Part 25 (2/2)
There was a lot of yelling going on with the blasting: ”-look out, you fool-!”
”-there he is, get him-!”
”-watch it, watch it-!”
”-I'm hit-!”
He didn't know how far he had to go to get to the exit. He had a good idea that if it wasn't pretty close, he wasn't going to make it.
But Luke went with the flow of the Force, continued to cut and block, to parry bolts and flesh and bones as the bounty hunters tried to stop him.
There wasn't a lot of choice; he couldn't exactly stop to think about things.
Ahead and to his left, the wall suddenly shattered and imploded.
Smoking debris spattered in all directions. Some of the bounty hunters were blown down by the implosion; others fled. Smoke roiled and filled the corridor; acrid vapor burned Luke's nostrils.
The general chaos increased.
What-?
”Luke?”
He knew that voice.
”Lando? Over here!”
Yet another blaster joined the fray, only this one wasn't aimed at Luke.
Bounty hunters fell.
”Regroup!” somebody yelled. ”We're under attack!”
The confusion increased.
Luke saw Lando stride through the smoke and smelly vapor, saw him fire with offhand precision, nailing several of the confused bounty hunters.
”Like shooting snakes in a shoe box,” Lando said. He grinned. ”You called for a cab?”
”Me? What makes you think I want to leave? I'm having fun here.” Luke pivoted and chopped the barrel off an outthrust blaster. The weapon began to hiss and spew sparks, and the startled owner dropped it and fled.
”Yeah, right you are. This way.” Lando led the way, blaster working. Luke followed, blocking shots from behind. They went through the ruptured wall and into the night.
It wouldn't take long for the bounty hunters to pull themselves together.
They had better get far away before that happened.
”I've got a, uh, borrowed landspeeder parked over there,” Lando said. He paused, fired at the building behind him. ”What say we go for a ride?”
Somebody in the ruptured wall yelled in surprise and pain as Lando's blaster bolt found him.
”The Falcon is in the middle of a public park five minutes away. I left Threepio watching it.”
”Threepio? Where are Leia and Chewie?”
”That's a long story. Better we get back to the s.h.i.+p before I tell it.”
”How'd you know where to find me?”
”Dash gave me the planet. I got here and found out about the raid on the Bothan safe house. I know a few locals who owed me favors; they told me where these yabbos had set up shop.”
Lando ducked. A blaster beam sizzled overhead, missed by a good two meters. ”Can we go now and play Question the Quarren later?”
”Good idea.”
They ran.
Behind them, the bounty hunters kept shooting.
Aizor observed with a critical eye the lower branches of his six-hundred-year-old miniature firethorn tree.
The small plant had been a gift from a former rival seeking to make peace with Black Sun after a... business disagreement. Less than half a meter high, the tiny tree was a nearly perfect replica of the hundred-meter-tall firethorn trees that grew only in a single small grove of the Irugian Rain Forest on Abbaji. The dwarf tree had been in the former rival's family for ten generations and was, to one who knew the value of such things, most precious. Were his fortunes to evaporate and leave him completely broke, Xizor would still not sell this plant, not if somebody offered him a decamillion credits.
There were those who would offer that much and more. Little trees such as this had connected to them a great deal of history.
He moved the tiny mechanical scissors in with great precision. Centered the almost hair-fine branch between the blades... cut...
Ah. Perfect. That single cut was all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g needed this year.
Perhaps next season he would take off that obtuse-angled branchlet on the next ascending branch. He had a year to think about it. He pulled the scissors away carefully. Regarded the firethorn. Beautiful, it was.
Beautiful enough to excuse the mistakes of its former owner. The man had made errors in judgment, but this gift showed he was also a man of some taste and intelligence. Errors could be forgiven if there were other mitigating reasons. Xizor was, after all, a civilized being, not a reflexive thug.
He would allow Princess Leia to find that out about him. Just as he would allow her to find out other, more intimate things about him...
It's so good to see that you are all right, Master Luke.”
”Good to see you, too, Threepio,” Luke said.
Lando hurried past them for the Falcon's c.o.c.kpit.
”Move it, Luke,” Lando called back. ”Not only do we have the bounty hunters to worry about, there's an Imperial convoy heading this way.
They've just dropped out of hypers.p.a.ce and into the system.”
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