Inferno (24 page)

The spotter was the first to react, trying to twist around to bring his repeating blaster to bear. Jaina pulled the trigger of her longblaster, burning a hole through the sharpshooter’s head before he could move, then slapped the weapon’s hot barrel across the spotter’s face and sent him sliding down the roof. He disappeared over the edge, and the sickening crackle that followed left no doubt about his fate.

Jaina turned her attention to the courtyard below and was horrified to see Kam Solusar on the ground, three columns of smoke rising from his motionless body. Ozlo and Jerga were in even worse shape, their long Mon Calamari heads cratered with blaster pocks.

Jag scrambled up behind Jaina, then grabbed her arm and pulled her down. “Are you
trying
to get blasted?”

Jaina dropped behind the roof ridge and finally saw what had drawn Kam and the others into the open. Tionne lay curled at Serpa’s feet, the lower parts of a leg and an arm lying a meter from their smoking stumps.

The little Woodoos were crying. The rest of the young ones were flooding the Force with shock and fear, but outwardly they remained composed and submissive. They were waiting for Tionne—or someone—to speak the word that would activate the escape plan that Jaina and the other adults had been drilling into them for the past couple of weeks.

Serpa’s voice came over the comlink in Jaina’s belt. “Do we have them all?”

A long chain of sick-sounding troopers answered. “K. Solusar down…Ozlo down…Jerga down…Vis’l and Loli already down…Alfi down in his cell…Hedda down in her dorm…”

“That’s everyone,” Jaina whispered.

Jag nodded and eased the second longblaster out of the hands of the dead sharpshooter. “Except us and—”

“What about that Solo smooka?” Serpa demanded over the comlink. “And Fel?”

When no answer came, another voice—barely audible—sounded from the helmet of the sharpshooter lying beside Jaina. “Ralpe?”

“That would be
our
guy,” Jaina said, turning to Jag. “Did you get a fix on the other snipers?”

“Of course,” Jag said.

The second voice sounded from inside the dead sharpshooter’s helmet again. “Ralpe?”

“He’s
dead,
you Gungan.” Serpa addressed Jaina directly. “Well, Jedi Solo, I see that you’re as big a coward as your uncle.”

Jaina would have blasted him dead right then, had she not known that the bolt might pass through his body and strike the trembling Bantha girl behind him.

Serpa pressed his blaster to Tionne’s head. “Are you just going to
hide
while I kill a Jedi Master?”

“Ignore him.” Tionne raised the stump of her arm and gestured, turning Serpa’s blaster aside. “Look after—”

A GAG trooper fired over the children shielding Serpa, and Tionne cried out as another ten centimeters was burned from the stump she had used to gesture.

“It’s time we gave that braintick what he’s asking for.” Jaina sprang over the ridge of the roof and started to slide down the other side. “Cover me!”

Jag was already firing, pumping bright crimson bolts across the courtyard toward the sniper with the best angle of attack. Jaina fired at the closest team, trusting her aim to the Force, then barrel-rolling, firing again, and dropping off the roof into the courtyard.

A pair of fiery blossoms exploded against the wall behind her. She dived into a somersault and came up shooting again, saw a longblaster and one arm fly up behind a roof ridge and disappear, then found herself pivoting sideways as a trio of bolts droned past so close that she felt heat welts rising on her cheeks.

Jaina
really
missed her lightsaber.

Jag’s longblaster sounded behind her, and
that
attacker fell silent. Jaina turned her attention to the young ones, who remained in their groups, craning their necks to watch her—and still awaiting their orders.

“Enough!” she yelled. “We’ve had—”

The courtyard exploded into a riot of astonished screams and stray blaster bolts as the young ones turned on their guards, using the Force to hurl the troopers into one another and jerk the weapons from their hands.

Jaina dropped to a knee and spun back toward the dormitories, but all that remained of the sniper teams were a handful of smoking tiles and a few bloody hands clinging weakly to the roof ridges. She signaled Jag to continue covering her, then began to push her way through the angry mob of students, who were using their budding Force talents to beleaguer—and in some cases, injure—the astonished GAG troopers who had
thought
they were in charge of the academy.

