Star Wars_ Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor - Matthew Woodring Stover [86]
These troops did not shout or howl; they did not charge with blasters roaring. Instead they deployed with silent efficiency, leapfrogging from cover to cover toward the bunkers.
Another black-armored officer got a glimpse of them through his bunker’s damaged blast doors as they came on, and he muttered a curse that the oncoming infantry would have recognized—even though they would have sneered at the officer’s Core Worlds accent—as being a debased hand-me-down dilution of their native tongue. “Fall back!” he shouted. “Barricade the corridors! Hold the corners and crossways!”
Because the last thing this officer wanted to do was waste his men by going head-to-head against Mandalorians.
THE CAVERNS THROUGH WHICH HAN, LEIA, AND CHEWBACCA walked—and R2-D2 rolled—had shrunk to a series of mazy tunnelways. In the light of R2’s extensible torch, the stone looked black but was also semitranslucent, showing gleams of internal crystalline structure like Harterran moonstone.
Han walked between R2 and Chewie, head down, silent. He couldn’t stop thinking about Mindorese running wild all over the Falcon. And who was flying her right now? Whose grubby hands were all over his controls? “Growr,” Chewie agreed softly, seeing Han’s anger. But then he lifted a hand to gesture ahead and said, “Herroowarr hunnoo.”
Han frowned and continued along the tunnel. Leia had been walking briskly since they’d entered the tunnels; she’d given up trying to talk to him after a couple of minutes and now was so far ahead that all he could see of her was the distant swing of her glow rod. He nodded. “I think she’s mad at me. You think she’s mad at me?”
“Meroo hooerrree.”
“It’s not my fault.” Han scowled. It seemed like he said that too often. “It’s not my fault—I warned her, didn’t I? Didn’t I warn her that we’d be sorry for rescuing those scumballs?”
Teeeooorr weep? R2’s whistle came out dry and somewhat ironic, and Han had a pretty good idea what he meant.
“Not sorry about finding you. That’s not what I meant,” he said. “Man … she’s really upset, huh?”
“Rowroo,” Chewbacca said thoughtfully.
“Really?” Han brightened a little. “You think?”
Chewie grumbled a bit more, waving Han on. Han chewed a corner of his lip, staring ahead at the swing of Leia’s glow rod, and came to a decision. “Maybe you’re right. Stay here with the droid.”
R2 put in, weep weep teeerrr.
“You, too? Look, it’s my problem, let me handle it, huh?” Han started walking faster. Pretty soon he was trotting. “Princess! Hey, Princess, wait up, huh?”
She didn’t even look back. He broke into a run, and when he caught up he fell into step beside her. “Leia, wait. I need to check your shoulder.”
“No time.”
Han frowned. “You say that like you know where we’re going.”
“I do. Sort of.” She pointed the glow rod into the darkness ahead. “That way.”
Han squinted. All he saw was darkness. “What’s that way?”
“Luke.”
“Luke? Are you kid—uh, I mean, you’re sure? How can you be sure?”
She didn’t even look at him. “I’m sure.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah, I guess you are.” Han stopped for a deep breath, then had to hustle to catch up with her again. “Y’know, Leia, this Force stuff, it’s—y’know, it’s one thing to see Luke do it but—”
“But what?” Now she did stop, and she did look at him, and from the flash her eyes picked up off the glow rod he kind of wished he’d been smart enough, about fifteen seconds ago, to bite his tongue in half.
“It’s just that you—y’know, you and I—”
“I’m sorry I make you uncomfortable, General Solo,” she said tartly. “I suppose you’d be better off with someone like—”
“Well, fuse my bus-bars,” Han said. “Chewie was right: you are jealous.”
“What? What did that mountain of mange say about me? I’ll hold him down and shave his—”
“Easy, easy, come on, Leia—”
“I’m not jealous, I’m angry. She took you completely off-guard.”
Han flinched. “Not completely—”
“You think she would have caught you flat-footed if