Invincible (32 page)

“Ben?” Jaina asked. “Are you talking about Tahiri?”

Ben looked uncomfortable. “I’m just asking a question. How else am I going to know?”

“But you must have a reason for asking,” Leia prompted. “What is it?”

Ben looked at the ground and exhaled, trying to gather his thoughts—or his courage. Finally, he said, “I think Tahiri hated what she did.”

“Killing Shevu?” asked Leia.

“Right. And torturing me. She almost—” Ben stopped there, cringing at some memory he didn’t care to share. “Tahiri tried everything she could to avoid hurting me. And when Shevu died, she felt horrible. She’s not like Caedus. Not yet.”

The reply came from an unexpected source, a little voice down by Tenel Ka’s thigh. “Jedi Jacen
likes
hurting people,” Allana said. “He scares me.”

Jaina shuddered. Now Caedus’s own daughter feared him. The Jacen Solo she had grown up with would never have wanted such a thing.

She crouched in front of her niece and took Allana’s tiny hands in her own. “He’ll never scare you again, Allana. I promise.”

Allana looked doubtful. “You
really
promise?”

“Sure,” Jaina said. “I really promise.”

Why was the Jedi Master cross-eyed? Because he couldn’t control his pupils!

—Jacen Solo, age 15

A
N APPROACHING BATTLE FLEET CREPT INTO VIEW, A DISTANT CRESCENT
of blue pinpoints shining bright against the shadowy depths of the Transitory Mists. To one side of the formation hung the nebulous smudge of the gravity well the fleet was skirting, a barely glowing protostar so deeply purple it was almost black. To the other side lay a hazard even more dangerous, a Mist-cloaked field of icy monoliths that had once been the third gas giant in an unstable triple-world cluster.

Jaina glanced down at the StealthX’s tactical display and, as she expected, saw only static. The Mists in this part of the Maad system were so thick that an object had to be nearly recognizable before it could be scanned or signaled. That was one of the reasons Luke and Tenel Ka had selected this spot for the ambush. The other reason was—of course—the natural abundance of navigational hazards. Caedus’s fleet would be forced to make a long realspace approach through a narrow “safe” channel, with barely detectable gravity wells and moon-sized ice chunks hiding in the Mists to every side. All Jaina had to do was to lure him in—and make him believe this was the route to the secret Jedi base.

It was a simple plan, really—at least in theory.

So far, she seemed to be doing a good job. Caedus had followed the blood trail this far, anyway. Her position was just across the midsystem void from Shedu Maad—more or less in line with it, and close enough that he was unlikely to have noticed her shift from the real base. At least, that’s what Luke had told her, and he obviously knew more about blood trails. Her next task was to head back down “the Throat”—Saba’s name for the channel where Tenel Ka would ambush Caedus. Jaina had to make it look like she was rushing back to base to sound the alarm.

At that point, the Jedi would launch an assault on the
Anakin Solo,
covering her so that she could board and hunt down her brother. She tried not to think about that last part of her job. If she let her thoughts rush too far ahead of the actual events, she might not get there at all.

Jaina began to bring up the systems she had left dormant to conserve her batteries, then realized she had not sensed any sharpening in her wingmate’s Force aura. She glanced over to the other StealthX and found Zekk’s helmet turned toward the other side of his canopy, facing the amber-striped disks of Qogo and Uluq—the twin gas giants locked in a mutual orbit at the base of the Throat. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t even sense Jaina looking in his direction, and she was surprised to discover that made her feel a little sad.

They had been so close for so many years, Jaina had simply taken for granted that they would always be the ideal mission partners, in Force contact on an almost unconscious level, able to read each other’s thoughts and intentions almost to the same degree as her parents. But that wasn’t really true anymore. Something had changed while Jaina was away training with the Mandalorians. She had returned to discover that sometimes it took a conscious effort to maintain her connection with Zekk, almost as though she had to keep reminding him that she was there.

Jaina had tried to tell herself that the change was due to her current mission, because she had to confront Caedus alone. But she knew better. The truth was, Zekk had probably just grown weary of waiting for her to sort out her personal life. Or maybe the time apart had helped him realize he didn’t need to be anything more than her wingmate. That probably shouldn’t have made her sad, but it did.

Jaina reached out and gave Zekk a Force nudge. His helmet swung toward her a little too quickly, and a tinge of embarrassment came to his Force aura. She frowned, wondering if he had been thinking of those Hapan intelligence agents, and immediately one of the names—
Taryn
—popped into her mind. Jaina shook her head in disbelief.

Careful, Zekk,
she thought.
That one will twist you up.

A ripple of confusion rolled through the Force. Jaina grinned behind her breath mask—wistfully, but it
was
a grin—and pointed up the Throat toward the protostar.

Caedus’s fleet had already changed from a crescent of blue pinpoints to a snaking ribbon. A handful of faint, tiny specks were moving ahead of the ribbon and fanning out in all directions—scouting craft, on their way to map hazards and check for ambushes. They were going to find both, Jaina knew, but it didn’t matter. The Masters had foreseen that possibility, and squadrons of Miy’tils were hiding at key points to ensure that none of the reconnaissance skiffs survived to report their discoveries.

Zekk quickly brought up his own systems, then they accelerated out into the Throat and turned straight for Uroro Station—an abandoned transfer facility floating in the gravitic equilibrium point between Qogo and Uluq. Luke and most of the Jedi were there, along with a select group of younglings and academy staff. If it was going to be an effective decoy, it would have to feel like the real thing when Caedus reached out to it through the Force.

