Previous.

The Vong warrior stepped below her, and praying that the shadows in the tunnel were deep enough to hide her, Jaina used the Force to press her back more tightly to the ceiling. She held her breath as the warrior crawled another meter into the cave. Holding an activated lambent at arm's length, he used his amphistaff to prod the floor beneath Jaina. She could see the weapon's snakish shape and knew her own silhouette had to be just as visible, but the Yuuzhan Vong did not look up. He merely gagged on the stench of the place and retreated.

Jaina remained where she was, watching their legs march past, desperately hoping the next thing to peer inside would not be a voxyn. Though they had already killed four of the beasts, the possibility that Nom Anor had brought more than the standard number was the one weak point in the strike team's plan. The Yuuzhan Vong could be expected to miss the Jedi's detour, but a voxyn could not. A voxyn would feel the change of direction.

A second Vong poked his lambent into the tunnel, and while he did check the ceiling, he continued through the main passageway. Finally allowing herself a full breath, Jaina removed the flechette mine from her equipment harness. She set the signal feature to their comlink frequency and attached it to the ceiling in front of her. She did not activate it. Once she set the detonation selector to "motion", she would have only three seconds to leave sensor range, and she could not risk moving until all the Yuuzhan Vong had gone by.

Another set of vonduun-crab-armored legs passed the mouth of the tunnel. A pair of thin, reverse-articulated legs arrived next. They paused, folded down on themselves, and lowered a feathered torso into view. A simian face with slanted eyes and delicate whiskers appeared atop the featherball and peered into the tunnel.

Vergere, or something like her.

An alien presence touched Jaina's mind, startling her so badly she lost her concentration and dropped a hand's breadth before she regained her composure and lifted herself back to the ceiling. She leveled her blaster pistol at Vegere's face.

A wry smile crossed the odd being's lips, and Jaina knew Vergere had touched her on purpose. But how- through the Force? It didn't seem possible. If Vergere was a Force-wielder, then the voxyn would hunt her, as well. Wouldn't they?

A thicket of vonduun-crab-armored legs gathered outside the tunnel. She couldn't hear what was being said, but she did not doubt that Vergere knew of her proximity- even if she had not actually seen her. The alien presence was still touching her, taunting her, almost daring her to attack.

Jaina activated the flechette mine, then pushed herself back out of sensor range. Vergere's smile changed to a smirk, and then alien touch faded from Jaina's mind so quickly she began to wonder if she had felt it at all.

Vergere spoke to someone behind her. Jaina thumbed off her blaster safety lock, but her target turned and hopped up the passage before she could fire. The Yuuzhan Vong followed, and then even the memory of the alien touch dwindled away.

Jaina lowered her blaster and, shaking so hard she had to use both hands, reengaged her weapon's safety lock. She did not understand why she was so frightened. The creature had not even known she was there.

When she returned to the group, Ganner insisted they take off right away. No one resisted the idea, with the Barabels leading the way so that they could be the ones checking for lurking voxyn. As they walked, Jacen stepped to Jaina's side. "Everything okay back there? You seem uneasy."

Tenel Ka hung back, agreeing, "You have more furrows between your eyebrows than a Hutt's purser."

"Thanks," Jaina said. "I saw Vergere."

Jacen paused, and said, "And?"

It didn't even occur to Jaina to try to figure out why that was even important. She wasn't even sure why she'd brought it up. "And nothing... she left." She pointed ahead with her chin and asked, "How's Little Brother doing?"

Anakin was so strong in the Force that was hard to tell how bad off he really was, how much pain he was in, though Tekli had made it very clear how important it was to get someplace where he could stop for a healing trance. "Hard to know," Jacen admitted. "I'm scared."

The truth was, it terrified Jaina. She was still angry with Anakin for being so reckless, but she knew how serious it really was. She couldn't admit it, though, like voicing her worry would make it all the more real. Instead, she grasped Jacen's arm and said, "Don't be. We're not going to let anything happen to him."

Tenel Ka took Jacen's other arm and said simply, "Fact."

*****

One of the times the Barabels hopped onto the wall to peek around the corner and check for feral voxyn, one was right there. While they and Anakin were able to kill it, it still ended in Krasov with gummy acid covering her face, fumes rising from what was left of her skin. Tesar pulled her out of the archway and Tekli set her up against a wall with Bela's breath mask, and Jaina couldn't help but feel sorry for him. There wasn't any question of what was going to happen to Krasov, and this would mean he had lost both hatchmates on this mission.

Tekli hadn't had much time to do anything before Jacen, more sensitive to the voxyn than anyone, yelled, "Trouble coming!"

Of course it was. Without even thinking about it, Jaina pulled her blaster free, ready for the attack they all knew was just moments away. Her focus was divided, though, when she heard Jacen's concerned, "Anakin?"

