“We’ve got to get out of here,” Kyp shouted, hacking right and left with his lightsaber. People and alien workers spread apart like ripe grain in a strong wind, though more fled in panic than were actually cut down by the blazing lightsabers. Kyp and Dorsk 81 fought shoulder to shoulder.
“Jedi Knights!” Admiral Daala shouted from the podium. Even from her distance she could recognize the unmistakable glare of lightsabers—and now her face, dozens of meters tall and reflected over and over again on the immense videoscreens, seemed like an outraged deity demanding justice. “Kill the Jedi Knights!”
Stormtroopers clustered around them, firing blaster rifles. Dorsk 81’s lightsaber deflected the first bolt high into the ceiling of the mall, while the second shot burned through the back of a fleeing Imperial lieutenant.
“Don’t fight unless you have to,” Kyp said. “It’ll only slow us down. Run.” He knew now that his partner had been right in wanting to leave earlier. They needed to get their information back to the New Republic, and if they let the Empire capture them, billions would die unwarned.
The size of the crowd worked in their favor, and as ripples of mob panic ricocheted from the walls, mass confusion swallowed all details of where and what exactly the disturbance was.
Kyp and Dorsk 81 sprinted back to where they had landed their stolen shuttle. Blaster bolts followed them down the corridors of the nexus station, spanging off wall-plates, but the shots were poorly aimed.
When Kyp and Dorsk 81 reached their ship, they rocketed off the landing pad with rcpulsorlifts and sublight engines at full power in a pinwheeling escape. As Dorsk 81 worked the stabilizers to straighten them, their tumbling course aided in their escape because the droid perimeter ships, attempting to lock onto them, shot repeatedly but missed.
“Launch into hyperspace fast,” Kyp said.
Dorsk 81’s long fingers scrambled over the navicomputer board. “There’s no time to calculate a long path,” he said.
“Then make a short jump! Just get us out of here.”
“The coordinates for Khomm are programmed,” Dorsk 81 said briskly, punching up a readout. “I, uh, did that earlier. That’s just beyond the outer core. We can send an alarm from my homeworld.”
“Fine! Fine!” Kyp said.
Just then, one of the droid ships struck, singeing their sublight engines. They nearly stalled, coasting along with only their considerable momentum.
“The damage is bad,” Kyp reported as Dorsk 81 flared up the main lightspeed engines, coaxing them to readiness, “but it’s only the sublight engines, not our hyperdrive. We need to go.”
Behind them on the nexus station hundreds of ships had already begun lifting off.
“Engaging hyperdrive,” Dorsk 81 finally said.
Droid perimeter defenses closed in on their drifting ship. More crippling turbolaser bolts spat past them, barely missing. An ion cannon blast rippled by, brushing against their shields and causing minimal damage.
“If an ion blast hits us, we’re dead in space,” Kyp said. “We have to go now.”
“Got it!” Dorsk 81 said. “Hang on.”
They vanished into starlines as the Empire scrambled after them.
HOTH ASTEROID BELT
CHAPTER 37
Three acceleration-enhanced A-wing fighters streaked off, separating from the cluster of ships around Admiral Ackbar’s Galactic Voyager and vanishing into hyperspace with a silent bang of light.
General Crix Madine stared down at his cockpit controls through the smooth curve of his helmet faceplate. Powerful engines roared around him, making the A-wing throb. Madine had flown many ships before: fast ships and cargo haulers, interceptors and scouts. He had participated in raids for the Rebel Alliance, and earlier for the Imperials. But since the battle of Endor, he had spent most of his effort behind the scenes, setting up covert missions that younger recruits carried out.
But not this time.
The eerie flickering glow of hyperspace roared around him as the A-wings tunneled through the walls of space-time, crossing the galaxy faster than the speed of light. Before launch, Madine’s team had sent no message to Ackbar, no comm signal whatsoever. The Hutts must not know of their departure.
