The Unseen Queen (26 page)

By this time, the Saras reinforcements had arrived outside the cell. Luke could hear them snipping and ripping away the outer seal of the hatch, and he could see their silhouettes through the translucent wall, backlit by green shine-balls. They appeared to be holding Verpine shatter guns and electrobolt assault rifles.

“I’ve got it under control, Skywalker,” Han said, sensing Luke’s concern without having to turn around. “Just get that hole open.”

The wall in Luke’s room brightened with the blue glow of an exterior spotlight.

“Master Skywalker,” C-3PO began. “I believe Captain Juun has arrived, and he seems to be signaling—”

“The wrong room, I know.” Luke placed his palm in the center of the asterisk he had traced in Han’s room, then began to pulse rapidly outward with the Force, setting up a kinetic vibration that would weaken the spinglass. “You and Artoo stand behind me.”

“Behind you?” C-3PO asked. “I don’t see what good that will do.”

“Threepio!” There was a dull thump as Han smashed the stool into the head of the first Killik attempting to push through the hatch. “Just do it!”

“There’s no need to shout, Captain Solo.” C-3PO gestured to R2-D2, then went to stand where Luke had instructed. “I was merely going to point out that Captain Juun won’t be extending the boarding ramp in the proper place.”

“That’s okay.” Luke assumed a formal punching stance
in front of the asterisk he had scratched. “We’ll improvise.”

He summoned as much Force energy as he could into himself, then drew his arm back and slammed a palm-heel into the center of the asterisk. His hand drove through the spinglass almost effortlessly, shattering it along the stress lines R2-D2 had etched into the wall.

Outside was the blocky, carbon-scored hull of Juun’s
Ronto
-class transport, hovering twenty meters off the ground, with a boarding ramp butted against the wall outside Luke’s room. A dark Ewok head peered out of the ship’s hatch and began to jabber at Luke.

“Of all the audacity!” C-3PO said, peering around the side of the hole. “Tarfang says we made our hole in the wrong place. The
DR-Nine-one-nine-a
isn’t going to move!”

A flurry of sharp plinking sounds broke out behind them as the Saras guards began to fire through the hatch wall with their shatter guns.

“Go!” Han turned away from the hatch and crossed the tiny room in two bounds. “Go nowwwww!”

Luke barely caught hold of Han’s belt as he flew past. He pushed off the side of the hole, Force-leaping onto the
DR919a
’s boarding ramp. As they balanced there, shatter gun pellets began thunk into the hull beside them, creating a circle of fist-sized dents just three meters away.

“Blast!” Han turned to look back toward their prison. “That was too close—”

Han’s exclamation came to a startled end as the
DR919a
began to bank away, the boarding ramp retracting with them still on it. He whirled toward the hatch and began to curse out Tarfang, but Luke did not hear what he said. C-3PO had appeared in the hole, pulling R2-D2 along by the astromech’s grasper arm.

“Master Skywalker! Wait! Please don’t—”

The droid’s upper body abruptly flew forward, and he tumbled out of the hole, pulling R2-D2 along behind him.

“—ussss beeehinnnn—”

Luke extended a hand and caught the two droids in the Force, then nearly fell himself when the end of the ramp retracted into its stowage slot.

“Whoa!” Han grabbed Luke’s arm and pulled him through the hatch. “You okay?”

“Of course not!” This from C-3PO, who was floating along with R2-D2 a couple of meters below the hatch. “I’ve been badly wounded! My systems might deactivate at any moment!”

Han guided Luke’s free hand over to a grab bar inside the hatch, then knelt down to help the droids as Luke pulled them up with the Force. Once everyone was safely inside the
DR919a
, Han closed the hatch.

Juun’s voice immediately came over the intercom. “Secure yourselves back there! I’m pushing the throttles to seventy percent!”

Han took a deep breath and looked genuinely scared. “May the Force be with us!”

A moment later, the
DR919a
shuddered and began to accelerate sluggishly. Han put his ear to the hull and listened for a moment, then sighed in relief and turned to inspect C-3PO’s damage.

“Relax, Goldenrod,” Han said. “It’s an arm hit. You’ve got a few shorts and you’ve spilled a lot of hydraulic fluid, but you’re not going to deactivate anytime soon.”

C-3PO turned to Luke. “I’d feel much better if you would check me over, Master Skywalker. You know how Captain Solo always underestimates these things.”

