As the starfighter streaked past, the Force fairly crackled with the pilot’s frustration-with his very human-feeling frustration. Jaina reached out to him and felt an all-too familiar presence. “Blast,” she muttered. Jagged Fel.
Knowing better than to let a clawcraft pilot-particularly
this clawcraft pilot-get behind her, Jaina pivoted the StealthX over its wing and started after him.
“Sneaky, open a hailing channel to our target.”
The droid squeaked a long objection, which Jaina could barely hear over all the damage alarms-and which she could not read because her display was out.
“Comm protocols don’t apply right now,” Jaina said, taking a guess at what her astromech was upset about. “The enemy already knows where we are. They can see us.”
Sneaky whistled in refusal.
“If I have to do it myself, I’m ejecting you,” Jaina said. The channel was open by the time she fell in behind the clawcraft.
“Jag, what are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Trying to shoot you down,” Jag said. “But I forget-that’s supposed to be a military secret. Now I guess I have to kill you.”
Jaina probably should not have been surprised by the bitterness in Jag’s voice, but she was, and he nearly broke free by rolling to the left. Fortunately, Zekk was there pouring laser bolts into the clawcraft’s exhaust tail, and Jag had to slip back into Jaina’s sights when overload static began to snake across his shields. He tried to escape again by breaking hard to the right, but this time Jaina was ready and forced him back by sending a stream of cannon bolts past his flank.
“Jag, you shouldn’t take this so personally,” Jaina said. She noticed that he was gradually turning, trying to draw them away from
the defoliators. “You and I were over a long time before Zekk and I met Taat.”
“You think I care whose antennae you rub?” Jagged retorted. “You betrayed your honor.”
“Our honor?” Jaina was confused. “We haven’t made you any-“
“I guaranteed Lowbacca’s parole at Qoribu,” Jagged reminded her. “And you returned my courtesy with betrayal. at Supply Depot Thrago and the Battle of Snevu. My family’s reputation has suffered.”
As had its finances, if Jaina recalled the terms of the guarantee correctly. Aristocra Formbi had said the Fels would have to repay any damages Lowbacca caused if he violated the parole-and before returning to the Alliance, he had taken part in the destruction of not only several million liters of space fuel, but also dozens of clawcraft and a couple of capital ships.
“Jag, I’m sorry,” Jaina said. The second wave of clawcraft reached visual range and-ignoring
the
possibility
of
hitting
Jagged
by accident-opened fire on the StealthXs. “In the urgency of the situation, the parole just didn’t occur to us.”
“Don’t apologize. The fault is all mine.” Jagged continued his turn and started to climb, trying to set up Jaina and Zekk for his wingmates. “I should never have made the mistake of thinking Jedi had honor.”
The rebuke hurt more than it should have, perhaps because Jaina and Zekk knew it was justified-and because Jaina knew that it reflected Jagged’s current disdain for her. But this was war, and they could not allow personal feelings to interfere with stopping those defoliators-not when whatever the vessels were carrying felt so malevolent and deadly.
“Jagged, we-I-want you to know that I still love you. And I always will.” Jaina activated her attack sensors and locked Jagged’s clawcraft as the primary target. “But if you can eject, you should do it now.”
Jaina and Zekk opened fire.
But Jagged had already gone into the Clawcraft Spin, whirling his starfighter around its ball-shaped cockpit and spraying laser bolts in every direction as he fell away in an erratic spiral impossible to target. It was a popular tactic in space combat, but in an atmosphere it was so dangerous and difficult that most pilots would have preferred to take their chances with no shields and one engine. Yet Jagged Fel somehow managed to keep the air resistance from tearing his craft apart, and by the time he vanished into the clouds, he was already emerging from the spin and starting to pull up.
Maybe we shouldn’t warn him next time, Zekk suggested.
You’re just saying that because you’re jealous, Jaina joked.
Yeah, but not over you, Zekk replied. No one can fly like that without the Force!
A cannon bolt flashed past Jaina’s cockpit-so close that it raised a heat blister in the canopy-and she and Zekk turned and dived. With their forward shields down and the Chiss behaving more like Killik suicide fliers than clawcraft pilots, their only chance of stopping the defoliators lay in catching the two vessels in the clouds, where their StealthXs could remain hidden until they attacked. The clawcraft pursued, but both Jaina and Zekk still had their rear shields and were able to endure the short pounding they received before reaching cover.