Star Wars: Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen

by Troy Denning

  Han opened fire on the general area, and a flurry of blaster bolts flashed past his shoulder as Tarfang did the same. Most of their attacks did nothing more harmful than burn divots into the hull of the nest ship. But a couple of times, the shots were mysteriously deflected, and once Han thought he saw the flash of a scarred face, so haggard and misshapen that he could not be sure whether it was human or insect.

  Luke danced back into the combat, slashing high and low with his lightsaber, missing more often than not, but spinning directly into the next attack, his blade sparking and flashing as it blocked and deflected the unseen strikes coming his way. Han and Tarfang scrambled after the fight, firing more or less where the Jedi was attacking, drawing just enough attention so that Luke could continue to drive the unseen enemy back.

  They continued to press the attack for perhaps five or ten seconds; then a row of six-limbed figures wearing bulky Killik pressure suits emerged from the heat sinks. Han’s heart rose into his throat—he wondered if that was what Jedi danger sense felt like—and he stopped advancing.

  “Uh, guys?” He glanced to each flank and saw that there were more bugs to each side. “Get down!”

  There was a flurry of motion as the insects brought up their weapons. Han was already dropping to the hull. He landed on his side and kicked behind a heat sink; silver flashes began to dance across his faceplate while flying chips of spitcrete beat an irregular cadence on his helmet. He curled into a fetal ball and counted himself lucky.

  A moment later Luke’s voice came over the suit comm. “Cover!”

  “What do you think I’m—”

  Han’s comm gave a sharp pop, then a series of sharp concussions reverberated through the hull. The sound of the chips striking his helmet was replaced at first by a dozen seconds of static, then by utter silence. He uncurled and carefully raised his head.

  The barrage dust had thickened to a murky gray cloud, but it was not too thick to prevent him from seeing the brilliant streaks of Mara’s laser cannons chasing off the Gorog survivors. Han rolled to his knees and turned in the other direction. The hull ended about three meters from where he was kneeling, opening into a deep, dark crater filled with flotsam, floating corpses, and shooting streams of vapor.

  “Han?” Luke’s voice came over the suit comm. “Are you okay?”

  “That depends.” Han stood and turned in a slow circle, then finally saw Luke coming toward him from about ten meters away. “Did you get Lomi?”

  Luke shook his head. “I can still feel her.”

  “Then I’m about as un-okay as you can get.” Han began a slow rotation, his blaster held ready to fire. “I hate being crept up on by stuff I can’t see. Let’s get back to where we left Juun.”

  “Why do you want Juun?” Luke asked.

  “Because he can see her,” Han said.

  Luke stopped three paces from Han. “You’re sure?”

  “Didn’t you see the way he tried to tackle her? Of course I’m sure.” Han did not like the surprise in Luke’s voice. “Does that mean something?”

  “Yes,” Luke said. “It means I’m wrong about Lomi Plo.”

  “Great,” Han growled. He would have liked to suggest again that they leave the ship and activate their rescue beacons, but he did not want Luke telling him to go ahead on his own. He was afraid the temptation might be too much for him. “Wrong how?”

  “I thought she was using some sort of Force blur to hide herself,” Luke said. “But if Juun can see her, and I can’t . . .”

  When Luke let the sentence trail off, Han said, “Yeah, that scares me, too.” He turned back the way they had come. “Maybe Juun can explain it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Luke said. “What about Tarfang?”

  “Tarfang?” Han took a quick look around, then tipped his helmet back. “Don’t tell me he got bounced again!”

  Luke was silent for a moment, then said, “He didn’t. Tarfang is below us, inside the nest ship.” He turned and looked toward one of the holes Mara’s shadow bombs had knocked in the hull. “I think Lomi Plo has him.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  With a cloud of assassin bugs droning behind them and elite Unu soldiers zipping shatter gun pellets down every side corridor they passed, Leia knew her small company was in trouble. They would never hold off the Killiks long enough to initiate the Ackbar’s self-destruct sequence.

