Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 04_ Lightsabers - Kevin J. Anderson [56]
"Lock it," Jaina gasped, and Tenel Ka snapped a bolt into place.
Outside, Bartokk assassins pounded, scraping with their razor-edged claws against the doorjamb.
The metal door rattled in its frame, and Tenel Ka knew their defenses couldn't last long against the onslaught.
But that was the least of her worries at the moment.
Three Bartokk assassins had been trapped inside the chamber with them, and now the ruthless black-shelled insects moved forward, focusing on their main target.
The old matriarch had barricaded herself in a comerand was doing her best to knock the creaturesaway with a broken piece of furniture. The youngJedi Knights rushed to defend the former queen, but one of the assassins lashed out with its razor claws at them.
Tenel Ka charged forward as the insect killer moved to meet her. She plunged her ornamental spear into it until the tip of her weapon bored all the way through the glossy shell and wedged into a crack between the wall blocks. She left the Bartokk pinned to the wall like a bug in a child's collection.
Even so, the creature still writhed and snapped, thrashing to get at them.
Jacen ran forward and with a hissing sweep of his lightsaber, sliced off the multi-eyed head of another assassin as it leapt toward the matriarch.
With a roar, Lowbacca left his post at the rattling door and grasped the remaining Bartokk, lifting it bodily off the floor. Its many sharp arms thrashed as Lowie pushed forward to the high open window and heaved the creature over the ledge. The assassin tumbled nearly thirty meters to splatter on the jagged reef far below.
"Hey!" Jacen said, as the Bartokk he had beheaded, instead of collapsing into twitching death, continued to fight its way toward the alarmed matriarch. "Aren't you supposed to die?"
He slashed again with the lightsaber, this time cutting the legs out from under the headless Bartokk. The insect torso crashed to the floor, but with its remaining limbs it still hauled itself toward Tenel Ka's grandmother. The severed head lay on the flagstones near the wall, staring at its target through faceted eyes, somehow continuing to direct the body.
"These hive-mind assassins," Tenel Ka explained, "their brains are distributed through major nerve networks inside their bodies. Simply cutting off a head won't stop them. The pieces will still attempt to continue their mission."
With another blow from his lightsaber, Jacen chopped the remaining torso in half. "This is getting ridiculous," he said.
Lowbacca marched over to where the severed insect head lay near the wall. Then with great pleasure he stomped down, squashing it as one might step on an annoying beetle.
The wiry old matriarch tossed aside the broken piece of furniture she had been using as a weapon.
"I thank you for your efforts to save me, my granddaughter," she said, "but it would seem that this plot is rather extensive. Our entire fortress is overrun, and I see no means of escape."
Across the floor the ichor-dripping pieces of the chopped-up assassin continued to squirm toward the former queen, blindly groping, yet still deadly.
The skewered Bartokk hanging from the wall thrashed and flailed, trying to break free from Tenel Ka's spear.
Outside, in the corridors, the rest of the assassin hive hammered without pause against the armored plates of the door. From where Tenel Ka stood, she could see the rivets popping out and blocks crumbling to powder at the edges of the sealed door. The metal began to bend inward...
It certainly wouldn't last much longer.
JAINA LOOKED AROUND the dim room where they had barricaded themselves, desperate to find some means of escape. With the hammering of assassins outside the door growing louder and louder, she found it hard to think. Pale moonlight streamed through the window from