Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [8]
From the direction of the prison came the ferocious barking of bissops, the Yuuzhan Vong lizard-hounds. And something had taken to the air: a coralskipper gunship, or one of the seabirdlike fliers known as a tsik vai.
A loud whining split the sky, and the four escapees submerged themselves in the filmy water to avoid detection. Thorsh surfaced a long moment later, dripping water and gasping for air. The baying of the bissops was louder, and now the sound of nimble footfalls and angry voices cut through the humid air.
The temple was emptying; search parties were being organized.
Thorsh stood to his full height, spurring everyone into motion once more.
They slipped and slid, and otherwise fought their way through dense vegetation to the eastern bank of the wide estuary. By then Selvaris’s primary was cresting the horizon. Long, horizontal rays of rose-tinted sunlight streaked through the trees, saturating the evanescing mist with color. Making haste for the water, one of the Bith sank to his waist in the liquid sand.
It took the combined strength of all three of his teammates to yank him free, and more time than they had to spare.
The coralskipper reappeared, rocketing out over the estuary and loosing molten projectiles into the jungle. Fireballs mushroomed above the treetops, sending thousands of nesting creatures into frantic flight.
“Captain Page never promised this was going to be easy,” Thorsh said.
“Or dry,” the quicksand-covered Bith added.
Thorsh’s long nose twitched, and his keen eyes scanned the opposite shoreline. “We’re not far now.” He indicated a bird island in the middle of the estuary. “There.”
They plunged into the brackish water and began to swim for their lives. The morning sky was black with frightened birds. The coralskipper made another pass, forging through the airborne chaos. Bird bodies plummeted, slapping the surface of the calm water and tinting it red.
Thorsh and the others scrambled onto the island’s narrow beach. They picked themselves up and sprinted for cover, squirming into the island’s snarl of skeletal trees and thorny bushes. They stopped frequently to get their bearings. The Bith’s olfactory organs were located in the parallel skinfolds of their cheeks, but it was Thorsh’s long nose that directed them straight to what the Ryn had hidden months earlier: two aged swoops, camouflaged by a mimetic tarpaulin.
The repulsorlift swoopbikes were more engine than chassis, with sloping front ends and high handgrips. These two lacked safety harnesses, and their fairings were incomplete. Both were built for single pilots, but the saddlelike seats were long enough to accommodate passengers—assuming one was crazy enough to climb aboard.
Or assuming that one had a choice.
Thorsh straddled the rustier of the pair, and began to throw priming and ignition switches. Reluctantly, the swoop’s engine shuddered to life, idling erratically at first, but gradually smoothing out.
“We’re juiced!” he said.
One of the Bith perched behind Thorsh on the long seat. The shorter of his two comrades was appraising the saddle of the other swoop.
“Coordinates for the extraction point should be loaded in the navicomputer,” Thorsh said, shouting to be heard above the throb of the repulsorlift engines.
“Coming up on the display now,” the Bith pilot said.
Clearly, the third Bith had grave misgivings about mounting the swoop, but his doubts disappeared when the coral-skipper grazed the treetops, searching for signs of the escapees.
Thorsh waited for the wedge-shaped assault craft to pass before saying, “We’re better off splitting up. We’ll rendezvous at the rally point.”
“Last one there …,” his passenger started to say, only to let his words trail off.
The Bith pilot revved the swoop’s engine.