Lightsabers

19

The muffled thump of an explosion in the middle of the night was already fading by the time Tenel Ka reacted and sat up, suddenly wide awake.

She strained her ears, but heard nothing more. She had slept fitfully a few times since coming to the thick-walled Reef Fortress—but she had never woken up without cause. Had she really heard the sound of a blast? She couldn’t be sure. Perhaps it had merely been a part of her uneasy dream….

Around her, the room was dark and shadowy, lit only by the metallic silver glow of moonlight spilling in from the window. The deep darkness was quiet. Too quiet. With a fluid motion Tenel Ka slid off her bed, stood, paused to listen, then crept forward to the fortress window.

Her skin prickled, but not from cold. She recognized the reaction of her Jedi senses transmitting messages of danger—an indefinable uneasiness that was rapidly growing closer to full-fledged alarm. Something was definitely not right.

Tenel Ka looked out the stone-framed window down to the glossy midnight ocean that stretched into inky blackness. The breakers, capped with moonlight, crashed against the dark reefs. She heard the rushing, hissing ocean—and realized that the sound should not have been so clear.

Where was the background hum of the night perimeter shields?

Leaning forward, Tenel Ka narrowed her eyes to study the air. A telltale shimmer should have been visible to demonstrate that a protective field surrounded the fortress—but she saw nothing. Then her attention turned to a glimmer of light and a smudge of smoke rising into the air near the generator station.

The shield generator had been destroyed! That meant Reef Fortress now stood unprotected.

Tenel Ka drew back, intending to whirl around and sound the alarm—when a faint motion far below caught her eye. Her heart pounding, all Jedi senses alert, she glanced down to where the steep stone walls blended into the uneven lumps of the reef. A strange camouflaged ship, long and angular, floated just above the waves on repulsorfields.

“Ah. Aha,” she said. “Assault craft of some sort.” Then she sucked in a sharp breath as she saw figures moving—more than a dozen.

Black, many-legged creatures like large insects swarmed up the base of the fortress—and scaled the sheer walls effortlessly. Tenel Ka instantly recognized the tactics, the black body armor, the skittering, segmented movements. Her stomach tied itself into an icy knot, and adrenaline shot through her veins. The Bartokks, deadly humanoid insects, were legendary for their relentless and resourceful assassin squads.

Tenel Ka raced over to the comm unit mounted on a stone wall near her door and slapped the alarm button to sound a general call to arms—but nothing happened. She pushed the alarm firmly once again with her hand, and found that the entire warning system was dead.

“Lights,” she called, but her room remained dark. All power, including backup generators, had been cut off to Reef Fortress.

They were in deep trouble.

Bending over and using the stump of her arm to hold the buckle in place, she took a moment to fasten her utility belt over the supple reptilian armor in which she slept. Tenel Ka pulled her hair back with a thong, letting the long red-gold braids drape like a crown around her head. It was time for action. She would have to rouse everyone.

Tenel Ka rushed down the corridor and pounded on the door to Jacen’s room. Lowbacca bellowed from his own chamber and flung the door open. Jaina hurried out of the gadget room.

“What’s going on?” Jacen asked, dragging unsteady fingers through his sleep-tousled hair.

“Something … dangerous,” Jaina said, already sensing the situation. “A serious threat.”

Lowbacca roared, his wildly disheveled fur standing out in every direction as he attempted to strap on the glossy white belt made of syren-plant fiber. “Emergency?” Em Teedee said. “Perhaps we are all simply overreacting.”

“No. We are not,” Tenel Ka answered. “The power to the fortress has been cut off, and our defensive force field no longer functions. The generating station has been destroyed. We are currently under attack by a Bartokk assassin squad.”

Jacen shuddered. “Hey, I’ve heard of them. Insects, right? And they all work together as a hive, to assassinate their assigned target.”

