“This is driving me crazy,” Tahiri fussed. “Not knowing. For all we can tell, the Yuuzhan Vong have already taken over the entire system.”
“I think there are a few hundred Jedi proverbs about patience,” Corran said. “Though they all elude me just this moment. Try to follow Anakin’s example.” He paused. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
Anakin hardly paid attention to his companions. He was mostly beyond the plain, boxy room they were “guests” in, riding the Force out through the reaches of the Yag’Dhul system. He brushed the intricate, mathematical beauty of the tides of the planet and its three moons, felt the straining of Yag’Dhul’s atmosphere toward space. He heard the whispering of millions of Givin minds in the corridors of their hermetically sealed cities. He touched a billion shards of stone and ice that had never cohered into planets, biding their time until the sun finally caught them in its fiery noose.
And he felt them, the Yuuzhan Vong. Not in the Force exactly, but through the telepathic lambent incorporated in his lightsaber. The feeling was akin to a faint, staticky comm signal—but it was unmistakable.
“They’re here,” he said.
“Who?” Corran asked.
“The Yuuzhan Vong. They’re in the system. I can’t tell anything else, nothing about how many or how—” He choked off as something new, strong, and terrible struck him in the Force. He gasped, and tears welled in his eyes, spilling down his cheeks.
“What?” Tahiri said. “What’s wrong?”
“Mara,” Anakin managed. “Don’t you feel it? Aunt Mara is dying. And Uncle Luke …” He sprang up from his cross-legged position. “We have to get out of here. Now.” He drew his lightsaber.
“Anakin, we can’t,” Corran said. “The dodecian wasn’t kidding when he threatened to decompress the station. The Givin can survive in vacuum, remember?”
“We have to do something,” Anakin said hotly.
“Anakin, dying on Yag’Dhul Station won’t help Mara. We have to keep our heads.”
“I won’t just sit here and wait for them to come for us. We can’t leave it up to the Givin to decide whether we live or die.”
“I say we escape,” Tahiri said. “All we need is another ship.”
“As long as you’re wishing for the unlikely,” Corran said, “why not at least wish for vac suits first. That way we would at least stand a chance of reaching the imaginary ship we’re going to steal.”
“You used this place as a base once,” Anakin reminded him. “Don’t you know where they would keep vac suits?”
“Well, I’ve considered that, of course, but I don’t see any reason the Givin would still have those around. Or that they would be in the same place they were twenty years ago.”
“We could use the Force, make one of the guards take us to them,” Tahiri said.
“Absolutely not,” Corran said with a frown. “You’re not going to the dark side on my watch. Do it on Luke’s.”
“What, then?” Anakin asked.
“Consider also that the odds this room is being monitored are extraordinarily high,” Corran said.
“Since when did a Corellian ever care about odds?” Anakin muttered.
“Fine. No odds. They are listening to us. Count on it.”
Anakin knotted his fingers in frustration. “Then I hope they hear me when I point out how ridiculous this is. We came here to warn them, and this is how they repay us?”
“Anakin, look at it from their point of view. We came here in a Yuuzhan Vong vessel and acted as if we were going to attack their station. Now we claim a huge fleet is on the way to conquer their planet, and further we accuse them of having at least one faction collaborating with the Yuuzhan Vong. It would be hard for me to swallow.”
“Well, they have their proof by now.”
“There is that,” Corran admitted. “You can’t tell how close the Yuuzhan Vong are?”
Anakin shook his head. “No. It’s not like that.”
As if on cue, a deep tremor ran through the station.
“But if I had to guess,” Anakin went on, “I would say they were really, really close.”
“Right,” Corran said. “We have to get out of here.”
“Haven’t we just been saying that?” Tahiri complained.
“The difference is, now I’m saying it,” Corran replied. Unhitching his lightsaber, he went to the door.
It wasn’t locked, and there were no guards outside.
“Interesting,” Corran said, as the station trembled again.
Struck by a sudden suspicion, Anakin reached out in the Force once more, this time narrowing his focus to the station itself. To his relief, his suspicions were not confirmed. The Givin hadn’t abandoned the station and them with it.
In fact, at that moment, two Givin carrying blaster rifles entered through the hatch at the end of the hallway.
“Jedi,” one said, in clipped Basic. “You will come with us.”
“We can take them,” Anakin said, very low.
“Probably,” Corran acknowledged. “But we aren’t going to. Not yet, anyway.” He smiled at the Givin. “Lead on,” he said.
They passed several more Givin in the hallways, all in a rush, none seeming inclined to notice them. When they reached the command center they found it in a flurry of activity and eerily silent. The viewscreen depicted several large Yuuzhan Vong ships firing globs of plasma.
Dodecian Illiet glanced up at them as they entered.
“It would appear you were correct,” he said tightly. “Congratulations.”
“It would have been nice to hear that a few hours ago,” Corran said.
“No doubt. You three will want vacuum suits. When the Yuuzhan Vong board, we will empty the station of air.”
“Aren’t you fighting back?”
“We are, but this station has limited firepower. Our shields will not hold much longer, and our fleet is assembling to protect Yag’Dhul. We can expect no help from them. The Yuuzhan Vong force is indeed quite formidable. I expect we have very little chance of victory.”
“Don’t be so hopelessly optimistic,” Corran said.
“Perhaps I misphrased, somehow,” the Givin said. “I did not mean to imply optimism on my part.”
“I was being sarcastic,” Corran said. “Never mind. Where are the vac suits?”
The dodecian gestured at another Givin. “In the old storage lockers at what you may remember as designated ring one-C of the docking area. My subordinate will take you to them in case your memory fails. I regret your position in all of this. I regret further that an attempt was made to bargain with your lives.”
“They didn’t bite?”
“On the contrary,” Illiet said. “I reached a settlement with them. They promised to spare our station if you were turned over to them.”
“Then why …?”
“I did not believe their promise,” the dodecian said. “Go. There is a small ship at docking port twelve, berth thirteen, if it has not already been destroyed. I grant you use of it. The rest of our vessels were used to evacuate unnecessary personnel before the attack commenced.”
“Thank you,” Corran said.
“Thank you for your efforts on our behalf,” the Givin replied. He looked back at the tactical readouts. “You should hurry.” He didn’t look back up.