by Kathy Tyers
Abruptly Luke lost contact. He doubled over, coughing, trapped by his weakening body on the hard cold deck of the Shriwirr.
“Sir?” Thanas’s pilot looked up worriedly. “Is something wrong?”
Pter Thanas blinked. For some reason, the image of Luke Skywalker had sprung into his mind. Dismissing it, he made a difficult decision. He must destroy the threat of contagion, no matter what it cost him.
Smoothly he shoved the control slide forward.
Leia leaned toward Han. “Kiss for luck?” she asked.
“Sure.” Those lips would be the last thing he felt.
He was about to touch them when she jerked back. “Luke!” she exclaimed. Chewbacca cried full-alert.
“What, Chewie?” Han spun toward the fore scanners. They claimed that the Dominant was plunging forward at irrational speed. “We must’ve taken another hit,” he exclaimed. “They’ve ionized our scanners again.”
Chewie bellowed: Change course!
Han slapped the full sensor array back on, then seized main controls. The Falcon’s cockpit grazed the patrol craft so close that it bent lateral antennae on both ships.
“All squadrons, follow us!” he cried. “There’s a break in the blockade!” He spoke aside to Leia, “We’ll get these Rebel regulars out of the danger zone, then double back to finish the Dominant.”
She didn’t answer.
Leia thrust her head against the back of her seat and concentrated on breathing. As plainly as she’d felt Luke’s sudden alarm and his effort, now his exhaustion paralyzed her.
Han shouted into his microphone, “Red group, Gold group, form up on me. We’ve got ’em between us!”
Out the viewport, Imperial forces shifted. Farther away, four X-wings and an A-wing hadn’t made it through the gap before it closed. Her eyes weren’t focusing properly. “Where’s that patrol craft we were going to ram?” she asked. Her hands shook.
“About ten kilometers to starboard.”
Chewie’s cry sounded exultant.
Luke? She gripped her armrests. What’s happening to you?
Luke covered his watering eyes and took several shallow breaths. It irritated him to think that Thanas didn’t care who won. He’d like to blast Pter Thanas and his forces out of the universe. The Ssi-ruuk, too. Yes, he was losing his temper. He no longer cared. He simply wanted to stop coughing.
The Dominant kept closing, growing perceptibly larger in the viewport.
“Dev, is this cruiser armed?”
“I assume so.” Dev reached down a hand.
“Find the …” Another cough racked him. “Find the weapons station.” Luke let Dev pull him up off the deck.
“Are you all right?”
Luke wasn’t. He teetered dangerously close to the dark side, but he didn’t care about that either. Leave me alone, Yoda. “I need a breath mask.”
“It wouldn’t fit.”
“I know. I’ve got to try something.” He had barely enough energy to focus his attention deep again and regain control. Strength flowed up to match his anger, dark and empowering.
Gasping, he flung the energy aside. In the Emperor’s throne room, he’d touched the dark side’s power. He could have destroyed Darth Vader … shared the throne, ruled the galaxy … and been destroyed with the second Death Star, if he hadn’t thrown away his lightsaber. Would he sell himself for a lesser temptation?
He stared out the viewport. The Dominant blasted another X-wing. I trusted you, Thanas. I trusted you. He’d had such hopes for the man. Had he read the Force wrong? And Leia and Han may have escaped for the moment, but until the Falcon’s energy banks recharged, they couldn’t go far. He had to save them.
He could save them easily, if he—
There will always be people who are strong for evil. His words to Gaeri came back to him. The stronger you become, the more you’re tempted.
Alien presences snagged his attention from above, on another deck.
“I found weaponry!” Dev cried.
Luke cleared himself of fear and desire and relaxed again into the Force, willfully ignoring the siren call to quick strength and power. He had renounced the darkness. That, not Thanas, was the enemy; and it lived inside him. He reached Dev’s side. “Can you get me a battle display?”
“I can try.” Dev stepped to another station and started jabbing keys. “You’ve got an ion cannon on line, I think. Try aiming it with that wheel key. Hurry.”
Luke glanced up at the overhead panel. The Dominant would be in range within minutes. “Let’s try a ranging shot.” He swiveled the keyboard into line with Dev’s battle array. “First target.” He rolled the wheel key and fired. Nothing happened on Dev’s screen. He relaxed deeper into the Force and shot again.
