Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 05_ Darkest Knight - Kevin J. Anderson [34]
As she reached the entrance, Garowyn flung out one arm to grasp a vertical railing that ran along the edge of the doorway.
Without slowing, she used her momentum to swing herself out and around in a tight half circle to land on the verandah that ran along the side of the hangar.
Wind whistled around the open door. Inside, the sounds of loose equipment clattered and clanked, and small components rattled out of broken crates.
Jaina scrambled across the slippery floor plates, trying to reach the doorway through which Garowyn had escaped. Before she could reach the outside, Jaina heard a puttering, buzzing sound.
"Quick, Chewie," she cried, "she's got a speeder bike."
Jaina stumbled toward the entrance, slipping as she went. She grabbed on to a wall rail to prevent herself from pitching forward in a long drop to the canopy below.
Her heart sank when she saw the fleeing Nightsister on a speeder bike zip across the hanger bay opening, heading toward the computer fabrication facility, which Jaina knew was under attack from Imperial forces.
Moving with amazing speed, Chewbacca launched himself forward. To Jaina's horror, the Wookiee gave a ferocious howl and leaped straight out the door toward Garowyn's buzzing vehicle, with nothing beneath him but thin air-and grasped a pipe on the speeder bike with one strong, furry hand.
Still slipping, Jaina held the wall rail and watched Wookiee, Nightsister, and speeder bike spiral down toward the leafy sea. Jaina clung to the rail and reached out with one hand, but she was too far away to help Chewbacca.
As the speeder bike crashed on the treetops, Chewie quickly regained his balance.
The Nightsister, still covered with slimy lubricant, dismounted and scrambled for purchase on one of the narrow branches. Chewie swung himself to the thicker branch beneath her and shook the limb on which she stood, growling a challenge.
A harsh laugh escaped Garowyn's lips, and a triumphant look lit her face.
Jaina could hear her voice even at this distance. "So you wish to die?"
The Nightsister stretched out a hand that crackled with discharges of blue electricity. "You deserve it for what you've done to my ship."
Chewbacca, though defenseless in the face of her discharge of dark power, snarled at her.
In desperation Jaina tried the only trick that sprang to mind. Letting her eyes fall half closed, Jaina sent a rippling furrow through the leaves behind Garowyn. This time the invisible plow made a loud, rustling sound, like a stampede.
The Nightsister whirled to defend against the supposed attack on her from behind.
Flinging up an arm to ward off her unseen enemy, Garowyn lost her footing on the narrow branch. She fell backward.
Jaina gasped as she heard Garowyn's head strike a lower tree branch with a solid thud.
Without another sound, the Nightsister's compact body tumbled like a shooting star, through the sharp and clinging branches into the depths of the jungle far, far below.
- ----------------
THE SCREAMING SOUNDS of TIE fighters ripping through the atmosphere sent a chill of primal terror down Jacen's spine. He knew the howl was only exhaust from the powerful engines, but he felt certain the Imperial ship designers must have delighted in the hellish noise.
In the bustling fabrication facility, a cacophony of alarms rang out from platform loudspeakers. Growling, barking announcements hammered through the air. Wookiee workers ran in all directions, activating security systems or evacuating the area.
TIE bombers streaked low over the treetops, dropping proton explosives that set the dense network of branches aflame. Dark gray smoke billowed from burning leaves.
"We must help defend against this threat," Tenel Ka said, looking for some weapon substantial enough to use against the invading fighters. Her face wore an expression of stony determination.
Sirra and lkwie howled in rage at seeing the destruction of the tree