Balance Point Read online

  Spotting movement at the corner of his peripheral vision, he sighted the binocs down and left. Close at hand, one of the creatures fluttered up from under a hut’s blue eaves.

  He clambered down. Telling Jaina, “I’ll be right back,” he sprinted up the lane to the hut where the creature had taken flight. He looked up and down and around and … there. Under the eaves, something papery dangled from the synthplas roof panel. He flicked it free, then examined it on his hand.

  “What?” Jaina’s voice demanded behind him.

  His mind flashed back to Yavin 4, a menagerie he’d kept in his room—and a collection of pupa cases, where his peggelars had overwintered, to emerge in the spring as exquisite rosewings.

  His insides congealed. “Wake Dad up,” he said. “Fast. I’ll activate the ERD-LL droids.”

  The infestation had vanished because the worms had pupated. Now they were emerging as airborne adults. Whatever they ate, Jacen was willing to bet that up out of everyone’s reach, they were laying eggs for a second cycle of destruction. Settlement Thirty-two might have a few weeks to find and destroy the eggs, but his danger sense said otherwise. They were feeding now, in numbers that all the dome’s emergency repair droids wouldn’t be able to stop.

  He armed the ERD-LLs—hybridized binary loadlifters with long, telescoping waists—with the only tools he could find, batter beaters from the open-air kitchen booth. Two sleepy Ryn staggered out of the nearest shelter, leaning against each other. One squinted while the other pointed at the near ERD-LL. It swung a batter beater, knocking loose a flurry of the seemingly white-eyed creatures. Fluttering along behind its swath, the white-eyes settled back against the dome’s underside.

  Jacen switched on his comlink and pressed in an ID sequence.

  “Yo,” a Ryn voice growled. “Did somebody lose track of the day cycle?”

  “Romany,” Jacen said. “I need you. Emergency.”

  Jaina came back at a quick walk. “Dad’s coming.”

  “Good. Go wake up the Vors and get a rebreather count.” For the Vors, a breach could be deadly. That winged race was superbly adapted for its own atmosphere, but off Vortex, Vors’ lungs were notoriously twitchy.

  Jaina headed up the lane.

  Next he called Mezza. He met her and Romany, who brought his lieutenant R’vanna, at the open area at the center of the Ryn group’s wedge of huts. By this time, Han had arrived.

  “Quietly,” Han said, “without panicking anybody, get your people suiting up. Just in case.”

  Jacen broke in. “At the moment I’m more afraid of a stampede than a breach, but we haven’t done a breach drill in too long. Call it a drill, if anyone will believe you.”

  Mezza honked scornfully and jogged away. Romany slipped into the nearest hut.

  “Okay, kid. This way.” Han led Jacen to the dome’s center, where he pulled out a large blue tank with hose and nozzle. “I told SELCORE this was useless, that we wouldn’t be cleaning the ceiling. Guess I was wrong.”

  Jacen helped him haul the tank to the hydroponics area, where one of the ERD-LL droids was uselessly brushing white-eyes aside.

  “Down,” Han barked. “Retract.”

  The droid telescoped downward. Han secured the tank on one metal arm, then grabbed the droid’s other hand. “Gimme a boost,” he grunted.

  Jacen was reaching forward when a large furry object catapulted between himself and his father.

  “I can do that,” Droma announced. He clambered up nimbly.

  “About time you got here, wire-hair.” Han brushed dust off his sleeves. “Think you can figure out—”

  “Up,” Droma honked. The ERD-LL elevated again. The nimble Ryn gripped a metal loop on the droid’s large flat hand, locking his feet, ankles, and prehensile tail around a rigid extension arm.

  “What’s in the tank?” Jacen demanded. It was about to come showering down on everyone’s heads.

  “Don’t know,” Han admitted. “Supposed to be non-toxic, even to Vors.”

  Six minutes later, they knew it wouldn’t harm the white-eyes, either. They kept fluttering up from under eaves. Ryn roamed the settlement, crushing intact pupae, but for every white-eye they found, ten more flew up to the dome and started chowing down.

  Jaina sprinted back. “The Vors need thirty-eight more rebreathers, Dad.”

  Han fixed Jacen with a stare. “Think you can talk thirty-eight Ryn or humans out of their breath masks?”

