Star Wars_ Rebel Force 04_ Firefight - Alex Wheeler [27]
The aspiring Jedi flew backward across the cave, his lightsaber sailing in the opposite direction. Div darted forward, snatching the weapon in midair.
As if sensing the danger, the creature turned toward him. Div was ready. It should have felt strange to hold a lightsaber again. And in a way, it was. The hilt seemed too small in his hand, too light. He overcompensated at first, swinging hard against the creature and nearly stumbling when the blade met little resistance. But the confusion, the clumsiness, it lasted no more than a second or two. Then…it was like coming home. The blade danced wildly, lighting up the dim cave. He ducked beneath a swinging tentacle, leapt over another one. The blade sliced through the tentacles like they were made of air.
The creature shrieked in rage and pain, its keens echoing through the cave as Div lashed out with the blade once, twice—again and again.
He didn't stop until the cries faded to silence and the creature was dead on the ground, sliced into pieces. When he looked up, Luke was staring at him in astonishment.
"Where did you learn how to do that?" Luke asked in a hushed voice.
Div shrugged. "What's to learn? It's just a blade, like any other."
"But I thought only a Jedi could—"
"I don't care what you think," Div said stiffly. "I've been around. I've seen this kind of weapon before. That's all, nothing more." He looked down at the lightsaber. It was so much more graceful than a blaster, so much more deadly. And for just a moment, he was tempted to claim it as his own.
But that would mean claiming far more than the weapon, and the time for that had passed long ago.
"Here," he said, and tossed the lightsaber to Luke. "This is yours. Take better care of it this time."
"Were you trained by Jedi?" Luke asked eagerly. "Who were they? What were they like? Are any of them still…?"
Alive, Div thought. That's what he wants to ask, but he can't bring himself to say the word. Because he knows the answer. "The past is past," he said. "I don't talk about it."
"But why do you—" Luke caught the steely expression on Div's face and cut himself off. He cleared his throat. "You could at least tell me your name," he said after a moment.
"Or is that part of the secret past, too?"
"Div," he said, because that was the name he'd gone by for nearly two decades. But then he hesitated. If Luke knew about the Jedi, what else did he know? "Lune Divinian,"
he said carefully, watching Luke's face for a flicker of recognition. Something. But there was nothing. And Div found he was disappointed.
He shook it off. "So, we're not going to be eaten anytime soon," he said, approaching the dead beast. "All that means is a long, boring death, unless we can figure a way out of here. Of course, there could be more than one."
"What if we went out the same way we came in," Luke mused.
"We're trying to avoid being breakfast," Div reminded him. "And even if the thing weren't dead, I don't speak monster well enough to request that it not digest us this time around. Do you?"
Luke ignored the taunt. "We know its stomach is airtight," he said, "and can hold enough air for us to breathe until we reach the surface. So if we could find a way to use it, turn it into some kind of waterproof casing—"
"Like a submarine," Div said, suddenly hopeful. The so-called Jedi was smarter than he looked.
"You think it could work?"
Div couldn't help sneaking a look at Grish's dead body and at the moss-covered bones littering the floor of the cave. "I think it has to."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"You sure this gadget's going to work?" Han asked as R2-D2 put the finishing touches on the modified tracking device.
The droid beeped irritably and continued his work.
"Well, hurry it along," Han said impatiently.
Chewbacca issued a warning growl.
"How do you know he's doing the best he can?" Han asked. "That bucket of bolts acts like we have all the time in the world."
R2-D2 beeped again, and