New Jedi Order 12 - Enemy Lines - Rebel Dream.pdf - New Jedi Order - Ranentil

ENEMY LINES I:

REBEL DREAM

Aaron Allston

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

The Jedi

Luke Skywalker; Jedi Master (male human)

Mara Jade Skywalker; Jedi Master (female human)

Jaina Solo; Jedi Knight (female human)

Kyp Durron; Jedi Master (male human)

Corran Horn; Jedi Knight (male human)

Tahiri Veila; Jedi student (female human)

Alema Rar; Jedi Knight (female Twi'lek)

With the New Republic Military

General Wedge Antilles (male human)

Lando Calrissian; merchant (male human)

Colonel Tycho Celchu (male human)

Commander Eldo Davip; captain, Lusankya (male human)

Colonel Gavin Darklighter; Rogue Squadron leader (male human)

Captain Krai Nevil; Rogue Squadron pilot (male Quarren)

Captain Garik "the Face" Loran; Wraith Squadron leader (male human)

Captain Yakown Reth; Blackmoon Squadron leader (male human)

Iella Wessiri Antilles; Intelligence director (female human)

Jagged Fel; Twin Suns Squadron pilot (male human)

Voort "Piggy" saBinring; Twin Suns Squadron pilot (male Gammorean)

YVH 1-1A (masculine droid)

Civilians

Danni Quee; scientist (female human)

Wolam Tser; holodocumentarian (male human)

Tarn Elgrin; holocam operator (male human)

With the Yuuzhan Vong

Tsavong Lah; warmaster (male Yuuzhan Vong)

Czulkang Lah; commander (male Yuuzhan Vong)

Viqi Shesh; former Senator (female human)

Maal Lah; commander (male Yuuzhan Vong)

Denua Ku; warrior (male Yuuzhan Vong)

Wyrpuuk Cha; commander (male Yuuzhan Vong)

Kadlah Cha; warrior (male Yuuzhan Vong)

Takhaff Uul; priest (male Yuuzhan Vong)

Ghithra Dal; shaper (male Yuuzhan Vong)

ONE

One Month Ago, Pyria System:

Borleias Occupation, Day 1

"A god cannot die," Charat Kraal said. "Therefore it can have no fear of

death. So who is braver, a god or a mortal?"

Charat Kraal was a pilot of the Yuuzhan Vong - humanoid, a little over

two meters in height. His skin, where it was not covered by geometric

tattoos, was pale, marked everywhere by the white, slightly reflective

lines of old scars. Some years-ago mishap had eaten away the center of

his face, eliminating even the diminutive nose common to the Yuuzhan

Vong, leaving behind brown-crusted cartilage and horizontal holes into

his sinus passages. His forehead angled back less dramatically than many

of the Yuuzhan Vong and looked a trifle more like the forehead of a

human, for which two warriors had taunted him, for which he had killed

them. He disguised the trait as much as he could by yanking out the last

of the hair on his head and adding skulltop tattoos that drew the eye up

and back, away from the offending forehead. One day he would earn an

implant that would further mask his deformity and end his problem.

He wore an ooglith cloaker, the transparent environment suit of Yuuzhan

Vong pilots, over a simple warrior's loincloth. Both garments were

living creatures, engineered and bred to perform only the tasks demanded

of them, to aid the Yuuzhan Vong in their pursuit of glory.

He sat in the cockpit of his coralskipper, the irregular rocklike space

fighter of his kind, but he did not wear his cognition hood at the

moment; the masklike creature that kept him in mental contact with his

craft, that allowed him to sense with its senses and pilot it with the

agility of thought rather than muscle and reaction, was set to the side

while his coralskipper cruised on routine patrol.

He and his mission partner, Penzak Kraal, were in distant orbit above

the world Borleias. The planet had been recently seized from the

infidels native to this galaxy so that it could be used as a staging

area for the Yuuzhan Vong assault on the galactic throneworld of Coru

scant. Borleias was an agreeably green world, not overgrown with the

dead, crusty dwellings of the infidels, not strewn with their unnatural

implements of technology; only a military base, now smashed, had

affronted the Yuuzhan Vong with evidence of infidel occupation.