Their navicomputer had plotted the shortest path to the coordinates provided by the tracer on Durga’s personal craft. On either side of Madine flew Korenn and Trandia, in communications silence, intent on their mission. He smiled grimly, acknowledging the caliber of his companions. The Rebels had always been astute at getting topflight volunteers.
In the muffled boredom of hyperspace, during the programmed hours of their journey. Madine let his thoughts wander. He had been one of those Rebel recruits, too, convinced to defect from the Empire by a few of his companions, friends from early days before the New Order had broken the backbone of the Old Republic—friends such as Carlist Rieekan, who had risen to the rank of general in the Rebel Alliance and had commanded Echo Base on Hoth.
Shortly after joining the Rebellion, Madine had begun working closely with Mon Mothma, who had taken him in as a trusted adviser even while others were not so certain about this new defector. Ackbar himself had been a good friend, after his own rescue from the Empire. Gruff and courageous, the Calamarian knew how to administer the Rebel fleet.
But Crix Madine had always been different in his priorities and the lengths to which he was willing to go to accomplish his objectives. Mon Mothma valued his opinions because he gave a fresh perspective. Madine himself had fought against the Rebels on the side of the Empire. He knew the tactics that were effective and those that had failed utterly.
Madine also knew his place: he was necessary, though covert tactics weren’t always pretty. Before the battle of Endor, while planning strategy and deciphering the precious data that trickled in from a fragile network of Bothan spies, Mon Mothma’s original plan had been simply to destroy the second Death Star while it was still under construction. When the Rebels learned, however, that Emperor Palpatine himself would inspect the battle station, Crix Madine had rejoiced at the opportunity.
Mon Mothma, though, appeared sickened. “The assassination of political leaders is not the sort of tactic the Rebel Alliance will condone,” she said in a closed-room session with Madine and Ackbar. “Even if they are our enemies.”
“Then we will lose,” Madine said. “The Empire has no such reluctance. Do you think they would hesitate to assassinate you in an instant, Mon Mothma, if they were given the chance?”
Mon Mothma stood, her face flushed, her voice rising uncharacteristically and hammered her fists on the tabletop. “I will not allow my government to become as warped and as evil as the Empire.”
“Mon Mothma,” Ackbar said, “we have risked too much to put this operation together. Our fleet is ready to depart for Endor. Our decoy mission has already begun at Sullust. We cannot scrap our plans just because the Emperor will be on the Death Star.”
“We will save millions of innocent lives,” Madine said. “There is a cost to ourselves, but the payback is potentially much greater. If we allow that Death Star to be completed, Alderaan will be only the first in a long chain of planets turned to rubble at the Emperor’s whim.”
And so Mon Mothma had eventually agreed that the Emperor was to be a target as well. Once the decision was made, she gave it her full enthusiasm, issuing orders with firm determination.
Thus the Death Star had been destroyed, the Empire overthrown, and the New Republic established … though peace and harmony had not come about as quickly as they might have hoped.
Now, Madine found himself streaking through hyper-space in an A-wing scout vessel toward another superweapon being built by another tyrant hoping to rule the galaxy.
Sometimes he felt it would never end.
* * *
The A-wings emerged from hyperspace on the fringes of the asteroid belt, and suddenly it seemed that a giant invisible fist had hurled a handful of crushed rocks at him. The tracker on Durga’s ship had given them
the exact location deep in the heart of the rubble-strewn danger zone, but it offered no safe path to follow.
Madine risked a burst of comm traffic tightly focused to the two craft paralleling him. “Trandia,” he said, “take the lead. Thread the needle. Find a way through these rocks so we can get to the construction site and see what’s going on there.”
“Yes, sir,” Trandia said, her voice bubbling with exuberance at being selected. He would let Korenn lead the flight back out.
Trandia’s A-wing shot through the clusters of asteroids, arcing in tight curves and accelerating through openings created by stony bodies drifting apart. Her rear engines glowed blue-white as she increased speed. Madine and Korenn kept pace with her, locked on and following her tortuous route.
