Jedi Bounty

21

With a sudden uneasy tingle felt through the Force, Jaina detected the danger before her eyes could spot anything outside in the unrelenting glare of day. She stood in the shadow of the alcove she had excavated, letting her eyes adjust.

Grabbing Raynar by the shoulder, she looked at the washed-out landscape under the pummeling sunlight. “They’re coming,” she said.

Raynar’s eyes closed in their dim hiding place. His shoulders slumped, and he panted heavily, dragging in breaths of too-hot air that seemed to scorch the lining of his lungs. “Then we’d better get ready to fight.”

Jaina gripped her lightsaber. The handle felt hot against her blistered palm. Raynar, without a Jedi weapon of his own, picked up a chunk of the rock Jaina had sliced free to create their cave. He hefted it in his hand, ready to throw.

Reaching out with her Jedi senses, Jaina could tell that their stalkers were coming closer, closer.

She could sense their anger, their hatred of humans….

Raynar’s eyes opened wide. “It’s Hovrak!”

Jaina pressed her back against the wall, felt the heat throb against her skin. She did not switch on her lightsaber blade. They would remain in the darkness; it might gain them an additional second of surprise.

The heat-suited soldiers, though, made no attempt at stealth. When they discovered the freshly hewn cleft in the rock, one of the guards shouted in triumph. He stumbled forward in his unwieldy silver suit.

Swinging his blaster from left to right, he stepped into the opening, prepared to fire—but Jaina was ready for him.

In a single blurred movement she switched on her lightsaber and slashed.

The Jedi blade severed the business end of the blaster, leaving only a smoldering lump.

Then Raynar threw his rock with Force-enhanced power, hitting the guard hard in the stomach and knocking him backward toward the rocky ledge.

His gloved hands clawed at the rocks, trying to catch his balance, but to no avail.

The jagged edges ripped open his suit, and the guard’s wall echoed inside his reflective helmet as he toppled over the side.

Hovrak called the rest of his team to a halt, shouting for them to retreat to the side of the ledge. Then, targeting on Jaina’s glowing light saber, the guards fired into the grotto shadows, from a protected position.

Trapped like a womp rat in a box canyon, Jaina swung her lightsaber to deflect the blaster bolts. Raynar crouched at the back of the crevice to keep out of the way, hurling an occasional rock at their unseen enemies. Jaina clenched her jaw and fought with all of her Jedi skills not daring to trust her dazzled eyes on the heat-washed ledge.

The silver-suited guards fired repeatedly. “Shall we set to stun?” one of them said.

“No, just kill her,” Hovrak said. “And the other one too.”

One of the three remaining guards blasted away at the mass of solid rock overhanging the crevice entrance. After volley upon volley, the overhang began to glow red with the heat it had absorbed.

Hovrak growled in anticipation. “Keep firing! They have no defense against us.”

When Jaina stepped forward to deflect the new volley of fire, Raynar popped out of his shadowy shelter. He hefted another sharp-wedged rock, then hurled it with perfect aim, so that it struck Hovrak’s faceplate and cracked the reflectorized transparisteel. Raynar ducked back into hiding as the wolfman roared, stumbled backward, and barely regained his balance on the ledge.

One of the guards focused on Jaina and fired, ignoring the other activity around him. She deflected the shot, using her dazzling blade to knock the blaster bolt back to its source. The energy bolt caught the guard full in the chest and left a smoking hole in his reflective suit.

Mortally wounded, the guard gasped and gargled, then slumped off the fiery cliffside.

Hovrak now had only two guards remaining.

“You’ll need more help than this to defeat a Jedi Knight,” Jaina shouted defiantly. Her throat burned; her cracked lips were bleeding; crusty salt from evaporated perspiration sparkled on her skin—but she was entirely focused on the battle now, flowing with the Force.

Hovrak snarled, uncomfortable now that his faceplate was broken. The outside air felt too hot to breathe, despite the suit’s laboring air-conditioning units. “Soon we won’t need to worry about humans ever again,” he taunted them. “When the Diversity Alliance gets hold of the Emperor’s plague, every one of you will die, from one end of the galaxy to the other.”

“You’ll die first,” Jaina shouted back, stifling her horror at the plan Hovrak had just revealed.

Now she knew what Nolaa Tarkona had intended all along.

Raynar threw rock after sharp rock at Hovrak and the guards. They stopped trying to melt the overhang and turned their blaster fire at him, but Raynar dodged away, drawing agility from the Force.

In frustration, the last two guards fired again.

With no place to run, Jaina and Raynar stood at the edge of the narrow path, far from the temperate zone in the mountains where Lowie had planned to rescue them.

On every side, sharp black boulders blocked any hope of escape.

Jaina stepped slightly in front of Raynar. She was willing to fight to the death. She saw no other choice….

