Star Wars - [New Jedi Order 16] - [Force Heretic 02] - Refugee (by Sean Williams & Shane Dix)

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Star Wars
New Jedi Order
FORCE HERETIC II Refugee
Sean Williams and Shane Dix
In a last-ditch attempt to save the galaxy, Luke Skywalker, his wife, Mara, and Jacen Solo blaze new
frontiers in uncharted realms as the dazzling Star Wars space epic Continues...
There will always be people who are strong for evil.
The stronger you become, the more you're tempted.
-Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master
PROLOGUE
The man who was no longer a man stood before an alien who was not what it
seemed.
"Everything is in place," the man said.
The alien tasted the air as though sniffing for lies. "Are you certain?"
"Yes, General," he replied confidently. Nevertheless, he felt extremely selfconscious of how he was
standing. The aliens he thought he was dealing with were particularly good at reading body language; the
slightest gesture or twitch of a facial muscle might be misconstrued as doubt. "The population has been
lulled into a false sense of security-or if not security, then certainly hope that security might one day be
possible. Barring the unforeseen, all should proceed
according to plan."
"I am pleased," the alien said, claws clicking on the floor as it paced restlessly before him.
Inwardly he sighed his relief. Meeting his side of the bargain was literally a matter of life and death. "Does
that mean-?"
"When you return, and I am completely satisfied that your half of the bargain has been met," the alien said
sharply, "then and only then will you receive that which you desire." The alien's tail thumped the ground
once End of discussion.
It couldn't have been clearer if it had used words.
He shrugged, nodding his acceptance of the alien's terms. There was no reason to believe that things
wouldn't go as expected. He would get what he wanted. He had taken care of everything, after all.
"Then I shall leave you, General," he said, "with your permission."
It looked him over briefly as it concurred. "You may depart," it said in a
series of tones too loud for the human ear to endure comfortably, yet possessing
such subtlety that few could comprehend it. No human mouth had ever uttered so
much as a single word in that tongue.
That he spoke it fluently was simply to be expected. "I shall meet you back
here in a matter of days."
"Be assured that I will be waiting," the alien said, still pacing the floor. "And remember we have what you
want."
He bowed, knowing that he could never forget that. As he left the picket ship via the narrow umbilical,
his body adapting to free-fall with built-in ease, he eagerly anticipated his return to claim what was
rightfully his--the triumphant beginning of his new existence. It didn't matter how many lives it cost. He
would happily stand by a bonfire of bodies if that's what it took for a chance to warm himself on
immortality's fires.
With a smile, he set a course for destiny.
PART ONE
EXPEDITION
Luke Skywalker scrambled up the rocky slope, his lungs burning with each heavy breath he took. He
was relieved to hear his nephew beside him also panting for breath, because that meant his own
difficulties with the climb were in no way a reflection of his age or fitness; it was simply that the
atmosphere on Munlali Mafir was thin, that was all.
Behind them came the terrible baymg of the KrizJaws. The sound was high-pitched and piercing, even
through the rarefied atmosphere, and sent a shiver down his spine. With their great rancorlike heads bent
low, sniffing for a scent, Luke knew that the smooth- and pink-skinned aliens wouldn't be too far behind,
converging from around the ruined palace to join in the hunt for the
landing party.
He glanced over his shoulder, half expecting to see them snapping at his heels already. Thankfully,
though, they weren't that close. But even as he looked, he saw seven of them emerge from a decorative
archway at the base of the nearest wall, tripping over one another and slipping on the rubble in their haste
as they headed for the ceremonial mound. Another three jump-rolled from a window, scurrying out of
sight behind a statue.
Small reddish eyes, two thin arms tipped with three poisoned claws, two powerful legs designed for
pouncing, mouths with jaws extendable enough to swallow a human head in one gulp. . .
The thought was a reminder for Luke that he should keep moving.
"Only ten of them," Dr. Soron Hegerty said, the surprise evident beneath her own panting. She seemed to
be finding the pace more difficult than the others, barely keeping up even with Jacen's help. "There
have-always been- eleven. I thought that-might have been-significant." A second later another Krizlaw
leapt through the window, shattering what little remained of the already splintered ornate frame, then
dashed for the mound also.
The xenobiologist shook her head, as if to suggest she was tired of being right all the time. "Eleven," she
confirmed.
"Come on, Doctor Hegerty," Jacen said. Luke felt his young nephew subtly augmenting her stamina with
the Force. "We have to keep moving!"
