Part 15 (1/2)
Chewbacca muttered something to Leia, and she murmured a soft reply as if she almost understood.
Another fighter unloosed a barrage on the freighter, only this time the bolt pierced an overloaded screen and actually struck the side of the s.h.i.+p. Though partially deflected, it still carried enough power to blow out a large control panel in the main pa.s.sageway, sending a rain of sparks and smoke in all directions. Artoo Detoo started stolidly toward the miniature inferno as the s.h.i.+p lurched crazily, throwing the less stable Threepio into a cabinet full of component chips.
A warning light began to wink for attention in the c.o.c.kpit. Chewbacca muttered to Leia, who stared at him worriedly and wished for the gift of Wookiee-gab.
Then a fighter floated down on the damaged freighter, right into Luke's sights. His mouth moving silently, Luke fired at it. The incredibly agile little vessel darted out of his range, but as it pa.s.sed beneath them Solo picked it up instantly, and commenced a steady following fire. Without warning the fighter erupted in an incredible flash of multicolored light, throwing a billion bits of superheated metal to every section of the cosmos.
Solo whirled and gave Luke a victory wave, which the younger man gleefully returned. Then they turned back to their weapons as yet another fighter stormed over the freighter's hull, firing at its transmitter dish.
In the middle of the main pa.s.sageway, angry flames raged around a stubby cylindrical shape. A fine white powdery spray issued from Artoo Detoo's head. Wherever it touched, the fire retreated sharply.
Luke tried to relax, to become a part of the weapon. Almost without being aware of it, he was firing at a retreating Imperial. When he blinked, it was to see the flaming fragments of the enemy craft forming a perfect ball of light outside the turret. It was his turn to spin and flash the Corellian a grin of triumph.
In the c.o.c.kpit, Leia paid close attention to scattered readouts as well as searching the sky for additional s.h.i.+ps. She directed her voice toward an open mike.
”There are still two more of them out there. Looks like we've lost the lateral monitors and the starboard deflector s.h.i.+eld.”
”Don't worry,” Solo told her, with as much hope as confidence, ”she'll hold together.” He gave the walls a pleading stare. ”You hear me, s.h.i.+p? Hold together! Chewie, try to keep them on our port side. If we-”
He was forced to break off as a TIE fighter seemed to materialize out of nowhere, energy bolts reaching out from it toward him. Its companion craft came up on the freighter's other side and Luke found himself firing steadily at it, ignoring the immensely powerful energy it threw at him. At the last possible instant before it pa.s.sed out of range, he swung the weapon's nozzle minutely, his finger tightening convulsively on the fire control. The Imperial fighter turned into a rapidly expanding cloud of phosph.o.r.escing dust. The other fighter apparently considered the shrunken odds, turned, and retreated at top speed.
”We've made it!” Leia shouted, turning to give the startled Wookiee an unexpected hug. He growled at her-very softly.
Darth Vader strode into the control room where Governor Tarkin stood staring at a huge, brilliantly lit screen. It displayed a sea of stars, but it was not the spectacular view which absorbed the Governor's thoughts at the moment. He barely glanced around as Vader entered.
”Are they away?” the Dark Lord demanded.
”They've just completed the jump to hypers.p.a.ce. No doubt they are at this very moment congratulating themselves on their daring and success.” Now Tarkin turned to face Vader, a hint of warning in his tone.
”I'm taking an awful chance, on your insistence, Vader. This had better work. Are you certain the homing beacon is secure aboard their s.h.i.+p?”
Vader exuded confidence beneath the reflective black mask. ”There is nothing to fear. This will be a day long remembered. It already has been witness to the final extinction of the Jedi. Soon it will see the end of the Alliance and the rebellion.”
Solo switched places with Chewbacca, the Wookiee grateful for the opportunity to relinquish the controls. As the Corellian moved aft to check the extent of the damage, a determined-looking Leia pa.s.sed him in the corridor.
”What do you think, sweetheart?” Solo inquired, well pleased with himself. ”Not a bad bit of rescuing. You know, sometimes I amaze even myself.”
”That doesn't sound too hard,” she admitted readily. ”The important thing is not my safety, but the fact that the information in the R-2 droid is still intact.”
”What's that droid carrying that's so important, anyway?”
Leia considered the blazing starfield forward. ”Complete technical schematics of the battle station. I only hope that when the data is a.n.a.lyzed, a weakness can be found. Until then, until the station itself is destroyed, we must go on. This war isn't over yet.”
”It is for me,” objected the pilot. ”I'm not on this mission for your revolution. Economics interest me, not politics. There's business to be done under any government. And I'm not doing it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid for risking my s.h.i.+p and my hide.”
”You needn't worry about your reward,” she a.s.sured him sadly, turning to leave. ”If money is what you love... that's what you will receive.”
On leaving the c.o.c.kpit she saw Luke coming forward, and she spoke softly to him in pa.s.sing. ”Your friend is indeed a mercenary. I wonder if he really cares about anything-or anybody.”
Luke stared after her until she disappeared into the main hold area, then whispered, ”I do... I care.” Then he moved into the c.o.c.kpit and sat in the seat Chewbacca had just vacated.
