Star Wars - Shadows of the Empire

by Shadows Of The Empire (by Steve Perry)

  Guri looked at him.

  He waved the blaster at the images. "They're blow- ing out the breakers so we won't see them. If they'd gotten to eighteen yet, that floor would also be gone.

  Come on." "We don't know how many of them there are," Guri said. "We've lost at least a dozen guards. It is too dan- gerous for you to go there." "I will be the judge of what is too dangerous," he said. "And since we know it is Skywalker, this is where it ends. I will dispatch him personally!" He would not be embarrassed in his own castle.

  So what... is... the plan?" Leia said, breathless.

  "We get out of here," Luke said. "Get to the Falcon and get offworld as fast as we can." As if to head off her much-repeated amazement, he said, "Threepio and Artoo can do it." She shook her head.

  Chewie said something, and Leia guessed that the Wookiee wasn't too pleased with their new pilots, ei- ther.

  "Listen," Lando said, "if we don't get out of here, it doesn't matter who is flying what. Come on." Leia nodded. Lando had a good grasp of the situa- tion.

  Dash said, "The man is right." Luke said, "Nobody will think we're stupid enough to go up. They'll look for us to try and leave at ground level." Lando laughed. "Yeah, that's the problem with our opposition-they keep thinking nobody could possibly be as stupid as we are. Fools 'em every time." Leia shook her head again. She now carried a blaster somebody had taken from one of the fallen guards along the way, and that made her feel a little better.

  Not much better, but a little. She'd seen enough of Xizor to realize that if they couldn't escape, it would be better if he didn't take them alive. Beneath that charm- ing facade lurked a monster, and she had no intention of falling into his hands again.

  Xizor and Guri stepped into the turbolift. "Level twenty," Xizor ordered. "We'll wait for them there." The turbolift dropped, gave him a moment of free fall that fluttered in his belly like a trapped bird trying to escape. Despite the anger he felt at being invaded, there was a sense of excitement about all this. It wasn't very often he got to dispatch people with his own hands. He was certain that the castle-breakers included Luke Skywalker. For daring to get this far, he would take particular pleasure in killing the boy.

  He took a deep breath, exhaled part of it, fought for control. It was not seemly to allow his emotions such free play. Then again, there was no one here but Guri and his staff. He didn't care what she thought, and his guards were going to be replaced to a man after this was over. Failure of one was, as far as Xizor was con- cerned, failure of all. And those other than foot soldiers -the supervisors-would find their dismissals particu- larly painful.

  The turbolift slowed. His weight seemed to increase as the floor of the lift pressed harder against the soles of his boots.

  "Level twenty," the turbolift announced.

  The door slid wide.

  Xizor raised the blaster to point at the ceiling next to his right ear in a ready-carry position. He spent a few hours a week practicing at his personal firing range. He was an excellent shot.

  Guri bore no weapon; though she also excelled at marksmanship, she seldom needed to use a blaster.

  They stepped out into the corridor.

  Level twenty," Dash said. "Stairs end here, we'll have to zip in and find another set." "How many levels are in this place?" "As I recall, a hundred and two aboveground." "Oh, man," Lando said. "And we have to go all the way to the roof?" "No, there's a landing pad extending out from level fifty," Luke said.

  "That's nothing. Another thirty flights, we won't even be breathing hard," Dash said.

  "I can barely breathe now," Lando said.

  "You're getting old, Calrissian." "Yeah, and I'd like to get a lot older, too." "There should be another set of stairs across the hall and down about sixty meters," Luke said. "Let's move." They moved.

  Xizor saw them first because Guri was opening a side door looking to see if they were already here and hid- ing. Five of them, Leia included. The Wookiee was there-he should have expected him to come back for her-and three men. One of them was dark-skinned; that would be the gambler. Another one was not some- body he recognized, and the third was Skywalker.

  The Dark Prince smiled. Turned sideways, lowered his blaster, and extended it one-handed, his free hand on his opposite hip, just as if he were shooting targets in a sanctioned competition. Lined his sights up on Skywalker's left eye, let out half his breath, held it, squeezed the trigger gently...

  Luke spotted the tall alien just as he brought his blaster to bear.

  Uh-oh. Looked like the guy had spent a lot of time at the range.

  He jerked his lightsaber from his belt, flicked it on, and let the Force claim him- The deadly lance of energy rocketed at Luke- His lightsaber came across, an inward move, and stopped as if by its own volition in front of his face, blocking the view from his left eye- He felt the impact as the energy of his blade de- flected the energy of the incoming bolt. It would have hit him right in the eye- The alien fired again- Again the lightsaber moved, directed by the Force.

  Another beam splashed harmlessly against the hand- made Jedi weapon and bounced back and down, hit the floor, and burned through- Xizor frowned. How could he do that? He couldn't be that fast!

  He fired again- Guri leaped out into the corridor. She held a chair, a heavy metal thing with casters on the bottom. She hurled it down the hallway as if it weighed no more than a pebble Look out!" Luke yelled.

