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infighting. Who taught you to use a lightsaber like that? Kenobi?"
Luke nodded. "I owe everything to that old man, and wherever he's gone to, he knows it." He patted the
shaft of his father's weapon reassuringly.
"If we do catch up with Vader," she went on, "and we must, you're going to need both your skill with the
saber and the Force. If only I'd taken more time!"
Luke shushed her and the others. They were nearing the exit to the surface.
Dim, misty air filtered down to them. Even that dank light was intoxicating after so many days
underground, traveling by the glow of unnatural vegetation. Several bodies lay scattered about, Imperial
troopers too badly wounded to regain the surface.
The two Coway who'd come along directed them into a nearby crevice in the wall. Both Yuzzem
grunted and had to inhale for all they were worth in order to fit through. They emerged behind a clump of
thick brush at least twenty meters from the main entrance. One of the Coway pointed, indicating the
location of the armored vehicle on guard. Luke saw the squat shape, its muzzle angled directly down the
mouth of the tunnel they'd been standing in only moments before. He shuddered.
With soft mumbles and alien gestures, the Coway took their leave, vanishing back down the hole. Luke
crawled on his belly, freeing the exit for those behind him.
When all five were once again on the surface of Mimban, Luke turned to crawl clear.
"Just a darn minute, Luke boy!" Halla whispered. "Do you think you can catch up to this Vader on
foot?"
Luke paused, returned to stare at the silent crawler poised over the Coway exit. "All right, so what do
we do, Halla? I agree... we have to have transportation. But that armed crawler happens to be full of
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Imperial troops."
Halla studied the vehicle. "Its upper port is wide open... big enough for two men. I can see two... no,
one trooper with his head exposed. Probably giving information to those below." The head disappeared.
"He's gone now. We should get in the branches hanging over it."
"Then what?" the Princess asked. "We jump inside?"
"Listen," the old woman protested, "I can't think of everything, can I? I don't know... drop an
antipersonnel charge down them, or something!"
"Wonderful," the Princess quipped. She looked from Halla to Luke. "Now if one of you two magicians
will use the Force to conjure up a convenient canister of explosive, I'll volunteer to do the dropping." She
folded her arms, gazed questioningly at them. "Personally, I think I'm pretty safe in volunteering. Luke?"
He wasn't looking at her. "We don't have any explosives, true, but we have something close." She turned,
saw what he was staring at, and found she had to agree....
* * *
The Imperial sergeant had been fortunate to escape the underground ambush with his life, and he knew
it. If he'd had any voice in the matter he never would have led his men beneath the surface. On Mimban,
he was acutely uncomfortable whenever he had to leave the relative familiarity of the towns and venture
out into the bog-ridden countryside.
It had been a terrible battle, terrible. They'd been overwhelmed and nearly wiped out to the last trooper.
So many things had gone wrong.
The outcome of the engagement was decided in the first few minutes, when total surprise had belonged
to the enemy. Even when it had dawned on the detachment that they were under attack, they still hadn't
responded in the fashion Imperial troops were famous for.
There was no blaming the men, really. They were so accustomed to dealing with the subservient, pacific
greenies that the concept of a fighting Mimbanite was unbelievable to most of them. They'd proven
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unprepared to cope with the reality.
Now, as he stared out the foreport at the ominous mouth of the cavern he'd retreated from with the rest
of the survivors, he feasted on a single thought. If he knew the Captain-Supervisor at all, then as soon as
he and the Dark Lord Vader returned from their journey, a retaliatory force would be organized. They
would return here with heavy weapons, he mused grimly, and roast that cavern until every native male,
woman and infant had been reduced to ashes.
Idly, he wondered where Grammel and the Dark Lord had taken themselves so hastily, and shuddered.
He had no desire to accompany that tall, black-armored spectral shape anywhere whatsoever. He
preferred to speculate on the forthcoming massacre that would take place in the native warrens below.
That favorable mental image mitigated his usually brusque call to the man posted in the open turret above.
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