by Troy Denning
“Then yes, a Sandalso LuxiCruiser is the best we could do,” Olazon said. “Roomy enough to hold a squad of Void Jumpers, tough enough to deliver them.”
“The situation is that bad?” Tahiri pressed. “You couldn’t find a spare blastboat to mount this operation?”
“All out hunting Sith saboteurz, along with most of our Jedi Knightz,” Saba said. “So you will be coming along when this one and the sergeant major debark into the Temple.”
“Don’t I have a choice in the matter?” Despite the question, Tahiri actually sounded a bit pleased by the request. “I’m not even a Jedi.”
“Welcome back,” Saba replied.
A metallic bang rang through the hull as a piece of durasteel flotsam crashed down on the Gift’s unshielded stern. A damage alarm began to scream, and the yacht nosed up.
“Stuck vector plate,” Tahiri said, reaching for her control console. “Shutting down thrust nozzle four.”
“Affirmative,” Jag replied.
The Parting Gift began to fly normally again, even if the yoke was a bit sluggish. Jag swung the yacht around a shrinking column of flame that was either a collapsing building or a subsiding magma fountain. Finally, through a thin veil of smoke and rising ash, he spotted the Temple—a vast silver incline sloping up toward the sky. Saba’s arm shot forward between the seats, pointing toward a tiny gray circle that was perhaps a hundred meters above the level of the Parting Gift.
“There,” she said. “The utility hatch.”
“I see it,” Jag replied.
A turbolaser strike blossomed between them and the hatch, distant enough this time that the shock wave merely sent the Gift barrel-rolling deeper into the gloom. The rain of cannon bolts they had been facing became a flashing storm that lit up the ash cloud like the interior of a Ryloth dancecaf. The yacht’s interior lights dimmed as all available power was transferred to the shield generators. Jag shoved the throttles forward, covering the last two kilometers in a wild helix that lasted no more than five seconds before the silvery, inclined slope of the Temple wall filled the entire canopy.
Finally, the laser cannons could no longer depress their barrels far enough to hit the Parting Gift, and the steady stream of bolts began to fly past well beyond their stern. Jag pulled back on the throttles and swung the yacht up in the direction of the access hatch that Saba had pointed out.
“Balance the shields,” he instructed, “and get me a bearing to our rendezvous point.”
“You mean the utility hatch?” Saba asked.
“Unless we’re making the pickup somewhere else,” Jag said. From so close, going so fast, the Temple’s exterior skin was just a sheet of polished durasteel flecked with geometric bumps, pits, and spires. The details flashed past so quickly that it was impossible to recognize their function. “I’ll need a four-second warning to stop.”
Saba pointed up the Temple wall, toward a dull oval a bit to their starboard, then said, “Stop now!”
Jag swung the nose around and hauled back on the throttles, decelerating hard. The oval rapidly became a gray circle as they drew nearer. Saba and the sergeant major turned and raced from the flight deck back toward the boarding ramp. Tahiri unbuckled her crash harness and looked over at Jag.
“You going to be okay without me here?”
A line appeared down the center of the gray circle—the hatch starting to open.
“Go … be a Jedi,” Jag said, waving her toward the back. “You weren’t cutthroat enough to be an Imperial Hand anyway.”
Tahiri cocked a brow. “Only because you were too incorruptible to make much of an Emperor.”
Jag managed to keep from smiling until after Tahiri had left the flight deck. By then, Han Solo could be seen leaning out the open utility hatch, frantically waving at him to hurry. Jag eased to within two meters of the Temple wall and moved his thumb over the attitude control pad, but held off activating the thrusters.
The ramp alarm on the copilot’s control panel began to chime as Saba and the Void Jumpers opened the Gift’s boarding door. Jag ignored the chime and kept both hands steady on the yoke. As the vessel slipped closer to the utility hatch, he began to glimpse the action inside the Temple—the flickering colors and sudden flashes of a fairly intense firefight. He activated the altitude thrusters and turned their nozzles forward, but waited until the yacht’s nose reached the edge of the hatch before calling for maximum power.
