Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [62]
Nichos stood by the hut, a restraining bolt riveted to his chest and wretched, haunted horror in his eyes.
“All personnel with evidence to lay against the subject are requested to speak to their division Surveillance Representative as soon as possible. Neglect in this matter, when discovered, will be construed as sympathy with the ill intentions of the subject.”
Cray jerked her arm against the Gamorrean’s grasp, kicked hard at his shin. The Klagg half turned and struck her hard enough to have knocked her down had he and the other guard not kept hold of her arms; her face and the shoulder visible through her torn uniform tunic bore other bruises already. Luke saw the look of agony Nichos cast in her direction, but the droid-man made no move, no effort, of either help or comfort.
He couldn’t, Luke knew, because of the restraining bolt.
The guards were half carrying the nearly unconscious Cray out of vid range when the vid itself went dark. Nichos remained where he was, his eyes the only living part of his motionless face.
“Sorry, son, but we’ve had orders.” Ugbuz folded his heavy arms and regarded Luke with a gaze that was hard as flint and not a bit sorry. The Gakfedd chief nodded to himself, as if savoring the orders, or the feeling of having had them, an eerily human gesture that made the hair on Luke’s neck prickle.
“Yeah, I know we have to get them Klagg sons of sows …” The phrase came out all as one word, a leftover fragment from the part of Ugbuz that was still a Gakfedd, “… but we have orders to find the Rebel saboteurs before they wreck the ship.”
His eyes narrowed, hard and yellow and vicious, studying Luke, as if he remembered it was Luke who had stopped them from torturing the Jawa.
Luke extended the power of the Force, focused it with the small gesture of his hand. “Yet it’s vital that we find the Klagg stronghold immediately.”
It was like trying to grasp one-handed a wet stone twice the diameter of his grip. He could see it in Ugbuz’s eyes. He wasn’t trying to influence the Gamorrean, but the strength of the Will.
“Sure, sure it’s vital, Klagg sons of sows, but we have orders to find the Rebel saboteurs before they wreck the ship.”
It was a programmed loop. Luke knew he wouldn’t be able to get past it. Not with his body shaky from exhaustion, his mind aching from the effort to keep trauma and infection at bay. The big boar’s brow furrowed suspiciously. “Now you tell me again why you had us let that saboteur go?”
Before Luke could answer there was a clamor of voices from the edge of the village. Ugbuz spun, jaw coming forward and drool stringing from his heavy tusks. “Got some!” he bellowed, yanked his blaster from the holster at his hip, and dashed for the dark rectangle of doorway into the corridor. From the huts all around the cavernous hold other Gakfedds came running, pulling on helmets and picking up axes, laser carbines, vibro-weapons, and blasters—two of them had gotten ion cannons from somewhere and one had a portable missile launcher.
“I do see their point, Master Luke.” Threepio creaked briskly after him as he followed, much more slowly, in Ugbuz’s wake. “We’ve already lost the lighting in almost all of Deck Eleven and it’s getting more and more difficult to locate a computer terminal in working order. If the Jawas are not stopped they will eventually jeopardize the life support of the vessel itself.”
As they passed the largest hut the matriarch Bullyak emerged, huge arms folded between her first and second sets of breasts, grimy braids framing a face replete with warts, morrt bites, suspicion, and disgust. She squealed something irritably, and spat voluminously on the floor. Threepio inclined his body in a little half bow and replied, “I quite agree, Madame. I agree absolutely. Jawas are no fit combat for a true boar. She’s quite annoyed,