  Jacen gulped. “I guess—”

  “Look at this,” Droma shouted. He slid down the ERD-LL’s midsection, holding something in one hand.

  Jacen, Han, and Jaina circled him. Droma held up a clear spray-nozzle. Trapped inside, a white-eye attacked the synthplas nozzle with relish. Viewed from below, its mouthparts looked like twin rasps. They ground against the clear surface and then rotated inward, swallowing the dust.

  “Worse than mynocks,” Han grunted. “That’s it. Jacen, get on the horn to Gateway. I’ll get a few Vors into landspeeders. We’re getting out.”

  Jacen sprinted back to the control shed, counting days in his mind. Gateway should’ve had a comm-line crew out late yesterday, if they were on schedule. If the lines were down, though, Thirty-two’s only hope was to load up the caravan ships and hunker, praying their air scrubbers functioned long enough for rescue to arrive—or else to lift off on repulsors and head for another settlement. Some of those ships barely had made it here—and some refugees were dropped by ships that traveled on.

  Randa sat up. Slowly blinking his huge eyes, he belched.

  Jacen ignored him and strode to the comm tech. “I need Gateway. Intercolony assistance.”

  The tech punched panels. To Jacen’s relief, a crisp voice came back instantly. “Gateway.”

  “Gateway, this is Thirty-two. We’ve got a breach pending, a big one. We need the evacuation crawlers.”

  “On their way. What kind of breach? Can it be mended?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve got some kind of an infestation.”

  “Copy that. We’ll have the crawlers to you in about …” Pause. “Twenty-six minutes. Meanwhile, keep your people calm. Get them in rebreathers and chem suits if you can, and aboard whatever crawlers you have on hand.”

  “We have one small crawler, Gateway.” They used it to move ships off the landing crater and under shelter.

  “Affirmative, one crawler. Load it.” Jacen faintly heard another voice, evidently someone else near the person who’d greeted him. “Thirty-two,” the voice came back, “what kind of infestation?”

  Jacen hesitated. “We’re, ah, already suiting them up. Thanks, Gateway.”

  “Thirty-two,” the voice repeated firmly. “Describe infestation.”

  Jacen admitted, “Nothing I’ve seen before. I’ll save you a sample.”

  A different voice spoke over the link. “Make sure it’s tightly contained, Thirty-two.”

  “Will do.” Jacen turned around to see Randa rising on his long, strong tail.

  “What is this?” the Hutt demanded.

  “We’re evacuating the dome,” Jacen told him. “Those little worm creatures have metamorphosed into something like moths. They’re all over the dome’s underside, eating it.”

  “Use the Force,” Randa demanded. “Crush them, choke them!”

  Jacen tried to imagine seizing hundreds of tiny creatures, throttling the life out of them … “No,” he said. “Too many of them.”

  “You haven’t tried.” Randa slithered forward.

  “Listen, Randa.” Jacen didn’t need this. “You can get in the way or you can help. Get your breath mask and help keep order. We’re about to take twelve hundred scared people through one gate.”

  “You ask me to direct traffic?” Randa puffed out his chest. “Me, Randa Besadii Diori, you ask—”

  Jacen pushed past the Hutt toward the shed’s door. “All right, then. Just stay out of the way. Stay in here,” he added, turning around. “As soon as Gateway’s crawlers call in, ready to load,
comlink me.”

  This quarter of the dome teemed with refugees, some of them masked, a few chem-suited. A family of Vuvrians staggered past, bobbing their huge heads to point first one eye, then another, then another, up at the dome’s underside. Their faces reminded Jacen of deflated balloons, with perpetually puckered mouths and knobbed, drooping tentacles.

  Right in front of him, a Ryn pointed a blaster at the dome. Jacen rushed forward, shouting, “Put that away!” He was about to stretch out with the Force when the Ryn fired a blue stun burst. The energy dissipated before it reached the growing moth colony.

  “Good try,” Jacen said grimly, “but we’ve got a no-blaster policy.” He grabbed the Ryn’s weapon and tucked it into his belt.

  Atop the other ERD-LL’s outstretched arms, two Ryn clung and swatted white-eyes with long-handled kitchen tools. A few mangled moths fell to the ground. Others fluttered around the Ryn. One Ryn dropped his spatula and got busy swatting moths off the other—and himself.