”What do you think of her, Han?”
Solo didn't hesitate. ”I try not to.”
Luke probably hadn't intended his response to be audible, but Solo overheard his murmur of ”Good” none the less.
”Still,” Solo ventured thoughtfully, ”she's got a lot of spirit to go with her sa.s.s. I don't know, do you think it's possible for a Princess and a guy like me...?”
”No,” Luke cut him off sharply. He turned and looked away.
Solo smiled at the younger man's jealousy, uncertain in his own mind whether he had added the comment to bait his naive friend-or because it was the truth.
Yavin was not a habitable world. The huge gas giant was patterned with pastel high-alt.i.tude cloud formations. Here and there the softly lambent atmosphere was molded by cyclonic storms composed of six-hundred-kilometer-per-hour winds which boiled rolling gases up from the Yavinesque troposphere. It was a world of lingering beauty and quick death for any who might try to penetrate to its comparatively small core of frozen liquids.
Several of the giant planet's numerous moons, however, were planet-sized themselves, and of these, three could support humanoid life. Particularly inviting was the satellite designated by the system's discoverers as number four. It shone like an emerald in Yavin's necklace of moons, rich with plant and animal life. But it was not listed among those worlds supporting human settlement. Yavin was located too far from the settled regions of the galaxy.
Perhaps the latter reason, or both, or a combination of causes still unknown had been responsible for whatever race had once risen from satellite four's jungles, only to disappear quietly long before the first human explorer set foot on the tiny world. Little was known of them save that they left a number of impressive monuments, and that they were one of the many races which had aspired to the stars only to have their desperate reach fall short.
Now all that remained were the mounds and foliage-clad clumps formed by jungle-covered buildings. But though they had sunk back into the dust, their artifacts and their world continued to serve an important purpose.
Strange cries and barely perceptible moans sounded from every tree and copse; hoots and growls and strange mutterings issued from creatures content to remain concealed in the dense undergrowth. Whenever dawn broke over moon the fourth, heralding one of its long days, an especially feral chorus of shrieks and weirdly modulated screams would resound through the thick mist.
Even stranger sounds surged continually from one particular place. Here lay the most impressive of those edifices which a vanished race had raised toward the heavens. It was a temple, a roughly pyramidal structure so colossal that it seemed impossible it could have been built without the aid of modern gravitonic construction techniques. Yet all evidence pointed only to simple machines, hand technology-and, perhaps, devices alien and long lost.
While the science of this moon's inhabitants had led them to a dead end as far as offworld travel was concerned, they had produced several discoveries which in certain ways surpa.s.sed similar Imperial accomplishments-one of which involved a still unexplained method of cutting and transporting gargantuan blocks of stone from the crust of the moon.
From these monstrous blocks of solid rock, the ma.s.sive temple had been constructed. The jungle had scaled even its soaring crest, clothing it in rich green and brown. Only near its base, in the temple front, did the jungle slide away completely, to reveal a long, dark entrance cut by its builders and enlarged to suit the needs of the structure's present occupants.
A tiny machine, its smooth metal sides and silvery hue incongruous amidst the all-pervasive green, appeared in the forest. It hummed like a fat, swollen beetle as it conveyed its cl.u.s.ter of pa.s.sengers toward the open temple base. Crossing a considerable clearing, it was soon swallowed up by the dark maw in the front of the ma.s.sive structure, leaving the jungle once more in the paws and claws of invisible squallers and screechers.
The original builders would never have recognized the interior of their temple. Seamed metal had replaced rock, and poured paneling did service for chamber division in place of wood. Nor would they have been able to see the buried layers excavated into the rock below, layers which contained hangar upon hangar linked by powerful elevators.
A landspeeder came to a gradual stop within the temple, whose first level was the uppermost of those s.h.i.+p-filled hangars. Its engine died obediently as the vehicle settled to the ground. A noisy cl.u.s.ter of humans waiting nearby ceased their conversation and rushed toward the craft.
Fortunately Leia Organa quickly emerged from the speeder, or the man who reached it first might have pulled her bodily from it, so great was his delight at the sight of her. He settled for giving her a smothering hug as his companion called their own greetings.
”You're safe! We'd feared you'd been killed.” Abruptly he composed himself, stepped away from her, and executed a formal bow. ”When we heard about Alderaan, we were afraid that you were... lost along with the rest of the population.”
”All that is past history, Commander Willard,” she said. ”We have a future to live for. Alderaan and its people are gone.” Her voice turned bitter cold, frightening in so delicate-looking a person. ”We must see that such does not happen again.
”We don't have time for our sorrows, Commander,” she continued briskly. ”The battle station has surely tracked us here.”
Solo started to protest, but she shut him up with logic and a stern look.
”That's the only explanation for the ease of our escape. They sent only four TIE fighters after us. They could as easily have launched a hundred.”
Solo had no reply for that, but continued to fume silently. Then Leia gestured at Artoo Detoo.
”You must use the information locked in this R-2 droid to form a plan of attack. It's our only hope. The station itself is more powerful than anyone suspected.” Her voice dropped. ”If the data does not yield a weakness, there will be no stopping them.”