Just ahead, a couple of black, clattering insects emerged from side corridors. The Bartokks, as tall as Tenel Ka, stood on two powerful legs and had a central pair of arms at their waists for grasping and manipulating objects, while their upper set of arms ended in long, hooked claws like scythes used to harvest grain. The serrated edges of the scythe claws swept from side to side, with razor edges that could clip an enemy to pieces.
The Bartokks chittered upon seeing these new and unexpected opponents, but Tenel Ka raced ahead with full momentum. Using all the muscles in her single arm, she jabbed with her spear, plunging it through the body core of the left assassin. Its upper four arms flailed in reflex, trying to bat the weapon out of Tenel Ka’s grip—but she twisted the long blade, ripping it sideways. The insect’s hard exoskeleton cracked and split open, spilling thick greenish-blue goop onto the stone floor. She yanked the spear free as the Bartokk clattered to the flagstones, its legs still flailing.
Beside her, Lowbacca met the second assassin with a sideways sweep of his lightsaber that sliced the Bartokk into smoking halves that fell twitching to the floor.
The twins rushed up. “Good one,” Jacen said, panting. “That’s two down.”
Tenel Ka spoke over her shoulder as she continued running. “We cannot be certain those two are dead,” she said. “And do not forget, the Bartokks have a hive mind. Now all of the assassins—there are usually fifteen in the hive—know we’re coming to help my grandmother.”
As they skidded around the corner near the armored door to the matriarch’s chambers, five more of the insects moved to block their way. Ta’a Chume’s two personal guards fought fiercely at the threshold to her chambers, but the remaining Bartokks had nearly succeeded in breaking in.
As the young Jedi Knights ran forward, Bartokk assassins captured both loyal guards outside the matriarch’s door and dragged them away. The guards struggled, cried out, then ceased all movement.
Although this capture was intended to free the opening for a fresh assault on the matriarch’s chambers, it also created a diversion for Tenel Ka and her friends to plow forward. With their lightsabers ignited, Jacen and Jaina slashed in, chopping the two frontmost Bartokks into quivering bug pieces. Lowbacca barreled into a third assassin, knocking it against the stone wall with such force that its black carapace split open.
“Inside,” Tenel Ka shouted. She could hear the matriarch calling for more guards, but there were none. Instead, four young Jedi Knights charged into her chamber.
“Lowie, help me get this closed,” Jaina cried. The lanky Wookiee shoved his shoulder against the armored door as he and Jaina swung it shut against the powerful press of Bartokk arms and snapping claws. Startled, most of the insects jerked back, but then began to push and claw at the entrance again almost immediately. In that instant of surprise, however, the door groaned shut.
“Lock it,” Jaina gasped, and Tenel Ka snapped a bolt into place.
Outside, Bartokk assassins pounded, scraping with their razor-edged claws against the doorjamb. The metal door rattled in its frame, and Tenel Ka knew their defenses couldn’t last long against the onslaught.
But that was the least of her worries at the moment.
Three Bartokk assassins had been trapped inside the chamber with them, and now the ruthless black-shelled insects moved forward, focusing on their main target.
The old matriarch had barricaded herself in a corner and was doing her best to knock the creatures away with a broken piece of furniture. The young Jedi Knights rushed to defend the former queen, but one of the assassins lashed out with its razor claws at them.
Tenel Ka charged forward as the insect killer moved to meet her. She plunged her ornamental spear into it until the tip of her weapon bored all the way through the glossy shell and wedged into a crack between the wall blocks. She left the Bartokk pinned to the wall like a bug in a child’s collection. Even so, the creature still writhed and snapped, thrashing to get at them.
Jacen ran forward and with a hissing sweep of his lightsaber, sliced off the multi-eyed head of another assassin as it leapt toward the matriarch.
With a roar, Lowbacca left his post at the rattling door and grasped the remaining Bartokk, lifting it bodily off the floor. Its many sharp arms thrashed as Lowie pushed forward to the high open window and heaved the creature over the ledge. The assassin tumbled nearly thirty meters to splatter on the jagged reef far below.
“Hey!” Jacen said, as the Bartokk he had beheaded, instead of collapsing into twitching death, continued to fight its way toward the alarmed matriarch. “Aren’t you supposed to die?”
He slashed again with the lightsaber, this time cutting the legs out from under the headless Bartokk. The insect torso crashed to the floor, but with its remaining limbs it still hauled itself toward Tenel Ka’s grandmother. The severed head lay on the flagstones near the wall, staring at its target through faceted eyes, somehow continuing to direct the body.
“These hive-mind assassins,” Tenel Ka explained, “their brains are distributed through major nerve networks inside their bodies. Simply cutting off a head won’t stop them. The pieces will still attempt to continue their mission.”
With another blow from his lightsaber, Jacen chopped the remaining torso in half. “This is getting ridiculous,” he said.
Lowbacca marched over to where the severed insect head lay near the wall. Then with great pleasure he stomped down, squashing it as one might step on an annoying beetle.
The wiry old matriarch tossed aside the broken piece of furniture she had been using as a weapon. “I thank you for your efforts to save me, my granddaughter,” she said, “but it would seem that this plot is rather extensive. Our entire fortress is overrun, and I see no means of escape.”
Across the floor the ichor-dripping pieces of the chopped-up assassin continued to squirm toward the former queen, blindly groping, yet still deadly. The skewered Bartokk hanging from the wall thrashed and flailed, trying to break free from Tenel Ka’s spear.
Outside, in the corridors, the rest of the assassin hive hammered without pause against the armored plates of the door. From where Tenel Ka stood, she could see the rivets popping out and blocks crumbling to powder at the edges of the sealed door. The metal began to bend inward….
It certainly wouldn’t last much longer.
20
Jaina looked around the dim room where they had barricaded themselves, desperate to find some means of escape. With the hammering of assassins outside the door growing louder and louder, she found it hard to think. Pale moonlight streamed through the window from a deceptively calm sky, bleaching all colors in the room to black and white and gray.
“We have to get out of here somehow,” Jaina said.
Tenel Ka nodded grimly. “This is a fact.”
Jacen turned to the matriarch. “Hey, if you know of any secret passages that lead out of here, now might be the time to tell us.”
“There are none,” Ta’a Chume said. “This tower room was designed as a protected chamber, with no secret ways for an assassin to gain entrance. Reef Fortress itself was built to be impregnable.”
Jaina snorted. “Maybe you’d better fire your architect.”
Tenel Ka felt at her utility belt and removed her grappling hook and the strong fibercord. “I see no better way. We must escape by the same route those creatures used to break into the fortress. Not only must we flee the fortress, we must flee the reef island itself.”
“Where can we go, Tenel Ka?” Jacen said. “We’re stranded.”
“I get it!” Jaina cried, seeing what her friend intended. “We take one of the fast wavespeeders and zoom out across the ocean. It’s our best chance.”
The stern matriarch went to the window and gazed at the sheer drop. “You mean climb down?”