Star by Star (66 page)

“Too late for that,” Anakin said. “I’m seeing this through.”

“Even if it means putting others at risk?” Jaina demanded. “If you’re slow, you’re a danger to us all. At least
try
a trance.”

Things had gone too far for a trance, Anakin knew. He was thirsty enough to drink sweat, and his abdomen was hard with trapped blood, and the effort of finding a place safe enough to enter a trance would probably kill him anyway. But the thought that he might be endangering others did give him pause. It was one thing to face the inevitable, quite another to take others
along. He sought guidance from the Force, opening himself to its tide, trying to sense where it was carrying him.

The sound of the ruffling voxyn scales rose to mind. He felt again the awe he had experienced in the arena, when he realized it had been Yuuzhan Vong patricians who fought there. The Force had spoken to him then.

“I’m going,” he said.

Jaina clenched her jaw, then looked away. “I thought so.”

The first wave reached the hedge and ducked through the burn holes. Stalks began to strike like snakes. Half a dozen lightsabers snapped to life and hacked the brambles away, then the Jedi stumbled out the other side ripping thorn tangles from around their throats and legs. The hedge struck again as the second wave crossed. The first wave left them to their own devices and continued on toward the grashal. Speed was crucial. During their reconnaissance, Anakin had sensed a company of Yuuzhan Vong lurking a few hundred meters beyond the cloning lab, presumably where the strike team had been expected to leave the voxyn warrens.

By the time Anakin and his three companions penetrated the hedge, the first wave had already cut through the grashal wall. Tenel Ka, Zekk, and Alema pressed themselves against the block and rode along as Ganner used the Force to shove the monolith inside.

A burring cloud of bugs came boiling out. The Jedi huddled down in their armored jumpsuits, their blades tracing crackling color fans as they batted insects from the air. A grenade explosion rocked the grashal, then another and another, and the bug storm withered to a trickle.

“Clear!” Zekk yelled.

Ganner and Jacen ducked inside. Jaina hefted her power blaster to follow, but then everyone’s comlinks popped and hissed static. There came a ripple in the Force, maybe strong enough to be Raynar’s death. Anakin looked to the ceiling, saw nothing through the patching membranes but Myrkr’s green glow. He would never know.

“They’ll pay.” Jaina tore her eyes from the ceiling. “They
will
pay.”

“Then so will we,” Anakin said. Jaina’s eyes were sunken with fatigue and her mouth was drooping with sorrow, and she looked more frail and troubled than Anakin had ever seen her. “We’re here to destroy the queen, not take revenge.”

“Right.” Jaina stepped through the opening. “Revenge comes later.”

Anakin left Tahiri and Tekli at the breach with Alema’s longblaster and followed his sister into the grashal. It was like stepping into a Yavin 4 nightstorm, a dark fog hanging overhead, glow lichen up there somewhere casting sallow halos, blaster bolts and lightsabers flashing like colored lightning—and the humid air muffling the scream and roar of combat, making all that death seem more distant than it was.

Anakin spun out from behind the door block and batted a razor bug from the air, found himself staring through a jungle of pulsing white vines, their corkscrew stalks rising out of planting bins filled with briny-smelling mud. The Yuuzhan Vong were ahead everywhere, their presence too dispersed and indistinct to tell him much. A pair of thud bugs sent him diving for cover. He exchanged his lightsaber for the power blaster and came up firing.

The first shots left him so light-dazzled he glimpsed only a dark shape on the opposite side of the bin, diving for cover. He spun around the end of the box, heard the
snap-hiss
of an igniting lightsaber, then Tesar Sebatyne’s familiar hissing. The Yuuzhan Vong had thrown his last bug.

Anakin reached out with the Force and found the rest of the strike team taking heavy swarm, pinned down in the darkness. Easy enough to fix. He reached for his incendiary grenades, but felt Tesar already lifting three objects into the dark fog overhead.

A smug Yuuzhan Vong presence drew Anakin’s attention to the next planting bin. Rolling from his hiding place, he saw a dark figure leaping across the aisle ahead, amphistaff poised to strike. He lifted his power blaster … and pitched forward as a razor bug sliced across his neck from behind, vibro-sharp mandibles gliding off his jumpsuit’s armored lining. The insect banked and came back, pincers stretching for his face. Anakin pivoted and took a cheek slash, fired at his original target.

