Dark Nest_ The Swarm War Part 28

"No, Jacen," he said. "That's Vergere's way of using the Force. It won't work for me."

Jacen's face grew worried. "But you're one against two, and they'll have the Force potential of the entire Colony to draw on. You'll need all the power you can get!"

"No," Luke said. "I'll need strength-and that comes from my way of using the Force."

Jacen cast a worried glance toward Mara, and she began to grow fearful as well.

"Luke, I understand your hesitation," Mara said. "But I'd feel better if you took another Master or two-"

"I've made my decision." Luke smiled and squeezed her arm gently. "Don't fear. Accept."

TWENTY-ONE.

It had grown clear that-for once-Han and Leia Solo would not arrive at the crucial moment. A ceaseless storm of megalaser fire had turned Tenupe's green sky into a flas.h.i.+ng sheet of crimson and the endless downpour into a hot, foul-smelling drizzle. A dozen different kinds of rescue shuttles were hovering over the flooded river, trying to pluck the half-drowned Chiss survivors off their submerged islands. Clouds of fist-sized Qeeq and meter-long Aebea were droning out of the jungle to attack, clogging intake turbines with their pureed bodies and ma.s.sing on hulls until their weight alone dropped the vessel like a stone into the river.

The crucial moment was past. Maybe Jaina had misinterpreted the situation when she reached out to her mother in the Force, or maybe something had delayed the Falcon. It hardly mattered. The battle could no longer be stopped. Zekk was descending out of the jungle's defoliated canopy with her StealthX slaved to his, and all that remained now was to spring UnuThul's trap and watch the Chiss die.

As the StealthXs drew near, Jaina and Zekk's mind-link was restored. It was not as all-embracing as it had been when they were with the Taat-living with other nests had weakened it-but the connection remained strong enough for Jaina to know the sense of urgency that filled every fiber of Zekk's body, and to understand the reason for it. UnuThul was coming with the Moon Fleet.

The struts had barely touched the jungle floor before Jaina's astromech was opening the canopy and tweedling a welcome.

"Nice to see you, too, Sneaky," Jaina said. "All systems go?"

The droid gave an affirmative whistle, and Jaina felt a wave of concern from Zekk. She looked battered and exhausted and b.l.o.o.d.y. Maybe she was not ready to start flying missions.

"You think the Chiss will wait while we take a nap?" Jaina retorted. Without waiting for a reply, she turned to her Wuluw communications a.s.sistant and reached down to rub a forearm along an antenna. "Sorry for getting you killed so many times, Wuluw."

"Burru," Wuluw thrummed. "U bru."

"You be careful, too," Jaina said. "Someday, the Song will have a verse about your bravery at the Battle of Tenupe."

"Rrrr." Wuluw's mandibles clattered in embarra.s.sment, then she waved all four arms in modesty. "Uburr."

Jaina and Zekk laughed, then Jaina stepped over to her StealthX, retrieved her flight suit from the c.o.c.kpit and gladly changed out of her mud-caked combat utilities.

She was just climbing into the pilot's seat when her mother suddenly touched her through the Force. Leia seemed terribly alarmed and was clearly trying to warn Jaina and Zekk about something, but the feeling was too vague to tell more.

Then Jaina and Zekk felt Saba reaching out to them as well, opening herself to a battle-meld. They did the same, and the situation immediately grew clearer. Saba and Leia were here, somewhere near Tenupe, and they needed Jaina and Zekk in the air. Something terrible was coming, something that had to be stopped.

Jaina hastily buckled her crash webbing, then glanced out at Wuluw, and she and Zekk wondered if this was something they should warn the Killiks about.

Yes! The impression came from both Saba and Leia, so strong that Jaina and Zekk heard it inside their minds as an actual word. Must!

Wuluw started to turn around and leave, but Jaina caught her in the Force and floated her back to the StealthX.

"Urubu rubuhu!" the Killik drummed as Jaina suspended her next to the starfighter. "Brurb!"

"Don't worry, you're not coming with us," Jaina said. "And even if you were, I really doubt you'd burst. StealthXs have inertial compensators."

"Urb?"

"You need to warn the swarm," Jaina said. "Something bad is coming:"

"Rr?"

"We don't know. My ."

Jaina stopped, unsure whether she should reveal the source of her foreboding. She had heard how her parents had interfered with the Utegetu evacuation, and she knew the Colony would disapprove of any effort to end the war, so she and Zekk both thought it was probably best not to mention Leia and Saba.

"We're getting a strong feeling from the Force." Jaina returned Wuluw to the ground. "Warn the swarm-and alert UnuThul!"

