They swung around in a crooked, uneven curve, ducking behind blossoming turbolaser strikes and changing their approach frequently to throw off anyone trying to track them by sight. But Qoribu"s polar region was as vast as it was bright, and their StealthXs remained silhouetted against its whirling white clouds.
We should warn UnuThul, Zekk suggested.
Our help isn"t wanted, Jaina replied. That fact made them feel sad and rejected and horribly, utterly alone. Our mission is to - retrieve Lowbacca and leave, Zekk finished. But we"re Jedi.
Our first mission is prevent a wider war, Jaina agreed.
They were deliberating more than discussing, weighing both sides of the argument in a single shared mind, and an unhappy thought occurred to them.
What if they did nothing?
The Great Swarm would be destroyed-perhaps even the Hapan fleet, which was advancing behind the safety of the Killik dartships. Without the means to defend the Qoribu nests, the Colony would be forced to abandon them, or to find a way to evacuate. In either case, the Chiss would no longer feel threatened, and a greater war would be averted.
UnuThul might be killed, Zekk pointed out.
Would the Colony return to normal? Jaina wondered.
Impossible to know.
Impossible, Jaina agreed. But maybe not a bad thing.
Jaina and Zekk waited, expecting to feel Unu"s Will pressing down on them, driving them to act in the Colony"s best interest.
But they were out of contact with the Taat mind-cut off from it by distance as well as by Unu"s anger-and UnuThul was too busy coordinating the overall battle to join their combat-meld. Jaina and Zekk"s mind was their own-for now.
A hole appeared in the turbolaser net, and they accelerated toward it, aiming for a quartet of tiny blue circles that their R9 units a.s.sured them was a cruiser"s sublight drive. If they could sneak up close enough, they could slip into the heart of the Chiss fleet by hiding near its exhaust nozzles, where the glare would blind anyone peering in their direction.
This feels wrong, Zekk said. Like we "re betraying the Colony.
And UnuThul, Jaina added. But we "re Jedi.
Jedi do what is necessary, Zekk agreed. To prevent war.
To keep the peace.
The cruiser was so close now that they could see the boxy outline of its engine skirt enclosing the bright disks of its four huge thrust nozzles. Turbolaser beams stabbed out all around them, but never close enough to suggest that the StealthXs had been spotted again. Jaina and Zekk continued to close the distance.
Then another unhappy thought occurred to them. Welk.
If UnuThul dies...
The possibility was almost too terrible to consider. If UnuThul died, Welk-or Lomi Plo, if she had survived-might become the new Prime Unu. They did not know what that would mean for the Colony, but it would certainly be bad for the rest of the galaxy. The Dark Jedi would use the Killiks for their own ends, perhaps even to draw the entire galaxy into a single collective mind.
Need to protect UnuThul, Zekk concluded.
Better warn him.
Jaina and Zekk were relieved. It was what they had wanted anyway.
Maybe they had even convinced themselves it was the best thing when it was not, but their mind was made up. They reached out to UnuThul in the Force, urging him to open himself to their combat-meld.
Unu"s will pressed down on them. Suddenly, rescuing Lowbacca seemed more important than stopping the Colony"s attack. If Jaina and Zekk did not rescue their friend quickly, he would perish along with his captors when the Great Swarm destroyed the Chiss fleet.
Jaina and Zekk pushed back, but-being out of touch with the Taat mind- they had no way to explain the Chiss trap. All they could do was pour their alarm into the Force and urge UnuThul to join the combat-meld.
Unu"s will grew heavier, and they began to believe it was not so important to reach UnuThul after all.
Afraid we "re trying to trick them again, Zekk surmised.
Only the knowledge that Unu was wrong gave them the strength to resist, to continue reaching into the Force.
Finally, someone reached back-but it was Jaina"s mother, not UnuThul. Jaina and Zekk stretched out toward her, inviting her into their battle- meld, and the situation grew a little clearer. Leia and the others were under attack. An image of dozens of blue-black Killik soldiers appeared inside their mind, swarming up a dark tunnel, pouring electrobolt fire toward them.
Jaina and Zekk were alarmed, but Leia did not seem frightened or worried. Why should she be? She and Han had been trapped in worse situations a hundred times.
Now Jaina and Zekk were really worried-and confused. They did not know of any blue-black Killiks in the Qoribu system-nor of any nests with such gloomy walls.
Kr, Leia explained. Secret nest.
A nest could not be secret. Unu would know about it.
Welk? Leia reminded them. Saba?
