Invincible (33 page)

Han spent the next thirty seconds looking from the viewport to the wall display, trying to guess when Jaina and Zekk would finally be out of danger. The Hapan Home Fleet could be seen clustered together along one edge of the display, a mass of designator symbols packed tightly among the craggy blue blotches representing the field of ice chunks. It seemed all too likely that Jaina and Zekk would not try to escape the barrage until they were well past the Hapan position. And he admired their courage, he really did. He just wished that
he
could have been out there instead.

At long last, lines of starfighters began to stream away from the station. There was a squadron of Wookiee-piloted Owools, and another squadron of the new blastboats piloted by Alliance deserters who had chosen to seek out the Jedi instead of heeding Niathal’s call to join her. Then came the StealthX wing, a black tide of cruciform shadows that remained silhouetted against the firelit depths of the Throat for only a moment before winking out of sight.

The fighters had been gone for a full minute when Leia reached over and grabbed Han’s hand,
hard.
His heart stopped beating—probably because it had gotten stuck in his throat—and he knew she was about to tell him she had just felt something in the Force.

“What is it?” he asked, steeling himself for the worst. “Are they—”

“Not under fire anymore,” Leia said. “I don’t know how, I don’t know where, but they’re safe.”

Han let out a long breath of relief. “Why wouldn’t they be?” he asked. “Jaina’s got my luck.”

Leia smiled. “That, and the Force,” she said.

Han would have argued the Force comment, except that the firestorm in the Throat suddenly seemed to be dying away. He checked the wall display and saw that Caedus’s fleet was slowing down. Unfortunately, it was still short of the area where the Hapans were lying in ambush.

“Uh-oh,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. “It looks like they’re getting careful.”

Saba hissed, and the rest of the Masters in the room began to whisper about Caedus’s battle powers and his ability to read the future. Luke said nothing; he just stood in front of the viewport, his hands folded behind his back and his gaze fixed on the deck between his feet.

“Hey, Luke?” Han asked. “You okay?”

“He is gone again,” Saba said. “Why does he keep doing that when we need him most?”

The twinkle in the Barabel’s bulbous eye suggested she knew
exactly
why Luke kept doing it, but that wasn’t much comfort to Han. Right now, the young Jedi kids and support staff brought along to act as decoys were waiting in the docks on the bottom level of the station, packed into transports and ready to evacuate when Luke gave the order. The idea had been that the kids would leave before the attack on the station came. But with those long-range turbolasers, Caedus was almost close enough
now
to open fire—and it was beginning to look like he intended to stand off and do just that.

“Uh, maybe we’d better handle this order ourselves,” Han said. That was the trouble with wars—the enemy always had a way of doing something unexpected that ruined your carefully made plans. “The
Megador
is getting close enough to open up on us, and this place isn’t exactly well shielded.”

Saba studied Luke for a moment, then said, “I will ask my fellow Masterz.”

She turned to consult with Kyp, Cilghal, and the others.

“Great,” Han muttered. “They ought to reach a decision about the time the battle’s over.”

“Don’t be so cynical,” Leia chided. “They’re Masters—they can hear you.”

Han winced and glanced over his shoulder at the circle. No one seemed to be looking in his direction, but Kyp did wag a finger at him.

The finger had not yet stopped when C-3PO announced, “The observation posts are reporting that the
Anakin Solo
and
Megador
have both launched their starfighter complements.”

That
news brought the Masters’ debate to an early halt. Saba and the others stopped to glance over at the wall display, which showed the enemy starfighters as a stream of flickering dots streaming out to meet the Owools and blastboats.

“He’s not buying our act,” Han said. “We need to give him a reason to keep coming down the Throat—and clear out while we still can.”

Saba nodded her agreement, then turned to the other Masters—who also nodded, almost as one.

Saba turned back to Han. “Okay,” she said. “The Masterz agree. You can give the order.”

“Me?” Han asked. “But I’m not—”

“It was
your
idea,” Saba interrupted, tilting her head at him. “Do you not think it is a good one?”

