by Troy Denning
“Like you’d listen to a Jedi,” Jaina retorted. She turned to Niskooen. “Isn’t that landing zone near your fusion plant’s exhaust ports? Twenty kilometers down the left side of the asteroid?”
“Correct,” Niskooen said. “We assume that’s how they intend to enter the hive.”
Fett’s alarm suddenly grew as sharp in the Force as the Verpine’s pheromones were in the air. “They won’t enter.”
Niskooen’s antennae straightened. “You think they hope to sabotage our primary power supply?”
“Hope isn’t the way I’d put it,” Fett said. He began to murmur into his helmet mike, trying to issue orders directly to the commando company he had stationed on Nickel One as a symbol of Mandalore’s commitment to its mutual-aid treaty with the Verpine. After a minute, he gave up trying to get a direct signal and turned back to Niskooen. “Can you relay a message to Moburi?”
“I can reach Commando Moburi through my hive mates,” Niskooen replied. “There are still capsules coming behind us.”
“Tell Moburi that he’s in command until I get there,” Fett said. “And that it may be awhile. The power grid is about to blow.”
Fett’s declaration sent a clatter of dismay through the capsule, but none of the Verpine questioned his certainty. First, when it came to killing and fighting, his reputation was unmatched. Second, insects of the soldier caste were too disciplined to question the pronouncement of a superior—even a superior from another swarm. And they probably knew that he was right, anyway. Eliminating the power plant would bring Nickel One’s transportation to a screeching halt, and limiting an enemy’s mobility was always a good idea.
Fett turned to Jaina. “What do your Jedi instincts tell you about this attack?”
“That someone wants the Verpine munitions industry for themselves,” Jaina replied. “But you don’t need Jedi instincts to know that. Verpine manufacturing is nearly self-contained, which makes it a tempting target; the Verpine have been supplying all sides since day one of the war, which makes them everyone’s enemy; and they’re unaligned, which makes them ripe for the picking.”
“They’re aligned with us.” There was some bristle in Fett’s voice, but Jaina could feel in the Force that there was no real irritation—he knew as well as she did that Mandalore was suddenly playing out of its league. “But who is the someone behind this? The Moffs I didn’t kill already? Or did your brother send them?”
Jaina thought for a minute, then shrugged. “My gut tells me it’s too early for Jacen to have the Moffs under control—but he is full of surprises.”
Fett’s helmet remained fixed on Jaina. “Not for you, I hope,” he said. “Not anymore.”
“The only surprise will be if there are no surprises,” she replied. “But I have a few of my own now, too.”
“Good answer.”
Then he looked away, and Jaina could feel him gathering his resolve. Here it came.
“Listen, Solo,” Fett began. “This isn’t your fight. When we get to the command bunker, I want you to grab a Bessie and slip out of here.”
“To where?” Jaina asked, pretending to be surprised. “To Mandalore to fetch Beviin?”
Fett’s helmet swung back toward Jaina. “Beviin knows—or at least he will by the time you could get there.”
“Then … oh,” Jaina said, still acting. Never let them know that you know, especially when they might be your enemy one day. She paused for a moment, then asked, “Am I ready?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“You’ve killed more Jedi than I have.”
Three seconds passed before Fett answered. “Not like your brother. Not anyone that powerful.” His viewplate slid from Jaina back to Niskooen. “What’s happening with the whiteshells?”
“They’ve penetrated our positions around the exhaust vents and—”
The Verpine’s answer came to a halt when the capsule went dark, dropped to the tunnel floor, and began to buck, bounce, and knell as it clanged down the passage. Jaina felt herself starting to fly forward and used the Force to stick herself in place—then instantly regretted it as big spiny insect bodies began to slam into her from behind.
Fett’s sleeve lamp came on three meters away, swirling and blinking as he tumbled forward with the other passengers. Jaina pulled her knees to her chest and tucked her chin, making herself small, and felt a sharp pang as something creased the durasteel wall behind her. A terrific screech sounded from the front of the cabin, followed by a rush of dank air and an enormous clang from the ceiling at the rear of the capsule.
