Balance Point Read Online Free Page A

Adumari had attempted a flanking attack on Yuuzhan Vong positions up near Bilbringi. He hoped it was true.
    Jacen eyed Piani’s comm board. “How’s the cable to Gateway? Could we get them to send out a signal faster?”
    Thanks to SELCORE’s official presence at that nearby settlement, Gateway reportedly had a dependable uplink, even an outlink. Insulated fiber cables connected the two domes, but Duro’s only surviving fauna—mutant fefzebeetles—found fiber cables perfectly tasty. Duro’s corrosive atmosphere was too murky for line-of-sight transmitting or satellite bouncing.
    Predictably, Piani shook her head. “Gateway’s scheduled to send out a cable rider in two days.”
    Gateway was bigger, just older, and much better established than this settlement.
Better organized
, Jacen guessed, not that he meant to criticize his dad. Han was giving Settlement Thirty-two his all. Thirty-two maintained a pipeline that provided Gateway with water, which was reclaimed from an ancient numbered pit mine. Gateway maintained the communication cable and supplemented Thirty-two’s food production.
    Han thrust his hands into his pockets and eyed Jacen, raising one eyebrow. “You’re not chasing mynocks with a flitterfly net?”
    “I hope I am.” Jacen fingered hair back behind his ears. “I didn’t want to get you worried—”
    “We’re at war. Everybody’s worried.”
    The moment passed without either of them mentioning Chewbacca, and Jacen drew a shallow breath of relief. These days, nearly everyone had suffered at least one loss. Piani’s mate hadn’t reached Gyndine’s capital city in time to catch an evac ship. He was likely dead, or worse. They all had to carry on.
    “What can I do to help?” Randa slithered closer.
    “Nothing,” Han snapped. He turned to Jacen. “Tell me if it’s important. If you need this checked, I’ll see what we can raise on the
Falcon.”
He gestured toward the dome’s main entry.
    A caravan’s worth of ragtag ships had been hauled from the landing crater by mammoth cross-terrain crawlers—equipment courtesy of SELCORE, designated for reclamation work—and parked under tarps, protectedfrom corrosive fallout. The security guards had just turned Mezza’s young clanmates out of that area.
    Jacen’s worry for Jaina struggled with his administrative concerns as his dad’s assistant—for about three seconds. “Yes,” he said, glancing guiltily at Piani, who belonged to Mezza’s clan and wasn’t much older than the offenders. “It’s important.”
    “Right.” Han pointed at Randa. “You stay here. Let me know what you hear out of Nal Hutta.”
    “Depend on me, Captain.” Randa plucked a bedjie off Piani’s hot plate and dropped it whole into his mouth.
    Twelve minutes later, Jacen perched on the
Millennium Falcon
’s high-backed copilot’s seat. Han whacked a bulkhead, not in the joking way Jacen had seen him do it so many times, but angrily.
    “Hey,” Han growled, “fossil. Gimme generator, and I don’t mean tomorrow.”
    And in its inimitable way, the
Falcon
produced a glimmering array of lights.
    Han dropped into his own seat and flicked three switches. “Give her a minute to come up.”
    “Right,” Jacen assured him.
I know
was what he wanted to say, but he understood. Han had recovered enough from Chewie’s death to have the
Falcon
modified—including better air scrubbers for ferrying refugees, and a nonreflective black exterior that Chewie would’ve howled over—but he’d never installed a standard copilot’s chair. Just being on board the beloved hunk of junk made Jacen slightly nervous.
    Jacen eyed a wire bundle that hung from a half-opened bulkhead. Han and Droma came out here now and again.
Tinkering
, Han called it.
Therapy
, Droma whispered.
    They waited in silence. The weeks when Han’s grief had overwhelmed them all drifted up into Jacen’s memory.He’d happened into a cantina when Han had gone looking for oblivion. And on a worse