Inferno

by Troy Denning

  “Address your remarks to me,” Tionne said, using the Force to spin Serpa back toward her. “Whatever you think you know about what …”

  Tionne let her sentence trail off as Serpa came around holding his blaster. She extended her hand, trying to Force-slap the weapon aside. But he was too quick. A single bolt flashed between them, and Tionne’s leg buckled. She dropped to a knee, shuddering surprise and pain into the Force.

  To the credit of Kam Solusar, the unprovoked attack on his unarmed wife did not draw him into the open. He remained in hiding, pouring rage and bloodlust into the Force, but heeding the same rules he and the other adults had been drilling into the young ones all week—take only focused action; never react, only act.

  Jaina, however, had seen enough—especially when some of the Woodoos couldn’t help crying out in fear. She backed away from the viewport … then came within a finger twitch of blasting the shadow she glimpsed coming through the back door.

  “Watch it!” Jag hissed, raising his hands. “Don’t you know better than to point a live blaster at your commanding officer?”

  “I know better than a lot of things.” Jaina lowered the stolen blaster. “What are you doing sneaking up on me, anyway?”

  “You’re a Jedi,” Jag replied. “How can anyone sneak up on you?”

  “People have been managing.” Jaina waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the two troopers she had left lying in the lounge and corridor. “And I’m a little distracted by what Serpa’s doing out there. He just blasted Tionne’s knee apart.”

  Jag nodded as though he had been expecting this. “He’s trying to draw you out. There’s a sniper team on your roof, probably other places, too.”

  “How did they get past Vis’l and Loli?” Jaina asked. Vis’l and Loli were two of the young Jedi Knights who had been on guard duty when Serpa tricked flight control into granting permission to land his battalion at the academy. “I can’t imagine those two missing a sniper team.”

  “It’s easy to miss things when you’re dead,” Jag explained solemnly.

  A cold lump formed in Jaina’s stomach. Vis’l and Loli were as young as Jedi Knights came, still in their teens and just back from their final training mission with their Masters.

  “How?” she asked.

  “Snipers, I think,” Jag replied. “I found them behind different dorms, both with scorch holes in the sides of their heads. It looked like they’d been lured outside and blasted simultaneously. My guess is that Serpa is after all of you.”

  Jaina shook her head. “If he wanted us dead, a thermal detonator would be a lot more effective,” she said. “Why bother putting us under with coma gas?”

  “Because he knows Jedi,” Jag said. “It’s pretty hard for an assassin to sneak up on you guys in your sleep. Your danger sense kicks in and wakes you.”

  “Something like that,” Jaina admitted, thinking of her dream of Ben. “I still don’t see why he thinks coma gas is better.”

  “Because then it looks like he’s only trying to keep you out of the way,” Jag said. “You’ll misinterpret his intentions, and then he can kill you.”

  Jaina glanced back toward the viewport, recalling Serpa’s time-consuming preparations and provocative insults, then nodded.

  “Okay, so maybe he’s as smart as he is crazy.” She slipped past Jag and started through the door. “The first thing we need to do is take out those snipers—quietly.”

  “Don’t forget quickly,” Jag said. “Serpa doesn’t strike me as the patient type.”

  As they slipped through the refectory toward the dormitory’s back door, Jaina was reaching out to Kam and the other adult Jedi, sharing the wariness she felt for Serpa’s tactics. It probably wasn’t necessary. Even without knowing about the snipers on the roofs, it was fairly obvious that Serpa was trying to draw them out. But the extra warning might prevent someone from reacting rashly to the major’s next provocation.

  At the back door of the dormitory, Jaina paused to peer into the night for a moment. It was too dark to see anyone lurking in the hedges across from them, but she could feel two presences hiding in the shrubs off to the right, behind the adjacent building.

  “It’s times like this when I really miss my lightsaber,” she whispered. “Did you notice the two over by the wodobo bushes?”

  “The two what?” Jag asked.

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” Jaina passed her borrowed blaster to Jag. “Cover me—but don’t shoot unless they do.”

  Jag scowled. “Jaina, if those are snipers, they’ve got longblasters. A blaster pistol isn’t going to be much help—”

  “Just make lots of noise,” Jaina said. “And trust me.”

