Tatooine Ghost Read online

  The diary’s heat vents were fine. It was a TIE making the noise.

  Leia raised her arm, cocking it at a steep angle so she could block both suns, and still found herself staring into a rippling blue-white inferno. She searched until puddles of darkness began to swim across her vision, then closed her eyes against the pain and looked away. Wherever that TIE was, she only hoped the pilot and his instruments would be just as blinded as she was by the blistering heat of the Great Chott.

  The droning faded a few moments later, and when it wasn’t followed by a sonic boom, Leia knew they had escaped detection. Had the TIE spotted them, either the sound would have continued, constantly changing directions as the pilot circled to keep them under surveillance, or it would have grown steadily louder and more shrill as he descended for a strafing run.

  Once her vision cleared, Leia activated the timing function on her chronometer. Assuming the TIE was flying a search grid, knowing the interval between passes would prove critical if they were to have any chance at all of evading detection. She returned the journal to its pocket and took up her herding spear and reins. There was nothing she could do to make the dewback move faster over this treacherous terrain, but she suspected the creature might find the scream and roar of a TIE blaster cannon more convincing.

  Han was wobbling more noticeably in his saddle, but remained alert enough to keep drinking. Over the next ten minutes, Leia saw him tip his water bottle up twice and realized he, too, was using his chronometer alarm to remind himself to drink.

  The brown wall of the distant mountains continued to hang on the horizon, and the blue sweep of a mirage still hovered at their base like a floating lake. Below the mirage, there lay a new desert apparition, a writhing stripe of darkness that appeared to have no worldly source. This was the first Leia had seen of it. The last time she had looked up to check on Han, the line had not been there. Noticing that it was a little thicker and blacker at one end than the other, she wondered if it might be the Chimaera’s shadow, cast from orbit above the Great Chott. It was not ordinarily Imperial procedure to bring a Star Destroyer so close to a planet unless they intended to bombard it—the Empire had lost capital ships to turbolaser ambushes before—but so far this new admiral had proven anything but ordinary.

  The droning sound returned, this time loudly enough that Leia had no doubt about its nature. She checked her chronometer and discovered the last pass had come fourteen minutes ago, then shielded her eyes and turned to look. It took a few moments of searching, but she finally found a blue flicker of ion discharge bouncing along low on the horizon, blinking in and out of sight as it was obscured by curtains of rising air. The caravan had one more pass, if they were lucky, before the TIE was close enough to see them.

  Leia glanced around, trying to distinguish Borno from all the other wavering blobs ahead. He had warned her that if it came to a fight, he would have no choice except to surrender them to the Imperials, and Leia failed to see how they could escape being caught in the open. And leaving the caravan had its advantages. Without the dewbacks, she and her companions could burrow under the boulders and hide from even a close-range sensor sweep. Besides, if the Askajians continued without them, perhaps the Imperials could be persuaded there had been nothing unusual in the caravan’s sudden change of direction.

  But Borno, wherever he was, did not seem interested in leaving them behind. Perhaps he saw the same weakness in Leia’s plan that she did: without the Askajians, she and her companions would survive no more than a day in this desert. He probably thought they had a better chance of survival in Imperial hands. The scattered caravan continued at its same rolling pace, the TIE droning across the sky behind it, Han swaying in his saddle as he stared back toward the horizon.

  Leia tried to urge her dewback close enough to see how he was holding up. Her mount broke into a trot for all of two paces, then nearly dumped her when one of the cargo beasts it was leading misplaced a foot and stumbled. After that, the creatures refused to move any faster, no matter how often she struck them with the herding spear.

  The distant whine of the TIE faded to silence, and Leia reset the timer on her chronometer. Fourteen minutes if they were lucky. It wasn’t much time. Unless she and the other non-Askajians left the caravan now, they would have no time to dig in and hide. But how could she explain her plan to the others without risking the use of a comlink? The caravan continued to amble onward at the same slow pace for another two minutes, then she heard—almost felt—a low thrumming similar to the sound that had recalled the stampeding dewbacks earlier.

