Star Wars - Truce at Bakura Page 28

  deep Ssi-ruuvi whistles.

  Muffled answer "Yes."

  "Good." Luke extended the saber's blade. The chamber lit eerie green, and

  the aliens' alarmed whistles rose to shrieks. Two black eyes reflected the

  saber a moment before it sliced below them. Another alien bellowed. Luke spun

  and decapitated it.

  Big Blue--it was him, at the hatch--finally kicked it in and escaped.

  Another followed him into the bright corridor.

  "Now what?" Dev shouted.

  "Stay low!" Three mechanical shapes that resembled Artoo appeared in the

  hatchway. The first droid rushed him. He sliced it diagonally with the saber

  and reached for the others with the Force. They weren't true droids, but

  marginally alive. One fired a pair of stun bolts at him. He deflected one bolt

  back toward his attacker and the other at its partner. Both overloaded and

  switched off--but the weird stench in the Force, like the presence of a soul

  half decayed, only faded slightly. He'd caught the same stench from the battle

  droids, and the ship itself. The cruiser reeked in his senses, permeated with

  stolen human energies. It might burn heavy fusionables for ordnance and

  thrust, but its control systems had to be powered in the hideous Ssi-ruuvi

  way.

  Dev crept out from behind the grim chair. Glimmers of dark side energy

  lingered around it from thousands of victims' terrorized agony. "You all

  right?" Luke asked.

  Dev's pale brown skin looked olive green by the saber's light, and he

  gripped a paddle beamer with both hands. "That was wonderful."

  It wasn't too soon to launch Dev's apprenticeship. "Two of your Ssi-ruuk

  died."

  "I know," he groaned, "but how else--"

  "Exactly. You have to fight, but you mustn't like it." He hoped Yoda

  didn't laugh aloud, hearing him say that.

  Dev chewed his upper lip. "Now what?"

  "Stand back." Luke spun on his strong leg and sliced once, twice, three

  times through the chair and its dangling machinery, then again through the

  upright table. Pieces crashed to the deck, denting its tiles. He returned the

  saber to rest salute position. "Are there more labs like this?"

  He felt Dev wilt, eyes haunted and wide. "They've nearly completed

  another thirty."

  Thirty! "It'd take us too long to ruin that many. No more operational?"

  "Not that I know of. And I assisted with..."

  "We'll assume this is the only one, then." Perspiration ran down Luke's

  face, even with his mind relaxed into the Force. "Are onboard control systems

  powered by human energies too?"

  Dev's frown deepened. "I don't know. I'd never thought about it. It's

  possible."

  "I can feel it. Can you take me to the engineering sector?"

  "Yes."

  Holding the saber low, Luke sidestepped toward the outer bulkhead. He

  slid along it and peered into the corridor. "There are six more droids active

  out there, but no Ssi-ruuk."

  "They're scared to death of you."

  "Why?"

  "They don't want to die off one of their home worlds. That's why they

  force slaves and P'w'ecks to do all their fighting." Dev edged up behind him

  and whispered, "Be careful."

  "Just stay behind me." About to relax into full control, Luke realized he

  was already there. He stepped into the hatchway, holding his saber ready. An

  energy bolt sizzled toward him. Dev cried out and jumped back. Luke's saber

  swept up and returned the energy. The droid sputtered dead.

  One down. The other five we re undoubtedly programmed to fire...

  simultaneously! came the blasts. Luke's saber whirled. The droids dropped,

  smoking and throwing sparks.

  Dev whistled soft admiration.

  "I'll teach you to do that." Luke's right leg tingled and ached. He

  must've wrenched it worse than he thought when he jumped onto that table.

  "Do it soon," Dev said earnestly. "I want what you have."

  "Engineering deck first," Luke murmured, satisfied. Dev's apprenticeship

  looked official. "Stay close behind me."

  They crept up a bright corridor. "Left," Dev whispered. Luke whirled

  across the passage to draw the fire of anyone guarding it. Unchallenged, he

  pressed on, calmly listening in front and behind, using the Force to refresh

  tiring muscles and take the bite off increasing pain in his right leg.