The voice of Penzak Kraal emerged from the small, head-shaped villip

mounted on the cockpit wall just beneath the canopy. Though most

coralskippers were not equipped with villips, relying instead on the

telepathic signals of yammosk war coordinators for all their

communications, long-distance patrol craft did call for a means for

direct communications. "Don't be an idiot. If a god is the god of

bravery, then by definition he must be braver than any Yuuzhan Vong,

than anything living."

"I wonder. Let us say then that you could become immortal as the gods,

and never die, but remain one of the Yuuzhan Vong. You would never face

death. Could you then be as brave as the Yuuzhan Vong? You could kill

forever but never truly risk death, defy death, choose your time and

place of death. Which is better, to be brave for a lifetime or to kill

forever?"

"Who cares? The choice is not ours. But if I were to choose, I think I

would choose immortality. Live long enough, and you might learn how to

be brave as a Yuuzhan Vong again. Kill long enough, and you could

perhaps learn to kill a star."

Charat Kraal sobered. "I have heard..."

"What?"

"That the infidels did that. Learned to kill a star."

He heard Penzak Kraal hiss in irritation; in the villip he saw his

partner's lopsided features go even more off center as his mouth pulled

down in an expression of contempt. "So what if they did? They killed it

the wrong way, with their wrong minds and their wrong devices. And, like

idiots, they must have lost the secret. Or they'd be destroying the

worldships one by one."

"I have also heard..." Charat Kraal lowered his voice, a foolish

instinct, since no one but Penzak Kraal could be listening to him. "That

gods may smile upon them, too. On the infidels."

"Ridiculous."

"Can you know the minds of the gods?"

"I can no more know the minds of the gods than summon one of the enemy

battleships to destroy for my personal glory."

In the distance, away from Borleias, many kilometers from them, an enemy

battleship winked into existence, its bow pointed toward them. The ship

was already up to speed; it grew rapidly as it neared them, as it

approached Borleias.

"Penzak, you fool."

"My words did not summon it, you idiot." The villip's face blurred and

adjusted, reflecting a change to Penzak's features; Penzak had pulled

on his cognition hood. Charat did likewise. His surroundings, the

cockpit interior, seemed to become transparent, giving him a view in all

directions through the senses of the coralskipper, showing him in

breathtaking detail the onrushing enemy ship.

No, now it was ships. More and more of the loathsome things of metal

were dropping out of hyperspace, all aimed at Borleias. At Charat and

Penzak.

A moment later, Charat could feel a buzz through the cognition hood, a

telltale sign that Penzak was sending a warning to the Domain Kraal

commander on Borleias.

The foremost New Republic ship, a sharply angled triangle in white,

passed over the two coralskippers, blotting out the sun, casting them

into shadow. Nowhere near so large as a Yuuzhan Vong worldship, it was

still of impressive size, and so near that Charat felt he could reach

out and drag his finger along its hull as it passed.

Penzak Kraal sent his coralskipper into a dive and turned to match the

larger craft's course. Charat paced him. Above, he saw thruster gouts

from the ship's belly herald the launching of the hated infidel

starfighers.

"How do we hurt them worst?" Charat asked.

"Follow me in," Penzak said. "While they're launching. Don't engage the

fighters; bait them so they follow us. The ship won't fire on us with

the fighters in close proximity. We'll enter their launching bays and

destroy the facilities there, then gut the ship from within." He looped

around, rising and angling in toward the ship's belly. Charat followed.

Mon Mothma, one of the newest cruisers in the New Republic's fleet, a

Star Destroyer refitted with gravity-well generators capable of

interfering with the short jumps made by Yuuzhan Vong craft, cruised

straight toward Borleias from the point where it had dropped out of

hyperspace. This hadn't been a timed drop - they'd plotted a course

straight for the planet Borleias, and the planet's gravity well had

dragged them into realspace when they'd come close enough. And now

before them was the blue-green world they had come to recapure.

"No sign of a Yuuzhan Vong worldship in orbit," reported the sensor

officer, a Mon Calamari male with deep blue skin. "The two coralskippers

are turning to engage."

General Wedge Antilles, a lean man with a careworn face and military

posture, commander of the fleet group for which Mon Mothma was the

flagship, nodded. "Gunnery, stay on them, vape them if they come against

us. Fighter control, continue launching starfighter squadrons."

"Yes, sir."

Data screens lit up with colored blips as New Republic starfighters - X

New Jedi Order 12 - Enemy Lines - Rebel Dream.pdf

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