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
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