Star Wars - Duel Page 2

  It had reached the center of the cavern when, from beside the two ends of the stone arch, a pair of clone troopers suddenly rose from concealment behind boulders and opened fire.

  Brolis’s mouth dropped open in disbelief as the blaster fire raked across the droid. But his troops had all been killed in the fighting. Where in the world had Yoda found these men?

  The droid responded instantly to the sudden new threat. Swiveling hard to its right, it fired a missile at the clone trooper there, then rotated to face the opposite direction and launched another at the second trooper. The missiles hit their targets dead-center and exploded.

  With a horrendous double crack, the bottom sections of the arch blew apart. Shock waves raced upward along the walls, shattering the arch into twin waterfalls of falling stone. The waves reached the top of the dome, and with a roar the rest of the arch and the entire center of the ceiling collapsed.

  Burying the hailfire droid beneath a massive pile of rock.

  And Brolis finally understood. There had been no soldiers, merely empty sets of armor animated by the same mysterious power that had earlier carried him through the tunnel. Yoda hadn’t been trying to cut an exit with his lightsaber, but had instead been putting the finishing touches on a booby-trap of loosened rock that he knew would collapse under the droid’s attack.

  Just as he had promised, he had allowed the hailfire to destroy itself.

  “Come, Commander,” the Jedi Master said quietly. “Await us, my transport does.”

  Read a new adventure by your favorite Star Wars authors in every issue of Star Wars Insider magazine.

  From Hasbro Short Story Collection (07-2003)

  11.6.18.15.14.5-1