“Han—” Leia triggered her hold-out and got not even a glow from the muzzle. “Han, I’m out.”

“All right, all right,” Han said through his teeth; his DL’s grip alert had been tingling for the last four or five shots, which meant he had only a handful left, even at this half-power setting. He threw his arm around Leia’s shoulders and started backing up, throwing a shot or two behind to start a gap in the ring of creatures. “Stick close. Maybe we can work over to some of their current guests. Maybe somebody’s got a charged blaster tucked away somewhere we can get at it—”

“Somebody’s coming,” Leia said. “Han—somebody’s out there! Coming for us!”

“Is it Luke? Please say it’s Luke.” He silently swore that if she said yes, he would never, ever make another joke about the Force, or Jedi, or lightsabers, or really, anything else. For the rest of his life. Or longer, if necessary.

Over by the cavern mouth, rock creatures suddenly collapsed into puddles of liquid stone.

Leia said, her voice hushed, “It’s not Luke.”

The collapse spread like a slow-motion shock wave; creature after creature simply melted away, their electric crackles fading to silence; as the last of them fell, their light winked out, leaving the cavern in a darkness beyond darkness. Darkness like being blind.

Darkness as if the existence of light had been only a dream.

In that absolute night, something growled.

“What the hell was that?” Han asked. It had sounded like a Corellian sand panther warning off an intruder in its den.

“It says,” Leia said, low, “The dark is your refuge. Enter the dark as a weary traveler enters sleep.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? And since when do you speak … whatever that is?”

“I don’t. I just … understand him somehow.”

More growls, moving now; Han tracked the sound with the emitter of his DL-44. “What’s he saying now?”

Her arms tightened around his chest. “He says he can smell your fear.”

“Yeah? Smell this.” Han popped off another stun blast. In the instant of glare, he saw it. Him. A dark shape, bigger than the sand panther he sounded like, darting along the wall. Han fired again, and again, but his shots splashed harmlessly on the stone; this guy—this thing, whatever—moved too fast for Han to even get a clear look at it. He set his jaw and very lightly flicked the DL’s trigger twice, then again, then twice more, without ever pulling it past the break, so that it made a succession of dry clicks. He let a muffled curse escape through his teeth.

The growling became a deep, dry chuckle that he didn’t need Leia to translate.

“You think that’s funny? Turn on a light and I’ll show you something funny!”

“Han, don’t antagonize him!” Leia whispered.

“Why not? You think anything I do is gonna make this worse?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think he’s here for me. I think if you can keep your mouth shut, he might let you live.”


- Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, Chapter 15