THIRTY-THREE

The sky had been dark for hours beneath clouds of dartships, roaring into the Taat nest to refuel and refresh life-support systems, roaring back out to await the arrival of the Chiss assault fleet. Jaina had given up trying to estimate how many craft the Colony had assembled for the ambush, but the number had to be over a hundred thousand. The Taat hangars alone were servicing six swarms an hour, and there were three other nests in the Qoribu system.

It makes us proud, Zekk said through the Taat mind. No other species could mount such an operation.

The Chiss will be surprised, Jaina agreed. Somewhere deep in her mind, she knew that this was a bad thing, that it would make her mission as a Jedi more difficult—but it did not feel that way to Taat. To Taat, it felt like their nests were finally going to be saved. They will pay a terrible price.

Good, Zekk said.

Good, Jaina agreed.

The roar of arriving dartships faded to a mere rumble, and the kilometer-long oval of a top-of-the-line Gallofree medium freighter descended out of the rocket smoke. The well-maintained hull was finished in the scarlet-and-gold flames of the Bornaryn Trading Company, with an escort of corporate E-wings providing security.

Jaina wondered what the vessel was doing so far from home, but Taat did not know. Unu wished the nest to welcome Roaming Ronto, and so Taat welcomed Roaming Ronto. Taat had heard, though, that similar vessels had landed on Ruu and Zvbo carrying a big surprise for the Chiss.

As the Ronto neared the nest, it adjusted course, heading out over the plateau toward the freight yard, where a swarm of Taat workers were already assembling to unload it. Jaina thought briefly about going to see the cargo, but Unu did not want that. Unu wanted her to enjoy the beauty of the nest from the veranda of the Jedi barracks.

That freighter should alarm us, Jaina said to Zekk. It can only make war more likely.

It’s too late to stop the war, Zekk replied. But we should try.

Jaina started to rise, then suddenly felt too tired and dropped back onto her seat. Maybe later.

“Yeah,” Zekk said aloud. We’d rather sit here.

There was something wrong with that, Jaina knew. Jedi were supposed to be dauntless, resourceful, resolute. They were supposed to accomplish the impossible, to keep trying no matter how difficult the mission.

They were supposed to have indomitable spirits.

Jaina felt a stirring deep down inside, in the place that had always belonged to her brother Jacen, and she knew he was with her, urging her to fight back, to throw off her lethargy, to break the Colony’s hold on her and reach for that part of her that was just Jaina.

Jaina stood.

Where are you going? Zekk asked. It doesn’t feel like you need the refresher.

“Get out of our—my—mind,” Jaina said.

Jacen was urging her to remember how Welk and Lomi Plo had tricked the strike team on Baanu Rass, how they had stolen the Flier and abandoned Anakin to die. And now Jaina was allowing them to control her mind.

Jaina did not understand how that could be. The entire Colony knew that Raynar Thul was the only survivor of the Crash.

But Jacen seemed so sure. A black fury rose in Jaina’s mind, the same black fury to which she had succumbed when she went to recover Anakin’s body, and finally she felt able to act.

She wanted to find Welk and kill him. She wanted to find Lomi Plo and make her wish for death.

But first, there was duty. To let anger distract her was to let the Dark Jedi win. First, Jaina had to stop the war—then she could kill Lomi and Welk.

Jaina turned toward the hangar.

“Where are you going?” Zekk whined from his bench. “We can’t do anything. It’s too late.”

Jaina opened herself to their meld, then reached out to him and let her anger pour from her heart into his.

I won’t surrender to them. I’m going to stop this war.

Zekk’s eyes widened, then turned a bright, angry green. He slammed his palms down and pushed himself to his feet.

“I’m with you,” he said, catching up. “How are we going to do this?”

“Tell you later,” Jaina said. She did not yet have a plan—and she had no intention of developing one until after they were away from the Taat nest. “For now, let’s just concentrate on getting to our StealthXs.”

They stepped into the sweet dampness of the wax-lined access tunnel and started down toward the hangar. As they progressed, Taat began to fill Jaina’s mind with doubts about her intentions, to make her wonder if she would really be stopping the war—or merely sparing the Chiss a much-deserved defeat.

Jaina thought of Anakin, and her doubts vanished in the black fire of her anger.

Taat workers began to pour into the tunnel, all scurrying up a passage that led only to the Jedi barracks. Jaina and Zekk threatened them with word and thought, but the Killiks continued to clamber past, slowing the pair’s progress to a crawl.

