Enemy Lines II_ Rebel Stand - Aaron Allston [94]
“What’s beyond that wall, farmboy?”
Luke shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t know this area was here. I’m not sure there were any visible accesses into it before. Hey, we have Yuuzhan Vong coming.”
Despite the danger that her extra weight might present, Mara leaned in over her husband’s shoulder to look. Yuuzhan Vong warriors were scrambling over the rubble and rushing toward the construction droid.
Coruscant survivors rushed out of the construction droid’s base to meet them. Unarmed, ill-fed, they still had a tremendous edge in numbers over the warriors, and Luke saw several of the Yuuzhan Vong go down under struggling masses of bodies. The stronger survivors picked up chunks of stone and brained the troops.
More Yuuzhan Vong entered. More survivors swarmed in, now coming from surrounding areas of rubble instead of just from the droid’s base.
Luke looked back at the others. “He’s near. He’s calling to them. Calling for help.”
Face pulled his helmet off, touched his forehead. He looked troubled. “I know. I can feel him. In my head. I want to go down there.” He looked up into their worried expressions, offered them a wan smile. “Well, mostly I don’t. But I can feel the draw.”
“You’re strong,” Tahiri said. “Well fed. You have hope still. He’d have to exert himself more to control you. But I suspect he can. I’m not sure he can’t control us.”
“Kell to Face.” The voice, small and tinny, floated up from Face’s helmet.
The Wraith leader pulled his helmet up beside his features. “Face here.”
“I’ve found the source of the locator signal. We’re in luck. It’s a spaceworthy transport. It’s our passage back to Borleias.”
“What kind of condition is it in?”
“It’s ready to go. Oh, it’s blocked in by several tons of rubble.”
“Can you handle that?”
“What’s my bag full of?”
“That’s what I thought.”
Luke looked again at the battle raging below, a battle where his only opponent of consequence was the creature they called Lord Nyax. “Face, our mission is over. I want you to round up the others, get to that transport, and prepare to leave Coruscant.”
Face grinned at him as though he were waiting for a punch line. “And what about you silly Jedi types?”
“We’re going down there.” Luke closed his eyes, just for a moment, as the weight of that decision pressed upon him. He was about to lead his wife and a teenager into a situation he wasn’t sure he could handle, a situation that was likely to get them all killed. He looked at Face again. “If we die here, the other Jedi need to know about Lord Nyax. You’re going to tell them.”
Face thought about it, his smile disappearing. “I normally try to argue against suicide missions.”
“But you know what Lord Nyax can do.”
“Yes. So all I can do is wish you luck.”
Face left.
Luke took a couple of deep breaths, turned to the others. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Tahiri said.
Mara just nodded.
Luke ignited his lightsaber and sliced into the gap he’d been peering through, widening it.
Lord Nyax watched as his workers swarmed toward the warriors he could not sense. He did not like the fact that he could not feel them, but he did enjoy seeing his workers kill them—though it was usually at a cost of twenty or thirty workers per warrior.
But he was summoning more workers from all around. No matter how well they hid in the ruined undercity, his call reached them and forced many, most, to climb free of their hiding holes, to stumble and then walk and then race toward the scene of this conflict.
And he could feel the wall weakening. Soon it would give way completely. The woman who had told him of this wonderful machine—he thought she was up at its summit, making it move—had been right.
Then he sensed something and looked up. A bar of energy flashed, and