Star Wars_ Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor Part 11

"They're all innocent?"

"Most are. Some are like me." Nick tilted his head. "It's been a while since I was innocent of anything."

"I'm not sure what you mean by that."

"After five years of war, you're still not sure? Maybe you haven't been paying attention." He waved a hand. "Forget it. Blackhole and me-we tangled while he was... uh, recruiting... out in the Outer Rim. I chased him till he caught me."

"You chased him?"

"Him and others. Got my own reasons... to hate dark siders." He waved a trembling hand. "Everybody... needs a hobby, kid..."

Luke smiled, a little sadly. "No one calls me kid anymore."

"Hey, sorry..."

Luke nodded. "Me, too."

Nick wheezed, "Get up... on the throne."

"What?"

"Do it! Right now!"

Luke put his hand on the arm of the Shadow Throne. It was smooth and cool as polished gla.s.s. "Why?"

"The throne's... obsidian. This other rock, it's all meltma.s.sif. Like the bridge."

"So what?"

"So that." Where he pointed-just ahead of the approaching stormtroopers-the rock bridge had suddenly and inexplicably thinned, as though it were putty or soft clay, pinched by the fingers of an invisible giant. The stormtrnopers hesitated... and the rock bridge parted, its ends recoiling from each other like severed strands of wander-kelp, and the far side, where the stormtroopers now stood uncertainly, literally yanked itself out from under them. They clutched desperately at the retreating stone; one fell, flailing helplessly in the smoky red-washed gloom, until he vanished in a splash of sudden flame at the surface of the lake of fire below. The other found a grip and clung, dangling over the molten lava, but only for an instant: a blue-sparking energy discharge of some sort flicked across the surface of the stone and the trooper's hands sprang open.

This one didn't flail as he fell. He just dropped, already unconscious or dead.

The rest of the troopers and the Moon Hat woman on the ledge at the tunnel's mouth also collapsed as if shot by a bank of stunners . .. and the ledge sagged beneath them, spreading like hot khaddi-nut b.u.t.ter until their unconscious bodies slid off and tumbled the fifty meters down to fiery death.

Then the stone that had been ledge flowed back upward until it had sealed off the tunnel's mouth.

"So much for the witnesses..." Nick said.

Luke felt a sudden surge of danger sense that gave him half a second's warning; he tangled a fist in "Shadowsp.a.w.n" 's robe and let the Force lend wings to his heels and might to his arm as he leapt upward from the rock onto the polished obsidian throne just as that same electric crackle played over the stone on which he'd just been standing. "Okay, we're up. Now what?"

"Can you use the Force to get us out of here somehow?"

"I don't think so," Luke said grimly. "But if he wants us dead, all he has to do is turn off the repulsorlift that's holding up this throne. Or drop the heat screens."

"He won't. That's what I've been trying to tell you," Nick said. "He doesn't want to kill you. He wants to be you."

Before Luke could ask him what that was supposed to mean, the rock into which the throne had been set suddenly s.h.i.+fted and flowed and stretched into a vast hand holding them in its palm. Huge fingers of stone, each three times as long as Luke was tall, closed over them. Luke brought up his lightsaber instinctively and slashed one linger off at the knuckle... but the rock-finger simply fell beside him and melted and flowed around his feet, instantly hardening to lock him in place.

The cavern boomed with mocking laughter from those concealed speakers.

"I believe the appropriate word here" said the amplified fake-Vader voice, "is CUT!"

Then a burst of blue energy blasted up Luke's legs and ripped away his consciousness.

CHAPTER 9.

Han's mental catalogue of preferences was as agile as any other part of him; a couple of squadrons of TIE fighters coming straight at his nose transformed, in the blink of an eye, the top of his list from "At least I'll roast before I starve" to "I don't want to die on an empty stomach!"

He whirled and sprinted aft. "Chewie! Go go go GO!" he shouted, heedless of the fact that the Wookiee had already scrambled to the rim and thrown himself off the hull.

