The hull-breach claxon blared as Mon Mothma closed with the pursuing Yuuzhan Vong fleet.
“Deck Twenty-four, sir,” Cel reported. “Contained. The damage is minimal.”
“Get those deflectors back up,” Wedge ordered. “Divert power from starboard, if necessary.”
Mon Mothma ran port broadside to the approaching vessels, lasers and ion cannons thrumming in a steady rhythm, missiles and mines ejecting as rapidly as the ship’s weapons systems allowed. Wedge knew he couldn’t keep that up for long, but he wasn’t worried about depleting the power core or running out of ammunition—they would be overwhelmed by the enemy long before that happened. In the meantime, however, his desperate maneuver was causing the lead capital ships to either slow or veer onto lengthier vectors—not so much from fear of the Mothma’s firepower as to avoid collision. That wasn’t true of the entire advancing line, of course—the ships on the wings had simply gone around him. Those weren’t the ones he was worried about; his central preoccupation was with tying up the cluster of the four ships flying point, because if they were slowed significantly, the second Interdictor would have to set a parabolic and hence longer, slower course to reach the rest of the Alliance ships. That would give the battle station that much more time to incapacitate the outsystem gravity-well generator and his fleet that much more of an opportunity to jump out of this thoroughly botched affair.
And, to his surprise, it was working.
The Yuuzhan Vong had been strange throughout this whole battle—tentative. The sudden appearance of the Golan II seemed to have made them more so. Even approaching his lone Star Destroyer, the Vong seemed almost cautious. It was almost laughable—Ebaq Nine must have really shaken them up if they thought the string of mishaps that constituted the Bilbringi offensive might actually be the setup for some ingenious trap.
Come to think of it, that might be why they were trying to stay relatively clear of Mon Mothma. Maybe they expected …
He blinked. It might work.
“Commander Raech,” he said.
“General,” Mon Mothma’s commander said.
“Evacuate the sectors adjacent to the power core and reduce the core shielding efficiency by two percent every thirty seconds.”
“Reduce the efficiency, General?”
“That’s correct,” Wedge replied.
“Very well,” Raech said.
“Give me reports on that as it develops, Lieutenant Cel.”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said, clearly as puzzled as the commander.
Wedge turned his attention back to the battle. The largest of the ships had rolled up above his horizon and was pounding their upper shields from medium range, while a smaller frigate analog was coming in from below.
Wedge ordered a change in heading. Groaning, the ship turned its nose toward the Dreadnaught and the three cruisers behind it. Mon Mothma was now under fire from an entire hemisphere.
“Forward deflectors failing, sir.”
“Steady,” Wedge said. “Hold this course.”
The pockmarked surface of the Dreadnaught grew nearer, resembling a badly scarred moon. The lights on the bridge went out, suddenly, and stayed out.
“Power core shielding down fifteen percent, sir,” Cel said. “Sir, the surrounding decks are reporting contamination.”
“Continue as ordered,” Wedge said.
And hope the Yuuzhan Vong don’t revert suddenly to form.
The interdictor cracked at its central seam and bled plasma in a white-hot fountain of lead. Spinning from the reaction, it rolled like some bizarre child’s firework and then split, light flashing inside it like lightning in a dark thunderhead.
Jaina, still bound in stun cuffs, felt like cheering.
So did some of Prann’s people, apparently, because they actually did.
Prann wasn’t one of them. “Status?” he snapped.
The Barabel at system ops looked over. “We’ve sustained major damage to the southwestern deflector grid. Other than that, we’re in pretty good shape.”
“Good.”
He looked over his shoulder at Jaina, his eyes smoldering, then finished the turn and took a few steps toward her.
“Well, Jedi,” he said. “You got your wish. Now I get mine.” He pulled the blaster out and pointed it at her head.
“Hey, wait, Prann,” one of the humans said. “None of us signed on for murder, especially the murder of a Jedi. The station is still in good shape, we’re no longer interdicted—let’s just blast jets out of here, stick to the original plan.”
“Unh-unh,” Prann snarled. “Nobody gets inside my mind like that. It ain’t right. And if we try to jump, she’ll just do it again, drop us by the other interdictor. Once she’s dead, then we jump.”
“Just let me stun her,” Vel said. “She can’t do anything then.”
“No, not until she wakes up. Then who knows what kind of mind tricks she’ll pull? Better this way.”
Jaina watched the muzzle of the weapon calmly. “Right now you guys look like heroes,” she said. “Nobody knows you weren’t planning to help. Nobody has to. Kill me, and all that changes.”
