Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [167]
“This is Bolt Leader. Rock Lead report.”
“Rock Lead here. Little bit of ground fire. We have a shocked shuttle. Slaves have escaped into the jungle and we’re driving the Thalassians away from them.”
“Good work, Timmser.” I raised Slash Squadron and got a similar report. I brought my clutch around on a southern heading and did a flyby on the main Morymento district that included the spaceport, but saw no ships and encountered no fire. I switched back to Bolt Squadron’s tactical frequency. “Three flight, land here. Two flight, combat aerospace patrol. One flight, on me, sensors in ground search mode.”
I worked my sensor controls over into ground search mode, which painted a grid on my monitor, superimposed a topographical map of the terrain, and started to fill in data on structures, energy flow patterns, lifeform readings, movement and anything else the programmers had thought important. I fed the resulting data over to my comm unit and shot it up to the Invidious.
A red light on the comm unit burned to life beside the fleet frequency. I punched it. “Bolt Lead here.”
“Bolt Lead, this is Admiral Tavira. Ground status?”
“Scanning the town now. Looks like the warehouses are loaded. If you send our assault shuttles down now, we can start loading.” I glanced at the sensor monitor and the data that was scrolling across it. “Warehouse district appears to be largely deserted. The Caamasi must have headed home when the trouble started.”
“Let them stay there and they need not be hurt.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Well, not exactly. Taking the supplies and equipment from the warehouses could set back the development of the colony by years. The Caamasi were known to be industrious, but taming a world is not an easy task. With the proper tools they could have done a lot, so the harm we would do them might not be immediate, but it would hurt.
“I am so pleased you approve. Tavira out.”
I switched back to Bolt’s tactical frequency. “Three flight, report on spaceport status.”
I got no reply, which struck me as odd. “This is Bolt Lead to three flight. Report status.”
Again, no reply. “Bolt two, on me, three and four, continue scanning.” I rolled my clutch and headed back toward the spaceport, keeping my sensors in ground mode to pick up on any ground fire that could indicate a running lightfight or ambush of my pilots. The last thing I wanted was for Remart to get killed because I’d ordered him to the ground, since I knew I’d pay dearly for spoiling his long-awaited assignation with Admiral Tavira.
Ground scan came up negative, though it did show all four clutches of three flight on the ground and intact. “I’m not liking this, two. Stay up and keep orbiting. I’m going down.”
I set the clutch down, popped the hatch, then doffed my gloves and helmet. I took the comlink from the helmet and checked to make sure it was tuned to the squadron frequency. I clipped that to my red flightsuit lapel, then pulled a blaster carbine and a belt of powerpacks from the survival box. I hauled myself out of the cockpit, slid down the front and hit the ground running. I headed toward the spaceport terminal building and when I saw blaster scars on the door lock, I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Realizing I was taking a risk, I tapped into my personal Force reservoir and pushed my sphere of responsibility out. I consciously flattened it, making it more into a fat disk, in the hopes that Tavira’s advisors wouldn’t pick up on it, then I focused it even more forward, ignoring the spaceport landing facilities. Keeping it in a semicircle, I pushed it out and sensed nothing in the terminal. In the jungle beyond it I found all manner of lifeforms and various Caamasi homes. Then, at a distance that would have covered roughly two Coruscant blocks, I found my pilots.
Along with them I caught pain and fear, but it didn’t come from them. I started