Star Wars: Vector Prime by R. A. Salvatore

Author:R. A. Salvatore
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Solo, Leia, High Tech, Science fiction, Space Opera, Jade, Jacen (Fictitious Character), Star Wars fiction, Princess (Fictitious character), General, Luke (Fictitious character), Skywalker, Jaina (Fictitious character), Adventure, Life on other planets, Han (Fictitious character), Fiction, Mara (Fictitious character)
ISBN: 9780345428448
Publisher: Ballantine Publishing Group
Published: 1999-11-15T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16: Worthy Opponent

They didn't, couldn't, say a word as the Jade Sabre approached the now-yellow-and-green planet known as Belkadan. Luke and Mara had done their homework on the way to the planet, and they held no doubts, with visual inspection looming before them, that something on the planet had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

It wasn't the lack of response, other than the incredible amounts of static, whenever they tried to hail the scientific outpost, ExGal-4.

In truth, any response would have surprised them, for merely in observing the planet, they knew.

Belkadan was, to their way of looking at things, dead.

"What were they doing at that station?" Mara asked.

"Observations," Luke replied. "Just staring out at the galactic rim."

"That's what ExGal tells the public," Mara said skeptically.

Luke turned to regard her. "You think this is an experiment gone wrong?"

"Can you think of anything else that might have done this?" Mara asked. "You've read the reports on Belkadan - full of huge trees and small seas, and with clear air and blue skies. The only thing that kept the place from being more appealing was the rather difficult animals that called it home."

"The reports from the station indicated that they lived behind protected walls," Luke agreed.

"So if animals had found their way in and destroyed the station, it wouldn't be so surprising," Mara reasoned. "Do you know any animals that could cause this?" She waved her hand at the viewport and the curving line of Belkadan's horizon, and the roiling, noxious-looking clouds.

"The reports from their headquarters on Coruscant and from this particular station give no hints that anything more than observation was going on here," Luke said, but his tone wasn't so firm. How could it be, with such devastating evidence as the view before them? Something had gone very wrong down there, something brutal, and Luke understood that such catastrophes were usually the work of reasoning beings.

Mara glanced down at her console's smaller viewscreen, scrolling the information of the composition of the clouds. "Carbon dioxide and methane, mostly," she explained, and that came as no surprise to either her or Luke. "In tremendous concentrations. Even if there is a layer of breathable air below, it would be too hot down there to support much life."

Luke nodded. "We've got to go down and see."

Mara didn't disagree, but her concerned look was not lost on Luke.

Neither was her color; Luke had noted that Mara's complexion had paled as they had approached Belkadan, and he could sense a bit of her internal weakening. The flight from Dubrillion had been easy enough, but Luke now feared that all of this, the trip to the Outer Rim, the tour of Lando's incredible city, and now the journey out here to Belkadan, might be proving too taxing for his wife.

"We can call back and do a few more readings," Luke offered instead. "ExGal will muster the right ships to come out and see what happened here."

"We're here now," Mara pointedly reminded.

Luke shook his head. "We haven't got the right equipment," he explained.

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