Jaina Solo sat alone at the controls of her ship, the tendrils of the alien hood fixed to her face. Her attention was focused on the ship’s displays, where she expected her quarry to appear.
Her quarry was Shimrra, Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong.
Kill this one, she hoped, and the Yuuzhan Vong invaders might fall like a house of cards.
Word had flashed from New Republic Intelligence only three standard days earlier that the Supreme Overlord was expected at the library world of Obroa-skai. Obroa-skai had been conquered, and the contents of the library were now being translated into the Yuuzhan Vong language. Yuuzhan Vong priests had been placed in charge of the library; there were Yuuzhan Vong soldiers on the ground to protect their interests. Yuuzhan Vong ships were common in the system, and the planet was home to a yammosk that would coordinate any alien pilots in the area.
If anyone consulted the library any longer, it was the enemy. Possibly Shimrra himself was coming to view a critical piece of information that had just been translated. Obroa-skai had become an enemy asset.
And if Jaina had her way, it would become an enemy graveyard.
So Jaina hovered here, with the bulk of the gas giant Obroa-held masking her from any detectors on the library planet, and waited to spring her trap.
Just this one last effort, she thought, and maybe it’s all over. If Shimrra were killed, the Yuuzhan Vong might collapse. And even if the enemy didn’t fall apart, Shimrra’s death would serve as revenge for the fall of Coruscant, and give the New Republic a much-needed breathing space.
Jaina badly wanted an end to the war. She had been on the front lines literally since the first day. Then she had been joyful, confident, certain of her abilities, of the power of the Force and the order of the universe. Since then the war had taught her much. It had taught her doubt, terror, anxiety, fear, and anger. She had learned the limits to the Force, and to Force mastery. The war had shown her the darkness that lay within her, and how easy it had been for the darkness to overcome her, to drive her to fury, vengeance, and slaughter.
Most of all, the war had taught her sorrow. Sorrow for her lost brothers Jacen and Anakin, for Chewbacca, for her wingmate Anni Capstan, for the Hapan Queen Mother Teneniel Djo, for all the warriors who had died fighting alongside her, for the Jedi lost to the Yuuzhan Vong’s relentless program of extermination, for the billions of nameless refugees who had been caught in the conflict and destroyed, or dispossessed of all they had owned or known.
She had learned her own fragility. She had been blinded in battle and learned the frustration of the invalid. She had been captured by the enemy. She had learned how easy it was for her to die, and how easily the universe would permit such a thing.
Jaina had learned too much, and in too short a time. She needed a rest in order to try to understand it all, to reconcile herself to her new knowledge and to her new reality.
But there was no time to rest. Her work was too critical, her expertise too necessary. She would have to win the war first, and then work out what it all meant.
If, of course, the war didn’t kill her first.
There was a howl from Lowbacca on her comlink.
“The Vong have been late before, Streak.” Though not often enough, she thought.
[You don’t suppose that New Republic Intelligence has once again drop-kicked their brains and sent us out here for nothing?]
“That wouldn’t surprise me.”
[In which case we can return to base, take a nice long rest, no?]
“That would surprise me.”
“Huuuh.”
“But if New Republic Intelligence is right,” Jaina said, more to herself than to her lieutenant, “then this is it. This is like the destruction of the second Death Star, with the Emperor on it.”
“Hrr.” [Then let the Supreme Overlord come!]
Even as Lowbacca growled his impatience, Jaina sensed a distant trembling through her connection with the alien frigate, a shudder like a groundquake in the ether, her ship’s dovin basals responding to the gravity surge that marked the arrival of a great many ships from hyperspace.
“Lowie,” she said, “I think you just got your wish.”
She had not learned to love the captured Yuuzhan Vong frigate as she had her other ships. Jaina had learned her ships through her hands, by tearing them apart and putting them back together: she had learned to love every component, every servo, every power cable, every rivet. The captured ship, on the other hand, couldn’t be taken apart, not without killing it: it was a single organic whole and had to be approached as such. The interface through the cognition hood was difficult, the organic ship systems were complex and frustrating, the dovin basals used for propulsion and defense were as baffling as they were effective. Her other craft had been fighter craft: agile, fast, and responsive. The Yuuzhan Vong frigate Trickster was huge, and though it was fast, maneuvering it was like maneuvering a city block. Changing course seemed to take forever. And there was no way to dodge or evade enemy fire: she just had to hope that the ship’s defenses were strong enough to take the hits and survive.
