Daala wanted to cry out in outrage and despair—but she bottled it within herself and the anger flowed like lava, compressing into a diamond of desperate resolve within her. She thought fast. She had to be realistic, not allow her fury and outrage to stain her rational thought like last time. She had to think of the future of the Empire, not her personal vendetta.
Revenge would come later. There would be time.
She still had Pellaeon’s fleet. She still had numerous Victory-class ships. More and more great battlecruisers were being built in the Imperial shipyards. This was merely a setback. She had to rethink her strategy again—or perhaps her disgrace was so great that she should never attempt to guide the Imperial fleet again.
Right now, though, the Knight Hammer was doomed, and there was nothing she could do. Nothing. She felt stripped of options. Her only chance was to escape and reach Pellaeon’s fleet.
Because the Knight Hammer was exceedingly automated, it carried a relatively small crew. They could all fit in the hundreds and hundreds of evacuation pods if they moved. Her crew of loyal soldiers could escape to fight again.
She sounded her own alarm. Her voice bellowed through the intercom systems. “This is Admiral Daala. I am ordering an immediate evacuation of this Super Star Destroyer. All personnel, abandon ship! Reach the nearest evacuation pods and launch into space. There are Victory-class Star Destroyers here to pick us up, and Vice Admiral Pellaeon’s fleet is on its way. But this ship is going down.”
She switched off and stood looking at the red-washed bridge deck. Overhead white lights flickered but failed to come on. Her bridge crew gazed at her, astonished that she had ordered a retreat.
“Go!” she shouted at them. “That’s an order. Get to the escape pods.”
“But, Admiral, what about you?” said the fresh-faced young lieutenant. Tears streamed from his eyes. Smoke hovered in the air, but Daala could tell that he wept not because of chemical irritation but out of despair for the lost glory of the Empire.
“I gave you orders to evacuate, Lieutenant,” she said, and turned her back to him, refusing to move.
The crew gave one last look to their commander and then fled down the corridors to the evacuation pods.
Daala stood alone at her command station as the universe crumbled around her. She stared out the viewport wordlessly, her face white, her lips pressed together.
The Knight Hammer hurtled toward its doom, its rear sections molten and spewing radioactive fire. But she remained unmoving, like a captain dutifully about to go down with her ship.
CHAPTER 59
But Daala had no intention of letting it end there.
When the bridge personnel evacuated, leaving her to stand alone at the helm as the ship crashed toward its inevitable destruction, she knew the image would burn itself in the minds of her crew. She could rest assured her legend would live on if any of them survived in the escape pods.
However, Daala herself intended to survive, though it never hurt to make contingency plans. She had more battles to fight for the Empire, more ways to strike against the Rebel Alliance.
This time she had caused the enemy pain at least. Her victory was not total—but neither was her defeat.
Daala went to the wall by the command station, where she gained access to her spacious ready-room and its private compartments that held escape pods keyed to command-level personnel only. Before, she had thought the huge room with its amenities and backup systems to be extravagant, but now she blessed the designer who had thought of every contingency.
Another wave of explosions thrummed through the hull of the Knight Hammer, throwing the ship from side to side. With one last glance out the bridge windowports, Daala saw the giant gravity well of Yavin looming larger by the minute, hungry and waiting to devour her ship. She had to make good her escape—now. The Super Star Destroyer would be crushed within moments, its outer hull already burning as it screamed into the upper atmosphere.
She stumbled as another explosion rocked the black ship. The lights flickered in her ready-room, then the red emergency glow came on again. She searched for the rear alcove that contained the escape pods—and stopped when she saw a lone person waiting for her.
A woman.
A Jedi Knight holding up a sun-yellow lightsaber blade. Its topaz beam crackled in the red-washed dimness of the doomed ship.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Admiral Daala,” Callista said.
She stood face-to-face with her Imperial nemesis.
