by James Luceno
The protocol droid was just where he had left him, motionless at the intersection of the ring corridor and the main hold. The Nautolan shoved him gently in the direction of a hologame table that occupied the front part of the space. While the head-tailed goon looked around for something to use to bind him, Poste reached a decision of his own. The boarding ramp was still lowered. There would be no getting to it with both the Nautolan and the protocol droid standing where they were. But according to a sketch Jadak had made of how he imagined the interior of the Millennium Falcon was laid out, the corridor was circular, and he might be able to make it to the boarding ramp by coming around from the stern. It required trusting that the Nautolan wasn't familiar with the layout, and that he would chase him, but Poste saw no other way out.
He waited for Cynner's gaze to shift, then bolted for the port arc of the corridor.
“Remata, he's making a break for it!” Cynner called out.
But what mattered was that he was in pursuit.
Hearing the call, Remata barreled through the cockpit connector, nearly knocking the deactivated protocol droid off its feet as he entered the main hold. Listening for a moment, he said, “Idiot,” and raced into the starboard-side ring corridor.
Poste banged his way to the stern of the ship, past the Falcon's hyperdrive and the escape pod accessway, his eyes scanning the deck for the maintenance hatch Jadak had included in the sketch. He was three-quarters of the way around the corridor when he spotted it, opposite and just aft of the ship's small galley. Wedging his fingers into the section of grated decking, he lifted it clear and threw himself down the hatch, resetting the grating as best he could.
A moment later Cynner rounded the port bend, only to run straight into Remata, who had arrived from the opposite direction.
“Where is he?” Remata asked.
“He sure didn't come by me.”
They searched the escape pod accessway.
Remata glanced up the port-side corridor. “Could he have ducked into one of the cabin spaces?”
“I'll check.”
Cynner had no sooner set out than Remata spied the hatch's ill-fitted deck grating. Lifting it out, he turned his ear to the hatch.
“Cynner, he went belowdecks!” he yelled down the corridor. “There's another access in the main hold. Hurry!”
Poste stumbled through the Falcon's unlighted cargo areas, tripping over tools, slamming into engine parts, and flattening toys that squeaked when he stepped on them. Above and behind he could hear muffled calls. Hands extended in front of him, he kept moving forward, feeling his way around bulkheads and obstacles impossible to identify. He reasoned that he had to be beneath the main hold when sudden light poured in from above and he caught a brief glance of the Nautolan, silhouetted against the ceiling illuminators.
“He just passed me!”
“I'll get him!”
Poste heard eager footsteps behind him, then the sound of Cynner landing on the deck of the central cargo area. Throwing caution to the wind, he propelled himself into the forward freight-loading room, which Han Solo had turned into a bunker housing an array of concussion missiles. Feeling along the slightly curved forward bulkhead, his hands found the opening to a maintenance burrow that provided access to the deflector shield generator, landing jets, and passive sensor antenna housed in the port mandible.
Poste pulled himself up and into the pitch-black tunnel, then began to worm his way forward over greasy components and through puddles of leaked lubricant to the mandible's top-side maintenance hatch, which he prayed wasn't secured from the outside.
The light of a glow stick danced around him.
“Any sign of him?” the human called.
“I don't see him. He could be anywhere. I'll try to find the lights.”
“Don't bother. Let him rot down here.”
“Good enough for me. I'm heading back up.”
Bellying forward, Poste found the circular hatch and sprang it. Hauling himself out onto the forward tip of the mandible, he rolled to one side. Then with his fingers hooked around the right-angle edge, he dropped to the duracrete floor and squatted behind the forward-most of the port-side hardstand disks.
Arriving in the cockpit, Cynner found his partner seated at the instrument console. “Fancy me, sitting in Han Solo's chair.”
“I see the droid's gone.”
“We don't need either of them.” Swiveling to face front, Remata flicked the repulsorlift toggles and scanned the instruments. “Not all that different from the Two-thousand series.”
“Should I check in?” Cynner said as he slid into the copilot's chair.
