Jaina's look softened. "When you need me, I'll do my best to be there. That's a promise. That's being a Jedi, too."

She walked away quickly, leaving Jacen looking after her. Then he turned and gazed blindly into the crowd. It was only then that he saw, amid taller figures, the small figure of Vergere.

At any other time he would have been delighted to see her, but now he felt too troubled to talk to anyone. But she saw him and came toward him, and he tried to put a smile on his face as she arrived.

"You are now a Jedi Knight," she said. "Felicitations."

"Did you see the ceremony?"

"I did not." Her wide mouth drew down in disapproval. "The ceremony was a piece of political theater. Jedi should have nothing to do with such things. When I was made a Jedi Knight, it was simple-'A Jedi Knight you are,' Yoda said, and that was that. What more should we need?"

"But you're here." Jacen looked at the a.s.sembled dignitaries. "This gathering is political as well."

"I came for personal reasons-to see you and wish you well."

Jacen looked at her. "Thank you."

"I wonder, now that you are a Jedi Knight, if you have made any plans."

Jacen shrugged. "I'm on vacation until Uncle Luke says I'm not. And then, unless Uncle Luke has other ideas, I'll join the fleet like the rest."

Vergere made a chrr-ing noise. "Why? Your nature is not that of a military man."

Jacen nodded. "No, it's not. But the Yuuzhan Vong have to be defeated, and I can help. And I'll be with my friends."

"And your sister." Vergere's eyes were almost accusing.

"And my sister." Jacen nodded.

Her expression grew severe. "A Jedi Knight must not decide as a child decides."

Jacen looked at the avian in surprise. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

"I cannot speak to those whose cars arc blocked!"

Jacen took a sip of his drink and glanced around the room. "Then let's talk about the weather."

"Sunny. Light clouds. Small chance of rain." Vergere's tone was acid.

Jacen smiled. "Sounds like a good day to visit the reef."

Vergere huffed again.

Jacen glanced again over the room and saw Luke talking seriously to Cal Omas and Releqy A'Kla.

"You can't tell me that in the old days, your Jedi Masters didn't consult with politicians. You served the Supreme Chancellor, after all."

"Chancellors came and went," Vergere said. "We served the Republic"

"Master Skywalker," Jacen said, "is on his fourth Chief of State."

"That is as it should be." For once, Jacen sensed grudging respect in Vergere's words.

Jacen's eyes traveled the room, and he saw the gaunt figure of Dif Scaur speaking with Cilghal. He remembered Danni's telling him about Scaur's project, the one involving Yuuzhan Vong bioscience.

"Some of our biogeneticists may have found the genes that keep the Yuuzhan Vong isolated from the Force," he said.

He could sense Vergere's hyperalertness through the Force. "Tell me," she said.

Jacen told the little avian about the Yuuzhan Vongs' genetics, which had proven to be largely compatible with the human, the exception being a unique strand that seemed common to all Vong-formed life.

"I suppose that could be responsible for the Yuuzhan Vong not being discernible in the Force," Jacen said, but he fell silent when he became aware that Vergere had ceased to pay attention. Her crest had fluffed forward, as had her antennae, and she radiated intense concentration.

When she finally spoke, it was as if she was speaking to herself.

"It is as I feared," she said. Urgency rang in Vergere's voice.

"Who else knows this? Who?"

"It's been kept very secret," Jacen said. "You and I and Danni know. And the scientists themselves, but they've been placed in seclusion."

"Who has them?"

Jacen nodded his head toward Dif Scaur. "New Republic Intelligence," he said.

Vergere looked at Scaur's cadaverous figure. Jacen could feel the intensity of Vergere's gaze through the Force, and was glad she wasn't turning this scrutiny on him. Vergere's crest swept back, and she gave a little, ominous hiss.

"I can imagine what happens next," she judged. "And there is another evil."

"What?" Jacen was bewildered. "What evil?"

Vergere swung back to him. "You cannot guess, young Jedi?" she asked. She gave a dry little laugh. "Despite all your adventures, I fear that you possess insufficient experience of depravity."

Chapter 22.

Jaina came out of her roll right onto the tail of an enemy TIE fighter. She launched a missile by pure reflex, and the fighter blossomed into a brief, scarlet flower. In another two seconds she'd vaped the first TIE's wingmate, and the rest of her squadron accounted for three more.

Through the Force she could sense enemy pilots engaged with Kyp's Dozen and completely unaware of her existence.

"Starboard sixty degrees, Twin Squadron," she said. "Three, two, mark."

Her three four-fighter flights rolled over and through one another in a perfect crossover turn. "Accelerating now," Jaina warned, and pushed the throttles forward. She had already marked out a target, and she pushed her mind into the Force-meld to tell Kyp she was coming.

