Invincible

by Troy Denning

  Not being privy to Alliance military plans—or to the level of Darklighter’s commitment to his Darth-in-chief—Han had no idea how long it would take the Fourth to arrive. But he knew that once it did, getting through to extract Jaina would be impossible, even for him.

  And he wasn’t about to let that happen. He was already so frightened for her that he could feel his heart shaking—and so sad about her mission that he hadn’t eaten anything but nutripills in a week. The thought of letting her be trapped down there after she finished her mission was more than he could bear … and he didn’t need the Force to know he wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

  Han opened a channel to the squadron’s number two blastboat. “Jag, you there?”

  “This is Dry Ice, receiving you crisp and clean,” came Jagged Fel’s always proper reply. “Proceed.”

  “We’re going in,” Han said. “You coming?”

  Before Jag could reply, Leia’s voice came over the cockpit speaker. “Going in where, Han?”

  “You know where,” Han replied.

  “But she hasn’t sent the extraction code,” Leia objected. “We don’t even know which rendezvous point.”

  “And if we wait to find out, it won’t matter,” Han replied. “Unless you can think of some way to convince Niathal and Daala to stop spooking the Imperials until we’re finished here.”

  Leia was silent for a moment, then said, “Okay, maybe you have a point.”

  “It would seem so,” Jag said. “We’ll join you at Extraction Point Alpha and hope for the best.”

  A string of cannon bolts appeared out of empty space and came straight for the canopy. Han did not even check the tactical display to see where the attack had come from; he simply jerked the yoke up to the left—then, as their belly armor pinged with hits, cringed and wondered what was taking Luke so long to bring the backup shield generators online.

  A pair of laser beams flashed past from behind the blastboat, so close to the canopy that Han felt their heat on his face. Then Fett’s voice sounded over the comm speaker.

  “Right, you crazy barve!” Another pair of beams flashed past from behind, this time not quite so close to the canopy. “Who goes left?”

  Han jinked to the right, then saw two sets of twin circles flash past as Fett and his wingmate rushed ahead to engage the blastboat’s attacker.

  “I never did like having that guy on my tail.” Han was juking and jinking so hard that he had not even noticed that the belly turrets had gone quiet. “Hey, Saba, you okay down there?”

  “Okay? How can this one be okay?” She sounded more angry than hurt. “You are letting him steal our kill!”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, Master Sebatyne,” Leia said. “This looks like a pack hunt to me.”

  With Fett and his wingmate now taking the brunt of the attack, Han finally had a chance to glance down and see what had opened up on them. The tactical display showed a Cutlass-class corvette coming out to block their approach.

  “Where’d he come from?” Han demanded.

  “I believe he came under the frigate,” C-3PO said. “There may be more Remnant vessels lurking back there—it might be wise to wait for support from Admirals Daala and Niathal.”

  “And let Buckethead beat us to the asteroid?” Han pushed the throttles to the overload stops, trying to keep up with the Bes’uliike. “No way.”

  Boiling puffs of color began to flower ahead as the corvette opened up with its entire bank of bantam turbolasers. Han swung the yoke hard left, easy right, then slammed it forward—diving straight toward a cloud of red flame that had blossomed a few centiseconds before.

  “Captain Solo,” C-3PO began, “have you forgotten that our shields—”

  “No.” Han was already rolling away from the fireball. “And don’t tell me the odds, either.”

  “There really wouldn’t be a point,” C-3PO replied. “Without functional shields, our chances of reaching the asteroid’s surface are too small to calculate.”

  A triangle of turbolaser strikes blossomed ahead, and Han finally recognized the firing pattern as a RandoCluster Three. While it was impossible to guess where the next volley would erupt, the pattern was actually one of the easiest to penetrate. All you had to do was be lucky.

  Han took them through the center of the fiery triangle and saw the white frown of a Cutlass-class prow pumping streaks of blazing color in their direction. Two pairs of blue disks—all that was visible of the two Bes’uliike Fett and his wingmate were flying—were swinging back and forth along the upper edge of the cockpit canopy, pouring dashes of blue light back toward the corvette.

