by Timothy Zahn
Fifteen seconds after that, working his way down, he had all the rest of the holes sealed as well. “Mara’s one more level down,” he told Artoo and the huddled group of Qom Jha, stretching out with the Force. All the aliens below were gone, and there hadn’t been any changes in the overall mental state that would indicate they’d tumbled to his trick.
Though oddly enough, he could no longer sense the assault teams themselves. Equipped with ysalamiri, perhaps?
Probably. But for the moment, those groups were too far away to worry him. “Stay close to me,” he said, igniting the lightsaber and starting his final cut. “We’ll try to keep this as quiet as we can, for as long as we can.”
But if they discover us? Child Of Winds asked anxiously.
Luke frowned at him in mild surprise. He hadn’t realized that the young Qom Qae had come in with the Qom Jha. In fact, he’d intended to give instructions that the child stay behind with whoever had sealed up the hidden door. Clearly, it had slipped his mind; just as clearly, it was too late to do anything about it now. “If the alarm goes up, you’re to split up and create confusion,” Luke told the aliens. “Draw them as far away from me as you can, then find your own ways out of the fortress and head back home.”
We will obey, Splitter Of Stones said, fluttering his wings.
“And try not to get hurt,” Luke added, finishing the cut and lifting the stone disk out of the hole. “Child Of Winds, you stay with Artoo and me.”
He leaned down for a quick visual scan of the empty room below. “All right,” he said, slipping his feet into the opening and bracing himself for another drop. “Let’s go.”
From the hazy look he’d had of this floor before his contact with Mara had been cut off, it had seemed fairly well structured, with rooms and wide corridors instead of the random wall segments they’d encountered upstairs. Not exactly an ideal arrangement for quiet skulking.
But for the first few minutes it seemed to work. Luke led the way cautiously toward the blank spot that marked the cluster of ysalamiri, splitting his attention between the area around him and the various warrior groups assembled near the slideways. Only half a dozen of the aliens wandered near enough to pose potential problems, and he was able to get his party past them unseen using Force-created noises and other distractions. The warriors on the command center level were clearly the methodical types, and as Luke neared the ysalamiri he began to think he might actually be able to burst in on Mara and her captors unannounced.
Han might have been that lucky. Luke, unfortunately, was not. They had nearly reached their goal when the illusion abruptly crumbled.
“They’re on to us,” he murmured.
Do they know where we are? Flier Through Spikes asked.
“I don’t know,” Luke said, stretching out to the Force and trying to decipher the sudden turmoil in the emotions of the aliens around him. There was no way to tell whether the assault team had discovered the hole he had cut or had simply found the level deserted and come to the logical conclusion.
What he could tell was that whatever it was they had discovered, their consternation had spread rapidly to the rest of the group. Clearly, they had a superb communications system in here.
Which meant that Mara’s captors almost certainly also knew he was loose in the fortress.
Which meant he was out of time.
“I’m going in,” he told the Qom Jha tightly, easing an eye around the end of the corridor. Just to the right, on the far side of a cross corridor, he could see an unmarked door. At the far end of that room, as near as he could tell, were the ysalamiri. “Artoo, Child Of Winds—come with me. The rest of you, scatter.”
We obey, Walker Of Sky, Builder With Stones said; and with a multiple flutter of wings they were off.
“Stay behind me,” Luke warned the droid and Qom Qae; and with a quick glance down the corridor he launched himself at the door, igniting Mara’s lightsaber as he ran. He grabbed the release lever, twisting it and pushing the door open in a single motion, and leaped inside.
Only to find that he had miscalculated. The room he was in was long and dimly lit, with most of the left half filled with stacks of crates, and no sign of Mara.
But a second glance showed he hadn’t miscalculated as badly as he thought. Laid out side by side, a group of ysalamiri on nutrient frames had been leaned against the back wall.
