Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 20_ The Final Prophecy - J. Gregory Keyes [78]
TWENTY-SIX
Jaina’s comm registered a hail, not on the battle frequencies. She switched over.
“There you are,” a voice on the other end said.
“Yes,” Jaina replied. “Thanks for the assist just now. But if you don’t mind my asking, who in the galaxy is this?”
“My name is Erli Prann,” he replied. “I’m in charge of this battle station.”
“You realize you’re in Yuuzhan Vong–held space, and have been for a long time.”
“Yes. It’s a long story. What’s going on out there?”
“Just what it looks like. We’re retaking Bilbringi. But things haven’t gone exactly according to plan, and the general sent me out to see if this station is still operational. Looks like it is.”
“It’s in pretty good shape,” Prann said proudly. “We’d be glad to be of any assistance we can. If you want to come aboard, I’ll show you what we’ve got.”
“That’s great,” Jaina said. “Just assign me a berth.”
“What about the rest of your pilots?”
“There are still Vong out there. I expect they’ll be headed this way after that display you just put on. I think I’ll keep them out there to help with the defense.”
“Copy,” Prann said. “Come on in. Berth Seven—you’ll see the beacon.”
Jaina slipped her X-wing into the docking bay without a mishap. She waited as the doors closed and the area outside was pressurized, then unsealed her cockpit and stepped out onto the deck. The bay was massive, but her ship was the only one she saw. It looked a little lonely in all that space. On the far end she noticed a lot of carbon scoring on the walls, as if there had been an explosion of fire.
“Welcome aboard!”
Jaina looked over to see her reception committee—two humans and a Rodian, all wearing the uniform of the old Bilbringi defense force—dark blue slacks and military-style blue jackets over gold-colored shirts.
The male human, a fellow she guessed to be about as old as her father, with hair that might have once been red but had faded to auburn and silver, came forward with his hand out.
“I’m Lieutenant Prann,” he said as he shook her hand. “We spoke a moment ago. These are my associates, Zam Ghanol and Hiksri Jith.”
Ghanol was the other human, an older wiry woman with gray hair and a crooked nose. Jith was the Rodian. Both shook her hand.
Prann flashed her a big smile. “I really can’t say how glad we are to see you—” He glanced at her insignia. “—Colonel? …”
“Solo,” she replied.
“Solo? Not the one from the holos? Jaina Solo?”
“ ’Fraid so,” she replied. “And I hate to be rude, but could we cut straight to the situation? I need to assess this station and report to General Antilles as soon as possible.”
“Of course,” Prann said. “It’s just such a surprise and such an honor. If you’ll follow me, please?”
“If you don’t mind me asking, Lieutenant Prann, what in blazes are you people doing here?”
He uttered a short chuckle. “I suppose that does require a little explanation, doesn’t it? We were part of a crew sent out here to overhaul the station.” He paused as the turbolift came and they stepped into it. “You might have noticed it’s way out here.”
“Yes,” Jaina said. “I was wondering about that.”
“In fact, we didn’t know it was here for years. It was cloaked, you see.”
“Cloaked?”
“Yep. The theory is that Grand Admiral Thrawn cloaked it for some reason, back when he cloaked all of those asteroids to blockade Coruscant. It showed up missing in the later inventory, but nobody could find it. When a Yuuzhan Vong invasion looked imminent, however, we wanted every advantage we could get, of course. One of the brass guessed it might be cloaked and sent us out here with an old crystal grav-trap to find it. As you can see, we did, but—our bad luck—the invasion started while we were out here. We had taken the cloak down, but didn’t have the shields working. A flight of skips came out here and pretty much fried our transport—you may have noticed the damage to the docking bay.”
Jaina nodded. The lift opened, and Prann gestured for