[Dark Nest] - 1(55)

Jaina’s admiration was mirrored in the Force by that of the other Jedi, and her thoughts turned to the other three defoliators.

“Give me an overall sitrep, Sneaky. And clean this smoke out of the cockpit.” Jaina finally realized that she was reflexively using the Force to keep from coughing. “I can barely see my display.”

A valve hissed open and cleared the air, then Jaina was hit by a wave of shock so sudden and powerful it reminded her of the time her X-wing had been blown from under her at Kalarba. She automatically began a systems sweep, but knew before her gaze reached the life-support readout that the alarm had come to her through the meld, from the three Jedi she had sent to stop the middle two defoliators.

The tactical display showed the other three defoliators also drifting dead in space. But a new vessel had appeared on the far side of the battle, well positioned to prevent the Taat-and Jedi-from returning to their home nest. It was simultaneously bleeding clawcraft into space and sweeping the area with tractor beams, gathering up dartships like flitnats in a net.

“Victory-class Star Destroyer.” Jaina turned toward the battle zone and poured on velocity. “Where did that come from?”

Sneaky let out a defensive tweet, then replayed a high-speed version of the last ten seconds of tactical record. The vessel had simply appeared a few moments ago, after the Jedi had disabled the defoliatiors. Jaina grew instantly cold and emotionless inside.

“Cloaked.”

She wasted no time asking herself why she had failed to anticipate the tactic-capable enemies always surprised you-but her thoughts did leap to the implications. Had the Star Destroyer been an escort, it would have revealed itself as soon as the nests moved against the defoliators. Instead, it had waited until the

Jedi launched their proton torpedoes-betraying both their presence and their general location. It had come for them-using their own subterfuge against them.

It had been one of Jag Fel’s favorite tactics, when they had flown together against the Yuuzhan Vong. Jaina reached out toward the Star Destroyer, searching for his familiar presence, but could not find him among all the beings on the vessel-at least not in the middle of the battle.

A burst of dismay swept through the Force, then a soft growl arose inside Jaina’s head. Lowbacca was caught in one of the tractor beams. She wondered how bad, then had a brief vision in which dartships were flying past in a black, swirling wall and the cockpit was filled with the screaming whine of overloaded fusial thrust engines.

Jaina felt Tesar reaching out to Lowbacca, urging him to hold on until he and Jaina could get there. They might be able to shut down the tractor beam if they could destroy its generators. But none of the Jedi knew what the tractor beam generators on a Chiss Star Destroyer looked like… or where to find them.

Lowbacca thought they were being foolish; that they would only get themselves captured by trying something so risky. The best way to help him was to avoid falling into the Chiss trap themselves.

A swell of anger rose in the Force. Jaina was still too far from the battle to see anything more than a hazy cloud of dartships silhouetted against Qoribu’s gleaming rings, but the tactical display showed more than a dozen clawcraft swarming Jacen and Tahiri, methodically herding them toward the Star Destroyer’s tractor beams. Supported by a throng of Taat, they were fighting back valiantly, opening one hole after the other in the enemy formation. The Chiss always managed to cut them off and drive them back toward the sweeping tractor beams.

Then a clawcraft designator vanished. Another turned yellow and spiraled through the ring system and out of the system. Jaina felt Alema and Zekk urging Tahiri and Jacen to accelerate through the gap. Two of three clawcraft moving to cut them off also lost control and flew out of the battle, then Tahiri and Jacen were free, pulling away from their pursuers and weaving a crooked path among the few enemy fighters still in a position to attack.

Tahiti’s gratitude flooded the Force, but quickly

changed

to astonishment when a clawcraft behind her exploded in a flash of static. A second one vanished an instant later, then a third turned yellow on Jaina’s display and broke into two parts.

Tahiri’s shock was overpowered by Alema’s glee, then almost instantly by Zekk’s righteous fury.

This is wrong] Zekk raged. He was furious with Alema; she was killing for revenge!

But Alema did not think so. She felt she was only killing to teach them a lesson, to make them understand there were consequences.

Jaina added her anger to Zekk’s. Alema had violated the unspoken rules of the conflict. She had killed without purpose. When the Chiss reviewed their battle vids, they would feel bound to retaliate in kind.