Star Wars - [New Jedi Order 01] - Vector Prime (by R A Salvatore)

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Vector Prime
R. A. Salvatore Chapter 1 Fraying Fabric It was too peaceful out here, surrounded by the vacuum of
space and with only the continual hum of the twin ion drives breaking the silence. While she loved these
moments of peace, Leia Organa Solo also viewed them as an emotional trap, for she had been around
long enough to understand the turmoil she would find at the end of this ride.
Like the end of every ride, lately.
Leia paused a moment before she entered the bridge of theJade Sabre , the new shuttle her brother,
Luke, had built for his wife, Mara Jade. Before her, and apparently oblivious to her, Mara and Jaina sat
comfortably, side by side at the controls, talking and smiling. Leia focused on her daughter, Jaina, sixteen
years old, but with the mature and calm demeanor of a veteran pilot. Jaina looked a lot like Leia, with
long dark hair and brown eyes contrasting sharply with her smooth and creamy skin. Indeed, Leia saw
much of herself in the girl - no, not girl, Leia corrected her own thoughts, but young Woman. That same
sparkle behind the brown eyes, mischievous, adventurous, determined.
That notion set Leia back a bit, for she recognized then that when she looked at Jaina, she was seeing not
a reflection of herself but an image of the girl she had once been. A twinge of sadness caught her as she
considered her own life now a diplomat, a bureaucrat, a mediator, always trying to calm things down,
always working for the peace and prosperity of the New Republic. Did she miss the days when the most
common noise around her had been the sharp blare of a blaster or the hiss of a lightsaber? Was she sorry
that those wild times had been replaced by the droning of the ion drives and the sharp bickering of one
pride-wounded emissary after another?
Perhaps, Leia had to admit, but in looking at Jaina and those simmering dark eyes, she could take
vicarious pleasure.
Another twinge - jealousy? - caught her by surprise, as Mara and Jaina erupted into laughter over some
joke Leia had not overheard. But she pushed the absurd notion far from her mind as she considered her
sister-in-law, Luke's wife and Jaina's tutor - at Jaina's own request - in the ways of the Jedi. Mara was
not a substitute mother for Jaina, but rather a big sister, and when Leia considered the fires that
constantly burned in Mara's green eyes, she understood that the woman could give to Jaina things that
Leia could not, and that those lessons and that friendship would prove valuable indeed to her daughter.
And so she forced aside her jealousy and was merely glad that Jaina had found such a friend.
She started onto the bridge, but paused again, sensing movement behind her. She knew before looking
that it was Bolpuhr, her Noghri bodyguard, and barely gave him a glance as he glided to the side, moving
so easily and gracefully that he reminded her of a lace curtain drifting lazily in a gentle breeze. She had
accepted young Bolpuhr as her shadow for just that reason, for he was as unobtrusive as any bodyguard
could be. Leia marveled at the young Noghri, at how his grace and silence covered a perfectly deadly
fighting ability.
She held up her hand, indicating that Bolpuhr should remain out here, and though his usually emotionless
face did flash Leia a quick expression of disappointment, she knew he would obey. Bolpuhr, and all the
Noghri, would do anything Leia asked of them. He would jump off a cliff or dive into the hot end of an
ion engine for her, and the only time she ever saw any sign of discontentment with her orders was when
Bolpuhr thought she might be placing him in a difficult position to properly defend her.
As he was thinking now, Leia understood, though why in the world Bolpuhr would fear for her safety on
her sister-in-law's private shuttle was beyond her. Sometimes dedication could be taken a bit too far.
With a nod to Bolpuhr, she turned back to the bridge and crossed through the open doorway. "How
much longer?" she asked, and was amused to see both Jaina and Mara jump in surprise at her sudden
appearance.
In answer, Jaina increased the magnification on the forward screen, and instead of the unremarkable dots
of light, there appeared an image of two planets, one mostly blue and white, the other reddish in hue,
seemingly so close together that Leia wondered how it was that the blue-and-white one, the larger of the
pair, had not grasped the other in its gravity and turned it into a moon. Parked halfway between them,
perhaps a half a million kilometers from either, deck lights glittering in the shadows of the blue-and-white
planet, loomed a Mon Calamari battle cruiser, theMediator , one of the newest ships in the New
Republic fleet.
"They're at their closest," Mara observed, referring to the planets.
"I beg your indulgence," came a melodic voice from the doorway, and the protocol droid C-3PO walked
into the room. "But I do not believe that is correct."
