Heir to the Empire

C H A P T E R 29

“Oh, my!” Threepio gasped. “General Calrissian, I have—”

“Quiet, Threepio,” Lando ordered, peering carefully around the edge of the window at the minor commotion going on across the square. “Did you see what happened, Aves?”

Crouched down beneath the windowsill, Aves shook his head. “Looked like Skywalker and his droid both fell over,” he said. “Couldn’t tell for sure—too many stormtroopers in the way.”

“General Calrissian—”

“Quiet, Threepio.” Lando watched tensely as two stormtroopers pulled Luke to his feet, then righted Artoo. “Looks like they’re okay.”

“Yeah.” Aves reached down to the floor beside him, picked up the small transmitter. “Here we go. Let’s hope everyone’s ready.”

“And that Chin and the others aren’t still carrying their blasters,” Lando added under his breath.

Aves snorted. “They aren’t. Don’t worry—stormtroopers are always confiscating other people’s weapons.”

Lando nodded, adjusting his grip on his blaster, wishing they could get this over with. Across the way, the Imperials seemed to have gotten themselves sorted out and were starting to move again. As soon as they were all inside the square, away from any possible cover …

“General Calrissian, I must speak to you,” Threepio insisted. “I have a message from Master Luke.”

Lando blinked at him. “From Luke?”

—but even as he said it he suddenly remembered that electronic wail from Artoo just after he’d fallen over. Could that have been—? “What is it?”

“Master Luke wants you to hold off the attack,” Threepio said, obviously relieved that someone was finally listening to him. “He says you’re to wait until the stormtroopers are at the arch before firing.”

Aves twisted around. “What? That’s crazy. They outnumber us three to one—we give them any chance at all at cover and they’ll cut us to pieces.”

Lando looked out the window, grinding his teeth together. Aves was right—he knew enough of ground tactics to realize that. But on the other hand … “They’re awfully spread out out there,” he said. “Cover or no cover, they’re going to be hard to take out. Especially with those speeder bikes on their perimeter.”

Aves shook his head. “It’s crazy,” he repeated. “I’m not going to risk my people that way.”

“Luke knows what he’s doing,” Lando insisted. “He’s a Jedi.”

“He’s not a Jedi now,” Aves snorted. “Didn’t Karrde explain about the ysalamiri?”

“Whether he has Jedi powers or not, he’s still a Jedi,” Lando insisted. His blaster, he realized suddenly, was pointed at Aves. But that was okay, because Aves’s blaster was pointed at him, too. “Anyway, his life is more on the line here than any of yours—you can always abort and pull back.”

“Oh, sure,” Aves snorted, throwing a glance out the window. The Imperials were nearing the middle of the square now, Lando saw, the stormtroopers looking wary and alert as anything. “Except that if we leave any of them alive, they’ll seal off the city. And what about that Chariot up there?”

“What about it?” Lando countered. “I still haven’t heard how you’re planning to take it out.”

“Well, we sure as blazes don’t want it on the ground,” Aves retorted. “And that’s what’ll happen if we let the stormtroopers get to the arch. The Chariot’ll put down right across the front of it, right between us and them. That, plus the arch itself, will give them all the cover they need to sit back and take us out at their leisure.” He shook his head and shifted his grip on the transmitter. “Anyway, it’s too late to clue in the others to any plan changes.”

“You don’t have to clue them in,” Lando said, feeling sweat collecting under his collar. Luke was counting on him. “No one’s supposed to do anything until you trigger the booby-trapped weapons.”

Aves shook his head again. “It’s too risky.” He turned back to the window, raised the transmitter.

And here, Lando realized—right here—was where it all came down to the wire. Where you decided who or what it was you trusted. Tactics and abstract logic … or people. Lowering his blaster, he gently rested the tip of the muzzle against Aves’s neck. “We wait,” he said quietly.

Aves didn’t move; but suddenly there was something in the way he crouched there that reminded Lando of a hunting predator. “I won’t forget this, Calrissian,” he said, his voice icy soft.

“I wouldn’t want you to,” Lando said. He looked out at the stormtroopers … and hoped that Luke did indeed know what he was doing.¹

The vanguard had already passed the archway, and the major was only a few steps away from it, when four of the stormtroopers abruptly blew up.

Quite spectacularly, too. The simultaneous flashes of yellow-white fire lit up the landscape to almost painful intensity; the thunderclap of the multiple detonations nearly knocked Luke over.

The sound was still ringing in his ears when the blasters opened up behind them.

The stormtroopers were good, all right. There was no panic that Luke could detect; no sudden freezing in astonishment or indecision. They were moving into combat position almost before the blaster fire had begun: those already at the archway hugging close to the stone pillars to return covering fire, the rest moving quickly to join them. Above the sound of the blasters, he could hear the increased whine of the speeder bikes kicking into high speed; overhead, he caught just a glimpse of the Chariot assault vehicle swiveling around to face the unseen attackers.

And then an armored hand caught him under each armpit, and suddenly he was being hauled toward the archway. A few seconds later he was dumped unceremoniously in the narrow gap between the two pillars supporting the north side of the arch. Mara was already crouched there; a second later, two more stormtroopers tossed Han in to join them. Four of the Imperials moved into position over them, using the pillars for cover as they began returning fire. Struggling to his knees, Luke leaned out for a look.

