Star Wars - [New Jedi Order 06] - Balance Point (by Kathy Tyers)

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Balance Point

Kathy Tyers

[15 apr 2003 - scanned by wizbookz]

[12 may 2003 - proofed by friendy]

They appeared without warning from beyond the edge of galactic space a warrior race called the

Yuuzhan Vong, armed with surprise, treachery, and a bizarre organic technology that proved a match -

too often more than a match - for the New Republic and its allies. Even the Jedi, under the leadership of

Luke Skywalker, found themselves thrown on the defensive, deprived of their greatest strength. For

somehow, inexplicably, the Yuuzhan Vong seemed to be utterly devoid of the Force.

The first strike caught the New Republic unawares, as it struggled to deal with rebellion sown by

Yuuzhan Vong spy Nom Anor and his agents. With the New Republic force thus occupied, the alien

advance fleet launched their first assault, which destroyed several worlds and killed countless beings -

among them the Wookiee Chewbacca, loyal friend and partner to Han Solo.

During a brave attempt to contact and make peace with the enemy, Senator Elegos A'Kla was murdered

by Yuuzhan Vong commander Shedao Shai, who delivered the body to Elegos's close friend, Jedi

Corran Horn. Horn then challenged Shai to a duel - the prize being the planet Ithor. Horn bested Shai,

but the Yuuzhan Vong destroyed Ithor nonetheless.

The New Republic government unraveled a little more with each setback. Soon the Jedi Knights

splintered under the strain. Chafing under what some perceived as Luke's excessive caution, a renegade

group of Jedi under the leadership of Kyp Durron advocated using every available resource to defeat the

Yuuzhan Vong - including unbridled aggression, which could lead only to the dark side. The philosophical

dispute drove a wedge between the Solo brothers, Jacen and Anakin, while sister Jaina focused instead

on her new role as a pilot with the elite Rogue Squadron.

Consumed with guilt for failing to save Chewbacca, Han Solo turned away from his family, seeking

expiation in action - and foiled a Yuuzhan Vong plot to eliminate the Jedi. Han returned with what

seemed to be an antidote to the debilitating illness Mara Jade Skywalker endured. But not even that

victory could erase the loss of his dearest friend - or mend his marriage to Leia.

Leia, too, was beset with guilt. By disregarding a vision of the future, Leia feared she had condemned the

Hapan fleet to ruin at Fonder. A pitched battle at the shipyards was shattered by a weapon of

uncontrollable destructive power fired from Centerpoint Station - a weapon armed by her younger son,

Anakin.

Now, as the Yuuzhan Vong tighten their noose and press inward toward Coruscant and victory, Luke

and Mara, Han and Leia and their children, as well as the New Republic itself, must find the balance they

have lost - before there is nothing left to lose.

Prologue Lieutenant Jaina Solo rolled her X-wing fighter up on its port S-foil and shoved her throttle

forward. A seed-shaped Yuuzhan Vong coralskipper had been harrying her wingmate. As it went

evasive, a minuscule black hole appeared just off its tail and gulped down every splinter of laser energy

Jaina poured into it.

She matched her X-wing's speed to the skip's and pursued. There'd been dozens of battles since Colonel

Gavin Darklighter invited her to join Rogue Squadron. Her pride hadn't faded, but the thrill sure had. Too

many midnight scrambles. Too much death, too little sleep.

But I'm in Rogue Squadron, she reflected, feathering her throttle,not because of who my parents are, and

not because the force is strong in my family .

But based on her own piloting skills. Besides, Rogue Squadron ought to include at least one Jedi Knight.

The skip she was chasing swooped toward the Bothan Assault CruiserChampion .Champ was flying

cover for another refugee convoy. Kalarba's industrialized moon, Hosk, already wobbled in its orbit. The

situation was hauntingly similar to Sernpidal's last hours, almost ten months ago. There would be even

greater losses, here - to the Kalarbans. But to Jaina, like her dad, Sernpidal had been a tragedy that

might never be matched.

Vaping these skips wouldn't bring back Chewbacca, but it helped deaden Jaina's bitter memories.

Keeping one finger on her stutter trigger, she showered the coralskipper with crimson laser splinters.

Multiple bursts of low-power energy tired and distracted the skips' energy-sucking dovin basals. As the

colonel once put it, "Tickle its teeth, then ram a fist down its throat."

Her sensor showed the vortex draw back slightly, a little closer to the enemy ship that projected it. On

her primary screen, a Chiss clawcraft swooped in from behind. "Covering you, Rogue Eleven."

Now!Jaina tightened her index finger on the main firing control, loosing a solid burst from all four of her

lasers. The skip's tiny, projected gravity well bent her laser blast, but she'd shot high to compensate. The

anomaly sent two of her shots wild. It focused the other two exactly where she wanted them, painting the

crystal-paneled cockpit with flaming sheets of light.