"Ritual hunting party, you think?" Lieutenant Stalgis asked. The stocky Imperial in light combat armor
turned to snap a shot back at the seven coming up the mound. The blaster bolt took one on the shoulder,
provoking an earsplitting squeal of pain, but didn't slow the creature down.
"Something-like that," Hegerty gasped.
Luke and Jacen exchanged worried looks. The xenobiologist was tiring fast, and the top of the mound
was still some distance away. The structure consisted of soil packed tight around a central core of stone,
creating a tall, conical pseudo-pyramid with a truncated, stone summit perfect for an impromptu landing
field. The shuttle was waiting for them there, engines warmed up and ready to whisk them off to safety.
The only problem was that at this rate, with the doctor's endurance flagging, they weren't going to make
it.
The two Jedi turned simultaneously to see the Kriz-laws making their way up the slope in assured and
steady bounds, digging in with their claws and using their enormous thigh muscles to propel them
forward. Seeing Luke and Jacen making a stand, the creatures hurried their ascent, their howls
intensifying with each leap. Luke had seen the effects these ululations could have on lower life-forms
when he'd witnessed the Krizlaws feeding. The intense vibrations of their howls stunned nerve centers,
disoriented senses, and sent muscles into spasm. While their prey was thus incapacitated, the Krizlaws
would eat them whole. Dr. Hegerty had said that the Krizlaws believed the still-beating heart to be
essential for good digestion.
You won't be digesting this Jedi, Luke swore determinedly. Whole or otherwise! He sent his senses deep
under the surface of the mound. Packed it might be, but the soil wasn't bound like ferrocrete. There were
fissures underneath the surface, numerous pressure points that, with one solid nudge, could be...
There. Signaling Jacen, he mentally linked up with his nephew using the Force-meld technique perfected
in recent months. Together their minds pushed at the pressure point he had found beneath the surface.
Dirt erupted from the slope below as though a buried machine had suddenly come to life. The shower of
dirt hid the shifting forces beneath as disturbed ground found itself falling, gathered momentum, disturbed
more in turn, and became an avalanche that swept
over the Krizlaws, driving them back down to the base of the mound.
Stalgis cocked an eyebrow. "Impressive," he said approvingly, and with obvious relief. Slinging his blaster
rifle over his shoulder, he headed back up the mound at a more leisurely pace.
"We're not out of this yet," Jacen said.
Luke silently agreed. Urging himself forward, he activated his comlink. "We're on our way," he reported.
"Any sign of disturbances?"
The pilot of the Imperial shuttle didn't waste any words. "All clear. We're ready for liftoff."
Above them, he could hear the whine of engines. Relieved that they would soon be offplanet, Luke
allowed himself a moment to puzzle at what had gone wrong. Everything had gone so well at first. Munlali
Mafir was a planet that Hegerty had listed as one whose indigenous population told of a migratory world
that had once appeared in their system, stayed briefly, and then vanished. It wasn't necessarily Zonama
Sekot, but everyone agreed that the lead was worth following up.
Upon arrival, however, it had been apparent that something had changed. The Jostran natives of Munlali
Mafir were, according to Hegerty's records, slow-moving centipedes barely larger than a human arm.
What they'd found, though, was a colony of Krizlaws-listed as feral herd beasts with no more intelligence
than a common nerf-and no sign of the Jostrans at all. Something appeared to have
elevated the Krizlaws to full intelligence while at the same time wiping out the Jostrans. Either that or the
Imperial probe records had simply been wrong. The language used by the Krizlaws was in fact the same
as that recorded in Hegerty's files, except that it was attributed to the Jostrans.
The Krizlaws were not a starfaring species, so the arrival of the Imperial shuttle had prompted an
enthusiastic welcome. Luke, Jacen, Hegerty, and a small honor guard of stormtroopers had been invited
to a ceremonial banquet at which the visitors had witnessed the grisly eating habits of the planet's
indigenous inhabitants. The local chief, who looked indistinguishable from the others except for a brightly
colored belt wrapped around his smooth midriff, had freely passed on the legend about the "Star-World"
that had appeared in the sky four decades earlier. Lacking telescopes or other optical instruments, their
observations ha d been somewhat limited, but it seemed that this Star-World had appeared as a
blue-green light in the skies of Munlali Mafir. It
had stayed there for almost three of the planet's months, then-as mysteriously as it had appeared-it
disappeared again.
For the time that this Star-World held its place in the sky, Munlali Mafir had undergone a period of
increased seismic activity. Numerous volcanoes around the planet erupted, and the lands making up the
three continents had been rent by groundquakes, all of which resulted in the deaths of many of the
natives.