Then the noise stopped, and the Force began to churn with rolling waves of pain. Jaina snatched a glow rod off her belt and shined it toward the front of the passenger cabin, where she could just make out the glow of Fett’s sleeve lamp buried beneath a couple of meters of crooked insect limbs and cracked thoraxes. The front of the capsule was gaping open where the bottom of the nose had been torn away, and the iron smell of insect blood was thick in the air.
“Fett?” Jaina started forward—and made it about halfway to the front of the cabin before she was stopped by an impenetrable tangle of thrashing insect parts. “You hurt?”
The light at the bottom of the heap remained stationary.
“Fett?” When there was still no answer, she began to clamber over the jumble of insects. Ignoring their pained squeals and dodging their angry mandible snaps, she called to him using a diminutive—one that she had never heard anyone but Goran Beviin use. “Bob’ika?”
The light suddenly swung in her direction. “You must have thought I was dead,” Fett said. “So I’ll forgive that—once.”
“Sorry.” Jaina laughed, then felt instantly guilty. The injured warriors around her were insects, but they felt real pain—as a former Killik Joiner, she understood that better than most. “Just checking.”
“Come on.” Fett’s light turned toward the nose of the capsule, then began to move toward the gash. In its ambient glow, she could see that the self-contained body glove beneath his armor had been ripped in half a dozen places; a large flap was hanging down beneath the bottom rim of his helmet. “We need to get going.”
“Right.” Jaina didn’t bother to ask about helping the wounded. Compassion was a weakness, and she knew better than to show a weakness in front of Boba Fett—especially a jetiise weakness. “Meet you outside.”
She slipped off the body heap, then ignited her lightsaber and started to cut through the side of the capsule. By the time she had finished, Fett was standing a few meters down the tunnel, gathering up the Verpine who could still fight.
Ten of the fifty warriors the capsule had once held were now standing near him. An equal number lay dead or still inside the capsule, and the remainder were slumped or curled along the tunnel walls, being looked after by a pair of soldiers who were still functional but limping too badly to march.
“Niskooen?” she asked.
Fett shot a glance at the warriors gathered around him. “Any of you Niskooen?”
“Niskooen’s thorax split open,” replied one of the soldiers standing with Fett. “He is no more.”
Fett grunted in acknowledgment, then tipped his helmet back to look up into the speaker’s face. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Ss’ess,” the Verpine replied. “Combat Director Ss’ess.”
“Well, Combat Director Ss’ess, you’re with us now.” Fett pointed at the rest of the able-bodied soldiers. “So are they. Got it?”
Ss’ess clacked his mandibles.
“Good.” Fett turned and started down the tunnel, not bothering to avoid the repulsor rail. Obviously, it was no longer a danger to anyone. “How far is the command bunker from here?”
“We’re almost there,” Ss’ess replied, starting after him. “It’s only ten kilometers.”
“Ten k’s? Great.” Fett broke into a gentle run, and Jaina noticed he was trying to hide a limp. “I was wondering how I’d get my exercise today.”
“Don’t you want a si
tuation report?” Ss’ess asked, loping along behind him.
“We know the situation,” Jaina said. The repulsor rail was too narrow to take more than one runner at a time and the tunnel walls curved up a sharp slope, so she was forced to fall in behind Ss’ess. “The Imps blew your power plant, and enemy assault shuttles are landing everywhere. Unfortunately, your artificial gravity has its own energy supply, so we’re going to have a long walk to wherever the battle starts.”
Ss’ess looked back, his antennae raised in astonishment. “Did you see that in the Force?”
“Yeah—Jedi see everything,” Fett said. “It’s what makes ’em so irritating. Let me know when the whiteshells start blowing air locks.”
Fett fell silent and continued to lead the way up the tunnel, breathing into his helmet rather than removing it and allowing anyone to see how hard he was working. Jaina imagined him wishing that he hadn’t left his jetpacks aboard his ship and smiled. He might be her mentor—for now—but he had delivered her father to Jabba the Hutt frozen in carbonite, so it was nice to see him suffer just a little. Besides, given that her brother was the one who had tortured his daughter to death, she suspected that Fett felt much the same about her.
