[Dark Nest] - 3(82)

A black, tarry substance began to boil from the puncture in Lomi Plo’s pressure carapace, and the vapor plume disappeared. The queen had plugged the hole. She turned and started to float toward Luke, the mandibles on the other side of her faceplate spread so wide he could see the smiling row of human teeth they concealed.

There was no question of reaching out to Mara or Jacen for help. They were busy fending off Gorog warriors, somersaulting and spinning and Force-deflecting shattergun pellets. Instead, Luke risked a split in his concentration and used the Force to send a Wookiee-sized lump of spitcrete hurling toward Lomi Plo’s head.

The attack never reached her, of course. She sensed it coming and raised her hand, deflecting it straight into Mara.

The impact sent Mara spinning, and a Gorog shatter gun pellet slammed into the small of her back. A puff of vapor shot from the hole, then quickly vanished as the vac suit sealed itself.

Luke still felt Mara’s jolt of surprise, and to some extent even the numb, deep ache of the wound itself. A fierce rage boiled up inside him, and perhaps that was what gave him the strength to break Lomi Plo’s Force-net … or perhaps she had just been distracted by the boulder Luke had hurled at her.

It did not matter. Luke pushed, and the net dissolved. He flew at Lomi Plo, determined to finish this now, but terrified that he would not be fast enough … that he was not good enough to kill the Unseen Queen in time to save Mara.

Lomi Plo turned to meet him, and suddenly she seemed the size of a rancor, with bristling bug arms three meters long and reflexes so quick that her whirling lightsabers were nothing but a blur. Luke drew up short, trying to shake his head clear, trying to calm himself so he could determine the truth of what he was seeing.

But it was no use. Luke was too frightened for Mara. He could feel her starting to slip, feel her fighting to control the pain … and the Gorog were still attacking. Luke hurled himself at Lomi Plo again. It did not matter that he would never get past her guard, or that he did not understand what he was seeing. He just had to kill her.

But Lomi Plo had grown weary of fighting Luke. She spun away, her long upper arms lashing out toward Mara. Luke locked his blade on and drew his hand back to throw-then found that his arm would not come forward. Nothing would move at all; his mouth would not even open to voice the scream that rose inside him as Lomi Plo’s white lightsaber came arcing down toward the crown of Mara’s helmet.

Then Jacen was there, slipping in front of Mara, his lightsaber flashing up to block. He caught the blow above his head and whipped his blade over Lomi Plo’s and sent her white lightsaber spinning away into the rubble.

But Lomi Plo had two lightsabers, and she brought the second one up under Jacen’s guard, pushing it into the abdomen of his vac suit. The purple tip came out through his back, and still Luke could not move. If anything, he was more paralyzed than ever; he could not breathe, could not blink … it seemed to him that even his heart had stopped beating.

The tip of Mara’s power blaster appeared under Jacen’s upraised arm, and Luke could feel the anger that was driving Mara, the rage at what had happened to their nephew. A blinding bolt flashed from the barrel, taking Lomi Plo full in the chest and sending her tumbling head over heels, leaving her purple lightsaber hanging in Jacen’s body.

And suddenly Luke could move again. He used the Force to pull himself over to Jacen and Mara, then deactivated Lomi Plo’s lightsaber and tossed the handle aside. By the time he had finished, Mara was already placing a patch over the holes in Jacen’s vac suit.

Kyle Katarn arrived in the same instant, emerging from the flotsam with half a dozen other Jedi. They quickly drove the last of the Gorog warriors away, lacing the darkness with blaster bolts and flinging thermal detonators around like confetti, using the Force to create a protective shell of rubble around the Skywalkers and Jacen.

“Where’s Lomi Plo?” he asked. “I can’t see her. Is she still here?”

Luke barely heard. He could sense that Mara was in pain but still strong, and she remained lucid enough to have applied a pair of emergency patches to Jacen’s vac suit. But Jacen’s presence had grown as elusive as when he had been knocked unconscious, and the pattern of dark spray around the suit patches suggested that he had lost a lot of blood.

“Jacen?”

“Don’t … worry about … me!” Jacen’s voice was anguished but calm, and his words carried the sharp edge of command. “You’re showing Lomi … your weakness!”

“It’s okay.” Luke peered over his shoulder, but saw no sign of Lomi Plo or her Gorog anywhere. “Mara drove her off.”