Of course, the young Jedi were suffering casualties, too. Everywhere Jaina looked, there were young ones lying on the ground with smoke rising from their blaster wounds. In some cases, groups of unarmed ten-, twelve-, or fourteen-year-olds were fighting hand-to-hand with an armored GAG trooper. She did what she could to help—a quick Force-nudge here, a well-placed strike with the butt of her longblaster there. But her focus remained on the one who had instigated the carnage, Major Serpa.

Jaina found him on the exercise pavilion. His bodyguards were lying on the floor, either dead or dying from an assortment of blaster wounds or well-placed slashes from makeshift weapons like her sharpened spoon. To her dismay, Serpa remained alive, holding the red-haired Bantha girl—Vekki, Jaina recalled—in a choke hold, the muzzle of his blaster pressed against her temple for extra insurance.

“You call
me
a coward?” Jaina asked. Hoping to distract him enough to pull the blaster away from the girl’s head, she continued to advance on Serpa…then stopped when Zekk reached out to her from the other side of the pavilion, urging patience. “While
you
hide behind children?”

Serpa shrugged. “It’s different. They’re
Jedi
children.”

“I’m sure the judges will take that into account at your trial.” Jaina glimpsed Zekk’s tall figure stepping into the light on the far side of the pavilion, but she was careful to keep her gaze locked on Serpa. “Assuming you
make
it to trial. Surrender now, and I’ll be sure you do.”

Serpa snorted. “There isn’t going to be any trial.” He swung his blaster toward Jaina. “I’m just following orders—
your
brother’s—”

Before Serpa could pull the trigger, Zekk’s lightsaber snapped to life and came down on the major’s weapon arm, severing it at the elbow.

Serpa’s attention remained oddly fixed on Jaina, as though he could not at first understand why she was not dead, or how she had managed to cut off his arm without moving. Finally, he seemed to hear the lightsaber droning behind him, and his jaw dropped in disbelief. He whirled around, swinging Vekki with him—apparently oblivious to his pain.

“Where did
you
come from?” he demanded.

Zekk lashed out so fast that even Jaina did not see the attack, only Serpa’s remaining arm swinging away from Vekki’s neck and his body whirling to the floor.

“From now on,” Zekk said, “we’ll be asking the questions.”

fifteen

How ironic it seemed to Jacen that he should confront his betrayers here, in the home system of a species famed for its honor—how sad that he must battle his own blood above Kashyyyk, where loyalty counted for more than life itself. Even after all that had happened, he still loved his family—still
cherished
them. It was their courage that had instilled in him the strength to do what he must soon do, their example that had taught him to serve above all else. He only wished there were some way to bring them back, so all of the Solos and Skywalkers could be on the same side again, fighting not each other, but the injustice that always seemed about to tear the galaxy apart.

But there
was
no way. Even were Jacen to convince them of their mistake, he could not absolve them of what they had done, could not pardon their treason against the Alliance. That was the burden and the fate of Darth Caedus, to deliver justice wherever it was deserved, and he dared not shirk his duty. Sith Lords could not turn a blind eye to the crimes of their own relatives. Down that path lay corruption and selfishness—the belief that he was the master of the galaxy and not its servant.

A squadron of new Owool Interceptors appeared in the bridge viewport, still so distant that only the curving stripes of their paired efflux tails were visible against Kashyyyk’s emerald face. The pride of an innovative new shipyard named KashyCorp, the Owools had been designed to serve the Galactic Alliance as heavy starfighters. Like the Wookiees who piloted them, they were tough, fast, and ferocious.

“What a dismal showing,” Ben said. He was standing with Caedus and Commander Twizzl on the primary flight deck, watching fifty-odd crewbeings calmly coordinate the
Anakin Solo
’s combat preparations. “If those Owools are all they have ready, there won’t
be
a fight. Even Wookiees aren’t that crazy.”

“Wookiees are resolute, not crazy,” Caedus replied. Ben had been trying to talk him out of attacking Kashyyyk since the
Anakin Solo
’s escape from the Battle of Kuat. It made Caedus worry that his young cousin lacked the ruthlessness to carry out his plan of vengeance—that Lumiya might have been right about the boy being too weak to be a Sith apprentice. “And they
will
fight, Ben. Never confuse hope with expectation.”

