[Dark Nest] - 1(35)
“We’ll send it up in a moment,” Mara promised.
The moment went by, then two, then several. Finally, when her nerves could stand no more close calls-and no more of Han’s grouching-Leia commed back to the Shadow.
“Uh, we didn’t receive that trajectory.”
“We’re trying,” Luke said. “Artoo’s sort of locked up.”
“Locked up?” Han asked. “An astromech?”
“He’s been acting strange lately,” Luke explained. “All we got before he went blank was not safe, not safe, not safe.”
“Oh, dear!” C-3PO exclaimed. “It sounds as though he’s trying to resolve an unknowable variable. We’re doomed!”
“Yeah?” Han waved at the traffic outside the forward viewport. “Then how come none of them are crashing?”
C-3PO was silent for a moment, then said, “I wouldn’t know, Captain Solo. Their processors certainly aren’t any better than Artoo’s.”
“They don’t need processors.” Leia was thinking of Luke’s description of the cantina where Saba met Tarfang, of how the mysterious Joiners had arrived to lead away any patron with whom he struck up a conversation. “It was pretty clear that the Lizil can communicate telepathically. Maybe the Yoggoy can, too.”
“Probably,” Mara agreed. “And since we don’t have any
Yoggoy navigators aboard-“
“We’re flying blind!” Han finished. “Better bring the shields to maximum, Leia. We’re going to get some bug spatter.”
“Perhapz not,” Saba commed from the Shadow. “Leia, have you been doing your reaction drill?”
Leia felt a stab of guilt. “When there’s been time.”
Saba was kind enough not to remind her that she was supposed to make time for her training. That was the obligation of a Jedi Knight-though Leia, in all honesty, had a hard time thinking of herself as anything other than an eternal apprentice. Perhaps that was why she found it so hard to find training time.
“Do the drill now,” Saba said. “But instead of stingerz, imagine the remote is shooting vesselz at you.”
Leia started a breathing exercise, then closed her eyes and opened herself to the Force. She immediately felt something swooping down on them from above.
“Down and starboard,” she said.
The Falcon continued on the same course.
“Han-“
“Are you crazy?” he interrupted. “With your eyes open, maybe. But not…”
The Falcon dropped five meters, and Leia opened her eyes to see the swollen underbelly of a big Gallofree transport gliding over them.
‘Wow you will… listen… to your nestie!” Saba was
sissing hysterically. “Mara is flying with her eyes closed.”
“Who isn’t?” Han gave Leia a quick nod. “Whatever you say, dear.”
Leia closed her eyes again and began to call directions. At first Han emitted an alarming string of oaths and gasps, but gradually the sensations grew more concrete-and Han’s willingness to follow the blind more ready. Within the hour, they were bobbing and dodging along more or less steadily behind the XR808g.
Finally, Han said, “Looks like he’s going to ground.”
Leia opened her eyes to see the tracking blip drifting down toward the middle of the display, its color deepening to red as the XR808g lost altitude. She looked out the canopy and found the distinctive wafer of a YT light freighter in the distance ahead, descending into the hazy labyrinth of insect pinnacles. Traffic remained heavy above the spires, but there were only a handful of drifting balloon-bikes and slow-moving airspeeders among the towers themselves.
“We’ll take point,” Leia commed. “Why don’t you fly top cover?”
“It’s a plan,” Luke answered.
As the Falcon descended, Leia saw that the mottled colors decorating the pinnacles had been created by pressing colored pebbles into the exterior walls. The effect was remarkably calming. If she watched them out of the corner of her eye, or allowed her gaze to go unfocused, the bright blotches of color reminded her of a meadow in full bloom-and, she realized, of the elaborate mosaics inside the spires depicted in Killik Twilight.
“Could it be?” she gasped.
“Could be anything,” Han answered. “So let’s be ready. Send Cakhmaim and Meewalh to the cannon turrets, and tell Beady to go to ready standby.”
They followed the XR808g down to within a hundred meters of ground level, where the balloon-bikes and airspeeders gave way to rivers of racing landspeeders, speeder bikes, and dangerous-looking rocket carts steered exclusively by Yoggoy pilots. Pedestrians were forced to scurry along the tower bases, hanging on the walls sideways if they were insects or keeping themselves tightly pressed against the foundations if they were bipeds.