At first Jaina worried that something had happened, that he was bleeding, or had collapsed, but when she turned and saw Anakin sort of staring off, not reacting, she knew the real reason. "Sith blood! He's cracking."

She'd seen it happen to people before, and she shouldn't have been surprised to see it in him. He was seventeen years old and this was death number five on his mission. Still, they couldn't have it right now. A second later someone fired the first shot, and Jaina had to put her concern for her brother on hold again in order to turn her attention to the voxyn that were trying to surround them.

Like Anakin was trying to do now, apparently. Lowbacca had tried to turn him towards the arch behind them, and he was insisting, "Tahiri can keep watch. I'm fighting with everyone else."

"Better if you watch," Tesar chimed in. "For Krasov."

"I'm not hurt," Anakin said, still trying to follow him. "I can still fight."

"Anakin!" Jaina said, though she didn't snap at him. She didn't think even she could snap at her battle-shocked, injured little brother. She pointed her blaster into the arch to show him where she wanted him to go. "Will you stay? Get yourself together."

Anakin didn't move any further, and satisfied that she'd gotten him to listen, Jaina ran to join the others on the battle line. A couple of the voxyn had been taken care of, which was why everyone really needed their breath masks at the moment, and Jaina was planning on making sure they were all taken out, if they could manage it.

As it turned out, they weren't going to be able to. Even as Jaina pulled her lightsaber and ignited it to slice open a voxyn that got through the line, she knew they weren't going to win this one, either. They were going to have to retreat, start running again. They were all used to that by now.

Tesar called a warning, and then tossed a concussion grenade behind the line of voxyn. Most of the Jedi didn't dare to duck or cover as it went off, shaking the corridor, because stopping meant giving the voxyn a chance to kill them. This was why Jaina nearly fell over with the ensuing shockwave that rocked the area, but she still killed the voxyn she'd been fighting.

It cleared more than a few of the voxyn, but still left some to fight, and they were angry. "Down to my last power pack!" Alema called, followed by a "Same here!" from someone else, and then finally Tesar gave up and threw his minicannon at the voxyn, pulling Krasov's weapon to his hand with the Force. The voxyn he had been fighting launched itself at him, and while Raynar intervened, slicing it with his lightsaber, he was still caught by the poisonous barb of its tail. Almost immediately Tekli was rushing in with the antidote.

They all had to be sharing the same thought, battle meld or not, and Ganner pointed to a tunnel just up the corridor. "We need to make a run for it!" he yelled.

Over the comlinks, Anakin's voice said, "Right idea, Ganner, wrong direction." He pointed through the archway. "This way."

While she was glad to see Anakin taking command again, Jaina wasn't too sure about that direction. "The arena? You can't heal-"

"I'll heal when this is done," insisted Anakin. "This way."

Tesar had no problem with this. "As you order," he said, and gave some covering fire with his procured weapon. "Fall back!"

Lowie did the same for the others, and Jacen led the way down into the arena beyond the archway, which actually had quite a few voxyn in it already. It seemed to almost be a nesting area, where they brought their food, mostly slaves from the city, to feed. They probably wouldn't be too concerned with the strike team, since they already had what they needed. Still, there was definitely a reason to be nervous, trying to maneuver around them and hoping they weren't suddenly killed horribly.

By now it was expected that things would continue to be difficult. Zekk got angry when Welk Force-choked a voxyn that tried to attack Anakin, and forbade the Dark Jedi from using the Force at all. They had to be careful around the voxyn nests, Jacen usually being the one to calm them if they were disturbed. At one point Anakin, who was still refusing to rest, had to be carried by Tesar until they were able to see the statues in the arena that depicted Yun-Yammka, the Yuuzhan Vong Slayer god, at which point Anakin refused to be carried any further.

Even once they'd crossed the voxyn warrens, Raynar, still woozy and drugged from the antidote required to combat the poison from earlier, tried to wander off and disturbed one of the creatures. He suffered what could only now be considered minor scratches, but it would mean more antidotes to combat whatever diseases lay in the animal's claws.

Tekli always seemed to be working on someone's wounds while they were being levitated along, but she did have time to tend to Raynar and Anakin when Alema announced that they were about where they needed to be, and spent about half an hour trying to cut through the yorik coral wall to reach whatever was on the other side.

What was on the other side was a travelway. And on that travelway was a battered light freighter.

"Well," Anakin said. "It looks like the Force is finally with us."

Next.


[Dudes, I am so sorry for all the spamming. And I cut stuff out from the book, too. NFI, NFB you know what, you know the drill. Dialogue and most of a bit of two taken from Star by Star and as much as I love Troy Denning I think he may have something wrong with him.]