The Parting Gift lurched to a crawl. As the flight deck slid past the open hatchway, Jag craned his neck to see inside. About five meters into a gloomy chamber, a line of Hapan commandos stood fighting someone deeper in the Temple. They were supported by the flashing lightsabers of half a dozen Jedi Knights—four Barabels, along with Leia Solo and Zekk. On the floor behind the battle line, he glimpsed a swarm of small dark reptiles. Allana Solo stood in the hatchway with her pet nexu, protected by Han and a tall redheaded woman.
Then the flight deck slid past the hatchway, and Jag was left staring at the Temple wall. He continued to reverse the altitude thrusters until the Gift stopped completely, then eased backward until he felt the jolt of the boarding ramp slamming down inside the hatchway. He killed the thrusters and tried to hold the vessel steady as the Void Jumpers debarked. It wasn’t easy. The ship rocked and lurched—then rocked and lurched some more as new passengers boarded.
A flurry of explosions sounded deep inside the Temple, then the battle quickly began to calm as Saba and the Void Jumpers established a perimeter. Leia’s voice rang out from the passenger salon, ordering Allana to keep Anji off the flight couches, and a strange chittering began to roll forward—along with a stench so foul that Jag pulled his facemask from its holder and activated his emergency oxygen feed.
A moment later, twenty hand-sized lizards came boiling onto the flight deck, most of them dragging dead, half-eaten rodents and—in a couple of cases—what looked like human fingers. They were immediately everywhere, in the copilot’s seat, on the navigation computer, hanging upside down from the canopy—a couple even jumped into Jag’s lap and sat staring up at him. One was holding a blue Keshiri thumb, and the other had what looked like a hawk-bat wing. They bared their tiny fangs and began to blink at him with their tiny eyes.
From behind Jag came a young girl’s voice. “No … friend!”
“Amelia?” Jag asked.
“Uh … right,” came the reply. Allana Solo stepped onto the flight deck and began to pluck the little lizards off the seats and equipment. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not,” Jag said from behind his face mask. “Just a little surprised.”
“Surprised is better than afraid,” Allana said. She tossed an armful of lizards back into the main salon. “They might bite to establish dominance, but at least they won’t try to eat you.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Jag said.
He stared down at the two lizards in his lap and reminded himself that he was the pilot of this ship. The two lizards blinked at him a few more times, then suddenly curled up in his lap and began to gnaw on their prizes.
Before Jag could ask Allana what he should do next, a raspy Barabel voice spoke from behind him. “They like you.”
Jag glanced up and, over his shoulder, saw Tesar Sebatyne peering down on the two lizards. “Not as an appetizer, I hope.”
Tesar sissed almost uncontrollably. “Silly human,” he said. “Hatchlingz don’t need appetizerz. They are alwayz hungry.”
A soft clunk reverberated through the Parting Gift as the boarding ramp was raised, then Han came rushing onto the flight deck and stepped toward the copilot’s seat.
“Okay, we’re good to … Jag?” Han stopped halfway to sitting. “What the blazes are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you.” Jag glanced down at the two hatchlings making a mess of his lap. “And a bunch of baby Barabels, apparently.”
“They’re called a clutch,” Han said. “And whatever you do, don’t be—”
“Afraid of them—I’ve heard.” Jag a
ctivated the ion engines. “Is everyone aboard?”
“Everyone who wants to be, anyway.” Han craned his neck to look back toward the Temple. “The last I saw of Tahiri and Saba and her Void Jumpers, they were chasing a dozen Sith deeper into the Temple.”
Jag’s brow went up. “They stayed?”
“Of course they stayed,” Tesar said, sounding a bit wistful. “They are going on the hunt of a lifetime!”
SWELTERING AND DARK AND FILLED WITH THE SMELL OF FRESH DEATH, the corridor felt like one of the old burrows where Saba and her packmates used to wait out Barab I’s deadly sixty-hour day. A couple dozen bodies lay strung along thirty meters of floor, mostly Hapan commandos, but also a few Sith—and even a handful of hatchlings who had proven too slow or too unlucky to escape the carnage. Many of the Sith were missing fingers and ears and other parts that a hungry hatchling could chomp off as it ran past, but Saba was impressed to see that none of the Hapans had been bitten. Teaching young Barabels to leave their dead friends uneaten was no easy thing.