But if she couldn’t love the frigate, she had learned to respect it. She respected its toughness, the wholeness of its design, its ability to repair itself, its stubborn refusal to die even when it had been shot to pieces in combat against its own kind. In fighting around Hapes, the ship had been wounded almost to the death, but somehow, with the care of the Hapan scientists who were studying Yuuzhan Vong life-forms, it had survived and repaired much of the damage, though not all. Yet despite the fact that some of the ship’s damage was beyond repair, despite the torn yorik coral and the dovin basals that had died, it was still as willing as ever to risk itself at Jaina’s behest.
Jaina named it Trickster. The name proclaimed her a manifestation of Yun-Harla, the Cloaked One, the Yuuzhan Vong Trickster goddess. As such the name was a slap in the face to Yuuzhan Vong religious orthodoxy. Though the guise had proved useful—at both Hapes and Borleias, it had given her a clear tactical advantage—it also only added to the considerable number of enemy who wanted very badly to kill her.
A thought at which she could only shrug. So what else was new?
“Let’s go, Lowie.”
Lowbacca, through his alien cognition hood, ordered Trickster to accelerate, sweeping out from behind the Obroa-held gas giant and into view of any enemy detectors. Directed gravitational energy began to throb from the dovin basals built into the frigate, and even though some of the dovin basals had been killed at Hapes, the huge living craft began a ferocious, smooth acceleration that any New Republic vessel would be hard put to equal.
Jaina followed this call with a coded message sent through the New Republic subspace communicator that Lowbacca had implanted in the frigate. Target arrived. Let’s start the party.
It was only then that Trickster’s sensors got a full reading on the fleet that had just arrived in the Obroa-skai system.
Jaina felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle as she looked at the display. Eight frigates the size of her own. Two huge transport craft. More coralskippers and picket ships than she could count.
And one enormous ovoid vessel, glowing in the displays like a burning, unwinking eye. Not as big as a worldship, but larger than anything else in the Obroa-skai system other than planets and moons.
The personal command ship of Supreme Overlord Shimrra, Jaina thought. Oh yes. New Republic Intelligence was right.
Another wave of gravity pulsed over the ship. These were the commands of the yammosk, the Yuuzhan Vong war coordinator that executed the will of the enemy commander. Lowbacca allowed Trickster to obey the yammosk’s commands to alter course for the enemy, but slowly, as if the frigate were damaged, or unable clearly to understand its instructions.
The yammosk no doubt verified that the frigate was damaged, a fact that would make its lack of communication with the fleet more convincing.
And then the party started. Dropping out of hyperspace, as if they’d been following Trickster, came the forces of the New Republic.
Nine flights of fighters. Four Corellian gunships. Three Kuat Systems Republic-class cruisers. A refurbished Lancer-class frigate captured from the Empire during the Rebellion. And two MC80B Mon Calamari cruisers, both wildly different in appearance but possessing a world-shattering complement of turbolasers, ion cannons, and their own ten squadrons of fighters, all of which now came boiling like swarms of stinging insects from their scalloped hulls. All under the command of General Keyan Farlander, the Agamarian hero of the Rebellion, and all appearing just behind Jaina, with the Obroa-held gas giant only partially masking their appearance.
This, Jaina thought exultantly, is a real battle.
And they were following her plan. Hers. For a moment her own fierce joy overcame all doubt, and she basked in the glorious sensation of power. Shimrra, you better watch out.
The New Republic forces had been hovering just four light-hours, waiting for Jaina’s signal to make the smallest possible hyperspace jump into the Obroa-skai system. They appeared slightly out of range of Trickster, as if they’d misjudged their return to normal space. It should look to Supreme Overlord Shimrra like a perfect chance to ambush the ambushers.
