Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 04_ Backlash - Aaron Allston [70]
Luke’s eyes snapped open. He turned toward the trees surrounding the encampment—toward the very stand of trees where they’d had their meeting with Olianne and Vestara the other night. “They’re out there, scattered, several of them. But I can feel a couple of them very clearly.”
“Let’s go.”
Together the two Jedi set out at a dead run, zigzagging to avoid fleeing clan members and pursuing sparkflies.
Wielding a blanket dipped in lake water like a flexible club, Han stayed near Leia and tried to keep the sparkflies off her. He’d been fairly successful. She had a burn mark on one bicep, and he had one on his forehead. She walked through the camp as if unaware of the sparkflies near her; her attention was on the larger clusters high in the sky. To Han, it seemed that the insects would make attack runs against targets on the ground, then rise into the air, regroup, and begin new runs. It was eerily similar to starfighter attack patterns. It didn’t remind him of insect behavior at all.
Where Leia watched, turning her attention from cluster to sparkfly cluster, the insects would waver and break formation. But she did not seem to be able to sustain this effort against them, and they would inevitably regroup.
She shook her head. “They’re under tight control. Very organized. I wish Valin Horn were here. He used to be very good at this sort of thing.”
“Keep them off me! I need help!” That was Carrack, still dividing his time between his armor and his flamethrower.
Han glanced at Leia, and she nodded. Together they trotted over to the big mercenary.
Carrack thrust his weapon, a long rod with a trigger at one end and a nozzle at the other, attached by tubing at the trigger end to a large metal bottle that was currently dragging on the ground, into Han’s hands. The big man had burn marks on both cheeks, but most of his armor was on. “I just need a few seconds.”
“You got ’em.” Han took the weapon. Not bothering to ask for advice or instructions—that would have been unlike him, after all—he aimed the nozzle up toward the nearest large cloud of insects and pressed the trigger.
A gratifyingly bright gout of flame erupted from the nozzle and shot into the cloud of sparkflies—into and through, jetting on for another fifty meters or more. It illuminated the camp from one end to the other.
Leia took Han’s blanket, rolled it into something like a lash, and cracked it like a whip, here swatting three sparkflies out of the sky, there one. “Maybe a little less, dear.”
“No, I like it this way.” Han let off the trigger, aimed, and fired again. Once more the camp was bathed in hues of red and orange as insects were vaporized out to a distance of fifty meters.
A broad grin spread across Han’s face. “Why haven’t I ever gotten one of these for myself?”
Leia shot him an incredulous look before returning her attention to keeping the insects off the three of them. “Because it would be like letting children play with thermal detonators.”
“I like it.” Han swung the nozzle around, causing the gout of flame to curve across the sky, sweeping insects away as it reached them. “I have a flamethrower.”
“Blast it, Carrack, see what you’ve done?”
Carrack jammed his helmet down. Han heard a sudden hum of machinery as the helmet locked into place and systems all over the armor booted into life.
Carrack picked up the oversized blaster that lay at his feet and began a slow turn, eyeing the distant fringes of the trees. “Infrared active. Han, don’t put the fire in front of me, you’ll blind me.”
Han, his grin unabated, swiveled so that his flame scoured the air mostly above and behind Carrack. “What have you got?”
“Stationary figures in the forest, deployed at positions thirty to forty meters apart. Women, all of them. I’ve got two males moving toward their line, but not straight