  What Leia did not know was how to break the news to Bwua’tu. They had been forced to abandon the command deck after a swarm of assassin bugs had erupted from the ventilation ducts. Since then, activating the self-destruct cycle had been the admiral’s only concern, but the Killiks had foreseen the move. Every primary access terminal Leia and the others passed was damaged beyond all hope of a quick repair—usually by an electrobolt blast to the keypad.

  Leia came to another intersection, and Bwua’tu’s voice barked out from the middle of the group behind her. “Right!”

  With the assassin bugs buzzing up the corridor behind them, there was no question of pausing to reconnoiter. Leia simply ignited her lightsaber—which Bwua’tu had retrieved from his wardroom vault as they fled the bridge—and led the charge around the corner.

  Not surprisingly, there was a squad of Unu soldiers coming the other way. They were as large as Wookiees, with golden thoraxes and big purple eyes and scarlet carapaces covering their backs, and in their four pincer-hands they carried both shatter guns for ranged combat and short tridents for close fighting. They opened fire as soon as Leia rounded the corner, and the corridor broke into a cacophony of zipping and pinging.

  Though lightsabers weren’t much good at deflecting shatter gun attacks, Leia began to spin and whirl forward, slipping and dodging past the flying pellets with no conscious thought, surrendering herself to the Force and trusting it to guide her steps.

  Her companions—a ragtag band of ship’s crew whom she and Bwua’tu had been picking up along the way—raced into the corridor a step behind her and poured fire at the Killiks. No one hesitated to shoot past their shipmates or Leia. Twice, she had to deflect friendly blaster bolts, and once she nearly stepped in front of a shatter gun pellet to avoid being hit from behind. She did not blame her fellows for being reckless. There was just no time to be careful.

  Leia reached the Unu soldiers and Force-shoved the nearest one into the Killik beside it. She lashed out with her lightsaber and separated the insect’s head from its golden thorax, then whipped the blade back and opened another across the middle.

  A pair of huge mandibles clamped down on Leia from the side, and then she saw a set of trident tines rising toward her chest. She used the Force to shove the weapon away, then deactivated her lightsaber, flipped the handle around, and reignited the blade as she pressed the emitter nozzle to her captor’s thorax.

  An ear-piercing shriek sounded in Leia’s ear. She brought her foot up and kicked aside a shatter gun another Unu soldier was raising toward her, then flipped her lightsaber downward, slashing her captor open and bringing the blade up between the legs of her would-be attacker. Both insects collapsed with their lives flooding out of them.

  Then Leia’s companions reached the melee, and the battle erupted into a savage gun-and-pincer fight. Badly outmatched in size and strength, the Ackbar’s crew poured blaster bolts into the Killiks at point-blank range. The Killiks used one set of hand-pincers to fire their shatter guns and the other to slash and thrust with their tridents, sometimes using their mandibles to grab an attacker, sometimes whipping their mandibles around to knock someone off his feet.

  Leia glanced back to check on Bwua’tu and found the admiral on her heels, as covered in insect gore as she was and firing a blaster pistol with each hand. His aide Grendyl was behind him, tossing a thermal grenade back into the approaching cloud of assassin bugs.

  “Go!” Bwua’tu pushed Leia up the corridor. “There should be an access terminal ahead, outside the hatch!”

  Leia spun and cut her way through a soldier-insect that had been winning a grapple
-and-shoot fight with two Alliance ensigns. An orange light flashed behind them as Grendyl’s grenade detonated, rumbling off the walls and filling the corridor with acrid fumes, then Leia stepped out of the fray into empty corridor.

  Ten meters away, a cluster of much smaller Gorog soldiers—lacking carapaces and only about shoulder height—were rushing out of a side corridor to block a security hatch marked CAPTURE BAY ACCESS. With them was a slender Twi’lek female armored in blue chitin so closely formfitted that it looked like a body stocking. One arm was hanging limp beneath a sagging, misshapen shoulder—a result of her fight against Luke a year earlier at Qoribu—and as soon as she saw Leia, her full lips twisted into a contemptuous sneer.

