THE BLACK FLEET CRISIS #3 - TYRANTS_TEST Read online

  The Black Fleet Crisis: Tyrant's Test

  by

  By: Michael P. Kube-McDowell

  BANTAM BOOKS NEW YORK TORONTO LONDON SYDNEY AUCKLAND

  Dedication

  For the stalwart crew, Russ Galen Tom Dupree Sue Rostoni Lynn Bailey

  And the bold captain, George Lucas

  Acknowledgments

  Writing "The Black Fleet Crisis" has been either the most grueling fun

  or the most enjoyable marathon of my writing career. Either way, the

  last seventeen months have been amazingly full--a new home, two new

  babies (Amanda and Gavin), and more than three hundred thousand new

  words of fiction.

  Though I was on my own in the many long hours I spent with my old

  friend Qwerty, I couldn't have had those hours, or done nearly as much

  with them, without the help of a grand conspiracy of allies.

  First among them are my immediate family, Gwen Zak and my son Matt, and

  my de facto extended family, Rod Zak and Arlyn Wilson. With unflagging

  grace and good humor, they pitched in wherever they were needed, doing

  whatever had to be done to keep the home fires burning and the dragons

  at bay.

  The seasoned professionals of this conspiracy were SCG superagent Russ

  Galen, Bantam editor Tom Du-pree, BDD Audio producer Lynn Bailey, and

  Lucasfilm's Sue Rostoni. Working their mysterious ways through such

  arcane media as the fax, the telephone, and E-mail,

  they skillfully

  managed the more far-reaching elem of the master plan.

  Then there were the many sympathizers, who, though not formally part of

  my cell nevertheless fered their knowledge or services to further our

  cause.

  Prominent on that long list are DanWallace, Craig ert Carey, Timothy

  O'Brien, R. Lee Brown, Mic Armstrong, Jim Macdonald, Daniel Dworkin,

  Ev.

  Cainto, and Mike Stackpole.

  Meanwhile, John Vester, Dave Phillips, and nifer Hrynik took the point

  on a fiendishly clever' information campaign.

  Though security concerns limit my freedom to name names, I also want to

  acknowledge the aid and comfort I drew from the volunteer flyspeckers

  in CompuServe's SF Media Two forum (GO SFMEDTWO) Genie's SF Roundtable

  Three (SFRT3), and from the cals of RASSM.

  I offer my most earnest salute to the chief archi of the Rebellion,

  George Lucas, without whose inspiration none of us would be here.

  Finally, I want to thank the true believers of cause--Star Wars fans

  around the globe--for coming along on this journey. Your boundless

  enthusiasm and vocal support have meant a great deal to me.

  --Michael Paul McDowell: August 31, 1996

  Okemos, Michigan

  Dramatis Personae

  On Coruscant, capital of the New Republic:

  Princess Leia Organa Solo, President of the Senate an- Chief of State

  of the New Republic

  Alole and Tarrick, aides to Leia

  Admiral Hiram Drayson, chief of Alpha Blue

  General Carlist Rieekan, head of New Republic Intelligence

  Brigadier Collomus, operations senior staff for NRI

  First Administrator Nanaod Engh, administrative director of the New

  Republic

  Mokka Falanthas, minister of state

  Senator Behn-Kihl-Nahm, chairman of the Defense Council and friend and

  mentor to Leia

  Senator Rattagagech of Elom, chairman of the Science and Technology

  Council

  Senator Doman Beruss of Illodia, chairman of the Ministry Council

  Senator Borsk Fey'lya of Kothlis, chairman of the Justice Council

  Senator Tig Peramis of Walalla

  Belezaboth Ourn, extraordinary consul of t] Paqwepori

  With the Fifth Battle Group of the New Republic Defense Fleet, in

  Farlax Sector:

  General Etahn A'baht, Fleet commander

  Colonel Corgan, staff tactical officer

  Colonel Mauit'ta, staff intelligence officer

  Captain Morano, commander of the flagship Intrepid

  Plat Mallar, sole survivor of the Yevethan raid on Polneye

  Aboard the Teljkon Vagabond:

  General Lando Calrissian, Fleet liaison to the expedition

  Lobot, chief administrator of Cloud City, on vacation

  See-Threepio, protocol droid

  Artoo-Detoo, astromech droid

  Aboard the yacht Lady Luck, in pursuit of the Vagabond:

  Colonel Pakkpekatt, expedition commander Republic Intelligence

  Captain Bijo Hammax, foray commander Pleck and Taisden, NRI technical

  agents

  Aboard the Obroan Institute research vessel P Rift, at Maltha Obex: Dr.

