CHAPTER 39 - DID HE MARK YOU?
Naluma Force-pushed the crosshilted lightsaber across the clearing a mere second before it could touch Luke's flesh. She hauled the corpse off his prone figure, revealing her master's distorted face. "Master!" She knelt beside him. "Where are you hurt? Did he mark you?"
"No, it's my back," Luke groaned as he clenched his face in pain. "I landed on some rocks. I think I might have broken something." He moaned as his back spasmed once more.
"Don't move."
He grunted through staggered breaths, "I don't think I could if I wanted to."
She knelt beside him and lightly touched his arm. Sending the tendrils of the Force through his body, she searched for the injury. A chip. A fracture. A ruptured disc. A severed nerve.
Biting her lip, she delved deeper, searching and finding nothing.
"What is it? Tell me, Naluma. Is my back broken?"
She shook her head. "I can't find it. Can't find the break. Just stay still. We'll have to get you to a med center." She smoothed the hair from his eyes before standing. "I'll be back. Be still."
He groaned and clenched his eyes shut as she padded off into the forest.
She looked around the carnage for anything she could use to splint his back. Under the trees she found some fallen branches. She severed the fronds and needles with her lightsaber and evened the branches' lengths.
After dragging the branches to him, she hunted for something to tie them up with. She took the cape from her last opponent and ripped it into wide strips. She bound the poles together with the bands, saving a few to secure Luke to the improvised stretcher.
"Naluma, I can't feel my legs," he whimpered as the pain in his back overwhelmed him.
"Focus on my voice, master." She grabbed his hand and let the Force flow through her to him, cascading it around his fears and his pain. "Sh. That's right, just focus on the Force. Take what you need from me." She opened her channels wide with no reserves.
"Now, I'm going to move you to the stretcher, master. Let me do all the work." She gnawed her lip to keep her own tears back.
Using the Force, she lifted him slowly to the stretcher, preserving him in the same position so that no nerves were pinched or damaged. Sweat beaded on Naluma's face as she worked used the Force to transport him slowly. Luke moaned, and her shoulders tensed. She eased her progress, but soon Naluma settled his limp form on the platform, ending the effort with a gentle hand on his chest.
"I'm going to secure you now, master. Hang in there." She draped the strips over him. "Once Solo and that Wookiee get here, we can get you some real medical help."
She gently but firmly secured him to the litter. When he shivered, she removed another cape from one of their attackers and covered him with it.
A few minutes later, the Millennium Falcon roared across the meadow, running mere meters above the landscape and flattening the grass in its wake. Four TIE fighters closed in, laser cannons spitting.
The Falcon jerked left and then right, weaving through the trees, branches flying in every direction. Naluma crouched low over Luke to shield him from the worst.
She watched as Han put the ship into a gravity loop and dove straight down with the torpedoes and quad cannons blazing. The entire factory lit up the sky, taking a couple of the TIE fighters with it. He took the remaining two out with the forward missile tubes as he came out of the loop, bursting through the fireball.
No! A wave of contaminant rushed out in a cloud, covering the forest. She felt the sosna trees shudder as the effluvium permeated through the forest. Long evergreen needles and cones showered her and Luke and from above. Before the first one hit, she built a Force-field around them. Only a centimeter from their skin, but good enough.
I've got to stop it. She looked to Luke. How? How do I contain this? She looked at her fingers through the purple haze that encircled her.
She tossed all thoughts out of her mind and called the Force. She pulled it to a greater degree than she ever had before, letting it burn through her. Bolts of energy coursed through her veins, boiling her blood, electrifying her heart and muscles. Stimulating and agonizing, but ultimately draining.
Then the Padawan shaped that energy into a canopy over the plant to keep the containment field within the factory area. She set it in motion, letting it grow of its own volition.
Now for the tricky part—the protective barrier. Not for the first time she wished her master could assist her with this, but this job now fell to her. She severed the cord to her creation, hoping it would hold, expecting it to fail.
But it held. Fed by the Force around it, linked to the trees and the meadows. It held.
She turned just in time to watch the Falcon land. Han had extended the loading ramp, and the Wookiee held onto a hydraulic support as it came in. The Falcon had not even touched the ground when Chewbacca jumped two meters to the turf and bolted toward Naluma. He jumped over a large log and pounded to her and Luke.
"Careful. It's his back. We need to keep him level and still." She wiped her brow as the Wookiee grabbed one end of the stretcher. "On my mark—three, two, one, lift."
Together they carried the Jedi Master aboard. Chewbacca's simian arms required him to bend only a little to keep Luke level on the journey.
Han hollered back to them, "I hate to tell you this, but we've got more company coming in. Naluma, I could use you on the cannons."
While removing the stretcher ties, she said, "Give me a minute to get Master Luke into the medbay. If we jostle his back, he could be paralyzed. Now, Chewie, on my mark." She took a deep breath and prepared to use the Force to keep his back straight. "Three, two, one, lift."
As they settled Luke on the bed, he moaned again. She strapped him to the acceleration couch, knowing that in combat he could easily end up on the floor if they flipped.
"I can't wait any longer. We're taking off. Chewie, I need you up here," Han said as the Falcon gained altitude.
Naluma found some pain meds and injected Luke with them. "Hang in there, master." She brushed the hair from his forehead and ran to the gunner tube. Grabbing the ladder poles, she slid to the lower turret.
She fought with the controls and the seat that careened her from side to side. She sighed. "Force, help us."
