Star Wars_ The Han Solo Trilogy 03_ Rebel Dawn - A. C. Crispin [148]
Bria had also seen, before the sensors were cut off, the image of an Imperial Star Destroyer closing in on the Rebel Blockade Runner. Had that courier gotten away? She’d never know.…
Bria wondered exactly what they’d been transmitting, but knew she’d never know that, either. As it was, she and her people knew too much … that’s why they couldn’t risk being taken alive.
Not that the Imperials seem inclined to take prisoners anyway today, she thought.
As she bent down to check the bandage around her thigh, the trooper next to her voiced the same quiet question she’d refused to answer earlier. “We’re not going to get out of here … are we?”
Bria looked at him, pale under his battered helmet, his eyes wide and staring. Sk’kot was a good trooper, loyal to her, loyal to their cause. But he was so young.…
Still, he deserved a straight answer.
“No, we’re not, Sk’kot,” Bria replied. “You know that. The Imps have destroyed our ships. No retrieval. And even if we didn’t have orders to hold this comm center for as long as possible, there’s nowhere for us to go on this world. Even if we could get past the troopers … we’ve got no transport.” She gave him a wry grin, and gestured at her wounded leg. “I’d look really silly trying to hop out of here, wouldn’t I?”
He nodded, and his face twisted with anguish.
She looked at him closely. “Sk’kot … we can’t be captured. You understand that, right?”
He nodded again, then took out his lullaby and stuck it to his collar, the way Bria had. “Yeah, Commander. I understand.” His voice was shaking, but his hands on his weapon were steady.
He leaned closer to her, not wanting the others to hear. “Commander … I … I don’t want to die.” His admission seemed to drain him, and he trembled.
“Help me with this bandage, would you, Sk’kot?” she said, motioning for him to tighten the medpac tighter on her leg. The kid’s hands steadied a bit as he pulled on the straps binding it to her wound. “Tighter!” she told him, and he leaned back, putting his weight into it. A jolt of pain got though to Bria, past the painkillers that let her move about despite her injury.
“There, that’s got it.”
Young Burrid sagged down next to her. Bria put her arm around him, as she would a brother she loved, and leaned close to him.
“I don’t want to die either, Sk’kot. But I sure as blazes don’t want the Empire to win. I don’t want good people massacred, or taken as slaves, or taxed until they can’t feed their families or live a decent life. Or just murdered by some Imperial Moff who woke up cranky that morning.”
Sk’kot smiled slightly at her turn of phrase. “So it’s okay that we’re not going to get out of here, right, Sk’kot? It’s okay that we’re going to go down doing our jobs, because they—” she jerked her chin at their dead comrades, “did theirs. We can’t let them down, right?”
“Right, Commander,” Sk’kot said. Bria hugged him tight, with a small, sad smile, and he returned it. He’d stopped shaking.
Just then, Joaa’n, keeping lookout, called, “They’re moving out there.”
Bria rolled aside, pushing Sk’kot toward his position. She looked quickly between two pieces of rubble, and without taking her eyes off the opening, issued orders. “Joaa’n, you stay down at first and get your launcher ready. After the rest of us open up, try to duck out and nail that Floating Fortress. Got that?”
“Yes, Commander!”
“People, remember to change positions after shooting, or they’ll zero in on you with the repeating blasters. Everyone ready?”
Murmured affirmatives answered her. Picking up her borrowed blaster carbine, Bria checked the charge. Sighting down the barrel, she thought, Goodbye, Han.…
Something moved in the breached wall. Bria took