Inferno (23 page)

Jaina stepped through the door, simultaneously dropping to a crouch and hurling her knife down the corridor. A trio of bolts flashed out of the dark lounge and ricocheted off the doorjamb. She used the Force to guide her weapon toward the voice, then heard the officer scream and crash to the floor.

A second passed. When no more fire came, Jaina retrieved her boots and started down the hall. The dormitories on Ossus were small one-story structures with only twenty-five habitation cells per building, so she had no trouble hearing the wounded man groaning and thrashing against the lounge floor. All the doors she passed were open, and she didn’t feel any children hiding inside. In several of the rooms, activated lights revealed overturned beds and lockers emptied on the floor. In one, a string of red spatter marks ran up the far wall.

By the time she reached the lounge, Jaina was convinced the dorm had been emptied of young ones. The only presences she felt were her own and the two GAG troopers she had disabled. She knelt beside the one she had wounded and quickly realized she would not be getting any answers from him. Her knife had caught him square in the throat, and he was suffering a slow, gurgling death. She pulled a hypo from the medpac on his belt.

“A quiet good-bye is more than you deserve,” she said. “But Uncle Luke keeps telling me I shouldn’t hold a grudge.”

As her words registered, the man’s eyes widened, and he clutched at Jaina’s arm, silently begging her to save him.

“Sorry.” She placed the tip of the hypo to his arm and injected the painkiller. “I’ve got kids to look after.”

Jaina took the time to pull on her boots and crush the dying man’s comlink beneath her heel, then stuck his blaster and spare power packs into her belt and went to the viewport. Outside, young ones ranging from Jaina’s five-year-old Woodoos to Jag’s fifteen-year-old Wampas were being herded toward the central exercise pavilion, where Major Serpa stood under bright lights with a squad of bodyguards.

She saw no sign of the Solusars, who had—like Jaina—been acting as dorm parents. She reached out in the Force and sensed them in their own dorms, feeling angry and worried, probably kneeling at a viewport just as she was. She felt Zekk creeping through the jungle behind the complex. Jag seemed to be moving toward Jaina.

As each squad of troopers arrived with their young ones, Serpa meticulously directed their placement. It soon grew apparent that he was arranging them in a circle around the pavilion, alternating groups of taller children with groups of shorter ones, being careful to keep them segregated by a line of guards.

Once everyone had arrived and been directed to a location, the major returned to the pavilion and studied his work thoughtfully. After two full minutes, he left again and switched three groups, so that he had the Wampas flanked by a group of ten-to twelve-year-old Banthas on one side, and thirteen-to fourteen-year-old Veermoks on the other.

Jaina watched all this impatiently, trying not to read any meaning into the major’s actions. The man was clearly unbalanced—an impression that had only grown in their dealings since their first meeting in flight control command. She and the Solusars had been debating whether Jacen had put Serpa in charge to keep the Jedi off-balance, or to have a ready patsy when he ordered retaliation against the academy’s young ones. Knowing her brother, he had probably done it for both reasons.

Serpa returned to the pavilion and studied the assembly for another minute or so, then nodded approvingly.

“Much better.” He spoke loudly, clearly intending to make himself audible to anyone eavesdropping from the dormitories. “This will give me a central focus, a place to begin.”

The Force rippled with anger and alarm, but Jaina and the other Jedi dorm parents were too disciplined to show themselves before they knew Jacen’s game. Serpa pointed to a slender Codru-Ji female standing in the front rank of the Wampas, then to a frightened-looking boy in the second rank of Woodoos.

“Her and him.”

A pair of troopers left the pavilion and stood by the young ones, taking them by the arm. Serpa turned his attention to the Banthas and Veermoks next, selecting a female human from the first and a Rodian male from the second. He continued in this manner until he had chosen a child from each age group.

Once Serpa had made his selections, he had the young ones escorted onto the pavilion one at a time, carefully arranging them in a circle around him, alternating between male and female, human and nonhuman, and tall and short.

By the time he had finished his strange ritual, Tionne Solusar was striding across the courtyard, her silver hair flying and her brow lowered in anger.

