Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 05_ Agents of Chaos 02_ Jedi Eclipse - James Luceno [2]
A loud sizzling sound made her swing toward the shield in time to see it evanesce in undulating waves of distortion.
“Evac ship away,” a soldier reported from the communications bunker, both hands pressed to the outsize earmuffs of his comm helmet. “Two more headed down the well.”
Leia raised her eyes to the tenebrous sky. Defined by running lights as oblate in shape, the departing ship raised itself on repulsor power, then shot upward on a column of blue fire, escorted by half a dozen X-wings. Lying in ambush, a cataract of coralskippers vectored in from the foothills to give chase.
Leia whirled to the soldiers posted at the stun fence. “Admit the next group!”
Crushed shoulder to shoulder, cheek to jowl, folks at the forward edge of the crowd—humans, Sullustans, Bimms, and others—were funneled through the embassy gates. With the shield lowered, enemy projectiles that would have been deflected plummeted like fiery meteors, one of them striking the east wing of the Imperial-era embassy and setting it ablaze.
Leia clapped the evacuees on the back as they streamed toward a shuttle craft idling on the landing zone. “Hurry!” she urged. “Hurry!”
“Shield repowering,” the same comm officer relayed from the bunker. “Everyone back.”
Leia gritted her teeth. These were the worst moments, she told herself.
Soldiers at the gate resealed the cordon and scanned the vicinity for evidence of field disruptors. In response the crowd surged forward, railing against what had to seem the inequity, the arbitrariness of it all. Folks closest to the front, fearing they would miss their chance at salvation by one or two persons, tried to worm or force their way past the soldiers, while those in the rear shoved and scrambled, determined to fight their way forward. Leia saw that it was futile, and yet the crowd refused to disperse, hoping against hope that New Republic forces could keep the invaders at bay until every civilian and noncombatant was evacuated.
“Mistress Leia,” C-3PO said, approaching in haste with his hands raised and his photoreceptors glowing, “the deflector shield is weakening! If we don’t leave soon, we’re sure to perish!”
As many would that day, Leia thought.
“We’ll leave on the last ship,” she told C-3PO, “not before. Until then, make yourself useful by cataloging names and species.”
C-3PO lifted his arms higher and skittered through an abrupt about-face. “What’s to become of us?”
Leia exhaled wearily, wondering, as well.
The bombardment had commenced two days earlier, when a Yuuzhan Vong flotilla had arrived unexpectedly in the nearby Circarpous system from enemy positions in Hutt space. A slapdash attempt had been made to fortify the sector capital, but with fleets and task forces already committed to safeguarding major systems in the Colonies and the Core, the New Republic had little to offer worlds of secondary importance like Gyndine, despite its modest orbital shipyard.
By the same token, there was no rhyme or reason for the Yuuzhan Vong attack—beyond continuing to sow confusion. With the recent fall of several Mid Rim worlds, Gyndine, because of its relative remoteness, had been thought ideal for use as a transit point for refugees, and indeed many of those outside the fence had been shipped in from Ithor, Obroa-skai, Ord Mantell, and a host of enemy-occupied planets. It was becoming clear that the Yuuzhan Vong delighted in pursuing displaced populations almost as much as they delighted in sacrificing captives and immolating droids. Even the ground assault on Gyndine seemed to be their way of proving themselves as adept at seizing worlds as they were at poisoning them.
The voice of the comm officer put a quick end to Leia’s musings. “Ambassador, we’ve got a live surveillance probe feed from the field.”
Leia hesitated, then ducked into the bunker, where a reduced-scale