“There!” Dev pointed at a visible trail through battle debris.
“I see it.” Now a little to the left, widen the beam again, and …
One of the Shriwirr’s Ssi-ruuvi picket ships imploded. The remaining pair broke formation and shrank into distant points of light.
Now, it all came down to self-defense. A duel between crippled cruisers …
Something clicked overhead. Luke lunged aside and ignited his saber. Down to the deck dropped a brown Ssi-ruu and three P’w’ecks, each armed with a paddle beamer. Without pausing to think, he swung two-handed.
Dev skittered backward. “Master!” he shrieked.
Firwirrung swept away from the Jedi and brandished his crippled stump. “Traitor!” he sang. “Betrayer of all you held dear!”
Dev held the P’w’eck’s blaster on target, but he couldn’t shoot Firwirrung. They had shared a table. He’d slept at the edge of Firwirrung’s nest, a pet at its master’s feet. His eyes watered. What to do?
“Traitor!” Firwirrung bellowed. “Ungrateful beast!” Wrong-handed, the Ssi-ruu swept a silver beam mercilessly and accurately through Dev’s shoulders.
Dev crumpled. He fell on his back, bitterly regretting his relapse. Too late, too late. He craned his neck, almost all he could move. The Ssi-ruu spun toward Luke. “Look out!” Dev cried.
Again Luke’s thoughts threatened to betray him. Your hatred has made you powerful, spoken in the Emperor’s cracking voice, spun a web through his memory. He needed power—now. Sweeping his saber blindly, he dispatched the third and last P’w’eck. As Dev fell, the Ssi-ruu aimed his paddle at Luke.
By sheer force of will, Luke snuffed out anger and fear. Aggression, too: Quick power brought temporary triumph, but it seduced and betrayed the wielder. I will not turn! Not if I die for it. He leaped into a short suspended somersault and grabbed both edges of the overhead trapdoor, knowing the big Ssi-ruu would have him in another moment. He could do no more on his own. This was the end.
A simultaneous flash from all status screens almost blinded him as he dropped. Expending the dregs of his power, he hung in midair for a full second. Sheets of energy swept the bridge deck. Commander Thanas must have struck. Luke curled up and let himself fall. Bulkheads, decks, and instruments sparkled before they went dim. Then all lights failed, even status screens. He hit the deck and bounced gently upward again.
Gravitics blown too?
He sensed Dev’s presence, but not the alien’s. Cautiously, coughing in darkness that only the viewport illuminated, he settled back onto deck tiles. The Shriwirr’s forward momentum gave it some natural, directional pull. “Dev?”
“Here,” croaked the boy, from the direction where artificial gravity had been.
Luke felt himself slide toward one bulkhead. He grasped something huge, hot, and scaly that reeked as if steaming. “Where?” he asked. “Dev?”
“Here. My deck shoes and clothes … insulated me a little.”
Luke groped along the alien body and found a human form lying close by. Painfully hot, it slid toward the bulkhead with him. “My eyes,” moaned Dev. “My head’s hot. It’s burning.”
“Are you in any other pain?” Luke asked urgently.
“I can’t … feel anything
below my shoulders, where he … clipped me.”
“There’s almost no light in here,” Luke said, “I don’t think you’re blinded.”
“Bridge … probably hit. Shield overload.”
Luke’s shoulder struck a bulkhead that stopped his slide. He and Dev lodged in the corner. He reached up and found the underside of a console. At least they’d stay here for a while.
Had the Force betrayed him?
He gulped and coughed. He’d resisted the dark side. Darkness favored death. Commander Thanas’s blast had killed the V-crested Ssi-ruu, but at what cost to Dev?
I’m tired, Yoda. I don’t have time for philosophy. Let me rest. He hunched forward, coughing uncontrollably.
“Are you all right?” Dev asked.
Residual heat from the deck and bulkhead stifled him. Leia, he called. Leia? Too weak to make contact, he projected his slight, returning strength into the youngster. At first, he could only tweak Dev’s pain perception. Dev sighed, relaxing tangibly.
As Luke lent power to Dev, he felt his focus strengthen. “Dev,” he urged. “Open your mind to me.” As he’d shown Eppie Belden how she might heal herself, he gave Dev that knowledge. “Draw on your strength,” Luke insisted. “You can do it. I’ve got to get us off this ship—”
A horrendous cough interrupted him. Automatically, he turned the healing focus onto his chest.
