Reunion by Sean Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

surprise at seeing the Yuuzhan Vong in orbit above the living planet was total.
    He watched with awe as the alien ships fell back under the local defense forces. The battle was intense. Although the Yuuzhan Vong force was small, it almost held its own against the planetary defenses—almost. But eventually the alien ships broke under the relentless resistance and scattered. Zonama Sekot’s defenders hunted down the fleeing ships and destroyed them one by one.
    When the recording had finished, Luke turned back to Mara. She was piloting her ship through the last stages of descent.
    “Are there any left?” He didn’t need to elaborate.
    “All destroyed, as far as I can tell. There’s a lot of static. We were on the fringes but still affected.”
    “Why didn’t we end up like them?” he asked.
    Mara glanced at him sidelong as she brought the repulsors on-line. “I have no idea, Luke.”
    “Perhaps it read our minds and realized we didn’t mean it any harm,” Luke thought out loud. “And it woke Jacen first because of his natural affinity for unusual minds.”
    “There’s only one way to know for sure,” Mara said. “That’s to talk to the natives.”
    “And I guess that’s what we’re about to do.” In the main screen, heavily forested land ballooned up towardthem. “Maybe they can tell us what the Yuuzhan Vong were doing here in the first place.”
    “We know they’ve sent missions into the Unknown Regions. The Chiss told us that before we left Csilla. This must be one of those missions.”
    “I guess—but I can’t believe they just stumbled across Zonama Sekot. We had a hard enough time finding it on purpose.”
    “There might be more of them, then, and they might have been poking around in here longer.”
    Luke nodded, although his questions were far from answered. “That makes twice they’ve found it now, that we know of,” he said. “It’s almost as though they’re actively looking for it …”
    Jade Shadow
set down perfectly in a broad, grassy field surrounded on all sides by steep forest walls. Flicking switches, Mara killed the engines and settled back into her seat.
    “Welcome to Zonama Sekot,” Jacen said from behind them.
    Luke half-turned to study his nephew. Jacen’s eyes were fixed on the view through the cockpit’s massive, transparisteel canopy. On the surface of the planet outside, life swirled though the branches of the trees in a variety of colors and forms.
    “Where exactly are we?” Luke asked.
    “If you want a name, I can’t help you,” Jacen said. “Whoever I spoke to gave me detailed coordinates for this landing field, then left us alone. But we’re somewhere in the southern hemisphere.”
    Mara gestured to a topographic display that indicated their precise location. “If what Vergere told you is true, all of this was destroyed by the Yuuzhan Vong the last time they were here, sixty years ago.”
    Jacen nodded. Luke could understand the note ofincredulity in Mara’s voice. There was no evidence whatsoever of the destruction that had been inflicted upon the planet, apart from the odd, cleared patch visible from orbit. Zonama Sekot had managed to heal itself.
    “Did they say anything else? Anything at all?”
    Jacen shook his head. “Only for us to land, and to keep the
Widowmaker
in orbit, where it won’t be harmed.”
    “I presume Arien experienced the same thing we did.”
    “Actually, no,” Mara said. “They were completely unaffected. Some of the crew suffered headaches and space-sickness, but nothing more serious than that. It’s almost as though the Force punch was aimed solely at us.”
    “Us because
Jade Shadow
arrived first,” Luke asked, “or us because we’re Jedi?”
    He could tell that Mara was about to protest that she knew as little as he did when something caught their attention outside. Stepping out from a narrow gap in the trees were two individuals. Both were tall and thin, with icy, pale blue skin and wide gold-black eyes. The