A few things in the corridor reminded Saba that she was not in the old day-burrows, of course. The first was blowing ash. Barab I had been a humid world where it rained twenty hours every night, so the ash turned to mud long before it had a chance to clog nasal passages or inflame throats. The second was the river of Force energy rushing past Saba and her packmates. It was being drawn down into the heart of the Jedi Temple, where in the computer core on Level 351, Abeloth was feeding on the dark side power being released by billions of terrified Coruscanti.
The third thing that reminded Saba she was not in a day-burrow was the band of Sith advancing down the corridor toward her. Back when Barab I had still existed, the Jedi had believed that Sith only came in pairs, a Master and a servant. Saba had always found that disappointing, because it had meant that she would probably never have a chance to hunt Sith herself—and even if she did, by the time she became good at it, the prey would be extinct. But now, after the emergence of the Lost Tribe, there would be an almost limitless supply of Sith to stalk—and there were several hundred of them between her and the quarry she had come to claim.
Truly, this was going to be a fine hunt.
Saba assumed an exaggerated fighting stance, then ignited her lightsaber and began to twirl the blade through a showy and complicated defensive pattern. Her intent was not to intimidate the Sith, but rather to convince them that she was a combat novice who believed such a display might actually have an effect on seasoned enemies. Next to her, Tahiri activated her own weapon and held the blade in front of her body, upright in salute.
The Force rippled with scorn, and the Sith abandoned their cautious approach and broke into a run. Saba adjusted her stance, in the process backing two steps down the corridor. Tahiri glanced over. Finding herself suddenly alone in front, she also retreated two steps. Then she made her Force aura shudder with fear—a nice touch that launched the Sith into a full charge.
A pair of sharp cracks rang off the durasteel walls and two forks of Force lightning came sizzling down the corridor. Tahiri stepped forward, catching both bolts on her blade in a standard defensive maneuver that left her partner free to counterattack. Saba extended a clawed finger, pointing down the first fork, and Force-hurled the first caster into the second. The Force lightning crackled out, but the charge continued, the remainder of the Sith warriors either leaping or trampling their prone companions.
Olazon’s voice sounded over Saba’s comlink earbud, calm and almost banal. “Raising trip wire.”
Even though she knew where to look, the nanoedge filament was so thin that Saba did not see it rising across the corridor. She simply felt the Sith’s sudden puzzlement as shivers of danger sense began to race down their backs, then saw their leaders attempt to pull up short—only to be pushed onto the deadly fiber when their companions behind them failed to stop running.
One Sith was cut completely in two, the top half of her body tumbling forward to hit the floor while the bottom half was still on its feet. The midsections of her two companions simply began to spray fans of blood as they Force-hurled themselves backward into their charging fellows.
Olazon’s voice sounded again in Saba’s ear. “Jedi, down.”
Saba and Tahiri hurled themselves to the floor facedown. By the time they hit, a steady phuutt-phuutt was sounding behind them as the Void Jumper sniper team opened fire with their silenced slugthrowers. Red circles blossomed in three Sith heads, and the targets crumpled to the floor, dead before they knew they were hit.
Reacting quickly, the survivors extended their arms and used the Force to jerk the weapons from the snipers’ hands.
“Legloppers,” Olazon ordered.
A loud pop sounded from the magpackets—Olazon’s demolition team had slapped two of them on the corridor walls after the scouts had reported the enemy approach—and then a pair of fan-shaped cutting lasers flashed across the passage at about knee height. All six Sith screamed in anguish and surprise as their legs were severed, and they tumbled to the floor writhing in pain.
“Stompers.”
A deafening clang shook the corridor as a four-meter section of wall peeled open adjacent to the killing zone, and then a pair of Void Jumpers in full-power armor came hissing and whirring through the breach. The first turned up the passage to provide defensive cover in case there were more Sith rushing to aid the ambushed band. The second Stomper stopped at the edge and covered the floor with a spray of flechettes, killing everything that was not already dead.