As soon as the enemy came into range, Naluma guided the turret, and the computer locked onto the first target. Laser bolts spat from the quad-guns and blasted the lead TIE to a fireball.
Two more TIES closed with frightening speed, and the computer failed to lock on the evasive targets. Use the Force. She closed her eyes, breathed in sharply, and targeted manually—and fired. Her intuition proved precise, taking out the other TIEs in the group. But they kept coming, wave after wave.
A sharp quake jerked her in the seat as a large blast hit the shields. "What was that?"
"We're losing the deflector shields. Gonna have to outmaneuver them, give the navacomputer time to calculate the jump."
The ship banked hard right and slid between the tall conifers, needles and cones flying everywhere and covering her turret with a mass of green. Burst of green laser bolts added to the debris as two TIE fighters pursued the Falcon above the tree canopy.
Han dove deeper into the coverage. The ship bounced on the forest floor a few times as he wove in between the green pillars. "There! That looks good."
Chewbacca roared a question.
"What looks good?" A TIE zoomed into range, but she her shots went wide.
"Yeah, that'll do just fine."
A large bang preceded splintering wood flying by her viewscreen. The Falcon pivoted once more, flying upright again.
Banking left and right, Solo guided the freighter through an immense cavern of rust-colored granite hollowed out by explosives and drills. Dilapidated conveyex cars lay scattered on the floor, some filled with red fragments, others empty and careened on their sides.
Han jerked up and then down, avoiding the green lasers. With a quick jerk to the right, he barely avoided a large stalactite plummeting from above.
"Rwaorr urrGHHl arhgl!"
"I know. Hang on."
"What?"
The ship bucked and shuddered. Naluma's eyes widened.
"Running out of room. Only one of these tunnels is big enough. Chewie cut the lifesupport and divert all power to the front deflectors."
For a second time, boards and splinters flew past her windscreen as Han dove into a mine shaft. The TIEs followed them in. Blast after blast hit their stern. "Rear deflectors now, Chewie!"
He growled an agreement.
Han flipped the Falcon, lining up the perfect shot. Two chugs of the quad cannon took him out, but his partner evaded the fireball and continued on their tail.
The Falcon swerved and banked once more as Chewie hollered something.
"Uh-oh."
"What?"
"Two more bogies."
"Han! Watch out. Those things hanging from the ceiling ..."
Rumbling. Cracking. Booming. Stalactites trembled and tumbled.
"I see them." The ship flung left, right, left, down, up, left, evading the monoliths lancing at them.
One hammered a TIE to the jagged floor, where it bounced twice before exploding.
Naluma shot at the stone edifices and the TIEs. Rocks sprayed the canopy before a fireball enveloped it.
Alarms sounded and steam filled her compartment. She clutched at the oxygen mask behind her and shut her eyes.
Naluma, feel the Force. Let it show you where they are.
Master?
You can do this, Naluma. Focus on the Force. Let it guide you.
She inhaled and sent out her awareness to the Force. Her hands were no longer hers. The TIEs were indiscriminate shapes, but she saw them, saw a trail of where they were going. One pulse. Two pulses. Three pulses. One more to go.
The smoke in the cabin had cleared now, but her stomach lurched when the Falcon broke through the exit and climbed steeply into the sky.
Below her, the last TIE caught in the exit, its twin engines straining against the rockfall. She pivoted her turret and stabbed the triggers once more. With the gunk-gunk cycle, the mine exit collapsed, taking the TIE with it.
"We did it," she yelled over the comm.
Chewbacca roared at her, but it didn't seem like one of exultation.
"Four more coming in at mark four one."
A few more shots fizzled out from both directions. The enemy was still out of range.
She yelled over headset, "Can one of you man the other turret?"
"Just hang on. We're about to make the jump to lightspeed."
In an instant, the space outside the gunner canopy turned to fragmented blue hyperspace—safety at last. Where they were headed, she had no idea. For the moment, they were safe.
Exhaustion walloped her. It took all of her concentration to climb the ladder back to the medbay.
Han met her there. "What happened to him?" The captain pointed at his friend. "Is that his blood?"
"No, he just landed on his back on top of some rocks," she said. "Where are we headed?"
"Nearest Republic facility with a med center—Chazwa."
Chewie roared from the cockpit.
"I know it's close to Imperial space, but I didn't think the kid had much time." He rubbed his hand over his head and grabbed the back of his neck in worry. "Leia's gonna kill me if anything happens to Luke."
As she loosened Luke's restraints, Naluma said, "She'll have to stand in line for the chance." She covered him with a thermo blanket and then started an intravenous drip.
"What's that for?"
"Saline solution—keep him from going into shock. Can you land this thing smoothly when we arrive? No bumps?"
"Yeah, no problem." He winked in cocky assurance. "Glad you know all this stuff."
"Yeah, me, too." Naluma wished he would just go away. "What's our ETA?"
Chewie roared the answer.
Han interpreted, "About four hours."
"Great. I need some rack time. Got any bunks in this place?"
"Yeah, down the passageway on your left." He pointed toward the corridor. "Hey, Naluma."
She turned to him, out of patience with the man.
"Thanks. You were great back there."
Naluma involuntarily smiled in response to the compliment. The smile softened her attitude. "So were you, Captain Solo. Couldn't have finished this mission without you and Chewie."
The drained Padawan stumbled down the passageway to the crew quarters. She was so tired, she did not care if she ended up sharing a bunk with the Wookiee.