Then there was. … intrusion. More presences. Kyp and Corran were suddenly farther away, reducing the number of inbound attacks.
Caedus hazarded a glance at his sensor board. It showed a changed battlefield.
He was now far away from the Alliance formation. In fact, it no longer was an Alliance formation. The Alliance and Corellian capital ships had merged into a single formation, one in which the antiquated Corellian vessels were taking a horrible beating but fighting on. Most of the engagement’s starfighters were away from that zone, the Corellians leading the Alliance away in the distance.
Closer, there were Alliance-marked starfighters in Jacen’s vicnity, trading fire with the StealthXs, tracking them by their laser emissions.
As Caedus watched, the StealthXs ceased laserfire. Now they would rely solely on shadow bombs, launched with use of the Force and therefore undetectable by ordinary sensors.
Not Luke. He stayed on Caedus’s tail, still pouring laserfire at the Blur, as did Luke’s wingmates. But a trio of Alliance starfighters-two XJ7 X-wings and one of those ungainly round-nosed Aleph starfighters-now harrassed Caedus’s pursuers.
Some distance away, a red blip representing an enemy the size of a small transport was inbound. Its transceiver signal showed it to be the Love Commander. Beyond that, the Anakin Solo was also inbound.
Caedus nodded. He returned his attention to his flying. A moment’s distraction now would kill him, but the end of this engagement was in sight. The Anakin Solo would arrive, its turbolasers and ion cannons would chase the Jedi away, and he could return to safety.
Luke stayed on Jacen’s tail, but the situation was worsening. Sanola Ti had dropped back to engage the enemy X-wings and Aleph, but if their pilots were good, she couldn’t hold them. And without the other two Masters to help herd him, Jacen would be able to turn back to the Anakin Solo. Luke had to finish this fight now.
He opened himself further to the Force, hoping that it would give him insight not just into where Jacen was but also where he intended to be in the next second. Jacen was not concealing himself in the Force now. He was … he was… .
He was with a little girl.
Luke started. He took his thumb off the laser trigger and probed again.
There was, in fact, a little girl in the cockpit with Jacen. Her presence had been washed out by the hatred Jacen was pouring into the Force, but now Jacen was calming, and the little girl’s distress made her a brighter presence.
Luke’s StealthX shook. A quad laser blast from the pursuing Aleph had grazed him during his moment of surprise.
Kill Jacen. … kill an innocent.
Luke veered away from his target and sent a nonverbal command for the other Jedi to form up on him. He felt their surprise and distress, but he made his intent stronger, insistent.
The StealthXs veered away, toward empty space.
The starfighters they had been dueling continued to chase them, but gave up after perhaps half a minute. They returned to surround Jacen’s TIE prototype, acting as his escort.
Caedus sagged as he gave way to exhaustion. He kept one hand on his control yoke, guiding the Blur back toward the Anakin Solo, and used the other to hold Allana to him. She looked up at him, red-eyed, her tears unabated, hiccuping in her distress.
“Colonel Solo to starfighter escort. Who’s piloting the Twee?”
A woman’s voice came back immediately. “Dancer One, sir.”
“I mean your name.”
“Yes, sir. Lieutenant Syal Antilles, sir. Off Blue Diver.”
Caedus grimaced. He’d been helped by the oldest daughter of an enemy, yet another traitor to the Alliance.
Still, he had always promised to reward loyalty and merit, and moments ago he had decided to do just that for the Aleph pilot. “It’s Captain Antilles now.”
“Uh.” It wasn’t so much a word as an exhalation. Caedus couldn’t tell whether she sounded more pleased or pained. Through the Force, she felt only shocked, though the other presence in the cockpit with her, doubtless her gunner, felt elated. Syal’s voice was cool, professional: “Thank you, sir.”
“And be advised that the StealthX pilot you chased off was a pretty good pilot himself. Antilles, you just sent Luke Skywalker into retreat.”
Ahead of him, space far in the distance behind the Anakin Solo, back in the vicinity of the capital ships, was suddenly transfixed by a column of light, kilometers wide, that twisted and writhed like something alive.
Space curled and wrenched, as though a vengeful child were playing with the controls of a monitor, stretching and distorting everything in the middle third of the screen. Caedus saw ships, silhouetted within the beam, elongate as though they were being drawn into wire. Turbolaser fire curved impossibly; one blast bent back on itself, slamming into the shields of the cruiser that had fired it. Ships contracted to tiny dots and disappeared entirely.