Young Jedi Knights_ Jedi Under Siege Part 6

So Qorl had escaped and made his way to the Shadow Academy, where he had watched as the twins were brought in to be trained under the murderous tutelage of Tamith Kai and Brakiss. Qorl had been deeply disturbed by the violence of their instruction, the disregard for the lives of the fresh students.

No one had ever found out that Qorl had discreetly a.s.sisted the young friends in their escape as they fled the Shadow Academy.

After that Qorl had privately done everything he could to atone for the indiscretion, making his raid on the Rebel convoy to steal hyperdrive cores and turbolaser batteries, then working hard to train Norys and the other new stonntroopers.

A smoking s.h.i.+p streaked overhead: a blaster-scarred and battered cargo transport. Qorl recognized the model of the s.h.i.+p, an unarmed carrier vessel of an old design.

Its engines were sluggish, its s.h.i.+elds not designed or reinforced for combat.

And now he saw that it was being pursued by a relentless TIE fighter.

Qorl was ashamed to see the TIE pilot waste shot after shot, although sheer luck allowed some of the laser bolts to strike the hull. It would be only a matter of time before the cargo s.h.i.+p exploded in midair.

Qorl tuned his c.o.c.kpit comm systems to a direct channel with the other TIE fighter.

"TIE pilot, identify yourself."

The gruff voice that responded came as no surprise to Qorl. "This is Norys, old man.

Don't bother me-I've got a target in my sights."

He swallowed, but his throat remained dry. "Norys, you have already crippled the target. That cargo s.h.i.+p is not our main objective. Your orders are to disable the Jedi academy. That s.h.i.+p won't be causing any more trouble for the Second Imperium."

"Leave off, old man," Norys said. "This is my kill, and I'm gonna score it." Qorl tried to keep his anger in check. "We don't keep score, Norys.

This a.s.sault is for the Second Imperium-not for your personal glory."

"Go stick your head up an exhaust tube," Norys said. "I'm not letting an old coward tell me what to do." Then the bully switched off his comm system and plunged after the burning cargo s.h.i.+p, firing with absolute abandon.

Qorl's disappointment turned to outrage.

This young man's att.i.tude flew in the face of everything admirable about the Empire.

Qorl remembered his earlier TIE fighter training, how he and his fellow pilots had all worked together like a machine: precise, well mannered, respectful, listening to orders promoting the orderly lifestyle the Emperor had brought to the That was worth fighting for.

But Norys did not represent such a philosophy. He didn't care.

The broadband comm signal came across his speakers again. "This is Jacen Solo with a personal distress this time. We are in deep trouble. Someone is on our tail. Request a.s.sistance. Please-can anyone out there help us?"

Qorl flew beneath the aerial dogfight just above the treetops, anguished inside. Jacen Solo was an honorable opponent. The boy had a strong heart, though he had fallen in with the Rebel band instead of the Second Imperium. But could the boy be blamed?

After all, his mother was the Chief of State of the Rebel government.

Norys, however, did have a choice. The broad-shouldered boy knew what he had been trained for. He had adopted his Imperial uniform and his s.h.i.+p willingly... yet now he refused to play by the rules. Norys was no better than a ruthless, murderous bully.

The pursuing TIE fighter continued to fly in the slipstream of the crippled cargo vessel. Black smoke curled up from her engine pods, and Qorl observed the precise moment at which the s.h.i.+elds failed.

Still Norys fired again, staining the hull with a slash of black blisters.

Qorl flicked on his own laser cannons and activated the targeting systems. The Lightning Rod would explode in a matter of seconds under Norys's continued a.s.sault. If it did, Qorl wouldn't be surprised if the bully continued to shoot the burning wreckage to make sure there were no survivors.

Disgust welled up within him. Switching off his comm system, he muttered, "Do I lose any honor by destroying someone who has no honor of his own?"

Qorl had studied every subsystem on the Imperial TIE fighters. He knew their weak points. Qorl knew how to destroy them.

He targeted Norys's reactor exhausts.

Ignoring his teacher entirely, Norys fired again. His lasers had fallen into a slower repeating rhythm now, as if he savored these last few moments.

The Lightning Rod lurched, in one last helpless attempt to dodge the laser fire.

Qorl closed in on Norys's s.h.i.+p.

And fired.

Norys's TIE fighter exploded in the air, annihilated so quickly and completely that the young bully didn't even have time to cry out in surprise.

Ashamed that his act had been a betrayal of the Second Imperium, Qorl made no attempt to contact the Lightning Rod. He simply changed course and swerved back toward the main battlefield, while the faltering Lightning Rod struggled to remain aloft... or at least to land without cras.h.i.+ng too badly.

WHILE BATTLES RAGED above the Jedi academy and in the jungle around it, Imperial commando Orvak crept forward, intent on his mission.

