Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [182]
Behind him, Chewie grunted, followed by a massive thud. Han glanced over his shoulder. Chewie was on the ground. A huge, furry creature had one paw on Chewie’s back. With its other paw, it was holding the ysalamiri cage and was trying to suck the ysalamiri through it like a piece of spaghetti. When that didn’t work, the creature swallowed the ysalamiri, cage and all.
Han swore and leveled his blaster at the big creature. Chewie was yowling, and it took Han a moment to realize that Chewie was telling him not to shoot.
Han decided to ignore his partner. The creature’s throat swelled and bulged as the ysalamiri cage slid down. Then the creature looked at Han. Its eyes glowed red as it eyed Han’s nutrient cage.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Han said. He tried to hide the cage behind his back. Chewie was still yowling, but the creature had taken its paw off him.
Han fired his blaster, but as he did, the thing leaped for him, grazing him with its massive paws. He landed on his back, knocking the cage from his hand. He raised his blaster, but it was too late. The creature already had the nutrient cage in its mouth. With a quick shake of its jaw, it tumbled the cage to the back of its throat, and swallowed it.
Blood from a scrape was running down Han’s shoulder, staining his shirt. The creature tilted its barn-sized head at the blood, then its fur-stained tongue came out. Han crawled backward, away from it, on his hands and feet, trying to stand at the same time.
Chewie was getting up, but he hadn’t pulled his bowcaster.
Through the alley, Leia yelled again.
“You can’t eat me,” Han said to the big furry white creature. “That’s my wife. And you just swallowed my plan.”
Chewie yowled at him.
“I’m not shooting at it,” Han said.
He scrambled to his feet. The creature hadn’t moved any closer. Chewie gave it a small wave as he ran past it. Then Han flanked Chewie, and they headed into the alley.
The creature did not chase them.
“You mind telling me why you’re suddenly friendly with a giant turbali? Is it a cousin?”
Chewie wailed, the precursor to his angry yell.
“All right, all right. Forgive me,” Han said. “I got a little upset when that thing ate the creatures that would ensure the rescue of my wife.”
Chewbacca didn’t respond to that. He kept pace with Han as they hurried through the alley.
His shoulder hurt something fierce, and the air on this planet was a bit thinner than he was used to. He tripped on a rock, but regained his footing after a moment. Rubble was strewn all over this alley.
He hadn’t heard Leia yell again.
Something thudded behind them. Han glanced over his shoulder again, to see the giant creature try to squeeze into the alley, fail, and turn away, dejected.
“Great,” he mumbled. “The thing’s feelings are hurt because it’s too fat to fit into the alley.”
Chewie growled a warning. Han grimaced. How did Chewbacca and that thing become such fast friends?
He was nearly to the mouth of the alley when Leia yelled again. This time, though, the word was clear.
It was Luke’s name.
And she said it in a voice that Han had never heard before, but he knew what it meant.
It meant he was too late.
Her hands were useless, and Kueller was no longer listening to her arguments. He was watching Luke.
Luke, who looked like a man possessed.
Luke, who had always warned her not to give in to anger, was giving in to his.
And Kueller was smiling. He seemed to be growing taller, and broader, the aura of power around him so great that it made him seem invincible.
Then a look passed across Luke’s face. It was a familiar look, but it wasn’t his. She had seen it before.
On the day she met him, so many years ago.
She had seen that look the only time she had seen Obi-Wan Kenobi alive. He had been fighting Darth Vader, and then he smiled, and raised his lightsaber—
—and Vader cut him in half. His lightsaber’s blade faded, the hilt spinning through the air before landing on his empty,