[New Jedi Order] - 15 - Force Heretic ...

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Star WarsThe New Jedi OrderForce HereticBook 1Remnantby Sean Williams and Shane Dix###############################################################################With the New Republic shattered and a Yuuzhan Vong conquest looming, it is up to Luke, Leia, and their loved ones to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat... .There are three ways to defeat your enemy. The first, and most obvious, is to better him in a trial of force. The best, way is to have him destroy himself... The middle way is to destroy your enemy from within. Judicious application of the middle way shall make your blows more effective if you later take the way of force. From the middle way it is also possible to push your enemy onto the path of self-destruction.-UUEG TCHING of Kitel Phard, Fifty-fourth Emperor of AtrisiaPROLOGUESaba Sebatyne knew the moment she emerged from hyperspace that Barab I was burning. Where the planet normally displayed a cloudy, gray face lit by the glow of its primary, a sullen red dwarf, her infrared sensitive eyes now saw a fiery inferno. Smoke billowed high into the planet's atmosphere as the surface below boiled in outrage at some recent violation.Wanting to suppress the dread welling up inside of her, wanting to deny what she was seeing, Saba banked her X-wing into a steep dive toward the surface so she could take a closer look.This couldn't be happening, she told herself. There had to be someone left alive down there, surely.But her monitors were empty. There were no ships in orbit; no transmission sources; no signs of life."This iz Saba Sebatyne," she spoke into the comm unit. "If anyone can hear this broadcast, please respond. Anyone."Silence was her only answer, scratched with static.She shook her flattened, leathery head, hoping in vain to lose the vision, the thought, the truth. So many worlds had fallen since the Yuuzhan Vong had first invaded the galaxy-but not Barab I. While a part of her had always known it was a possibility, she hadn't really imagined that it would ever actually happen to her homeworld.She clicked the comm to try again-not because she seriously expected a response, but because there seemed nothing else to do."Reswa?" Her voice broke on the emotions rising at the thought that her hatchmate might have perished in those cruel fires. It was for Reswa she had been returning to her home planet in the first place. Her hatchmate was to embark on her coming-of-age ritual shenbit bone-crusher hunt, and she had asked Saba to be her witness in this. It was an honor to be asked, and a rejection of the invitation was regarded as highly insulting-especially when the one asking was a close family member.Family... the word had never sounded so empty as it did now. Friends, family-they were all gone. Nothing could have survived the flames that now ravaged her homeworld. And the closer she came to the surface of the planet, the more horror she saw. Alater-ka Spaceport was a smoldering crater; the shenbit reserves were now nothing but bubbling lava plains; the Shaka-ka memorial was sliding inexorably into a steaming sea. ..She guided her X-wing through the upper reaches of the atmosphere, the ship buffeted by the upthrust of hot gases rising from the smoking ruins of her homeworld."This one should have been here," she whispered. It was a foolish notion, she knew. Even had she been here she wouldn't have made any difference to the-All thoughts ceased.She saw them.Slipping around the limb of the planet, a small contingent of coralskippers-four in all-were breaking from low orbit, where they had been out of her scanning range. They were escorting a ship the likes of which she'd never seen before: a huge, vaguely ovoid mass, its movement slow as it labored against the pull of Barab I's gravity. It reminded Saba of a bloated balloon ready to burst.Whatever the ship was, it and its escorts were all that remained insystem of the attack fleet that had destroyed her world. A mopping-up squadron, perhaps. Whatever. It didn't matter. If there had been a hundred Yuuzhan Vong battle cruisers out there, her response would have been the same.. .She allowed the grief inside her to rise unfettered, feeling it blossom into a rage that felt perfectly satisfying, immediately easing her emotional pain. That pain, she knew, could be eased still further by action.Gritting her razor-sharp teeth, Saba veered off to intercept the coralskippers. They didn't see her at first, clearly assuming that all resistance had been quashed. She was able to get in close before they realized she was even there. Only when she was practically on top of them did the skips break formation, three of them peeling away to come about on an attack vector. It was too late for the skip closest to the balloonlike ship: she emptied a round of laserfire into it, crying out in rage as she did so. She didn't really expect such a crude attack to