by Timothy Zahn
The tip of the blade had reached the wall now. Luke continued forcing it that direction, pushing the blade straight into the metal plating.
“—and naturally we weren’t stupid enough to put any critical equipment behind the walls for you to cut into,” Control finished. “A little more impressed now, are we?”
“Maybe a little,” Luke said. “Now what?”
“What do you think?” Control retorted, his voice suddenly dark. “We know what you Jedi can do, Skywalker—don’t think we don’t. I figure that from that little ride through our base alone you’ve probably already dug out enough dirty silt about our operation to send everyone here to Fodurant or Beauchen for the next twenty years. You think we’re going to just sit here and let you do that to us, you’re crazy.”
Luke grimaced with the irony. Control was right: using his full Jedi strength, he almost certainly could have invaded the pirates’ minds that deeply. But with his new reluctance to use his power so casually, he had in fact done nothing of the sort. “So what do you want to do, make a deal?”
“Hardly,” Control said. “We want you to die.”
“Really,” Luke said dryly. The bars here might be too strong for human muscle, but that was hardly the limiting factor for a Jedi. Bending enough of the bars out of the way for him to get to his lightsaber would be a long and tedious job, but he had more than enough depth in the Force to accomplish it. “From old age, or do you have something more immediate in mind?”
“I’m actually kind of sorry,” Control said. “Seems a waste, dusting you like this, especially after what this Jedi trap cost to build. But no one’s offering bounties on captured Jedi these days. Even if they were, I don’t suppose that cage would hold you long enough for us to collect. So there it is. Good-bye, Skywalker.”
There was a click, and the speaker fell dead … and in the silence, Luke heard a sound that hadn’t been there before.
The quiet hiss of escaping gas.
He took a deep breath, stretching out to the Force. There were Jedi poison-neutralizing techniques that should be able to handle whatever they were pumping in at him. Still, he’d better not dawdle on getting out of here. Closing his eyes, reaching more deeply to the Force, he began bending one of the bars away from his face—
And then, suddenly, his eyes snapped open as the truth belatedly hit him.
The pirates weren’t pumping poison in. They were pumping the air out.
And not even a Jedi could survive for long without air.
Luke took another deep breath, pushing away his rising fear. A Jedi must act when he is calm, at peace with the Force. All right. Artoo and the X-wing might already be in the pirates’ hands. Even if they weren’t, there was no way for the snubfighter to maneuver its way through the cramped and twisting corridors. He was on his own here, with no resources but the few pieces of equipment he was carrying: a comlink, glow rod, datapad—
And two spare blaster power packs.
Luke reached out with the Force, lifting the small flat boxes off his belt and floating them up to where he could see them. Back during the height of the Rebellion, the mechanical genius General Airen Cracken had found a way to rig blaster power packs to explode. All it took was two or more packs fastened together with their overload sturm dowels removed, and in thirty seconds they would blow with the power of a medium-sized grenade.
The blast should have enough power to shatter or twist any of the bars in its immediate vicinity. Unfortunately, it would do similar damage to Luke himself.
But with a little ingenuity …
It was the work of a few seconds to remove the overload dowels from the power packs. Then, holding them pressed together with the Force, he maneuvered them carefully through the maze of bars toward the far blast door. If Control was still monitoring him—and if the pirate knew about this trick—he would probably conclude that Luke was trying to punch a hole in the blast door and let in some air. He would also undoubtedly conclude that the metal was more than strong enough to withstand such an explosion.
Which was fine with Luke. The longer the pirates operated under false assumptions, the slower they would react when they finally figured out what he really had in mind.
His makeshift bomb was nearly to the blast door now, with only about ten seconds left to go. Keeping the bomb moving, he reached out to the Force and slid his lightsaber backward along its single line of free movement until the belt ring was pressing against the wall. The bomb reached the other end of the lightsaber’s track and Luke settled it there against one of the bars.