Two greedy pinpoints of life gleamed with primitive instincts: Eat. Cling. Reproduce. Survive.
A blast of understanding underscored his panic. He tried to touch minds with one of the pinpoints, but it had no mind. It ate its way instinctively toward blood. It was chewing through a bronchial tube toward his heart. Reduced to a single instinct, himself—survive!—he curled toward the bulkhead.
• • •
Leia clenched the armrests of her cockpit chair, frightened nearly numb. The star field dipped and swirled in the viewport. She stared at the Ssi-ruuvi cruiser, which drifted directionless like a huge blistered egg.
“The kid bought us breathing room,” Han muttered. “I’ve almost got everybody out of the globe. Is he okay?”
“No! We’ve got to help him!”
Han’s head turned sharply. “He’s not dead, is he?”
“I can’t feel him any more.” She let him hear her desperation.
Han glanced at the sensor boards and examined the alien cruiser. “Thanas scored an awfully good hit. All power’s gone. Hull’s breached. She’s leaking air.”
“But it’s Luke. He could be shielded by some kind of energy field or obstruction.” She couldn’t relinquish hope. “Can we get in close? Sneak on board?”
“Maybe.” Han worked controls, stirring the stars. “I’ll try to get closer. Maybe a docking bay—” He swooped at an edge of the Imperial formation. From the dorsal quad gun, Chewie scored a lucky hit on a patrol craft’s energy banks. Waves of debris followed the Falcon away. So did the rest of the Rebel forces. “There!” he exclaimed. “Now let’s get behind that cruiser, where the Dominant can’t fire on us.”
“Rogue Leader to Falcon,” announced Wedge’s voice over the intersquad link, “we’re clear to run at the Dominant.”
“Wait!” Leia exclaimed. “Bully Commander Thanas into changing course so he can’t hit the Ssi-ruuvi ship again, but don’t destroy him. The Rebellion could use an Imperial cruiser.”
“Spoils of battle, Your Highness?” Wedge chuckled. “Will do. If possible. Somehow I doubt the Empire will let us have her.”
“Yeah,” muttered Han. “Nice thought, but he’s certainly got a self-destruct.”
“Wedge, just give Commander Thanas a clear message,” Leia insisted. “We’re not stooping to his tactics.”
The egg-shaped cruiser loomed closer. Han steered low along its surface, looking for a place to dock the Falcon. We’re coming, Luke, Leia thought. A terrifying stillness hung where his presence had been.
CHAPTER
20
Gloom settled over Gaeriel like a sticky gray rain cloud when Commander Thanas’s Dominant blasted the alien cruiser. Governor Nereus laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Come, Gaeriel, you knew that he could not survive. If he returned to Bakura, the plague that followed would make destruction by the Death Star look like a quick, pleasant end to civilization.”
She slipped out from under his hand.
Still gloating, he sat down at his ivory desk and summoned a quartet of stormtrooper guards. “Soon, Imperial peace will reign on Bakura. A single pivotal troublemaker remains to be dealt with.”
She braced herself to leap before the stormtroopers could fire, but he raised a hand. “You overestimate your importance.” He touched his console and ordered, “Bring up the prime minister.”
Uncle Yeorg? “No!” Gaeriel exclaimed. “He’s a good man. Bakura needs him. You can’t—”
“He has become a symbol. I have tried to be lenient with Bakura, and it betrays my good intentions. I give up. I must operate like any other Imperial governor, branding the terror of the Empire on Bakuran hearts. Unless—” He stroked his chin. “Unless he, or another representative of the Captison family, would publicly ask Bakura to accept me as his successor. You could save your uncle’s life, Gaeriel. Tell me you’ll do so, within three minutes, and he’ll survive.”
Conscience jabbed her from both sides. She couldn’t allow Governor Nereus to execute Uncle Yeorg, but neither could she ask Bakura to lie down for Wilek Nereus. Again she braced herself to jump him. Two troopers raised blast rifles.
“Bodyguard training.” Governor Nereus smiled. “They’re watching you.”
Gaeri stared around Governor Nereus’s office, taking in plaques, tri-Ds, and crystals. Teeth, parasites, what other loathsome interests did he keep hidden? “You say you’d let him live. But would you? Or would you infect him with some parasite, like Eppie Belden? That’s not alive.”