  Han’s dewback, and the ones carrying Chewbacca and the Squibs, broke into a clumsy gallop and rushed forward, staggering and stumbling. Leia’s mount started after the others, but stopped when it discovered it was still tethered to the pack beasts. It began to groan angrily and toss its head. The Askajians began to free their cargo animals, and more dewbacks lurched after Han and the others. Puzzled—and hoping Borno had some plan other than headlong flight—Leia twisted around to release the pack beasts tethered to her own saddle. She had barely undone the second knot before all three creatures broke into a clumsy trot.

  The herding spear caught behind a rock and flew out of her grasp, and Leia spent the next few moments bent over backward, struggling to keep her feet in the stirrups and grabbing for a tethering loop. The heat made a difficult task nearly impossible, and by the time she finally caught the knot, her goggles were so steamy she couldn’t see.

  Leia barely had the strength to drag herself upright, and when she did, her head was spinning with heat fatigue. She lifted her goggles and allowed the steam to dissipate into Tatooine’s arid air, then lowered them and saw that the shadowy line ahead had widened into an immense wedge of darkness. She turned and looked over her shoulder, convinced she would find the Chimaera eclipsing the suns.

  Nothing above her but two blazing orbs.

  Leia looked forward again to find the caravan converging ahead, the pack beasts outpacing the mounts. The Askajians weren’t far behind, with Chewbacca close on their tails. But Han and the Squibs were rapidly losing ground, the Squibs remaining on their mount only through acrobatic grace. Han was slumped forward with both arms wrapped around his dewback’s neck. Leia kicked her heels into her mount’s flanks and slapped the side of its neck, trying to urge it toward Han. The creature didn’t even seem to feel the blows.

  Then the other dewbacks started to disappear.

  At first, Leia thought they were just pulling far enough ahead to vanish behind a shimmering curtain of heat. But as she continued forward, she noticed that they were becoming larger and less wavy when she lost sight of them. The shadow beneath the mirage was rapidly growing wider and steadier, and the dewbacks all seemed to be disappearing about the same distance from it.

  Not disappearing, but descending. The dewbacks’ legs would vanish first, then their bodies, and finally their heads and—as the first Askajians reached the brink—their riders. Then the shadow slid out from beneath the mirage and resolved itself into a broad deep canyon. Chewbacca reached the rim and followed the Askajians out of sight.

  A moment later, Han finally slipped out of his saddle.

  Leia was instantly standing in her stirrups, pulling her scarf down and yelling, “Chewie! Wait!”

  Her parched throat managed a loud croak, not much more. Still, one of the bouncing Squibs turned and glanced back. Leia pointed at the spot where Han had fallen—she could no longer tell his body from the rippling stones.

  “Han’s down!” Her voice cracked and fell short of a yell. “Get Chewie!”

  The Squib shouted something back that she could not understand, then one of them began to bounce up and down even higher on their saddle and wave a pair of arms, and the other two began whacking their mount’s neck, trying to force it back toward Han.

  The dewback continued after its fellows.

  As long as the beasts were thrumming, Leia knew she could neither steer nor slow her dewback. She pulled her foot
free of the stirrups and brought her leg around so that she was riding entirely on Han’s side of the beast. The imbalance caused it to veer in his direction, and—unable to see him lying among the rocks—she began to worry about trampling him.

  Then the Squibs leapt out of their saddle, spreading their sand cloaks to catch the air as they dropped. It was no help. One after the other, they hit the ground, were overcome by their momentum, and started bouncing.

  Leia could have kissed them.

  Learning from their mistake, she watched for a sandy stretch, then kicked her remaining foot out of the stirrup, pushed off, and covered her head.

  Her feet sank to the ankle, and she slammed down on her side, the wind leaving her lungs in a single gasp.

  Normally, she might have lain there in pain trying to get her breath back, but she had jumped from the oven onto the broiler—literally. The sand was so hot it began to burn her skin through the heavy sand cloak, and she found herself rising to her feet almost before the pain registered in her shoulder.

