by Troy Denning
A blast of alarm flooded the battle-meld as Zekk felt the same thing. Whether it had been the stains on her neck that finally gave them away, or the combat-meld, Jaina could not say—and it hardly mattered. The fact was, Caedus had sensed them through the Force. He knew they were coming, and he knew where they were right now.
An image of a generator dome—the one on the far end of the Solo’s bridge—flashed through Jaina’s mind. Zekk was letting her know which dome he was targeting. She pointed the nose of her StealthX at the other one.
“Launch, Sneaky!” she ordered into her throat mike. “Launch, launch, launch!”
A soft clunk reverberated through the cockpit floor as the torpedo tubes opened. At that same moment, space turned white as the Solo opened up with every point-defense weapon on Jaina and Zekk’s side of the hull. The gun crews didn’t waste time trying to find their attackers; they just put up a tightly laced cage of cannon fire and hoped the enemy would fly into it.
Unable to see through the wall of energy, Jaina turned her hands over to instinct and closed her eyes, picturing the generator dome in her mind and using the Force to hurl the shadow bombs toward it. She felt the cockpit rock as cannon bolts tore through her StealthX’s unshielded wings … then Sneaky let out a static-filled overload screech and went silent.
Jaina felt herself sinking into her seat as the StealthX banked, and she opened her eyes to find the Solo’s bridge sliding past her starfighter’s belly, with balls of flame erupting at the far end as Zekk’s shadow bombs blasted their way through the shields to the generator dome.
An instant later, Jaina’s StealthX began to buck hard, and everything below her went orange as her own bombs hit. The orange brightened and golden forks of dissipation energy began to dance all around the starfighter, and then the color turned so luminous and fiery that even the flash-tinting in her helmet visor could not prevent Jaina’s eyes from aching.
A shock wave caught her from behind and sent the StealthX spinning. The cockpit began to shake and shudder as pieces of starfighter began to fly off the craft—cannons, sensor cones, hull armor. The inertial compensator gave out, and her helmet-heavy head began to whirl around on her shoulders. She pressed back against the neck rest, trying to brace, and fought not to vomit. Everything hurt—her eyes, ears, gut, her joints. She was coming apart just like her starfighter, Jaina knew, and there was nothing she could do about it.
But she did something anyway.
Jaina felt her feet working the rudders, her hand fighting to bring the stick back, her arm stretching toward the throttles. And slowly, the spinning stopped. The Anakin Solo drifted into view and stayed there, hanging outside her canopy a little below starboard, and she found herself more or less in one piece.
Actually, it was less, because Zekk wasn’t there anymore. Jaina couldn’t feel him in the Force—couldn’t even find the combat-meld. She hadn’t felt him die, hadn’t experienced a sudden shock of fear and pain, could not even remember a wistful pang of regret or farewell. He was just … gone.
After bringing her StealthX fully under control—and making a quick systems check to see if anything was about to explode—Jaina began to expand her Force awareness, searching for his presence. Instead of Zekk, she found the familiar tingle of her danger sense—with the blazing flash of a turbolaser bolt following close behind.
The strike blossomed a kilometer short of her StealthX, but Jaina knew the next one would not miss. There was only one way the gunners could have known where to direct their fire—that there was even something to direct fire at.
Caedus.
Jaina slammed her throttles forward and was relieved to feel the StealthX steal forward on two still-functioning engines. Deciding she had nothing to lose by making it as difficult for her brother to find her as possible, she began to hide her presence in the Force again. To her relief, the next turbolaser strike erupted even farther away than had the first, and the next few were little better than stabs in the dark. The gunners knew generally where she was, but not her exact location. Blood trails, it seemed, were not all that precise—at least, she hoped that was true. Jaina circled back toward the fight.
