Onslaught by Michael A. Stackpole

Author:Michael A. Stackpole [Stackpole, Michael A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780345428547
Goodreads: 320343
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2000-02-01T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jacen Solo’s eyes snapped open, and for a moment, he wondered where he was. He knew he was on Belkadan, but he found himself surprised to be back at the ExGal facility. Why that surprised him he couldn’t immediately identify. He kicked off the light blanket covering him, then swung his legs over the edge of the cot and sat up.

Jacen raked fingers back through long brown hair, then pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. Before he had awakened, he’d been in a Yuuzhan Vong village, the one where the villips were being grown. He’d gone there to free the slaves. He’d waded into the water and called them to him. They’d come, and their master had come after them. As the slave master had done with the old man, Jacen had left the Yuuzhan Vong warrior slowly sinking in the murky, still water.

It feels so real. Jacen pulled his hands away from his eyes, then focused until his hands emerged as ghostly shadows in the dim light. His hands still tingled with the sense of having held his lightsaber in a duel with the Yuuzhan Vong warrior. He shifted his shoulders and stretched his back, searching for any trace of pain to somehow validate the reality of what he’d seen.

He knew it probably had just been a dream. In the week since they watched the murder of the old man, they had done quite a bit of scouting. The Yuuzhan Vong had indeed turned Belkadan—or at least this section of it—into a shipyard. They were growing villips, coralskippers, and dovin basals all over the place. The laborers were slaves all, by the look of it, though some of the overseers had aides who appeared, to Jacen, to be human and cooperating. They all had the growths on them, too, but the Force was not filled with static from the collaborators, just greatly diminished.

The vision’s being just a dream made sense. It was clearly a fantasy being fulfilled to let him drain away his frustration. He was almost willing to accept what he had seen as a dream, then to drop back off to sleep.

Two things prevented him from doing that, however. One was a sense of urgency wrapped around the vision. While he was willing to accept that his frustration was enough to give birth to the dream, his frustration had been strongest the night after watching the murder. Since then, they had not returned to that place.

The second thing was the sheer reality of the vision. It wasn’t something he was remembering, per se, but felt as if it was a glimpse at something he had to do. He knew, very well, that if a Jedi was open to the Force, bits and pieces of the future might be revealed to him. His uncle’s Master, Yoda, was known for his wisdom and ability to see pieces of the future. Jacen had never really felt he’d been gifted a vision by the Force, but it did seem to him as if this was just the sort of thing a vision like that would entail.

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