Jedi under Siege

7

The Lightning Rod’s engines whined as the ship strained against gravity. Just after liftoff, the battered vessel gave a sharp jolt. Alarm bells went off inside Jacen’s head. “We’re hit!” he cried, not even bothering to check the readouts.

“Naw,” old Peckhum answered. “Lightning Rod’s been doin’ that ever since I switched out the power coupling to the rear repulsorjets. I guess I’ll have to take a look at that again one of these days.”

The knot of panic in Jacen’s stomach eased a little—but only a little. “Maybe Jaina can help you with it later,” he said.

An energy bolt streaked by as a TIE fighter sang past them on its descent toward the Jedi academy. “Hey, that was a close one!” Jacen said.

“Too close,” Peckhum agreed. “Hang on, young Solo—I’m gonna try some evasive maneuvers.”

Lowie focused his full concentration on getting the T-23 to cover. With his peripheral vision he could see other Jedi students dodging fire from TIE fighters as they sprinted for the safety of the trees. When they reached the edge of the forest, the young Wookiee pulled his skyhopper into a sharp climb.

The dense network of leafy branches had always signified protection to Lowie, and he longed for a few peaceful moments in the treetops. But no peace awaited Lowie and Tenel Ka up there. Not this time.

Lowie clenched the steering controls tightly and zigzagged the flight path across the treetops, trying to throw off any pursuers who might be on their track. Today trouble rained down on them from above, and he could flee to no safe height. His best bet lay in remaining among the trees.

An energy bolt spat past the T-23 and sent up a plume of dirt and singed turf behind them. “Let the Force guide you, Lowbacca, my friend,” Tenel Ka said from the passenger seat in back.

Lowie rumbled an acknowledgment and took a deep calming breath. He flew onward, letting the Force control his weaving and dodging. They headed toward the wide, greenish-brown river over which Tenel Ka and Lowbacca had seen the Nightsister’s sinister battle platform. Even from half a kilometer away, they could see lances of laser fire shoot out from the armored vessel, incinerating trees along the banks.

Suddenly, Tenel Ka gave a shout of surprise. “Look. There!”

From the sky above a group of figures descended like swooping birds of prey—human forms, Dark Jedi dropped from the clouds in a dispersed attack pattern, lightsabers flashing as they controlled their direction with repulsorpacks.

A proximity alarm sounded the moment Lowbacca diverted his attention, and a laser cannon blast from a passing TIE fighter struck them. A jet of smoke and sparks spewed from the T-23’s rear engines. The tiny skyhopper shimmied and bucked in the air. With a shriek of shearing metal, one of the attitude-control fins gave way.

“Oh my,” Em Teedee wailed. “I can’t bear to watch.”

Lowie, reacting with the instinct of his Jedi training, wrestled with the controls. Directed by the Force, one of his sharp-clawed hands flew across the control panel, while his free hand guided their descent. Smoke poured into the cockpit, and the skyhopper sputtered and rocked. Without knowing quite how he did it, Lowie cut the rear engines and bled off their momentum into a steep upward climb. Then, letting the little ship fall back toward the treetops, he used one final burst from the repulsorjets to slow their descent—enough, he hoped. The T-23 crashed onto the jungle canopy.

With every breath, Tenel Ka drew fire into her aching lungs. Nearby a Wookiee groaned, but she could not make sense of the growled words. She could see nothing.

“Mistress Tenel Ka!” A strident electronic voice broke into her foggy consciousness. “Master Lowbacca urgently requests your assistance removing the T-23’s canopy.”

Tenel Ka tried to look around. She saw only roiling, changing shapes of light and dark. The shifting patterns stung her eyes, and she squeezed them tightly shut.

A voice loud enough to wake a Jedi Master from a healing trance wailed in Tenel Ka’s ears. “Oh, curse my sluggish processor, I’m too late. She’s dead!”

Lowbacca bellowed a loud denial. At the same time, something reached out and gave her a sharp nudge.

“No,” Tenel Ka managed to croak. “I’m alive.”

Lowbacca gave a few crisp barks, and Tenel Ka found herself responding to his instructions even before Em Teedee could clarify, “Master Lowbacca asks you to push against the canopy with all your might whilst throwing your weight toward the port side—to the left, you know.”

Tenel Ka knew. She pushed and rocked. Despite the choking clouds of smoke from the burning engines, she grew calm enough to let the Force flow through her.

Even through her closed eyelids, Tenel Ka could tell when Em Teedee switched on the bright yellow beams of his optical sensors to cut through the smoke. “It would seem,” the little droid went on, “that the T-23’s canopy is wedged against a tree branch. Oh, we’re doomed!”

