"Okay," Zekk said, "Run this by me again."
"Not a problem," said Praelyx. The two of them stood on Wayward Soldier's bridge, looking out at the flash of hyperspace as the gunship's crew made last-minute checks in preparation for their entrance into realspace. The Yuuzhan Vong captain wore his ooglith masquer once again, and to all his crew looked the perfect image of a slightly-scruffy, still-energetic middle-aged human privateer.
"First," Praelyx said, holding up a finger, "We're going to drop out of realspace in the Corellian system, right on top of Selonia."
"Where, apparently, Imperials ships, Alliance ships, Confederate ships, and who-knows-what-else are all going to be sitting in orbit while their leaders are down on the planet for the peace talks."
Praelyx frowned. "If you know all this already, why did you ask to hear it again?"
"Why are they having it at Selonia? Why not, I don't know, Corellia or Coruscant or some place else?"
"Well, this whole mess started in the Corellian system, if you recall. Selonia itself, though, declared itself independent from the Sal-Solo and Gejjen governments and basically stayed neutral through the whole thing, which sets it up as a good symbolic place to end the war."
"When did you end up a keen observer of galactic politics? Before or after you changed faces?"
"Before," Praelyx said casually. "I was an executor. It was my job to learn as much as I could about your people."
"Okay, then. So we drop out of hyperspace over Selonia. Then, apparently, we use this one little gun-ship to board an Imperial star destroyer, steal some stuff, then run."
"Like I said, you seem to have all this well in hand."
"How do we board this star destroyer?"
"I've acquired some vacuum-proof thrust-capsules usually used for bore-mining into planet's crusts. It will be more that sufficient to burn through the hull of a star destroyer."
"I suppose you'll drop the mining capsule exactly where it needs to be to get the goods fast."
"That's right."
"And what does this gunship do the whole time?"
"Holds right up close to the destroyer. They won't risk firing on us or they might damage themselves. Same goes for any support ships nearby."
Zekk sighed. "And it doesn't bother you that this is probably going to start an interstellar incident and maybe even ruin peace talks and restart the whole damned war?"
"Why would it restart the war?" Praelyx asked innocently.
Zekk glared at him. "You know why. An Alliance-made gunship smashes against an Imperial destroyer, sends boarders inside, steals some stuff and probably kills a whole lot of people in the process. But sure, they'll just sweep it under the rug."
"Actually, I think they will. The Imps won't want to advertise that they got their destroyer broken into and they certainly won't want to talk about what we stole, because that would definitely derail the peace talks."
Skeptical, Zekk asked, "What about all the people that are going to end up dead?"
Praelyx grinned and patted him on the shoulder. "That, my Jedi friend, is where you come in. You expertly proved your ability to infiltrate hostile ships and reach your objective without taking lives. You want to avoid killing at all costs and, furthermore, you want to keep blood off the scales and prevent the war from restarting over our little raid. And that is why you're going to volunteer to go with the boarding party."
Zekk stared. "You can't be serious."
"I'm dead serious," he said, still smiling.
"How do you know I won't just run?"
"Run where? You're on an Imperial ship, Jedi. They don't take kindly to your type, by and large."
"Neither did yours," Zekk glowered.
"My 'type' is the crew of this ship, Jedi. Nothing more, nothing less. And nothing that happened before matters."
"You can't expect me to believe that. Everything your people did, everything you used to believe-"
"The past," said Praelyx, "Is the past. Tell me, Jedi, why do you want to get back to your kind so badly? And don't just tell me it's your duty. You're not a damned droid following a program. Why do you really want to go back? Is there something, or someone?"
Zekk stared at the captain's green eyes, so human yet so alien, and didn't know what to say. He didn't even have an answer. After chasing Jaina for so long- after trying to make up for the time he'd failed her when she'd needed him- he'd finally found it within him to give her up. And without her, he couldn't think of any single person he really wanted to be with among the Jedi. Not like he'd wanted to be with Jaina.
But he could never tell this Yuuzhan Vong that. He just stiffened and said, "I am a Jedi. That's reason enough."