Less than sixty seconds after the initial warning, Stomper Two stopped firing and announced, “Kill zone clear.”
“Clear forward,” Stomper One said.
“Approach clear, two hundred meters,” Scout One reported.
“Backtrail clear,” Sniper One reported. “Thirty meters.”
“All clear,” Olazon said. “Good work, everyone. Good ambush.”
“Good pack,” Saba added, returning to her feet. “Their longtailz will not be so eager next time, this one thinkz. Now we start our hunt.”
“Our hunt?” Tahiri asked, rising next to Saba. “So you always meant to let the Parting Gift leave without us and the Void Jumpers?”
“It was overloaded,” Saba said. “And there is quarry for us here … very great quarry.”
As they spoke, Olazon and his Void Jumpers began to emerge from their hiding places. One of the technical sergeants began to collect comlinks, while the second clamped on a pair of knee magnets and began to climb the corridor wall.
Tahiri watched the preparations for a moment, then her eyes grew narrow. “You wanted the Gift because I was aboard, didn’t you?” she asked. “You want me to go after another of Abeloth’s manifestions with you.”
Saba shrugged. “It was Master Horn’z idea,” she said. “But you have already killed one Abeloth. When the time comes, this one expectz you to let the Master take first strike.”
Before Tahiri could agree, Tech One stepped between them and held out a hand. “We need your comlinks,” he said. “And chronos, too, if they have an autocheck function.”
Seeing that Tech Two was magclamping a small silver orb in front of the vidcam that covered this section of corridor, Saba quickly passed over the requested equipment, then asked, “What about lightsaberz and blasterz?”
“Not this time,” the tech replied. “This is just a small blinder. It’s only going to take out RF and a bit of optical.”
Tahiri passed her equipment over. “You’re disabling the surveillance system?”
“Everything within three hundred meters, anyway,” the tech said. “We can’t do the whole thing at once without crashing every speeder and blastboat within fifty kilometers.”
Tahiri turned to Saba. “No one put a backdoor in the Temple’s surveillance system?”
“Of course,” Saba replied. “But Abeloth entered the computer core and removed it—along with all our other backdoorz. She controlz all systemz in the Temple now.”
Tahir
i’s eyes widened in alarm—or perhaps it was excitement. With humans, Saba could never tell.
“When you say entered,” Tahiri said, “do you mean Abeloth actually moved her Force presence into the circuits, like Callista did aboard the Eye of Palpatine’s computer?”
“Yes … that is why we must destroy the surveillance system,” Saba said, forcing herself to be patient. “Before one can kill the kranbak, one must put out the eyes of the kranbak.”
“But that means setting off a blinder every six hundred meters.” Tahiri stopped to do the calculations, then her face sagged with disappointment. “We’re going to be here for days.”
“The time will pass faster than you think, Jedi Veila,” Saba said. “We have much to prepare before Master Skywalker signalz the attack.”
They had been given nothing to drink since departing Coruscant, and the dark waters of the Font of Power were starting to tempt even Ben. The journey had taken days, and Abeloth had refused to allow her captives either water or food, urging them instead to throw off the shackles of mortality and claim their destiny. Ben, she insisted, was to become the eternal Prince of Light, and he would keep burning the twin flames of justice and forgiveness. Vestara was to become the irresistible Daughter of the Night. She would guard the forbidden mysteries of the Force—and she would bring life to the galaxy by filling dreams with images of beauty and desire. Together, the three of them would become the Ones, and they would live forever and remake the galaxy however it suited them.
Ben and Vestara had made the mistake of telling Abeloth they would rather die than become part of her insanity, and now they were standing back-to-back in the yellow fog that surrounded the Font of Power. Their noses and throats were raw from its caustic steam, and their eyes were burning, but they were so dehydrated that their bodies were imploring them to drink—and it did not matter that the water was so tainted with dark side energy that it made them shudder inside. Their heads were pounding and their vision was blurring, and their thoughts were coming slow and muddled. They had to drink or die—and when faced with those choices, the body always chose to drink.