THIRTY-NINE.

The chamber was choked with dead Gorog, and still more came, pushing through the bodies and floating globules of gore to press their a.s.sault, their electrobolt rifles stringing the darkness with bright ropes of silver. Luke was tumbling through the rancid air, somersaulting over forks of crackling energy and spinning away from thrusting tridents, his lightsaber tracing a green cage around him as the blade moved smoothly from defense to offense, from diverting electrobolts to cleaving dark chitin. Mara was twisting along three meters behind him, connected by an invisible Force tether, firing her blaster with one hand and wielding her lightsaber with the other. They were sinking deeper into a battle trance, becoming one with their weapons, becoming the hands of death... and drawing ever closer to Alema Rar.

Luke felt the warm p.r.i.c.kle of danger sense and glimpsed a large band of Gorog gliding through the bodies to his right, the electrodes on their rifles already charged and glowing. Still rolling and twisting, fighting off attacks from every direction, he pointed at one of the membrosia givers on the ceiling and used the Force to pull it down-legs flailing and chest booming-into their line of fire.

Alema tried to wrench the creature free, but her grasp was no match for Luke's. The membrosia giver remained in the thick of battle, a shrill screech rising from its feeding tube, long gobs of membrosia shooting from its abdomen.

Alema spat a Twi'leki curse and ignited her lightsaber. Luke's chest tightened with cold anger-he had not thought her foolish enough to come for him-and he steeled himself to do what was necessary.

But Alema went straight to the membrosia giver, stunning Luke by sinking her lightsaber deep into the insect's thorax and dragging the blade along the insect's entire length. The two halves of the age body drifted apart, and a deafening volley of electrobolt fire lit the darkness.

The Skywalkers ducked away, Luke protecting them with his lightsaber while Mara's blaster added more dead Killiks to the sh.e.l.l of bodies already shielding them.

"Getting dangerous... in here!" Mara observed.

"Looks like."

"Time to carry the fight to them." Mara stopped firing and reached for a fresh power pack. "Time to go after Welk." She slipped the pack into her blaster and resumed firing. "And Lomi Plo."

Luke risked a glance toward Alema, who was clearly in no hurry to engage the Skywalkers directly and was gliding back toward her tunnel.

"Hoping to wear us down," Mara observed.

Luke shook his head. "Protecting something," he said. "Or someone."

Take her, Mara ordered through their Force-bond. "I'll cover."

Luke moved to intercept, no longer dodging or twisting, just shouldering past Killik corpses and going after Alema. He was shocked by her ruthlessness, but hardly surprised. The line she had crossed was an invisible one, a matter of degree and intention rather than principle. Had another Jedi Knight made a similar sacrifice pursuing a Jedi goal, Luke might have condoned the act, even tried to console the individual and rea.s.sure her that it had been the best choice available.

And that made him wonder more than ever what the Jedi had become.

A trio of Gorog warriors zeroed in on Luke, forcing him into somersaults until Mara took them out. He arrived at the cutoff point after Alema, but close enough on her heels that she had to turn and face him. She showed no emotion on her face or in the Force, but she raised her lightsaber into a middle guard-the best initial defense for an outmatched fighter.

Luke continued to bat electrobolts aside, his lightsaber weaving a green cage around him, but he made no move to attack.

"Alema, this doesn't have to happen," he said. "You still have a home with us. Gorog persuaded you to betray the Jedi, but we can forgive you." Luke did not like what the war had done to the Jedi-what it had done to him-and he was determined to start undoing that right now.

"Alema, reach out to me. I can help you find the way back."

"We don't want to come back!" Alema sprang, flying at Luke behind a whirling onslaught of slash and backslash. "Stop... interfering!"

Luke blocked and redirected her momentum, sending her tumbling into the body-choked darkness-and placing himself between her and the tunnel she had been guarding. He felt an inquiry from Mara, then glimpsed her pointing her blaster at the Twi'lek's back. He shook his head.

Be quick! Mara broke their Force tether, then launched herself into a wild gyre of sweeping blade-light and flashing blasterfire. Han and Leia...

Luke could sense the rest for himself. Han and Leia were almost there- and they would not be so forgiving. He began to retreat toward the tunnel, weaving and dancing as the electrobolts flew thick and fast around him. Alema started after him and had to slow down to dodge and block herself.

"Alema, your anger has made you vulnerable," Luke said. "Your sister's death made you angry, and the Gorog are using that anger to hold you."

"Numa was a warrior!" Alema snarled, readily shifting topics-as Luke had known she would-to the still-open wound of her sister's death.

"She would defend the Colony!"

This time, she came at Luke under control, combining the flashing blades of a speed attack with the driving stomp kicks of a power a.s.sault.

He switched to a one-handed grasp, parrying her strikes with his own lightsaber, slipping her kicks with a deft trunk twist, deflecting electrobolts with the palm of his free hand.

"Numa was wise." Luke continued to fall back, spinning around to slash open a pair of Gorog warriors foolish enough to charge him from behind. "She would have been the first to warn you against your anger."