"Close enough," Mara said. She turned to Jaina. "Both Rhommamool and Osarian are ground based,
technologically -"
"Rhommamool almost exclusively so!" C-3PO quickly added, drawing a scowl from all three of the
women. Oblivious, he rambled on. "Even Osarian's fleet must be considered marginal, at best. Unless, of
course, one is using the Pantang Scale of Aero-techno Advancement, which counts even a simple
landspeeder as highly as it would a Star Destroyer. Perfectly ridiculous scale."
"Thank you, Threepio," Leia said, her tone indicating that she had heard more than enough.
"They've both got missiles that can hit each other from this close distance, though," Mara continued.
"Oh, yes!" the droid exclaimed. "And given the proximity of their relative elliptical orbits -"
"Thank you, Threepio," Leia said.
"- they will remain within striking distance for some time," C-3PO continued without missing a beat.
"Months, at least. In fact, they will be even closer in two standard weeks, the closest they will be to each
other for a decade to come."
"Thank you, Threepio!" Mara and Leia said together.
"And the closest they have been for a decade previous," the droid had to slip in, as the women turned
back to their conversation.
Mara shook her head, trying to remember her original point to Jaina. "That's why your mother chose to
come out now."
"You're expecting a fight?" Jaina asked, and neither Leia nor Mara missed the sparkle in her eye.
"TheMediator will keep them behaving," Leia said hopefully. Indeed, the battle cruiser was an impressive
warship, an updated and more heavily armed and armored version of the Mon Calamari star cruiser.
Mara looked back to the screen and shook her head, unconvinced. "It'll take more than a show of force
to stop this catastrophe," she replied.
"Indeed, it has been escalating, by all reports," C-3PO piped up. "It started as a simple mining dispute
over mineral rights, but now the rhetoric is more appropriate for some kind of a holy crusade."
"It's the leader on Rhommamool," Mara remarked. "Nom Anor. He's reached down and grabbed his
followers by their most basic instincts, weaving the dispute against Osarian into a more general matter of
tyranny and oppression. Don't underestimate him."
"I can't begin to give you a full list of tyrants like Nom Anor that I've dealt with," Leia said with a resigned
shrug.
"I have that very list available," C-3PO blurted. "Tonkoss Rathba of -"
"Thank you, Threepio," Leia said, too politely.
"Why, of course, Princess Leia," the droid replied. "I do so like to be of service. Now where was I? Oh,
yes. Tonkoss Rathba of -"
"Not now, Threepio," Leia insisted, then to Mara, she added, "I've seen his type often."
"Not like him," Mara replied, somewhat softly, and the sudden weakness in her voice reminded Leia and
Jaina that Mara, despite her nearly constant bravado and overabundance of energy, was seriously ill, with
a strange and thankfully rare disease that had killed dozens of others and against which the best doctors
in the New Republic had proven completely helpless. Of those who had contracted the molecular
disorder, only Mara and one other remained alive, and that other person, being studied intently on
Coruscant, was fast dying.
"Daluba," C-3PO went on. "And of course, there was Icknya -"
Leia started to turn to the droid, hoping to politely but firmly shut him up, but Jaina's cry stopped her
abruptly and swung her back to face the screen.
"Incoming ships!" Jaina announced, her voice full of surprise. The telltale blips had appeared on her
sensor viewer as if from nowhere.
"Four of them," Mara confirmed. Even as she spoke, the warning buzzers began to go off. "From
Osarian." She turned her curious expression up to Leia. "They know who we are?"
Leia nodded. "And they know why I've come."
"Then they should know to leave us alone," Jaina reasoned.
Leia nodded again, but understood better. She had come to the system not to meet with the Osarians -
not at first, at least - but with their principal rival, Nom Anor, the cult figure stirring up trouble on
Rhommamool. "Tell them to back off," she instructed Mara.
"Politely?" Mara asked, smiling, and with that dangerous twinkle in her eyes.
"New Republic shuttle," a halting voice crackled over the comm. "This is Captain Grappa of Osarian
First-Force."
With a flick of a switch, Mara put an image of the captain on the viewscreen, and Leia sighed as the
green skin, spiny head ridge, and tapirlike snout came into view.
"Wonderful," she remarked sarcastically.
"The Osarians have hired Rodians?" Jaina asked.
"Nothing like a few mercenaries to quiet things down," Leia replied dryly.
"Oh, dear me," C-3PO remarked, and he shuffled aside nervously.
"You come with us," Grappa insisted, his multifaceted eyes sparkling eagerly. "To Osa-Prime."
"Seems the Osarians want to talk with you first," Mara said.
