"Listen, pal, don"t worry about how long I-"
"Shhh!" Luke said. He peered through the halffogged cover plate on the recycler"s door again. True, there were six men only a few meters away; then again, four of them sat at a table, playing cards,.blast rifles stacked against the wall. Two others stood near the cardplayers, watching and apparently offering advice, but they had their weapons slung over their shoulders. Dash was right. If they moved fast, they could cover the guards before they had a chance to unship their rifles; they could disarm them, tie them up, and be on their way with n.o.body the wiser. The trick was to do it before one of the guards got his comlink out to call for help.
Luke moved away from the cover plate and crouched in the mire with the others. "Okay, here"s the deal. Dash, you pop the hatch; I"ll go first; Chewie is behind me, then Lando. You come last."
"Whoa, why that order?" Dash whispered. "And who put you in charge?"
"I can stop a bolt with my lightsaber if one of the guards is some kind of quick-draw expert. Chewie is pretty impressive with his bowcaster; they"ll pay more attention to him than you or Lando. Plus he"s a better shot if it comes to that."
"Not a better shot than I am. And it"d be a lot easier just to jump out and mow "em all down," Dash said. "We hit "em fast and hard, they"re history."
"That"s the difference between us and the Empire," Luke said. "They wouldn"t hesitate to do it that way. We don"t shoot unless we have to."
"Fine. Get us all killed being a nice guy."
Luke shook his head. A Jedi had to know how to be active if the situation required it, but a Jedi was also supposed to avoid violence whenever he could possibly do so. "Warrior" and "killer" did not mean the same thing.
"Okay. Ready?" Luke held the lightsaber down low so the glow wouldn"t give them away and clicked it on. He took a couple of deep breaths.
"On three. One... two... threel"
Dash shoved the hatch open-Luke leaped out, brought his lightsaber up into aready stance-"n.o.body move!" he yelled-Chewie jumped out behind him- - the Wookiee"s wet feet slid on the floor as if he were wearing ice skates, and he fell flat on his back-Lando tried to leap over Chewie but tripped on thefallen Wookiee and sprawled facedown-The startled guards leaped up and went for their weapons-Oh, man!
Leia was sitting on the bed, when all of a sudden she felt a hot jolt of fear. What-?
They might be stuck in a lousy a.s.signment, but the guards weren"t slow.
The two standing unslung their blast rifles and swung them up, fired-Luke blocked the first bolt, shifted in the Force, blocked the second-Dash dived over Lando and Chewie, shoulder-rolled once, stretched out p.r.o.ne, fired once, twice, threetimes-The two standing guards went down, but anotherone spun away from the wall, blast rifle spewing-Chewie sat up, and the bowcaster spoke-The third guard went down, but the fourth one shotat them-Luke barely blocked a beam that vibrated his hands and arms hard, but the reflected bolt hit one of the overhead lamps and shattered it; the room went dimmer-Dash"s blaster spat hard light again and again;Chewie"s bowcaster thrummed-The guards were all down now, save one, but he didn"t have a gun, he was yelling-Yelling into a comlink-Lando shot the last guard and he dropped; the comlink flew from his hand and rolled to a stop next to Luke"s boots.
From the comlink came a tinny voice: "Thix? What is going on down there?
Thix? Come in, sector oneone-three-eight, come in-"
Chewie came to his feet. The Wookiee shrugged and looked embarra.s.sed.
Luke shook his head. Stomped down on the squawking comlink with his boot heel and smashed it. "So much for sneaking in quietly," Lando said.
Xizor was paying the cultural minister his monthly bribe when Guri stepped into the room. The Dark Prince made polite noises and dismissed the minister.
When the man was gone, he said, "What?"
"A problem in the sub-subbas.e.m.e.nt."
"What kind of problem?"
She shrugged. "We don"t know. That area is still not wired for surveillance and the guards are not answering."
"Another communication failure," he said. That happened a lot down where the pipes and conduits and heavy durasteel beams were thick, some kind of com wave interference the engineers had not been able to resolve. Dead spots, they called them. "It"s either a com glitch-or Skywalker is faster and smarter than we thought. Have the drain sensors picked up any armies marching in under the building?"
"No."
"Good. If it is Skywalker, he"s probably alone, or perhaps the Wookiee is with him. Send a unit to check it out."
"Two squads are already on the way," she said.
"Good. Send in the Moff on your way out. There is nothing to worry about.
There really wasn"t anything to be worried about, he told himself. One boy wasn"t going to get past his security, no matter how lucky he was.
Luke and the others ran. So far, the floor plan they"d memorized was accurate, but it was too big to have learned it all, and there was a chance they might blunder into a dead end if they weren"t careful. Still, speed was the most important thing now; the place was alerted. They"d have to risk it-they couldn"t afford to take the guided tour.
Chewie knew where Leia was, and he was in the lead. The quartet came around a sharp corner in a wide corridor and nearly ran into four more guards.
Everybody who had a blaster started shooting.
From the comlink on Luke"s belt, Threepio"s strident and excited voice suddenly began calling: "Master Luke, Master Luke!"
Luke blocked an incoming blaster beam. He yelled at the comlink but left it on his belt: "We"re busy here, Threepio!"
"But Master Luke, there are men coming toward the ship! Men with guns!"
Great. Just what he needed.
Luke deflected another beam, leaped forward, and found himself within reach of the man who"d shot at him. He whipped the lightsaber down, and the hand holding the blaster dropped to the floor. Luke spun and thrust a side kick at the guard, hit him squarely on the nose, and knocked him flat.
The other guards were all down as well. Luke pointed the way the guards had just come. "That way - it ought to be clear!"
