| abstract
| - Ryion had just activated the open sign on his small leased toy shop when he heard the chime of the door opening. Turning around from where he was arranging cheaply-made plastine Luke Skywalker action figures on a shelf, Ryion saw two men wearing the uniforms of the governor’s security entourage enter, followed by Shara. She had some kind of bundle under her arm and was attired simply in the typical tan sari worn by the Chalactans instead of the formal attire she’d worn the night before last, devoid of coverup and jewelry. “Good morning, Lady Shara,” he said with a bow. “How can I help you?” She signaled to the guards and they filed outside. “My protective detail,” she explained. “A symbolic but pointless gesture by the governor.” “I didn’t realize things were so dangerous around here,” Ryion lied. “I’m sure the governor is just looking out for your safety.” She sighed. “If someone out there wishes me harm, two guards will only slow them down.” “I would hope that there’s nobody here who’d want to harm you,” Ryion responded. “If this war has taught me anything, Matrik, it is that life is fragile,” Shara told him. “The lives of me and my people in particular.” “I would hope that this invasion has taught the people of the galaxy that life is worth preserving,” Ryion answered earnestly. “You and your people included.” “I would hope that the galaxy would not need an invasion to teach them that. But that is not what I came to you about. One of my nieces broke this last night—and it’s already become her favorite toy, even though you gave it to her a week ago. A maid suggested that I take it to you and see if it could be repaired.” Shara withdrew the bundle from under her arm and unfolded the cloth to reveal a stuffed pittin with one leg nearly torn off, its stuffing falling out of the ripped seam. “There’s some kind of odd stitching here, or I would have tried fixing it myself,” she explained. “I’m not sure how you sew that seam without stiffening the leg.” Ryion looked closely at the torn leg. “How old is your niece? That stitching helps the leg endure rough play, but that’s a pretty nasty tear.” “She is eight,” Shara explained. “It probably got caught on something.” “Hmm, well, I’ll take a look at it,” Ryion answered. “If you don’t mind leaving it here, can I bring it back this afternoon when I’m done mending it?” “That would be fine,” Shara answered. “Thank you.” “My pleasure,” Ryion said humbly. She bowed her head in a slight incline and left. Ryion looked at the damaged toy and sighed. He was going to have to look up how to do that kind of stitch and figure out a way to repair the stuffed pittin by this afternoon, which was not how he had envisioned spending his morning. Ryion placed the toy on his worktable in the back and had just returned to arranging the action figures when his comlink buzzed—the secure YGI one. He quickly flicked the sign on his door to “closed” and locked the building. Heading into his back inventory room, he saw it was Qedai and quickly activated the device. “What is it?” Ryion asked. “Morgedh and I found the guy who planted your listening device. We’ve been working on him all night, but his place was a veritable treasure trove of information. We took holos and left most of it alone to not tip off whoever’s he working for.” “What did you learn?” “There are Vong on Rishi, at least a dozen of them. The guy we nabbed is an agent of theirs, had a villip in his place. He also had maps with routes marked out on them. One of them goes right by your shop.” “Details, Qedai,” Ryion pressed. “Hard to say, it’s all written in some form of shorthand that Demtry here is just now opening up about. There’s a red Xesh about two blocks east from your place. It’s dated today, but there’s no telling what the mark means. There’s no time on it, either, just a drawing of a half of an outlined sun.” “The half a sun means morning. It’s probably a local way of telling time approximately,” Ryion said. “I think I know what it is they’re up to.” “What?” “No time to explain,” Ryion told her as he strapped on his lightsaber and discblade. “Are you close?” Ryion’s mind had raced rapidly to a dreadful conclusion. If the Yuuzhan Vong were on Chalacta on an intelligence-gathering mission, they might have an abduction or killing in mind to send a message to the viceroy or attempt to compel him to surrender. Or they might just be out for a gruesome trophy—and what better trophy to collect than the young daughter of the Chalactan