[Legacy Of The Force] - 08(94)

Do it.

The Anakin Solo loomed behind it.

“Don’t…” Luke could see what he was doing, all right.

“I’m past caring, “said Caedus, lying.

You’ll peel off rather than risk dipping that…. killing workers…. Caedus thought.

I’ll live with it.

The orange tunnel rushed up to meet him faster than he expected and he jerked the yoke back. Nothing snagged him; he didn’t feel it, anyway. He couldn’t look back. But he felt Luke’s moment of horror at a near hit, buying him seconds that he needed to shoot underneath the Star Destroyer and come back along its length toward one of the hangar decks.

“Anakin Solo, emergency landing, damaged StealthX One-One-open Five-Alpha Hangar…”

He could have sworn he snapped off the tip of a comm mast. He was holding the fighter steady as much by the Force as by its controls, and trying to slow it with the Force as well, because the braking burn wasn’t enough. He had to drop into that slot just right or he’d take the section out with him.

I could have activated the transponder, let them track me for the last few seconds, but I can’t pinpoint the Jedi…

Too late.

Caedus stopped thinking and felt. He was braking with everything he had. Coming out of the blackness of space, the hangar lights were sudden and blinding, and then he realized they were sparks. He was skidding across the hangar deck. The bulkhead filled his view; the arrester baffle caught him. He was flung against what felt like a permacrete wall. As the lights around dimmed and he couldn’t see through the canopy any longer, he had a foolish moment of thinking he was dying.

No, you’ve done that. Doesn’t feel like this.

It was the automatic flame-retardant foam coating the fighter. The airframe was completely still; he wasn’t lodged in a bulkhead. He inhaled sharply, cursed a broken rib, and set about trying to heal it, eyes closed, while he waited for the fire party to decide he wasn’t going to explode, and crack the canopy from the outside.

After a few moments, the light level increased. The foam was dispersing, and the canopy opened.

“Sir, I hope your insurance covers this…” Say the right thing. The Jacen Solo thing. Show them you’re not a madman.

“I swerved to avoid a Jedi, “Caedus said. “I didn’t get his number. Give me a hand, will you?”

They were expecting him to rage at them for some imagined shortcoming, he could tell. He felt their relief as he climbed out of the cockpit and slipped on the remains of the foam. When he looked back, the StealthX was a mess. He was quite upset by that.

“Quick coat of paint, sir, and you’ll never know she had a prang, “the crash crew chief said. “Med droid’s on the way.”

“At least I know who generated the phantom fleet, “Cae-dus said. This counter-rumor could zip around the fleet, too. Sane, humble, even humorous in adversity. “Next time I try to chase Luke Skywalker’s pranks, confiscate my pas— card, will you?”

They laughed; good old Colonel Solo, one of the team, not the one who killed junior officers at all. He controlled himself sufficiently to limp back to his day cabin via the bridge, where he found that the Jedi illusion story had preceded him, and closed the hatch before letting the pent-up rage escape like steam. He looked in the mirror; a few cuts, and the eyes of a stranger, yellow, but eyes he was getting used to.

He could channel anger now. He would save its focus and momentum to take out Fondor.



GA WARSHIP OCEAN, FLEET ASSEMBLY AREA, OFF FONDOR

Niathal listened to the chatter on the bridge, caf in hand.

“He said the Jedi created a Force illusion of a huge fleet, targeted solely at him, “one of the signals officers said.

“Oh, Jedi, of course…” The junior officer of the watch was glued to the sensor screen but still managed to roll his eyes in mock realization. “Don’t you just hate it when that happens?”

Niathal believed it, but she was still waiting to hear it from Jacen’s own lips. The absence of the Fondorian fleet was troubling her; the first wave of the Imperial Remnant had dropped out of hyperspace, and she was waiting for a comm from Pellaeon. She had made up her mind. She would seek a surrender, and if Fondor declined talks, she would disable the defenses on the orbitals to allow the ground troops to land and secure them, one at a time, and then move on to begin precision attacks on the planet’s fleet bases. There was no point creating a wasteland.

And if-when-the Fondorian fleet reappeared, they’d have to get past Pellaeon, too.

And then there was Jacen Solo. Luke would have to learn to shoot to kill, he really would. She wondered if she would have fired if she’d had a lock on Jacen; she imagined her fingers curled around the yoke of an X-wing, and her thumb depressing the button, and wasn’t sure that she would.