Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 02_ Shield of Lies - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [15]
But at last the coring bit chewed its way into the surface of the glacier and headed down into its depths.
“Seven sections!” Stopa shouted over the rumble of the drill. “At this angle, we’ll need seven sections.”
Josala waved her hand in acknowledgment and turned away to pull the next section from the rack. It danced under her touch, and she drew her hand back. She pressed her gauntlet against the wall of the bay and felt it shivering. It was then that she realized that what she had thought was her own body shivering was the deck of the rover vibrating under her feet. The drill was roaring now, as though its bearing rings had disintegrated, its lubricants turned to grit.
“Turn it off!” she cried, pulling her way along to where Stopa was leaning out the back of the bay, looking down at the core drive and measuring the drill’s progress. “Turn it off!” He looked up at her dumbly, and she reached behind him for the controls.
The core cylinder spun to a stop, but neither the vibration nor the noise ceased. Just the opposite, in fact—the rumble was growing louder and the shaking growing worse.
With a desperate fear already in their eyes, they looked out from the gear bay at the mountain ridge behind them, the ridge they had flown over just minutes before, the ridge that had been like cotton bathed in sunlight. The middle of the ridge was now hidden behind an onrushing wall of snow and ice, spreading and climbing the sky as it hurtled closer.
There was no chance to escape into that sky. The avalanche was on them before they could even quite remember the word. It tumbled the rover before it like a toy, packing its every crevice with snow, engulfing the ship in the furious turbulence of the icy maelstrom.
When the flow finally slowed and ceased, its leading edge reaching nearly halfway across the valley, there were two more bodies buried on the ice for Penga Rift to recover.
“The first thing we need is a way to find this spot again, and this passage is notably lacking in landmarks,” said Lando. Using the cutting blaster, he sliced a small triangle off one corner of the equipment grid. “Where was our doorway? Here?”
“Lower,” said Lobot. “There.”
“I’m glad you’re sure,” said Lando. “I’m all turned around.” He cut a slit in the bulkhead, inserted one edge of the triangle, and held it there until the bulkhead closed around it. Then he placed one palm flat against the bulkhead and tried to tug the metal grid out of the wall. “That should do it.”
Lobot drifted up with a short length of cord in one hand. “We might want more than one marker before we’re done,” he said, looping the cord through one of the diamond-shaped openings and tying the ends together with an overhand knot. “One knot equals the first marker. We’ll put two knots on the next one.”
“Okay,” said Lando, turning away from the wall. “There’s one thing I overlooked when we took inventory. I burned about sixty percent of my thruster propellant trying to get up here.”
“I have ninety-one percent remaining,” said Lobot. “Unfortunately, there is no way for me to share my supply with you.”
“You might end up sharing it by carrying me around on your back,” Lando said. “Threepio, how are you doing for thrust mass?”
Artoo burbled, and Threepio offered the translation. “Artoo says that his propellant supply is adequate, but he would like to be informed when any of us locates a power coupling.”
“With any luck, it’ll be right next to an oxygen valve,” Lando said grimly. “All right—we are in a survival situation. This ship has now jumped twice, and we have to assume that it lost any pursuit that was mounted