NINE.

Transparent respirators clamped over their faces and C-3PO shuffling behind them, Han and Leia emerged from the crippled freighter's docking bay into the large cargo hold beyond. Everywhere they looked, Peace Brigaders of various species were pa.s.sed out on the deck or slumped unmoving against bulkheads. The cargo area was already filled with three squads of Alliance strike troops, whose ship had harpooned the freighter and who'd been the first to board. The strike troops wore mimetic enviro-suits and black helmets with tinted face bowls. Each was laden with blaster rifles, bandoliers of flash grenades, thermal detonators, half-meter-long vibroblades, and survival gear.

Specialists in rapid deployment and infiltration, strike troops were a relatively new addition to the war, and most of the ones in the cargo hold had partic.i.p.ated in months of familiarization drills aboard captured Yuuzhan Vong vessels. Han was certain that other squads had already penetrated deep into the ship. Three troopers were slapping manacles on the unconscious Brigaders.

He and Leia scarcely had time to take stock of the situation when a hatch in the forward bulkhead pocketed itself, and a Klatooinian stepped into the hold. Twenty blaster rifles swung to the green-complected, scrunch-faced humanoid before he could so much as raise his taloned hands in surrender.

"I'm Hobyo," he said. A breather mask dangled around his thick neck. "The one who sabotaged the hyperdrive! Surprise Party!" he added.

"Surprise Party!"

A human colonel signaled everyone to lower their weapons.

"Next time give the code words first, before you come barging into a secured area," he snapped. "You're lucky you didn't get yourself killed."

Hobyo relaxed somewhat.

"You won't find any prisoners aboard the freighter. They were transferred to the Yuuzhan Vong carrier."

"Which way?" the colonel demanded.

The Klatooinian pointed to port.

"The umbilical is attached to the cargo hold adjacent to this one."

Leaving several soldiers behind to tend to the stirring Brigaders, the colonel motioned the rest into the broad pa.s.sageway that separated the holds. Satisfied that it was safe to do so, Han pulled off his respirator and almost gagged.

"What the heck are they transporting?" he asked through the hand he clasped to his mouth.

"Rotten eggs?" Leia took a quick whiff and snugged her mask back in place.

"Is that the coma-gas?"

Hobyo shook his head.

"The stench comes from the Vong cofferdam. Air circulators carry the smell throughout the ship. But you get used to it."

"Speak for yourself," Han said. He motioned with his chin to the pa.s.sageway. "You coming?"

"As soon as I provide ident.i.ties of the Peace Brigaders."

Han nodded, and waved to C-3PO.

"Let's go, Goldenrod."

The droid started.

"Sir, wouldn't it be best if I remained aboard Millennium Falcon?"

"Cakhmaim and Meewalh can take care of the Falcon. We might need you to translate."

"Translate? But, Captain Solo, I'm far from fluent in Yuuzhan Vong.

In fact, I'm still trying to comprehend the conditional subjunctive tense!"

Han made a face.

"You've never had trouble making yourself understood, Threepio. Now get going."

He and Leia led the way into the portside cargo hold. Han spied the cofferdam entrance and ran for it, only to stop short at the mouth, then half turn and flatten his back against the bulkhead.

"You really don't want to see this," he said as Leia approached.

She studied him in puzzlement. Han was a bit wide-eyed and shaking his head back and forth.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Remember that time on Dantooine when I got the Balmorra flu? Well, this thing-" He jerked his thumb toward the cofferdam opening. "-is what I figure the inside of my nose must have looked like."

Leia smiled dubiously and stepped around him.

"It can't be that ba-" She froze.

"Why it's an... oqa," C-3PO said, standing somewhat akimbo at the entrance. "The word derives from the proboscis of a Yuuzhan Vong pack animal. The floor is what is sometimes referred to as a microbial mat.

And the viscous liquid drooling from the ceiling actually houses the bacteria that engineered the entire tube!"

"I told you he'd come in handy," Han said.

C-3PO disappeared into the organic cofferdam, sloshing along the puddled floor, his voice echoing wetly.

"Oh, yes, tiny white arachnids, similar to those that can sometimes be found inhabiting volcanic vents..."

Han was staring at Leia.

"I hate microbial mats! Maybe there's another way."

"I don't think so, Han." He firmed his lips. "All right, you first.

Just don't... touch anything."

They covered the hundred meters in record time, eyes forward and arms straight at their sides. By the time they emerged in the Yuuzhan Vong carrier, Leia's legs were drenched to the knee in foul-smelling liquid. They could tell which way the strike troops had gone by the gaping holes the soldiers had blown in membranous interior bulkheads and iris portals. Bioluminescent lichen lent a cheerless green light to the carrier's meandering internal pa.s.sageways. Fluids seeped from gently pulsing walls and strands of connective tissue, where pa.s.sageways intersected. The air was rich in oxygen but pungent. They stepped through a torn membrane into a s.p.a.cious hold whose yorik coral deck might have been pink ferrocrete.

