Fate of the Jedi: Backlash Page 4

  “We’ll start with a mixed-squadron attack, give me sixty percent Y-wings, twenty percent X’s, twenty percent A’s …” Jag strapped on the helmet and reached for the face mask. “Range of pilot skills from green to elite, even distribution.” He pressed the face mask to his face.

  It smelled odd, sweet.

  Instinctively, he threw it from him, to his feet. “Abort, abort.”

  The hatch, moving into closed position on its hinges above his head, did not hesitate or reverse direction.

  From his boot holster, Jag drew a small, powerful blaster, something like the type referred to as a hold-out or throwdown weapon, but much more expensive, much more reliable. He fired once at each hinge. Blaster bolts flashed against the machinery, some of the energy ricocheting away; the rest imparted hundreds of degrees of heat, blowing away sections of metal, superheating the rest. The air in the enclosed space of the simulator became much warmer. The hatch stopped in a half-closed position.

  The face mask began hissing. Jag scrambled to his feet and launched himself up through the narrowed exit, careful not to come in contact with the superheated portion of the hatch, and made it atop the simulator.

  He dropped to the floor on the side away from the ladder. As he did so, the door into the chamber shot up and open. Jag peered around the circumference of the simulator to see a stormtrooper in full white armor step into the chamber. The man, unaware of Jag’s location, raised his blaster rifle, aiming it up toward the hatch.

  Jag leaned out far enough to aim and opened fire. His first shot hit the trooper in the center of the chest plate, sending the man staggering back. His second hit the same spot; his third, the helmet. The trooper fell with a clatter of armor. “Lock open,” Jag said, and there was an obedient clunk from the door mechanism.

  Jag had to think, and had little or no time with which to do so.

  Gas in his simulator, probably sleep gas. The enemy goal, then, was to capture him, but whether this was for ransom or just to kill him later was unknown. It probably meant the trooper’s blaster rifle was set to stun. Small comfort, that.

  This was an inside job. Neither his outer door nor the door into the simulator chamber was forced, and no alarms had been triggered. It was reasonable to suppose that the entire sensor and alarm setup for his suite was disabled, meaning that he could shout forever without being heard. No help would come.

  More kidnappers would, though. They’d want more than one conspirator to carry him out of his quarters. So …

  He glanced up at the ceiling. He didn’t know what was situated directly above this room, but he was about to find out. He aimed at the ceiling and began pulling the trigger.

  As shot after blaster shot hit the ceiling, one spot blackened, deformed, and gave way completely. Jag watched the energy meter on the blaster’s butt count down as he fired, but before the charge was quite depleted he was rewarded with the faint sounds of a shriek and a curse from overhead. Then the wail of an alarm filled the air.

  Another stormtrooper appeared in the doorway, already aiming at Jag. Jag pulled back, putting the body of the simulator between himself and the newcomer, and the stun bolt, a wavering flash of blue, hit the side of the machine. Jag felt a tingle as the simulator’s skin conducted some of the energy into him, but only a fraction of the charge reached him.

  The simulator, like the cockpit ball of a TIE fighter, was spherical, and Jag had something that no armored stormtrooper did: flexibility. He went flat on the permacrete floor, peering under the curve of the simulator hull, and had a clear view of the trooper’s legs up to the knees.

  He fired once into each kneecap. With a howl, the trooper turned and fell flat on his face. Jag couldn’t hear whether there were more enemies coming—deafened by blaster shots and by the alarm, he wouldn’t have heard if an entire regiment of troopers was marching toward him. So it was a risk, but Jag scrambled forward under the curve of the simulator, reaching the downed trooper, and set his near-empty hold-out blaster down. He grabbed the man’s rifle and swung it around, aiming out through the door where he could now see about a quarter of his antechamber and the first downed trooper, who was still unmoving. Jag switched the weapon from stun to kill.

  Two more troopers moved into view, heading his way but separating as they came—Jag guessed they were part of a small formation fanning out as they approached. He fired at the one on the left, who would have had an easier time ducking out of sight. But Jag’s shot caught him in the unarmored inner thigh, spinning him down to the carpeted floor. The man’s scream choked off before he fell. The second trooper threw himself to the floor, narrowing his profile considerably, and opened fire. Jag rolled to position himself more fully behind the body of the nearest trooper, and that trooper’s body caught the one stun bolt that came near. Jag fired once, twice, three times, and the trooper in the next room lay still, his helmet a charred, smoking mess.

