Edge of Victory 2 Rebirth Read online

  It wasn't an island at all, of course, but a carefully landscaped park

  atop a floating mass of polymer cells rilled with inert gas. A hundred or so

  of them cruised the artificial western sea of Coruscant, pleasure craft

  built by rich merchants during the grand, high days of the Old Republic. The

  Emperor had discouraged such frivolity, and most had been docked for decades

  and fallen into disrepair. Still, many were in good enough shape to

  refurbish, and in the youth of the New Republic, a few sharp businessmen had

  purchased some and made them commercial successes. One such person, not

  surprisingly, had been Lando Calrissian, a longtime friend of Luke's. He had

  offered Luke use of the craft whenever he wished it. It had taken Luke a

  long time to call in the offer.

  He was glad he had done it-Mara seemed to be enjoying it. But she was

  right, of course. With everything that was

  happening now, it was hard not to think of it as a waste of time.

  But some feelings could not be trusted. Mara was showing now, her belly

  gloriously rounded around their son, and she was suffering from all of the

  physical discomforts any woman did in that situation. Nothing in her

  training as an assassin, smuggler, or Jedi Knight had prepared her for this

  compromised state, and despite her obvious love for their unborn child, Luke

  knew physical weakness grated on her. Her comment about Jaina might just as

  well have been about herself.

  And there were other worries, too, and a pocket paradise wasn't likely

  to help her forget them, but at least they could take a few deep breaths and

  pretend they were on some distant, uninhabited world, rather than in the

  thick of the biggest mess since before the Empire had been defeated.

  No, strike that. The Empire had threatened to extinguish liberty and

  freedom, to bring the dark side of the Force to ascendance. The enemy they

  faced now threatened extinction in a much more literal and ubiquitous sense.

  So Luke walked with his wife as evening fell, pretending not to be

  thinking of these things, knowing she could feel he was anyway.

  "What will we name him?" Mara asked at last. The sun had vanished in a

  lens on the horizon, and now Coruscant began to shatter the illusion of

  pristine nature. The distant shores glowed in a solid mass, and the sky

  remained deep red on the horizon. Only near zenith did it resemble the night

  sky of most moonless planets, but even there was a baroque embroidery of

  light as aircars and starships followed their carefully assigned paths, some

  coming home, some leaving home, some merely arriving at another port.

  A million little lights, each with a story, each a spark of

  significance in the Force that flowed from them, around them, through them.

  No illusion, here. All was nature. All was beauty, if you had eyes

  willing to see it.

  "I don't know." He sighed. "I don't even know where to start."

  'It's just a name," she said.

  "You would think. But everyone seems to believe it's important. Since

  we went public with the news, you wouldn't believe how many suggestions I've

  gotten, and from the strangest places."

  Mara stopped walking, and her face reflected a sudden profound

  astonishment. "You're afraid," she said.

  He nodded. "I guess I am. I guess I don't think it's 'just a name,' not

  when it comes to people like us. Look at Anakin. Leia named him after our

  father, a gesture to the person who became Darth Vader, as a recognition

  that he overcame the dark side and died a good man. It was her

  reconciliation with him, and a sign to the galaxy that the scars of war

  could heal. That we could forgive and move on. But for Anakin, it's been a

  trial. When he was little, he always feared he would walk the same dark path

  his grandfather did. It was just a name, but it was a real burden to place

  on his shoulders. It may be years before we learn the full consequences of

  that decision."

  "For all that I admire your-sister, she is a politician, and she thinks

  like one. That's been good for the galaxy, not so good for her children."

  "Exactly," Luke said reluctantly. "And whether I like it or not, Mara,

  because of who we are, our child will inherit part of our burden. I'm just

  afraid of placing an extra one on his shoulders. Suppose I named him

  Obi-Wan, as a salute to my old Master? Would he think that means I want him

  to grow up to be a Jedi? Would he think he had to live up to Ben's

  reputation? Would he feel his choices in life constrained?"

  "I see you've thought a lot about this."

  "I guess I have."

  "Notice how quickly this takes us back to the things you said we

  weren't supposed to talk about?"

  "Oh. Right."

  "Luke, this is who we are," Mara said, stroking his shoulder lightly.

  "We can't deny it, even alone on an island." She dipped her foot in the

  wavelets lapping onto the beach. Luke closed his eyes and felt the wind on

  his face.

  "Maybe not," he admitted.

  "And so what?" Mara said, playfully kicking a little water on the cuff

  of his pants. But then her face grew serious again. "There is one very

  important thing I want to say, now, before another second passes," she

  informed him.

  "What's that?"

  "I'm really hungry. Really, really hungry. If I don't eat right away,

  I'm going to salt you in seawater and gobble you up."

  "You'd be dissapointed," Luke said. "It's fresh water. Come on. The

  pavilion isn't far. There should be food waiting,"

  Luke and Mara ate outside at a table of polished yellow Selonian marble

  while the blossoms around them chimed a quiet music and released fragrances

  to complement each course. Luke felt ridiculously pampered and a little

  guilty, but managed to relax somewhat into the mood.

