by Timothy Zahn
They’d gotten three steps when the liquid exploded into brilliant yellow flame.
Mara reacted instantly, pulling Tannis to the floor beside her. A moment later the barrels themselves ignited, sending a fireball in both directions down the hallway. Mara pressed herself against the floor, feeling the heat wash over her legs and back and head. Tannis screamed something; only then, and only dimly, did Mara realize that she’d been burned, too.
The sheet of flame passed over them and continued down the hallway, leaving superheated air in its wake. Blinking back tears, Mara rolled back up into a crouch, using the Force to suppress the pain. Her lightsaber had closed down during the mad scramble, and she ignited it again.
She was barely in time. Even as she brought the weapon up to guard position there was a warning flicker, and she spun thirty degrees to her right as a pair of blaster bolts came at her from a dark alcove that had been shielded from the blast.
The blaster went silent, and Mara heard a soft chuckle. “Impressive,” Caaldra’s voice came. “Do I have the honor of addressing the Emperor’s Hand?”
“The Emperor’s Hand is just a rumor,” Mara said.
“Of course,” Caaldra said. “I’m flattered that the Emperor would send someone like you to stop us.”
“Only the best for you and your patron,” Mara said, deciding to pass up the fact that she’d happened on this scheme purely by accident. “Nice trap, by the way.”
“Only the best for you and your traitor.” Caaldra fired again, two widely spaced shots to her head and legs. Mara was ready, blocking both with ease. “You and he must be hurting pretty badly, though.”
“We’ll manage,” Mara assured him. Actually, she had no idea what shape Tannis was in, and she didn’t dare risk pulling any of her attention away from her combat focus and her own pain suppression to find out. “It’s nothing compared with what a full Imperial interrogation will feel like.”
Caaldra snorted contemptuously. “Is this where I’m supposed to spill my secrets and plead for mercy?”
“Spilling your secrets would make things go easier for you,” Mara said. “The pleading I can take or leave.”
“Ah,” Caaldra said. “Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s time to go. Give my regards to your friends.”
There was a last flicker of thought; and to Mara’s surprise, the sensation that had been Caaldra vanished.
Leaving Tannis lying on the corridor floor, Mara took a careful step toward the alcove, stretching out with the Force. Caaldra was gone, all right. Keeping her lightsaber ready, she moved closer to find that what she’d thought was an alcove was actually a large deep-set doorway. Glancing once around the corridor to make sure no one was trying to sneak up on her, she pushed open the door.
The room beyond was considerably larger than she’d expected, dark and musty, its only light coming from starshine through a large skylight in the middle of the ceiling. In the faint glow she could see rusting ground-moving equipment and dusty stacks of conduit and shoring boards, probably leftovers from when the pirates converted this part of the mining operation into their base.
And near the back of the room, protected by high guardrails, were three wide circular pits.
Mara smiled grimly. Did Caaldra really think he could escape her by ducking down an old survey tunnel? The Force was Mara’s servant, and no matter how twisty or tangled the tunnels might be, she would have no trouble tracking Caaldra through them.
She started toward the closest of the pits; and as she did so, out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash of brilliant green through the skylight.
And suddenly the entire building shook as the thunderclap of a distant explosion ripped through the air. Reflexively, Mara threw herself into a crouch beside the nearest ground-mover. Another flash of green fire fell from the sky, and a second explosion scattered the dust around her.
The pirate base was under attack.
Chapter Sixteen
LARONE HAD JUST FINISHED SUITING UP WHEN QUILLER came on the intercom. “One hour,” he announced. “Starting pre-combat systems check.”
“Right,” LaRone said. “Grave, Brightwater—get to the gunwells and start your own checks.” He got acknowledgments, and with his helmet tucked under his arm he headed for the cockpit.
Predictably, Marcross was there ahead of him, seated in the copilot’s seat with his own bucket stashed beneath the control console. “Everything looks good,” he reported as LaRone took his usual place at the sensor/shield station behind Quiller. “How are our guests?”
