The Black Fleet Crisis_ Tyrant's Test Part 27

"Got it. What are you up to?"

"Just get clear and be ready to scamper." Tuketu switched off the combat comm. "Skids?"

"Here as always."

"I want to take her in and park right on that seam, zero velocity, so you can line it up from ten meters away. If it goes in, I'll get us clear--their own s.h.i.+elds will protect us long enough."

"You think so." yard. "This thing's full of Star Destroyers, Skids.

It's got to go, Can you make the shot? It's up to you."

"Yeah, I can make the shot," he said. "Let's do it."

"What in the devil is he up to?" Brand demanded.

"He didn't drop his egg on the first pa.s.s, and now he's just sitting there."

"I don't know--his combat comm's down," said the tactical officer.

"It almost looks like he's trying to put himself right in the interference zone."

Brand looked away from the plot table and out at the s.h.i.+pyard just in time to see it enveloped in an enormous explosion that ripped the thrusts.h.i.+p free and sent the yard into a slow, tumbling roll.

Swallowing hard, he ordered the mains directed at the mortally wounded structure and watched as they tore through what was left, turning the jumble of vessels inside into a spreading cloud of burned and twisted debris.

While the dissection continued, the damaged thrusts.h.i.+p slowly fell planetward in a graceful death dive. The lead thrusts.h.i.+p followed it part of the way down, then climbed out and away under full thrust, leaving half a dozen of its fighters scattered behind it, abandoned.

Brand turned away and leaned heavily on the plot table with both hands, as though he needed support for shaky legs.

"Now we know what it takes to beat them," he whispered. "Begin recovery operations."

Three thousand kilometers above the plane of the star system, the thrusts.h.i.+p Tholos slowed to a stop and turned end for end.

During the climb out from the third planet, a full load of gravity bombs had been racked in the central drop chute, and the main batteries had been shuttled along their internal tracks until all eight were located in the s.h.i.+p's upper hemisphere. From there, they could be directed at a single target during the attack dive, Hold nothing back when you go to kill!"

"Ko nakaza!" cried Par Drann, his fighting crests flushed and swollen.

"Soko darama! for the honor of the viceroy, the Blessed, the All.

Now, Proctor--there is our target. Speed! Before the vermin escape us--" Nil Spaar gently caressed the mara-nas hanging in alcove five.

In only three days it had more than doubled in size, and the surface had taken on a rich iridescent sheen that foretold a superior nesting.

Wrapping his tongue around his finger, he drew in the complex scent and taste of the oily secretions.

Nitakka, he thought. A strong young male to Carry my blood.

There was a noise behind him, and the viceroy turned to see Tal Fraan standing in the doorway of the cell. Behind him, Nil Spaar caught a blurred glimpse of the keeper as he hurried away, his errand completed.

"Darama," Tal Fraan said, taking one step into the alcove and kneeling, his head lowered, his neck bared.

"My proctor cogent," said Nil Spaar. With a half stride forward, he reached out and lightly laid his hand on the back of Tal Fraan's head, keeping him in the posture of submission. "Tell me--when you warranted your knowledge of the vermin with your blood, was it sincere, or simply what was expected?"

"Most sincere, darama."

"Good," said Nil Spaar, tightening his grip on the younger male's skull. His fighting crests were a purplish red and swelling quickly.

"Now let us be certain of my memory. Did you promise me that the prospect of an alliance between myself and these Imperial vermin would fill Leia with such fear that she would not dare make war against the Blessed? This was a shadow they feared and would not dare enter--did you say that?"

"Darama, what has happened?"

Nil Spaar pushed Tal Fraan's head down sharply, until his neck was bent to the breaking point. He made a fist with his other hand, and the long, sharp dewclaw slid out of its retractile casing. "The vermin destroyed Black Nine, at Prildaz."

The resistance went out of Tal Fraan's body. "I give you my blood as a gift to your child," he murmured.

"You gave me this gift once before," said Nil Spaar.

"But this time I will take it." He struck with such sudden violence that Tal Fraan's head was severed completely, coming free in his hand while the body dropped to the floor. Discarding the head with casual contempt, Nil Spaar stepped over the body and left the alcove as the keeper came running.

"The sacrifice was unclean," Nil Spaar said. "None of his blood is to go to my children. Make meal of his carca.s.s."

"Yes, Viceroy."

Taking no notice of the blood spattered on his armor and vestments, Nil Spaar strode through the corridors with long strides and a vengeful countenance, driving those he encountered to flee before him.

When he reached his quarters, he shouted for Eri Palle.

"Yes, darama," said the attache, coming at a run.

One glance was enough to tell him the viceroy's state, and Eri Palle took care to abase himself well out of the viceroy's reach. "How can I serve you?"

Send for Vor Duull. Tell Vor Duull to bring his boxes," said Nil Spaar, plunging himself into the deep, comforting folds of his own nesting. "And then bring Han Solo to me--I have a message to send to the vermin queen."

For once, there was no craft or subtlety in a transmission from Nil Spaarand for once, there was absolute silence in the conference room.

Leia watched it with her arms wrapped tight against her body, one hand covering her mouth. When it was over, she left the room, her face white, her eyes dead.

Ackbar was little better off, despite having looked away through the worst of it. Alole was weeping silently, fat tears painting her round cheeks. Behn-Kihl-Nahm wore a scowl of ultimate contempt.

Alone in his office, Drayson wore a mask of cold rage.

They had seen Nil Spaar savagely beating a bound Han for nearly twenty minutes--not just beating him, but kicking and hurling him about an empty compartment in an animal rage. The beating went on until Han was bleeding freely from his mouth, his nose, from gashes on his face and arms, his chest, his calf. The beating went on until Han's blood was smeared on the bulkheads, the deck, and halfway up Nil Spaar's powerful forearms. The beating went on until Han could no longer stand when the viceroy dragged him to his feet, not even with a wall to support him.

