The Wookiee snarled again, shaking his head firmly. “Then you leave me no choice,” Khabarakh said.
And without warning, the cockpit flashed with blue light, dropping Chewbacca to the floor like a huge sack of grain. “What-?” Leia gasped, dropping to her knees beside the motionless Wookiee.
“Khabakakh!”
“A stun weapon only,” the Noghri said, breathing rapidly as he swiveled back to his board. “A built-in defense.”
Leia twisted her head to glare at him, furious at what he’d done : a fury that faded reluctantly behind the logic of the situation. Chewbacca had been fully prepared to throttle the life out of Khabarakh; and from personal experience, she knew how hard it was to calm down an angry Wookiee, even when you were his friend to begin with.
And Khabarakh had tried talking first. “Now what?” she asked the Noghri, digging a hand through Chewbacca’s thick torso hair to check his heartbeat. It was steady, which meant the stun weapon hadn’t played any of its rare but potentially lethal tricks on the Wookiee’s nervous system.
“Now be silent,” Khabarakh said, tapping his comm switch and saying something in his own language. Another mewing Noghri voice replied, and for a few minutes they conversed together. Leia remained kneeling at Chewbacca’s side, wishing she’d had time to bring Threepio up before the discussion started. It would have been nice to know what the conversation was all about.
But finally it ended, and Khabarakh signed off. “We are safe now,” be said, slumping a little in his seat. “They are persuaded it was an equipment malfunction.”
“Let’s hope so,” Leia said.
Khabarakh looked at her, a strange expression on his nightmare face. “I have not betrayed you, Lady Vader,” he said quietly, his voice hard and yet oddly pleading. “You must believe me. I have promised to defend you, and I will. To my own death, if need be.”
Leia stared at him : and whether through some sensitivity of the Force or merely her own long diplomatic experience, she finally understood the position Khabarakh was now in. Whatever waverings or second thoughts he might have been feeling during the voyage, the Star Destroyer’s unexpected appearance bad burned those uncertainties away. Khabarakh’s word of honor had been brought into question and he was now in the position of having to conclusively prove that he had not broken that word.
And he would have to go to whatever lengths such proof demanded.
Even if it killed him.
Earlier, Leia had wondered how Khabarakh could possibly understand the concept of the Wookees life debt. Perhaps the Noghri and Wookiee cultures were more alike than she’d realized.
“I believe you,” she told him, climbing to her feet and sitting down in the copilot seat. Chewbacca she would have to leave where he was until he was awake enough to help her move him. “What now?”
Khabarakh turned back to his board. “Now we must make a decision,” he said. “My intention had been to bring you to ground in the city of Nystao, waiting until full dark to present you to my clan dynast. But that is now impossible. Our Imperial lord has come, and is holding a convocate of the dynasts.”
The back of Leia’s neck tingled. “Your Imperial lord is the Grand Admiral?” she asked carefully.
“Yes,” Khabarakh said. “that is his flagship, the Chimaera. I remember the day that the Lord Darth Vader first brought him to us,” he added, his mewing voice becoming reflective. “The Lord Vader told us that his duties against the Emperor’s enemies would now be taking his full attention. That the Grand Admiral would henceforth be our lord and commander.” He made a strange, almost purring sound deep in his chest. “There were many who were sad that day. The Lord Vader had been the only one save the Emperor who cared for Noghri well-being. He had given us hope and purpose.”
Leia grimaced. That purpose being to go off and die as death commandos at the Emperor’s whim. But she couldn’t say things like that to Khabarakh. Not yet, anyway. “Yes,” she murmured.
At her feet, Chewbacca twitched. “He will be fully awake soon,” Khabarakh said. “I would not like to stun him again. Can you control him?”
“I think so,” Leia said. They were coming in low toward the upper atmosphere now, on a course that would take them directly beneath the orbiting Star Destroyer. “I hope they don’t decide to do a sensor focus on us,” she murmured. “If they pick up three life-forms here, you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”
“The ship’s static-damping should prevent that,” Khabarakh assured her. “It is at full power.”