Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [222]
“Come on, Mara,” Han said through gritted teeth. “Use the tractor beam.”
“That won’t help,” Jaina said as she tugged the flimsy cognition hood from her head. “Our only chance is to get aboard the Falcon.” Her eyes roamed over the irregularly pulsing control console. “There’s just enough life left in this ship for it to extend an umbilical.”
“Oh, no,” Han muttered. “Not again.”
Jaina tweaked one of the organiform control arms that grew from the console. Accompanied by wet, squishy sounds, the central section of the craft’s cramped deck softened, and an osmotic membrane began to form. Han glanced at the expanding circle in growing dismay, imagining the craft’s intestinelike cofferdam flailing in space as it attempted to vacuum-seal against the Falcon’s portside docking ring or dorsal hatch.
Abruptly the freighter snagged the yorik-trema, stopping it from tumbling. The deck membrane irised open, and a nauseating odor invaded the cabin space.
Han clamped his right hand over his mouth. “How do we know the umbilical’s properly sealed against the hatch?”
“It’s not the tightest fit, Dad,” Jaina said, “but it’s one we can survive.”
Jacen peered into the confined, throbbing tube. “Guess we’re going to have to crawl.”
Han’s face fell. “Ah, this is too much—even for me.”
Leia glanced at him. “I’ll go first, if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Only thing that’s gonna make me feel better is an EVA suit.”
Leia stroked his whiskered face. “Be brave, darling.”
Lowering herself to the deck, she wormed through the membrane and began to elbow-crawl through the tube. Han took a deep breath and followed, his hands disappearing to the wrist in the slime that covered the floor. Two minutes later Leia disappeared from view, and Han’s hands touched the comforting solidity of the Falcon’s air lock.
One by one, coated with slime and reeking of putrid organics, the four of them squeezed into the freighter’s portside docking arm, where Kenth, Harrar, C-3PO, and R2-D2 were waiting.
“Oh, my,” the protocol droid said. “I’ll activate the sonic shower at once.”
R2-D2 rocked on his feet, whistling and tooting.
No sooner had Kenth dogged the hatch than Mara came running through the forward compartment, calling over her shoulder to Tahiri and the Noghri that everyone was safely aboard.
“Where’s Uncle Luke?” Jacen asked.
Mara grabbed him by the arm and hauled him into the aft cabin space, where Luke was laid out on one of the small sleeping platforms. Han, Leia, and Jaina crowded in behind them.
Jacen kneeled by the bed and carefully removed the dressing Kenth had placed over the deep puncture wound in the left side of Luke’s chest. Luke’s face and hands were white. His lips and the beds of his fingernails were slightly blue. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow.
“Shimrra’s amphistaff,” Mara said anxiously.
Jacen looked up at her and nodded. “I saw him get stabbed.”
Mara pressed her hands to her eyes and began to cry. Jacen took her tear-moistened hands in his and brought them to Luke’s chest wound. He held them there for a long moment, removing his hands only once, to convey some of his own tears to Luke’s wound.
Luke’s chest heaved as he took a sharp inhalation, and his eyelids fluttered open. Sobbing openly, Mara laid her head on his chest, and slowly Luke’s left hand rose to caress her red-gold hair.
“I’ll live, my love,” he said weakly.
Leia kneeled down to wrap her arms around her son and Mara and cry with them. Swallowing the lump in his throat, Han put his arm around Jaina’s shoulders, then the two of them all but fell on top of Leia and Jacen.
C-3PO and R2-D2 appeared at the hatch in time to see the Skywalkers and Solos in a weeping tangle. The astromech made a fluting sound that was at once rejoicing and forlorn.
“I know, Artoo,” C-3PO said quietly. “There are few occasions when I envy humans, but this is certainly one of them.”
PART FOUR
THE NEW ORDER