“As of three hours ago they were fine,” LaRone told him. “I gave them the updated schedule and suggested they might want to get a little sleep before life gets bumpy.”
“I’m betting they asked to join the party,” Grave’s voice came from the gunwell intercom.
“Actually, they didn’t,” LaRone said. “Probably didn’t think it would do them any good.”
“They were right on that one, anyway,” Marcross said with a grunt. “Quiller, what’s this loop warning I’m getting on the portside sensor?”
“It’s nothing,” Quiller said. “Let me see if I can clear it.”
Listening with half an ear, LaRone watched his own displays and began preparing his mind for combat.
Luke.
Luke startled out of his light doze. “Ben?”
Get up, Ben’s voice whispered in his mind, and Luke could sense the urgency behind the words. Leia’s in danger.
Luke felt his heart freeze. “What kind of danger?” he asked, grabbing for his boots. “Where is she?”
In Makrin City on Shelkonwa. The governor’s chief administrator has closed down the spaceport and alerted the Empire to her presence.
Luke felt his throat tighten. He’d been afraid something like this would happen, been worried about it ever since Leia had asked him to go with Han instead of her. “What do I do?” he asked. “I’m trapped here.”
There was a moment of silence. Not as trapped as you think, Ben’s voice came again reluctantly. Go to the computer.
Frowning, Luke stepped over to the desk. Was he supposed to figure out how to tap into the ship’s comm system and call General Rieekan for help?
Focus on the keypad, Ben instructed. Focus on the numbers.
Focus on the keypad? “I don’t see anything,” Luke said, looking back and forth across the line of numbers. He stretched out to the Force, but there was nothing there.
The first number is seven.
Luke shifted his attention to that key. Was there a lingering sense there? Setting his fingers over the keyboard, he opened himself to the Force, offering it control of his body as he had during the battle with the pirate ships.
But his fingers remained motionless. Without the immediacy and stress of combat to drive his thoughts and emotions, he wasn’t getting anything. “I’m not—I can’t see it,” he said.
There was a whisper in his mind that might have been a sigh. The numbers are seven seven eight one three one two.
Luke keyed in the sequence. Nothing happened. “Now what?”
Ben didn’t answer. Grimacing, Luke looked around, trying again to listen to the Force. His eyes drifted to the repeater display showing the ship’s current position, vector, and systems status. He could almost feel something there, but try as he might he couldn’t get the sensation to coalesce into anything clearer.
Run your finger across the underside of the repeater display frame.
Luke obeyed, and this time there was a quiet click from behind him. He turned, and to his surprise saw that a door-sized section of the bulkhead at the end of the bed had popped open a couple of centimeters. Smuggling compartments, maybe? Crossing the cabin, he pulled open the door.
It wasn’t a smuggling hole. It was a weapons cache.
A cache that included two sets of Imperial stormtrooper armor.
Luke stared at the gleaming outfits, a ripple of horror running through him. He’d spent the past day wondering if LaRone and
his men were pirates or smugglers or bounty hunters or even the Consolidated Security agents that they claimed to be. The possibility that they might be Imperials had somehow never crossed his mind.
Don’t be concerned, Ben’s voice soothed. It isn’t what you think. At least, not entirely.
Luke glanced over his shoulder at the cabin door. “That’s not a lot of comfort.”
Trust me, Luke. Take one of the blasters and load it.
Luke looked at the weapons, hoping fervently that Ben wasn’t going to ask him to take on five stormtroopers all by himself, and reached for the biggest blaster on the rack.
Luke, Ben’s voice admonished.
He stopped, taking a deep breath and stretching out to the Force. Okay. But if he wasn’t supposed to take the biggest blaster …
His eye fell on the smallest of the weapons, a tiny hold-out blaster. Still concentrating on the Force, he reached out and took it off the rack. He still couldn’t feel any real guidance on the decision. “You know, you could make this whole thing a whole lot easier,” he complained as he found the right-sized power pack and gas cartridge and loaded them into the weapon.
