Star Wars_ Rebel Force 05_ Trapped - Alex Wheeler [40]
"Behind you!" she cried.
Han snatched the rifle out of the air as he spun around, now firing with both hands at the approaching stormtroopers. Three toppled over. But another burst of laserfire pelted his leg. He staggered, trying to ignore the pain.
"Took you long enough," Leia said with false cheer. She and Han positioned themselves back to back, spraying laserfire at any Imperials who came too close. Bodies in white armor littered the ground, but they lay side by side with fallen Rebels. Too many of them. "Where's Luke?"
"He went in," Han said.
"You let him go alone?" Leia shouted. She blasted a stormtrooper, but from the tone of her voice, Han suspected she had another target in mind.
"Excuse me if I thought you could use a little help here," Han growled as the air split with the roaring engine of an approaching Imperial airspeeder. Han lobbed one of his fragmentation grenades, and the speeder exploded in midair, showering the battle with fiery shards of durasteel.
"We should go help him," Leia said.
"After you," Han drawled, gesturing toward the circle of stormtroopers surrounding them. It seemed that the more they felled, the more reinforcements appeared. It was impossible: no escape, no retreat, and no helping Luke. "Don't worry, the kid can handle himself."
"I hope you're right," Leia said.
I'd better be, Han thought. An explosion in the heart of the garrison might just send the stormtroopers into a panicked retreat.
Otherwise…well, he had two blasters, six rounds of ammunition, an angry Wookiee, and an even angrier princess on his side. He just hoped it would be enough.
Luke strode down a corridor filled with Imperial officers, keeping his eyes straight ahead and trying to pretend he belonged. They barely glanced at him, their eyes noting his maintenance uniform, then skimming over him as if he was an inanimate object. He couldn't understand why his presence hadn't raised an alarm. Was it possible that X-7
hadn't betrayed them? That something else had revealed the Rebel presence to the Empire?
Possible, maybe, but Luke didn't buy it. Something else was going on here.
But while he tried to figure out what, he made his way as casually as possible to the primary arsenal hold, where the majority of the weapons were stored. He still had the thermal detonators; he still had a mission. His friends were counting on him to complete it.
Belazura was counting on him.
He had memorized the blueprints. The garrison was a mazelike fortress, its twisting passageways turning in on themselves and dead-ending without warning. It had been designed to confuse its occupants, even the ones with top secret clearance—because there was always something even more top secret. The Empire thrived on secrecy, even the highest officers operating in ignorance of the Emperor's true plans. The garrison had been designed with that philosophy in mind. As Luke wound his way deeper and deeper into the heart of the building, he began to wonder if he'd ever make it out.
X-7's security codes ushered him through checkpoint after checkpoint. Luke remained certain he was walking into a trap, but there was nothing to do but keep going. He reached the access point to the weapons arsenal. Two stormtroopers manned the door.
"Authorized personnel only," one of them informed him.
"I am authorized," Luke said, offering the security card that had helped him through the other checkpoints. He noted the security pad over the door. It wasn't a keypad, like the others he'd seen. This one required a handprint.
The guards didn't move to let him pass. "You don't have clearance."
Pulling out a blaster would only alarm them. But the hilt of his deactivated lightsaber looked like an innocent piece of durasteel. Harmless. He gripped it, ready.
"No one enters without level-four clearance," the stormtrooper said. "No maintenance."
"But I have—"
"This is TBR-312," the stormtrooper said into his comlink. "Unauthorized