We've got the tactics to beat them in an even fight, now. But it's never even. They keep killing us and

keep coming. Their ships even heal themselves!The Yuuzhan Vong had converted whole worlds into

coralskipper nurseries and blasted one of the New Republic's biggest military shipyards, at Fondor.

Surviving major yards - Kuat, Mon Calamari, Bilbringi - had gone to full alert, with carrier groups

deployed to defend them.

Crystal shards and hot gravel blasted off the coralskipper, propelling it into a slow spiral out of the fire

zone. The Yuuzhan Vong pilot didn't eject. They all died with their ships - by choice, it seemed.

Andstill they kept coming, while New Republic pilots were pulled home to defend their own systems.

"You're clear, Ten," Jaina exclaimed.

"Thanks, Sticks."

"Anytime." Jaina pulled to starboard and spotted a catastrophe in the making. "Rogues, more skips

coming in at 349 mark 18. They're headed forChamp 's drive nacelles."

"Copy that." Major Alinn Varth, commander of Jaina's flight, put an edge on her voice. "Time to make

coral dust. Eleven, Twelve. On me."

Jaina double-clicked her comm to acknowledge the order, then pushed her throttle forward. She inverted

her X-wing, following Rogue Nine overChampion 's ventral surface, so close and so low she could

almost count rectennae and rivets.

Brevet Admiral Glie'oleg Kru, a Twi'lek, commandedChampion . Since Fondor, Jaina heard about a

newly made captain or admiral at almost every engagement. Other worlds recently lost - Gyndine,

Bimmiel, and Tynna. Here at Kalarba, Jaina's intelligence briefer had speculated that the aliens were

trying to cut the Corellian Run, a vital hyperspace route to the Rim. Druckenwell and Rodia had just gone

to full alert.

Another convoy of Kalarban ships, including dozens fleeing the ruin of Hosk Station, had just jumped.

Despite all efforts to find and destroy a huge dovin basal the Yuuzhan Vong had obviously dropped on

Kalarba, Hosk was losing altitude with each orbit. Its Hyrotii Zebra fighters were long gone, all ten of its

turbolasers disabled. Enemy vessels that showed on her screen as many-legged creatures pursued the

metal-sheathed moon, gobbling up shuttles that lagged behind the convoy. Hosk's polar cluster of towers

was already skewed more than thirty degrees from its normal orientation. Soon Kalarba would be

another dead world, useless even to the Yuuzhan Vong.

Jaina roundedChampion 's starboard fighter docking bays into a blazing free-for-all. Three coralskippers

jumped her, flinging brilliant plasma bolts. Her pulse pounded as she went evasive, juking in all directions

without thinking, keeping her right middle finger tight on the secondary trigger.

"Sparky," she ordered her astromech droid, "I need one hundred percent shields at thirteen meters."

Letters flashed on her heads-up display as the R5 unit, her companion ever since joining Rogue

Squadron, complied just in time. Static buzzed in her headset. A dovin basal grabbed for her shields.

Another new skip vectored low and to port. Jaina feathered her etheric rudder and shoved the stick

over, chasing while stars spun.Just that much closer, Vong. Just that much closer ...

Her torp brackets went red with a lock-on. Triumphant, she squeezed off a proton torpedo. As it rode

blue flame toward the alien fighter, she held course, squeezing off more scarlet splinters, distracting the

dovin basal -

"Eleven," a voice cried in her ear. "Break starboard!"

Hutt slime!Jaina goosed her throttle and broke, pitching against her flight harness. The X-wing

shuddered. "I'm hit," she cried. Adrenaline made her clench the controls. She eyed her primary board.

"Still got shields, though." She feathered stick and rudder, bringing the X-wing about. "And maneuvering."

But now she was mad. Coralskippers, designated scarlet on her heads-up display, swarmedChampion

and its defenders. But one, swooping back towardChampion , had to be the skip that just put scorch

marks on her S-foils.

She rammed her throttle forward.

Now she saw the big enemy ship astern ofChampion . Just smaller than a Star Destroyer, its

configuration reminded her of some weird marine creature. Its thickest arm pointed forward, probably

command and control. Two thinner arms stuck out dorsally, two ventrally. From the ventral arms,

blinding plasma was already pouring out atChampion .

Two flights of New Republic E-wings swooped in to hit the new arrival. Staying hot on her skip's tail,

Jaina squeezed her stutter trigger.

"Rogues." The colonel's cry caught her off guard. "Somebody just suckedChamp 's shields. Get clear!"

What had they done, brought in another big one just out of Jaina's line of sight? She wrenched her stick

and punched for full speed.

She was passingChampion 's port nacelle when light broke through from deep inside. Slowly, with an

eerie, fatal beauty, a seam opened onChamp 's glossy side.

