Splinter in the Mind's Eye Page 17

  "I was lucky," Luke told her honestly.

  "They don't understand luck," Halla replied. "Only results." Luke shifted from one position to another. The unswerving stares of the three chiefs were making him acutely uncomfortable.

  "Well, what do they expect me to do? They're not thinking of fighting, are they? Axes and spears against power rifles?"

  "The differences may be great technologically," the Princess countered, eying him hard, "but I wouldn't sell these people short anywhere else. They caught two full-grown-Yuzzem without any sophisticated devices. I doubt a group of humans could have done better.

  "And they know these passageways and tunnels, Luke! They know where the sinkholes are as opposed to solid ground. The Force isn't a geological phenomenon....Maybe we have a chance."

  "The Coway'd be better off negotiating," Luke mumbled, unconvinced.

  "Sorry, Luke boy," Halla apologized, after a brief exchange with one of the chiefs. "An invasion in force is different from a couple of wanderers showing up. They want to fight. Canu," she smiled, "will judge."

  "I wish I had your confidence in aboriginal jurisprudence, Halla."

  "Don't fight it, boy. Old Canu did okay by you, didn't he?"

  "Luke," the Princess pleaded, "we have no place to run to. You just said so yourself. If Vader knows you're here, then he probably knows I'm with you. He won't stop until he..." She hesitated, cleared her throat and went on. "He won't stop, Luke. Even if he has to follow us to the center of Mimban. You know that.

  "We've no choice. We have to fight."

  "Maybe we do," he admitted, "but the Coway don't."

  "They will whether you do or not, Luke," Halla assured him, "We've already claimed we're against what the mining consortium here stands for. The chiefs want us to show them we mean it."

  Luke's thoughts raced crazily through his brain. Occasionally two or three would run into each other, creating further head havoc and making him wish only for a nice, quiet place to hide.

  But...

  He was tired of running.

  Now that he reflected on it, they'd been running, Leia and he, ever since they'd touched the soil of this planet. He grew aware that Halla, Leia and the three Coway leaders were all anxiously awaiting some response from him. The Princess' expression was unreadable.

  Naturally, he made the only decision he could....

  In the frenzy of preparation that ensued, Luke discovered that the Coway were not as helpless as he'd feared. So it was not too surprising to learn that the natives had experienced previous attacks from above before now, both from predatory carnivores and from other primitive tribes.

  Most of the time Luke found himself looking on in admiration as the Coway readied themselves to counter the human invasion, rather than proposing suggestions of his own. They went about their preparations with enthusiasm and a grim delight.

  Luke was thankful for both their competence and attitude. It alleviated a little of his principal concern: the fear that hundreds of Coway might die in defense of the Princess and himself. It was a good feeling to learn that they shared his anger at the shiny-suited figures descending from above.

  Thanks to the tactics being employed by the Imperials, Luke discovered that the Princess was too furious to be really frightened. He tried to encourage her anger. Anything that kept her from thinking of Vader was worthwhile.

  "Using energy weapons on primitive sentients," she muttered in outrage. "Another gross violation of the original Imperial charter. Another reason for the Alliance to fight on."

  "The Coway wouldn't think much of your emoting, young lady," Halla called out from nearby, "since they consider us the primitives. And judging by the way Grammel and his toadies have behaved toward the local races, sociologically I'd have to side with our subsurface friends...."

  As the defenders polished their strategy for the coming assault, Luke and the Princess found themselves reduced to explaining the capabilities and limitations of the weapons all were likely to face.

  At least, he mused, it wasn't to be all axes and spears. He hefted his pistol and luxuriated in its lethal weight. It had been one of the weapons taken from Halla and the Yuzzem on their capture, now returned to them.

  Hin had promptly turned and handed his energy rifle to the Princess. He explained to Luke that he felt more comfortable with the enormous axe the Coway had provided for him. Kee's attitude was more civilized, and he elected to hang onto his rifle. Or perhaps "civilized" wasn't the right word.

  He was helping with the emplacement of a net when a reverberating crackle echoed like a thunderbolt down the winding approach tunnel. According to Halla, the invaders were at present about halfway between the cavern city and the surface exit.

