When the grenade went-off, instinct took over. There was no room for hesitation or doubt, not even the sting of betray and the burn of anger. There was only the need to survive.
Tahiri and Zekk worked as one, throwing themselves into the Force and using its power to erect an invisible shield over their heads. As Praelyx and Taryn fell to the floor and covered heads with their hands, the two Jedi blocked the concussive force of the explosion, reflecting it upward, trapping it in the narrow shape between their Force-created umbrella and the chamber's yorik coral ceiling.
Their umbrella held. The ceiling didn't.
The entire chamber came crumbled on their heads. Zekk and Tahiri's shield could reflect rock, and concussive burst of pressure in the oxygen, but it couldn't hold back the crust of a Yuuzhan Vong worldship. Their connection, clear in its desperation, allowed them to think as one. Tahiri swooped and grabbed Praelyx by the arm; Zekk grabbed Taryn by the waist and hauled her upright. The four of them half-ran, half-fell toward the corridor as the chamber itself came collapsing around them. A chunk of yorik coral slammed into Praelyx's back, dropping him to his knees. Tahiri held on and tugged him forward, even as another large coral chink her on the shoulder and almost spun her around. Zekk and Taryn were already out through the portal; Tahiri found her own last burst of strength and dragged the Yuuzhan Vong captain through the gap.
The chamber behind them caved in fast, but the old yorik coral around the tunnel was also starting to splinter. Tahiri finally let go of Praelyx so he could stand, and the four of them raced as fast as they could through the tunnels. Tahiri's mind was too addled to remember the way back to the shaper lab but Zekk apparently knew it all; he made each turn without hesitation and she followed him the whole way out.
By the time they locked the helmets of their vac suits on and finally exited into the shapers' lab the world-ship had stopped rumbling around them. Tahiri would have felt better about that, but when she reached out with the Force she could sense a cluster of alarmed minds just over the rim of the laboratory crater.
Heading right for the assault shuttle.
Desperation dissolved into something else. Tahiri found the hurt and anger inside her, not just at Muro- a woman she'd respected and even liked- for her betrayal, but at everything else too. At the Hapan and Imperial schemers, at the monster Jacen had become, at the future she'd never have with Anakin, at everything the Yuuzhan Vong had done to her.
At herself, most of all.
She found everything she needed inside her and she drew strength from it. She threw herself upward, over the rim of the crater, and bounded across the plain as fast as she could. Her lightsaber blazed in her hand and Zekk shouted in her ear, telling her to wait up.
She killed the comm line and kept running.
She could see the shuttle resting atop the low crest of a ridge. She saw the cluster of beings around it, the stormtroopers and people in vac suits, pull open the hatch and climb aboard.
She knew she would never get there in time. Her blaster was useless against the shuttle's armored hull and she could never fling her lightsaber far enough, or wield it with enough precision through the Force.
They'd rise up any moment now and fly toward the stars, Muro and Khal and the rest, and they'd finish the Yuuzhan Vong bioweapon and then they'd use it against Tenel Ka or maybe against the whole Jedi Order, making even worse a massacre than Darth Caedus had hoped for.
Tahiri stopped in her tracks, panting, and reached out with the Force. She found the minds in the ship: Khal cool and analytical even now, the Imperial captain frantic for his own survival. She felt the stormtroopers crammed nervously in the back of the cockpit, kicking aside the corpses of their fellow soldiers and two Rodian mercenaries.
And she found Captain Muro, seated (so Tahiri felt) in the pilot's chair, giving the shuttle last pre-flight checks before taking off. And she felt Muro's relief when the repulsorlifts churned to life and the shuttle began to rise above the barren plain.
Tahiri closed her eyes, concentrated, and found the explosive charge still clipped to Muro's belt. She'd gotten a good look at it in the cavern and recognized its familiar model. She closed her eyes, ignoring the shuttle as it took off. Her fingers twitched at her sides; in her mind, in the Force, they were running along the surface of Muro's explosive, finding the right buttons.
With the Force, she found the dead-man trigger and pushed it, held it down.
Then she opened her eyes.
For what seemed like forever she stood alone on the plain, watching the receding engine-flare of the shuttle as it pulled up though the great chasm of the world-ship's broken hull for the stars and wondering if she'd really been reaching out with the Force at all, or just conjuring illusions in her mind.
Then the shuttle burst like a star. Its flare lasted for only a few beautiful seconds before debris began to fall, slowly, toward the plain.
A brittle, satisfied smile settled on Tahiri's lips. She felt the anger smolder and fade until it was just a warm thing in her center, giving her comfort and strength.
Then she felt Praelyx slap her on the shoulder and heard Taryn say, "Fine work, Jedi. Fine work," with a look of surprised respect.
Then she looked at Zekk and saw the quiet disap-pointment in eyes. From the Force, she felt nothing; he'd closed himself off from her once more. As much as she wanted to rebuke him, to join Taryn and Praelyx in issuing congratulations to herself, she knew Zekk was right and they were wrong.
She'd failed again.