Your uncle could have carried you around on his back until you were fifteen, too.
Luke grimaced. It had been a stupid thing to say. “Sorry,” he apologized.
You’ve taken your first steps into a larger world, Luke. But there are many, many more steps to go. I cannot carry you along your own personal path. All I can do is guide you, and teach you, and help you to find that path for yourself.
“I understand,” Luke said, hefting the blaster in his hand. “I take it I’m supposed to figure out for myself what to do with this?”
You and the Force together will do so, Ben assured him. Patience. Listen to the Force. When the time is right, you’ll know.
“Here we go,” Quiller murmured, getting a grip on the hyperspace levers and pulling. The starlines faded into stars, and stretched out below them LaRone saw the dark shadow that was the planet Gepparin.
He frowned. Directly ahead on the surface, the planet’s nighttime darkness had been broken by a tight cluster of brightly glowing reddish yellow spots. “What’s that?” he asked, starting to lift a hand to point.
And as he did so, a brilliant flash of green light slashed across his view, stabbing down into the landscape below and adding another glowing spot to the cluster already there. “What the—?” Marcross bit out.
“Oh, fusst!” Quiller snarled, throwing the Suwantek up and to the side in a tight spiraling curve, turning them back the way they’d come. From above another cluster of green turbolaser bolts flashed out and downward.
Lit briefly by the reflection of that fire, the wedge shape of an Imperial Star Destroyer appeared in the distance. “It can’t be,” LaRone breathed.
“It is,” Quiller confirmed grimly. “It’s the Reprisal. They’ve found us.”
Luke was pacing back and forth across his cabin when the Suwantek’s sudden turn threw him hard against one of the bulkheads. He caught his balance, rubbing his palms where he’d hit the wall.
As Ben had promised, it was indeed clear that the time was right.
Pulling the hold-out blaster from inside his jacket, he crossed to the door. Wait, Ben’s voice came as the Suwantek made another sharp turn. Stretch out to the Force. You’ll know when.
“Got it,” Luke said. Pressing the muzzle of the blaster against the door lock, he got a steadying grip on the edge of the computer desk and waited.
“Captain, we have an intruder,” someone called from the crew pits. “It just came into the system, and now it’s trying to run.”
“Get me a reading,” Ozzel ordered, turning from his contemplation of the burning pirate base far below and striding down the command walkway toward the sensor station. The freighter’s configuration was one he’d never seen before, and he moved to the edge of the walkway for a better look.
“That has to be a meld,” Somoril said from his side. “One ship linked to another.”
“You’re right,” Ozzel murmured; and with that, the odd shape suddenly resolved itself. The ship being carried was a Corellian light freighter, probably YT or YR class. The one under power was a—
Somoril inhaled sharply. “That’s a Suwantek.”
Ozzel felt his mouth drop open. “You don’t think—?”
“Tractor officer!” Somoril shouted, spinning around. “Get a lock on that ship. Now!”
“Do it,” Ozzel confirmed, a sudden hope stirring inside him. They’d come here to silence an Imperial agent who might know their shameful secret—and now, against all odds, they’d been given a chance to bury that secret along with her. “And launch TIE fighters,” he added. “That ship is not to get away from us.”
For a long minute, LaRone thought they were going to make it. Then the Suwantek lurched violently and he was thrown sideways against his restraints. “Quiller?”
“They’ve got us,” the other bit out. “Tractor beam.”
“We’re still pretty far out,” Marcross said. “Maybe we can pendulum our way clear.”
“Try it,” LaRone ordered.
The roar of the sublight engines changed pitch as Quiller switched direction, driving the Suwantek at right angles to the tractor beam as he tried to break them free. “Anything?” LaRone asked.
“Give it a minute,” Quiller said. “We’ve got some freedom this direction, but for it to work we need to clear the sweep edge before they can lock another projector on us.”
