The Legion Renewed

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Luke landed his small fighter without incident, sneaking past the cruisers and star-destroyer with almost comic ease. Either the ships were too busy providing aerial bombing and preventing anyone from leaving Deraan Two that they simply didn't notice a small snub-fighter approaching on landing cycle, or...Luke and Briande were expected.

Somehow, they managed to land in a relatively quiet area. The sounds of explosions were, at the moment, too far away to be an immediate danger, but the sounds drew nearer with every passing second.

Luke surmised that they were, at least temporarily, in the "eye of the hurricane"-a term used in battle to denote the line of demarcation between one side's retreat, and the other's advance.

They found an opening to below-ground without any trouble. Apparently, in the panic that ensued from the initial barrage, the citizens had left the entrance open and unguarded. Or-maybe not unguarded. There was evidence of an explosion nearby, and Luke caught a glimpse of an arm protruding from underneath a large, heavy rock. He wondered if Briande had seen it.

As they followed the stairs to the lower levels, Luke had to remind himself of the urgency of their mission and the number of lives still at stake. The walls of the cavern were so breathtakingly beautiful that he felt an urge to stop and admire them. Right now, though, he had to concentrate on preserving the walls-and more importantly, the people within them.

As they descended into the cavern proper, Luke stopped to get his bearings. The underground room they were in was huge. It stretched as far as he could see. Somehow the lighting in here had managed to continue operating, and the colors of the mineral deposits showing through the walls were nothing short of dazzling. Huge stalagmite formations in the ceiling loomed over them like daggers, and some of them joined with stalactites from the floors to make pillars that were bigger around than the trees Luke had seen on Endor. But some of the natural sculptures had been broken and were now nothing more than debris lying on the floor.

Fortunately, except for the one at the entrance, there were no bodies visible. Apparently the Panderaans believed in taking their wounded and dead with them.

The tunnel branched right and left. Luke paused to do a quick Force-search, and then opened his eyes in surprise. Leia was here! He tried to touch her through the Force, but her mind was preoccupied, and she was not expecting him.

"This way," Luke said, reaching for Briande's hand and pulling to the right.

"No." She put her hand in his, but resisted his pull. She looked at him, eyes full of meaning and regret. "Brenna is waiting for me."

Luke's heart leapt to his throat even though he had known, deep down, that this would happen. Just as the cave had to be faced alone, so did a Jedi's ultimate test. "I have to...uh..." He indicated the right-hand corridor with a slight wave of his hand.

"I know."

"I'll join you as soon as I can."

"I love you, Luke."

There was no time for any more words, or even for a final kiss. They separated, knowing each what they had to do, and understanding without words anyway.

Luke quickly made his way through the rubble and debris, knowing where he was going, but without having the faintest idea of what he was going to do when he got there. The Force was pulling him towards Leia, and the other survivors of the attack, but gave him no clue beyond that. Jedi though he might be, he was still only one man against an army.

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Briande pressed herself into a newly formed crack in the wall of the cavern and waited for the squad of storm-troopers to pass by. If she were seen now, her disguise would be totally useless, since commanding personnel of her sister's rank would never be on the front lines. She sent Luke a brief warning, to let him know how far behind the soldiers were, then tried to blend into the narrow crevice physically and otherwise.

There was the fresh smell of dust and debris around her as one of the troopers seemed to look her way. Briande concentrated, and he gave his head a slight shake, then continued onward with the others. It seemed ironic to Briande that her hiding place was formed by the explosions of Imperial bombs. There was, it seemed, a bright side to everything...

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The underground corridors were wide, amazingly wide. Luke wouldn't have thought it possible for a city this wide to exist underground. Then again, Bespin had been a huge surprise, too.

But the wide corridors presented a problem.

Luke could feel through the Force which way to go, which way the majority of people had evacuated, but the caverns were too wide to effectively slow Imperial foot troops. Somehow he knew that this would be the route they would take. Once the ground force started, The Panderaan's would be easy prey.

He reached another cavernous room, this one formed by the meeting of two large underground rivers millions of millennia ago. Something told Luke to look up. He looked, and saw large round dimples in the ceiling, formed by the natural swirlings of the rivers when they joined. Then he spotted a crack in the ceiling, with falling dust indicating that one of the Imperial bombs had caused it.

Luke reached out through the Force to study the crack. An explosion at just the right point could trigger a cave-in…

But he wouldn't be able to do it alone. Maybe with Leia's help…

He tried again to reach her, but she was still closed off to him telepathically. He suppressed his frustration and worked the problem. If she knew he was trying to reach her, she'd be much more receptive. And one man could move much faster than an army, especially if that one man had a little extra help from the Force.

Luke continued off in the direction he needed to go. He couldn't do this alone, and Leia was the only one who could help.

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The site around the Falcon was littered with furniture from the cabins, most of it now ruined from being tossed aside like so much garbage. Han and Chewbacca moved down the gangplank carrying Han's prized expensive entertainment center and dumped it with the rest of the deadweight. Leia, meanwhile, was trying to hold back the large number of people who were pressing closer and closer to the gangplank. "Please keep back!" she was saying. "We'll take as many of you as we can!"

"Leia!" Han yelled.

She turned at the sound of her name over the din. "What?"

"Keep those people away from the ship!"

