Refugee: Force Heretic II (36 page)

“I’m not,” Fel responded. “But I can count!”

Mara spun around as a bolt of energy flashed by Luke’s head, and saw the other two pilots adopt sharpshooter stances on the edge of the barge. She deflected the first shot with her lightsaber, exploding a snow dune a hundred meters away into a puff of white. The second shot missed altogether. Saba reached out with a mental hand and wrenched the pilot’s rifle away from him. The remaining pilot turned his charric on her and fired. The shot was a good one and would have connected with Saba’s head had she not deflected it back at him with her lightsaber. He fell backward off the barge and into the snow.

A screaming sound heralded an attack from above. Blaster bolts scored thick black lines across the top of the barge, barely missing Saba as the snow-flier swept by and swung around for another pass. Two of the other five were already lining up to do the same.

“Get those shields back on!” Stalgis yelled, picking up a charric and taking a potshot at the retreating flier. The shot pinged from the craft’s side but didn’t slow it even slightly.

“Come on, Saba,” Mara said, pointing at two of the landed fliers. “While we have the chance!”

Saba understood instantly what she meant. Even with
its shield up, the ice barge would be vulnerable to the remaining six snow-fliers. If they were going to reach the spaceport, then they were going to have to take a more offensive role in this fight.

Flexing the muscles in her powerful legs, Saba ran for the edge of the barge and threw herself forward into the snow.

Not a moment too soon. Her tail caught the edge of the shield as it snapped into life. Flexing it to get rid of the tingling, stinging sensation, she ran up the snow dune for the nearest of the fliers. Mara took the one to their right, using the Force to assist her movement through the thick snow. The fliers were larger than they looked in the air—at least twice as tall as Saba and as thick across as three of her body lengths. Like a glossy, black wheel stuck in the snow, it towered over her as she reached its base and hauled herself up the egress ladder.

The controls were different from any she’d seen before but, like the charrics, operated on principles she understood. The craft didn’t possess a sophisticated security system, and responded to the touch of her cold fingers. Wrapping her tail around her hips, she fired up the engines.

The flier’s legs retracted with a faint whir as it lifted smoothly from the ground; then, with the cockpit vibrating to the tune of the craft’s powerful repulsors, it swung up into the sky, forcing Saba back into the seat, grunting in discomfort as her tail was momentarily squashed.

The flier’s weapon system was uncluttered and simple to operate. She armed the blaster cannon and targeted one of the six enemy snow-fliers coming around to respond to the new threat. Her first shot went wide. She adjusted her trim, rapidly familiarizing herself with the snow-flier’s responses. Her second shot was closer to the mark, but she still had to make some adjustments. She fought to ignore the giddying rolls of the horizon as the flier she was following banked sharply in an attempt to throw her off its
tail. It had been a long time since her last dogfight around Barab I, but she was pleased to find that her skills hadn’t atrophied.

A low growl emerged from her throat as the flier edged up into her crosshairs. She fired.

Sparks flew in a comet tail: her shot had blown her target’s port stabilizer. It wobbled in an ungainly fashion across the sky as the pilot fought to bring it down in a controlled ditch. Saba didn’t stick around to see if it made it or not; she was too busy bringing her own flier around in search of another target.

Mara had downed one flier, too, but that did nothing to deter the remaining four. Regrouping in a tight square formation, they abandoned their attack of the ice barge—now firing its own cannon through its shields at the enemy fliers. Saba and Mara were disadvantaged by their inability to communicate with each other, but the Force more than compensated for that. Subtle instructions from Mara nudged Saba in new directions, toward new targets. She followed them without question, even when they appeared to conflict with what her own instincts were telling her.

When the Force told her to take her flier in a barrel roll right through the heart of the Chiss’s diamond-shaped formation, she did just that, breaking them up and scattering them in four different directions. Mara picked one off as she swept by in Saba’s wake, reducing the odds to a more comfortable three-to-two.

On your tail, Saba!

