Legacy Of The Force_ Revelation Part 26

And she has to go.

Niathal. The leaked intelligence had to be one of Niathal's cronies-none of his own crew would be so care-less or treacherous. It had to be one of her Mon Cal or Quarren buddies undermining him to shake his crew's faith in him, or even set him up for a defeat that would enable Niathal to take sole control.

Endex, Admiral. I just have to work out the least dam-aging way to get you out of my hair.

Caedus still expected her to try to oust him every time he left Coruscant, but she never had. Either she wanted the war won before she moved in to take credit for it, or she was waiting for him to get killed.

That's your single biggest mistake. If you'd seized sole power in my absence, I'd have had a hard time retaking Coruscant. Not hard militarily, but a counterattack on my own capital, on top of the frag-ile recovery from the last war.... no, Coruscant wouldn't recover psychologically from that. It's the heart of my new empire. I need that heart unbroken.

Niathal was a fleet officer to her core. She could never think like a galactic leader. She'd want to do things by the naval rules riveted deep in her psyche, to engage him from the bridge of a battles.h.i.+p as if that somehow sanctified her actions. Her and Pellaeon, both: he trusted neither. They went along with him because the pressure from beneath them, the rank and file, the Moffs, the crews, kept them from openly opposing him.

Tebut.... yes, I wish I had done things differently. Was her destiny to show me that a Sith's true anger is meant for larger targets?

I have to think she had a purpose. I set out on this path for all the Tebuts in the galaxy, the ma.s.s of ordinary beings crushed by the badly used power of a hand-ful. I'd never waste a life like that.... would I?

Caedus had dreaded discovering that he might be sliding down his grandfather's disastrous path. Every day, though, he saw confirmation that he wasn't; there had been plenty killed like Tebut in Vader's day, people said, not just one shocking act. But Vader had been crippled by love, and his command tainted by a demented fool of an Emperor. In Caedus's here and now, there was neither distracting love nor any higher authority stifling him.

Yes. Tebut's death had been a wake-up call from the Force, he was sure of that.

Death? Say it. I killed her. Face it. Learn from it.

The past couldn't be changed, just observed. Watching history was pointless unless lessons were learned from it and used to shape what could be changed-the next mo-ment, and the next, because that was all the future was, a series of decisions taken differently. Tahiri hadn't quite ac-cepted that, even if her rational mind told her Anakin was gone forever, and that each backward glance paralyzed her life in the present; but he would wean her off that depen-dency on regret for her own sake, as much as for his.

Niathal is coming. It's not a threat. It's an opportunity. How do I take the chance that's offered to me? What have I learned?

In any war, officers died too.

He would recognize the chance when he saw it. No need to alienate Niathal's crews by making her look a martyr. I need them on my side. I can't do it all on my own, and fear doesn't keep order forever.

"Sir?"

Tahiri's voice filtered through. He'd known she was ap-proaching-he was sure, he thought-but let it wash over him. "Yes, Tahiri?"

"Something's bothering me."

If it was about Anakin, he'd be disappointed. She ap-peared like a sharp edge in the Force sometimes. "Go ahead."

"When Niathal arrives, how can this a.s.sault possibly work? How are you going to be able to continue working with her after this?"

Not Anakin, then. The future; good. "That's rhetorical."

"No." Tahiri seemed to be making an active effort to learn as much as she could on this mission. "I don't understand what options are open to you. You can't get rid of her."

"Why?"

"Even you can't control the whole fleet, all the time, every day, because even a Sith has finite time. So you need as many loyal officers as you can get. If anything happens to Niathal, they'll worry that n.o.body's safe from you."

"You're impressing me these days, Tahiri." And you'll want my job.

And there I was worrying where I might find a worthy replacement for Ben Skywalker. "I think Niathal is going to make a mistake. I'm just giving her the prover-bial cord with which to hang herself."

Tahiri looked as if she were chewing the words and then digesting them, but not enjoying the taste.

"The landings on the orbital yards.... the a.s.sault force commanders are getting anxious. I can hear them on the bridge comlinks nagging Captain Nevil. They need the re-a.s.surance of times and coordinates."

