But where Alema was genuinely striking at Leia’s neck, waist, and limbs, Leia looked like a stage performer-her blows designed to connect with her opponent’s blade and nothing else. Even Jag, no swordsman, could see Leia pass up an opportunity to cut the Twi’lek down.
Jag cycled through the helmet’s suite of sensors, looking at Alema for a few seconds with each. Primary sensors showed everyone present as a fuzzy image-flesh did not reflect sensor pings as well as hard surfaces-but Alema was even fuzzier than the others. Under infrared, where Leia was varied shades of green, clothing and different areas of the body showing up as slightly different intensities, Alema was a homogeneous color, the same exact hue from head to foot-except for her lightsaber blade, which radiated far more brightly.
Experimentally, he launched a sonar ping. Registering higher than the range of hearing of most species, it was not audible, but it returned an image about as crude as that of his radar set. And Alema was nowhere on that image.
Jag smiled.
As she danced before Leia, alternately advancing and retreating, Alema failed to guard her back from possible assaults by Zekk. The tall Jedi stood inert, as though he were not tempted. When Alema’s retreat theatened to run her into him, Zekk merely stepped aside, giving the two women room to maneuver.
“How gallant.” There was contempt in Alema’s words as she left off hammering at Leia to glare at Zekk. “Well, we will simply have to kill you one at a time instead of all together.” She looked among them. “Unless Han Solo wishes to come out and save you trouble by dying nobly, of course. Who will be first?”
None of them moved-none but Jag, who gestured toward the stern. “Air lock’s that way.”
“Fight us!”
Leia shook her head. “I’m sorry, Alema. We’re just not that bored.”
Alema gaped at her, then realization dawned. “You know. Who told you?”
Jag shrugged. “Lumiya, of course. She hated you, you know.” He tried to make the lie sound casual, offhand.
“Liar!” Alema sprang at him, her anger and speed catching Jag flat-footed.
But Leia was there first, interposing her blade, catching Alema’s attack and blocking it, a dismissive expression on her face. “If you just want some more sword training, Alema, come back to the Order. Luke will whistle you up a youngling to practice against.”
Alema glared at Leia, her expression suggesting that an entire thesaurus of expletives was flashing through her mind.
Then she wavered. This was not the waver of a person who was tired. It looked instead as though Alema were painted onto a sail that had just caught the first gust of morning wind-she rippled at her waist, and the ripple spread in both directions to her head and her feet.
Then she was gone, as if she had never been there.
Jag took a deep breath. “Thanks, Leia.”
She deactivated her lightsaber. “You might think about learning to dodge. … did you get anything useful?”
He grinned. “Lots.”
The StealthXs of Red Sword Flight-Luke, Kyp, Corran, Tyria Tainer, the Rodian Twool, and Sanola Ti of Dathomir-dropped out of hyperspace and were confronted with the vista of the Galactic Alliance task force drawn up in tight formation, the Confederation task force approaching it in some sort of suicidal, spread-out array, and a furious screen of starfighter dogfights raging between them.
Luke frowned, considering. The engagement zone, not yet the sort of chaotic battlefield he was used to with capital ship engagements, was certainly not going to provide the Jedi with much cover for their run on the Anakin Solo.
Luke felt a distraction, something drawing his attention away from the engagement zone toward an empty area of space far to the port side of the GA capital ships. It took him a moment to recognize the source of the distraction-Twool, whose StealthX carried fewer armaments but better sensors than the other vehicles of Sword Flight.
Twool, whose job it was to detect Jacen Solo’s tracking device with those sensors.
Twool had to be tracking Jacen now, and Jacen had to be at the point toward which Twool had directed Luke’s attention.
Luke felt, and quickly attempted to quell, a sense of excitement, even celebration. If Jacen was out on some sort of joyride, perhaps observing the capital ship engagement from a safe distance, then the Jedi might be able to ignore several levels of Jacen’s defenses that they had prepared for. The cargo compartments of their StealthXs were loaded with equipment especially chosen and crafted for this mission-which originally entailed having the squadron creep up close to the Anakin Solo as it waited in space, then launching a salvo of engine-crippling proton torpedoes and having most of the Jedi divert retaliatory attacks and starfighters while Luke and Kyp, laden with equipment, secretly boarded and tried to reach Jacen.