“Don’t have a doubt,” Han said. He snapped the comlink from his pocket and opened a channel to the convoy commander. “Time to get out of here, Ben—but don’t send everyone at once. We’ve got to make it look good.”

“Okay.” Ben’s voice sounded uncertain. “Uh, this is Uncle Han, right?”

“Yeah,” Han said. “You got a problem with that?”

“No,” Ben said. “But Dad—er, Master Skywalker—said to wait for
his
order.”

Han glanced over at Luke, who was still staring at the floor with nothing in his eyes but his pupils, then looked at the wall display again. Caedus’s fleet had
slowed,
but it hadn’t stopped, and it would be only a couple of minutes before it could start firing on Uroro Station.

“Your dad’s busy right now,” Han said. “And the
Megador
is probably going to open up with her long-range turbolasers real soon. I kind of thought you’d want to be gone when that happens.”

“Oh,” Ben said. “I guess that makes sense. Initiating decoy operation at once.”

A few seconds later, a motley assortment of light transports began to shoot away from the station. The first part of their trajectory carried them directly up the Throat toward Caedus’s fleet. But within a minute or so, they started to arc around the bulge of Qogo’s amber-striped sphere, heading for the ice field where the Hapans lay in hiding. If all went according to plan, Caedus would pursue, Tenel Ka would ambush him, and the assault fleet would be destroyed.

But battles never went according to plan. As it grew more apparent that the transports were fleeing, the Remnant fleet
did
begin to accelerate down the Throat again, moving to pursue them into the ice field just as Luke and Tenel Ka had hoped. But the
Solo
and the
Megador
remained behind with a handful of escorts, moving down the Throat to fire on Uroro Station.

“That’s not good,” Leia observed.

“It could be worse,” Han said reassuringly. “I’m not sure how, but it
could
be.”

Of course,
that
was when the life returned to Luke’s eyes. He shook his head and frowned out the viewport for a moment, then turned to study the situation on the wall display. The last of the transports was passing through the ice field, heading for a Mist passage that would carry it back to the Hapan ground forces Tenel Ka had left to defend Shedu Maad.

“Strange,” Luke said. “I don’t
recall
telling Ben to evacuate.”

“Guess you were talking in your sleep again,” Han said. “But it was time. Trust me.”

Luke chuckled. “It seems I have no other choice—as usual,” he said. “But Caedus’s caution does throw a hydrospanner in our plan. I don’t suppose you came up with a brilliant alternative plan while I was ‘sleeping’?”

“Actually, I have,” Han said. “First, we all get the kark off this heap before they start blowing it apart.”

“I must say, that certainly seems like a brilliant plan to me,” C-3PO offered, turning away from the control panel. “I only hope the next step is equally clever.”

“I’m working on that,” Han said, starting for the exit. “But button up your vac suits, everybody. If I know my Jaina, she’s going to board the
Anakin Solo
one way or another—and we’re going to be right there behind her.”

Like the little brother it was named for, the
Anakin Solo
hung in the shadow of the mighty
Megador.
The
Megador
was pounding away with its long-range turbolasers, pouring a river of crimson beams down the Throat toward Uroro Station. With its own long-range battery still out of commission after the sabotage at Kashyyyk, the
Anakin Solo
was concentrating on perimeter protection, using its normal turbolasers and point-defense arrays to build a shell of anti-starcraft fire around both vessels.

Jaina glanced over at the scorched ruin of a StealthX floating next to her own pock-holed wreck. Zekk was leaning down in the cockpit, trying to splice together a wire beneath the control panel. She knew it was nothing critical because, incredibly, both StealthXs were still flyable. But she thought about urging him to head back to Shedu Maad. Trouble was, she was pretty sure he wouldn’t go unless she came, too, and that wasn’t going to happen.

So Jaina reached out to him through their combat-meld, urging him to be ready. His helmet popped back into view, looking toward his tail first, then his flanks, and finally turning forward. When he finally seemed to realize there was no immediate threat, Jaina had the distinct impression that he thought she was crazy.