Remata nodded and threw a switch. “Secure your harness.”
Comlink out, Cynner heard the boarding ramp retract. “We have the ship,” he said into the comlink's speaker. “We're raising it now.”
“WE WORKED FIRST-LIGHT-TO-ABSOLUTE-DARK FOR TWO STANDARD weeks retrofitting that hyperdrive,” Jadak said, “the Verpine, the Jawas, and me. The days were so hot we were frying nogull eggs on the hull, and some nights it got so cold we'd wake to find our drinking water sheeted with ice. Took another two weeks to install the laser cannon. When we finished, though, the YT was sporting in the neighborhood of a Class One hyperdrive and a dorsal turret and battery. The Verpine, the Sullustan, and I piloted her through her first jumps to lightspeed, and let me tell you, we could hardly believe how fast she was. That's when I came up with the name, right after the initial series of test flights.”
“She has a point-five now,” Han said proudly, “thanks to an outlaw tech I knew in the Corporate Sector. After that was when I set the record for the Kessel Run. There's still nothing to compare to her. Even the hyperdrives of these new Mandalorian ships are only rated point-four.”
“Ratings don't matter. A skilled pilot in a point-four could outfly an average pilot at the helm of a point-five.”
“No way,” Han said.
“I've seen it happen,” Jadak said. “In sublight races, anyway.”
“Well, sublight, sure. Now you're talking about something completely different.”
Jadak worked his jaw. Each time he tried to stick to the script and relate the tale in Quip Fargil's vocal cadence, Solo would jump in with a question or a comment. His competitive nature would bring out Jadak's own and end up pulling him out of character. Already the story was as much Fargil's as Jadak's. And now that Solo's wife and daughter had stopped trying to rein Solo in, they were giving Jadak all their attention, and he could sense their suspicions mounting. But let them be suspicious. So long as Poste was succeeding.
“What was the plan for the Falcon at that point?” Leia asked.
“Back then one of our chief concerns was the number of Star Destroyers the Empire was turning out, so command came up with a plan to target one of the shipyards. Fondor, Ord Trasi, even Yaga Minor were considered as potential targets, but after all the analysis command decided that we had to go after the big one—Bilbringi.” Grateful to be back on course, Jadak took a sip of caf and set his cup down. “Were you there during the Imperial years, Princess Leia?”
“Only once. But I couldn't have been more than nine at the time.”
“Then you probably don't remember how tricky it was to insert into orbit there.”
“Because of the asteroid fields,” Han said.
Jadak nodded. “At the time, many of the asteroids were being mined for use in the shipyards, so Imperial forces were deployed not only in the shipyards but close to many of the extraction operations. Even with prior authorization, it was difficult to navigate through the system because of all the checkpoints. So the notion of sneaking a hostile ship into Bilbringi wasn't even worth discussing.”
Han smiled in sudden revelation. “Unless you had a ship with a powerful enough hyperdrive to microjump all the way in.”
“You've done that?” Jadak said in genuine surprise.
“More times than I can remember.”
Jadak refused to allow Solo to get to hi
m. “Well, no militia members had done it. That's how come I'm familiar with the Maw and all those asteroid fields we were talking about.”
“Practice runs,” Han said.
“Each and every one. You might say it was the beginning of my love affair with the ship. Experiencing what she was capable of. Extricating me from predicaments I'd gotten myself into. Exceeding expectations time and again. Like she was determined to outperform herself.”
“Nothing's changed,” Han said.
“But what were you supposed to do with the Falcon when you got there?” Allana asked. “To Bil …”
“Bilbringi,” Leia completed. “What was the plan?”
“Destroy the shipyards to whatever extent possible.”
Han frowned. “With a single laser cannon?”
Jadak laughed wryly. “The cannon was just for in-close defense. The Falcon herself was going to be the weapon.”
“A bomb,” Leia said suddenly.
Allana looked at her, then at Jadak. “You were going to blow the Falcon up?”
