Valin hung in a vertical shaft similar to the one Seha had pointed out earlier. Suspended from durasteel access rungs by cables and snap-to climbing hooks, sitting on a broad cloth sling that had been comfortable an hour earlier, he was a bare meter below the exit hatch. In addition to the slicksuit and his backpack, he wore a set of optics—not electrobinoculars, but a holocam monitor structured as a set of goggles. Attached to them was a tiny optic cable that ran up and through the locking mechanism of the access hatch, its tiny holocam end protruding through the other side and oriented toward the main Senate Building entrance. Just now it showed little; there was still an hour or more to go until dawn, and there was little pedestrian or speeder traffic at surface level. Overhead, however, the streams of airspeeder traffic remained constant, multicolored glows of movement in hundreds of trails of light. That was Coruscant, in wartime or peacetime—never asleep, always vividly colorful.
The holocam cable was not the only one that ran from him. Another ran from the earbud he wore to the wall, to which it was attached by a lump of greenish glue. It ran down the shaft and off to the station Katarn and Seha shared.
Comlink transmissions might be detected, especially so close to the Senate Building, where security was so high. Exchanges of images or feelings through the Force might be detected by Jacen Solo. That left an antiquated but remarkably reliable standby, the intercom.
Mithric’s voice came across it now. “Kolir has got her antenna up and out, and she’s receiving HoloNet news.”
Valin snorted. “What’s new?”
“Elements of the Third Fleet attacked Commenor. In addition to hammering at military forces, they dropped asteroids onto the planet proper. They hit population centers like city-buster bombs.”
Valin whistled. “Had to be Colonel Solo’s orders, not Admiral Niathal’s.”
“That’s the weird thing. Apparently it was neither. The task force commander did it on his own initiative. He’s been brought to Coruscant to face charges.”
The next voice Valin heard was Kolir’s. “The Commenori are going to retaliate. I mean, beyond just a normal military response. Aren’t they?”
“Probably.” That was Master Katarn. “Even if it wasn’t because of orders from the Chiefs of State, the GA just violated conventions of war. How is Admiral Niathal going to persuade them that it was a rogue commander, that the Commenori should fight fair? I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Valin’s holocam view, a wrenching 360-degree panorama, showed distant lights inbound—a short stream of them at ground level. “Heads up, Jedi. Looks like a convoy approaching my position.”
Mithric snorted. “Relax. It won’t be Colonel Solo. He only shows up when there are holocams on hand to record the event, the better for Alliance morale.”
Valin frowned. “A logical fallacy. The only occasions we know about are his public entrances. We can’t conclude that he doesn’t make private ones.”
Mithric’s voice turned baiting. “Do all the Horns delight in their logical faculties?”
Master Katarn’s response was mild. “Quiet, please.” But it served to shut everyone up.
The convoy, three airspeeders, passed Valin’s position. The first one was a black Galactic Alliance Guard vehicle, a small, speedy four-passenger model. The alert lights atop the vehicle were not active. The second was a civilian speeder: long, black, enclosed, and—from the way it bobbed on its repulsors as they crossed uneven patches of plaza duracrete—very heavy, probably armored. The third was a black GAG group carrier. Its slablike sides could lift away to reveal up to a full squadron of armed and armored troopers.
And the one individual whose identity Valin could make out through the second speeder’s side viewpoint set off alarm bells in his mind. “Uh, this could be him. It’s all GAG and a VIP.”
Katarn’s voice remained outwardly calm. “Did you see Solo?”
“No, but there’s other bad news. The second vehicle is carrying a YVH combat droid.”
The Yuuzhan Vong Hunter droids, designed at the height of the Yuuzhan Vong War, were formidable. In a one-on-one match between a Jedi Knight and a YVH droid, the odds were about even. If the Jedi was inexperienced, if the battle dragged on long enough for her to tire, she was likely to be the loser…a dead loser.
“Oh, I hate those.” There was a wealth of dismay and experience in Kolir’s tone.
