Tatooine Ghost Read online

  Leia waited, listening to the engine shriek bouncing off the golden walls. Her vision cleared, and she found herself staring down the canyon. She half expected to see the black panels and cockpit sandwich of a TIE fighter screaming around the bend.

  But this pilot continued to fly the assigned pattern. The pitch of his shrieking engines went from rising to falling, the echoes drifted away up the canyon, and finally the whine vanished altogether.

  The next sound Leia heard was Sligh’s angry voice.

  “Is that the way you repay our help?” he demanded. “Trying to kill us?”

  “The deal’s off!” Grees declared. “You can’t be trusted.”

  Leia pushed herself into a sitting position, then had to lie back down when her head began to spin.

  Chewbacca’s face appeared over her, grumphing.

  “I’m fine.” Leia pushed herself to her elbows. “I just need water.”

  Chewbacca snatched a water bottle out of Emala’s hands and passed it to Leia. She drank greedily. Then, once her head stopped spinning, she sat up and saw the reason the Squibs were trying to cancel the deal again. In the bottom of the canyon, hidden in the cool shadows beneath a sandrock overhang and barely visible, was the rear tread of a Jawa sandcrawler.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Fifty meters from the overhang, Leia knew something was terribly wrong. The Askajians had stopped just inside the shadows and were milling about on foot, holding their dewback reins in one hand and their weapons in the other, clearly ready to fight or flee, and possibly both, on short notice. From deeper in the recess—it was really a huge disk-shaped erosion cave—came the raucous squawling of a flock of urusais; as more of the sandcrawler grew visible, the ground around it seemed to be squirming with their wings and serpentine necks.

  But it was the smell that told the story. Though it was easily ten degrees cooler in the bottom of the canyon than it had been up on the plain—and another ten degrees cooler in the cave’s shadows—Tatooine’s temperature always remained formidable. And no smell in the galaxy was more unforgettable than that of battle casualties decaying in the heat.

  Chewbacca groaned at the stench.

  “Me, too,” Leia said. “But I can stand a little retching if it gets Han some shade.”

  As sapped by the heat as Leia and Chewbacca, the Squibs did their best to trot ahead and get the first look at the sandcrawler. Leia still could not understand what—aside from profit—truly motivated this trio. Hutts—and Threkin Horm—aside, they had to be the most selfish beings she had ever met, yet twice now they had not hesitated to risk their own lives to save Han’s. Perhaps they saw some advantage in keeping him alive. Leia thought it more likely they simply operated by a code of conduct no one else understood. They clearly placed great significance on partnerships and adhering to bargains, yet their interpretations of the terms were so fluid that any agreement was rendered useless. They were the ultimate spokesbeings for the Lando Calrissian philosophy: anything to help a friend—as long as your interests converged. After that, it was everyone for himself.

  The Squibs reached the cave a dozen paces ahead of Leia and Chewbacca. They shouldered their way through a tangle of plump thighs to the Askajians’ front rank—then promptly stopped and yielded their lead. Leia saw why a minute later, when she and Chewbacca joined the group.

  The floor of the huge cavern was carpeted with snarling urusais. They were crouching over the bodies of murdered Jawas or—in a handful of cases—slain stormtroopers, hissing and beating their scaly wings at the encroaching Askajians. Scattered among the scavengers was all manner of smashed equipment: speeder parts, dismembered droids, broken vaporators—most still in the crate—and a pair of Imperial hoverscouts, one lying on its side near the front of the sandcrawler, the other on its top near the back.

  “So now we know why the Jawas did not keep their appointment,” Borno said, joining Leia and the others. “The Imperials found them.”

  “Not really,” Leia replied. “A patrol found them.”

  “I fail to see the difference.”

  Chewbacca groaned an explanation.

  “That’s right,” Leia said. “The Imperials didn’t find the sandcrawler—they lost a patrol. If the Chimaera knew about this, there would already be an intelligence squad down here tearing the sandcrawler apart.”

  Chewbacca growled another possibility.

  Leia shook her head. “If the Imperials were going to ambush us, we’d be under attack already.” She checked her chronometer. Less than ten minutes until the next pass. “And if they knew where we were going, why would they be flying a search grid?”

