Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 05_ Agents of Chaos 02_ Jedi Eclipse - James Luceno [1]
Loosed by advancing enemy contingents, missiles of superheated rock assailed what remained of the city, holing surviving towers and toppling those already gutted by fire. Hunks of shattered ferrocrete and twisted plasteel tumbled onto cratered streets and clogged alleyways. A few civilians dashed desperately for shelter while others huddled, paralyzed with fear, in gaping, fire-blackened maws that were once entryways and storefronts. In some quarters, ion cannons and nearly depleted turbolaser batteries answered the missile barrage with darts of cyan light. But only in the environs of the New Republic embassy were the enemy projectiles deflected, turned by a hastily installed containment shield.
Dangerously close to the shield’s shimmering perimeter, a thousands-strong mixed-species throng, massed behind stun fencing, pressed to be admitted. At the edges of the crowd droids perambulated in a daze, keenly aware of the fate awaiting them should the invaders overrun the city.
Were the stun fence the sole obstacle to safe haven, the crowd might have panicked and stormed the embassy grounds. But the perimeter was reinforced by heavily armed New Republic soldiers, and there was also the force field itself to consider. An umbrella of energy, the lambent shield had to be deactivated before it could be safely breached, and that occurred only when an evacuation ship launched for rendezvous with one of the transports anchored in local space.
Ashen faces masked with cloth against the mephitic air, Gyndine’s would-be evacuees did all they could to ensure their survival. With arms extended protectively around the shoulders of terrified children or clasped tightly to tattered bundles of personal belongings, they pleaded with the soldiers, tendered bribes, inveigled and threatened. Ordered to remain silent, the grim-faced troops offered neither comforting looks nor words of encouragement. Only their eyes belied the seeming dispassion, racing about like taurill or angling imploringly toward the one person who could accede to the entreaties and demands.
Leia Organa Solo caught one such glance now, aimed her way by a human soldier posted close to what had become the communications bunker. With her face smudged and her long hair captured under a brimmed cap, it was unlikely that anyone in the crowd recognized her as onetime hero of the Rebel Alliance and former chief of state, but the sky-blue combat overalls—bloused sleeves emblazoned with the emblem of SELCORE, the Senate Select Committee for Refugees—identified her as everyone’s best chance for rescue, their purveyor of deliverance. As it was, she couldn’t venture within five meters of the stun fence without having wailing infants, necklaces of prayer beads, or rushed missives to offworld loved ones extended to her in dire urgency.
She didn’t dare make eye contact with anyone, lest in her gaze someone read hope or evidence of her anguish. To provide some measure of equipoise, she drew deeply on the Force. But more often than not she paced unswervingly between the bunker and the leading edge of the shield, eager for word that another evacuation ship had landed and was waiting to be filled.
Ever in her wake moved faithful Olmahk, whose native gray ferocity made him appear more stalker than bodyguard. But at least the diminutive Noghri looked at home among the chaos, whereas C-3PO—his normally auric gleam dulled by soot and ash—was positively dismayed. Lately, though, the protocol droid’s apprehension had less to do with his own safety than with the larger threat the Yuuzhan Vong posed to all machine life, often the first to suffer when a world fell.
A forceful explosion rocked the permacrete under Leia’s feet, and a swirling globe of orange fire mushroomed from the heart of the city. A searing wind laced with droplets of even hotter rain tugged at Leia’s cap and jumpsuit. Created by the energy exchanges and conflagrations, microclimatic storms had been washing