They had been running for nearly an hour when the tunnel branched up and down. Fett stopped and pretended to study his options while he caught his breath, then turned to shine his lamp in Ss’ess’s face. “Which way?”
“Either. If we go up, we will pass the LongCrater DustLake ThirtyKilometer Top air lock.” Ss’ess looked down the descending tube, probably more to get Fett’s lamp out of his eyes than to indicate direction. “This way, we will go through Client Hangar Two where your Bes’uliike—”
Ss’ess was interrupted by the clatter of stone collapsing in the upper passage. All the Verpine jumped and swung their long necks toward the sound, but Fett casually turned to look up the tunnel, no doubt scanning it with his helmet’s built-in sensors.
Jaina merely reached out with the Force, trying to get some idea of the number and nature of whoever had breached the passage. She sensed nothing but a vague danger, amorphous and elusive.
Without looking away from the tunnel, Fett asked, “Ss’ess, didn’t I tell you to let me know when the stormtroopers started blowing air locks?”
“And I will,” Ss’ess replied. “When it happens.”
Now Fett’s helmet swung back around. “They haven’t blown any air locks?” he demanded. “Not a single one?”
“Not one,” Ss’ess confirmed. “You said to tell you when the whiteshells started. One is a start. I would have told you.”
Jaina felt exasperation boiling off Fett like a steam cloud. “Di’kut!” he said, using one of the few Mandalorian words she had heard him use without Mirta’s prompting. “Before you and your buggies die, I need you to relay a message to Moburi.”
“We’re going to die?” Ss’ess sounded more surprised than frightened. “How do you know?”
“Did I say something to make you think there’s time to explain?” Fett demanded. “Focus, Ss’ess. You don’t have long.”
Jaina understood. If the stormtroopers weren’t blowing the air locks, it was because they wanted to keep the asteroid’s ventilation system sealed—and that could mean only one thing.
“Gas!”
“Don’t sound so surprised, Jedi. It makes you look bad.” Fett pulled an emergency breath mask from his equipment belt, then turned back to Ss’ess. “Tell Moburi to fall back to Client Hangar Two with everyone who can make it.”
“You’re breaking our contract?” Ss’ess gasped. “Boba Fett?”
“No.” Fett raised his helmet high enough to push the breath mask through the torn body glove and up under his visor. “We’re running out of time, Ss’ess.”
When Ss’ess’s antennae remained flat against his cheeks, Jaina explained, “There will be air scrubbers and hazmat suits in the hangar. He’s just trying to keep his men alive to counterattack.”
“I could use a few of you guys, too,” Fett said to Ss’ess. “Too bad you don’t have a photon’s chance in a black hole of lasting that long. You going to relay that message before you die?”
“Yes.” Ss’ess’s antennae swung away from his cheeks. “Thank you for your candor.”
A faint siffling began to whisper down the tunnel from which the clatter had come.
Fett glanced toward the sound, then turned back and pointed at Jaina’s equipment belt. “Guess you weren’t much of a student after all,” he said. “No breath mask?”
“Sure, I’ve got one,” Jaina said. “Just don’t need it.”
Fett cocked his helmet to one side. “This I’ve got to see.”
“Be my guest.”
Jaina would have liked to avoid showing this particular trick to any Mandalorian—and especially to Boba Fett—but the only way to keep the technique secret was to let the Verpine die. She knew what a Mandalorian would have done—but she was still a Jedi, and she wanted to stay one.
The siffling continued to grow louder. Jaina shined her glow rod up the tunnel and saw a glittering cloud of vapor drifting—no, pushing—down the passage. She raised her palm and began to pull the Force through herself, using it to push the dank air up the transport tube. The sound sharpened into a high-pitched buzz; then the cloud stopped advancing and began to glitter even more brightly.
Jaina’s stomach rolled with surprise. She felt Fett’s eyes watching her and unfurrowed her brow—too late to fool him, she knew, but at least the lecture on revealing surprise would only be perfunctory. She pulled harder on the Force, drawing it through herself faster and pushing more air up the tunnel. The buzzing deepened to a drone, and a pearly glow rose within the cloud’s heart.