More commands came from the yammosk, too many and too complex for Jaina to even attempt to decode. Through the weird perceptions gained through her hood, she saw the enemy fleet deploying, the heavy ships rolling ponderously into position behind darting swarms of coralskippers that flashed like schools of fish against the blackness of space, all moving with the simultaneity and impossible precision gained from coordination with the yammosk’s controlling intelligence.
But they were doing what Jaina had hoped they would do. Perhaps encouraged by their modest advantage in firepower, they were maneuvering to engage the New Republic forces.
Jaina had feared that if the New Republic fleet had simply leapt into the system and attacked, the Yuuzhan Vong would have clumped up around Shimrra’s command ship, and the New Republic forces would never have been able to get to the enemy leader. But instead the damaged Trickster’s leaping first into the system made it seem as if the New Republic, not the Yuuzhan Vong, had been surprised, that they had jumped into the system in pursuit of a wounded frigate and found instead a task force.
The Yuuzhan Vong war psychology was based on attack, on the calculated ferocity of an all-out offensive. Jaina had hoped to trigger that psychology, and she had succeeded.
For the moment there was nothing for her to do but follow the yammosk’s orders. She leaned back in the huge command chair that had been configured for an armored Yuuzhan Vong warrior and tried to relax her muscles, control her breathing. She let Force-awareness, always on the edge of her perceptions, flood her mind with its focused clarity.
She felt Lowbacca’s nearby presence, under the hood that gave him command of the frigate’s navigation. Her other lieutenant, Tesar Sebatyne, had his efficient predator’s mind focused on controlling the frigate’s weapons systems. Farther afield Jaina sensed the grim, reliable Corran Horn leading Rogue Squadron, and Kyp Durron flying at the head of his re-formed Dozen. Kyp’s reflex, on sensing her through the Force, was to project concern, and she made a point of sending him warm reassurance. Since Jaina’s involvement with Jag Fel, Kyp had been a nurturing presence, almost parental, and neither he nor Jaina quite knew how to reconcile his new persona with his earlier smoldering identity as the angry young man of the Jedi.
Then, lastly, Jaina sensed a less familiar presence, the Anx Jedi Madurrin, who served on the bridge of the Mon Cal cruiser Mon Adapyne, ready to use her Force link with the other Jedi to aid the New Republic.
Other friends, she knew, would soon be engaging the enemy, friends who weren’t Jedi and whom she couldn’t feel through the Force. Friends in Blackmoon Squadron and Saber Squadron, not to mention the hypersecret Wraiths, flying snoopships that could outrun anything in the enemy inventory.
Jaina basked for a moment in the pleasure of those she had trained with, served with, those who had shared her triumphs as well as her despair … At Myrkr she had learned the power of the Force-meld that could come when a number of Jedi united their minds and thoughts, becoming stronger than if each stood alone, and for a long moment she rejoiced in their unity.
Jacen! she thought, his presence a song in her mind, and then she fought her way clear of Force-awareness and of the sudden surges of contradictory emotion that streamed through her.
A Wookiee howl came into her comlink.
“I don’t know what that was about!” She hesitated. “I must have lost it for a second. Sorry.”
Lowbacca grunted his reassurance.
“I opened to the Force, and I must have opened to—to something else as well.”
Tentatively, Jaina reached out again to the Force, and felt nothing but the warm concern of her friends.
Everything’s fine, she tried to send to them.
But she couldn’t help but echo Lowbacca’s question. What was that about? What had she opened to, that caused the flood of memories and emotions connected with her dead twin?
Distantly she perceived the orders of the enemy yammosk, saw the Yuuzhan Vong fleet instantly carry them out. There was no hesitation in the enemy, no sense of indecision or fear. Wish we could say that about ourselves, Jaina thought.
Her own mind was gnawing at her situation, trying to deduce enemy intentions from their deployments. The plan for the upcoming battle had been largely hers, and it was based on several assumptions, none of which Jaina could be sure still applied.
She could no longer have complete confidence in the assumption that the Yuuzhan Vong hadn’t realized that Trickster was no longer one of their own ships. She’d already used the frigate for deception, and it was perfectly possible that they would be wise to her by now.