For long seconds, Nil Spaar had stood in a half crouch over Han's crumpled form. The viceroy was partly turned away from the lens, and they could not see his face. But they could see his thorax plates rise and fall, and one hand flexing menacingly as a great claw appeared, vanished, appeared, and vanished again.

Then Nil Spaar had straightened and turned to face them. They saw that he was bleeding as well--tiny rivulets running from the two enlarged scarlet crests at his temples. Staring into the holocam, he had wiped at the blood with the back of one hand, then sucked his hand clean.

Finally, he had made his message explicit, though with unusual economy of words--the only words spoken throughout the entire horror, delivered in a dark, angry growl: "Leave Koornacht now."

Chapter 8.

Akanah was the first to discover the Yevethan stars.h.i.+p orbiting J't'p'tan.

As soon as Mud Sloth dropped out of hypers.p.a.ce on the fringe of the Doornik 628 system, Akanah slipped away to the service compartment.

There she entered a deep meditation, submerging herself in the Current and searching for the presence of the Circle.

Staying at the skiff's controls, Luke first performed a sweep with Mud Sloth's feeble sensors, then closed his eyes and entered his own reverie, connecting to his new surroundings and searching for local disturbances in the Force.

Neither he nor the skiff found anything of note, but when Akanah rejoined him, she told him of her discovery.

"How do you know? Can you actually see this s.h.i.+p?" he asked skeptically.

"It is difficult to explain. Let me try to show you--" "In a moment," Luke said. "Explain first."

"Is this important now? What does it matter how I know? I know."

"It matters if you expect us to base what we do on what you've told me," he said.

The unspoken tensions dating back to Utharis were fully awakened by then. "Have you become a skeptic, now?" she asked, her expression more hurt than angry.

"You no longer trust my gifts?"

"Akanah, I know there's more than one source of knowledge and more than one kind of truth--" "Is it that the Jedi are unwilling to share the Force, then?" she asked. "Are you uncomfortable knowing I have a path to knowledge that doesn't require you, that isn't yet open to you? At the same time that you ask me to teach you, you seem to need to doubt, even to discredit--" Luke was shaking his head vigorously. "No, no, that's wrong. The Force is a river from which many can drink, and the training of the Jedi is not the only cup that can catch it," he said.

"If we didn't know that before we met the witches of Dathomir, we surely know it now."

"That is something, at least."

"But the truth lives side by side with lies, and errors, and self-deceptions--with hopeful dreams, and baseless fears, and mistaken memories," Luke added gently. "And we have to try to know one from the other. All I ask is that you help me understand the source of your insight. That will help me know what weight to give it."

"Is the damage done at Utharis still with us?" she asked sadly. "I had hoped to receive your trust again."

"There's very little I trust in this life, Akanah--myself included."

"Too true," she agreed. "Very well--I will try to explain." Akanah frowned as she searched for the right words. "Where the Current touches self- awareness, there is a tiny ripple--as when you sense a presence with the Force. The metaphor is more different than the means."

"But I can't feel anything here--nothing more than the energy of the ecosystems on the fourth and fifth planets," Luke said. "Nothing of consciousness--noth-ing of will."

"It is not consciousness or will that matters--it is the profound essence of being, nothing more,, she said.

"I can perceive the crew just as you would perceive a handful of sand I scattered on the far side of a pool.

From a distance, sometimes you can see only the effect, not the cause."

She smiled. "But you must be very still to see even that, for you are also of the Current, surrounded by the ripples of your being."

"So what you sense is the crew of this s.h.i.+p?"

"Whether they are crew, or cargo, or captives, I can't say. I only know that there are many thousands there, orbiting J't'p'tan, and some smaller number on the surface below."

"Colonists," said Luke. "They must be here to settle the planet."

At her questioning look, he added, "I heard some rumors in Taldaak that the Yevetha were expanding their territory by taking over the habitable worlds."

"And you trust these rumors because--" He laughed grimly. "Because they came from the Fleet. I obtained a tactical briefing on the war."

"So you already knew that a s.h.i.+p was here," she said. "And said nothing to me of it."

"I knew that a s.h.i.+p was here at one time," Luke said. "I didn't say anything to you because I couldn't. I take seriously the oath that allows me access to secure data. I wouldn't tell your secrets to them, either,"

he added.

"Then you weren't testing me just now? To learn if I've spied on you?"

"No," Luke said. "I just needed to know how you knew. What about the Circle?"

She shook her head. "The essence of concealment is merging with what surrounds you. Not even the best among us could answer your question at this distance, and I am far from the best. I hear only silence--I do not know what the silence means."

Pus.h.i.+ng Mud Sloth to its navigational limits, Luke began to contrive a spiraling approach that would keep the ma.s.s of the planet between the skiff and the Yevethan vessel.

"Best for everyone if they never see us at all," he said as he charted the course.

"Done," Akanah said, looking on from behind Luke's flight couch.

Luke looked up at her quizzically. "It can't be that easy."

"Why not?"

"Eh--don't you have to know who it is you're trying to hide from?"

"Why?" she asked.

"So you have a focus. So you know whose thoughts you're trying to deflect. It's done with precision, not brute force."

"That's coercive," she said. "And invasive. You reach into another mind and bind its thoughts, or place your own there."

"Well--yes," Luke said. "But the use of that power is constrained.

The purpose must be important enough to justify the deed and the consequences."

"It seems the Jedi are always finding reasons to justify their violence," she said. "I wish you would try as hard to find ways to avoid it."