Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [19]
“You? Afraid?”
Leia had to smile. It didn’t make sense to be anything but brave and headlong. She sipped, then sniffed her cup and wrinkled her nose. “It’s too sweet.”
“I don’t think they make anything else.” Han set his cup on a pallet. “Look over here.” He took her hand and tugged her around the freestanding divider of crates. She set her cup beside his. “I—” He stopped.
Leia looked down into a nest of self-inflating pillows.
“Chewie—” Han growled. He dropped her hand. “I guess that’s a little blatant. I never should’ve trusted a Wookiee.”
Leia laughed. “Chewie set this up?”
“Wait till I tell that big wet-nosed furball—”
Still laughing, she braced herself against a bulkhead and shoved him over backward. He caught her hand and went down flailing.
CHAPTER
4
Chewbacca hoped he’d gotten it right. Han’s aesthetic sense wasn’t, well, civilized. But his intentions were sterling. Leia ought to be able to figure that out. She seemed like a genteel female.
Threepio prattled behind him. Chewbacca fiddled with communications gear, checking occasionally on Luke’s battle. He’d lost track of which blip in all that mayhem was the Flurry.
“And this is a rather precarious hiding place,” Threepio added. “Planet Six is rightly denied the dignity of a proper name. Why, it’s little more than a large boulder of ice. Not even a settlement, just the remains of a military outpost.” Abruptly he paused. “What was that, Chewbacca? Tune back a few kilobits.”
Chewie shrugged and suggested that Threepio butt out.
“I shall not ‘butt out,’ you ill-mannered fleabag,” the droid squeaked. “The nerve of some creatures, discounting my expertise. I distinctly heard something back there.”
Out here in the fringes of the system? Chewie considered tearing off a metal arm. It would serve Threepio right. But he’d just have to resolder all those connections again.
“I detected something that was not a naturally occurring phenomenon. Tune back a few kilobits.”
Well, it was possible. Pressing his headset to one ear, Chewie hit the low-band scanner and had it repeat its sweep of near space. Something buzzed briefly, a signal too weak to key scanner-pause. Chewie spun a control to amplify. Several seconds of fine tuning brought up a low electronic hum.
Threepio cocked his golden head and posed authoritatively. “That’s very strange, Chewbacca. It sounds like some kind of command code for communicating between droids. But what would active droids be doing in this vicinity? Perhaps it is a mechanical survivor from that abandoned Imperial outpost below or machinery still in operation. I suggest that you turn on the comlink and alert General Solo or Princess Leia.”
Han had hinted that he’d better not be disturbed for anything short of catastrophic pressure loss. Chewie told Threepio as much.
“Well, I shall not relax until I have ascertained that signal’s origin. We have, after all, entered a war zone. We could be in considerable danger. Wait—” Threepio leaned to the other side. “This is no code used in any Alliance or Imperial system.”
The invaders? Without hesitating, Chewie swatted the comlink.
It beeped from Han’s shirt pocket. “General Solo!” bleated Threepio’s singsong voice. “General Solo!”
Leia wriggled in Han’s arms. “I knew it,” he muttered. Just when Leia’d been on the verge of relaxing. He pulled out the comlink. “What?” he sneered.
“Sir, I am picking up a transmission from near space. A droid control unit of some kind seems to be in operation very close by. I am not certain, but its source appears to be coming closer.”
“Uh, oh,” Leia said softly against his shoulder. She pushed up to her feet.
“Okay, Chewie, we’ll be right there.” Han made sure it sounded more like a threat than a promise.
Looking amused, Leia poured her syrupy wine back into the bottle and recorked it. Before sprinting up the corridor, she spread her hands and mournfully quoted Han’s words back to him: “It’s not my fault!”
Han had just swung into the cockpit when an electronic shriek rang out from the main console. “What’s that?” Leia