Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor: Star Wars Legends (Star Wars - Legends) by Matthew Stover

Author:Matthew Stover [Stover, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780307795854
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Published: 2011-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Han and Leia stood back-to-back in the middle of a tightening ring of rock creatures, sweeping their blasters through short arcs to spread the stun charges around, but each blast bought them only a few seconds, and neither had more than a handful of shots remaining. Chewbacca lay unconscious, half-buried in rehardened stone, and R2-D2 lay on his side, photoprojector dark, smoke trailing up from his burnt-out capacitors. The only light in the cavern came from the crackling energy that played over the creatures as they pushed closer and closer.

“This is a stupid way to die!” Han snarled, slagging another couple of them with a single shot. “We don’t know what these things are, we don’t know what they’re doing here, we don’t even know why they’re mad at us!”

“They’re not mad,” Leia said breathlessly as she fired again, and once more. “I can feel it. They don’t even want to hurt us. Not really. They only want to bury us in the rock and go about their business.”

“What—we just show up in the wrong place at the wrong time and we’re gonna die for it?”

“Han—” Leia triggered her hold-out and got not even a glow from the muzzle. “Han, I’m out.”

“All right, all right,” Han said through his teeth; his DL’s grip alert had been tingling for the last four or five shots, which meant he had only a handful left, even at this half-power setting. He threw his arm around Leia’s shoulders and started backing up, throwing a shot or two behind to start a gap in the ring of creatures. “Stick close. Maybe we can work over to some of their current guests. Maybe somebody’s got a charged blaster tucked away somewhere we can get at it—”

“Somebody’s coming,” Leia said. “Han—somebody’s out there! Coming for us!”

“Is it Luke? Please say it’s Luke.” He silently swore that if she said yes, he would never, ever make another joke about the Force, or Jedi, or lightsabers, or really, anything else. For the rest of his life. Or longer, if necessary.

Over by the cavern mouth, rock creatures suddenly collapsed into puddles of liquid stone.

Leia said, her voice hushed, “It’s not Luke.”

The collapse spread like a slow-motion shock wave; creature after creature simply melted away, their electric crackles fading to silence; as the last of them fell, their light winked out, leaving the cavern in a darkness beyond darkness. Darkness like being blind.

Darkness as if the existence of light had been only a dream.

In that absolute night, something growled.

“What the hell was that?” Han asked. It had sounded like a Corellian sand panther warning off an intruder in its den.

“It says,” Leia said, low, “The dark is your refuge. Enter the dark as a weary traveler enters sleep.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? And since when do you speak … whatever that is?”

“I don’t. I just … understand him somehow.”

More growls, moving now; Han tracked the sound with the emitter of his DL-44. “What’s he saying now?”

Her arms tightened around his chest. “He says he can smell your fear.

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