  “Alema Rar!” Leia said. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

  Leia reached back and caught one of the last standing Unu soldiers in a Force grasp, then brought her arm forward and hurled the insect sideways down the corridor. She followed a few steps behind, using its body as a shield, listening to shatter gun pellets drum into its carapace.

  A couple of moments later, she heard the snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber, then a blade so blue it was almost black sliced the insect in half. Leia pressed the attack, leaping between the body halves as they dropped away, hitting Alema with a Force shove and bringing her own blade around in an overhand power strike.

  Alema barely got her guard up in time, and sparks filled the air as the two blades met. Leia brought her foot up in a driving stomp kick that rocked the Twi’lek back on her heels, then rolled her lightsaber into a horizontal slash at Alema’s limp arm.

  Alema had no choice except to pivot away and bring her weapon around in a desperate block that left her sideways and out of position. Leia swung her foot around in a powerful roundhouse kick that caught the Twi’lek behind the knees and swept both legs.

  Alema landed flat on her back, her mouth gaping and her green eyes wide with alarm. Leia allowed herself a small smirk of satisfaction—recalling how lopsided the combat had been in Alema’s favor the last time they fought—then blocked a desperate slash at her ankles and slipped into a counter, angling the tip of her blade toward the Twi’lek’s heart.

  Before Leia could drive the thrust home, a thrumming mass of blue chitin hit her in the chest and bowled her over backward. She tried to bring her lightsaber up and found her arms pinned to her chest, then her attacker pressed the muzzle of a shatter gun to her ribs. She used the Force to push the weapon away, but then the insect’s mandibles were clamped around her head, its needle-sharp proboscis darting toward her eye.

  Leia shot her free hand up between its mandibles, catching the proboscis between two fingers and continuing to shove until it snapped. The Gorog let out a distressed whistle and bore down with its mandibles, and the edge of her face exploded into pain. But by then she was shoving at the insect with the Force, opening enough of a gap so she could bring her lightsaber up and slice her attacker in two.

  Leia started to spring up—until a storm of blaster bolts streamed past overhead, tearing into a trio of Gorog at her feet. Half a dozen crew members rushed past and crashed into the wall of insects in a deafening cacophony of blows and small-arms fire, then Bwua’tu appeared at her side, reaching down to help her up.

  “Princess! Are you—”

  “Fine!” Leia brought her feet under her, automatically raising her lightsaber in a high block. “Get ba—”

  Alema charged out of the melee, her lightsaber already descending for the kill. Leia caught the attack on her blade, then delivered a Force-enhanced punch to the Twi’lek’s chitin-armored midsection.

  It was like hitting a wall. She felt a bone snap in her hand, and she did not even drive Alema far enough away to buy space to stand. The Twi’lek brought her knee up under Leia’s chin, snapping her head back with such force that her vision went black for a moment.

  Leia lashed out with her free arm, hooking it around the knee that had just struck her, then launched herself into a back roll. Alema had to sprang in the opposite direction, executing a backflip, and they both came up on their feet facing each other. Leia’s hand throbbed, but not so badly that it prevented her from grasping her lightsaber handle with both hands.

  Bwua’tu and the rest of the crew members were behind Alema, pressing the attack on the Gorog and driving them back toward the capture bay. On the other side of the hatch, Leia sensed Saba and the Noghri, struggling to override the security system so they could join the battle. Coming down the corridor behind her, working their way through the smoke left by the Grendyl’s grenade, Leia heard the distant drone of the surviving assassin bugs.

  Alema studied Leia with narrowed eyes. “You’ve been practicing.”

  Leia shrugged. “A little.”

  “It won’t matter,” Alema sneered. “You’re too old to start being a real Jedi now.”

  Leia raised her brow. “I think I need to teach you some manners.”

  Leia sprang forward, once again attacking the side with Alema’s crippled arm. This time, the Twi’lek did not make the mistake of underestimating her opponent. She gave ground quickly, pivoting around so that her crippled side was protected.

  Their blades clashed time and again, each Jedi augmenting their lightsaber strikes with Force shoves and telekinesis attacks, each trying to take advantage of the other’s weakness. Leia’s face had become so swollen that she could barely see out of one eye, and Alema kept circling to find a blind spot. As Alema tried to protect her weak side, Leia kept slipping toward it, forcing the Twi’lek to retreat toward the security hatch. All the time, the drone of the assassin bugs drew nearer.

