Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [140]
But he had to move. This thing couldn’t beat him. It would be a horrible way for a Jedi Knight to die. He’d fought rancors and Tusken Raiders all by himself. He could survive anything.
Anything.
The creature came toward him again. Luke eased himself to his feet, and pulled one of the splinters out of his arm. When the creature raised its paw to him, Luke shoved the splinter into the pad.
The creature yelped again, and shook its paw. Hair fell around him like snow. The creature stood on three legs and bit the base of the fourth one.
Luke wasn’t going to wait to see what happened next.
He ran as fast as his ankle would allow him around the creature’s back and toward the pallet. There was nowhere to hide. The grates were too high to reach because of his ankle, and the pallet provided the only thing for him to lie beneath, something the creature would look at first.
Luke limped into the next room to find the emptiness there just as overwhelming. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Once they did, he saw that the rooms went on, deeper and deeper. The creature must have come from that direction. There might be more of its kind farther on.
One was difficult enough. Several would be a nightmare.
The creature was whimpering in the far room. Luke understood how it felt. He took the momentary respite to pull the remaining splinters from his own flesh. He set them beside him like long knives, the only weapons he had against this creature.
Except his mind.
The creature didn’t seem intent on harming him. In fact, the most harm had occurred when Luke had attacked it. The creature seemed to be trying to figure out what he was.
If Luke could figure out a way to convince it that he wasn’t food, then he might stand a chance.
The question was how.
The creature had stopped whimpering. It was snuffling its way toward Luke. It must have gotten the splinter out of its pad. Luke lined his splinters around him. All they would do was buy him time, but time was what he needed.
He wasn’t going to die at the paws of this hairy beast.
He wouldn’t give Kueller the satisfaction.
Thirty-seven
Kueller watched the skies through the observatory. He had modified this, the Great Dome of the Je’har, into a Command Central when he was fighting his conventional war against the Je’har. After he had killed their leaders, he systematically destroyed their followers, and watched it all on the screens around him. The screens were now showing him various readings from space. The screens on his right magnified the same darkness a hundredfold. The screens to his left showed a fleet of ships coming out of hyperdrive into Almanian space.
A dozen of his best employees were scattered throughout the room. Yanne stood beside him. “Milord, I think we should send our own people up there. Those are New Republic battleships. They could destroy Almania.”
“They won’t,” Kueller said.
“Still,” Yanne said. “I think we should be cautious.”
“And let them know we’ve seen them?”
“They’re too far away. They won’t know.”
Kueller sighed. His assistants were always worried about failure first, instead of expecting success. He had learned that preparing for both success and failure served him best.
“Fine,” he said. “Send out three Star Destroyers, and the attendant support vehicles. And Yanne?”
“Yes, milord?”
“If they fail, you will have failed also.”
Yanne’s gray skin whitened, but his voice remained calm. “Yes, milord.”
He turned and softly gave the order to one of the guards. The guard nodded, clicked his heels together, and left the room.
The New Republic’s fleet was not yet visible in the sky overhead. It wouldn’t be, until it was debris floating through space. Even then, all he would see would be an occasional flare breaking through the atmosphere.
On the screens to his left,