Part of her plan was also based on the use of decoy dovin basals that could attach to enemy ships and identify them as enemies to their own side. This had been a spectacular success in the Hapes Cluster and in the Battle of Borleias, but sooner or later the Yuuzhan Vong would learn to ignore or counter the false signals.
The most crucial element of the plan were the yammosk jammers developed by Danni Quee. These would override the signals of the Yuuzhan Vong war coordinator, preventing the eerie, single-minded, instantaneous maneuvering that had been the hallmark of enemy victories.
If the Yuuzhan Vong had worked out a way to counter the jammers, then Jaina was leading a New Republic fleet to certain destruction, with Supreme Overlord Shimrra as a highly interested spectator in yet another glorious triumph for the Vong …
Let it all work just one more time.
Both fleets were maneuvering now. They were no longer hurtling directly toward one another on opposing tracks: both had altered course in order to avoid the Obroa-held gas giant and to approach at a far more acute angle that would allow wide fields of fire to the capital ships’ broadside guns. Among the enemy was a swarm of coralskippers that seemed dedicated to guarding the presumed flagship of Overlord Shimrra, which itself hovered somewhat behind the action, screened by other fleet elements. And the flagship itself guarded the large transports, which took station on its far side.
And between the fleets, Jaina’s frigate—apparently ignored by both sides—fled across the gap, heading toward the presumed safety of the Yuuzhan Vong squadrons.
More orders came to Trickster courtesy of the enemy yammosk.
[We’re being ordered to take station astern of the enemy flag,] Lowbacca said.
“Well,” Jaina judged, “that’s about perfect.”
[Shall I comply?]
“Yes. But act naturally—you know, slow and clumsy.”
Lowbacca answered with a snarl, but Jaina could hear the laughter in it.
Jaina relaxed again into the Force, integrating the picture she received through the alien cognition hood. Both sides were nearing the point of no return, the point at which missiles and fighters would start swarming across the gap between the squadrons.
Jaina watched the ships move across space, tried to gauge the movement.
Now, she sent through the Force. She felt Madurrin receive the order, relay it verbally to others on the flagship.
On receipt of the signal, a device on one of Wraith Squadron’s snoopships began pulsing out gravity waves that interfered directly with the signals of the enemy yammosk.
And then, when the enemy war coordinator was no longer able to communicate with the elements of its fleet, the New Republic fleet undertook one more maneuver. Each fleet element altered course to drive directly for the largest enemy ship, Shimrra’s personal vessel.
Shimrra was now the sole target of more than one hundred New Republic craft. If the Yuuzhan Vong yammosk was jammed, the enemy would not be able to coordinate a response in time, and because of the proximity of Obroa-held’s gravity field, the enemy couldn’t escape into hyperspace.
Jaina sat, trapped in what seemed an eternal moment of suspense, while she waited to see if the jammers worked, if the enemy responded. She could dimly perceive the jammer through her connection to the dovin basals of Trickster, the rhythm of its transmissions overriding the sendings of the enemy yammosk.
And then she felt another rhythm intrude on the first, and saw the enemy ships respond, swinging in a unified response to the New Republic’s maneuver, every single ship in the enemy armada altering course at the same instant.
No! Jaina thought, horrified. It can’t be!
The jammer had failed—or rather it had worked for only a few moments, producing a hesitation in the enemy countermaneuver.
At least the enemy maneuver had been delayed. Their position was no longer ideal.
Despair flooded over Jaina. Get out of here, she thought through the Force-meld. Get away from Obroa-held and into hyperspace now! It wasn’t actual words she sent, but a frantic tumble of images and impulses and emotions that reflected her own anxiety.
No. Corran Horn’s strong presence flooded Jaina’s Force-awareness. His answer was a powerful cocktail of feelings, impulses, words, and fierce reason. Think!
Jaina was frantic beyond thought. Her frigate was sweeping directly toward the enemy, and one enemy squadron, led by two frigates her own size, had altered course so as to pass right by her—headed not for Trickster, she hoped, but for an element of the New Republic fleet.