  Chewbacca grunted.

  “Let me guess,” Borno said. “That means, ‘Good point’?”

  Chewbacca nodded, and C-3PO emerged from between two dewbacks.

  “What a crime!” the droid cried. “Jawas are certainly no friends of mine, but what those stormtroopers did to them violates war accords as old as the Old Republic itself. And what they did to the droids… why they find it necessary to kill prisoners is beyond me!”

  “Because they don’t understand droids,” Borno said. “Or technology in general.”

  C-3PO turned to face the Askajian. “I beg your pardon, sir, but in my experience the Empire has proven quite fond of technology.”

  “He’s not talking about the Imperials, Threepio.” Leia looked over the droid’s shoulder to Borno. “Are you thinking Sand People?”

  “I believe so. They must have attacked while the stormtroopers were searching the sandcrawler.” He pointed a thick hand toward the sandcrawler’s boarding ramp, which was surrounded by a random spray of metal dimples. “Those holes were made by slugthrowers.”

  Leia nodded. “Borno, I don’t want to be disrespectful to your trading partners, but we have only nine minutes before the next pass. There’s a good chance he’ll be directly over the canyon, and I could see—”

  “The tread, of course. I saw it too.” Borno issued a rapid series of orders in Askajian. Then, as the dewback drivers leapt into action, he translated for Leia and Chewbacca. “We will bring rocks to hide the tread. I doubt the dead will mind if they must wait a few minutes longer before we see to them.”

  “I’m afraid they have to wait longer than that.” Leia waved her good arm at the urusais. “If they take wing and start circling—”

  “Yes, it will alert the Imperials,” Borno said. “I think the Jawas would understand.”

  “Actually,” C-3PO began, “Jawa tradition is quite—”

  “Threepio,” Leia interrupted.

  “Yes, Mistress Leia?”

  “Not now.”

  “Of course. I was only trying to explain—”

  Chewbacca snapped in Shyriiwook, and C-3PO retreated behind Borno. “No, I would not care to join the Jawa droids at all.”

  Leia checked her chronometer. “Eight minutes.”

  She motioned the others to follow and led the way to the back of the erosion cave, where the ceiling sloped down to meet the sand and the area was clear of battle casualties. The air was refreshingly cool—or at least not hot—and almost damp. She used one hand to smooth a place and had Chewbacca put Han there, then began to hand empty water bottles to C-3PO.

  “Find our dewbacks and refill those from the water bladder,” she ordered. “And be quick about it. Chewie, see if you can find a suit of stormtrooper armor with a functional cooling unit. Grees, I’d appreciate it if…”

  Leia turned to address the Squib and discovered that neither he nor his two companions were anywhere to be seen. “What happened to the Squibs?”

  The others glanced around, then C-3PO pointed across the squirming, scaly mass of urusai flesh toward the boarding ramp of the sandcrawler.

  “I believe they are over there, Mistress Leia.”

  Chewbacca growled and turned to pursue the Squibs.

  “No, Chewie,” Leia said. “Armor first.”

  Chewbacca glanced at Han, then back to the Squibs, and
groaned that Han would be furious to awaken and discover that he was the reason the little thieves had sneaked off with Killik Twilight.

  Leia shrugged. “Han’s been angry with me before.” In the coolness of the cave, she knew Han would probably recover even without the stormtrooper suit. Right now, however, she was not taking chances. “I’m sure this won’t be the last time.”

  Chewbacca looked at the sandcrawler and oomphrayed another protest. Despite what Han claimed, he really did care about the Shadowcast code key.

  “Please, Chewie,” Leia said. “We’ll deal with the Squibs later.”

  “Mistress Leia,” C-3PO interrupted, “I should point out that bargaining with the Squibs later will prove quite difficult. They feel that you cheated them by not revealing that the credit voucher you gave them was identity-coded, and they don’t believe you have the funds currently available to match what they can negotiate from the Imperials. I’m quite certain that if they recover the painting, they intend to contact the Imperials and leave us to our fates.”

  “Really.” This was pretty much what Leia had guessed, but it still angered her to hear. She glanced at her chronometer.