  Leia looked down and found her arm hanging at her side. She tried to lift it and nearly sank to her knees.

  “Stang! When it rains it…” She glanced up at the sky and shook her head. “We should be so lucky.”

  Emala came scrambling over, leaping from boulder to boulder. Ten meters behind her, Grees and Sligh were pulling Han to a seated position.

  “Are you crazy, jumping off a moving dewback?” Emala demanded.

  “At least I didn’t try to fly.” Leia flopped her limp arm toward the Squib. “Hold that. Brace yourself.”

  Emala grabbed the offered arm with both hands… then pulled up her feet and let her whole weight drop on Leia’s wrist.

  There was a loud pop, and this time Leia did sink to her knees.

  Emala stuck her furry little face in front of Leia and batted her long lashes. “Better?”

  Leia spoke through clenched teeth. “I’m going to… kill… you.”

  “Then who will help with your mate?” Emala asked, looking distinctly unimpressed. “Besides, I was only thinking—”

  “Don’t say it. Don’t even think it.” Leia stood and tried her arm. An electric bolt of pain shot through her body, but the hand rose. “But thanks.”

  She followed Emala over to the others, where Sligh and Grees each had one of Han’s arms draped across their shoulders.

  “How is he?” she asked.

  “Heavy,” Grees said. “Grab a leg and let’s go.”

  “In a minute.” Leia went around and slipped her hand under Han’s scarf and felt his pulse. It was shallow and slow. His skin was as dry as a stone, and nearly as hot. “He’s stopped sweating. That’s bad.”

  “So, you want to leave him?” Sligh asked.

  “No!” Leia checked her chronometer. “But we don’t have time to keep going. That TIE’s due back in two minutes.”

  The Squibs peered toward the canyon. Down this close to the ground, the mirage waters seemed closer. They could no longer see the canyon’s rim, only the dark shadow that had been their first hint of its presence.

  “So what?” Grees started to pull Han forward. “It hasn’t seen us before.”

  “It’ll be closer this time.” Leia looked around for something resembling shelter, then finally pointed at the thin sliver of shade behind a large boulder. “Help me lay him over there, then find the shady side of a rock for yourselves.”

  The Squibs looked doubtful, but did as she instructed, placing him in close to the boulder. Though hardly cool, the sand wasn’t quite so searing without the suns beating down on it, and Leia told herself it wouldn’t hurt Han to lie there for a few minutes.

  The drone of the TIE stalker arose thirty seconds later and quickly built to shrill whine. This time, it was close. Had Leia dared to raise her head above the rock, she felt certain she would have seen the solar panels streaking across the near horizon.

  Still listening to the sound, she raised Han’s goggles and opened his cloak—the closures were difficult to work with one hand—then emptied her water bottle onto his face and clothes. Hot as it was, the moisture would still have a cooling effect as it evaporated.

  Han’s eyes opened, glassy and unfocused, and he rasped, “Another bath already?”

  “Just a shower.” Unsure whether he was joking or hallucinating, Leia cradled his head in her lap and pulled the water bottle off his belt. “Can you drink?”

  “Got a Gizer?”

  “A little warm water.”

  “That’ll do.” Han grabbed her shoulder to pull himself up, then scowled when she winced. “What happened?”

  “Fast stop,” Leia said. “I separated my shoulder—not bad. I can still lift my arm.”

  Han nodded, then finally seemed to hear the whining TIE and glanced skyward. “Tell me it’s not your shooting arm.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Good. No worries.” He took the water bottle and swallowed a few gulps, then made a sour face. “You call that a little warm?”

  The whine of the TIE faded. Leia put the water bottles away and called the Squibs from their hiding places, but Han didn’t want them banging his head on rocks and insisted he could walk on his own. Leia found herself regretting every excuse she had ever used for not learning to use the Force to levitate stubborn husbands.

  Han lasted almost a dozen steps before his eyes rolled up and he collapsed again. Leia reached out to catch him, instinctively using both arms, and now she really regretted not learning how to levitate things. Once she had recovered from the pain, they carried him, Grees and Sligh taking the front, Leia and Emala the rear.

