Well, if she wasn’t, her hunters could take up residence and wait for her.
His X-wing comm board reported a signal-an automated query from a hangar facility, offering landing instructions. He ignored it.
He decelerated as he neared the habitat. In the dim light from the distant sun, it was revealed to be an unlovely mass of reinforced duracrete, its viewports dark, perhaps covered by durasteel meteorite shutters. He sent his X-wing into a shallow dive, activating repulsorlifts as he came within meters of the stony asteroid surface, and glided in underneath the habitat, between its support pillars.
A column of light emerged from the center of the habitat’s underside, illuminating a section of railed track. The track led down to the asteroid surface-and into it, through a broad gash in the stone.
Jag nodded. The light had to come from the chamber described in Ben Skywalker’s report, a room that housed the railcar access to the mines below. The hatch into the chamber was open, with the chamber’s air probably being contained by atmosphere shielding.
Not that the presence or lack of atmosphere mattered to him, not now.
He set his X-wing down almost directly beneath the chamber opening and powered down. Then, bypassing warning indicators and programming implemented to prevent accidents, he raised his canopy, venting his cockpit atmosphere into space. He pulled his crushgaunts from the webbing that kept them secure at his feet, donned them, then unstrapped and activated his low-grav thruster pack.
This would be a tricky maneuver. He had to fly up into the lit chamber, which was simple enough. … but if the habitat’s artificial gravity was active, and he calculated his angle and rate of travel wrong, he would immediately be dragged back through the hole again, or would hit the chamber ceiling and carom to an inglorious crash somewhere on the chamber floor.
As he reached the circular opening and emerged into light, he cut his thruster and drew his oversized blaster. His momentum carried him a couple of meters into the air.
… curved wall ahead of him, no targets visible…
He came down on his feet on solid flooring and spun, assessing possible threats, possible targets.
… track protruding nearly up to the high ceiling, a control stand, no railcar, doors, no Alema Rar…
Breathing hard, he took another turn around, confirming that there were no threats at hand.
Excellent. He was in. On the other hand, there had been no one there to see his flashy arrival.
He shrugged and holstered his blaster. He’d just have to do it again sometime when he had an audience.
Jaina and Zekk, their StealthXs side by side and mere meters apart, saw the hangar’s blast doors begin to slide open, revealing a large, lit chamber beyond-and Jag Pel standing at one door edge, waving them in.
Jaina goosed her thruster and glided forward, Zekk pacing her. As they approached, Jag waved downward, indicating a litter of items on the floor just inside the door. Jaina saw barrels, wires, electronic components.
Jag held up his hands together, then spread them, miming the effects of an explosion. Jaina nodded. So Alema had left them a trap, a bomb-what looked like an improvised bomb. If it was improvised, the odds were improved that Alema Rar was still here, or had only recently fled.
The Jedi set their vehicles down in the center of the hangar, slowly spinning them on repulsorlifts so they faced the doors, and came to a full landing.
Jag shut the outer doors and approached as they raised their canopies. His visor was up. “Two bombs so far.” He gestured toward the litter on the floor, and toward the edge of the door where it rested on its guiding rail. There Jaina saw more electronic components. “Simple ones, thrown together. But no Sith ship.”
Jaina rolled out of her cockpit and dropped to the floor. There was something malevolent about this hangar, something different from the energy that suffused this place-a different flavor. She searched for it in the Force and found it nearby, a loathing mixed with patience, anger mixed with servility.
Whatever its source was, it had recently rested against a nearby wall and had left only minutes before.
Disappointment weighed down on her. “She’s fled.” Zekk moved up to join them. He shook his head. “No, she hasn’t. Can’t you feel it?” With a pointing finger, he traced a path from the corner where that patient loathing had waited, out through the hangar doors, and then down-straight down, into the asteroid.
Now Jaina could feel it, could follow that trail. The vehicle, for it had to be Alema’s Sith craft, had been here until recently, then had been flown down through the rift in the asteroid surface. Alema and her craft waited far below.
Jag shrugged. “She knows we’re here. Scratch off the element of surprise. We’ll just have to show her some other surprises. Problem is, though the habitat is pressurized, and the caverns are, there’s about a fifteen-meter gap of hard vacuum between the two.”