Fate of the Jedi: Backlash (18 page)

Jaina moved up beside the Jedi Master and Shul Vaal, Jedi medic and Cilghal’s aide, a middle-aged blue Twi’lek whose unhurried movements and soothing manner made him seem the island of calm at the center of any storm of chaos. “Same as the others?”

Shul Vaal nodded. “Paranoia and hostility. No manifestation yet of Force powers he should not possess. Master Cilghal gave him a concussion and a broken nose.”

“I had to end the fight quickly.” Cilghal sounded gruff, even defensive. “Sometimes to heal, you must first hurt.”

Jaina grimaced. “In just a few words, you’ve summed up my love life. Anything I can do?”

Cilghal nodded. “Prep a shuttle. Before the government gets the bright idea to examine every vehicle leaving the Temple, I want to get Jedi Saar offworld and to the Transitory Mists.”

“Will do.”

Several levels down in the Temple, Jaina walked into one of the building’s civilian hangars. The chamber was broad and deep enough to host a ball game, and the ceiling was ten meters high, to accommodate repulsor takeoffs and landings. Two
Lambda
-class shuttles and a number of airspeeders and speeder bikes were in place there. Both shuttles had their wings locked in upswept position. One had a panel off at the engine section, but the mechanic, a woman in Jedi robes, was leaning against the fuselage, watching the same news coverage on the wall-mounted monitor. She gave Jaina a distracted nod. “Jedi Solo.”

“Jedi Tainer. Is the other shuttle fit to fly?”

Tyria Sarkin Tainer nodded. A woman of about Leia’s age, she was lean and blond. It was said that in her youth she’d been a raving beauty, but now her looks had more of an all-mother appeal to them. Her sleeves were pinned up and her arms were spattered with dirty lubricants from fingertip to elbow. “I can have this one up and ready for you in half an hour, too.”

“No need, one’s enough.” Jaina glanced at Tyria’s befouled hands. “I think I’ll handle the sign-out myself.”

Tyria nodded. “The smart choice.” She turned back to the engine compartment. “Don’t ever marry a mechanic. Over the years, you pick up a lot of training, whether you want to or not. And then you’re stuck on motor pool duty whenever you can’t avoid it.”

“I
am
a mechanic. And I like motor pool duty.” Jaina moved over to the desk by the door and began typing into the console there, checking out the other Lambda. How would she describe the mission for the records? Something dull and Jedi-like to allay suspicions.
Delivery of practice lightsabers to Corellia
.

It was said that Tyria would never make Master owing to deficiencies in her command of the Force, but she was an excellent flier, hence her current assignment to the Temple. When the StealthX squadrons rose, she’d be in the cockpit of one—

Jaina felt the other woman tense. She looked up. “What’s wrong?”

Tyria was once again looking at the monitor. “It looped.”

“Eh?”

“The recording just looped. There was a little stutter and then it went back to the recording of several minutes ago. But it still says
LIVE BROADCAST
.” She pointed to the lower right-hand portion of the monitor screen.

Jaina looked. The screen did say what Tyria indicated. It could have just been a mistake by the news provider’s technical personnel, or …

Jaina extended her senses into the Force, settling as quickly as she could into a meditative state that would make her more sensitive to thoughts of anger or vengeance, intrusion or attack …

There was nothing close, but as her range of attention broadened, she felt a quiver of anticipation, felt eyes trained against the Jedi.

She grabbed her comlink. “Comm center, this is Jedi Solo.”

A man’s voice answered. “We read you, Solo.”

“Tell Master Hamner possible attack imminent.” She didn’t bother to add recommendations for security or defensive procedures. Hamner was ex-military. He didn’t need such advice and might resent it.

“Will do.”

Tyria grabbed solvent-soaked cloths from the pavement at her feet and began degreasing her arms.

Jaina, still half in her meditative state, moved back out into the hall.
If she could get more of a fix on the contradictory emotions she was feeling …

She heard a succession of
clunk
s as numerous exterior doors on this hangar level were remotely shut.

A teenage apprentice, black-haired and old enough to carry a lightsaber, moved out into the hall from the main starfighter hangar. He didn’t waste time asking what was going on. Obviously he felt something, too. “Should I go up to the Main Hall?”

