Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [100]
If that happened, Dev wouldn’t have long to grieve for Skywalker. The Ssi-ruuk would kill him instantly.
Yet humankind would live free if he and Skywalker died. Agonizing, he buckled into his own seat.
“How’s it going up there?” Leia called softly.
“Almost through.” Han perched on her reprogrammed repulsor chair directly over the bed. Delicately holding his vibroknife in one hand, he cut a broad oval in the wooden ceiling panel. A pale stream of sweet-smelling sawdust fell glittering onto the white bedcover. “There!” he exclaimed. He struck the ellipse with the palms of both hands, and it popped upward, showering him with more dust.
“You’re sure you can fit?” she asked.
The chair rose. His head and shoulders vanished, then the rest of him. A moment later, his head and arms reappeared. “Looks good up here,” he said. “Stand back.” He touched the chair’s controls.
It crashed onto the bed. Leia gripped the blaster she’d stuck into her belt and waited for a guard to open the hall door, but none did. She climbed onto the bed, muscled the chair upright again, then switched it on. She rose in stately grace toward the hole Han had cut, then seized his arms and let him pull her through. They left the chair hovering.
A crawl space crossed the building from end to end, its low sloping roof tapering to both sides. Dim daylight cast hazy rays in a large dusty room at one end. “Vents at each side,” Han murmured. “Speeders are parked outside, around the corner to the right.” He pointed toward the light. “Walk softly. They’ll hear you.”
“No. Seriously?” she asked, loading her voice with sarcasm. She led forward on hands and knees, careful to set her weight silently on beams and joists. This attic felt more ancient than any human habitation she’d ever been in. She made the right turn around a thick wooden pillar, then crawled up to the vent. “Knife?” she whispered over her shoulder.
Han drew the vibroknife and sliced cautiously through the large vent’s snap bolts. “You take that end,” he directed. “Pull it toward you.”
She pried inward with her fingernails until it jutted out far enough to grip, then together they pulled it free and set it silently in the dust beside a desiccated pile of insectoid exoskeletons. Han crouched, peering out the new hole, almost invisible in his sooty camouflage. She crouched closer.
Several speeders sat halfway between the lodge and the outwall, with five troopers lounging around them. She eased sideways so she could see and point a blaster out the hole at the same time. He did the same. “Ready?” she asked.
“Now,” he whispered. She squeezed her trigger. Got one. Got two. Another fell. The fourth and fifth dove behind a grounded speeder.
“Here goes nothin’.” Han plunged through. Blaster bolts whined. Leia spotted the trooper shooting at Han and dropped him. The other kept his head down. Han jumped up and ran for the near speeder. A flash of light clipped his left foot.
She leaped, rolled to break her fall, and then sprang to one side. Another blaster bolt scorched the ground where she’d landed. She whirled around and shot back, but the trooper ducked.
The roar of a speeder caught her attention. She zigzagged toward it and scrambled on board, then grabbed an acceleration rail. Something stank like burnt boot leather. Instantly, Han wrenched the throttle and lifters. They soared over the compound’s walls.
“Did they get you?” she shouted over wind noise as moody green forest passed underneath. The view south stretched over foothills, city, and emerald plains toward a hint of blue ocean. Smoke rose from several sources mid-city.
“Don’t think it burned through the sole,” he answered tightly. She eyed his sooty, wind-whipped face and recognized pain.
She could do nothing till they reached the Falcon. He was obviously functioning. “Life with you’s never dull.” She stroked his scratchy chin.
He managed a smile. “Couldn’t have that,” he called. The wind blew his words back at the forest.
Leia glanced away. The speeder’s roar