Luke reached out for the Twi'lek, trying to embrace her in the Force and shield her from the Dark Nest's touch. "She would have been disappointed to see how you have surrendered to it."

Alema was too far gone. She attacked all the more furiously, shrieking her grief and rage in Twi'leki, slashing low and high, kicking right and left, her words as hard and angry as her blows. Time and again, Luke forced her to leave her body open for a killing blow he did not want to deliver, and time and again she failed to notice his mercy and spun around in another wild attack.

Then Luke felt an icy jolt of fear. He looked past Alema to see Gorog warriors closing on Mara from all sides, silver rays crackling at her so fast and furious she could not block them all. The first bolt burned a fist-sized hole in the thigh of her vac suit and filled the air with the stench of scorched durafiber. The second caught her in the chest, and Luke did not see the third. By then he was driving forward, pressing the attack and forcing Alema back toward Mara.

Suddenly the Twi'lek stopped, determined to stand her ground. Luke tapped her lightsaber aside, then used the Force to pull her hand toward him, drawing her off balance onto his own weapon. Her eyes widened, and the blade sliced down through her clavicle, deep into her shoulder.

Luke brought his boot up under her chin, snapping her head back, sending her arms flying out to her sides. She began to backflip away, her lightsaber slipping from her open fingers.

Luke summoned the weapon into his empty hand and continued toward Mara, who had disappeared inside a knot of Gorog. Her weapons were still flashing inside the snarl and her presence was burning hot in the Force, and that gave him hope. He reached out to Leia, urging her to hurry, then fell on the jumble with both lightsabers whirling.

The battle erupted into a tempest of hissing blades and shrieking blasters and crackling electrobolts. Luke opened a dozen thoraxes in a dozen strokes, then his back spasmed with the paralyzing heat of an electrobolt strike. Mara fired from somewhere inside the tangle of limbs and mandibles, and the acrid stench of melted chitin rose behind him.

Luke stretched out with the Force, dragging Killiks away from Mara, hurling them into their fellow warriors or impaling them on crooked forks of energy.

Luke pulled himself toward a glimpse of red-gold hair, his lightsabers opening a path, filling the air with globules of insect gore.

Twice, a mandible slipped through his defenses, one stabbing deep into his thigh, the other slipping a barb inside the face opening of his helmet. Both times, he slashed off the attackers' heads and moved on.

Finally, Luke came to Mara's whirling figure. Her vac suit had been burned to tatters, and she had half a dozen black circles where electrobolts had hit her. A faint aura of gold had arisen around her, a sign she was drawing on the Force to keep her exhausted, wounded body going.

Mara briefly locked gazes with Luke, then her green eyes slid away, looking overhead. Luke followed her line of sight and was surprised to see Alema Rar pulling herself into the tunnel mouth. Her left arm was floating at her side, a deep, gaping V where she had been cleaved.

Mara lowered her gaze again and continued her defensive whirl.

She batted away an electrobolt, then groaned, "This isn't really taking the fight to them."

"Not too late, though." Luke sent a flurry of electrobolts screaming back toward the Killiks that had fired them. "Got them overconfident now."

"Better make it look good, then."

Mara sent a dozen bolts screaming toward the Twi'lek. Luke did not see whether any hit. By then, the Gorog were pressing the attack again, and he was too busy defending himself and Mara to worry about Alema.

Leia's arms had become deadweights fifteen minutes into the fight, and she was able to wield her lightsaber now only by virtue of the strength Saba was lending her through the Force. Han had run out of power packs-she had not noticed when - and traded his T-21 for a pair of captured a.s.sault rifles, which he had taken to firing one in each hand.

The bugcrunchers had taken so many hits that Bugs One through Three had exhausted their laminanium repair ingots. With the exception of Saba - who only seemed to grow quicker, stronger, and more joyful as the battle wore on-even the Jedi Masters were slowing, if the tattered condition of their combat vac suits was any indication.

And the Gorog just kept coming, blocking the way ahead, clattering out of side pa.s.sages, rumbling up the tunnel behind the rescue team. A limitless swarm.

"Han!" Leia's lightsaber swept down to divert an electrobolt streaking toward his knee, then swung up to block one coming at her own head. Her arms were so numb she did not even feel them move. "Do those bugcrunchers have thermal detonators on them?"

"What do you think?"

"Use 'em."

"In here?" The a.s.sault rifle in Han's left hand ran low on power and began to shoot sparks. He let it float free. "That's crazy! If we blow a hole in this ice cube-"

"Use 'em!" Leia used the Force to pull a rifle out of a dead Gorog's hands and floated it up the corridor to Han. "I don't think we're going to reach Luke and Mara in time. And we're not doing very-"

"YVH bugcrunchers," Han said over the combat channel. "Go BAM. Use your detonators."

"BAM status requires authorization-"

"Do it!" Han shouted so loudly that his voice reverberated out of five other helmets. "Do it now!"