  Joto Eckels, senior archaeologist

  On N'zoth, spawnworld of the Yevetha, in Kc Cluster, Farlax Sector:

  Nil Spaar, viceroy of the Yevethan Protectorate

  Eri Palle, aide to Nil Spaar

  Dar Bille, proctor of the Yevethan flagship Tal Fraan, proctor cogent

  to the viceroy

  General Han Solo, a prisoner

  Aboard the skiff Mud Sloth, en route to J't'p'tan, in the Koornacht

  Cluster, Farlax Sector

  Luke Skywalker, a Jedi Master

  Akanah, an adept of the White Current On Kashyyyk, homeWorld of the

  Wookiees:

  Chewbacca, participating in coming-of-age ceremonies for his son

  Lumpawarrump

  Tyrant's T est

  (Chapter 1

  Three levels down from Rwookrrorro and eighteen kilometers northeast

  along the Rryatt Trail, the Well of the Dead appeared as a solid green

  wall ahead of Chewbacca and his son Lumpawarrump.

  This deep in the wroshyr jungle of Kashyyyk, the tangled web of trunks

  and branches was ordinarily almost barren. So little light penetrated

  the dense canopies overhead that any leaves that sprouted quickly

  withered. Only the gray bridal-veil sucker and the pad-dle-leafed mock

  shyr, both parasites, and the ubiquitous kshyy vines decorated the runs

  and paths.

  But neither the bridal-veil nor the mock shyr was abundant enough to

  block those runs and force the Wookiees to the underside of the web of

  branches.

  They--and the creatures that made their homes at that level--could move

  freely over the top of the tangled maze. Despite the dim light,

  sightlines of up to five hundred meters were the norm, with the trunks

  of the wroshyr trees themselves providing the only cover.

  It was the Shadow Forest, the realm of the nimble rkkrrkkrl, or

  trap-spinner, and the slow-moving rroshm, which helped keep the paths

  clear by grazing on bridal-veil.

  tongued needlebugs, whose sucking proboscides could pierce the tough

  wroshyr bark and draw on the juices within.

  The most dangerous inhabitants were the elusive kkekkrrg rro, the

  five-limbed Shadow Keepers, which preferred to roam the underside and

  even more strongly preferred the taste of meat. The Shadow Keepers

  would not attack an adult Wookiee, but long history, now mostly

  forgotten, had made the kkekkrrg rro the personification of the

/>   skulking unseen enemy, and it was the rare Wookiee who would not reach

  for his weapon on seeing one.

  All this and more Chewbacca had shown and explained to his son as they

  journeyed down from the hunting ground of the Twilight Gardens, a level

  above.

  The whole time, memories had swirled around him on the stagnant air.

  Some were memories of his own journey of ascendance in the company of

  his father, Attitch-itcuk, of the tests that had earned him the right

  to wear his baldric, to carry a weapon in city, to choose and confirm

  his name.

  Two hundred years, and the forest is still the same--only I am the

  father now, not the son ....

  Chewbacca also vividly remembered the foolish expedition he and

  Salporin had made to the Shadow Forest in advance of their

  coming-of-age. Unarmed but for a single ryyyk blade Salporin had

  pilfered from his eldest brother, Chewbacca and his friend had left the

  nursery ring and descended into realms forbidden to the children they

  still were.

  They had thought to prepare themselves for the unknown, but managed

  only to scare themselves with it.

  Their courage had faded with the failing light, and by the time they

  reached Shadow Forest, all it took was a skittish trap-spinner to send

  them fleeing back to the safety of the familiar.

  And what we thought we saw filled our nightmares until our tests of

  ascension finally came--poor Salporin!

  I only had to wait six days.

  If Attitchitcuk knew--then or later--what they had done, he had never

  let on.

  Chewbacca looked at his son appraisingly. He doubted that there were

  any secret journeys concealed behind those nervous eyes. Years ago, a

  very young Lumpawarrump had gone alone into the forest near Rwookrrorro

  in search of wasaka berries and gotten himself lost--a misadventure

  that had grown much in the retelling, until it became a family fable

  populated by every monster of the dark depths of both jungle and

  imagination. But the scare had been real even if the danger had not,

  and since then his son had been content to stay close to the nursery

  ring and the home tree.

  And Mallatobuck and Attitchitcuk had been content to allow it, to let

  him be different. Neither, it seemed, had pushed him to take part in

  the toughen-ing--the unstructured rough-and-tumble play of the nursery

  ring, where young Wookiees learned their fearlessly headlong fighting

  style. When Chewbacca had greeted his son with a fierce growling rush,

  Lumpawar-rump had turned from it, yielding as though he were already

  wounded.

  It had been a difficult moment for everyone. But in the aftermath,

  Chewbacca realized that he was seeing part of the price his son had

  paid for his absence.

