They were halfway to the balcony's exit door, dodging between the rows of Spaarti cylinders, when the column behind them blew up.
The charges went first, blowing sections of cable and pipework in a series of dazzling fireballs all around the column's perimeter. An evil-looking cloud of smoke and dust and flash-vaporized nutrient liquids swirled into the air, obscuring the view; from all sides, multicolored fluids began spraying out. The work platform they'd been standing on a minute earlier broke free of its supports and slid roughly down the column, tearing and damaging more equipment as it fell. From inside the cloud came a sputtering of shorted power lines and secondary explosions, each one adding to the rain of debris.
And with a horrible creaking of strained and shattered supports, the external layers of the column began to peel away and fall almost leisurely outward.
Over the din, Chewbacca roared a warning. "Me, neither," Lando shouted back. "Let's get out of here."
Ten seconds later, bursting past the single token guard who'd been left on this level's exit door, they were out. They were two corridors away when they felt the distant vibration as the column crashed to the cloning cavern floor.
"Okay," Lando panted, pausing and glancing both ways as they reached a cross corridor. Artoo must have done a good job with those troop reassignments; the whole area seemed deserted. "Exit's that direction," he told Chewbacca, pulling out his comlink. "We'll call the others and get out of here." He keyed for Han—
And jerked back as the comlink erupted with a loud crackling noise. "Han?" he called.
"Lando?" Hans voice came back, almost inaudible over the noise.
"Right," Lando confirmed. "What's happening up there?"
"This crazy Jedi's dropping the roof in on us," Han shouted. "Leia and me have a little cover, but he's got Luke and Mara out in the open. Where are you?"
"Down near the cloning cavern," Lando gritted. If that arrhythmic resonance thing of Chewbacca's worked, one of the mountain's reactors would already be starting to flicker with instabilities. If they didn't get out of the mountain before it blew . . . "You want us to come up and help?"
"Don't bother," Karrde's voice cut in grimly. "There's already a large pile of stone in front of the turbolift. Looks like we're here for the duration."
Chewbacca snarled, his voice filled with frustration. "Forget it, Chewie, there's nothing you could do anyway," Han told him. "We've still got Luke and Mara—maybe they can stop him."
"What if they can't?" Lando demanded, stomach twisting inside him. "Look, you haven't got much time—we think we've got an arrhythmic resonance going in the power core."
"Good," Han said. "Means C'baoth won't get out either."
"Han—"
"Go on, get out of here," Han cut him off. "Chewie, it's been great; but if we don't make it, someone beside Winter's going to have to take care of Jacen and Jaina. You got that?"
"The Wild Karrde's waiting where you came in," Karrde added. "They'll be expecting you."
"Right," Lando said, gritting his teeth. "Good luck."
He keyed off and jammed the comlink back in his belt. Han was right, there wasn't anything they could do against
C'baoth from down here. But with the Wild Karrde's turbolasers and Artoo's set of floor plans . . . "Come on, Chewie," he said, turning toward their exit and breaking into a run. "It's not over yet."
"Perhaps it is for the best," C'baoth murmured, gazing at Luke sadly as he stepped toward him. Blinking the dust away from his eyes, Luke looked up at the old Jedi, trying to force back the agony still throbbing through him.
The agony, and the looming sense of defeat. Kneeling on the floor, encased in stones to above his waist with more still falling on him, facing an insane Jedi Master who wanted to kill him . . .
No. A Jedi must act when he is calm. At peace with the Force. "Master C'baoth, listen to me," he said. "You're not well. I know that. But I can help you."
A dozen expressions flicked across C'baoth's face, as if he were trying various emotions on for size. "Can you, now," he said, settling on wry amusement. "And why should you do that for me?"
"Because you need it," Luke said. "And because we need you. You have a vast store of experience and power that you could use for the good of the New Republic."
C'baoth snorted. "The Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth does not serve lesser peoples, Jedi Skywalker."
"Why not? All the great Jedi Masters of the Old Republic did."
"And that was their failing," C'baoth said, jabbing a finger at Luke. "That was why the lesser peoples rose up and killed them."
"But they didn't—"
"Enough!" C'baoth thundered. "It doesn't matter what you think the lesser peoples need from me. I am the one who will decide that. They will accept my rule, or they will die." His eyes flashed. "You had that choice, Jedi Skywalker. And more—you could have ruled beside me. Instead, you chose death."
A drop of sweat or blood trickled down the side of Luke's face. "What about Mara?"
C'baoth shook his head. "Mara Jade is no longer any concern of yours," he said. "I will deal with her later."
"No," Mara snapped. "You will deal with me now."