viceroy? “With these narrow streets, it’d take me at least half an hour to get to you. Too crowded.” “Never mind then. Hopefully I’m wrong about all this and my imagination is running wild, but if not, use the fallback plan if you don’t hear from me in an hour.” Before Qedai had a chance to reply, Ryion turned off the comlink before tucking it into his belt. Racing out the back door of his shop, he swiftly dashed along the alley that ran behind the storefronts on this street. He wished he had had time to grab his pistol, shield, glove, and armorvest, but at the moment, time was of the essence. Ryion instead relied on the Force, allowing its power to suffuse him. He again wrapped himself in Force camouflage as he sprinted ahead. The Force told him of every sentient being within a kilometer and he was able to pick out Shara’s signature as well. He sensed no disturbances yet—good, he wasn’t too late. Ryion kept track of her, moving parallel and ahead of her progress down the street. Suddenly, he spotted a narrow corridor with five beings lined up against its wall—human by the looks of them, but he could only sense one of them. They must be Yuuzhan Vong in disguise. Ryion quickly halted just before turning the corner—the human was keeping watch on the back of the alley and might notice the faint blur of the Force camouflage if he was particularly vigilant. Peering around the corner, Ryion could see another group of shadowy figures in the alley across the street, and again he could not sense them. His suspicions were confirmed—it was an ambush obviously aimed at Shara. What could he do about it, though? She was coming this way and would be perfectly caught in between the two groups in less than a minute. His mission was to gather intelligence and appraise the threat while neutralizing any Yuuzhan Vong threats that he could discreetly. A brawl in the middle of a crowded street could hardly be called discreet. On the other hand, Ryion had seen too much of Yuuzhan Vong cruelty already. He could never forgive himself if he let them capture, torment, and possibly kill another defenseless person like Shara. He knew that those large round, dark brown eyes he’d looked into the night before would haunt him until the day he died if he stood by and did nothing. For that matter, he’d be lucky if Depa was willing to show him any more Vaapad, since the ghost had indicated that saving the Chalactans was an important condition of his tutelage. Damn it Shara, when I said that the lives of you and your people were worth preserving, this is not what I had in mind, Ryion thought to himself. Then his decision was made and he banished all other thoughts from his mind, seeking serenity and discipline for what he was about to do. All emotion was stripped from his visage as he achieved clarity of purpose. The Ryion Kraen that rounded the corner stealthily was emotionally a different person from a few seconds ago. This individual did not know indecision or inaction, nor was he concerned with the legitimacy of his actions. What he did know how to do was ply the deadly trade he had sought to master over the last several years of his young life. Ryion slipped up next to their human sentry even as he sensed Shara approaching within ten meters of the intersection between the alleys and the street. Popping out suddenly from camouflage, his right hand shot upward to slam open-palmed into the throat of the man, destroying his larynx and ability to speak in a single punishing blow. His left hand was grasping a discblade in a somewhat weaker three-fingered grip that was all he could muster without his glove. Ryion nevertheless sliced upward with the discblade, its sharp edge slicing through the man’s torso vertically until one of the four prongs hooked upward under his sternum to pierce his heart. The man fell to the ground and died with a gurgle, blood pouring from a gaping wound. Stepping over the corpse just as the backmost Yuuzhan Vong turned around with a startled expression on his face, Ryion glared at the alien with a merciless expression. Knowing of the strength of Yuuzhan Vong armor, Ryion hurled the discblade directly into the alien’s face. The weapon impacted with a sickening thud and buried itself into the warrior’s skull until only half the weapon was showing outside the gory mess of his face. The Yuuzhan Vong collapsed, twitching, but the others were already swiveling to face him. “That’s right, come and get me,” Ryion challenged. The warriors obliged, their ooglith