"Authorization code do it now accepted," Bug One said. The soft crump of the droid's grenade launcher sounded from the head of the line.

"By Any Means status-"

A brilliant flash lit the corridor, and the rest of the report was lost to the earsplitting crackle of a thermal detonator.

The rescue team surged forward into the crater, and Bug Four called, "Proceed with all haste." A soft crump sounded as the droid launched his detonator. "Explosion imminent."

Leia and the others barely had time to start forward before a brilliant flash filled the corridor behind them. Leaving Bug Four to handle rear-guard duty, they followed Kyp and the other Masters forward.

Another crump sounded from the front of the line. Another detonator exploded. The tunnel behind them filled with Gorog, and Bug Four launched a detonator.

"Blazt!" Saba shut down her lightsaber. "Where is the fun in that?"

Moving much faster now, they pa.s.sed through another crater and started around the next corner-then stopped short when a deafening storm of electrobolt fire sent Bug One tumbling back into the adjacent wall.

His armor was blasted down to the frame and his internal systems were hanging out, sparking and shooting green lubricant.

"Major eneeemyyy conceeeee..." He raised his arm, and a detonator floated out. "Deeeeee... eee... e..."

His systems shut down, leaving the detonator floating in front of him, its red warning light blinking the countdown.

"Misfire! Misfire!" Bug Two started toward the detonator. "Please seek-"

"Stand fast!" Leia ordered.

She raised her finger toward the detonator, but Saba or Kyp or someone had already sent it sailing around the bend. It detonated with a brilliant flash, then Bug Two led the charge forward.

When the rescue team followed, they found themselves entering a vast, murky vault filled with Gorog warriors. Leia could sense Luke and Mara a dozen meters above, hidden in a tangle of insects so thick and large she could not see the glow of their lightsabers.

"How about it, Saba?" Han asked. "That enough fun for you?"

Before the Barabel could answer, some of the Gorog recovered their senses and fired a volley of electrobolts. Leia's lightsaber came up automatically, as did those of Kyp, Saba, and the other Masters, but there were just too many strikes to block. She took a scalding hit in the shoulder and heard Han curse as he took one, then a pair of crumps sounded as Bug Two and Bug Three launched more detonators.

'Careful!" Kyp warned. "Master Skywalker-"

The rest was lost to a pair of earsplitting crackles, and Leia's sight flashed to white. The air shuddered as the bugcrunchers opened up with their blaster cannons. By the time her vision cleared, both droids had activated their thrusters and were shooting toward the combat tangle above. Kyp and the other Masters were close on their heels.

Leia looked over at Han. A hand-sized expanse of blistered flesh showed through a hole in the stomach of his vac suit.

"You all right?" he asked.

"Fine," Leia said. She started to remark that Han's wound looked worse than hers, but stopped when Jaina and Zekk touched her through the battle- meld, wondering what the blazes was happening and a.s.suring her that help was coming. She grabbed Han's wrist. "Han, there's something I should tell you."

"Now?" He leaned down and kissed her on the lips. "I love you, too, but maybe-"

"Not that," Leia said. "I mean, it's Jaina. She's on her way."

"Here?" Han scowled. "Good thing or bad?"

Leia could only shrug and shake her head. "I'm pretty sure she and Zekk are Joiners."

Han let his chin drop. "Just shoot me-"

A volley of electrobolt fire crackled up the tunnel behind them.

Bug Four retreated around the corner, armor smoking, a deep melt-crease along one side of his head.

"Okay-I didn't mean that."

Han dropped one of his electrobolt rifles and grabbed Leia around the waist, then activated his belt thrusters. They jetted toward the combat above, plowing through an ever-thickening mora.s.s of blood globules and drifting bodies. The largest part of the Gorog swarm had turned to face Kyp and the other Masters, but Luke and Mara were still trapped a few meters above the main combat, their lightsabers weaving brilliant snakes of color as they spun and slashed and killed.

Leia and Han were about halfway to the fight when she noticed that no Gorog were firing in their direction. Faced with a line of Jedi Masters and bugcruncher droids, apparently Leia and Han just did not seem like much of a threat.

Leia hated being underestimated.

"That way!" Leia reached across Han's face, pointing away from the battle at an angle. "Flank 'em!"

"I was just about to think of that." Han turned in the direction Leia had indicated, then dropped his second a.s.sault rifle and drew his trusty DL-44 blaster. "Take the stick!"

Before Leia could ask for clarification, Han braced his blaster hand across his free arm and pointed the emitter nozzle at one of the Gorog attacking Luke and Mara.

"Are you crazy?" Leia cried. "You can't shoot into a hand-to-hand fight!"

"No kidding?" Han replied. "I didn't know that."

Leia grabbed Han in the Force and, as they continued to approach the battle, tried to steady him. He squeezed the trigger, and a bolt streaked up to blast a Gorog's head apart. He fired again, and an abdomen exploded. The third shot burned a hole through a warrior's thorax.