He was probably right. Neither of their starfighters was in any condition for a fight. Jaina’s shields were only a fond memory, and three of Zekk’s laser cannons had drooping tips. Both starfighters were low on fuel, leaking coolant, and had been forced to revert to vac suit life support. Any squadron commander in any navy in the galaxy would have ordered them to return to base.

But they didn’t have a squadron commander, and Jaina and Zekk were hanging on the edge of the ice field, directly between the Remnant assault fleet and the two Alliance Star Destroyers. When the Hapans sprang their ambush, the
Anakin Solo
and the
Megador
would rush to support the assault—and when they did, the
Anakin Solo
would be turning straight into the two StealthXs.

Jaina knew it was crazy. But they both had a full load of shadow bombs, and there was no sense carrying them all the way back to Shedu Maad.

A tiny ball of orange blossomed between Qogo and Uluq as one of the
Megador
’s turbolaser strikes found its target, and a spray of tiny specks began to fly toward both planets. When the flames died away, Jaina could see that the massive station was still spinning, despite the loss of about a sixth of its outer wheel. But now that the gunners had confirmed their range and targeting, it would not be long before the rest of Uroro Station disappeared. She only hoped the evacuation had been completed in time.

The
Megador
continued to spit crimson beams down the Throat, striking the target half a dozen times in as many seconds. Uroro Station started to come apart in chunks large enough to identify, and Jaina began to see sections of spokes and wheels tumbling toward the amber-striped faces of the twin gas giants.

Then the Force shuddered with the surprise of thousands of beings, and the Mists began to flash and flicker with a never-ending cascade of turbolaser fire.

“Time to arm the shadow bombs, Sneaky,” Jaina said to her astromech droid.

A tweedle sounded in Jaina’s helmet earphone, and the droid scrolled a question across her status display.

“All of them,” Jaina replied. “And when I give the launch order, send them—”

Sneaky chirped in indignation, then inquired whether she was under the impression that his logic circuits had been damaged during their recent brush with incineration. If she wanted to arm them
all,
of course she wanted to launch them
all.

“Thanks,” Jaina said, wondering if his personality module had suffered some heat damage. R9 units were usually a little heavy on self-preservation routines, not self-awareness. “Didn’t mean to doubt you.”

Sneaky accepted the apology, then suggested that
now
might be a good time to dump the shadow bombs and run for the safety of the base. Jaina didn’t have the heart to explain they wouldn’t
be
returning to Shedu Maad. If they were going to land anywhere, it would be aboard the matte-black Star Destroyer in front of them.

The
Anakin Solo
fired its ion engines and began to accelerate, starting to bank toward them almost immediately. The
Megador
lagged behind, its huge mass requiring more energy to move, and its big engines more time to reach peak efficiency. Through the gap between the two, the starfighter battle raging in the Throat was just visible, a color-laced mesh of streaking lights and sudden eruptions. Jaina could already make out the sickle-nosed dots of a few Wookiee Owools and the sleek cylinders of about half a dozen Skipray blastboats, along with the tiny cruciform shapes of the XJ7s swarming them.

What truly surprised her, however, were the blocky silhouettes of the StealthX flight already coming up toward the
Anakin Solo
’s belly. They were moving too fast and erratically for her to get an accurate count—even silhouetted against the amber disk of Qogo’s striped face—but she guessed there were about three dozen of them. They were rolling and dodging and sliding away from the
Solo
’s defensive fire as though their pilots knew where it would blossom before it arrived.

Leading the pack was the charcoal wedge of a Mandalorian
Bes’uliik
—large and somewhat ungainly, but still fast and powerful. It was taking more fire than the StealthXs, since it was leaving a long stream of bright blue efflux in its wake and its sensor-negation technologies weren’t as efficient. But it hardly mattered, because it was being flown by the best starfighter pilot Jaina had ever seen—Luke Skywalker, of course—and it was weaving through the firestorm coming its way like a holovid stunt pilot running a special-effects course.

Jaina fired her own ion engines, then looked over to find Zekk giving her the thumbs-up signal. She nodded, then they hit their thrusters and shot forward, angling toward the shield generator domes on top of the
Anakin Solo
’s bridge.