[Thrawn Trilogy] - 01(27)

And, held ready in their hands, stokhli sticks.

“We’ve got trouble,” he murmured to Leia, turning his head slowly to look around, hoping desperately that those three were all there were.

They weren’t. There were at least eight more, arrayed in a rough circle ten meters across. A circle with Han, Leia, and Threepio at its center.

“Han!” Leia said urgently.

“I see them,” he muttered. “We’re in trouble, sweetheart.”

He sensed her glance behind them. “Who are they?” she breathed.

“I don’t know-never seen anything like them before. But they’re not kidding around. Those things are called stokhli sticks-shoot a spraynet mist two hundred meters, with enough shockstun juice to take down a good-sized Gundark.” Abruptly, Han noticed that he and Leia had moved, instinctively backing away from the nearest part of the aliens’ circle. He glanced over his shoulder- “They’re herding us toward the down ramp,” he told her. “Must be trying to take us without stirring up the crowd.”

“We’re doomed,” Threepio moaned.

Leia gripped Han’s hand. “What are we going to do?”

“Let’s see how closely they’re paying attention.” Trying to watch all the aliens at once, Han casually reached his free hand toward the comlink attached to his collar.

The nearest alien lifted his stokhli stick warningly. Han froze, slowly lowered the hand again. “So much for that idea,” he muttered. “I think it’s time to pull in the welcome mat. Better give Luke a shout.”

“He can’t help us.”

Han glanced down at her; at her glazed eyes and pinched face. “Why not?” he demanded, stomach tightening.

She sighed, just audibly. “They’ve got him, too.”





Chapter 7


It was more a feeling than anything approaching an actual word, but it echoed through Luke’s mind as clearly as if he’d heard it shouted.

Help!

He spun around, the ancient tapestry he’d been studying forgotten as his Jedi senses flared into combat readiness. Around him, the large top-floor Tower room was as it had been a minute earlier: deserted except for a handful of Bimms strolling among the huge wall tapestries and relic cases. No danger here, at least nothing immediate. What is it? he sent back, starting for the next room and the staircase leading down.

He caught a quick vision from Leia’s mind, a picture of alien figures and a vivid impression of a contracting noose. Hang on, he told her. I’m coming. All but running now, he ducked through the doorway to the staircase room, grabbing the jamb to help with his turn-And braked to an abrupt halt. Standing between him and the stairway was a loose semicircle of seven silent gray figures.

Luke froze, his hand still uselessly gripping the doorjamb, half a galaxy away from the lightsaber on his belt. He had no idea what the sticks were his assailants were pointing at him, but he had no desire to find out the hard way. Not unless he absolutely had to. “What do you want?” he asked aloud.

The alien in the center of the semicircle-the leader, Luke guessed-gestured with his stick. Luke glanced over his shoulder into the room he’d just left. “You want me to go back in there?” he asked.

The leader gestured again … and this time Luke saw it. The small, almost insignificant tactical error. “All right,” he said, as soothingly as possible. “No problem.” Keeping his eyes on the aliens and his hands away from his lightsaber, he began to back up.

They herded him steadily back across the room toward another archway and a room he hadn’t gotten to before Leia’s emergency call had come. “If you’d just tell me what you want, I’m sure we could come to some sort of agreement,” Luke suggested as he walked. Faint scuffling sounds told him that there were still some Bimms wandering around, presumably the reason the aliens hadn’t already attacked. “I would hope we could at least talk about it. There’s no particular reason why any of you has to be hurt.”

Reflexively, the leader’s left thumb moved. Not much, but Luke was watching, and it was enough. A thumb trigger, then. “If you have some business with me, I’m willing to talk,” he continued. “You don’t need my friends in the marketplace for that.”

He was almost to the archway now. A couple more steps to go. If they’d just hold off shooting him that long …

And then he was there, with the carved stone looming over him. “Now where?” he asked, forcing his muscles to relax. This was it.

Again, the leader gestured with his stick … and midway through the motion, for a single instant, the weapon was pointed not at Luke but at two of his own companions.