Although the locals at the time-whether Jostrans or Krizlaws, Luke had been unable to determine-had no
geologic knowledge to speak of, or indeed any understanding of the gravitational effects that astral
bodies could have upon each other, they had, nonetheless, associated the spate of disasters with the
arrival of the new planet. To them, the Star-World was a harbinger of death and upheaval, and Luke
made every effort to reassure the chief and his people that it was unlikely the Star-World would ever
return.
It was then that the trouble had started.
A hush had descended on the gathering as Luke patiently explained that the visitation of the rogue planet
had been nothing more than a chance event, and it was doubtful that such an occurrence would be
repeated. He assumed that Zonama Sekot was simply looking for somewhere safe to hide, and had
moved on once it had become clear that Munlali Mafir was inhabited. It was very possible, he had
assured the chief, that the Star-World was in fact by now on the other side of
the Unknown Regions. He explained that the terrible consequences of its visit-the ruin of most of the
planet's stone cities, the disruption to ocean currents, and the impact upon some vital environmental
resources such as aquifers-were only temporary. These things, he promised, would soon return to
normal.
Instead of being relieved by his reassurances, though, the locals had become agitated. The chief had
signaled his guards, and the visitors-esteemed guests just moments earlier-had suddenly found themselves
treated as captives. Luke had forbidden any form of resistance from his party, confident that he could
talk their way out of a violent confrontation. It was only as he had tried to make contact with the chief
through the Force, however, that he'd realized just how difficult this might prove.
These beings, it turned out, had two centers of consciousness. Where Luke might ordinarily have
influenced any other creature's thoughts and convinced it simply to let them go, there was no one place to
apply pressure within the chief of the Krizlaws. One thought center was bright and alert, and easily
deflected his probe; the other was dull and diffuse, as slippery as a nooroop egg. He couldn't influence
either as easily as he'd hoped, and the revelation threw him
for a moment. He had never encountered this situation before.
During his confusion, one of their stormtrooper escorts had been forced onto the ground. A robed
Krizlaw tipped the stormtrooper's head-back and, bizarrely, attempted to force some sort of wriggling
grub down his throat. The man gagged and tried to spit it out, but the tiny creature went down anyway.
That was enough for Luke. Giving up on direct control, he had used the Force to thrust the robed
Krizlaw away from the fallen stormtrooper. The man's life-signature was still strong, despite his revulsion
at the unexpected "meal."
Pushing his own guards away, he had helped the stormtrooper to his feet while Jacen quickly freed
himself and the others. Within no time at all, they had broken free of the Krizlaws and were running for
their lives.
As they fled, Luke had heard the distinctive sound of the chief screeching commands to those gathered
around him. Soon a group of eleven "ritual hunters," as Hegerty thought of them, had formed and given
pursuit.
The chase through the decaying palace had been fast and furious, with two of the stormtroopers at the
rear of the group being snatched up by the jaws and claws of their pursuers within seconds. The sound of
their cries as the Krizlaws fell upon them was terrible to hear, but their deaths had given the others
valuable seconds. When one of the Krizlaws was successful, all of the hunting party came to a halt to
devour their prey. This was the first hint that Hegerty had received of the nature of the ritualistic hunting
group comprised by the eleven Krizlaws. Maybe now, Luke hoped, with most of the eleven buried
beneath the rubble, they would give up the chase.
It was a nice thought, but Luke still didn't feel confident that they were out of trouble just yet. Even now,
as they neared their objective at the top of the ceremonial mound, he didn't allow himself to embrace the
relief that he could sense emanating from Stalgis and Hegerty. Self-confidence had a way of making one
lower one's guard, and that could cost lives. He wasn't about to assume they had escaped until they had
escaped.
Finally, the slope eased and they staggered onto the mound's wide, stone summit. The Sentinel-class
landing shuttle rested on an eroded bas-relief depicting a mythical battle between two hideous-looking
deities. At the top of the extended landing ramp stood a gray-uniformed Imperial pilot, waving for them
to hurry.
"Gee, what's the rush?" Stalgis said dryly, putting an arm under the shoulder of the only other surviving
stormtrooper-the one who'd been force-fed the grub.
"Can't they allow us a few moments to admire the scenery?"
"Maybe that's why," Jacen said, pointing ahead and to his left.
Approaching with an ungainly but effective series of long-legged leaps were the three Krizlaws who had
separated from the rest of the hunting party at the base of the mound. It was clear they were going to
reach the shuttle first-which probably explained their triumphant howls and ululations.