Kyp sent a series of thoughts and impressions that translated to something like, You're welcome to a- piece of this sorry bunch if you want one. The Force-meld was powerful here, with so many Jedi present: it was almost like being a party to a large, private conversation. Though Kyp's squadron was tangled up with superior numbers, he didn't seem terribly threatened.

It was strange to feel the enemy in the Force again. The Yuuzhan Vong were defending their convoys and rear areas in part with mercenary and Peace Brigade forces. These enemy pilots defending Duro were still present in the Force, and often Jaina knew what the enemy pilots were going to do before they knew themselves.

Jaina hadn't felt the enemy in the Force since the fleet had raided Ylesia, a few weeks before. The Peace Brigade headquarters had also been defended by natives of the galaxy, which made them easy to fight, but the raid had gone wrong for other reasons. Bad intelligence, inadequate operational plan, bad luck.

This raid was going to go right, if Jaina had anything to do with it.

Jaina's targets were Howlrunners, which partly explained Kyp's lack of urgency. Jaina told each of her pilots to pick a target, slam it, then rendezvous on the other side of the furball in order to regroup for another slash.

Her attack left a Howlrunner trailing flame and the panic of its pilot a distant shriek in the Force. Her other pilots succeeded in damaging or destroying their targets, and as Jaina told her fighters to regroup, she heard Kyp's laconic voice in the Force suggesting that she go find someone else to shoot at.

At that instant Jacen's presence blossomed in the Force, and somehow Jaina knew exactly where he wanted her to go, and that he wanted her to use her shadow bombs.

"On my way," Jaina said.

Jacen was on the bridge of Admiral Kre'fey's flagship, the Bothan a.s.sault Cruiser Ralroost. His vacation on Mon Calamari had lasted three weeks-after that, Luke had told him he had the choice of working with the Great River or of joining Jaina and the fleet at Kashyyyk.

Perhaps Luke had been a little surprised by Jacen's choice.

He left his life on Mon Calamari with small regret. He had enjoyed his brief respite from the war, enjoyed the company of his parents, of Luke and Mara and Danni Quee, but he as well as Luke knew that it was time to move on.

Once he'd joined Kre'fey, Jacen's experience with the Jedi meld on Myrkr had helped him rise above the weeks of training that he'd missed.

And in time it had become obvious that his talents were less tactical than spatial and holistic. Through the Force, and through the combined minds and perceptions of the Jedi, he seemed to gain a sense of the entire battlefield. He could sense where to move tactical elements and when to press an attack and when to hold back or withdraw. With the other Jedi as his eyes and ears, he felt the necessity of moving a squadron here, of pulling back the main body there, of maintaining a hovering threat elsewhere. He couldn't have said why he knew this, he only knew that he knew.

If he narrowed his focus to the individuals who made up the meld, he could sense their distinct personalities: Corran Horn with his stubborn resolve; Kyp Durron flying with controlled fury; Jaina with her machinelike tactics, brain abuzz with calculation.

Everything was calculation with Jaina these days. She had fashioned herself into a weapon-the Sword of the Jedi-and there was room for nothing else. If he tried to talk to her about anything but her job, anything but the daily necessities of fighting and survival, she simply would not respond. It was as if much of her personality had simply ceased to exist.

It was painful to watch. Jacen might have been hurt by Jaina's att.i.tude if he weren't so concerned over the damage that she must be doing to her own spirit.

Now. He almost heard the Force speaking in his car, and he ordered Saba Sebatyne and the Wild Knights into a slashing run on an enemy cruiser.

Two months of constant raids and skirmishing had demonstrated that Jacen's chief value wasn't in the c.o.c.kpit of a starfighter, but on the bridge of a flagship, where he could help direct an entire armada.

Kre'fey had happily taken him aboard the Ralroost.

And now, as turbolasers flared and missiles erupted against shields, he sensed a place for Jaina and her squadron.

And then, in the whirling movement of the squadrons that blazed in the night, Jacen sensed something else hovering in the darkness, weapons ready.

"Scimitar Squadron," he said in response to this sudden knowledge.

"Please stand by."

"Twin Squadron," Jaina said, "turn toward Duro on my mark. Three, two, mark."

Twin Suns Squadron performed another perfect crossover turn, placing the disk of Duro directly ahead. It was the first time Jaina had seen the planet since its loss to the enemy. She had been in a field hospital here after being wounded-she'd been blind, dependent on others, embroiled in conspiracy, and with a major Vong offensive in the offing.

Her memories of the planet weren't happy ones.