Luke looked over at her. The stones were still raining down above her head; but to his astonishment, the knee-high pile of rock that had been trapping her in place was gone. And now he saw why: those lightsaber slashes she'd been making earlier hadn't been the useless sweeping motions that he'd assumed. Instead, she'd been slicing huge gashes in the floor, releasing the stones to drain through to the monitor area below.
Raising her lightsaber, she charged.
C'baoth swung around to face her, his face contorted with rage. "No!" he screamed; and again the blue-white lightning crackled from his fingertips. Mara caught the burst on her lightsaber, her mad rush faltering as coronal fire burned all around her. C'baoth fired again and again, backing toward the throne and the solid wall behind it. Doggedly, Mara kept coming.
Abruptly, the rockfall over her head ceased. From the edge of the pile that had half buried Luke, stones began flying toward C'baoth. Curving around behind him, they shot straight into Mara's face. She staggered backward, squeezing her eyes shut against the hailstorm and throwing up her right elbow to try to block them away.
Setting his teeth, Luke tried to heave away the stones weighing him down. He couldn't leave Mara to fight alone. But it was no use; his muscles were still too weakened from C'baoth's last attack. He tried again anyway, ignoring the fresh pain the effort sent through him. He looked at Mara—
And saw her face suddenly change. He frowned; and then he heard it too. Leia's voice, speaking in his mind—
Keep your eyes closed, Mara, and listen to my voice. I can see; I'll guide you.
"No!" C'baoth screamed again. "No! She is mine!"
Luke looked over at the other end of the throne room, wondering how C'baoth would lash out at Leia in retaliation. But there was nothing. Even the stones had stopped falling on the section of catwalk they were all huddled beneath. Perhaps the long battle had finally begun to drain C'baoth's strength, and he could no longer risk splitting his attention. Beyond the catwalk, lying half buried in the pile of stone that now blocked the turbolift door, Luke spotted the metallic glint of his lightsaber. If he could call it to him, and regain enough strength to join Mara's battle . . .
And then, another motion caught his eye. Tied to the catwalk to one side, untouched by the rockfall that had attacked their owner, Karrde's pet vornskrs were tugging at their leashes.
Straining toward Mara. And toward C'baoth.
A wild vornskr had nearly killed Mara during their trek through the Myrkr forest. It seemed only fitting, somehow, for these two to help save her. The lightsaber stirred under Luke's call, igniting as his mind found the control. It rolled off the rock pile, the brilliant green blade throwing sparks from the stones as it bounced across them. Luke strained, and the weapon lifted into the air and flew toward him.
And as it reached the
ruined catwalk, he let the blade dip to slice neatly through the vornskrs' leashes.
C'baoth saw them coming, of course. His back nearly to the throne room wall now, he shifted his aim, sending a burst of lightning toward the charging predators as they came up over the stairway. One of them howled and fell to the floor, skidding across the scattered stones; the other staggered but kept coming.
The distraction was all the opening Mara needed. She leaped forward against the rocks still pummeling against her face, covering the last remaining distance between her and C'baoth; and as he brought his hands desperately back toward her, she dropped onto her knees in front of him and stabbed viciously upward with her lightsaber. With a last, mournful scream, C'baoth crumpled—
And as it had with the Emperor aboard the Death Star, the dark side energy within him burst out in a violent explosion of blue fire.
Luke was ready. Throwing every last bit of strength into the effort, he caught Mara in a solid Force grip, pulling her back away from that burst of energy as fast as he could. He felt the wave-front slam into him; felt the slight easing of stress as Leia's strength joined his effort.
And then, suddenly, it was all over.
For a long minute he lay still, gasping for air, fighting against the unconsciousness threatening to roll over him. Dimly, he felt the stones being pushed away from around him. "Are you all right, Luke?" Leia asked.
He forced open his eyes. Dust-covered and bruised, she didn't look much better than he felt. "I'm fine," he told her, pushing against the remaining stones and getting his feet under him. "How about the others?"
"They're not too bad," she said, catching his arm to help steady him. "But Han's going to need medical treatment—he's got some bad burns."
"So does Mara," Karrde said grimly, coming up the steps holding an unconscious Mara in his arms. "We have to get her to the Wild Karrde as quickly as possible."
"So give them a call," Han said. He was kneeling over the dead Luuke clone, gazing down at him. "Tell them to come pick us up."
"Pick us up where?" Karrde frowned.
Han pointed toward the spot where C'baoth had died. "Right there."