There was a sudden screaming thud from the stern. “Or before they can slag our engines,” Marcross added tightly.
“Grave, Brightwater—return fire,” LaRone ordered as another turbolaser blast shivered across their aft shields.
His answer was a stutter of green light from the Suwantek’s laser cannons. “We’re way too far away to do any damage,” Marcross said.
“I know, but we might be close enough to confuse their sensors a little,” LaRone said. “Come on, Quiller—get us loose.”
There was a flicker in the Force, exactly the way it felt when Luke was fighting the remote; and as the first laser blast hammered into the stern shield, he fired his blaster at the lock.
The door slid open, and he looked cautiously out. The corridor was deserted. Quickly he went to Han’s door, staggering with the Suwantek’s continued violent maneuvering, and keyed it open.
Han was standing by the computer desk, holding on to it for support, his face carved from stone as he stared at the repeater displays. “You all right?” Luke asked.
Han did a double take. “They let you out?”
“Not exactly,” Luke said. “Han, Leia’s in danger.”
“We’re in a little of that ourselves,” Han said, plucking the blaster from Luke’s hand and making a face at it. “Where’d you get this, a krinkle machine?”
“She’s trapped in Makrin City on Shelkonwa, and the Empire knows she’s there,” Luke persisted.
“Later, kid.” Brushing past, Han headed out into the corridor.
Luke could hear Chewbacca’s bellowing even over the roar of the engines. Han popped the lock and took a quick step back as a hairy Wookiee arm snatched wildly at him through the opening door. “Relax—it’s us,” Han called.
Chewbacca caught his balance in midlunge, looking both ways down the corridor as he rumbled something.
“I don’t know, but whoever it is they’ve got us locked,” Han told him. “Get down to the Falcon and get her ready.”
“We’re leaving?” Luke asked, instinctive relief at escaping a battle fighting with equally instinctive guilt at the thought of abandoning LaRone and the others to whoever or whatever out there was attacking them.
“Not yet,” Han growled. “What do you think, Chewie? Bait and switch?”
The Wookiee considered, then warbled a response and headed to the hatch leading down to the Suwantek’s ventral hatch. Opening it, he disappeared down the ladder. “What do you want me to do?” Lu
ke asked.
“Stay out of the way,” Han said shortly. Hefting the blaster, he headed forward.
The lounge was empty, as was the anteroom beyond it. Slapping the door release to the cockpit, Han strode inside. He got two steps in before he suddenly seemed to notice the stormtrooper armor.
Luke winced. Too late, he realized he should have clued the other in about their captors. But with only the slightest hesitation Han continued forward. “Situation?” he snapped.
“Star Destroyer’s got us locked,” LaRone said. His face tightened as he saw the blaster in Han’s hand, but his voice was crisp and professional. “They may be launching TIEs.”
“We’re trying a pendulum,” the man at the helm—Quiller, presumably—added.
“Any other ships in the area?” Han asked.
“None,” Marcross said, gazing darkly at Han from the copilot’s seat. “The pirate base also seems to have been effectively neutralized.”
“Okay.” Han peered up briefly through the canopy at the triangle shape looming in the distance above them, then tapped Marcross on his armored shoulder. “Out,” he ordered.
“What?” Marcross asked warningly.
“I said out,” Han said, stepping back again to give Marcross room. He started to drop the hold-out blaster into his empty holster, apparently realized the tiny weapon would get lost in there, and instead tucked it into the left side of his belt in cross-draw position. “We’ve got some tricky maneuvering to do, and I don’t have time to explain it to you.”
“Look, Solo—”
“Do it,” LaRone said.
Glowering, Marcross unstrapped and got out of his seat. He squeezed past Han, who took his place. “Give me comm to the Falcon,” he ordered, giving the controls a quick look. “Chewie? You ready?”
An answering roar came from the speaker. “Good,” Han said. “Somebody get ready to seal the ventral hatch and drop the collar connection.”
“Say when,” Quiller said.
“Now,” Han said. “And give me helm.”