Now Jaina and Zekk understood. Every time they had tried to investigate the a.s.sault on Saba, the Taat-and later UnuThul - had turned them aside. The Barabel had mistakenly attacked a Joiner, it was claimed, or she had fought a Chiss a.s.sa.s.sin.
Perhaps UnuThul had been attempting to hide the secret nest all along. Or maybe he just did not want to believe it existed.
Either way, the situation was worse than Jaina and Zekk had realized. They wanted to go to Kr to help Leia and the others, but if UnuThul died, the Dark Jedi would be close by, waiting to take over.
Leia seemed to understand. She was already withdrawing from the meld, urging them to be careful, a.s.suring them that Luke and the other Masters had things well in hand on Kr.
When she was gone, Jaina and Zekk still felt no hint of UnuThul.
Have to do this the hard way, Jaina said.
Go back and make contact with Taat, Zekk agreed. Then the Colony will know what we "re thinking.
Jaina and Zekk hesitated. Unu"s will was a bantha sitting on their shoulders, pushing them toward Lobacca, toward the heart of the Chiss fleet.
Lome can wait a few more minutes, Jaina said. We"ll come back for him.
Lowie would understand, Zekk agreed. Lowie is a Jedi.
Jaina and Zekk rolled into simultaneous wingovers and reversed direr ion, pointing their noses back toward the Great Swarm. Unu"s weight sank to their stick hands.
Only one problem with this plan, Zekk observed.
Jaina could feel Zekk fighting, as she was, to keep his controls dead center.
Not really. Jaina released her stick. "Sneaky, take us in."
The astromech took control of the StealthX, then chirped a question.
"To Unu"s squadron." As Jaina spoke, Zekk was giving the same orders to his own astromech. The Taat were flying escort for UnuThul"s flag frigate, so all the two Jedi needed to do to was rejoin the swarm, and the Taat mind would know everything they did. "And that command is non-"
"There is no need to desert our friend." UnuThul"s gravelly voice reverberated over their comm speakers, but when Jaina and Zekk checked their reception meters, they discovered that their transceivers were not receiving a signal. "We will listen to your plea, but Unu will never let you stay. You have betrayed the Colony"s trust-"
"It"s not about us." Jaina was not quite certain what form of reply UnuThul could hear, so she simply spoke the words aloud. "We need to warn you."
"You"re flying into a trap," Zekk added.
They took control of their StealthXs again, turned back toward the Chiss cruiser they hoped to use for cover. Lowbacca would not have to wait after all.
"This is about you," UnuThul insisted. "You are trying to save the Chiss fleet. Again."
"We"re trying to save you," Jaina replied.
"It"s a Bothan fade," Zekk added. "The Chiss are drawing you into the open."
"You studied battle tactics on Yavin," Jaina said. "You know what"s going to happen when the fight moves beyond Qoribu"s gravity well."
The boxy outline of the cruiser"s engine skirt was again visible ahead. UnuThul remained silent as the brilliant circles of the thrust nozzles continued to swell in front of the StealthXs. Jaina and Zekk began to hope that they had convinced Unu of the danger.
Then UnuThul said, "It must be a coincidence. There were no Chiss in our tactics cla.s.ses."
Jaina and Zekk knew better than to waste time pointing out the flaws in Unu"s argument. Killik logic did not follow the same rules as that of most species-in fact, it did not follow rules at all.
Instead, Jaina asked, "Can the Colony really afford to take that chance?"
"When the Great Swarm reaches Qoribu"s south pole, take a minute to regroup," Zekk suggested.
"You remember what will happen if we"re right?"
"Of course," UnuThul said. "We have an excellent memory."
The comm speakers fell silent, leaving Jaina and Zekk feeling alone and shunned again, worried their pleas would go unheeded. The first tendrils of the cruiser"s exhaust tail began to lick at their forward shields. Jaina and Zekk dropped below it and closed to within three hundred meters of the ship"s stern. Their canopy tinting darkened to solid black, and they flipped their bellies toward the ion stream to protect the delicate sensor windows on top of the StealthXs" nose cones.
For the next thirty seconds, they remained on the fringes of the exhaust stream, following the cruiser toward the heart of the Chiss fleet. Jaina and Zekk tried to keep an eye on their tactical displays, but the ion interference rendered their screens almost unreadable. To discern anything, the R9s had to use a complicated algorithmic a.n.a.lysis to separate interference from true sensor returns.
Jaina and Zekk were beginning to think Unu had ignored their warning when the R9s announced that the Great Swarm had slowed. The eyes of the two Jedi Knights went to their tactical displays, desperately trying to infer a picture from the static on the screens. The astromechs reported that the Chiss retreat appeared to be growing even more disorganized.