Han rolled his eyes but stood aside so Luke could have a look. There was a fist-sized hole in the back of the droid’s arm, and dozens of internal wires had been cut, along with
both hydraulic tubes. But none of that was going to be a problem—there weren’t any critical systems in the limb.

“Han’s right,” Luke reported. “Just disable all functions in your right arm, and you’ll be fine.”

“What a relief!” C-3PO said. “After all I’ve been through, I thought I was headed for the scrap heap for certain.”

R2-D2 whistled a gentle reproach.

“I’m hardly exaggerating,” C-3PO said. “You have no idea what it’s like to be wounded.”

R2-D2 tweeted a contradiction.

“You do?” Luke gasped. He knelt beside the droid. “Where?”

R2-D2 spun his dome around, revealing a puncture the size of three fingers. When Luke peered into the hole, he saw Han’s eye looking at him from the other side.

“That can’t be good,” Han said.

R2-D2 trilled a long reply.

“What do you mean it’s not too bad?” C-3PO demanded. “Being unable to see is
very
bad!”

Tarfang threw a sympathetic arm around R2-D2’s casing and started to guide the droid forward, keeping up a reassuring jabber as they moved.

“Thank you, Tarfang, but a visit to the Squibs really won’t be necessary,” C-3PO said, following along. “I assure you, Master Skywalker can afford to buy the finest
new
replacement parts.”

They came to the
DR919a
’s flight deck. Extremely basic, it was little more than the forward end of the main deck with a couple of Sullustan-sized swivel chairs bolted in front of an instrument console. The viewport was barely large enough to justify the name, with the blue curtain of the Utegetu Nebula stretched across the micropitted transparisteel
and the cragged peak of one of Woteba’s high mountains protruding up in the foreground.

“Welcome aboard.” Juun did not look away from his instruments as he spoke. “I’m sorry we were late, but the Saras are evacuating their nest, and the Squibs wanted us to pick up a load from the replica factory.”

“
Evacuating
their nest?” Luke gasped.

“Yes, it’s half empty already,” Juun said. “They’re surrendering it all to the Fizz.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Luke said.

“Me either!” Han agreed. “I think they were going to leave us!”

“
We
wouldn’t have left you, Captain Solo,” Juun assured him. “We just had to avoid drawing suspicion. Now please take your seats and buckle in. Saras is sending a swarm of dartships after us.”

Luke ignored the instructions and peered over the Sullustan’s shoulder at the navigation display. It was filled with static, but a swirling mass of tiny dark dashes did seem to be rising from an amorphous blob of lights that might have been Saras nest.

“Can you outrun them?”

Tarfang barked something indignant, then waved a furry hand toward the passengers’ seats at the rear of the deck.

“Of course—they’re only rockets,” C-3PO translated. “And the copilot reminds you to take your seats as Captain Juun instructed.”

“In a second,” Han said. He was squatting next to the copilot’s seat, studying the navicomputer. “Hey, Jae, how come we’re not jumping to the Murgo Choke?”

“There’s a blockade,” Juun answered. “We’ll have to use the Mott’s Nostril.”

“The Mott’s’s Nostril?” Han objected. “That dumps us—”

“Hold on, Han.”

Luke stood upright, then clasped his hands behind his back and thought for a moment, trying again to connect the
Falcon
’s delay to Alema’s attempts to make him doubt his wife. Maybe the Dark Nest had just been trying to buy time, to keep him busy thinking about her instead of what was happening in the Utegetu Nebula.

Finally, Luke said, “I want to hear more about this blockade.”

“Now?” Juun asked. “I’d be happy to tell you about it
after
we’re safely away from the dartships.”

Han frowned. “Tarfang said we could outrun them.”

“Because we have a good head start,” Juun said. “But if we don’t jump soon, they’ll catch us.”

“Then please don’t waste any more time arguing,” Luke said. “Tell me about the blockade. This is important.”

Juun let out a long breath, flapping his cheek folds in dismay. “The Galactic Alliance has blockaded the Utegetu Nebula. They’re trying to prove that they’re on the Chiss’s side,” he said quickly. “Okay? Can we jump now?”

Han ignored the question. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “The Colony is already expanding into the frontier again.”

Tarfang chattered a few lines.

“Tarfang doesn’t see why we’re surprised,” C-3PO reported. “What did the Jedi expect to happen when they cheated the Colony?”

“Who, exactly, is blockading the nebula?” Luke asked Juun. “The Fifth Fleet?”