  In a conversational tone, not loud enough to be heard over the alarm and through trooper helmets but loud enough for the nearest suite microphones to pick up, Jag said, “Door, unlock. Door, disengage all safety governors. Door …” He waited before issuing another command, and wriggled backward, dragging with him the trooper he was using for cover.

  Two troopers appeared in the doorway, side by side, clearly having leapt into place from outside Jag’s field of view.

  Jag said, “Shut.”

  The door slammed down, hammering both troopers to the floor. The door, not meant for use as a weapon, bent and accordioned around its two victims.

  Jag shot one trooper, then the other, in the neck. He said, “Door, open.” The ruined remains of the door rose, jamming in the up position with half its length still in view.

  Then there was more blasterfire, a lot of it, and Jag could see the antechamber being illuminated as if by a fireworks display, but only a couple of blaster bolts entered the simulator chamber; one burned through the side of the simulator and the other ricocheted from the walls, flashing back into the antechamber.

  The blasterfire stopped. The alarm cut out, leaving a ringing silence in Jag’s ears. Finally, he heard, “Sir? Sir, are you here?”

  The voice, normally soft-spoken, now held both worry and rage. It belonged to Ashik, formally known as Kthira’shi’ktarloo. Ashik was a Chiss who was Jag’s devoted assistant, attendant, and head of personal security. And who, no doubt, was probably more agitated at a possible failure of that last duty than Jag himself was.

  “I’m fine, Ashik.” Jag stood, winced at the smell of burned flesh and armor, and smoothed his tunic. “Hold your fire.” He ducked and stepped through the doorway, blaster rifle in hand.

  The antechamber was a ruin of eight or nine downed stormtroopers; blackened, destroyed furniture; and fumes. Still standing were Ashik and a complement of Imperial security men and women. Ashik’s blue face was set in anger; his piercing eyes were hard, and his full lips pressed together.

  Jag nodded at Ashik. “Yes. I’d like some answers. Right away.”

  Answers were slow in coming.

  The first stormtrooper Jag had shot, the first of six he had killed, was no stormtrooper at all, but Lieutenant Oln Pressig, Ashik’s day-shift opposite number. The other armored intruders were also, in a sense, fakes; they had all seen active service with the Galactic Empire, some of them as long ago as before the Yuuzhan Vong War, and all had either been discharged dishonorably or had entered dubious professions after their tours. In the last few weeks, all had traveled to Coruscant on funds transferred to their accounts from a dummy company on Borleias, which had been in Imperial hands since the Second Galactic Civil War.

  The guards outside Jag’s quarters were alive, felled by stun bolts. After recovering, they told Ashik that they had been approached by an armored trooper carrying and broadcasting proper credentials, and had been gunned down.

  While Jag’s theoretically more secure embassy chambers were being cleaned and repaired, he relocated to the hotel suite he often engaged in order to spe
nd time with Jaina. Jaina sat while Jag paced. “It’s all pretty much according to formula.”

  On the sofa, maddeningly calm in contrast with Jag’s nervous energy, Jaina looked confused. “Whose formula?”

  “Oh, there’s got to be a book or file somewhere. Conspiracy, A Methodology, by Emperor Palpatine, annotated by Ysanne Isard, with a foreword by the Warlord Zsinj. The bestselling resource for plotters for the last three decades. Don’t you think?”

  Jaina smiled. “Probably.”

  “Chapter six, I’m sure, is all about covering your tracks in case the assassination attempt fails. Insulate cells of operatives. Make sure anyone acting as contact for two or more cells can be quietly killed or spirited away when things go wrong.” Jag stopped against an outer viewport, one that was mirror-reflective from the outside, and put his palms up against the cool transparent metal.

  “You could be safer,” Jaina said. “This suite isn’t as secure as it could be. Neither is your embassy.”