“I wasn’t,” Ben insisted. “But we need the Kashyyyk fleet, Jacen. If there’s any way to take it without a fight—”

“There isn’t,” Caedus interrupted. “And I’d like you to call me Colonel, not Jacen.”

Ben looked surprised, but not hurt. “Okay,
Colonel.
”

“Thank you.” Caedus’s appreciation was sincere. He didn’t mind Ben calling him by his first name, but it was starting to feel wrong to be addressed by his old moniker. Jacen Solo was gone. “And I didn’t say we wouldn’t give the Wookiees a chance to avoid a fight—only that they won’t take it.”

“They certainly don’t seem inclined,” Commander Twizzl said from Caedus’s other side. “Those Owools are threatening to open fire if we don’t stop and explain ourselves.”

Caedus glanced at the tactical holodisplay and smiled. With the entire Fifth Fleet spread across space behind the
Anakin Solo,
the Owools were outnumbered two-to-one by capital ships alone.

“You
do
have to respect their courage,” he said. “Very well, Commander. Tell them we’ll respect their orders.”

“You intend to comply?” Twizzl asked, surprised.

“Of course,” Caedus said. “Bring the
Anakin Solo
to a dead stop and have Admiral Atoko form the fleet around us.”

Twizzl frowned. “Sir, Lieutenant Skywalker has a point. If we move now, we may capture their assault fleet intact. It’s still trying to free itself of the tenders, and their orbital guard is no match for the Fifth Fleet.”

“Commander, I hope you’re not advocating an unprovoked attack on a current member world of the Galactic Alliance,” Caedus said. “As far as we know, all the Wookiees have done is
listen
to the Jedi deserters. They haven’t betrayed us yet.”

“So you’re
not
going to attack?” Ben sounded more confused than he did relieved. “Then why did we pull the Fifth Fleet out of the Core?”

“To give the Wookiees an
opportunity
to do the right thing.” Caedus turned to Twizzl, who was looking increasingly perplexed and unhappy. “You have your orders, Commander. Tell the Owools we’ve come for the prisoners, and we’ll depart as soon as we have them.”

Twizzl’s eyes hardened in disapproval, but he nodded and stepped over to his communications officer’s station.

Ben wasn’t so easily persuaded. “This is only going to make things worse, Ja—er, Colonel. They’re
not
going to turn Uncle Han and Aunt Leia over to you.”

“Of course not—they’re Wookiees,” Caedus said. “They’re too stubborn. But when they refuse, we’ll have justification to proceed.”

“
After
their fleet is deployed.” Ben’s tone was growing more desperate, but he was hiding his presence from the Force—a sign that he was finally gathering himself to strike. “We’ll never capture it then. They’ll fight until the last vessel is slagged.”

“True.” Caedus knew that if Ben tried to kill him now, the youth would be acting for noble reasons, trying to save thousands of lives by ending one. Reasons didn’t matter, though; actions did. The mere attempt would be the catalyst that moved Ben to the next stage. “But we didn’t come here to capture the Kashyyyk fleet.”

Ben contemplated this a moment, then asked, “You’re serious about taking the prisoners back?”

“Of course not,” Caedus said. “We’re here because
this
is what’s going to keep the Confederation from capturing Kuat and moving on to Coruscant.”

Ben fell silent again, staring out the bridge viewport, where the Owools had swelled into gleaming dots with sickle-shaped bows. Finally, he gave up and shook his head.

“I don’t get it.”

“Good.” Caedus stepped over to join Twizzl at the communications station, presenting his back to Ben—and inviting the youth to take his vengeance. “Neither will the Confederation.”

When no attack came, Caedus began to wonder if he had misjudged his young cousin. Ben still believed him to be Mara’s killer—that was obvious by how carefully he kept his feelings masked—so why wouldn’t he attack? He certainly had the courage, or he would never have come back to Caedus in the first place. Nor could it be moral qualms. Ben might have been able to assassinate Dur Gejjen and convince himself he was still acting ethically, but not so with Cal Omas. He had killed the former chief simply to provide a cover when he returned to the
Anakin Solo,
and
that
required the heart of an assassin. Mara would have been proud.

So why didn’t he act?

Two steps later, Caedus found himself next to Twizzl behind the communications officer, listening to the voice of the Wookiee squadron commander and feeling betrayed by his cousin’s failure.