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“No, it won’t,” Korsin said. Not from any command on the bridge, anyway. “We’re going to have to do this by hand—so to speak.” He stepped past the ailing Marcom to the starboard viewport, which looked back upon the main bulge of the ship trailing aft. There were four large torpedo tube covers on either side of the ship, spherical lids that swiveled above or below the horizontal plane depending on where they were situated. They never opened those covers in atmospheres, for fear of the drag they would cause. That design flaw might save them.

“Gloyd, will they work?”

“They’ll cycle—once. But without power, we’re gonna have to set off the firing pins to open them.”

Devore gawked. “We’re not going out there!” They were still at terminal velocity. But Korsin was moving, too, bustling past his brother to the port viewport.

“Everyone, to either side!”

Seelah and another crewman stepped to the right pane. Devore, glaring, reluctantly joined her. Alone on the left, Yaru Korsin placed his hand on the coldly sweating portal. Outside, meters away, he found one of the massive circular covers—and the small box mounted to its side, no larger than a comlink. It was smaller than he remembered from inspection. Where’s the mechanism? There.He reached out through the Force. Careful . . .

“Top torpedo door, both sides. Now!”

With a determined mental act, Korsin triggered the firing pin. A large bolt released explosively, shooting ahead—and the mammoth tube cover moved in response, rotating on its single hinge. The ship, already quaking, groaned loudly as the door reached its final position, perched atop the plane of the Omenlike a makeshift aileron. Korsin looked expectantly behind him, where Seelah’s expression assured him of a similar mill_9780345519382_3p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 4/28/09

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success on her side. For a moment, he wondered if it had worked . . .

Thoom!With a wrenching jolt that leveled the bridge crew, Omentipped downward. It didn’t slow the ship as much as Korsin had expected, but that wasn’t the point. At least they could see where they were going now, what was below. If these blasted clouds would clear . . .

At once, he saw it. Land, indeed—but more water.

Much more. Jagged, rugged peaks rose from a greenish surf, almost a skeleton of rock lit by the alien planet’s setting sun, barely visible on the horizon. They were rocketing quickly into night. There wouldn’t be much time to make a decision . . .

. . . but Korsin already knew there was no choice to be made. While more of the crew might survive a water landing, they wouldn’t last long when their superiors learned their precious cargo was at the bottom of an alien ocean. Better they pick the crystals out from among our burned corpses.Frowning, he ordered the starboard-side crew to activate their lower torpedo doors.

Again, a violent lurch, and Omenbanked left, angling toward an angry line of mountains. Rearward, a lifepod shot away from the ship—and slammed straight into the ridge. The searing plume was gone from the bridge’s field of view in less than a second. Gloyd’s torpedo crew would be envious, Korsin thought, shaking his head and blowing out a big breath. Still people alive back there. They’re still trying.

Omencleared a snow-covered peak by less than a hundred meters. Dark water opened up below. Another course correction—and Omenwas quickly running out of torpedo tubes. Another lifepod launched, arcing down and away. Only when the small craft neared the surf did its pilot—if it had one—get the engine going.

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Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith:Precipice 11

The rockets shot the pod straight down into the ocean at full speed.

Squinting through sweat, Korsin looked back at his crew. “Depth charge! Fine time for a mixed warfare drill!” Even Gloyd didn’t laugh at that one. But it wasn’t propriety, the commander saw as he turned. It was what was ahead. More sharp mountains rising from the waters—including a mountain meant for them. Korsin reeled back to his chair. “Stations!”

Seelah wandered in a panic, nearly losing the wailing Jariad as she staggered. She had no station, no defensive position. She began to cross to Devore, frozen at his terminal. There was no time. A hand reached for her. Yaru yanked her close, pushing her down behind the command chair into a protective crouch.

The act cost him.

Omenslammed into a granite ridge at an angle, losing the fight—and still more of itself. The impact threw Commander Korsin forward against the bulkhead, nearly impaling him on the remaining shards of the smashed viewport. Gloyd and Marcom strained to move toward him, but Omenwas still on the move, clipping another rocky rise and spiraling downward.

Something exploded, strewing flaming wreckage in the ship’s grinding wake.

Agonizingly, Omenspun forward again, the torpedo doors that had been their makeshift airbrakes snapping like driftwood as it slid. Down a gravelly incline it skid-ded, showering stones in all directions. Korsin, his forehead bleeding, looked up and out to see—

—nothing. Omencontinued to slide toward an abyss.

It had run out of mountain.

Stop. Stop!

“Stop!”

* * *

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Silence. Korsin coughed and opened his eyes.

They were still alive.

“No,” Seelah said, kneeling and clinging to Jariad.

“We’re already dead.”

Thanks to you,she did not say—but Korsin felt the words streaming at him through the Force. He didn’t need the help. Her eyes said plenty.

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Chapter Two

Omen’s permanent crew came from the same human stock as Korsin: the debris of a noble house, launched skyward centuries before in the whirlwind that formed the Tapani Empire. The Sith had found them, and found them useful. They were skilled in commerce and industry, all the things the Sith Lords needed most but never had time for with their world-building and world-destroying. His ancestors ran ships and facto-ries, and ran them well. And before long, mingling their blood with that of the Dark Jedi, the Force was in his people, too.

They were the future. They couldn’t acknowledge it, but it was obvious. Many of the Sith Lords were still of the crimson-hued species that had long formed the nucleus of their following. But the numbers were turning—and if Naga Sadow wanted to rule the galaxy, they had to.

Naga Sadow.Tentacle-faced, Dark Lord and heir to ancient powers. It was Naga Sadow who had dis-patched Omenand Harbingerin search of Lignan crystals; Naga Sadow who needed the crystals on Kirrek, to defeat the Republic and its Jedi.

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crew for losing their ship. Seelah was right about that much.

Yet Sadow need not lose the war, depending on what Korsin did now. He still had something. The crystals.

But the crystals were high above at the moment.

It had been a night of horrors, getting 355 people down from the lofty plateau. Sixteen injured had died along the way, and another five had tumbled into the darkness from the narrow ledge that formed the only apparent way up or down. No one doubted that evac-uation had been the right call, though. They couldn’t stay up there, not with the fires still burning and the ship precariously perched. The last to leave the ship, Korsin had nearly soiled himself when one of the pro-ton torpedoes had disengaged from the naked tube, tumbling over the precipice and into oblivion.