“Haven’t seen that before.” The comment was muffled by Fett’s breath mask, but not nearly enough to conceal the amusement in his voice. “So what’s it do, exactly?”
Jaina bit back a sharp retort and pushed even harder, forcing so much air up the passage that her robes began to ruffle in the breeze. The drone rose rapidly in pitch, then suddenly ceased as the cloud flew apart in a blinding flash.
There followed a moment of stunned silence as Jaina and the others tried to blink the dazzle out of their eyes. Then, as her vision began to return, so did the siffle, fainter than before, but also somehow more urgent. She shined her glow rod up the passage and saw that the eruption had sprayed the glittering cloud onto the floor and walls—not the ceiling—in the form of a silver film.
And that film was sliding down the tunnel, coming fast and shaping itself into a dozen gleaming arrows, each pointed at one of the beings in Fett’s makeshift fighting squad.
Fett pulled his breath mask from beneath his visor. “Neat trick.” He took a T-21 borrowed from the Nickel One armory—he’d left his EE-3 aboard the ship, thinking he wouldn’t need it on an inspection tour—off his back and pulled the actuating knob. “But I think you just made it mad.”
Fett opened fire with the repeating blaster, and the Verpine followed his lead with their shatter rifles, all shooting at the arrows approaching them. The mag-pellets were no more effective than the blaster bolts, simply blunting the tip until the arrow reshaped itself into a fork or a trident or half a dozen blobs and continued forward.
Jaina had no idea what the stuff was—and it was coming too fast to waste time wondering. When she could not think of a Force technique that would be more effective than what Fett and the Verpine were doing, she simply activated her lightsaber and squatted, laying the blade as flat as she could and using it like a broom to keep the stuff burned away from her.
The film divided and moved around her, staying out of reach until it had her completely encircled, then swept in from all sides. She launched herself into a Force flip, arcing over Fett’s head into the tunnel that led down toward Client Hangar Two. She came down facing back up the passage.
Fett’s boots and greaves were already covered in dull, creeping silver, and Jaina could see that some of it ha
d slipped through a rip in the ankle seam. Behind him, Ss’ess and his soldiers had finally panicked and turned to spring down the tunnel, but the film was sliding after them, and it was obvious they wouldn’t be able to stay ahead of it.
Jaina pointed at Fett’s feet. “Boba, you’ve—”
“You, too.” Fett gestured at her lightsaber hand. “Your arm.”
Jaina looked down and saw a silver stain spreading down her sleeve onto her wrist and hand. She deactivated her blade and flipped her arm down, but it was like trying to shake off a tattoo.
“Fierfek!” Jaina felt herself growing angry; she had not spent the last five standard weeks trading bruises with the most notorious killer in the galaxy to have it end here. She had to survive long enough to go after her brother. “Any idea what it is?”
“What difference does it make?” Fett asked. “It’s probably going to kill us—I already feel it starting to burn.”
“Acid, then.” Jaina pulled a canister of neutralizer from her equipment belt and popped off the cap, then felt her own hand begin to tingle—not burn. She looked over to see Fett holding a green stim-shot hypo, but doing nothing except looking at his feet. “You said burn!”
“Maybe it should have been sting.” Fett continued to look at his feet. “What’s the difference?”
Jaina started to tell him the difference was whether to use a neutralizer or a countertoxin—and that a stim-shot was the wrong thing to use no matter what—but realized that Fett’s retort had been based on something else entirely. The silver film on his greaves and boots was dissolving and falling away.
Then the tingling on Jaina’s hand and wrist faded. The silver stain decayed into a dingy powder, leaving her flesh slightly reddened but otherwise undamaged. She used the Force to concentrate her awareness on the area, searching for any hidden damage, and felt nothing worse than a mild sunburn.
The Verpine were not faring so well. They had only made it a few meters down the tunnel before being overtaken by the film, and now the passage was filled with staccato clattering and the fading squeals of dying insects.