Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [7]
Han covered the squelch. “You’re not going without me, Highness-ness.”
Luke studied Mon Mothma’s expression and her sense in the Force. “It would have to be a small group,” she said quietly, “but one ship is not enough. Admiral Ackbar, you may select a few fighters to support General Solo and Princess Leia.”
Luke spread a hand. “What are the aliens doing? Why are they taking so many prisoners?”
“The message doesn’t say,” Madine pointed out.
“Then you’d better send someone who can find out. It could be important.”
“Not you, Commander, and it doesn’t look like we can wait until you’ve recovered.” Madine rapped a white handrail. “This team should leave within a standard day.”
Luke didn’t want to be left behind … even though he had all faith that Han and Leia could take care of each other.
On the other hand, before he could pitch in, he must heal himself, and General Madine had suddenly become twins. His optic nerves were telling him to get horizontal soon, or risk a doubly humiliating faint in the war room. He eyed the handrail over the double row of white benches, wondering if the repulsor chair would lift over it. He ached to push the thing’s envelope.
Artoo chattered, sounding motherly.
Luke fingered the float chair’s controls and said, “I’ll head back to my cabin. Keep me posted.”
General Madine crossed his arms over the front of his khaki uniform.
“I doubt we’ll be sending you to Bakura.” Mon Mothma’s robes rustled as she squared her shoulders. “Consider your importance to the Alliance.”
“She’s right, Commander,” wheezed the small ruddy image of Admiral Ackbar.
“I’m not helping anyone if I’m just lying down.” But he had to shake his reckless reputation, if he wanted the respect of the Rebel Fleet. Yoda had commissioned him to pass on what he had learned. To Luke’s mind, that meant rebuilding the Jedi Order … as soon as he got the chance. Anyone else could pilot a fightership. No one else could recruit and train new Jedi.
Frowning, he steered to the lift platform, rotated his chair, and answered Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar as he rose. “I can at least help you put together the strike force.”
CHAPTER
2
The higher-ups continued to confer as Luke floated toward a hatchway. The gray-furred guard, a Gotal, flinched as he saluted. Luke remembered that Gotal felt the Force as a vague buzzing in their cone-shaped perceptor horns, and he accelerated to keep from giving the loyal Gotal a headache.
Artoo shrieked behind him. Out in the corridor, Luke decelerated his float chair and let the little droid catch him. Artoo grappled the chair’s left stabilizer bar and towed it along, spouting electronic static.
“Yes, Artoo.” Luke leaned one hand on Artoo’s blue dome. Gratefully he let himself be herded back to the medical suite. He pictured a thousand alien ships converging on … on a world he still couldn’t imagine. He wanted to see it in his mind’s eye.
And to know why the aliens took prisoners.
Once inside the ship’s clinic, he pulled off his boots and sank back down on the flotation bed. Its “give” underneath him felt inexpressibly good. After a glance at Wedge’s bacta tank, he shut his eyes and imagined he could hear all the way to the war room.
Let them worry. He was finished, for a while. Literally.
Artoo beeped something interrogative. “Say again?” asked Luke.
Artoo wheeled over to the open hatch and reached out a manipulator arm. The door slid closed.
“Oh. Thanks.” Evidently Artoo thought he’d like to undress in privacy.
Evidently Artoo didn’t know he was too tired to undress. He pulled his legs up onto the bed. “Artoo,” he said, “get a portable data screen from Too-Onebee. Access those embedded data files from that message drone. I’ll take a look while I rest.”
Artoo’s reply dropped disapprovingly in pitch as he wheeled away, but less than a minute later he rolled back, trailing a wheeled cart. He steered it to Luke’s bedside and extended a connector into its input port.
“Bakura,” Luke said. “Data files.”
As the computer analyzed his voiceprint to confirm his security clearance,