Praelyx shook his head. "Just because you're one thing once doesn't mean you have to stay that thing forever."
Before Zekk could respond, Chazdrul Harn called from the navigation station, saying, "Five minutes until Selonia."
Praelyx kept his eyes on Zekk. "Well, what do you say, Jedi? Do you want to stand back and watch a lot of people die, or do you want to do something to help?"
Zekk scowled. "Will you give me my lightsaber back?"
"I'm optimistic, not a fool." Praelyx reached for his belt and pulled a blaster pistol from his holster. It was a well-worn model, with a leather-padded handgrip worn smooth from use.
He handed it to Zekk, butt-first, and said, "Take care of this. I want it back."
Zekk carefully took the pistol and checked it gas pack. Fully charged. It was currently set to kill.
He looked at Praelyx and Praelyx looked at him, and he didn't need the Force to know that every single being on the bridge was watching them.
Zekk switched the pistol to stun and stuffed it into his waistband. "All right," he said, "I'll bring it back, on one condition."
"Of course."
"Once this raid is over, you tell me why we're doing this, what this is all about."
"You'd take my word on that?"
"It's better than nothing."
Praelyx snorted. "All right, Jedi. I promise. You have my word."
"I'll hold you to that." Zekk adjusted the weapon at his belt. "Okay. I'm ready."
He barely made it the mining capsule before Wayward Solder popped out of hyperspace. When it did, he found himself pressed against one transparisteel porthole of the jam-packed capsule, looking out at Selonia and all the mighty ships arrayed in orbit.
The being crammed next to him, a short and stock Snivvian, asked, "You ever boarded a star destroyer, Jedi?"
"No."
The creature sniffed as though disappointed and licked its jutting canines. "First time for everything then."
"Yes."
"Just so you know, if you look like you're gonna try to bolt or turn on us, I'll shoot you dead."
"Great."
"You say more than one word at a time?"
"Sometimes."
The Snivvian snorted again but this time he sounded amused. Zekk kept his face planted against the porthole as they tumbled toward Selonia. He still couldn't see what star destroyer they were supposed to be crashing into but at this point nobody had fired on them- yet.
Then Wayward Solder kicked in its retro-thrusters and spun. Zekk's head nearly smashed against the wall as the view from the porthole swept to one side; the great white superstructure of a star destroyer's command toward flashed into view and was replaced by Selonia's nightside just as fast.
A horrible screeching sound filled the capsule. Red sparks, dying quickly in the vacuum, jumped past Zekk's viewport and he realized someone had fired the mining capsule's borer and was tearing into the destroyer's hull.
From the back someone yelled, "Get ready to pop!" and a second later Zekk's ears did just that. The rest of the capsule's motley assault crew hefted their weapons and began surging for the airlock as it opened.
Once it did, Zekk was swept away in the tide of moving bodies as they spilled into the destroyer's hallways. Before he could even get his bearings some-body grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him around, and stuffed a portable gas-mask in his face.
The man, some part-human part-alien hybrid with blue skin and flaming red hair, was already wearing his. He said, "Get it on, Jedi, and do your thing. Do it now."
Zekk started to say "What is it for?" but he got his answer before the words could spill out, and it was an answer he should have seen coming. He heard two explosions from either end of the corridor: not the thunder of a grenade or thermal detonator but the popping of two pressured capsules.
As he strapped the mask over his mouth Zekk asked, "What's in those? Is it poison?"
"Won't kill 'em, but it'll knock 'em out. Like the boss probably told you, he wants to get through this thing without killing."
Zekk scowled under his mask. "Is Praelyx usually this accommodating?"
"Only if it's in the contract."
"Hey, Harkum!" a voice called, "Let's go!"
"You heard 'im, let's go, Jedi." The half-breed checked the charge on his rifle and waved a trio of Rodians forward. Zekk followed, but he didn't get far before he heard the sound of laserfire around the corner and down the hallway.
"Those stormtroopers aren't going to be shooting stun," Zekk reminded the half-breed.
