Bloodlines

by Karen Traviss

  But Barit wasn’t just visibly angry: There was also a real sense of pent-up danger about him. Ben hadn’t realized just what an emotional thing the Sanctuary was for Corellians living here.

  Ben probed cautiously. “They said on the news that the bomb went off in the room of a Corellian man over here on business.”

  “They would say that, wouldn’t they?” Barit had his elbows braced on his knees, right hand clutching his left wrist, looking around at pedestrians walking along the nearby promenade. “I bet they did it themselves.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “The government. CSF. Galactic security. They do that kind of spy stuff. If they plant a bomb and blame it on us, then it gives them an excuse to attack Corellia.”

  Ben thought of what he had done only a few weeks earlier: he’d sabotaged Centerpoint Station, Corellia’s military pride and joy. And here he was sitting with a Corellian who thought the Galactic Alliance played dirty tricks and who treated him like a fellow Corellian. Ben felt a little thrill, the kind that came from having a secret identity, and then he felt … pretty bad about it all.

  But he’d done what he had to.

  Hadn’t he?

  “What do other Corellians here think?”

  Barit shrugged. “There’s a lot of us. And enough don’t want to be dictated to by the Galactic Alliance.”

  Ben took that to mean that there would be a war after all, just as Jacen had warned—and just as Ben had felt when he sensed the anxiety in the Force. “So you’ll be going back to Corellia to join the armed forces, then.”

  Barit lowered his voice. “Why do that, when we can fight better here?”

  Ben thought about that for a moment. Adults often said things to him that they really shouldn’t, seeming to think that he was too young to understand. Sometimes he was, though he always remembered what was said to him. But he wasn’t too young to understand Barit.

  It’s just talk. We all say stupid things when we’re angry.

  Even so, he would remember it.

  chapter five

  My fee’s five hundred thousand credits each for Han Solo and his son. If you want the Solo womenfolk and the Skywalkers, too—that’ll be extra. I remember the Solo kids, but I don’t think they’ll recognize me again.…

  —Ailyn Habuur, aka Ailyn Vel,

  bounty hunter, to an intermediary for Thrackan Sal-Solo

  MUNICIPAL PORT, LOWER CORONET, CORELLIA.

  Han Solo had a smuggler’s fine-tuned sense for avoiding trouble. But he was a little out of practice after years of respectability, and there was definitely a different skill needed to evade detection in a city in peacetime. He made his way to the Millennium Falcon under cover of darkness to check on the hyperdrive. It still needed work.

  The distance from the rented apartment to the municipal landing strip was two kilometers. The Falcon nestled among a motley array of vessels, making what should have been an easily recognizable ship just one dented, scraped crate among scores of freighters, modified fighters, speeders, taxis, landing craft, and any number of heavily modified, shabby, and unidentifiable craft. Corellians were eclectic in their choice of transport, so one more vintage ship in a dubious state of repair wasn’t going to draw much attention. In fact, the Falcon wasn’t even the only ship of her class parked on the apron. There were, as far as Han could see, at least three others.

  He ambled around the starboard side, pressed the security pad in his pocket, and lowered the ramp to board her. Once in the cockpit, he switched her to tick-over and the array of status lights and readouts flickered into life. This was home. It had been for as long as he could remember. This was where he had spent some of the most important moments of his life, where he had spent time with friends like Chewbacca, where he had found out who he really was. Permacrete and mortar meant nothing to him. The Falcon was more than home: she was family, too, and all the people he had ever loved had passed through her sooner or later.

  He patted the console bulkhead lovingly. “Hi, baby,” he said. “How you doing? Let’s make you all better.”

  The hyperdrive was still off-balance. The coils and injectors needed a little more care spent on them to make sure that they released exactly the right amount of energy into the drive at the proper rate. Some of the repairs were simple mechanical stuff like finding the correct gauge of durasteel for the bolts on the housing and the shafts that created the fields. However advanced the propulsion system, it still came down to a point where huge forces created by energy had to be transferred to the good old-fashioned durasteel and alloy parts that held the drive and the hull together. Small vibrations became magnified; eventually, they smashed whole ships.