"Sticks," a voice shouted in her ear. "Eleven, get clear!"

"Full power, Sparky!" Jaina called. "Go -"

The blast flung her against her instrument panel. Rudder pedals seemed to crush up through her legs. Her

cockpit's sides buckled, then vanished. A siren shrieked in her ears, blaring in rhythm with a synthesized

voice.

"Ejection. Ejection."

She flailed down into the Force, grasping desperately. Almost ...

A white explosion of pain washed awareness away.

Chapter 1 Jacen Solo stood with his father outside the mud-block refugee hut they were sharing on

Duro. Jacen's brown coveralls had accumulated a layer of grit and dust, and his wavy, dark-brown hair

fell over his ears, not quite long enough to pull back in a tail. Under a translucent gray dome, tension

wrapped around him like a Zharan glass-snake - invisible, but so palpable through the Force that he

could almost feel its coils constrict.

Something was about to happen. He could feel it coming when he listened through the Force. Something

vital, but ...

What?

A Ryn female - velvet-furred with a spiked mane, her tail and forearm bristles graying with age - stood

talking to Jacen's dad, Han Solo.

"Those are our caravan ships," she bellowed, waving her hands. "Ours." She snorted, and the

breathwhonked through four holes in her chitinous beak.

Han swung around, narrowly missing Jacen with his left arm. "And right at this moment, we can't afford to

take them offworld to run systems checks. You've been in a restricted area, Mezza."

Splashes of red-orange fur highlighted Mezza's soft taupe coat.

Her blue tail tip trembled, a gesture Jacen had learned to interpret as impatience.

"Of course we've been in the ship lot," she snapped. "There's never been a security fence Ryn couldn't

get inside, and those are our caravan ships. Ours." She tapped her threadbare vest, which covered an

ample chest. "And don't tell me totrust you, Captain. We do. It's SELCORE we don't trust. SELCORE,

and the people up there." She waved her arm skyward.

Han's mouth twitched, and seventeen-year-old Jacen could almost feel him trying not to laugh. Jacen's

dad could sympathize with refugees making unofficial reconnaissances, especially on board their own

ships. But Han was in charge, now. Instead of showing his amusement, he was supposed to enforce

SELCORE regulations - publicly, at least, for the sake of a few juvenile offenders. He and Mezza would

undoubtedly settle the real issues later, in private.

So Han plunged back into the argument.

Jacen watched the show, trying to pick up one more piece of the puzzle he felt in every cell of his being.

Trained as a Jedi and unusually perceptive, he could tell that the Force was about to move. To shift.

This time, he didn't dare miss the clues.

His right cheekbone twinged. He touched it self-consciously, then swept his hair back from his face. It

needed cutting, but no one here cared what he looked like. His legs were still growing, his shoulders

broadening. He felt like an awkward hybrid of trained Jedi and barely grown boy.

He leaned against his hut's outer wall and stared out over his new home. The dome had been engineered

by SELCORE, the New Republic Senate Select Committee for Refugees, to hold a thousand settlers.

Naturally, twelve hundred had been squeezed in. Besides these outcast Ryn, there were several hundred

desperate humans, delicate Vors, Vuvrians with their enormous round heads - and one young Hutt.

And the relentless Yuuzhan Vong kept sweeping across the galaxy, destroying whole worlds, enslaving

or sacrificing planetary populations. Lush Ithor, lawless Ord Mantell, and Obroa-skai with its fabulous

libraries - all had fallen to the merciless invaders. Hutt space and the Mid Rim worlds along the Corellian

Run were under attack. If the Yuuzhan Vong could be stopped, the New Republic hadn't figured out

how.

Han Solo stood with his left hand on his hip, arguing with Mezza, who led the larger of two Ryn clan

remnants, but keeping one eye on the transgressors, a group of youths about Jacen's age, with fading

juvenile stripes on their cheeks. The Ryn clans occupied one of Settlement Thirty-two's three

wedge-shaped arrays of blue-roofed huts. The synthplas dome arched overhead, as gray as the polluted

mists that swirled outside.

Jacen had been blessed - or cursed - with a sensitivity that he once hid behind labored jokes, and he did

find it easy to see both sides of almost any argument. Part of his job here was to help his dad negotiate.

Han tended to cut to solutions, instead of listening to both parties' points of view. Han had chased the

Ryn over half the New Republic, trying to gather his new friend Droma's invasion-scattered clanmates.

As world after world closed its doors to refugees, the Ryn had been beggared, duped, and betrayed.

They'd taken terrible losses. They needed a sponsor.

So a reluctant Han Solo registered with the burgeoning Select Committee for Refugees. "Just long enough

to settle them someplace." That was how he explained it to Jacen, anyway.

Jacen had fled here from Coruscant. Two months ago, the New Republic had called him and his brother

Anakin to Centerpoint Station, the massive hyperspace repulsor and gravity lens in the Corellian system.

