Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 06_ Jedi Under Siege - Kevin J. Anderson [30]
Tenel Ka could vaguely sense the pilot's terror. He didn't know what to do and saw the platform as his last chance, a place where he might make an emergency landing. But Tenel Ka could tell from the speed of his descent and his total lack of maneuverability that a landing was impossible.
Seeing nothing but her own rage, the Nightsister lunged with one clawed hand to grab Tenel Ka's ankle. The dark woman didn't even notice the approaching danger.
Tenel Ta could waste no time fighting with her. She snatched her booted foot free and leaped over the black-clad Nightsister, landing among the stormtroopers next to Lowie.
The stormtroopers, though, had already seen the incoming TIE bomber and scrambled to clear the deck.
"Lowbacca, we must go now," Tenel Ka said, grabbing his hairy arm.
He roared, and Em Teedee chimed in.
"Indeed. I believe that is a most sensible suggestion."
She and Lowbacca hurried to the edge of the hovering platform and looked down at the sluggish river below and the overhanging jungle trees.
Up on the command deck, Tamith Kai finally realized the impending danger as the TIE bomber came in, its engines building to a sputtering roar. The Nightsister screamed for the pilots inside the battle platform to start its repulsor engines and evade the impending crash.
They would never make it.
Lowie and Tenel Ka dove overboard, hoping for a safe place to land.
Behind them, the TIE bomber crashed into the Shadow Academy's battle platform and exploded in an instant. Its entire cargo of remaining explosives detonated along with the engines, blasting a hole entirely through the immense vessel.
Armored plates flew like metallic snowflakes in all directions. A gout of fire and smoke blasted into the sky, and the cumbersome battle platform plummeted, choking and rumbling.
The mass of unrecognizable wreckage exploded several more times as it plunged into the river....
LASER BLASTS FROM the pursuing TIE fighters spanged against Jaina's stolen Imperial ship. One blast sizzled off a corner of the hexagonal power array, sending up a shower of sparks.
She fought to maintain control as her ship began to spin. She lost power, but still her ship flashed onward, propelled by its stealth drive. The silent engines had been made for covert action-not for all-out speed.
Behind her, the furious TIE fighters closed the distance.
Jaina flew a frantic evasive action, up and down, diving toward the jungle treetops and then pulling up, hoping the Imperial pilots would make a mistake-slam into a tree branch or collide with each other or something.
No such luck.
The three pursuers had reached pointblank firing range, and Jaina had to take one last gamble. Using the mental speed given to her by Jedi training, she spun the TIE fighter about like a rotating ball, up and over, so that an instant later she headed not away from them, but straight toward them! The distance closed in a flash. Jaina had time for only a single shot.
And she didn't waste it.
The blast from her laser cannon ripped open the bottom of one of the TIE
fighters, severing its controls, breaking the cockpit's airtight seal.
The pilot fell through the hole and tumbled toward the jungle.
Jaina roared between the other two TIE fighters, heading as fast as she could in the opposite direction. They wheeled about, taking longer to complete a three-hundred-sixty-degree turn in the air, but within moments they were following again in hot pursuit.
Jaina flicked her gaze across the control panels, searching for anything that might help her, some secret weapon this TIE fighter might have. She doubted she would find anything that her pursuers couldn't counter.
Then her eyes fixed on a small button: TWIN ION ENGINE SHUNT. Suddenly she realized this would add the TIE fighter's normal engines back to the low-powered stealth drive her fighter had been using.
Without hesitation, she toggled the button off, deactivating the shunt-and with a screech