Missile tracks began to fly through her displays. Again, none aimed at her.
Madurrin’s presence floated into the Force-meld, alerting the others that Farlander was going to try another maneuver at the last second.
Jaina ordered her frigate to scatter weapons as the enemy squadron approached. As if they were shadow bombs, she used the Force to shove them toward the Yuuzhan Vong warships, but these weren’t shadow bombs, nor would they cause damage to the enemy—at least not directly. Each contained a dovin basal that, when attached to an enemy vessel and triggered, would identify the ship carrying it as an enemy of the Yuuzhan Vong. In the past she had used these devices to cause the enemy to fire on one another, but now she had no confidence in the tactic: if the Yuuzhan Vong had worked out how to counter the yammosk jammer, it wasn’t very many steps from there to being able to counter every weapon in Jaina’s arsenal.
The enemy squadron flashed past, several of the decoy dovin basals attaching to each ship. Jaina felt a surge in the Force as the order was given for the New Republic fleet’s last-second maneuver. She held her breath as Farlander’s squadrons turned and accelerated, an attempt to cross the bows of the oncoming Yuuzhan Vong squadrons, shifting their target back from Shimrra’s flagship to the enemy fleet elements. And then Jaina’s despair deepened as she felt, through her connection with Trickster’s dovin basals, another series of commands raining out from the distant yammosk. The enemy ships all turned, once again, to counter Keyan Farlander’s maneuver.
The Yuuzhan Vong hadn’t even been delayed this time. They had responded to the maneuver the instant they detected it.
Jaina’s blood ran cold. The yammosk jammers had been countered. The single greatest contribution to the war, the keystone of Jaina’s plan for winning the battle—and it was useless.
Out of pure despair she triggered the dovin basal decoys she had fired at the enemy craft. Despite her impulsiveness the timing was perfect: the decoys switched on just as the enemy craft opened their main attack on the New Republic squadron. All the missiles and bolts that would otherwise have poured into the New Republic ships were fired instead at the two frigates and a few other smaller craft, which in their turn furiously fired at each other. Jaina watched as the elements of the Yuuzhan Vong squadron began maneuvering against each other with the same uncanny precision they had always shown under the guidance of a yammosk.
Yuuzhan Vong pilots and gunners were shrouded by the living hood that fed them information, and they knew only what the hood told them. When it told them a ship was enemy, they fired at it.
“It worked,” Jaina said.
[Of course,] Lowbacca answered.
But why? The question floated to Jaina from Corran Horn. Think. Something’s … going on.
Fire spattered the flanks of the two enemy frigates as projectiles and missiles struck home. Their dovin basal shields had been aimed to repel the attacks of the New Republic squadron, not their own fire, and they were taking heavy damage. And then, once the enemy were fully engaged with one another, New Republic concussion missiles and bolts from New Republic laser cannons arrived, followed by Kyp’s Dozen and two other flights of starfighters. Smaller enemy ships were vaporized. The two frigates staggered to repeated hits. Muffled by her hood, Jaina gave a cheer. Through the Force she could feel Corran, Kyp, and Madurrin as they fought together, bringing separate elements of the fleet into a synchronization similar to that granted to the Yuuzhan Vong by their yammosk.
But they flew only three ships, and led only three elements of the fleet, two of them fighter squadrons. The rest of the New Republic fleet was forced to communicate through more conventional means. And only one of the five enemy squadrons was in trouble, the squadron that Jaina had seeded with decoy basals. The rest were engaged with New Republic forces in a far more standard give-and-take, with the Yuuzhan Vong still maneuvering with the eerie simultaneity given them by their war coordinator.
The New Republic forces were presumably firing more decoy dovin basals at the enemy, but the missiles would have to get through in order to have any effect, and so far none had.
Contrary to what intuition might suggest, fighter combat generally grew less deadly, not more, as greater numbers of fighters were involved. When fights were large and confusing, pilots spent more time watching their tails than hunting the enemy. The brains of the pilots simply couldn’t keep track of all the craft maneuvering against them.
