Alliances (Star Wars: Thrawn, #2)(44)

Double vision: blaster bolts coming at chest, at head, at chest—

Again, he blocked one and reached to the Force to deflect the other two. He caught up a nearby table and, keeping his hand on it as if using only muscle power, used the Force to hurl it across the cantina into their midst.

One of them was fast enough to dodge out of the way. The other two weren’t so quick or so lucky and went down in grunts of pain and the crash of wood table on wood floor.

The one still standing had had enough.

Double vision: blaster bolt at head—

Vader again turned the weapon, sending the bolt to the side as the Darshi made a mad dash for the door. Vader strode after him, trying to decide whether to drop him right there or to let him get outside so that he could find out what kind of vehicle he’d arrived in.

The latter, he decided. The Darshi reached the door and pulled it open—

Sensation surging—rippling and swirling of the Force—something or someone appearing nearby—surprise—confusion—double vision—second vision bringing only darkness—

Vader felt his pace falter. It was the disturbance in the Force the Emperor had sensed from Coruscant. There was nothing else it could be.

But now, in sharp contrast with Vader’s earlier attempts to sense the anomaly, it was suddenly right there in front of him, flooding over and through his mind.

Swirlings in the Force—surprise—confusion—darkness—anxiety—

Only what was it? For all the strength of the awareness, the sensation was vague and unfocused. He couldn’t tell whether it was a person, a group of people, or something else. Possibly something completely unknown in Jedi or Sith history.

And then, as the Darshi darted out the door and Vader tried to focus on the thoughts and sensations, he heard the distant rumbling of an explosion.

The swirling of anxiety turning to fear—twisting in alien forms and patterns—breaking all ability to concentrate—flashing into unfocused turmoil—

The sudden shift snapped Vader’s attempts to isolate it. The distant explosion—had the aliens attacked the source of the disturbance?

The disturbance dissolving into terror—

A second explosion, as muffled and indistinct as the first, rippled across Black Spire, rattling the cantina.

“I believe our freighter has been attacked,” Thrawn said coolly. Stepping over one of the three Darshi lying unconscious on the floor in front of him, he hurried toward Vader and the door. “Our opponents are attempting to isolate us.”

The terror fading—the swirling collapsing onto itself and silence—

Vader still didn’t understand the disturbance. But as the hurricane faded, he made one last focused effort to locate it.

And for a single heartbeat, he was able to do so.

“No,” he told Thrawn, pointing in the opposite direction from the door. “Not the freighter. The three houses.”

Thrawn’s eyes narrowed. “Their communications network?”

“Yes,” Vader said. “And the Emperor’s disturbance.”

Vader had never seen Thrawn at a moment of complete surprise. Neither had The Jedi. But now, without warning, the Chiss’s face went suddenly rigid, his stride jerking just as Vader’s had a moment earlier. The moment passed, and he was once again the imperturbable Chiss grand admiral.

But the moment had been enough.

“We must hurry,” Thrawn said, picking up his pace and gesturing Vader to follow. “Come.”

And because Vader was still reaching out to the Force, he felt the flicker of warning.

He spun around toward the now empty cantina dining area, the now empty array of tables and chairs, and lifted his lightsaber—

As a cloud of large insects appeared out of nowhere and swarmed toward them.

He ignited his lightsaber, the blade’s brilliant glow adding a layer of red light to the relative gloom. Stinging or biting insects were of no threat to Vader himself, protected as he was by his armor. But Thrawn was completely vulnerable to such attacks. Behind Vader and to his side, the Chiss’s blaster opened fire, the bolts blazing into the mass of insects.

He might as well have been shooting at a sandstorm. The blasterfire caught a couple of bugs, but the targets were too small and moving too erratically for even Thrawn’s marksmanship to make any real difference. Vader stretched out with the Force, trying to shove the swarm into a more compact space, but again the insects’ size and numbers made the effort largely futile. As the swarm reached them, he slashed his lightsaber blade through it, with results that were little better than Thrawn’s. The lead group of insects slammed into Vader’s shoulder and right arm—

And disintegrated into bursts of gray liquid.

So: no stinging, no biting. Something artificial, bioengineered or possibly even tiny droids.

Acid? Vader peered down at his arm, looking for the telltale smoke as the woven metal, ceramic, and plastoid was eaten away.

But again, no. Instead, the bursts of gray liquid had instantly solidified across his arm and elbow into a sort of smooth gray stone.

His elbow?

He tried straightening out the joint as more of the insects slammed into his arm and chest. But it was too late. The elbow was frozen solid.

Thrawn had been right the first time. The attackers were hoping to take them alive.

But where were they? Somewhere among the scattering of tables and chairs, certainly—that was where the insects had come from. But there was no one crouching beneath or beside any of the furniture.