The critical question now, he knew, was whether the explosion and resulting burst of shrapnel might damage the lightsaber. On sudden impulse, he stretched out and ignited the weapon, bringing the green blade snapping out to point directly toward the bomb. The blade should disintegrate whatever shrapnel hit it, providing at least some protection for the handle and the mechanism inside. Now there was nothing to do but wait and fight to keep from passing out in the rapidly thinning atmosphere—
And with a tremendous blast of fire and thunder, three seconds early, the power packs blew up.
Luke bit down hard as a dozen red-hot metal splinters stabbed and slashed into his left arm and side. But the results were all that he could have hoped for. Across the room, visible through the drifting smoke, the neat array of bars had been altered by the explosion. Not much, but maybe enough. Reaching out to the Force, he slid the lightsaber forward to the bomb-mangled bars and twisted the handle.
Not much, but indeed enough. The lightsaber, partially freed from its confinement, could now reach to the side just enough to snick off the end of one of the nearest bars. Luke twisted again, this time sending two more bars clattering to the floor. He twisted again, and again, each sweep going a little wider as he methodically carved out some space around the lightsaber—
And suddenly the weapon was free, spinning like a propeller as it cut through everything in its path.
White spots were beginning to dance in front of Luke’s eyes as he sent the weapon through the blast door, cutting a triangular hole that brought a welcome gush of air rushing into the partial vacuum. He took a deep breath; and as his vision cleared he brought the lightsaber back toward him, the spinning blade mowing through the bars like a scythe through a field of tallgrain.
A minute later he was back in the rocky corridors, thumbing on his comlink as he headed for the landing bay and his ship. “Artoo?” he called. “You there?”
The only answer was another burst of jamming static. Picking up his pace, using Jedi techniques to suppress the pain in his side and arm, he prepared himself for the pirates’ next move.
But that move didn’t come. He emerged from the corridor into a large but deserted chamber and crossed into another corridor without seeing or sensing anyone.
For that matter, he hadn’t sensed anyone since his escape from their Jedi trap. Were they all hiding somewhere? Or had they all simply packed up and left?
The rock floor beneath his feet shook slightly, and somewhere in the distance he heard the faint sound of an explosion. He was through the corridor and into another room when he heard and felt a second explosion, this one noticeably closer.
And abruptly his comlink twittered. He thumbed it on—“Artoo?”
“Not quite,” a familiar voice answered dryly. “Are you in trouble again, Skywalker?”
Luke blinked with surprise, then smiled with the first genuine pleasure he’d felt since arriving at this place. “Of course I am,” he told Mara Jade. “Have you ever known me when I wasn’t?”
CHAPTER
9
“Offhand, I can’t think of a time,” Mara had to admit, gazing out the Starry Ice’s bridge viewport at the asteroid field stretched out in front of them. “Though I have to say that taking on a whole nest of pirates alone is beyond even your usual audacity level. What are you doing in there, anyway?”
“Attempting to get out,” the other answered dryly. “What are you doing he
re?”
“Karrde asked me to check on you,” she said. “Seemed to think you might need a hand.”
“That I do,” he conceded. “Where are you?”
“At the moment, on the outside looking in,” Mara told him, frowning. Had that been an explosion over there on the Cavrilhu’s main asteroid? “Are you setting off bombs or something?”
“No, but somebody is—I can hear explosions in the distance. Can you see what’s happening?”
Seated at the next console, Captain Shirlee Faughn tapped Mara’s arm. “Take a look at the starboard end of the asteroid,” she murmured, pointing. “We’ve got a flotilla heading for deep space. I make it … eighteen ships.”
“Terrific,” Mara muttered. “You’ve got trouble, Luke—your rats are staging a mass desertion. Faughn’s got readings on eighteen ships; probably more on the way. Ten to one those explosions you’re hearing are the base’s self-destruct system kicking in. You got any transport?”
“I had a Y60 freighter when I came in, with Artoo and a hidden X-wing aboard,” Luke said. “But I haven’t been able to raise him.”
