The Joiner King (53 page)

A shrill chorus of
squeck-squecking
began to spread outward from the dark corners of the chamber, the sound of hundreds of Killik feet rushing across the sticky wax that lined the nest. Mara swept her helmet lamp over the walls and found them crawling with Gorog warriors, and the anger she felt toward Alema assumed an acid taint.

“Tell your masters they’re about to wish they
had
died in the Crash.” Mara slipped a fresh power pack into her blaster pistol. “We’re coming for them.”

Alema smirked, and Gorog warriors began to pour out of the tunnel behind her. “You will need more than lightsabers and blaster pistols, we think.”

*   *   *

The
Falcon
’s darkened air lock slid silently open. The four YVH “bugcruncher” war droids—on loan from Tendrando Arms and specially programmed to Han’s specifications—jumped into the pitch-black hangar. Next went the four Jedi—Kyp, Saba, Octa Ramis, and Kyle Katarn—in their combat-rated vac suits. Han was just glad he had convinced Meewalh and Cakhmaim to “help” Juun and Tarfang guard the
Falcon
, or he and Leia—bringing up the rear in standard-issue EV suits—would have had to follow
them
, too.

“I’m the captain of
Millennium Falcon
,” Han grumbled into his faceplate. “That used to mean something.”

A moment later, Leia took his wrist, and they jumped out of the air lock. She drew him along through the weightless darkness, using the Force to move them away from the
Falcon
so they would not need to activate their jet belts and make targets of themselves. To Han, it was like making his way through a cargo hold during an all-systems failure. He kept bumping into stuff, and stuff kept bumping into him.

Finally, the YVHs gave an all-clear and activated their thrusters, briefly illuminating the airless, flotsam-choked launching bay before they shot through a hole in the rear wall. Conversing through the Jedi battle-meld if at all, Kyp and the other Masters activated their green combat lamps and used the Force to pull themselves after the war droids. Leia drew Han by the wrist and followed. He felt like a little kid being dragged through a bad dream, what with all the loose bug heads and chunks of thorax chitin floating around.

As they passed through the hole, Leia’s helmet lamp came on. Han activated his own light and found himself in a small repair hangar. The YVHs led the way into a small utility tunnel filled with Gorog bodies. Most of the insects had burst eyes and dark strings of tissue extruding from the breathing spiracles on their thoraxes—signs of a quick-but-painful decompression death.

Kyp motioned the rescue party forward, then activated his belt thruster and led the way up the passage. Glad to finally be
under his own power, Han started his own thrusters and followed at Leia’s side. The accumulation of insect bodies grew thicker as they advanced, and soon the group almost seemed to be swimming through them.

Han touched his helmet to Leia’s so they could speak without breaking comm silence. “Luke and Mara did all this?”

“Kyp seems to think so.”

“Huh.” Han started to wonder who might need rescuing more—the Skywalkers or the bugs. “Nice of them to leave us a trail.”

They passed through the tattered remains of a hatch membrane and continued deeper into the twisting warren of tunnels, following a steady trail of dead Gorog and gouged walls. Han began to think the Skywalkers had decided to hunt down Welk and Lomi Plo on their own.

The rescue party came to another hatch, this one intact, and progress slowed to a crawl as the bugcrunchers pushed through one by one. Kyp and Octa Ramis followed the droids, and suddenly the membrane grew bright with battle flashes.

“Enemy located,” Bug One reported, terminating comm silence. “Engaging now.”

Han armed the T-21 repeating blaster he had brought along as bug repellent, then started toward the membrane.

Leia put out a hand to stop him. “Not yet,” she said over the comm. “Kyp’s suit has been punctured.”

She did not need to explain further. With Kyp’s suit damaged, it would not be smart to draw more fire in the hatch’s direction.

“Well, tell ’em to hurry up,” Han said. “My trigger finger is getting itchy.”

Leia’s eyes slid away from Han’s, looking past his shoulder back down the corridor.

Then Saba’s faceplate suddenly loomed up behind Leia’s head, her pebbly lips broadening into a huge, fang-filled smile.

“It will not itch for long, this one thinkz.”

Han spun around, and his stomach sank.

