And then, in the distance, she heard the faint sound of approaching repulsorlifts, and the paralysis vanished. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said. “Chewie-?”
“There is no time,” Khabarakh called, sprinting to them with Chewbacca right on his heels. “The shuttle must already be in sight beneath the clouds.”
Leia looked quickly around the room, silently cursing her moment of indecision. No windows; no other doors; no cover except the small booth that faced the wall genealogy chart from across the dukha.
No way out.
“Are you certain he’s coming here?” Leia asked Khabarakh, realizing as she spoke that the question was a waste of breath. “Here to the dukha, I mean?”
“Where else would he come?” Khabarakh countered darkly, his eyes on the maitrakh. “Perhaps he was not fooled, as we thought.”
Leia looked around the dukha again. If the shuttle landed by the double doors, there would be a few seconds before the Imperials entered when the rear of the building would be out of their view. If she used those seconds to cut them an escape hole with her lightsaber:
Chewbacca’s growled suggestion echoed her own train of thought. “Yes, but cutting a hole isn’t the problem,” she pointed out. “It’s how to seal it up afterward.”
The Wookiee growled again, jabbing a massive hand toward the booth. “Well, it’ll hide the hole from the inside, anyway, Leia agreed doubtfully. “I suppose that’s better than nothing.” She looked at the maitrakh, suddenly aware that slicing away part of their ancient clan dukha might well qualify as sacrilege. “Maitrakh-“
“If it must be done, then be it so,” the Noghri cut her off harshly. She was still in shock her self but even as Leia watched she visibly drew herself together again. “You must not be found here.”
Leia bit at the inside of her lip. She’d seen that same expression several times on Khabarakh’s face during the trip from Endor. It was a look she’d come to interpret as regret for his decision to bring her to his home. “We’ll be as neat as possible,” she assured the maitrakh, pulling her lightsaber from her bolt. “And as soon as the Grand Admiral is gone, Khabarakh can get his ship back and take us away-“
She broke off as Chewbacca snarled for silence. Faintly, in the distance, they could hear the sound of the approaching shuttle; and then, suddenly, another all-too familiar whine shot past the dukha.
“Scimitar assault bombers,” Leia breathed, hearing in the whine the crumbling of her impromptu plan. With Imperial bombers flying cover overhead, it would be impossible for them to sneak out of the dukha without being spotted.
Which left them only one option. “We’ll have to hide in the booth,” she told Chewbacca, doing a quick estimation of its size as she hurried toward it. If the slanting roof that sloped upward from the front edge back to the dukha wall wasn’t just for show, there should be barely enough room for both her and Chewbacca inside-
“Will you want me in there as well, Your Highness?”
Leia skidded to a halt, spinning around in shock and chagrin. Threepio-she’d forgotten all about him.
“There will not be room enough,” the maitraich hissed. “Your presence here has betrayed us, Lady Vader-“
“Quiet!” Leia snapped, throwing another desperate look around the dukha. But there was still no other place to hide.
Unless:
She looked at the star dish hanging over the middle of the room. “We’ll have to put him up there,” she told Chewbacca, pointing to it. “Do you think you can-?”
There was no need to finish the question. Chewbacca had already grabbed Threepio and was heading at top speed toward the nearest of the tree-trunk pillars, throwing the frantically protesting droid over his shoulder as he ran. The Wookiee leaped upward at the pillar from two meters out, his hidden climbing claws anchoring him solidly to the wood. Three quick pulls got him to the top of the wall; and, with the half hysterical droid balanced precariously, he began to race hand over hand along the chain. “Quiet, Threepio,” Leia called to him from the booth door, giving the interior a quick look. The ceiling did indeed follow the slanting roof, giving the back of the booth considerably more height than the front, and there was a low bench like seat across the back wall. A tight fit, but they should make it. “Better yet, shut down-they may have sensors going,” she added.
Though if they did, the whole game was over already. Listening to the approaching whine of repulsorlifts, she could only hope that after the negative sensor scan from the previous night, they wouldn’t bother doing another one.