“Well, don’t panic yet,” Mara advised, giving the displays a quick glance. “They’re still jamming your primary comlink frequency—we just happen to have the equipment to sneak in on a harmonic. How far are you from your landing bay?”
“I don’t know exactly—”
Faughn snapped her fingers, pointed to one of Mara’s displays. “Hold it,” Mara cut in. “Their jamming’s just gone off. Let me release your comlink back to primary freq.”
She looked across the bridge at the comm station. “Corvus?”
“Already cleared,” the other reported. “I’ll key you back in on primary.”
Abruptly the comm speaker burst into a staccato flow of astromech droid machine language. “Slow down, Artoo,” Luke’s voice cut in through the warbles and squeals. “I can’t understand a thing you’re saying.”
“He says he and the X-wing are okay,” Mara told him, watching as the translation scrolled across her computer display. “They were coming for him, so he popped the X-wing out of its hiding place—”
She grimaced. “And chased them away by blasting the landing bay’s atmosphere shield generators.”
There was a long moment of silence. “Which I presume means the landing bay is now full of hard vacuum?” Luke asked.
“Up to its brim,” Mara confirmed. “I suppose it would be too much to hope there might be a vac suit locker near the bay somewhere.”
“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t want to count on it,” Luke said.
“Me, neither,” Mara agreed. “Faughn, you used to fly Y60s, didn’t you?”
“More often than I care to remember,” the other woman said. “You thinking about him trying a cold-shirt crossing?”
“It’s the simplest way to get him out of there,” Mara said. “Can he do it?”
“I doubt it,” Faughn said. “Skywalker, is the freighter’s landing ramp up or down?”
“Down, last I knew.”
The R2 unit twittered, the droid’s confirmation scrolling across the display. “It’s still down,” Mara said.
“In that case, not a chance,” Faughn said, shaking her head. “The Y60’s ramp mechanism is a piece of junk. Getting it sealed and repressurizing the ship would take at least fifteen minutes.”
“I was afraid of that,” Mara said. “A little long for him to hold his breath.”
“What about his X-wing?” Faughn suggested. “It can’t take very long to pressurize a cockpit that size.”
“Except that most fighter canopies are pressure-locked these days,” Mara pointed out. “Opening them to vacuum without squeezing the manual override usually pops the ejector seat. It’s a safety mechanism—I don’t think the R2 can override it.”
“You’re right, he can’t,” Luke said. “I’d better hope I can find a vac suit.”
“Sure.” Mara hissed softly between her teeth, measuring the distance to the asteroid with her eyes. The chances that the pirates would have vac equipment within handy reach of potential escapees were somewhere between slim and none. “In case you can’t, we’re coming in.”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Faughn turn startled eyes on her. “Jade, we don’t know the safe path in,” the other woman muttered.
“No, but Skywalker’s astromech droid does,” Mara reminded her. “Droid, how about feeding us some numbers?”
The R2 warbled acknowledgment, and a course layout appeared on the computer display. “Got it,” Mara said. “Let’s go.”
Faughn turned back to the helm, still obviously less than enthusiastic about risking her ship this way. There was a brief surge of acceleration, and the Starry Ice began moving forward. “The path doesn’t look too bad,” Mara told her, studying the display.
“It didn’t,” the captain said, tapping her nav display. “There’s just one slight problem: the asteroids aren’t in the same relative positions anymore.”
Mara shifted her attention to her own nav display. Faughn was right. “Blast—they’ve scrambled it,” she said, getting out of her chair and heading for the door. “We’ll have to bantha-roll our way in. I’ll take Number One; get Elkin and Torve to the others.”
She had reached her turbolaser station and was strapping in when Faughn signaled. “We’ve just tripped an automatic beacon warning us away,” the captain reported. “Ought to be hitting the first wave of trouble anytime.”
“Understood,” Mara said, kicking the turbolaser into emergency warm-up and wishing for about the twentieth time this trip that the Jade’s Fire wasn’t stuck on Duroon getting its nav systems refitted. Karrde had done a good job of arming his freighters, but the Fire had as much sheer laser power as the Starry Ice and a lot more maneuverability on top of it.