He had left his TIE fighter behind in the wake of the explosions at the s.h.i.+eld generator facility, but he would come back to it once he had finished here. For hours now, he had made his way secretly through the thick forest.

Several trees burned in the jungle nearby, sending up coils of putrid smoke from the wet vegetation. He heard blaster fire and shouts, the distant hum of lightsabers. He kept low and quiet, not willing to risk giving away his position.

Skywalker's Jedi had abandoned their Great Temple to engage in scattered skirmishes in the forests... leaving it open and unprotected for him to do his work.

Approaching the ancient edifice, still hidden by the jungle, Orvak saw black streaks on the thick stone-blaster scoring and scars from proton explosives dropped by TIE bombers. The ubiquitous vines that clung to the pyramid's sides had withered under the fire and fallen away in heaps. One close explosion had wrecked the temple's hangar bay door, preventing Skywalker's fleet of guardian s.h.i.+ps from launching.

So, Orvak thought, after all these millennia, this ancient structure had finally been damaged.,But it wasn't damaged enough.

He would take care of the rest.

Moving carefully, ducking his helmeted head, he crept through the foliage, ripping up vines and uprooting ferns to clear the way until he finally emerged from the underbrush and stood behind the tall temple.

Above, TIE fighters streaked like birds of prey across the sky; Orvak looked up, silently urging them on.

To one side of the pyramid he saw a newly laid flagstone courtyard.

Across it, at the base of the stone structure, a darkened entrance stood open. Imagining what sort of fearful sorcerous exercises the Jedi students performed there, he stepped cautiously into the courtyard.

Already weeds had begun to push up between the flagstones. The jungle would no doubt reclaim its own within a matter of months after he destroyed the temple - and it would be good riddance to this place, he thought. By then he hoped either to be back on the Shadow Academy or perhaps promoted to officer rank on a Star Destroyer... if his mission today turned out well enough.

When the fighting became particularly loud, and proton bombs exploded in the jungle not far away, Orvak made his move. He rushed across the heavy flagstones to the dim doorway that led into the Rebels' secret temple.

He paused at the threshold for a moment, glad for his helmet in case poisonous vapors might seep out from the interior. Who knew what b.o.o.by traps the Jedi sorcerers might have laid?

He used the sensors in his helmet to check for traps, but found none...

which wasn't surprising, since the Shadow Academy's attack had been completely unexpected; the Jedi Knights had not had time to prepare.

Orvak entered the Ma.s.sa.s.si temple, shouldering his pack. He raced down the corridors, unfamiliar with the layout of the pyramid. He saw living quarters, large dining halls... nothing of significance that he could destroy.

He made his way down to the rubblesealed hangar bay, where he thought he could plant his detonators to best effect and blow up all the Rebel starfighters. But when he emerged from the turbolift, he squinted in the dim lighting, unable to believe what he saw. Orvak found only a single, sleek looking s.h.i.+p, all curves and angles. Nothing more. No fleet of s.p.a.cecraft, no major defenses. He snorted in disbelief.

Suddenly, alarms squealed out from the hangar bay. Flas.h.i.+ng red lights stabbed at his eyes. A small barrel-shaped droid hurtled toward him, whistling and screeching. Blue electric bolts sparked from a welding arm that protruded from its cylindrical torso.

Orvak slammed himself back into the turbolift, punching the controls to seal the doors. Could the Jedi have installed a force of a.s.sa.s.sin droids?

Lethal, weapon-wielding machines that would never, ever miss?

But as the doors sealed shut and the turbolift whisked him upward, his last glimpse showed him that the attacker was simply a lone astromech droid trundling across the floor, sounding the Amdard alarms installed in its base. Apparently, however, no one remained in the temple to hear them.

He chuckled nervously. One astromech droid! It annoyed him when mere machines held too great a sense of their own importance. He no longer feared a trap.

Orvak had to find a different place for his purposes anyway. Someplace more special.

He finally located it on the highest level of the great pyramid.

Taking the tuiwhft to the top, and holding his blaster ready to shoot anyone who came out of the shadows, the Imperial commando stepped into the grand audience chamber.

Here, the walls were polished and inlaid with multicolored stones. At one end rose a great stage, from which Orvak could imagine the Rebels gave lectures to their students, handed medals to each other after victories in the war against the rightful rulers of the galaxy, perhaps even performed their disgusting rituals.

Yes, he thought. Perfect.

Moving quickly, heart pounding with the thrill of accomplis.h.i.+ng the mission that had already cost the life of his companion Dareb, Orvak unslung his pack. He pulled off his black helmet to see better in the light that filtered through the temple skylights.

Smoke blackened the sky outside, like burnt paint brushed across the air.

Distant sounds of the continuing attack echoed like ricochets inside the audience chamber. But he heard no one else nearby, no movement.

