He took a deep breath and tried to push the voices away, to cleanse his thoughts. Gradually he did so, and felt a lightening of spirit. Silence came to his ears, broken only by the occasional rustle of wind through the dead branches behind them, by Kiara’s breathing, by the tiny whine of servos within Shaker.
Finally he looked at Kiara again. “Better?” She nodded, pleased. “Better.”
CORUSCANT
SENATE BUILDING, ADMIRAL NIATHAL’S OFFICE
Niathal answered the beep with a gravelly command: “Come in.”
Jacen Solo entered, dressed in his immaculate black Guard uniform and a flowing black cloak. He gave her a crisp salute. “Admiral.”
Niathal returned it. “Sit. Hurry. I have a meeting in thirty minutes.”
Jacen sat. “Gilatter.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Probably because I hurried. Gilatter Eight is where the Confederation meeting is going to take place. The election of your counterpart, their supreme military commander. And the launch point of their next fleet action.”
Niathal sat up straighter. “Intelligence has been working on this all this time, and you come up with an answer first?”
“I have sources distinct from Intelligence’s.”
“Such as your parents?”
Niathal didn’t miss the slight frown that crossed Jacen’s features. “My parents had nothing to do with obtaining this information. It’s from another smuggling resource I’ve been cultivating for months.”
“Interesting. Especially in light of the fact that Intelligence has offered independent verification of the information about the election being followed by a raid. A shipyard raid.”
Jacen nodded. “That’s what my source says, too.”
“Promising. When?”
“Two weeks. Actually, thirteen standard days, nearly exactly.”
Niathal made an exasperated noise. “It will take that long at least to put together a coordinated response. We’re going to rush into our counterplan and get good people killed as a consequence.”
“If I may.” Jacen drew a data card from a pocket and set it on the desk before Niathal. “I’ve taken the liberty of putting together a proposal. For a response you would probably consider uncoordinated. But it would get forces there fast and possibly undetected … and I doubt our equally uncoordinated enemy will anticipate it.”
Niathal gave him a dubious look and inserted the card in her desk slot.
Jacen’s plan was simple and unconventional.
Gilatter was an undistinguished Mid Rim star not far horn Ansion. Not one of its worlds was habitable for most of the galaxy’s sapient species.
The planet Gilatter VIII was a gas giant, a world whose surface was a beautiful, glowing swirl of mottled reds, oranges, and yellows. At one point in the distant past, it had been a favorite vacation spot for the Old Republic, circled by a ring of resort satellites, from which patrons could marvel at its natural beauty.
But tastes changed, and the brief era in which planetary artistic appreciation could serve as the be-all and end-all of a wealthy family’s vacation ended-and with it the years of usefulness of the Gilatter system. The last resort satellite had gone out of business a century and a half ago, and Jacen’s estimation was that the resort would probably be the site of the meeting to come.
Step One of his plan was to send Jedi-piloted StealthX snubfighters into the system, giving the Alliance military information about the Confederation forces already there particularly sensor platforms.
Step Two involved bringing in forces selected from fleets and task forces already in that area of the galaxy, choosing them carefully to keep any one unit from losing too much strength, and defeating the ability of spies and analysts to determine where those reassigned craft were going.
Step Three had the Jedi observers directing Alliance forces into the system, avoiding sensor observation or scouting patrols, and setting them up within the atmosphere of Gilatter VIII. The glowing, radiant atmosphere was so thin at its upper reaches-barely denser than empty space in a standard solar system-that vehicles and vessels of all varieties could be stationed there. Such a world tended to emit higher levels of electromagnetic radiation, making communication between vehicles more difficult but also making detection more difficult. Step Three would continue until the mission commander concluded that it was no longer possible to sneak forces into the atmosphere of Gilatter VIII-and even then, larger capital ships could muster at a point outside the system and be ready to jump in.
In Step Four, the StealthX observers would signal when the meeting had begun … and all the Alliance forces would move in against the Confederation forces.