Out in the fire zone, looking small and helpless amid the deadly horizontal hail of blaster fire, Artoo was rolling toward them as fast as his little wheels would carry him.

“I think we’re in trouble,” Han muttered in his ear. “Not to mention Lando and the others.”

“It’s not over yet,” Luke told him tightly. “Just stick close. How are you at causing distractions?”

“Terrific,” Han said; and to Luke’s surprise, he brought his hands out from behind his back, the chain and manacles he’d been wearing hanging loosely from his left wrist. “Trick cuffs,” he grunted, pulling a concealed strip of metal from the inside of the open cuff and probing at Luke’s restraints. “I hope this thing—ah.” The pressure on Luke’s wrists was suddenly gone; the cuffs opened and dropped to the ground. “You ready for your distraction?” Han asked, taking the loose end of his chain in his free hand.

“Hang on a minute,” Luke told him, looking up. Most of the speeder bikes had taken refuge under the arch, looking like some strange species of giant birds hiding from a storm as they hovered close to the stone, their laser cannon spitting toward the surrounding houses. In front of them and just below their line of fire, the Chariot had swiveled parallel to the arch and was coming down. Once it was on the ground …

A hand gripped Luke’s arm, fingernails digging hard into the skin. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it!” Mara hissed viciously. “If the Chariot gets down, you’ll never get them out from cover.”

“I know.” Luke nodded. “I’m counting on it.”

The Chariot settled smoothly to the ground directly in front of the arch, blocking the last of the attackers’ firing vectors. Crouched at the window, Aves swore violently. “Well, there’s your Jedi for you,” he bit out. “You got any other great ideas, Calrissian?”

Lando swallowed hard. “We’ve just got to give him—”

He never finished the sentence. From the arch a blaster bolt glanced off the window frame, and suddenly Lando’s upper arm flashed with pain. The shock sent him stumbling backward, just as a second shot blew apart that whole section of the frame, driving wooden splinters and chunks of masonry like shrapnel across his chest and arm.

He hit the floor, landing hard enough to see stars. Blinking, gritting his teeth against the pain, he looked up—

To find Aves leaning over him.

Lando looked up into the other’s face. I won’t forget this, Aves had said, no more than three minutes ago. And from the look on his face, he wasn’t anticipating any need to hold that memory for much longer. “He’ll come through,” Lando whispered through the pain. “He will.”

But he could tell that Aves wasn’t listening … and, down deep, Lando couldn’t blame him. Lando Calrissian, the professional gambler, had gambled one last time. And he’d lost.

And the debt from that gamble—the last in a long line of such debts—had come due.

The Chariot settled smoothly to the ground directly in front of the arch, and Luke got his feet under him. This was it. “All right, Han,” he muttered. “Go.”

Han nodded and surged to his feet, coming up right in the middle of the four stormtroopers standing over them. With a bellow, he swung his former shackles full across the faceplate of the nearest guard, then threw the looped chain around the neck of the next and pulled backward, away from the pillars. The other two reacted instantly, leaping after him and taking the whole group down in a tangle.

And for the next few seconds, Luke was free.

He stood up and leaned out to look around the pillar. Artoo was still in the middle of no-man’s-land, hurrying to reach cover before he could be hit by a stray shot. He warbled plaintively as he saw Luke—

“Artoo!—now!” Luke shouted, holding out his hand and glancing across toward the southern end of the archway. Between the stone pillars and the grounded Chariot, the stormtroopers were indeed solidly entrenched. If this didn’t work, Han was right: Lando and everyone else out there were dead. Gritting his teeth, hoping fervently that his counterattack wasn’t already too late, he turned back to Artoo—

Just as, with a flicker of silver metal and perfect accuracy, his lightsaber dropped neatly into his outstretched hand.

Beside him, the guards had subdued Han’s crazy attack and were getting back to their feet, leaving Han on his knees between them. Luke took them all in a single sweep, the blazing green lightsaber blade slicing through the glistening stormtrooper armor with hardly a tug to mark its passing. “Get behind me,” he snapped to Han and Mara, stepping back to the gap between the two northern pillars and focusing on the mass of Imperials standing and crouching between him and the southern pillars. They were suddenly aware that they had an unexpected threat on their flank, and a few were already starting to bring their blasters to bear on him.

With the Force to guide his hand, he could have held out against them indefinitely, blocking their blaster shots with the lightsaber. Mara had been right, though: the ysalamiri effect did indeed extend this far outside the forest, and the Force was still silent.

But then, he’d never had any intention of fighting the stormtroopers anyway. Turning his back on the blasters tracking toward him, he slashed the lightsaber across and upward—

Neatly slicing one of the stone pillars in half.

There was a loud crack as suddenly released tension sent a shiver through the structure. Another stroke cut through the second pillar—

And the noise of the battle was abruptly drowned out by the awful grinding of stone on stone as the two fractured pillars began sliding apart.

Luke swung back around, peripherally aware of Han and Mara scrambling out from under the arch to safety behind him. The stormtroopers’ expressions were hidden behind their masks, but the look of sudden horror on the major’s face said it for all of them. Overhead, the mass of the arch creaked warningly; setting his teeth, Luke locked the lightsaber on and hurled it across the gap toward the pillars there. It cut through one of them and nicked the other—

And with a roar, the whole thing came crashing down.

Luke, standing at the edge, barely got out from under it in time. The stormtroopers, crouched in the center, didn’t.