Tenel Ka nodded. “They are fearsome mercenaries, fighting as one organism. Once given a target, they continue to fight until the very last member of their hive has been killed—or until their victim lies dead.”

“I’m sure that’s terribly efficient,” Em Teedee observed, “but they certainly don’t sound very friendly.”

Jaina frowned, looking determined. “Well then, what are we waiting for?” She retrieved her lightsaber from her quarters while Jacen ran back into the aquarium room to fetch his weapon, too.

Lowbacca, his lightsaber already at his waist, roared in challenge. “Now, Master Lowbacca, getting delusions of grandeur can be hazardous to your health,” Em Teedee said. Lowie just snarled, the black streak across the top of his head bristling with anger.

Tenel Ka stepped into the Wookiee’s room, marched to the far wall, and yanked free the jagged ceremonial spear mounted there as ornamentation. Holding the spear one-handed, she said, “We must fight them.”

Suddenly they heard a crash and a shout, then brief weapons fire from the far end of the corridor that led to the isolated tower containing the matriarch’s quarters.

“My grandmother!” Tenel Ka said. “She must be their primary target.”

Still holding the spear, she raced down the cold flagstones of the dim hall. All glowpanels had gone out, and only the moonlight streaming through the corridor windows lit her way—but Tenel Ka had known these twists and turns since childhood.

Growling, Lowbacca sprinted after her while the twins ran at top speed to keep up. Jacen and Jaina ignited their lightsabers, and the brilliant energy glow splashed ahead, shedding enough light for them to see. Tenel Ka heard more shouts, a loud scuffle, and her grandmother’s voice calling for help.

“We must hurry,” Tenel Ka said, putting on an extra burst of speed. Someone had to have contracted the assassin squad to remove the former queen, she reasoned. Was it Ambassador Yfra? Once Ta’a Chume was dead—and with Tenel Ka’s parents gone—the ambassador probably would not consider a one-armed girl in lizard hide much of a threat to her power. She could easily take over the rulership of the Hapes Cluster.

While the idea enraged her, Tenel Ka could not afford to think about it at the moment.

Just ahead, a couple of black, clattering insects emerged from side corridors. The Bartokks, as tall as Tenel Ka, stood on two powerful legs and had a central pair of arms at their waists for grasping and manipulating objects, while their upper set of arms ended in long, hooked claws like scythes used to harvest grain. The serrated edges of the scythe claws swept from side to side, with razor edges that could clip an enemy to pieces.

The Bartokks chittered upon seeing these new and unexpected opponents, but Tenel Ka raced ahead with full momentum. Using all the muscles in her single arm, she jabbed with her spear, plunging it through the body core of the left assassin. Its upper four arms flailed in reflex, trying to bat the weapon out of Tenel Ka’s grip—but she twisted the long blade, ripping it sideways. The insect’s hard exoskeleton cracked and split open, spilling thick greenish-blue goop onto the stone floor. She yanked the spear free as the Bartokk clattered to the flagstones, its legs still flailing.

Beside her, Lowbacca met the second assassin with a sideways sweep of his lightsaber that sliced the Bartokk into smoking halves that fell twitching to the floor.

The twins rushed up. “Good one,” Jacen said, panting. “That’s two down.”

Tenel Ka spoke over her shoulder as she continued running. “We cannot be certain those two are dead,” she said. “And do not forget, the Bartokks have a hive mind. Now all of the assassins—there are usually fifteen in the hive—know we’re coming to help my grandmother.”

As they skidded around the corner near the armored door to the matriarch’s chambers, five more of the insects moved to block their way. Ta’a Chume’s two personal guards fought fiercely at the threshold to her chambers, but the remaining Bartokks had nearly succeeded in breaking in.

As the young Jedi Knights ran forward, Bartokk assassins captured both loyal guards outside the matriarch’s door and dragged them away. The guards struggled, cried out, then ceased all movement.

