Mace kept moving. Nick trotted at his heels. Sometimes shock-waves knocked them down.
Sometimes the dust was so bad that Mace had to light their way with scatter from his and Depa's blades.
"Why do you need me! You were in the comm center this morning," Nick gasped through a mouthful of dust that his spit had turned to mud. "I'm good with a medpac. You go on. I can look after wounded-" "That's why." Bladelight picked up jagged gleams ahead: the corridor was blocked with a sloping wall of tumbled rock.
"This is the only way I know to the comm center," Mace said. "I'm hoping you know another." Nick muttered a curse under his breath as he leaned on the slope of boulders. "How deep is the rubble? Can you cut-" His eyes widened. "Hey, there are people in there! Trapped! I can feel them-we've got to get them out!" "I feel them too. The fall's not stable," Mace said. "Shifting and cutting will take more time than we have: the first mistake would bring tons of stone down on their heads. We need another way to the comm center." "But-we can't just leave them in there-!" "Nick. Try to focus. Will they be safer out here?" "Well, I." Nick frowned. "Well." "Listen to me. There will be cave-ins throughout these caverns. We can dig survivors out later. We have to make sure enough people live through this to do the digging. Yes?" Nick nodded reluctantly. "Then let's go." The comm center was just a small natural cave with rude plank tables, a few homemade chairs, and some equipment. "Probably not much left of the relay antennas," Nick muttered as they trotted toward it.
"It's a little late to worry about concealing our position," Mace reminded him. "And subspace won't have any trouble going through rock." Nick squinted at the doorway, cursed, and broke into a sprint. "The surgical field's down!" He darted inside.
Mace went after him, but stopped in the doorway.
The subspace comm unit lay on the floor, among the splinters of the plank table; its housing looked like someone had rolled it down a mountainside and dropped it off a cliff. The realspace-frequency units, less durable, were crushed. Nick was cursing continuously under his breath as he knelt over the two Korun commtechs, who lay motionless on the floor as though they were simply taking a nap in the ruins of their post.
Mace said, "Nick." "They're dead," the young Korun said thickly. "They're both dead. Not a mark on them.
And-" "Nick, come out of there." Nick prodded one's head with his finger. which gave, deforming spongily, as though the man's skull were soft foam. "And they're squishy…" "We have to leave this place. Now." "What could do that to a man?" "Concussion," Mace said. "Shock transmission. This room must be part of a solid structure that reaches to the surface-" "You're saying." Nick looked at the walls around him with widening eyes. "You saying if another DOKAW hits the same spot, while I'm still in here-" "I'm saying-" Mace urgently extended a hand,"-cover your ears zndjump." Mace took his own advice then drew on the Force to suspend them both, and the air in the comm cave pounded them like they were caught in the palm of a giant's handclap. He let the shock send them whirling back along the passage away from the comm center, them released his Force-hold and rolled to his feet.
Nick was saying something as Mace pulled him upright, but Mace heard only a distant mutter over the high singing whine in his ears. "You'll have to speak up." Nick cupped one hand to his ear. "What?" "Speak upl" "What? You'll have to speak up!" Mace sighed and shoved Nick stumbling along the corridor; he turned, reaching into the Force as he extended a hand, and the sub-space unit floated out the doorway, down the passage and into his arms.
He jogged after Nick while their stunned eardrums recovered, i Three minutes' scramble brought them to a a nexus of intersecting passageways, some cut, some natural. "This will have to do." "Do for what? What's left?" Nick sagged against the wall, panting. "And what are you lugging that fraggin' thing around for?" Mace set the comm unit on the passage floor. He pulled off his improvised dust-mask and frowned at the rear access panel; fasteners unscrewed themselves and floated to a neat little pile in a dimple in the rock, joined shortly by the access panel itself. Mace examined the leads and contacts inside the unit for a moment, then nodded.
He opened his hand and his lightsaber jumped to it from its pocket inside his vest. A flick of the Force tripped the handgrip's secret interior latch; a curved section of the grip popped open, and Mace pulled out the power cell. Another flick of the Force bent a pair of lead-panels inside the comm unit's guts. Mace wedged the powercell between them, and the unit's ready-lights came on.
"Hold this here," Mace said. Nick held the energy cell in place while Mace keyed the HallecKs emergency channel.
"Halleck, this is General Windu. This is a priority clear-call, inti-ation code oh six one five.
Acknowledge." The comm unit crackled to life in a burst of ECM static. A stolid voice came faintly through the buzz: "Response. one nine." "Verification seven seven." "Go a. General." "Captain Trent, I need your status." "Regret to in. Cap. bridge crew. ously wounded. This is Commander Urhal. der heavy. Repeat: We are under heavy DSF attack." Nick frowned. "DSF?" "Droid starfighter." Mace keyed the transmitter. "Can you hold?" '. gative. Too many. sustained heavy. shields and armor, but." Through the bursts of static and washes of white hiss, the acting captain of the Halleck sketched their situation: An unknown number of Trade Federation droid starfighters had been lying in wait, deactivated and drifting outside the system's ecliptic plane amid cometary dust and debris of ancient asteroids. The commander guessed that it was something about the lander itself that had triggered them; they had attacked as soon as the extraction lander un-docked and made for orbit. The lander had been lost with all hands, and the DSFs had quickly overwhelmed the Halleck's escort complement of six starfighters; they were pounding the cruiser with everything they had. The ship Mace had been looking to for rescue was already fighting for its life.
And losing.
Mace balanced on his heels, staring into the rock wall beside him.
The granular surface gleamed with sweat condensed from his breath, and flecks of mineral sparkled within it, but Mace didn't see any of that. He wasn't looking at the stone. He was looking into the stone. Through the stone.