Treetops snapped as Anakin wrestled with gravity. Vehn’s complaints had deteriorated to a steady moan. Valin, strapped in the copilot’s seat, looked very ill. Sannah was still firing the turbolaser; from her, Anakin could sense both frustration and anger. Tahiri had been her friend, too.
Was still her friend. Tahiri was alive. Anakin could feel that as certainly as he could feel his own skin.
The transport cut a smoking swath across the tree line for a kilometer before Anakin saw what passed for a clearing. He dropped in, straining the inertial dampeners well beyond their parameters, fetching up against a wall of vines and secondary growth—dense, but without much mass. If he hit a big tree …
He tried not to think about it. Instead he dumped a torpedo and reversed direction, traveling into the more open forest beyond on repulsors, drifting back toward the treetops, hiding in the canopy.
The torpedo went, taking a hundred square meters of the forest with it in a carbon-rich plume.
“Come on, you vultures,” Anakin muttered.
“Got them,” Sannah called softly.
“No,” Anakin replied. “Wait.”
He could make it out through the smoke, a Sentinel-class shuttle.
“They think we’ve crashed,” Valin said.
“Yes,” Anakin replied, punching the engines back on. The modified shuttle tried to swing around as he rose out of the trees, but it was too late. He fired his last proton torpedo, and the Peace Brigade ship became a ball of fire, sinking into the already burning jungle.
“Anakin!” Sannah shrieked.
Instinctively, Anakin threw the ship skyward, but not before multiple impacts ripped through the failing transport.
“There you are,” he muttered. “After you, I’m done.”
Of the three ships that had chased him halfway around the moon, only this one—an E-wing—remained. Unfortunately, while Anakin’s commandeered transport was limping so badly it would soon go down on its own, the speedy little fighter was undamaged.
“You only have to hit it once, Sannah,” Anakin said. “Maybe twice.”
“I can’t get a bead,” she shouted back.
The little ship made a pass, and the air suddenly smelled sharply of ozone and vaporized metal as the transport tremored.
“Let me have a shot!” Vehn demanded.
“What?”
“Look, I don’t wanna die. This is my ship, those are my guns. I know ’em better than that kid back there. She’s never even handled a gun before, that much is clear—yii!” Vehn blanched as Anakin put the ungainly craft in a barrel roll.
“You think I trust you?”
“Use your poodoo-stinking Jedi powers. Can’t you tell I’m serious?”
To Anakin’s surprise, he really didn’t sense deception from the fellow.
“You’d shoot down your own friends?”
“They’re not my friends.”
Again, no deception.
Anakin made his decision. “Valin, uncuff him. Take him to the gun. Vehn, I promise you, if this is a trick, no matter what else happens, you’ll be sorry.”
“Sorrier than I am now? I doubt it.”
Anakin dropped low again, trying to buy a few more seconds. He had only one engine left on-line, and one more hit would finish that quickly enough.
“I’m on it,” Vehn reported from the turret. “Give me a little altitude, that’s all I ask.”
“You’ve got it,” Anakin said. Once more he put the ship in a climb. The E-wing saw its opportunity then, darting in and chewing what was left of the engine to shreds. It coughed off-line, and for an instant the transport seemed to hang suspended a hundred meters above the treetops. In that in-between moment, Vehn needled red lines across the sky, stitching through the E-wing. It spun wildly out of control. Then the transport was falling, and Anakin hit the repulsors, and the sound of tearing metal deafened him.
Anakin came to with the taste of blood on his tongue. He didn’t know if he had been out for seconds or days, and a glance at the controls didn’t help. Through the cockpit transparisteel he could see only crushed vegetation.
“Sannah! Valin!”
“They’re okay,” Remis Vehn said from behind Anakin. “A little battered, but no worse for the wear.”
Anakin twisted in his seat and found himself confronting the muzzle of a blaster. He blinked, then looked up at the young man’s cool gray eyes.
“You want to put that down, don’t you?” Anakin asked, pushing with the Force.
“Well …,” Vehn considered.
“You’ll put it down,” Anakin commanded.
“Sure,” Vehn replied. “I’ll put it down.”
“Great.” Anakin unfastened himself from the flight harness. He took the blaster and stuck it in his belt.
“Vaping moffs!” Vehn swore. “You Jedi are sorcerers.”
“Keep it sealed,” Anakin warned him, turning to Sannah.
Sannah was unconscious but breathing evenly. Valin was awake, but the hull near him had crimped in such a way that Sannah’s harness was stuck. Anakin sliced through it with his lightsaber. The Melodie girl moaned softly.
“Vehn, carry Sannah out,” Anakin told the Peace Brigader. “The ship may have a few surprises for us yet.”
“My ship,” Vehn said. “I can’t believe what you did to my ship.”
“Your buddies did it,” Anakin said. “The same buddies who just murdered a Jedi Master and took my best friend captive. Don’t expect me to cry any tears for you.”
“First of all,” Vehn said, “they aren’t my buddies. I was strictly in this business for the money, and I thought we were taking on adult Jedi, not little kids. Second of all, I don’t expect you to get all weepy, but without my ship, how do you plan to get off this snarly jungle?”
Anakin didn’t answer Vehn, but examined Valin instead. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Can you walk?”
“I’m fine,” Valin answered.
“Good. I want you to go outside and find cover in the trees. Be careful—the jungle isn’t exactly safe, though the crash probably scared most everything off.”
He then examined Sannah. She was bruised, but he didn’t sense anything seriously wrong with her.
“Take Sannah out,” he repeated to Vehn. “I’m right behind you.”
On his way out, he picked up the stun cuffs.