There'd been hope that Anakin, who had activated Centerpoint once before, could enable it again.

Military advisers had hoped to lure the Yuuzhan Vong into attacking Corellia, and they meant to use

Centerpoint as an interdiction field, to trap the enemy inside Corellian space - and then wipe them out.

Even Uncle Luke hoped the station might be used only in its shielding capacity, not as a weapon.

The New Republic might never recover from the catastrophe that followed.

Jacen could see stress in his dad's lined face and his labored stride, and in the gray growing into his hair.

Even after all these years of hobnobbing with bureaucrats and tolerating his wife's protocol droid,

patience clearly wasn't his strong suit.

Standing on the beaten-dust lane outside the Solos' hut, Mezza's opposing clan leader twisted his own tail

between strong hands. The fur on Romany's forearms, and the tip of his tail, stood out like bleached

bristles.

"Soyour clan," Han said, pointing at Romany, "thinksyour clan" - pointing now at Mezza - "is likely to

hijack our transport ships and strand everybody else here on Duro? Is that it?"

Someone at the back of Romany's group shouted, "I wouldn't put it past them, Solo."

Another Ryn stepped forward. "We were better off in the Corporate Sector, dancing for credits and

telling fortunes. At least there we had our own ships. We could hide our children from poisoned air. And

even more poisonous ... words."

Han stuck his hands into his dusty coverall pockets and caught Jacen's glance. Jacen could almost look

him in the eye, nowadays.

"Any suggestions?" Han muttered.

"They're just venting their frustrations now," Jacen observed.

He glanced up. The gray synthplas dome over their heads had been imported in accordion folds and

unfurled over three arched metal struts. The refugees were reinforcing it with webs of native rock fiber,

roughly half the colony working double shifts to strengthen the dome and their prefab huts. The other half

labored outside, at a pit-mine "reservoir" and water purification site assigned by SELCORE.

Abruptly Han flung up an arm and shouted, "Hey!"

Jacen spun around in time to see one young male Ryn somersault out of Romany's group and crouch for

fisticuffs. Two from Mezza's group body-blocked him with surprising grace. Within seconds, Han was

wading into an out-and-out melee that looked too graceful to actually endanger anyone. Ryn were natural

gymnasts. They swung their opponents by their bristled tails, hooting through their beaks like a flock of

astromech droids. They almost seemed to be dancing, playing, releasing their tensions. Jacen opened his

mouth to say,Don't stop them. They need to cut loose.

At that moment, he collapsed, his chest flashing with fire as if he'd been torn open. His legs burned so

fiercely he could almost feel hot shrapnel. The pain blasted down his legs, then into his ears.

Jaina?

Joined through the Force even before they were born, he and Jaina had always been able to tell when the

other was hurt or afraid. But for him to sense her over the distances that lay between them now, she

must've been terribly -

The pain winked off.

"Jaina!" he whispered, appalled. "No!"

He stretched out toward her, trying to find her again. Barely aware of fuzzy shapes clustering around him

and a Ryn voice hooting for a medical droid, he felt as if he were shrinking - falling backwards into

vacuum. He tried focusing deep inside and outside himself, to grab on to the Force and punch out - or

slip into a healing trance. Could he take Jaina with him, if he did? Uncle Luke had taught him a dozen

focusing techniques, back at the academy, and since then.

Jacen.

A voice seemed to echo in his mind, but it wasn't Jaina's. It was deep, male - vaguely like his uncle's.

Making an effort, Jacen imagined his uncle's face, trying to focus on that echo. An enormous white vortex

seemed to spin around him. It pulled at him, drawing him toward its dazzling center.

What was going on?

Then he saw his uncle, robed in pure white, half turned away. Luke Skywalker held his shimmering

lightsaber in a diagonal stance, hands at hip level, point high.

Jaina!Jacen shouted the words in his mind.Uncle Luke, Jaina's been hurt!

Then he saw what held his uncle's attention. In the dim distance, but clearly in focus, a second form

straightened and darkened. Tall, humanoid, powerfully built, it had a face and chest covered with sinuous

scars and tattoos. Its hips and legs were encased in rust-brown armor. Claws protruded from its heels

and knuckles, and an ebony cloak flowed from its shoulders. The alien held a coal-black, snake-headed

amphistaff across its body, mirroring the angle of Luke's lightsaber, pitting poisonous darkness against

verdant light.

Utterly confused, Jacen stretched out through the Force. First he sensed the figure in white as a

respected uncle - then abruptly as a powerful depth, blazing in the Force like a star gone nova. But

across this slowly spinning disk, where Jacen's inner vision presented a Yuuzhan Vong warrior, his Force

sense picked up nothing at all. Through the Force, all Yuuzhan Vong did seem utterly lifeless, like the

technology they vilified.