Han sprinted headlong as laser blasts splashed around him. Splatters of molten t.i.tanium that once had been the Falcon's armor burned holes in his pants and s.h.i.+rt, and even as he tripped over an EVA grip and belly flopped headfirst off the hull, some coolly disconnected part of his brain filed the datum that the laser bolts looked about ten times the width they normally would, and they weren't actually penetrating the Falcon's dorsal armor. Something in the metals-charged atmosphere must screw up laser collimation, that cool part of his brain decided, while the rest of his brain was more concerned with trying for a diver's tuck-and-roll to keep his headfirst trajectory from resulting in a headfirst impact on the cinders around the boarding ramp.

While the result was not entirely graceful-he landed on his rear end with a thump-it was close enough for his purposes, so that when Leia sprinted up to him he was able to shove himself to his "Go on!" he gasped. "I'm right behind you!"

"Any landing you can walk away from, eh, Slick?" she said as she pa.s.sed him and disappeared up the boarding ramp.

"Got that right." He staggered up the ramp and hit the autocycle to close it behind him. "Leia! Bottom turret! Chewie, take top! I'm driving!"

He scrambled forward. Chewbacca's feet were just disappearing up the upper turret access; Wookiees could climb faster than most species could run. Leia paused before clambering down into the lower turret. "You okay? Really?"

"Mostly," Han said. "Considering I landed on my brain."

"As long as there's no permanent damage." Leia flashed a grin and gave his injured anatomy a quick pat as he squeezed by. "It's your best feature-and that's saying a lot."

"You're adorable," he said. "Now let's go shoot some bad guys, huh?"

The s.h.i.+p rocked with more cannon blasts, which were answered by an ear-shattering Wookiee war cry and the deep-throated thoom-thoom-thoom-thoom of the topside quad turret. Han finally reached the c.o.c.kpit and threw himself into the pilot's couch. While he stabbed b.u.t.tons and flicked switches, he whispered a quick "Thank-youverymuch!" to whatever part of the Force might be looking after fools, scoundrels, and reformed smugglers, grateful that the Empire had never thought to arm their TIE Interceptors with missiles or torps, especially since-as a searing red failure indicator informed him when he tried to fire up the active defenses-the atmosphere seemed to have a similar effect on deflectors and particle s.h.i.+elds.

Which meant, on balance, that the most effective weapons in this particular engagement just happened to be loaded in the Falcon's forward missile array. Han muttered, "That works for me," yanked back on the control yoke, and punched the sublights. The Falcon leapt straight up as if it had been drop-kicked by the entire planet.

The s.h.i.+p spun skyward through a hailstorm of cannon lire. Inboard comm crackled. "I can't hurt them" Leia said, her voice tight and calm with concentration. "My shots glance off the collector panels. Is something wrong with the guns?"

"No, something's wrong with the atmosphere! Don't complain, it's keeping us alive right now!" Han shouted back. "Their forward viewports aren't armored-aim for the eyeball and shoot 'em in the face when they swing in on attack runs!"

He twisted the s.h.i.+p through a half loop that sent it straight for a new line of TIEs as they dropped through the cloud deck in that follow-the-leader formation they favored for air-to-ground work. "Speaking of eyeb.a.l.l.s," he muttered under his breath, and thumbed the missile release without bothering to engage the targeting computer; at this range he didn't need a missile lock. Twin contrails painted parallel lines from the Falcon to the lead TIE in less than a heartbeat. In the next heartbeat, the TIE had blossomed into an expanding sphere of flame and debris-which touched off the following TIE, and the one after that, while the rest of the flight broke formation and spiraled into strafing runs.

"Hey, they're going after the Mindorese!" Han crowed as he spun the s.h.i.+p into an escape vector. "Blow 'em a kiss for luck, kids-we're out of here!"

"Han," Leia began, and he clenched his teeth. He recognized the tone, and he knew what was coming next.

"Don't tell me," he said. "We have to go back."

"They'll be slaughtered!" she said. "And Han-they know something about Luke!'"