"I can't give them that yet, but they have intelligence on the layout of the yards, don't they?" Caedus thought of Nevil, given that he'd flung his captain against a bulkhead in the Tebut incident, and wondered just how low he'd sunk in the Quarren's estimation. He'd have to get Nevil back on his side. "And Nevil is rea.s.suring them?"

"Yes."

"It's just nerves."

"Okay, sir."

"Tell you what, Tahiri, "Caedus said, remembering the Jacen Solo who could get a whole hangar deck of troops cheering him, "I'll show them that I'm not sitting here in comfort filing my nails."

Caedus opened the locker hatch where his flight suit and other abandoned working kit was stowed. He used to look like one of his own troops; it was time to restore that com-forting symbol for this task force. He slipped his black cloak off his shoulders and pulled his flight coveralls over his pants and tunic.

Caedus pressed the desk comlink. "Delta Hangar, ready my StealthX, please." Tahiri looked as if she was expecting to follow. "Just a sortie to get a closer look. I know the kind of things they say on the mess decks. Commanders who hang too far back from the front line get awarded the Coruscant Star by the ranks. I don't want them giving me that decoration. Ever."

Niathal's estimated time on station was one hour. That was ample to check out at least a couple of Fondor's...o...b..tals. As Caedus made his way through the Destroyer's hatches and pa.s.sages, he picked up the mood of crew members, their lack of confidence, their uncertainty, and he suppressed the anger that threatened to well up. On the hangar deck, the ground technicians seemed puzzled.

Make them believe by succeeding. You used to inspire them. It takes time to build a reputation but a second to lose it. It was just a second.

Just a slip. Just a lesson.

"Time I did a recce, "Caedus said, blending back into their language and community. "I'll never ask anyone to do what I'm not prepared to do myself."

The StealthX dropped out of the hatch into the void and hyperjumped for the orbitals. When it fell out into real-s.p.a.ce moments later and within striking distance of Fon-dor, it was just a small black patch of undetectable nothing that blotted out stars-so vivid, so stark from s.p.a.ce-for an instant as it pa.s.sed. Sometimes Caedus wondered if this was what it felt like to be a ghost, seeing everything so clearly yet not being seen.

As he streaked high over the first orbital, a metallic ar-rowhead kilometers long, he could see the outlines of Star Destroyers flanked by buildings, cranes, and webs of pipes and cables. His senses told him that living beings huddled down there waiting for an attack. Around the curve of the planet, the next orbital ahead was oriented head-on, a slab with structures extending from top and bottom. It resolved into an industrial city as he pa.s.sed above it. He could ob-serve at his leisure. Again, a workforce waited for the worst, radiating anxiety and aggression in the Force; and everywhere, on orbitals and planets, Caedus felt weapons and vessels ready to repel him. Fondor was small in galactic terms, but the whole planet was a dockyard with bil-lions of staff. It had to be the GA's a.s.set again: or it had to be put out of action.

I really wouldn't trust the Imperial Remnant to play nicely with this toy.

The Moffs had Borleias and Bilbringi. They'd be kept busy admiring those baubles for a while, giving Caedus time to restore stability and remove any temptation to step in and impose their own kind of order, just to be helpful.

For a moment, Caedus thought he could feel familiar presences in the Force, but the sensation pa.s.sed. It was re-placed by his Sith battle awareness of his captains and commanders, a living grid of interconnected reactions that tilted, panned and zoomed like a holochart marked with transponder icons. Caedus had a better picture of the the-ater of war than instruments could give them, he knew; it was a hard act of faith for them to surrender judgment to something so nebulous.

Something blipped in his field of vision, and was gone again.

Maybe it had never been there. That was a drawback with battle awareness. The more he could see with the technique, the more detailed it became, and the harder it was sometimes to separate the images in his inner eye from what he could physically see.

The orbitals he managed to observe before running short on time were packed with s.h.i.+ps, many looking as if they were near the final phase of construction, and more than he'd ever realized Fondor had in build.

This wasn't just a symbolically important planet to bring into line. It was a legitimate target.

It would have been so much simpler with the mine net-work in place.

He hyperjumped briefly to bring him closer to his flag-s.h.i.+p. The technique alarmed non-Jedi X-wing pilots; they once said he'd fall out of hypers.p.a.ce smack into the hull of an SSD one day if he kept bouncing around blind like that. But Caedus knew instinctively where he was in three di-mensions, and even in the higher ones. He knew.