But that wasn’t the case with the Yuuzhan Vong war coordinator. The yammosk kept track of every craft in the sky and ordered those in jeopardy to maneuver while others were guided to rescue their comrades. The New Republic starfighter pilots, brave and well trained though they might be, were simply outclassed by a dedicated intelligence that could process all the data from a large battle at once.
Jaina’s heart lifted when first one, then another enemy frigate blew to bits, both betrayed by the decoy dovin basals she’d fired at them. But otherwise the Yuuzhan Vong were doing well. Flames poured from one of the Corellian gunships, and the vessel was staggering out of formation, out of control, its sublight drives slagged. One of the Republic-class cruisers was taking a lot of hits. And around every formation winked swarms of little fireflies, starfighters and coralskippers dying in battle, their lives flaring away in brief, silent fire.
Only Jaina, who had flown unmolested clear through the enemy fleet, was in a position to observe it all, and despair. The enemy yammosk gave the Yuuzhan Vong too great an advantage. She could sense Corran and Kyp as they battled against an enemy whose maneuvers were simply without flaw.
Think! Jaina echoed Corran Horn’s command. She led the only crew not engaged with the enemy; she was the only person with time to think. Why was the yammosk working even though it was jammed? Why was the jammer not working while the decoy basals were functioning perfectly, even though they were both based on the same principles?
Through Trickster’s dovin basals, she could distantly sense the commands of the enemy yammosk, the gravity-wave instructions that commanded the Yuuzhan Vong formations. But she could also hear the regular beats of the jammer, the jammer that should be overriding the enemy signal.
What was going on?
Think! She answered her question with a command.
She submerged her awareness into the complex signals, tried to sense the pattern. The rhythms of the densely coded messages patterned through her mind, too fast for her to follow. There were two distinct patterns, she found, not one overlaid atop the other—the jammer and the yammosk seemed almost not to have anything to do with each other. What was the problem?
And then, beneath the jammer, Jaina began sensing something else, another pattern.
Her awareness slowed, tried to tune out the relentless beats of the jammer. There … Surprise sang along her nerves. What she detected seemed to be the signals of another yammosk.
Two yammosks?
The truth came in a sudden flash. Supreme Overlord Shimrra had brought his own war coordinator to the battle, probably on his flagship. But there was a second yammosk in the system, one seeded by the invaders on Obroa-skai, the yammosk that New Republic Intelligence had known about all along.
Whatever yammosk was first in command had been jammed by the Wraiths. But then the second yammosk, operating on a different part of the gravity-wave spectrum, had stepped in to take control.
For a moment Jaina’s hands twitched in her command gloves, on the verge of ordering the jammer in Trickster to commence operations, but then she hesitated. If the enemy detected the origin of the jamming, then they’d know Trickster was a decoy vessel. Instead she yanked off her cognition hood and reached for the comm.
“Twin Suns Leader to Wraith Leader. There’s a second yammosk! You’ll have to tune another jammer to it.”
Face Loran’s tone failed to reveal whatever surprise he might be feeling. “This is Wraith Leader. Message understood, Major.”
There was a slight delay before Jaina detected the second jammer begin its hammering beat, and another few seconds before it found the correct signal and began jamming it. Anxiously Jaina scanned the battle scene laid out behind her.
It was working. The eerie synchrony of the enemy ships was breaking up. Coralskippers hesitated in their movements, waiting for instructions in all the deadly chaos, and the New Republic craft took instant advantage.
Momentum was with the New Republic now. They were used to operating with less-than-perfect communications and coordination, but the Yuuzhan Vong pilots were bewildered once deprived of the commands of the yammosk.
Got one! Kyp’s triumph floated through the Force.
Get another, Corran Horn sent—had time to send, now that he was no longer so hard-pressed. Jaina could have wept with relief.
She relaxed into the Force again. She couldn’t affect the battle directly, but she could help her friends, could send strength, love, and support through their Force-link. She sensed their growing strength, their growing triumph. Coralskippers blazed in front of their guns.