“Hey, she’s right,” the Rodian—Jith—said.
“No, don’t be a fool,” Prann said. “We’ve got all those other pilots on board. Somebody will talk.”
“Good point,” Jaina said. “Are you going to kill them, too?”
“Prann, come on,” Vel pleaded.
“I’d take his advice,” an infinitely more familiar voice said, from behind her.
Prann jerked the gun up and fired as Jaina whipped her head around. She was in time to see a large, furry mass intersect the bolt with a blazing bronze lightsaber and send it whining into the bulkhead, missing its intended target—her father.
Lowbacca—the furry mass—growled and leapt toward Prann, followed closely by Alema Rar, whose lightsaber was also blazing. Then the air was suddenly full of blaster fire. Lowbacca slashed through Prann’s weapon and then knocked him to the ground with an elbow strike; Rar leapt straight at the bridge crew. Her mother and father were suddenly in front of her, Leia blocking any shots coming their way and Han taking careful aim so as not to damage the consoles.
It didn’t take long for Prann’s people to give up in the face of the furious and unexpected attack. Within a few moments they were all disarmed.
Jaina let her breath out in a long sigh. “Hi, Dad, hi Mom. I was wondering how long you were going to take.”
Prann was picking himself up off the floor, rubbing his jaw.
“We stopped to pick up reinforcements,” Han told her, indicating Alema Rar and the rest of Twin Suns.
Leia moved to stand next to her. “Are you okay?” she asked, putting her hand on Jaina’s shoulder.
“Never better,” Jaina said.
Her dad was staring Prann down.
“Look, Solo,” Prann said, most of his bluster suddenly gone. “I don’t want any trouble from you.”
“You were holding a blaster on my daughter. What do you expect from me, a kiss and flowers?”
“Oh—yeah.” Prann muttered, almost as if to himself. “I was just—angry, you know. I wouldn’t have really done anything.”
“The rest of you,” Han shouted. “I want you back at your posts, because this crate isn’t going anywhere until every last Alliance ship has made it out, understand?”
The crew complied immediately, and the Twins went around collecting the discarded weapons.
“This is our station,” Prann said. “We earned it.”
“Hey,” Han said, “what’s your name?”
“Erli Prann.”
“Erli Prann. Can’t say as I’ve ever heard of you. But Prann?”
“Yeah?”
Her father’s fist suddenly lashed out, cracking the butt of his blaster against the side of Prann’s head. Prann dropped as if Han had used the business end of the weapon.
“If you ever touch my daughter again, I’ll kill you,” he said.
When he looked up, Prann’s crew was staring at him.
“Well?” he thundered. “Don’t you all have something to do?”
They jumped back to their tasks as if they’d been working for Han Solo all their lives. The lasers and ion cannons started firing once more, covering the Alliance fleet as it gathered speed for hyperspace.
“And somebody get me the code to these stun cuffs!” he demanded.
The Dreadnaught was suddenly receding instead of getting closer. So were the other capital ships.
“Well, look at that,” Wedge said. “It worked.”
“They think we’re overloading our core, don’t they, sir?” Cel asked.
“Yes, Lieutenant, exactly,” Wedge replied. “But they won’t buy it for long.”
He turned to the pilots. “Hard about. Point us toward that space platform. And get the shielding efficiency back up in the power core.”
“Sir, the interdictor is down,” Cel noted.
“Brilliant. Control, order all ships to lightspeed.”
The Yuuzhan Vong shook off their uncertainty pretty quickly when they saw the Mothma’s drive turn their way. They gave chase like a pack of voxyn.
Up ahead of him, he had the satisfaction of seeing the rest of his ships vanish into starlight.
“We can ramp up to lightspeed ourselves, General,” the Mothma’s commander said. “Shall I give the order?”
Wedge’s lips pinched in. Jaina and everyone else on the battle station were doomed if they left now. Not a good reward for what they had done, but if he attempted an evacuation, the crew of Mon Mothma might join them.
He sighed. “Prepare—”
“Sir, I’ve got an incoming message—priority one, from Millennium Falcon.”
“Put it on.”
A few seconds later, Leia Organa Solo spoke over the channel.
“Wedge,” she said, “can the Mothma make the jump?”
“Yes. Where are you?”
“In the docking bay of the Golan Two. Wedge, I’ll explain later, but we’re okay here. We’ll cover you on your way out.”
“That’s good enough for me,” he said. “Commander, take us out of here.”
So long, Bilbringi, he thought. If I never see you again, that’ll still be two times too many.
