Star Wars_ Darksaber - Kevin J. Anderson [97]
From the rocky outcrop where he directed the battle, the one-armed brute roared something incomprehensible. Other wampas turned on Nonak, who still fought with the wampa who had injured his brother. The wampas came in, focused on a single target.
They tore Nonak apart.
“Follow me!” Drom Guldi bellowed without the slightest trace of terror or even tension in his voice. Sinidic, his aide, huddled under the protection of his muscular master’s rifle, a high-powered brand-new hunting weapon. Drom Guldi still had charges left, and he fired with slow precision: no random spraying of high-energy bolts, but surgical shots that killed or injured an ice creature every time he pressed the firing stud.
The big Baron-Administrator trudged toward the base doors, not hurrying, making sure the others followed. Nodon got to his feet and wailed at seeing the bloody remnants of his brother. Burrk grabbed him by the fur on his neck and yanked Nodon around. “Come on!” he shouted.
Luke and Callista flanked Drom Guldi as they fought their way back to Echo Base. With their lightsabers they each killed another creature. The base doors seemed immeasurably far away, but Luke and Callista pushed forward.
Drom Guldi blasted three more wampas that blocked the open shield door. As they kept moving, his aide Sinidic seemed paralyzed, stumbling along because his master told him to. Sinidic tripped over the smoldering body of an ice creature. Without pause, Drom Guldi grabbed his aide’s collar and yanked him to his feet as if he were no more than a rag. The Baron-Administrator reached the shield door and shoved Sinidic into the waiting darkness.
Burrk helped Nodon inside Echo Base, pushing the wounded Cathar ahead of him, though the feline obviously wanted to throw himself back upon the monsters in a frenzy and die ripping them to shreds.
Luke and Callista waited in the cold outside the door, driving back the last of the wampas.
“Get in here, Jedi!” Burrk said. “Now!”
Luke and Callista jumped into the waiting darkness. Burrk hit the shield door controls, and the heavy door ground shut. At the last instant, the wampas pushed forward, grabbing at the durasteel door with their claws, but the relentless pistons were too powerful even for these creatures.
In the sparse light of the few functioning glowpanels, Luke, Callista, and the four survivors slumped against the hard-packed snow walls as the sudden loss of adrenaline hit them, leaving only exhaustion. Everyone trembled in silence for several moments, shielded at last in the temporary safety of walls.
Then came a scratching sound, muffled howls, and a repeated pounding from outside. Burrk turned bloodshot eyes toward the sealed door. Sinidic glanced up in terror, and then looked to Drom Guldi for comfort.
“They can knock, but they can’t come in,” Drom Guldi said.
Callista got up and went to the picked-over supplies, finding discarded Rebel uniforms she could tear into bandages to tend Nodon’s wounds; but the Cathar’s healing abilities had already stopped the blood flow. As he sat in silence, staring with slitted eyes toward the blank white wall of packed snow, Nodon’s feline claws repeatedly extended and sheathed themselves as he wrestled with inner anger.
Outside, the monsters kept pounding, foolishly trying to find a way in, though the base was impenetrable. Night was falling on Hoth, and the temperature would soon plummet. All living creatures should be taking shelter until the meager warmth of sunlight returned—but the wampas were relentless. They had their quarry cornered.
Drom Guldi’s tanned, sculpture-beautiful face wore a contemplative look. “Think of all those prize pelts out there,” he said, shaking his head. “What a waste.”
A loud clang reverberated against the thick door. The wampas had picked up a rock chunk … but they could batter uselessly for years without breaking through the durasteel.
Burrk’s gaunt face was filled with exhausted resignation. “Now would have been a perfect time to use those perimeter guns,” he said, looking pointedly at