"They're afraid that my meeting with Nom Anor will only heighten his stature, both among the
Rhommamoolians and throughout the sector," Leia reasoned, a notion not without credence, and one that
she had debated endlessly before making the decision to come here.
"Whatever the reason, they're closing fast," Mara replied. Both she and Jaina looked to Leia for
instructions, for while theJade Sabre was Mara's ship, this was Leia's mission.
"Princess Leia?" an obviously alarmed C-3PO asked.
Leia sat down in the chair behind Mara, intently studying the screen, which Jaina had switched back to a
normal space view. The four approaching fighters were clearly visible.
"Lose them," she said determinedly, a request that neither of the pilots needed to hear twice. Indeed,
Mara had been eager to put the shuttle, with its powerful twin engines and state-of-the-art maneuvering
systems, through a real test.
Green eyes sparkling, smile wide, Mara reached for the controls, but then retracted her hands and put
them on her lap. "You heard her, Jaina," she said.
Jaina's mouth dropped open; so did Leia's.
"You mean it?" Jaina asked.
Mara's only reply was an almost bored expression, along with a slight yawn, as if this whole thing was no
big deal, and certainly nothing that Jaina couldn't easily handle,
"Yes!" Jaina whispered, clenching her fists, wearing a smile nearly wide enough to take in her ears. She
rubbed her hands together, then reached out to the right, rolling her fingers over the floating-ball control
of the inertial compensator. "Strap in," she ordered, and she dialed it down to 95 percent, as fighter pilots
often did so that they could gain a tactile feel to the movements of their ships.Reading the g's , Jaina had
heard it called, and she always preferred flying that way, where fast turns and mighty acceleration could
push her back in her seat.
"Not too much," Leia said with concern.
But her daughter was in her element now, Leia knew, and she'd push the shuttle to its limits, Leia felt the
lean as Jaina veered right, angling away from the approaching ships.
"If you run, we shoot you down!" came the uneven voice of Grappa.
"Z-95 Headhunters," Mara said derisively of the closing craft, an antiquated starfighter, and she flipped
off the comm switch and looked back at Leia. "Can't shoot what you can't catch," she explained. "Kick
them in," she added to Jaina, motioning to the primary thrusters, thinking that a burst of the powerful
engines would shoot theJade Sabre right past the befuddled Rodians and their outdated starfighters.
Even as she spoke, though, two more blips appeared on the sensors, streaking out from the shadows
around Rhommamool, angling right in line with theJade Sabre .
"Mara," Leia said with concern. At that, Mara did reach for the controls. But only for a moment, and
then she looked Jaina right in the eye and nodded for the young woman to proceed.
Leia lurched forward in her seat, held back only by the belt, as Jaina reversed throttle and kicked the
etheric rudder right. There came a metallic thump behind them - C-3PO hitting the wall, Leia guessed.
Even as theJade Sabre came to a sudden halt, nose turned starboard, Jaina pumped it out to full throttle
and kicked the rudder back to the left, then hard right, fishtailing the ship about in a brutal one-eighty,
then working the rudder hard and somewhat choppy in straightening out her direct retreat. As they
turned, a laser cannon blast cut across their bow.
"All right, the first four are on our tail," Mara instructed calmly. TheJade Sabre jolted, hit aft, a blow the
shields easily held back.
"Try a -" Mara started to say, but she lost the words, and nearly her lunch, as Jaina pulled a snap roll
right, and then another right behind it.
"Oh, we'll be killed!" came C-3PO's cry from the doorway, and Leia managed to turn her head to see
the droid leaning in against the metal jamb, and then to see him fly away, with a pitiful cry, as Jaina kicked
the etheric rudder again, putting the ship into another sudden fishtail.
A pair of Headhunters streaked past the viewscreen, but just for a split second, for Jaina vectored away
at a different angle, and at single-engine full throttle, pressing Leia back in her seat. Leia wanted to say
something to Jaina then, some words of encouragement or advice, but found her words stuck in her
throat. And not for any g forces.
It was the sight of Jaina, the fire in her brown eyes, the determined set of her jaw, the sheer
concentration. At that moment, Leia knew.
Her daughter was a woman now, and with all the grit of her father and mother combined.
Mara glanced over her right shoulder, between Jaina and Leia, and both followed her lead long enough
to see that two of the initial four had altered course accordingly and were fast closing, laser cannons
blasting away.
"Hold on," a confident Jaina warned, and she pulled back the stick, lifting theJade Sabre 's nose, then
shoved it forward, dropping the shuttle into a sudden, inverted loop.
