Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 06_ Balance Point - Kathy Tyers [114]
Maybe Jaina could get through to Jacen, too.
He reached for Leia again. If she were deliberately opening herself to him, he might be able to catch some memory, some image, that he might relay to Jaina. He had to save her, and Jacen.
The only clear image in her mind showed her tapping against a conduit with a pebble, and a location. He sent that to Jaina—
Then he caught a whistle from Shadow’s comm board. He hustled back to the pilot’s chair.
“Skywalker,” he answered.
“Luke, it’s Hamner. I’m sorry, but it isn’t good news.”
“No reinforcements?”
“None. Sounds like you’d better evacuate, if you can.”
“Good try, Kenth.”
Luke sensed a shipyard crew approaching in the corridor outside. He pulled back into hiding, closing his hand on his comlink. He had to get Hamner’s word to Mara.
Wasn’t there some way to help Jacen and Leia?
Jacen pulled himself into the smallest possible shape and waited for heavy footsteps to pass by in the stairwell. Five minutes ago, sick of slinking and wondering, he’d reentered the admin building. He’d found the smashed bits of a U2C1 housekeeping droid, plastic legs and shredded tubing scattered in the stairwell. Then this empty cubicle, exactly large enough to hold such a droid. Something nibbled at the back of his mind. Once again, something enormous was trying to break through, something out of the infinite. A warring urge tempted him to simply spring out of the cubicle and have done with all his struggles.
Wait. The sensation came through plainly.
Anguished—almost angry, now—he dug his fingernails into his ankles. Wait for what? he screamed back.
Han leaned against a stone wall. Returning toward the underground gathering place from Gateway’s last hidden hauler, he’d found Leia’s GOCU antenna. He promptly patched in his comlink. He got no answer from Leia or Jaina, but C-3PO picked up.
“No sign of ’em, Threepio?”
In his mind he saw the protocol droid, perched in the Falcon’s offset cockpit, standing watch out on that bluff.
“No more of the alien ships have appeared, Captain Solo—”
“Check the sensors. What’s on approach?”
Brief pause. Behind him, Han heard the soft shuffling of hundreds of feet, refugees making their way past him, up the tunnel toward Droma.
“Nothing, Captain. For the moment, it still appears as if the enemy has deployed only the small task force—”
“Good enough, Goldenrod. Be ready to fire it up the second I get there.”
He tried Leia once more, then flicked off the comlink and stuck it deep in a pocket. He didn’t like her silence.
One of the shaved-down Ryn paused alongside him. “Get through?” Han recognized Romany’s voice.
“Yeah. Doing all right?” Han murmured.
Romany’s blue jumpsuit sagged on his arms. He brandished his own comlink. “R’vanna says the last ones have gotten down into the tunnel.”
“Good enough.”
“Where are your children?”
“Probably with their mother.” I hope. Han peered ahead. Just beyond this point, they were entering the most dangerous section, where the ancient mining tunnel joined Leia’s scientists’ recent dig, connecting their lab with the marshes. Here, if anywhere, there could be a trap—
As if on cue, he heard a soft crack overhead. Then a crackle that seemed to go on for a full minute. Gravel sprinkled his leather helmet.
“Don’t panic,” he muttered to Romany. “Not yet, anyway …”
Unbelievably, no one cried out. Far behind, a section of ceiling dumped itself on refugee heads. He heard gasping noises, saw and felt a press of bodies surge toward him. But even the children stayed quiet.
“What’d you do to them, Romany?” he demanded.
The Ryn shrugged. “They know if they’re heard, we’re all dead. They’ve been running so long they’re starting to get good at it.”
Mentally Han cursed the Yuuzhan Vong. He turned and moved on.
At tunnel’s end,