Dark Journey Read Free Page B

could be expected to fly after losing … after what happened down there,” he concluded lamely.
    Silence hung between them, heavy with loss and pain and raw, too-vivid memories.
    Then Jaina caught a glimpse of the memory that most disturbed Zekk—an image of a small, disheveled young woman in a tattered jumpsuit, hurling lightning at a Yuuzhan Vong warrior. A moment passed before Jainarecognized the furious, vengeful, bloodstained face as her own.
    Suddenly she knew the truth of her old friend’s concern. Zekk, who had trained at the Shadow Academy and experienced the dark side firsthand, was as wary of it as Jacen had been. In taking the pilot’s chair, Zekk hadn’t been considering her loss, her state of mind. He simply didn’t trust her.
    Jaina braced herself for the pain of this new betrayal, but none came. Perhaps losing Jacen had pushed her to some place beyond pain.
    She brought to mind an image of the molten lightning that had come so instinctively to her call. She imbued it with so much power that the air nearly hummed with energy, and the metallic scent of a thunderstorm seemed to lurk on the edge of sensory perception. She projected this image to her old friend as forcefully as she could.
    “Get out of the seat, Zekk,” she said in cool, controlled tones. “I don’t want to fry the controls.”
    He hesitated for only a moment, then he ripped off the hood and rose. His green eyes met hers, filled with such a turmoil of sorrow and concern that Jaina slammed shut the Force connection between them. She knew that expression—she’d seen it in her mother’s eyes many times during the terrible months that followed Chewbacca’s death, when her father had been lost in grief and guilt.
    No time for this now.
    Jaina slid into the pilot’s seat and let herself join with the ship. Her fingers moved deftly over the organic console, confirming the sensory impulses that flowed to her through the hood. Yes, this was the hyperdrive analog. Here was the forward shield. The navigation center remained a mystery to her, but during their captivity Lowbacca had tinkered a bit with one of the worldship’s neural centers. The young Wookiee had a history of takingon impossible challenges, and this task lay right along his plotted coordinates.
    Suddenly the shriek of warning sensors seared through Jaina’s mind. A chorus of wordless voices came at her from all over the ship.
    The details of their situation engulfed her in a single swift flood. Several plasma bolts streamed toward them, converging on the underside of the ship—so far, the favored target. Coralskippers had moved into position aft and above, and others were closing in from below and on either side. Another ship came straight on, still at a distance but closing fast.
    No matter what she did, they could not evade the disabling barrage.

THREE
    Jaina held course, flying straight toward the incoming plasma bolts. At the last possible moment, she threw the vessel into a fast-rolling spiral. The plasma flurry skimmed along the whirling ship, not dealing much damage to any one part. When the scream of plasma grating against living coral ceased, she fought the ship out of the roll and kept heading straight toward the oncoming skip.
    “Lowbacca, get up here,” she shouted. “Clear me a lane, Ganner.”
    The Jedi gunner hurled plasma at the coralskipper directly in their path. As its dovin basal engulfed the missile in a miniature black hole, Ganner released another. His timing was perfect, and the skip dissolved in a brief, bright explosion.
    Jaina quickly diverted the dovin basal to the front shield, and instinctively flinched away as a spray of coral debris clattered over the hull. She glanced back over her shoulder in Zekk’s general direction.
    “Zekk, you play dejarik much?”
    “Play what?”
    “That’s what I thought,” she muttered. While Zekk had concentrated on avoiding each immediate attack, the yammosk-coordinated fleet had been thinking several