“O-okay,” said the tiny voice coming from the comlink. “We’ll do our best. Good—good-bye, Dad.”
“Good-bye, son,” Han said, wondering just how long a good-bye it might be. There were at least fair odds that it would be forever. He stuffed the comlink in his pocket and went over to where Leia was tending to the Governor-General. It looked as if Micamberlecto was only shaken up, not seriously injured. Not even a broken bone, which was a bit of a miracle considering how long his arm and leg bones were.
“Chewie has the kids,” Han said. “They’ve reached the Falcon and should be able to lift off any second now. They’re all okay.”
“Thank the stars for that,” Leia said. “I reached out to them with the Force, and I could feel they were scared but all right, but they were so terrified I couldn’t get anything more. Good. Good.”
“Well, it’s the only thing that is good around here,” Han said.
* * *
Chewbacca powered up the Millennium Falcon’s repulsor engines and slammed them over to maximum from a standard start. He did not want to let anyone get a chance to draw a bead on the ship. The Falcon shot straight up in the air, and Chewie cut in the main sublight engines the moment he was clear, not even thinking about a course. The Falcon leaped forward and up into the sky, toward space and the safety of the stars. Chewie had no course, and no navigational fixes, but he also had no options. He had to get out of there and far away as soon as possible. Once they were in space, he could worry about where they were going.
Assuming, of course, that the Falcon held together that long.
* * *
Two hours after the double explosions, the Governor-General’s office was back in some sort of order. There didn’t seem to be any hope of reaching the upper floors for the time being, but the lower-level explosion had not been as effective at cutting off escape—if that indeed had been its purpose. It might just have been someone raising a rather vigorous objection to New Republican policy. In any event, there seemed to be two or three places where it would be possible to drop to the ground from what was left of the second or third floor.
Of course, it seemed more than a little likely that there were snipers out there. But Han didn’t see much chance of living through all this anyway. At this point, everyone still in Corona House was, to all intents and purposes, a political prisoner, and probably a hostage as well. And the people running this show didn’t seem like the types who would need much excuse to shoot hostages. No, better to go out his own way. He had a job to do, and he would do it as soon as it was nightfall.
He found a private corner of the office, pulled out his comlink again, and set it to a new frequency. He had to assume that someone out there was listening in—but on the other hand, either the comlink’s scramblers were working, or they weren’t. It was not a time for playing it safe. If he started talking in vague, cryptic phrases that could easily produce fatal confusion.
“Solo to Kalenda. Come in. Come in. Do you read.” No answer. He tried again. “Solo to Kalenda. Come in. Come in. Do you read?”
“This is Kalenda to Solo,” said the voice over the comlink’s tiny speaker. “I was starting to worry.”
“Well, don’t stop yet,” Han said. “Things are not going to get better. I have a job for you, and it needs doing. Do you think you could get to the spaceport and steal a ship? One with a hyperdrive?”
“Possibly,” Kalenda said. “It won’t be easy.”
“Then it’s time to do something hard. Besides, I should be able to give you some help. I am going to try and get out of here an hour after sunset. Do you have a groundcar or a hovercar at this point?”
“Groundcar, yes.”
“Good,” he said. “Then meet me in three hours at the corner of Starliner and Volbick.” He did not bother to ask her if she knew where that was. If she was the sort of person who couldn’t manage to find it on her own, they were all dead anyway. “I have a package—a very small package—for you. You are to deliver it directly and personally either to Mon Mothma, Admiral Ackbar, or Luke Skywalker.”
“You sure don’t ask for much,” she said.
“I try to avoid thinking small,” Han said. “See you in three hours.”
* * *
Chewbacca roared his anger as the two PPBs came back for another pass. The patrol boats had picked him up just after he cleared the atmosphere, and they had been maintaining the pursuit ever since.
Ordinarily, a pair of PPBs would be no match for the Millennium Falcon, but Chewie was flying with a droid, a Drall, and three children for a crew. The best he could hope for was that they would all stay strapped in. None of them could be any help in a dogfight. With no one on board capable of handling the quad-laser turrets, the ship was without half of its firepower. He had to fly the ship and fight, all on his own.
He swung the nose of the Millennium Falcon about and made ready for another pass. He fired the forward lasers, and took out one of the PPBs, but the second shot passed over the starboard wing, laying down intense fire from close range.
A lucky shot managed to get in through the shields, and the Falcon shuddered with the force of the hit. Chewbacca brought the ship around one more time and pumped fired into the PPB. He caught it on the last burst, and its shielding gave out. It flared over and exploded in spectacular fashion. That was good as far as it went, but Chewbacca didn’t even need to check the systems board to know that the one lucky shot had blown out part of the hyperdrive.
They were stuck in the Corellian System.
* * *
It was an hour short of sunset at Corona House when the next, and biggest, surprise came. The holoscreen and flat-view screens tuned to the standard broadcast channels had been showing nothing but static since dawn. Suddenly the static cleared, and an emblem Han had seen before appeared on the screen, to the sound of trumpets blaring and drums pounding a martial beat.