There.

He was back in reals.p.a.ce and the Anakin Solo was visi-ble in a constellation of frigates, cruisers, landing craft, car-riers, and ten Star Destroyers.

Niathai's Third Fleet-a task force, but it was conve-nient to think of them in separate fleet terms, because they were not all one happy navy, not by a long shot-would need to keep the planet's defenses occupied while he cap-tured the orbitals. The Imperial Remnant would need to prowl the outer boundary, alert for the return of the Fondorian navy.

Caedus felt he'd planned it well enough. Even Niathal's outburst and insistence on rus.h.i.+ng here to show him how to do it properly fell elegantly into the battle plan. He subst.i.tuted Niathal for the mine net.

Caedus reached out to his commanders and spread a lit-tle genuine confidence that things would work out fine. Nevil... he could focus in on Nevil, and the man was deeply troubled. Oh, yes. His son was killed. I forget that. It was an unhappy mind, and Caedus moved on, concen-trating on the threatening storm pressing on his sinuses, the vague sensation in the Force that told him s.h.i.+ps were out there, ma.s.sing somewhere-and Niathal should have been dropping out of s.p.a.ce just about....

Now.

He looked around for the blooms of light as s.h.i.+ps reap-peared in reals.p.a.ce. As he slowed his approach, he caught the shooting-star effect in his peripheral vision, and rolled the StealthX slowly to look around.

Yes, the Third Fleet was on time. The fleet gradually built up, star by artificial star, into a ragged constellation of navigation lights and harshly sunlit surfaces. Early warning systems on Fondor would have detected the emerging fleet by now.

They could still surrender. He'd go through the motions, but only to check the boxes. If they did surrender, he'd still have to occupy the planet for a period anyway, just to make sure it stayed that way. That devoured more resources.

There was still the Fondorian navy to account for, though.

He felt it out there. It was in hypers.p.a.ce, and his aware-ness was nothing like the one he had in normal s.p.a.ce; there was no real size or scope to guide him, just an impression, a little more solid than a hunch.

Now it was time to face Niathal.

He flicked open the comlink, perfectly secure this close to the s.h.i.+p. StealthXs almost always operated in complete comm silence, and n.o.body could monitor them without big clues like an open channel. The fighters really did van-ish. "Solo to Nevil, the Third is on station.

Patch me through to Ocean."

She would be...

No...

Caedus had jerked the StealthX ninety degrees to star-board before his retina-fractionally slower than Force senses-registered a slab of s.h.i.+p filling his vision. And it wasn't the Anakin. He righted himself relative to the as-sembled fleet; but he was suddenly overwhelmed, s.h.i.+ps popping into existence all around him in a complete 360- degree ring.

Wherever he turned the StealthX, he was facing the spars and sensor masts and patchworked hatches of wars.h.i.+ps. Cannon turrets-he couldn't identify the type, the navy, anything. It was a fleet from another time and place.

He could feel the s.h.i.+ps, but he had no impression of lethal, implacable ma.s.s. His pa.s.sive sensors showed static, as if he'd been hit by an EM pulse that hadn't tripped the warning. He sensed danger, though; a real threat.

Caedus did what any pilot would, and signaled a warn-ing as best he could, trying to work out what he had fallen into.

ADMIRAL NIATHAL'S FLAGs.h.i.+P OCEAN; OFF FONDOR.

Jacen Solo's open comlink spewed uncharacteristically loud chaos onto Niathal's calm bridge.

"Enemy vessels, I repeat enemy vessels, estimate five destroyers, type unknown, twenty light cruisers, no... fifteen..... range five hundred..."

She stared at her chart repeaters. Nothing. Just the s.h.i.+ps she hoped and expected to find, the Third and Fourth fleet components. She looked up, searching for a simple expla-nation, and the electronic warfare control section-all ten officers-was staring back at her as one bemused being, equally dumbfounded, screens visibly devoid of frantic, blinking UNIDENTIFED icons even from her position. One officer suddenly swung back to her screen and started punching in code. n.o.body else said a word. Everyone with a sensor or screen was searching, cross-checking, looking to see what they'd missed and what bedlam was unfolding out there. Had the hyperjump disrupted all their calibra-tion? Were they about to be vaporized?