Dozens of dartship canopies on legs were racing up the tunnel toward them. Han raised his T-21 and opened fire. One canopy shattered, but most of the bolts ricocheted off,
melting holes into the walls and filling the passage with an ever-thickening cloud of ethmane vapor.

Han slid over to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Leia.

“Sweetheart …” He lowered his aim and began to blast Killik legs. “… did I ever tell you how much I hate bugs?”

The Chiss were retreating in disarray, spiraling down below Qoribu’s south polar region in a tangled vortex of ion trails, lacing space behind them with a ragged net of turbolaser fire. Jaina and Zekk spotted an opening and swung their StealthXs toward it. Before they could dart through, a pair of frigates managed to shift their fire and string the hole with streaks of energy.

Jaina and Zekk peeled away, the StealthX slaved to Jaina’s controls lagging half a second behind. Silhouetted against the white backdrop of Qoribu’s south pole, they were visible to any sensor operator with a tracking telescope, and it would be folly to attempt a penetration when they had so clearly been spotted. If they wanted to reach Lowbacca alive, they would have to try another approach.

Not as disorganized as they look
, Jaina observed.

This is a show
, Zekk agreed.

Jaina and Zekk checked their tactical displays. The screen showed only the portion of the battle not hidden behind Qoribu’s mass. But what it did show clearly revealed the Chiss falling back in a crooked, disjointed line that was barely managing to stay ahead of the swarm’s dartships. A couple of frigates and light corvettes were blinking with damage, but most of the cruisers, and all of the Star Destroyers and fighter carriers, were safely below Qoribu, milling about in the heart of the fleet.

A Bothan fade
, Jaina remarked.

The Chiss probably have a different name for it
, Zekk pointed out.

Probably
, Jaina agreed.

They swung around in a crooked, uneven curve, ducking behind blossoming turbolaser strikes and changing their approach frequently to throw off anyone trying to track them by sight. But Qoribu’s polar region was as vast as it was bright, and their StealthXs remained silhouetted against its whirling white clouds.

We should warn UnuThul
, Zekk suggested.

Our help isn’t wanted
, Jaina replied. That fact made them feel sad and rejected and horribly, utterly alone.
Our mission is to
—

—
retrieve Lowbacca and leave
, Zekk finished.
But we’re Jedi.

Our first mission is prevent a wider war
, Jaina agreed.

They were deliberating more than discussing, weighing both sides of the argument in a single shared mind, and an unhappy thought occurred to them.

What if they did nothing?

The Great Swarm would be destroyed—perhaps even the Hapan fleet, which was advancing behind the safety of the Killik dartships. Without the means to defend the Qoribu nests, the Colony would be forced to abandon them, or to find a way to evacuate. In either case, the Chiss would no longer feel threatened, and a greater war would be averted.

UnuThul might be killed
, Zekk pointed out.

Would the Colony return to normal?
Jaina wondered.

Impossible to know.

Impossible
, Jaina agreed.
But maybe not a bad thing.

Jaina and Zekk waited, expecting to feel Unu’s Will pressing down on them, driving them to act in the Colony’s best interest.

But they were out of contact with the Taat mind—cut off from it by distance as well as by Unu’s anger—and UnuThul was too busy coordinating the overall battle to join their combat-meld. Jaina and Zekk’s mind was their own—for now.

A hole appeared in the turbolaser net, and they accelerated toward it, aiming for a quartet of tiny blue circles that their R9 units assured them was a cruiser’s sublight drive. If they could sneak up close enough, they could slip into the heart of the Chiss fleet by hiding near its exhaust nozzles, where the glare would blind anyone peering in their direction.

This feels wrong
, Zekk said.
Like we’re betraying the Colony.

And UnuThul
Jaina added.
But we’re Jedi.

Jedi do what is necessary
, Zekk agreed.
To prevent war

To keep the peace.

The cruiser was so close now that they could see the boxy outline of its engine skirt enclosing the bright disks of its four huge thrust nozzles. Turbolaser beams stabbed out all around them, but never close enough to suggest that the StealthXs had been spotted again. Jaina and Zekk continued to close the distance.