“Yes.” Just outside the Main Hall, at the main entrance, was where those security agents waited. “But … No. Wait here.” Jaina shook her head. She felt
something
amiss, not just distant emotions suggesting imminent attack.

A wail cut the air, a keening alarm. The Temple lights flickered for a moment.

Jaina heard no direct sounds of conflict, but her comlink suddenly came alive with traffic. “Alert, alert, Main Hall under attack. The doors are compromised—”

“State enemy strength and disposition.” That was Master Hamner, his voice icy, under complete control.

“It’s Mandos.” The young Jedi speaker sounded overly excited.

Jaina cursed. Mandalorians. The government wasn’t just serious, they were being
smart
and serious.

She turned toward the distant turbolifts, but a nagging presentiment kept her from moving in that direction. She pinned the apprentice with a look. “What’s your name?”

“Bandy Geffer, from Bespin.”

“Apprentice Geffer, get to a hardwired intercom away from any outside wall. That’s your position until I say different. Keep your comlink in hand and if it cuts out, give me a shout.”

“Yes, Jedi Solo.” He spun on his heel and raced off.

Tyria appeared in the nearest doorway, her arms clean, her unlit lightsaber in hand. She paid Jaina no mind. She looked down the corridor as if gauging the strength of the walls, then looked up, examining the rafters and other architectural elements of the corridor’s high ceilings. “I hate defending a position.”

“Me, too.”

The door that Apprentice Geffer had emerged from, the door into the StealthX hangar, rattled in its frame and there was a muted
boom
from beyond it. Jaina nodded. It would be shaped charges, simultaneously blasting several entry holes for commandos. She raced past the shuttle hangar, was unsurprised to hear Tyria running right behind her. “Inform control. Second attack prong is
here.”

“There’s static on the comlinks now! I’m on the intercom.”

“Report the comm loss, too.” The two Jedi ran past the main door into the StealthX hangar. At the next corridor intersection—beyond it were the turbolifts for this level and, at a wide point in the hall, the coordinator’s desk where Apprentice Geffer was now sitting—Jaina turned and lit her lightsaber. Tyria joined her; her blade came alive with a
snap-hiss
.

The door into the StealthX hangar blew out, instantly transformed into innumerable chunks of durasteel ranging from the size of pebbles to the size of starfighter helmets. At the same instant four places in the wall, two on either side of the door, blew out. And from each hole emerged a Mandalorian warrior, distinctive in their modern armor with classical helmet designs. They were as anonymous as Imperial stormtroopers and yet more individual than Jedi, each set of armor having its own color pattern, its own unique helmet contours.

They turned toward the Jedi. There were no preambles. The foremost Mando gestured and smoke trails, a cluster of them, jumped toward the Jedi—mini rockets.

Jaina and Tyria leapt about two meters. With an exertion of the Force, even as the Mando was aiming, Jaina caused the largest section of wall debris to fly up in front of the commando’s outstretched hand. A wave of mini rockets slammed into the debris and detonated. The blast disintegrated that debris but blew the firer and the two commandos closest behind him off their feet.

Tyria nodded, approving. “Nice.”

“Thanks.”

Tyria looked back toward the apprentice. “Report five-plus Mandos. Tell them to consider sending reinforcements.”

“
I’ll
reinforce you—”

Tyria’s voice turned sharp. “Abandon your post and you’ll be tasting my boot from a direction you
never
expected.”

The fourth Mando, blaster rifle in hand, darted diagonally forward. He crossed in front of the fifth commando, and as he passed, Jaina realized that the fifth commando had fired a second spray of mini rockets, using his comrade as a visual block. It was a beautifully timed stratagem. At the point Jaina realized more rockets were incoming, the spray was already too widespread—the rockets were already past the debris—for her to use the same defense.

Tyria leapt to her right, putting her around the corner from the oncoming missiles. Jaina charged straight at the Mandos.

She twisted and let a mini rocket pass by no more than three centimeters from her body. It and the other projectiles slammed into walls, floor, and ceiling behind her, causing the floor to rock. A gust of heated air from the explosion overtook her.

