Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [101]
>Good job there are two transports< remarked Callista, when Luke returned to work.
>You couldn’t take the Klaggs and the Gakfedds off on the same vessel<
“And which one of them gets to ride with the Sand People?”
>Lander<
“They’ll never go in it,” said Luke. “They hate small enclosed spaces.”
>I wondered why they keep knocking holes in walls. You’ll be lucky if they don’t sever the main power trunk to the magnetic field<
“Another reason to hurry,” said Luke grimly. “This whole ship must be driving them crazy. Not that they were ever real good company to begin with.”
>You sound like you’ve studied them<
Luke laughed. “You could say they were my next-door neighbors growing up. Them and the Jawas. Everybody who lives on Tatooine has to learn enough about the Sand People to stay out of their way.”
He leaned back and flicked the remote. A harsh, guttural voice boomed, “Very well, men, fan out and remain quiet. We are going to massacre those smelly Klagg Rebel saboteurs.”
Luke sighed, and shook his head. “Threepio? Little change in the script here …”
>My, what a grammatical stormtrooper< commented Callista, where the protocol droid couldn’t see.
Luke grinned as he hooked up the cable. “Edit that to, ‘Okay, men, fan out and keep quiet. We’re gonna kill them stinkin’ Klagg Rebel saboteurs.’ ”
>You forgot to say “sir”<
Luke started to make the gesture of elbowing her in the arm, as he did when Leia made a smartmouth remark, but stopped. He couldn’t.
Her arms were dust and bone on the gun deck floor.
Yet she had no more question than he did himself that somehow, all the Eye’s captives—Sand People and Gamorreans as well as the Talz, the Jawas, the Affytechans and Kitonaks and the baffled, helpless tripods—had to somehow be taken to safety. It wasn’t their fault, or their wanting, that they were here, he thought, angling the mirror to affix the voder’s fasteners once again. Savage, violent, destructive as they were, like himself they were captives.
He moved the mirror, seeking the fasteners, and for a moment saw in it his own reflection, and a sliver of the room behind him: Threepio like a grimed and dented golden statue in the feeble glare of the worklight, compulsively tidying up the abandoned tray.
And close beside him, visible clearly over his shoulder, the pale oval face within its dark cloud of hair, the gray eyes from which sorrow had faded a little, replaced by caring, by interest, by renewed life.
Luke’s heart turned over within his ribs, and knowledge fell on him—knowledge, horror, and grief like inevitable night.
Chapter 15
“She might have had other reasons for lying.”
“Like what?” Leia folded her legs up tailor fashion on the bed and sipped the glass of podon cider she’d picked up on her way through the kitchen. The craftsmen Jevax had promised had made their appearance while Leia was out. The metal shutters, armed with a formidable new lock, were nearly out of sight in their wall sockets on either side of the tall windows, and a new bedroom door was folded into its proper slot. Even the cupboard had been fixed. Sitting on the other end of the bed, Han was checking both blasters.
“Like she might be working at Madame Lota’s House of Flowers down on Spaceport Row.”
Leia wondered why it hadn’t crossed her mind before. “Dressed like that?”
He gave her his crooked grin. “I suppose you’re dressed for your job?”
She brushed a dismissive hand over the plain dark linen of her shirt, the knockabout cotton fatigue pants, and high-laced boots. “She wouldn’t have been on the path by the MuniCenter last night if she were working the bars.” The pile of hardcopy Artoo had made for them that first day strewed the bed between them. Nowhere was Roganda Ismaren listed on any employer record of any packing plant in Plawal.
“And if she’d followed me there from the marketplace, for instance, she wouldn’t have been dressed like that at that hour.”
While she was speaking, Han rose and walked out to the balcony, took aim at a small clump of ferns a few meters away in the orchard, and fired.