The alien swung its amphistaff. The Jedi Master's lightsaber blazed, swept down, and blocked the swing,

brightening until it washed out almost everything else in this vision. The Yuuzhan Vong's amphistaff

seemed darker than any absence of light, a darkness that seemed alive but promised death.

The broad, spinning disk on which they both stood finally slowed. It focused into billions of stars. Jacen

picked out the familiar map of known space.

Luke dropped into a fighting stance, poised near the galaxy's center, the Deep Core. He raised his

lightsaber and held it high, near his right shoulder, pointing inward. From three points of darkness,

beyond the Rim, tattooed assailants advanced.

More of them? Jacen realized this was a vision, not a battle unfolding in front of him, with little to do with

his twin sister.

Or maybe everything to do with her! Did these new invaders symbolize other invasion forces, more

worldships - besides the ones that were already beating back everything the New Republic could throw

at them? Reaching out to Jaina, maybe he had tapped the Force itself - or maybe it broke through to him.

The galaxy seemed to teeter, poised between light and darkness. Luke stood close to the center,

counterweighing the dark invaders.

But as their numbers increased, the balance tipped.

Uncle Luke, Jacen shouted.What should I do?

Luke turned away from the advancing Yuuzhan Vong. Looking to Jacen with somber intensity, he tossed

his lightsaber. It flew in a low, humming arc, trailing pale green sparks onto the galactic plane.

Eyeing the advancing horde, Jacen felt another enemy try to seize him anger, from deep in his heart. Fear

and fury focused his strength. If he could, he would utterly destroy the Yuuzhan Vong and all they stood

for! He opened a hand, stretched out his arm ...

And missed.

The Jedi weapon sailed past him. As anger released him, fear took a tighter hold. Jacen flailed, leapt,

tried stretching out with the Force. Luke's lightsaber sailed on, shrinking and dimming with distance.

Now the galaxy tipped more quickly. A dark, deadly tempest gathered around the alien warriors.

Disarmed, Luke stretched out both hands. First he, then his enemies, swelled to impossible sizes.

Instead of human and alien figures, now Jacen saw light and darkness as entirely separate forces. Even

the light terrified him in its grandeur and majesty. The galaxy seemed poised to plunge toward evil, but

Jacen couldn't help staring at the fearful light, spellbound, burning his retinas.

A Jedi knows no fear... He'd heard that a thousand times, but this sensation was no cowardly urge to

run. This was awe, it was reverence - a passionate longing to draw nearer. To serve the light and transmit

its grandeur.

But compared to the forces battling around him, he was only a tiny point. Helpless and unarmed, besides

- because of one moment's dark anger. Had that misstep doomed him? Not just him, but the galaxy?

A voice like Luke's, but deeper, shook the heavens.Jacen , it boomed.Stand firm.

The horizon tilted farther. Jacen lunged forward, determined to lend his small weight to Luke's side, to the

light.

He misstepped. He nailed for Luke's hand, but missed again. And again, his weight fell slightly - by

centimeters - toward the dark enemies.

Luke seized his hand and held tightly.Hang on, Jacen! The slope steepened under their feet. Stars

extinguished. The Yuuzhan Vong warriors scrambled forward. Whole star clusters winked out, a dark

cascade under clawed enemy feet.

Plainly, the strength of a hundred-odd Jedi couldn't keep the galaxy from falling to this menace. One

misstep - at one critical moment, by one pivotal person - could doom everyone they'd sworn to protect.

No military force could stop this invasion, because it was a spiritual battle. And if one pivotal person fell

to the dark side - or even used the ravishing, terrifying power of light in a wrong way - then this time,

everything they knew might slide into stifling darkness.

Is that it?he cried toward the infinite distance.

Again, Jacen perceived the words in a voice that was utterly familiar but too deep to be Luke's.Stand

firm, Jacen.

One of the Yuuzhan Vong leapt toward him. Jacen gasped and flung out both arms -

And grabbed a flimsy bedsheet. He lay on his back, on a cot under a corrugated blue synthplas roof. The

room was bigger than a refugee shelter. It had to be the medical end of the dome's hardened control

shed.

"Junior," another familiar voice drawled. "Hey, there. Glad you could join us."

Jacen looked up into his father's wry half smile. Worry lines crowded Han's eyes. Behind him, the Ryn

named Droma clutched and twisted his soft red and blue cap, and his long mustachios drooped. In recent

months, Droma had become his dad's ... what? His friend, his assistant? Certainly not a partner or

copilot, but a real presence.

The settlement's most valuable droid, a 2-IB medical unit that Han pirated no-one-knew-where, lingered

on Jacen's other side, retracting a flexible breath mask.

