Then he added a twisting motion, and the Y-wing rotated along its long axis, crashing onto the taxiing strip upside down.
“There,” Jacen told Samran. “Problem solved. He can’t lift off with repulsors or thrusters, and he can’t fire his missiles at the city.”
Samran looked at him in surprise, then choked up in laughter. Unable to speak, he waved the men and women of his security force toward the starfighter. They emerged from their protected positions and advanced. Ben could hear some of them laughing, too.
“What are you doing?” That was Nelani, returning at a quick trot. “I had the situation under control!”
Jacen turned a dubious look on her. “No, you didn’t. You were executing a decent negotiation. But to be ‘in control’ you would have had to be able to prevent him from firing at any moment. Could you?”
Nelani reached Jacen and stood there, her features flushed, her expression confrontational. “No, but he wouldn’t have fired while we were talking.”
“Tell that to the families of all the students who would have died if he had somehow fired without your detecting it-or if he had his missiles set up on a timer, which you wouldn’t have been able to feel. And don’t tell me he wouldn’t have. You had no control over his actions, and every moment you negotiated with him, you risked the lives of those students.”
“You think I wasn’t aware of his emotional state? His feelings were lit up like a landing circle!”
While the two Jedi argued, Ben watched the spaceport security team approach the helpless starfighter. Then he felt a surge of despair from its pilot, despair and determination
“Get back!” Ben astonished himself with the volume of his scream, with the fact that he was screaming without meaning to, with the fact that he was running forward with no voluntary control of his legs. “Run! Run!”
The security agents froze at his first cry and looked back at him. Apparently the force of will he was projecting and his proximity to Lieutenant Samran were enough for them. They turned away from the Y-wing and began running.
There was a hum from the starfighter, and Ben saw ignition within its missile tubes. There was a sudden expulsion of flame, missiles punching out of their tubes and into the duracrete just in front of the starfighter-And then the Y-wing exploded, propelled into metallic confetti by a hemispherical wall of flame and concussive force.
As if in slow motion, Ben saw the wall of energy swell out toward him. He dropped to the permacrete-covered ground, wrapped his robe tightly around him, and focused his mind on the blast he could still visualize. He saw the point where it would hit him. He pressed against that spot, willing it to weaken, to slow
It hit him. He felt himself pushed as if by a giant hand, a hand radiating ferocious heat. He rolled and skidded backward, then came to a stop.
There was no sound. His ears felt as battered as if a wampa had boxed them. But he felt oddly peaceful, as though he had been exercising all morning and was ready for a rest.
Languidly, he threw his robe off his face and stood up.
The Y-wing was gone. Where it had been was a crater, and the duracrete barrier that had stood before it was interrupted by a rough-edged gap many meters long.
The buildings nearest the explosion were still standing, but they leaned away from the source of the blast, their metal skeletons bent, the exterior walls facing the blast dented in or missing entirely.
Everywhere there were bodies, some of them licked by flame, and Ben thought for one cold moment that his effort had been too late. But one of the burning men suddenly began to roll on the ground, smothering the flames rising from his back and shoulders, and a woman a few meters from him stood up on shaky legs.
Ben saw Jacen racing toward him, but then Jacen, seeing that his cousin was not badly hurt, veered off toward victims who were still unmoving.
Ben chose a nearby group of security personnel and moved toward them, his steps unsteady at first, then gaining in balance and sureness as he ran.
An hour later, Ben sat in a hangar. A brightly painted but antiquated shuttle dominated the center of the building. Ben had his back against a corrugated durasteel wall, which flexed slightly as he leaned against it. Other rescue workers sat against the same wall, drinking cups of caf some of their number had provided, exchanging gruesome stories of explosion disasters of the past. Mostly they left Ben alone, but they had brought him caf and told him he’d done well. And now the crisis was over, and the medics and firefighters were resting and replenishing themselves for a few minutes before returning to their respective bases.
Jacen and Nelani reentered the hangar through the main sliding door. They spotted Ben and headed his way. Jacen sat beside his cousin while Nelani remained standing.