  “What, return to the Gilad Pellaeon? Hide out on my Star Destroyer? I have to project confidence and courage.”

  “Well, then you need to strike back. But whom?”

  “The Moffs. It had to be.”

  “All of them?”

  “No. One, two, three at most. Probing at perceived weaknesses.”

  “Lecersen would be in the best position to take advantage of the situation if you … were killed.”

  Jag nodded. “But I doubt this was Drikl Lecersen. It’s crude by his standards. And I think that an attempt like this would mean that he had given up.”

  “Given up?”

  “Given up on getting rid of me in a more elegant manner.” Jag turned back toward Jaina. “Let’s face it, he really believes that my relationship with you is a weakness, one that is potentially harmful to the Empire. He hasn’t come near to exploring all the ways he can cause me trouble.” He saw Jaina wince, and he took a step forward, hands up in an apologetic gesture. “I didn’t mean it that way. I know it’s not a weakness.”

  “Are you sure?” There was just a trace of uncertainty and hurt in Jaina’s voice. She was not a woman prone to insecurity, he knew, so for her to ask such a thing suggested that this thought had been preying on her.

  He nodded. “I’m sure. It’s change. I’m trying to change the way the Empire thinks of itself, of Palpatine, of the way the Moffs have done things for generations, of the Jedi. People who try to effect change are lucky if they aren’t …” Jag hesitated. He’d meant to say, aren’t put to death by stoning, but he realized almost too late that Jaina would still be upset by Jag’s close call. “Lucky if they have any success at all. Lucky if they’re remembered fondly.”

  Jaina did relax again. “You won big tonight, though.”

  “Yes, I’m still alive.”

  “More than that. One of the nasty little rumors floating around about you is that my Jedi powers are all that have been keeping you alive—that I’m your secret backup bodyguard corps. But tonight I was nowhere around. You took out six armored veterans trying to kill you. That’s very, well, Imperial.”

  Jag snorted. “My deputy minister of trade, perishable goods, was in the suite above mine. I shot her in the foot while she was entertaining a guest. Not so very Imperial.”

  “Well, that’s not what everyone is talking about.”

  “Good.” Finally somewhat calmed, Jag moved across to sit beside her. “I just don’t know if I can pull this off, though. Hold things together long enough for the Empire and Alliance to reunite, and beyond. Effect any sort of change.”

  Jaina shrugged. “Think about what you have accomplished. You’ve saved lives. You’ve maintained the honor of the Fel family name and brought it into a new generation. And you’ve shot a deputy minister in the foot.”

  Despite himself, he grinned. “Couldn’t let that one go, could you?”

  “You could start a whole new Imperial custom. ‘Dance, fool, dance!’ Zap, zap, zap! ‘Ow, my toe!’”

  “Just keep quiet, will you?”

  DATHOMIR SPACEPORT

  The two-vehicle caravan got under way as soon as Han and Leia finished changing into camouflage.

  Han took the pilot’s seat in the faster, nimbler ruin of a sports-speeder. Leia and Dyon joined him. The others, Yliri piloting, took the cargo speeder. Leia directed them northward, following her vague sense in the Force of where Luke must be.

  Luke’s presence was steady and distant, and Leia had no sense that he was in immediate danger. But this feeling was not as accurate or specific as a homing beacon, and Leia could follow it in only a meandering, imprecise fashion, now correcting more to the northwest, now to the northeast.

  The two vehicles moved through the Dathomiri rain forest at what, to Leia, seemed a maddeningly slow rate. They flew at an average of three or four meters above the forest floor, the sports vehicle in front, both pilots being very careful not to scrape against tree branches and conceivably knock passengers free. The cargo speeder sometimes had to stop, backtrack, and circle to find passages when Han’s speeder could easily navigate shorter routes, but Yliri did seem to be a more-than-competent pilot.

  Occasionally Leia would get flashes of other presences in the Force: Dathomiri forest predators lying in wait as the two speeders passed. No attacks came, and she assumed that most wildlife on this planet would steer clear of tangling with humans and other humanoids, so many of which here carried deadly weapons and made use of Force powers. None of these brief Force flashes was familiar to her; none carried the unmistakable stamp of Luke or Ben.