But it wasn’t here, and there was nothing she could do about it. Rubbing her palms briefly on her jumpsuit to dry them, she got a firm grip on the controls and stretched out to the Force. She might not be as glorious and powerful a Jedi as the great Luke Skywalker, but she’d be willing to match her finely honed danger sense against his any day.
The problem was that the danger sense wasn’t particularly directional. And there were a lot of different directions out there for trouble to come from.
“Here we come, Luke,” she called into her headset. “Last chance for you to wave your hand and sweep all the traps away.”
The instant the words were out of her mouth she was sorry she’d said them. Luke was too far away for her to fully touch his mind; but even so, she could sense him wincing from her remark. She opened her mouth to apologize—
And suddenly her danger sense flared, an asteroid drifting along nearby catching her full attention. She spotted a circle of unnatural smoothness on its edge—the faint glint of metal—
Her turbolaser flashed, shattering the suspect asteroid into rocks and rubble. From the expanding dust cloud came a single reflexive burst of answering turbolaser fire: too little, too late, and well wide of its target.
“Good shooting, Mara,” Elkin’s voice came in her ear.
Mara nodded, too preoccupied with her task and her guilt over that snide remark to reply. Her guilt, and a growing annoyance at herself for feeling guilty in the first place. After all, it was Skywalker and his apprentice Jedi, not her, who were playing fast and casual with their power. If having someone point it out bothered him, that was his problem, not hers.
There was another flicker of warning; but before she could identify the source of the danger, multiple shots of red fire lanced out from Torve’s turbolaser and a string of small boulders exploded prematurely into clouds of knife-edged shrapnel bursts. Mara winced as a few stray shredders bounced off the Starry Ice’s deflector shield in front of her canopy; and then the ship was past that trap and on its way to the next. Resettling her fingers on the controls, Mara again stretched out to the Force.
Among the three of them they had blasted eight more traps by t
he time the Starry Ice reached the main base. “We’re here,” Faughn’s voice announced in Mara’s ear. “Skywalker? Where are you?”
“I’m at my landing bay,” Luke replied. “Artoo, fire a few blasts at the rim to mark it.”
The droid beeped, and a shadow between two rocky ridges flickered with-laser fire. “Okay, we’ve got you,” Faughn said. “Coming in.”
The laser flashes stopped; and as they did, another of the muted explosions flickered on the asteroid surface, uncomfortably close to the target bay. “There goes another blast,” Mara said.
“You’ve been missing most of the performance out there,” Luke said. “I’ve been hearing one go off every ten seconds or so. They seem to be working their way my direction.”
Another explosion flashed, this one even closer to the landing bay. “Too close, if you ask me,” Faughn grunted. “You sure you want to risk putting down there, Jade?”
“Not especially,” Mara conceded, “but we don’t seem to have a lot of choice. You’re going to owe us big for this one, Luke.”
“I’ll put it on your account,” Luke promised. “Better hurry—no, wait. Back off!”
“What?” Faughn asked.
“You heard him,” Mara snapped as her own danger sense tingled. “Back off!”
The Starry Ice lurched back; and as it did so one of the ridges framing the landing bay began crackling with sequential blasts like an Endor Day multistage show rocket. “Jade, this is crazy,” Faughn said. “I can’t put down there. The whole area could go anytime.”
“She’s right,” Luke said … and as Mara stretched out to the Force she felt a subtle grimness touch his emotions. “I guess we’ve only got one option left.”
Wave your hand and sweep all the traps away? “What’s that?” she asked aloud.
“I’ll have to meet you halfway,” he said. “You have a docking bay that’ll handle my X-wing?”
“We’ve got a pair of half-ports with tractor assists,” Faughn told him. “They’ll put an air seal around the cockpit, anyway.”
“Good. Artoo, get out there right now and dock with them—”
