Apocalypse

Apocalypse by Troy Denning Page B

Book: Apocalypse by Troy Denning Read Free Book Online
Authors: Troy Denning
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her daughter had felt it, too, the searing pain of three hundred lives coming to a single end.
    Tenel Ka pivoted around and knelt before Allana, folding her into her embrace. “Come here.”
    Allana remained limp in her arms. “I felt them end,” she said. “I felt them—”
    “I know, sweetheart.” Tenel Ka resisted the temptation to tell her daughter not to think about it, because she knew that was impossible. No one could feel the deaths of several hundred people and simply forget about it—especially not a nine-year-old girl. “The Sharmok’s ion drives must have taken a critical—”
    “No way,” Han said from behind Tenel Ka. “That was no engine blast. Engine blasts don’t take out whole starfighter squadrons.”
    “What?” Tenel Ka craned her neck, but did not rise to look. Allana needed to be held right now. “We lost Volgh Squadron? How much of it?”
    “All of it,” Han reported. “The blast radius was three kilometers. They don’t make ion drives big enough to cause that kind of blast. Had to be baradium—a
lot
of it. That ship was rigged.”
    Allana looked over Tenel Ka’s shoulder. “You mean the Sith did it?”she asked. “They blew everyone up because we wouldn’t let them aboard?”
    Han’s face grew sad. “Yeah, sweetheart, that’s what I mean.” His gaze shifted from Allana to Tenel Ka. “That bomb was meant for the Queen Mother.”
    Allana’s posture grew rigid. “They were trying to trick us?” She slipped free of Tenel Ka’s embrace and looked her in the eye. “Again?”
    Tenel Ka nodded. “That’s what Sith do,” she said. “That’s why we need to be so careful around them.”
    As Tenel Ka spoke, Leia approached from the corner of the salon. Her expression was calm, but the concern in her Force aura suggested that she had felt the deaths as clearly as the others. She took one look at the somber faces gathered around the console and dropped her gaze in sorrow.
    “How bad is it?” she asked.
    “They captured Sharmok seven-eighteen.” Tionne’s voice was filled with grief. “It appears they were trying to use it to sneak a baradium device aboard the flagship … to eliminate Queen Mother Tenel Ka.”
    Leia’s eyes flashed, and she could not help glancing in Allana’s direction. Like Tenel Ka, the Solos had been warned by the Skywalkers about what had happened at the Pool of Knowledge, when a Sith High Lord had seen an image of a Jedi queen sitting on the Throne of Balance. Obsessed with preventing the vision, the Sith believed Tenel Ka to be that queen, and their mistake had resulted in a series of misguided assassination attempts. It was a burden she gladly carried in order to protect her daughter.
    After a moment, Leia said, “We should certainly count ourselves fortunate they didn’t succeed.” She stepped around the console and began to study the tactical display. “But I can’t help thinking of the passengers—of all those students and their families. Do we know for sure they were aboard?”
    “Yeah, we do,” Han said. “Seven-eighteen was just ahead of us when we launched, and it wasn’t far behind when we landed. The Sith didn’t have time to off-load three hundred prisoners—even if they had wanted to.”
    Kam nodded. “My guess is the whole blastboat attack was designed to cut a transport out of the convoy and conceal a bomb on it,” hesaid. “Still, there were over two dozen students aboard who were old enough to put up a fight. The Sith would have needed a sizable force to capture their target so quickly, and we don’t actually know who died on that Sharmok.”
    “Right. The bomb might have been Plan B.” Han paused and glanced in Allana’s direction, then apparently decided there was no need to spell out the possible alternative—that the Sith’s Plan A had been to land an elite boarding company and capture the
Dragon Queen II
for their navy. He turned to Tenel Ka and said, “It wouldn’t hurt to have someone check along

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