them quiet. Then he formed a picture in his head: the building collapsing, the
construction droid driving in reverse to get away. He projected that image with
all the strength he could muster, bolstered by the Force wellspring.
He felt them react-shock... and then belief. In moments he heard the metal
tower's engines roar again, and could feel their intention to crash their way
back out through the rubble pile behind them.
Luke thumbed his lightsaber into incandescence and marched toward the
creature with Irek Ismaren's face. Let's finish this.
But Nyax, ignoring him, lifted straight up into the air and floated up
through the hole his Force powers had made. In a moment he was out of sight.
wall. Support comes from the building's metal skeleton. So I've planted shaped
charges to blow that wall out."
"And then what?"
"And then I hit the topside nose repulsors. We tilt forward, I hit the
thrusters, we punch free, and we rotate for a while, everybody screaming and
vomiting, until I regain control."
"Kell, sometimes I hate you."
"Yeah, but I'm still the best pilot you ever saw."
"Where are the others?"
"En route. I got a comm message to them."
"How? There are kilometers of rubble between us and them! A comm message
couldn't possibly penetrate."
Exasperated, Kell finally did look down at his leader. "Do you remember
something about us putting a sensor package up at rooftop, then running a direct
cable down so Danni and Baljos could get a constant sensor feed?"
"Oh, that's right."
"I broadcast to that sensor package-"
"Never mind, never mind, I get you now. I'll set up for the others getting
here."
The hole above Nyax's head widened. No more rubble poured down upon him.
Instead, sunlight did. First it was a tiny shaft; then it broadened into a blue-
white column of brilliance. He bathed in the light, held out both hands to
capture it, rubbed it into his cheeks.
Luke could feel Tahiri's sense of shock; it matched his own. "Did he drive
a hole all the way to the surface?" she asked.
"I think so," Luke said. He turned his attention to the beings at the
summit of the construction droid. He could
Danni, Elassar, and Bhindi scrambled in through the access hatch.
"Take the seats forward," Face ordered. "These rear ones are for the Jedi;
we don't want people climbing over each other when they board. Copilot's seat is
mine. Where's Baljos?"
"He's staying," Bhindi said. "Instead of me."
Face sighed. Once it became likely that resistance cells would be of little
use here, he'd told Bhindi to pack up for a return to Borleias. He hadn't
anticipated Baljos being so resistant to having his studies cut short. Baljos's
choice here might prove to be a scientific boon someday... or it might be a
useless way to commit suicide.
But it was Baljos's choice.
Face dogged the hatch shut, then struggled up the makeshift ladder and into
the copilot's seat. He strapped himself in, "Ready when you are."
"Boom," Kell said. He thumbed a hand remote.
The Ugly Truth rocked as the wall beneath its keel blew out into the street
beyond.
Kell didn't wait to evaluate the situation, the size of the hole. He shoved
his control yoke and the transport lurched forward. Face's stomach rose into his
throat as the transport leaned out into the open air above the avenue, then
leapt free of the building to plummet nose-down toward the ground.
The construction droid's internal turbolift opened and the Jedi stepped out
into the machine's topside control chamber.
The scores of people packed into the chamber didn't notice them. Their
attention was riveted on the forward viewports. Beyond them, mounds of rubble
were falling away.. - and beyond hovered a cloud of coralskippers.
Even as the construction droid burst out into sunlight, the coralskippers
opened fire, pouring plasma bursts into the machine's front face. Shocks from
impact points dozens of stories down rocked the control chamber. Diagnostics
screens lit up; alarms blared. Tatterdemalion workers who had, minutes ago, been
mind-controlled slaves now shrieked, possessed again of enough intelligence to
realize that their doom was at hand.
"We've got to get them out," Tahiri said. "The weapons-"
Luke shook his head. "This droid's weapons won't do much against
coralskippers. We have to use other weapons."
"What weapons?"
Mara said, "Us."
Luke raised his voice, drawing on the Force to strengthen it. "Everyone
out! Down the emergency stairs. Don't take the turbolift; it's evil." He added
the mental image of the turbolift snapping open and shut like the mouth of a
malevolent carnivore.
The Coruscant survivors continued shrieking, but crushed forward toward the
two opposite stairwell exits, leaving the Jedi some room in the middle. The
parting of the sea of flesh also gave them a clearer view of the coral-skipper
formation and the incoming plasma fire.
"That fountain of Force energy is what made Nyax stronger," Luke said.
"It's pure power... and we can use it, too." To demonstrate, he raised a hand
like an orchestra conductor... and a mound of rubble against a building a
hundred meters ahead rose into the air. Luke clenched his fist and drew it
toward him, and the rubble swept toward the construction droid.
