Star Wars_ Splinter of the Mind's Eye - Alan Dean Foster [78]
“Forget it, Luke,” she advised him softly. “Leave them alone.”
“They’re killing the wounded,” he cried in anguish. “Look at them … look what they’re doing!”
“Yes, it’s almost human,” she commented, “although the Imperials would have been a little neater.”
“You approve?” he said accusingly. She didn’t reply, merely stared back at him until he sagged, utterly worn out and saddened.
“I’m sorry, Luke,” she told him gently, “but there’s very little in this universe that rises above the mean and petty. Maybe the stars themselves. Come,” she urged him with a cheering smile, “let’s find Hin and Kee and Halla and the ’droids and celebrate.”
“You go,” he told her, pulling his arm free authoritatively but without rancor. “There’s nothing here I want to celebrate.”
She looked after him as he went striding off through the residue of battle, ignoring the Coway intent on their massacre, drowning in his own unknowable thoughts.…
XII
WHEN the last drop of blood had dried to a black crust on the cave floor, the refugees gathered together to decide what to do next.
Halla was talking to the Coway chiefs. “They say that those who escaped have left one of their vehicles above, to watch the exit. Probably hoping we’ll jump out into their sights.”
“Is there another way out?” Luke asked tiredly.
“Yes, close by,” One of the chiefs, ignoring its badly burnt arm, mumbled urgently at Halla: “He wants to know if there’s anything they can do to help us?”
“They can show us that other way out,” Luke informed her. “They’ve done enough. We have to hurry. We may have delayed too long already.”
“Too long for what?” the Princess inquired curiously. “We’ll be well away from here by the time Vader can return with reinforcements.” She looked thoughtful. “I don’t think he’ll trouble the Coway. It’s us and the crystal he wants.”
“That’s what I’m talking about, Leia,” he replied worriedly. “I don’t think Vader’s gone back to the town.” He pointed. “When he passed from my mind, or rather, when the disturbance he generates in the Force passed from my mind, he was traveling that way. Not back toward the town, but toward the temple.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Halla objected strenuously. “He has no idea where the temple of Pomojema is.”
“Vader is much more attuned to the Force, albeit its dark side, than I am, Halla. It’s likely that he can sense the crystal’s natural disturbance. It would be faint, but someone as powerful as Vader could barely detect it. And he has more than that to go on. We were traveling in as straight a line as possible. He needs merely to plot along it and hunt for the crystal’s effect when he angles off his course.
“He mustn’t reach the temple before us.” He started off up the tunnel. Leia was quickly alongside, matching him stride for anxious stride.
She beat at the dry cave air with a clenched fist. “I had him, Luke! He was standing there in my scope and I missed him.” She hiked on, brooding on the nearness of the thing. “I was too excited, too nervous. I didn’t take enough time and I made a bad shot.”
“Your shooting, what I could see of it,” he countered, a mite jealously, “was excellent. Better than I could have done.”
Leia said nothing for a moment, then added deferentially, “I couldn’t have survived that kind of intense infighting. Who taught you to use a lightsaber like that? Kenobi?”
Luke nodded. “I owe everything to that old man, and wherever he’s gone to, he knows it.” He patted the shaft of his father’s weapon reassuringly.
“If we do catch up with Vader,” she went on, “and we must, you’re going to need both your skill with the saber and the Force. If only I’d taken more time!”
Luke shushed her and the others. They were nearing the exit to the surface.
Dim, misty air filtered down to them. Even that dank light was intoxicating after so many days underground, traveling by the glow of unnatural vegetation. Several bodies lay scattered about, Imperial troopers too badly wounded to regain the surface.
The two Coway who’d come along