Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [167]
He took another deep breath. “Once I’m in the central core I’m going to try to cripple the guns, rather than blow up the ship. According to the readouts you got from the central computer that should be possible from there …”
“And what if it’s not?” demanded Callista’s voice.
“Then …” He almost couldn’t say the words. “Then I’ll start the reactor overload. But if it hasn’t blown in ten minutes, Cray—and you’ll be out of there and in the pod by then—start thinking about how we’re going to get enough memory in a unit to get Callista off the ship. After that’s done we’ll blow it.”
“No,” said Callista.
“Callista, I can’t—”
“No.”
He could see her, almost, standing in front of him, her features set and white and her smoke-colored eyes grim, as they had been in the other hangar, thirty years ago …
“Luke, we can’t risk it. You can’t risk it. Say you’re right, you find a way to cripple the guns—really cripple them, not have the Eye lie to you and say they’re crippled. That leaves the Eye in orbit until you can scrape up enough units of memory, enough circuits and synapses … You’re never going to find that kind of thing on Belsavis. From what you’ve told me they’re just an agricultural station, and a small one at that. So you send for them. So they take a day, two days to arrive … And meanwhile whoever sent for the Eye of Palpatine comes along … and every Imperial admiral who picks up word of it … You think the Republic’s going to be able to fight off the pack of them? With a station like this one for the prize?”
Luke was silent, unable to argue. Unable to tell himself that the dark flower of knowledge, the cold dread of his dream, had been illusions.
Something had sent for the Eye. Something was waiting for it.
And it had it almost within its grasp.
“Blow the reactors, Luke.” Her voice was low, barely to be heard in the deep silence of the shuttle deck. None of the others spoke, but Luke was conscious of Cray’s eyes on his face, knowing in a way that none of the others did what he was going through.
Knowing that his decision to be the one in the shaft was based partly on the knowledge that if he destroyed the ship—if he destroyed Callista—he would be in her heart when the end came.
“Don’t let the Will deceive you,” Callista continued softly. “Because believe me, it knows how badly you want to deceive yourself.”
“I know.” He doubted any of the others heard his words, but knew that Callista heard. “I know. I love you, Callista …”
She whispered, “And I love you. Thank you for bringing me back this far.”
He straightened up, as if some terrible burden had fallen from him.
“Nichos, Threepio, Triv … get ready for launch. Cray, I still want you to be the one who stays below, the one who gets out of here …”
He turned, in time to see her take a stungun from the holster at her side.
He had, he realized, thought of everything but that. The Will is going to do anything … use anything … He threw himself sideways and rolled as best he could …
But the killing grind of exhaustion and pain had slowed his reactions and blunted any chance he had of using the Force, and the stunblast smote him like the blow of a club, hurling him into darkness.
“Who the hell was that?”
Leia dragged Han up the final half meter or so onto the platform, Jevax and Chewie reaching down beside her to pull him to safety. Cold wind whipped and tangled her hair, fog swirled around them one moment, ice crystals stinging her cheeks, then whipped away to reveal the tossing soft lake of the rift below.
Dimly, from the open window beneath the vines away along the cliff, she could hear the clamor of alarms.
“Jevax, can you get us back there? There, under that ledge … And sound the alarms in the valley! All over the planet, whatever other settlements you can reach! The whole planet’s going to be shelled, bombed from space, I don’t know how soon, minutes maybe …”
“Who was that?” demanded Han. “And who killed that guy in the passageway? Artoo led us back through to