Jaina lowered the StealthX canopy and energized the repulsor drives, then followed Zekk up into the top of the jungle, where the defoliated mogos were now shattered and burning. Chiss megalaser strikes were lancing down through the clouds like a Bespinese lightning squall, igniting kilometer-long columns of flash fire and turning the lower sky into a region of flame-storm and hot, buffeting winds.

The two Jedi ascended toward the cloud ceiling half blinded by alternating instants of crimson brilliance and stormy dimness, trusting their stick hands to the Force, weaving and rolling their way through a forest of crackling energy. They were dimly aware of a quiet area by the river, where an erratic stream of Chiss shuttles was diving into the ma.s.s of Killiks swirling above the islands. But they did not even consider entering the enemy's rescue corridor. As nerve racking as it was to ascend through a barrage, it was far better than the alternative: being spotted by a rescue pilot and having a squadron of clawcraft jump them.

The cloud cover made the ascent especially challenging. The megamaser beams did not seem to descend so much as manifest from the mist. Jaina and Zekk constantly found themselves reacting rather than antic.i.p.ating, rolling away from a fading column of flame only to find a new one erupting ahead. To make matters worse, their tactical displays revealed two squadrons of clawcraft circling through the clouds around them-enough to make even Jedi grind their teeth and curse under their breaths.

Zekk wanted it known that he was only responsible for the teeth grinding. Until he had become Jaina's mind-mate, he had never even heard most of the curse words that were now ricocheting around inside his head.

As they broke out of the clouds into the emerald vastness of Tenupe's upper atmosphere, both exhaled in relief. A blinding torrent of energy was still crackling down around them, but now that they were above the rain and the clouds, the situation looked a little more like the battles they had grown accustomed to in s.p.a.ce-with an emphasis on little. The megamaser beams were fanning down from about fifty points overhead. The vessels that fired them were still so distant that they were barely flecks against the sky, but they were descending fast, following each other down in a large open spiral and trailing long plumes of gray entry smoke that gave away their positions.

Jaina wrinkled her brow. A military fleet dropping out of orbit with batteries blazing might be terrible, but it was hardly something that Leia and Saba would expect Jaina and Zekk to stop with a pair of StealthXs. The warning had to point to something else-something the two Jedi Knights had not yet seen.

"Sneaky, give me a full tac on that fleet," Jaina ordered. "I'm looking for something that doesn't fit the attack profile."

Sneaky tweedled an acknowledgment, then scrolled a message across the display: A s.p.a.cE FLEET PERFORMING CLOSE GROUND SUPPORT DOES NOT FIT ANY ATTACK PROFILE IN MY RECORDS.

"Your records don't include the Battle of Bogo Rai," Jaina said.

AND YOURS DO?.

"ReyaTaat's do," Jaina said. ReyaTaat had once been a Chiss intelligence officer named Daer'ey'ath. "It's a famous Chiss battle. The Colony learned about it when Taat found Daer'ey'ath spying on us and received her into the nest."

OH.

The fleet deployment appeared on Jaina's tactical display. The enemy's ground-support task force consisted of thirty Star Destroyers and their escorts, a truly awesome flotilla capable of incinerating the jungle from canopy to roots for kilometers around. But the Chiss were being oddly careless, leaving only a handful of Star Destroyers and their escorts in orbit to provide top cover. When UnuThul arrived with the Moon Swarm, he was going to do more than b.l.o.o.d.y the enemy fleet and drive it off-he was going to smash it against Tenupe.

The Chiss have made their last mistake, Zekk said through their mind-link. After UnuThul destroys their fleet, they will not be able to press the war.

The Chiss will be weakened, Jaina agreed. Somewhere deep in her mind, she knew that the total destruction of the fleet was a two-edged sword, that weakening the Chiss too much would only embolden the Colony and prolong the war-but it did not seem that way to UnuThul. She could sense his excitement through the Force. It was a dark momentum inside her, growing more powerful each moment and carrying her inexorably into b.l.o.o.d.y total war. The tide will change, and the Colony will crush them like bugs.

Zekk chuckled at the insult, and the sensation of his amus.e.m.e.nt made Jaina feel a little sad. There had been a time when the chuckle would have erupted from her lips, too, and neither of them would have known-or cared-who laughed first.

Then Jaina sensed something else from Zekk-a sudden surge of alarm-and they quickly dropped back into the clouds where they would be difficult to see. Four squadrons of clawcraft had started to descend ahead of the main task force, escorting a pair of Chiss defoliators and swinging wide to avoid the megamaser barrage.

Jaina and Zekk reached out to the defoliators in the Force and suddenly felt sick and cold. Those s.h.i.+ps were what Leia and Saba had wanted them to intercept. There was something terrible aboard those two defoliators, something so sinister and deadly that it had overwhelmed their danger sense from nearly a hundred kilometers away.