  Han checked the automated system that sent sound waves through the hull to check for stress microfractures in the casing and airframe. There it was: stressing around the drive housing. He needed to replace brackets and bolts before he could risk taking the Falcon to full speed. He grabbed some tools and eased himself into the drive access space headfirst to see for himself. There was a certain comfort in getting his hands dirty and seeing problems as chunks of metal that could be fixed.

  Okay, how do I fix Thrackan?

  In theory, it was easy. Find out where he was at a given time and how to get to him, take a shot, and run.

  But it wasn’t that simple in reality. That was why men like Fett made their fortunes doing it.

  And if I fix Thrackan, will there be another of his minions to take his place? Are we always going to be running?

  No, it was just Thrackan. It was personal, like it always had been, and nobody else could hate you quite as thoroughly and efficiently as your own kin. Han tested the torque on the housing bolts with a hydrospanner and noted the illuminated display on the handle. There was a little play in the bolts: not enough for flesh and blood to detect, but discernible by sensitive equipment. If he needed to make a run for it in the Falcon right now, it would be a much slower one if he didn’t want the airframe to shake itself apart.

  “Aw, baby, I’ve neglected you …”

  He set the spanner to extract the bolts one by one, let them fall into his hand, and padded them out with a makeshift pin of soft alloy before screwing them back in. That would cut down on the movement until he could find the right spares. “I promise I won’t let you get into this state ever again.”

  “Touching,” said a voice above him, and he jerked into a ball instinctively, knees tight to his chest, as the flare of blasterfire hit the deck a hand span away from where he’d been lying.

  He rolled under the housing and reached for his hold-out blaster. Another bolt sizzled on the bulkhead to one side of him; he smelled singed paint and ozone. He was right under the housing now, too far under for whoever it was to get a clear shot at him unless they got down flat on the deck and fired at floor level.

  Well, it wasn’t Fett, that was for sure. He’d have been dead by now if it had been.

  Han rolled over onto his belly with one elbow braced on the deck of the compartment to propel himself on the smooth surface and his blaster in his other hand. It was hard to see at this angle, but he spotted movement, and knew he was looking at boots.

  “Come on out, Solo,” said the voice. It was a man, probably young. He didn’t identify himself: so he wasn’t CorSec. Chancer. Out for a bit of glory, a reward. “Thought nobody would spot your ship, did you?”

  Han held his breath, keeping an eye on the play of light that told him someone was creeping back and forth in front of the drive housing. He was trapped under a hunk of metal with only one way out. That was toward his attacker. Fine. He could do that, too. It only made him mad—mad that he hadn’t set the intruder alert again, and even madder that someone was on his ship. It was the ultimate insult.

  Lying flat under the housing, he had a 150-degree arc in front of him.

  He flicked the blaster to the continuous fire setting with his thumb and braced his forearm on the deck. There was blood on the back of his hand: he must have scraped hims
elf on something sharp. He hadn’t felt a thing.

  What if this guy had a gang backing him up? “Come and get me, kid.”

  Boots moved again. “You’re stuck.”

  Han swung a stream of fire, left to right, just to make sure he hit something. There was a loud shriek of surprised pain. “And your dancing days are over.”

  Someone thudded onto the deck with a grunt of pain, and blasterfire hit something, because Han saw the flash and smelled the burn: but he hadn’t killed anyone, and that meant he was still pinned down under the drive housing. He was working out just how fast he could get out from under the housing and realizing it wouldn’t be a fast exit at all when he heard a startled “Uhh!” and a distinctive and very welcome sound.

  Vzzzmmmm.

  A lightsaber cut an arc through the air, once, twice, three times. Then there was silence. He waited, breathless.