  "E-eleven trooper rifle," the Princess commented expertly, as the last echoes of the shot died away, "quarter-centimeter aperture, continuous fire on low-power only." She fought to shift the heavy weapon Hin had given her to a more comfortable ready position.

  While their identification of the source of that roar was somewhat less precise than the Princess', the Coway recognized its ominousness. They embarked on a final frenzy of preparation.

  A call came from a series of spread-out forward scouts. Coway started to vanish before Luke's eyes, moving, jumping, secreting themselves where no hiding place seemed possible. They disappeared into crevices and cracks, into the ground, slipped into holes in the cave ceiling, froze behind false flowstone curtains.

  Luke and the Princess hurried to join up with Halla. Both Yuzzem were moving to their predetermined positions, mingling with the less concealed Coway. The two 'droids concealed themselves out of firing range.

  Halla concluded her conversation with one of the three chiefs, turned to greet them.

  "How many?" was Luke's first question.

  "The scouts aren't sure," she told them. "For one thing, the Imperials have advance hunters out, too. That was the source of the shot we all heard. Also, they're backed up through the cave. But if I have Coway numerology figured right, they think seventy at least."

  "All on foot?" the Princess inquired.

  "Yes. They've no choice, which is good for us. The tunnel is too choked with rubble and too narrow in many places for even a small personnel carrier to slip through."

  "That's something," Luke observed, trying to bolster his own spirits as much as anyone else's. "We won't have to cope with mobile armor or heavy weapons."

  Halla chuckled. "Why would Grammel think they'd be needed? Not against our poor primitive Coway, certainly. Sixty, seventy Imperial troops equipped with energy weapons and personal armor ought to be sufficient to capture a few poorly armed fugitives."

  "Sarcasm aside," Luke pointed out unarguably, "it's going to take more than bravery and courage to keep this from turning into a massacre of our friends."

  "I'd argue with you, Luke boy," the old woman murmured pleasantly. "Give me bravery and courage anytime."

  "Just give me one clear shot at Vader," the Princess snarled, her hands tightening on the rifle stock. The hatred that flamed in those eyes belonged on a much less fragile face. "Save that one chance, I ask nothing of life."

  Luke looked down at her, murmured with feeling, "I hope you get it, Leia."

  "That brings up a distressing possibility," she said later, as they climbed to take up places behind a bulwark of striped travertine. "What if Vader doesn't come with the attacking force?"

  "He's coming," Luke assured her.

  "The Force?"

  He nodded slowly. "Besides, as you pointed out before, he knows you and I are here. He'll come along to supervise the capture," he said, then added after a knotted swallow, "to make sure we're taken alive."

  Sighting the heavy rifle over the edge of the wall, Leia muttered forcefully, "That's one thing he'll never do." Then she relaxed slightly, her earnest gaze focusing unshakably on her companion. "If it should come to that, Luke..."

  "Come to what?"

  "Being taken alive." He indicated understandin
g and she went on. "Promise me that out of any feeling you have for the Rebellion, out of any feeling you might have for me, that you'll put that saber at your hip to my throat."

  Luke stared at her uncomfortably. "Leia, I..."

  "Swear it!" she demanded, her voice that of a steel kitten.

  Luke mumbled something that satisfied her. They became aware a Coway was calling to them softly from above. Halla looked down from her position high on the cave wall to their left.

  "Don't you two ever shut up? Hush now, children... company's coming."

  Silence reigned supreme in the tunnel. Luke strained till the muscles back of his eyes hurt, but the Coway concealment was perfect. Dozens were hidden within meters of him, but he could detect signs of only a few. Close by and evident were only Leia, Halla, and Kee, the muzzle of his rifle protruding like a broken stone from between a pair of huge stalagmites. Of Hin there was no sign.

  So clear and still was the dead air of the tunnel that Luke heard the metallic pad-pad of the first Imperial troops before he could see them. Shortly thereafter, the familiar robot-like forms came into view. Flesh and blood beneath the armor, the distant figures carried their own rifles casually, at waist level. Obviously, they were expecting little if any resistance.