But Duro was now a different world. She remembered Duro as a gray-brown waste of desert and slag, but the disk was green now, bright with vegetation. The Yuuzhan Vong had converted the poisoned planet to their own purposes, but in so doing so had taken a near-dead world and made it thrive.

As Jaina neared Duro, she could see the fires of deadly energies flashing across the green disk of the planet. Three Yuuzhan Vong cruisers were fighting to hold Kre'fey's main body from a cl.u.s.ter of huge transport craft, and though outnumbered two to one the enemy cruisers were fighting hard. Their starfighter pilots weren't Peace Brigade draftees in motley craft, either, but first-rank Yuuzhan Vong warriors in coralskippers. That was obvious enough from the way they fought, using a high degree of tactical intelligence even though their yammosk had been jammed.

As Jaina watched, one of the enemy cruisers broke apart in flame and ruin, and she sensed the satisfaction of Saba Sebatyne with the part her Wild Knights had played in the attack. Go for the next cruiser, Jacen sent, and Jaina pulsed a silent acknowledgment.

"First flight goes in now," she said. "Second flight follows. Third flight watches our tails until we're clear, and then you can make your run."

Lowbacca and Tesar acknowledged.

"Dropping shadow bombs now," Jaina said. The missiles, packed with explosives instead of propellent, dropped from her X-wing's racks. With the Force Jaina shoved them on ahead, braking her own X-wing slightly so as to increase their separation. She set them on a trajectory' for the aftmost enemy cruiser, then concentrated on leading her flight's run with standard missiles and laserfire, bringing them to the target at a slightly different angle so as to fool the enemy dovin basals, which might s.n.a.t.c.h her concussion missiles without noticing the less visible shadow bombs as they approached.

s.p.a.ce lit up ahead, a brilliant display of turbolaser fire, plasma cannon projectiles, magma missiles, concussion missiles, and burning craft. This was the most dangerous part of her approach, Jaina knew, flying in between the big capital ships pounding each other at point-blank range. She could be flamed by her own side without their even noticing her presence.

Yet she knew, somehow, that she was in no real danger. More tangible than the missile and turbolaser fire she could sense the Force, and this time the Force wouldn't let her fail.

Her laserfire raked the enemy hull. Dovin basals sucked down her concussion missiles and one of the shadow bombs, but she saw a geyser of brilliant fire as the two other shadow bombs struck the enemy, and she pulled up and away as more bombs dropped into the inferno.

Lowbacca's second flight, six seconds behind, scored another series of hits. Though the cruiser wasn't destroyed, it was no longer able to defend itself effectively, and the New Republic cruisers began to strike home with one attack after another. The Yuuzhan Vong ship was doomed.

"First flight! Second flight! Skips on your tail!" Tesar's voice called, not through the Force, but over Jaina's headphones.

"Scissors, Lowie!" Jaina called. "I'll break right!" One flight would go right, the other left, and then they would interweave to shoot the enemy off each other's tails.

"Negative, Twin One!" another stern voice called. It was a voice that Jaina had learned to trust.

Behind her burning coralskippers lit the night. "Thank you, Colonel Harona," she called as Scimitar Squadron flashed past her c.o.c.kpit, their colossal ion engines speeding them past.

"Don't thank me," Harona said. "Jacen told us you might need help about now."

Sometimes, Jaina thought, her brother was positively eerie.

The second enemy cruiser was a burning wreck, unable to fire and unable to defend itself, leaving only one functional enemy cruiser against six of Kre'fey's. Three concentrated on the lone enemy while the others and most of the smaller ships dived after the transports. About a third of the transports tried to land on Duro, but were blown out of the atmosphere before they could put down. The rest scattered and were picked off one by one by the New Republic forces.

After the transports and the single cruiser were destroyed, Kre'fey's cruisers settled into low orbit over Duro and pounded anything on the ground that looked like a warrior damutek, warehouse, command center, factory, or s.p.a.ceport.

Jaina didn't know if she liked the idea of bombardment from orbit, and she could sense Jacen's stern disapproval through the Force. Though she could understand the advantage of hitting an enemy from a position of safety, a bombardment was contrary to her Jedi instincts and training, which focused on actions that were more precise and far less random.

Despite the Jedi's att.i.tude, bombardment of the enemy was part of Admiral Kre'fey's standard orders. Kre'fey's Question Number One, How can I hurt the Vong today?, was best answered by blowing up things.

"Remember," Kre'fey had said, "they destroyed entire worlds by seeding alien life-forms from orbit. Just think what they did to Ithor.

What we're doing is merciful by comparison."

True, Jaina supposed. As far as it went.

"Regroup, Twin Squadron," she called. "Prepare for recall."