“Ready yourself.” Katarn continued to sound calm, almost bored. “They’re pulling to a stop near my position.”
Valin sat up and out of his sling seat, hanging on to the durasteel rungs, and reached into his backpack for the grenade launcher there. He hooked his elbow through the wall rung so he could more easily use both hands to open out the weapon’s folding stock. It clicked reassuringly into place. He did all this by touch, watching through his holocam feed as the three vehicles slowed to a simultaneous stop.
First the side slabs of the troop carrier lifted. Six GAG troopers with blaster rifles stepped out from the benches on each side. Six flanked the center vehicle; the other six moved toward the Senate Building and then stopped, arrayed in two lines of three, with three meters of space between the lines.
Valin climbed until his head was just beneath the hatch. This was looking more and more like a go.
The doors of the second vehicle rose, and the first being to emerge was the YVH. The angular droid moved out from the front seat, opened the rear passenger’s-side door, and extracted a shipping crate from the backseat. At a meter tall and wide, a meter and a half long, black like most GAG gear, the crate was large enough to be unwieldy. The droid pulled it partway out, then lifted it, demonstrating remarkable care and delicacy.
Valin wanted desperately to reach out through the Force and see if he could divine the crate’s contents, but any such action might alert Jacen. He just bit his lip.
Then the rear driver’s-side door opened and Jacen Solo, his cape fluttering in a light breeze, stepped out.
Katarn’s voice remained maddeningly calm. “Wait until he’s a few meters from the vehicle.”
Solo himself waited until the combat droid carried its mystery package around to his side of the speeder. Then, side by side, they walked toward the Senate Building entrance.
“Go.”
Behind him, from all over the nearly deserted plaza, Caedus heard four metal clanks and knew there was trouble.
He and YVH-908 spun. He heard a faint exclamation of complaint from inside the crate as Allana was whirled. Then, from out in the darkness, came a succession of poomp-poomp-poomp noises—familiar to him as the sounds made by a grenade launcher set to sustained automatic fire.
He ignited his lightsaber. “Secure the package.” In his peripheral vision, he saw the combat droid whirl again, completing a 360-degree turn—accompanied by another “Whoof!” from Allana—and then begin running toward the doors, its metal heels clanging with each step.
A flare ignited high in the air, and Caedus reached upward, sensing through the Force, feeling the descent of many tumbling metal cylinders—
He raised a hand to sweep them away, but a tingle of alarm caused him to stiffen. This came not through the Force but from a simple mathematical realization. Four metal clangs. Two grenade launchers firing. What were the other two positions doing?
He had a moment before the descending grenades would be close enough to explode and do him harm, so he looked down, out toward the darkened plaza, and extended his perceptions in that direction.
And felt them—more metal cylinders, at least a dozen, rolling toward him rather than flying. Now he could feel the ripples in the Force as they were propelled telekinetically toward him.
Contemptuous, he flicked his hand toward the darkness and felt his own power turn the cylinders around. They began rolling back the way they had come.
The sky above lit up as though noon had come more than six hours early—worse, for the brightness surpassed that of high noon. Troopers all around him cried out, threw their arms ove
r their eyes. The visors of their helmets could not darken fast enough to protect their wearers from these dazzle-grenades.
Caedus cursed. His assumption that the falling missiles were explosives, that he had a second before they reached him, had just cost him his support troops. But he, at least, could see.
Out in the darkness, the rolling grenades exploded with moist crump noises. Gas grenades, then. Coma gas? Stun gas? The breeze was from behind him. The gas would not reach him or his troops.
Finally he detected more than just telekinetic pushes; he felt presences as his enemies drew on Force abilities. He felt them rush toward him, caught sight of them as they entered the glow of lights from the front of the Senate Building—four Jedi, Master Kyle Katarn foremost among them.
Katarn ignited his lightsaber as he came to a stop a few meters away. “Care to surrender, Colonel Solo?”
