Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [171]
More important, the ship engaged a pilot’s mind in a kind of telepathic dialogue. There was no astromech droid to report on the status of the systems; no cognition hood interface, as on the stolen Yuuzhan Vong vessel that had come to be called Trickster. But the Sekotan ship incorporated some of the qualities of each by speaking telepathically to the pilot. The ship didn’t have a voice—it wasn’t telepathy on the order of that honed by the Jedi—but Kyp could sense what the vessel was feeling and thinking, the way he had been able to sense the feelings of the crazy little seed-partners that had clung to him.
All this came standard with the ship—as well as with the ships Zonama Sekot had furnished for the lucky few Old Republic-era pilots who had been wealthy enough to afford them, and who had formed the requisite attachment to seed-partners. But as Han Solo was forever saying about the Millennium Falcon, some special modifications had been made to the Jedi ships. Like coralskippers, the ships were capable of hurling plasma, but unlike coralskippers they lacked shields, relying instead on astonishing nimbleness. Absent ion drives, heat exchangers, exhaust ports, or anything resembling conventional engine components, the ships were faster than A-wings and more maneuverable than TIE fighters.
Kyp was beginning to think of them as the Sekotan equivalent of lightsabers. The pilot didn’t have to be a Jedi—flying the ships didn’t require a special connection to the Force—but a ship’s ability to perform appeared to be directly related to the degree to which a pilot could surrender him- or herself, become egoless and empty. Saba, Lowbacca, and Tam Azur-Jamin—whose call signs were Hisser, Streak, and Quiet, respectively—were demonstrating this to be the case. Kyp was in awe of the maneuvers they were executing, to the point that he sometimes lost focus on the battle itself. Despite his talents, his mastery of the Force, he had yet to be able to take his ship through similar moves.
Or was it that the ship was having trouble taking him through similar moves?
Kyp’s comlink toned. Over the past few years—since Myrkr—the Jedi had become adept at communicating with one another through Force-melds, but between attending to the Sekotan ships and flying in the atmosphere of the living world, these melds were proving difficult to sustain.
“Kyp, you getting the hang of these things?” Corran Horn asked. The intership comlink transmission was being relayed through Jade Shadow, which was in stationary orbit at the edge of the battle zone, unpiloted, but slave circuit and all countermeasures enabled.
“I’ve been wondering if the ship is having trouble getting the hang of me.”
“You and me both. I did a lot better with the Sekotan ship Tahiri and I piloted from Coruscant. I mean, I know I’m targeting correctly, but a lot of my shots are going wide—even when there aren’t voids standing between me and the target.”
“Something about Sekot’s need for us not to be killers.”
“I’ve got a theory about that,” Corran said, “but I’ll save it for another time.”
“Then why are we up here—just for show?”
“Maybe it’s the same between Sekot and us as it is between the ships and us. Sekot’s still trying to get a feel for us. Once that happens, we’ll be able to target more accurately.”
“So I should think of this as some kind of insane simulation,” Kyp said.
“With one difference. It’s the ships that are learning.”
Kyp thought about this statement after he signed off with Corran. Perhaps it wasn’t only the ships that were learning. Why had seed-partners bonded to some Jedi and not others? Why him and not Jaina? Was there anything to the fact that Kyp had destroyed a world, Saba had seen one destroyed, and both Alema and Corran held themselves responsible for the