masquer disguises peeling away to reveal three hideously mutilated and scarred Yuuzhan Vong wielding sinuous amphistaffs. One of them leaped forward with his amphistaff extending in a whip-like attack that would plant the venomous fangs of the amphistaff into him. Ryion batted aside the amphistaff with his left arm, heedless of the bruise he would earn from doing so, and stepped inside the warrior’s guard. Withdrawing his lightsaber, he rammed its emitter into the gap in the vonduun crab armor underneath the warrior’s arm and ignited it. The purple blade speared the warrior through the heart and the blade burned through the back of his throat, visible in his open mouth as he gasped in agony. Ryion swept the blade out in time to deflect the counter-strike from the amphistaff, separating himself from the dying warrior. “Jeedai!” one of the two left facing him hissed. “No,” Ryion answered coldly as he swept the blade up in a formal salute. “I’m not a Jedi. I’m much worse.” Without hesitation, he waded into their midst, trading two strokes of his violet blade for every amphistaff blow they launched. What he could not match in power or dexterity, he made up for in speed and precision, wounding them both within the first six attacks. Ducking under a blow, he kicked out with Force-enhanced strength, but force that would have sent a normal sentient flying back a dozen meters barely staggered the warrior. Cursing, Ryion recovered and slashed down at the warrior’s ankles, only to be caught by a swift backhanded blow that smashed his head into the alley wall. Stars burst in his vision, but he reflexively ducked under the follow-up amphistaff blow, slashing away at the warrior’s arm. The lightsaber failed to cut cleanly through the vonduun crab armor, but left a deep score that Ryion was sure had at least burned through it partially. The Force filled him, kept him fighting despite the pounding in his head, but suddenly he sensed that Shara was still near. She obviously hadn’t heard the sounds of battle. Looking past the warriors he was fighting, Ryion saw that the Yuuzhan Vong in the alley on the other side of the street were rushing out, obviously chasing Shara. He was out of time and could not afford to be distracted by these two anymore, even though he could have defeated them if given the time. Slicing upward, Ryion severed the tips of one Yuuzhan Vong’s fingers even as the tip of an amphistaff slashed him across the thigh. Whirling around, he deflected another amphistaff attack one-handed and jabbed his left hand into the other Yuuzhan Vong warrior’s eyes in a vicious poking technique. He felt his fingers hit something squishy and the alien howl of pain told him he’d successfully blinded the warrior, if only temporarily. Rather than finishing him off, Ryion raced out into the street to see a Yuuzhan Vong bodily hurl one of the security guards into the wall, eliciting a crack and bending the man’s head at an impossible angle indicating that his neck was broken. The other security guard was down in a bloody pile, while one of the Yuuzhan Vong had seized a terrified Shara. His clawed grip had drawn blood on her arm and Ryion was filled with anger at seeing the casual murders of the guards and the attempted abduction of the Chalactan woman. The lightsaber fell from his hands as he opted for a different approach. The Force flowed through him more voraciously than before, burning through his veins with raw power. Sparks began collecting in his palms as he struggled to contain the anger within him until he was ready to release it. “Release her!” Ryion bellowed, just to catch their attention and forestall any more harming of Shara. They turned around as Ryion extended both his hands towards the four warriors of the other group. His eyes were glowing with pure power and now he unleashed his anger in the form of Force lightning, searing them with bolts of energy conjured from his fingertips. Ryion channeled the Force into the lightning, sending green forks of lighting out to consume three of the warriors for at least five seconds, not wanting to accidentally hit Shara. They writhed and flailed as their nervous systems were overloaded, helpless against his raw output. “Stop! Or I kill her, Jeedai!” the remaining warrior shouted, holding a coufee knife to her slender throat. The words brought Ryion back to reality and he allowed the lightning to subside as he stared down the Yuuzhan Vong and his helpless hostage. The warriors stricken by lightning sank