  “Hey, Luke—how about those shields?” Han called back.

  There was no answer, and the shield lights on Han’s status panel remained dead red.

  “Luke?”

  The only answer came from R2-D2, a confused whistle, followed by a long descending tweedle.

  “Oh dear,” C-3PO said. “It seems Master Skywalker is no longer with us.”

  “What?” Han’s heart clenched so tight it seemed to stop beating, but he kept his gaze fixed on the rapidly growing corvette. “How? Our hull hasn’t even been breached!”

  The upper cannon turret fell silent, and Leia called down, “Not dead, Han. He’s in a …” She paused, searching for the word, then finally explained, “I don’t know how to explain it. Luke’s just sort of … gone.”

  “Sort of gone?” Han echoed. He couldn’t help himself—he had to look. “How can you be …”

  Han let his sentence trail away, for Luke was sort of gone. His body remained strapped into his seat, with his hands resting on the systems console and his gaze fixed between the shield status display and the targeting screen. But it was like looking at one of those figures in the House of Plastex back on Coruscant. Luke wasn’t breathing, he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t even blinking; he just wasn’t there.

  “Great.” When Han looked forward again, it was to see that the corvette’s beam-spewing arch had grown as long as his arm. He transferred missile control to the pilot’s station and sent four concussion missiles streaming toward its bridge. “Now he decides to take some time for himself.”

  * * *

  Caedus deactivated his crimson blade, leaving a blackened hole where the red helmet’s eye plate had been just a moment before. The Strategic Planning Forum had fallen blissfully still. The Mandalorians were dead or close to it, the sniper had retreated into the projection booth to reload and regroup, and the Moffs were crouching in the seat rows, too shocked and confused to start bellowing orders that were sure to prove worse than useless.

  Only the two Elite Guard stormtroopers who had survived the Mandalorian onslaught seemed to realize that the battle had not ended. The pair were kneeling opposite each other in the second row of seats, silently slipping thermal detonators into the grenade launchers they had affixed to their blaster muzzles. This sniper would not be killed so easily, but in the time it would take to tell them that, they would learn it for themselves.

  Caedus started toward the Moffs, treading on armored bodies and ruined seating with equal disregard. He could see already that his plan had worked beautifully. Several of the Moffs who had been speaking against him—including those fools, young Voryam Bhao and flabby-necked Krom Rethway—lay sprawled across the battle-chewed seats with open eyes and smoking wounds. The rest were peering at Caedus with expressions ranging from awe to gratitude to shrewd comprehension.

  As Caedus neared the bottom row of seats, the stormtroopers raised their weapons and sent their detonators flying toward the sniper’s hiding place with the characteristic grenade launcher whumpfs. Their aim was true, and both orbs shot straight into the booth’s projection aperture—then came flying back out toward the shocked troopers and astonished Moffs.

  Caedus was ready. He caught both detonators with the Force … then had to close his eyes as two crackling balls of white erupted above him. The air filled with the acrid stench of disintegrated stone and va
porized durasteel, and the pop and sizzle of electrical short circuits began to sputter through a two-meter circle that had been melted through the booth wall. Several Moffs turned and quickly opened fire into the hole.

  “No.” Caedus used the Force to make himself heard over the scream of their blasters. He motioned at the stormtrooper survivors. “You two, secure the Moffs in the anteroom. I’ll handle the sniper personally.”

  “Personally?” Moff Westermal asked in his deep, refined voice. “Are you sure that’s wise, Lord Caedus? You’re already injured.”

  “Kosimo makes a good point,” Lecersen added. “Let the Elite Guard deal with the sniper. The rest of the company will be here any moment.”

  “My injuries are of no concern,” Caedus said, trying not to smile. They had called him Lord Caedus; a New Empire was at hand. “And the Elite Guard won’t be arriving in time. I’m afraid the Mandalorians sealed this section of the command warren before their attack.”