Navigating by instruments, they swung onto an interception vector, and shortly afterward they escaped the barrage area. UnuThul soon felt the threat, too. A dark pressure arose inside their chests, pus.h.i.+ng them after the two defoliators, compelling them to attack now. It was all they could do to resist his Will, to remain in the clouds until they were actually in a position to succeed.

Finally, when the two defoliators had moved so close that the main fleet would not risk firing into the fight, Jaina and Zekk raced forward. They remained in the clouds until they were directly beneath their targets, then pulled back their sticks and climbed straight up. Jaina armed a pair of proton torpedoes-the Colony could no longer acquire the baradium needed to make shadow bombs-then designated the defoliator on the right.

"We'll take that one, Sneaky. Let me know when we have a target-lock."

The droid chirped an acknowledgment, and for a moment it looked like their StealthXs might reach attack range unseen.

Then clawcraft from the two trailing squadrons began to drop down to meet them. They seemed to be moving in slow motion, since the atmosphere even this high was thick enough to slow down a starfighter and tear it apart if it maneuvered too sharply. But the distances were also smaller-dozens of kilometers instead of hundreds-and within a few heartbeats, the dark specks of the first Chiss fighters came into view and began to rain cannon bolts down on the StealthXs.

Sneaky reported that they had a target-lock. Jaina confirmed that it was the correct vessel, then sensed Zekk doing the same. They launched their torpedoes together and watched the white dots of the propulsion tails vanish into the green sky.

A second later the first laser bolt slammed into Jaina's forward s.h.i.+elds, spilling orange flame in front of her canopy and reverberating inside the c.o.c.kpit as s.h.i.+eld hits never did in s.p.a.ce. Zekk slipped in close and slightly ahead of her, buying time for her s.h.i.+elds to recover by placing himself between her and their attackers. They continued to climb like that, barely five meters apart, juking and jinking as one, pouring fire back up at the clawcraft.

Then Sneaky chirped in surprise, and Jaina checked her tactical display to find both sets of proton torpedoes detonating twenty kilometers from the defoliators-well short of where any countermeasures should have taken effect.

"What the Hutt happened?"

The tactical display replayed the last several seconds, and Jaina saw four clawcraft come streaking in to intercept the proton torpedoes head-on. One of the pilots was lucky enough to blast his target out of the air with cannon fire, but the other three missed and stopped the torpedoes by cras.h.i.+ng into them.

That's s.p.a.ced-even for Chiss! Zekk said through their shared mind.

Maybe the defoliators don't have countermeasures, Jaina suggested.

Or maybe the Chiss just want to be really sure those s.h.i.+ps deliver their payloads, Zekk said.

Zekk took a hit in his s.h.i.+elds, then Jaina slipped into the forward position. The enemy squadrons were coming head-on, a mad tactic as dangerous for them as it was for their targets. They were coming in waves of four, the leaders already so close that they were the size of fists. Jaina and Zekk picked the second one from the left and fired together, pounding through its s.h.i.+elds by landing five cannon strikes simultaneously.

Before the fireball died away, Jaina and Zekk switched targets. The first wave was so close now that they could see the laser bolts streaming from the tips of the forward-pointing "claws" that gave the starfighters their nicknames. The Jedi fired again, aiming where the Force told them the craft was going rather than where it was. The pilot accommodated them by jinking into their line of fire, and the starfighter vanished in a flash of yellow flame.

Jaina and Zekk were just turning their attention to their next victim when the crash of a triple cannon strike shook Jaina's c.o.c.kpit. Her instrument panel lit up with depletion lights and damage warnings, but she could not hear the alarms-or Sneaky's tweedling-over the roar of the explosion.

Zekk slipped into the lead position, and they began to pour cannon bolts at the next clawcraft. The two survivors from the first wave had swollen in apparent diameter to the size of a Bith's head, but they were barrel-rolling and bobbing and weaving so hard now that, at such short range, the StealthXs could not aim their laser cannons quickly enough to hit the targets.

Sneaky scrolled a message across Jaina's display. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT WE TURN BACK IMMEDIATELY. WE HAVE LOST OUR FORWARD s.h.i.+ELD CAPACITOR!

"So?" Jaina asked. "We still have s.h.i.+elds for now, right?"

UNTIL WE SUFFER THE NEXT HIT, Sneaky replied. AND IF WE ARE FORCED TO EJECT, I DON'T HAVE A PARACHUTE!

"Relax," Jaina said. "I have the Force."

The Chiss finally rolled the wrong way. A trio of hits punched through his s.h.i.+elds and took off an attack claw, sending him into an uncontrolled spin. He vanished into the roiling gray-green clouds below, and then the last clawcraft was on them, not evading, just coming straight at the StealthXs with all four cannons blazing.

