Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 08_ Ascension - Christie Golden [164]
All this registered in a fraction of a heartbeat. “Retreat!” cried Luke, wasting no more breath on words, instead sending a shock wave of urgency in the Force and an image of their initial landing area. There was no time to comm Ben; instead Luke focused on visualizing his son and sending him the same urgent missive: Retreat. Get to safety. Get out.
Everyone responded at once, without question or hesitation, and began to race back toward the gate. The ground began to shake again, yet more violently, and Luke heard the sound of laughter—Abeloth’s laughter—following them as they ran for their very lives.
The cloud above them changed. Force lightning struck the ground, struck the ships in the air, struck the Jedi using the Force to give them added speed and distance as they ran. All around them, buildings crumbled to dust. Luke deflected a chunk of a wall hurtling toward him, directing it to slam into another boulder that was heading straight for Seha.
Saba was a few meters ahead of him as they ran. The ground cracked open a scant step in front of her. Without breaking stride, she Force-leapt easily over the suddenly manifesting chasm, landed on the other side, and kept going. Luke, Jaina, and the others did likewise.
The explosion behind them hurled them all into the air. Luke himself had to scramble so he didn’t land hard. Even as he twisted to land on his feet, he reached out in the Force and cushioned the fall for some of the less experienced Jedi Knights. He ended up facing back the way he had come, and his eyes widened at what he beheld.
The dormant volcano was dormant no longer. Gouts of orange magma spewed kilometers into the air and rained death down along the side of the mountain. It was a terrifying sight, but what alarmed Luke even more than the racing lava was the cloud above it. It looked like smoke, churning and billowing, gray and thick, but it was nothing so benevolent as mere choking ash. He knew what he was looking at.
Rock so hot it had turned into foam five times hotter than boiling water, moving at more than a hundred kilometers an hour. If this pyroclastic surge overtook them, they would be incinerated instantly, their bodies turned into charcoal.
And it would overtake them within minutes.
Their masks prevented the inhalation of the poisonous gases and thick, blinding ash, but could not cool the suddenly superheated air. Luke used the Force to cool it as best he could as he inhaled. Beside and in front of him, he saw two Jedi suddenly start clawing at their throats, falling an instant later. They had inhaled without cooling the air, and Luke felt sympathetic anguish at the agony in which they had died, drowning in their lungs’ own fluid. He squeezed his eyes shut and created a barrier around them with the Force to protect them, running forward now using only his other four senses and the Force.
Fear, determination, pain—all arose around him as the Jedi raced to outrun the cloud of dark side oblivion that was hard on their heels. Some of them would not make it—some already had not. But most of them would.
He forced his eyes to open briefly. Saba Sebatyne, the one with the longest legs of them all, had already reached the gate. Not bothering to raise it, lest it be lowered again on them, she had simply blown the durasteel portcullis apart with the Force. Jedi raced through the hole, even as the walls that held it started to crumble.
Joy and gratitude washed through Luke as he saw dozens of vessels landing and taking on the nearly exhausted Jedi ground force. Others kept going, heading for their own StealthXs. He reached for his comlink, shouting to be heard over the rumble.
“Ben! Ben, can you hear me?”
There was only silence. Luke cursed, clicked the comlink again. “Raynar! Can you take on more passengers?” Most of the Jedi had flown in their own StealthXs, but there had been several larger ships included in the fleet. Raynar had