Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 02_ Omen - Christie Golden [79]
Natua glanced around. She eyed the Small Animal Hall for a moment, then shook her head. It would be annoying for dozens of little creatures to be milling about underfoot, but nothing more. She wouldn’t waste her time there. The distraction—the chaos, the damage she needed in order to both ensure her escape and cause as much harm to the doppelgängers as possible—would be found outside.
THE SCREAMING WAS NEARLY DEAFENING, AND NOW THE CROWD BEGAN to stampede in earnest. Leia whirled, lifting her lightsaber, desperately hoping she wouldn’t have to use it but prepared to if necessary. On the other side of the door would likely be the emergency controls to stop the ramps from retracting. She gripped her blade with one hand, holding out the other, fingers splayed hard, to keep the press of beings from jostling Radd in his urgent task. She hoped that Jaina was making better progress than the Brubb.
She wished heartily she weren’t so short and craned her neck to see into the center of the room. Those on the ends of the ramp would be frantic, trying to retreat to the safety of the walls as the surface beneath their feet inexorably disappeared a centimeter at a time. And yet Leia was trying to hold them back, to give Radd room to work.
A sudden shrill cry soared over the other screams, and Leia felt a sharp stab of terror in the Force. Without pausing to ascertain what was going on with her five physical senses, Leia leapt upward, landed on the banister again, and then jumped down toward the source of the fear.
A little boy, about Allana’s age, had landed hard on the duracrete floor of the boarwolf pen. His pain shot through Leia, red-hot and urgent—the boy had suffered broken bones at the very least—but his terror was even more overpowering than the physical pain. Leia dropped beside him, bending her knees to absorb the impact, then put her own body between the boy and the snarling predators.
One of them lunged forward, teeth bared. Leia brought the weapon across her body in a sweeping motion and the creature fell in two still-wriggling pieces. Two others lunged at her in tandem. She darted forward, impaling the first one right through its opened mouth and slicing upward. She extended a hand and Force-hurled the second one back into a fourth animal that was charging. The boarwolf struck its packmate heavily, and both beasts went sprawling. Leia sensed a fifth one coming behind her and whirled. She decapitated it immediately. The little boy screamed, covering his head as blood rained down upon him. Leia was sorry for the trauma she’d caused him, but at least he’d be alive to deal with it. She looked around, clutching the lightsaber in preparation for another attack. One of the bodies spasmed in its death throes, but then lay still. She had killed them all.
She turned back to the boy, crouching beside the hysterically sobbing child. She touched his shoulder lightly, exuding comfort and reassurance.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You’re going to be fine.” She had just started to gather him in her arms, intending to Force-leap upward to the ramp and return him to his no-doubt terrified parents, when out of the corner of her eye she caught motion.
She glanced up. Above her she saw a blur of tawny fur and realized that the mother nexu had leapt clear out of her cage and was now scrabbling for purchase on the ramp. Her two front paws were hooked into the small holes in the metal plating, and one of her hind legs had almost managed to get a solid grip. Her naked rodent-like tail thrashed and wound about the banister. The nexu opened her horrifically wide mouth in a savage snarl, her head looking almost like it would split in two with the gesture.
Leia left the boy where he was. He would be safer