Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 02_ Dark Apprentice - Kevin J. Anderson [42]
The other five AT-ATs swiveled their heads in unison, targeting the single ion cannon with a river of laser blasts in a great gout of green fire—obliterating communications gear and ion cannon in a single splash of light.
The walkers advanced again, firing indiscriminately. The prefabricated colony huts exploded one by one. Hungry flames raged through the dry grasses on the savanna.
Warton’s people screamed as they ran, and stumbled, and died. The roar of destruction rang in his ears, and still he could not move. He stood with his hands at his sides. His entire body trembled.
Even the blasted world of Eol Sha had never been as hellish as Dantooine.
Commander Kratas sat in the AT-ATs unfamiliar cockpit, directing the movement of his six great machines. They fired at anyone who tried to escape, igniting islands of grass and flushing out burning colonists who had attempted to hide there. Kratas intended to leave them no place to hide.
He verified that every one of the huts had been blown to pieces, and all moving colonists had been cut down as they fled. The Rebel engineers and their ion cannon had been taken out with a single strike, and the minor damage inflicted on one walker could be repaired easily in the workshops back on the Gorgon.
“I wish he’d move,” the gunner said.
Kratas looked down to see a single man standing among the wreckage, motionless and staring.
“It’s not much of a challenge to hit a stationary target,” the gunner said, lifting the visor of his black helmet. “If he’d run, I could get better practice.”
Kratas surveyed the devastation and the black smoke curling up from a thousand different fires. Their job here was done. “Take him out anyway,” Kratas said. “We don’t have time to play games.”
The gunner squeezed his firing buttons, and the lone surviving man vanished in a flare of green fire.
Commander Kratas signaled the flagship, and he nodded to Daala’s tiny shimmering form on the transmitter platform. “The mission is a complete success, Admiral. No casualties on our part, very minor damage to one AT-AT.”
“You’re sure nothing is left alive down there?” Daala said.
“Nothing, Admiral. No structure is left standing. The place is a wasteland.”
“Good,” Daala said with a slight nod. “You may return to the ships. I believe we’ve made our point. We’ve had our practice.”
She continued with a smile, “Next time we’ll choose a more important world to strike.”
10
The sleep of a Jedi was rarely troubled by dreams. Pure rest brought about through concentration and meditation techniques left little room for disturbing thoughts or shadow plays. But this time nightmares did break through to Luke Skywalker.
A voice called him across a misty blank dreamscape. “Luke, Luke my son. You must hear me!”
A shadowy form rose out of the mists even as the surroundings began to sharpen. Luke saw himself in his pale-gray flightsuit, stained with sweat, grime, and pain—as he had looked when he took his father’s body from the second Death Star.
The features on the spectral silhouette shimmered with a pale aura. Luke saw the firm face of Anakin Skywalker, restored from the ravages Darth Vader’s evil had worked on his body.
“Father!” Luke called. His own voice had an odd, echoing quality, as if it bounced off the mists.
“Luke,” the image of Anakin said.
Luke felt tingling amazement surge through him. It was another sending, just like his last contact from Obi-Wan Kenobi. But Obi-Wan had bid him farewell, claiming that he could never contact Luke again. “Father, why are you here?”
Anakin stood taller. His robes rippled in a rising wind that drove back the mists. Suddenly the world surrounding them was no longer featureless. Luke recognized that he and the image of his father stood atop the Great Temple on Yavin 4. The orange