Tyrant's Test Read online

  Tyrant’s Test

  By Michael P. Kube-McDowell

  Black Fleet Crisis - Book 3

  Black Fleet Crisis

  01 - Before the Storm

  02 - Shield of Lies

  03 - Tyrant’s Test

  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 Dupree, 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 elements of the master plan.

  Then there were the many sympathizers, who—though not formally part of my cell—nevertheless offered their knowledge or services to further our cause. Prominent on that long list are Dan Wallace, Craig Robert Carey, Timothy O’Brien, R. Lee Brown, Michael Armstrong, Jim Macdonald, Daniel Dworkin, Evelyn Cainto, and Mike Stackpole.

  Meanwhile, John Vester, Dave Phillips, and Jennifer Hrynik took the point on a fiendishly clever disinformation 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) and Genie’s SF Roundable Three (SFRT3), and from the rascals of RASSM.

  I offer my most earnest salute to the chief architect of the Rebellion, George Lucas, without whose inspiration none of us would be here.

  Finally, I want to thank the true believers of the 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 and 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 the 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 Teljkon Vagabond:

  Colonel Pakkpekatt, expedition commander, New Republic Intelligence

  Captain Bijo Hammax, foray commander

  Pleck and Taisden, NRI technical agents

  Aboard the Obroan Institute research vessel Penga Rift, at Maltha Obex:

  Dr. Joto Eckels, senior archaeologist

  On N’zoth, spawnworld of the Yevetha, in Koornacht 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

  Chapter One

  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 paddle-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.

  The most numerous inhabitants were the tiny barb-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, Attitchitcuk, 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 s
ingle 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 toughening—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, Lumpawarrump 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 bowcaster—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 stationkeeping 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 ambush and put raiders in these cockpits. Think about it.”

  “Bravo Flight leader, beginning recovery operations now,” Venture advised. “Request you observe comm silence until further notice.”

  “Affirmative, Venture. Bravo Flight, observe comm silence, effective immediately.”

  Lieutenant Bos’s recon-X was the first to be pulled out of line and towed inside Venture’s aftmost landing bay on the invisible line of a tractor beam. Plat Mallar could not see what happened after that—he did not have a good angle on the bay, and the outer doors closed again quickly after Bos’s ship disappeared inside. Five minutes later the process was repeated with Lieutenant Grannell and Ferry Two, taken aboard amidships.

  Nearly an hour passed before it was Plat Mallar’s turn—a long, lonely hour of anxious silence. They will never forgive us for what we let happen, Plat thought as his ship began to move. They will never trust us again.

  The lights in the landing bay were blazing at the levels used for maintenance work and foreign-object scans. After living for nearly two days under combat-cockpit lighting, Plat Mallar was blinded. Before his eyes adjusted, he heard the honk of the rescue alarm and the hiss of the hydraulics as the cockpit can
opy began to rise around him.

  “Come on down out of there,” a commanding voice barked sharply as a boarding ladder clanged against the side of the recon-X.

  Squinting against the glare, Plat started to rise, but was hauled back by his unseen umbilicals. He fumbled with the releases, then felt his way over the side and onto the ladder, assisted by a hand that guided his booted foot to the top rung.

  By the time he reached the bottom of the ladder, he could see well enough to identify the six helmeted and body-armored troops that surrounded the recon-X. Their blaster rifles remained pointed at him as he stepped down off the ladder and backed away from the ship.

  The two security officers who were actually within reach, however, appeared to be unarmed. “Second Lieutenant Plat Mallar reporting. What’s going on?” Mallar asked, still trying to blink away the last of the dazzle spots.

  “Just stand right there while we take a look at your ID disc,” said the nearer of the two officers.

  Mallar fished the silver circle out of its special shoulder pocket and held it out to the man who’d spoken.

  The major dropped the disc into a portable scanner and studied the display. “What race are you?”

  “Grannan.”

  “That’s a new one on me,” said the major, handing the disc back to Mallar. “Isn’t Granna an Imperial world?”

  “I don’t know what its current status is, sir,” said Mallar. “I was born on Polneye—and I was never much interested in politics.”

  “Is that so?” The major dismissed four of the troopers with a flick of his fingers. At the same time, the other two shouldered their weapons and moved behind Mallar, one hovering over each shoulder. “Report on ship status.”