Star Wars_ Legacy of the Force 04_ Exile - Aaron Allston [123]
The TIE fighter fired, and Ben’s dummy fell over, the blankets catching on fire.
The TIE fighter glided forward slowly on repulsors. Ben knew why. The bolt from a laser cannon hitting a human being wouldn’t necessarily destroy his body completely, but it would turn so much of the body to steam that the victim would seem to explode. It wouldn’t simply fall over. The pilot had to be curious about what had just happened.
The TIE fighter was a mere five meters from the burning dummy when the first stone, no larger than a human head, hit its hull. To his credit, the pilot reacted instantly, veering away and climbing—
Straight into the thickest portion of falling stone.
The rocks had fallen more than a hundred meters. Some weighed a quarter ton or more. All had sharp right-angled edges, and some of them hit edge-first.
The TIE fighter spun wildly out of control, hit the citadel’s inner wall, and bounced off again. The twin ion engines were still firing, but the starfighter was spinning so fast that they merely added to the energy of its spiral.
It landed beyond the outer wall, its hull collapsing on impact, and continued to roll, shearing off its solar array wings as it did.
It rolled half a kilometer before coming to a stop against a natural rock abutment.
Ben rose and immediately felt light-headed, but drew on the Force to strengthen and stabilize himself. He helped Kiara up. “We have to hurry,” he said. “More fighters may be coming.”
Ben told Kiara to climb a tree while he examined the wreckage. When he saw what was left of the pilot, a pale-skinned Chev in a bronze uniform, he was glad he had.
It didn’t take him long to pry open the hatch into the starfighter’s small cargo bay. Its contents had broken free of the cloth webbing that had restrained them, but were otherwise intact: two days’ worth of rations for a grown man, a medical kit, power packs, a long-range comlink, a self-inflating raft, water purification tablets…He took it all, and scavenged other goods from the Chev’s body. Then, as fast as they could manage, he and Kiara ran from the site of the crash and back toward the dubious safety of the citadel.
It didn’t occur to Ben to be sorry about the being whose life he had just taken.
CORUSCANT ERRANT VENTURE
“Alema Rar just commed me.”
Leia stared incredulously into her display. But Lavint seemed earnest enough. “What did she want?”
“You two, of course.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“I said you were going to be at Gilatter Eight in a few days. The way I figure it, she’ll go there and get herself blown to pieces. A shame about the why-vee six-six-six, I guess.”
“Well, you didn’t lie,” Leia said. “That’s exactly where we’re going to be.”
“We are?” said Han.
“You are?” On the display, Lavint’s jaw skewed to one side, an exaggerated expression of dismay. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Not to worry,” Leia said. “I didn’t decide until just now. It’s not enough to be told that someone like Alema Rar has been blown to bits. I really need to see it myself.”
“Or even pull the trigger,” Han muttered.
GILATTER SYSTEM RESORT STATION ORBITING GILATTER VIII
From the distance of several hundred kilometers, Luke watched the activity at the station. He employed passive sensors only, including a holocam utilizing high-grade visual amplification hardware, and knew that Mara, floating less than a hundred meters away in her own StealthX, was doing the same.
Half a dozen vehicles were docked at the station. The crews inside were presumably effecting repairs and making the antiquated station ready for the ceremony that would soon take place.
Luke, Mara, and their fellow pilots—including Corran, Kyp, Jaina, and Zekk, plus Jag, finally getting some shift time in Jaina’s StealthX—had scouted out the system pretty thoroughly. There were indeed droid sensor satellites along the standard approaches into the system, but none situated elsewhere, and there were routes to