Trying to tempt the enemy, Zekk observed.
Hope Unu sees that. To Sneaky, Jaina said, "Give us a simple schematic-"
Sneaky interrupted with a series of concerned tweets. Jaina looked out the canopy to see the cruiser swinging back toward Qoribu.
Baiting the trap, Jaina observed.
With our camouflage, Zekk complained. Too many eyes watching now.
Better find something else to follow in, Jaina agreed.
They dropped out of the exhaust stream. As their canopies grew transparent again, they found themselves surrounded by durasteel hulls ranging in apparent size from that of a finger to something closer to a Wookiee"s arm.
Already deeper than we thought, Jaina observed.
Yeah, Zekk agreed. The static began to clear from their tactical displays. But is that a good thing or Blossoms of turbolaser fire lit the s.p.a.ce around them. Jaina and Zekk surrendered their hands to the Force, and their StealthXs began to weave and bob, swinging wide before a strike exploded in front of them, climbing away from a beam even as it lanced out behind them.
Jaina"s hand pushed the stick forward. The third StealthX - the one slaved to her controls-followed her into a dive and slammed into a blossom of fire behind her. Her R9 let out a sad whistle as it received the final data burst from its counterpart, then Jaina jinked starboard and Zekk juked port, and a trio of turbolaser strikes burst into a miniature sun between them.
Our boyfriend means business, Zekk observed.
Don"t know that it"s him. And it"s old boyfriend.
Right. We "re so over him.
We?
Jaina and Zekk dropped the line of thought there. It was just getting too creepy, with Zekk sharing everything that Jaina still felt for Jag, and Jaina sharing everything that Zekk still felt for her, and it didn"t help matters that, at the moment, Jag was doing his best to kill them both.
He"s just following orders, Zekk consoled.
He has to, Jaina agreed. He"s Chiss.
They continued to dodge through the barrage, angling first one direction, then another, always working deeper into the fleet. Despite the loss of the third StealthX, they could still rescue Lowbacca. Zekk"s storage compartment was filled with oxygen tanks, and there was an air feed running into the empty torpedo bay below his seat. Unfortunately for Jaina, she was the only one small enough to fit inside.
The Chiss brought more ships to bear, stringing kilometer-wide screens of crimson energy ahead of the StealthXs, hoping the elusive starfighters would simply fly into a strike. Jaina and Zekk rolled away from one beam and found another crossing their noses. Jaina pulled up hard, her astromech screeching alarms as the inertial compensator strained to keep the ship together. Zekk dropped his nose and squeezed past underneath, his StealthX shuddering and bouncing as its shields crackled and overloaded.
Enough! To her droid, Jaina said, "Sneaky, give us a one-second fuse and drop a shadow bomb... now!"
The droid tweeted its alarm, but obeyed.
Jaina gave the bomb an aftward Force shove, and a silver flash filled the s.p.a.ce behind them. The shock wave hit an instant later, slamming both StealthXs forward and pushing their tails down. Jaina and Zekk did not right themselves. They simply poured on the power and shot away, doing anything they could to change course and location before the Chiss eyes tracking them recovered from the blinding flash of the shadow bomb.
The Chiss brought even more turbolasers to bear-but well behind and below the StealthXs. Jaina and Zekk were close enough now to feel Lowbacca"s presence aboard a heavily armored Dreadnaught escorting the flagship. They closed formation and swung toward it, then finally had time to check their tactical displays.
Unu had listened to their warning. The Great Swarm remained at Qoribu, spread out just beneath the southern pole, with the Hapans taking a supporting position behind the dartships. Meanwhile, the Chiss had given up trying to draw out the Colony and were smoothly dispersing into their own defensive wall, three layers deep and just out of Hapan turbolaser range.
Could have timed this better.
Going to be hot as a nova getting through that picket field, Zekk agree The Dreadnaught"s ion drives suddenly brightened, then Jaina and Zekk"s heart sank as the ship turned and accelerated away from the fleet.
The Chiss were not fools. Having lost track of their quarry, they had decided to remove the bait.
Could have timed this a lot better. Jaina"s vision blurred with welling tears, and she and Zekk reached out to Lowbacca, trying to reach him through the stupor in which his captors were keeping him, trying to a.s.sure him that they would find him, urging him not to lose faith.
They felt a question struggling toward the top of Lowbacca"s mind, then anger; then the Dreadnaught vanished into hypers.p.a.ce and they felt nothing at all.