He nodded. “That was the idea. But even the best ideas don't always work out.”
“What were you going to detonate?” Han asked.
Jadak turned to him. “A baradium fission device.”
Leia sat back in shock. “Those were banned—even by the Empire. Alderaan led the cause.”
“They were banned, all right. But we got our hands on one without Senator Organa knowing. Besides, he was eventually persuaded to see that baradium was essential to our attempts to counter the weapons the Empire was developing.” Jadak's gaze darted from Leia to Han and back again. “You two know this better than anyone.”
“Was this before the Alliance started using ytterbium as a stabilizing agent?” Han said.
“Years before. This device wasn't just some supersized thermal detonator. It was a planet buster. And if it had been detonated at Bilbringi, the shipyards would have been out of commission for a decade.”
Han shook his head in incredulity. “You were supposed to transport it aboard the Falcon?”
“That was the idea.”
“Yeah, somebody's idea of a suicide mission.”
“Not if things went right. Assuming I didn't annihilate myself on the way to Bilbringi or during any of the dozen or so microjumps I was going to have to execute to reach the shipyards, the plan called for me to ditch at five hundred thousand kilometers from the target.”
Han shook his head. “That wouldn't have saved you. You'd still have been inside the blast sphere.”
Jadak shrugged. “Like I said, that was the plan. No one was fool enough to guarantee that I'd survive.” He paused for a moment. “Even when we put out the call for volunteers to transfer the device into the Falcon, we only ended up with two Duros. The rest of the group was made up of convicts who had been serving life sentences in Imperial prisons. Members of the insurgency broke them out in exchange for their help, and allowed them to go their own way after the device was safely aboard.”
“Then it was up to you to follow through?” Leia said.
“Just me.”
Allana stood up in the chair and leaned across the table. “Couldn't you have programmed some droids to fly the Falcon?”
Jadak smiled lightly. “We didn't want to send droids to do a person's job.”
Gently, Leia pulled Allana back into her chair. “What went wrong?”
Han put his arm around Leia's shoulders, but kept his eyes on Jadak. “I think I see where this is going.”
“I'm sure you do.”
“You'd already spent, what, a couple of months, almost a standard year, with the Falcon?”
“Ten months to be exact.”
“And since you didn't want to increase the risk of the baradium detonating prematurely, you took a slow route to Bilbringi, to avoid long hyperspace jumps.”
“Lots of time in realspace,” Jadak said. “Weeks more. I lost fifteen kilos sweating that some micrometeor impact was going to set the device off.”
Han grinned knowingly. “You said you were already taken with the ship. How close did you even come to Bilbringi?”
“One jump shy,” Jadak said. He cut his eyes to Leia. “But I swear to you, it wasn't cowardice. I wasn't thinking about the possibility of dying.”
“I'm not sitting in judgment of you, Quip,” Leia said.
“You just couldn't stand to see the Falcon destroyed,” Han said.
Jadak lowered his head, just as Quip Fargil had done when he had recounted the story. “The thing was,” he said, looking up, “a lot of good people had been counting on me. Bilbringi's destruction would have constituted a victory the insurgency sorely needed back then. And I sabotaged it—for a ship.”
“You might not have made it,” Allana said. “You could've exploded.”
“She's right, Quip,” Leia said.
“I told myself that over and over again when I was jettisoning the bomb. I might not have made it, anyway. And for a while I let myself be fooled into believing that. I even started dreaming about heading for the Outer Rim and setting up shop, just me and the Falcon. Vaced was supposed to have been the first stop, but it turned out to be the last. Not only couldn't I keep the ship, rebel agents were probably already looking to execute me for dereliction of duty—especially after an attempt was made to inflict damage at Bilbringi using a different YT-Thirteen-hundred and more conventional explosives. The two pilots who died didn't get anywhere close to the planet before Imperials destroyed their ship.
“When I happened to run across Parlay Thorp and her crew of do-gooders, helping the sick, offering relief to folks the Empire had trampled underfoot, I realized I'd found a perfect future for the Falcon. So I just …”
“Gave her up,” Han said.