As they ran, he pulled his comlink from his belt. "Threepio?"
"Oh, dear, oh, dear!"
"Threepio!"
"Master Luke. Oh, what shall we do?"
"Take the ship out of there, now! Just like we talked about. Artoo knows the systems; you can operate the controls. Call me back when you"re in the air. Keep it suborbital and under the stratospheric security scanners, you got that?"
"Yes, Master Luke!"
"Go!"
Leia felt something in the air. A sense of impending... something she couldn"t quite touch. Luke. Luke was here. She began to gather the parts of her disguise.
We"ve lost contact with the second unit of guards," Guri told Xizor.
"Same area?"
"No. Four levels up."
Hmm. That was well above the normal area of com problems in the castle.
And an unlikely coincidence. "Put security on full alert."
"Already done," she said. Could it be Skywalker? Had he somehow gotten into the castle without being detected? Or was it someone else? "Cancel my appointments. Go and fetch Princess Leia. Bring her to my strong room."
Chewie led them up another eight or ten floors before they ran into another group of guards. The exchange of blaster fire was fast, the air full of crackling energy, yelling men, the smell of burned wall and ozone.
Dash was right about one thing: He could shoot. He nailed three guards with three shots-zap, zap, zap! - as fast as anybody Luke had ever seen.
Luke himself deflected or blocked the bolts that came his way, the ricochets adding to the general confusion. Chewie and Lando pounded away with their weapons. The guards were not bad, but they weren"t desperate.
They were shooting for pay; Luke and his friends were shooting for their lives. The last guard standing turned and ran. Chewie spiked him and he did a belly flop onto the floor and skidded two meters before veering into a side wall and thumping to a halt.
"Go, go, go!"
Leia felt somebody approaching her room. Intuition, she guessed, but she trusted it. She grabbed one of the chairs and slid it next to the door.
Stood on the back of it, balanced carefully against the wall, the heavy bounty hunter"s helmet clutched tightly in her hands.
The door opened, and Guri stepped into the room. She was fast, but Leia had already started moving. Before Guri could turn, Leia hammered the back of her head with the helmet. It was a powerful blow and would have knocked a human woman unconscious. As it was, the impact was enough to off-balance the droid, and she stumbled forward.
That was enough for Leia to leap from the chair and scoot out of the room into the hall. She slapped the door control-Guri recovered and was on the way back, when the door shut. Leia jammed the lock mechanism closed-The door shook from Guri"s impact.
The next hit splintered the heavy plastic, spider-webbed it with tiny cracks. It wasn"t going to hold her long, Leia knew. She turned and ran.
Chewie led them up a stairwell a dozen levels above where they"d entered the castle. "Master Luke? We have successfully left the building."
Threepio.
Luke pulled his comlink so he wouldn"t have to yell at it. "Where are you?"
"Somewhere in the sky, Master Luke, I-what? Oh, be quiet, I"m flying it correctly, it-ah! Ahh!"
"Threepio?"
There was a moment of silence. Then a crunching noise. "I saw it, you blithering ash can! If you hadn"t distracted me I would have turned in time."
"Threepio, what is going on?"
Luke heard Artoo whistling frantically in the background. "Shut up, you twit! It was not my fault!"
"Threepio?" The droid said, "What? Where? Oh, no!" There came a sound like breaking gla.s.s.
"Threepio!"
"I"m sorry, Master Luke. Thanks to Artoo"s woefully inadequate instructions, we"ve accidentally destroyed an advertising billboard and a broadcasting tower. No, I don"t think we hit that hover van, we just brushed it. Yes, it was too your fault! If you hadn"t been jabbering at me like an overheated teakettle, I would have-"
"Threepio, stop talking to Artoo and tell me what is going on."
"We are flying somewhat low to the ground because Artoo said we should, but I do think we should climb a bit higher. No, I don"t care how much astronavigation you know, I am flying the ship now. Just give me the directions."
"All right. Listen. Bring the Falcon to the coordinates I told you.
Hurry. And gain enough alt.i.tude so you don"t hit anything."
"You see? I told you we were too low, but no, no one can tell you anything, you know it all-"
"Threepio!"
"Yes, Master Luke. We are on the way. No, I don"t think we should go that way, that building is much too tall, we should go this way, oh, look out"
Luke had to break the connection then. There was a door just ahead of them, a heavy fireproof door, and it was locked.
Lando leveled his blaster at it, but Luke stopped him. "Don"t. It"s magnetically shielded. That will bounce off and maybe hit one of us."
"How are we supposed to get through it, then?"
"Stand back. Let"s see if it will stop a lightsaber."
He lit the blade.
The door would not stop a lightsaber.
They went through and continued to climb.
Guri burst into Xizor"s strong room. He blinked at her. "What?"
"She got away. She was waiting when I got there. She struck me from behind. I am undamaged but it gave her enough time to slip out."
"Blast!" Xizor could not control his outburst. This" was not good. This was his castle, and things were getting out of control. Had he underestimated Skywalker? Apparently so. Time to correct that.
He moved to a desk, opened a sliding panel. Removed from the hidden compartment a sleek and highpowered blaster.
"All right. Let"s go find her. And whoever is causing these problems."
"Hold up a second," Lando said.
"What? Why?"
Lando pointed at a junction box inset into the wall."This is a security breaker."
"So?"
"Move to that side." Everybody did. Lando fired a blaster bolt into the simple lock mechanism, swung the thin plate open. "The surveillance holocams and sensors are routed through these fiber-optic cables." He waved his blasterat several finger-thick translucent white wires.
"How do you know that?"