Juun’s jaw dropped. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” Han said. “And this would be the same Fifth Fleet you delivered that cargo of spinglass to?”

Juun nodded—slowly. “I guess so.”

Han and Luke looked at each other slowly, then Han dropped to his knees beside the navicomputer.

“I’ll set a course for the Choke.”

“No.” Luke shook his head. “So far, the Dark Nest has been playing us all like a bunch of Kloo horns, and the only way we’re going to change that is find them and figure out what they wanted with all that reactor fuel and hyperdrive coolant.”

Han sighed. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“As was I,” C-3PO agreed. “Perhaps it would be a good idea to drop off the wounded before you continue. Surely, R2-D2 and I won’t be of much use to you in our condition, and we might slow you down.”

“You’ll be fine,” Luke said. “You won’t even have to get off the ship.”

Han looked from the navicomputer to Juun. “Any idea where we should look?”

Tarfang chittered off a sharp string of syllables.

“I’m sorry, Tarfang,” Luke said, taking a guess at what the cranky Ewok was saying. “But if you want us to get you out of trouble for delivering that spinglass to the Fifth Fleet—”

Tarfang barked a short reply, then pulled Han away from the navicomputer and began to program it himself.

“Pardon me, Master Luke,” C-3PO said. “But Tarfang wasn’t objecting. He was suggesting that we set a course for the Tusken’s Eye.”

“Why?” Han demanded.

Tarfang jabbered an explanation, but Juun beat C-3PO to the translation.

“Because that’s where we’ve been taking all that Tibanna we’ve been running for the Squibs,” he said. “And those pirates are hiding
something
.”

Orbiting above a swirling atmosphere of yellow sulfuric clouds, Supply Depot Thrago was classically Chiss—austere, utilitarian, and bristling with defenses. In addition to the floating fuel tanks that Jacen and his team would soon be destroying, the tiny moon base was equipped with turbolaser platforms, a shield array, cannon turrets, hidden bunkers, and a clawcraft hangar with two entrances. The weapons platforms were arranged with overlapping fields of fire, and the bunkers and hangar had been concealed with typical Chiss cunning. Even for Jedi in StealthXs, this was going to be a difficult run—especially if they wanted to minimize their target’s casualties.

It had to be done. The attack on Jacen’s daughter had been only a single move in the Dark Nest’s plan—a plan that would ultimately lead to the eternal war Jacen had seen in his vision. Probably, that was even what the Dark Nest intended, since its larvae fed on live captives.

Jacen was not foolish enough to believe he could stop the war. The Gorog had been waging it for months already, even if no one realized it. But he
could
prevent it from becoming the eternal war of his vision. All he needed to do was rouse the Chiss, to prod them into action before the Dark Nest completed its preparations.

Of course, once the Chiss went to war, they would not
stop with one nest. They would destroy the entire species, wipe out every Killik nest they could find, and that was Jacen’s plan. As long as there was a Colony, there would be a Dark Nest, and as long as there was a Dark Nest, his daughter’s life would be in danger. He had sensed that much from Ta’a Chume. Gorog had promised to kill Tenel Ka’s child, and she had believed the insects would make good on their word. So the insects had to go.

Unfortunately, Jacen could not say as much to Jaina and Zekk and Tesar and the others. They would argue that only the Dark Nest needed to be destroyed, that a whole species should not be condemned to protect one child.

They did not understand the Killiks the way Jacen did. The Colony had been harmless once, but Raynar and Welk and Lomi Plo had changed the insects. They had brought the knowledge of good and evil to an innocent species, had created a hidden aspect of the Colony’s collective mind that would forever be obsessed with vengeance, hatred, and conquest. The Killiks had become an aberration, and they had to be destroyed. It was the only way to stop the eternal war.

It was the only way to save his daughter.

Jacen reached out to his companions in the Force, letting them know that the time had come to act. A big fuel tanker was gliding toward the supply depot, decelerating as it approached the gate, and it was a good opportunity for the strike team to slip through the shields.

As they opened the combat-meld, Jacen felt a sense of uncertainty from his sister and Zekk, and to a lesser extent from Tesar and Lowbacca. During the mission briefing that morning, they had all expressed reservations about launching a preemptive strike on the Chiss. The Ascendancy had laws against attacking first, so Jaina and Zekk had found it
difficult to believe that the Chiss really intended to launch the surprise attack Jacen claimed he had foreseen.