  A couple of hours in, Leia’s sense of direction failed her. She could still feel her brother in the Force, but her perception of him was divided; he was distant, but his emotions were near, lingering in this area, probably because of some encounter. “I’ve lost him,” she told Han.

  He thumbed the dilapidated speeder’s comm board. “Mark this spot for a possible muster point, then commence spiral search. Report anything out of the ordinary.”

  Yliri acknowledged and her speeder banked away to starboard, beginning its spiral pattern. Han banked to port. Their two spiral searches would overlap to a considerable degree, offering double coverage to the area Leia most wanted to search.

  A short while later, when the two speeders had come within view of each other for the third time, Leia saw the cargo speeder halt. There was discussion among the four people aboard, then Tribeless Sha dropped over the side, landing nimbly on the forest floor four meters down. She looked right and left, then set off at a trot to the right, a course that would carry her past the red speeder’s current path. When she’d moved forty paces, the cargo speeder followed at a slow pace.

  Leia activated her speeder’s comm. “What’s happening? Over.”

  Yliri’s voice came back, “Sha spotted blood on a bush. Now she’s spotted rancor footprints. She’s tracking back to where the beast was injured. Over.”

  “Thanks. Out.”

  Within a few minutes, Sha had found the spot, ground that was charred everywhere as if by a broad-ranging but not very intense fire. Within a hundred meters of it were two wrecked speeder bikes. Tarth looked over the registration numbers engraved in their engine compartments and gave Han a nod.

  Han sighed. “Luke and Ben are going to lose their deposits.”

  Leia elbowed him in the ribs. “Not funny. Where are they?”

  “Hard to track.” That was Sha, one of the few times she’d spoken since she’d been hired. She gestured to the northwest, at a distinct angle from their previous course. “That way. There’s another set of tracks. Dathomiri woman, I think.” Her hand transcribed an arc, then ended up pointing in the same direction. “Went off at an angle, then went that way, too.”

  “Who was leading and who was following?” Leia frowned. While she didn’t like the idea of anyone tracking or trailing Luke and Ben, she knew that her brother might merely be allowing an enemy to do so.

  Sha shrugged. “Impossible to tell. Too long
ago.”

  “Can you track them?”

  Sha nodded. “Yes. But slow. Walking speed.”

  “Let’s do it, then.”

  “Electronics are fried.” That was Tarth, still rummaging around in the mechanical insides of one of the speeder bikes.

  Han frowned. “How’s that again?”

  “Electronics are fried. Both speeders. I also found a comlink by the other one. Burned clear through and discarded.”

  “Char marks on the ground where they were?”

  Tarth shook his head. “The same as all around, but nothing to suggest they were grounded when it happened.”

  Sha said nothing, but the look she gave Han was a question.

  “Electrical attack of some sort,” Han told her. “But electricity is most damaging when its target is in contact with the ground. If the two speeder bikes were shot out of the sky with an electrical attack while they were moving … well, that’s a lot of power.”

  Sha nodded. “Lightning Storm. A spell cast by the Witches. Some Witches. All Nightsisters.”

  Leia took a step forward before she’d realized she had. “Nightsisters? I thought—I was hoping they were all gone.”

  Sha shook her head. “Never gone. They hide, they heal, they return. If their numbers are few, they come for your children.” For just a moment, her usually expressionless mask fell and she looked bleak. Then that look was gone, wiped away by a blankness any sabacc player would envy, and Sha turned away.

  Han gripped Leia’s shoulder, gave it a reassuring squeeze. “The Nightsisters are their Sith.” His voice was a grim whisper.

  CHIEF OF STATE’S OFFICE, SENATE BUILDING,

  CORUSCANT

  ADMIRAL NATASI DAALA, ONE TIME IMPERIAL NAVY OFFICER AND NOW head of the executive branch of the Galactic Alliance government, sat back in her chair and pondered whether she wanted to call in Wynn Dorvan. Daala felt a flash of exasperation; there were times when she just wanted things to be orderly and clear-cut. And Dorvan always seemed to have something for her to think about that made things the opposite. Still, he was such an efficient assistant that she had to make allowances. It was, after all, the civilian way of doing things.