Callista drew a quick breath, giddy with anticipation and exhilaration. Gratifyingly loud explosions continued to ripple through the Super Star Destroyer, chain reactions building up as the destruction tunneled deeper into the Knight Hammer.
Daala, the iron-willed and unpredictable Imperial admiral about whom Callista had heard so many legends, now looked harried and cadaverous in the emergency lighting of the command ready-room.
Daala froze upon seeing her, her face contorted in fury. “I don’t believe this. Jedi vermin, everywhere I turn!” She spat out the words and stalked forward. “You can’t stop me.”
Callista stood her ground in front of the access hatches to the escape pods. “I only need to delay you, Daala,” she said. “That’ll be enough.” Her lightsaber thrummed in her hand. “And I have the means to do that.”
Callista felt the deep-seated anger boiling through her. Admiral Daala was the target for her rage—and this close to the climactic end of her life, just as had happened on the Eye of Palpatine, Callista found herself filled with a sudden freedom. She wanted to touch the Force again one more time, and it didn’t matter now whether she allowed herself to be tainted by the dark side, if that was the only way—and it was. The ship would be engulfed in moments anyway.
All that mattered was that she stopped Daala from escaping and wreaking more destruction upon the New Republic. If she confronted the shadowy temptation, Callista could use the Force again. The dark side of it. The easy abilities. The strength that grew stronger because of itself, not because of any innate qualities its wielder possessed.
The possibilities danced before her gray eyes like smoke, tantalizing her, luring Callista to reach out and grasp them, though she might be unable to let go again—
Seeing her instant of hesitation, Admiral Daala whipped out a blaster pistol from its holster at her hip. With a flick of her finger, she switched the power to a KILL setting and blasted at Callista.
Callista couldn’t avoid the deadly bolt, but she could use the Force to snatch heightened abilities. With no choice, she let herself go in a fraction of a second.
Using the lightsaber as an extension of herself, Callista struck defensively. Her Jedi weapon knew where it was going, following the inexorable path of the Force so that the topaz blade struck each blaster bolt as Daala fired again and again. The deadly fire reflected from her light-saber and splashed blackened stains against the ready-room’s metal walls.
Daala shot four times, but in each instance, Callista let the Force flow through her, allowing the dark side to guide her actions. Flaring with anger, she struck right and left, deflecting Daala’s beams.
“The Force is more powerful than you are, Daala,” Callista said through gritted teeth. She felt the frightening strength surging within her, as her anger fed upon itself, growing more and more powerful. She could feel the Force again! She tried to back away from the dark side, concentrated on throttling back her efforts, to free herself before its grip became too strong.
Daala ceased firing—but only for an instant as she switched the setting to STUN. Before Callista could react, Daala shot again. This time, the beam was not a discrete bolt of power, but outspreading arcs of tenuous blue energy.
She raised the lightsaber to deflect the stun blast, but the paralyzing energy rippled around her from all sides and hammered Callista to the floor. Her lightsaber short-circuited, flashed out—and Callista crumpled into blackness.…
Daala stood over the fallen Jedi woman. With her poli
shed black boot she kicked the dead lightsaber away.
Outside, the atmosphere of Yavin scraped against the hull of the Knight Hammer with a wailing of lost spirits. The winds tore at the helpless ship as it careened into the crushing depths of the gravity well.
Daala glared at the stunned Jedi woman, annoyed that even the brief battle might have been too much of a delay, that she could no longer escape. “I told you you couldn’t stop me,” she said, and stepped over Callista’s body on her way to the escape pod.
CHAPTER 60
The jungle battles continued to rage, but the Imperial ground assault vehicles began to lose their momentum as the Jedi Knights mounted a brutal guerrilla defense, destroying scout walkers, Juggernauts, and Flying Fortresses. The remaining TIE fighters and bombers circled overhead, but most had already been knocked out of the sky by Force-hurled projectiles.
Luke Skywalker fought hard, the lightsaber throbbing in his hand—but his attention was focused on his desperate mental search for Callista.