  A chair pinwheeled at him. He couldn't use his saber to cut it down, and risk another bolt from the shooter- Chewie stepped forward, level with Luke, brought his bowcaster up, fired- The chair exploded into shrapnel and sprayed them with a prickly hail- Leia saw Xizor and Guri in front of them. She snapped her borrowed blaster up and fired. Saw imme- diately that she was too high, tried to lower her sights- Xizor realized two things: He was outgunned, and Skywalker could stop his fire. He was more startled than afraid, but he knew he had to get out of the hall fast. "Move!" he yelled at Guri.

  She stepped in front of him and blocked him from the five down the hall as he stepped into the empty room from where she'd gotten the chair. A second later she joined him.

  "That's an interesting trick he does with that light- saber," Xizor observed.

  "He is related to Vader," she said. "Shall I call the guards now?" He sighed. "Call them." She was already speaking into her comlink.

  "That was Xizor!" Leia yelled.

  "Good. Let's get him!" Luke yelled back.

  "I don't think so," Lando said. "Look!" A dozen guards rounded the far end of the corridor and started shooting.

  "In there!" Dash yelled.

  There was a door to their left. Chewie opened it by smashing through it. Leia followed him, Lando and Dash behind her. Luke went last, blocking and batting aside beams that zipped at them like angry hornets.

  Inside the room, some kind of office, they looked at each other.

  "Now what?" Leia said.

  Blaster bolts continued to whiz past the destroyed doorway.

  Lando looked at Luke, who nodded. "Well," Lando said, "it's time for desperate measures." He reached into the small backpack he wore and came out with a round, silvery ball about the size of a man's fist. There were some controls, a finger-wide slot around the ball's equator and what looked like some kind of electronic diode on the top and in the slot.

  Leia looked at the shiny ball, then at Luke. He nod- ded at Dash.

  More blaster bolts sizzled past. They apparently hadn't noticed out there yet nobody was shooting back.

  Dash took the ball from Lando. "It's a thermal deto- nator," he said. "Lando's got three of them. They run on a timer or a deadman's switch. Flip that switch right there, press that button in and hold it. If you let go without disarming the deadman's switch first, it goes off." "And does what, exactly?" "Makes a small thermonuclear fusion reaction." "A small thermonuclear fusion reaction," she said.

  "Yeah, just enough to vaporize a good-size chunk of whatever is next to it." "I see. That includes us if it goes off in
here, right?" "Right. But we're betting your friend the leader of Black Sun won't want us to trigger it while he's around, not to mention what it would do to his castle." She nodded. "Let me see it." Dash's eyes went wide. Luke nodded at him.

  Leia took the device, examined it. "And if you don't use the deadman's switch?" "It runs on a timer. The default setting is five min- utes. If you lock it in, here, once the timer starts, no- body can turn it off." "Got it." She hefted the metal ball, then tucked it inside the bounty hunter's helmet hooked to her belt.

  The males all looked at each other. Luke said, "Uh, Leia..." "You said you had more of them, right? I want to hang on to this one. It might come in handy." Luke shrugged. "Okay. We bought it with your money anyhow." The blaster bolts outside the doorway stopped.

  "I guess we'd better have a little talk with Xizor," Luke said.

  Lando handed him another of the thermal detona- tors. Luke touched the controls. The device started making a beeping sound. Tiny lights winked on and off.

  Luke took a deep breath.

  Xizor moved out into the hall behind the dozen or so guards who moved toward an open door across from where he and Guri had ducked.

  He heard a small noise, a repetitive beep. What was that?

  Skywalker stepped out into the hall. The guards pointed their blasters, but the boy didn't have his light- saber in hand. Instead, he held some kind of small de- vice- Xizor had not always been an armchair commander.

  He had paid his dues in head-knocking and strongarm work, and he knew a bomb when he saw one.

  "Don't shoot!" he yelled. "Lower your weapons!" The guards looked at him as if he had gone mad, but they obeyed.

  "Good idea," Luke said.

  The other intruders and Leia moved out into the hall behind Skywalker.

  The beep was suddenly very loud in the silence. Tiny lights blinked on the device.

  "You know what this is?" Skywalker said.

  "I have a pretty good idea," Xizor said.

  "It's rigged with a deadman's switch," Luke said. "If I let it go..." There was no need to finish that sentence.

  "What do you want?" "To leave. My friends and I." "If you release the bomb, you'll die. So will your friends." He glanced at Leia. That would be such a waste.

  The boy shrugged. "Like it stands, we're dead any- way. We have nothing to lose. How about you? You ready to give all this up?" He waved at the building around them. "This is a Class-A thermal detonator, you know what that means?" Some of the guards knew, to judge from the sudden intakes of breath and muttered curses.

  "I think you're bluffing." "Only one way to find out. Your move." Xizor thought about it. If the boy wasn't bluffing and somebody shot him, a Class-A TD would take out; several floors of this building in a heartbeat. With that many of the support girders erased, the eighty-odd sto- ries above would collapse. The structure might topple like a logged tree, to smash into the streets below. Or it might telescope straight down and flatten whatever base remained. Either way, the castle would be a total loss-as would anybody trapped inside it.