The coralskippers to the rear of the formation had no chance. Chunks of
duracrete, stone, and ferrocrete plowed into them from behind. Dovin basal
singularities snapped into position to swallow some of the improvised missiles,
but even that was not enough. Luke's missiles smashed into yorik coral, sweeping
coralskippers out of the way.
Eyes wide, Tahiri mimicked Luke's gestures, but with the face of a building
to their left, to the right of the coralskippers. Chunks of facing blew forth
from the building, hurtling and falling among the coralskippers.
Mara continued to add her voice and her Force presence to the orders Luke
had given, spurring the workers to flee more quickly, but most of her attention
was on the chamber's controls, its walls and ceiling features. She found what
she wanted and reached up to undo a hatch in the ceiling. Bright light spilled
in from above and a metal ladder lowered. She went up topside.
Coralskippers rose from the formation in sudden flight, attempting to get
away from the stream of crude projectiles, but those who rose first ran into
another stream, this one moving much faster; chunks of rock and duracrete
pounded into the yorik coral, eroding it like a super-powered sandblaster,
destroying those vehicles.
At first Luke thought that Mara had initiated that attack, adding her
strength to his and Tahiri's, but he realized after only a moment that it felt
wrong. He leapt up through the hatch Mara had opened, landing beside her on the
construction droid's roof. Tahiri was only a second behind him.
From here, they had a clearer view of the sky full of coralskippers and of
the ziggurat behind them.
From the ziggurat emerged a column of rubbl
e. As it rose, it parted, arcing
away from its point of emergence in all directions like a water spray. But this
spray was being flung kilometers in every direction, chewing through building
tops and coralskippers as it landed.
And above its center, where the rubble no longer rose, floated Nyax. Giant
boulders danced in and out through the rubble spray, weaving a lovely spiral
through the air.
"Another Jedi academy graduate," Tahiri breathed. "He can lift really big
rocks."
"Very funny," Luke said. He gauged the leap from the construction droid's
roof to the nearest solid surface on the ziggurat, decided they could make it.
"Let's go."
Viqi heard a noise in the distance, a roar as if some dam had finally
opened its valves to let countless tons of water through. The floor rumbled
under her feet.
She ignored it. She ignored the pain in her wrists, pain caused by her
struggles against her bindings; those struggles had gone on until she'd found a
jagged piece of metal protruding from a wall, and now she was free again.
She reached the Terson's apartment building and the floor of their
chambers. She was trembling with exhaustion and dripping with sweat by the time
she stumbled into the living chamber... and then she froze, almost all remaining
hope draining from her.
The secret access stairs were down, and, of all things, an airtaxi rested
in the middle of the chamber.
She took the stairs up as fast as she could and stared in anguish at the
hole in the wall through which the Ugly Truth had left. All her work was undone.
She would have to start again, searching, hiding, surviving, until she could
find or repair another functional spacecraft.
Well, it was likely that the airtaxi was functional. That was a starting
point. She descended to give it a look.
On the front seat was a pile of preserved food from the Ugly Truth, and a
note:
Senator Shesh:
We thought you would probably need these more than we do. Don't eat them
all in one place.
Love,
The Wraiths
Only then did Viqi sink down to the carpet. Only then did she begin to cry.
The ziggurat was a series of high, broad steps. The Jedi leapt up to the
next step, ran its width, and then leapt up to the one above, again and again,
until they reached the roof.
From here they could see the hole in the ziggurat root widening. With every
moment that passed, more tons of rubble poured up and out of the hole and flew
out to pour onto surrounding kilometers of buildings. Some streams diverted to
hose coralskippers out of the air. The lines of giant boulders still danced
their merry circles around Nyax.
Luke led the others off at an angle, to where each of the boulders in turn
dipped down to within meters of the zig-gurat's surface. As the next one swept
low, they leaped, propelling themselves farther with use of the Force, and
landed atop the irregular duracrete surface.
Luke could feel it as Nyax detected them. The pale giant rotated in the air
to face them, his smile changing from one of simple pleasure to one of malice.
"This is going to be bad," Luke said.
Mara nodded. The wind at this altitude whipped her hair into a life of its
own, making it look like a candle flame in a strong breeze. "Any ideas?"
"I have one." Tahiti knelt to improve her balance while she stared ahead.
In the distance, this stream of boulders took a sharp turn, then moved to within
a few meters of Nyax's position and beyond. "Just past that point. Distract him.
I'll finish him."
Luke cocked an eyebrow at her. "You'll finish him. How?"
There was something in Tahiri's eyes that sent a chill down Luke's spine.