The emblem of a grinning, stylized human skull with a knife in its teeth, and the words HUMAN LEAGUE underneath. It was suddenly very plain indeed who had the upper hand, at least in the city of Coronet.
The trumpets kept up their fanfare for a few minutes, summoning everyone to come and see, come and hear. Han, Leia, the Governor-General, and his staff gathered around the largest holovid that was still functioning, and waited to see what would happen next.
It was not what any of them expected.
The skull emblem faded out, and a human male face took its place. A face that brought gasps from half the people in the room, and had all of them turning and looking at Han.
It was Han’s face.
Han with black-brown hair that was shot through with gray, Han a few kilos heavier, Han with a beard, Han with a stern expression that did not belong on his face. And yet, even with all the differences between Han and the man in the holovid, the resemblance was close enough to be eerie. Han stared at the screen, and felt his heart pounding hard, his hands growing clammy with sweat. It was impossible. Impossible. But there it was.
“Humans of Corellia!” the man in the holovid said, and that was enough to evoke another gasp from everyone in the office. The man had Han’s voice as well. “I am the Hidden Leader of the Human League of Corellia, and I do now hereby reveal myself to you. Many of you may well have known there was a Hidden Leader, even if you did not know who had the honor to hold the post. That person is myself. My name is Thrackan Sal-Solo.”
Leia looked at the screen in astonishment. “Han—that man. He’s—”
“He’s my cousin,” Han said, his voice flat, bitter, angry. Suddenly the past that he thought he had escaped had caught up with him again. “My first cousin, my father’s sister’s son,” he went on. “He is not a nice man, to put it mildly. I thought he died years ago, before I left Corellia, back when he dropped completely out of sight.” Han looked at the screen, at the face that was so like his own. “Of course,” he said thoughtfully, “a few people have thought I was dead myself, now and then.”
“At least i
t explains why that Human League mob grabbed you and then let you go,” Leia said. “They must have thought you were someone doing a bad job of pretending to be him. And it was his voice on the recording.”
“I should have known then,” Han said. “Maybe I did know, and I didn’t want to admit it.”
But Thrackan Sal-Solo was still speaking. “I was once a high official in the Imperial government of this sector,” he said, “and I was the designated successor to the last Diktat under the Empire, before the usurpation by the so-called New Republic. I am, therefore, the legitimate ruler of this sector, and I do here and now declare myself to be the legally appointed Diktat of Corellia.
“My trusted comrades and I have worked long and hard for this day. Now, finally, the day of our liberation from the oppressive all-species policy of the traitorous New Republic is at hand. I hereby further declare the secession of the Corellian Sector from the New Republic. From this time forward, we shall be independent, with no Republican master in power over us.
“For those of you who doubt that my colleagues and I have the power to back up these pronouncements, let me say more. About two weeks ago a supernova explosion occurred on the outskirts of the Corellian Sector. The de facto Governor-General of the New Republic government has recently been provided with convincing proof that it was the Human League who caused that explosion, and the Human League that stands ready to cause further stellar explosions if our just demands are not met.”
“Wait a second!” Han protested. “The message last night told us that we weren’t to tell anyone. Why is he telling everyone?”
“Shhh,” Leia said. “We need to hear this.”
“We hereby demand that the so-called New Republic commence immediate operations to deport all Drall and Selonians and other nonhumans off the planet of Corellia within thirty standard days,” Sal-Solo went on. “Otherwise, we will be forced to proceed with plans for our next stellar detonation.”
It was Leia’s turn to object. “Is he insane?” she asked. “Even if we brought every transport in the galaxy, there wouldn’t be time enough to evacuate them all. And where would we put them?”
Thrackan Sal-Solo smiled at the camera, but his eyes remained hard and flinty. “This is a day we have waited for these many years. It is now at hand. Now we can build toward freedom for all humanity in this sector, unfettered and unsullied by association with lesser species. The current disturbances will soon be under control. Your new government will be issuing new pronouncements within the next few days. The future is full of promise.” He paused a moment, and the smile fell away from his face, leaving behind only hard-edged steel.
“And the future is ours,” he said. “Thank you all, and good night.”
The holovid went blank, and then filled with static—and then, suddenly, was filled with blindingly bright flares of color, while blaring, deafening sound roared from the speakers.
“Jamming!” Han shouted over the noise. Someone shut off the holovid, and silence returned.
“It’s all channels,” one of the com techs announced. “Everything is blanketed.”
“So that’s why they could tell the people and still tell us not to tell the universe,” Leia said. “But if all communications are blanked out, how are we supposed to negotiate, or call in transports, for that matter?”
“I have the feeling we’ll find out,” Han said. “But I’m not playing by his rules, anyway. I’m going to meet Kalenda in a little over an hour, and hand her a copy of the data chip we got last night, together with whatever other information we can get together. I’m going to create as big a diversion as I can and hope she can steal a ship and go for help.”
“I can’t help noticing that you’re not asking permission about all this,” Leia said. “But at least you’re being straight and telling me about it,” she said.
“Then I’ll keep on being straight and say that I doubt I’ll be coming back anytime soon,” he said. “The guy creating the diversion is usually the one who gets caught, and this time I don’t think they’ll let me go because I look like the boss.”
