“Negative, sir.”
“One final visual check, and returning to ship.”
It was so silent on the bridge that Niathal could hear the collective unk of humans swallowing after holding their breath for a while. The whole episode had been played out live to the fleet. Everyone had heard how JCOS-2-joint Chief of State Number Two, as Jacen was known in memos-had been chasing ghosts. If they hadn’t heard it live, the utterly reliable fleet scuttlebutt service would provide highlights for them for years to come. Niathal checked her chrono and the time codes on the signals. The bizarre incident had run for a little under eight standard minutes.
She judged that the time was right. “Anakin Solo, this is Ocean. Get me Captain Nevil. Now.”
Nevil must have been right next to the comm station. Niathal hardly had time to blink. She didn’t even need to pose a question before he answered it. He did a fine job of sounding as if they hadn’t spoken in months.
“Ma’am, we’re no wiser than you are about what happened.”
“Tell me this was some ill-timed readiness drill, Captain.”
“I can’t, ma’am.”
“Great gods of the waters, is Solo insane?” Her comlink was still transmitting to all bridges. She had a valid reason for doing that, if the threat really had been a cloaked fleet, but it was much more about enabling a bloodless coup. The ships’ companies and their officers could now make up their own minds about which commander they would pre-fer to follow into a tight corner. “I know he doesn’t drink liquor…”
“Ma’am, when Colonel Solo is available, I shall tell him you wish to talk to him.”
“Most kind, Captain.” Niathal smoothed her jacket, with the feeling of having found a thousand-denomination cash-cred in the street. She had paraded her contempt for Jacen across the task force, and Nevil had been seen as loyally supporting his superior officer. Honor was satisfied. “All vessels, stand defense watches.”
She stepped down from the slightly raised dais that spanned the deck, and paused. “And… if anyone doesn’t spot anything that isn’t there, don’t hesitate not to tell me.”
A ripple of laughter ran around the bridge. Even though a battle was still imminent, the tension dropped a good few notches. She stepped into her day cabin and leaned back against the bulkhead, eyes closed for a moment, before comming Nevil.
“Captain Nevil, “she said. “Sorry about that. Thank you for sounding suitably noncommittal. I just want you to know you’re not alone.”
Chapter 12
Could I have stopped all this? If I’d told Cat Omas right at the start to let Corellia go its own way, would we be here now? Trying to force every Alliance world to pool its defense forces was a principle. We didn’t actually have an external threat to face. But we created one.
And if another enemy like the Yuuzhan Vong had ever shown up-I’m certain that Corellians would have come running to defend the galaxy anyway. Like they always have.
-Luke Skywalker, to Han Solo
FIFTY KILOMETERS OUTSIDE FLEET ASSEMBLY AREA, NEARFONDOR
Caedus fumed.
He was no fool, he wasn’t mad, and he had explored more arcane Force techniques than any member of the Jedi Council. He did not fall prey to tricks.
But even if that phantom fleet had been a trick and not some freak phenomenon thrown up by physics beyond his grasp-then who was creating it? He took one long loop around the area in the StealthX.
Caedus wasn’t checking to make sure he hadn’t missed any more humiliatingly nonexistent ships. He was scouting for the source of the illusion. And it was an illusion-yes, that was much, much more likely than the laws of the universe having a bad day.
He’d pulled off some remarkably convincing tricks himself; he’d hidden Lumiya right under Luke’s nose, literally. He’d also been caught up in manufactured illusions and he could still feel the apparent reality of Lumiya’s conjured world in her asteroid habitat.
Niathal, mundane rule-follower that she was, had simply tested reality by firing a torpedo, her mind unencum-bered by any hall-of-mirrors thinking that would make her question if the torpedo failing to hit anything was also part of the same elaborate, convincing construction.
But I’m a Sith Lord.
I should be beyond this. I should be anticipating these strikes against me.
It had to be one of the renegade Jedi. Lumiya was dead. Who else might be able to fool him? Ben-no, Ben had his skills like vanishing in the Force, but he thought in honest, plain lines, channeling his Force power into extensions of ordinary talents like smashing down doors, locating explosives, and blinding surveillance holocams. Two burly CSF officers and a sniffer akk could do that. So it would be one of the usual suspects-Luke, probably, or maybe Zekk, because it wasn’t his mother’s or his sister’s style. Where were they? How far could Luke extend his powers?