“I think you’re right.”
“Master Skywalker?” The voice, female, emerged from the vicinity of Luke’s chest.
He reached under his robe and pulled out a comlink. “Skywalker here.”
“Bridge here. Team Purella reports onstation.”
“Thank you.” He put the comlink away. “Jaina’s ready. And that’s one more check on the checklist to start this operation.”
Mara looked over to the hangar’s far wall, where chrono displays showed the time at local hours for CORUSCANT GOVERNMENT CENTER, CORELLIAN CITY OF CORONET, CENTERPOINT STATION DAYCYCLE, and elsewhere. “We should be getting a bunch more notices like that, if everything goes to plan.”
The others in the hangar knew it, too. Activity was increasing. Mechanics withdrew from the starfighters. Several pilots were already clambering into their cockpits.
Luke glanced around the pilots of his squadron. Some were talking with one another. Three were stretched out in the shadows of their X-wings, sleeping, wrapped up in Jedi robes they’d be stowing before takeoff. Two sat cross-legged, meditating. He nodded in approval at this calmness in the eye of the storm.
“Master Skywalker? Team Mynock reports in position.”
Luke almost sagged with relief The lack of any sort of “complications” notification meant that Ben, Jacen, and Dr. Seyah were aboard Centerpoint Station and standing by.
He reached for his comlink to offer thanks to his bridge contact, but she spoke up again. “Team Tauntaun reports in position. Team Slashrat reports no new activity in target zone. Team-wait a moment-“
Then over the hangar’s speakers came a different voice, male, that of Dodonna’s flight control officer. “All pilots to their craft. Group enters hyperspace in five minutes. All pilots to their craft.”
All around Luke and Mara, Jedi pilots rose to their feet.
Mara leaned in for a final kiss before launch. “Time for you to do one of the six or eight things you do best.”
He smiled at her. “Wait, where’s my traditional put-down? You’re going soft, Jade.”
“Sure I am.” She turned, smiled over her shoulder at him, and walked with a jaunty stride back to her X-wing.
Luke looked around at his pilots. “Hardpoint Squadron,” he said, “mount up.”
Chapter Nine
CORONET, CORELLIA
KOLIR GESTURED DOWN THE AVENUE, THEN GLANCED AT THE chrono embedded at the snap closure of her bag. “Right on time,” she said.
The other Jedi turned to look. In the middle distance, approaching at a high rate of speed even for Corellian drivers, was a convoy of closed-canopy airspeeders. The two in front and two in back were CorSec vehicles painted in brown and burnt orange, and warning lights of the same color flashed atop their forward viewports. The middle vehicle was a somber crimson, its viewports tinted to prevent those outside from viewing whoever might be inside.
“Jedi,” Jaina said, “meet Aidel Saxan, Prime Minister of the Five Worlds. Aidel, meet your captors. Thann, alert Control that we’ve made visual contact. It’s on.”
The convoy, floating in from above the fluid streams of groundspeeder traffic, merged with the incoming stream and slowed to the groundspeeder travel rate as it neared the Jedi. Kolir stretched the carry-straps of her bag and then stepped into them, allowing them to shrink around her waist, transforming the bag into a pouch. She reached into it and, making no show of the motion, drew out her silvery lightsaber.
The convoy was now meters away and still closing, though it had slowed to make a left-hand turn over cross-traffic into the gate entrance to the residence compound. “Just like we practiced it,” Jaina said. “Three-two-one-Now!”
In unison, the four Jedi leapt up and over the cross-traffic, each arcing toward one of the speeders in the convoy.
Jaina whipped off her traveler’s robe as she leapt, leaving her dressed in a close-fitting black jumpsuit. Her lightsaber was at her belt when the robe flew away, in her hand before she cleared the lane of cross-traffic groundspeeders, and lit as she came down on the forward portion of the lead CorSec vehicle. She plunged its glowing blade into the metal surface beneath her and wrenched it around, cutting through the vehicle’s engine compartment. There was a pop, and the speeder immediately began to lose speed and altitude.
The next CorSec speeder in line angled upward and came on straight over Jaina’s speeder, trying for a close flyover that would hammer Jaina clean off and possibly kill her. She wrenched herself down, flat onto her speeder’s hood, and lashed up with her lightsaber as the pursuer passed overhead. Her blade sliced into its bottom armor, plowing through the engine compartment and dragging partway back into the passenger compartment, straight down the center. This speeder didn’t pop-it coughed, emitting a great cloud of blue-black smoke from the gash she’d made, and immediately pitched over to the left and dived straight down toward the street.