"I'm trying!"

Han yelled something to Chewbacca, and the surge backed away slightly as the large Wookiee joined her, waving his bowcaster threateningly.

Leia breathed a sigh and went to help Han in Chewbacca's stead, but he waved her off. "That's all of it. Start loading people into the cargo holds. I'll tell you when to slow." He went into the cockpit to contact flight control and keep an eye on the weight monitors.

Leia went back to the crowd. "Children!" she said. "We'll take the children first!"

Amazingly, most of the lone adults melted back, and others pushed their children toward the Falcon. Most of the younger ones were crying. A few sucked their thumbs. Leia pointed to a couple of the older kids who seemed less dazed. "You and you! Help me get them inside!" The two older kids received brief hugs from their parents and then grabbed some of the younger kids and followed Leia, who by now had a toddler in each hand, inside to the cargo holds. They deposited the crying youngsters into the holds, and unexpectedly followed Leia back outside to help usher in more of the younger children.

Leia shot them a grateful look, and recruited some more of the older kids to help with the younger ones.

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Eventually, Luke came to where the corridors were blocked with people. He could sense their fear, but he couldn't do anything about it if he couldn't get to Leia.

The nudge in the Force told him to look up again, and this time, he saw the network of pipes that carried water, sewage, and other services to the various underground destinations. He smiled to himself, assisted his jump with some Force-levitation, and grabbed one of them.

Like a kid on monkey bars, he swung from hand-to-hand over the heads of the people trying to evacuate, continuing to make his way toward Leia.

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Han kept his eyes on the weight monitors. He used the com-link to count-down the poundage to Leia.

Leia, for her part, was grateful to the older kids for helping her manage the loading of the younger kids, and concentrated, with Chewbacca, on trying to manage the push of people trying to get themselves or their children to the front of the line.

Suddenly there was a tug on Leia's dress, and she turned and gasped at the gruesome face that met her eyes. A figure, bloodied and burned and barely recognizable as belonging to a woman returned her gaze. For a brief second, Leia thought the injured woman meant to grab her, but she just thrust a bundle out to Leia, then melted back into the crowd.

Leia looked at the baby she had just been given. The infant was only a few weeks old at most, its cry of complaint barely audible over the din of the crowd and its beautiful, perfect features in stark contrast to those of the woman who had given it to Leia. The woman must have protected the child from whatever it was that had so disfigured her. Leia looked back up for the baby's mother, but the woman was gone.

Han's weight numbers were in the triple digits now. "That's it, Leia!" he shouted into the com-link. "Get on-board now!"

Leia went to the gangplank, motioning to her young helpers to join her.

"Damn!" Han said, watching the numbers suddenly climb to more than what the Falcon could handle. He left the cockpit for the main cabin to look for something else, anything else, that could be jettisoned in a hurry. He couldn't find anything. "We're overweight!"

One of the older kids who heard him squeezed Leia's arm and said quietly, "Take care of my little brother," and started down the gangplank. But Leia grabbed her arm to stop her, and gave her the baby.

"No, you stay," she told the girl. "Take care of this…baby." Leia didn't even know if the infant was a boy or girl. Leia went back down the gangplank. At her reappearance, the crowd calmed, thinking that more would be taken aboard.

"Leia!" The shout came from above her, and Leia and most of the people hoping for evacuation looked up at the source of the sound.

Leia was incredulous. "Luke!"

Luke let go of the pipes and dropped down next to her. "I've alerted the Alliance to the attack. They should be here soon. At least I hope they will be. And I think with your help, I can slow the ground troops from getting here, stall for time until the Alliance ships arrive."

"How?"

"I need you on the Falcon. Use her weapons to hit a weak spot in one of the caverns. If we can cause a cave-in, that should do the trick."

Leia sighed. "The ship's overweight. Han won't be able to take off. And I can't tell one of those kids they have to leave."

Luke put his hands on her shoulders. "It'll be okay. If this works, it will save everyone in here. But this won't work if you're not onboard."

"What do I need to do?"

He smiled. "It'll be just like Bespin. Remember when you found me before? Relax, keep your mind open, and once you have the target, tell Han to shoot everything he can at it."

"Okay."

Luke kissed her on the cheek, then jumped/levitated back up to the pipes to work his way back the way he had come. Now he needed to be back on the other side of the cavern before it collapsed.

Leia watched him swing from pipe to pipe in amazement, but only for a second, because Han came down the gangplank, grabbed her by the arm, and tried to haul her back up inside the ship.

"New plan," Leia told him.

"What new plan?" Han wanted to know.

Leia pointed to Luke's disappearing figure. "It's Luke's plan. The Alliance is on its way. All we have to do is stall."

"Stall, how?"

She smiled at him. "We're going to attack, of course." She pulled her arm away from Han and addressed the crowd, many of whom were watching Luke's passage overhead. "Help is on the way! There is a Jedi Knight here already, and you're safer here than on the ships! We'll return your children to you as quickly as we can, but we may have to leave in a hurry! Please stay back away from the ship!" Leia turned to Han. "Can you tell ground control to stop loading the ships, and find someone who can give us some cover fire?"

Han stared at her, then looked at the pile of broken furniture and non-critical pieces of the Falcon and said, "You mean to tell me I did all that for nothing?"