Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 06_ Vortex - Denning Troy [124]
But Hamner was not there.
Instead, Saba saw him a dozen meters away, barely visible through the catwalk’s durasteel grating as he somersaulted along the next section. No longer bellowing about treason, he seemed content to simply keep moving, and as she watched he rolled to his feet and continued out of sight at a Force-enhanced sprint.
“Master Hamner is fleeing?” Saba asked, confused. “He is giving up so easily?”
“Not fleeing,” Cilghal replied. She pointed a finned hand toward the heavy blast doors that covered the hangar exit. “Changing tactics.”
Saba cocked her head, eyeing the network of catwalks above, and understood. “The shenbit!” She turned and sprang onto the balcony’s safety rail, then Force-sprang onto the broken catwalk six meters above. “The shenbit licker!”
The jump would have been easy for any angry Barabel, and for a Barabel with the Force it was little more than a step. Saba landed three paces down the catwalk, already racing into the maze of equipment and dark empty spaces at a full sprint.
The blast doors had been dropped when the Solos discovered the first Mandalorian scouts watching the Temple, and they had been left down ever since. If Hamner reached the mag-lev generators before the doors were retracted, it would be a simple matter for him to cut their power supplies and trap the entire StealthX wing—maybe not forever, but long enough to prevent a timely launch.
By now, the Solos would be infiltrating the detention center. Daala would be distracted by the news that the Pellaeon was preparing to break orbit. Within minutes, the entire Sixth Fleet would be moving to intercept Booster Terrik’s marauding Star Destroyer, and the Errant Venture would be forced to escape into hyperspace. If the Jedi wanted their StealthXs to escape Coruscant without a fight, the wing had to launch on time. Saba checked her chrono—they had seven minutes.
Everything depended on that one thing. If the timing failed, Luke and Ben would be left to fight Abeloth and the Sith alone—and that Saba could not allow.
She reached the first junction in the catwalks and turned toward the blast doors. The air this high in the hangar was dusty, dark, and hot. There were pipes, ducts, and crane rails everywhere she looked, but Hamner was nowhere to be seen. Saba felt like she was chasing him through the canopy of a durasteel jungle, and she knew it was good terrain for an ambush. She checked her chrono again. Six minutes. Hamner had six minutes until the blast doors opened—and six minutes gave him plenty of time for an ambush.
It did not matter. Saba had sparred Hamner many times, and he was not the fighter she was. She reached out to him in the Force, searching for his presence, sharing with him her hunger to close and fight, the heat in her blood that the chase was bringing.
Then Saba tested the air again and tasted the sour tang of human fear. She felt an emptiness in the Force, a dozen meters ahead and off to the left, and she knew Hamner was trying to hide from her, drawing his aura in tight so she would not feel his panic and his fear. She saw an intersection ahead and heard a boot heel scuff across the durasteel grate-work. She turned the corner, already reaching for him in the Force, and found … nothing.
A prickle of danger sense raced up Saba’s spine, but she already knew what was coming, and already she was whirling to meet it.
Too late.
The stately figure of Kenth Hamner stood opposite her, in the gloom beyond the intersection, one hand raised toward her chest, his dark eyes filled with cold fury. Saba brought her hand up, lashing out in the Force and trying to knock him off-balance, but it was no good. Hamner had fooled her, and now he had the drop on her. As she unleashed her attack, his slammed her in the chest, lifted her off her feet and hurled her into the safety railing, driving her up and over, flipping her backward so that she found herself staring down at a StealthX squadron fifty