“Not to a traitor.” Caedus looked at the other three as their Force-augmented sprints came to an end, leaving them in a semicircle before him. Three Jedi Knights: the younger Horn, the Falleen Mithric, the Bothan Hu’lya. He resisted the urge to snort. Separately or collectively, these Jedi Knights were no match for him.
Katarn, though, was a threat. Still, the Jedi had only moments before GA reinforcements would arrive. Their attack was already a failure.
He sensed Katarn’s attack, threw up his blade in a block so well practiced that his muscle memory could have performed it while he slept. With his free hand, he gestured at the Bothan Jedi. She was suddenly airborne, hurtling sideways to slam into the Falleen, knocking them both down.
Katarn’s blade struck his, rebounded with a snap-hiss, and came around from the other side as the Jedi Master executed a lightning-fast spin. Caedus stepped back from it, not engaging the blade. He watched the blade flash harmlessly past him.
He stepped forward again into a side kick, aimed not at Katarn but at the onrushing Valin Horn. His boot heel caught the Jedi Knight on the point of his chin, knocking Horn backward off his feet.
Two seconds had passed since the attack began.
Only Seha’s head protruded from the pavement hatch as she watched her four companions assault Colonel Solo.
In one sense, it was a beautiful and brilliant thing to see. The five combatants moved as though they’d been choreographing this event for years and had planned, all along, that the two sides would somehow be even. Each time the lightsabers came together, the resulting flash of light, slightly greater than two glows by themselves, cast the five combatants into relief. Around them, blinded GAG troopers withdrew, finding one another by touch, keeping their blasters up and at the ready, waiting for the moment when their sight would return and allow them to open fire. Above, though at a distance from the Senate Building, the trails of airspeeder lights glimmered in their passage.
And Seha still had one task to perform.
In her free hand she held a patch of black cloth. It was square, five centimeters to a side, and very soft and pliant, despite the fact that its center layer consisted of circuitry embedded in a flexible polymer.
One side was covered by a transparent layer of flimsi. With her teeth, she worried an edge of the flimsi free, then pulled the whole layer off, dropping it into the access hole she occupied. The removal of the flimsi exposed a layer of adhesive.
With her own Force powers, so much less subtle than those of her allies, she sent the cloth patch flying, centimeters above ground level, toward the fight.
But she couldn’t send it on to her target, not yet. Master Katarn had been clear about that. She had to wait until things were at their most chaotic, their most distracting.
So she guided the patch ever closer to the fight, but waited, waited…
Ten seconds.
Caedus rolled out of Katarn’s kick to his head, catching a scrape along his cheek, and swung at the Master’s leg, but Kolir’s blade intercepted his before it bit into flesh. His strength batted her weapon away, but she had deflected his blow and spared Katarn an amputation.
They’re coordinating. Good for them. Bad for me.
Caedus heard a siren—an oncoming GAG vehicle. No, two—maybe three.
He allowed himself a certain satisfaction at their speed of response. He hadn’t expected anything of the sort for another half minute.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw the first oncoming vehicle, an aging Sentinel-class armored shuttle. It was yellow, with spots of rust. He could not make out its markings without looking at it, but he knew it was not in GAG or Alliance colors. Entering airspace above the plaza, it began a dangerously steep and fast repulsorlift descent. Behind it came three GAG airspeeders, one of them firing a top-mounted laser at the shuttle.
Ah. So they were not responding with brilliant speed to an alarm. They were chasing the Jedi escape vehicle. Caedus swung at Horn, a blow meant not to connect but to cause the young Jedi to flinch away into the path of the Falleen, which he did. While they were interfering with each other, Caedus gestured at the Bothan Jedi, hurling her toward Katarn.
Katarn hurled his lightsaber off to the side and caught Hu’lya with both hands, preventing her from falling, prepared to pull her out of harm’s way if Caedus followed through.
Caedus did not. He kept his senses on Katarn’s lightsaber, and, when it vectored to fly toward him from the side, he negligently swatted it away with his own blade.
Fifteen seconds.
