Free Inferno by Troy Denning

interrupted by the crackle of the cockpit speaker.
    “How long are you going to stay down there looking for gokobs?” asked a throaty female voice. “I’d like to hear what you found on your security sweep.”
    Jag cocked a questioning brow in Jaina’s direction.
    “I guess there’s only one way to find out.” She leaned down and opened a channel to reply. “Sorry, command. We’ll be right up.”
    “Very well,” answered the flight control commander—a Duros woman named Orame. “Just watch out for the gokobs—the smell up here is bad enough.”
    “Will do.” Jaina closed the channel, then frowned in confusion. “What is it with her and gokobs today?”
    “What are gokobs?” Jag asked.
    “I’ll explain on the way.” Jaina turned to leave the flight deck.
    By the time they had left the Dactyl and reached the lift that would take them to the flight control bunker, Jag had heard more about gokobs than anyone would enjoy knowing.
    “So Orame is telling us to watch out for overfriendly vermin?” Jag asked.
    “Basically.” Jaina snapped the lightsaber off her belt and stepped into the lift, then motioned for Jag to follow. “Coming?”
    “Of course.” He flicked the safety off his blaster, then asked, “Stun or kill?”
    “Let’s stick with stun until we know what’s going on,” Jaina replied. “If it’s Alema, we can always switch it back to kill and blast her after she’s already down.”
    Jag glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “You’re joking, right?”
    Jaina shook her head. “Not if she’s done anything to the young ones.” She placed her thumb over a pad on the control panel. “Ready?”
    Jag nodded, and a few moments later, the turbolift delivered them to the flight control level. Jaina didn’t sense anyone lurking in the corridor—but if Alema was out there, she wouldn’t. She left the turbolift in a diving roll and came up with her lightsaber ready to ignite.
    She found only Jag facing her, holding his blaster with both hands and looking slightly amused.
    “Gokobs?” he asked.
    “Very funny.”
    Jaina led the way down the corridor to the flight control bunker. She could sense the usual dozen Force presences inside, all calm and seemingly focused on the task at hand. Still, she kept her lightsaber ready as the door hissed aside to reveal a huge holodisplay ringed by individual control stations. Floating above the display was an image of the planet Ossus and its moons, along with numerical designators for dozens of artificial satellites.
    A tall Duros woman—the flight control commander, Orame—motioned to Jaina from the other side of the holodisplay. “Come in. There’s something I need to—”
    Jaina’s spine nettled with danger sense, and she sprang into a high, arcing Force flip that carried her into the heart of the planetary hologram. Several of the flight controllers cried out in alarm and sprang to their feet, their hands rising from their laps holding blaster pistols they hadn’t had time to draw. Jaina ignited her lightsaber and batted half a dozen stun bolts back at the men who had fired them, then came down next to Orame.
    “Jaina, no!” Orame cried. “You don’t understand!”
    “I understand—” Jaina paused to return a stun bolt into the chest of a “flight controller.” “—that they’re shooting at me!”
    On the opposite side of the holodisplay, two men fell convulsing, their tunics smoking where Jag’s stun bolts had struck them from behind. Jaina Force-jerked the feet from beneath one of her attackers, then pointed at another and Force-hurled him across two control stations into the last man holding a weapon.
    She pointed the tip of her lightsaber at this last pair of attackers, then ordered, “Don’t move.”
    They fell motionless, as did everyone else in the chamber except Jag, who secured the door behind him and set about collecting weapons. Keeping her lightsaber ignited to emphasize the peril any resisters would face,