Star Wars_ Splinter of the Mind's Eye - Alan Dean Foster [6]
A mournful whistle-honk sounded and he glanced down at Artoo, who clung securely to the metal hull nearby. “I don’t know what you’re saying, Artoo, without Threepio to translate for us. But I can guess.” His gaze turned outward. “I don’t know where he and the Princess are. I’m not even sure where we are.”
Slowly he took stock of the surface of Mimban. Dense growth rose all around, but it was clumped in large pockets, instead of presenting a continuous front like a normal jungle. There was ample open space. Mimban, or at least the section where he’d come down, was part swamp, part jungle, part bog.
Fluid mud filled most of a languid stream to the right of the ship. It meandered in slow motion. To his left the trunk of the enormous tree he’d nearly hit towered into the mist. Beyond lay a tangle of other tall growths fringed with bushes and tired, drooping ferns. Gray-brown ground bordered it. There was no way to tell from a distance how solid the surface was. Bracing himself with a hand on a small branch, Luke leaned over the side of the ship. The X-wing appeared to be resting on similar terrain. It wasn’t sinking. That meant he might be able to walk. This was some comfort to him, since without a ship he was a rotten flier.
Smiling slightly to himself, he crouched and peered under the limb. The double wing on the port side of the ship had been snapped off cleanly somewhere back in the forest, leaving only twin metal stubs. Both engines on that side, naturally, were also missing. Unequivocally, he was grounded.
Carefully crawling back into the ruined cockpit he unlocked the seat and shifted it to one side, then began rummaging in the sealed compartment behind it for the material he’d have to carry with him. Emergency rations, his father’s lightsaber, a thermal suit … the last because despite the tropic appearance of some of the vegetation, it was decidedly cool outside.
Luke knew there were temperate rain forests as well as tropical ones. While the temperature would probably not become dangerously cold, it still could combine with the omnipresent moisture to give him an uncomfortable and potentially debilitating chill. So he took the precaution of packing the thin suit. The survival pack for his back was strapped to the backside of the seat. Unbuckling it, he began to fill its copious interior with supplies from the compartment.
When the rip-proof sack was stuffed, he tried to seal the cockpit as best he could to protect it. Then he sat on the edge of the seat and thought.
His preliminary observations had revealed no sign of the Princess’ Y-wing. Yet in the damp, foggy air it could have touched down ten meters away and still be effectively invisible. She probably had landed or crashed slightly ahead of him, according to his estimate of how rapidly he had set his own ship down. Lacking any other information, he had no choice but to continue on foot along his last plotted course for her.
It had occurred to him to stand on the nose of the ship and shout, but he’d decided it would be better to locate the ship visually first. The cacophony of cries, hoots, howls, whistles and buzzings which seeped out of the encircling bog and thick vegetation didn’t encourage him to make himself conspicuous. Shouting might attract all sorts of attention, some of it possibly carnivorous.
Better to find the Princess’ ship first. With any luck she would be seated sensibly in the cockpit, alive and intact and fuming with impatience as she waited for him to arrive.
Pulling himself clear of the cockpit again, Luke used branches for balance as he climbed down to the broken stub of the port double wing. He lowered himself carefully to the ground, which was soft, almost springy. Pulling up one foot, he saw that his boot sole was already coated with sticky gray gook that resembled wet modeling clay. But the ground held, supported him. Artoo joined him a moment later.
Thanks to the abruptness