  Caedus waved the Moffs up toward the anteroom, then turned back to the projection booth to see the muzzle of a pellet accelerator pushing through a makeshift firing port, which the sniper had cut through the projectionist’s blaster-scorched viewing pane. He managed to raise the arm on his injured side in the weapon’s general direction, then reached out with the Force and made a twisting motion with his hand. The barrel trembled for an instant, then started to bend against the edge of the firing port.

  The sniper was not surprised. The weapon simply spun free as it was abruptly released, and the snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber sounded from inside the projection booth. Despite the pellet wound his shoulder had suffered earlier, Caedus did not hesitate to activate his own blade. His pain would only fuel his power, and if he did not attack the sniper, he knew the sniper would attack him. He Force-leapt up through the hole into the smoky, flashing interior of the booth and pivoted around to block the fan of blue light that came slicing toward his neck even before he could sense who he was fighting.

  Whoever it was, the enemy was good.

  Caedus felt a boot slam into his ribs—an instant before he saw it coming with his Aing-Tii fighting-sight—and the breath left his lungs. He countered with a head-high backslash and brought his own foot up, landing a Force-enhanced snap-kick between the legs of the brown-robed blur attacking him. The blow drew a pained grunt but failed to even stagger his foe.

  A bony elbow slammed up under his chin, rocking him onto his heels. Then, finally, Caedus felt a familiar tingle in the back of his mind, and he saw the image of a violet blade slashing at his vulnerable side. He swept his own lightsaber down across the front of his body in a desperate reverse block that barely caught the attack in time to prevent it from slicing him in two, then whirled into a spinning back kick that landed squarely in his foe’s stomach and drove him back … a mere two steps.

  It was enough.

  Now Caedus could see who he was fighting, and he could not believe it. A gaunt-faced man with eyes as blue and cold as vardium steel, nostrils flaring red with anger and exertion, a thin-lipped snarl filled with confidence and disdain.

  Luke Skywalker.

  Just a few minutes earlier, Caedus had sensed his uncle’s presence far above Nickel One, in the same blastboat as his mother, father, and Saba Sebatyne. And now here Luke was, inside the asteroid. Even Jedi Grand Masters could not be in two places at once—Caedus knew that—but he did not waste time being confused.

  All that mattered was that Luke was here, somehow, and that he was the one swordsman in the galaxy whom Caedus did not dare fight one-armed. Even as Luke leapt forward weaving a basket of lightsaber slashes, Caedus sprang back out of the projection booth, launching himself into a high Force flip designed to put as much distance between himself and his attacker as possible.

  Luke flew after him, not even bothering to try for the high position, simply coming up under him with a wild slash combination that was anything but subtle or deft or even tricky; just pure relentless ferocity. Caedus had to stretch himself out belly-down in midair to meet the attack, and even calling on the Force to bolster the strength in his good arm, it was all he could do to keep the powerful strikes from knocking his guard aside and leaving him wide open.

  They started to drop, trading a trio of lightning-fast blows that left Caedus’s hands stinging and his heart racing. The last time he had fought Luke, he had started with a painful kidney wound but two good arms—and barely managed to survive. Now, with a relatively bearable shoulder wound and a single good arm, he had to do more than survive, he had to prevail—because now there would be no mercy at the last minute. This time, his uncle would not care whether he survived as long as Caedus died, because now Luke knew the truth about who had killed his wife.

  After the third exchange, Caedus and Luke came down in the seating area, two rows apart. Both landed on their feet, Luke more lightly than Caedus.

  Caedus deactivated his lightsaber and flicked his hand downward, arming the dart thrower he had begun wearing beneath his sleeve after their last fight.

  But Luke did something even more unexpected, removing one hand from his lightsaber and pushing the palm forward. An instant later, the unseen hammer of a Force blast caught Caedus in the sternum and drove him not over, but through the seats behind him.

