Into the Void: Star Wars (Dawn of the Jedi) (31 page)

Lanoree punched it. And even flying up and away from the dying city, the stark flashes
of its demise lit up the interior of the Peacemaker’s cockpit.

“All those people,” Tre said, and Lanoree had never heard him sound so wretched. “We
went there, and this is the result.”

“It wasn’t us,” Lanoree said. “It was Dal.”

“But if we hadn’t chased him here—”

“If he’s not stopped, this could happen everywhere!” she said. “It shows how determined
he is. And how mad.” She lowered her voice, almost talking to herself now. “There’ll
be no reasoning with him.”

A chime on the control panel, and Lanoree groaned.

“What?” Tre asked.

“Company.” On the scanner three sparks were following them, closing rapidly. Lanoree
banked the ship steeply and accelerated, the hull shaking around them, groaning with
the huge stresses she was placing it under. But she knew her ship as well as she knew
herself—its breaking points, its capabilities.

Still the shapes closed on them.

“Fighters from Knool Tandor,” Lanoree said.

“And now they have a Je’daii ship to add to their score sheet,” Tre said.

“I’ll draw them out of the atmosphere—the Peacemaker’s better in space.”

“I can shoot.”

“You told me you’d never
been
in space!”

“Well, maybe once or twice. But I’ve fired land-based laser cannons a hundred times.
I have a good eye.”

“Top turret. Go.”

Tre unclipped and scampered back into the living area, and Lanoree charged up the
laser cannons.

“And put on the comlink so we can talk!” she shouted back at him. Strange. Right then,
she was almost glad she had Tre here.

She saw the terrible irony in the situation. Dal had made Knool Tandor believe that
Greenwood Station was in league with the Je’daii. Not only that, but some of that
city’s highest-standing residents might already have been assassinated by a Je’daii
sword. And now here they were, in the midst of their attack on Greenwood Station … and
a Je’daii was attempting to flee the planet, the Peacemaker ship giving her away.
She had come here incognito but might be leaving the seeds of a wider war behind.

Right now, escape was her priority, and stopping Dal. Everything else could be smoothed
over afterward.

A few moments later she heard the static and scratch of Tre turning on the comm headset
in the top laser turret.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. We’re fired up, I think I have this. Foot pedals to turn the
turret, tracking screen, combat display, touch trigger.”

“You damage my gun and I’ll gut you!” Lanoree said.

“Yeah, yeah, Je’daii, you and which army?”

Lanoree laughed softly, always keeping her eyes on the closing targets. They had fanned
out behind the Peacemaker and were approaching in a wide pincer. Soon the shooting
would begin.

“Front cannons will be in my control,” Lanoree said. “But I’ll be busy flying this
thing as well. You’ve got the best field of fire behind us, and you’ll have visual.”

“I’ve
got
visual.”

“You see—?” Lanoree was cut off by the dull thuds of the upper turret’s laser cannons
firing. Eyes on the screen, she twitched the ship to the left and hit the boosters.
Then she switched on the Peacemaker’s deflector shields and kept one hand hovering
over their control lever. She’d have to angle the shields in accordance with which
direction the next attack was coming.

“Missed!” Tre shouted into her ears. She heard the gentle hum of the turret’s motors
working as Tre turned, and then the first ship streaked ahead of them.

They were still in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Lanoree swung left, but heat
flare glared across the windows, and she had to rely on scanners to keep tabs on the
attacking Knool Tandor ships. They were fast and very maneuverable.

“Tre?”

“Can’t see much—think I winged it.”

Lanoree flicked a switch so that the targeting computer display sprang up before her.
Even before locking on she let off a burst of fire, strafing across where the lead
ship might fly. It twitched left and climbed.

She thrust forward with all the power the ship had, and the attackers
fell back a little. But she knew hers would be a momentary lead; their ships would
be at least as fast as the Peacemaker.

“Right,” Tre muttered, and his cannon let off several sustained bursts. “Yes! One
down, one down!”

“Good shooting,” Lanoree said, but she was distracted. “Shift deflector shield to
the rear, angle the ship out of the atmosphere, keep an eye on trajectories and the
bright sparks of the two remaining ships.” Still talking to herself even though Tre
was there. For a moment she wondered what she’d have done if he
weren’t
with her … but then everything would have been very different. It was through his
contacts on Nox that she’d been able to find Dal.

The ship reached the highest extremes of Nox’s polluted air, the stars speckling into
view, and it was almost as if she felt it come alive in her hands. The Peacemaker
was fine in atmospheres, but it was in the vacuum of space where it truly came into
its own.

“We’re away from Nox.”

“Good, I can see again,” Tre said.

“Grav units phasing in,” Lanoree warned.

“Oh, great, there goes my stomach.”

She grinned. “They’re following.”

“Didn’t think they’d give up. You’d be a good prize.”

“And you?”

“Oh, I don’t think they’d worry about—”

The Peacemaker shook as a volley of shots smacked across its left flank.

“Where’d that come from?” Tre shouted.

“Two more from out of the sun.”

“Yeah, but …” His laser fired again, and he was muttering all the time, words Lanoree
could not quite make out. On the scanner she saw another ship flare briefly into a
hail of smaller parts, then expand into a cloud, then fade away.

“Still three out there,” she said. Another ship powered toward them … then disappeared.
“I’ve lost it.”

“Me, too.”

“You can’t see it?” she asked.

“No. Gone. Can’t you Force-see it, or something?”

Lanoree ignored the quip and swung the ship sharply left and up, aiming for where
she thought the ship might have gone. Climbing directly away from the Peacemaker and
above them, it might for a moment have disappeared from her scanners, shielded by
its exhaust and angle of climb. It was a good trick, but one Lanoree knew. She’d used
it once or twice herself.