The Lightning Rod shot out of hyperspace, emerging as close to Ryloth’s gravity well as Zekk’s daring calculations would allow. Luke Skywalker sat in the copilot’s seat, glad to be along on this rescue mission.

The ship streaked toward the atmosphere like a comet, broadcasting the access code Lusa had supplied, but not bothering to pause or request clearance to approach the planet. Zekk hoped his bold rush would get him past any sentinels that patrolled the orbital lanes around the Twi’lek homeworld.

“It’s hard coming back here,” Lusa said, trying to maintain her balance on all four hooves as the ship rolled from side to side. “Nolaa Tarkona knows I betrayed her. The Diversity Alliance won’t hesitate to kill me.”

“Then we won’t give them the chance,” Zekk said grimly.

“She’s already sent an assassin to kill you on Yavin 4, and he failed,” Master Skywalker pointed out, looking at the centaur girl with understanding. “Sometimes we have to face our fears.”

“My fears keep coming after me,” Lusa said. “And now they’re trying to hurt my friends.”

Zekk dodged and rolled, pirouetting experimentally in space. Then, satisfied that the Lightning Rod was ready, he dove toward the mountain range at the terminator between day and night. “Let’s just hope we make it down there without running into much resistance,” he said, and powered up his weapons systems.

Two sentry cruisers homed in on the rapidly approaching intruder. Zekk recognized a Hornet Interceptor and a stripped-down Lancer frigate emblazoned with alien language glyphs. “Unidentified ship, you are trespassing in airspace held by the Diversity Alliance. You are not welcome in this system. If you do not depart immediately, you will be destroyed.”

“Yeah, right,” Zekk muttered. “#y me.” Alarms sounded on his control panel, but he ignored them. Without acknowledging, he raced straight at the sentry ships and opened fire.

“They aren’t prepared for any resistance yet,” Luke said, his eyes half closed in concentration. “Their minds are too … complacent.”

The sentry cruisers began to activate their weapons systems and power up their shields.

Suddenly aware of their danger, both craft spun out of the way and arched upward, but not before the Lightning Rod’s rapid, low-power blaster bolts scored some important hits.

“Hah! Right in the sensors,” Zekk crowed. He clapped his hands in triumph. “They’re blind now until they can reset their systems.”

“Leave them, then,” Luke said. “We need to hurry. I sense that Jacen and Jaina are in trouble.”

Lusa braced herself. The Lightning Rod scraped into the atmosphere while the two Diversity Alliance sentry vessels spun about.

Disoriented in space, the two ships drifted so close to each other that they nearly collided before their respective commanders regained control.

Zekk roared down to cloud level, where huge tornadolike heat storms spawned by the temperature discontinuity between the frigid night side and the hot day side buffeted the ship. The wind currents knocked the Lightning Rod back and forth, but Lusa knew where they had to go.

With terse accuracy, she directed Zekk toward the section of mountain range that held the tunnels controlled by Nolaa Tarkona.

“I spent plenty of time there,” Lusa said, her crystalline horns glimmering. The muscles in her back rippled as she paced the deck and snorted uneasily. “I never thought I’d go back willingly. But this is for my friends.”

“That’s why it’s an important step in your healing process,” Master Skywalker said.

Lusa nodded. “For my friends…,” she repeated.

“Hang on,” Zekk said. “I’m increasing speed. Those sentry cruisers are trying to sound an alarm.” The Lightning Rod soared straight along the day side slopes of the mountain range.

On the open channel Zekk heard a strident warning being transmitted now that one of the ships had managed to get its main generators back on-line—but no one responded. Perhaps the Diversity Alliance was already too busy with its own emergencies.

Lusa pressed her face against the sloped transparisteel of the cockpit windows. “Look—down there on the mountainside!” she said. “What are those lights?”

Zekk frowned and studied the area the centaur girl had pointed to. “Looks like blaster fire.”

“And a lightsaber,” Master Skywalker added. “Somebody’s fighting down there.”

“It’s Jaina!” Zekk said with absolute certainty. “Hold on down there, we’re on our way!”

Though normally reluctant to use his Jedi senses, Zekk let the Force tingle through him. It made him self-conscious to use the Force, here in the presence of the Jedi Master, but Zekk knew he was doing the right thing.

The Lightning Rod, its laser cannons powered up to full charge, swooped to the rescue.

“Jaina is sure going to be surprised,” he said.

The glaring sun and bright blaster fire had nearly blinded Jaina. She could hardly see anything other than her own lightsaber. Her arms were so weary she could barely raise them, but she sidestepped, deflected, struck. She could not allow herself to slow down. Hovrak had only two henchmen left. She and Raynar still had a chance, though it was a slim one.