"We're doomed!" C-3PO cried from the hallway - the hallway ceiling, Leia knew.
Halfway around, Jaina broke the loop with a snap roll, then kicked her into a fishtail and a barrel roll,
bringing her about to nearly their original course, but with the initial four behind them. Now she did kick
in both ion drives, as if to use sheer speed to split the gap between the two incoming fighters.
Both angled out suddenly, then turned back in, widening that escape route but giving them a longer
shooting angle at the shuttle, and an easier turn to pursue.
"They're good," Mara warned, but, like Leia, she found her words lost in her throat, as Jaina, teeth
gritted to fight back the g's, reversed throttle.
"Princess -" The plaintive cry from the corridor ended abruptly in a loud crash.
"Coming in hot!" Mara cried, noting the fighter fast approaching to port.
Jaina didn't, couldn't even hear her; she had turned inward now, was feeling the Force coursing through
her, was registering every movement of her enemies and reacting instinctively, playing the game three
moves ahead. Before Mara had even begun to speak, Jaina had hit the forward attitude adjustment jets,
lifting the nose, then she pumped the throttle and kicked the rudder, lifting theJade Sabre and bringing her
nose about to starboard, to directly face the other incoming Headhunter.
And that eager Rodian did come in at them, and hard, and theJade Sabre 's defensive array screeched
and lit up, warning of a lock-on.
"Jaina!" Leia cried.
"He's got us!" Mara added.
But then the closer ship, coming from port, passed right under theJade Sabre , and Jaina fired the
repulsorlifts, bouncing theJade Sabre up and sending the poor Headhunter into a wild, spinning roll.
The closing ship from starboard let fly its concussion missile, but it, and the Headhunter, zipped right
underneath the elevatedJade Sabre .
Before the three women could even begin to catch their breath, another ship streaked in, an X-wing, the
new XJ version of the starfighter, its own laser cannons blasting away from its wingtips. Not at theJade
Sabre , though, but at the Headhunter that had just gone past.
"Who is that?" Leia asked, and Jaina, equally curious, brought theJade Sabre about hard.
The Headhunter snap-rolled left and dived, but the far superior X-wing stayed on her, lasers scoring hit
after hit, depleting her shields and then blasting her apart into a million pieces.
"A Jedi," Mara and Jaina said together, and Leia, when she paused to collect the Force sensations about
her, concurred.
"Fast to theMediator ", Leia instructed her daughter, and Jaina swung theJade Sabre about yet again.
"I didn't know there were any Jedi in the sector," Leia said to Mara, who could only shrug, equally at a
loss.
"Another one's out," Jaina informed them, watching the blips on her sensor screen. "And two others are
vectoring away."
"They want no part of a Jedi showing a willingness to shoot back," Mara remarked.
"Maybe Rodians are smarter than I thought," Leia said dryly. "Smooth it out," she instructed her
daughter, unbuckling and climbing unsteadily to her feet.
Jaina reluctantly dialed the inertial compensator back to full.
"Only one pursuing," Jaina informed them as Leia made her way to the door.
"The X-wing," Mara added, and Leia nodded.
In the hallway outside the bridge, Leia found C-3PO inverted and against the wall, his feet sticking up in
the air, his head crunched forward so that his chin was tight against his chest.
"You have to learn to hold on," Leia said to him, helping him upright. She glanced across the way to
Bolpuhr as she spoke, to find the Noghri still standing calmly in the exact spot she had assigned him.
Somehow, she wasn't amazed.
Jaina took theJade Sabre at a swift but steady pace toward the distantMediator . She checked often for
pursuit, but it quickly became obvious that the Rodians in their outdated Headhunters wanted no part of
this fight.
Leia rejoined them a short while later, to find Jaina in complete control and Mara resting back in her seat,
eyes closed. Even when Jaina asked her aunt a question about docking procedures, the woman didn't
respond, didn't even open her eyes.
"They'll guide you in," Leia interjected, and sure enough, a voice from theMediator crackled over the
opened comm, giving explicit directions for entry vector.
Jaina took her in, and Jaina took her down, easily - and after the display of flying she had just given them
out with the Head-hunters, Leia wasn't the least bit surprised by her ability to so smoothly tight-dock a
ship as large as theJade Sabre .
That final shudder as Jaina eased off the repulsorlifts and settled the shuttle onto the docking bay floor
stirred Mara from her rest. She opened her eyes and, seeing where they were, rose quickly.
And then she swayed and seemed as if she would fall.
