SW0224 Force 02 Force Unleashed 02 (v5) by Sean Williams

Author:Sean Williams [Williams, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

JUNO WAS HYPNOTIZED by the fiery blaze in the sky. Ever since it had broached the cloud cover, two things had become clear. It was a ship, a big ship, and it was going to hit the facility. The roar it made vied with thunder for loudest sound in the sky. Lightning scattered from the disturbed clouds in its wake.

Then the falling ship had split in two, with one half powering down at a steeper angle, and the other continuing onward. Only then had she realized that the second one was coming right for her.

“Was this part of your plan?” she asked Vader, who still stood, unmoving, beside her.

He didn’t respond. Neither did he make any move toward the ramp that might take him to safety. Maybe, she thought, he had other means of protecting himself, means that neither she nor the stormtroopers possessed. She could see that they were getting nervous, too. The fiery balls grew brighter and brighter until they were almost too painful to look at. She refused to avert her eyes.

The first came down hard and fast, striking a well-defended portion of the facility outside the dome immediately surrounding her. There was a bright flash of light. The boom followed later, along with a rising sensation that she assumed was the shock wave rolling through the flexible foundations of the ocean-bound facility. She could see the cloning towers swaying from side to side. A vast column of flash-boiled steam and wreckage rose up into the sky. Hot, damp air rushed outward in its wake.

Still the other fragment of the ship came toward her. Seconds remained before it hit—not long enough to think anything coherent, barely time even to observe what was happening. The stricken ship was glowing red, with the last shreds of plasma still clinging to it like flames. Its class was almost unrecognizable, but she made out stumps that might once have been a communications array on the upper port side. That made it a Nebulon-B frigate, one of many EF76s in the service of either the Empire or the Rebel Alliance. It could have been any one of them.

So why, then, did she feel a cold stab of certainty in her gut that this was none other than the Salvation?

Her own ship was going to kill her.

The irony wasn’t lost on her.

At the last instant she made out a tiny human figure standing on the upper hull. The flames and rushing wind swept past him, as though he were impervious to their touch. His arms were upraised in defiance and his head was tipped back so she couldn’t see his face. But she knew. Just as she knew that it was the Salvation, she knew it was him.

He would come for her in flames and smoke, wreaking destruction all around.

Despite the apparent certainty of her death, she smiled. Either he would save her—in which case there was nothing to worry about—or he wouldn’t, and she didn’t want to live anyway.

The ship was

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