Timothy Zahn - Survivor's Quest

Mara had come to the same conclusion. "Let's try a strategic withdrawal while we think this out," she suggested, easing up to Luke's right and tapping the release on the door beside him. It slid open, and Luke sensed her concentration as she gave the interior a quick check. "Clear," she said. "Come on."

Together, they eased into the room, lightsabers ready. The wolvkils made no move to follow. Mara touched the inner door control, and the panel slid shut. In the glow from his lightsaber Luke found the light pad, flicked it on, and closed down his weapon.

They were in what appeared to be one of the many pumping stations that were by necessity scattered around any ship this size. Sets of conduits snaked along the walls and high ceiling, most of them running into one or the other of two huge and silently chugging rectangular boxes with rounded corners set against the bulkhead across from the door. "Cozy," Luke commented, looking around. There were no other exits from the room, but of course that didn't mean anything to a Jedi with a lightsaber. "Let's see if we can carve ourselves a back door," he suggested. Stepping to the forward wall, he ignited his lightsaber—

"Wait," Mara said.

Luke paused, looking over his shoulder at her. "What?" he asked.

She was gazing at the wall in front of him, her sense tight and suspicious. "Luke, what's the usual procedure for sealing a hull breach?"

He frowned. "You send some repair droids to the vicinity, close the blast doors behind them, pump out the air to equalize pressures, then open the inner doors to give them access to the leak."

"Right," Mara said, nodding. "The Vagaari have had four days to seal the gash you cut in the turbolift lobby. We know there are housekeeping droids still working, and we know there were enough repair droids rolling around at one time to fix all the damage Thrawn did to the hull. And anyway, even if none of them works anymore, Estosh surely brought a pressure suit or two along they could have used to go in themselves and fix it."

"But they didn't," Luke said thoughtfully. "Why not?"

"Because if we'd come up the pylon and found your gash all sewn up, we might have decided to come aboard somewhere else," Mara concluded grimly. "This way, they could reasonably predict where we'd come in, and could concentrate on making this one corridor as much of a death trap as they could."

She nodded toward the wall in front of him. "So why should this part of it be any different?"

"Good question," Luke agreed, closing down his lightsaber and stepping aside. "In that case, you'd better do this."

It took three delicate strokes for her to tease a scratch all the way through the bulkhead. And it was indeed a very good thing he'd let her go first.

"Terrific," she said darkly, sniffing at the liquid trickling down the wall. "Secondary reactant fuel, which most certainly wouldn't normally be stored next to a pump room. Estosh is kindly offering us the opportunity of immolating ourselves."

"How generous of him," Luke said, looking up at the ceiling. "I wonder if they've ever seen how high a Jedi can jump."

"I don't think so," she said. "But it wouldn't take a Jedi to climb that maze of pipes fastened to the wall. If they were being thorough, they'd certainly have booby-trapped the ceiling, too."

"Right," he conceded. "What about down? Any idea what's below us?"

"Usually it would be substructure, environmental equipment, and other bulk stuff," Mara said. "Not a place you want to go randomly swinging lightsabers."

"So we can't go down, up, or sideways, and outside the door there's nothing but wolvkils and fragmentation grenades," Luke concluded, looking around for inspiration.

"And we've got a reactant fuel leak going," Mara reminded him. "Any ideas?"

Luke's gaze paused on the two humming pumps. Each of them was nearly two meters tall and a meter wide, with a casing built of heavy metal and a front access cover shaped like a rectangular, flat-bottomed bowl with rounded corners and edges. "Actually, yes," he told her, popping the release on one of the covers and swinging it open. The cover was as strongly built as the rest of the casing, with a ten-centimeter lip all the way around the perimeter. "Let's get these doors off."

Igniting his lightsaber, he sliced off the hinges, catching the cover in a Force grip as it started to fall ponderously toward him. "I hope you're not planning to use these things as shields," Mara warned as she cut the other cover free. "There are an awful lot of grenades out there."

"No, I've got something else in mind," Luke assured her, leaning the cover up against the wall by the door and closing down his lightsaber. "Time to go for the high ground." Getting a grip on two of the pipes fastened to the wall, he started to climb.

Mara followed silently, clearly puzzled but willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Midway through their climb, he could sense when she suddenly caught on. "Okay," he said when they were about two meters off the deck. Looking down over his shoulder, he stretched out to the Force and lifted the two covers to hover in the air just beneath him and Mara, their bowl sides up. "You ready?" he said.

Her answer was the snap-hiss of her lightsaber. Reaching over to the dripping bulkhead, she slashed the blade through it.

With a sudden gurgle, the trickle became a flood, the aromatic fuel flowing down the wall and running across the floor. "Watch your timing," Luke warned as the sloshing pool began to fill the small room. "Remember, the lips on these things are only about ten centimeters high."

"I know," Mara assured him. She had her lightsaber closed down and back on her belt now, with her sleeve gun drawn. "Get ready... now."

Abruptly, the door slid open at her Force command, the pool of fuel flowing out into the corridor. There was a surprised yelp from one of the wolvkils—

And Mara fired a single shot from her blaster into the liquid.

It ignited with a tremendous roar, the flames shooting nearly a meter off the deck. Even with the hovering covers protecting them, Luke found himself wincing at the rush of heat that washed over and past him. The yelp outside had become a howl of pain and fear, and he could hear startled Vagaari voices mixed in with those of the wolvkils. The height of the flames diminished as the blazing liquid continued to flow out into the corridor, settling down to perhaps thirty centimeters.

It was time to go. "Take the right one," he called to Mara over the noise of the flames, pointing to the hovering cover nearest her. He felt her take its weight. Then, focusing all his attention on the other one, he maneuvered it into the center of the doorway and settled it down onto the deck. Bracing himself, he jumped.

He hit the cover dead center, dropping into a crouch as he landed. The flames crackled all around him, flowing nearly to the level of the cover's lip, giving him the sudden feeling of being in a boat floating on a river of fire. Recovering his balance, he straightened up and looked around.

The entire corridor was filled with fire and smoke and the screams and howls of the injured. Through the shimmering heat haze to his left he could see flame-sheathed Vagaari writhing in agony as they staggered around trying to find a way out of the rolling river of fire. To his right, the blast doors reflected back the light of the flames, making metallic pinging noises as the sudden heat created uneven expansion in the metal.

Surprisingly, he saw only a couple of wolvkil bodies lying burning in the inferno. Apparently, the animals' speed was as good for escape as it was for attack.

Turning back to the room, he again stretched out to the Force, taking the second cover from Mara's grip. Sliding it over his head through the blocked doorway, he maneuvered it along the corridor and set it down in the flames just in front of the blast doors. "Okay," he called to Mara. "Let's go."