Star Wars_ Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor - Matthew Woodring Stover [131]
Luke sighed. “All right, forget the easy way.” He took three running steps to the lip of the ledge and jumped.
The Force carried him high over the abyss that had once been the lake of molten lava. He flipped in midair, to make himself into a spear with a lightsaber for a blade. Vastor dropped Leia and vaulted away with a contemptuous grunt as Luke’s flight ended with his lightsaber blade driving into the platform.
Luke somersaulted to his feet astride Leia’s unconscious form and lifted his blade to garde. “I warned you not to underestimate my powers.”
Are you mad? You were never even close to me, fool!
“I wasn’t aiming at you.”
Vastor’s eyes flicked from Luke’s face down to the lightsaber hole in the platform, which was now spitting sparks and gouts of smoke that smelled very much like a damaged repulsorlift burning out. Vastor’s eyes widened, “What have you DONE?”
With one last gush of black tarry smoke, the repulsorlift shorted out completely, and the platform plummeted like the several tons of rock and obsidian it was, to the empty bottom of the formerly lava lake. But instead of falling the several hundred meters to the rocky bottom of the lava lake, after only twenty or so it landed, very hard, on the dorsal hull of a Corellian light freighter that had been hovering there ever since Luke had slipped out through its topside hatch and leapt to the wall, to make his long, slow climb up to the ledge above.
The impact knocked Vastor off his feet; Luke, with Leia in his arms, landed as softly as a Force-using feather pillow.
Vastor sprang to his feet, needle teeth bared in a feral snarl. I will kill every last one of you!
“No,” Luke said, “you won’t.”
A slight sideways tilt of his head invited Vastor to look around, which he did. Which was when he saw the full company of black-armored stormtroopers on a ring ledge about three meters above him, all with weapons aimed at his gigantic chest.
“Air Marshal Klick,” Luke called upward. “Tell Kar Vastor your orders.”
The black-armored officer stepped forward crisply. “Kar Vastor, I have been directed to prevent, by any and all necessary means, any attempt on your part to do harm to that ship, to the woman, or to Emperor Skywalker.”
Emperor Skywalker. Vastor’s growl dripped loathing.
“I implore you to remain still, and take no aggressive action,” the air marshal said. “The emperor wishes us to minimize bloodshed.”
Luke, meanwhile, had taken a couple of steps to one side, where the dorsal access hatch promptly opened to reveal enormous hairy arms, into which Luke delivered his sister.
“Worrough?” Chewbacca asked solicitously, cradling her as though she weighed nothing at all.
“No,” Luke said. “She’s not all right. Take her below and tell Han to get ready to take us out of here.”
He turned back to Vastor. “Now it’s your turn, Blackhole. Go back to your own body. You might still make it into hyperspace before Nick kills you.”
Vastor lowered himself into a crouch. I understand now. I understand how you have defeated me.
It is because I lost my way. I have been trying to create. To build, when I should have destroyed. I abandoned the Way of the Dark, and the Dark abandoned me.
“I don’t care,” Luke said. “All I care about is whether we’re going to have to kill you. Now if you’ll just abandon that body, we can all go home.”
I will. But not yet. First, answer a question for me, Skywalker.
Luke shrugged. “If it will end this, sure.”
Oh, yes. This will end. And very shortly. Answer me this: Why is the armor of my stormtroopers black?
Luke frowned. He’d never thought about it; he’d sort of assumed it was merely a style. An element of uniform, to set them apart from Palpatine’s stormtroopers.
I’ll give you a hint: It’s not just paint.
Luke squinted up at the company of black-armored commandos above while with his mind he reached into the Force. Even with all the Force perception he could muster,