The Joiner King (54 page)

“It’s not about us.” Jaina was not quite certain what form of reply UnuThul could hear, so she simply spoke the words aloud. “We need to warn you.”

“You’re flying into a trap,” Zekk added.

They took control of their StealthXs again, turned back toward the Chiss cruiser they hoped to use for cover. Lowbacca would not have to wait after all.

“This
is
about you,” UnuThul insisted. “You are trying to save the Chiss fleet. Again.”

“We’re trying to save you,” Jaina replied.

“It’s a Bothan fade,” Zekk added. “The Chiss are drawing you into the open.”

“You studied battle tactics on Yavin,” Jaina said. “You know what’s going to happen when the fight moves beyond Qoribu’s gravity well.”

The boxy outline of the cruiser’s engine skirt was again visible ahead. UnuThul remained silent as the brilliant circles of the thrust nozzles continued to swell in front of the StealthXs. Jaina and Zekk began to hope that they had convinced Unu of the danger.

Then UnuThul said, “It must be a coincidence. There were no Chiss in our tactics classes.”

Jaina and Zekk knew better than to waste time pointing out the flaws in Unu’s argument. Killik logic did not follow the same rules as that of most species—in fact, it did not follow rules at all.

Instead, Jaina asked, “Can the Colony really afford to take that chance?”

“When the Great Swarm reaches Qoribu’s south pole, take a minute to regroup,” Zekk suggested.

“You remember what will happen if we’re right?”

“Of course,” UnuThul said. “We have an excellent memory.”

The comm speakers fell silent, leaving Jaina and Zekk feeling alone and shunned again, worried their pleas would go unheeded. The first tendrils of the cruiser’s exhaust tail began to lick at their forward shields. Jaina and Zekk dropped below it and closed to within three hundred meters of the ship’s stern. Their canopy tinting darkened to solid black, and they flipped their bellies toward the ion stream to protect the delicate sensor windows on top of the StealthXs’ nose cones.

For the next thirty seconds, they remained on the fringes of the exhaust stream, following the cruiser toward the heart of the Chiss fleet. Jaina and Zekk tried to keep an eye on their tactical displays, but the ion interference rendered their screens almost unreadable. To discern anything, the R9s had to use a complicated algorithmic analysis to separate interference from true sensor returns.

Jaina and Zekk were beginning to think Unu had ignored their warning when the R9s announced that the Great Swarm had slowed. The eyes of the two Jedi Knights went to their tactical displays, desperately trying to infer a picture from the static on the screens. The astromechs reported that the Chiss retreat appeared to be growing even more disorganized.

Trying to tempt the enemy
, Zekk observed.

Hope Unu sees that.
To Sneaky, Jaina said, “Give us a simple schematic—”

Sneaky interrupted with a series of concerned tweets. Jaina looked out the canopy to see the cruiser swinging back toward Qoribu.

Baiting the trap
, Jaina observed.

With our camouflage
, Zekk complained.
Too many eyes watching now.

Better find something else to follow in
, Jaina agreed.

They dropped out of the exhaust stream. As their canopies grew transparent again, they found themselves surrounded by durasteel hulls ranging in apparent size from that of a finger to something closer to a Wookiee’s arm.

Already deeper than we thought
, Jaina observed.

Yeah
, Zekk agreed. The static began to clear from their tactical displays.
But is that a good thing or
—

Blossoms of turbolaser fire lit the space around them. Jaina and Zekk surrendered their hands to the Force, and their StealthXs began to weave and bob, swinging wide before a strike exploded in front of them, climbing away from a beam even as it lanced out behind them.

Jaina’s hand pushed the stick forward. The third StealthX—the one slaved to her controls—followed her into a dive and slammed into a blossom of fire behind her. Her R9 let out a sad whistle as it received the final data burst from its counterpart, then Jaina jinked starboard and Zekk juked port, and a trio of turbolaser strikes burst into a miniature sun between them.

Our boyfriend means business
, Zekk observed.

Don’t know that it’s him. And it’s
old
boyfriend.

Right. We’re
so
over him.

We?