Jadak nodded, playing his role to the hilt. He had his mouth open to say more when Poste burst into the restaurant, his face smeared with grease and his clothes stained with what looked like oil or lubricant of some kind.
“Hey … Quip,” he said, breathless when he reached the table, “I bet you're surprised to see me—”
“Did you get those machines running?” Jadak said in a rush, his thoughts swirling.
Poste gestured to himself. “Uh, as you might guess by looking at me, I ran into a couple of problems.”
Jadak turned to the Solos. “Mag, here, helps out at the ranch.” He whirled to Poste. “I'm not sure I grasp why you decided to come here, Mag.”
Poste looked at Han. “To tell Captain Solo that when I was coming past the spaceport, I saw the Millennium Falcon launch.”
Han shot to his feet so quickly that his chair hit the floor. “What?”
“What?” Leia, Allana, and Jadak said at nearly the same instant.
“I'm certain it was the Falcon, Captain,” Poste went on. “Launched straight from one of the landing bays.”
Han was already halfway to the door. “Whoever took her won't get far!”
“He's right about that,” Poste muttered to Jadak as Leia and Allana were hurrying off.
Han had asked local enforcement agents to meet him at the Falcon's landing bay. By the time he, Leia, and Allana arrived at the spaceport, three agents were climbing out of an old landspeeder with a faulty repulsorlift, and the Millennium Falcon was just returning of her own volition from a short jaunt into Vaced's upper atmosphere. The human marshal—Climm—looked as if he spent most of his off hours bellied up to the Eatery's all-you-could-stomach buffet bar. His Bothan deputies were more interested in capturing comlink cam images of themselves with Han and the Falcon than anything else.
Pacing the bay's duracrete floor, Han was preparing to storm up the boarding ramp the moment it lowered when Marshal Climm ordered his two deputies to block the way.
“Your ship's a crime scene, Captain Solo. No one boards until evidence has been gathered and the scene cleared.”
“I'll show you a crime scene,” Han said, glowering at him.
Leia thought it prudent to intervene.
Letting go of Allana's hand, she touched Han on the shoulder. “We do want to respect the local laws, don't we, sweetheart?”
Han scowled but acknowledged the sense of it.
It wasn't the first time the Falcon had gone missing while Han was off on a treasure hunt. There'd been that time on Dellalt when he and Chewie had agreed to search for the Queen of Ranroon, the legendary treasure ship of Xim the Despot. But this was different; this time it was personal.
Settling onto her landing gear, the Falcon loosed a series of hydraulic hisses and mechanical clicks. The boarding ramp extended from beneath the starboard docking arm, and two large beings—a human and a Nautolan—descended, hands raised and looking downcast and embarrassed.
Climm and the deputies had their blasters out.
“You boys are under arrest,” the marshal announced.
Han took a menacing step forward. “The Falcon had better be exactly as you found her. And how'd you get past our security system and droid, anyway?”
“Yeah. What'd you do to Threepio?” Allana barked.
“I've already advised my clients to remain silent,” someone said from the entrance to the bay.
Looking over his shoulder, Han saw a well-dressed, abnormally tall human hurrying toward them. Accompanying him and toting an expensive-looking carry case was a woman of such ethereal beauty, Han did a double take.
“Counselor Oxic,” Leia said in astonishment.
Oxic nodded his narrow head. “Princess Leia.”
Han looked back and forth between them.
Leia gestured to the now stun-cuffed ship thieves. “These two are your clients? You can't be serious.”
“They have retained me as their lawyer.”
Leia refused to buy it. “You traveled all the way here from Epica, or you just happened to be in the neighborhood?”
“In fact, I was wrapping up some business on Lesser Vaced when they contacted me from the Millennium Falcon.”
Again Leia gestured to the thieves. “You expect me to believe that these two can afford to retain the legal services one of the most highly paid defense attorneys in the galaxy?”