“You had better have a good reason for this, Major,” Tionne said, stepping onto the pavilion. She was saying this, Jaina knew, more to assure the children she was in control than because she expected any reasonable explanation. “And for the trooper who died trying to gas me in my sleep.”

Serpa looked at her over the young ones separating them. “You
killed
him?” He shook his head in disapproval. “That doesn’t seem very fair, does it? He was only trying to keep you out of the way.”

Tionne stepped through the circle of children and stopped so close to Serpa that, from Jaina’s perspective, it almost looked like she intended to kiss him. “Out of the way of
what
?”

“Nothing to be concerned about,” Serpa said. “Unless you Jedi fear truth as much as you do battle.”

Tionne dipped her head, no doubt frowning and feigning confusion. With GAG suppressing all normal modes of communication to and from the academy, any admission that she already knew about the Jedi desertion at Kuat would expose their secret means of remaining in contact with the outside galaxy—namely Zekk.

After a moment, Tionne replied, “Fear has no control over Jedi—and neither does anger, which is a good thing for you right now.”

Serpa’s brow shot up. “Are you
threatening
me, Master Solusar?”

“I’m making a suggestion for your own good,” she replied. “Return these children to their beds immediately, and your unfortunate timing will be forgiven.”

Serpa studied Tionne for a moment, then nodded—more to himself than to her. “That’s a threat.” He turned back to his captive audience. “It might even frighten me, if I hadn’t heard how Luke Skywalker and his bunch of cowards ran at the Battle of Kuat.”

The Force crackled with the outrage and disbelief of the young ones—who hadn’t heard about the Jedi desertion—but even the little Woodoos were too disciplined to betray their feelings outwardly.

“Address your remarks to me,” Tionne said, using the Force to spin Serpa back toward her. “Whatever you
think
you know about what…”

Tionne let her sentence trail off as Serpa came around holding his blaster. She extended her hand, trying to Force-slap the weapon aside. But he was too quick. A single bolt flashed between them, and Tionne’s leg buckled. She dropped to a knee, shuddering surprise and pain into the Force.

To the credit of Kam Solusar, the unprovoked attack on his unarmed wife did not draw him into the open. He remained in hiding, pouring rage and bloodlust into the Force, but heeding the same rules he and the other adults had been drilling into the young ones all week—take only focused action; never
react,
only
act.

Jaina, however, had seen enough—especially when some of the Woodoos couldn’t help crying out in fear. She backed away from the viewport…then came within a finger twitch of blasting the shadow she glimpsed coming through the back door.

“Watch it!” Jag hissed, raising his hands. “Don’t you know better than to point a live blaster at your commanding officer?”

“I know better than a lot of things.” Jaina lowered the stolen blaster. “What are you doing sneaking up on me, anyway?”

“You’re a Jedi,” Jag replied. “How can
anyone
sneak up on you?”

“People have been managing.” Jaina waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the two troopers she had left lying in the lounge and corridor. “And I’m a little distracted by what Serpa’s doing out there. He just blasted Tionne’s knee apart.”

Jag nodded as though he had been expecting this. “He’s trying to draw you out. There’s a sniper team on your roof, probably other places, too.”

“How did they get past Vis’l and Loli?” Jaina asked. Vis’l and Loli were two of the young Jedi Knights who had been on guard duty when Serpa tricked flight control into granting permission to land his battalion at the academy. “I can’t imagine those two missing a sniper team.”

“It’s easy to miss things when you’re dead,” Jag explained solemnly.

A cold lump formed in Jaina’s stomach. Vis’l and Loli were as young as Jedi Knights came, still in their teens and just back from their final training mission with their Masters.

“How?” she asked.

“Snipers, I think,” Jag replied. “I found them behind different dorms, both with scorch holes in the sides of their heads. It looked like they’d been lured outside and blasted simultaneously. My guess is that Serpa is after
all
of you.”

Jaina shook her head. “If he wanted us dead, a thermal detonator would be a lot more effective,” she said. “Why bother putting us under with
coma gas
?”

“Because he knows Jedi,” Jag said. “It’s pretty hard for an assassin to sneak up on you guys in your sleep. Your danger sense kicks in and wakes you.”