The bolt caught the Yuuzhan Vong in a shoulder seam and spun him around. An arm flew off trailing the smell of scorched flesh, but the warrior did not even scream. He just pirouetted and, now swinging one-armed, brought his amphistaff down.

Anakin’s razor bug came around again, this time slashing for the throat, and he had to turn away. Behind him, Tesar’s lightsaber snapped to life and sputtered harshly. Anakin blocked with the body of the power blaster, then took a pair of thud bugs in the flank and slammed to the floor. He heard the dull thump of an amphistaff hitting a thick reptilian skull, and the flow of strength trailed off as the Barabel plummeted into insensibility.

Anakin did not consciously fire his power blaster. He was too busy reaching up into the darkness, searching for falling grenades. How many seconds left? The power blaster just flashed, and Tesar’s attacker crashed to the floor.

Anakin found what he was looking for and pushed. A ripple of danger sense made him roll away as the razor bug crashed to the floor where his head had been. He hammered the thing dead, then heard the telltale crackle of the grenade detonations. Hoping he would still be there when the sound fell silent, he closed his eyes and reached out to find his attacker through the lambent crystal.

Not easy—too many Yuuzhan Vong in too many places—but he felt something off to his left. He spun and fired.

The depletion alarm sounded, just loud enough to be heard over the crackling flames above. The Yuuzhan Vong presence was closer now, eager. Flinging the useless blaster aside, he plucked his lightsaber from his belt and thumbed it to life, brought it into a cross-body guard—caught an amphistaff descending toward his head. Eyes still squeezed shut against the brilliant glare above, he swung his legs around and scissored his attacker’s knees. The contest ended in a quick lightsaber thrust.

The flames crackled out. Anakin opened his eyes and saw yellow glow lichen shining bright, the last wisps of vapor cloud evaporating into the hot air. He lay there for a long time, taking stock of his condition, trying to fight off his anguish. It took five full breaths to establish that the pain was caused only by his old wound, ten heartbeats more to bring it under control.

Gradually, Anakin grew aware of the battle meld again, of the strike team’s mounting elation. Pushing his agony aside, calling on the Force, he lifted himself to his feet. The Jedi were advancing on the left side of the grashal, driving back the last handful of shapers and guards, slashing nutrient vines and cloning pods as they went. Through the pulsing tangle of stalks, he could not see what they were hunting—but he could feel it, over by the grashal wall, trapped a little below floor level, unsettled, wild, ferocious. Afraid.

Behind Anakin, the longblaster boomed. He felt panic from Tahiri and turned to find her rushing into the grashal. A ball of fire followed her through the breach and exploded into the monolith standing there, and Tahiri went flying.

Anakin rushed to help, but she was up before he took two steps. “Magma spitters! We’re cut off.”

Anakin did not bother to look. “Tekli?”

Tahiri pointed behind him, where the Chadra-Fan was sprinkling stinksalts on Tesar’s forked tongue. The Barabel was smiling, but not waking.

“Take him … and go.” Every word filled Anakin’s belly with fire. He pointed toward the others. “You may need to cut a way out.”

“
 ‘You’
?” Tahiri said. “I’m not going—”

“Do it!” Anakin snapped. When Tahiri’s face fell, he spoke more gently. “You need … to help Tekli. I’ll be along.”

“Yes, Tahiri,” Tekli said. She cast a knowing glance at Anakin, then kneeled astride the Barabel and began to slap him. “Tesar is not responding. I cannot move him and work on him both.”

Tahiri looked doubtful, but could hardly refuse to help. Blinking back a tear, she stretched up to kiss Anakin on the lips—then caught herself and shook her head. “No—for that, you have to come back.”

Anakin gave her his best lopsided smile. “Soon, then.”

“Soon,” Tahiri repeated. “May the Force be with you.”

This second part, she added so quietly that Anakin did not think she meant him to hear it. All too aware of the growing weakness in his legs, he went to the makeshift doorway and peered around the edge. An artillery squad had set up beyond the thorn hedge, their four magma spitters trained on the opening.

No one was attempting to move closer, which meant the main force would be attacking from the other side. Anakin turned toward the primary entrance and focused on what he felt through the lambent crystal. It did not surprise him at all to sense a heavy Yuuzhan Vong presence streaming in from the ambush site.