She saw the glimmer of starlight on metal before her scanner even picked it up. She
closed her eyes and breathed deeply, comfortable in the Force. Then she looked again,
past the grid lines of the targeting computer, past the pulsing lights and scrolling
figures of laser preparedness, target distance, altitude and attitude. And when the
time came, she touched the fire pad once.

A single shot streaked ahead of them, and eight kilometers away the ship flowered
into a blazing bloom.

“Whoa,” Tre said. “Good shot.”

“Those last two are coming in fast,” Lanoree said. “One port, one starboard.”

“I’ll take starboard.”

The laser cannons thudded. Lanoree took the ship through a roll and then powered directly
up and away from Nox. Gravity grasped the vessel as if sad to let go. The whole ship
shook. She took manual control of the underside turret and swept it to port, watching
the targeting grid on the left of her screen as the central four quadrants turned
red. She fired several bursts, but already knew that she’d missed.

Tre shouted, “Look out, they’re—” and then the whole ship shook as a plasma torpedo
exploded half a kilometer away, ignited by the ship’s shielding system. Lanoree let
the blast tip the ship to starboard, knowing that fighting the effect would waste
time and effort. Then she took control once again.

“Everything at that port ship,” she said, opening fire. Tre’s cannon thumped, and
she saw the streaking trails of laser blasts converging in the distance.

On the scanner, the blooming star of destruction.

“Yes! One more down!” Tre said.

“The other’s making a run for it,” Lanoree said.

“Let’s go! I’ll put a shot into its afterburner.”

Lanoree considered for a moment, then turned away from the fleeing
ship. It was already thirteen kilometers away, the distance between them growing fast.
“No time,” she said. “And no point.”

Tre was silent for a while, then she heard his sigh. Relief, perhaps. And gratitude
that they were still alive.

“Stay up there awhile,” Lanoree said. “They might have gotten a message off, could
be we have more company.”

“Yeah,” Tre said.

Lanoree muted the comm. In truth, there would be no more company, because she’d blocked
the fighters’ communications as soon as she’d seen them. But she wanted to take a
moment on her own, compose herself, submit herself to the Force and every soothing,
empowering aspect it meant to her.

She breathed deeply and took a final look back down at Nox.

Even from this far out, the dying city of Greenwood Station was the largest, most
obvious feature on the planet they were leaving behind.

Je’daii must know their limits. There are places we should not go, things we should
not do, powers we should not seek. The Force has an incredible strength, but a Je’daii’s
true strength is in knowing when to use it, and when not
.

—Master Shall Mar, “A Life in Balance,” 7,541 TYA

She chases him across Talss, alone, without weapons or supplies or equipment, following
his trail where she can find it, doing her best to sense his presence and direction
when she cannot, and it is three days before she has an inkling of where he is heading.

Lanoree knows she should not have simply run. She should have waited for Dam-Powl,
and now fears what the Je’daii Master will think of her. But she is confident that
she will not be a suspect in Skott Yun’s murder. And if she is, the time will come
to put things right.

Lanoree is doing what she can to avoid losing her brother forever. Everything feels
unreal, nightmarish.
Dalien is a murderer!
She has been made to grow up, and her world has changed forever.

Talss is a wild, sparsely populated land, and the farther south she
goes, the more alien the landscape becomes. It is sometimes called the Dark Continent,
and she is beginning to understand why. She descends from the hills onto a wide, endless
plain, almost devoid of any plant growth over waist height. She wonders why for a
while, and then half a day across the plain the first of the winds strikes. An initial
gust steals Lanoree’s breath and knocks her sideways, and she curls into a ball against
a low rock as the most powerful wind she had ever known rips across the landscape.
The tall, thin grasses that she has come to hate—her lower legs and hands are crisscrossed
with cuts from the grasses’ sharp tips and sheer edges—whip around her, lying almost
flat across her body and yet weathering the storm. She feels the dribble of blood
from fresh grass-cut wounds, and now lying down her face is lacerated as well. She
struggles to breathe.

All the time she is trying to make herself as small as possible, and find as much
shelter as she can behind the rock, she fears that Dal will continue walking through
the storm.

She pushes for him, taking comfort in flowing with the Force. He is somewhere ahead,
his mind a riot of confusion. It has been the same since leaving Anil Kesh, and Lanoree
is not certain whether it is intentional. He knows her so well, knows how she will
try to reach him. Perhaps this is his best defense.

Just before dusk the winds start to ease, and she stands and hurries on. She is thirsty,
hungry, and cold. Frost sheens countless blades of grass, hardening them, forming
a landscape of glimmering jewels for as far as she can see in every direction. It
is beautiful and is like wading through a sea of blades.

Dal, stop, for me
, she thinks, pushing the thought as hard as she can ahead of her. There is no telling
whether he hears.

She has come to believe that the Old City might be his destination.
That’s where the true Tythans lived
, he used to say. So little was known of the city and its former inhabitants that
she could not argue, and he had built a romanticized view of those tumbled ruins,
pyramids, and the unplumbed depths of its caverns and canals. Some say the Gree built
the Old City and lived there for tens of millennia. Others postulate that the Gree
merely borrowed the place for a while and that its true builders were lost forever
to the mists of deep history. It is a mystery. And mysteries of the past are what
Dal seeks.

The Old City lies in the southern regions of Talss, a wild, remote place called the
Red Desert, frequented only by explorers and those desiring to leave civilization
behind. It’s said that blood spites stalk the nights and haunt the underground. It
is rumored that they are half plant, half animal, untouchable by Je’daii talents,
and that they feed on warm blood. She feels a frisson of fear when she thinks of it.