Saba twisted in her seat to see what was behind her, but immediately regretted her impulsive reaction. The sudden movement in the restricted seat made her tail cramp. A shot from behind sizzled horribly close to her starboard cockpit shell. Forcing herself to ignore the discomfort, she jerked the flight stick down hard, then up again, rolling the flier up and over in a loop that brought her behind the flier that had been chasing her. It pitched
forward in an attempt to lose her, but wasn’t quick enough to avoid a volley of blasterfire that sheared off its cannon and scored a hole in its canopy. Wind snatched at the damage, twisting it off course and plunging it into a snowbank in a bright explosion that scattered debris far out from the impact site.

Mara performed a spectacular maneuver that knocked another flier out of the sky and left her on a head-to-head trajectory with the sole remaining flier. The Chiss pilot didn’t deviate from his course in the slightest, however, as the two fliers sped toward one another. Saba felt distinctly uneasy as she watched, knowing that Mara would never back down from such a challenge. Opening herself completely to the Force, she closed her eyes and fired three rapid cannon bursts. When she opened her eyes again, the Chiss flier was spiraling toward the ground with damage to its maneuvering flaps.

They performed a quick circuit of the grounded ice barge before landing. Master Skywalker and the others had rounded up Ina’ganet’nuruodo and the other three pilots and placed them in binders. The four were on their knees on the flank of the barge, watching bitterly as Syal killed the barge’s shield and Saba and Mara landed nearby.

Saba’s tail whipped gratefully behind her as she climbed aboard the barge and rejoined her friends. After the heat of battle, the air felt even colder than before.

“Nice flying,” Luke said, addressing the compliment to both Mara and Saba.

Coming from such an accomplished pilot as the Jedi Master himself, Saba couldn’t help but feel pleased. “Thank you,” she said, feeling herself flush dark green beneath her scales.

“The jammer is in Ganet’s flier.” Luke nodded at one of the fliers still parked nearby. “We didn’t deactivate it, so they haven’t been able to call for help.”

“But we could now, right?” Mara asked.

All eyes turned to Fel, who knew best of all how the local security forces would react to the development. “I think we should make our way to the spaceport, as originally planned,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “While we’re out here, there’s still an opportunity to dispose of us and erase the evidence. I think it best we present them with a fait accompli by coming back alive.” He shot a dark glance to Ganet, glowering on her knees before him. “Showing the Chiss the worst they can do usually brings out the best in them. This is probably just what we need to demonstrate the futility of our inaction while the rest of the galaxy is at war. There’s no point pretending we’re strong while our own command structure falls apart around our ears.”

Syal came to stand next to her husband. “I don’t want you to go to war,” she said, “but I’d rather that than seeing you betrayed by our own people.”

Fel put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. He said nothing, but his eyes betrayed the affection he obviously held for her.

“We should gather the other pilots from the downed fliers,” Luke said. “We can’t leave them out here to die in the cold.”

“Why not?” Stalgis said, glaring at Ganet. “They seemed to have no qualms about killing us.”

Ganet glared back at him without apology.

“But we’re not them,” the Jedi Master pointed out soberly. “Saba, can you sense any of them out there?”

A quick Force reading of the wasteland around them located the remaining pilots with ease. “Four of them are alive; three of those are injured. This one will guide you to them.”

Fel urged the four captives to their feet. “Inside,” he said. “And don’t try anything, Ganet, because believe me
when I say that I won’t display the same compassion that the Jedi have.”

The woman turned her red eyes upon him malevolently, but she did as she was told without argument.

“And what about Wyn?” Syal asked. “What do we do about her?”

“Don’t worry,” Luke said. “If I know Jacen, that’s already being dealt with.”

Despair was a feeling Jaina had never succumbed to—not entirely—but frustration was a completely different story. She had tried twice to distract Salkeli, but the Rodian was watching her far too closely. With the blaster trained on Malinza and the others, there was no way she could risk an open attack.

Then she felt a touch through the Force that was at the same time familiar and strikingly unfamiliar.

Tahiri was nearby and coming closer.

Unnerved though she was by the thought of touching minds with the young Jedi, Jaina made her presence as strong in the Force as she could. If Tahiri was homing in on her and arrived in time …

Unaware of the subtle life energies flowing around him, Harris had produced Jaina’s lightsaber from the folds of his robe and triumphantly activated the shining blade.