Leia and Jaina were there in an instant, catching and steadying her.
She regained her balance and took a deep breath. "Maybe next time you can dial down the inertial
compensator to ninety-seven instead of ninety-five," she said jokingly, straining a smile.
Jaina laughed, but Leia's face showed her deep concern. "Are you all right?" she asked.
Mara eyed her directly.
"Perhaps we should find a place where you can rest," Leia said.
"Where we all can rest," Mara corrected, and her tone told Leia to back off, a reminder that Leia was
intruding on a private place for Mara, a place she had explicitly instructed all of her friends, even her
husband, not to go. This disease was Mara's fight alone, to Mara's thinking, a battle that had forced her
to reconsider everything she thought about her life, past, present, and future, and everything she thought
about death.
Leia held her stare for a moment longer, but replaced her own concerned expression with one of
acceptance. Mara did not want to be coddled or cuddled. She was determined to live on in an existence
that did not name her disease as the most pressing and important facet of her entire life, to live on as she
had before, with the illness being relegated to the position of nuisance, and nothing more.
Of course, Leia understood it to be much more than that, an internal churning that required Mara to
spend hours and tremendous Force energy merely holding it in check. But that was Mara's business.
"I hope to meet with Nom Anor tomorrow," Leia explained, as the three, with C-3PO and Bolpuhr in
tow, headed for the lower hatch, then moved down to the landing bay. A contingent of New Republic
Honor Guard stood waiting there, along with Commander Ackdool, a Mon Calamarian with large,
probing eyes, a fishlike face, and salmon-colored skin. "By all reports, we should all be rested before
dealing with him."
"Believe those reports," Mara said.
"And first, it seems I get to meet with our savior Jedi," Leia added dryly, looking back behind theJade
Sabre to see the X-wing gliding in to rest.
"Wurth Skidder," Jaina remarked, recognizing the markings under the canopy on the starfighter.
"Why am I not surprised?" Leia asked, and she blew a sigh.
Ackdool came over to them, then, and extended his formal greetings to the distinguished guests, but
Leia's reaction set him back on his heels - indeed, it raised more than a few eyebrows among the
members of theMediator 's Honor Guard.
"Why did you send him out?" Leia snapped, motioning toward the docking X-wing.
Commander Ackdool started to answer, but Leia continued. "If we had needed assistance, we would
have called for it."
"Of course, Princess Leia," Commander Ackdool said with a polite bow.
"They why send him out?"
"Why do you assume that Wurth Skidder flew out at my command?" the cool Commander Ackdool
dared to respond. "Why would you assume that Wurth Skidder heeds any order I might give?"
"Couple o' ridge-head parachutes floating over Osarian, if those Rodians had any luck," came the
singsong voice of Wurth Skidder. The cocky young man was fast approaching, pulling off his helmet and
giving his shock of blond hair a tousle as he walked.
Leia stepped out to intercept him and took another quick step for no better reason than to make the Jedi
stop short. "Wurth Skidder," she said.
"Princess," the man replied with a bow.
"Did you have a little fun out there?"
"More than a little," the Jedi said with a wide grin and a sniffle - and he always seemed to be sniffling, and
his hair always looked as if he had just walked in from a Tatooine sandstorm. "Fun for me, I , and not for
the Rodians."
"And the cost of your fun?" Leia asked.
That took the smile from Wurth Skidder's face, and he looked at Leia curiously, obviously not
understanding.
"The cost," Leia explained. "What did your little excursion cost?"
"A couple of proton torpedos," Wurth replied with a shrug. "A little fuel."
"And a year of diplomatic missions to calm down the Osarians," Leia retorted.
"But they shot first," Wurth protested.
"Do you even understand that your stupidity likely escalated an already impossible situation?" Leia's voice
was as firm and cold as anyone present had ever heard it. So cold, in fact, that the always overprotective
Bolpuhr, fearing trouble, glided closer to her, hanging back just behind her left shoulder, within fast
striking distance of the Jedi.
"They were attacking you," Wurth Skidder retorted. "Six of them!"
"They were trying to bring us down to Osarian," Leia harshly explained. "A not-so-unexpected response,
given my announced intentions here. And so we planned to avoid them. Avoid! Do you understand that
word?"
Wurth Skidder said nothing.
"Avoid them and thus cause no further problems or hard feelings," Leia went on. "And so we would
have, and we would have asked for no explanations from Shunta Osarian Dharrg, all of us pretending
that nothing had ever happened."
