[Dark Nest] - 1(163)

“Are you crazy?” Leia cried. “You can’t shoot into a hand-to-hand fight!”

“No kidding?” Han replied. “I didn’t know that.”

Leia grabbed Han in the Force and, as they continued to approach the battle, tried to steady him. He squeezed the trigger, and a bolt streaked up to blast a Gorog’s head apart. He fired again, and an abdomen exploded. The third shot burned a hole through a warrior’s thorax.

Han began to fire more rapidly now, always aiming for the perimeter of the battle. The two Masters used the Force to shove targets into his line of fire, and it was only a few seconds before the only Gorog between them and the Solos were dead ones.

Han stopped firing and waved them down. “Come on! Let’s get outta-“

Luke and Mara shook their heads, then turned toward the ceiling and vanished into a tunnel surrounded by the five largest, ugliest Killiks Leia had ever seen.

“Hey!” Han yelled, still trying to wave them back. “The ship’s this way!”





FORTY


Jaina and Zekk knew they were getting close to the launching bay when the broken cylinders of derelict dartships began to appear in the ethmane fog. They could feel Leia and the other Jedi somewhere beyond, deep within Kr, awash in a battle whirl of anger and fear and pain.

They followed the shaft around a bend and, in the fog below, saw the hazy star of a blasted-out launching bay. From inside came the silver flicker of a small-arms barrage, punctuated at intervals by the brilliant bursts of laser cannons. Jaina and Zekk stretched their Force-awareness into the battle. They felt only four living presences aboard the Falcon, the Noghri and two others they did not recognize.

As their StealthXs slipped through the entrance, forks of white energy began to crackle across their forward shields. Jaina and Zekk activated their forward floodlights. The launching bay was filled with wrecked dartships and drifting insect parts. In the heart of the carnage floated the Millennium Falcon, taking fire from dozens of positions concealed in the flotsam. Perhaps two dozen insects in the chitin-and-insulfiber carapaces that served as Killik pressure suits had slipped inside the Falcon’s shields. They were blasting it with electrobolts at point-blank range, melting fist-sized pits into the hull armor.

Jaina and Zekk paused, struggling to grasp what they saw. Despite what they had sensed from Leia through the Force, they still found it difficult to believe that a nest of Killiks would attack the Falcon without reason… and all too easy to believe the Falcon might have provided a reason. Only the memory of the unprovoked attacks on the Shadow and Master Sebatyne earlier - and of the illogical explanations provided by the Colony-gave them the resolve to open fire.

Their laser bolts were blindingly brilliant in such a narrow space, and their canopy flash tinting went to black. Jaina and Zekk instinctively reached into the Force to locate their targets, but the only presences they felt were aboard the Falcon. They had to settle for counterfire, allowing their R9 units to control the laser cannons and target the source of each electrobolt.

It took longer, but the result was the same. The positions in the flotsam fell silent, leaving only the Killiks on the Falcon’s hull to contend with. Jaina and Zekk sealed their vac suits and moved their StealthXs deeper into the launching bay.

Before they could pop their canopies, the Falcon’s rear cargo hatch opened and two Noghri in vac suits dropped out of the vessel with a pair of T-21 repeating blasters. The hatch closed behind them, and they turned in different directions, twisting and spinning like Jedi, working their way around the hull, burning the Killiks off the ship. As much as it pained Jaina and Zekk to watch the deaths of so many Kind, they had to admire the artistry.

The Noghri had almost completed their hull cleaning when the Falcon’s ion drives glowed to life. Jaina and Zekk stretched their awareness into the ship again, trying to figure out why the two presences aboard would do such a thing.

They did not like what they felt.

“Help!” C-3PO’s voice came over the emergency channel. “This Ewok is a criminal! He has the death mark on ten

planets,

and

now

he’s attemptttiiiing… tooooo… steeeeeeaa…”

C-3PO’s plea trailed off into a deep rumble as someone tripped his primary circuit breaker.

The Falcon spun her bow toward the exit. Still fighting the Killiks, the Noghri were thrown from the hull and began to drift.

Jaina swung her StealthX in behind her father’s beloved freighter and armed a proton torpedo.

Zekk began to wonder if this was not overkill.

The specifications of the Falcon’s military-grade shields rose to the top of their mind, and Zekk understood. He armed a torpedo of his own.