Although this capture was intended to free the opening for a fresh assault on the matriarch’s chambers, it also created a diversion for Tenel Ka and her friends to plow forward. With their lightsabers ignited, Jacen and Jaina slashed in, chopping the two frontmost Bartokks into quivering bug pieces. Lowbacca barreled into a third assassin, knocking it against the stone wall with such force that its black carapace split open.

“Inside,” Tenel Ka shouted. She could hear the matriarch calling for more guards, but there were none. Instead, four young Jedi Knights charged into her chamber.

“Lowie, help me get this closed,” Jaina cried. The lanky Wookiee shoved his shoulder against the armored door as he and Jaina swung it shut against the powerful press of Bartokk arms and snapping claws. Startled, most of the insects jerked back, but then began to push and claw at the entrance again almost immediately. In that instant of surprise, however, the door groaned shut.

“Lock it,” Jaina gasped, and Tenel Ka snapped a bolt into place.

Outside, Bartokk assassins pounded, scraping with their razor-edged claws against the doorjamb. The metal door rattled in its frame, and Tenel Ka knew their defenses couldn’t last long against the onslaught.

But that was the least of her worries at the moment.

Three Bartokk assassins had been trapped inside the chamber with them, and now the ruthless black-shelled insects moved forward, focusing on their main target.

The old matriarch had barricaded herself in a corner and was doing her best to knock the creatures away with a broken piece of furniture. The young Jedi Knights rushed to defend the former queen, but one of the assassins lashed out with its razor claws at them.

Tenel Ka charged forward as the insect killer moved to meet her. She plunged her ornamental spear into it until the tip of her weapon bored all the way through the glossy shell and wedged into a crack between the wall blocks. She left the Bartokk pinned to the wall like a bug in a child’s collection. Even so, the creature still writhed and snapped, thrashing to get at them.

Jacen ran forward and with a hissing sweep of his lightsaber, sliced off the multi-eyed head of another assassin as it leapt toward the matriarch.

With a roar, Lowbacca left his post at the rattling door and grasped the remaining Bartokk, lifting it bodily off the floor. Its many sharp arms thrashed as Lowie pushed forward to the high open window and heaved the creature over the ledge. The assassin tumbled nearly thirty meters to splatter on the jagged reef far below.

“Hey!” Jacen said, as the Bartokk he had beheaded, instead of collapsing into twitching death, continued to fight its way toward the alarmed matriarch. “Aren’t you supposed to die?”

He slashed again with the lightsaber, this time cutting the legs out from under the headless Bartokk. The insect torso crashed to the floor, but with its remaining limbs it still hauled itself toward Tenel Ka’s grandmother. The severed head lay on the flagstones near the wall, staring at its target through faceted eyes, somehow continuing to direct the body.

“These hive-mind assassins,” Tenel Ka explained, “their brains are distributed through major nerve networks inside their bodies. Simply cutting off a head won’t stop them. The pieces will still attempt to continue their mission.”

With another blow from his lightsaber, Jacen chopped the remaining torso in half. “This is getting ridiculous,” he said.

Lowbacca marched over to where the severed insect head lay near the wall. Then with great pleasure he stomped down, squashing it as one might step on an annoying beetle.

The wiry old matriarch tossed aside the broken piece of furniture she had been using as a weapon. “I thank you for your efforts to save me, my granddaughter,” she said, “but it would seem that this plot is rather extensive. Our entire fortress is overrun, and I see no means of escape.”

Across the floor the ichor-dripping pieces of the chopped-up assassin continued to squirm toward the former queen, blindly groping, yet still deadly. The skewered Bartokk hanging from the wall thrashed and flailed, trying to break free from Tenel Ka’s spear.

Outside, in the corridors, the rest of the assassin hive hammered without pause against the armored plates of the door. From where Tenel Ka stood, she could see the rivets popping out and blocks crumbling to powder at the edges of the sealed door. The metal began to bend inward….

It certainly wouldn’t last much longer.