  As he studied them Luke realized that the Coway were right, in such close confinement the energy armor would work against the wearer. Such armor rendered the person inside it invulnerable to most energy weapons, save at vital points like the joints and eyes where protection was necessarily weaker. More important, the armor also restricted its wearer's vision. Not so critical in a battle on a ship, say, with its wide, unobstructed corridors. But in the jumbled tunnel, vision was more vital than an extra shot.

  As if on signal, four Coway, two on either side of the narrow pathway, materialized silently from invisible hiding places. The two advance scouts were dragged from view with astonishing speed. Not so astonishing to Luke, though. He'd experienced the power of Coway muscles. In the resulting silence he thought he could hear the cracking made by limbs and bone through restrictive armor.

  Nervously, he waited for something to happen. Everyone knew that if the four Coway selected for the task of eliminating the scouts bungled their assignment, if they wasted even a few seconds, one of the scouts might have time to call to the troops behind him via his helmet communicator. Surprise, the defenders' most potent weapon, would be lost.

  He was still waiting when the single Coway slipped up behind him, so quietly that Luke almost exclaimed aloud. The native made a quieting sound, performed a gesture with its facial muscles which might have been a smile, and vanished as silently as it'd come. It left behind two rifles and two pistols-the arms carried by the ambushed Imperial scouts.

  Luke regarded the little arsenal joyfully. Slipping completely out of sight behind the travertine wall, he disengaged the power pack from one of the rifles and used it to bring his lightsaber up to maximum charge. Then he traded his pistol for a fresh one, resumed his place next to the vigilant Princess.

  "We ought to get the other rifle to Hin," he whispered to her, watching the tunnel.

  "No time," she disagreed reasonably. "No telling where he is now. Can't risk it."

  "I suppose you're right." He glanced down at the still half-charged rifle and its fully charged duplicate, plus the pair of pistols. "At least we'll be well armed for a while longer than I thought."

  The rhythmic tread of metal-clad feet pounding rock finally reached them. All thoughts of conversation vanished as the main body of troops hove into view. They were marching cautiously, three and four abreast, as they rounded the same narrow place the two ill-fated scouts had entered moments before. The phosphorescent blue-yellow light of the growths in the tunnel gleamed off slick armor and immaculate weaponry.

  Closer, closer they came, until Luke was afraid they would march right up to his wall before Halla and the chiefs agreed on the time to attack.

  A strident, powerful voice boomed out in Coway. The cavern dissolved into chaos. A waterfall of sound deluged the air where seconds before there had been only silence. Luke felt the noise itself, concentrated and magnified by the cave walls, would be sufficient to paralyze most men.

  The soldiers caught in the maelstrom were Imperial troops. But they were not the Emperor's palace guard. They were men and women stationed too long on a backward, desolate world where discipline and training relaxed concurrently with morale. The screams of human and Coway howled through the cave.

  Bursts of intense light from energy weapons created a berserk cat's cradle of destruction in the bottled-down tunnel. Luke found himself firing the pistol over and over. Next to him came steady, confident thrums as Leia pinched off bursts from the heavy rifle.

  Higher up, Halla and Kee began pouring a murderous fire down on the mass of confused, densely packed troops. Soon they had to slacken their fire and pick targets with more care, as the Coway began erupting from beneath cloth concealed with sand to pull startled troopers into hidden pits, or coming out from behind half-stalagmites, or dropping from crevices in the ceiling.

  Seeing friend and foe inextricably intermingled, Luke charged down the slight slope brandishing saber in one hand, and pistol in the other. Despite his admonitions, Leia had discarded her rifle. Pistol in hand, she was rushing after him to join in the hand-to-hand combat.

  She passed him feet first, her kick all but decapitating a dazed soldier who didn't turn quite fast enough.

  It was hellishly dangerous in the tunnel, what with energy bolts crackling wildly in all directions. Luke cut through the armored legs of one soldier before the latter could bring his pistol to bear. Without realizing it, he then swung blindly backward. The blue of his saber intersected a beam fired point blank at him by an Imperial rifle.