"But -"
"And our graciousness in not mentioning this unfortunate incident would have bought me the bargaining
capital I need to bring some kind of conciliation from Osarian toward Rhommamool," Leia continued,
anger creeping in thicker with each word. "But now we can't do that, can we? Now, so that Wurth
Skidder could paint another skull on the side of his X-wing, I'll have to deal with an incident."
"They shot first," Wurth Skidder reiterated when it became apparent that Leia was done.
"And better that they had shot last," Leia replied. "And if Shunta Osarian Dharrg demands reparations,
we'll agree, with all apologies, and any monies to be paid will come from Wurth Skidder's private funds."
The Jedi squared his shoulders at the suggestion, but then Leia hit him with a sudden and devastating
shot. "My brother will see to it."
Wurth Skidder bowed again, glared at Leia and all around, then turned on his heel and walked briskly
away.
"My apologies, Princess Leia," Ackdool said. "But I have no real authority over Jedi Skidder. I had
thought it a blessing when he arrived two weeks ago. His Jedi skills should certainly come in handy
against any terrorist attempts - and we have heard rumors of many - against theMediator ."
"And you are indeed within striking distance of surface missiles," C-3PO added, but he stopped short,
this time catching on to the many disapproving looks that came his way.
"I did not know that Jedi Skidder would prove so ..." Ackdool paused, searching for the right word.
"Intractable."
"Stubborn, you mean," Leia said. As they all started away, Leia did manage a bit of a smile when she
heard Mara behind her tell Jaina, "Maybe Nom Anor has met his match."
C-9PO, a protocol droid, its copper coloring tinged red from the constantly blowing dusts of
Rhommamool, skittered down an alley to the side of the main avenue of Redhaven and peeked out
cautiously at the tumult beyond. The fanatical followers of Nom Anor, the Red Knights of Life, had gone
on the rampage again, riding throughout the city in an apparent purge of landspeeders on their tutakans,
eight-legged lizards with enormous tusks that climbed right up past their black eyes and curled in like
white eyebrows.
"Ride the beasts given by Life!" one Red Knight screamed at a poor civilian as the wrinkled Dressellian
merchant was dragged from the cockpit and punched and pushed to the ground.
"Perversion!" several other Red Knights cried in unison. "Life-pretender!" And they set upon the
landspeeder with their tubal-iron pummelstaves, smashing the windshield, bashing in the side moldings,
crushing the steering wheel and other controls, even knocking one of the rear drive's cylindrical engines
from its mounts.
Satisfied that the craft was wrecked beyond repair, they pulled the Dressellian to his feet and shoved him
to and fro, warning him to ride creatures, not machines - or, better still, to use the legs that nature had
provided and walk. Then they beat him back down to the ground and moved on, some climbing back
atop the tutakans, others running beside.
The landspeeder continued to hover, though it had only a couple of repulsors still firing. It looked more
like a twisted lump of beaten metal than a vehicle, tilting to one side because of the unequal weight
distribution and the weakened lift capacity.
"Oh, dear me," the protocol droid said, ducking low as the contingent stormed past.
Tap, tap, tapcame the ringing of metal on metal against the top of the droid's head. C-9PO slowly turned
about and saw the fringe of the telltale black capes, and the red-dyed hides.
With a screech, the droid stood up and tried to run away, but a pummelstave smashed in the side of his
leg and he went facedown in the red dust. He lifted his head, but rising up on his arms only gave the two
Red Knights a better handhold as they walked past, each scooping the droid under one shoulder and
dragging him along.
"Got a Ninepio," one of the pair called out to his lizard-riding buddies, and a cheer went up.
The doomed droid knew the destination the Square of Hopeful Redemption.
C-9PO was glad that he wasn't programmed to experience pain.
"It was a stupid thing to do," Leia said firmly.
"Wurth thought he was helping us," Jaina reminded, but Leia wasn't buying that argument.
"Wurth was trying to find his own thrills," she corrected.
"And that hotshot attitude of his will reinforce the ring of truth to Nom Anor's diatribes against the Jedi,"
Mara said. "He's not without followers on Osarian." As she finished, she looked down at the table, at the
pile of leaflets Commander Ackdool had given them, colorful propaganda railing against the New
Republic, against the Jedi, and against anything mechanical and technological, and somehow tying all of
these supposed ills to the cultural disease that engulfed the society of the planet Osarian.
"Why does Nom Anor hate the Jedi?" Jaina asked. "What do we have to do with the struggle between
Osarian and Rhommamool? I never even heard of these planets until you mentioned that we'd be coming
here."
"The Jedi have nothing to do with this struggle," Leia replied. "Or at least, they didn't until Wurth
Skidder's antics."
