Jagged sighed. “I’ve been hearing that from a lot of Solo women lately.”
Leia barely heard him. She was already deep in the Force, focusing all her attention on his starfighter.
She felt her finger twitch, and said, “Goodbye, Jag.”
The turret began to shudder and did not stop. Leia felt her hand moving, following Jagged’s evasion attempts, but he might as well have been trying to dodge light. She followed his juking and jinking through the Force for a moment, then began to anticipate him, and an instant later she heard the synthetic rumble of the fire-control computer.
But Leia did not feel the shock of his death.
She dropped her gaze to the targeting display and saw the fading blossom of his clawcraft explosion, but the image was not fine enough to determine whether some of the debris she saw fluttering away was an EV unit.
“Han, did he-“
“I don’t know,” Han cut in. “I might have seen an ejection flare before you fired, but we’ve got other problems right now.”
A green blur, as vast as a planet, appeared out of the rain ahead, and then the Falcon pulled up, hard. Leia spun her turret around and glimpsed what was clearly a jungle canopy dropping away behind the ship’s stern.
“Han, are you telling me-“
“Afraid so,” Han said. “The bombs are down there somewhere.”
TWENTY-THREE
Luke found Gilad Pellaeon alone in the Megador’s observation deck, his liver-spotted hands clasped behind his back and his gray-haired head tipped back slightly as he gazed out the center of the dome. His attention seemed to be fixed on the cloud-pearled planet ahead, where the red-flashing shadow of the Killik ambush swarm was spreading steadily outward. The insects were striving to keep the Chiss fleet trapped between them and Tenupe’s surface, and by the looks of things, they were succeeding. If the Grand Admiral noticed his own huge armada sparkling out of hyperspace all around the edges of the observation dome, he showed no sign.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, Luke.” Pellaeon spoke without taking his eyes off the planet. “The Colony must have a million dartships attacking down there. I can’t imagine the logistics.”
“You don’t have a collective mind,” Luke said, stepping to the admiral’s side. “The Killiks are an extraordinary species. At times, I’m tempted to believe that they were the ones who built Centerpoint Station and the Maw.”
Pellaeon studied him out of the corner of one eye. “And you don’t think that now?”
Luke shook his head. “The nests have a habit of confusing their Joiners’ memories with their own.” He was surprised that Pellaeon seemed to take the Killiks’ claim seriously. “And the technology does seem well beyond them.”
“You think so?” Pellaeon returned his gaze to the dome, then pointed a wrinkled finger at the Killik fleet. “I wonder how long it would have taken the Galactic Alliance to build that navy.”
“Good point.” Luke studied Pellaeon carefully, trying to figure out what the cunning admiral was driving at. “But the Killiks don’t even have a true science. How could they have the knowledge to build something like the Maw or Centerpoint?”
Pellaeon turned to face Luke. “A lot can happen in twenty-five thousand years, Master Skywalker. Sciences can be lost, knowledge can be forgotten, cultural imperatives can change. That doesn’t mean we should underestimate our opponent.”
“Of course not,” Luke said, taken aback by the sharpness of Pellaeon’s rebuke. “Forgive me, Admiral-I wasn’t thinking on the same level you were.”
Pellaeon’s face softened. “No apology necessary, Master Skywalker. You had no way to know we were discussing our current attack strategies.” He returned his attention to the Killik fleet, then added in a wry tone, “Since the Rebellion, I’ve become a bit fanatic about keeping an open mind toward my enemy’s capabilities.”
Luke laughed, then said, “I should have been more alert, especially since I did track you down to talk about our strategy.”
Pellaeon nodded without looking away from the dome. “Go ahead.”
“Thank you,” Luke said. A burst of iridescent light flashed across the dome as the Mon Mothma and the Elegos A’Kla emerged from hyperspace and moved to either side of the Megador. “Our vessels appear to be deploying for an enveloping attack on the Colony fleet.”
“We are.” A hint of a smile appeared beneath Pellaeon’s bushy mustache. “It’s going to be a thing of beauty, Luke. The Killiks have absolutely no room to maneuver. We’re going to smash them against the Chiss like, well … like bugs.”