"Oh, sure," he muttered through his teeth. She would bring Luke into this. "But when your bleeding heart gets us all killed, don't come crying to me..."

He pulled the Falcon into a looping evasion curve, and this time he did engage the targeting computer-which promptly informed him, in no uncertain terms, that the Falcon was out of missiles. "Now you tell me."

Han keyed the comm. "Rogue Leader, Rogue Leader. Wedge, you out there? If you're in the area, we could use a little cover right about now!"

The speakers crackled, Faintly, though the hursts of static: "Negative on the cover, Falcon. Do yon read? Negative cover! We are buried-there's more TIEs than rocks out here! Do you read?"

"Loud and too d.a.m.n clear," Han muttered. "Can you pry open a window for us?"

"No joy starside, Falcon. Do not attempt! Hostiles have you under the blanket. Find a hole and pull it in after you. We'11 be back as soon as we round up some friendlies."

"Negative that. Stick to Leia's plan; we'll make our own way. We'll find Luke and meet you on the far side of the jump point."

"Copy that. Clear skies, Falcon."

"See you soon, Wedge."

"Copy, Han. Take care of the pretty lady."

"I always do," Han said, and only after a second or two did it strike him that Wedge had been talking about Leia, not the Falcon. "Uh, yeah, her too," he muttered, and keyed the inboard comm. "All right, kids, we have to do this the hard way. Belt up-this ride's about to get b.u.mpy!"

The targeting computer shrilled an alert: missile lock detected.

"Missile lock? They don't even have..." But even as he was arguing with the computer, Han had kicked the Falcon into a high-g sideslip, and before he could finish the sentence a pair of concussion missiles screamed past so close the c.o.c.kpit rattled. "Who's shooting at us now?"

"Incoming!" Leia sang out over the sudden thunder of the quad turrets.

"I saw them alrea-oh." Han stared out through the forward viewport at a swarm of missiles that looped toward them from the general direction of a giant wall of billowing dust, which had been kicked up by a skirmish line of four or five dozen heavy a.s.sault guns.h.i.+ps that skimmed the hills a few kilometers away, angling for envelopment. "You have got to be kidding me!"

"Arroowerrhowoo!"

"Sure, laugh it up," Han snarled as he yanked the Falcon back into an intercept course with the strafing TIEs. Trust a Wookiee to find this funny. "Chewie, target the fighters! We need to break their formation. Princess-hey, wait..."

From down among the rocks at the crater's rim, at every impact point of every laser bolt from every one of the strafing TIEs, rose a billow of reddish-black cloud: dust and smoke, thick enough to completely shroud the ground beneath.

Han found himself grinning. "Princess! Aim for the ground!'"

"What?"

"Just do it! Angle the turret forward and hold down the triggers!"

"You're the captain, Captain." He could hear in her voice her skeptical shrug, but an instant later she opened up the belly quad and hosed the lava ahead with a nonstop stream of laserfire.

And even as Han kicked the Falcon into a dive that speared straight into the billowing wall of red-black dust kicked up by Leia's laser blasts, he was contemplating, with mild astonishment, that for very possibly the first time in her life, Leia had just done as she was told without a word of argument. Must be the captain thing. Why hadn't he thought of that before? His mouth quirked upward in a slight, lopsided smile.

He was still smiling when the Falcon roared up from the cloud into open sky and was instantly clipped across its starboard mandible by the collector panel of a TIE Interceptor whose astonished pilot never even had a chance to blink before his starfighter was transformed by the impact into a flaming ball of wreckage tumbling toward the all-too-close lava below.

The glancing impact knocked the Falcon into a flipping whirl like a cred chip spinning on a sabacc table that sprayed the surrounding area with molten chunks of t.i.tanium from the gash in its armor plating. The TIE fighter collector's leading edge missed the front viewpanel of the Falcon's c.o.c.kpit by roughly the diameter of a Wookiee's nose hair. Han was too busy saying Whoa! and being generally astonished to find himself still alive while trying to wrestle the Falcon back under control to even distantly worry about the other TIEs streaking toward him, not to mention the concussion missiles that looped toward them indiscriminately, having lost their targeting locks when the Falcon had disappeared into the cloud of metallic fog.