  The winged Vors would’ve been incredibly helpful in a larger dome, but Thirty-two was too small for them to maneuver—and one whiff of Duro-stink might kill them. They shuffled along on the ground, huddled around their young.

  Jacen comlinked Han. “Twenty-two minutes,” he said. “They want us in rebreathers and chem suits.”

  “Tell Mezza and Romany. I’ve got a droid freezing up.”

  Jacen spotted Randa, pushing out through the assembled crowd toward the hydroponics area.

  He sprinted to intercept the Hutt. “What are you doing?” he demanded softly. “Get back to the gate and stay put!”

  “I will lock down the food supply, against our return.”

  “Dad’s got a Vuvrian crew working on that. Go on, get back.”

  “If you try to give me orders, young Jedi, you will regret it.”

  Jacen shifted his approach. “Not orders, Randa. We need you. Please do it our way. Help keep those people from wandering away from the gate. If they do, we’ll have a stampede when the crawlers get here.”

  Muttering a retort, the Hutt turned tail and slithered back toward the gate.

  Jacen took a deep breath and looked over the Ryn area. Other than Randa, the alert was going well, with the last families donning gear and proceeding toward the gate area—except for the swat team, still hard at work atop its ERD-LL droid. Close to the Vor quarter, a dribble of gray haze started flowing from the area thickest with moths. The colony’s breach siren sounded, a low electronic moan. The hindmost Vors, still emerging from their huts, shrieked and erupted forward, a mass of slender limbs and long faces. Jacen sprinted toward them.

  The forefront of the charging contingent hit him and spun him against a rough mud-brick surface. Winded, he took a few deep breaths. Then he spotted a Vor without a breath mask. “Here!” he shouted, tossing his own.

  The delicate-looking creature jammed the mask over his pointed face and pushed on.

  Then he spotted another gray dribble. Moths skittered away from the second breached spot, settled closer to a strut, and started chewing again.

  Jacen hoped Duro’s atmosphere would kill the creatures. He grabbed his comlink. “Dad?”

  “Gateway’s here, Junior. Bring ’em on.”

  “Copy that.”

  Jacen thumbed off the link and pressed away from the wall. One of the Vors staggered and fell. A Ryn bounded up and gathered the slender female into his arms.

  Two Vors turned around, shouted something, and grabbed their kinswoman back from the Ryn.

  “Thanks.” Jacen clapped the Ryn on one shoulder. “Go on, go ahead. I’ll bring up the rear.” He scrambled up onto a roof and got one good look.

  The entire colony had streamed out onto the lanes, pressing toward the gate like fizzbrew against a bottle cap. Some stragglers were spinning around, pointing up at the two—now three—breached spots, ducking and cowering like ten-year-olds with a crystal snake loose in their quarters. A gray cloud boiled down over the Vors’ huts. Jacen caught a whiff of Duro’s ghastly odor, the concentrated stench of thousands of abandoned Imperial war factories. He held a fold of his vest over his mouth while he strode toward the gate.

  A Ryn met him, wearing a full chem suit and mask. “What else do you need?” it wheezed in Romany’s voice.

  “Has anyone checked your people’s shelters? If we leave anyone behind, asleep, they might miss the ride out.”

  Romany pulled two hefty adults out of line to assist him, then demanded the chem suits of a less muscular pair. “We’re going back,” he explained. “We could be here for a while. Go on, get on board!”

  The others protested. Jacen left them to their argument and pressed back into the control shed.

  Randa and the comm tech were gone. Jacen peered out the viewbubble. Outside, five enormous idling vehicles reminded him of hydroponics tanks laid side to side and joined over three axles, each of their knobby tires bigger than five refugee huts. Flexible cofferdams had been extended to three of them. Colonists wearing full suits streamed away from the boarding tubes through Duro’s perpetual fog, toward the farthest vehicle, directed by similarly suited SELCORE personnel.

  He pushed out of the shed, into the mob.

  More SELCORE crewers had taken control of the boarding area, directing refugees forward. To Jacen’s dismay, Randa slithered forward, knocking down Ryn and humans in his rush to reach the gate.

  “Hey!” Han’s voice rose. Jacen spotted him standing on a stack of crates. “Back off, Randa! Push like that and you’ll be the last one on board!”

