[Legacy Of The Force] - 07(71)
There was something on his sensors, something big but indistinct, on the far side of the widest part of this cavern. Jag rotated and pointed in that direction, alerting the others.
It rushed toward them, streaming through the air, growing more distinct as it came. A flock of mynocks…
ABOARD THE MILLENNIUM FALCON
A thump against the Falcon’s cockpit viewport prompted Leia to turn forward again.
There was someething outside the viewport, resting against it, a gray, fleshy mass with an enormous gaping mouth full of sharp teeth. Han stared back at the thing, unruffled. “Mynocks, sweetheart. Give me a minute, I’ll burn ‘em off.” He began typing in the commands Leia knew would send electric currents through the Falcon’s outer hull.
“Wait!” Leia reached out through the Force toward the mynock. As she did so, it looked away from Han, straight at her. In the Force, it was her husband.
Leia gulped. “Burn that and you burn yourself. That mynock is a Force phantom. And it’s you.”
Han looked outraged. “A mynock? Kill me, sure, but does she have to insult me?”
“Han …”
“Hang on, Princess. If I can’t burn it off, I’ll shake it off.” As Leia grabbed for the back of her chair, Han hit the thrusters. The sudden acceleration nearly took Leia off her feet-then ended abruptly as Han hit the retros, slamming Leia forward into the back of her chair.
The mynock hurtled forward as if catapulted from the Falcon’s cockpit. A few dozen meters away it spread its leather arm-wings and banked as if flying in atmosphere, wheeling around back toward them.
ABOARD THE POISON MOON
“The Falcon is maneuvering.”
Dician gave Ithila a nod and returned her attention to the forward monitor. It showed the Corellian freighter whirling in place, then accelerating away from the asteroid-and then, just as abruptly, vectoring to starboard.
Dician cocked her head. It looked as though the Falcon were engaged in a dogfight. But no opponent appeared on the sensor board.
This was the second inexplicable event in just a few moments. Less than a minute earlier, Dician had felt something brush against her in the Force. That presence had moved on, seeming to settle elsewhere on the Poison Moon-settling everywhere at once, as far as she could tell, but not doing anything. And now this.
Wayniss seemed unperturbed. “Orders, Captain?”
They were now mostly shielded behind the last large asteroid positioned between them and the habitat. It wasn’t all that large; if the Millennium Falcon’s curious acrobatics took her farther and farther in random directions, she would inevitably detect the frigate.
“Wait until the Falcon is oriented away from us on one of her maneuvers. Then begin your run. The instant I determine that the Falcon has detected us, I’ll issue the command Go. This means all weapons open fire on the Falcon, all shuttles launch. Instantly.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“What are we?”
“Perfect, Captain.”
“That’s right.”
The stream of mynocks, twenty at least, flew straight at Jaina and her companions. She reached out in the Force to find them-and felt incongruously complex presences instead.
One of them, the lead mynock, was unmistakably Jag-or at least bore his unique signature in the Force. The rest were unfamiliar to her, but definitely more complex, more alive in the Force than mynocks. “They’re all phantoms. One of them is you, Jag.”
She got a grunt of confirmation.
The lead mynock flew straight at Jag. He hit his thruster and twisted aside. The digits at the end of its right wing-arm, grasping at him, missed him by a meter. Its lashing tail missed him by centimeters. Jag maintained his lateral thruster burn, carrying him away from the mynocks and the Jedi.
Most of the mynocks followed him. Four veered toward the Jedi, a fly-by attack made with lashing tails. Jaina and Zekk got their hands on the metal track and had no difficulty twisting out of harm’s way as the mynocks attacked and passed.
Jag s voice was calm, unrattled. “Keep going. I’ll lead these away. We’ll divide Alema’s concentration, see if we can overload her.”
“Be careful.” With an exertion in the Force, Jaina pushed herself downward, causing her to slide much faster down the track. Zekk followed. The last four mynocks didn’t-they wheeled for a moment, then took off after Jag.
The light from their glow rods showed the track passing through a hole in the cavern floor, leading into another, deeper chamber.
ABOARD THE MILLENNIUM FALCON
Han spun the Falcon, a barrel roll that would have made it next to impossible for a real mynock to reattach itself to her hull. But he lost sight of the creature by eye and by sensor and wondered if it had managed to clamp onto the hull despite his maneuvers.