The temple was empty, and he had the time to work.

Orvak strode up to the stage, his boots thumping on the stone floor. Yes, that would be the best place, a central location where the incredible blast could reflect from all sides. He yanked off his heavy gloves so that he could tinker with the fine electronic components.

Working cautiously, he removed his seven remaining high-powered detonators and linked them together. Then, he plugged all of the explosives into a central countdown timer and spread them out like the spokes of a wheel in the grand audience chamber.

Yes, it would be a fine explosion.

Ideally, when all the detonators went off simultaneously, the explosion would rip off the top of the temple like a volcano erupting. The shock wave would punch through the floor to the levels below and blast the walls outward. The entire pyramid would come tumbling down, no more than a pile of ancient rubble-as it deserved to be.

Orvak returned to the central unit and fiddled with the controls, kneeling on the polished surface of the stage. He thought with smug satisfaction that no more Rebels would ever lecture here. No future Jedi Knights would learn Rebel ways. This room would hold no more victory celebrations.

Soon it would all be gone.

Kneeling on the ground, Orvak keyed in the initiating code. All around the chamber, detonator lights winked green, ready to go, waiting for him to send the final command.

Surveying his handiwork, he smiled and pressed the ACTIVATE b.u.t.ton. The timer began to count down. Not much time left for the Jedi academy.

As he moved, resting his hand on the floor, Orvak caught a glimmer of motion out of the corner of his eye... something glittering and translucent, almost transparent; it had caught a reflection of the light somehow.

He pulled out his blaster, remaining in a protective crouch. "Vvho's there? " he called.

Then he saw it again, an iridescent sinuous shape slithering toward him across the stage. He lost sight of it once more.

Orvak fired his blaster, gouging holes in the floor around him. Streaks of energy bolts ricocheted around him. He flattened himself on the stage, afraid of return fire.

He couldn't see the s.h.i.+mmering invisible thing anymore, and wondered what it could have been. Some sorcerer's trick, no doubt.

He shouldn't have dropped his guard, but the Jedi would never get him.

Just then, Orvak felt needles of pain sting his hand. He looked down to see tiny droplets of blood welling from two punctures in his palm-and the triangle head of some kind of viper, a gla.s.sy crystalline snake!

"Hey!" he shouted.

Before he could lash out at it, the crystal snake dropped away from him and slithered toward a narrow crack in the wall. Orvak saw a last spangle of light, and then the serpent disappeared....

But by now he was beyond caring, because a warm fog of sleepiness had begun to steal over him. The pain from the snakebite in his hand dulled to a throb, and Orvak thought drowsily that a long sleep could only make it better.

He collapsed into a deep slumber right beside the countdown timer.

The numbers ticked inexorably downward.

TENEL KA STOOD at the edge of the Imperial battle platform, her muscles tense, her body and reflexes ready to react.

She coiled her fibercord before returning it and the grappling hook to her belt. Then, with her single muscular arm, she held up her rancor-tooth lightsaber and ignited it.

Beside her towered Lowbacca, ginger fur standing on end, dark lips peeled back to reveal fangs. The Wookiee used both hands to grip his clublike lightsaber with its molten bronze blade.

Surprised to see unexpected enemies, stormtroopers on the battle platform marched forward with blasters drawn, confident of their victory.

Em Teedee wailed. "Oh dear, Master Lowbacca-perhaps we should have planned this attack a bit more thoroughly."

Lowie snarled, but Tenel Ka stood tall, her confidence unshaken. "The Force is with us," she said. "This is a fact."

A single TIE bomber swooped overhead, dropping proton torpedoes into the forests.

The sounds of blaster fire ricocheted around them.

On the raised command deck of the battle platform, the Nightsister Tamith Kai stood in her black cloak like a preening bird of prey. She turned, her midnight hair writhing around her head with static electricity, her wine-dark lips curled in a sneer. Tenel Ka and Lowie took three brave steps toward the waiting stormtroopers.

One of the white-armored soldiers, apparently nervous at seeing the two young Jedi Knights, fired his blaster-and Tenel Ka whipped her energy blade across to intersect the incoming energy bolt, deflecting it into the sky.

Then, by unspoken agreement, she and Lowie charged forward, yelling. They slashed with their lightsabers so furiously that though the stormtroopers sent out a volley of blaster fire, they were thrown into chaos. Lowie and Tenel Ka forced their way through them like a whirlwind.

On the command deck above, Tamith Kai strode forward to gaze down at the skirmish. "The girl is mine. I'll crush her heart myself," she said.

Tenel Ka slashed once more with her lightsaber, taking out another charging stormtrooper. She turned. Her heart thudded, but her breath came slow and even. Her muscles sang. She was prepared for this fight, sure of her physical abilities. This would be her best battle ever.