  The Hutt drove on, parting the wave of refugees like one of Lando’s cruise ships at full throttle.

  Han drew a blaster. “Hold it right there, Randa. If I let you do this, there’s no stopping anyone.”

  Randa halted, glaring back over his shoulder. Refugees paused to help up the ones Randa had bowled over, then streamed around him.

  Jacen spotted a young mountain of belongings alongside the gate, and an officious-looking Twi’lek in a SELCORE chem suit directing refugees to drop their bundles before he let them pass.

  Jacen sidled alongside the SELCORE man. “Look,” he murmured, “these people have hardly got anything left to call their own. Don’t beggar them all over again—”

  The Twi’lek spread his pale hands. “We will send back for your belongings. For now, saving life is our priority—wait! What’s that?”

  An elderly human woman clutched one hand to her chest and supported her husband with her other arm. Something black and furry stuck up out of the woman’s bunched coat. The Twi’lek seized the coat and fingered it open. A furry bundle clung to the woman, splaying four scrawny limbs against her tunic. Jacen recognized a young whisperkit, betrayed by one quivering ear.

  “Sorry,” the Twi’lek grunted. “Don’t know how you got a pet this far, but it can’t come aboard.”

  The woman’s blue-gray eyes thickened. “Sir, we’re keeping it safe for our grandson. He’s with the Fifth Fleet, and we promised—”

  Saving life. Priority. The galaxy, teetering on a balance point the size of one frightened whisperkit.

  Jacen shoved forward and tugged the Twi’lek’s fingers off the woman’s coat. “If we don’t see it, it isn’t here.” He turned around and glared at the SELCORE official. “How much,” he muttered, “does a whisperkit eat or breathe, compared with what leaving it here would do to morale?”

  The Twi’lek set his knobby jaw. “What whisperkit?”

  Jacen backed away. The Duro-stink grew stronger with every breath. The last mixed mob of Ryn and Vuvrians pressed forward, dropping bundles in their haste to reach the cofferdams. The final refugees trampled the bundles.

  Droma flicked Han a salute. “That’s everybody, Solo.”

  Han lowered his blaster. “Go on, Randa. Jacen? Stun him if he gives you trouble, but don’t leave him here.”

  Jacen followed the fuming Hutt up the near crawler’s boarding ramp as Han sprinted past. Randa halted just inside the hatch, blocki
ng Jacen’s way.

  Three SELCORE crewers loped up behind Jacen. “Come on,” one urged. “We’re moving out.”

  “Randa,” Jacen shouted. “Farther in!”

  The Hutt turned his head, rumbling angrily. “Your father said I would be the last one on board. So this crawler is full.”

  Something pushed Jacen from behind. He fell over Randa’s surprisingly solid body. The Hutt’s muscular tail whipped around, flinging several Ryn against other refugees. One fell senseless.

  Jacen thumb-checked the stun setting on his confiscated blaster, leveled it at the Hutt, and fired. Randa drooped. Hoots, whistles, and muffled applause broke out on board.

  Something dug into Jacen’s ribs. “Nice going,” Jaina growled.

  He exhaled. “Glad you’re aboard.”

  “What was that about not being aggressive?”

  “He was hurting people.” Jacen returned the blaster to his belt. “And I wasn’t using the Force.”

  “And the Yuuzhan Vong aren’t hurting people? So they shouldn’t be stopped with everything we’ve got?”

  Ignoring her sarcasm, Jacen braced himself against the hatch. The crawler started to vibrate.

  “Everybody get steady,” he shouted. “This road’s a little rough.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  As the crawler lurched along, the warmth and odor of several hundred none-too-clean bodies—compounded by nervous sweat—made Jacen wrinkle his nose. He felt lucky to be next to a hatch. He’d be one of the first off.

  “Lovely,” Jaina murmured. “Where’s my breath mask?”

  At the far end of the hold, someone started singing. Singly and in groups, Ryn joined the melody, some whistling harmonies through their perforated beaks. Jacen didn’t need words to recognize a traveling song. The perennial outcasts were moving on to their next adventure.

  His comlink chirruped. “Excuse me,” he said to the Ryn he elbowed while raising it to his mouth. “Sorry,” he told the one he shoved while trying to steady himself. “Jacen Solo,” he said.

  “Crew deck here. You’re the one who called over?”

  “Affirmative.”