Luke turned and looked. The massive detonation of dark side energy had made a shambles of that end of the throne room. The walls and ceiling were blackened and cratered; the metal of the floor where C'baoth had stood was buckled and half melted; the throne itself had been ripped away and was lying smoldering a meter from its base.
And behind it, through a jagged crack in the rear wall, he could see the bright twinkle of a single star.
"Right," Luke said, taking a deep breath. "Leia?"
"I see it," she nodded, handing him his lightsaber and igniting hers. "Let's get busy."
The two Rebel Assault Frigates broke to either side of the beleaguered Golan II, delivering massive broadsides as they veered off. A section of the battle station flared and went dark; and against its darkened bulk another wave of Rebel starfighters could be seen slipping past into the shipyards beyond.
And Pellaeon was no longer smiling.
"Don't panic, Captain," Thrawn said. But he, too, was starting to sound grim. "We're not defeated yet. Not by a long shot."
Pellaeon's board pinged. He looked at it— "Sir, we have a priority message coming in from Wayland," he told Thrawn, his stomach twisting with a sudden horrible premonition. Wayland—the cloning facility—
"Read it, Captain," Thrawn said, his voice deadly quiet.
"Decrypt is coming in now, sir," Pellaeon said, tapping the board impatiently as the message slowly began to come up. It was exactly as he'd feared. "The mountain is under attack, sir," he told Thrawn. "Two different forces of natives, plus some Rebel saboteurs—" He broke off, frowning in disbelief. "And a group of Noghri—"
He never got to read any more of the report. Abruptly, a gray-skinned hand slashed out of nowhere, catching him across the throat.
He gagged, falling limply in his chair, his whole body instantly paralyzed. "For the treachery of the Empire against the Noghri people," Rukh's voice said quietly from beside him as he gasped for breath. "We were betrayed. We have been revenged."
There was a whisper of movement, and he was gone. Still gasping, struggling against the inertia of his stunned muscles, Pellaeon fought to get a hand up to his command board. With one final effort he made it, trying twice before he was able to hit the emergency alert.
And as the wailing of the alarm cut through the noise of a Star Destroyer at battle, he finally managed to turn his head.
Thrawn was sitting upright in his chair, his face strangely calm. In the middle of his chest, a dark red stain was spreading across the spotless white of his Grand Admiral's uniform. Glittering in the center of the stain was the tip of Rukh's assassin's knife.
Thrawn caught his eye; and to Pellaeon's astonishment, the Grand Admiral smiled. "But," he whispered, "it was so artistically done."
The smile faded. The glow in his eyes did likewise . . . and Thrawn, the last Grand Admiral, was gone.
"Captain Pellaeon?" the comm officer called urgently as the medic team arrived—too late—to the Grand Admiral's chair. "The Nemesis and Stormhawk are requesting orders. What shall I tell them?"
Pellaeon looked up at the viewports. At the chaos that had erupted behind the defenses of the supposedly secure shipyards; at the unexpected need to split his forces to its defense; at the Rebel fleet taking full advantage of the diversion. In the blink of an eye, the universe had suddenly turned against them.
Thrawn could still have pulled an Imperial victory out of it. But he, Pellaeon, was not Thrawn.
"Signal to all ships," he rasped. The words ached in his throat, in a way that had nothing to do with the throbbing pain of Rukh's treacherous attack. "Prepare to retreat."
Chapter 29
The sun had set beneath a thin layer of western clouds, and the colors of the evening sky were beginning to fade into the encroaching darkness of Coruscant night. Leaning on the chest-high wrought-stone railing at the edge of the Palace roof, listening to the breezes whispering by her ears, Mara gazed out at the lights and vehicles of the Imperial City below. Buzzing with activity, there was still something strangely peaceful about it.
Or maybe the peace was in her. Either way, it made for a nice change.
Twenty meters behind her, the door out onto the roof opened. She stretched out with the Force; but she knew who it had to be. And she was right. "Mara?" Luke called softly.
"Over here," she called back, grimacing out at the city below. From his sense she could tell he was here for her answer.
So much for inner peace.
"Quite a view, isn't it?" Luke commented, coming up beside her and gazing out over the city. "Must bring back memories for you."
She threw him a patient look. "Translation: How am I feeling about the homecoming this time. You know, Skywalker—just between us—you're pretty pathetic when you try to be devious. If I were you, I'd give it up and just stick with that straight-out farm boy honesty."
"Sorry," he said. "Too much time spent around Han, I guess."
"And Karrde and me, I suppose?"
"You want a straight-out farm boy honest answer to that?"
She threw him a crooked smile. "I'm sorry I even brought it up."
Luke smiled back, then turned serious again. "So how are you feeling?"