Through the combined Force awareness and the knowledge gained through Trickster’s sensors, she watched the progress of the battle. When the two enemy frigates had destroyed each other, the capital ships fighting them had found themselves free and had moved to assist a second New Republic squadron, sandwiching a Yuuzhan Vong squadron between them. Elsewhere, another of the enemy’s frigates had been hit with one of the decoy dovin basals, and was being pounded by another Yuuzhan Vong frigate and swarms of coralskippers under the impression that it was an enemy. The tide had definitely turned, and Jaina quietly exulted.
My plan. It was working after all.
[Jaina.] Lowbacca’s voice.
“Yes?”
[I thought you’d like to know I’ve just laid Trickster right astern of the enemy flagship.]
Jaina snapped alert and pulled the alien cognition hood over her head. At once she detected the rounded aft section of Shimrra’s ship dead ahead, studded with plasma cannon barrels, launch tubes, and rounded fairings that doubtless held something, probably dovin basals used for propulsion or defense.
And they ordered us to come here! she thought in delight.
“Right,” she said, this time through the comlink that connected her to everyone in her squadron. “I want every cannon and projectile tube on that ship’s stern targeted. And those fairings, too, whatever’s in them.”
Acknowledgments crackled over the comlink, and Jaina busied herself in following her own orders. Most of her squadron members were dispersed over the frigate, hooded and gloved as she was, in charge of weapons or defense stations. Though she could command the ship with fewer than twelve crew, the efficiency was greater if there were more sentients onstation.
And her rookie pilots—exactly half of her squadron of twelve—were a lot safer here than piloting their starfighters against an experienced enemy.
All stations reported readiness. Jaina’s gloved hands hovered in the air. Through the Force, she sent the message that they were ready to open fire on the flagship.
After a moment came General Farlander’s reply, relayed through Madurrin. Carry on.
Carry on. Right.
“All weapons ready? Open fire!”
Trickster’s bow blazed as a host of missiles and projectiles sped for the undefended enemy stern. Fire blossomed over the dark silhouette of the enemy ship, patterns of pinpoint flares marking dozens of hits. Jaina made certain that amid the volley were two of her decoy dovin basal missiles—one primary, one reserve—and as soon as the first volley was over, she triggered the primary, informing every Yuuzhan Vong in the area that their own flagship was now an enemy.
This encouraged the sixty nearby coralskippers to do their bit, plunging toward their flagship, fire raking along its flanks. The small craft probably couldn’t do very critical damage to anything as huge as their target, but every little bit helped.
There was a pause between the first volley and the second only because the gunners were checking their targets and retargeting those that hadn’t been destroyed. And then Trickster’s bow blazed again, and this time the blaze didn’t stop.
Jaina was going to keep firing until every gun barrel and every missile tube on her ship was empty.
The flagship was surprisingly slow to respond. Dovin basal energy was directed aft, sucking incoming projectiles into their black-hole singularities, but the dovin basals were seemingly unable to cover all the stern, so some of the attacking volley struck home anyway, and other bolts from the Trickster arced through dovin basal–warped space over the stern of the enemy ship, only to plunge down somewhere amidships.
After Jaina’s first strike the enemy simply had no weapons remaining that fired dead aft, so missiles were fired out of the broadside batteries. These had to loop toward Trickster on a long arc, however, which made them easy to spot, and Trickster’s own dovin basals warped space to pick them off.
“We’re in their shadow!” Jaina cried, and kept firing.
Through her Force-awareness, she sensed Kyp’s satisfaction as he nailed a pair of coralskippers, Corran’s grim pleasure in leading his flight onto the tails of a group of enemy skips, and Madurrin’s awe as two more enemy frigates were destroyed.
The stern of the enemy flagship was glowing now, an eerie orange-red as repeated impacts broiled the target.
Jaina kept firing.
“The enemy’s breaking off, Twin Leader.” The flagship’s voice came over her comm.
“Good news, flag.”
“Not so good for you. They’re pulling back to help their leader.”
That meant four enemy frigates would soon be engaging her. No, three enemy frigates—she saw one break up as it tried to maneuver away from the fight.
“Better call on the—”
“Already taken care of, Twin Leader.”
Already taken care of. Through her dovin basals Jaina felt the surge of gravity waves as two more squadrons of starships entered realspace.
