[Legacy Of The Force] - 07(98)

“Hey, Doctor.” The shout came from the cockpit, where, up until a moment before, the pilot had been singing something about a drunken Devaronian spacer and the females he loved in each port. “Which end, Talus or Tralus?”

“Weren’t you awake at the briefing? Tralus end!” Seyah stared, aghast, at what little he could see of the pilot’s back and neck through the cockpit door.

“Talus?”

“Tralus!”

“That’s the end toward Talus, right?”

Seyah took as deep a breath as he could, intending to blow out eardrums with the volume of his reply, and then he caught sight of Kyp Durron. The Jedi Master was grinning, shaking his head. “He’s messing with you, Doctor. Pilots do that.”

Seyah let out his breath with a whoosh, and glared. “I’ll shoot him after we dock.”



ABOARD THE ANAKIN SOLO

Caedus kept track of the battle on one monitor and of the progress of the Jedi on another. The battle was going well enough, even without his help.

Casualties were higher, of course, but they were mounting among the enemy as well, and reports had several shuttles’ worth of Guardsmen and commandos now boarding Centerpoint through captured air locks. … and meeting tough resistance from station defenders.

Luke, Ben, and Saba were occasionally visible on security holocams. They would appear at some hardpoint, spend a few moments to take out the defenders there, and cut their way through the next set of blast doors in turn.

Caedus hadn’t spotted his mother, though he had felt her presence, as he had felt Luke, searching in the Force. Luke had found him easily enough-Caedus wasn’t hiding. Leia’s presence, however, had brushed over him and gone on. Caedus wondered if she might be wounded, which would account both for the fact that she wasn’t keeping up with the others and that her ability to detect him seemed to be reduced.

On a new holocam view, a space-tight blast door began glowing. A lightsaber blade emerged through it and began cutting a slow circle into the hardened durasteel.

On the near side of the blast door, four YVH droids-the first the Jedi would encounter here-withdrew several paces and set up in a firing line.



CENTERPOINT STATION FIRE-CONTROL STATION

Sadras Koyan used a handkerchief to mop away sweat running down his cheeks. He addressed the head technician on duty-the bearded man who called himself Vibro, the arrogant nek who had once lectured him on station programming and thumbs in the eye. “Any response from Admiral Niathal?” Vibro looked back toward him and shook his head.

“How can I…” Koyan cut his words short before asking the technician a question the man could not answer. How can I compel Niathal to surrender if she won’t talk to me? He couldn’t just destroy an uninhabited world of the Coruscant system as a warning shot-Centerpoint’s main weapon might fail again, be inoperable for several days. When he fired, it would be on the world of Coruscant herself. But if he fired without first talking to Niathal, while he might win the war, the Alliance forces here wouldn’t know to give up, and they might take the station-and kill him-before they realized they were defeated. And then they wouldn’t be defeated.

As if reading his mind, Vibro grinned. “I think you should just do it, sir.”

“What?”

“Destroy Coruscant. Show them what this station is made of. We have reconnaissance ships in the Coruscant system, don’t we? They’ll get excellent recordings.” The man raised his arms, forming a circle, then mimed a big sphere suddenly collapsing to nothingness.

Koyan stared at him, aghast… . aghast at the notion of killing billions for the sake of seeing what it looked like, rather than for real political gain. “Get back to work.”

“Yes, sir.” The technician faced forward again, then stared down at his board. “Incoming message for you.”

“Niathal?”

“Teppler.”

“Put it on.”

Vibro adjusted controls. A hologram of Teppler appeared in front of Koyan. He looked worried.

Teppler glanced around. “Sir, you need to confine the audio on this.”

“Directional audio, right now!”

Vibro nodded, not looking back, then raised a hand, thumb up, to indicate it had been done.

Teppler’s next words had the faint, tinny quality of an audio stream that was being confined to the hearing of one listener. “Sir, we’ve been analyzing the enemy attack. We don’t think it’s just directed at capturing the station. Where are you now?”

“Fire control, of course.”

“We’re seeing a pattern of enemy movement through the station’s passageways. They’re ignoring routes that would allow them to sabotage or capture the station more efficiently. They’re headed straight for you.” Koyan felt a flutter in his chest. “For me?”