Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [135]
“All the rest,” said Luke. “Easy job. Easy.”
“At your service, master, master,” whined the Jawas in chorus. They crowded around him, waving their burned hands and arms. Some had been bandaged with rags and strips of insulation and uniforms—Luke wondered if it would be safe to detail Threepio to get them disinfectants from sick bay and decided it was too risky until Cray was safe. “Do anything,” promised Shorty. “Kill all the big guards. Steal the engines. Anything.”
“Okay,” said Luke. “I want you to go all over the ship, everywhere, and bring me back all the tripods and put them all in one room. All in the mess hall, and keep them there. Don’t hurt them, don’t kill them, don’t tie them up—just get them there gently, and put out water for them to drink. Okay?”
The Jawa saluted. Its robes smelled like a gondar pit. “Okay, master. All okay. Pay now?”
“Bring power cells to Lift Twenty-one and I pay half.” Luke tried not to think how little time remained between the present moment and 1600 hours. Cray was going to be executed and he had to play junk broker to the Jawas … “And hurry.”
“There already, master.” The Jawas flurried away into the darkness. “There yesterday!” High above the floor, the trackers clicked and whirred and dangled their grippers in blind-brained automated disapproval.
Luke leaned on his staff. He was trembling with fatigue. “You okay here by yourself for a little longer?”
“Quite all right, sir. A stroke of brilliance, if you will permit me to say so, sir …”
Luke produced the sled controls from his pocket, lowered the sled itself to the floor. He was aware of the smell of Jawas strengthening in the room as he opened the tailgate, awkwardly balancing against the side of the sled as he dragged out the gutted Tredwell and the two Gyrowheel snake-droids. “Okay,” he said, slamming the gate again. “It’ll be tougher to guard, but I need the sled. You think the trackers can handle it?”
“For a time, sir.” The droid sounded worried, peering into the impenetrable shadows, which were not quite impenetrable to those heat-sensitive optic receptors. “Though I must say, those Jawas are diabolically clever.”
Callista’s voice spoke from the shadows, where Luke had had, all through the conversation, the sense that she stood, just—and only just—out of sight. “Sure is lucky for our side that Luke’s diabolically clever, too.”
He felt her pride in him, palpable as the touch of her hand.
The Jawas were at Lift 21 with the power cells by the time Luke and his sweatily odoriferous forces arrived. Luke was steering the antigrav sled, thankful to be off his feet—he could feel the creep of exhaustion and pain beginning and thought, Drat, I only put that perigen in a few hours ago!
He glanced at the chronometer above the doors of the lift. 1520. Down the lift shaft from some floor above, a soft contralto voice floated, “All personnel are to report to observation screens in the section lounges. All personnel are to report to observation screens in the section lounges. Failure to do so will be construed as …”
Ugbuz and his stalwarts turned automatically around. Luke sprang from the sled, wincing as he stumbled, and caught the captain’s arm. “That doesn’t mean you, Captain Ugbuz. Or your men.”
The boar frowned laboriously. “But failure to report will be construed as sympathy with the intent of the saboteurs.”
Luke focused the Force into the small, cramped dark of that disturbed and divided mind. “You’re on special assignment,” he reminded him. “Your assignment is to fulfill your destiny as a boar of the Gakfedd tribe. Only thus can you truly serve the intent of the Will.”
How easy, he thought bitterly as he saw relief flood the boar’s eyes, it must have been for Palpatine to maneuver men using just those words, just those thoughts.
And how easy for