to the ground, dead or severely burned. “Let her go and you can walk away from here,” Ryion told the warrior. The Yuuzhan Vong grimaced evilly at him. “I will walk away from here with this infidel weakling with me for her own punishment, after I’ve licked your blood from its corpse.” “Where’s your army, then?” Ryion asked him, kicking at the ground. “Because you certainly aren’t going to kill me on your own. Just like the rest of the Yuuzhan Vong, you need somebody else to do your dirty work for you.” The warrior’s eyes bulged with rage as he struggled against his need to keep his hostage and his desire to face Ryion in single combat and avenge the insults. “Too late,” Ryion told him. “You lose.” Ryion flicked his fingers and his lightsaber, which he had concealed with Force camouflage and kicked to rest underneath the Yuuzhan Vong, shot upward. The brilliant purple blade activated and stabbed upward underneath his skirt plates, angling backward to sever his spine. The Yuuzhan Vong convulsed as he was impaled and Ryion used telekinesis to shove Shara out of the warrior’s grasp, figuring she would forgive him later. Suddenly, he heard an alien roar behind him. Defenseless, he swiveled around to see the Yuuzhan Vong warrior he had severed several fingers from earlier charging him with a coufee held one-handed. Without the Force to detect his approach, Ryion was caught off guard, as sorting out the various sources of danger had been impossible while focused on saving Shara. Ryion tried to twist out of the way, but the warrior was too close. The blade hit him low, just inside above his hip joint and slid upward into his body from there, knifing through tissue and muscle to pierce his stomach. Only by twisting to the side had he avoided being filleted in a single stroke. Ryion gasped in pain as the coufee entered his body, but the Force still empowered him despite the grievous wound. Unarmed, he was all but defenseless and both his lightsaber and discblade were beyond his reach. Ryion blinked back the colossal explosion of agony blossoming in his torso and spun the warrior around even as the Yuuzhan Vong prepared to stab him again. His motion allowed him to catch sight of one of the security guard’s blasters and summon it to his left hand with the Force. “I’m going to spill your infidel guts, Jeedai,” the warrior snarled as he drew the coufee back to eviscerate him. “Like you hell you are,” Ryion wheezed, planting the muzzle of the blaster under the warrior’s chin and holding the trigger down while closing his eyes. Nothing happened though and Ryion cursed as he realized that the safety was still on. “You fool,” the warrior hissed, stabbing him with the coufee again. Another spear of agony drove through Ryion, but his left hand snapped down to push against the warrior’s hand, so the blade stabbed his leg instead of his torso. The sharp, barbed point of the blade tore through his flesh and Ryion could feel blood pouring from both wounds. His vision nearly turned completely red, but the Force kept him fighting a little longer even as his body began to fail. “True warriors go for the kill,” Ryion bit out, flicking off the safety on the blaster and shooting the warrior directly in the eye. The Yuuzhan Vong fell backward with a gurgle but before Ryion could appraise his own condition, another alien roar sounded behind him. The last warrior, the one he had blinded, had managed to clear his blurry vision enough to find him and attack. Ryion spun around, yanking the coufee out of his own midsection and slashing out viciously. His Force-guided stroke hit the warrior’s weakened arm armor, severing the limb in a spray of black blood. The warrior howled and knocked him over to hit the ground face first. Ryion started to roll over to deflect an incoming assault when a blast of searing heat slammed into his back. He was engulfed in flames as the Yuuzhan Vong unleashed some kind of biological flamethrower on him. The fire immediately burned through his tunic and ignited his skin, blistering and scorching it. Ryion writhed, but managed to roll away from the stream of fire pouring onto his back. Still clutching the blaster, the Force guided his hand even he struggled to see more than a dark outline of the warrior against the pain consuming him. Ryion held the trigger down, no longer caring for finesse, just lethality. As darkness claimed him and the flames licked at his back, he at least was rewarded to see the warrior topple over, his head a charred mess. For