"What happened?" Han looked befuddled. "Hit your head on the way down? Skinny, here -"

Droma pointed at the droid and finished Han's sentence. "- wants to dump you into the bacta tank." Ryn

were shrewd observers, perceptive enough to lock into other people's thought patterns and finish their

sentences.

Han swung toward his friend. "Listen, bristle-face. When I want to say something, I'll say it -"

"Jaina," Jacen managed. The back of his skull throbbed in rhythm with his pulse. Evidently hehad hit it as

he fell. He almost opened his mouth to describe what he'd seen, but he hesitated. Han was already

confused by Jacen's emotional paralysis, and the way he'd begged out of the other Jedi's rescue and

fact-finding missions. As hard as Jacen had tried to pull back from Jedi concerns, the Force wouldn't

leave him alone. It was his heritage, his destiny.

And if the fate of billions rested on a balance point so narrow that one misstep could doom everyone, did

he dare even mention his vision until his own path seemed clear? He'd almost gotten himself enslaved

once, following a vision into danger. The Yuuzhan Vong had gone so far as to plant one of their deadly

coral seeds against his cheekbone. Maybe this time, he'd been given a private warning to steer clear of

some dangerous course. Would he know it when it opened up in front of him?

This vision hadn't eased his confusion at all.

"What?" his father demanded. "What about Jaina?"

Jacen squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to trivialize the Force by using it to ease a headache.What is it , he

begged the unseen Force,that you want me to do?

Or would he cause the next galactic catastrophe by trying to prevent it?

"We've got to contact Rogue Squadron," Jacen blurted. "I think she's been hurt."

Chapter 2 At the control shed's other end, a shapely young Ryn female sat near the middle of a wall of

mostly dark displays, cradling a child in her lap. The colony's resident Hutt - Randa Besadii Diori - lay

snoozing along the near wall. His long tan-colored tail twitched.

"Piani." Han Solo stepped into the main room right behind Jacen. "We need a line out."

The smile faded below Piani's chitinous beak. Ryn were such sensitive body-language readers that she

was probably closing in on what had them worried. "Outsystem?" she asked.

"Yes," Jacen said. "Can you raise the relay repeater? We need to get a message to my sister, with Rogue

Squadron."

Piani eased her sleeping child away from her shoulder, then laid him in a padded cargo crate on the floor.

"I'll try," she promised. "But you know Admiral Dizzlewit. Sit down, have a bedjie."

She motioned toward a sideboard, where several small, dark fungi steamed beside a hefty pot of caf.

Bedjies were easy to raise - seed a shallow tank with spores, wait a week, and come back with a net.

They were becoming standard refugee fare.

Jacen wasn't even slightly hungry, but Han grasped one between thumb and forefinger and nibbled.

Steamed, unspiced bedjies were unspeakably bland, but the Ryn matriarchs had taken to hoarding their

herbs.

"Solo!" Randa awoke from his nap. He rolled over and ponderously pulled his upper body into the air.

"Why are you here?"

Jacen had tried to get along with Randa. Raised as a spice merchant, sent by the Hutts to run slaves for

the Yuuzhan Vong, Randa had defected at Fondor - supposedly.

"Getting a message out," Jacen said numbly.A Jedi knows no fear , he'd been taught.Fear is of the dark

side.

Fear for himself, he could thrust aside. But for Jaina? He couldn't help being afraid for his sister. They

were linked at an uncanny depth.

Still young, relatively light, and lithe enough to move under his own power, Randa slithered closer.

"What areyou doing here?" Han demanded.

Randa puffed out his sloping chest. "I told you. With my parent Borga defending Nal Hutta with only half

the clans' support - and pregnant with my sibling, at that - where am I? Stranded, as shipless as one of

these idiot Vors. I am willing to stand communication watch day and night. That way, I will hear any

news from home and free up your workers for -"

"We'll talk about it," Han interrupted. "Piani, what -"

Scowling, the Ryn whirled her chair away from her set. "I can't even get through to Dizzlewit. He left

orders. 'No civilian use of relay without authorization,'" she mocked. "So I applied for authorization." She

shook her long, sleek mane of hair. "I can notify you as soon as I get it."

Han glared. He and the Duros Admiral Darez Wuht had ended up crosswise twice before his first week

on Duro ran out. Admiral Wuht hadn't even tried to pretend he felt hospitable toward refugees.

It'd been hoped that the Yuuzhan Vong wouldn't be interested in a planet that was nearly dead.

SELCORE, searching the Core region for a place to locate millions of war refugees, had struck a deal

with the Duros High House, one of the few remaining local governments that still seemed willing to accept

refugees at all. Displaced people could help reclaim its surface, bring abandoned manufacturing plants

back on-line, and take over the food-synthesis plants that still fed Duros in their orbital cities. Duros who

had worked groundside could go home. Refugees with military experience, it had been argued, might

even help defend Duro's vital trading hubs, including one of the New Republic's top ten remaining

shipyards.

