There was a gripbar by his hand, but he had no need of it. The
processional car was accelerating so gently and turning so smoothly as
it glided across the broad landing pad that he could hardly tell that
it was in motion.
The car circled Ararnadia twice, affording the front ranks of the crowd
a glimpse of their hero and precipitating two surges forward that the
security forces met with paralysis fields. Then the car headed down
the wide corridor leading to the city road. Nil Spaar sighed with
pleasure at the sight of Giat Nor ahead on the horizon.
The horror that was Imperial City faded from his memory.
He was home.
As he passed down the corridor, the clamor from the faithful beat at
Nil Spaar from both sides. He looked at their faces and saw rapture.
He looked into their eyes and saw soaring hope, profound gratitude,
unconditional love.
"Stop," Nil Spaar suddenly called forward to the driver. "Stop the
car."
The vehicle eased to a stop as gently as a breeze dies.
The elder guard, in the forward creche, was standing and looking back
at Nil Spaar with concern. " Is there a problem, Blessed?"
"No," said Nil Spaar. "There is something I wish to do."
He opened the cabin's low door, and the mounting ladder moved quickly
into place to take his weight. At the bottom, he walked toward the
crowd on the right, which fell eerily silent as he approached, struck
mute by the nearness of the Blessed. Signaling the car to follow, Nil
Spaar strode along the security line, appraising what he saw beyond
it.
Then he stopped and stepped closer to a young nitakka, tall and strong,
with a fine splay of crests and ridges.
"You," Nil Spaar said, pointing. "Will you give your blood to me?"
Surprise froze the nitakka's expression, and then wonder animated it.
"Oh, yes, darama!" the young male cried, dropping to his knees without
hesitation.
"Then come," Nil Spaar said, signaling the guards to pass him through
the security line. When the nitakka was within reach, the viceroy
lashed out and raked one cheek with his claw in a symbolic claiming,
the bloody gash foreshadowing the sacrifice to come. The crowd
chittered with a nervous excitement. The nitakka did not flinch.
"I accept your gift," Nil Spaar said. "Walk behind my car."
Then Nil Spaar turned away and crossed the pavement to the opposite
side. The startled hush was dissolving quickly into noisy anticipation
as the crowd began to guess his purpose. Ignoring the shouted pleas
and offers, he walked parallel to the security line just as he had in
selecting the nitakka. This time he looked only at the young females
who still showed a mating ridge and the soft round bulge of a mara-nas
carried high inside.
"You," he said at last, stopping and pointing at one.
"Will you give your birth-cask to me?"
The marasi could not have heard his words over the screams of those
around her, but she bowed her head and came to him all the same. With
a claiming touch, Nil Spaar spun her around so that her back was to him
and seized her head in the mating grip. She dropped to her knees
without resistance, and he released her and stepped back, leaving her
there.
"I accept your gift," he said. "Walk behind my car."
The processional car came forward and stopped for him, and Nil Spaar
ascended once more to the open cabin. Once there, he spread his
clenched fists wide, turned his face to the faithful, and roared the
cry of the old imperatives, flesh and joy. They answered with the
chant of grace to the All, as though approving his choices.
"Onward," Nil Spaar ordered the driver, then settled back into his
seat. It was a profound power he had discovered, to know that his
touch could change lives, his glance confer honor, his presence bring
ecstasy, and his whim invite immediate gratification.
I shall have to be very careful not to let this distract me overly
much, Nil Spaar thought as the car continued toward Giat Nor. But it
will be an agreeable enough distraction for the present.
At a distance of half a light-year, Koornacht Cluster filled half the
sky with a spectacular wash of stars and lit the hulls of the Fifth
Fleet like a spotlight.
At the same time, local and hypercomm signals bombarded the vessels
that had just emerged from hyperspace, lighting up stations all around
Intrepid's bridge.
"Captain, we have a priority one alert from the Fleet Office," the
communications chief sang out. "Fleet Office has upgraded the conflict
code to yellow-two. I have five, count five, attachments for General
A'baht, security high."
Morano spun his chair toward the right. "Tactical--report!"
"All clear, Captain. Sensors report no targets. Pickets report no
contacts. Prowlers report no contacts."
"Poll the task force."
"Polling them, sir." It was the first chance to discover whether any
of the ships in the task force had been lost en route. "Picket
Wayfarer and tender Northstar do not respond. All others reporting on
station."