now at least, Shara was safe and given the nature of his wounds, Ryion figured he wouldn’t have to worry about the consequences of his borderline-dark side usage in the fight. He thought he felt something slapping at his burning skin, thought he heard voices calling to him faintly, but Ryion’s body had sustained too much punishment. Clutching at the bloody holes in his midsection, he blacked out. Ord Pardron Yiu Shac watched as the villip everted, taking on the shape of Tsaruuk’s head. “Have you left Ord Pardron yet?” he asked her. “Not yet,” she said. “We are still searching for the Jeedai we encountered and interrogating the prisoners we took onboard our ship. Those tasks shall be complete soon—we are sure the Jeedai has not left the world and, injured as she is, cannot have gone far.” “They are no longer as important,” Tsaruuk informed her. “Some of your other agents have reported to me that they have found the Chalactans we seek on a world called Rishi.” “That is good,” Yiu Shac replied. “Then our catch here is a bonus.” “Indeed,” Tsaruuk told her. “You have done well. I will send your shipmaster coordinates on where to meet the rest of the fleet.” “Then we are not to pursue the injured Jeedai here?” Yiu Shac asked. “Unless it is one of the leaders of the Jeedai, catching the refugees is our priority. There may be Jeedai there as well for you to hunt, my love.” Suddenly, one of her subordinates came running up to her with another villip in hand. Yiu Shac scowled at his intrusion, but there was something frantic in his facial expression that told her something was seriously amiss. “I beg your pardon, Great One,” she told Tsaruuk before turning to her subordinate. “What is it, fool? How dare you interrupt me?” “Forgive my breach of protocol,” the warrior told her, the words spilling hurriedly from his tattered lips. “Our shipmaster in orbit reports infidel ships dropping out of hyperspace insystem. They are closing fast!” “What?!” Yiu Shac exclaimed, looking at the new villip, which showed a representation of the shipmaster. “At least twelve ships are closing on us,” the shipmaster told her. “We are outnumbered. At least two are of greater displacement than us, another three equal to our size.” Yiu Shac slammed her fist down on her thigh. “Withdraw and convey our prisoners back to Commander Tsaruuk,” the female warrior told him. “We will disperse on the ground until reinforcements can arrive.” “I will dispatch the fleet to your position,” Tsaruuk told her. “No, you should do your duty,” Yiu Shac insisted. “Your mission is to seize the refugees.” “The presence of a fleet to investigate a target that is not militarily worth defending or investigating speaks of a greater mystery behind the camp you attacked. My navigators tell me it will take me five days to get to you and then another five from there to Rishi. The delay will be well worth it if we can trap and defeat this fleet—our agents on Rishi will keep watch over the Chalactans and ensure they do not flee. I will send a small force to Rishi of sufficient strength to prevent any escape in force.” Yiu Shac bowed subserviently. “As you wish,” she answered demurely. “Mistress,” interrupted the shipmaster. “The infidels are employing one of their foul abominations to interfere with the dovin basals—we cannot jump to darkspace! What are your orders?” “Die bravely,” she told him, then stroked his villip to cause it to revert before turning back to Tsaruuk’s villip. “Preserve as many of your forces as you can,” Tsaruuk told her. “We will come for you soon.” In orbit The Yanibar Guard Fleet dropped out of hyperdrive in rapid succession, twelve ships in all. Immediately, the Vigilant Refuge powered up its gravity well generator, preventing the Yuuzhan Vong frigate from fleeing to hyperspace. On orders from Selu, three squadrons of starfighters were launched to intercept it even as the remaining vessels formed an entrapment position around the frigate to prevent it from fleeing. Jasika blasted out of the hangar bay of the Vigilant Refuge as the last member in Paladin Squadron. She was also the only member flying a Sabre II as the others had already transitioned to Maelstroms. “Paladin Twelve, you’re my wing,” Commander Mada told her. “Form on me.” She clicked her comlink in acknowledgment as the squadron roared towards the frigate. “Paladin Two here. Detecting coralskipper launches, the frigate is coming about.” “One to squad, eliminate the coralskippers then disable the frigate’s weapon