"Nom Anor hates the New Republic," Mara added. "And he hates the Jedi as symbols of the New
Republic."
"Is there anything Nom Anor doesn't hate?" Leia asked dryly.
"Don't take him lightly," Mara warned yet again. "His religious cry to abandon technology and machines,
to look for truth in the natural elements and life of the universe, and to resist the joining of planets in false
confederations resonates deeply in many people, particularly those who have been the victims of such
planetary alliances, like the miners of Rhommamool."
Leia didn't disagree. She had spent many hours before and during the journey here reading the history of
the two planets, and she knew that the situation on Rhommamool was much more complicated than that.
While many of the miners had traveled to the hospitable red planet voluntarily, there were quite a number
who were the descendants of the original "colonists" - involuntary immigrants sent there to work the
mines because of high crimes they had committed.
Whatever the truth of the situation, though, Leia couldn't deny that Rhommamool was the perfect
breeding ground for zealots like Nom Anor. Life there was tough - even basics like water could be hard
to come by - while the prosperous Osarians lived in comfort on white sandy beaches and crystal-clear
lakes.
"I still don't understand how any of that concerns the Jedi," Jaina remarked.
"Nom Anor was stirring up anger against the Jedi long before he ever came to Rhommamool," Mara
explained. "Here, he's just found a convenient receptacle for his wrath."
"And with the Jedi Knights scattered throughout the galaxy, and so many of them following their own
agendas, Nom Anor might just find plenty of ammunition to add to his arguments," Leia added grimly.
"I'm glad that my brother is thinking of reestablishing the Jedi Council."
Mara nodded, but Jaina seemed less convinced. "Jacen doesn't think that's such a good idea," she
reminded her mother.
Leia shrugged. Her oldest son, Jaina's twin, had indeed expressed serious doubts about the course of the
Jedi Knights.
"If we can't bring some sense of order to the galaxy, particularly to isolated planets like Osarian and
Rhommamool, then we're no better than the Empire," Mara remarked.
"We're better than the Empire," Leia insisted.
"Not in Nom Anor's eyes," Jaina said.
And Mara reiterated her warning to Leia not to take the man lightly. "He's the strangest man I ever met,"
she explained, and given her past exploits with notorious sorts like Jabba the Hutt and Talon Karrde, that
was quite a statement. "Even when I tried to use the Force to gain a better perspective on him, I drew ..."
Mara paused, as if looking for some way to properly express the feeling. "A blank," she decided. "As if
the Force had nothing to do with him."
Leia and Jaina looked at her curiously.
"No," Mara corrected. "More like he had nothing to do with the Force."
The perfect disconnected ideologue, Leia thought, and she expressed her feelings with a single sarcastic
word "Wonderful."
He stood on the platform surrounded by his fanatical Red Knights. Before him, ten thousand
Rhommamoolians crowded into every open space of the great public square of Redhaven, once the
primary trading spaceport of the planet. But those facilities had been leveled in the early days of the
uprising, with the Rhommamoolians declaring their independence from Osarian. And more recently, since
the coming of Nom Anor as spearhead of the revolution, the place had been renamed the Square of
Hopeful Redemption.
Here, the citizens came to declare freedom from Osarian.
Here, the followers came to renounce the New Republic.
Here, the believers came to renounce the Jedi.
And here, the fanatics came to discredit progress and technology, to cry out for a simpler time, when the
strength of a being's legs, and not the weight of his purse, determined how far he could travel, and the
strength of his hands, and not the weight of his Purse, allowed him to harvest the gifts of nature.
Nom Anor loved it all, the adulation and the fanatical, bordering on suicidal, devotion. He cared nothing
for Rhommamool or its inhabitants, cared nothing for the foolish cries for some ridiculous "simpler time."
But how he loved the chaos his words and followers inflicted upon the order of the galaxy. How he loved
the brooding undercurrent of resentment toward the New Republic, and the simmering anger aimed at the
Jedi Knights, these supercreatures of the galaxy.
Wouldn't his superiors be pleased?
Nom Anor flipped his shiny black cape back from his shoulder and held his fist upraised into the air,
drawing shrieks of appreciation. In the center of the square, where once had stood the Port-master's
Pavilion, now was a huge pit, thirty meters in diameter and ten deep. Whistles and whines emanated from
that pit, along with cries for mercy and pitifully polite words of protest - the voices of droids collected by
the folk of Rhommamool and dropped into the hole.