Jaina and Zekk dropped the line of thought there. It was just getting too creepy, with Zekk sharing everything that Jaina
still
felt for Jag, and Jaina sharing everything that Zekk still felt for her, and it didn’t help matters that, at the moment, Jag was doing his best to kill them both.

He’s just following orders
, Zekk consoled.

He has to
, Jaina agreed.
He’s Chiss.

They continued to dodge through the barrage, angling first one direction, then another, always working deeper into the fleet. Despite the loss of the third StealthX, they could still rescue Lowbacca. Zekk’s storage compartment was filled with oxygen tanks, and there was an air feed running into the empty torpedo bay below his seat. Unfortunately for Jaina, she was the only one small enough to fit inside.

The Chiss brought more ships to bear, stringing kilometer-wide screens of crimson energy ahead of the StealthXs, hoping the elusive starfighters would simply fly into a strike. Jaina and Zekk rolled away from one beam and found another crossing their noses. Jaina pulled up hard, her astromech screeching alarms as the inertial compensator strained to keep the ship together. Zekk dropped his nose and squeezed past underneath, his StealthX shuddering and bouncing as its shields crackled and overloaded.

Enough!
To her droid, Jaina said, “Sneaky, give us a one-second fuse and drop a shadow bomb … now!”

The droid tweeted its alarm, but obeyed.

Jaina gave the bomb an aftward Force shove, and a silver flash filled the space behind them. The shock wave hit an instant later, slamming both StealthXs forward and pushing their tails down. Jaina and Zekk did not right themselves. They simply poured on the power and shot away, doing anything they could to change course and location before the Chiss eyes tracking them recovered from the blinding flash of the shadow bomb.

The Chiss brought even
more
turbolasers to bear—but well behind and below the StealthXs. Jaina and Zekk were close enough now to feel Lowbacca’s presence aboard a heavily armored Dreadnaught escorting the flagship. They closed formation and swung toward it, then finally had time to check their tactical displays.

Unu had listened to their warning. The Great Swarm remained at Qoribu, spread out just beneath the southern pole, with the Hapans taking a supporting position behind the dartships. Meanwhile, the Chiss had given up trying to draw out the
Colony and were smoothly dispersing into their own defensive wall, three layers deep and just out of Hapan turbolaser range.

Could have timed this better.

Going to be hot as a nova getting through that picket field
, Zekk agreed.

The Dreadnaught’s ion drives suddenly brightened, then Jaina and Zekk’s heart sank as the ship turned and accelerated away from the fleet. The Chiss were not fools. Having lost track of their quarry, they had decided to remove the bait.

Could have timed this a
lot
better.
Jaina’s vision blurred with welling tears, and she and Zekk reached out to Lowbacca, trying to reach him through the stupor in which his captors were keeping him, trying to assure him that they would find him, urging him not to lose faith.

They felt a question struggling toward the top of Lowbacca’s mind, then anger; then the Dreadnaught vanished into hyper-space and they felt nothing at all.

The chamber was choked with dead Gorog, and still more came, pushing through the bodies and floating globules of gore to press their assault, their electrobolt rifles stringing the darkness with bright ropes of silver. Luke was tumbling through the rancid air, somersaulting over forks of crackling energy and spinning away from thrusting tridents, his lightsaber tracing a green cage around him as the blade moved smoothly from defense to offense, from diverting electrobolts to cleaving dark chitin. Mara was twisting along three meters behind him, connected by an invisible Force tether, firing her blaster with one hand and wielding her lightsaber with the other. They were sinking deeper into a battle trance, becoming one with their weapons, becoming the hands of death … and drawing ever closer to Alema Rar.

Luke felt the warm prickle of danger sense and glimpsed a large band of Gorog gliding through the bodies to his right, the electrodes on their rifles already charged and glowing. Still rolling and twisting, fighting off attacks from every direction, he pointed at one of the membrosia givers on the ceiling and used the Force to pull it down—legs flailing and chest booming—into their line of fire.

Alema tried to wrench the creature free, but her grasp was no match for Luke’s. The membrosia giver remained, in the thick of battle, a shrill screech rising from its feeding tube, long gobs of membrosia shooting from its abdomen.

Alema spat a Twi’Teki curse and ignited her lightsaber. Luke’s chest tightened with cold anger—he had not thought her foolish
enough to come for him—and he steeled himself to do what was necessary.

