Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [168]
“Bombed?” demanded Jevax, horrified.
“Now! Go! Get everyone under shelter, into the old smuggler tunnels—use the spaceport silos for safety, it won’t have been a target, it wasn’t built thirty years ago …”
Chewie ducked back into the supply shack, emerged with a controller in his paws. A moment later a vine-coffee bed approached them like a slow, splendid, flower-caparisoned barge along its ceiling tracks.
“That supership Mara told us about, the other half of the assault on Belsavis … it’s on its way! Irek summoned it—Roganda’s son, Irek—”
“That kid?”
“He’s trained in the Force, he can influence mechanicals … He’ll make hash out of our fleet …” She sprang down from the platform into the thick vines of the bed. After the sickening whiplash drop on the slashed catwalk, and springing from the falling bed to the thin tangle of vines, the short jump down to something securely anchored bothered her not in the slightest.
Han swore and jumped, catching the cables for support; Chewie dropped down after.
“Warn them!” yelled Leia back, as the Wookiee swiveled the joystick on his controller; the coffee bed swung ponderously along the track, breasting through a banner of fog toward the distant overhang of the cliff, and the gaping window beneath. “Get everyone under cover!”
Jevax was already swarming onto the little service elevator that would take him down the cliffside.
Drost Elegin, Lady Theala Vandron, and a motley and vociferating gang of private guards, secretaries, and corporate representatives were assembled in the room from which Leia had jumped to the first of the vine-beds. They rushed to the window at the sight of the approaching bed, but though several were armed, Leia heard Lady Vandron snap, “Don’t fire, you idiots, they could have escaped!” as the bed drew near.
Chewie flung out a coil of ladder; half a dozen hands caught it, anchored it for Han, Leia, and the Wookiee to cross.
Artoo-Detoo was between Lady Vandron and one of Roganda’s thugs, rocking back and forth and tweeping excitedly. As Leia swung through the window—Drost Elegin, a gentleman to his bones, held out a hand to help her descend—Leia said, “You’ve been betrayed, all of you! When Irek discovered he couldn’t control the Eye of Palpatine he ran for it, he and his mother. They’re the ones who killed Lord Garonnin …”
They looked at one another.
“Look at his body,” said Leia furiously. “Irek’s the only person in this place who has a lightsaber! And if you look at the place you’ll probably find a trail of jewels and negotiable bonds all the way to the elevator.”
She saw the glances that were exchanged among the guards. Nobody had produced a weapon yet.
“It should be a simple matter to pursue them,” said Lord Picutorion. “We have some of the fastest—”
“Not with all the silo gates of the port jammed shut, you don’t,” retorted Leia. She turned to Lady Vandron. “It’s your ship they’re taking, Your Highness … The Eye of Palpatine is going to start bombing the planet any minute, so I suggest everyone go as deep as they can and as far into the tunnels as they can.”
“The creatures in the crypt—” began the athletic-looking Lady Carbinol.
“Have no direction without Irek’s will,” said Elegin. He glanced over at Han and Chewbacca, still standing in the embrasure of the window. “As I daresay you found out on your way in.” He whipped his blaster from his side. “After you, Your Highness. We may still be able to catch them before they take off.”
They encountered, in fact, two or three of the wretched ex-smugglers and ex-hustlers wandering the passageways farther from the inhabited areas, where the thermal vent ran out under the ice, but as Elegin had said, without Irek’s will the things ran shrieking from the lights borne by Han, Leia, and the various infuriated aristocrats who strode in their wake. Without Irek to interfere with sensor tracking, thought Leia as she ran, they should be able to round up those miserable guardians and get them whatever kind of help could best be