  She used the Force to snap a branch behind the two ambushers, then slipped through the door and sprinted across the little yard into the hedge. When the snipers did not open fire, she decided her distraction had worked and circled behind them, moving through the underbrush in absolute silence. She found the pair lying prone under the arcing fronds of their wodobo bush, the spotter keeping watch toward the snapped branch while the sharpshooter continued to train his weapon on Jaina’s dormitory. Both men wore body armor and helmets with full-face night-vision visors.

  Had Jaina been as skilled as her uncle, there might have been a way to incapacitate the pair without killing them. As it was, if she wanted to be quiet, she had to be deadly. She dropped a knee into the small of the sharpshooter’s back, then, as he started to twist around, grabbed his chin and helmet and snapped his neck with a violent twist. The spotter spun toward the sound—and caught a Force-enhanced knife-hand strike across the gullet.

  The trooper went down gurgling and clutching at his throat. Thankfully, it was too dark to see the face behind his visor. Jaina repeated her neck-snapping maneuver, turning a slow death into a quick one.

  Her guilty feelings were forgotten when a single blaster bolt sang out from the other side of the dormitories and a chorus of children cried out in terror. The Force trembled beneath Tionne’s anguish, and suddenly Jaina felt her struggling to bear her pain in silence.

  Jaina reached out to Kam and the other Jedi, pouring wariness into the Force, trying to urge them to ignore the bait—and failing to get through. Their fear for Tionne was all-consuming, and their attention felt entirely focused on whatever was happening on the pavilion.

  The screech of another blaster bolt sounded from the courtyard. This time Tionne could not help howling in pain. Kam’s rage boiled over, and Jaina sensed him losing control. Then she felt the anger of Ozlo and Jerga—two young Mon Calamari Jedi Knights—harden into resolve and she knew Serpa was winning.

  By the time Jaina had grabbed the sharpshooter’s longblaster and stepped out of the wodobo bush, Jag had already clambered onto a porch railing and was pulling himself up over the eaves. She chose a faster route, taking two running steps before launching herself halfway up the roof in a Force leap.

  Her landing was hardly quiet, but there was no need to worry about betraying her presence. Her boots had barely hit the tiles before the sniper team Jag had warned her about earlier opened fire into the courtyard, revealing the silhouettes of two men crouching at the far end of the roof ridge.

  Jaina crossed the roof in two Force bounds and came down between the two troopers. Before they could turn, she had pressed the muzzle of her longblaster against the sharpshooter’s helmet and planted one boot in the middle of his spotter’s back.

  The spotter was the first to react, trying to twist around to bring his repeating blaster to bear. Jaina pulled the trigger of her longblaster, burning a hole through the sharpshooter’s head before he could move, then slapped the weapon’s hot barrel across the spotter’s face and sent him sliding down the roof. He disappeared over the edge, and the sickening crackle that followed left no doubt about his fate.

  Jaina turned her attention to the courtyard below and was horrified to see Kam Solusar on the ground, three columns of smoke rising from his motionless body. Ozlo and Jerga
were in even worse shape, their long Mon Calamari heads cratered with blaster pocks.

  Jag scrambled up behind Jaina, then grabbed her arm and pulled her down. “Are you trying to get blasted?”

  Jaina dropped behind the roof ridge and finally saw what had drawn Kam and the others into the open. Tionne lay curled at Serpa’s feet, the lower parts of a leg and an arm lying a meter from their smoking stumps.

  The little Woodoos were crying. The rest of the young ones were flooding the Force with shock and fear, but outwardly they remained composed and submissive. They were waiting for Tionne—or someone—to speak the word that would activate the escape plan that Jaina and the other adults had been drilling into them for the past couple of weeks.

  Serpa’s voice came over the comlink in Jaina’s belt. “Do we have them all?”

  A long chain of sick-sounding troopers answered. “K. Solusar down … Ozlo down … Jerga down … Vis’l and Loli already down … Alfi down in his cell … Hedda down in her dorm …”

  “That’s everyone,” Jaina whispered.