Zekk took the lead and began to muscle forward, using the Force to shove aside the Killiks ahead of him. More Taat poured into the tunnel, convinced they had some urgent errand in the Jedi barracks. Zekk continued to push ahead. Jaina added her Force powers to his, and the entire stream of insects began to slide backward down the tunnel.

The Killiks dispersed, and a strange resistance began to rise inside the two Jedi, a cold hand pushing at them inside their own bellies. Their limbs grew heavier, their breathing became labored, their pulses pounded in their ears. They leaned against the cold hand, and still it grew harder to move. Soon, their legs were too heavy to lift, their lungs were ready to burst, their drumming hearts drowned out their own thoughts. They came to a stop, hanging parallel to the floor, and the harder they tried to move forward, the more impossible it became.

They hung there for several minutes, testing their wills against that of the Colony, and only grew more tired. Jaina thought of how Lomi and Welk had betrayed Anakin, and she grew more determined than ever to avenge him—and less able to move.

Jaina began to despair. Her anger was no match for the Will of the Colony. She had to find another way.

The seed of a new plan came to Jaina, a plan that relied not on anger, but on love instead.

Jaina did not nurture that seed. Instead, she buried it deep down in her mind, in that part that was still I instead of we.

Keep trying, she urged Zekk. Don’t stop, no matter what.

Never! he assured her.

Good.

Jaina let the pressure push her away from the hangar, back up the passage.

“Hey!” Zekk’s voice was strained. “Where are you going?”

“The barracks,” Jaina said. “I’m giving up.”

“What!”

“I’m not as strong as you.” It irked Jaina to say this, but it was the one way to be sure Zekk would continue to struggle. “I’ll see you later.”

As Jaina retreated up the passage, the pressure gradually diminished. Finally, she was able to simply walk back to the barracks. She could sense Zekk down near the hangar, feeling puzzled and angry and a little bit abandoned, but he remained determined not to quit, to show Jaina he was as strong as she believed.

Once Jaina reached the barracks veranda, she returned to her bench and began to contemplate the beauty of the Killik mind. Every member of a nest worked flawlessly with all the others, executing unbelievably complex tasks—such as refueling and restocking several thousand rocket ships an hour—in near-perfect harmony. There were seldom any of the accidents or shortages or confusion so common to any military operation—and there were never arguments or disagreements or territorial spats.

Would it truly be so bad if there was a war, and the Colony won? For once, there would be true galactic peace—no vying for resources, no clashes of interest, no territorial conquests, just all the peoples of the galaxy working together for the common good. Was that so wrong?

Jaina supposed that the fact that she did not see anything wrong with that meant she had become a true Joiner. She was only worried that the Colony could never win a war against the Chiss.

The Colony would have help, Taat assured her. An image came through the nest mind of the Ronto being unloaded. A dozen long streams of Killiks were pouring in and out of its cargo bays, working together to off-load the huge, telescoping barrels of at least a dozen turbolaser batteries.

The Chiss were going to be very surprised when they attacked. Maybe the Killiks could win this war after all.

Jaina decided to wait there on the veranda until Unu called for her. Sooner or later, there would be a mission that only a Jedi in a StealthX could do, and Jaina would be ready.

Then, when her mind finally went quiet and she knew that Taat and Unu were no longer paying her any attention, she pictured the handsome, square, scarred face of Jagged Fel. She held the image in her mind and performed a series of breathing exercises, focusing on the feelings they had shared while they were fighting the Yuuzhan Vong together—and during those few times they had managed to rendezvous after the war—then turned roughly toward where the Chiss staging area would be, somewhere outside the orbit of Qoribu.

While Jag was not Force-sensitive, Jaina had touched him through the Force many times while they were together, and she felt sure he would recognize the sensation of her presence brushing his. But he wouldn’t trust her. He would think she was just another Joiner trying to lure him into a mistake. So she would have to convince him that he was discovering the ambush on his own—and she would have to do it before Taat realized what she was doing.

Jaina reached out to Jag in the Force and found his presence—distant and dim—somewhere ahead on Qoribu’s orbital path, exactly where he would be if he was guarding the staging area for a Chiss assault fleet.

Come get me, lover boy, Jaina sent. Jag would not understand the words, of course, but he would recognize the sentiment. She had used the same taunt many times when they sparred. If you can.

Jaina felt Jag start in surprise, then she caught a flash of anger as he recognized her touch. This wasn’t a game! This was war, and…

His irritation suddenly changed to concern as it dawned on him why she had picked that particular day to reach out to him. Jaina sensed a rising tide of alarm, then lost contact as Jag drew in on himself.