He set off at a painfully slow run. Twice, he dropped to a knee when his legs buckled—once while trading blows with a glassy-eyed Yuuzhan Vong who had no more business in hand-to-hand combat than he did. He won that fight by slashing open a planting bin, then levitating himself while the nutrient mud spilled out and swept his foe off balance. The next combat he nearly did not survive at all, catching an amphistaff butt in his wound and popping the external stitches. His life was saved only when he used the Force to bounce his blaster off the warrior’s tattooed brow.

As he retrieved his weapon and rose, Anakin vomited blood. Even before he was finished, he was using the Force to lift himself to his feet, willing himself to run. He had to beat the enemy assault force to the door. At last, he cleared the planting bins and spied the door membrane twenty meters to his left, as wide as an X-wing was long and twice as high. The far corner of the membrane rose slightly. Anakin ducked back into the planting beds, free hand already pulling a thermal detonator from his harness.

When Anakin saw the figure who stepped through, he nearly dropped the detonator. The newcomer’s back was turned, but he wore a tattered jumpsuit and stood a head taller than most humans. He set off for the voxyn pen at a sprint.

“Lowie?” Anakin called, using the Force to make his weak voice carry.

He reached out, but felt only the same hazy Yuuzhan Vong presence as before. The newcomer turned, revealing the profile of a sandy-haired human, and raised an old E-11 blaster rifle.

Anakin was already behind a planting bin, activating his comlink. “Impostor!” he warned. “Trying for pens.”

The blasterfire crescendoed to a deafening roar, as did the Jedi frustration. The firing angles were impossible. A grenade detonated somewhere, and Jaina yelled for a charge.

The door membrane began to roll upward, revealing forty
pairs of Yuuzhan Vong feet waiting to rush inside. Anakin opened himself to the Force completely, drawing it into himself through the power of his emotions—not through his anger or fear like a Dark Jedi, but through his love for his family and his fellow Jedi Knights, through his faith in the Jedi purpose and the promise of the future. The Force poured in from all sides, filling him with a swirling maelstrom of power and purpose, saturating him and devouring him. There was nothing to be frightened of, no reason to grieve. He could feel it flowing into him and himself flowing into it. Anakin
was
the Force, and the Force was Anakin.

Anakin rose. His body emitted a faint aura of light—the glow of his cells burning out—and the air crackled around him. His injuries no longer pained him. He was acutely aware of everything in the grashal—the musty smell of the droning thud bugs, the sultry heat rising from the planting bins, the huffing breath of his fellow Jedi, even the Yuuzhan Vong. Their presence was as distinct to him as that of his own companions, almost as though the Force had somehow expanded to include them.

Firing as he ran, Anakin raced along the rising door. Every bolt blasted a Yuuzhan Vong foot. Muffled roars reverberated through the membrane. Ahead of him, half a dozen warriors dropped and rolled into the grashal. He blasted these before they could rise, then reached the other end and stroked the tickle pad. The door lowered again.

“Hutt breath!” Jaina cursed over the comlink. “She’s escaping.”

Anakin could feel it, too. The voxyn was moving down and away. He activated his own comlink. “The impostor must have opened an escape tunnel.” It no longer hurt to speak, but his aura had gone from faint to bright. His cells were burning like fire. “Jacen, you’re in charge. Take everyone and go after her.”

Jaina’s surprise at not having her own name called carried through the Force like a shout across water, but she stifled any resentment she felt and said, “Can’t get there, Little Brother.”

“The path will clear.”

Anakin slashed the membrane tickle pad and circled toward the empty voxyn pen. He could feel Yuuzhan Vong ahead, crouching behind the last row of planting bins, secure in the
knowledge that help was coming. That changed a moment later, when Anakin began to pour blasterfire into their flank. His angle was poor for head shots and his bolts too weak to penetrate vonduun crab armor, but by the time the Yuuzhan Vong realized that, they were being overrun by Jedi.

A plasma ball roared through the grashal door and set fire to a twenty-meter swath of cloning vines. Anakin charged back toward the melted membrane, miniature forks of lightning dancing off his arms and legs, the Force swirling through him like fire, burning more ferociously every moment. He was completely filled with the strength of the light side now; his injured body could hold no more. The energy was burning its way out of him, consuming a vessel too weakened to contain it.