Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [198]
All right, the Sorcerers of Tund were supposed to have been capable of all kinds of magic. No one had ever claimed that they were even human; that was a general assumption, and, like all general assumptions, was probably mistaken. Nonetheless …
What species was naturally capable of the thing his instruments had witnessed? Gepta had returned through the tube, the electronic motes adhering to him again as he, what—materialized? And what was that weird, unknown radiation that, despite armor he now realized was not one but two meters thick, incredibly still leaked out when Gepta had been inside the compartment for a few minutes?
And most of all, what, in the Name of the Core, was Rokur Gepta?
• XVI •
“MASTER, WE’VE GOT company!”
“All right Vuffi Raa, I’m coming!”
Lando jumped up from his seat in the lounge where he’d been programming tactics for the Oswaft. Out of over a billion of the creatures, less than a thousand had agreed to play his great game of sabacc, live or die. He ran around the corridor to the cockpit and flung himself into the righthand seat.
“Where away?”
The robot indicated a tightly strung series of blips on the long-range sensors. “Fighters, Master, the same kind we fought in the Oseon. I make it twenty—no, twenty-five. I don’t know what that big thing in the middle is.”
The gambler nodded. “I wonder if it isn’t the same group. They don’t look like a tactical fighter wing, and they’re using the same formation they did before. Last time it was a battle-snip engine.” He began throwing switches, bringing the Falcon’s defensive armament to full readiness.
“Oh my,” Vuffi Raa said in a subdued voice, “the Renatasians. Sometimes I think it would be better just to surrender myself to them. If only they knew the truth.”
“Cut it out, sprocket-head! They know the truth, it’s just too hard to let go of a scapegoat once you’ve got him by the chin-whiskers. Let’s surprise those mynock-smoochers by going out to meet them, what say?”
The robot’s tentacles began dancing over the boards. “My sentiments exactly, Master, that’s what we came here for in the first place, wasn’t it?”
Lando rose, steadying himself against a chair as vibrations washed through the ship. “Quite right, although I wasn’t sure we’d sucker the Renatasians in, too. Gepta’s overdue. How can he resist having us trapped here in the StarCave?”
“Don’t worry, Master, he’ll show up.”
“Swell.” The gambler made haste aft to the tunnel connecting with the quad-gun bubble, reached the swiveling chair and strapped himself in. “Well, old friend, let’s go!”
“Yes, Master,” the intercom answered. “Full power coming up!”
As the Falcon rushed to meet the foe, Lando reviewed his plans. The Oswaft wouldn’t strike the small group of fighters. He’d cranked his ideas through the computer and, from there, directly into their brains. They now knew as much about tactics as he did.
Refocusing on the task at hand, he limbered up, swung the guns up and down, side to side. The chair followed with them, giving him an exhilarating ride that was probably the real reason he liked the weapon so much. He keyed the intertalkie. “Test coming up—and don’t call me master.”
“Yes, Mas—”
“Got you that time.” Using one of the stars for a point of aim, he pressed both thumbs down on the triggers. Bolts of high-intensity energy shot from the guns as they pumped back and forth in their odd pattern, much like the reciprocating machine guns of old. Only now, it was to avoid a backwash of power that would have fused the muzzles of the nonfiling barrels. He fired the guns again, then looked at the repeater