The Falcon's spin, though, brought the intersecting contrails of the oncoming missiles through Han's visual arc just in time for him to wrench the yoke and stand the Falcon on its tail, side-on to the missiles, for one flash of a ghost of a second... just long enough for the lead missiles to whip past so close that he would later swear he could .smell them before they continued down into the murk in pursuit of the largest energy signature their targeting sensors had found to relock on: the exploding TIE Interceptor. The following missiles had already located the ion signatures of the other TIEs, since the atmosphere apparently also presented enough EM interference to screw up the missiles' reception of IFF transponder signals. While the TIE pilots struggled with that problem, Han was able to bring the Falcon back under control and angle it toward the folds of lava where the Mindorese had taken cover.

Over their position, he kicked the Falcon onto its side and circled them at high speed, while both Chewie and Leia fired their quads at full power into the ground, raising a huge cylindrical cloud of blasted-up rock and metal that Han figured would cloak them from the oncoming guns.h.i.+ps for at least a minute or so; then he set down in the clear middle and dropped the Falcon's boarding ramp as he activated the exterior loudspeakers. "Okay, let's go! Mount up-we're at B minus thirty, and B stands for Bagload of Bad Guys!"

The Mindorese scrambled for the boarding ramp, some of them limping, some carrying or dragging wounded comrades. The red-head paused just long enough to send a sardonic grin toward the c.o.c.kpit and follow it with a blown kiss that somehow managed to look grateful and sarcastic at the same time.

Han canceled the loudspeakers and keyed the turret comm. "Chewie. Leia." Even though the Mindorese couldn't possibly over-hear, he kept his voice low, just above a whisper. "Secure the turret access bulkheads, and don't come out till I tell you."

Those bulkheads would stand up to anything short of a mining charge.

Chewie growled a.s.sent, but Leia said, "Han-these aren't enemies. I can feel..."

"I believe you," Han said. "Do it anyway."

"Han..."

"Leia!"

"All right. I'll stay put."

"And get ready to shoot, huh?" Without waiting for her answer, Han keyed the conun channel for the Falcon's cargo hold. "I ley down there! You people inside? We're out of time!"

"We're in! Are we taking off sometime today?" Had to be the red-head. "Is this a s.h.i.+p or an artillery target?"

"Little bit of both," Han muttered as he kicked power into the thrusters and swung the mandibles toward vertical.

The Falcon broke clear of the dust and smoke cloud. "Here they come!"

The Interceptors hadn't gone anywhere in the meantime; immediately the battered freighter bounced and shuddered under the impact of multiple cannon hits, and Han spotted the flight of heavy a.s.sault guns.h.i.+ps circling into formation for a new attack run. "I hope somebody's got a good idea, here!"

"Hrowwwroor! "

"Of course keep shooting!" Han replied. "I said a good idea!"

The intercom crackled with the redhead's voice again. "Seventy-seven points off true north, and punch it!"

Han scanned the horizon from north to east: desert, featureless but for low rolling hills. "There's nothing there!"

"If you want, we can argue about it while the Imps blast your s.h.i.+p to sc.r.a.p."

"Or maybe we could mount you on the hull and use your nerve for armor plate," Han muttered, but he kicked the underlets and fired the thrusters. Six Interceptors hurtled past, and Han pumped the missile trigger by instinct, snarling to himself That's it, knuckle-head, waste your time firing dry tubes. The TIEs weren't his main problem anyway; the big issue was the flight of heavy a.s.sault guns.h.i.+ps skimming the ground straight toward them... from east by northeast. "Do you know you're sending us straight for them?"

"Hey, sorry. You feel safer here?"

"You and me, we're just never gonna get along."

"Stop it, you'll make me cry. Get the TIEs in a tail chase so..."