The Anakin Solo was only about the length of her arm from this distance, but she could see that both ends of the bridge were gone, along with the generator domes that had once been attached to them. Luke and his wing were just beginning their run, popping up over the Anakin Solo’s nose while the Megador dropped down behind them, sweeping space with cannon and turbolaser in a desperate attempt to keep the StealthXs off its companion ship. The Anakin Solo itself was pouring turbolaser fire into the ice field, trying just as desperately to drive Tenel Ka’s Home Fleet away from the Remnant’s assault fleet.
It was a doomed effort. As Jaina accelerated back toward the fight, the Jedi StealthXs began to loose their shadow bombs. Geysers of flame shot up all along the Anakin Solo’s unshielded hull, traveling down its spine in long rows, leaving in their wake jagged, star-shaped breaches ringed by red-hot durasteel. Bodies, equipment, and atmosphere began to rise from the ruptures in long plumes of steam and flotsam. It grew difficult for Jaina to see the sweeping expanse of the ship’s dark hull—much less pick her target.
The Bes’uliik held its fire, weaving through the stabbing flashes of laserfire toward the bridge. Jaina thought for a moment that Luke meant to crash his fighter into the bridge, but at the last instant he opened up with all systems, pouring cannon bolts and concussion missiles into the thick blast shielding. A circle of durasteel turned white and started to bleed away in glowing bubbles of metal, then Luke pulled up and vanished over the Anakin Solo’s stern with the rest of the Jedi wing.
The Megador was right behind him, dropping down over the Anakin Solo like a mother velker over her chick. Still, the StealthX wing tried to come around for another pass, wheeling up behind the Anakin Solo’s bridge in a dark curving swarm … that was quickly shredded by the Megador’s sweeping turbolasers.
By this time, Jaina was almost on top of the Anakin Solo’s vast plain of black durasteel—close enough to see half a dozen StealthXs explode and several more disintegrate from near-miss shock waves, and suddenly there were EV beacons and pieces of StealthXs tumbling everywhere.
Luke’s Bes’uliik dodged through a flurry of bolts and beams, then came around, starting to lead the survivors back for another run through the teeth of the Megador’s batteries. Seeing that they would never make it—and that even if they did, they would never survive—Jaina opened herself to the Force again and reached out to Luke with all the strength she could muster, urging him not to waste himself and his Jedi like that.
Don’t! She dropped the nose of her own StealthX toward the cloaking cone on the Anakin Solo’s upper hull. Go!
Luke continued on course for an instant, until a trio of cannon bolts hammered some sense into him by bouncing off the Bes’uliik’s beskar nose. Jaina felt him reach out to her, telling her to trust in the Force, then he dipped a wing and led the remaining Jedi away from the Anakin Solo. She would have to do it all herself now—save Isolder and kill her brother.
No sooner had Jaina thought this than she felt her brother’s attention turning her way again. An instant later cannon bolts began to stream up from all directions. The StealthX bucked half a dozen times as it took hits, then something popped, and the cockpit went red with fire-warning lights.
It didn’t matter. Jaina could not have pulled up if she wanted to—and she didn’t want to. She blew the canopy and ejected, then watched, enthralled, as her flaming StealthX crashed through the thin shell of the cloaking cone and exploded through the decks below.
Get ready, Caedus. Jaina activated her suit thrusters, then concealed her Force presence again and started down into the fuming ruins of the cloaking cone. Here I come.
Do Bothan politicians ever tell the truth? Sure—they’ll do anything to win an election!
—Jacen Solo, age 15
Victory was within his grasp.
On the
Commander’s Deck of the Anakin Solo, air was whistling away through a web of hairline cracks in the blast shield. Caedus’s day cabin was gone, and a concave blowout cup was forming in what used to be an interior wall. Lockdown alarms were blaring in every cabin on the bridge, and the entire command staff was running for the hatchways.
But Caedus stood calmly in the Tactical Salon, his gaze fixed on the holodisplay as though he were trying to make sense of the disjointed battle depicted there. He already knew what had happened, of course. The Jedi had used the blood trail to lure him into an ambush, then Luke had led a desperate attack on the Anakin Solo in an attempt to take him out.