batteries. Make it fast, use missiles on the fighters, but be a little more precise on the frigate.” Jasika glanced at her sensors, watching as the distance counter on the readout scrolled down rapidly. Soon, she could see the long ochre streaks of coralskipper plasma fire approaching the YGF formation. Her heart rate shot up as adrenaline pumped through her veins and she juked the long-range shots with a twitch on the control stick. Paladin One broke to engage a pair of coralskippers and she followed suit, maintaining a tight formation so that their shields overlapped for added protection against Yuuzhan Vong weaponry. Jasika’s hand tightened on the stick as the two pairs of starfighters closed head-to-head. A solid lock tone told her she was in effective weapons range. Jasika lined up her reticule on the lead coralskipper and held down the trigger, firing a stream of purple laser blasts from her triple laser cannons. Paladin One opened up as well, firing in measured bursts of three shots. The coralskippers were confident in their ability to soak up damage coming at them from one direction and returned fire with heavy-hitting streams of molten rock. Jasika rolled to evade the barrage, still spraying streams of fire at the Yuuzhan Vong ships. Her ship shook and her audio pickups registered a glancing hit on her shields, but no other damage was inflicted. Then they roared past each other, looping around for another pass. “Try for a missile lock, Twelve,” Paladin One told her. “Copy,” Jasika said. “Try hosing down those skips, their dovin basals can block single shots indefinitely unless it’s a really big single shot.” “I know, Twelve,” One told her. “Just testing out the new guns.” He looped around in a tighter spiral than she could handle in her Sabre II thanks to the superior vector-plating but allowed her to catch up. This time, he split off, approaching the coralskippers from an angled position that gave them an advantageous firing angle at the expense of the shield overlap protection. If this was Paladin Lead’s idea of a test, she wasn’t thrilled about it, especially since the coralskippers seemed intent on closing on her. They opened up with another volley of burning projectiles and she quickly yawed her fighter out of their path while returning fire with her lasers. The missile lock corona shone around one of the coralskippers and she thumbed the button on the side of her stick twice. Two missiles erupted from her underwing pods, arcing towards the coralskippers on cyan exhaust trails. As expected, defensive dovin basals materialized to soak up the projectiles harmlessly and even picked off her laser fire, but then three pairs of purple laser blasts, far larger than she was used to seeing from a starfighter, slammed into one of the coralskippers, shredding the rocky craft. The two bursts were followed up by a more typical series of linked laser blasts from Paladin One’s Maelstrom, which chewed into the second fighter but didn’t destroy it. “What was that?” Jasika asked as she slewed her fighter around to follow the last coralskipper. “Lasers on these have an overcharge mode, Twelve. You can fire off three strong bursts if you give up three seconds of firing time after,” Paladin One told her. “Copy that,” Jasika said, as she and her wingman tacked onto the tail of the last coralskipper. “He’s all yours, Twelve,” he told her, firing sprays of laser fire at the edge of the coralskipper to distract the dovin basal. Jasika clicked her comlink and deliberately placed her reticule on the stern of the juking coralskipper, waiting for the solid corona of a clean missile lock. When it finally shone around the starfighter, she opened up with lasers, then fired the missile ahead of the coralskipper. The weapon sailed past the skip, whose dovin basal was still blocking laser fire, and then exploded in front of the Yuuzhan Vong coralskipper. The distracted pilot swapped his dovin basal forward to protect his starfighter from the explosion, making him easy prey for her lasers. Before the hostile pilot could react, her triple laser cannon blasts tore apart the hull, leaving it a charred derelict. “Good shooting, Twelve,” Paladin One told her, even as he led her back to the frigate, as the rest of the squadron had already mopped up the remaining coralskippers. Two other squadrons were already strafing it with ion and laser cannon streams, chewing away at its weapons and dovin basal clusters. Jasika joined in, juking from streams of plasma cannon