Star Wars: Rebel Force 4: Firefight by Alex Wheeler

Author:Alex Wheeler
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Juvenile Fiction, Star Wars fiction, General, Science fiction, Media Tie-In
ISBN: 9780545140843
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2009-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Luke woke up screaming.

He opened his eyes, but the world remained totally dark.

He was trapped somewhere, sealed up tightly against the light. Either that or I'm blind, Luke thought, trying to keep the panic at bay. After all, it was a miracle he wasn't dead. Yet. He tried to focus on that.

He couldn't move.

Blind and paralyzed, he thought, struck by a sudden horror. Maybe I am dead. Maybe this is what death means.

An eternity, silent and motionless. An eternity frozen in this dark nothing.

No. As the panic wore off and his surroundings came into sharper detail, Luke realized that he could still feel his arms and legs. He could even contract the muscles. He just couldn't move, not an inch. Some kind of warm, sticky slime was holding him in place. It was pulsing, squeezing him with a slow, steady rhythm. Like a heartbeat.

Suddenly, he knew exactly where he was. And the panic returned.

The last thing he'd seen was the beast's mouth closing over him. I'm inside the creature, Luke realized. It ate me and now…

And now what? Would he lie here encased in glop while the creature slowly digested him? For a moment, he wished he'd never woken up.

But he dismissed the thought. As long as he was alive, he could fight. He struggled to break free of the slime. If he could just reach his lightsaber, he could slice his way out. But his arm wouldn't budge. He was pinned tightly.

We're moving, Luke thought, his stomach lurching. It feels like we're falling.

He had no way to find out if that was true and no way to save himself. He was helpless.

It's not supposed to end this way, Luke thought angrily. The Rebellion needs me. Leia needs me.

Like I needed Ben, he thought. And Aunt Beru. And Uncle Owen.

All of them dead now, needed or not.

Luke struggled with renewed energy against the gunk. Maybe he was doomed. But he wasn't about to give up. Until the very last moment, he would struggle, He would fight.

He would hope.

The chamber contracted. The walls crushed Luke in on himself. An iron grip seized his lungs, squeezing out his last breath. This is it, he thought.

And then he felt himself rolling through the slimy darkness and was flung into the light.

The creature had vomited him up. Luke drew in a deep, heaving breath. He was lying on a flat bed of rock, coated with a sticky fluid. He was in a cave of some kind, with a deep pool at its center. The creature loomed over him, lips drawn back to reveal its jagged teeth. Luke whipped out his blaster and pulled the trigger. There was a soft pop, a fizzle of smoke—then nothing. He dropped the blaster and grabbed his lightsaber just as the creature shook its mighty head and slithered away. Before Luke could activate it, the beast had disappeared into the water.

Luke clipped the lightsaber back to his belt and climbed to his feet. He wasn't alone.

The remaining enemy pilot lay on his side, gasping and heaving.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.