  Jag nodded and eased the second longblaster out of the hands of the dead sharpshooter. “Except us and—”

  “What about that Solo smooka?” Serpa demanded over the comlink. “And Fel?”

  When no answer came, another voice—barely audible—sounded from the helmet of the sharpshooter lying beside Jaina. “Ralpe?”

  “That would be our guy,” Jaina said, turning to Jag. “Did you get a fix on the other snipers?”

  “Of course,” Jag said.

  The second voice sounded from inside the dead sharpshooter’s helmet again. “Ralpe?”

  “He’s dead, you Gungan.” Serpa addressed Jaina directly. “Well, Jedi Solo, I see that you’re as big a coward as your uncle.”

  Jaina would have blasted him dead right then, had she not known that the bolt might pass through his body and strike the trembling Bantha girl behind him.

  Serpa pressed his blaster to Tionne’s head. “Are you just going to hide while I kill a Jedi Master?”

  “Ignore him.” Tionne raised the stump of her arm and gestured, turning Serpa’s blaster aside. “Look after—”

  A GAG trooper fired over the children shielding Serpa, and Tionne cried out as another ten centimeters was burned from the stump she had used to gesture.

  “It’s time we gave that braintick what he’s asking for.” Jaina sprang over the ridge of the roof and started to slide down the other side. “Cover me!”

  Jag was already firing, pumping bright crimson bolts across the courtyard toward the sniper with the best angle of attack. Jaina fired at the closest team, trusting her aim to the Force, then barrel-rolling, firing again, and dropping off the roof into the courtyard.

  A pair of fiery blossoms exploded against the wall behind her. She dived into a somersault and came up shooting again, saw a longblaster and one arm fly up behind a roof ridge and disappear, then found herself pivoting sideways as a trio of bolts droned past so close that she felt heat welts rising on her cheeks.

  Jaina really missed her lightsaber.

  Jag’s longblaster sounded behind her, and that attacker fell silent. Jaina turned her attention to the young ones, who remained in their groups, craning their necks to watch her—and still awaiting their orders.

  “Enough!” she yelled. “We’ve had—”

  The courtyard exploded into a riot of astonished screams and stray blaster bolts as the young ones turned on their guards, using the Force to hurl the troopers into one another and jerk the weapons from their hands.

  Jaina dropped to a knee and spun back toward the dormitories, but all that remained of the sniper teams were a handful of smoking tiles and a few bloody hands clinging weakly to the roof ridges. She signaled Jag to continue covering her, then began to push her way through the angry mob of students, who were using their budding Force talents to beleaguer—and in some cases, injure—the astonished GAG troopers who had thought they were in charge of the academy.

  Of course, the young Jedi were suffering casualties, too. Everywhere Jaina looked, there were young ones lying on the ground with smoke rising from their blaster wounds. In some cases, groups of unarmed ten-, twelve-, or fourteen-year-olds were fighting hand-to-hand with an armored GAG trooper. She did what she could to help—a quick Force-nudge here, a well-placed strike with the butt of her longblaster there. But her focus remained on the one who had instigated the carnage, Major Serpa.

  Jaina found him on the exercise pavilion. His bodyguards were lying on the floor, either dead or dying from an assortment of blaster wounds or well-placed slashes from makeshift weapons like her sharpened spoon. To her dismay, Serpa remained alive, holding the red-haired Bantha girl—Vekki, Jaina recalled—in a choke hold, the muzzle of his blaster pressed against her temple for extra insurance.

  “You call me a coward?” Jaina asked. Hoping to distract him enough to pull the blaster away from the girl’s head, she continued to advance on Serpa … then stopped when Zekk reached out to her from the other side of the pavilion, urging patience. “While you hide behind children?”

  Serpa shrugged. “It’s different. They’re Jedi children.”

  “I’m sure the judges will take that into account at your trial.” Jaina glimpsed Zekk’s tall figure stepping into the light on the far side of the pavilion, but she was careful to keep her gaze locked on Serpa. “Assuming you make it to trial. Surrender now, and I’ll be sure you do.”

  Serpa snorted. “There isn’t going to be any trial.” He swung his blaster toward Jaina. “I’m just following orders—your brother’s—”

  Before Serpa could pull the trigger, Zekk’s lightsaber snapped to life and came down on the major’s weapon arm, severing it at the elbow.