  In honoring a life debt to Han Solo, Chewbacca had left his son to be

  raised by mother and grandfather.

  He could not fault their love or their care, but something had been

  missing--something to spark the rrakktorr, the defiant fire, the eager

  strength that was a Wookiee's heart. Lumpawarrump did not even have a

  friend like Salporin to test himself against in daily clinches and

  slap-fights.

  The calendar said that it was time. Lumpawarrump had sprung up to

  adult height. But he had only begun to fill out that tall frame, and

  it was clear that he did not yet. feel the power of his size. It was

  also not difficult to see that Lumpawarrump was in awe of his famous

  father, and paralyzingly anxious for his approval. Beyond that,

  Chewbacca was still trying to take his measure.

  His son had talent in his hands. Though he had dragged out the task

  through nine days, Lumpawarrump had done a skillful job constructing

  his bow-caster--its weaknesses were the kind that only experience would

  teach him to correct. And he had shown a steady hand in downing a

  kroyies with it, the first of the hunting tests.

  But the second test, trapping and killing a big-eyed scuttle grazer on

  level three, had taken even longer and not gone as well. And the test

  waiting ahead, inside the Well of the Dead, promised to ask more of

  Lumpy than he was ready to face.

  [Explain to me what we see,] he said to his son.

  [It is a wound in the forest, where something fell from the sky long

  ago. It is the bottom of the great pit of Anarrad, which we see from

  the high lookouts of Rwookrrorro.] [Why did Kashyyyk not heal the

  wound?] [I do not know, Father.] [Because she needed a home for the

  katarn. The light falls to the depths and calls forth the young

  vitality of the wroshyr. The green leaves shelter the daubirds and

  sustain the sprites and mallakins. The daubirds invite the netcasters,

  and the mallakins call the grove harriers.

  And the katarn, the old prince of the forest, comes to the feast.] [If

  Kashyyyk has given the katarn this place, why must we hunt them?] [It

  is our pact with them, from long ago.] "I do not understand.] [Once

  they hunted us, and the richness of the high forest was theirs for a

  thousand generations. But their hunting did not destroy us. Nothing

  of this world is to be squandered, my son. The katarn gave the Wookiee

  its strength and courage, and allowed the Wookiee to find the

  rrakktorr. Now we hunt them to repay the gift.

  Someday it will be their turn again.]

  The fleet carrier Venture loomed ahead of Plat Mallar like a rugged

  gray island in an endless, empty sea.

  Snub fighters of the interceptor screen orbited it like hunting birds

  on the wing.

  "Looks awfully good to me," said Ferry Four.

  "It's a mirage," said Ferry Six. "They're going to have our heads for

  losing the commodore."

  "Cut the chatter and clean up the formation," said Lieutenant Bos, the

  ferry flight leader. "Venture flight operations, this is Bravo Flight

  leader. Requesting landing vectors on the ball. I have ten birds

  ready to roost."

  Under ordinary circumstances, the air boss would have handed the

  squadron over to the landing officer of the active landing bay, who in

  turn would have activated the landing alignment system's four tracking

  lasers to guide the fighters in. But all of Venture's landing bays

  appeared to be locked up tight. "Hold at two thousand meters and stand

  by, ferry leader."

  "What's going on, Venture?"

  "I have no further information for you at this time.

  Hold at two thousand meters and stand by."

  "Understood. Bravo Flight, it looks like they're not quite ready for

  us. We're going to parallel the carrier at two thousand meters, single

  file, landing spacing, until they wave us in."

  "Is it just me, or are there guns pointed at us?"

  Ferry Nine whispered over combat two, the addressable ship-to-ship

  frequency. "I'm looking right down the quads of an AS battery."

  Lifting his eyes from the controls, Plat Mallar studied the flank of

  the fleet carrier through the recon optics.

  It did, indeed, seem to him that quite a number of the gun batteries

  were trained on the ferry flight.

  "It might not be about us,"
Plat whispered back.

  "We don't know what's been happening out here."

  "Venture flight ops to Bravo Flight leader. Advise all fighters to

  shut down engines and thrusters. Recovery will be by tractor."

  "Copy," Lieutenant Bos said. "Bravo Flight, you heard the man--turn

  'em into rocks."

  "Lieutenant, this is Ferry Five--even station-keeping thrusters?"

  "Ferry Five, they're going to reel us in on a line.

  Don't you know what'll happen if you've got the 'keepers running when

  the tractor beam grabs on?"

  "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I just don't understand--why are they doing

  this, Lieutenant? Why won't they let us land our ships ourselves?"

  "Ours not to reason why," Bos said. "Just do as they ask."

  "I know why," said Ferry Eight grimly. "They're not sure who's out

  here in 'em. For all they know, the Yevetha yanked us out during the