Conquest: Edge of Victory I by Greg Keyes Read Free Book Online Page A

Peace Brigade to show up so soon, I guess.”
    Kam’s eyes narrowed. “But you were, weren’t you? You came here without permission.”
    “I came against orders, actually,” Anakin corrected. “That’s not important now. Getting the students to safety, that is.”
    “Of course,” Kam agreed. “How long before the Peace Brigade can land?”
    “An hour? Not long.”
    “And Karrde?”
    “He could be days.”
    Kam grimaced. “We can’t hold out here that long.”
    “We might. We’re all Jedi.”
    Kam snorted. “You need a sense of your limitations. I have a sense of mine. We might do very well, but we’ll lose kids. I have to think of them first.”
    They were approaching the turbolift when the door hissed open and ejected a blond-and-orange blur. The blur smacked Anakin at chest height, and he suddenly found surprisingly strong arms wrapped around him in a fierce embrace. Bright green eyes danced centimeters from his own.
    He felt his face go warm.
    “Hi, Tahiri,” he said.
    She pushed back from him. “Hi, yourself, great hero-from-the-stars who’s too good to keep in touch with his best friend.”
    “I’ve—”
    “Been busy. Right. I know all about it—well, not
all
about it because we get the news so late here, but I heard about Duro, and Centerpoint, and—”
    She stopped suddenly, either because she saw it in his face or felt it in the Force. Centerpoint Station was a sensitive subject.
    “Anyway,” she went on, “you won’t believe how boring it’s been without you. All the apprentices have gone off, and that just leaves these
kids—
” She stepped away, and for the first time, he really saw her.
    Whatever she detected in his eyes cut her off in midsentence. “What?” she asked instead. “What are you looking at?”
    “I—” Now his face felt like it had been grazed by blasterfire. “You look … different.”
    “Older maybe? I’m fourteen now. Last week.”
    “Happy birthday.”
    “You should have thought of it then, but thanks anyway. Dummy.”
    Anakin found himself suddenly unable to meet her eyes. He dropped his gaze. “You’re, uh, still barefoot, I see.”
    “What did you expect? I
hate
shoes. I only wear them when I have to. Shoes were invented by the Sith to keep our delicate toes in anguish and misery, I’m sure of it. Did you think just because I grew a centimeter or two I’d start torturing my feet?”
    She looked up at Kam suspiciously. “What’s he doing here, anyway? I know he didn’t come to see
me
.”
    Anakin flinched at the hurt he heard in that.
    “Anakin’s come to warn us of trouble,” Kam replied. “In fact, you’ll need to do your catching up later.”
    “Really? Trouble?”
    “Yes,” Anakin said.
    Tahiri put her hands on her hips. “Well, why didn’t you say so? What’s going on?”
    “We need to talk to Tionne and Ikrit,” Kam told her, continuing forward into the turbolift.
    “
Now
,” Anakin added, following him.
    “But what’s going
on?
” Tahiri shouted at their suddenly retreating backs.
    “I’ll explain on the way,” Anakin promised.
    “Fine.” She ducked into the lift just as the door was closing.
    “The Yuuzhan Vong warmaster basically put a price on our heads,” Anakin said. “On
all
our heads, all the Jedi. He announced that if what’s left of the New Republicwill turn over all of its Jedi to him—and Jacen especially—he won’t take any more planets.”
    “Boy,
that
sounds like a lie,” Tahiri said.
    “Doesn’t matter. People believe him. Like the people in the ships approaching right now.”
    “They want to turn
us
over to the Yuuzhan Vong? Let them try!”
    “Don’t worry, they will.”
    The door opened and they emerged onto the second level. Kam started down the main corridor and then through a series of passages that were utterly familiar to Anakin, though they all seemed somehow narrower than when he had last seen them. The Massassi temple that housed the academy had once seemed impossibly