"That's where you come in, Jedi. Do your thing." He shoved Zekk forward.
The Jedi grimaced and shouldered his way to the place where the Rodians were taking cover behind a couple armored supply crates. Zekk kept himself fully behind the corner of the wall and reached out with the Force to feel the enemy firing at them. He sensed a mix of determination, anger, and frank confusion from a half-dozen troopers; further away, he sensed more coming to their aid. As for how fast the sleeping gas was spreading, he had no way to know, not when all of Praelyx's raiders were masked and immune to its effects.
He knew they wouldn't have much time. Zekk waited a moment more, long enough to get a sense of where the stomtroopers were positioned and when they popped out to exchange fire with the hiding Rodians.
When the time was right, Zekk stepped around the corner and instantly shot off two stun blasts. Each one hit a stormtrooper in the armored chest and sent him clattering to the deck.
He ducked back under cover. The half-breed growled in his ear, "Can't you do better than that? They have to have backup coming."
"They do. I bet at least a squad."
The man frowned. "When do they get here?"
"I don't know. Soon. Hold on."
Zekk popped around the corner and hit another stormtrooper. At the same time, one of the Rodians landed a good shot and took another trooper down.
As he went back behind the corner Zekk gave Harkum and angry smile. "Better?"
Then one of the Rodians shouted "Grenade!" and Zekk heard the clack of metal hitting metal. He saw the Rodians scramble back down the hall, almost tripping over the little sphere on the deck.
Zekk grabbed it with the Force and sent it hurling back down the hall.
The explosion rocked the entire deck. Zekk immedi-ately turned the corner and fired shots into the scorched and smoking hallway. He heard the clatter of two more bodies falling and knew it was over.
"Okay!" he called, "Let's go!"
The Rodians fell in behind him; so did Harkum, the Snivvian, and the rest of Praelyx's raiders. The grenade had imploded in the center of the hallway, rending deck plates and choking the entire passage with black smoke that stung Zekk's eyes but thankfully didn't fill his lungs.
"When is that sleeping gas going to work?" he snapped to Harkum.
"Any time, any time," the half-breed grunted. When they got to the point where the hallway branched he waved the Rodians to the left; a trio of humans followed but the rest of the group halted at the inter-section.
"What happens next?" asked Zekk as he checked his pistol, still well-charged.
"Neevo's boys are getting the package. Where are those stormies?"
Zekk paused and tried to find the reinforcements. "They're close. I can't tell which direction, but they're out there."
"Great," Harkum sighed and waved to the Snivvian. "Got one more?"
The alien snorted and held up a cannister of what must have been more sleeping gas. "Got it right here."
"Good. Get ready to let it rip." Harkum looked back at Zekk. "Any clue?"
"I think they're coming by lift… Maybe… Down that hall." He pointed to the right.
"Then we'll head 'em off before they get here. Gorlum, c'mon!"
He waved the Snivvian forward and both dashed to the right. Zekk stayed where he was, feeling hopefully confused and awkward amidst so many mercenaries who stared at him with blatant mistrust. He might have even knocked some of them out during his escape from his cell, he wasn't sure.
Harkum and Gorlum were not gone long. He heard and felt another explosion, this one the definite thunder of a grenade, and a second later the half-breed and the Snivvian came racing back.
"Busted the lift tube," Harkum said. "Should hold 'em for a little longer. What else do you feel, Jedi?"
Zekk reached out with the Force again and tried to sense what else was happening. By now the entire ship was probably alert to their intrusion and there was simply no telling how much time they had until dozens of stormtroopers found an alternate route and caught them in a crossfire.
He tried to find the Rodians and their human partners. He thought he sensed them, engaged in some strenuous firefight.
"It's Neevo," Zekk said. "I think he's in trouble."
"All right, Jedi, you're with me. Gorlum, keep everybody else here. Give me that cannister."
The Snivvian did so. Zekk followed Harkum down the left hallway. They wound down two corners until they found the Rodians and the humans pinned down at the end of a third, peeking over the edge and exchang-ing blue stun blasts for red kill shots.