  “You can come on out now, old man.” The voice was Leia’s. Han detected a slight edge to it. “I’ve cleared up the mess for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Ever seen a Bothan well-spider?” Leia peered through the gap, on all fours. “They fight like you. They fire strands of caustic silk out of their burrows at predators. I couldn’t help but be reminded. That and the gangly legs.”

  Han eased himself out of the drive housing space, realizing for the first time how many bruises and scrapes he’d have in the morning. It was one thing thinking you were as fit and fast as you ever were, but healing wasn’t quite so quick at sixty as it was at twenty.

  “You think you’re funny, Princess, but you’re not …”

  “You’re welcome. I thought I’d keep an eye on you.”

  “Because you sensed danger?”

  “That, and I know how you shut the whole world out when you’re thinking about this ship.”

  “Yeah, love’s blind.”

  Han dragged himself out, catching his scalp on something and cursing. When he straightened up, Leia was standing over what Han could only describe as a dead guy. He was in civilian clothing and looked about thirty. He wouldn’t be seeing thirty-one, that was for sure.

  Leia held the lightsaber hilt in one hand, visibly jumpy. She tossed her head as if the novelty of having shoulder-length hair instead of a braid almost to her waist was taking some getting used to.

  “Suits you,” said Han.

  “Feels weird … like my whole head’s lighter.”

  “They say really long hair is aging for mature women, anyway.”

  “You looking for trouble, nerf herder?”

  “Like we don’t have enough?”

  “I think we’d better disappear right now.”

  “What about the body?”

  “Dump it out the air lock when we’re clear.”

  “When did a nice girl like you learn to do things like that?”

  “You taught me.”

  “Nice to know I have my uses.” Han secured the drive housing cover plate, and they headed for the cockpit. It was like old times again, but old times he really didn’t want to keep reliving.

  “Where to?” said Leia.

  “Coruscant,” Han said. “For spare parts.”

  “And nobody on our tail there. Not trying to kill us, anyway.”

  “Luke can read me the riot act instead.”

  “At least the droids and the Noghri will be happy to have us back.”

  Han fired up the Falcon’s drive and hoped for the best. “I was planning on coming back once I’ve fixed the drive.”

  “That’s smart,” said Leia. She fell into the role of copilot automatically now. It was almost like having Chewie: almost, but that was a space not even Leia could fill. “Is this some macho thing? There’s a time when a man’s got to stop running and all that guff?”

  “I’m going to be ready for Thrackan when the time comes.”

  Leia said nothing. The Falcon lifted clear, and Han laid in a course for Coruscant, ready to risk a jump to maximum velocity if Corellian Traffic Control had the same idea as the would-be assassin now cooling rapidly in the engineering space below. But the vessel slipped through the shipping lanes and out to the jump point with no more than a routine automated transponder exchange.

  “I should have asked how that guy found us,” said Han.

  Leia didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “I’ll remember to leave you a moment for questions next time I stop someone trying to kill you.”

  Han took the Falcon as close to maximum speed as he dared. They spent the three hours it took to cover the twenty thousand light-years to Coruscant watching readouts and indicators, hoping the drive would hold together. By the time they reached Coruscant space, the Falcon had developed an uncharacteristic vibration that made her frame feel as if it were rolling on a sea every few seconds with an unnatural regularity.

  Leia leaned forward in her seat and checked drive temperatures and profiles with visible anxiety. “You sure she’s going to land in one piece?”

  Han shrugged, knowing that wouldn’t fool her one bit. “No. But trust me.”

  He picked up the Galactic City beacon at 750,000 kilometers and laid in a course to land at one of the public docking bays a long way from the center of the city—and unwelcome attention. What would they do if they knew who he was? Nothing. This was civilized space, where he might be asked some awkward questions about his Corellian sympathies, if anyone knew he had flown that mission with Wedge: but they didn’t, and so he could drop in openly as Solo, Captain H., anytime he liked. If they did know he’d fought against the Galactic Alliance, they might just invite him in for a few questions, and a tangled game with lawyers would follow.

