[Hand Of Thrawn] - 01(64)

“You just get him inside,” Mara said, hitting the quick-release on her restraints and scrambling to her feet. “I’ll make sure he lives through it.”

He was almost there by the time Mara reached the airlock, cartwheeling toward them far faster than was healthy. “Computer says we’re right on target,” Faughn’s voice called over the speaker as Mara peered through the atmosphere barrier. “Impact in ten seconds.”

Taking a deep breath, Mara braced herself against the airlock bulkhead and stretched out to the Force.

The Emperor had taught her the basics of using the Force to move objects, rudimentary training that Skywalker himself had developed further during their trek through the Wayland forest and later for a brief time at that Yavin academy of his. She’d kept up practice on her own after that, and had thought she’d become pretty proficient with the technique.

But moving small objects like her lightsaber was one thing. Catching Luke as he fell toward her was something else entirely, rather like trying to stop the Starry Ice with her teeth. She threw everything she had into the effort, dimly aware that her whole body had gone rigid with the strain, fighting to at least slow him down before he barreled past her through the atmosphere barrier. She could sense him slowing-knew it wouldn’t be enough-And at the last possible second she stepped away from the bulkhead directly into his path.

He slammed into her full tilt, the impact driving both of them back and down. “Welcome aboard,” Mara gasped, an instant before the two of them slammed together to the deck.

A landing that was considerably less painful than she had expected it to be. She blinked, trying to shake the lingering stars from her vision&mdash

“Thank you,” Luke murmured into her ear.

The stars cleared, and Mara found herself looking up into a strange face-Luke’s face, she realized, heavily disguised. He was straddling her, hands and feet on the deck, apparently having come out of his trance just in time to take his share of the impact instead of adding extra dead weight to hers. “You’re welcome,” she managed. “Nice disguise.”

“Thanks,” he said. “It worked, too, mostly.”

“Mostly’ doesn’t count for much, does it?” she said. “How come you didn’t use a Force illusion, like you have before?”

“I’ve been trying to cut back on my use of the Force except when absolutely necessary,” he explained. “It didn’t seem necessary in this case.”

“Ah,” Mara said. That was interesting. Very interesting indeed. “So. You want to get off me, or were you just getting comfortable?”

“Oh-sure,” he said awkwardly, some of that old farmboy embarrassment flicking across his face as he scrambled off her. “Sorry.”

“No problem,” Mara said, getting to her feet and running a critical eye over him. Some nasty-looking shrapnel tears in his clothing, with what were probably some equally nasty injuries underneath them. “Looks like you need a pass through the medical bay.”

“No time,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m okay for now, and we’ve got to get out of here. Did my X-wing get docked?”

“I don’t know,” Mara said, slapping the control pad to close the outer airlock door. “Faughn?”

“It’s been secured in B-port,” the captain said. “Skywalker, you know a safe route Out of this death trap?”

“I used to,” Luke said, keying the inner door. “It’s probably not any safer than any other path now.”

“We’ll follow the pirates,” Mara decided, waving Krickle away as be hurried up with his medpac and leading Luke down the corridor toward the Starry ice’s half-ports. “They’ll probably shoot at us, but you can’t have everything.”

“Problem: we seem to have run out of pirates to follow,” Faughn said. “Nothing’s left the asteroid in nearly two minutes.”

Mara felt her stomach muscles tighten. “Which means the grand finale of their self-destruct system is probably ticking down right now.”

“Probably,” Faughn agreed. “What do we do, pick a direction and go?”

“More or less,” Mara told her. “Start pulling away from the main base, but not too fast. I want to be on my turbolaser before we get into anything nasty.”

“Give me time to get out there, too,” Luke added. “I can run ahead of you and trigger the traps.”

“Only if you can see them coming,” Mara pointed out, giving him a hard look. “I’ve got a better danger sense than you do; maybe I should take your ship and break trail.”