Apocalypse (25 page)

Jysella opened a comlink channel to Master Skywalker. “No change.”

She wasn’t concerned about being overheard. She and Ben and Valin were hiding inside a closed room, more than a hundred meters from the nearest Sith. Jysella wasn’t sure where her father and Luke and Jaina were hiding, but she knew it would be where they, too, could not be overheard.

The comm channel itself was even more secure, encrypted using the Jedi’s own unbreakable logarithms. The strike team had been using their comlinks to coordinate with Admiral Bwua’tu and his staff. Once, during a rest break, Jysella and her brother had used the channel to let their mother, Mirax, know they had survived the disastrous ambush in the water treatment plant. Jaina Solo had even managed to link to the HoloNet so she could talk to Jagged Fel—
in the Imperial Remnant
.

Alone in here, they were not.

After a few seconds, Master Skywalker acknowledged, “Copy, no change. All clear?”

“You’re good to move,” Jysella confirmed. “May the Force be with you.”

“And with you, too,” Luke answered. “If something doesn’t feel right—”

“Don’t worry, Dad,” Ben said. He was standing next to Valin behind Jysella, watching the remote display over her shoulder. “No heroes here.”

The voice in Jysella’s earbud changed to that of her own father. “You three are already heroes, just
trying
this,” he said. “What we don’t need are dead heroes. Understood?”

“That goes double for you guys,” Jysella said. “Now can we
please
get this done? It’s been ages since I had a decent sanisteam.”

An awkward silence fell over the channel—mostly because no one really wanted to sign off. After nearly two days of nerve-racking evasion, heavy fighting, and rushed healing trances, the entire team was feeling a little punchy.

The silence continued until Jysella finally sighed. “
Joke
, okay?” She shook her head, then added, “See you in a few.”

“Yes,” Jaina replied from the other end. “See you in a few.”

The channel went silent again. Jysella slid a control glide down, and the blobby images of the Sith ambushers began to diminish as the spy droid retreated. The droid was barely the size of a flitnat, but she was careful to keep its speed down to avoid drawing attention to it. This was their last chance to make the Temple assault work, and if it failed, the best they could hope for would be to die fighting rather than have the Sith take them alive.

Still, Jysella would not have wanted to be anywhere else. When she and Valin had volunteered to enter the Temple with the first wave of Jedi, Master Skywalker himself had said that he would be proud to have the Horn siblings guarding his back—despite the Abeloth-induced psychosis that had caused them to betray him and Ben on Nam Chorios. And if Luke Skywalker could show that kind of loyalty to
them
, then Jysella could sure as the Void do the same for him.

After a few seconds, a trio of yellow ghost-shapes entered the thermal image and began to advance up the corridor. The two sentry-blobs guarding the computer core stepped to the front of the decontamination chamber, then vanished behind the white-hot brightness of ignited lightsabers.

Jysella reactivated her throat-mike. “Seven meters,” she said, estimating
the distance to the antipersonnel mines the spy droid had detected. “Stop there.”

All three figures—one small and female, the other two large and male—stopped. The taller male extended a hand, and Jysella barely managed to switch back to conventional imaging before a Force-generated pressure wave triggered the first mine. A cone of orange fire shot up to mushroom against the ceiling, then a second one erupted, and a third, and a fourth. The image on the display deteriorated into a wild blur as the shock waves sent the spy droid tumbling.

“Trap defanged,” Jysella commented. She glanced back at Ben. “Good plan. Let’s hope the rest works this well.”

“It wasn’t mine alone,” Ben said.

Ben’s original suggestion had called for him and Jysella to draw the ambushers off, but their fathers had believed the Sith would be more likely to fall for the ploy if they knew where both Masters and Jaina were.

“But it will work,” Ben said. “You can count on it.”

No sooner had he spoken than the muffled crack of Force lightning sounded from the computer core. Jysella used the thumb-ball to resume control of the spy droid, then reoriented it until they could see the Sith ambushers. All twenty appeared to be racing down the corridor behind a rolling storm of blasterfire and Force lightning. There was no sign of either Ben’s father or her own, but Jaina’s small form could be glimpsed up near the ceiling, Force-tumbling through the air as she batted colored bolts back into the pursuing mob.

