Enemy Lines II_ Rebel Stand - Aaron Allston [98]
The hole above Nyax’s head widened. No more rubble poured down upon him. Instead, sunlight did. First it was a tiny shaft; then it broadened into a blue-white column of brilliance. He bathed in the light, held out both hands to capture it, rubbed it into his cheeks.
Luke could feel Tahiri’s sense of shock; it matched his own. “Did he drive a hole all the way to the surface?” she asked.
“I think so,” Luke said. He turned his attention to the beings at the summit of the construction droid. He could
feel their confusion, too. Nyax, his objective accomplished, had released them. As their volition returned, their physical exertions, their outrage at the way they had been violated for so long, overwhelmed them. “I have to get up there,” Luke said. “Persuade them to drive that thing out of here before the building comes down.”
“No, you don’t,” Mara said.
He looked at her, surprised at such a merciless, unnecessarily cruel statement. But then he sensed her amusement at his mistake.
“Just tell them,” she said.
Luke reached up and found minds—dozens of them, all receptive to the Force. In the wash of Force energy emerging from the crack in the wall, he found he could reach any of them, all of them.
He projected a strong demand for silence, a sense of calm, and could feel them quiet. Then he formed a picture in his head: the building collapsing, the construction droid driving in reverse to get away. He projected that image with all the strength he could muster, bolstered by the Force wellspring.
He felt them react—shock … and then belief. In moments he heard the metal tower’s engines roar again, and could feel their intention to crash their way back out through the rubble pile behind them.
Luke thumbed his lightsaber into incandescence and marched toward the creature with Irek Ismaren’s face. Let’s finish this.
But Nyax, ignoring him, lifted straight up into the air and floated up through the hole his Force powers had made. In a moment he was out of sight.
* * *
Danni, Elassar, and Bhindi scrambled in through the access hatch.
“Take the seats forward,” Face ordered. “These rear ones are for the Jedi; we don’t want people climbing over each other when they board. Copilot’s seat is mine. Where’s Baljos?”
“He’s staying,” Bhindi said. “Instead of me.”
Face sighed. Once it became likely that resistance cells would be of little use here, he’d told Bhindi to pack up for a return to Borleias. He hadn’t anticipated Baljos being so resistant to having his studies cut short. Baljos’s choice here might prove to be a scientific boon someday … or it might be a useless way to commit suicide.
But it was Baljos’s choice.
Face dogged the hatch shut, then struggled up the makeshift ladder and into the copilot’s seat. He strapped himself in. “Ready when you are.”
“Boom,” Kell said. He thumbed a hand remote.
The Ugly Truth rocked as the wall beneath its keel blew out into the street beyond.
Kell didn’t wait to evaluate the situation, the size of the hole. He shoved his control yoke and the transport lurched forward. Face’s stomach rose into his throat as the transport leaned out into the open air above the avenue, then leapt free of the building to plummet nose-down toward the ground.
The construction droid’s internal turbolift opened and the Jedi stepped out into the machine’s topside control chamber.
The scores of people packed into the chamber didn’t notice them. Their attention was riveted on the forward viewports. Beyond them, mounds of rubble were falling away … and beyond hovered a cloud of coralskippers.
Even as the construction droid burst out into sunlight, the coralskippers opened fire, pouring plasma bursts into the machine’s front face. Shocks from impact points dozens of stories down rocked the control chamber. Diagnostics screens lit up; alarms blared. Tatterdemalion workers who had, minutes ago, been mind-controlled slaves now shrieked, possessed again of enough intelligence to realize that their doom was at hand.
“We’ve got to get them out,” Tahiri said. “The weapons