"What can you give us, Jedi?" One Rodian's snout twitched.
"Kark the Jedi, I've got something better," Harkum said. He flipped a switch on the cannister and tossed it down the hall. Zekk could hear the pop of compressed gas and waited for the enemy fire to stop.
When it didn't recede right away he glared at Harkum in accusation, but before he could think of anything to say he felt the stormtrooper's awarenesses grow vague, as though they really were falling asleep.
The enemy fire dropped to nothing. Whooping happily, the Rodians led the final charge down the hall. Zekk, Harkum, and the others followed, and the Jedi ran all the way to the far end just to make sure the stormtroopers had been rendered unconscious rather than killed.
He jogged back to the group to find the Rodians trying to work the access panel to a door. Harkum fixed his eyes on Zekk and said, "Like I told you, the boss follows his contract to the letter."
"And if it wasn't in his contract?"
The half-breed shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he'd still do it out of the kindness of his heart."
The pirates were all focused on the door right in front of then, and Zekk realized that if he wanted to run somewhere he could, but there wasn't any point. There was no place to run, just as Praelyx had said. Even if he tried to surrender to some stormtroopers, odds were about even that they'd shoot him dead anyway out of spite or confusion.
So he cleared his throat and said, "Let me have a look at that."
The Rodians shuffled aside obligingly. Zekk stood square in front of the door and places both hands on its cold durasteel face. He felt out with the Force to sense its locks and mechanisms. These were far more complex than what Praelyx had aboard his ship. Whatever lay beyond the door must have been valuable.
Zekk scowled and looked back at Harkum. "I'm not sure if I can do this. It's not like the doors on your ship."
One of the Rodians said, "That encryption is something else. We could crack it, but I don't think we have the time."
Harkum's blue face twisted in a scowl. He looked at Zekk, then the Rodians, then the door, then cycled through all three again before he reached inside his jacket pocket and, after one second's hesitation, drew out a silver metal cylinder.
He held it out to. Zekk stared at his lightsaber.
"You had it all this time?" the Jedi gaped.
Harkum shrugged. "The boss said to save it for an emergency."
Zekk took it. The blue saber blazed to life in his hand. The pirates around him jerked back in fright, all except Harkum.
"Well?" He arched a red eyebrow. "What are you gonna slice open? Me or the door?"
He wondered if the time would come when he'd have to slice through Harkum. He wondered if it was just minutes away.
But it wasn't here. Not yet
He spun on his heel and thrust the blade through the door. Metal melted around the superheated saber and he moved it in a broad circuit around the door's edges. When he'd completed the circle he pulled out the lightsaber and glanced at the pirates all around him.
"Ready?" he asked.
Harkum and the others hefted their blasters to firing position. Whatever was inside, they clearly expected armed resistance, though all Zekk could sense through the Force was maybe one frightened being.
"Do it," Harkum snarled.
Zekk gave the door one strong shove with the Force, knocking it through the gap and sending it clattering on the floor of the room beyond. As soon as it fell, the Rodians and the three humans charged straight in. Harkum grabbed Zekk's arm, pulling him aside before he could get a good look inside the room.
He heard a short burst of blasterfire, then silence. A moment later, two big humans came through the scorched-open door, dragging a man in loose blue cloth pajamas between them.
"This is a kidnapping?" Zekk gaped. "I thought you were pirates."
"Kidnapping is a form a piracy. Say hello to Moff Kosimo Westermal." Harkum roughly grabbed the man by his hair and tilted his head up. Zekk looked down at the face of a middle-aged human gone slack and unconscious from the stun bolt.
"We're kidnapping a Moff?"
Harkum pointed down the hall and the humans started dragging him as fast as they could. The Rodians fell in front, weapons raised, guiding them back toward the mining capsule.
"Don't feel too bad for him," Harkum grunted as he and Zekk fell in behind them.
"I'm not, but your boss told me we're trying not to completely tank these peace talks."
"Oh, what's one Moff more or less?"
For a second Zekk wondered if he should try and free Westermal and deliver him back to his men. With the lightsaber he just might be able to do it, and a grateful Westermal might just be willing to let him go free or outright return him to the Jedi.