“This isn’t right,” Remis Vehn complained. “You just finished talking about how dangerous the jungle is and you not only won’t give me a weapon, you’ve restrained me. What if something comes along wanting lunch?”
“It would have to be a carrion eater to stomach the likes of you,” Anakin replied.
“You really think you’re going to get thanks from me?” Anakin snorted. “You were saving your own skin, nothing more. Now, quiet.”
“Is she going to be all right?” Valin asked, staring down at Sannah.
“I think so.” Anakin touched the Melodie girl’s forehead and very lightly brushed her with the Force, strengthening her where she was weak, gently tugging her toward consciousness.
With a faint sigh she opened her eyes, blinked at Anakin, then started violently.
“Tahiri!” she gasped.
“Shh,” Anakin said. “We crashed. You’re banged up, some. How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been poisoned by a purella and hung up in its web. Is Valin okay?”
“I’m right here,” Valin answered.
“We’re all okay,” Anakin assured her.
Tears started in the girl’s yellow eyes. “No, we’re not. Master Ikrit, and Tahiri …”
“Master Ikrit sacrificed himself for us,” Anakin said, around the gall in his throat. “He wouldn’t want us to grieve. He’s one with the Force now. Tahiri—”
“She’s dead, too, isn’t she?” Valin asked.
“No.” Anakin shook his head. “I can hear her in the Force.” Calling me, he added. He could feel her fear, mixed liberally with anger. He didn’t get the sense that she was in immediate danger.
Anakin turned toward Vehn, who sat a few meters away, his arms cuffed around a young Massassi tree. “What will they do with her, Vehn? Where were you supposed to take the children you kidnapped?”
“I told you, I didn’t know our targets were children,” Vehn said sullenly. “And I don’t know where we were supposed to take them.”
“But you were supposed to turn them over to the Yuuzhan Vong.”
Vehn studied the leaves above his head. “Yes,” he said at last.
“Where? Where is the rendezvous?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“Look—”
“I can make you tell me,” Anakin warned. “You won’t like it.” It occurred to him that his brother, Jacen, wouldn’t approve of that sort of threat, nor would Uncle Luke. At the moment, Anakin didn’t care.
Vehn fidgeted, but said nothing. Anakin suddenly surged to his feet and stalked toward the Peace Brigader.
“Hold it! Just wait a second, Jedi. Don’t slag my brain! I don’t know much, but I can tell you something I overheard. Something I wasn’t supposed to hear at all.”
Anakin took another step, then squatted until his ice-blue eyes were millimeters from Vehn’s dark gray. “Well?” he prompted.
“I’m not supposed to know this, but—the Yuuzhan Vong were planning to come to this miserable hole already. The Peace Brigade decided to head ’em off, capture you guys before they arrived.”
“What, to save them the trouble?”
“Exactly. A present, of sorts. These Peace Brigade guys, they’re serious. They really think everyone in the galaxy is doomed unless we give the Vong what they want, and then some.”
“Why do you say ‘these Peace Brigade guys’ as if you aren’t one of them?”
“They hired me to pilot. That’s all.”
Anakin frowned, but let that pass. “What will the Peace Brigade do now that they’ve botched the job?”
“How do you know they’ve botched it? They figured out you hid the other kids someplace. They have some pretty good trackers and search equipment with them.”
“They won’t find anyone,” Anakin said. “What will they do? The Yuuzhan Vong might assume the Brigade really came here to hide the kids. At the very least they’ll be upset that you were so inept you let thirty or more Jedi slip through your fingers and caught only one.”
Vehn looked thoughtful. “They might cut and run. They might try to bluff it out with their one captive. I don’t know them well enough to say.”
“Anakin,” Sannah said softly. “You and Tahiri saved my people. I can’t let anything happen to her. I can’t.”
“Why didn’t you think of that earlier?” Anakin snapped. “You three should have gone with Kam and Tionne. You thought this was all some sort of game. It isn’t.”
“Anakin!” Sannah’s eyes widened further, then dropped. “You’re right,” she whispered. “It is our fault. My fault. I could have told Kam, and none of this would have happened. Master Ikrit would still be alive.” Tears streamed down her face, and for a second Anakin was happy she was crying, satisfied she finally saw how stupid she had been. He wanted to agree with her.
Grinding his teeth, he quickly stood and walked into the woods.
He didn’t go far, but leaned against the bole of a giant tree, breathing heavily, composing himself. Then, when he thought he could do it, he want back into the clearing, where Sannah sat, still crying. Valin was wiping his own silent tears.
“That was wrong of me,” he said quietly. “None of you is to blame. You were only trying to help. The Peace Brigade is to blame. The Yuuzhan Vong are to blame. You guys aren’t. Feeling guilty isn’t going to help us right now. There are plenty more ships on this planet. For all we know they have a perfect lock on us already, so we need to get ready. If they don’t, we need to figure out how to get this ship running again.”
Remis Vehn vented a bitter laugh.
“We have parts from three ships here,” Anakin said evenly. “We ought to be able to cobble something together. Besides that, help is on the way, so maybe all we really have to do is hold out for a little while. Valin, I’m putting you in charge of taking inventory of what food and medicine we have. Vehn, you’ll tell him where to find it on your ship—all of it. Sannah, I’m giving you the blaster. I want you to watch the camp, while I go do recon at the other wreck sites. If you hear anything—I mean anything—coming from the sky, you both hide and stay hidden. Understand?”
“Yes,” Sannah replied. Valin nodded dutifully.
“Good. And ignore everything Vehn says. Don’t touch his restraints, don’t go near him. I’ll be back soon.”