The blows sent him tumbling through the air in the mynocks’ wake. As much as he could, he bent toward the gash in his flight suit, clamping an arm across it, as though he were injured. If anyone was watching, he needed to conceal the presence of his armor as much as possible.
The mynocks wheeled in unison. His blaster hand twitched, every instinct telling him to draw and fire … but they flew past too quickly.
When they swept by again, he blocked three tail lashes before they were past-and then felt a jerk as a fourth tail, grappling rather than lashing, wrapped around his left ankle and towed him along in the mynock’s wake.
The flock dived, heading toward a narrow gap in the cavern floor far away from the rail track.
Jag gritted his teeth. He was doing his job. He was keeping these mynocks off Jaina and Zekk.
If only he didn’t hate this task quite so much.
At the lowest level of the cavern complex, Alema Rar sat on the chamber’s stone floor. A few meters ahead of her sat the railcar that provided access between this chamber, the habitat, and all caverns in between; it rested at the bottom of the track, angled upward. A few meters to her left was the entrance into Darth Vectivus’s private cavern, the one in which he had built his ridiculous mansion so long ago. The stone door that could seal the chamber was open. The artificial gravity in the chamber was active, and even here, outside its main area of effect, Alema could feel it, providing her with what seemed to be about half Coruscant’s gravity.
She was already panting, tired by the effort of maintaining so many phantoms at once. She didn’t think she could handle much more gravity than that-unless she drew continually on the power of this place, which would have other consequences. How had Lumiya accomplished what she had with the phantoms? With years of practice and tremendous will, Alema decided.
She felt a little better. It was time to return to the war-to begin finishing off her intruders.
Chapter 25
Descending in Jaina’s wake, Zekk felt the attack the instant Jaina did, felt its power and speed.
And its intent. It was aimed at Jaina. Reflexively, Zekk lashed out with the Force, pushing. Jaina shot downward as if fired from an ancient artillery piece.
Something flashed by a meter over her head, something silver, ft severed the tract there, leaving a clean break in the metal rails. A fraction of a second later it hit the far wall of the cavern with a dull flash of light and a resounding boom.
Zekk turned his attention toward the source of the attack. It was outside the range of his vision, but he could feel it now that it was on the offensive, no longer lying in wait. It had to be a hundred meters or more away, though exact distances were difficult to predict through the Force. It reeked of dark side energy and intent, a Force presence that was at once unliving but not inert. It had purpose. Zekk could almost see it, reading its self-image: a large ball, webbed wings projecting from it, a weapon spike protruding from the top, a landing spike from its bottom…
And hatred for him, for Jaina, in what served it as a heart.
Zekk read its movements and intentions as it acted. Its top spike was aimed toward Jaina. Now it canted upward, aiming at Zekk, and prepared to fire again…
Zekk grabbed the track with his free hand and pushed off, adding energy from the Force to his movement, and hurtled downward. A fraction of a second later, something flashed by over his head and sliced through the track there, then slammed into the far cavern wall. Cut above him and below him, several dozen meters’ worth of track floated free, twisting as it slowly began to accelerate downward.
Zekk grimaced. He was fighting a starfighter, or the equivalent of one, and all he had was his lightsaber. At least he could serve as a distraction, keeping this thing off Jaina.
As he reached the top of the remaining portion of track below, the spot where Jaina had almost been hit, he angled himself so that his feet came down on one of its cross-ties. He took the slight shock of impact easily. “Jaina, you go on. I can deal with this.”
“How?” Jaina’s tone was flat, disbelieving. She knew he was lying.
“Don’t distract me with questions. Just go.” By dying, probably. He hoped that stray thought did not reach Jaina, that it had not crossed the faint remnants of the link they had shared since they had been Joiners together, years before.
He felt Jaina’s anger at him, at Alema Rar. But he felt, too, her acceptance. She knew it was the right thing to do. Divide Alema’s concentration. Attack her on as many fronts as possible.
The thing out in the darkness, the Sith ship-for so it had to be-drifted laterally, under power, perhaps trying to determine whether Zekk could track it. Zekk continued staring in the direction he had been originally.