  "Now right," Dev whispered. "Drop shaft."

  Luke shook his head. "We'd be helpless inside. That big blue one's

  probably still on board. Are the decks connected by stairs?"

  "Ssi-ruuk can't use stairs," Dev murmured. "Neither can P'w'ecks, the

  smaller ones."

  "More slaves?" His voice caught, and he cleared his throat.

  "Yes."

  The Ssi-ruuk would probably never accept other races as equals. "Any

  other links between decks?"

  "I don't know," Dev admitted. "I've only used power lifts."

  Luke stretched out into the invisible world again. A web of weak living

  energy surrounded them, punctuated here and there by the brighter Force-gleams

  of sentient beings. He found a vertically sizeable empty area ahead. "Come on,

  " he murmured. Unable to find a hatchway, he cut a way in through the

  bulkhead. A spiral ramp, cramped for humans--obviously designed for P'w'eck or

  droid use--led up and down. It sounded and felt empty.

  "Go ahead," Luke whispered. Dev pushed one leg through, then his head,

  then he vanished into the rampway. Luke followed. Dev pointed downward, so

  Luke led down into the spiral ramp. His right leg didn't bend easily. The

  muscles tightened and stayed tight. Behind him, Dev's pain sense echoed He'd

  injured his back and left hand.

  Dozens, maybe hundreds, of souls must be slaved to the Shriwirr's

  circuitry. He couldn't bring even one back to life... but perhaps he could

  release a few of them to rest peacefully.

  After a long hunched walk, Luke asked through gritted teeth, "How far

  down is Engineering?"

  "Eighteenth deck." Dev indicated a symbol on the bulkhead beside a narrow

  hatchway. "We're at the seventeenth, now."

  Luke led around several more turns of the shaft, then paused at a

  hatchway. "Here?"

  "This is it."

  Luke felt inside the circuits on the other side of the hatch. Again he

  found a center of life energy set to power nonliving circuitry. He sent a

  pulse of excitement into shreds of human will.

  The hatch slid open.

  He stumbled out, saber ready, into another empty corridor. As Dev

  sprinted past him, he spun around and sliced into the power center. The

  tortured sense of tethered presence winked out.

  One more freed.

  Dev examined writing on a bulkhead. "I think this is it," he said softly.

  "You haven't been down here before?"

  Dev shrugged. "No."

  "All right." From behind another bulkhead, the half-dead Force stench

  wafted out. Luke was about to step under an illuminated arch when he caught a

  glimmer above it. He leaped backward.

  "What is it?" Dev asked.

  Luke traced power flow up a bulkhead, overhead, then down the other side.

  "I don't know," he answered, "but the life power is linked to a strong

  amplifier." He
sliced a flap off the breast of his tunic, dropped it onto the

  deck, then blew on it. It skittered forward.

  Sizzling blue energy burned it to charcoal.

  Sh'tk'ith's blue foreclaws framed the security board. "There," he

  exclaimed to the P'w'ecks behind him. "We've found them. Stun trap outside

  Engineering."

  He flipped a coil. "Progress?" he asked Firwirrung, who was working

  frantically in a second lab.

  "Finished," answered his colleague. "It won't keep the Jedi alive as long

  as the original would have, but I'll make another, better, before he

  deteriorates too far."

  Although wounded, Firwirrung seemed determined to atone for his disaster.

  He and his P'w'eck aides had completed a secondary table from one nearly

  finished chair and spare parts, a fresh means to start harvesting immediately-

  -if Sh'tk'ith could subdue the Jedi. Victory still beckoned.

  Sh'tk'ith called Admiral Ivpikkis's lifeboat over an outside coil. "We're

  about to close in on them. I left three gangs of P'w'ecks under full

  compulsion on Deck Sixteen. I predict we can start launching battle droids the

  moment we succeed."

  "Good," came his answer. Ssi-ruuvi picket ships still surrounded the

  Shriwirr, protecting it under Admiral Ivpikkis's command. "All our other

  cruisers have launched their full complement," Ivpikkis sang.