Luke gathered the Force about himself and Jacen. By using it to increase their speed, the two of them
could head off the three Krizlaws, giving the others opportunity to get to the shuttle. Three of these
creatures would certainly be no match for the lightsabers of two trained Jedi.
Barely had he taken a step when matching howls sounded from off to the right. A quick glance told him
that eight more of the Krizlaws had found them.
"Eleven again," Hegerty said breathlessly. There was a hint of defeat in her tone.
"They can't be the ones we buried," Jacen said. "It's not possible!"
"They aren't," Luke said. "They have different markings. These must be replacements."
"How did they know?" Stalgis asked.
The question became moot as the eleven howling aliens converged on the escapees. Two Krizlaws
separated from the rest and headed for the shuttle, giving the Imperial waiting at the top of the ramp good
reason to hastily retreat inside. Seconds later, laser cannons issued from their retractable housing and
began taking potshots. The Krizlaws were too fast, however, their long leaps taking the gunner by
surprise.
Luke stopped running. There was no point wasting energy on a mad dash if there was no chance of
making it. Sending for the shuttle speeder bike was also pointless, since that could save only two of them
at the very most. A familiar meditation damped down feelings of frustration and anger; this was no time to
give in to darker emotions, he told himself. There had to be another way to save the landing party from
the approaching aliens.
Stalgis assumed a sharpshooter's pose and snapped off a dozen rounds in quick succession. One of the
Krizlaws stumbled and fell, missing one of its arms and geysering purplish blood. Luke watched in horror
as the creature staggered back to its feet and continued on, limping. Stalgis's jaw clenched as if biting
down on frustration, but he kept on firing.
Luke and Jacen placed themselves at two points of a defensive triangle, with Stalgis and the other
stormtrooper at the other corner and the exhausted Hegerty in the middle. The xenobiologist was only
slightly older than Luke, but she had no battle skills. The type of expedition she was used to, Luke
imagined, would have had little cause for running like this.
Krizlaws spread out in a circle around them. Luke used the Force to discourage those who came closest,
but knew it was only a matter of time before he and the others were rushed. There was no way they
could possibly repel all nine at once.
As he steeled himself in preparation for the inevitable attack, and possibly a fight to the death, his
thoughts went out to his son safe in the heart of the Galactic Alliance, and he sent a wordless message of
apology to Mara, waiting in orbit in Jade Shadow.
The Millennium Falcon's exit from hyperspace was anything but graceful. Leia gripped the arms of her
copilot's chair, glad that Han had finally installed one that accommodated her slight build.
Behind her, she could hear C-3PO rattling.
"Oh my," the golden droid exclaimed, shifting unsteadily on his feet to try to keep his balance. "I hope we
haven't hit anything!"
Han flicked a couple of switches; then, when that obviously failed, he leaned back in his seat and kicked
the base of the console. A few seconds later, their trajectory flattened out.
"Sorry about that, folks," he said to no one in particular. "Normal services have been resumed."
Leia rolled her eyes and glanced back at Tahiri. The young Jedi sat stoically in her seat, her stare fixed at
a point outside the cockpit canopy. Throughout the journey, she had remained quiet and unresponsive to
any attempts at conversation, her thoughts focused firmly inward. Leia hadn't pressed her; she sensed
that some complicated healing process was taking place in the girl, and she was reluctant to disturb it.
Nevertheless, there were times when she felt that a more direct approach might be appropriate-especially
those times when Tahiri's brooding silences went on for hours at a stretch, never seeming to end. Tahiri's
blackout on Galantos had
been a startling setback, occurring at a time when Leia had believed that Tahiri could be on the mend.
Still, there could be no faulting her reactions when she'd woken up; without her well-honed Jedi instincts,
they might not have-reached
orbit when they did-or, indeed, made contact with the mysterious Ryn who had helped them escape.
Leia inwardly sighed. Whatever was going on inside Tahiri, it was frustratingly inconsistent.
The subspace receiver bleeped. Leia glanced at the scopes and opened the line. Captain Mayn's voice
issued from the comm speakers. "Falcon, I await your instructions."
"Glad you could join us, Selonia," she said. "Have a nice trip?"
"As pleasant a stroll as one can expect through hyperspace."
Leia smiled at the captain's remark as she surveyed the planet before them.
