Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [40]
“I need to talk to you, Cray.” Luke nodded toward the open door to the hallway from which he’d come. “In private.”
She frowned, her dark eyes a little concerned, though it was clear to him that she saw him as a fellow trooper. She probably remembered after a fashion that they’d been friends for some time, the same way she remembered her name was Cray Mingla, but probably didn’t think much about it. Luke knew that at the height of the Emperor’s power the Imperial troopers had been highly motivated and fanatically loyal, but this depth of indoctrination was something he’d never before encountered. An experiment that hadn’t been followed up? Something in use for this mission alone because of its intense secrecy?
He took a deep breath and wondered how much of his present dizziness and disorientation was the lingering effect of the concussion, and how much a side effect of a too massive indoctrinal shock. He would need all the Force he could summon to break Cray out of this …
Cray got to her feet and trailed after Luke toward the doorway, casually kicking aside plates and an MSE as she went. Even her walk was a man’s walk, adopted unconsciously, the way the Gamorreans seemed to have acquired Basic speech. Threepio and Nichos followed unobtrusively, and Luke let his hand slide down to loosen his blaster in its holster, thumbing the setting down to mildest stun.
He never got the chance to use it.
He and Cray paused to let the white furries, still clutching their makeshift weapons, amble out of the door ahead of them. “I dunno what the service is comin’ to,” muttered Cray, shaking her head. “Look at that. Gettin’ recruits from all over the damn place. They’ll be takin’ festerin’ aliens next.” The tripods continued to wander aimlessly around the mess hall, bumping occasionally into furniture or tripping over the MSEs. Clearly the indoctrination that had worked so thoroughly on the Gamorreans had left them—whatever they were—totally bewildered. Where would you put the cranial wires on them, anyway? wondered Luke.
Then the doorway across the room swished violently open and a voice yelled, “Get ’em, men!”
It was the rival Gamorrean tribe of the Klaggs.
Ugbuz and his Gakfedds upended tables, dropped behind them as blaster bolts blazed and spattered wildly around the room. The Klaggs, too, wore bits of stormtrooper gear, engine-taped to their homespun and leather, and cried orders and oaths in Basic. Cray swore and hauled up a table into a makeshift barrier, blazing away in return with no regard for the deadly ricochets bouncing and zapping crazily in all directions; her first bolt caught a Klagg on his chest armor, hurling him back among his fellows as the others of his tribe ducked, ran, zigzagged into the room, firing as they went. Some were armed with blaster carbines and semiautos, others with slugthrowers, forcepikes, and axes. Their aim was universally awful.
The two Gamorrean tribes clashed in thick waves of metal, flesh, and garbage, and began to beat and tear one another as if taking up the battle outside the Huntbird exactly where they’d left off. Cray screamed, “Scum-eating mutineers! Captain!” and plunged into the fray before Luke could stop her.
“Cray!” Luke ran two steps after her, the deck seeming to lurch beneath his feet, and collided with two frantic tripods that couldn’t seem to locate the door three meters in front of them. With a roar one of the Klaggs bore down on him, swinging an ax. Luke ducked and nearly fell, shoved the tripods toward the door, caught up a chair, and deflected the ax; the Klagg struck him aside and plunged after the defenseless tripods. It caught one of them by the leg, the poor thing screaming and flailing with its tentacles. It took all the Force Luke could summon just to get back to his feet, forget about levitating anything—he grabbed the chair again and swung it, slamming the Gamorrean full force in the back, then whipped his lightsaber free and planted