Jaina made no attempt to hide her presence in the Force, since the whole idea was to
let
Caedus sense them returning to Uroro Station. And it would have been pointless anyway, since Zekk hadn’t been taught the technique yet.

They had been traveling down the Throat for about two minutes when Jaina felt a prickle of danger sense. Not only had they been spotted, she realized, but they were about to be fired upon. She reached out to warn Zekk, but he was focused on her and the mission now, and he had already picked up on her panic. They banked hard to starboard—and felt space jump as a turbolaser strike erupted behind them.

Jaina dived and Zekk climbed—that almost
never
happened—and a sheet of fire boiled past her canopy. She feared for a moment that Zekk had been hit, but then she felt him worrying about her and knew that he was okay. It took nearly a minute of dodging and barrel-rolling before there was enough of a lull in the barrage to chance forming up again, and by that time Jaina’s flight gloves were soaked with sweat. It felt like the Throat was vomiting fire.

This
was something the Masters hadn’t anticipated, and it was going to complicate things. If she and Zekk returned to Uroro Station under fire, Caedus would sense the trap—it would look like they were
trying
to lead him right to their “secret” base. So they would have to dodge into the ice field and make it look like they were attempting to lead Caedus away from the station.

Right…but they couldn’t dodge too soon. The thought came to Jaina without her quite understanding
why
she had realized it. Apparently, Zekk was trying to tell her something through the Force—but he couldn’t be too obvious, because Caedus might be monitoring their meld. She checked her tactical display and still didn’t see anything on the screen except the conspicuous disks of the two gas giants. Then she noticed the distances to the pair and understood.

Jaina and Zekk were still two minutes away from the place where Tenel Ka was hiding with her fleet. If they left the Throat now, and Caedus followed, the Hapans wouldn’t be in position to attack.

Jaina smiled and brought her StealthX in a little behind Zekk’s, allowing him to take the lead. It was good to be flying with him again—even if it
was
going to be nearly impossible to survive the next two minutes.

And Jaina had a hunch he felt the same way.

From the observation deck of Uroro Station, the Throat suddenly looked like a long, dark tunnel with an atomic furnace at the other end. Han could see nothing inside but a boiling ball of turbolaser fire, slowly expanding as it drew nearer to their position. Saba and the other Masters stood waiting in rapt silence, already dressed in their combat-rated vac suits in anticipation of boarding the
Anakin Solo
to rescue Prince Isolder. Han would have bet they were as scared as he was, had there been anyone in the chamber who looked willing to take such a sucker bet.

Luke must have noticed something in Han’s demeanor—maybe the way he was biting his lip, or his fingernails digging into his palms—because he clapped a hand on Han’s shoulder.

“They’re doing fine, Han,” he said quietly. “They don’t even seem frightened.”

“I’m glad
someone’s
not.” Han did not want to keep looking out the viewport, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. “What made us think he’d just follow her?” he growled. “He’s been trying to kill everyone
else
in the family.”

Saba glanced over, her bulging eyes so far open that they looked like they might fall out of their scaly sockets. “Who sayz we
didn’t
?” she asked. “But we had to make it look like
someone
was on patrol, and Jaina is the best one to whet Caedus’z appetite.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Han said sarcastically. He turned to Leia, who seemed only marginally less worried than he was. “Our next kids are
not
going to be Jedi.”

“Sure, Han, whatever you say.” Leia’s eyes did not leave the viewport. “But I don’t think you have to worry about having more kids.”

“Hey,
I’m
still young,” Han said. “And
you’re
a Jedi.”

Before Leia could utter a comeback, Corran Horn’s voice rang out from the portable control panel at the back of the deck, where C-3PO and R2-D2 were working. The two droids were tweeting and sniping at each other as they helped assimilate data streaming in from a dozen different sources.

“We’re starting to receive relays from the Hapan observation posts,” Corran said. “I’ll put it up.”

All eyes shifted to the portable wall display that had been affixed along one side of the deck. It was not a true tactical display. Instead, a simple graphic represented all the data being relayed from the Hapan observation posts via line-of-sight transmissions, visual flash codes, and even droid couriers. The Throat was depicted as a white ribbon snaking down the center of the screen toward a spoked wheel labeled
URORO STATION
. Coming down the center of this ribbon was a collection of simple designator codes identifying the vessels in Caedus’s fleet. From what Han could see, it included the handful of Remnant Star Destroyers that had escaped destruction in the Roche system, along with a sizable support flotilla of heavy cruisers, pocket destroyers, and frigates.

But it was what lay in the heart of the fleet that made Han’s stomach sink. Floating alongside the
Anakin Solo
was a designator reading
MEGADOR
,
with a question mark. Han glanced back at the red ball boiling down the Throat and began to feel queasy. The
Megador
was a
Super
-class Star Destroyer. It carried more than five times the firepower of a typical Imperial II like the
Anakin Solo.
And there had been rumors of a weapons upgrade that included three batteries of new long-range turbolasers. If
that
was after Jaina and Zekk, he didn’t know how long they could last.

“I don’t think we’ll be giving anything away by launching our defenses now, Master Horn,” Luke said. “Give the order.”

“About time,” Han muttered.

He glanced over to see that Luke had also turned away from the display. But instead of staring out the viewport toward the approaching fleet, Luke was standing with his hands clasped behind his back and his head down, his eyes closed as though lost in his thoughts…or his memories…or some kind of Jedi trance.

Corran acknowledged the order and relayed the command. The Jedi fighters did not begin to automatically stream from the station’s dilapidated hangars, however. To avoid any possibility of making Caedus suspect an ambush by reacting a little
too
quickly, Luke had insisted that the pilots remain in the ready rooms with their helmets off and flight suits open.