  He slammed into the next row and dropped to the floor foot-to-foot with the big Mandalorian he had killed earlier—the one in the black armor and red helmet. Caedus’s head was spinning and his chest was more than aching—it was throbbing, burning, clenching so tightly he could hardly breathe.

  But he still had his lightsaber—and he needed it. He thumbed the activation switch and brought the weapon up just as Luke’s blue blade came slicing down toward him. Caedus caught it on his own crimson blade, then straightened his arm, simultaneously parrying and pointing the dart thrower on his wrist into his attacker’s face.

  “Release!” he commanded.

  A faint puff of air tickled Caedus’s forearm as the thrower launched its darts, but Luke was already whirling out of the way. The slivers streaked past in a harmless black flash and vanished; then Luke was spinning into the row where Caedus lay, positioning himself above Caedus’s head for the coup de grâce.

  There was no time to leap up or loose a bolt of Force lightning, and the angle was particularly poor for blocking and parrying. Caedus’s only hope lay at his feet, and he seized that hope with the Force, using it to pull the dead Mandalorian up over him, then hurling the corpse headlong into Luke.

  Two bodies collided with the sharp crack of metal impacting bone. When Caedus did not die in the next instant, he realized he had finally driven his uncle onto the defensive. He rolled to a knee, his lightsaber ignited and raised between them.

  Luke lay buried beneath the huge Mandalorian, blood pooling around his head and one motionless arm protruding beneath the fellow’s side. By all appearances, Luke Skywalker was dead—or at least unconscious.

  Caedus’s heart began to pound not with fear, but with excitement. His visions of late had been filled with his uncle’s face—Luke Skywalker attacking him here on Nickel One, Luke firing on him from one of Fett’s Bes’uliike, Luke sitting on Caedus’s throne, claiming the New Empire as his own. Had he—Lord Caedus—finally put an end to those visions—finally ruled out the possibility of those futures becoming the future?

  Eager as he was to be rid of Luke, Caedus was also suspicious. His uncle had been using a new fighting style, one that he had never taught his students at the Jedi academy—one that he had never, as far as Caedus knew, used on anyone who had survived to describe it. The style was essentially conservative, brutal, and ruthless, designed to deal damage without suffering it—and not all that tricky.

  Which meant now would be the perfect time to switch styles and trap an unwary opponent by playing dead. Using the Force to keep the Mandalorian pressed firmly down on Luke, Caedus retreated twenty paces to the body of a fallen stormtrooper, then deactivated his lightsaber and tucked it under his wounded
arm. When Luke still did not move, he pulled a fragmentation grenade off the trooper’s equipment belt. He thumbed the arming slide, then sent the grenade sailing toward his uncle and the dead Mandalorian.

  Despite the ringing in her ears and the gauze in her head—despite her hugely aching skull and the big knot of hurt swelling on her brow—Jaina had never been so filled with the Force. She could feel it in every cell of her body, swirling through her like fire, burning more ferociously every moment. She had never felt so strong or so quick or so alert. She could drive her fist through a durasteel wall, or catch a blaster bolt between her fingers. Despite the red curtain of blood cascading from the gash where Vatok’s helmet had split her forehead, she was aware of everything.

  Including that grenade sailing toward her.

  So Jaina reached out with the Force and sent it flying back toward her brother. An instant later, the weight pressing down on her grew lighter as Caedus’s attention shifted to the grenade. She started to Force-hurl her friend’s body off—then recalled how her brother had been anticipating her attacks. She grabbed the beskad hanging from Vatok’s waist, then sent his body flying after the grenade.

  The iron saber had barely cleared its scabbard before the hammer-fist of a grenade detonation jolted the forum. Vatok’s body was silhouetted against the orange flash of the explosion. Jaina held him there, shielding herself from the fiery heat of the blast, and felt the searing bite of shrapnel only in her legs.

  The detonation swept the last wisps of gauze from Jaina’s mind. Not waiting to see if she had been seriously injured, she let her friend’s body drop to the floor and leapt after her brother, lightsaber in one hand and Vatok’s beskad in the other.