Then, just as the little droid finished his lament, the skyhopper’s canopy popped free, and fresh air flooded the cockpit. Both Tenel Ka and Lowbacca stripped out of their crash webbing and scrambled free of the wreckage. As they moved away from the smoldering craft, panting for breath and waiting for their vision to clear, Tenel Ka’s hand went automatically to her lightsaber to be sure it was still clipped firmly at her waist. It was.

“Oh dear,” Em Teedee exclaimed in a tinny voice. “Now we’ll most likely become lost in the jungle and captured by woolamanders. Do be careful, Master Lowbacca. I should hate to repeat that dreadful experience.”

Balancing on a tree limb beside Tenel Ka, Lowbacca turned to gaze at the crashed T-23 and uttered a low, mournful note. Tenel Ka could see that his distress came not from the thought of jungle creatures, but from the loss of his beloved vehicle. The warrior girl understood loss. She reached out her single hand to touch Lowbacca’s arm briefly and let the strength of the Force comfort him. Then, as one, they turned to seek out their destination: the giant battle platform—and the evil Nightsister.

To Tenel Ka’s relief and surprise, Lowbacca had managed to crash-land barely two hundred meters from where the battle platform hovered above the crowns of the Massassi trees. Before she could speak, though, her Wookiee friend gave a low woof of warning and pointed downward toward cover.

Tenel Ka understood immediately and scrambled down into the leaves and branches until she was hidden. If they could see the giant battle platform, then they themselves could be seen. They would need to make their way to the battle platform beneath the rippling green leaves, like swimmers below the surface of an ocean.

With only one arm to help her balance and pull herself along, Tenel Ka had to trust the Force to place her feet securely at each step. She even welcomed Lowbacca’s help when he offered it in crossing weak branches or broad gaps.

Tenel Ka wasn’t sure why she felt compelled to speak. Perhaps it was the air of sadness that hung about her Wookiee friend. “We will spend many enjoyable days repairing your T-23, Lowbacca my friend—you, Jacen, Jaina, and I. After this battle is over.”

The Wookiee stopped, looked at her quizzically for a moment, then chuffed with laughter. After a series of woofs, Em Teedee said, “Master Lowbacca adds that Master Jacen will most likely be delighted to have a captive audience to entertain with his jokes.”

Tenel Ka felt her own spirits brighten at that thought, and they moved forward at a more rapid pace. Her mind focused on the goal of defeating the Second Imperium once and for all.

Suddenly, she felt a tingle run up her spine. “Halt!” she said. A TIE fighter swooped low across the leaves, rippling the canopy around them with its hot exhaust as it circled to inspect the crashed skyhopper. Lowbacca growled, and Tenel Ka held his arm to restrain him from any rash action. The Imperial ship circled again over the wreckage, as if looking for survivors. Tenel Ka hoped the pilot wouldn’t blast the already-downed craft into a smoldering lump of slag and debris. After a tense moment, the enemy ship roared away in search of new prey.

She and Lowbacca pressed on through the trees toward where the battle platform waited.

It seemed like no time at all before Em Teedee said, “Unless my senses have become completely uncalibrated by the crash, we should be directly below the leading edge of the battle platform right now.”

Lowbacca held out a hand, motioning for Tenel Ka to wait, and scrambled up a few branches to check their location. At his low bark of triumph, she climbed after him and pushed her head above the leafy canopy. There, hovering ten meters over the treetops, was the underside of the giant battle platform, massive and threatening, armored for assault, bristling with weapons.

“It should be a simple enough task to destroy it,” Tenel Ka said.

The sounds of shouted orders and clomping booted feet carried down to them. Lowbacca pointed upward and then shrugged as if to say, What next? The platform was too high above the trees to make a jump, and they had no repulsorpacks of their own. Tenel Ka reached for the grappling hook and fibercord she kept at her belt.

“We’ll have to climb for it,” she said.

The platform hovered higher than Tenel Ka was accustomed to aiming, but the grappling hook caught firmly on the armored edge on her second throw. Tenel Ka tested her weight on the fibercord. The grappling hook did not budge. Then, wrapping her arm and her legs around the cord, she began to climb, using the Force to help levitate her when her single arm couldn’t provide enough support.

Above on the platform waited Imperial stormtroopers, heavy armaments, and a Nightsister from Dathomir.

Tenel Ka swallowed hard. She knew that although the Force was with them, the odds definitely were not.