Star Wars_ Legacy of the Force 01_ Betrayal - Aaron Allston [203]
The stormtrooper plates and bodysuit were fire-resistant, and Lekauf’s men had overcome that hardwired human terror of fire to walk through the inferno and continue to shoot jets of burning gas into the compartment before them. Vader could see three bodies on the floor, matte black from charring, and three moving lightsaber blades…but where was the fourth?
He reached out with his mind, searching behind burning panels and control fascias. Another ball of fire rolled up to the deckhead from the muzzle of a flamethrower. Lekauf, tight at Vader’s side and without a respirator, coughed as acrid smoke billowed back.
“Get clear,” said Vader, and stabbed his Force reach through the shield of the Cuis clones, seizing their throats and crushing them. One yielded and Vader moved in fast, taking three strides forward and slashing his saber down to fell the clone.
Two were left, plus Sheyvan. He was still alive. Vader could feel him yet not see him. Lekauf’s men fired rapid bursts of flame at the last two Cuis clones standing, pinning them against the port bulkhead as Vader moved in and they struggled to maintain the protective bubble around them. Smoke rolled from every surface. The shuttle’s interior was made from fire-resistant materials, but the temperature in the confined space was now getting unbearable.
Nele fired another burst of burning gas at the Dark Jedi. Then one of the Cuis clones made a massive effort and sent the ball of flame back at Vader.
Vader’s suit could withstand nearly every assault. But Lekauf, a man trained to react without pausing to debate, flung himself in front of him and took the brunt of the flame. He fell, gasping, as the clones closed in on the Dark Jedi and Vader burst apart their Force-shields with pure focused rage.
Lightsabers winked out of existence.
“Pepin, fire control, now!” Vader shouted.
The shuttle’s power came back and a fine rain of fire retardant began falling from the conduits in the deckhead, dousing the smoldering surfaces. Vader dropped to one knee to grab Lekauf’s shoulders and pull him clear.
Lekauf’s action had been a foolish gesture, and one Vader didn’t need. But this was a painful reminder for him. Not so long ago, he had been the one burning and desperate for help—and the Master he trusted, Obi-Wan Kenobi, had abandoned him and left him to die.
Vader would not abandon Lekauf as he had been abandoned. He supported the officer’s head, not to win his allegiance as Palpatine might, but because it was what Vader believed Kenobi should have done for him.
Lekauf’s skin was blackened but his eyes were open, wide and white in a shocked face. Vader called for bacta, and Nele and Pepin ran to him with medpacs. Lekauf raised an arm and looked at the blistered back of his hand as if it weren’t his own. “My wife’s going to be furious with me,” he said in the nonsensical way that badly injured men often did.
“I bet your wife will just be glad to see you back in one piece,” said Pepin. “Let’s get you into the cabin.”
Vader straightened up. The other clones were searching the charred and twisted forward compartment, blasters aimed.
Sheyvan had to be in there somewhere. It was too small a ship in which to hide. Vader stepped carefully through the steaming debris, now slippery with a coating of fireretardant liquid, and gestured to the clones to leave him to the search. He felt that the Dark Jedi was alive, but with a black layer of wet ash covering everything it was hard to tell what was a body and what was simply a melted sheet of plastoid. He prodded lumps with his boot, lightsaber in hand.
He counted eight bodies: six Cuis clones and the two crew who were already dead when the assault began. Then one blackened shape yielded slightly when he kicked it.
Sheyvan sprang to his feet, a nightmare smeared in wet black ash. His lightsaber cut