Artoo warbled questioningly. “She’s in the next room over,” Luke called over his shoulder as he raced toward the row of frames, a plan of action starting to take shape in his mind. Unless her interrogators were themselves Force-sensitive, they would have no way of knowing whether or not their protective barrier was still in place. If he could move enough of the ysalamiri out of the way to give Mara access to the Force again, the two of them together should be able to turn the tables on her captors and get her out of there. Skidding to a halt in front of one of the frames in the middle of the wall, feeling the sudden disconcerting silence in his mind as he stepped inside the meter-wide range of the creatures’ effect, he set the lightsaber down on the floor and lifted up the frame.
Fortunately, given that there was no way for him to enhance his muscular strength this close to an ysalamir, the frame wasn’t very heavy. He carried it a few steps away from the wall and propped it up against the nearest crate. Stepping back to the next one in line, he picked it up and crossed toward the first—
With his Jedi senses blinded by the ysalamiri effect, Artoo’s sudden squawk was his only warning. He looked up, dropping the frame and leaping backward, his hand instinctively stretching back toward the lightsaber on the floor. One of the blue-skinned aliens was crouching in a marksman’s stance in the open doorway, another of the nutrient frames strapped to his back, his weapon up and tracking. Luke took another step backward, the Force suddenly flooding in around him again as he moved out of the ysalamir’s range. He felt the power tingling through his hand as he again called the lightsaber to him, wondering why it wasn’t already in his hand—
And with a burst of understanding it belatedly hit him. He himself was clear of the ysalamiri effect, but the lightsaber wasn’t.
The alien’s weapon was lined up on him now. “Do not move,” he ordered in accented Basic, his tone making it clear he was serious. Artoo started to roll cautiously toward him; the glowing red eyes flicked warningly toward the droid—
And with a screech that was half challenge and half pure terror, Child Of Winds dropped from the ceiling to land in full-taloned grip on the alien’s gun arm.
The weapon fired, a brilliant blue flash that went wide, slicing past Luke into one of the nutrient frames along the wall. Luke dived backward in the opposite direction toward the cover of the stacked crates, grabbing for his own lightsaber still hanging from his belt and yanking it clear. His momentum slammed him into one of the other frames, sending it crashing to the floor.
And for one brief second, as he caromed off the wall and back toward the crates, he could feel Mara’s presence again.
The touch didn’t last long, perhaps half a second before he bounced back into range of the two ysalamiri he had set down beside the crates. But it was long enough. He could sense that she was all right, felt her own flash of relief that he was similarly unharmed, caught a sense of humans and aliens lined up along the wall in front of her. He had time for a single emotional instruction—Stall!—before the contact was cut off again. Digging his feet into the floor, he ignited his lightsaber and charged past the frames, wondering if he would make it through to the other side of the bubble before the alien got his aim back.
It was a close thing, and for a painful heartbeat he thought Child Of Winds’s act of bravery was going to cost the Qom Qae his life. Instead of trying to wrench his winged assailant off his right arm, the alien had merely slammed his left hand into Child Of Winds’s throat in an attempt to stun him, then transferred his gun to that hand. For an instant his first inclination seemed to be to use the weapon to kill the sharp-taloned nuisance clinging
to him; but as he caught sight of Luke charging toward him with drawn lightsaber, he shifted his aim to the more threatening target and fired.
But he was too late. Luke was past the last of the ysalamiri now, and with access to the Force again there was no way a single gunman could penetrate his defenses. He sprinted forward, anticipating and sweeping his lightsaber across each of the alien’s shots with practiced ease. Still firing, the alien dodged to the right, crossing behind Artoo. Luke switched direction to match his movement, wondering if the alien was planning to duck down and use the droid as a shield.
If so, he never got the chance. From midway down Artoo’s body came the flash of an arc current—
And with an abrupt jolt of twitching leg muscles, the alien stumbled off balance and fell heavily sideways to the floor, taking Child Of Winds down with him. Luke leaped over Artoo, landing with one foot on the gun and feeling the sudden blindness again as he came within range of the ysalamir backpack. The alien’s glowing red eyes gazed up with an unreadable expression as Luke raised his lightsaber high and brought it sweeping down. Seeing his own death arcing down toward him—
And then, midway through his slash, Luke closed down the blade, and instead of decapitating the alien merely slammed the heavy metal of the handle across the back of his head. Without a sound, he collapsed limply to the floor, unconscious.
