Star Wars_ Tales From Jabba's Palace - Kevin J. Anderson [178]
That alone was reason enough to flee rather than fight. But there was another reason as well: the quest he was on. It was not merely his own life he risked by facing his pursuers. For the sake of many others’ lives, he had to delay the inevitable as long as possible.
The spice den opened, by way of a half-concealed entrance, into a dimly lit, cavernous chamber that had long ago been a casino. It was huge, with a high, vaulted ceiling that rose easily three stories. Even made his way to a turbolift tube, pushing his way past furniture and gambling tables so ancient that some of them crumbled to dust when he brushed by. How many abandoned, desolated places like this were there in the sublevels? Millions, no doubt, hidden and silent at the bases of the glittering, fresh towers, like rot growing silently in a tooth. The capital of the galaxy had grown from a vast necropolis, as flowers sprout from funerary dirt …
Even Piell shook his head to clear his thoughts. Now was definitely not the time to be dwelling on the past. Total concentration was required if he was to survive this night.
As if to confirm his thoughts, he heard, very faintly, the crisp voices of his pursuers from outside the building. He reached the lift—a clear transparisteel tube—and stepped in. Nothing happened; he hadn’t expected anything to. The charge in the repulsor plates had depleted over the centuries. Fortunately, he wasn’t dependent on technology to make the turbolift work.
Everyone experienced the Force in different ways, it was said. For some it was like a storm in which they were the cynosure, secure in its calm eye while commanding its tempests. For others it was a fog, a mist, the vaporous tendrils of which could be manipulated, or incandescence with which to illuminate or inflame. These were inadequate approximations, feeble attempts to describe, in terms of the five ordinary senses, that which was indescribable. Even the full-blown synesthesia of one of the more hallucinogenic forms of spice was a faint and colorless experience next to being one with the Force.
For Even, the closest thing to which he could liken calling on the Force was sinking into warm water. It soothed him, calmed him, even as it lent energy to his tired muscles and sharpened his senses.
He made a slight, uplifting gesture. The Force became a geyser, raising him up through the length of the tube.
Before he reached the ceiling through which the tube extruded, he heard the sound of the door he had just come through being kicked open. Five stormtroopers in full body armor came through. They were holding blasters and slugthrowers. One of them pointed upward at Even. “There!” he shouted. “In the tube!”
The others followed his gaze. One—a sergeant, judging by the green markings on his armor—raised his blaster. It was a BlasTech SE-14, a pistol that packed the highly concentrated beam power of an energy rifle into a weapon half the size. Even knew that the crystasteel tubing couldn’t stop the burst of charged subatomic particles. He accelerated his ascent. Just before he reached the ceiling, the leading trooper fired—but not at Even.
Above him.
Too late, Even realized the other’s tactic. The blast struck the tube at the juncture between the ceiling and the lift, melting and fusing it together into an impassable mass. Even barely managed to stop his ascent in time. A second later the trooper fired again, this time turning the tube’s base below the Jedi’s feet into molten slag.
He could move neither up nor down, Even realized. He was trapped, like a bug in a bottle.
But this bug could sting.
Even Piell reached into his jacket’s pocket and seized his lightsaber. Before the stormtrooper, who was carefully lining up his shot, could fire again,