Jysella rotated the spy droid back toward the computer core. On her display screen appeared a smoky, blast-pocked corridor showing stretches of exposed conduit and ductwork. Six bodies—all Sith—lay scattered along the passage. The heavy door that guarded the decontamination chamber stood sealed but unguarded, the control panel keypad casting a faint green glow into the battle haze.

“Too easy,” Jysella said. “Even your plans aren’t
that
good, Jedi Skywalker.”

“Another trap,” Ben agreed. “No sentries, and that’s a lot of bodies for three people to leave behind while running in the other direction.”

“That wasn’t just
anyone
running in the other direction,” Valin reminded him. “It was the Sword of the Jedi and two Council Masters.”

“All the same.” Ben reached over Jysella’s shoulder to tap the screen. “Run the droid past and see which ones are faking.”

Jysella elevated the droid’s auditory sensors to maximum and did as Ben suggested. They heard a lot of crackling and hissing from broken conduits and breached ductwork, but nothing that sounded remotely like a heartbeat—not even a weak one. She stopped the droid a few meters from the computer core.

“We’re just going to have to accept it,” Valin said. “Our dads are awesome in a fight.”

“Jaina, too,” Jysella added. “But let’s play it safe—I’ll scout ahead.”

Before Ben or her brother could object, Jysella hit the door control and stepped out into the corridor. Twenty seconds later, she entered the smoke-filled passage that led to the computer core. She paused at the intersection, then slowly extended her Force awareness toward the door and sensed nothing—not even a tenuous sign of life.

And that was when she heard the soft whir of droid wheels approaching behind her. Jysella glanced back and found Rowdy following a few meters behind. Whether the little droid had misinterpreted an instruction or slipped away from Ben and Valin on its own was impossible to say, but there was no question of sending him back. They didn’t have time, and even issuing the instruction would draw more attention to them than she cared for.

Motioning Rowdy to wait behind her, Jysella pulled her blaster pistol and advanced up the corridor to the first body. A Sith male with a blaster hole still smoking in his forehead, he was obviously no threat. She put two more bolts into the corpse, hoping to encourage anyone playing dead to reveal themselves
now
.

When no one moved, Jysella continued to the next corpse and found that this one, too, had a blaster hole in the center of his forehead. So did the next one, and the one after that, and the last of the six. She tried to tell herself it was only natural, that with the Sith wearing armor beneath their robes, the only place to hit them
was
the head. But no matter how she looked at it, that was amazing marksmanship for someone on the run.

Jysella was just a few steps from the computer core when a soft whir sounded behind her again. She spun, igniting her lightsaber and bringing it around less than a centimeter above Rowdy’s dome. The little droid gave an alarmed screech and rocked back on his treads—then suddenly extended his welding arm and started to roll forward again, shooting sparks in Jysella’s direction.

“Stop that!” Jysella pointed her lightsaber down the corridor toward the intersection. “Didn’t I order you to wait back there?”

Rowdy ignored her and rolled under the sizzling blade toward the computer core. He exchanged his welding arm for an interface arm and went to work slicing the lock.

Jysella took the chance to comm Ben. “Are you missing something?”

“Rowdy.” Ben sounded exasperated. “He went out the door about ten seconds after you did, then started to make too much noise when I tried to haul him back. In the end, Valin and I decided it was safer just to let him follow.”

“I guess it worked out,” Jysella said. “There was nothing in the corridor, and I would have needed him to slice the decontamination chamber lock anyway. I’ll let you know how it feels once I’m in the core.”

“Okay,” Ben replied. “We’re moving up for support now.”

Jysella closed the channel, and five seconds later she and Rowdy were standing inside a small chamber being air-blasted and coated with a dust fixative. Once the decontamination ended, the inner door opened, and Jysella found herself looking out into a huge, spherical chamber lined by flickers of blue current.

