• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Behind him, Luke heard the hum and crackle of Mara’s lightsaber—and a scream from one of the attackers.

Luke flexed both his body and his control of the Force, and the remaining silver netting on him tore away. His lightsaber popped back up into his hand. His Force-senses focused, he walked forward, pushing the glowing metal panel before him, driving it toward his attackers.

Jacen had barely closed his eyes again when his compartment door blasted inward. The shock of the concussion startled him, delaying him a deadly half second…but as he rose, as he gestured for his lightsaber, as the long barrel of the first intruder’s black rifle entered and swung toward him, the attacker was suddenly bowled off his feet. Jacen felt the pulse in the Force that did it, felt the characteristic traits of Luke’s exertion within it. Lightsaber in hand, Jacen snapped it on, took a fraction of a second to wave at Ben’s bed and flip it over, sending the boy into the wall and covering him with the bed. Only then did Jacen leap out into the central chamber.

Before him was the attacker who’d just tried to enter his room. To his left was another black-armored figure bringing his weapons to bear on Mara, who advanced toward them clad in black sleepwear. So we were all caught asleep.

He trusted Mara to be able to deal with the second attacker. He flicked his lightsaber blade up, slicing through the first intruder’s weapon.

Fast as an attacking slashrat, the rifleman stepped back in a crouch, drawing and firing a holstered blaster in a single, practiced move. Jacen tapped the bolt out of the way with a negligent readjustment of his lightsaber blade, then thrust, shoving the blade through the man’s armor at the shoulder. Jacen felt it penetrate the armor, burn its way through flesh and bone beneath, and emerge from the armor on the other side. The man screamed and fell, dragging his body off Jacen’s weapon.

Jacen glanced left. Mara’s foe was falling, a smoking line from shoulder blade to stomach marking the injury that had defeated him. Beyond, Luke was in the midst of four enemies, all of them firing; the oversized bolt from one of their weapons, missing wildly, flashed toward Mara and Jacen, and the two Jedi ducked out of its way. At the end of his spin, Luke stood up, and something fell away from each of his attackers—a rifle barrel, an arm, a severed head. Three of them fell down. The fourth cast his destroyed weapon to the floor, raised his hands…then, oddly, followed his companions to the floor, his body limp.

From the door nearest Luke emerged Jaina, wearing a brown sleep shirt, her lightsaber lit. From the destroyed door opposite her emerged Zekk, soot smearing his face, smoke rising from the forward portion of his hair. “They keep trying to blow me up,” he complained.

chapter twenty

Han and Leia snuggled together on the couch, sitting in the darkness, wordlessly watching the galaxy rotate outside beyond the viewport. The door to the passageway hissed open behind them, spilling light into the large room. Han and Leia turned to look. Four armored figures marched in, quiet and confident. Apparently not noticing the Solos on the couch, they walked straight to the doorway leading to the main bedchamber. The one with the largest weapon, a shoulder-mounted blaster rig, set up to destroy the door while the other three readied their own weapons.

Han and Leia exchanged a puzzled look. Leia shrugged.

Han drew his blaster. He’d spent frustrating hours not permitted by the various security staffs to carry his favorite weapon, so he had recovered it the instant he’d returned to his own quarters. Now he aimed it at the four intruders, bracing it against the top of the couch. “Hey,” he said.

The four turned. One, fastest on the uptake, began to aim more quickly than the others. Han shot him in the throat.

Leia sprang up from the couch, a Force-assisted leap that carried her toward the ceiling of the tall living chamber. She lit her lightsaber on the way up. One