[Legacy Of The Force] - 03(106)

“Does that make it a lie?” Lumiya asked. “You’ve caused me a lot of pain over the years, Skywalker. What better way to repay it than bringing your family legacy full circle?”

Luke knew she was only trying to twist the vibroblade, to hurt him as much as she could before she killed him-but he stuck his head up anyway.

“Stop it!” he yelled, with real anger. “You’ll never make a Sith of my…”

Luke never had a chance to say son, All he saw was the bright glow of Lumiya’s lightwhip snaking across the claqball table barely centimeters above the surface, and he knew that his reflexes were just too slow right now, that he could not duck quickly enough to keep the whip from slicing into his brain.

So Luke simply fell backward, closing his eyes against the crackling glow as the strands swept past a finger’s width above his nose, bringing up the blaster he had taken from the dead spacer’s holster, allowing the Force to guide his hand, squeezing the trigger three times before he felt Lumiya’s shock in the Force, then squeezing it twice more before he heard her body hit the floor.

And suddenly Mara was screaming at him from across the cantina, flooding the Force with alarm. “Stop firing!”

Luke sat up and glanced over long enough to see her in the hatchway, pushing past the last handful of stragglers - mostly wounded-who were still struggling to leave the cantina.

“You can’t kill her!” Mara yelled.

Luke looked back to Lumiya and thought he had done a pretty good job of it. She was lying at the foot of the claqball table with three different columns of blaster smoke rising from her chest, her cybernetic life-support girdle sparking and sizzling with short circuits. Her lightwhip lay on the floor nearby, where she had dropped it when he blasted her. His own lightsaber lay a few meters beyond, where it had landed when she used the whip to disarm him. Luke used the Force to summon both weapons to him, then stood and went to check on her.

To his surprise, Lumiya’s eyes were focused and alert-and horribly bugged out with pain. As soon as she saw him, they crinkled at the corners as though she were smiling. That tiny act made his spine ache with danger sense, but he tried not to let that show when he spoke.

“Mara’s … coming,” he gasped. “She’ll try to save you…”

“Maybe not.” Mara came up behind him and took one look at Lumiya, then said, “In fact, not a chance.”

She grabbed Luke and tried to pull him away, but-still fighting his pain-he pulled back and remained where he was.

“Mara, we can’t leave her…”

“Yes, Luke, we can.” Mara leaned down and pulled open Lumiya’s robe, revealing-aside from the blaster wounds and life-support girdle-a black combat vest with a sensor pad over the heart. The diodes were blinking weakly and erratically. “In fact, I think we’d better run.”





Chapter Twenty-two


With a swarm of pincer-winged Miy’tils nibbling at the forward shields and a Nova-class battle cruiser chewing on the stern, Leia was jerking the pilot’s yoke around at random, just trusting to the Force and blind luck to get the Falcon through the storm of enemy fire. How Han had done this for forty years without getting them blasted to atoms-r-or at least developing a nervous stomach-was beyond her imagining. She only hoped she was a good enough pilot to see them through until the Alliance’s rescue fleet arrived … and that she had not been wrong about it coming.

Golden shimmers of dispersal energy began to appear a few meters ahead, a sign that the Falcon’s shields were overloading. Leia ignored the flashing maelstrom long enough to glance at the copilot’s seat, where Han sat hunched over a disassembled shield-adjustment panel. C-3PO stood next to him, trying to hold the panel steady against the control board while Han worked.

“How are those shield repairs coming?”

“Even I can’t splice a moving target,” Han complained. “Hold still, Threepio!”

“It’s not my fault,” C-3PO replied. “Holding still is quite impossible while Princess Leia continues to evade enemy fire. The Falcon’s inertial compensators are simply inadequate for this kind of maneuvering.”

The Falcon lurched forward as a turbolaser struck the rear shields, and then an alarm chime sounded from the control board, announcing a desperate need to redistribute the shield power.

“I’m trying,” Han muttered to the chime. “I’m trying!”

Leia swung wide to avoid a flight of concussion missiles. The Falcon shuddered as the Noghri, operating the cannon turrets, cut loose with the quad cannons. The Miy’til that had launched the attack erupted in a boiling sphere of flame.