Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [45]
“I told you he’d come in handy,” Han said.
C-3PO disappeared into the organic cofferdam, sloshing along the puddled floor, his voice echoing wetly. “Oh, yes, tiny white arachnids, similar to those that can sometimes be found inhabiting volcanic vents …”
Han was staring at Leia. “I hate microbial mats! Maybe there’s another way.”
“I don’t think so, Han.”
He firmed his lips. “All right, you first. Just don’t … touch anything.”
They covered the hundred meters in record time, eyes forward and arms straight at their sides. By the time they emerged in the Yuuzhan Vong carrier, Leia’s legs were drenched to the knee in foul-smelling liquid.
They could tell which way the strike troops had gone by the gaping holes the soldiers had blown in membranous interior bulkheads and iris portals. Bioluminescent lichen lent a cheerless green light to the carrier’s meandering internal passageways. Fluids seeped from gently pulsing walls and strands of connective tissue, where passageways intersected. The air was rich in oxygen but pungent. They stepped through a torn membrane into a spacious hold whose yorik coral deck might have been pink ferrocrete.
Leia ignited her lightsaber.
From the ship’s forward came the sounds of war cries and muffled shouts, blasterfire and the dull thudding of amphistaff strikes.
“I guess coma-gas doesn’t work on the Yuuzhan Vong,” Leia said.
“Yeah, too bad about that.”
They sprinted toward the sounds of battle, rounding a corner to see allies and enemies down, smears of red and black on the floor, refreshment for a host of tonguelike creatures that were gorging on the spilled blood. Han shot from the hip, dropping a Yuuzhan Vong warrior with a coufee dagger in each hand. With a downward slash, Leia cut the legs out from under another who had launched himself at her. Hands pressed to his head, C-3PO issued a litany of mirthless exclamations and laments.
They followed the strike troops farther forward. The soldiers held their blasters at high port, sweeping them from side to side. They advanced in leapfrogging squads, waving signals to one another, overwhelming amphistaffs with continuous bursts, or concentrating blasterfire on vonduun crab armor weak points, then searing the exposed flesh beneath. With or without weapons, with or without their living arthropod armor, the enemy warriors continued to attack, always choosing death over surrender where there was an option.
Stepping over sprawled bodies, Han, Leia, and a squad of troops reached another intersection. The squad leader was trying to decide which fork to take when Hobyo finally caught up with them.
“The prisoners are on the upper deck, in a hold aft of the command chamber.” The Klatooinian edged his way into the intersection and gestured. “This way.”
A steeply sloped corridor led up to the carrier’s command deck. At the top of the slope two strike troops had a Peace Brigader in custody. A strong smell of glitterstim spice wafted from the human’s uniform.
“He says that most of the warriors took to coralskippers when we attacked,” the tallest of the soldiers reported. “The only ones left on board are the officers.”
The Brigader led the rest of the way to the forward hold. There, squashed together inside a sticky net, sat three Yuuzhan Vong. One wore a command cloak that hung from bony implants on the tops of his shoulders. The strike troops’ colonel was circling them proudly, with his hands planted on his hips, thumbs backward.
“We took these three by surprise and webbed them before they knew what hit them.”
Across the hold, fifty or so Alliance prisoners of various species were stuck to the deck in a pool of blorash jelly.
“Han! Leia!” one of them called out.
The speaker was a thickset human, with pleasant if undistinguished features and a full