Overhead, through the tattered jungle canopy, he could see the swollen planet Yavin filling much of the sky. The black sliver of the Knight Hammer stood out plainly, creating a triangular eclipse against the gas giant.
Brilliant streams of turbolaser fire danced across space, a flickering light show … and Luke remembered a time long, long ago when he had been no more than the adopted nephew of a moisture farmer, a wide-eyed enthusiastic kid who had stared up into the bleached skies of Tatooine to see the distant space battle above his world. He had never dreamed that Darth Vader’s capture of Princess Leia’s ship would have so changed his life—and the future of the galaxy.
Back then, Luke had heard only rumors of the Jedi Knights, had no idea who his father was, and couldn’t imagine the possibilities of the Force—and now Callista was just as helpless as he had been then … but she knew what she no longer had.
Luke charged through the underbrush shouting her name over and over. Because she had been walled away from the Force, he could not sense her, had no idea where she was.
“Callista!” he called again, drawing fire from a hidden scout walker in the jungle. Laser cannon blasts erupted on either side of him, but he dodged out of the way, still partially distracted by his search. With a rapid sweep of his lightsaber, he felled a tall Massassi tree and used the Force to nudge it, toppling it on to the AT-ST in a shower of sparks and flames.
He had to find Callista. His Jedi Knights had fought remarkably well, a small band of Force-talented soldiers battling independently and wreaking great destruction on far-superior Imperial technology.
Not long ago Luke Skywalker had been one of the only remaining Jedi Knights—but now he had created the core of a new order of valiant fighters loyal to the New Republic, trained in using the Force. The Jedi Knights would rise again—of that, he had no doubt.
As he thought of Tionne, Streen, Kirana Ti, Kyp Durron, Kam Solusar, Cilghal, and all the others he had worked with, he pondered again Callista’s stated objections: that she could not be with him because she had not yet regained her Jedi talent … that if they married and had children, she was afraid that their sons and daughters would not be able to use the Force, would be isolated from it as she was.
But what did it matter? He loved Callista, whether or not she had Jedi powers. He had already created a fine league of defenders for the New Republic, and he would continue to train Jedi on Yavin 4. It didn’t matter if their children might not have the full potential for the Force. It didn’t matter if Callista could use her Jedi abilities. It didn’t matter!
He wanted her, and no one else. He had to make that clear to her when he finally found her. He had already brought back the Jedi Knights. Luke had searched all of his life for Callista, and he could not allow himself to lose her, not now.
He made his way back to the Great Temple to the clearing where some of his other Jedi trainees had gathered to form a combined force against the rag-tag leftovers from Vice Admiral Pellaeon’s ground assault troops. His heart sank when he failed to see Callista among them.
Where had she gone? Why had he let her out of his sight? He had so much to tell her. So much to promise her.
But she wasn’t there.
“Callista,” he whispered longingly, knowing she could not hear him. But then he looked up into the misty white sky, and suddenly he felt her through the Force. It was like a door opening to let in a ray of light.
His gaze snapped over and fixed on the black silhouette of the doomed Super Star Destroyer. It was in flames, plunging into the gas giant. A few straggler lifepods sprayed out in all directions as the crew evacuated—and Luke knew with a clawing dread that Callista somehow had gone up there.
He groaned to himself, recognizing exactly what she must have done. Feeling helpless without Jedi powers, Callista had taken the problem head-on, charging in with focused attention and a rigid adherence to the lone solution she thought would work. She would consider no other possibilities, only her single-minded way.
“No, Callista,” he said. “No!” He got only a flicker of sensation from her, a dark glare through the Force that felt like a shudder down his spine. She had opened herself up to her powers again, but she was using only the dark side. Callista had been tempted and let herself slip, but at least now Luke could sense her through the tangled skein of the Force.
And then the flicker went away, the door had slammed shut again, as if Callista had lost her powers—or as if something had happened to her.