  But the mood was broken during the intermezzo, when the pavilion's

  protocol droid interrupted them.

  "Master Skywalker," it said, "an aircar is approaching and requesting

  admittance through the security perimeter."

  "You have the signal?"

  "Most assuredly."

  "Transfer to the holostation on the table."

  "As you wish, sir."

  A hologram of a man's face appeared above the remains of their meal. It

  was human, very long, with aristocratic features.

  "Kenth Hamner," Luke said, a sense of foreboding pricking up his scalp.

  "To what do we owe this pleasure?"

  The retired colonel smiled briefly. "Nothing important. Just a visit

  from an old friend. May I come aboard?"

  That's what his words said. His expression, somehow, conveyed something

  altogether different.

  "Of course. Link to the ship's computer, and it will land you somewhere

  appropriate. I hope you like grilled nylog."

  "One of my favorites. I'll see you soon."

  A few moments later, Hamner appeared from one of the

  several trails leading to the pavilion, accompanied by the

  droid.

  "You two make me wish I was young again," Hamner said, smiling, looking

  them over.

  "We're not so young, and you're not so old," Mara replied.

  Hamner offered her a short bow from the
waist. "Mara, you're looking

  lovely as ever. And my deepest congratulations on your upcoming event."

  "Thank you, Kenth," Mara returned graciously.

  "Have a seat," Luke said. "May I have the droid bring you something?"

  "A cold drink of a mildly stimulating beverage perhaps? Surprise me."

  Luke sent the droid off with those rather vague instructions and then

  turned to Hamner, who was now seated.

  "You didn't come here just to congratulate us, did you?"

  Hamner nodded sadly. "No. I came to give you a heads-up. Borsk Fey'lya

  has managed to secure an order for your arrest. The warrant will be served

  about six standard hours from now."

  TWO

  Somewhere between the Corellian Trade Spine and the Kathol sector, the

  Star Destroyer Errant Venture dropped out of hyperspace, reoriented its

  massive wedge-shaped frame, and resumed lightspeed. An uninformed observer

  would have had less than a minute to wonder what a Star Destroyer was doing

  in such an out-of-the-way part of space and why it was painted red.

  Deep in the Destroyer's belly, Anakin Solo hardly noticed the

  transition, so intent was he on what he was doing. He stood quickly into

  narrow profile, the point of his lightsaber aiming toward the deck, pommel

  level with his forehead and pointed at the ceiling. With two quick twists of

  his wrist, he deflected a pair of stun bolts from the remote whirring around

  him. He flipped the lightsaber to an identical position behind his back to

  catch the blast from a second remote, then dropped into a crouch, his

  luminescent weapon whipping up to high guard. A leaping somersault carried

  him over the sudden coordinated flurry of shots from the two flying spheres.

  By the time his feet touched the deck, he was weaving a complex set of

  parries that sent reddish bolts hissing against the walls.

  He was in the rhythm, now, and his blue eyes sparkled like electron

  arcs as the stinging rays came faster, more often, better timed. After a few

  minutes of this, sweat was plastering his brown hair to his head and soaking

  his dark Jedi robes, but none of the painful though harmless attacks had

  found their mark.

  He was warmed up, now.

  "Halt," he commanded. Immediately the spheres became stationary and

  quiescent.

  He deactivated his lightsaber and set it aside. From a wall cabinet,

  Anakin removed another lightsaber, thumbed it on, took a few deep breaths,

  calmed his racing pulse. It was quiet in the storage compartment he'd

  converted into his training space. Quiet and spare and off-white. A motley

  trio of droids regarded him with unblinking eyes. Even the most casual

  observer could see they had been cobbled together from spare parts, though

  the central chassis of each was that of a rather common worker drone. They

  did not look particularly dangerous, until one examined what they held in

  their hands-wicked-looking staffs, sharp on one end, spoon-shaped on the

  other. They looked remarkably like snakes, an impression enhanced by the

  fact that they undulated now and then.

  Anakin blew out another breath and nodded at the droids.

  "Begin sequence one," he said.

  The droids flashed into motion, their spindly frames moving with

  eye-daunting speed, two flanking him on either side, one driving straight

  toward him. Anakin back-pedaled and parried, dropped, and swept the legs out

  from under the droid on his right. The other two were attacking, one staff

  spearing at his neck, the other gone suddenly flexible, flicking around his

  rising parry toward his back. Anakin stepped forward a centimeter and felt

  the wind from the vicious whip-over as it came up short of his spine.

  That's it, he thought. I'm learning the range. The smallest movement

  possible to prevent the attack from landing is the best.

  He dropped the high parry into a riposte. The droid, suddenly too close

  to him, tried to retreat but stopped instantly, deactivated when Anakin's

  weapon touched its torso.