"He could fight the Jedi just by feeling us in the Force," she said. "He
couldn't feel the Yuuzhan Vong, so he had to watch. Well, I'm both." She rose
and turned away from Luke and Mara, then took the long leap to the next flying
boulder back in line. She raced its length, then leaped again to the third
boulder down.
"What do you say we take her at her word?" Mara said.
"I'm too tired to argue."
Their boulder reached the end of its straightaway course and turned. It
turned more violently than its predecessors had, but Luke and Mara could feel
Nyax's intentions in the Force; they kept their feet planted and did not budge.
As their vehicle came closer to Nyax, Luke stretched forth his hand. He
snatched a portion of the rubble stream from beneath them, bent its course, sent
it hurtling toward Nyax.
Nyax reacted without moving, regaining control of the stream, hurling it at
Luke.
Luke leaned over backward, rotating his boulder with him. The oncoming
stones crashed into its side and bottom as the rotation continued.
Upside down, clinging by virtue of her enhanced Force strength, Mara
ignited her lightsaber and hurled it. It twirled under the flow of boulders,
almost invisible through the dense rain of duracrete; then, as it came within
meters of Nyax, it twirled up and at him.
His expression changed to one of startlement. With none of his own blades
active to protect him, he slipped sideways, out of the lightsaber's path, then
turned to watch it as Mara directed its flight. She sent it around in a long
loop, preparing it for another approach.
Mara and Luke came upright as their boulder completed its rotation, and
Luke could feel Nyax's attention on him, too, waiting for his attack. Luke made
it, shoving in the Force, trying to hurl Nyax off balance and onto Mara's blade.
The attack was a success, but Nyax activated all his blades as he was shoved,
and with contemptuous ease he swatted Mara's lightsaber away.
Power flowed through Nyax, such power as no being alive had ever felt. He
could reach down into this world, reach through the false crust beneath him,
through the natural stone crust beneath that, all the way to where stone turned
to sluggish fluid and through to where superheated metals ran like river water.
He could crack this world in two, could force the meaningless worker-things to
convey him to another, and crack that one, too.
And he was tired of these creatures. They were weaker than he, but so
stubborn. Even inventive.
Nyax raised his hands. He would crack the stone they rode on and send it
and them hurtling down into the ruins.
Something slammed into his back, just below the point where his internal
armor plate protected him. His eyes snapped wide. He had not felt it coming. He
used his power to overcome the pain.
A second thing struck him. He felt bones in his lower hack shatter.
Numbness flowed across his legs. He exerted greater control over himself,
desperately trying to force sensation into those limbs, as he turned.
His third antagonist, the smaller female with the yellow hair, rode another
boulder, lying upon it and gripping it with one hand. She looked at him with
alien merciless-less in her eyes. She barely registered in his special senses -
she must have closed herself off to the power, reducing his ability to detect
her, his abili
ty to anticipate her moves.
Something was wrong. He had the pain under control. He was full of the
power. He should be able to make anything happen, anytime.
He did not understand, for he had not been trained in the ways and use of
the Force, that the catastrophic failure of the body's functions could interfere
with use of the Force. All he did understand was that his control over the
boulders, over the debris flow from the ever-widening hole beneath him, was
faltering.
The yellow-haired female held up a third missile. It had legs that writhed
as she held it.
Nyax gaped at her. It was one of the alien creatures, one of the types
flung by the warriors he could not feel. Her type was not supposed to use this.
Only the flat-nosed aliens were.
It was unfair. She had cheated.
Before she could throw it, Nyax lost control. He fell, screaming, into the
pit he had created.
All at once, the boulders came crashing down onto,. and often through, the
ziggurat roof. Luke and Mara leapt free, using their augmented power to soften
their landing, and rolled up to their feet, looking among the rain of multi-ton
missiles for a head of blond hair.
"There," Mara said, and sprinted. The distance of a ballplaying field away,
Tahiri lay atop a small dome. But as Luke watched, as a boulder arced down
toward her, the young Jedi leapt free. The boulder crashed through the dome and
was gone.
"Face to Mara, Face to Mara, do you read me?" Luke skidded to a halt and
pulled out his comlink as his wife reached and embraced the younger Jedi.
"Mara's a little busy right now, Face." He leapt to one side and a mass of
ferrocrete the size of a Y-wing smashed into the roof beside him. "For that
matter, so am I. What is it?"
"Tell me that the whole mess with the fountain of rock was you."
"It was."
"We're inbound. So are a couple of Vong capital ships. You want a lift?"
"We do."
"We'll be there in two."
The three Jedi leapt from the ziggurat roof edge to the stubby wing of the
Ugly Truth. They squeezed in through the open hatch. Before they were buckled
into their restraint couches, Kell had heeled over in a stomach-churning dive
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