Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime Read Free

abruptly in a loud crash.
    “Coming in hot!” Mara cried, noting the fighter fast approaching to port.
    Jaina didn’t, couldn’t even hear her; she had turned inward now, was feeling the Force coursing through her, was registering every movement of her enemies and reacting instinctively, playing the game three moves ahead. Before Mara had even begun to speak, Jaina had hit the forward attitude adjustment jets, lifting the nose, then she pumped the throttle and kicked the rudder, lifting the
Jade Sabre
and bringing her nose about to starboard, to directly face the other incoming Headhunter.
    And that eager Rodian did come in at them, and hard, and the
Jade Sabre
’s defensive array screeched and lit up, warning of a lock-on.
    “Jaina!” Leia cried.
    “He’s got us!” Mara added.
    But then the closer ship, coming from port, passed right under the
Jade Sabre
, and Jaina fired the repulsorlifts, bouncing the
Jade Sabre
up and sending the poor Headhunter into a wild, spinning roll.
    The closing ship from starboard let fly its concussion missile, but it, and the Headhunter, zipped right underneath the elevated Jade Sabre.
    Before the three women could even begin to catch their breath, another ship streaked in, an X-wing, the new XJ version of the starfighter, its own laser cannons blasting away from its wingtips. Not at the
Jade Sabre
, though, but at the Headhunter that had just gone past.
    “Who is that?” Leia asked, and Jaina, equally curious, brought the
Jade Sabre
about hard.
    The Headhunter snap-rolled left and dived, but the far superior X-wing stayed on her, lasers scoring hit after hit, depleting her shields and then blasting her apart into a million pieces.
    “A Jedi,” Mara and Jaina said together, and Leia, when she paused to collect the Force sensations about her, concurred.
    “Fast to the
Mediator,”
Leia instructed her daughter, and Jaina swung the
Jade Sabre
about yet again.
    “I didn’t know there were any Jedi in the sector,” Leia said to Mara, who could only shrug, equally at a loss.
    “Another one’s out,” Jaina informed them, watching the blips on her sensor screen. “And two others are vectoring away.”
    “They want no part of a Jedi showing a willingness to shoot back,” Mara remarked.
    “Maybe Rodians are smarter than I thought,” Leia said dryly. “Smooth it out,” she instructed her daughter, unbuckling and climbing unsteadily to her feet.
    Jaina reluctantly dialed the inertial compensator back to full.
    “Only one pursuing,” Jaina informed them as Leia made her way to the door.
    “The X-wing,” Mara added, and Leia nodded.
    In the hallway outside the bridge, Leia found C-3PO inverted and against the wall, his feet sticking up in the air, his head crunched forward so that his chin was tight against his chest.
    “You have to learn to hold on,” Leia said to him, helping him upright. She glanced across the way to Bolpuhr as she spoke, to find the Noghri still standing calmly in the exact spot she had assigned him.
    Somehow, she wasn’t amazed.
    Jaina took the
Jade Sabre
at a swift but steady pace toward the distant
Mediator
. She checked often for pursuit, but it quickly became obvious that the Rodians in their outdated Headhunters wanted no part of this fight.
    Leia rejoined them a short while later, to find Jaina in complete control and Mara resting back in her seat, eyes closed. Even when Jaina asked her aunt a question about docking procedures, the woman didn’t respond, didn’t even open her eyes.
    “They’ll guide you in,” Leia interjected, and sure enough, a voice from the
Mediator
crackled over the opened comm, giving explicit directions for entry vector.
    Jaina took her in, and Jaina took her down, easily—and after the display of flying she had just given them out with the Headhunters, Leia wasn’t the least bit surprised by her ability to so smoothly tight-dock a ship as large as the
Jade Sabre
.
    That final shudder as Jaina eased off the