fire. Her laser blasts chipped away at the hull, scoring gouges and blasting away at plasma cannons. In response, the ship tried to move away from the fighters harrying it, vectoring directly towards the Vigilant Refuge. “Lead to Fleet, I think they figured out they aren’t getting away. They might know we’re after a capture—looks like a ramming attempt.” “Copy that, we’re moving up the boarding team approach,” came the reply from their controller on the VR. “Just be aware, not all the teeth are pulled,” One warned. “We’ll cover the shuttles as best as he can.” Jasika and the other Paladins formed up around three bulky Discblade transports fitted with cutting attachments. The Yuuzhan Vong fire intensified as the frigate drove towards the carrier resolutely, heedless of the fact that over half its weapon emplacements were offline and its gross size differential with the nine-hundred meter carrier. Then the assault ships made contact with the frigate, clamping onto its hull with their boarding collars and searing through its hull with laser drills built into the collars. Once the ships had docked, Jasika and the other Paladins wheeled around and resumed their strafing of the dovin basal clusters, trying to limit the frigate’s maneuverability. Three squadrons’ worth of laser fire soon whittled away at the living creatures, leaving the ship all but drifting. It had been a clean skirmish for the Yanibar Guard Fleet, and while some of their starfighters had been damaged, no casualties had been sustained thanks to careful flying and overwhelming force. “Break off Paladins,” One ordered. “Stand back until we’re needed.” Jasika did as ordered, watching the frigate from her cockpit at a safe distance. Ten minutes later, a voice crackled over fleet frequency. “Master Kraen here, we have secured the bridge.” “Cresh Lead reports prisoner area secure,” followed Bryndar’s voice a minute later, causing Jasika’s heart to skip a beat. While she had known cerebrally that her husband would likely be in the assault wave, hearing his voice confirm it left a much more emotional impression on her. He had been engaging in hand-to-hand combat through an alien spaceship filled with angry Yuuzhan Vong warriors—just the thought gave her chills. “Paladins, we have new orders,” One told them. “We’re going groundside to help look for a VIP. Her code name is Kirrek Dove. We’ll do a grid search near the specified coordinates, but stay sharp. We don’t know what kinds of surprises the Vong have dirtside—they might even have more coralskippers.” Paladin Squadron roared into the atmosphere, tracing a course over the plains of Ord Pardron to the Open Hands refugee camp. As they approached the camp, Paladin One began transmitting. “Kirrek Dove, this is Big Bird. Please respond.” Jasika rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of the call signs YGF had adopted, but there was nothing she could do but keep an eye on her sensor screen as her Sabre II roared over the ground at an altitude of about a kilometer. Paladin One led them in a search pattern for about ten minutes that saw the squadron soar over a forest, past a small silvery river, then back around a wide expanse of plains dotted here and there by scrub brush. The planet seemed peaceful, aside from the ruins of a refugee camp that marred the otherwise natural landscape. There was no sign of life at the camp and the trees were content to sway gently in the wind, with no Yuuzhan Vong craft or weaponry launching from underneath their boughs. Then she spotted the glint of metal as something artificial rose into the sky. A sensor contact appeared on her screen, describing what appeared to be some kind of small skiff. “Lead, Twelve. I have contact at oh-six-seven, mark two.” “Roger that, Twelve. Kirrek Dove, is that you?” “Yes,” a weak female voice said. “This is Kirrek Dove. I’m okay.” “My orders are to escort you up to orbit to a friendly nest,” Paladin One told her. “Can you make space?” “Yes, we can,” the woman replied and Jasika realized with a shudder that it was Cassi’s voice she was hearing through the comlink. “We’ll follow you up.” “Glad to hear your wings aren’t broken, Kirrek Dove,” Paladin One said with a chuckle. “Big Bird Out.” The dozen starfighters and the small ship they were encircling rose into the azure blue of the sky, leaving behind the abandoned ruins of the refugee camp for the solace of space and the waiting Yanibar Guard Fleet ships.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)