“You all right?” Luke asked Child Of Winds, helping pry the other’s clenched feet off the gunman’s arm. The points where the Qom Qae’s claws had been, he noticed, were oozing with slowly growing spots of red.
I am unhurt, Child Of Winds said shakily. Why did you protect his life?
“Because there was no need to kill him,” Luke answered, looking up at Artoo. The droid seemed a little shaky, too, but game as always as he retracted his arc welder back into its compartment. “Thanks for the assist—both of you. Come on, Mara needs us.”
Running back to the wall, he began grabbing the nutrient frames and hurling them away behind him, all thoughts of subtlety replaced now by a desperate need for speed. That quick kaleidoscopic glimpse he’d had into Mara’s mind had included the threat of drawn weapons. He threw three of the nutrient frames aside, risked taking the time to get rid of the one next to where Mara’s lightsaber still lay on the floor, then stepped close to the wall.
And realized with a surge of fear that he had cut it a little too close. Filtered through the emotional haze and clipped tactical thinking roiling together in Mara’s mind, he could sense an indistinct, wavering image of the four aliens with their weapons pointed at her. Touching his forehead to the wall, he ran through his sensory enhancements …
“Skywalker put me into the trance,” he heard her voice faintly through the thick stone. “And he’s not here. I could die of shock, or bleed to death—”
“You’ll do neither,” another voice said. “I know both the power and limitations of Chiss weaponry. Think of it as an added incentive for Skywalker to surrender to us.”
Luke didn’t wait any longer. Straightening up, he drew back his lightsaber, stretching out to the Force as he pointed the tip of the glowing green blade at the wall, agonizingly aware that he would have only one shot at this. But if the Force could guide him with the pinpoint precision necessary to block blaster bolts …
And then, with a clarity that was startling in its unexpectedness, an image sprang into his mind: an alien standing with his back toward Luke, almost in front of him, raising a weapon toward Mara. Setting his teeth, Luke thrust his lightsaber through the wall to slash the green blade into the upper part of the alien’s weapon.
And on the far side of that wall, he sensed the neatly arranged little scene dissolve into chaos.
Luke pulled the lightsaber downward, slicing an opening for himself as quickly as the stubborn black stone would permit, the emotional turmoil of sudden combat flooding over him as Mara exploded into action. He sensed a dizzying spin as she spun around and dropped into a crouch behind her chair, stretching out with the Force for her enemies’ weapons. She yanked one straight out of its owner’s hand—twisted another to the side to send his shot harmlessly into the ceiling—ducked back as another shot splattered across the corner of her chair back, sending tiny agonizing drops of liquid metal grazing across her cheek—
And then Luke’s section of wall collapsed with a thud into the chaos. He caught Mara’s eye as she crouched behind the chair and threw his lightsaber to her, stretched out with the Force to snatch hers from the floor behind him—
And with the old weapon flashing memories of Tatooine and Hoth and Bespin through his mind, he strode into the midst of the fight, the blue-white blade spattering bolts of enemy fire and shattering across the weapons themselves. One of the aliens leaped at him, a knife flashing into his hand; Luke grabbed him bodily with the Force and slammed him back against two others preparing for the same maneuver—
“Stop!” an authoritative voice ordered.
The aliens froze in their tracks, their eyes focused unblinkingly on Luke. Luke eyed them warily in return, his lightsaber held at the ready. Out of the corner of his eye he got a glimpse of the speaker: a gray-haired man wearing an Imperial admiral’s uniform. “There’s no point in anyone throwing their lives away here,” the admiral said sternly. “Let them go.”
Luke stretched out toward him with the Force, trying to gauge his sincerity. But both he and the other Imperial in the room were still being shielded by the remaining ysalamiri behind the side wall. “Mara?” Luke asked, risking a quick glance at her.