And Caedus had survived. When the Jedi had begun their attack, he had been in his observation bubble, using his battle meditation to see through the Force what the fleet’s sensors could not. He had been forced to watch the whole thing in his mind’s eye, issuing useless orders and futile warnings as his sister and Zekk took out the shields. A moment later, the StealthXs had rolled onto the Anakin Solo’s upper hull, their Jedi-guided shadow bombs blasting holes four decks deep.
Then Caedus had spotted the Bes’uliik. When he realized Luke was flying it, his intestines had filled with ice. Knowing that Luke was coming for him—just as Caedus had seen in his visions—he had leapt from his meditation chair and rushed into the Tactical Salon, barely sealing the hatch before Luke launched his bombs.
The hatch had held, and it was still holding. And now here Caedus was, staring at the holodisplay but seeing a throne—a white throne in a brightly lit chamber. There was no one on it, but it was surrounded by a hundred beings regal enough to belong in the seat. They were beings of all species—Bothans and Hutts, Ishi Tib and Mon Calamari, even humans and Squibs—and they all had the easy, amicable bearing of old friends.
But what held Caedus there—what kept him staring at the vision with no regard for the screaming alarm sirens or the flimsiplast fluttering past on escaping air—was the tall, red-headed woman at the center of the crowd. She had her mother’s thin arcing brows and full-lipped mouth, but her nose was her grandmother’s—small and not too long, with just a hint of a button at the end.
“Lord Caedus!” Tahiri’s voice had grown as shrill as the lockdown alarms, and she was tugging his arm, trying in vain to move him away from the holodisplay. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Wrong? Nothing—nothing at all.”
Caedus kept himself rooted to the deck, continuing to stare at his grown-up Allana until a piece of flimsiplast blew through the holograph. Then the white throne and the regal friends all faded away, and the face of his beautiful daughter twisted into the angry, hateful visage of his sister Jaina.
Get ready, Caedus, she was warning him. Here I come.
Caedus laughed. “I am ready, Jaina.” He turned his back on the vision, finally allowing Tahiri to pull him away. “And I’ve already won.”
“I’m sorry, my lord.” Tahiri continued to hold his arm, literally dragging him out the hatch at the rear of the salon. “I don’t understand.”
“Jaina is coming for me,” Caedus explained, still laughing. “Luke Skywalker couldn’t kill me. What does she expect to do?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Tahiri said. She sealed the hatch, and the whistle of escaping air grew inaudible. “But it wouldn’t do to get careless. You’re still recovering, and she’s—”
“Practically dead already,” Caedus said, starting toward the turbolift. “My sister is nothing to be concerned with. We’ve won. I’ve seen it.”
Tahiri looked more worried than convinced. But rather than argue the point, she seemed content just to pull him into the turbolift. As they descended toward the Auxiliary Command Center hidden deep in the well-protected bowels of the vessel, she took a moment to straighten her own robes, then stepped around in front of him and began to tug his robes into place.
“The Moffs are in a bad state,” she warned him. “They’re scared—”
“Of course they’re scared,” Caedus said. “They think only of themselves, and they fear only for their own lives.”
Tahiri folded back the lapel of his outer cloak. “Actually, they’re just as worried about their assault fleet,” she explained. “They’re afraid we’re going to lose the war.”
“Lose?” Caedus scoffed. “Haven’t they been viewing the intelligence briefings?”
“They’re more concerned about our situation here,” she said. “Actually, so am I.”
Caedus’s temper began to rise. Bwua’tu had already wiped out Niathal’s traitors and trapped both the Bothan and Corellian fleets at Carbos Thirteen. Admiral Atoko was neutralizing the Mandalorian nuisance by inflicting some sorely needed urban renewal on Keldabe—with just the remains of the Fifth Fleet. And yet, the Moffs were worried because they had run into some relatively minor resistance here. Did they really expect Jedi to be defeated as easily as Mandalorians and Corellians?
But Caedus did not let his anger take control of him. That would do nothing but divert his attention, and he could not afford to lose his focus now—not with Jaina on the loose, not when he was so close to victory that he had actually seen it.