"Confirming that," called the task force coordinator.
"Receiving notification that Northstar missed the jump due to navcomp
failure, arrival now expected two-eight-forty. Wayfarer suffered
hyperdrive failure at mission time oh-nine-sixteen and dropped out
early. She's now under tow to Alland Yard for repairs."
"Scratch her from the list, Arky, and move Vigilant forward into that
slot," A'baht said calmly.
"Aye, General."
"Tactical, update," Captain Morano called.
"Still clear, sir."
"Maintain active scanning." Morano turned to A'baht. "Nothing out
there. Then why did they kick us up to yellow-two?"
"Let me have my attachments here, Comm," said A'baht, swinging a
flat-panel display up and across in front of him.
The polarizers on the secure display guaranteed that Morano could not
read it from where he sat, so he tried to read A'baht's face instead,
with little more success.
"Interesting," A'baht said finally, returning the display to its
recess. "The yellow-two is due to the fact that the Yevetha apparently
knew we were coming."
"Then where are they?"
"Apparently they chose not to meet us," said A'baht. "Or to make any
other aggressive moves, for that matter. All the inhabited worlds
within ten light-years of here are reporting quiet skies."
"Well--that's good, eh? That's what we want, isn't it?"
"That's what the President wants," said A'baht. "I wish the Yevetha
were here. I want a good look at their fleet. Chances are they're
getting a good look at ours.
Narth, what can we do to make it harder for them?"
The tactical aide rocked back in his chair. "Shuffle assets, rotate
callsigns, hop and skip along the operational perimeter. I think we
can keep them confused for a while, anyway. But it's hard to hide for
long in the middle of nowhere."
"With all respect, General, the way I understood it, hiding was
the
last thing we were supposed to do out here," said Morano. "And that
kind of maneuvering sends the chances of an operational accident way
up.
Remember the Endor and the Shooting Star?" The two Alliance frigates
had collided after a mistimed jump, with the loss of all hands. "Let
them get a good look at us, so they know what they're in for if they
come out. If they have any sense at all, they'll see they don't want
to tangle with us."
"It's much too early to know if the way they think qualifies for our
definition of 'serisible,' Captain," said A'baht. "The viceroy of the
Duskhah League had some very strong things to say while we were en
route--some about us, some about Princess Leia, and all of it very
public. You can hear for yourself--I passed that dispatch over to your
queue."
A'baht looked out at the brilliant sprawl of stars.
"They knew we were coming, and they don't want us here. Until we know
just what they're capable of, I'm not going to be happy about sitting
here. We're out in the open, and they're somewhere in the tall grass,"
he said.
"You know how strategists are--no matter what their species."
Captain Morano sighed and glanced across at his own tactical team.
"It's true--they're easily tempted.
They can't resist trying to plan the knockout first strike," he said,
and the tactical chief confirmed the truth of it with a guilty smile.
"So how do we play this?"
With a practiced ease, A'baht unstrapped his restraints and stood. "We
sit here and let 'em look, because that's what we've been asked to
do.
We move the prowlers as far forward as we dare and keep them moving
along the perimeter. And we all work on being very, very watchful."
To himself A'baht added, And then we hope the diplomats and politicians
either work this out, or deal us a stronger hand and soon. "I'll be in
my ready room, working up the entry report," he said. "Alert me the
moment there's any change in the tactical situation."
In the privacy of his ready room, General Etahn A'baht learned that
there were not five, but six attachments to the Fleet Office's flash
update.
The sixth was an electronic hitchhiker. It had no identifying code and
a length of zero. But when A'baht keyed in the code he had reluctantly
and tediously memorized at Admiral Drayson's insistence, the attachment
unfolded into a lengthy dispatch from Alpha Blue.
A'baht watched the images of the Yevethan colony ships landing on
Doornik-319, of the Yevethan Star Destroyers over Polneye, of the
burning fields at the Kutag factory farm, of the scorched valleys on
New Brigia, and wondered why the Fleet Office had withheld them from
him. All the important information had been in his up-date--that the
Yevetha had Imperial-design Star Destroyers, that multiple colonies in
the Cluster had been attacked by Yevethan forces, and so on--but it had
been stripped of its reality, rendered as sterile, bloodless, and
calculated as the raids themselves.