  Then Bwua’tu and the Ackbar’s crew began to overwhelm Alema’s company of insect-soldiers, forcing them past her toward the access terminal. Though the Twi’lek’s back was now to the main fight, as the admiral and his followers drew closer to the terminal, the knowledge came to her through Gorog’s collective mind. Her eyes flashed with alarm, then she sprang back, locked her blade on, and hurled her lightsaber at Leia’s legs.

  Leia had no choice but to block low and pivot away, and in that second Alema pointed at Bwua’tu’s spine and let loose a crackling stream of Force lightning. Leia started to grab the admiral in the Force, intending to jerk him out of the way, but his aide Grendyl was already leaping to protect him.

  The lightning caught the woman full in the chest, hurling her back into Bwua’tu and knocking him to the deck.

  Leia leapt at Alema, striking for the shoulders. The Twi’lek spun away . . . and launched Leia into a wall with a whirling back kick to the ribs.

  The blunt clang of skull against durasteel sounded inside Leia’s head. Her mind turned to gauze and she thought for a moment that the bloodcurdling howl assaulting her ears was her own. Then she noticed the meter-long segment of amputated lekku flopping around on the deck like a baagalmog out of water.

  Leia looked up and found Alema trembling and screaming in pain, the cauterized stump of one nerve-packed head-tail ending just above her shoulder. But the Twi’lek’s pain did not prevent her from releasing another stream of Force lightning—this time into the access terminal itself.

  The unit exploded into a spray of sparks, pieces, and fumes. The security hatch gave the telltale hiss of a breaking seal, and Bwua’tu cried out in frustration.

  Leia sprang to her feet and started toward Alema.

  The Twi’lek was already stretching her arm up the corridor, calling her lightsaber back to hand. Leia heard the sizzle of the blade growing louder behind her and dropped into a deep squat as the weapon spun past overhead, then stabbed for Alema’s heart.

  The Twi’lek brought her blade down and blocked easily, then brought her foot up in a side-snap kick that caught Leia in the base of the throat. The blow was more painful than harmful, but Leia dropped to her seat, coughing and choking and trying to make it sound as though her larynx had been crushed. She could hear the drone of the assassin bugs only a few meters behind her and knew the time had come to end this fight�
��and she could see by the unreasoning fury in Alema’s eyes that the wounded Twi’lek was primed for a mistake.

  Leia rolled her eyes back in her head and let herself collapse to the floor. She heard Alema slide forward, then felt a knot of anticipation form in her stomach as the time approached to bring her blade slashing up through the Twi’lek’s abdomen—and that was when Leia felt a surge of relief from Saba and the Noghri. A loud grating sounded from the security hatch, and she knew her Master and bodyguards had finally forced it open.

  The pulsing whine of Meewalh’s T-21 repeating blaster echoed down the corridor, then Alema’s blade began to hiss and sizzle as it batted blaster bolts away. Leia opened her eyes to find the Twi’lek dancing along one wall of the corridor, just beyond reach and retreating into the droning cloud of assassin bugs.

  When their eyes met, Alema’s brow shot up in surprise. She flicked her lightsaber up in a brief salute, then gave Leia a spiteful sneer and fled out of sight.

  Leia locked her blade on and spun around to throw her lightsaber, but the Twi’lek was nowhere to be seen.

  Leia felt herself sliding across the deck, then realized Saba was using the Force to draw her away from the approaching cloud of assassin bugs. Cakhmaim and Meewalh appeared at her sides, spraying the corridor with blasterfire.

  “Jedi Solo,” Saba said. “Why are you lying on the floor at a time like this?”

  Leia deactivated her lightsaber and stood with as much dignity as she could manage, considering how much her hand was beginning to hurt and how swollen her face was.

  “I was laying a trap.”

  “Laying a trap?” Saba shook her head and began to siss hysterically. “You are beginning to sound just like Han.”