“I appreciate the warning, Tahiri,” Caedus said. “I’ll be sure to reassure them.”
“That might prove difficult, my lord,” Tahiri said. “Even for you.”
She looked down at her feet, and Caedus could feel her gathering her courage.
“Tahiri, how long have we known each other?” he asked. “Tell me.”
Tahiri nodded, then met his gaze. “There’s something they’re keeping from us. I can feel it when I’m around them.”
Caedus smiled. “Of course they’re keeping something from us,” he said. “They’re Moffs.”
Tahiri would not be put off by his jokes. “They don’t trust your abilities yet—not really,” she said. “It might be better if we had never been ambushed.”
“It’s hard to argue against that,” Caedus said. “But I don’t see what it has to do with our situation.”
“Fix it,” Tahiri said. “I think that’s what it’s going to take to keep their faith.”
“Fix it how?” Caedus asked. “Are you under the impression I can change the past?”
Tahiri looked confused. “Well … yeah,” she admitted. “You did it for me.”
Now Caedus understood. “The kiss, you mean.”
“What else?” she asked. “You flow-walked me back to the battle on Baanu Rass, and I kissed Anakin. If you could do that, why not flow-walk back and warn someone about the ambush?”
The turbolift reached the auxiliary command center and stopped. Before the door could open, Caedus reached out and depressed the HOLD control. He knew why Tahiri believed he could do such a thing: because he had allowed her to believe it. Her obsession with Anakin had been a convenient tool for him; she had wanted—still wanted—to bring Anakin back so badly that Caedus had not even needed to imply the possibility. Tahiri had simply seized on the hope, and he’d used that to bend her to his will. But the time had come to disabuse her of that notion. With victory at hand, he needed to move Tahiri to the next stage, to help her develop into a true Sith Lady with aspirations of her own—and the cold ruthlessness to achieve them.
Caedus placed a caring hand on her shoulder. “Tahiri, I’m about to tell you something that’s going to make you very angry. I want you to feed on its power, because you’re going to need it before this last battle is over. But if you let it take control, you’ll be lost. You’ll never be any good to me again. Can you handle that?”
Tahiri’s confusion turned to distress. “What is it?” she demanded. “Are you telling me it wasn’t real? That when we flow-walked back to see Anakin, we were just—”
“The flow-walking was real,” Caedus interrupted. “We did return to the battle at Baanu Rass, and you did kiss Anakin. But the past didn’t change. It can’t.”
Tahiri’s eyes started to burn with denial. “That makes no sense,” she said. “If I really ki
ssed him, then we changed the past.”
Caedus shook his head. “When you drop a pebble into a river, what happens? There’s a splash, and then the splash disappears. The splash is real, but the river doesn’t change. It continues on just the same.”
“But it does change,” Tahiri objected. “Maybe you can’t see it, but the pebble is still there, rolling along the bottom.”
“And the kiss is still there, too,” Caedus said. He reached out and gently tapped Tahiri’s temple. “In there. That’s where the bottom of the flow is.”
“In my mind?”
“In the way you perceive the past,” Caedus said. He was not surprised by the anger and disbelief in Tahiri’s voice. When the Aing-Tii monks had explained why he couldn’t stop Anakin from dying, he had reacted the same way. “We went back to the battle on Baanu Rass, and you kissed Anakin. What changed? The past—or your memory of the past?”
Tahiri shook her head, still not ready to let go. “What about Tekli and the rest of the strike team? You were worried about them seeing us.”
“About remembering that they had seen us,” Caedus corrected. “Just like Raynar remembered seeing me when he crawled out of the Tachyon Flier. But I wasn’t there. I was on Coruscant, being tortured by Vergere. What Raynar remembered is the splash.”
Caedus could tell by Tahiri’s crestfallen expression that she was beginning to understand—but she wasn’t quite ready to give up.
“What about being harmed?” she said. “If we’re just splashes, how come we had to be so careful about reacting to the past? A splash can’t be harmed.”