Bakura was a beautiful blue-green world known for its agricultural and repulsorlift exports. Its two
moons had been heavily mined for materials used in the manufacture of the second Death Star. It was
also right on the edge of the galaxy, diametrically opposite the corridor of worlds that had first fallen
victim to the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. "From Bonadan to Bakura via Bothawui" was an old saying that
suggested it was easier to get from the Corporate Sector to Bakura via a wide detour to Bothan space
than it was to go straight through the Core, with its dense overlap of mass shadows and treacherous
hyperspace lanes.
It also connected three high-tech but otherwise very different industrialized worlds. Where Bonadan was
a desertified wasteland, Bakura was still verdant and pastoral, on the other end of the spectrum of
environmental degradation. Belkadan, the first world attacked by the Yuuzhan Vong and one of
Bonadan's relative neighbors, was in a spectrum of its own, its biosphere modified to suit
the aliens' introduced biological factories. Leia hoped she never saw the day when such degradation
stretched from one side of the galaxy to the other, linking all the worlds she knew in a terrible web of pain
and sacrifice. If the day ever arrived when Shimrra ruled over Bakura, then she would know that the end
had truly come.
For now, though, it still looked peaceful enough ...
Numerous satellites orbited the planet, and she imagined that it wouldn't be long before someone
detected and hailed the Falcon and Pride of Selonia.
Assuming that normal procedures were still being followed, all entries into the system were closely
monitored; the Bakuran government was constantly alert for another Ssi-ruuvi invasion. After the first
attempt twenty-five standard years before, four destroyers and cruisers-Intruder, Watch-keeper,
Sentinel, and Defender-had been specifically constructed and installed to guard the system.
Two of them-Watchkeeper and the task force flagship Intruder-had been destroyed when co-opted into
service to the j New Republic at Selonia and Centerpoint. That left only j Defender and Sentinel to hold
the fort.
"Bring back any memories, Leia?" Han asked with a crooked grin as his hand reached out to squeeze
hers briefly. She returned his smile but didn't respond directly. They had visited Bakura very early in their
relationship; under other circumstances, she might have let herself enjoy the reminder of those headier
days.
"Stand ready, Selonia," she told Mayn. "See if you can raise the planetary network. Don't identify us; use
Selonia's registration codes." Mayn responded in the affirmative, and Leia switched to another frequency.
"Twin Sun One, maintain formation unless ordered otherwise."
"Understood." Jaina's voice came briskly from the cockpit of her X-wing. The remaining fighters of Twin
Suns surrounded the two command vessels in a flattened dodecahedron, missing one point.
"Do you sense anything, Jaina?" Leia asked her daughter.
"Nothing out of the ordinary." "What about you, Tahiri?"
"Huh?" The young Jedi snapped out of some deep thought. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I asked if you were picking up anything unusual through the Force," Leia said.
"Oh, no-nothing yet, anyway." Tahiri closed her eyes as she sent her mind reaching out through space,
seeking any echoes of the people on and around Bakura. "Tahiri is looking now," Leia told Jaina. There
was a slight but meaningful pause from Jaina's j end. Leia had noticed a definite reserve growing between
Jaina and Tahiri, but she'd had no opportunity to discuss it with her yet. The present arrangement-with
Jaina on duty more often than not, and rarely aboard the Falcon-meant that there was simply no time to
be alone together. If something had happened to get in the way of the friendship between the two young
women, Leia had no idea what it was.
"Okay," Jaina finally said. "We'll keep our sensors peeled."
Han brought the Millennium falcon around along a broad arc designed to end quite clearly in orbital
insertion. Leia wanted no ambiguity that they were on a peaceful mission, despite their military escort.
After the Ryn's vague hints, she wasn't taking any chances.
She opened a line to Selonia again "Any word yet, Captain?"
"Nothing," Mayn replied. "We're picking up some light chatter, but not much else. There are a large
number of vessels in parking orbit or in station docks.
Most of them just look like freighters."
"No launches?"
"None deleted."
Leia considered this for a moment. "Keep hailing them," she said shortly.
"They must be ignoring us or simply not noticing us. Either way, they won't be able to keep it up much
longer. Let's just stick to our course and see what happens. And be ready for anything."
"Understood."
Leia turned to Han. He sat in silence beside her, his brow pinched with worry.
"You okay?"
He looked at her and cocked one eyebrow. "Do I really need to say it?" he asked.
She shook her head and sighed. He didn't need to tell her that he had a bad feeling about this; she could
feel something was wrong, too. But without evidence she had no reason to act any way other than
normal.
Finally the subspace channel crackled and a response came in. "Selonia, this is General Panib of the
Bakuran Defense Fleet. Please state your intentions."