Except that the refugees weren't volunteering for military service in anything like the numbers Wuht

anticipated.

Commanding the orbital cities' overlapping planetary shields, four squadrons of fighters, and the Mon Cal

cruiserPoesy , Admiral Wuht provided the refugees some cover, even as the orbital cities retooled for

military production. With the Fondor shipyards lost and all the other main military shipyards such obvious

targets, the New Republic was hastily decentralizing military production.

Unfortunately, most of the New Republic's other warships in this area had been redeployed to Bothawui,

or out the Corellian Run. Jacen had heard that the Adumari had attempted a flanking attack on Yuuzhan

Vong positions up near Bilbringi. He hoped it was true.

Jacen eyed Piani's comm board. "How's the cable to Gateway? Could we get them to send out a signal

faster?"

Thanks to SELCORE's official presence at that nearby settlement, Gateway reportedly had a

dependable uplink, even an out-link. Insulated fiber cables connected the two domes, but Duro's only

surviving fauna - mutant fefze beetles - found fiber cables perfectly tasty. Duro's corrosive atmosphere

was too murky for line-of-sight transmitting or satellite bouncing.

Predictably, Piani shook her head. "Gateway's scheduled to send out a cable rider in two days."

Gateway was bigger, just older, and much better established than this settlement.Better organized , Jacen

guessed, not that he meant to criticize his dad. Han was giving Settlement Thirty-two his all. Thirty-two

maintained a pipeline that provided Gateway with water, which was reclaimed from an ancient numbered

pit mine. Gateway maintained the communication cable and supplemented Thirty-two's food production.

Han thrust his hands into his pockets and eyed Jacen, raising one eyebrow. "You're not chasing mynocks

with a flitterfly net?"

"I hope I am." Jacen fingered hair back behind his ears. "I didn't want to get you worried -"

"We're at war. Everybody's worried."

The moment passed without either of them mentioning Chewbacca, and Jacen drew a shallow breath of

relief. These days, nearly everyone had suffered at least one loss. Piani's mate hadn't reached Gyndine's

capital city in time to catch an evac ship. He was likely dead, or worse. They all had to carry on.

"What can I do to help?" Randa slithered closer.

"Nothing," Han snapped. He turned to Jacen. "Tell me if it's important. If you need this checked, I'll see

what we can raise on theFalcon ." He gestured toward the dome's main entry.

A caravan's worth of ragtag ships had been hauled from the landing crater by mammoth cross-terrain

crawlers - equipment courtesy of SELCORE, designated for reclamation work - and parked under

tarps, protected from corrosive fallout. The security guards had just turned Mezza's young clanmates out

of that area.

Jacen's worry for Jaina struggled with his administrative concerns as his dad's assistant - for about three

seconds. "Yes," he said, glancing guiltily at Piani, who belonged to Mezza's clan and wasn't much older

than the offenders. "It's important."

"Right." Han pointed at Randa. "You stay here. Let me know what you hear out of Nal Hutta."

"Depend on me, Captain." Randa plucked a bedjie off Piani's hot plate and dropped it whole into his

mouth.

Twelve minutes later, Jacen perched on theMillennium Falcon 's high-backed copilot's seat. Han

whacked a bulkhead, not in the joking way Jacen had seen him do it so many times, but angrily.

"Hey," Han growled, "fossil. Gimme generator, and I don't mean tomorrow."

And in its inimitable way, theFalcon produced a glimmering array of lights.

Han dropped into his own seat and flicked three switches. "Give her a minute to come up."

"Right," Jacen assured him.I know was what he wanted to say, but he understood. Han had recovered

enough from Chewie's death to have theFalcon modified - including better air scrubbers for ferrying

refugees, and a nonreflective black exterior that Chewie would've howled over - but he'd never installed

a standard copilot's chair. Just being on board the beloved hunk of junk made Jacen slightly nervous.

Jacen eyed a wire bundle that hung from a half-opened bulkhead. Han and Droma came out here now

and again.Tinkering , Han called it.Therapy , Droma whispered.

They waited in silence. The weeks when Han's grief had overwhelmed them all drifted up into Jacen's

memory. He'd happened into a cantina when Han had gone looking for oblivion. And on a worse night,

he'd heard Han scald Leia, using words that never should've been spoken and could hardly be forgiven.

Jacen had never mentioned that night to his mom. She probably hoped Jacen had forgotten.

Jacen doubted his dad remembered even saying them. He hoped his mother could somehow forget.

Pain wasn't always a bad thing, though. Jacen almost wished Jaina's pain would blast back into his

awareness. At least that would mean she was alive.

They might find out in a few minutes.

A cascading rhythm of beeps rang in the cockpit as the repeater frequency came alive. Han slapped a tile

on the bulkhead. "Solo here, in theMillennium Falcon . Call is for Coruscant, New Republic military. I

want Colonel Darklighter's office."