But Alema went straight to the membrosia giver, stunning Luke by sinking her lightsaber deep into the insect’s thorax and dragging the blade along the insect’s entire length. The two halves of the huge body drifted apart, and a deafening volley of electrobolt fire lit the darkness.

The Skywalkers ducked away, Luke protecting them with his lightsaber while Mara’s blaster added more dead Killiks to the shell of bodies already shielding them.

“Getting dangerous … in here!” Mara observed.

“Looks like.”

“Time to carry the fight to them.” Mara stopped firing and reached for a fresh power pack. “Time to go after Welk.” She slipped the pack into her blaster and resumed firing. “And Lomi Plo.”

Luke risked a glance toward Alema, who was clearly in no hurry to engage the Skywalkers directly and was gliding back toward her tunnel.

“Hoping to wear us down,” Mara observed.

Luke shook his head. “Protecting something,” he said. “Or someone.”

Take her
, Mara ordered through their Force-bond. “I’ll cover.”

Luke moved to intercept, no longer dodging or twisting, just shouldering past Killik corpses and going after Alema. He was shocked by her ruthlessness, but hardly surprised. The line she had crossed was an invisible one, a matter of degree and intention rather than principle. Had another Jedi Knight made a similar sacrifice pursuing a Jedi goal, Luke might have condoned the act, even tried to console the individual and reassure her that it had been the best choice available.

And that made him wonder more than ever what the Jedi had become.

A trio of Gorog warriors zeroed in on Luke, forcing him into somersaults until Mara took them out. He arrived at the cutoff point after Alema, but close enough on her heels that she had to turn and face him. She showed no emotion on her face or in the
Force, but she raised her lightsaber into a middle guard—the best initial defense for an outmatched fighter.

Luke continued to bat electrobolts aside, his lightsaber weaving a green cage around him, but he made no move to attack.

“Alema, this doesn’t have to happen,” he said. “You still have a home with us. Gorog persuaded you to betray the Jedi, but we
can
forgive you.” Luke did not like what the war had done to the Jedi—what it had done to
him
—and he was determined to start
undoing
that right now. “Alema, reach out to me. I can help you find the way back.”

“We don’t want to come back!” Alema sprang, flying at Luke behind a whirling onslaught of slash and backslash. “Stop … interfering!”

Luke blocked and redirected her momentum, sending her tumbling into the body-choked darkness—and placing himself between her and the tunnel she had been guarding. He felt an inquiry from Mara, then glimpsed her pointing her blaster at the Twi’lek’s back. He shook his head.

Be quick!
Mara broke their Force tether, then launched herself into a wild gyre of sweeping blade-light and flashing blasterfire.
Han and Leia
 …

Luke could sense the rest for himself. Han and Leia were almost there—and they would not be so forgiving. He began to retreat toward the tunnel, weaving and dancing as the electrobolts flew thick and fast around him. Alema started after him and had to slow down to dodge and block herself.

“Alema, your anger has made you vulnerable,” Luke said. “Your sister’s death made you angry, and the Gorog are using that anger to hold you.”

“Numa was a warrior!” Alema snarled, readily shifting topics—as Luke had known she would—to the still-open wound of her sister’s death. “She would defend the Colony!”

This time, she came at Luke under control, combining the flashing blades of a speed attack with the driving stomp kicks of a power assault. He switched to a one-handed grasp, parrying her strikes with his own lightsaber, slipping her kicks with a deft trunk twist, deflecting electrobolts with the palm of his free hand.

“Numa was wise.” Luke continued to fall back, spinning around to slash open a pair of Gorog warriors foolish enough to charge him from behind. “She would have been the first to warn you against your anger.”

Luke reached out for the Twi’lek, trying to embrace her in the Force and shield her from the Dark Nest’s touch. “She would have been disappointed to see how you have surrendered to it.”

Alema was too far gone. She attacked all the more furiously, shrieking her grief and rage in Twi’leki, slashing low and high, kicking right and left, her words as hard and angry as her blows. Time and again, Luke forced her to leave her body open for a killing blow he did not want to deliver, and time and again she failed to notice his mercy and spun around in another wild attack.