  Seven minutes. In the front of the cave, the Askajians were busy sweeping away sandcrawler tracks and stacking rocks in front of the tread she had seen earlier. “And you know this how, Threepio?”

  “I heard the Squibs talking about it,” the droid said. “Apparently, they are of the opinion that no one but a Squib can understand their secret trading language, but as I happen to be fluent in more than six million—”

  “I know, Threepio.” Leia turned to find Chewbacca waiting expectantly, glancing back toward the sandcrawler. “Chewie, will you just get the armor?”

  Leaving Leia with the one bottle that still contained anything, Chewbacca and C-3PO scurried off to do as she had asked. Leia took two gulps of hot water, then raised Han’s goggles and used the rest to wet his face and clothes. She watched carefully for any sign of stirring, hoping the moisture would have the same effect as last time, but a small cough was the only sign at all that he felt it.

  Leia glanced back across the cave floor, dreading what the Squibs might find. If Kitster Banai had still been aboard the sandcrawler when the Tuskens sprang their ambush, Leia would be making a very difficult comm call to Tamora—the kind she hoped never to receive.

  Leia returned her attention to Han. The color was already coming back to his face, but she needed him to wake up. Drinking was the only way to get fluids into his body short of reattaching the hydration drip—which they no longer had.

  Leia leaned close to his face. “Listen up, nerf herder. I’m tired of doing all the heavy work around here.” She kissed him on the lips and began to feel dizzy—and not in the usual way. Han wasn’t the only one who needed to drink. “Come on, Flyboy. Time to wake—”

  Her vision narrowed, then Han’s eyelids fluttered open, and she willed herself to stay conscious.

  Leia smiled. “That’s better…”

  But his eyes weren’t looking at her. They were glassy and vacant, the pupils fixed and dilated.

  “Han!” She grabbed his shoulder and began to shake him. “Where do you think you’re going? Come back here!”

  As if obeying, a pair of white pinpricks appeared in the depths of his pupils. They rose toward the surface, swelling into tiny balls of pale flame and spilling out over the irises until they completely covered the eyes, two tiny suns crackling and hissing in a pair of dead empty sockets.

  “Han?”

  Leia’s tongue had swollen to twice its size, and the word died rasping in her mouth. She turned to wave Chewbacca over and found the shadows beneath the overhang suddenly as thick as a nebula, the Wookiee’s form indistinguishable from dozens of other ghostly silhouettes gliding through the murk.

  Finally, Leia understood what was happening. Not another Force-vision—please not this one.

  A soft crackling arose beneath her, and she forced herself to look down. The white suns were still burning in Han’s eye sockets.

  “Mine.” Though the voice was Han’s, the tone was not. The tone was hard and sibilant and uncaring. “Mine.”

  “No,” Leia rasped. “Please.”

  The white spheres in Han’s eyes flared. “Mine.”

  Leia’s first instinct was to repudiate the voice, to slap the apparition across the face and order it to go away. But it would only be Han she was hitting. Visions could not be vanquished by striking them. They were much more difficult to be rid of than that. They had to be understood.

  A sleepy snarl—Han’s sleepy snarl—sounded at Leia’s side. Thinking the vision had taken some strange new turn, she glanced over and was baffled to see him lying next to her, encased in a suit of white stormtrooper armor. His head was propped on a rolled sand cloak, and a wall of fur was kneeling beside him. She looked forward—up—again. Han’s face continued to hang above her, the white spheres in his eyes now golden and shining more faintly.

  “How wonderful!” The voice was familiar, but it was not Han’s—it was far too chirpy and obeisant to be Han’s. “Princess Leia seems to be recovering!”

  A deep voice rumbled something in Shyriiwook that Leia could not quite catch.

  “I really don’t think it’s my place to make the Princess do any—”

  The deep voice growled again. The face above her—no longer Han’s, and not all that close to human—recoiled, banging the low stone ceiling with a distinctly metallic tone. A fleshless hand slid under Leia’s neck and lifted her head.

  “Mistress Leia, may I offer you some bactade?”

  “Threepio?” Leia gasped. “What happened?”