Madine admired Trandia’s flying as her A-wing battered its way through the space-borne pebbles. Her forward shields glowed faintly as she increased power. Madine hated to break comm silence again, but he opened another channel. “Trandia, no need to impress me. Be careful.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” she said.
Before Madine could say anything else, though, Korenn suddenly jerked his A-wing and dropped back. “Sir,” his voice crackled with static, “I’ve been hit by a small piece of debris that penetrated my rear shields.”
“Trandia,” Madine snapped, “throttle down. Korenn, give me a status report. How much damage?”
“Partial engine loss,” the young pilot said, and as Madine looked through the cockpit window he saw sizzles of blue lightning around the engine banks of Korenn’s A-wing. More than minor damage: the core was breached.
“Korenn, listen to me—” Madine said, his heart pounding. The crippled A-wing slung to one side out of control and spun as the asteroids continued to hammer around them like a giant grinding machine.
“Loss of altitude control,” Korenn said in a rising voice. “I can’t stabilize!”
“Korenn!” Trandia shouted. Her A-wing swung around.
“Pull up, pull up!” Madine shouted.
Trandia zoomed toward her companion. Madine didn’t know what she expected to do, but before she could reach him, Korenn’s A-wing slammed into a jagged shard of rock. His engine core buckled. The ship erupted in an aftershower of fire.
Trandia cruised low over the still-smoldering wreckage on the surface of the large asteroid; the detonation had flung hull plating and slagged components into orbit.
“Checking for survivors, sir,” Trandia said, her voice strained close to the breaking point.
Though Madine knew it was hopeless, he allowed her a few moments to cruise over the spinning rock until she brought her ship close to his again.
“Nothing to report, sir,” she said. Her voice was bleak.
“I know,” Madine said. “But we have to proceed.”
“It’s my fault, sir,” Trandia said. She sounded as if she were begging.
“And it’s my fault for ordering you to take the lead,” Madine said. “And the Chief of State’s fault for ordering the mission in the first place, and the Hutts’ fault for building the weapon at all—and so on, and so on. We could spend a great deal of time assigning an endless chain of blame—but I’d rather accomplish our mission. Wouldn’t you?”
Trandia took a long moment to respond. “Yes, sir,” she said finally.
They continued slowly, nearing the heart of the asteroid belt. Edging forward with low engine power, their running lamps off, they came at last upon the spangle of lights at the construction site.
Madine set his course and transmitted a comparable trajectory to Trandia’s A-wing. Once locked into the appropriate path, they shut down their engines and drifted along, just like other hunks of space wreckage.
With dry eyes and an intent stare, Madine watched the construction site approach with infinite slowness. He drank in the details: a huge cylindrical fortress, a gleaming metal structure almost completed, like a giant tunnel in space. Along its axis, this battle station appeared to contain one of the planet-cracking superlasers.
The Hutts had extensively modified the Death Star plans. That could only mean they had impressive engineering expertise available to them.
He and Trandia landed their A-wings on a large asteroid at the outskirts of the construction site. The newly built battle station rode high against the black star-strewn sky. Madine sent a narrow-burst communication again.
“We’ll stay on this asteroid to do our reconnaissance,” he said, “then we’ll suit up and attempt to infiltrate.”
CHAPTER 38
As their damaged ship limped away from Hoth, Callista worked side by side with Luke Skywalker. They desperately cross-wired systems, bypassed ruined components, and fastened vital equipment back into place, trying to repair each failure before another one occurred.
The wampa ice creatures had not actually breached the yacht’s outer hull, but they had caused a wealth of damage. The craft’s sublight engines, operating at barely half power, had lurched away from the frozen planet, reluctantly heaving them into orbit. The engines attempted to fail several times, but somehow struggled on.
Their ship’s hyperdrive was gone, their navicomputer beyond repair. They plunged headlong into the broken asteroid field at the fringes of the Hoth system with only minimal shields and virtually no control over their course. The asteroids began to grow thicker around them, battering at the tiny ship. Callista did not voice her growing dread.
