Leia gripped the back of her chair in a ferocious Wookiee-hug and glared at him. “Remind me why I ever unstrap myself while I’m aboard this crate?”
“Because you’re still looking for thrills. That’s why you’re still with me. Where’s the mynock, sweetheart?”
Leia’s face cleared as she searched in the Force. Then her expression began to change to one of alarm. “Incoming fi…”
Han put the Falcon into another gymnastic tumble even as he saw Leia’s expression alter. Lances of light glared by outside as linked turbolasers fired on them.
“Where’d she come from?” On Han’s sensor board, closing fast, was a small capital ship-an Interceptor-class frigate, to judge from her elongated spar of a body, broadened chisel-shaped bow, and blocky stern. As Han watched, thruster flares lit from the flanks and top hull of the frigate, and shuttles of several different vehicle classes launched, angling away from the frigate-away from the Falcon, toward the asteroid.
Interceptors weren’t much by capital ship standards, but they carried more turbolasers than the Falcon, proton torpedoes instead of concussion missiles, heavier armor, heavier shields … The Falcon was outclassed. But Han was not going to leave, not with his daughter still prowling around the depths of the asteroid, away from her StealthX. “I don’t know!”
“Where’s the mynock?” Han felt a sudden chill. If the mynock phantom linked to him wandered into the path of the frigate’s turbolasers, the attack would kill him as dead as any other.
“I don’t know. Gone.” In a brief moment of straight-line travel, Leia got to the front of her chair and hopped into it, facing backward to forestall any sneak attack from that direction, and resumed her death grip on the seat back. “Oh. Now it’s back again.”
It was then that Alema Rar’s voice floated, sweet and mocking, from deep within the Falcon. “Han? Han Sooooloooo…”
The attack came as Jaina and Zekk shot down through the hole into the next cavern. It was not signaled by any disturbance in the Force. Inert lumps on the rim of the hole into the cavern suddenly erupted into movement, became bipedal figures swinging two-meter clubs…
Reflexively, Jaina lit her lightsaber and parried. Her blow severed the club, revealing it to be a length of durasteel rail three or four centimeters in diameter. Her attacker was a protocol droid-sky blue, of ancient design and manufacture. Jaina hurtled past it.
She heard a pained “Oof” and looked up to see Zekk meters above her, descending more slowly. His attacker’s rail was pinned under his left arm; his attacker, a scarlet protocol droid, still held the other end. They floated in Jaina’s wake, slowed by the fact that what had been Zekk’s downward kinetic energy was now divided between them. “Sorry.” Zekk twisted, and then he was a meter away from the track, his attacker right next to it. As Jaina watched, the protocol droid’s head began banging against every cross-tie on the track, causing the head to bounce back and forth. The additional impacts and friction slowed Zekk still more, causing him to drop farther behind. “Thought it might have been a Force phantom; didn’t attack it before it hit me.”
“Are you hurt?”
“A couple of ribs cracked, I think. Not too bad.” It sounded worse than that; Zekk’s breathing was labored.
The red droid’s head came off. The rest of its body went limp. Zekk gestured, and both it and the metal rail went flying off into the darkness.
Jaina returned her attention to her surroundings. Things weren’t too bad. Alema Rar had enjoyed plenty of time to work up surprises for unwanted visitors, and so far nothing had been too strange or difficult for her hunters.
The theory they’d developed concerning her Force phantoms and their limitations seemed to be proving true. On Kashyyyk and here, none had demonstrated an ability to project damage at range, as with a blaster-the phantoms seemed to be contained, confined to the limits of the bodies they simulated. Some could wield lightsabers, but that made a certain amount of sense, as the Jedi regarded their lightsabers as extensions of themselves. This might work. This attack might just work. Then Jaina felt a pulse of malevolence, followed by something approaching her-something too massive for her to deflect, moving too fast for her to dodge.
The stream of mynocks flitted by Jag, passing within meters, their angry eyes fixed on him. Several flicked their tails at him. Two swooped close enough to be real threats. He raised his left arm, caught a tail end across his crushgaunt. The blow did not scar the metal. With his right hand he missed the other tail. It lashed across his chest, cutting a razor-thin gash in his flight suit but doing no harm to the beskar breastplate beneath.