Then they waited again.

"Jacen," Han said softly. "What's scared you off from using the Force? Two years ago, you were as gung

ho as Anakin. I haven't seen you levitate anything since you got here."

Jacen gripped the arms of Chewbacca's chair. "It's complicated." His dad wasn't criticizing. He just didn't

understand. He'd already said he was glad for Jacen's help, but now that Jacen had bailed out of the

larger fight, he was falling farther and farther behind his Jedi siblings.

"Try me." Han's eyes bored into Jacen.

Jacen had told him what happened at Centerpoint. The powerful hyperspace repulsor and gravity lens

had responded to Anakin's touch, all right. It reactivated just as before.

And at that moment, the Yuuzhan Vong fleet - the one that the New Republic had hoped to lure to

Corellia - appeared out of hyperspace at Fonder instead.

Han's cousin Thrackan Sal-Solo insisted that the mighty shield should be used as an offensive weapon.

He tried to bully Anakin into firing at the Yuuzhan Vong across the vast distance between systems.

Jacen begged Anakin not to take the shot. Firing that weapon would have been the ultimate aggression.

Anakin yielded to Jacen. For one moment, the brothers shared a true moral victory.

Then Thrackan seized the controls. He blasted the Yuuzhan Vong battle group and decimated the noble

flotilla that Hapes had sent to the New Republic's aid, thanks to Leia Organa Solo's diplomatic efforts.

The Yuuzhan Vong retreated, the surviving Hapans fled home, and now, Thrackan Sal-Solo was being

hailed as a hero.

"I could've fired Centerpoint without hitting the Hapans," Anakin had insisted. Jacen had resisted

believing him for almost a week. Then the self-doubts caught him. Maybe Anakin could've done it all.

Destroyed the aliens, spared the Hapans, saved Fondor.

Whendid aggressive defense become the aggression that was forbidden to Jedi?

Keeping only his lightsaber, Jacen found passage from Coruscant to Duro. If he couldn't fight alongside

Uncle Luke and the others, maybe he could at least help his father manage refugees.

Now, surely, he was on the right path. "I only know that you can't fight darkness with darkness." That

didn't explain anything. He tried again. "So maybe a Jedi shouldn't fight violence with violence, either.

Sometimes, I even think that the more youfight evil, the more you empower it."

Han Solo opened his mouth to protest.

"It's different for us," Jacen insisted. "If we use the Force aggressively, that can lead to the dark side. But

where does strong action become aggression? The line keeps blurring -"

The console beeped, rescuing him. "Rogue Squadron," a tenor voice rang in the cockpit, "Colonel

Darklighter's office. Captain Solo, is that you? We were just trying to raise you."

Jacen's heart plunged through his stomach.

"Yeah, it's me," his father growled. "We're checking on Jaina."

"Good timing," the voice answered. "This is Major Harthis, by the way. Jaina's X-wing has been

destroyed in a firefight. She had to go EV. A fellow pilot brought her in."

"Injured?"

"Legs, chest. Bacta ought to take care of it."

Han grunted as Jacen exhaled in relief.

"Her pressure suit held, but she was close to an attack cruiser, one of ours, when the drive blew. She got

a massive mag-field exposure."

Jacen's blood turned icy. "Will she recover?"

Han echoed his question into the pickup.

The voice hesitated. "Tentatively, yes. We'll update you as soon as we know. We're also trying to raise

her mother. Is Leia with you?"

"Isn't she back on Coruscant?"

"No, Captain. SELCORE administration seems to have lost her."

"Lost her?" Han echoed sarcastically. "Sorry. I can't help with that."

Jacen flicked the console's edge. "I could stay out here," he offered. "I'll try to find her."

Han's eyes focused on something in the distance. "Sure," he said. The pain in his voice reminded Jacen

that things were not well between his parents. "You do that."

Leia Organa Solo glanced into a dark corner, where her young bodyguard Basbakhan stood like a

darker shadow. She hadn't taken on a planetwide project since ... was it Basbakhan's homeworld,

Honoghr?

She sat at the head of a long synthwood table. Surrounded by bickering scientists, she would've liked to

cradle her head in both hands, plug her ears, and demand that they stop acting like children.

Duro did that to people.

Conditions here were appalling. Still, with Borsk Fey'lya clinging to power on Coruscant, this was one

way she could shore up the New Republic, protect the Jedi's reputation, and wear herself out so

thoroughly that every night she dropped onto her cot too exhausted to worry about her own scattered

family. Over the past year, she'd been bounced from system to system, caught up in on-again, off-again

administrative and diplomatic work, wherever the New Republic's Advisory Council pretended not to

send her.

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Star Wars - [New Jedi Order 06] - Balance Point (by Kathy Tyers)

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