“Something like that,” Jaina admitted, thinking of her dream of Ben. “I still don’t see why he thinks coma gas is better.”

“Because then it looks like he’s only trying to keep you out of the way,” Jag said. “You’ll misinterpret his intentions, and
then
he can kill you.”

Jaina glanced back toward the viewport, recalling Serpa’s time-consuming preparations and provocative insults, then nodded.

“Okay, so maybe he’s as smart as he is crazy.” She slipped past Jag and started through the door. “The first thing we need to do is take out those snipers—
quietly.
”

“Don’t forget
quickly,
” Jag said. “Serpa doesn’t strike me as the patient type.”

As they slipped through the refectory toward the dormitory’s back door, Jaina was reaching out to Kam and the other adult Jedi, sharing the wariness she felt for Serpa’s tactics. It probably wasn’t necessary. Even without knowing about the snipers on the roofs, it was fairly obvious that Serpa was trying to draw them out. But the extra warning might prevent someone from reacting rashly to the major’s next provocation.

At the back door of the dormitory, Jaina paused to peer into the night for a moment. It was too dark to see anyone lurking in the hedges across from them, but she could feel two presences hiding in the shrubs off to the right, behind the adjacent building.

“It’s times like this when I really miss my lightsaber,” she whispered. “Did you notice the two over by the wodobo bushes?”

“The two what?” Jag asked.

“That’s what I was afraid of.” Jaina passed her borrowed blaster to Jag. “Cover me—but don’t shoot unless
they
do.”

Jag scowled. “Jaina, if those are snipers, they’ve got long-blasters. A blaster pistol isn’t going to be much help—”

“Just make lots of noise,” Jaina said. “And trust me.”

She used the Force to snap a branch behind the two ambushers, then slipped through the door and sprinted across the little yard into the hedge. When the snipers did not open fire, she decided her distraction had worked and circled behind them, moving through the underbrush in absolute silence. She found the pair lying prone under the arcing fronds of their wodobo bush, the spotter keeping watch toward the snapped branch while the sharpshooter continued to train his weapon on Jaina’s dormitory. Both men wore body armor and helmets with full-face night-vision visors.

Had Jaina been as skilled as her uncle, there might have been a way to incapacitate the pair without killing them. As it was, if she wanted to be quiet, she had to be deadly. She dropped a knee into the small of the sharpshooter’s back, then, as he started to twist around, grabbed his chin and helmet and snapped his neck with a violent twist. The spotter spun toward the sound—and caught a Force-enhanced knife-hand strike across the gullet.

The trooper went down gurgling and clutching at his throat. Thankfully, it was too dark to see the face behind his visor. Jaina repeated her neck-snapping maneuver, turning a slow death into a quick one.

Her guilty feelings were forgotten when a single blaster bolt sang out from the other side of the dormitories and a chorus of children cried out in terror. The Force trembled beneath Tionne’s anguish, and suddenly Jaina felt her struggling to bear her pain in silence.

Jaina reached out to Kam and the other Jedi, pouring wariness into the Force, trying to urge them to ignore the bait—and failing to get through. Their fear for Tionne was all-consuming, and their attention felt entirely focused on whatever was happening on the pavilion.

The screech of another blaster bolt sounded from the courtyard. This time Tionne could not help howling in pain. Kam’s rage boiled over, and Jaina sensed him losing control. Then she felt the anger of Ozlo and Jerga—two young Mon Calamari Jedi Knights—harden into resolve, and she knew Serpa was winning.

By the time Jaina had grabbed the sharpshooter’s longblaster and stepped out of the wodobo bush, Jag had already clambered onto a porch railing and was pulling himself up over the eaves. She chose a faster route, taking two running steps before launching herself halfway up the roof in a Force leap.

Her landing was hardly quiet, but there was no need to worry about betraying her presence. Her boots had barely hit the tiles before the sniper team Jag had warned her about earlier opened fire into the courtyard, revealing the silhouettes of two men crouching at the far end of the roof ridge.

Jaina crossed the roof in two Force bounds and came down between the two troopers. Before they could turn, she had pressed the muzzle of her longblaster against the sharpshooter’s helmet and planted one boot in the middle of his spotter’s back.