Leia remembered a Captain Grell Panib from an earlier visit to Bakura; she imagined it was probably the
same person. A short, stiff-backed redhead, he'd had all the social graces of a hungry Wookiee.
Mayn ignored the request. "We're allies, Captain, looking for a docking vector-"
"I'm sorry, Selonia, but we're going to need more detail before we can give you one."
"Of all the ..." Han muttered.
"It's a perfectly reasonable request," the general went on, his voice taut with a tension Leia couldn't
immediately fathom. "There has been no notification of you coming-"
"General Panib, this is Leia Organa Solo," she interrupted before Han could explode. "We have come to
your planet on a diplomatic mission. We would have notified you in advance but communications have
been unreliable around here of late."
There was some hesitation from the general. "I appreciate what you are saying. There have indeed been
problems with the communications networks. Nevertheless, I must insist that you now state your
intentions for coming here."
"Hey, how about you drop the attitude," Han responded hotly. "We're the guys who saved your skins
from the Ssi-ruuk a while back, remember?"
"I remember; I recognized that beat-up old freighter the moment I saw her."
Leia hid a worried smile as she watched her husband bite down on an indignant retort.
"But things aren't so simple anymore," Panib went on, "We have something of a situation here at the
moment."
"What kind of situation?" Leia asked.
"You're not welcome here!" A new voice crackled over the restricted comlink frequency. "Go steal
someone else's ships!"
"What? " Han exclaimed. It was clear this time that he didn't intend to hold back. His face reddened as
he leaned forward to speak into the comm unit.
"Listen, you-"
"Wait, Han," Leia cut him off. He looked at her with an incensed frown, but did as she asked. "General
Panib, is this person speaking with your authority?" "Certainly not!" the general responded, spluttering.
"And whoever it is shall be court-martialed as soon as-" "You can't court-martial everyone, General," the
intruder mocked. He had distorted his voice to mask his identity. "You can't silence the truth indefinitely!"
"When I find out who is responsible for this," the general blustered, "I swear that I shall have you-"
"The truth?" Leia broke in. "And just what is the truth?"
"There is nothing to discuss here!" The general's voice was rising as he lost control of the situation. "We
don't need you middling in our affairs!"
"We aren't here to meddle," Leia defended quickly. "Although I will admit that we are concerned about
your affairs. I believe you're in great danger, General.
People masquerading as allies may have recently contacted you. I can assure you that they are not what
they seem."
"Whereas you are, I suppose." This came from the person who had broken into the conversation, his
voice dripping with derision. "At least they don't pay lip service to the idea of an alliance while eroding
our defenses and leaving us open to attack!"
Leia bridled at this. "We have never abandoned our allies!"
"Like you never abandoned Dantooine and Ithor?" the stranger shot back. "Or Duro or Tynna or-"
Cold fury welled up in her. "Every planet lost cuts us deeply! Every life lost cuts us deeper!"
"I must apologize, Princess," Panib said an xiously. The general's tone had changed dramatically from a
few minutes earlier, and he sounded genuinely apologetic. "We are doing our best to find the source of
the transmission."
"I'm sorry, too, Princess," came the distorted voice of the intruder. " But I'm afraid that the time has come
to find ourselves some new allies."
"Uh-oh," Han said from Leia's side, his eyes scanning the display in front of
him.
"What is it? "she asked.
"Sentinel's launching bays just opened," he said, shaking his head ominously.
He pointed at the screen. Issuing from the launching bays of the cruiser Sentinel was a swarm of Ssi-ruuvi
battle droids, coming directly for them.
"Whatever it was we came to stop, I think we might be too late."
"Uncle Luke! Look!"
Jacen guided his uncle into the double mind of one of the nearby Krizlaws. He had used the Force to
cloud the brighter, more intense mind, but still the creature kept on coming. Somehow, the more doltish
mind was enough to coordinate the body while the higher mind was elsewhere.
"And exactly how is this supposed to help us, Jacen?" Luke asked.
"Look closer," Jacen pressed. "We're not dealing with single creatures here; they're symbionts!"
"Two creatures combined?" Luke said dubiously. "I don't see how that-"But then, suddenly, he did see.
The higher, brighter mind of the creature belonged to the rider and was the directing intelligence; it gave
the orders that the body then carried out, no matter how wounded. The lower mind belonged to the
body, which could keep going even with the higher mind disabled. Jacen's
theory certainly fit the evidence-and he was intuitively better at understanding animals than Luke was.