Leia ignited her lightsaber. From the ship's forward came the sounds of war cries and m.u.f.fled shouts, blasterfire and the dull thudding of amphistaff strikes.

"I guess coma-gas doesn't work on the Yuuzhan Vong," Leia said.

"Yeah, too bad about that."

They sprinted toward the sounds of battle, rounding a corner to see allies and enemies down, smears of red and black on the floor, refreshment for a host of tonguelike creatures that were gorging on the spilled blood. Han shot from the hip, dropping a Yuuzhan Vong warrior with a coufee dagger in each hand. With a downward slash, Leia cut the legs out from under another who had launched himself at her. Hands pressed to his head, C-3PO issued a litany of mirthless exclamations and laments.

They followed the strike troops farther forward. The soldiers held their blasters at high port, sweeping them from side to side. They advanced in leapfrogging squads, waving signals to one another, overwhelming amphistaffs with continuous bursts, or concentrating blasterfire on vonduun crab armor weak points, then searing the exposed flesh beneath. With or without weapons, with or without their living arthropod armor, the enemy warriors continued to attack, always choosing death over surrender where there was an option. Stepping over sprawled bodies, Han, Leia, and a squad of troops reached another intersection.

The squad leader was trying to decide which fork to take when Hobyo finally caught up with them.

"The prisoners are on the upper deck, in a hold aft of the command chamber."

The Klatooinian edged his way into the intersection and gestured.

"This way."

A steeply sloped corridor led up to the carrier's command deck. At the top of the slope two strike troops had a Peace Brigader in custody. A strong smell of glitterstim spice wafted from the human's uniform.

"He says that most of the warriors took to coralskippers when we attacked," the tallest of the soldiers reported. "The only ones left on board are the officers."

The Brigader led the rest of the way to the forward hold. There, squashed together inside a sticky net, sat three Yuuzhan Vong. One wore a command cloak that hung from bony implants on the tops of his shoulders.

The strike troops' colonel was circling them proudly, with his hands planted on his hips, thumbs backward.

"We took these three by surprise and webbed them before they knew what hit them."

Across the hold, fifty or so Alliance prisoners of various species were stuck to the deck in a pool of blorash jelly.

"Han! Leia!" one of them called out.

The speaker was a thickset human, with pleasant if undistinguished features and a full salt-and-pepper beard.

"Judder Page," Han said, grinning as he approached. He scanned other faces in the crowd. "And Pash."

Cracken nodded his head in greeting.

"Rescued by celebrities. I'm positively humbled."

Leia glanced at the blorash jelly and folded her arms across her chest.

"We're not out of this yet." Han squatted down in front of Captain Page. "If we'd known you were on Selvaris, we wouldn't have left without you."

Page shook his head in bafflement.

"You were at Selvaris?"

"We picked up one of your escapees," Han explained. "A Jenet."

"Garban-Thorsh," Cracken said in obvious relief. "How else do you think we knew about the convoy?"

"Thank the Force," Page mumbled.

"Wedge sends his regards," Han said. "He says he's sorry about Bilbringi, and even sorrier that rescuing you took as long as it did."

Page mustered a smile.

"I'm gonna kiss him when I see him."

"I'd be careful about that," Han said. "He might just send you back."

Leia studied the blorash jelly.

"We need to get you out of this."

Hobyo dragged the stout Peace Brigader forward.

"He knows how the stuff works."

The man's spice-clouded eyes darted to the captured Yuuzhan Vong officers and widened in fear.

"You'll have to kill me, 'cause if you don't, they will."

Leia went to him.

"We'll make you a better offer. We'll take you with us. You'll stand trial, serve time for your war crimes, be rehabilitated, and released in twenty years. Otherwise we leave you here and we give the Yuuzhan Vong every reason to believe that you were the one who tipped us off about the convoy. Maybe they won't kill you right away. Maybe they'll even take you with them. But you're going to find it a lot harder to get glitterstim on Coruscant than in a Galactic Alliance prison. And you know how excruciating withdrawal can be."

The human gulped and found his voice.

"All right." He nodded to the blorash pool. "a.r.s.ensalts."

Han stepped close to Leia.

"Your mind tricks are a lot more subtle than your brother's."

Leia smiled.

"I win by guile."

"You don't have to tell me."

The strike troops searched their utility belts, broke open capsules of a.r.s.ensalts, and began to sprinkle them over the pool. When Han and Leia had yanked Captain Page free of the liquefying ma.s.s, he walked directly to the netted Yuuzhan Vong and went down on his haunches in front of the one with the longest hair.

"Something you want to say to this one?" Han asked in interest.

"'Cause our droid speaks fluent enemy."

C-3PO protested.

"Captain Solo, I-"

"Not necessary, Han," Page interrupted. "Malik Carr speaks fluent Basic. He was commander of the Selvaris camp. Has a particular fondness for subjecting prisoners and droids to immolation pits."