  This was Coruscant, a planet run by law and conventions. People didn’t disappear here—except in the criminal underworld.

  But Han was cautious enough to stay with the anonymized transponder that identified the Falcon this time as a Tatooine freighter. There was a time when a visual check or a thermal signature would have betrayed her as a fighting ship, but she was old, and any number of eccentric traders flew modified fleet surplus warships these days. They had nice big cargo holds and handy defensive armament, which was just what was needed in some of the wilder parts of the galactic business community.

  The console computer chatted silently with Galactic City ATC, swapping messages that blurred into streaks of illuminated text and symbols. The screen settled on a comforting message designed for human eyes: CLEAR TO DOCK AT BERTH BW 9842 TIME WINDOW 1245 TO 1545.

  “Okay, prep for docking,” said Han.

  “You never say that.”

  “I never thought the drive might land without the rest of the ship before.”

  Leia watched the console with a slight frown, white and green lights from the instruments reflecting on her face. Han found he was studying her for signs of dismay, as if her confidence alone would make for a safe landing. The Falcon was vibrating noticeably now: nothing spectacular, but a regular, barely perceptible movement like a missing heartbeat every five seconds or so, with a slight murmur of moving parts that a pilot would hear only if he knew the ship as well as he knew his own body. And Han knew the Falcon that well.

  So did Leia. She glanced at him and winked. “It’ll be fine.”

  “Dropping to sublight.”

  “Sublight,” said Leia, confirming the helm order.

  The Falcon murmured again. Han found his knuckles straining white under the skin of his right hand as he clutched the yoke. The more tightly he held it, the more the vibration felt magnified into something to worry about.

  “Engaging maneuvering drive.” The drive kicked in with its own distinctive hums and resonance. Come on, baby. Just a regular landing. You’ve done a million of them. Stay in one piece. “Distance five hundred thousand kilometers.”

  “Adjusting angle of approach.”

  “Make twenty-four degrees.”

  “Correcting to twenty-four.”

  “Holding steady.”

  The navigation display showed a neat
grid of lines and numbers with the icon that represented the Falcon aligned on the course that represented a safe approach to the Galactic City landing strip. A rhythmic shiver intruded into the familiar layers of sound and vibration that Han knew without even thinking about it as normal.

  “Don’t say it,” Leia said sharply.

  “Don’t say what?”

  “That you’ve got a bad feeling.”

  “Never crossed my mind,” Han lied.

  “Crossed mine.” Leia didn’t even look up from the control console. “Because I’ve got one, too.”

  PLAZA OF THE CORE, CORUSCANT.

  Lumiya was coming. She had answered Jacen’s summons: she was heading for Coruscant, without argument or fear.

  And he could feel her. He found he could track her—and her emotions—almost as if he could see her.

  Ben sat beside him, unusually quiet, hands in his lap. He had taken to wearing a very small braid in his red hair, hardly long enough to plait and tied awkwardly with a scrap of brown thread, but Jacen could see it. The boy had his shoulders hunched up a little as if he was trying to hide it.

  “Bad hair day?” Jacen commented. He found more to like and admire about Ben every day. The boy had growth spurts emotionally as well as physically, and the last few weeks seemed to have literally made a man of him. But Jacen wanted him to keep his sense of humor. He’d need it in the years to come.

  “I … er … thought I ought to grow it.” Ben’s blush almost matched his hair. “Does it look stupid?”

  “Not at all. But you’re not technically an apprentice, so you don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to.”

  “I want to.”

  “Fine. Good.”

  “Who are we waiting for?”

  I hate fooling him. But it has to be done. “A woman who’s going to do some research for us. Military threat analysis.” He took one more risky step—but Lumiya’s old name was a common one, unlikely to draw any attention, and it ruled out slips of the tongue. “Her name’s Shira. You might see her around from time to time.”