“General-” A’baht paused and turned back.
“How many prowlers are assigned to the Fifth Fleet? “
“One squadron-eight. There are also two squadrons of reconnaissance drones. “
Han gestured broadly at the bank of empty stations.
“You want to tell me which one of these buttons calls in your tactical staff? “
“What are you saying? ” A’baht’s face wore an uncertain expression.
“Well-we know someone or something out here’s unfriendly to the New Republic, ” Han said grimly. “Right? “
“I’d say so. “
“Seems as though we’d better do something to cover our withdrawal, then. That seem reasonable to you? “
“You are in command of the Fleet, General Solo. “
“So I am, ” Han said. “And I never turn my back to a dark corner when I know someone’s after me. Which button? “
A’baht pointed. “There. “
Chapter 14
“Koornacht Cluster” was always an outsider’s name-an astronomer’s name, hundreds of years old, but barely more meaningful than a cataloger’s letters and numbers.
Aitro Koornacht had done a favor involving a woman and an Imperial coach for the First Observer at the Court of Emperor Preedu III, on Tamban. That next night, the astronomer spotted a bright, fuzzy disk in the eyepiece of his newest telescope. That grateful First Observer had repaid his benefactor by naming the newly discovered star cluster after the night commander of the palace guard.
But that same gathering of stars had other names.
To the Fia of Galantos, in whose skies it appeared as a great oval of light, it was known as The Multitude.
The Wehttam, another galactic neighbor, revered it as God’s Temple.
The Ka’aa, a wandering species old enough to have seen the youngest stars in the Cluster wink on, remembered it as no’aat padu’LL the Little Nursery.
The Yevetha knew it by a word that meant Home.
Two thousand suns and twenty thousand worlds, all born together from the same great cloud of dust and gas that still filled the spaces between them. They were young suns and hard worlds, and there were few eyes on hand to know either. The faces of fewer than a hundred planets had been brightened with the colors of life, and only a single species spawned in the Cluster had made the leap from its home soil to the stars.
Two thousand suns keeping company in space, burning so brightly in the skies over N’zoth and its daughter worlds that they blinded the eye to the dimmer lights, the wider galaxy beyond. It was not until visitors came from beyond the Cluster to mine its riches that the Yevetha learned they were not alone.
It was a difficult lesson. A young species with a hard ethic, the Yevetha were accustomed to their place as the center of their universe.
The relentless otherness of the outsiders was a profound challenge to the Yevetha’s conception of themselves. In the end, the answer to that challenge was a new vision built on purity of line, sanctity of territory, and hate.
The occupation by the Empire had been an education for the Yevetha, in more ways than one.
When the Empire came to Koornacht, it belonged to the Yevetha alone. Traveling through realspace in their immaculate spherical thrustships, they had spread from the spawnworld of N’zoth to eleven daughter worlds.
In all the recorded history of the galaxy, no species had established more interstellar colonies without the benefit of hyperdrive technology. To the Yevetha, the stars of N’zoth’s bright night sky seemed to hover just above their heads, beckoning. Their will was strong enough to leap the distances between the stars.
After the Empire retreated from Koornacht, that will was wedded to a technology that could leap the distances between the stars. Vastly faster ships made the other Yevethan worlds seem no farther away from N’zoth than the other side of the globe, and Imperial comm units could carry the viceroy’s voice throughout the Cluster in a matter of minutes. N’zoth and its daughter worlds were bound together as one in a way never before possible, and the Second Birth began. The Yevetha scouted and settled a dozen more prime worlds in a spasm of expansion that satisfied the frustrated ambition of the occupation years.
But the greater vision guiding the Yevetha required a longer period of preparation and consideration. In that time, Yevethan engineers worked to adapt thrustship designs to Imperial technologies, while the metal artisans labored to complete and repair the captured warships. Claiming and protecting all of the Yevethan birthright would require that and more, an unparalleled marshaling of effort-not only ships and crews, but whole communities, an entire generation ready to leave their birthworld for a home in the sky of stars.