Caedus gave Katarn and Hu’lya a little smile. “You could save yourselves a lot of pain by telling me now where Luke has set up the new Jedi headquarters. I swear, when you are in my hands, you will answer that question.”
The Bothan got her feet back under her and stood at the ready.
Katarn caught his returning lightsaber. “Meaning you will torture us to death. Are you listening to yourself, Jacen? Do you even know who you are anymore?”
“I do. It’s you who have no idea who I am.”
He felt Force energy growing within Mithric and Horn. He gestured, telekinetically yanking the Bothan forward, positioning her between him and them. He felt their Force exertion as it was suddenly cut off.
Katarn advanced, lightsaber at the ready. Caedus withdrew before him. With part of his awareness, he was keeping track of the four inbound vehicles, plotting their trajectories…
One of the GAG vehicles was circling ahead and to starboard of the descending shuttle. Its arc, intended to put it toward the bow of the shuttle so it could fire on the cockpit, would bring it near the combatants, just a few meters above them. The pilot’s maneuver was smooth, the vehicle clearly under control. Caedus could see the Jedi barely registering its presence, since it did not figure into the combat.
Caedus reached out a hand as if intending to hurl Katarn away from him. The Master raised his own hand, a deflecting gesture. But Caedus exerted himself against the oncoming GAG speeder, yanking it down and toward all of them.
A moment’s inattention or focus elsewhere. That’s all it ever took. By the time Katarn felt the speeder coming toward him—spinning, its stern a mere two meters from his back—it was already too late for him to send a command even to Force-augmented nerves and muscles. His face changed with the awareness of danger.
Then the speeder’s port quarter hit his back, hurling him forward to slam into Caedus. The speeder, continuing its out-of-control motion, slid through the location of the other Jedi, knocking Hu’lya to the permacrete, causing Horn and Mithric to leap to safety.
Katarn now stood so close to Caedus that every facial feature was visible, every scar and line in his weathered face, every hair on his brow, mustache, and beard.
Caedus felt a rush of satisfaction, enjoyment, as Katarn’s expression turned from one of surprise to pain. Katarn looked down to see Caedus’s lightsaber buried to its hilt in his chest.
A noise, something halfway between a groan and a death rattle, emerged from Katarn’s lips. Smiling, Caedus yanked his lightsaber free and let the stricken Jedi Master fall face-first on the paveme
nt.
chapter eleven
Seha felt all breath leave her body, as though it had been her chest, not Katarn’s, that had been pierced. Jacen Solo’s exultation washed through the Force and over her like a wave at a beach, almost knocking her free from the rung she held.
No, no, no… The words rang in her head and were echoed by Mithric. The Falleen Jedi howled as he charged Solo, his anguish giving him speed and strength as he threw blow after blow at his enemy.
Things were at their most chaotic.
The words sprang up in her mind, incongruous, like golden flowers in a burned field—and her last task, the one Master Katarn had given her, was not accomplished.
She focused herself on the distant black patch. It was now only three meters from where Colonel Solo disinterestedly blocked Mithric’s attacks.
Valin Horn was charging toward the combat. Kolir was up, too, but limping badly as she headed toward their enemy. The shuttle was just meters above the plaza, settling precisely into place so that its belly hatch was positioned exactly above the access hole through which Kolir had emerged. Laserfire from the GAG speeders was raking the shuttle’s top armor to pieces.
Seha’s vision blurred with tears. She dashed them away and flicked a hand at the distant patch. As Colonel Solo twirled, causing his cloak to flare up and away from him, the patch flew to its lower hem and merged with it.
Now the three Jedi Knights assailed Solo all-out, a fight they were doomed to lose. Seha could not save them. Her tasks were accomplished. She should leave before Colonel Solo detected her.
No, she couldn’t. Not while a good man, a teacher, lay dead on the duracrete in an enemy capital. She reached out to Kyle Katarn.
His body jerked and he slid a meter toward her.
She poured more of herself, of her concentration, into her effort. Master Katarn’s body began sliding again, continuously now, picking up speed as it scraped its way across the plaza.
Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Fury Page 8
