Survivor's Quest: Star Wars (Star Wars - Legends) by Zahn Timothy

Author:Zahn, Timothy [Zahn, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780345459176
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-06-28T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

THE AFT SECTIONS OF D-6 WEREN’T AS WELL MAINTAINED AS the corridor between the nursery and the Jedi Quarantine had been. But the aft turbolift tubes weren’t very far, the area was passable enough, and the 501st was what the training manuals would have called “inspired.” They made it to the turbolift lobby without further incident, and in probably record time.

Fel had keyed the call button, and they were waiting for the car to arrive, when they got their first hint of imminent trouble.

“It doesn’t sound right, Commander,” Grappler insisted, the side of his helmet pressed against the turbolift door. “It sounds … it just sounds wrong.”

“Wrong how?” Fel demanded impatiently. He was all for caution, but at the same time he didn’t want to start jumping at moss creakings, either. Not with Formbi and the others in danger up there. “Does it sound old, rusty, cranky—what?”

“It’s too heavy,” Watchman decided suddenly, his helmet pressed to the door alongside Grappler’s. “There’s too much weight there for an empty car.”

Fel shot a glance at Drask. “Could it be a problem with the repulsorlift generators?”

“No,” Watchman said. “There’s some of that, too, but not enough. The car is definitely loaded.”

“And we must assume it is loaded with enemies,” Drask said. “I suggest, Commander, that we take cover.”

Fel grimaced. To run and hide felt cowardly somehow, especially since he still wasn’t convinced there was anything but an empty turbolift car on the way. Still, it wouldn’t do Jinzler and Formbi any good if he and the 501st got themselves slaughtered like amateurs. And since it was Drask who had suggested it and not he himself, he wouldn’t have to put up with any of the general’s criticism later. “Defensive positions,” he ordered. Glancing around, he located a likely doorway a few meters back down the corridor and headed to it.

The room appeared to be a small duty galley for the engine crews, with dust and broken serving crockery everywhere. Settling himself into a position half straddling the doorway where he could see without exposing more of himself than necessary, he braced his blaster hand against the door controls and waited. The turbolift’s hum changed subtly as the car settled into position …

And with a brilliant flash of white, the door exploded outward.

Reflexively, Fel ducked back as shrapnel and pieces of burning plastic clattered down the corridor. Apparently, Watchman and Grappler had been right. The sound of the explosion faded away, and he swung his eye and blaster back around the jamb.

Two armored figures charged out through the ragged opening, firing red blaster bolts in a scatter pattern as they came.

Fel inhaled sharply. After Jinzler’s warning he had naturally expected the intruders to be some of Bearsh’s disguised Vagaari cronies. But he’d expected the short robe-and-dead-animal-clothed beings they’d gotten used to seeing aboard the Chaf Envoy, not a fully equipped war party. Another pair of Vagaari charged out on the heels of the first two, four snarling and definitely not dead wolvkils emerging with them.

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