[Dark Nest] - 3(112)
“No.” Saba shook her head. “This one taught you too well.”
Leia felt her jaw drop. “Is that a compliment, Master Sebatyne?”
“Yez.” Saba thumped her hand against her chest. “This one did very well, given the material she had to work with.”
“Gee, that’s swell,” Han said in Leia’s earpiece. “But if you two can break up the mutual-admiration meeting for just a minute, what about that second bomb?”
“No problem.” Leia checked her scanner again. The signal had moved perhaps fifty meters in the last few seconds, but it had grown so weak that she could barely find it anymore. “Blast-now it’s sinking.”
“Yez, that is what happenz when you drop something heavy in the river,” Saba said. She activated her thermal detonator, then tossed it in the direction of the bomb and used the Force to guide it to the fading blip on their scanners. “You will have to be more careful next time, Jedi Solo.”
The blip faded from the scanner. The tiny bloop of something small entering the water sounded from the same direction; then the sharp wooosh of an underwater detonation rose up through the trees.
“Did you get it?” Han asked.
Leia checked her scanner. There was still no blip on the screen. “Let’s say we did-because even if we didn’t, the Chiss will never find it, either.” She motioned Saba to start climbing. “Let’s go-it’s time to go get my daughter.”
TWENTY-FIVE
The interior of Stomper One filled with soft whirrings and electronic chirpings as the assault shuttle’s passengers began their final systems checks. Each soldier worked his servomotors and confirmed the calibration of his targeting systems with two adjacent units, then executed a quick comm scan to be certain he was receiving on all channels. Because this platoon was assigned directly to the assault commander-Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker-they all performed a vocabulator check as well. The phrase “check sound, check Basic” reverberated through the passenger cabin thirty-two times-always in the ultradeep, ultramale version of Lando Calrissian’s voice, which remained the standard for the entire line of YVH combat droids.
Sitting behind the controls of the assault shuttle, Luke found the mechanical symphony strangely isolating. As the sole biological unit in the assault brigade, he had already felt a bit out of place, and the stark efficiency of his YVH 5-S Bugcrunchcrs left him feeling more alone than he cared to admit. The droids would perform as well as-if not better than-living beings, but there was nothing like a little laughter to calm a soldier’s nerves before combat.
As soon as the YVHs had finished their vocabulator checks, they began to spray vacuum-resistant lubricant into one another’s joints. The whole assault shuttle was quickly filled with an oily-sweet odor that gave Luke watery eyes and a queasy stomach. He had never expected to miss the smell of another soldier’s sweat quite so much.
The gravelly voice of the Megador’s Tactical Control officer came over the flight-deck speaker. “Task Force Stomper cleared for assault. Be advised: Colony capital ships and dartship swarms attempting to return to support Ackbar. Time of breakthrough uncertain.”
“Acknowledged.”
Luke did not bother to check his tactical display for a tally of the enemy vessels-the number was going to be high, and it did not matter. In fifteen minutes, he would either he aboard the Ackbar fighting Raynar, or the eternal war that Jacen had foreseen would be erupting into full blossom.
Luke sealed his vacuum suit, then transmitted the attack order to the other fifty assault shuttles in his all-droid brigade and pushed his own throttles forward.
“Stomper in,” he reported to the Megador.
“Good hunting, my friend.” This voice belonged to Pellaeon. “And may the Force be with you.”
Luke thanked the admiral for the good wishes and promised that his faith in the Jedi plan was not misplaced, then turned his attention to the assault.
The Admiral Ackbar lay only ten kilometers ahead, her bump-nosed silhouette surrounded by a swirling shell of Killik dartships that were rapidly being vaporized by Alliance turbolaser strikes. Her main engines lit space as she struggled to retreat toward Tenupe, but she was ensnared by the heavy-duty tractor-beams of half a dozen “pirate-nabber” Star Destroyers identical to herself.
Raynar would have been much wiser to send his fighter screen out to counterattack his captors, but he appeared to be holding the dartships back to deal with Task Force Stomper. That was what Admiral Bwua’tu had predicted he would do, and so far the Bothan seemed correct.
Beyond the Ackbar, dozens of what Luke thought of as Shard-class capital ships were abandoning the battle on Tenupe to rush to Raynar’s aid. Somewhat chunky and conical, they ranged in length from a kilometer and a half to nearly ten, but each had one broad, rounded end and several jagged sides. It almost appeared that the strange flotilla had been constructed by shattering an asteroid or a small moon. Judging by the halo of dispersion flashes and fiery streaks around the vessels, each was also very well shielded and heavily armed.