[Dark Nest] - 3(99)
They had barely entered the clouds before the dark pressure began to build inside their chests again. UnuThul did not want them to wait. He wanted them to attack now. Jaina and Zekk reached out to him in the Force, trying to make him see that they could not possibly succeed, that their StealthXs were barely holding together and their only hope of success lay in concealment.
UnuThul did not understand-or care. The dark pressure grew unrelenting, until they thought their hearts would collapse. Still, they remained in the clouds, calling on each other for the strength to resist UnuThul, Jaina using the Force to steady Zekk’s hand when his StealthX began to drift upward, Zekk reaching out to push her stick forward when she began to pull it back. Because Jaina’s displays were not working and Zekk’s sensor pod had been blasted away, they had to navigate by feeling alone, always keeping the noses of their battered starfighters pointed toward the menace they sensed in the Force.
And even as Jaina and Zekk closed on their targets again, they sensed Leia and Saba struggling with their own troubles far above. Sometimes, her mother felt tense and worried, and other times she and Saba were clearly in combat, filling the battle-meld with fury and fear and determination. Jaina and Zekk ached to help, but they were too well disciplined to ignore the defoliators-even without the influence of UnuThul.
A shock wave of astonishment rolled through the battle-meld, and suddenly Leia and Saba seemed confused, hopeful, and terrified all at once. The dark pressure inside Jaina and Zekk grew more powerful than ever, and they found themselves poking their canopies out of the clouds in spite of themselves.
The defoliators were only a few kilometers above, so close now that Jaina and Zekk could clearly see their hawkish silhouettes-and
the drop-shaped outlines of two enormous bombs hanging beneath each wing.
Each of the vessels was tightly ringed by a defensive cordon of clawcraft, with another six starfighters arrayed farther out in intercept position. There would be another dozen Chiss ambushers even farther out, circling low over the clouds, ready to pounce the instant the StealthXs showed themselves.
Far above the defoliators, a distant web of light was flashing back and forth between the descending Chiss fleet and the lower reaches of space. With both of their tactical displays nonfunctional, it was impossible for Jaina and Zekk to tell exactly what was happening … but they could guess. UnuThul had arrived with the Moon Swarm and launched his attack prematurely, probably hoping to divert the Chiss’s attention and make it easier for them to bring down the defoliators-and judging by the feelings
in
the battle-meld, Leia and Saba and the rest of the Falcon’s crew had gotten caught in the middle of it.
The tactic changed nothing as far as Jaina and Zekk were concerned. Their best chance of success, as small as it was, still lay in the…
A new presence joined the meld-the dark, oddly familiar presence of a Twi’lek Joiner. Alema Rar
A wave of revulsion rose inside Jaina and Zekk-and inside Leia and Saba, as well. Alema was the holochild for all that worried Master Skywalker about the Jedi’s new view of the Force. She was living proof that there was a dark side, for she had ventured into that darkness and lost her way so completely that even Luke had given up hoping of redeeming her. She had become a twisted and angry thing that cast off vows like boyfriends, that turned her back on faithful comrades and betrayed sacred trusts and viciously attacked those who had shown her nothing but kindness.
And none of that mattered, because there she was in a StealthX, hiding in the clouds a few kilometers behind Jaina and Zekk. The Chiss had no idea she was there, and Jaina and Zekk understood now why the dark pressure inside them had grown so strong, why UnuThul was so eager for them to sacrifice themselves in a futile gesture.
They were nothing more than a diversion. Alema Night Herald of the Dark Nest-was the true firepower. To UnuThul, this was the surest way to stop the evil hanging beneath the defoliators’ wings.
Leia and Saba reached out in the Force, urging Jaina and Zekk to resist UnuThul’s Will, to stick to their own plan and attack in the clouds.
Jaina and Zekk pushed their throttles forward, then pulled their sticks back and began to climb in a wild corkscrew that made their astromechs shriek structure-stress warnings. With no forward shields left to share, it made no sense to fly in close formation. Instead, they climbed in parallel spirals, angling across the bows of the defoliators to cut off their descent.
The Chiss moved quickly to stop them, the defensive rings shifting to remain between the two StealthXs and their targets, the interceptors diving to confront them with laser cannons flashing. Jaina and Zekk returned fire effectively but without enthusiasm, destroying a clawcraft apiece and knowing that those pilots were being sacrificed to a diversion-just as they were themselves.