Great cheers erupted from all corners of the square as a pair of the Red Knights entered from one
avenue, dragging a 9PO protocol droid between them. They went to the edge of the pit, took up the
poor 9PO by the arms and the legs, and on a three-count, launched him onto the pile of metal consisting
of the astromech and mine-sniffer droids, the Redhaven street-cleaner droids, and the personal butler
droids of the wealthier Rhommamoolian citizens.
When the hooting and cheering died down, Nom Anor opened his hands, revealing a single small stone.
Then he clenched his fist again, squeezing with tremendous power, crushing the stone in his grasp so that
dust and flecks of rock splinters slipped out the sides.
The signal to begin.
As one the crowd surged forward, lifting great chunks of stone, the debris from the wreckage of the
pavilion. They came to the edge of the pit one after another and hurled their heavy missiles at the pile of
droids.
The stoning went on for the rest of the afternoon, until the red glare of the sun thinned to a brilliant
crimson line along the horizon, until the dozens and dozens of droids were no more than scrap metal and
sparking wires.
And Nom Anor, silent and dignified, watched it all somberly, accepting this great tribute his followers had
paid to him, this public execution of the hated droids.
Chapter 2 Intergalactic Eyes Danni Quee looked out from the western terra-tower of ExGal-4, a solitary
outpost on the Outer Rim planet of Belkadan in the Dalonbian sector. Danni came here often at this time
of day - late afternoon - to watch the Belkadan sunset filtering through the thirty-meter dalloralla trees. Of
late, those sunsets had been more spectacular for some reason, with tinges of orange and green edging
the typical pinks and crimsons.
She had been on Belkadan for three years, an original member of ExGal-4, and traced her roots to the
always underfunded ExGal Society back another three years before that, to when she was only fifteen.
Her homeworld, a Core planet, was badly overcrowded, and for independent Danni, even trips to other
nearby worlds didn't seem to alleviate the feeling of being squeezed by too many people. She wasn't a
fan of the government, be it the Empire or the New Republic; she wasn't a fan of anything bureaucratic.
In fact, she considered the "ordering" of the galaxy a terrible thing, robbing People of excitement and
adventures, burying cultures beneath the blanket of common civilization. Thus, the notion that there might
be life beyond the galaxy, the thought of something undiscovered, excited the young woman.
Or once had.
Now, standing there, staring at the same landscape of towering trees and unbroken green canopy, the
young woman wondered again if she had chosen her life's path correctly. At twenty-one, she was one of
the youngest members of the fifteen stationed on ExGal-4, and one of only four women. She had
developed into a very attractive young woman, small of frame, with long curly blond hair and green eyes
that always seemed to be asking questions of everything they surveyed, and of late, it seemed as if she
had spent more time resisting the advances of several young men than in staring out at the galactic rim.
In truth, Danni didn't blame the young men, though. They had all come out here full of hope and
adventure, pioneers on the edge of the galaxy. In short order, they had established a base, a walled fort,
actually, to hold out the savage wildlife of Belkadan, and had set up their listening and looking equipment
great dishes and telescopes, including orbiting scopes. That first year had been full of dreams and hard
work, and danger - two of the original members had been seriously wounded when a redcrested cougar
had leapt over the wall from a nearby tree.
And so the work had continued, clearing the trees back thirty meters, further securing the outpost.
All that work was done now, with ExGal-4 secured and self-contained, with an abundant clear-water
well right below them and multiple gardens. A smoothly functioning, scientific outpost.
Danni missed the old days.
Even the faces of those around her had become stale, though half the members were not original
colonists, but had rotated in from other ExGal satellite stations, or from the independent ExGal Society's
home base.
The bottom rim of the sun dipped below the distant horizon, and the orange and green tints spread wide
from north to south. Somewhere unseen in the jungle, a redcrested cougar gave a long and low growl,
heralding the onset of twilight.
Danni took it all in and tried to dream, but given the reality of her current tedium, the endless listening for
signals that never came, the endless staring at the same intergalactic haze, she wasn't quite sure of what
she should dream about.
Behind her, from one of the windows of the station's center structure, Yomin Carr watched the young
woman's every move. He was new to the station, the most recent to join the crew, and it hadn't taken
him long to recognize that many of the others looked up to Danni Quee, and that many of the men were
obviously attracted to her.
Yomin Carr didn't understand that sentiment at all. He found Danni, as he did all humans, quite repulsive,
for while Yomin Carr's people, the Yuuzhan Vong, resembled humans in form - though they were on
average a dozen or so centimeters taller and quite a bit heavier and had less hair on their heads, both face
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