The Yevetha had swept across the bright stars of Koornacht with such
black ferocity that the sterile battlefields could not properly bear
witness to it. Their millions of victims now had only one face, that
of the only known survivor--Plat Mallar, who had seen the fire come and
barely escaped it on a foolish gamble. But the Fleet Office had kept
Plat Mallar's face from A'baht as well. The reports called him simply
"a Polneyan pilot," as if afraid to let him be seen as a brave young
man who had lost everything, and whose words might prick a conscience
or launch a cause.
"Recorder."
The little stenographic droid called SCM-22 trundled forward, twisting
and turning within a circle twice its own diameter. "Optimizing," it
said in a high, unmistakably artificial voice. "Ready."
"Record. Task force commander's entry report, append," said Etahn
A'baht. "Personal to Admiral Ackbar In my estimation, the present
deployment of the Fifth Fleet is unlikely to be effective either as a
deterrent to further aggression or in denying the Yevetha the benefits
of their past aggression.
"Our presence at this position directly threatens no Yevetha assets and
directly protects no friendly infrastructure.
Nor can we effectively block a breakout with only a single
Interdictor.
The Yevethan fleet can go right over our head at any time, and we'd be
left chasing them into the combat zone of their choosing."
with the blunt tips of two fingers as he did. "It is my recommendation
that vessels or detachments of vessels with combined combat ratings no
less than strength three be sent to Galantos, Wehttam, and each of the
other new protectorates," he continued.
"This will make unmistakably clear what interests we're here to
protect. It also may serve to remind the Yevetha that being able to
reach these targets isn't the same thing as being able to have them.
"But we also need to try to make it harder for the Yevetha to reach
them. The primary hyperspace nav routes out of the Cluster should all
be under interdiction, and from as close a proximity to the Yevetha
forward bases as possible.
"Astrographic analysis shows that there are no single-jump exit routes
from N'zoth, Wakiza, and the other known interior worlds--the density
of the Cluster makes things a little easier for us. But there are
still too many ways out. We cannot blockade Koornacht from this
position, with these assets. Do not allow anyone there to believe
otherwise.
"With respect to the preceding recommendations, I formally request the
following additional assets be attached to this command as soon as
practicable any and all available Interdictors. Any and all available
prowlers.
No fewer than four additional capital ships, frigate or above, for
assignment to the protectorates--I don't want to pull anything back
from here for that duty, lest we send the wrong message to the
Yevetha.
"And, finally, we should be thinking about setting up a field supply
and logistics center somewhere closer than Halpat. If our presence
brings the Yevetha out, we're going to take losses, and I want
something better than cold space for our casualties and cripples.
A'baht, commanding, Fifth."
A'baht raised his eyes to the little droid. "That's it.
Expand, end, and close."
"Done. Compressing--done. Encryptingdone.
Ready for transmission."
"Send it," said A'baht, looking out his viewscreen at the curtain of
stars and wondering if the predators concealed within were looking back
out at him.
The north beach at Illarian Point, on the western shore of Rathalay's
western sea, was wide, broad, and nearly deserted.
If it had been located on a recreation world like Amfar, or even
anywhere in Coruscant's temperate zones, the chances were that the
beach would have been bustling with activity and the dunes pave
d over
with pleasure resorts. Humans were not the only species drawn almost
worshipfully to the sun and the water.
But overlooked and underused had been exactly what Han had been looking
for, and he was delighted by the long, empty expanses of gray basaltic
sand. In more than two hours he had seen only two people, outside of
the family. One was an older man prospecting along the water's edge
for the tiny jewel-like shells of sea motes, who stopped to show the
children the small handful of unbroken shells he had found. The other
was a Thodian distance swimmer who had passed offshore, taking no
notice of them at all.
Anakin, Jaina, and Jacen showed no sign yet that the novelty of playing
in and along the sea was fading.
None of them had ever seen a body of water so vast that it met the
horizon, or one that was home to carnivores large enough to devour an
adult in a few bites, and it made an impression on them. They allowed
Han to tell them of the wreck of the starfreighter Just Cause, which
lay nine hundred meters below the surface, its cargo of precious metals
guarded by superstition and schools of razor-toothed narkaa. They even
stood still for a visualization lesson from Leia, who asked them to
imagine being creatures of the sea, looking on the land for the first