Star Wars: The Adventures of Lando Calrissian: Volume One: Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu by L. Neil Smith

Author:L. Neil Smith [Smith, L. Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780756794835
Google: WsX1AAAACAAJ
Publisher: DIANE Publishing Company
Published: 2005-07-01T08:07:56+00:00

He reached for his discarded blaster, intending to pull out the arrow and create a little mayhem before they shot him down. He hadn't moved a meter when another flight of arrows virtually buried the weapon, pinned it to the ground by its sling, trigger guard, and other apertures in the stock and fore end. So much for that idea.

As one, the fifty or so natives swung their weapons back on Lando.

―Okay, okay, I'm coming! Anybody think to call a cab?

Two hours later, Lando wished it hadn't been a joke. They'd marched him for mile after endless mile, climbing over random, angular ruins, sloshing through deep-drifted sand, scrabbling through scrubby brush. His feet hurt and his legs ached and, no matter how high he turned his suit controls, he was still cold.

At last he stopped.

―All right, everybody, I've been a nice guy so far, but this is as far as I go.

If you want the Key, you'll have to take it off my dead body. I'm not going another meter.

The silent natives who surrounded him looked to Mohs. The old man nodded. They loosed a flight of arrows that plucked at his clothing, kicked sand up in his face, whistled mere angstrom units over his head.

These fellows were impressive markspersons, Lando found himself thinking; I hope none of them gets the hiccups. He stood his ground again until they started shooting between his legs. It wasn't worth the risk. He waited until they paused to reload, then began marching again.

What he had thought were crossbows had turned out to be something entirely different, some kind of spring-loaded contraption with hinged arms

- which he'd mistaken for the limbs of a bow - that flailed forward, hurling the stubby arrows out through the front of the weapon. They didn't seem to need reloading every time they were fired. He guessed there were perhaps half a dozen projectiles stashed in a magazine hidden within the mechanism. The weapons weren't very powerful, as projectile throwers went, but the speed and accuracy with which they could be used made him realize he could die from a thousand pinpricks as easily as from a single blaster shot.

And a great deal more painfully.

They marched.

Another couple of hours went by. Lando wasn't sure exactly - he didn't want to took at his watch, because he didn't want to remind the natives that he had several items concealed beneath his winter clothes, notably his five-shot stingbeam. It would take a lot of figuring to get any good out of it in this situation, but it was something to fall back on, and it gave him a bit of hope.

Step after endless step. The country didn't vary much: something between desert and tundra, most of the space taken up with giant Sharu buildings.

Sand, sand, and more sand. Occasional weeds. The clear, yet somehow foreboding sky. He worried about Vuffi Raa, hoped that robots die a swift and merciful death.

All during the long, pauseless ordeal, the Toka around him chanted, sometimes slowly, sometimes more rapidly.

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