A semicircular service balcony extended about fifteen meters into the chamber, supporting several display banks and interface stations. Just beyond the balcony rail, constellations of holographic status indicators hung twinkling in red and green and yellow; in the distance, the soft blue glow of memory clouds floated between the crackling orbs of processing clusters.

Jysella’s heart began to hammer as she realized how close they were to achieving the mission. All they had to do was cross a dozen meters and plug Rowdy into a computer interface console. The droid clearly realized the same thing, for he emitted an excited chirp and rolled out onto the balcony floor.

“Not so fast, Shortstuff.” Jysella used the Force to draw him back into the decontamination chamber. “This feels too easy.”

The droid whistled in protest, but Jysella ignored him and began to expand her Force awareness into the room. There was a weak, anguished presence floating somewhere above her, near the entrance. But there was also a dark presence in the chamber, diffuse and powerful and everywhere, as though the computer core itself had become Sith.

Unable to use her comlink inside the mag-shielded confines of the computer core, Jysella reached out in the Force and found Ben and Valin close by, coming up the corridor toward the decontamination chamber. She filled her presence first with a sense of accomplishment—to let them know she had entered—then with uneasiness. She felt her brother’s presence respond almost at once, cautious and worried. Ben added patience, and she knew they wanted her to wait.

“No arguments there,” Jysella said aloud.

Still not leaving the chamber, she reached over Rowdy toward the control panel. He emitted a disappointed chirp and sank onto his treads. Then, as Jysella pressed the button to close the airtight door, the little droid emitted a taunting buzz and shot out onto the balcony.

“Rowdy!”

Jysella barely had time to dive through the opening before the door
snicked
shut behind her. She landed just outside the decontamination chamber and rolled to her feet in a fighting crouch, alert for the faintest prickle of danger sense. She felt only the anguished presence above and behind her, weak and barely alert, and beyond the balcony railing, the same miasma of dark energy she had detected before.

Rowdy continued forward. His goal seemed to be a trio of swiveling chairs that sat facing the primary interface console. On the back of the middle chair was a star-shaped scorch, surrounding a dark hole about where the heart of a seated human would be. Jysella pressed her back against the door of the decontamination chamber and again expanded her Force awareness. She still felt no hint of an impending attack.

When Rowdy reached the primary administration console and plugged into the droid socket with no hint of trouble, Jysella decided
she could risk looking away from him for a moment. She stepped away from the door and turned back toward the decontamination chamber.

A familiar figure was hanging a few meters away, suspended upside down and watching her from a pair of eyes that had been blackened by a severe beating. His face was bruised and swollen almost beyond recognition, and one of his shoulders was jutting out from the socket at an impossible angle. But there was no mistaking the conservative cut of his short brown hair or the reserved style of his gray business tabard.

“Chief Dorvan?”
Jysella gasped. She resisted the urge to rush to his aid, preferring instead to remain where she was until she had some idea of what had happened. “What happened?”

“She … she underestimated me,” Dorvan answered. A crease that might have been a smile crept across his swollen face. “Everyone does.”

“Who?” Jysella asked.

Dorvan’s gaze shifted toward the primary interface console, where Rowdy was still at work—and where the chair with the scorch hole was located.

“
She
did.”

“Who?” Jysella asked.

“Her.”
Dorvan looked as though he wanted to point, but it was impossible in his position. “Look.”

Jysella spent a moment debating the possibility of a trap, then finally decided that whatever had happened there was already over. Being careful to stay alert to Dorvan’s presence, she advanced until she came to the primary interface console, where Rowdy was blinking and beeping with the computer core.

She turned to inspect the administrators’ chairs. Two of the seats were empty, but the one in the center was occupied by a blue-skinned Jessar female. There was a blackened scorch hole in the center of her chest, another between her eyes, and yet a third in the side of her head.

Roki Kem
.

“Be … careful.” From this far away, Dorvan’s voice was so weak and filled with pain that it was barely audible. “She’s not dead.”

Jysella turned back to the man, whom she was beginning to think had lost his mind to Sith torture. “Did
you
kill Roki Kem?”

“I told you!” Dorvan snapped. “She’s not dead! And that’s
not
Chief Kem.”