“There remains only one thing to do to make the story watertight,” he said. “If the Jedi really are to be the enemy, our hero needs some realistic wounds. Don’t you think?”

Salkeli grinned as Harris approached Malinza. The girl backed away in horror. Vyram pushed himself between the Deputy Prime Minister and the girl. Harris, however, wasn’t fazed in the slightest.

“Either one of you will do,” he said, raising the violet
blade over his head, ready to strike. “I really don’t mind which one gets it first.”

Jaina couldn’t wait any longer. If she was going to act, then she needed to do it now.

A swift outward movement of her arms got rid of the binders, and one solid Force push knocked the lightsaber out of Harris’s hands. She duck-rolled as Salkeli brought his blaster to bear on her, his eyes widening in surprise at the abrupt turn of events. She kicked the Rodian’s legs from beneath him. Harris wasted no time getting his own blaster out, but Jaina was on her feet in time to deflect his first two shots, directing them harmlessly into the wall. Another two bolts hissed by, exploding loudly somewhere behind her. Then with three quick steps, she lunged at the Deputy Prime Minister, clubbing him with the handgrip of her lightsaber. He collapsed back against the wall, a look of startled annoyance frozen on his face as he slumped to the floor.

Confident that there was no longer any threat from Harris, she turned her attention back to Salkeli. Malinza, however, had already taken care of him. The girl had him pinned to the ground with one arm twisted up behind his back.

Jaina nodded, impressed. “Well done,” she said. Then, holding out her lightsaber, she added, “Here, give me your hands.”

She cut the binders from both Malinza and Vyram with two deft flicks of her blade.

“You’ll pay for this!” Salkeli snarled from the floor. “Your time will come soon enough, Jedi filth!”

“Want me to shut him up?” Vyram asked, collecting Harris’s blaster.

“Not yet,” Jaina said, deactivating her lightsaber. “We might yet need his help.”

Then, with dismay, she saw the ruin of the remote detonator. One of the stray blaster bolts had struck it square
in the top casing. The Rodian followed her stare to the smoking, half-melted box, and burst into a fit of mocking laughter.

Malinza looked, too. “What do we do now?”

Jaina thought frantically. “How much longer did we have on the timer?”

Vyram shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“You’ve lost, Jedi!” Salkeli cackled.

“Not yet, we haven’t,” she said, grabbing him under the chin. “Tell me where the bomb is, and tell me now.”

The Rodian stared at the crackling lightsaber close to his face. “Not that you can do anything to stop it now, anyway, but it’s under the premium stalls, tucked safely away behind a ferrocrete support.”

“But it still doesn’t help us,” Malinza said, “because we’re trapped in here!”

The sound of pounding erupted from the far side of the locked door.

Jaina reached out through the Force and felt Tahiri trying to attract her attention, but the door was too thick to shout through, and two Jedi weren’t enough to form a Force-meld.

Frustration returned, but only for an instant. Looking over to Salkeli, she suddenly remembered … She hurried across the room to where the Rodian lay pinned by Malinza. A quick search of his pockets and she soon found what she was looking for: her comlink.

“Tahiri, can you hear me?”

A second’s pause before: “Jaina? We’re right here outside the door!”

“I know. Can you get it open, though?”

There was some hesitation. “The code sequence might take a minute or two to get through, but yes, we should be able to get you out.”

“We don’t have a minute or two, Tahiri. Listen: there’s a bomb. You have to get to it and defuse it.”

“Where is it?”

Jaina repeated the information that Salkeli had given her.

“How long do we have?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m guessing not much. There was a ten-minute timer, and it’s already been ticking away for some time. You’d better get going while I find out how to disarm it.”

“Okay. Goure’s going to stay here and try to get the door open.”

“Who’s—?”

“He’s the Ryn who’s been helping us. You can trust him.”

Jaina nodded. “Don’t worry about us. We’re probably safer in here than you are. Just get going!”

She sensed Tahiri hurrying away up the corridor, calling on the Force to maximize her speed. She could feel the girl’s exhaustion, too, and wished she could send some of her strength to help. But there was little she could do in that regard. She had to direct her efforts elsewhere.