“It was easy enough slipping into a berth, after we lost the skips,” Han explained. “What with all the shooting going on, I guess nobody was watching the dock.”
Jaina, her mother and father, and Wedge Antilles were sitting around a table in the refectory of the Alliance-commandeered Golan II Battle Station, currently occupying an orbit in an uninhabited system with what remained of Wedge’s ships and Admiral Gilad Pellaeon’s fleet. A few Yuuzhan Vong ships had followed their vector on the jump, and had paid dearly for it.
Now they were awaiting orders on how and where to disperse to. Prann’s people were in custody, waiting to be charged, and the near-system lookouts hadn’t spotted anything that looked like an imminent Yuuzhan Vong attack. The combined fleet remained on high alert, but there was time for a little relaxation.
Wedge poured another round of Corellian brandy.
“If this station had lips,” Wedge said, “I’d kiss it. Since it doesn’t—Colonel Solo, I’ll drink your health instead.”
“Hear, hear,” Leia said, and they all raised glasses.
“We really have Prann and his people to thank, in a way,” Jaina said, after the toast was over. “I mean, it’s not like they intended to help, but if it weren’t for them—”
“Yes, if it weren’t for them we would have all died,” Wedge said. “Even as it is, we lost way too much here. Pash Cracken, Judder Page …” He shook his head. “Old friends, young people I never knew.”
He looked up at them, and to Jaina he seemed suddenly old. “You’d think I would be used to it by now.”
“You don’t get used to it,” Han said.
From the corner of her eye, Jaina saw a flash of uniform, then an aging human face with an iron-gray mustache. She came quickly to attention.
“Grand Admiral Pellaeon, sir,” she said, saluting.
The others at the table came to their feet more slowly, Han slowest of all.
“Please,” Pellaeon said. “At ease, Colonel Solo. After what you’ve been through, you deserve a rest.”
He turned to Wedge and saluted stiffly. “General Antilles, I’ve come to offer my apologies. Captain Devis’s man found us, but we hadn’t had time to prepare the fleet for lightspeed before you arrived here. I should have joined you regardless, but when our communications failed—”
“You did exactly as I would have done, Grand Admiral,” Wedge said. “The battle plan was explicit. It simply didn’t take into account that all our communications might fail.”
“That’s very generous of you, General Antilles. I hope if I were in your situation I could be as forgiving.”
“Has anyone heard from Admiral Kre’fey?” Wedge asked.
Pellaeon nodded. “The couriers Captain Solo dispatched established communications between us, a bit belatedly. It seems, General, that the ships that initially jumped from Bilbringi when you arrived there encountered Kre’fey’s fleet. They engaged briefly.”
Jag? Jaina thought. Had she sent him into a firefight?
“Admiral,” she asked, “do you know if Colonel Fel reached Admiral Kre’fey?”
“I do not, Colonel Solo, but I shall make inquiries.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Leia said. “We’ll find him.”
Wedge cleared his throat.
“Grand Admiral,” he began, “I wonder if you would care to join us for a drink. I believe the brandy is from your home province.”
Pellaeon hesitated. “I would very much enjoy that, General Antilles, but at the moment, duty calls. I—I was wondering if I could make an inquiry of my own. Captain Devis hasn’t returned to his command. Do you know his whereabouts?”
Han shuffled a bit. “I’m sorry, Admiral, he, ah—didn’t make it. He died helping to take down the interdictor.”
A strange expression passed over Pellaeon’s face like a cloud, and like a cloud it was quickly gone. But Jaina caught something in the Force, something unmistakable.
“I see,” Pellaeon said.
“He said to tell you he did what he thought was right.”
Pellaeon clasped his hands behind his back and looked at the floor. “Well, yes, that sounds like him,” he said. He glanced at Han. “He was a great admirer of yours, I believe, Captain Solo, despite the fact that in Imperial holos you are most often portrayed as something of a villain. Or perhaps that’s why he admired you.”
He clicked his heels together. “Ladies, gentlemen—until I have time for that drink.”
He saluted and left—almost in a hurry, it seemed.
“Villain?” Han muttered. “Maybe I need to see some of these holos.”
“That was a little odd, don’t you think?” Leia asked.
“Yeah,” Han drawled. “Devis was a good guy, sure, but—”
“Is the Grand Admiral married?” Jaina inquired.
“No,” Leia replied. “They say he’s never made time for it. Why do you ask?”
“Because,” Jaina said, remembering what she’d just felt in the Force, “I think Devis was his son.”
They were all silent for a moment, until Han raised his glass.
“To all of our sons and all of our daughters,” he said, “be they with us or beyond.”