapped to her back, something wrapped in layers of what seemed 
to be living tissue.  

"What's that you've got?"  

"Never mind that now," Klin Fa said. "We've other troubles." She pointed. 
Coming down in a wave from the settlement above were dozens of Yuuzhan 
Vong warriors. Behind Uldir, the curtain of superheated rock vapor was still 
spreading. They could face the warriors or fry.  

"Well," Uldir grunted. "At least we have our backs to a wall."  

     To Be Continued in Insider #62. . .