“What do you think?” she said with a snort as she came to his side, the green blade of his lightsaber held crossways at the ready between her and the aliens. “He’s trying to save his own neck.”
“Of course, I am,” the admiral conceded without embarrassment. “As I’m also attempting to protect the necks of my troops. If there was one thing Thrawn made certain his officers clearly understood, it was never to waste people for no reason.” He smiled. “And it is well known that the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker does not kill needlessly or in cold blood.”
“He’s also stalling,” Mara added. “They’re probably setting up some kind of trap right now.”
“Then we’d better get moving.” Luke nodded at the group. “You think we should take one of them as a hostage?”
Mara hissed between her teeth. “No,” she said. “Parck is too old—he’d slow us down—and I don’t trust any of these Chiss not to be more trouble than they’re worth. That goes double for General Fel.”
Luke blinked, focusing his attention for the first time on the younger Imperial’s face. Baron Fel? “Yes, it’s me, Luke,” Fel confirmed. “It’s been a long time.”
“Yes, it has,” Luke murmured. Baron Fel, working for the Empire again?
Mara nudged him in the side. “Let’s save the Rogue veterans’ reunion for another time, okay? We’ve got to get moving.”
“Right,” Luke said, stepping back toward the wall and the opening he’d cut.
“Do think about our offer, Mara,” the admiral called after them. “I think you’ll find our struggle out here to be the most vitally important challenge you could ever face.”
“And you think about my warning,” Mara countered. “Stay away from Bastion.”
The admiral shook his head minutely. “We’ll do what we have to.”
“Then so will I,” Mara threatened. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Fel smiled at her. “Take your best shot.”
“Perhaps your fear of what the Empire might do with our information will be an added motivation for you to join us,” Parck added. “At any rate, I’m certain we’ll see you again.”
“Right,” Mara said. “I’ll look forward to it.”
CHAPTER
29
Luke waited until Mara had ducked through the opening before backing out of the room himself. “I believe this one’s yours,” he told her, shutting down her lightsaber and handing it across.
“Th
anks,” she said, taking it as she passed his back to him. “Interesting grip yours has got. I think I like it better than mine.”
“You can keep that in mind when you get around to making your own someday,” Luke said, digging her sleeve blaster out of his jacket and tossing it to her. “Here’s your blaster. Watch out—some of their people come equipped with ysalamir backpacks.”
“I know,” Mara said. She was at the door now, looking carefully out into the corridor. “Looks clear, but that won’t last long. What’s the plan? Back to the stairway?”
“Unfortunately, I had the Qom Jha lock it down,” Luke told her, stepping into the doorway beside her as he threw a last glance back at the opening he’d cut. He’d have thought one of the aliens—the Chiss, Mara had called them—might try for a final shot, but they had apparently decided to stay put.
Which meant Mara was right. They had something else planned.
He looked down the corridor, stretching out with the Force as well. “Child Of Winds, stay on top of Artoo,” he told the Qom Qae. “I don’t want you getting lost.”
“Or getting in the way,” Mara added. “So where are we going?”
Before Luke could answer, Artoo rolled out into the corridor, heading confidently off to the left with Child Of Winds balanced precariously atop his dome. “I guess we’re following Artoo,” Luke said, setting off after them. “He must have been able to download the floor plan like I asked him to.”
“That, or he’s looking for a recharger,” Mara muttered as she fell into step beside him. “How good are you at spotting individual ysalamiri?”
“Not as good as I am with groups of them,” he conceded, stretching out with the Force. He could sense the grim activity all around them as the Chiss mobilized for combat …
The small empty space to their right was so subtle that he nearly missed it. “Watch out!” he snapped to Mara, skidding to a halt and spinning to face that direction. Even as he brought his lightsaber up, a half-meter-square concealed wall panel popped open and a weapon poked out. Behind it in the shadowy alcove he caught a glimpse of glowing red eyes and the glint of a nutrient frame above them—