“Then we don’t have much time,” Leia said, putting her arms around him and laying her head on his shoulder.
“We never do, Princess,” he said. “We never do.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Circle Unbroken
That’s not going to work,” Anakin said, looking over Chewbacca’s shoulder. “You’ll have to go outside to fix it.”
The Wookiee let out an irritated burbling noise as he traced out the burned circuit.
“Am not either,” Anakin said. “I don’t have to guess.” He pointed to a component that Chewbacca hadn’t gotten to yet. “See? This toroidal reflector went pow. Has to be because the starboard ion regenerator misaligned. Nothing else could do that.”
Chewbacca moaned as he looked at the reflector. It had indeed burned out.
Q9 hovered in, irritatingly close. Chewbacca resisted the urge to throw him against the compartment. “Interesting,” the droid said. “It would appear Anakin is correct. Which means there is no hope of reaching hyperspace until we can land and make repairs. As there is not much chance of our returning safely to Corellia, I would suggest we try to reach Drall. My master’s people are there, and we have at least some hope of a peaceful reception.”
Chewbacca leaned back against the bulkhead and moaned to himself. He had reached precisely the same conclusion ten minutes before. There was nothing worse than a smart-aleck droid—except for a smart-aleck droid who was right.
* * *
Kalenda watched Solo as he drove the groundcar. So far it had all gone well, in fact remarkably well considering the level of chaos in the city. They had passed any number of burning buildings, shot-up vehicles, and dead bodies. But there did not seem to be many people willing to be out after dark, and Solo knew the city well. He could thread them through the back streets, away from the looters and the rioters and the goon squads.
She looked again at the data chip she was to carry back. It contained a copy of the threat message, along with whatever other information the staff of the Governor’s office could think of to include. A little blob of black, the size of her thumb. Strange that something so small and unimportant looking could be so vital. If the Human League meant what it said about more supernovas, millions of lives might depend on her getting through. She slipped it back and sealed it into the pocket of her jacket.
“We’re almost there,” Han said. “You ready?”
“More or less,” she said. “As ready as I’m going to be.” But there was more she had to say. “Captain Solo, I just wanted to say that—that I’m sorry I got your family into this.”
“You didn’t,” Solo said, his eyes still on the road ahead. “You tried to give us the clearest warning you could, and we didn’t listen to it. I think we would have come here no matter what you said. All you did was make us a bit more careful. You did right. And you did well.”
“Thank you,” she said. “That means more coming from you than you can imagine. I hope—” She stopped, knowing she had said too much.
“You hope what?” he asked.
“I hope that your family comes out of this all right. I’m sorry. That’s awfully personal. But I spent so long watching them, keeping an eye on them—”
“It’s all right,” he said. “Thank you for saying it. I hope they come out of it all right, too.”
“Thank you, sir. It’s—it’s been an honor to serve with you.”
Solo took his eyes off the road for the first time and smiled at her, a kindly, gentle expression. “Likewise, Lieutenant. Likewise.” He turned his eyes back toward the road. “But we’re getting close to the spaceport. Where’s this turnoff of yours?”
“Just up ahead,” she said. “It’s barely a dirt road—there it is!”
The groundcar swerved onto the turnoff and bounced along the washed-out road. “Keep going, keep going—okay, slow down,” she said. “Shut off all your lights and stop here f
or a moment.”
Han stopped the engine. Kalenda grabbed her macrobinoculars and got out, gesturing for Han to follow her. She dropped to her knees and crawled up a low rise to her left—and promptly cut her arm on the same old patch of razor grass. “This is the place, all right,” she said to Han, who had managed to get to the top of the rise without self-injury. She laughed quietly to herself.
“What?” Han asked. “What is it?”
“Full circle,” she said. “This is where I watched to see you come in, and here you are in the same spot to see me go out.”
“It’s a bigger circle than that,” he replied. “We finally get to use the original plan. I draw all the attention by making a lot of noise, and give you a chance to do your job.”
“Well, let’s hope it works the second time around,” Kalenda said, and then turned back to the business at hand. “Anyway, this is the closest you can get to the perimeter fence. See it there, just below us, about a hundred meters forward?”
“Right,” he said. “No problem. You picked out a ship yet?” he asked.
“Give me a second.” She pulled out her macrobinoculars and put them to her eyes. “These things never were anything much on infrared,” she said. “Let’s see. No, nothing there but PPBs. No hyperdrive. Wait a second. There. An X-TIE Ugly, about five hundred meters from the fence.”
“I hate Uglies,” Han said, “but it’s your call. You sure it’ll have hyperdrive?”
“It ought to,” she said. “Besides, there’s nothing else out there I’d even have a chance of reaching.”
“Guards?”
“One on the X-TIE, none on the PPBs. Maybe they’re a little shorthanded.”
“Let’s hope so,” he said. “And if they are, then those PPBs have a very limited future. Off I go. You just be ready to cut that fence when I come over the rise.”
Kalenda pulled out her blaster. “All set now,” she said.
“Then I’ll see you on the other side,” said Han. He gave her a jaunty salute, and then crawled backward down the hill to the groundcar.
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