Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 08_ Edge of Victory 01_ Conquest - J. Gregory Keyes [97]
“Vua Rapuung,” his brother said, “we all heard what Mezhan Kwaad said. You are Shamed no longer.”
“I was never Shamed. But now you know it is a warrior you face.”
“Vua Rapuung, no,” Anakin said. “This is over for you.”
Rapuung turned to him. “I will die soon,” he said. “I am able to give you only a small chance. Take it. Now.” He turned back to the crowd.
“A salute to the Jeedai!” he shouted. “A salute of blood!”
With that he leapt at the front rank of warriors, amphistaff spinning. His first blow struck his brother, knocking him to the ground unconscious, but still alive. The others he attacked with much more lethal precision.
“Anakin?” Tahiri asked.
“Into the ship,” he shouted. If he could get her safe, maybe he could come back for Rapuung.
No. His first duty was to Tahiri. If he tried to help Rapuung, they would all die.
“Can you fly it?” Tahiri asked.
“We’ll worry about that once we figure out how to get the boarding ramp up.”
They ducked inside the hatch and started searching frantically for some sort of control.
“What are we looking for?” Tahiri asked.
“A knob, a smooth place—a cluster of nerves. I don’t know.”
“I don’t see anything like that! This is hopeless!” Tahiri said.
Anakin ran his hands over the spongy interior of the ship. Tahiri was right. If they couldn’t even get the ramp up, what chance did he have of flying the stupid thing?
Next to none, probably, but he had to try. He couldn’t have come this far just to fail.
He saw Vua Rapuung die. Already surrounded by a pile of corpses, his feet were trapped, forcing him to fight without footwork. An amphistaff struck Rapuung a downward blow in the neck and came out the small of his back. He dropped his own amphistaff down like a blaster bolt and crushed the skull of the one who had wounded him before collapsing. Then the other warriors were on him, amphistaffs slashing, surging past him up the ramp.
“Sithspawn,” Anakin snarled, planting himself in the doorway, lightsaber blazing, determined to go out at least as well as Rapuung had.
“Oh!” Tahiri exclaimed. “Tsii dau poonsi.”
The tizowyrm translated it as the mouth, cause to close.
The ramp sucked in, out from under the feet of the charging warriors, and the hatch shut.
“You have to know how to talk to it, I guess,” Tahiri said. She’d tried to say it lightly, but it was almost a parody of her old self. She knew it, too. Tears brimmed in her eyes. “They put things in my head, Anakin. I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
He reached for her shoulder. “I’m real. And I’m going to get you out of this. Believe me.”
She folded into him, suddenly, and his arms went around her without him even telling them to. She felt warm, and small, and good against him.
Then his wounded leg refused to support him any longer.
They cut part of Tahiri’s garment to make a tourniquet. The living fabric worked even better than anticipated, because after the shock of being severed, it contracted, perhaps dying. Anakin wished he had some of Rapuung’s healing swatches. Maybe they could find some on the ship.
They found the controls just as the craft rocked to a tremendous blast.
“Boy, that didn’t take long,” Anakin said. “I wonder why they didn’t just open the hatch.”
“I sealed it,” Tahiri said “It won’t listen to anyone outside.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. I mean, I’m sure they have someone who can open it, but not before we get off the ground.”
“Assuming we can get off the ground,” Anakin said, looking at the controls and fighting a feeling of helplessness. He recognized a villip and an acceleration couch, and that was all. A wide array of not-quite-geometrical shapes extruded from the “console,” along with a variety of patches of differing color and texture. Nothing about any of them spoke to him. There seemed to be no writing or numerals either, no gauges or readouts. The walls of the room were opaque, as well. He couldn’t even see what the Yuuzhan Vong outside were doing,