Jaina took little note of any sound beyond the exploding blasters, the hum of her lightsaber, and the snarl of the Adjutant Advisor. The roaring that built louder and louder in the air simply did not register.

She continued to fight, trying not to think ahead … though she did feel an unexpected surge of hope through the Force.

“It’s a ship! There’s a ship coming!” Raynar exclaimed.

Hovrak and his two guards looked up just in time to see the Lightning Rod streak toward the cliff opening. With pinpoint accuracy, the ship fired. Both guards were blasted off the rockface in the surprise attack. Hovrak stumbled back, flailing in the air. A section of the cliff wall melted behind him. Jaina and Raynar pressed themselves back into the crevice as cherry-red rocks fell smoking and steaming down into the chasm below. Hovrak managed to throw himself against an outcropping and hold on, roaring in outrage through his cracked helmet.

As the ship hovered in front of the embattled alcove, the cargo door of the Lightning Rod hissed open. Zekk grinned. “I thought it was supposed to be your turn to rescue me this time, Jaina. Need a lift?”

Luke Skywalker sat in the pilot’s seat. “Jaina! Raynar! Jump in.”

Lusa raced to the cargo bay and held out her hands. Jaina pushed Raynar up onto the unsteady ramp; the young man winced as he touched the hot metal, but he hauled himself aboard.

Jostled by wind currents, the Lightning Rod hovered near the cliff above the blasted chasm.

“Your turn, Jaina!” Zekk said, helping Raynar inside. “We’re just about ready!” He gestured to Master Skywalker at the pilot’s controls.

Seeing Raynar safe, Jaina clipped her lightsaber to her side. Then she jumped. Once on the ramp, she fell to her knees and pulled herself along. “I’m on,” she shouted.

Back in the cockpit, Zekk and Master Skywalker began to move the Lightning Rod. But at the last second, Hovrak bunched his muscles and leaped across the widening gap. With one silver-gloved hand he grabbed the piston support of the Lightning Rod’s ramp; with his other, he clutched Jaina’s foot. “You can’t escape!” he roared.

“Yes we will,” Jaina said, struggling against him.

Lusa leaned over, extending her arms to Jaina.

Hovrak glanced up, his wolf eyes slitted. “Lusa! Another traitor!”

“No. I’m no longer deluded,” Lusa said. “That doesn’t make me a traitor—it just makes me a bit smarter than you.”

Hovrak strained to haul himself aboard the ship as it soared higher into the air … though what the wolfman intended to do, Jaina couldn’t guess. She thrashed and kicked at him, but he would not let go of her foot.

Her skin burned. Her hands were raw from where blisters had popped open. Luke took the Lightning Rod high into the air, away from the rocky uplift, out into the hotter skies of Ryloth.

“You’d better get inside!” Zekk called back to Jaina. The wind howled through the opening, rippling their clothes. “Stop playing around back there.”

“Who’s playing?.” Jaina said, kicking once again at Hovrak. Her foot struck his helmet, cracking the transparisteel plate all the way open.

The Adjutant Advisor clung tenaciously to her leg. He held on with both hands, more intent on dragging her down with him than in getting to relative safety aboard the ship.

Jaina’s knees slipped on the metal ramp. She scrambled for purchase, but Hovrak’s weight dragged her back down the ramp toward the opening and the long drop. Hot winds from the canyon roared in through the opening. Raynar pulled himself to his hands and knees in the cargo bay.

He slapped the control switch for the ramp, closing it halfway so that Jaina could climb in. Hovrak’s feet dangled over the edge.

Seizing the opportunity, Hovrak finally hauled himself aboard. He released his vicious grip on Jaina with a triumphant glare in his bloodshot animal eyes.

“Lusa, do something!” Raynar yelled.

But the centaur girl was already taking action.

As Hovrak stood up, Lusa reared and kicked him full in the chest, knocking him back onto the ramp. Raynar punched the controls again. The ramp opened wide.

The Lightning Rod soared over a lava-filled crevice. Hovrak, in his slippery suit, slid back down and out into open air. The plummeting wolfman flailed. His protective suit glittered as he dropped for thousands of meters … until he plunged with a puff of bright yellow flame into a sluggish river of molten rock. The lava bubbled and swallowed up the dark stain. In a heartbeat, nothing remained of Hovrak.

Panting and distraught, Jaina crawled farther into the cargo area, and the Lightning Rod’s ramp finally hissed shut. Jaina took a deep breath of blessedly cool air and then fell trembling next to Raynar.

The two were battered, sunburned, grime-encrusted messes, but she grinned at the young man from Alderaan, then offered a weak wave to Luke and Zekk in the cockpit.

“How can I help?” the centaur girl asked.

“We could both use a drink right about now,” Jaina gasped.

Raynar looked gratefully up at Lusa. “Cold water?”

“Make it a double,” Jaina added.