  Following the caravan trail across the broken terrain proved more difficult than expected. That close to the ground, the air was so superheated, and the reflection of the suns so brilliant, that when Leia tried to look for tracks all she saw was a painful shimmering radiance. She settled for traveling in the general direction of the shadow and quickly discovered that moving at even a brisk scramble was too fast. Within a minute, all four were staggering from the heat and exertion. Within three minutes, they had to stop to rest and drink.

  “How far… can it be?” Grees cupped his hands around his goggles and peered into the rippling air. “It didn’t look that far.”

  “This close to the ground, the mirage effect is more pronounced.” Leia did not add what she had learned during her Rebel military training: that in a desert, distances were usually three times what they appeared. “We’ll reach the canyon soon.”

  The Squibs looked at her as though she had just told them it was going to rain, then put away their water bottles and picked up Han again. This time, they moved at a deliberate walk, and five minutes later, the darkness finally slid out from beneath the mirage and resolved itself into the canyon again.

  Sligh stopped and, nearly letting Han slip, pointed away at an angle. “Where’s that Wookiee going?”

  Leia looked in the indicated direction and saw a wavering tower of fur loping across the desert past them. She dropped Han’s leg and waved.

  “Chewbacca!” When he stopped and turned in their direction, she added less loudly, “Hurry!”

  He arrived a few moments later, glassy-eyed, roaring with joy, and staggering from the heat.

  Leia checked her chronometer. “Chewie, we have four minutes before—”

  Chewbacca was already throwing Han over his shoulder and turning back toward the canyon. The Squibs bounced away after him, and Leia started after them at a slow jog she hoped she could maintain in this heat. Within two minutes, she was staggering and gushing sweat. But the curtain of heat shimmer had lifted to reveal the golden walls of a sandrock canyon, descending through the desert floor in a series of stony terraces and shadowy overhangs. And across the canyon, the mirage had contracted to a thin band of blue running along the furrowed slopes at the base of the brown mountains.

  Leia’s pulse began to pound in her ears. She slowed to a walk. The canyon’s rim lay twenty meters ahead. She had plenty o
f time to reach it—as long as she didn’t collapse.

  Her vision began to darken at the edges. She pulled her water bottle off her belt and, finding it ominously light, recalled what she had done with the last few swallows.

  Her shoulder started to throb, then her head was spinning. Ears ringing. No, not her ears—her wrist. That chiming was the alarm on her chronometer. One minute.

  Leia’s vision narrowed, and she felt like she was suffocating. She ripped the scarf off her face and raced to catch Chewbacca and the Squibs, no longer sweating, just growing steadily warmer beneath the bright Tatooine suns.

  “Chew…” She couldn’t hear her own voice. “Chew…”

  No good. Chewbacca reached the rim of the canyon and began to grow shorter as he descended a steep slope; then the Squibs disappeared over the edge. The strength left Leia’s legs.

  She continued to run anyway, teasing out three more steps as her knees buckled. Her vision went to black. She dived, blindly, for the canyon rim.

  The ground fell out beneath her. For a moment, Leia feared she was sinking into unconsciousness, that she was really lying out in the open on the edge of the plain where it would be easy for the TIE’s sensors to pick her out.

  Then her tender shoulder erupted into pain. She felt herself tumble twice, bowling over a pair of small soft bodies before finally coming to rest against a furry tree trunk of a leg. A faint shrieking filled her ears, and she thought for a moment she had hurt one of the Squibs. Then she recognized the sound’s steadily rising pitch. The TIE had arrived.

  Leia lay for what seemed an eternity, wondering if she had made it into the canyon far enough, if the rim would shield her.

  The TIE’s approach seemed to take forever. Her vision went from a gray blur to a golden brilliance, and the sound of its engines began to echo off the canyon’s far wall. It occurred to Leia that the starfighter’s search vector might bring it directly over the gorge this time. A Rebel pilot might even take it upon himself to make a pass up the chasm, but Imperial pilots did not deviate from orders. They followed procedure. Almost always.