Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 02_ Dark Apprentice - Kevin J. Anderson [41]
The southeastern horizon grew bright where Dantooine’s amber sun would rise. Overhead in the purplish skies he saw three brilliant stars moving against the other points of light.
A cluster of six meteors streaked through the sky toward the horizon, their bright trails like slashes of claws. Then the supersonic screeching noise of their descent shattered the early-morning stillness. He saw the meteors impact; the savanna glowed with spreading flames not far from the colony.
Other colonists from Eol Sha scrambled out of their huts, roused by the noise from the sky. Not far to the east, the empty ruins of the old Rebel base rose like adobe bulwarks out of the grasses. A small team of New Republic construction engineers bustled about their encampment.
“What is it?” his wife Glena said as she stepped out of the dwelling to stand beside Warton. He shook his head, unable to answer.
Then deadly lightning began to rain down from above.
The singing of mace flies fell into silence. Blinding bolts of green laser fire shot down, striking the abandoned base and ripping up huge clouds of fragmented buildings and shards of synthetic rock.
Turbolaser beams from orbit flashed again, cutting across their earlier path. In seconds they had obliterated the entire abandoned base, leaving only a smoldering rubble-strewn scar.
The colonists ran out of their dwellings. Some screamed; others just stared in stupefied terror. Luke Skywalker had promised he would find a place of safety for the people of Eol Sha—but it seemed the Jedi had been mistaken.
As the ruins of the base continued to crackle and steam, and fires spread across the dry savannas, Warton heard a pulsating, low-pitched sound: the humming of massive engines, the clanking of metal, thunderous footfalls.
He squinted into the brightening morning, still dazzled from the green laser bolts, until he could discern the monstrous silhouettes of gigantic walking machines. Four-legged and camellike, the Imperial walkers—All Terrain Armored Transports—strode from their smoldering landing sites and marched in hulking formation across the savanna.
The cockpit “heads” of the attacking AT-ATs bent lower to aim banks of laser cannons. Precision bolts of green and red fire shot down. The ancient swollen blba trees erupted into flames that spread out in concentric circles across the dry grasses. Greasy smoke curled up, carrying the stench of burning wet vegetation and roasted small animals.
Warton shouted, “Run everyone! Get away from the dwellings. They will target them first.”
The refugees from Eol Sha waded across the tall grasses as Imperial walkers plodded forward. The AT-ATs covered more distance with each step than a human could run in half a minute. The walkers took aim at the fleeing colonists, striking each individual with enough firepower to destroy a small fighter ship.
Glena yanked her hand away from Warton and shouted at him, “Wait!” She turned around to run back toward their small dwelling.
“No!” he yelled, unable to imagine anything that would cause her to turn and run into the attack.
Before she could say another word, a blinding lance of turbolaser fire exploded full in her chest, and Warton watched in utter horror as Glena vanished in a blazing, sizzling cloud of red steam.
The six walkers continued to march ahead, firing at blba trees, at colony huts, and at anything that moved. The great machines spread out to encircle the entire settlement.
Over at their encampment the New Republic engineers had managed to set up a single-ion cannon. Warton, still standing stricken and motionless, watched their tiny forms as they scrambled to rig the dish-shaped generator. He knew the people manning the ion cannon were simply construction engineers with no battle training.
“Why?” Warton wanted to know. But so many questions filled his head that he could not be more specific than that: Why?
The New Republic engineers