  "Firwirrung thinks he may be able to combine Sibwarra's energies with the

  Jedi's."

  "Hold both of them alive. You may exact a pride price on Sibwarra once we

  take Bakura."

  Sh'tk'ith yanked off his shoulder pouch. Hefting his beamer, he whistled

  at his cowering P'w'ecks. "Follow!"

  Han had his hands full getting the Millennium Falcon where Commander

  Thanas wanted her, and the Ssi-ruuk had moved nine picket ships into

  engagement vectors. The Falcon dipped and dove while he chased down droid

  fighters and poured energy into their miserably strong shields. They came at

  him so thickly that he managed to fry a few with the Falcon's engine blast.

  Chewbacca was trying to fix Threepio, and Leia kept the lower turret hot. But

  where was Luke? "Somewhere in space," Leia had insisted. "But not on board the

  Flurry," they'd heard from Tessa Manchisco.

  Three TIE fighters swooped overhead. Han balled his fists. Those TIE'S

  might be on his side, but he didn't trust Commander Thanas one minute longer

  than the Fluties lasted. Caught in the middle of an invasion maneuver, the

  aliens weren't even using their trooper scooper--no sign of tractor beams

  anywhere. One big Ssi-ruuvi vessel had already launched a dozen landing craft.

  Sluggish and underpowered, those had made a poor first ring of offense. He

  couldn't tell if the Imperials' new DEMP guns were working, but he wanted one.

  His vector took him close to a big Flutie cruiser, one of three slowly

  moving in on Bakura. Eerie two-tone jamming momentarily drowned out offship

  communications. "Any progress?" he asked Chewie over the private comlink.

  Chewie howled an affirmative. "Good. Hurry it up. Leia, where's Luke?"

  "Right there! On board that big cruiser." Leia's voice, carried on both

  of Han's headphone channels, seemed to sound between his ears. "Quick--put out

  ^w to our forces that it's not to be attacked."

  The cruiser they'd just passed under? Han switched extra power into rear

  deflectors and dodged fire from its picket ships, then blasted one picket to

  atoms. "What's he doing there?"

  "I can't tell," Leia answered.

  "Lookit that," someone exclaimed, once he could hear the intersquad

  frequency again. Shuttles and escape pods popped off the Ssi-ruuvi cruiser

  like snap rivets from a stressed coolant vane.

  "You were right," Han observed to Leia. "Luke's in there."

  Luke eyed the charred shred of fabric. "They're none too sure of

  security."

  "Stun trap," said Dev. "It'll put down a Ssi-ruu, right through that

  hide. I think it'd kill you or me."

  Luke located the power link at shoulder height on a gray bulkhead, just

  out of saber reach beyond the arch. Because life created the Force, every

  circuit that used this unclean energy was easy to find and control--and he was

  getting better at it as he went. He touched this one gingerly with his mind

  and found a weak, exhausted will supplying power. Tired as he was, his first

  impulse was pity. Quickly and cautiously he showed it what he needed. Then he

  offered release. The will seemed to blink....

  "Quick, Devffwas Luke jumped through the arch. Brandishing his paddle

  beamer, Dev followed. Blue energies singed his flapping hem.

  Luke hesitated. "Just a minute." He must keep his promise. Carefully he

  flicked his lightsaber into circuitry. The pitiful will touched his mind,

  leaving gratitude as it fled.

  The stun traps occurred at six-meter intervals. Luke chafed at each

  delay, and each energy required a different persuasion. As he tired, his sense

  of urgency grew stronger.

  They reached a junction. Their corridor went forward, slowly curving to

  the right, but another narrower opening branched right sharply. A yellow light

  rod gleamed down the center of its arched ceiling. Across the main corridor

  from that junction, a wide metal hatchway loomed shut.

