Star Wars_ X-Wing 03_ The Krytos Trap - Michael A. Stackpole [95]
If that were true, if his theory was correct, the rock would hit and hold.
Down on his level the guards began shooting into the crowd. Stunned prisoners began to collapse in waves.
Up above, the stone clipped a stalactite. Deflected, it continued to travel upward, but now at an angle. As Corran watched, the stone seemed to slow and begin to stall.
All around him blue stun-bolts dropped prisoners. Two of the men screening him went down. Then Urlor twitched and fell to the ground. Down to the ground.
The stone fell up!
The stone rattled up in between two stalactites and nestled there safely. As it settled into place, two tiny points on it twinkled, and Corran imagined it was Emtrey’s head and he’d just gotten confirmation of his theory from the droid. I was right! There is a way to escape!
The stun-bolt’s blue agony played over Corran. Once again every nerve in his body fired, every muscle tightened, and every joint creaked. Wracked by pain, he collapsed with the others and rolled onto his back. The world swam in and out of focus and he knew, this time, he was going to black out. That should have filled him with dread, but when he could see clearly, Emtrey looked at him from afar.
And looking at the stone, he knew he was looking down, which meant things for him were definitely looking up.
Evir Derricote, slaving with the other Imperial prisoners at the far end of the cavern, turned to look at the commotion the Rebels were causing, but he did not hurry to do so. It would have been beneath him to let them think their squabbles were of interest to him. Affecting an air of nonchalance, he turned and watched them disinterestedly.
Then he saw Corran Horn.
The diminutive Rebel had irked him the first time they had met, then had compounded his error by gloating over his part in taking Borleias. As the Rebel reared back to throw something, Derricote almost called out a warning to the guards, but something forestalled him. He watched Corran make his throw and saw a small missile shoot up toward the ceiling.
Derricote lost it in the shadows above and began to wonder what Horn was up to. The rock he had thrown clearly was insufficient to dislodge a stalactite or trigger a collapse of the ceiling. As unwise and annoying as Horn had appeared to be, Derricote never would have classed him as suicidal, yet if he was successful in an effort to dislodge a big piece of rock, it would drop straight down on him and the carpet of stunned prisoners covering the cavern floor.
The Imperial General saw Horn go down. The little fool will likely be hit by the rock he threw. Serves him right. Derricote almost turned away, but stopped to see if his prediction would come true.
It did not.
He did not see the stone fall back to the earth.
This started General Derricote thinking. He prided himself on being intelligent. He had, after all, created the Krytos virus. It was not his fault that Ysanne Isard’s expectations for it were unrealistic. He had done his best, but that was not good enough for her, so he ended up in her private prison, subject to her whims. The whims that imprisoned me can also free me.
Derricote could think of dozens of explanations for why the stone did not fall back to the cavern floor. The simplest explanation was that it had become lodged between stalactites. However, for that to happen, Horn would have to be incredibly lucky. He doubted the prisoners would have staged the sort of charade that shielded Horn’s effort just so he could test his luck in a place that, ultimately, housed those who were utterly without luck.
One by one Derricote examined and discarded explanations for the rock remaining on the ceiling and, at last, hit upon the only one that seemed to make sense. Iceheart has us standing on our heads. Any fool who tries to escape to the surface will just go deeper and deeper into her prison. Horn discovered this fact, tested his hypothesis,