  Turning, he barely had time to utter a silent thanks to Ben Kenobi. The trooper was so shocked at the apparent coincidence of having his shot blocked that he didn't react in time. Thinking something had to be wrong with his weapon, he readjusted it to compensate for the imaginary fault. As he swung it upward again Luke jabbed him through the sternum.

  Turning, he plunged back into the thickest fighting. He was hunting for one figure. It finally showed itself, standing aloof near the rear of the fighting crowd.

  "Vader! Darth Vader!"

  A wounded trooper charged him and he had to pause to deal with the more immediate threat.

  But the Dark Lord had heard him. Surprised, the giant black shape activated his own saber and strode into the mob, trying to cut his way clear to Luke.

  The Princess was also trying to fight her way through the crowd. But she was not heading for Vader. Instead, she was moving toward a stalagmite shattered at the top, a she-falcon flying for her prey-perch.

  Under the direction of Captain-Supervisor Grammel, about ten of the troopers climbed for high ground, intending to set up a covering fire the entire length of the tunnel. They achieved the summit of the small ridge and were lining up their weapons on the crowd below. Like hairy projectiles, Hin and several Coways dropped from hiding places above.

  Roaring with delight, the huge Yuzzem grabbed two of the armored troops at once, banged them together until their armor started to crack at the joints. Meanwhile, the muscular Coway wreaked havoc among the other soldiers.

  Vader paused in the midst of his fighting, angrily evaluated the way the battle was going. He shook a threatening fist in Luke's general direction, then turned to the shaken officer nearby.

  "Grammel! Re-form all survivors at the surface."

  "Yes, my Lord," the distraught Captain-Supervisor acknowledged. Using his multiple-channel helmet unit, he signaled the retreat to his remaining troops.

  Small clumps of soldiers began to break contact with the Coways, started rushing for the surface. Luke was startled to see how few remained.

  The soldiers were pulling back in good order. At that point one of the Coway chiefs hiding high above rose and signaled. His order was relayed up the tunnel f
rom one concealed native to the next. Several Coway pulled on a vine cable. Their action sent a pinned stalactite weighing several tons plunging from its eons-old growing place. It landed with a titanic crash. Half a dozen soldiers were mashed beneath it.

  Further reduced in number, the troopers started to panic, to throw down their weapons and sprint up the passageway as fast as their armor would permit them. Most of them ran under the nets which waiting Coway dropped on them from above. Those same nets had held against Yuzzem. The troopers who lay flailing at the confining strands had no chance at all.

  Leia Organa reached the top of the pinnacle, lay down across it and positioned the heavy rifle she'd retrieved. She fought to focus on a single, black-clad figure striding relentlessly and without panic up the tunnel. Vader was surrounded by Grammel and a few remaining soldiers. She couldn't wait. Soon the Dark Lord would pass from sight.

  As she activated the trigger, Vader turned and gestured to the several troops lagging behind. A powerful beam of energy struck him in the side, sent him spinning to the ground. Leia smiled. Her joy turned to disappointment when she looked back through the blunt telescopic sight.

  Vader had rolled over and was beating at the smoke issuing from his left side. There was a gaping hole in his protective cloak and the black armor beneath had been partly melted away. But the full force of the energy bolt had missed him.

  The Dark Lord got to his feet and seemed for a second to be staring straight at her. Then he was moving again, still not in panic but with considerably more energy, up toward the way out.

  Frantically the Princess reaimed, fired... just as Vader passed from view. The bolt exploded against the lowest part of the ceiling, annihilating rock and mineral but doing no damage to the evil figure beyond.

  "Well, darn," she said softly, irritated at herself. Picking up her pistol and leaving the rifle atop the stalagmite, she started to pick her way downward to rejoin the fight.

  There wasn't much fighting left to rejoin. Caught completely by surprise, the soldiers had been decimated. Now the remnants, helpless and dispirited, were being cut down methodically by the victorious Coway. Those who tried to break from the fighting were picked off by well-aimed bolts from Kee and Halla.