Zekk's s.h.i.+elds overloaded and flashed out in a second. Before Jaina could move into lead position, his StealthX took a hit in the nose and another in an upper wing, and still the clawcraft kept coming.

Then Jaina realized the pilot had no intention of veering away. With her and Zekk flying in overlap formation, the explosion from a midair collision would be enough to take them both out.

The thought had barely entered Jaina's mind before Zekk was breaking left. Jaina broke in the opposite direction, trying to force a hesitation by making the enemy choose between targets.

The Chiss was too good to hesitate. He smoothly switched targets and took aim at the side of Jaina's StealthX, pounding through her s.h.i.+elds and blowing head-sized holes into her fuselage. Unable to shoot back, she used the Force to tip his clawcraft downward, redirecting his fire and forcing him into a dive that carried him beneath her starfighter instead of cras.h.i.+ng into it.

As the starfighter streaked past, the Force fairly crackled with the pilot's frustration-with his very human-feeling frustration. Jaina reached out to him and felt an all-too familiar presence. "Blast," she muttered. Jagged Fel.

Knowing better than to let a clawcraft pilot-particularly this clawcraft pilot-get behind her, Jaina pivoted the StealthX over its wing and started after him.

"Sneaky, open a hailing channel to our target."

The droid squeaked a long objection, which Jaina could barely hear over all the damage alarms-and which she could not read because her display was out.

"Comm protocols don't apply right now," Jaina said, taking a guess at what her astromech was upset about. "The enemy already knows where we are. They can see us."

Sneaky whistled in refusal.

"If I have to do it myself, I'm ejecting you," Jaina said. The channel was open by the time she fell in behind the clawcraft.

"Jag, what are you doing here?" she demanded.

"Trying to shoot you down," Jag said. "But I forget-that's supposed to be a military secret. Now I guess I have to kill you."

Jaina probably should not have been surprised by the bitterness in Jag's voice, but she was, and he nearly broke free by rolling to the left. Fortunately, Zekk was there pouring laser bolts into the clawcraft's exhaust tail, and Jag had to slip back into Jaina's sights when overload static began to snake across his s.h.i.+elds. He tried to escape again by breaking hard to the right, but this time Jaina was ready and forced him back by sending a stream of cannon bolts past his flank.

"Jag, you shouldn't take this so personally," Jaina said. She noticed that he was gradually turning, trying to draw them away from the defoliators. "You and I were over a long time before Zekk and I met Taat."

"You think I care whose antennae you rub?" Jagged retorted. "You betrayed your honor."

"Our honor?" Jaina was confused. "We haven't made you any-"

"I guaranteed Lowbacca's parole at Qoribu," Jagged reminded her. "And you returned my courtesy with betrayal. at Supply Depot Thrago and the Battle of Snevu. My family's reputation has suffered."

As had its finances, if Jaina recalled the terms of the guarantee correctly. Aristocra Formbi had said the Fels would have to repay any damages Lowbacca caused if he violated the parole-and before returning to the Alliance, he had taken part in the destruction of not only several million liters of s.p.a.ce fuel, but also dozens of clawcraft and a couple of capital s.h.i.+ps.

"Jag, I'm sorry," Jaina said. The second wave of clawcraft reached visual range and-ignoring the possibility of hitting Jagged by accident-opened fire on the StealthXs. "In the urgency of the situation, the parole just didn't occur to us."

"Don't apologize. The fault is all mine." Jagged continued his turn and started to climb, trying to set up Jaina and Zekk for his wingmates. "I should never have made the mistake of thinking Jedi had honor."

The rebuke hurt more than it should have, perhaps because Jaina and Zekk knew it was justified-and because Jaina knew that it reflected Jagged's current disdain for her. But this was war, and they could not allow personal feelings to interfere with stopping those defoliators-not when whatever the vessels were carrying felt so malevolent and deadly.

"Jagged, we-I-want you to know that I still love you. And I always will." Jaina activated her attack sensors and locked Jagged's clawcraft as the primary target. "But if you can eject, you should do it now."

Jaina and Zekk opened fire.

But Jagged had already gone into the Clawcraft Spin, whirling his starfighter around its ball-shaped c.o.c.kpit and spraying laser bolts in every direction as he fell away in an erratic spiral impossible to target. It was a popular tactic in s.p.a.ce combat, but in an atmosphere it was so dangerous and difficult that most pilots would have preferred to take their chances with no s.h.i.+elds and one engine. Yet Jagged Fel somehow managed to keep the air resistance from tearing his craft apart, and by the time he vanished into the clouds, he was already emerging from the spin and starting to pull up.

Maybe we shouldn't warn him next time, Zekk suggested.