Luke looked up at her with red, bleary eyes and a haggard face. Callista knew she probably looked just as bad with her malt blond hair mussed and her gray eyes bloodshot, but Luke’s pallid skin had begun to flush again with hope. “I might be able to use the Force to navigate us,” he said. “At least enough to keep us from a major collision—but I don’t know where we’re going to go.”
“I wish I could help you,” Callista said. “But I can’t. I can’t, and I’m afraid to try.”
“You fought well with the lightsaber against the snow creatures,” Luke answered reassuringly, “and I didn’t feel any glimmer from the dark side as I did on Dagobah.”
“No,” Callista said. Her words were a whisper. “I didn’t let it out.” She knew, though, that the dark side had been there like black wings hovering at the edge of her consciousness, demanding to be set free. She had refused—but, oh, the temptation had been great.…
In a shower of sparks and burned circuits, the life-support systems gasped and died. Luke and Callista pulled components from nonessential computers trying to get the systems functioning again. “It’s only at about ten percent,” Luke said. “That’s not going to help us much.”
Callista shivered. The temperature had already begun to drop in the cabin. “We’re not going to get out of this, are we?” she said with quiet, brutal honesty.
Luke stared at her for a long moment, then his face forced a smile. “Not in any obvious way,” he finally said with a sigh. “That just means we have to look for a solution that isn’t obvious.”
Luke and Callista studied the torn environment suits the wampas had shredded. Somehow, using several repair kits and other patches they found in forgotten packages left by some unknown station mechanic on Coruscant, they managed to piece together one of the suits. But only one.
Within the hour, the atmosphere began to thin noticeably, and their body heat did little to warm the cabin as the cold of space leached it away.
Luke ran his fingers along the crude, lumpy patches in the suit, and he took Callista’s hand. “You have to wear it, Callista.”
“I won’t let you sacrifice yourself,” she said. “You wouldn’t let me do it on the Eye of Palpatine.”
Luke raised her hand to his cheek. “I have no intention of sacrificing myself. I can go deep into a Jedi trance and slow down my metabolism, put myself practically in suspended animation. Then we wait, and hope.”
Callista eyed the repaired suit, still reluctant, then she gazed into Luke’s clear blue eyes, wishing she could read his thoughts and his emotions.
“Maybe I can use the Force to contact someone,” he said, “send out a message with my thoughts. I doubt anybody’ll be able to read it, but we have to try.”
Callista slowly pulled the thick fabric of the environment suit over her long legs. “Yes,” she said, defeated, “we have to try.” Before she clamped her helmet in place, she kissed Luke. “Will you be all right?” she said.
He smiled wanly at her. “As long as you’re here to watch over me.”
Luke’s blue eyes fell closed and rolled upward slightly as he sank into himself, using his Jedi techniques to enter a deep trance that walled him off from the rest of the universe.
Callista longed to join him, but her grasp on the Force had become so slippery she could not touch her abilities. She was unable even to begin the deep Jedi trance that Luke brought upon himself.
She watched him, feeling her heart ache with love as she struggled with the silence of the Force in her mind. Once again, she saw the dark shadows of possibilities in her mind, luring her with an easy way to use the Force again—
Join the dark side!
—even if it meant she had to succumb to evil influences.
“No,” she whispered to herself, though she knew she could not disturb Luke now. She fled from the dark alternative, and it frightened her that the persistent shadows had come more easily this time.
The silent cabin grew colder and colder. The environment suit crinkled around her as she curled up next to Luke, conserving energy and wanting to be next to him.
He appeared to be a statue. Frost formed on his cheeks from the faint exhalations of his breath. She desperately wished she could touch his thoughts, share in his efforts to send out a plea for help—but Luke’s mind remained closed to her.
The crippled ship drifted through the outer fringes of the asteroid belt with minimal shields and failing life support, while Callista sat alone in the darkness.
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