“Orn Belden thought so.”
Another trooper entered, pushing her manacled uncle with the business end of a blast rifle. Yeorg stood straight-shouldered, looking taller in her eyes than Nereus could, for all the governor’s bulk.
“One offer, Captison, one minute to accept,” Nereus announced. “Get on the tri-D. Tell your people to lay down their weapons and submit to Imperial rule. To me, as your designated successor. Or die here with your niece watching.”
Yeorg Captison didn’t hesitate. He pulled his shoulders back, creating dignity out of an old, torn Bakuran uniform tunic. “I’m sorry, Gaeri. Don’t watch. Remember me bravely.”
“Gaeriel?” Governor Nereus licked his upper lip. “Will you make the broadcast? Perhaps I could sweeten the pot—”
At that instant, the trooper beyond Uncle Yeorg buckled and fell. A piercing electronic whine rose from all five troopers’ helmets. Gaeri leaped for the nearest incapacitated trooper, seized his rifle, and waved it in Governor Nereus’s general direction. Evidently he’d hesitated. His ornamental blaster remained in his crossdraw holster.
All five stormtroopers writhed. Even from a distance, the whine hurt her ears. What was going on? “Take off your blaster, Nereus,” she said shakily. Whatever this was, it looked like her chance.
“You don’t even know how to find the safety,” he answered, but he kept both hands on the ivory desktop. Clumsily, Uncle Yeorg seized another helpless trooper’s blast rifle with his fingertips. His wrist-bound grip looked ineffectual, but at least the trooper didn’t have the rifle any more.
Governor Nereus’s command console flashed and went black. The door slid open. Eppie Belden marched in with a spring in her step surprising for a woman of 132. Her round-faced caregiver, Clis, slunk behind. Eppie brandished a blaster with competent ease. “Hah,” she exclaimed. “Got ’em all.” She strode straight to Governor Nereus and lifted the blaster from his holster, then disarmed the other stormtroopers. “Clis,” she ordered, “get a vibroknife and cut Yeorg out of those binders.” Clis hustled out, pale and obviously ill at ease in a confrontation. Gaeri sympathized w
ith Clis. It was Eppie’s bravura that startled her.
“You,” Eppie snarled at Governor Nereus. “If those hands move, you’re dead. Do you understand?”
“Who are you, old woman?”
Eppie laughed. “Start guessing, youngster. I’m Orn Belden’s revenge.”
Belden: Nereus’s lips formed the word. “You can’t be here,” he cried. “Scarring of the neocortex is permanent.”
“Tell that to Commander Skywalker.”
Governor Nereus’s cheek twitched. “Skywalker is dead, by now! They’ll eat him alive. Inside out—”
Eppie seemed to shrink. “Coward.” She leveled her blaster at his chest, silencing him. He pulled a deep breath, clenching and unclenching his fists. The tableau held for several breaths, then Eppie lowered the blaster slightly. “I’m giving you to the Rebels,” she growled. “I’d had it in mind to let Bakura set up a revolutionary tribunal, but if you’ve killed the Rebels’ Jedi, I have a guess they’ll take a stiffer revenge out of your lousy hide than Bakura would.”
Gaeri wished Eppie’d just kill him now—obviously she had the guts to do it—but evidently Eppie had other ideas. Gaeri glanced out the office window. Another stormtrooper lay writhing on the greenway path. Still another wrenched off his lumpish white helmet and flung it aside, then knelt, covering his ears with his hands and shaking his head.
“Where were you, Eppie?” Gaeri asked.
“Close by, in the complex,” she muttered. “Is it true, what he said about Skywalker?”
“We don’t have any confirmation that he’s dead, but Governor Nereus … infected him. How did you do this?” She waved a hand, taking in Nereus’s command center and the limp stormtroopers.
Eppie stared at Nereus. “A couple of dozen old friends who are still in high places, with good access codes,” she said. “An alien invasion force that kept most of his troopers too busy to watch their backs. And one new ally.” She called back over her shoulder, “Come on in.”
Through the doorway rolled Luke’s droid, Artoo-Detoo. “When the emergency patrol took you away,” said Eppie, “he got to a master terminal and called me in. I sent out a friend to fetch him. This little guy’s worth his weight in reactor fuel on the master circuits.”