Two Battle Dragons, three Nova-class battle cruisers, and accompanying fighters, all courtesy of the Hapan Navy, and led in person by Jaina’s former classmate, Queen Mother Tenel Ka, ruler of the sixty-three inhabited planets of the Hapes Consortium.
Greetings! Tenel Ka sent. Her strong personality flooded Jaina’s Force awareness. The presence of a single additional Jedi had greatly increased the power of the Force-meld.
Welcome to Obroa-skai, Majesty, Jaina tried to send. We’ve saved the flagship for you. She couldn’t tell whether such a complex thought got through, but she could sense that Tenel Ka understood at least the substance of it.
The Hapan fleet, like the New Republic ships, had been hovering only a few light-hours from Obroa-skai, ready for the call. Previous Hapan experience in fighting alongside the New Republic, at Fondor, had been nothing short of a catastrophe, and Tenel Ka had taken a political risk in bringing her ships here at all. Both Jaina and General Farlander wanted to be careful in using their ally, and so it had been agreed that the Hapans were to be used either to complete a victory or, if necessary, to cover a withdrawal.
What the Hapans managed instead was to complete a massacre. Hapan tactics had always consisted of a direct charge that launched a massed energy wall, all weapons blasting at once at a single target, a tactic that proved ideal for this situation. The Battle Dragons, on their way to the flagship, first took out the enemy transports, their concentrated wall of fire shattering the ships to fragments.
Jaina watched in awe as the three battle cruisers, acting as one, dashed at the enemy flagship in a single pass, their batteries blazing. Much of the fire got through, and Jaina saw towering explosions and geysers of debris erupt from the enemy hull.
Hapan energy weapons had once taken a notoriously long time to recharge, but after Fondor the New Republic had given the Hapans quick-charge turbolasers, so the battle cruisers stayed in the fight and kept hammering, now joined by the Battle Dragons. The flagship quaked to impacts, flame pouring from gaping holes in its sides.
At this point the rest of the Yuuzhan Vong apparently conceded their flagship lost, abandoned the battle, and fled in all directions with allied squadrons in pursuit. Jaina was surprised—she’d assumed they’d defend their Supreme Commander to the last warrior.
One alien frigate, surrounded by enemies, jumped into hyperspace too soon and was dragged back into realspace by Obroa-held’s gravity. The inertia-damping dovin basals failed at the shock, and every individual on the ship was flung into the nearest bulkhead at nearly six-tenths speed of light. The result was a superheated plasma that ruptured the enemy hull as it blasted outward. Another frigate was blown to shreds by New Republic cruisers. Of the capital ships, only one frigate escaped into hyperspace, along with however many of the coralskippers it had managed to recover.
The Hapan ships blew up the flagship on their next pass. The starfighters began to hunt down the stranded coralskippers.
All that remained was for the surviving allied capital ships to move to Obroa-skai, destroy the planet’s yammosk with a well-placed shot, and then plaster any Yuuzhan Vong barracks or installations until they glowed, taking care not to harm what remained of the library.
Jaina watched the end game play itself, her mind ringing with awe. It worked. Her plan. It worked.
She had just killed Shimrra, Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong. If she hadn’t just won the war, she might have provided its decisive moment.
A Wookiee howl came over the comlink.
“Yes!” Tesar said. “Congratulations!”
Cheers and congratulations erupted over the comlink. Jaina’s squadron, the comrades she’d led into danger, cheering her success. An unaccustomed joy filled Jaina.
“Thank you,” she babbled. “Thank you all.”
More congratulations came through her Force-awareness. And then, from the flagship, “Stand by. The general’s sending a message.”
Keyan Farlander’s voice, when it came over the comm, sounded bemused.
“I’ve just received a subspace communication from Intelligence advising me not to make the attack, or to break off if I’ve begun,” he said.
Jaina laughed. In the heady triumph of the victory, New Republic Intelligence seemed even more behind the times than usual.
“I don’t suppose they mentioned why?” Jaina responded.
“Well,” Farlander said, “it seems there’s a problem. It looks as if Supreme Overlord Shimrra wasn’t in the flagship after all.”