• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“I will lock down the food supply, against our return.”

“Dad’s got a Vuvrian crew working on that. Go on, get back.”

“If you try to give me orders, young Jedi, you will regret it.”

Jacen shifted his approach. “Not orders, Randa. We need you. Please do it our way. Help keep those people from wandering away from the gate. If they do, we’ll have a stampede when the crawlers get here.”

Muttering a retort, the Hutt turned tail and slithered back toward the gate.

Jacen took a deep breath and looked over the Ryn area. Other than Randa, the alert was going well, with the last families donning gear and proceeding toward the gate area—except for the swat team, still hard at work atop its ERD-LL droid. Close to the Vor quarter, a dribble of gray haze started flowing from the area thickest with moths. The colony’s breach siren sounded, a low electronic moan. The hindmost Vors, still emerging from their huts, shrieked and erupted forward, a mass of slender limbs and long faces. Jacen sprinted toward them.

The forefront of the charging contingent hit him and spun him against a rough mud-brick surface. Winded, he took a few deep breaths. Then he spotted a Vor without a breath mask. “Here!” he shouted, tossing his own.

The delicate-looking creature jammed the mask over his pointed face and pushed on.

Then he spotted another gray dribble. Moths skittered away from the second breached spot, settled closer to a strut, and started chewing again.

Jacen hoped Duro’s atmosphere would kill the creatures. He grabbed his comlink. “Dad?”

“Gateway’s here, Junior. Bring ’em on.”

“Copy that.”

Jacen thumbed off the link and pressed away from the wall. One of the Vors staggered and fell. A Ryn bounded up and gathered the slender female into his arms.

Two Vors turned around, shouted something, and grabbed their kinswoman back from the Ryn.

“Thanks.” Jacen clapped the Ryn on one shoulder. “Go on, go ahead. I’ll bring up the rear.” He scrambled up onto a roof and got one good look.

The entire colony had streamed out onto the lanes, pressing toward the gate like fizzbrew against a bottle cap. Some stragglers were spinning around, pointing up at the two—now three—breached spots, ducking and cowering like ten-year-olds with a crystal snake loose in their quarters. A gray cloud boiled down over the Vors’ huts. Jacen caught a whiff of Duro’s ghastly odor, the concentrated stench of thousands of abandoned Imperial war factories. He held a fold of his vest over his mouth while he strode toward the gate.

A Ryn met him, wearing a full chem suit and mask. “What else do you need?” it wheezed in Romany’s voice.

“Has anyone checked your people’s shelters? If we leave anyone behind, asleep, they might miss the ride out.”

Romany pulled two hefty adults out of line to assist him, then demanded the chem suits of a less muscular pair. “We’re going back,” he explained. “We could be here for a while. Go on, get on board!”

The others protested. Jacen left them to their argument and pressed back into the control shed.

Randa and the comm tech were gone. Jacen peered out the viewbubble. Outside, five enormous idling vehicles reminded him of hydroponics tanks laid side to side and joined over three axles, each of their knobby tires bigger than five refugee huts. Flexible cofferdams had been extended to three of them. Colonists wearing full suits streamed away from the boarding tubes through Duro’s perpetual fog, toward the farthest vehicle, directed by similarly suited SELCORE personnel.

He pushed out of the shed, into the mob.

More SELCORE crewers had taken control of the boarding area, directing refugees forward. To Jacen’s dismay, Randa slithered forward, knocking down Ryn and humans in his rush to reach the gate.

“Hey!” Han’s voice rose. Jacen spotted him standing on a stack of crates. “Back off, Randa! Push like that and you’ll be the last one on board!”

The Hutt drove on, parting the wave of refugees like one of Lando’s cruise ships at full throttle.