Part 28 (1/2)
In many ways it was worse than Vader, worse than Palpatine. At least their dream had been grand.
”What do we do.” said Liegeus.
Luke began to back the a.s.sault speeder up the canyon again, the way they had come. A speeder wasn't an antigrav platform and generally couldn't be used as one without restructuring of the buoyancy tanks, but Chariots had motors on them that would do credit to many of the combat vessels Luke had flown. ”We hold on tight.”
Liegeus gasped, ”What are you going to do? - - A silly question, thought Luke, as he slammed the speeder into full-bore acceleration and readied his hand on the turbothrust lever. It should have been patently obvious what the only possible course of action was. The walls of the canyon blurred into a s.h.i.+ning curtain, wind and flying gravel scorched back over hood and metal, the gap of the canyon walls rushed toward them and beyond that, the wide break in the tower's defensive crown beckoned like a ridiculously enormous bull's-eye.
Liegeus wailed, ”Luke!” and hid his eyes.
The speeder cleared the twenty-five-meter gap between the last ridge of the mountain's shoulder and the top of the tower like a nek battle dog, like a trained Tikkiar rising for a kill. Luke cut the turbos and hit the brake, skidding in among the combatants who scattered before him.
He recognized Gerney Caslo in the fighting around the door and, springing out of the speeder, plunged across the stained and battered paving blocks of the tower's open top and up the steps to where he stood.
”You've got to stop this!” he yelled. Everyone was so startled for a moment by the appearance of the Mobquet among them that they did halt.
”You're being duped!” shouted Luke, turning to the men and women who crouched behind makes.h.i.+ft barricades, guns in hand, to those who had for the moment fallen back from fighting on the laser gun itself.
”You're being used! Seti Ashgad has only one reason for wanting to open this planet-so that he can sell the whole place to Loronar Corporation to strip-mine! He doesn't care about your farms!
He doesn't care about medical supplies, or water pumps, or machinery for you!”
He looked around him, at the dusty, cut, b.l.o.o.d.y faces, the battered forms stepping cautiously forth from their places of cover, at the angry eyes, not wanting to believe. Arvid was among them, and Aunt Gin, and the brother-in-law of the owner of the Blue Blerd.
His arms dropped to his sides. ”He isn't doing this for you.” Someone said, ”Shoot the whiner,” and Luke reached forth with the Force and pulled the man's blaster away before he could get the shot off-. The white bolt of energy scattered chips from the wall of the stairway housing behind him.
”A lot you know about it!” yelled someone else.
”i know,” said Luke quietly. ”We been into Ashgad's house. He isn't doing this for any of you.”
”He's right.”
Behind Luke, the door opened, very quickly, and closed again-Luke could hear the locks slamming open even as Gerney Caslo and the two men with him made a jump to catch it as it opened.
Leia had stepped through.
Leia grimy, in tatters, her hair hanging down in strings in her eyes and her palms and knuckles bandaged. Leia with strips of s.p.a.ce tape and leather binding what remained of her ornamental golden boots, empty-handed but with a blaster on one hip and her lightsaber on the other.
But definitely Leia Organa Solo, known on a thousand news holos to many and certainly, from Seti Ashgad's faked video, to every man and woman there. There was goggling silence.
”He's telling the truth,” she said. She reached into one of the thigh pockets of a pair of far-too-big trousers she wore and produced a wad of computer printouts. ”Here's a copy of Ashgad's correspondence with the CEO of Loronar, with Moff Getelles of Antemeridian, with p.a.w.ns and cat's paws in the Republic Council. Is anyone here a neep?”
Booldrum Caslo stepped forward. ”I am, ma'am.”
”Then you'll recognize the system codes as coming from Ashgad's computer.
The chubby man changed the lens ratio of his visiamps and flipped quickly through the hardcopy, then glanced back at Gerney, apologetic.
”She's right. This is Ashgad's. I installed the components myself.”
Cas...o...b...u.s.tered angrily, ”Which doesn't mean you didn't compose this yourself, girl.” But others were pulling the papers from his cousin's hands, reading the memoranda, the deals, the concessions.
”An installation in Thornwind Valley? Six-month forcible recruitment?
A man can't live a week up there!”
”Mandatory labor pool?”
”Transfer of matriel-isn't the real word for that theft?”
”Price freeze standardization on Spooks?”
”At sixty-seven creds?”
”Occupation fleet... who said anything about an occupation fleet?”
”The occupation fleet is in orbit now,” said Luke. He pointed upward.
Several of the Rationalists had electrobinoculars and focused them skyward, where far overhead pinlights of brightness flared in the star-p.r.i.c.kled twilight sky.
Under the spate of exclamations and curses, Leia threw her arms around Luke in a fierce hug. ”What about Dzym. Ashgad's...”
”I know about Dzym,” said Luke.
”If there's really a battle going on up there-if the Council really did manage to get s.h.i.+ps to stop Getelles's fleet-he'll still try to lift off in the Reliant with all the drochs he can take.”
”The lift programs aren't installed.”
”Any competent engineer can do that.” She looked up quickly as Liegeus emerged from the Chariot, dodged through the milling men and women, the angrily stirring cables and beams, the lawless Force winds. ”Liegeus...
I” She flung her arms around him, and he held her tight, graying head pressed to hers. ”My dear child, I'm so glad to see you safe! I never, never in my life thought you'd try to escape...”
”Then you didn't know me very well.” She grinned at him and a moment later he grinned back.
”Well-I suppose I did know you'd try it.” He shook his head.
”Listen, Liegeus, how much does Ashgad know about the software on that vessel?” demanded Luke. ”How much of an education has he had? Can he install it. Can he get the thing off the ground?”
”Of course he can,” said Leia impatiently. ”Seti Ashgad was one of the top hyperdrive engineers of the Old Republic. The original Z-95s were his design!”
”His design?” Luke stared at her blankly. ”They were making Z-95s fifty years ago!”
”Seti Ashgad is the original Seti Ashgad!” said Leia. ”Dzym's been keeping him alive all these years.”
There was a rising clamor, men and women jostling and shoving aside Gerney Caslo's heated protests of Ashgad's good intent. Sheets and streamers of hardcopy were flourished in dust-covered, blood-covered hands, though Luke noticed that Umolly Darm and Aunt Gin were collecting the doc.u.ments and tucking them into the safety of their pockets.
The Theran cultists had come down from their defensive positions on the gun s.h.i.+elding to join in the fray. With a yell of fury, Cas...o...b..oke from the mob and, with a nimbleness Luke wouldn't have given him credit for, seized a belt of grenades and sprang to the top of a broken girder, scrambled up another one toward the muzzle of the cannon.
Leia yelled, ”Stop him!” but it was too late. Someone fired a blaster rifle just as Gerney hurled the grenades. A dozen lines of cold light st.i.tched the man like deadly needles, but no one had thought to fire at the grenades he threw. They went over the stained black rim of the s.h.i.+elding. A moment later a deep, shuddering concussion shook the building, jarring everyone from their feet. White smoke belched from the cannon mouth. Gerney's body was trampled as people scrambled up the sides of the s.h.i.+elding to look.