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In her arrogance and her fixation on Luke, Abeloth had discounted the hundreds of Sith scattered over the area. She had focused on him to the exclusion of almost everyone else who was physically with him, and certainly those who were not. And thus ignored, the rest of the Sith had begun their weaving.

The Dathomiri Nightsisters used the Force to create a sort of net called a control web. Working together as a team, they wove tendrils of Force energy together and extended it over an area of ground. It felt as if a ball of yarn were being tossed from one to the other as strands of energy crisscrossed and interwove. Beasts beneath this net, this web, would obey the weavers. Luke, Ben, and Vestara had all been firsthand witnesses to this web weaving on Dathomir.

Never let it be said, Luke thought, that the Sith did not learn quickly, nor that they did not know a good thing when they saw it. It had been Vestara’s suggestion to have those who were not directly involved in attacking Abeloth stand by and work together. The weaving was shaky, inexpert, but with so many strands from such powerful Force-users—hundreds as opposed to tens—even this beginner’s web was enough to unsettle Abeloth as they had hoped it would.

She lowered her head, fixed him with anger and rage, and lifted her hands.

And suddenly Luke knew what she intended. Who she would attack.

It would not be him.

Luke charged.

It was out there. Jaina could feel it—Ship, the Sith training vessel Ben had once piloted, that he had found on Ziost and had awakened from its centuries of slumber. The vessel she, Jag, and Zekk had encountered not so long ago on Lumiya’s asteroid—the vessel Zekk had sent away from Alema Rar, with instructions to find a better master. And it most certainly had—it had found the Lost Tribe.

And Jaina knew that if she could feel it, it could feel her.

Oh well, Jaina thought, shrugging mentally as she piloted her StealthX toward where she sensed the meditation sphere was lurking.

From what little the tight-lipped Sith girl had shared with Ben and Luke, and Luke had passed on to Jaina, Ship had been very chummy with the Lost Tribe Sith until Abeloth had called it to serve her. Vestara had said that Ship felt unhappy obeying Abeloth, but that could be Sith lies. Regardless, to Jedi, it was an enemy, whoever was controlling it, and she wanted to blast the cursed thing to tiny bits of … whatever it was made of.

She could sense it more clearly now. She had expected it to be in the atmosphere, probably already attacking the group assembled to harm its master. But it was in orbit about the planet, doing … nothing.

No, not nothing.

Waiting.

She could see it now, a tiny dot on her tactical display. “Rowdy, get me a better look at this thing.”

WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT THAT? THOSE THINGS ARE UGLY.

Jaina smiled a little. “Agreed.” She’d given the astromech a new name and a sort of personality, tinkering with it recently to upgrade it with a humor protocol. Despite its wisecrack, the droid of course obeyed, and Jaina got her first good look at the Sith meditation sphere.

She’d not seen it up close before, and it was even uglier than she had expected. It looked like a giant yellow-orange eye, covered with veins, with spikes on four sides and propelled by batlike wings. Jaina shook her head at the thought that it had been her cousin who had found this thing, who had gone inside it and made it obey him.

I see you, Jedi Solo.

I see you, big ugly orange-red thing.

Humor rolled off it, then she felt it … ignoring her. Her immediate reaction was irritation.

You’re working with Abeloth.

I am programmed to obey a strong will. The girl is strong, you are stronger, Sword of the Jedi, but neither of you can break the hold she has on me. She is older and more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

So powerful she has you just sitting there because she anticipates needing you, instead of letting you fight me, is that it?

She felt stoic silence in the Force.

“Enough chitchat,” she said to Rowdy. “Launch shadow bomb one.