Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [57]
Medics and droids worked side by side to move the injured onto repulsor gurneys and hurry them off for bacta treatment. Most of the rescued, of whatever species, needed little more than minor attention and a couple of hearty meals. Others were in critical condition. The fact that none had been implanted with surge-coral was a constant reminder that they were to have gone to their deaths as sacrificial victims.
Few civilians and no one from the media took notice of the battered starfighters that entered Ralroost’s, hold in the wake of the transports. Jaina didn’t mind, but she had to laugh. Not all that long ago she had been a media darling, because of her capture of a Yuuzhan Vong ship and the brief role she had played as “the Trickster Goddess”—a weapon unto herself. Now she was just another weary pilot returning from a mission that had nearly gone completely wrong.
Five Twin Suns pilots had died. But that was breaking news only to those who had survived.
A human crew chief rolled a ladder up to Jaina’s X-wing while the canopy was rising. Two crash-team techs rushed in to effect repairs and check on carbon-scored Cappie.
“Welcome back, Colonel,” the young woman said.
Jaina descended the ladder, took off her helmet, and shook out her brown hair. Loosening the tabs of her flight suit, she put the helmet under her arm and began to circle the X-wing, her eyes scanning the hold for signs of Millennium Falcon. Not too far away, Lowbacca, Kyp, and Alema Rar were emerging from their craft.
“Has there been any communication from the Falcon?” she asked the crew chief after she had completed a second circle of the starfighter.
The woman unclipped a datapad from her belt and gave the small display screen a perfunctory glance. “Not that I’m aware of, Colonel. But the Falcon might have been directed into one of the frigates.”
Jaina forced an exhale. When the crew chief started to move off, Jaina grabbed hold of her arm—forcefully, until she realized what she had done and relaxed her grip.
“Could you check on that?”
The woman frowned and rubbed her bicep.
“Please,” Jaina added.
This time the crew chief spent a long moment studying the data screen of her portable device.
“Sorry, Colonel, no sign of the Falcon anywhere.” She smiled sympathetically. “If I hear anything, I’ll find you.”
Starfighters and gunships were still arriving—some on a wing and prayer. Jaina moved to the edge of a balcony that overlooked the docking bay’s magcon field. Gazing out at all the moving lights, the octagonal shipyards, and the distant orbital Fleet Command Annex, she stretched out with her feelings. At the edge of her awareness she could sense that her mother and father were alive, but in grave danger. Her mind made up, she hurried back to the starfighter and clambered up the ladder to the cockpit.
“I’m going back out,” she informed the puzzled crew chief.
“Sir?”
Jaina pulled her helmet on and settled herself in the seat. “If anyone asks, I’m back at the Mon Eron reversion point.”
The young woman grew flustered. “But your ship … your droid!”
Jaina fastened her chin strap as the canopy was lowering. “They’re used to it.”
For all the worldshaping and geologic surgery performed on Coruscant, Westport, north of the former Legislative District, remained a landing area. Its floating platforms, docking bays, and maintenance buildings had been slagged, and in their place stood grashals and other mollusklike housings, scattered across a vast expanse of fused yorik coral tableland, with room enough for more than ten thousand vessels. Though few would recognize it, the aerodrome had fared far better than Eastport,