"What is that man doing?" Niathal was genuinely thrown, wondering if she might have interrupted him on some morale-boosting dry-run pre-attack; that was the kind of irrational mystic stuff he'd do at a time like this. "Colonel Solo, this is Ocean, we do not see the targets, tepeat, we do not see the targets..."

The officer of the watch and his juniors were at the forward viewscreen, physically searching through the trans-paristeel for whatever Jacen could detect but they couldn't. There was only so much a lookout could spot with the un-aided eye against a starfield and from this position in the s.h.i.+p, but given what Jacen was calling in, they should have been able to see activity and the glitter of faceted surfaces bouncing raw sunlight back at them. And Jacen's voice-impressively calm, Niathal had to give him that-continued to fill the bridge, transmitting approximated ranges and positions relative to his own.

"I've got him, ma'am, "said the EWO who'd been tap-ping at her console. "I've mapped his comlink signal onto the holochart. Watch the purple trace."

It was just a blob of violet light set a little way apart from an orderly pattern of blue transponder markers. The blue markers were in two distinct formations, pennant codes valid, showing two GA task forces. The violet light-Jacen Solo's StealthX-was racing across the hoJochart, jinking and looping, as if it were navigating through a con-gested s.p.a.celane and avoiding bigger vessels.

Niathal's initial shock, which had set her blood pumping hard enough to hear in her ears, was ebbing into disbelief and a different kind of worry. She glanced down at the comlink panel. Jacen was patched through to her and to the Anakin Solo's bridge.

Okay. Let's share your unique Sith insight, shall we, Colonel?

She flicked a key and the voice channel went to every bridge comlink in the two fleets.

"Ma'am, confirmed zero contacts." The EWO seemed to hesitate, as if saying what was now on Niathal's mind and probably everyone else's was a little rude. "There's nothing out there, unless someone has cloaking technology we don't know about and Colonel Solo is able to see past it...

being a Jedi, and all that."

It was an outside chance, Niathal knew. Just to be on the safe side, she turned to the weapons officer.

"Bargos, lob the smallest torp you've got at one of those coordinates the colonel gave, will you?" she said. "See if we hit anything solid."

"Very good, ma'am..." Bargos had a chartful of phan-tom targets to choose from. He keyed in a course with nothing to lock on to, and issued the standard warning across the task force. "Stand by, stand by, all vessels, live weapon, test-firing, bearing and course.... that... in five standard seconds.... and torpedo away." They waited.

The torpedo's sensor trace tracked steadily across the screen. It pa.s.sed the projected impact point and carried on going.... and going. It looked like it would make it to Bestine in a few years, unimpeded by any mystery target.

"Maybe it's moved..., "Bargos said, struggling to keep a straight face. It wasn't humor; it was nerve-fraying anxi-ety, not about an invisible enemy, but about a commander who was behaving irrationally.

"Whoa, he's lost it, "said a whispered voice behind Niathal, barely audible. "Told you he'd flipped, when he did that to Tebut..."

Jacen was still transmitting, calm but definitely confused.

"Anakin Solo, I have... lost visual." There was a pause.

"Very good sir."

"Anakin Solo, respond, did you confirm my visual? Any-thing?"

"Negative, sir."

"One final visual check, and returning to s.h.i.+p."

It was so silent on the bridge that Niathal could hear the collective unk of humans swallowing after holding their breath for a while. The whole episode had been played out live to the fleet. Everyone had heard how JCOS-2-joint Chief of State Number Two, as Jacen was known in memos-had been chasing ghosts. If they hadn't heard it live, the utterly reliable fleet scuttleb.u.t.t service would pro-vide highlights for them for years to come. Niathal checked her chrono and the time codes on the signals. The bizarre incident had run for a little under eight standard minutes.

She judged that the time was right. "Anakin Solo, this is Ocean.

Get me Captain Nevil. Now."

Nevil must have been right next to the comm station. Niathal hardly had time to blink. She didn't even need to pose a question before he answered it. He did a fine job of sounding as if they hadn't spoken in months.