Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 11_ Dark Journey - Elaine Cunningham [16]
Jaina hauled herself upright. “How is Tahiri?”
“Sleeping.” The healer sighed. “The broken bone in her arm is set, her wounds patched as best I can. But I do not envy her her dreams.”
Dreams. Jaina grimaced at the thought. “Why take the chance? First opportunity, I’m going straight into a healing trance.”
“That is probably wise.”
Tekli stood quietly, her long-fingered hands tightly clasped. She looked as if she were trying to gather her thoughts, or perhaps her courage.
Jaina smoothed a hand wearily over her untidy brown hair. “This isn’t a diplomatic dinner. How about we jettison the protocol and get to whatever’s on your mind.”
“You have set course for Coruscant.”
“That’s right.”
“Is this wise? We are flying an enemy ship. We cannot communicate with the city towers to relay our identities and intentions.”
Jaina folded her arms. “How many living Yuuzhan Vong ships do you suppose the Republic has?”
The little Chadra-Fan blinked. “I don’t know.”
“Last I heard, two. By now they could both be dead and useless. They don’t seem to live long without regular attention from the shapers—the Vong maintenance techs. Chances are, the Republic will be so glad to get their hands on a living ship and living pilot they’ll give us landing clearance.”
“As they did to the supposed Yuuzhan Vong defector, the priestess Elan?”
Jaina blew out a long sigh. “I see your point. How can the Republic know that we’re not faking surrender? For all they know, we could be on a suicide mission to release some biological weapon upon Coruscant.”
“It has crossed my mind. No doubt it may occur to others.”
Jaina glanced at Lowbacca, who was still poking delicately about in the frigate’s navibrain. “What about it, Lowie? Any chance this thing can change hyperspace destination without emerging to sublight speed?”
The Wookiee sent her an incredulous stare, then cast his eyes upward and shook his head in disgust.
She shrugged this off. “So we emerge into Coruscant space and keep out of the main lanes while we program another hyperspace jump. There must be somewhere that we can land this rock in one piece rather than as a shower of gravel. Then we can make our way to a population center and send communications from there.”
The Chadra-Fan’s lopped-back ears perked up into their usual, rounded shape. “Yes. Much better.”
“Got a destination in mind?”
Lowbacca woofed a suggestion.
“Gallinore,” Jaina mused. “That’s in the Hapes Cluster, but it’s relatively close. If we are very careful, we could probably get in undetected.”
Tenel Ka’s head came up sharply. “I know Gallinore well. It could be done.”
“But we’d be cutting right across Yuuzhan Vong territory,” Ganner pointed out. “Chances are, we’d run right into heavy dovin basal mining.”
“Good point,” Jaina agreed. “This jump took us through enemy-held territory. The question is, how do the Yuuzhan Vong ships get through the minefield?”
Lowbacca pointed to the navibrain and went into a vigorous spate of growls and yelps.
The young pilot frowned. “What do you mean, the ship just went around them? How does that work?”
The Wookiee shrugged. Jaina’s face was deeply troubled as she considered the possible implications of this. After a moment she shook off her introspection. “Anyone else have anything to add? Alema? Tesar? How about you, Zekk?”
“You’re the pilot,” Zekk responded. “But I see your point—we should come to a consensus before the need for action arises. Gallinore sounds good. How much longer in hyperspace, Lowie?”
The Wookiee held up a massive furred paw and began to count down from five. Jaina reached for the cognition hood and pulled it back over her head.
She was instantly flooded with images of light—not the expected, sudden appearance of blurry starlines, but a multiverse of frantically strobing, swirling lights.
The skies over Coruscant blazed with fleeing transport ships, darting E-wings and XJs, strangely undisciplined squadrons of coralskippers.