With stinging eyes he stared up at the dwindling, sharp-edged silhouette of the Knight Hammer, trying to focus his Jedi senses to enhance his sight. But he could detect nothing from her anymore. The door into the Force had slammed shut and locked, blocking him away from any ability to detect her—but he knew she was up there on that dying ship.
Luke saw the Super Star Destroyer plunge like a knife blade into the atmosphere of Yavin, its black-armored hull glowing cherry red with friction against the atmospheric gases and the buffeting storms.
With a final series of explosions that ignited scarlet and yellow glows in the upper clouds, the Knight Hammer vanished into Yavin, swallowed up forever—and taking Callista with it.
HOTH ASTEROID BELT
CHAPTER 61
The Yavaris and the Assault Frigate Dodonna swerved aside as they escaped the treacherous core of the Hoth Asteroid Field, leaving the wreckage of the Darksaber behind.
“Saves us the trouble,” Wedge said, shaking his head. “But Madine is gone. I wish we had some way of knowing what really happened there.”
Qwi stared behind her with wide indigo eyes. “At least the weapon was destroyed without its ever firing a shot,” she said, then heaved a long sigh. “I wish people would stop trying to build bigger and better means of destruction.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Wedge said, hugging her. “I wouldn’t mind in the least if I found myself looking for a new line of work.”
“General Antilles,” the sensor chief said, “we’re picking up one small craft registering a single life form aboard. It’s too small to be much of a ship.”
Wedge frowned. He felt a surge of hope for just a moment—perhaps Madine had escaped!—but he knew that couldn’t be true, because the life monitor wouldn’t lie.
“Maybe it’s somebody who jumped ship,” he said. “Activate tractor beams. Grab it and bring it aboard.”
He left the Yavaris’s command station, gesturing to Qwi. “Let’s go meet it.” He flicked on the intercom. “I want a full security detail to meet me in the forward docking bay. Bring your weapons. We might have some trouble.”
Wedge and Qwi waited inside the bay. Around them a squad of armed guards held blaster rifles at their shoulders, fidgeting nervously and still keyed up from the days-long alert status they had just experienced, as well as the week of space battle simulation in the Nal Hutta system.
Wedge watched through the transparent atmosphere field as a bright dot came closer, a metallic hull of a spherical
ship reflecting light from the distant sun. He realized with a strange shift in perspective how tiny this craft was, that it already hovered just outside the containment field. A round construction pod no more than four meters in diameter, a single-person inspection scooter.
“Where was he expecting to go in that?” Wedge said.
“Sometimes you take advantage of the only thing you have,” Qwi said. “In desperation you have few choices.”
Wedge looked at her, surprised at the insight. Qwi had always struck him as sweet but naive. However, she had learned much since her rescue from Maw Installation.
The battered inspection scooter drifted in and thumped to the deck plates, guided by the grip of the Yavaris’s tractor beams. The New Republic guards pointed their rifles, standing ready.
The hatch hissed as it unsealed, then popped open. Wedge tensed, then blinked in surprise as a paunchy old man hauled himself out. His face was grizzled, his white hair stood up in unruly shocks. He took deep breaths, scowling in disgust at the interior of his scooter.
The guards rushed forward to take the man prisoner. He didn’t resist, looking about him in confusion.
“Bevel Lemelisk!” Qwi said, her eyes filled with anger and surprise.
“You know this man?” Wedge asked.
Qwi nodded. Her glittery hair tinkled around her. “He helped me design the Death Star,” she said. “Grand Moff Tarkin removed him from Maw Installation to be the chief engineer on the project in the Horuz system. I thought I saw him on Nar Shaddaa, remember?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Maybe you weren’t seeing things after all.”
The guards ushered Lemelisk forward. The old engineer looked at Wedge, then blinked his rheumy eyes in amazement at seeing Qwi. “Ah, Qwi Xux—fancy meeting you here! Are you working for these people now? What a coincidence!”
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