  “I’m certainly no medical droid.” C-3PO’s face changed from the visage of Leia’s vision—or had it only been a dream?—to its normal golden self. “But it appears you collapsed.”

  Chewbacca growled ominously.

  “Would you please drink some of this?” C-3PO held a bottle filled with brown liquid to her lips.

  Beside Leia, Han sprayed a mouthful of bactade over Chewbacca’s chest. “That’s not Gizer! It’s not even ale!”

  Chewbacca snarled a threat, then returned the bottle to his patient’s lips. This time, Han drank.

  Leia pushed herself up and was surprised to find her own torso encased in white armor. Her injured shoulder was sore, but it held.

  “What’s…” She let the question trail off, noticing how cool her body felt, and took the bottle. “How long have I been unconscious?”

  “We found you one standard hour and twenty-three minutes ago,” C-3PO replied. “Master Chewbacca had to fight three urusais—”

  “An hour?”

  Obviously, the Askajians had succeeded in camouflaging the sandcrawler’s presence. Leia glanced out into the cave and found the floor still swarming with urusais, three lying nearby with broken necks. The Askajians had dragged the smashed vaporators over to one side of the cavern and, hoping to salvage what they could, were exchanging their tomuon wool for the new cargo. Ever the opportunists, the Squibs were busy ferrying the wool onto the sandcrawler.

  Leia ignored them and, still shaken from her vision—or was this one only a dream?—she turned to Han. “How are you feeling?”

  “Awful. Head like a bantha stepped on it.” He jerked a thumb at Chewbacca. “And this furbag keeps trying to get me to drink stale mudwater.”

  Chewbacca groaned defensively.

  “I don’t care when you mixed it,” Han said. “It still tastes like mudwater.”

  “Mudwater or not, you need to drink it.” Leia was determined to keep Han healthy. She forced a smile and raised her bottle. “I will if you will.”

  Han looked as though he had just walked into a performance hall to find a Gamorrean dancer on stage.

  “Afraid?” Leia asked.

  “Yeah, right.”

  Han snatched the bactade from Chewbacca, but continued to eye Leia. At first, she thought he was just waiting for her to drink first, bu
t when she raised her bottle, he made no move to follow.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” Han lifted the bottle to his lips and, still looking at her, spoke around the opening. “Just thinking you look hot in white.”

  Leia ran a hand through her hair and found it caked with sand and sweat. “Yeah—hot is right.”

  She managed to down the entire bottle of bactade, though the chalky taste was so terrible she wondered if she would ever be able to enjoy a mud-colored drink again. Han, she was happy to see, had also finished his.

  “Another?” he challenged.

  Just the thought of bactade made Leia want to retch, but anything to keep Han healthy. She smiled and said, “Why not?”

  “Set ’em up, Chewie,” Han said.

  Chewbacca grumbled that this was no time for a drinking contest, then gestured across the cave floor toward Borno, who was ambling in their direction with a Jawa cradled in the crook of one huge arm.

  “It appears the Tuskens neglected to kill someone,” C-3PO observed. “Isn’t that marvelous?”

  Leia and Han glanced at each other, then Han said, “I wouldn’t put it that way to the Jawa, Threepio.”

  Borno stopped at the edge of the group, and Leia saw that the Jawa was holding one leg out straight and trying to keep it from moving.

  When she and Han started to rise, the Askajian waved them off. “Save your strength. You’ll need it when we leave.”

  “Leave?” Leia thought of her vision and cast a nervous eye toward the bustling Askajians. “How soon will that be?”

  Borno shrugged. “A quarter hour. As soon as we are loaded.”

  Chewbacca snarled a question.

  “Master Chewbacca wishes to inquire about the Imperials,” C-3PO translated. “They may still be in the area.”

  Borno relaxed and gave a dismissive wave. “We have not heard any TIEs in an hour. And no Imperial in the galaxy can find me in these canyons.”

  Leia exchanged glances with Han; they had both heard similar boasts before. Chewbacca growled another question.

  After C-3PO translated, Borno shook his head. “We did not come across the moss-painting you asked about, or any humans except the dead Imperials.” He cast a pointed glance at the sandcrawler. “But the Squibs would not let us into the upper portions of the sandcrawler.”