  He could build another castle. But if the bomb went off this close, he wouldn't be around to do that. Was he willing to risk all he had worked for, his very life itself, that Skywalker was not suicidal? He was Vader's rela- tive, wasn't he? Vader wouldn't bluff. And these Alli- ance types had demonstrated over and over again how brave they were against overwhelming odds.

  No. He could not take the chance.

  "All right. Leave. Nobody will stop you." Alive, he would be able to chase them down. Dead, well, dead was dead.

  Four of them edged past the guards, who nearly fell over themselves trying to get out of the way, as if a few meters would make any difference. Fools.

  Skywalker stood facing him alone.

  Xizor watched the others walk away. Maybe Guri could move fast enough to grab the thing before it ex- ploded- Where was Guri?

  Maybe he could try a bluff, Xizor thought. To Skywalker, he said, "You've caused me a great deal of trouble." "That's too bad," the boy said. "You had it com- ing." "I could still shoot you." "You could try." He still held the lightsaber. He flicked it on, held it loosely in one hand.

  "I could shoot one of the others. Your friend the Wookiee. Or the princess." "We'd all be vapor before he hit the floor. You in- cluded." It was a standoff, and Skywalker knew it.

  Xizor looked around. Suddenly the four stopped.

  The dark man reached into his pack and produced an- other shining ball.

  Xizor smirked, said, "What's the point of that? You can't blow us up any more with two of those." The dark man grinned. There was a garbage chute next to him, and he opened it. It led to the recycling bins in the sub-subbasement. He flipped a control on the device. It started beeping and flashing- Xizor had an awful premonition. He yelled, "No!" But the man tossed the bomb into the chute.

  "You have five minutes to leave the building," the dark man said. "If I were you I'd get moving." Xizor spun, faced his guards. "Get to the turbolifts, get to the basement, and find that device! Get it out of here!" But he was wasting his time. The guards panicked.

  They broke and ran, yelling frantically. They nearly knocked him over.

  By the time he'd recovered, Skywalker and Leia and the others had gone, and the guards were hurrying to do the same.

  Blast!

  In five minutes, Xizor's castle was going to be de- stroyed.

  Xizor ran, too. He had a private express turbolift. If he hurried, he'd have plenty of time to get to his per- sonal ship and get clear.

  His emotions raged uncontrolled. A cold fire cooked his reason into deadly anger. He would get his ship and he would follow them-to the end of the whole galaxy if he had to.

  Then they were going to pay for this with their lives..39 They took the lift and told it to hurry. Less than a minute later, they were on level fifty. During the trip, Luke shut the thermal detonator off and gave it back to Lando. It wasn't likely Xizor would have much luck getting guards to chase them now. Anybody with half a working brain would be heading for the nearest exit, especially given the alarms blaring so loud it was hard to think. Probably one of the outgoing guards had tripped the warning hooter.

  They should have plenty of time to make their own escape- If Threepio and Artoo had gotten there.

  If not, they weren't going to have long to regret it.

  The doors opened, and as they exited, twenty or thirty very excited people jammed in past them, stuffed the lift so full there was no room left. Those people who couldn't make it cursed or screamed or cried, moved to the next turbolift door, and pounded on the call button.

  "Must be quitting time," Dash observed.

  "They have four whole minutes," Lando said, his voice dry. "Better hurry." "That's cold," Luke said.

  "They should have thought about that when they: decided to go to work for Black Sun," Lando said. "It's, a high-risk operation, being a crook." "The landing pad ought to be that way," Dash said.

  "Come on." There didn't seem to be many people left in the hall.

  As they watched, another turbolift arrived, and what room there was-it was already half full of people, pre- sumably from floors higher up-was quickly taken.

  When the doors closed, the five of them appeared to be alone.

  They hurried in the direction Dash remembered was the right one.

  Fifty meters down the hall, Luke heard something.

  He reached out with the Force, couldn't find anything.

  He waved the others on. "Go ahead, I'll be right there!" They did as he said.

  He pulled his lightsaber, flicked it on- "Behold the Jedi Knight," a woman said. "The man of legend." He turned. The woman called Guri stood there. A droid. Lando had described her in great detail on the way here.

  "You have caused my master much misfortune," she said. "You should die for that." Luke aimed the sword point at her. She didn't seem to be carrying any kind of weapon that he could see, but Lando had told him how fast she was. And how strong.r />
  "But you have that blade and I am unarmed," she said. She held her hands away from her sides, empty palms facing him.

  He had maybe three minutes. The smart thing to do would be to cut her down and get moving. Or at least herd her out of the way using his sword and head for the rendezvous with-he hoped-the Falcon.

  But-why start doing the smart thing now?

  He clicked the lightsaber off, rehooked it to his belt, made sure it was securely fastened. "What do you want?" "A test," she said. "My master pits himself against the deadliest opponents he can find. There is no man who is my equal in hand-to-hand combat. Except per- haps, if the stories are true, a Jedi Knight." "This building is going to blow to pieces in three minutes," he said. "And you want to play games?" "It won't take that long. Are you afraid to die, Skywalker?" Yes, of course he was- But then, in a moment, he realized that he really wasn't.