Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 09_ Edge of Victory 02_ Rebirth - J. Gregory Keyes [60]
Anakin knelt by Corran. The amphistaff had dented the helmet of the vac suit, but worse, a crack had formed between the metal and the transparisteel—he could tell by the rime of frost forming on it. Corran was already struggling for consciousness.
Tahiri was still working at the lock. Anakin pressed his gloved hand over the crack, wishing he had a patch, but those were in the emergency pack, on the other side of the room past the Yuuzhan Vong. By the time he went there and got back—assuming he didn’t have to stop and fight—Corran would be dead.
He increased the feed of Corran’s oxygen in hopes of keeping the pressure high enough to prevent his blood boiling.
Pale light fell across them, and he looked up to see that Tahiri had finally cycled the lock. He dragged Corran through, and within seconds the smaller chamber beyond was pressurized. They passed through the inner lock more easily and into another corridor, this one still illuminated by the phosphorescent fungi.
Anakin quickly worked Corran’s helmet off. The older man was red-faced and had a nasty bump on his head, but otherwise seemed to be in pretty good shape. Within a minute he was standing, albeit shakily.
“Thanks, Anakin, Tahiri. I owe you both.” His head jerked this way and that. “We need to keep moving,” he said. “A ship this size could have a hundred warriors on it.”
“I’ve never been so glad to be wrong,” Corran admitted later. In under an hour they had defeated the remaining five warriors on the ship and rounded up and incarcerated the rest of the less military Yuuzhan Vong. Now the three Jedi sat in the control room, or what passed for it.
The ship—if by ship one meant the available living space—was actually quite small. The bulk of the vessel was the concealing stone of the asteroid and vast caverns of greenware that none of them could even guess the function of.
“We were lucky,” Corran said. “If we’d been most places on the surface, we would have had to cut through fifty meters of rock. As it was, we were on the cooling fin—at least that’s my guess as to what it was.”
“This must be some sort of scout ship,” Anakin guessed.
“Or a surveillance craft,” Corran said. “At the moment, that’s not the most important question. We need to know three things, fast.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “One: does the rest of the fleet know we’ve captured it? Two: where is it going? Three: can we fly it?”
“Tahiri?” Anakin said.
Tahiri had settled into the chair facing what Anakin knew from experience to be a bank of indicators—embedded lumens, several villips, patches of varying texture and color that were probably manual controls. The real key to flying the craft rested in the loose cap Tahiri held in her lap. Called a cognition hood, it established a telepathic link between pilot and ship.
“I can fly it,” she said softly.
Corran grimaced. “Why not let me try it? We still don’t know what hidden dangers using that thing might have.”
“I’ve flown one before,” Tahiri said, “On Yavin Four.”
“It has to be her,” Anakin said. “She speaks and thinks in the language, for one thing. Since the scientists have my tizowyrm, she’s the only one of us who can. And …” He trailed off.
“They changed my brain,” Tahiri said bluntly. “I can fly it. You can’t, Captain Horn.”
Corran sighed. “I don’t like it, but you might as well give it a try. At this point I have to admit you two have a lot more practical knowledge than I do when it comes to Yuuzhan Vong technology.”
Tahiri nodded and placed the cap over her short golden hair. It writhed and contracted to fit. Her eyes clouded, and sweat started on her brow. Her breath chopped raggedly.
“Take it off,” Corran said.
“No, wait,” Tahiri said. “It was just a little different that time. I can handle it. I’m adjusting.” Her brow furrowed in concentration. “The ship’s name is Stalking Moon. A hyperdrive jump has been laid in. It’s coming up in about five minutes.