Star Wars_ Darksaber - Kevin J. Anderson [99]
Luke tensed. He heard something … a scratching, digging sound. He wondered if other wampas lay hidden in the darkened rooms. The pounding outside the shield door redoubled, and everyone turned, though they knew the wampas could not get through.
Just then the walls crumbled on all sides, blocks of hard-packed snow showered down as more of the creatures plowed their way directly through the ice.
Luke realized that the futile pounding and scratching on the outer shield door had been a distraction, something to preoccupy the victims, while the wampas dug through the snow, burrowing their way into Echo Base. With bellows of triumph and anticipation, an army of ghostly white monsters surged into the corridors.
Nodon, finally unrestrained, yowled and threw himself upon the nearest wampa, but the others turned and fell upon him. The Cathar went down fighting, a blurry mass of fur and claws and biting teeth—and sudden, spraying blood.
Burrk backed against a rough rock that protruded from the carved snow. In each hand he held one of his metal spears, thrusting and jabbing, trying to intimidate the ice creatures—but though the blades were sharp and the points long, the spears were pitiful against the blood-thirsty monsters. He stabbed and lunged, making no outcry. He wore a grim, defeated look as he fought—until the mass of attacking snow monsters swallowed him up. Finally, in the last instant, he screamed.
Luke and Callista remained back-to-back, slashing with lightsabers and slaughtering the monsters that came too close, but there were too many. “Get back to the shield door!” Callista said. “We have to run to our ship. Try to fix it. That’s our only chance.”
Luke said, “I don’t have a better idea,” then swung his lightsaber. With a sizzle he sliced a towering creature in two. Luke recognized dimly that the monsters had stopped pounding outside. They must have flocked to the new openings that allowed them access into the base. The front might be clear.
Drom Guldi used his seven remaining shots, killing a wampa each time he pressed the firing button; but that drained the weapon. He tossed the blaster rifle to the ground, tucked the wampa tusk into his utility belt, as if it remained important to him, then gripped the metal spear he had taken from Burrk, sweeping it from side to side. He laughed, his eyes bright, his tanned face flushed. The wampas surrounded him, and he grinned. “Come on!” Drom Guldi said. “Get what’s coming to you!”
The wampas came.
Trying to drown out the last gurgled screams of Drom Guldi, Callista and Luke fought their way down the corridor toward the shield door. They mowed down the ice creatures who threw themselves recklessly at the glowing blades. Though Callista was unable to use the Force in her fighting, the wampas were not difficult targets, huge hulks of white fur and taut muscles. But it would take the slip of only an instant for a raking claw to slice open either Luke or Callista.
As they passed beyond where the wampas had tunneled through, the attacking monsters grew sparse, and Luke and Callista were able to run at full speed. The shield door reflected the light of their weapons, and Callista ran for the controls.
“We’ll seal ourselves in the ship and hope that within just a few minutes we can rig it to blast off,” Luke said. “Those things could rip open the hull in no time.”
The shield door heaved open. Callista turned to defend their backs as Luke made ready to run out into the night. The dark chill struck him like a sledgehammer, knocking the wind out of him with an intense freezing blast, colder than anything Luke could remember.
Directly outside, under the wan light of multiple moons, stood the one-armed wampa ice creature, the tallest of them all, blocking their escape from Echo Base.
The monster roared into the ice-bright night and raised his one enormous hand, spreading the claws. Luke felt a momentary flash of remembered fear that made him falter. He stood gripping the lightsaber. Finding no danger behind them, Callista turned back to see what the problem was.
And, with its