• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Yeah, sure, make fun of the woozy guy.” He clutched at his hip, but his hand found only an empty holster. “Um, you wouldn’t happen to have seen my blaster lying around anywhere, would you?”

“I’d help you hunt for it, but I’m a little—” She laid down a line of fire that slagged three or four more. “—busy right now, okay? Keep backing up.”

“They’re not behind us?”

“Not yet.”

Han squinted. “How do you know?”

“You want to go look? I know.”

“Right, right, I get it.” Han waved to R2. “Hey, Stubby! A little light, huh?”

R2-D2’s holoprojector swiveled and flared to life, emitting a wide cone of brilliant white light. Han peered into the advancing ranks of the rock creatures that just kept slithering forward—and kept regrowing up from the sludge Leia had melted them into—and tried to keep the desperation out of his voice. “No hint from the Force? A clue? Anything?”

“Just stay back and let me save your life again, will you?” But even as she spoke, her series of stun blasts wholly liquefied a couple of them, and there in the thin puddle of rock gruel Han spotted a blessedly familiar silhouette.

“Now, that’s more like it!” He pounced on it and fished his DL-44 out of the muck, giving it a good shake to clear the works before the stone could reharden. His first shot sent a puff of vaporized rock curling out from the DL’s emitter, but after that it seemed to work just fine.

“I’ll take over here!” he told Leia, stepping up with a wide-dispersal rebound shot off the wall that spread to take out three of the creatures at once. “See what you can do to get Chewie on his feet—these power cells won’t last forever!”

When Leia turned to comply, Chewbacca was already sitting up and dazedly struggling to rise; he was urgently groaning something that Leia’s still-limited knowledge of Shyriiwook couldn’t follow. “What’s he saying? Is that ‘Code Black’? What’s Code Black mean?”

“It means Drop everything and run like hell,” Han said.

Leia looked back over her shoulder at the massed rock creatures that still kept pressing forward no matter how many Han blasted. “He always was the brains of this operation.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” Han had to leap back and dodge, ducking toward her as the rock creatures started to flow out of the walls to either side of him. “Go! Chewie, get the droid! I’m right behind you!”

Chewbacca swept R2 up in his massive hairy arms and shambled off unsteadily, though his gait was strengthening with every step. R2 kept his holoprojector aimed at the ceiling to provide as much light as possible. Leia pelted along after them, throwing glances back to make sure Han was still right behind her, which he was, running hard, firing at random back over his shoulder.

The rock creatures came after them in a swelling wave of stone.

They ran.

Han drew even with her, puffing. “Got any idea … where we’re going?”

“Sure.” Leia’s breath had gone short, too. “Away from them.”

“I mean … do you have a feeling … what might be up ahead?”

“You went pretty fast … from it’s one thing to see Luke do it to Use the Force, Leia, didn’t you?” She tried for her usual crisply tart tone, but the wheeze of her breath only made her sound tired.

“My line of work … you gotta be a … flexible thinker.”

“Just keep running. Follow … him.” She waved a hand toward Chewbacca, who pounded along the cavernway ahead of them. “Don’t know what’s ahead,” she said. “Not escaping … know that much.”

“The Force … tell you that?”

“Uh-uh. The tunnel.” She waved her blaster toward the floor. “Slanting down …”

“Oh … that can’t be good …”

“Look,” she gasped. “I can … slow ’em down. You go on … I’ll catch up—”

“Not a … not a chance. You’re just saying that … as an excuse for a breather,” Han insisted between wheezes. “If anybody’s gonna take a break … it’s me.”

She gave him a fond sidelong smile. “On three?”

“Huh.” He grinned back at her. “How about … on one?”

“Good plan.” Just ahead, the tunnel opened out into a cavern; Chewie and R2 were already inside. There was no way to tell how big the cavern might be,