But whatever was happening, someone more than Praelyx was behind it. Turning Westermal loose and running would mean turning Praelyx loose too, and there was no telling what his paymaster was up to and when they'd strike again.
The only sure course seemed to be to stay with Wayward Soldier, wherever it took him.
They rejoined the Snivvian and the rest of the team at the intersection and hurried their way back toward the place where the mining capsule had burned a hole through the destroyer's hull. Zekk heard the sound of blasterfire as they approached and was unsurprised to find a pair of defenders at the mouth of the portal crouched behind cover and exchanging fire with a group of stormtroopers down the hall.
"What happened to that sleeping gas?" Zekk grunted to Harkum.
The half-breed did another of those shrugs. "Well, they've got helmets. Can probably stick in air filters if they want."
"Lovely."
"They're laying down some fierce fire, Jedi. You really good with that lasersword?"
"Lightsaber."
"Whatever. You've got it. Use it if you can."
Zekk wanted to snap at him but he was right. He edged his way to the front of the group and gestured for the Rodians gunmen up front to stand back.
"Don't shoot me," he told them, and charged around the corner.
His lightsaber immediately caught a pair of laser blasts and reflected them into the wall. The storm-troopers at the far end concentrated their fire on him and he batted back a few more shots as he ran. He turned himself into a jump, somersaulting over the crouching pirated and turning himself into a human missile flying boots-first at the stormtroopers.
He slammed into one trooper chest-first and unleashed a wave of kinetic Force energy that knocked the other troopers back. He spun a full circle on one heel, weaving his saber up and down in fast-undulating waved to shear off the muzzles of two E-11 blaster rifles and one DL-22 pistol. Then he brought his free leg up and kicked a stormtrooper in the gut, sending him hard against a wall. Another stormtrooper got his rifle up just in time for Zekk to slice it in half; then he dropped, rolled, and came up behind the white-armored troopers. He used the Force to pull the stormtrooper against his chest and pin him there; the other troopers still standing hesitated long enough for the pirates on the far side of the hall to pepper them with stun bolts. They dropped as one, and a second later a sole laser blast shot down the hall and nailed the captive soldier too.
Zekk dropped the limp body and looked down the hall. The pirates were dragging the captive Moff through the portal while Harkum stood in front. He caught Zekk's eye from the distance, blew twirling smoke from the tip of his blaster, and winked.
Zekk shook his head, killed his lightsaber, and ran to join them.
By the time he crammed aboard Harkum was already on the comm line, probably relaying the good news to Praelyx. As soon as Zekk was through, the Rodians started closing the portal. It sealed and, a few seconds later, a series of charges along the mine capsule's rim kicked them away from the destroyed. It occurred to Zekk that the hallway must be suddenly open to the void, and that all those soldiers he'd gone through such an elaborate dance to keep from killing were even now probably being sucked into the void.
It made him sick, but the rest of the pirates seemed quite pleased with themselves. A few of them were playing with the unconscious Moff, slapping his face, tugging his cheeks to stretch it into weird expressions.
Zekk kept staring out the portal. He watched the destroyer fall away and Selonia too. Wayward Soldier must have had them in a tractor beam because they were rapidly climbing out of the planet's orbit. He realized that, too, Praelyx must have sent out a broadcast to all ships proclaiming that he'd taken Moff Westermal captive and warning against anyone who might fire on his fleeing gunship.
All in all, it had been as skillful a kidnapping as Zekk could have imagined. He felt the capsule shudder, presumably as it locked into Wayward Soldier's docking clamp. A few seconds after that, stars all blurred into hyperspace, whisking these pirates and their captive to safety and taking Zekk further away from any hope of escape.
The thought filled him with a wash of dread. It was a critical distraction that dulled his Force-awareness. In the jostle of bodies crammed into the capsule, he didn't notice when the tip of a blaster-pistol tapped the small of his back. He only sensed one brief second of ill intention, right before the stun blast surged through his body and dropped him fully into darkness.