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.It occurred to him the next time he came to--the cold woke him, that time--that he probably had aconcussion."Luke," said Cray, and now she sounded scared."Luke, you've got to wake up!"He knew she was probably right.The Force, he thought again.Cilghal, his Calamarian student, had taught him enough about the specificphysiological mechanism of concussions that he knew exactly where to bring the Force to bear, though itwas a little like trying to take off a glove one-handed.His lungs felt as if he'd inhaled a sand drill andneglected to turn it off.No wonder breathing hadn't been a lot of fun.Increased blood flow to the capillaries to clear the impurities.Accelerated healing to the cells of thatrioting squadron of drunken Gamorreans that had formerly been his brain.Opening his eyes, he worked on consolidating both Crays into the single individual he was pretty surethey were."Where are we?""Coming up on the K Seven Forty-nine System." She had a huge bruise on the side of her face, themakeup that had been on her eyes streaked black with the residue of tears of pain.She wore a yellowthermal suit over her clothing, the cowl pushed back and her pale hair floating loose around herface.”We've picked up a signal."Luke breathed deep--at the cost of a certain amount of nausea--and worked on channeling the Forceto the center of the worst pain and dizziness in his head.He couldn't remember how good a pilot Nichoswas, but he knew Cray had no experience in it at all.If they were going to make Pzob alive he'd betterbe in shape to take the ship down."I thought there was nothing out here.From Pzob?""K Seven Forty-nine Three, yes."Luke had completely stopped cussing at petty misfortunes round about the time he'd lost his righthand--after he'd realized he'd aborted and imperiled his own training as a Jedi, betrayed his Master, andput himself in deadly danger of succumbing to the dark side for no purpose whatsoever, his perspectiveon minor annoyances had changed.He only sighed now, letting his worry run off, and asked, "Imperial?"If the base in the asteroid field was an Imperial one it stood to reason."The data section of the computer's out," said Cray."I've got the navicomp back on line from thebackups but that took every coupling that wasn't burned out by that last power surge.Can you recognizeImperial signals by internal code?""Some of them." He reached over--carefully--to strip free the straps that held a silvery thermal blanketaround him, while Cray unfastened the restraining straps that held him in place.He was, he saw, in the aftcrew room as he'd thought.The lighting came from a single emergency glowpanel in the ceiling, but it wassufficient to enable him to see his breath."Here you are, Master Luke." Threepio floated across to him from the lockers on the opposite wall,holding out a t-suit and an oxygen filter mask."I'm so gratified to see you conscious and well.""That's a matter of opinion." Even the small movement necessary to get himself into the t-suit made himqueasy, and despite all the channeling of healing he could do, his head still throbbed agonizingly.He tookthe filter mask and glanced inquiringly at Cray."The coolant lines ruptured.We got a mask on you as fast as we could but there was a while there wethought you were a goner."He touched the back of his head, and was immediately sorry.Whatever he'd struck--or whatever flyingdebris had struck him--had raised a lump approximately the size of the smaller of Coruscant's moons."I salvaged as much of the battle readouts as I could." Cray slipped on her own filter mask andfollowed him across the crew room to the door."There are some stills, a little footage that I can't get torun, and a half dozen computer extrapolations of what I think are the site of the attack, but the system'stoo damaged for me to get any kind of clear picture of which asteroid it is.When we make port and Ican salvage the data I'll be able to tell you more." She pushed aside a drifting logpad and a couple ofspare filter masks as they entered the short hallway.Though spacegoing vessels as a rule kept to aminimum objects that weren't strapped or magnetized down, there were always some: comlinks, stylos,coffee mugs, logpads, empty drink bubbles, and data wafers.The bridge was even colder than the crew room, and murky with pinkish coolant gas.Nichos hadlashed himself to the safety bolts on the edge of the main console itself; the chair Luke had been sitting inwas tied to a handhold on the far wall, having been ripped loose from its moorings by the impact that hadtorn Luke out of its harness.The lights had gone completely in here, and only the chalky starlight from themain viewport illuminated the room.Feral red or blinking amber power lights glinted like strange jewels inreflection from the silvery droid's arms and back."The signal we're picking up from Pzob isn't strong enough to reach into the Moonflower Nebula,"reported Nichos, as Luke pulled himself close with a floating remnant of the safety-harness strap."Lookfamiliar?"Luke checked the readout on the single screen left functional."Not any Imperial signal I've ever seen,"he said."Which doesn't mean that whoever's sending it isn't allied with one or another of the warlords." Itwas odd, and a little disconcerting, to see Nichos without either mask or t-suit in what was rapidlybecoming a frozen and depressurized coffin."The Gamorrean colonists?" suggested Cray."Or smugglers, maybe?""The Gamorreans haven't stopped fighting each other long enough to set up a technological base of anykind on any planet where they've settled," said Luke doubtfully."It might be smugglers--which doesn'tmean they won't be allied with Harrsk or Teradoc or some other Imperial wannabe, or with one of thebig smuggler gangs for that matter.But at this point," he added, toggling the readout back to thenavicomputer and marveling a little that Cray had gotten the thing workable at all, "we don't have anychoice."Massive, porcine, primitive, and belligerent, Gamorreans will live and thrive wherever there is soil fertileenough to farm, sufficient game to hunt, and rocks to throw at one another, but given their preferencethey will take forested country, if possible where mushrooms grow [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]