And then she was in their midst, in the middle of the pack of Mandos, where they’d have to fire precisely or not at all to avoid harming their fellows. Three of them were rising, unhurt. One of the two still standing drew a short vibrosword, holding it in a reverse grip, and launched himself at her.

She watched the other one who was still on his feet. Sure enough, he used the direct assault as a distraction, waited half a second, and fired at her from what looked like a line-throwing forearm attachment. But what came at her was a flexible projectile that broadened, expanded into a net.

She grabbed at it with the Force, exerting herself against it as if it were a bad idea, and flicked it into the path of the vibrosword wielder. It wrapped around him.

Nor did Jaina let go of it then. She maintained her mental grip on the net and yanked it through one of the holes in the wall. That Mando went flying, and the one who’d cast the net, still attached to it by a line, was hauled off his feet. He went flying after his comrade, the sudden lateral movement causing him to drop his blaster rifle.

Three left, but the other two were unhurt and would be back in a moment—perhaps with reinforcements.

The three were on their feet now. One turned away from Jaina, facing back down the corridor, and threw up his arm just in time to catch Tyria’s descending lightsaber blade on it. The
beskar
from which his crushgaunt was made withstood the impact of the green energy blade,
and he was not wounded. But the crushgaunt was scarred and the sheer force of Tyria’s blow drove him back a step.

Jaina spun between the other two, chambering her weapon, ready to kick. One of the two Mandos, a female, wore a rocket pack and ignited it, carrying her up and away from Jaina. That was all right; she was not Jaina’s original target. Jaina leapt, and her kick took the other commando in the side of the head. It was certainly not powerful enough to damage the
beskar
, but a lot of kinetic force was transmitted through the helmet, rocking the man’s head. He staggered away.

Tyria’s lightsaber found an unarmored chink in her opponent’s plating. She drove the blade, point-first, into his inner thigh. He made a strangled noise, took two jerky steps backward, and fell as the smell of burned flesh joined that of explosives residue. But another commando, the one who’d launched the net at Jaina, leapt out from the hole in the wall and swung at Tyria before she could react. His gauntleted fist took her in the jaw. Jaina heard the
crack
, saw the jaw deform, and suddenly Tyria was down, unconscious. The odds abruptly went from two against five to one against four. Or three and a half, if the concussion she was sure she’d given one Mando counted for anything.

There was a new
boom
from farther down the corridor, back toward Apprentice Geffer and the turbolifts. Jaina nodded, comprehending. Another handful of Mandos would be leaving the StealthX hangar the same way these had, using explosives to bypass doors, moving laterally in directions the Jedi wouldn’t normally prepare for.

Now the only thing between this second unit of Mandos and the turbolifts was one apprentice. She saw Geffer’s desk slide through the intersection, picking up speed, propelled by the boy’s use of the Force, and a split second after it vanished from sight down the cross-hall she heard it destroyed by mini rockets. Apprentice Geffer, grimly determined and frightened all at once, stepped out into the intersection, his lightsaber lit.

Jaina swore to herself. She could not retreat to help Geffer. She had to hold here or they’d both be flanked. But the apprentice was no match for experienced Mandos, especially Mandos who had clearly trained and prepared for conflict with Jedi. She had to hope he’d last a few seconds.

The flying Mando female fired down at Jaina with a blaster pistol. Jaina sidestepped the barrage of shots, making it look clumsy when in fact it wasn’t, and launched herself at the commando who had taken Tyria out.

The turbolift door opened and Raynar Thul stepped out into the passageway. He saw an apprentice, lightsaber glowing blue in his hand, facing down a side corridor. Down the main corridor, Jaina Solo was squared off against three Mandos, one of them flying. Correction, four Mandos: another one, casting off ruins of a net, charged out through a hole that used to be a doorway.

Raynar strode forward, told the apprentice, “I’ll take this,” and turned toward the apprentice’s subject of attention.

Subjects. Five more Mandos moving forward through the ruins of some furniture and what once had been sections of wall. They hesitated when they saw him.

For once, people seeing him were not hesitating in the face of his well-healed yet widespread burn scars—but because he was a more formidable enemy than they’d expected to confront.

He ignited his lightsaber and pointed it at them. “I am Jedi Thul,” he told them. “I have not fought for real in many years. I should be a pushover. Come get me.”