  Serpa’s attention remained oddly fixed on Jaina, as though he could not at first understand why she was not dead, or how she had managed to cut off his arm without moving. Finally, he seemed to hear the lightsaber droning behind him, and his jaw dropped in disbelief. He whirled around, swinging Vekki with him—apparently oblivious to his pain.

  “Where did you come from?” he demanded.

  Zekk lashed out so fast that even Jaina did not see the attack, only Serpa’s remaining arm swinging away from Vekki’s neck and his body whirling to the floor.

  “From now on,” Zekk said, “we’ll be asking the questions.”

  fifteen

  How ironic it seemed to Jacen that he should confront his betrayers here, in the home system of a species famed for its honor—how sad that he must battle his own blood above Kashyyyk, where loyalty counted for more than life itself. Even after all that had happened, he still loved his family—still cherished them. It was their courage that had instilled in him the strength to do what he must soon do, their example that had taught him to serve above all else. He only wished there were some way to bring them back, so all of the Solos and Skywalkers could be on the same side again, fighting not each other, but the injustice that always seemed about to tear the galaxy apart.

  But there was no way. Even were Jacen to convince them of their mistake, he could not absolve them of what they had done, could not pardon their treason against the Alliance. That was the burden and the fate of Darth Caedus, to deliver justice wherever it was deserved, and he dared not shirk his duty. Sith Lords could not turn a blind eye to the crimes of their own relatives. Down that path lay corruption and selfishness—the belief that he was the master of the galaxy and not its servant.

  A squadron of new Owool Interceptors appeared in the bridge viewport, still so distant that only the curving stripes of their paired efflux tails were visible against Kashyyyk’s emerald face. The pride of an innovative new shipyard named KashyCorp, the Owools had been designed to serve the Galactic Alliance as heavy starfighters. Like the Wookiees who piloted them, they were tough, fast, and ferocious.

  “What a dismal showing,” Ben said. He was standing with Caedus and Commander Twizzl on the primary flight deck, watching fifty-odd crewbeings
calmly coordinate the Anakin Solo’s combat preparations. “If those Owools are all they have ready, there won’t be a fight. Even Wookiees aren’t that crazy.”

  “Wookiees are resolute, not crazy,” Caedus replied. Ben had been trying to talk him out of attacking Kashyyyk since the Anakin Solo’s escape from the Battle of Kuat. It made Caedus worry that his young cousin lacked the ruthlessness to carry out his plan of vengeance—that Lumiya might have been right about the boy being too weak to be a Sith apprentice. “And they will fight, Ben. Never confuse hope with expectation.”

  “I wasn’t,” Ben insisted. “But we need the Kashyyyk fleet, Jacen. If there’s any way to take it without a fight—”

  “There isn’t,” Caedus interrupted. “And I’d like you to call me Colonel, not Jacen.”

  Ben looked surprised, but not hurt. “Okay, Colonel.”

  “Thank you.” Caedus’s appreciation was sincere. He didn’t mind Ben calling him by his first name, but it was starting to feel wrong to be addressed by his old moniker. Jacen Solo was gone. “And I didn’t say we wouldn’t give the Wookiees a chance to avoid a fight—only that they won’t take it.”

  “They certainly don’t seem inclined,” Commander Twizzl said from Caedus’s other side. “Those Owools are threatening to open fire if we don’t stop and explain ourselves.”

  Caedus glanced at the tactical holodisplay and smiled. With the entire Fifth Fleet spread across space behind the Anakin Solo, the Owools were outnumbered two-to-one by capital ships alone.

  “You do have to respect their courage,” he said. “Very well, Commander. Tell them we’ll respect their orders.”

  “You intend to comply?” Twizzl asked, surprised.

  “Of course,” Caedus said. “Bring the Anakin Solo to a dead stop and have Admiral Atoko form the fleet around us.”

  Twizzl frowned. “Sir, Lieutenant Skywalker has a point. If we move now, we may capture their assault fleet intact. It’s still trying to free itself of the tenders, and their orbital guard is no match for the Fifth Fleet.”