But if he was right, then the lower mind should be more easily startled by pain. And if that was the case,
why hadn't the one in which Jacen had disabled the higher mind simply run away from Stalgis's
blasterfire?
He soon found out. The riding intelligences were ferocious killers crudely intelligent but not open to
reason. Trained to hunt, not to discuss differences, the pack would keep coming as long as some of the
riders remained to keep the lower minds in check.
Following Jacen's lead, Luke sent his mind into another of the Krizlaws and clouded its controlling
intelligence. It, too, continued to obey its higher mind's final instructions, snapping hungrily at the four
people along with the rest of the pack. Luke and his nephew continued around the circle of beasts, one
by one confusing their higher minds. It was only after they had disabled the sixth creature that there was a
noticeable change in behavior. The pack became less orderly, less focused, while their baying became
more unsettled and aggressive. Luke could feel a note of alarm entering the remaining higher minds as the
thoughts of those around them descended back to their natural, animalistic states.
As fascinating as it might have been to observe, though, it wasn't helping the landing party. Two of the
enraged creatures rushed the group and were repelled by the combined blasterfire from Stalgis and the
injured stormtrooper. One of the Krizlaws collapsed with a yelp and a whimper at their feet; the other,
having taken a blaster bolt to the throat, leapt away, spitting blood. Barely a second had passed when
another attacked from the far side. Luke took this one out himself, stepping forward a single pace as he
brought his lightsaber up in a glowing arc, stabbing at the beast's soft pink underside. It fell to the ground,
but he hadn't killed it-the jaws of the alien continued to snap at Hegerty's feet as it scrambled relentlessly
toward her. Stalgis brought the nozzle of his rifle around and placed a precise blaster shot into the side of
the Krizlaw's
head to finish it off.
Two more attacked them, uncoordinated and clumsy, and Luke felt his world contract into a furious
concentration of teeth and glowing red eyes, with bright flashes of energy-blade and bolt-adding a surreal
counterpoint to the proceedings.
Another Krizlaw lunged, extendable mouth open to engulf him. He swung his lightsaber again, this time
with more force-using the thought of Mara and Ben to strengthen his resolve to stay alive. The blade cut
through the creature's forelimbs, but it wasn't enough to halt its movement through the air. It connected
solidly with Luke's chest, knocking him to the ground. Its huge,
slavering jaws were suddenly centimeters from his face. Before he'd had the chance to bring his lightsaber
up to defend himself, five blasts sounded from nearby, each one striking the alien's head. Mucus and
blood splashed Luke's face, and the Krizlaw fell heavily to one side. He would have liked to offer his
thanks to the stormtrooper who'd fired the shot, but he had already turned his
attention to the other creatures attacking them. There wasn't time to be grateful.
Luke climbed to his feet, bringing his lightsaber to bear in anticipation of the next onslaught. But there was
none. All of the Krizlaws suddenly recoiled, each emitting a sound that was so high-pitched it hurt his
ears. He remained in a defensive stance, dumbstruck, his blade still held in front of him waiting for the
attack that refused to happen.
Around him, the air was thick with confused, animal thoughts as the Krizlaws wheeled and fled,
scrambling and leaping in an uncontrolled, chaotic mass for the lip of the plateau.
Mystified, Luke turned to check the others. Stalgis had a cut to his forehead; the stormtrooper was
bleeding steadily from a bite to his shoulder. Hegerty was unharmed. Jacen favored his right leg as he
snapped off his lightsaber and turned to face them, a look of satisfaction on his face.
"Your doing, I presume?" Luke asked.
"I managed to get a handle on the lower minds," Jacen explained. "Finally.
Once we'd knocked out enough of the riders, they were unable to assert themselves..The pack was
frightened of us and took the first opportunity to get away."
"Is the pack a group-mind, do you think?" Hegerty asked, clearly intrigued by the idea.
"Yes. With a fixed number of components forming a stable configuration," Jacen added.
"Of course!" Hegerty said. "There were always eleven of them! They probably evolved that way, and the
creatures controlling them now simply took advantage of the configuration."
"And that's how they knew when some of their number had been killed," Jacen said. "Whenever a
vacancy was created in the group, there was always another Krizlaw to fill it, with the new ones
automatically knowing as much as the others in the meld."
Luke nodded in agreement. It made sense. Now was not the time to be discussing it, though. "We should
get to the shuttle while we still can," he said. "I'd rather not hang around and wait for the chief to put
together another group-this time with controlling intelligences intact."
