Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 02_ Dark Apprentice - Kevin J. Anderson [10]
Han stood atop the crumpled blue-white ice cliffs, feeling warm in his insulated charcoal-gray parka and red heater gloves. The ever-present auroras in the purplish skies sent rainbow curtains flickering and refracting off the ice. He drew in a deep breath of crackling cold air that seemed to curl his nostril hairs.
He turned to Kyp beside him. “About ready to go, kid?”
For the fifth time the dark-haired eighteen-year-old bent over to adjust the fastenings on his turbo-skis. “Uh, almost,” Kyp said.
Han leaned forward to peer down the steep turbo-ski run of rippled ice, feeling a lump form in his throat but unwilling to show it.
Blue and white glaciers shone in dim light from the months-long twilight. Below, ice-boring machines had chewed deep tunnels into the thick ice caps; other excavators had chopped broad terraces on the cliffs as they mined centuries-old snowpack, melting it with fusion furnaces to be delivered via titanic water pipelines to the dense metropolitan areas in the temperate zones.
“You really think I can do this?” Kyp said, straightening and gripping his deflector poles.
Han laughed. “Kid, if you can pilot us single-handed through a black hole cluster, I think you can handle a turbo-ski slope on the most civilized planet in the galaxy.”
Kyp looked at Han with a smile in his dark eyes. The boy reminded Han of a young Luke Skywalker. Ever since Han had rescued Kyp from his slavery in the spice mines of Kessel, the young man had clung to him. After years of wrongful Imperial imprisonment, Kyp had missed the best years of his life. Han vowed to make up for that.
“Come on, kid,” he said, leaning forward and igniting the motors of his turbo-skis. With thickly gloved hands Han held on to the deflector poles and flicked them on. He felt the cushioning repulsorfield emanating from each point, making the poles bob in the air to keep his balance.
“You’re on,” Kyp said, and fired up his own skis. “But not the kiddie slope.” He turned from the wide ice pathway and pointed instead to a side run that branched off over several treacherous ledges, across the scabby ice of a rotten glacier, and finally over a frozen waterfall to a receiving-and-rescue area. Winking red laser beacons clearly marked the dangerous path.
“No way, Kyp! It’s much too—” But Kyp launched himself forward and blasted down the slope.
“Hey!” Han said. He felt sick in the pit of his stomach, sure he would have to pick up Kyp’s broken body somewhere along the path. But now he had no choice but to blast after the boy. “Kid, this is really a stupid thing to do.”
Crystals of powdery snow sprayed behind Kyp’s turbo-skis as he bent forward, touching the ground at occasional intervals with his deflector poles. He kept his balance like an expert, intuitively knowing what to do. After only a second of the thundering descent, Han realized that Kyp might be more likely to survive this ride than he was.
As Han rocketed down the slope, the snow and ice hissed beneath him like a jet of compressed air. Han hit a frozen outcropping that sent him flying, and he somersaulted through the air, flailing with his deflector poles. Stabilizer jets on his belt righted him just in time as he slammed into the snow again. He continued down the slope with the speed of a stampeding bantha.
He squinted behind ice goggles, concentrating intensely on keeping himself upright. The landscape seemed too sharp—every razor-edged drift of snow, the glittering sheared-off face of ice—as if every single detail might be his last.
Kyp let out a loud whoop of delight as he slewed left onto the dangerous offshoot turbo-ski path. The whoop echoed three times around the sharp-edged cliffs.
Han began cursing the young man’s recklessness, then experienced a sudden inner warmth as he realized he had expected little else from Kyp. Making the best of it, Han let out an answering whoop of his own and turned