“Level One, Colonel?”
“Affirmative.” Jacen reached the lift tube and stepped inside, not bothering to acknowledge the crisp salutes from the two GAG sentries stationed there. “Now!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the officer replied. “We can’t lock down while we’re at battle stations. The crew needs to move freely.”
“Then go to Level Two!” Jacen ordered.
He would have canceled battle stations, except the order would have to go through Commander Twizzl, who would demand a confirmation and an explanation Jacen had no time to provide. The assassin-assuming Sing was the danger he had been sensing-had chosen her moment well, when the priorities of a Star Destroyer ready to enter battle took precedence over the safety of even her most important passenger.
Alarm horns began to beep over the Anakin’s intercom, indicating that the Level Two security protocols Jacen had ordered were now in effect. Armed guards would be posted at every lift tube and bulkhead hatch with orders to detain anyone lacking proper identification; anyone who resisted would be blasted. Jacen did not think those precautions would make the slightest difference to Aurra Sing.
When he arrived at the Commander’s Deck, he found the lift sentries lying on the floor with smoke rising from their blaster-scorched faces. A dozen paces down the corridor, two more guards were down outside the Sow Stateroom-the quarters assigned to visiting dignitaries-and there was smoke pouring from the cabin. He un-clipped his lightsaber and rushed forward.
Jacen’s mind was whirling with dark fears and black furies. For the first time since his imprisonment by the Yuuzhan Vong, he truly wanted to hurt someone, to make them pay in agony and anguish for their vile actions. And if Allana were to die, he did not see where he would find the strength to carry on with his mission. Who would want to save a galaxy that could abide the murder of his own innocent daughter?
As Jacen approached the Sow Stateroom, one of the guards began to moan for help. The fellow’s torso had been cleaved at an upward angle by something hot and long, and his fading Force presence suggested he would die if he did not receive help soon. An abandoned lock slicer hung on the keypad above his head, and a still-crackling arc had been cut through the double doors.
Leaving the stateroom uninspected and the guard to die where he lay, Jacen continued down the long corridor. The low hum of a lightsaber cutting metal was droning around the corner ahead, where the entrance to his own stateroom was located. He extended his Force-awareness into his own quarters and was relieved to feel the presence of his daughter somewhere near the back of the cabin, approximately where the refresher was located. She seemed curious and not at all frightened.
Suddenly Allana responded to Jacen’s contact, filling the Force with surprise and delight. She seemed to recognize his touch and be happy about it, and that rilled him with pride and joy and an even greater determination to catch Sing before she found his daughter.
But their contact was shattered by the intrusion of a cold presence, gleefully pouring its murderous intent into the Force. Aliana reeled back in shock and vanished, leaving Jacen alone with the assassin’s presence. Then the humming of the lightsaber suddenly assumed a higher pitch, and a loud clang sounded as a freshly cut panel of security door fell to the floor.
In the next instant a brilliant orange flash lit the corridor ahead, accompanied by the crashing whumpff of a concussion grenade-launched, no doubt, by Allana’s Defender Droid, DeDe. Jacen paused a moment to be sure there would not be another grenade, then rounded the corner when he began to hear the shrieking of DeDe’s blaster cannon.
The corridor ahead was so filled with smoke and blasterfire that it looked like the inside of a thunderstorm. Sing was a pale ghost in a red bodysuit, battling through the hole she had cut in Jacen’s door, surrounding herself in crimson snakes of light as she used her lightsaber to bat aside DeDe’s attacks.
Jacen drew his sidearm and fired on the run, hoping to blast the assassin in the back while she was too overwhelmed to defend herself. Sing dropped into a forward roll and vanished through the door. An instant later her lightsaber whined half a dozen times, and DeDe’s blaster cannon fell silent.
Aurra Sing was alone in Jacen’s stateroom-and with her Force abilities, it would take her only a second to find his daughter. He stopped a few paces from the door and reached out to the assassin in the Force.
Wait.
Jacen spoke the word with his mind instead of his mouth. At the same time, he was expanding his Force presence into Sing’s mind, opening himself fully to the Force and using its power to push himself deeper into her mind, to crush her own presence and force it deep down into the bottom of her being.