Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi VIIII: Apocalypse by Troy Denning

Author:Troy Denning [Denning, Troy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: ABY 90
ISBN: 9780345519603
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2012-03-13T05:00:00+00:00

From where Jaina was kneeling in the center of the ventilation ducting, facing the side wall, she could see many things. She could see that the Keshiri woman, with her torso cut half apart and a blaster bolt exit wound where her left cheek used to be, was no ordinary Sith. She could see that Luke was driving the woman-thing straight into her. And at the far end of the run, she could see Corran Horn limping toward the edge of a giant exhaust port, mere meters from lobbing the team’s last thermal detonator into the shield generator. She could see that any second now, the Keshiri would have to turn and attempt to stop him, and Jaina could see that her chrono said it was two and a half minutes before midday, GST.

Two and a half minutes was a very long time for an emplacement gunner to adjust his aim. Too long. Jaina knew that as soon as the shield generator went down, the Sith gunnery commander would realize there was a fresh attack coming—and where. He would order all of his gunners to break off their battles with the blastboats and assault cars that had been trying to breach the Temple’s impregnable defenses for days now. He would order them to turn their attention to the exhaust port. And he would order them to fill the sky above the port with cannon bolts and missiles. Then, in two and a half minutes, the Void Jumpers would find themselves dropping into hell.

And that was why Jaina continued to ignore Luke’s order to stand and fight. Instead, she remained motionless, willing Corran to slow down, touching him through the Force and urging him to hang back. But she could feel his concern, his fear that if he delayed, he would be wasting Luke’s sacrifice by allowing the indestructible Keshiri woman to catch up. The instant the woman got past Jaina and had a clear lane to Corran, he would launch himself at the shield generator.

But Jaina also knew she could never last two and a half minutes against the Keshiri woman—not anymore. Her entire body felt like it was burning from the inside out, and she was not at all sure her muscles would obey even when the time came—as Luke kept ordering—to stand and fight. She thought she might last thirty seconds, maybe even a minute if the Force was with her. But two and a half minutes? In two and a half minutes she would be dead.

Jaina’s chrono advanced to two minutes before midday, and then a strange thing happened. The Keshiri woman wailed in pain. It was not merely the kind of scream that anyone might let out as a blaster bolt tore through a lung. This was something supernatural, a scream that seemed to echo through the Force and roll around inside Jaina’s head without ever actually passing through her ears.

The woman staggered, and when Luke blasted her again, she gathered herself to spring after Corran. Time up.

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