Then another unhappy thought occurred to them.
Welk

If UnuThul dies
 …

The possibility was almost too terrible to consider. If UnuThul died, Welk—or Lomi Plo, if she had survived—might become the new Prime Unu. They did not know what that would mean for the Colony, but it would certainly be bad for the rest of the galaxy. The Dark Jedi would use the Killiks for their own ends, perhaps even to draw the entire galaxy into a single collective mind.

Need to protect UnuThul
, Zekk concluded.

Better warn him.

Jaina and Zekk were relieved. It was what they had wanted anyway. Maybe they had even convinced themselves it was the best thing when it was not, but their mind was made up. They reached out to UnuThul in the Force, urging him to open himself to their combat-meld.

Unu’s will pressed down on them. Suddenly, rescuing Lowbacca seemed more important than stopping the Colony’s attack. If Jaina and Zekk did not rescue their friend quickly, he would perish along with his captors when the Great Swarm destroyed the Chiss fleet.

Jaina and Zekk pushed back, but—being out of touch with the Taat mind—they had no way to explain the Chiss trap. All they could do was pour their alarm into the Force and urge UnuThul to join the combat-meld.

Unu’s will grew heavier, and they began to believe it was not so important to reach UnuThul after all.

Afraid we’re trying to trick them again
, Zekk surmised.

Only the knowledge that Unu was wrong gave them the strength to resist, to continue reaching into the Force.

Finally, someone reached back—but it was Jaina’s mother, not UnuThul. Jaina and Zekk stretched out toward her, inviting her into their battle-meld, and the situation grew a little clearer. Leia and the others were under attack. An image of dozens of blue-black Killik soldiers appeared inside their mind, swarming up a dark tunnel, pouring electrobolt fire toward them.

Jaina and Zekk were alarmed, but Leia did not seem frightened or worried. Why should she be? She and Han had been trapped in worse situations a hundred times.

Now Jaina and Zekk were really worried—and confused. They did not know of any blue-black Killiks in the Qoribu system—nor of any nests with such gloomy walls.

Kr
, Leia explained.
Secret nest
.

A nest could not be secret. Unu would know about it.

Welk?
Leia reminded them.
Saba?

Now Jaina and Zekk understood. Every time they had tried to investigate the assault on Saba, the Taat—and later UnuThul—had turned them aside. The Barabel had mistakenly attacked a Joiner, it was claimed, or she had fought a Chiss assassin.

Perhaps UnuThul had been attempting to hide the secret nest all along. Or maybe he just did not want to believe it existed.

Either way, the situation was worse than Jaina and Zekk had realized. They wanted to go to Kr to help Leia and the others, but if UnuThul died, the Dark Jedi would be close by, waiting to take over.

Leia seemed to understand. She was already withdrawing from the meld, urging them to be careful, assuring them that Luke and the other Masters had things well in hand on Kr.

When she was gone, Jaina and Zekk still felt no hint of UnuThul.

Have to do this the hard way
, Jaina said.

Go back and make contact with Taat
, Zekk agreed.
Then the Colony will
know
what we’re thinking.

Jaina and Zekk hesitated. Unu’s will was a bantha sitting on their shoulders, pushing them toward Lobacca, toward the heart of the Chiss fleet.

Lowie can wait a few more minutes
, Jaina said.
We’ll come back for him.

Lowie would understand
, Zekk agreed.
Lowie is a Jedi.

Jaina and Zekk rolled into simultaneous wingovers and reversed direction, pointing their noses back toward the Great Swarm. Unu’s weight sank to their stick hands.

Only one problem with this plan
, Zekk observed.

Jaina could feel Zekk fighting, as she was, to keep his controls dead center.

Not really.
Jaina released her stick. “Sneaky, take us in.”

The astromech took control of the StealthX, then chirped a question.

“To Unu’s squadron.” As Jaina spoke, Zekk was giving the same orders to his own astromech. The Taat were flying escort for UnuThul’s flag frigate, so all the two Jedi needed to do to was rejoin the swarm, and the Taat mind would know everything they did. “And that command is non—”

“There is no need to desert our friend.” UnuThul’s gravelly voice reverberated over their comm speakers, but when Jaina and Zekk checked their reception meters, they discovered that their transceivers were not receiving a signal. “We will listen to your plea, but Unu will never let you stay. You have betrayed the Colony’s trust—”