  Ambush, Luke's senses shouted. Cautiously he stepped around the corner to

  the right, pressed against the bulkhead, then turned to listen behind the

  broad metal hatch. He thought he felt someone--

  Dev's choked cry whirled Luke around in time to see the broadhatch shoot

  up into the ceiling. A P'w'eck leaped through, seized the boy from behind, and

  brandished a claw at his throat. Dev ducked and fired his paddle beamer over

  one shoulder. The P'w'eck collapsed, leaving a thin trail of red blood across

  Dev's neck.

  Guided by his subconscious, Luke whirled and slashed behind him. Two more

  P'w'ecks had appeared as if from thin air. They fell wounded and shrieking,

  but others lurked in an opening where he'd seen no hatchway. They pelted him

  with diffuse blue blaster bolts. They were still shooting to stun. His saber

  deflected bolts onto bulkheads and alien flesh. Dev cried out and fell to the

  deck. Luke hadn't seen--or felt - - anything hit him. "Dev?" he shouted.

  The massive blue Ssi-ruu dove toward Luke through the broad hatch,

  warbling and whistling. It fired a steady silver beam. Dodging, Luke raised

  his saber and bent the beam toward a P'w'eck in the narrow hatchway. It

  collapsed, forelimbs flailing. The blue one came on across the junction,

  watching Luke but not the deck. From up the curving corridor, Dev crawled on

  elbows and knees toward the blue giant. Luke dove across the yellow-lit hall

  and ducked the silver beam. The blue's will daunted him, even from a distance.

  It might not perceive the Force, but in Luke's senses it cast a huge dark

  shape with the same savor that tainted Dev's memory-crippling shadow.

  Dev lunged up from the deck. From behind Big Blue, he fired his paddle

  beamer into the base of its tail. The alien twisted its upper body toward Dev

  and fell limp legged. Luke dashed forward, brandishing his saber. Ducking the

  silvery beam, Dev pressed h
is paddle to Blue's head and fired. The creature

  honked, then screamed. The scream ended in a gurgle. Dev zigzagged his beamer

  across its head. Clattering noises retreated up both curving corridors. Luke

  relaxed, coughing a little. Deep in his throat, something tickled.

  Dev sat down on Big Blue's flank and kicked it. When it didn't move, he

  cradled his left hand under one arm and let his beamer dangle. "I faked that

  hit. It seemed safer to play dead than to go on fighting," he rasped, panting.

  "I didn't seem to be helping you at all." The trickle across his throat was

  darkening. Luke touched the wound. "It's not deep," Dev insisted. "Just a claw

  mark."

  Big Blue lay still except for a narrow black tongue that drooped,

  quivering, from one nostril. "Is he stunned?" Luke asked.

  "Dead." Dev stared up into his eyes.

  Luke saw pain, guilt, and triumph. "Who was that?"

  "He... controlled me." Dev stared at the gray deck tiles. "But Firwirrung

  was my master--the small brown with the V on his head, the one whose foreclaw

  you cut off. Firwirrung is the really dangerous one. We're all dead if he

  catches you. Everyone. Everywhere."

  "Why? He didn't seem to be in charge."

  "No, but he runs the entechments."

  "Have they always... enteched... to power their droids?"

  "They've enteched older P'w'ecks for centuries. But humans last longer,"

  Dev explained. "He means to force you to entech other humans from a distance.

  The Ssi-ruuk want to enslave the whole galaxy. There are... I don't know how

  many more ships, waiting out there to hear when Bakura falls."

  "This is just a scout force?" Luke asked, alarmed.

  Dev nodded, and Luke sensed his shame. "Believe me, Firwirrung's ready

  for you."

  He'd helped.... So that was the story, at last. Luke shut his eyes. No

  wonder Dev had tried to strangle him, rather than let the Ssi-ruuk have their

  way. "Well." Luke choked another cough. "Let's get the job done before more of

  them show up."

  "Are you all right?"

  Luke coughed again. That reptilian odor irritated his nostrils and

  throat. "Something I'm breathing must bother me. I guess you're used to it.

  Come on, let's go."

  Engineering was a jumble of controls and conduits, but Luke had no

  trouble finding the master display panel. This locus created a gargoyle