They did as he suggested, with Hegerty taking the lead. Stalgis assisted his injured comrade, while Jacen
and Luke brought up the rear.
"Good work," he told his nephew as they walked. "And timely, too. I don't know how much longer we
could have held them off."
Jacen nodded, his expression one of simultaneous relief and pride. "I had to do something. I couldn't let
us be taken down by a pack of animals."
"Never underestimate the power of the animal," Luke said soberly. "Sheer
numbers can overwhelm the best of tactics. Along with not having any fear of
death, it's possibly the most powerful weapon an enemy can have."
They reached the landing ramp with no further incident, although the baying of Krizlaws was a constant
and eerie reminder of why they should get off this planet and never look back. Luke helped the injured
storm-trooper into the shuttle and onto one of the craft's small cots. Stalgis followed close behind,
grabbing a medpac on the way.
"He's going to have to be examined thoroughly," Hegerty said, speaking to the
others in a hushed tone so that the stormtrooper wouldn't hear. "That force-
feeding he received could be dangerous."
"He seems okay now," Jacen said. "Apart from the shoulder wound."
"I think Doctor Hegerty is more concerned about internal injuries," Luke said, glancing over to where
Stalgis was administering treatment to the injured trooper. Now that the fight was over, he certainly
looked paler and weaker than he had outside.
Hegerty nodded. "We'll need to warn Widowmaker that he might require immediate
surgery-as well as decontamination."
" But why?" Jacen asked.
"You said the Krizlaws are symbionts," she explained. "But symbionts with what, exactly?"
"Some other species, I guess," he said.
The doctor nodded again. "Remember the missing Jostrans?"
Jacen blanched as Hegerty's point hit home. "You don't really think-?"
She shrugged. "Maybe they're not missing after all."
"We'll let Tekli know," Luke said with a sinking feeling in his stomach that was nothing compared to what
the stormtrooper would feel if he learned of their, suspicions. He filed through the cabin while the others
took seats preparatory for launch, his thoughts turning over the whole Krizlaw/Jostran affair.
It all seemed to make sense now, as things often did in retrospect. The passage of Zonama Sekot
through the system must have destabilized the local environment enough to encourage a warlike clan or
subspecies of Jostrans to take over the Krizlaws, giving them a competitive edge. Zonama Sekot had
been responsible for helping that particular clan, but it had been at the cost of the
previous Jostran civilization.
The pilot lifted off just as Luke reached the cockpit. He strapped himself in, watching the ground scanner
as he did so. Another group of Krizlaw/Jostrans was converging on the shuttle, and he silently gave
thanks that they were no longer out there fighting. It would only have been a matter of time before they
would have fallen to the creatures.
Luke was grateful that the shuttle offered no parting shots as it swept a comfortable distance over the
heads of the eleven snapping aliens. Once upon a time the gunners aboard this craft might have strafed
them as they launched, but Luke had repeatedly emphasized that their mission was a peaceful one and
that there would be no unnecessary loss of life-human or otherwise. Thus far, the Imperials had accepted
his terms happily enough, with Captain Yage and Lieutenant Stalgis backing him up. Many of the crew,
Stalgis included, had friends or family who were still alive because of the actions of the Galactic
Federation of Free Alliances around Orinda. Nevertheless, there was a definite undercurrent of
resentment. To some, he would never be anything more than the Rebel boy who was responsible for the
death of Emperor Palpatine. But regardless
of their feelings toward him, he would never let their disrespect undermine his confidence or authority.
He turned away from the thoughts, settling back into his seat as the shuttle sped skyward, leaving Munlali
Mafir behind him. He was relieved to be going home- or to the closest thing to home they had, anyway.
"Haiijade Shadow," he instructed the sensor officer.
To Luke's surprise, Danni Quee took the call. "I gather you had some trouble with the locals," the young
scientist said.
"An argument over dinner, that's all. Is Mara there?"
"She's tied up at the moment, but she says not to worry. Can I pass on a message?"
"No, that's okay. But tell Tekli to take a shuttle over to Widowmaker. We have a patient for her."
摘要：

HTMLBookStarWarsNewJediOrderFORCEHERETICIIRefugeeSeanWilliamsandShaneDixInalast-ditchattempttosavethegalaxy,LukeSkywalker,hiswife,Mara,andJacenSoloblazenewfrontiersinunchartedrealmsasthedazzlingStarWarsspaceepicContinues...Therewillalwaysbepeoplewhoarestrongforevil.Thestrongeryoubecome,themoreyou're...

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