  The downed droid was back up by then, and Anakin found himself

  circling, holding them at the very outside of his guard and in his field of

  vision. That kept them off him, and he could probably do that forever. He

  wouldn't win the fight that way, though, so he gave them a rhythm to follow

  and let them try to break it.

  One of the staffs suddenly spit a stream of liquid at him. He twisted

  his body to avoid it, again allowing only a centimeter for the miss. At the

  same moment, the other droid broke tempo and leapt in deep.

  Anakin parried, but the staff wrapped around his wrist. He felt a

  distinct and painful electric shock. The other droid was an instant behind,

  leveling a blow at Anakin's skull.

  Somewhere a blaster shrieked, and the droid suddenly didn't have a

  weapon-or the arm that held it.

  "Halt!" Anakin shouted, and hurled himself away as the staff instantly

  released his hand. He came down in a fighting posture.

  A dark-haired man with a blaster stood in the doorway. He had a beard

  liberally tinseled with silver and wore green robes the same shade as his

  eyes. He held the blaster up in a nonthreatening way, as if surrendering.

  "Why did you do that?" Anakin asked, trying to suppress the anger

  suddenly boiling up. He had worked hard on that droid.

  "You're welcome," Corran Horn said, bolstering his weapon.

  "Those are training droids. They wouldn't have hurt me."

  "Oh no? Are those training amphistaffs they're holding? If he'd hit you

  with it. . ."

  "He wouldn't have. They're programmed to arrest their blows the second

  the staff touches my skin. And yes, they are training amphistaffs. They

  aren't real."

  Corran's eyes widened in surprise. "How did you manage that? Why didn't

  your lightsaber cut through them?"

  "It's not a lightsaber."

  Corran's expression was almost worth the damage to the droid.

  "It's just a blade-shaped force field, a weak one," Anakin explained.

  "Wouldn't cut anything. The things my droids have act like amphistaffs and

  move like them, but they just spit dye and deliver a shock when they hit.

  They only weigh a kilogram or so."

  "I guess I ruined your droid for no good reason, then,"

  Corran said.

  Anakin's anger was entirely mastered now. It was something he had been

  working on. "It's okay. I built it; I can fix it. I've got nothing but

  time."

  "I'm just curious," Corran said, eyeing the droids. "Booster has a

  couple of duelist elites in storage. Why not use one of them to train with?"

  Anakin deactivated the "weapon" and returned it to the cabinet.

  "Duelist elites don't move like Yuuzhan Vong warriors. The droids I built

  do."

  "I wondered what you've been puttering at for the last few weeks."

  Anakin nodded. "I don't want to lose my edge. You saw what happened-the

  one you shot had me."

  "Practice is fine," Corran said. "I just wish you had informed me of

  what you were doing. Might have saved me a skipped heartbeat and you a

  droid."

  "Right. I forgot," Anakin said.

  Corran nodded again, this time with a more thoughtful look i
n his eye.

  "You didn't notice me coming. That's not good. You have to learn to extend

  your sphere of responsibility beyond the immediate battle."

  "I know," Anakin replied. "I wasn't using the Force. I'm training to

  fight without it."

  "Because the Yuuzhan Vong can't be sensed in the Force, I assume."

  Anakin nodded. "Of course. The Force is a wonderful tool-"

  "The Force isn't merely a tool, Anakin," Corran admonished. "It's much

  more than that."

  "I know," Anakin said, a bit peevishly. "But among other things it is a

  tool, and for fighting the Yuuzhan Vong, it's just not the right tool for

  the job, no more than a hy-drospanner is what you would use to calibrate the

  input feed of an astromech."

  Corran cocked his head skeptically. "I can't precisely dispute that,

  but it's not because it isn't wrong."

  Anakin shrugged. "Try it like this, then. All Jedi training

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  involves the Force, even combat training. Sensing blows and blaster

  bolts before they happen, that sort of thing. Shoving our enemies around

  telekineticaily-"

  "With some exceptions," Corran dryly reminded him.

  "Right. So you should know what I mean. What do you think of Jedi who

  can't win a fight without resorting to telekinesis? For that matter, you

  were CorSec long before you were Jedi. You should be able to see that the

  Force has become as much of a crutch for us as anything. The Yuu-zhan Vong

  prove that."

  "Sounding a little like your brother. Are you abandoning the Force?"

  Anakin's eyebrows arched up. "Of course not. I'll use it when it works.

  When I was being hunted by the Yuuzhan Vong on Yavin Four, I discovered ways

  to use the Force against them. I looked for the holes in the Force around

  me. I listened to the voices of the jungle and felt the fear of its

  creatures when the Yuuzhan Vong warriors passed near."

  "And you learned to sense the Yuuzhan Vong themselves," Corran pointed

  out.

  "Not with the Force, though. With the lambent I used to rebuild my

  lightsaber,"

  "How can you be sure? I've never believed the Yuuzhan Vong don't exist

  in the Force. They must. Everything does. We just don't know how to do it.

  You attuned yourself to a piece of Vong biotech and now you can sense them.

  Can you be sure you haven't found where they live in the Force?"