achieve anything except to get their attention, so was surprised when the coralskipper exploded in a violent flash of crimson that flung shards of the craft far and wide.The explosion had the unexpected effect of clearing her mind. The skip must have been already damaged, its dovin basal disabled from recent battle with the Bara-bels. Such a simple victory, so soon in the battle, startled her. Perhaps, she thought, she hadn't expected victory at all. She had simply gone into the fight expecting to die - no, wanting to die. Her people were dead, and so deep down she reasoned that she should be, too.Now she was in a fix-and one she might not be able to get herself out of. Two of the remaining skips were coming at her from behind, unleashing streams of molten plasma in her direction. She didn't want to die, and her reflexes agreed. She avoided the fate of her fellow Bara-bels by rolling her X-wing and skewing down and around her attackers. Some of the plasma reached its target, however, instantly depleting her shields.She didn't have time to check if the skip had stayed on her tail. Her R2 unit tootled an urgent warning: off to her port side another skip was coming in fast. She pulled up sharply, rocking unsteadily in her cockpit as plasma balls flickered past. Saba winced. That last shot must have sheared a millimeter of paint from her wing.She barely had time to thank her droid for the heads-up before the first two skips returned to make another pass at her. It was too much, she knew; if she remained on the defensive like this, then sooner or later they were going to get her-and out in the open, she had no choice but to be defensive.With this in mind, she moved her X-wing nearer to the larger Yuuzhan Vong craft. She kept her flying tight, swooping in close to the massive, bulbous vessel, feeling the craft's dovin basals tugging at her shields. They weren't as effective as the dovin basals on the other ships she'd come across in action; these no doubt had a different purpose, although she couldn't guess what that might be.Sweeping under the belly of the thing, confident that she was safe on at least one side, Saba gave pursuit to the. skip whose buddy she had destroyed. It tried to shake her by swerving abruptly from side to side, but she was able to stay on it long enough to get a bead on its dovin basal. When her target-lock flashed, Saba loosed one of her torpedoes. She had done this enough times to sense when she'd fired a good shot, and the second her finger squeezed the trigger, she knew she had the skip beaten. The torpedo detonated on target, effectively downing the skip's defenses and allowing her to blast the rocky craft into oblivion with a hail of laserfire. She called out in delight as the coralskipper fell apart in a stutter of explosions.She was quick to bring her emotions into check, however, when she banked her X-wing to come back around and once again saw her planet burning. This was not a time for celebrating, she reminded herself.Another warning from her droid. This time she didn't even pause to check where the attack was coming from; she just rolled her X-wing in toward the main ship. The surface of the thing seemed to move in strange and subtle undulations as she passed near it-almost like a sac filled with water-although at all times it remained as rough as the exterior of the coralskippers. She noticed something else, too: huge tentacles that unfurled from the stern of the craft, flailing around as though reaching for Saba's ship."What iz this?" she said aloud, not really expecting a reply. Nevertheless, the R2 unit behind her tootled a response. She didn't need to check her translator to know that the droid didn't have enough information to be able to give her a proper answer.She kept herself close in to the huge ship, veering constantly to avoid the writhing tentacles. She swung around the underside of the vessel when one of the skips came in too close and risked taking a couple of potshots at her. She avoided the attack easily enough, and the plasma shot harmlessly into the space away from the balloon-ship. The skips wouldn't fire if she stood between them and their charge.What iz it? she asked herself again. And why were the skips being so careful around it? It had no defenses to speak of, except for the small escort of coralskippers, and its only weapon seemed to be the tentacles that constantly lashed out at her. If there was anything else, then why didn't they use it?There was no time to dwell upon the matter, though, Time was running out for her. She couldn't stay defensive indefinitely. Others from the fleet would soon be making their way back to assist their comrades, she was sure.She pitched the X-wing again, jinking to avoid one of the tentacles while at the same time spraying a cover of laserfire at one of the incoming skips. The shots were easily absorbed by the do... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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