[Legacy Of The Force] - 01(44)

Kolir’s tactic was similarly subtle. She picked up the blaster rifle of the first combat droid she’d destroyed. It took her a moment to swing the weapon, oversized and ungainly for her small frame, into line; then, bracing herself, she fired off a stream of blasterfire at the second distant combat droid. Jaina saw at least two of the blasts hit the droid and glance off

But the assault was enough to get the droid’s attention. It swung around and focused on Kolir. Thann dropped from the sky to land beside it, severing its legs at the knees, then hacked at what remained until it was in too many pieces to do anyone any harm.

Moments later, running at Jedi sprint speed, the Falleen warrior rejoined them at Zekk’s side. The passerby who’d taken Zekk’s pulse took a look at the three lightsabers and stood up and away from Zekk, his hands half raised. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I know,” Jaina said. “You’d better go.”

He turned and was gone. Jaina knelt beside Zekk, put her hand on an unburned portion of his neck. He still felt strong.

“This operation’s a bust,” she said, “and from the looks of things, the guards down by the gates are massing for a run at us. Let’s deprive them of the opportunity to get themselves killed. Thann, secure us some transportation.”

“Done.” The Falleen pulled something from a belt pouch. It was an identicard in the same basic gold tone as CorSec investigators carried, though it correctly identified him as a member of the Jedi order. He stood and walked toward oncoming traffic, one hand holding the identicard high and the other raised to encourage someone to stop.

And as he walked his skin rippled in color from its near orange to a deeper, huskier red.

Jaina’s pulse quickened, and not just from an intellectual recognition of what Thann was doing. The Falleen had tremendous control over emission of pheromones, chemical cues that dictated many types of emotional response, chiefly affecting members of the opposite sex. Thann was using both the Force and his pheromonal powers to attract, confuse, and overwhelm someone in the oncoming traffic lane, probably also using the Force to make his identicard look like something of local significance…

In her peripheral vision, Jaina saw Kolir sway. The Bothan Jedi reached out and Jaina caught her hand, steadying her. “He shouldn’t do that while I’m injured,” Kolir said.

A red groundspeeder, its driver a dark-haired human female wearing red-tinted racing goggles, pulled up beside Thann. Her features, angular and distinct, relaxed into a blank lack of expression. “Is there a problem, Officer?” she asked.

Thann’s voice was as smooth as that of an actor in a holodrama. “Two of my fellow officers are hurt,” he said. “We need to get them to medical care and to chase some bad guys. Can we borrow your speeder?”

“You can borrow my speeder,” she said.

Thann waved Jaina and Kolir forward. “You’d better hop out,” he told the driver. “This is going to be dangerous.”

“I’ll hop out.” The driver exited the speeder on the sidewalk side. “And don’t tell anyone who you are or the details of your speeder. They’re all spies trying to catch us,” Thann said.

“I won’t tell anyone.”

Jaina exerted herself and Zekk floated up a meter into the air. In moments she had him laid out faceup in the backseat, his head in her lap, while Thann and Kolir took the front.

Thann blew a kiss to the dazed driver, then set the speeder into motion, fearlessly merging with traffic. “Control acknowledged my transmission,” he said. “But Team Tauntaun didn’t. I suspect they ran into a trap.”

“Right.” Jaina rapped her knuckles against the speeder’s side. Nothing had gone right, and now the three Jedi of Team Tauntaun — Tahiti Veila, Doran Tainer, and Tiu Zax-were incommunicado.

“You shouldn’t do that, you know,” Kolir said.

Thann spared her a glance. “Do what?”

“Use Jedi mind tricksh and pheromonesh at the shame time. Not fair.”

Thann shrugged. “I should perhaps use the mind tricks alone and maybe fail?”

“Well, no.”

Thann changed the subject. “How’s Zekk?”

Zekk said, “Ow.” His eyes opened.

“Better,” Jaina said.





Chapter Eleven


ABOVE CORELL1A


LIKE’S HARDPOINT SQUADRON MADE A HIGH ORBITAL CROSSING over to Corellia’s day side and then a fast descent into the atmosphere. The squad’s speed was hampered by its having to shepherd the shuttle Chandrila Skies, an Uulshos space-capable light assault vehicle. Not much longer than an X-wing, the LAV had a horizontal chisel-shaped bow and was much broader across the fuselage than a starfighter, giving it enough interior room to carry a dozen or so passengers… making it a good choice for the extraction of the teams of Jedi now operating down in Coronet.