CHAPTER NINE
If and When It's amazing how much you can find when you know where to look," said Lando, studying the data that was flowing past, screenful after screenful. "And it doesn't hurt to have someone as good at data searches as Arloo. And, ah, well, even Threepio's language skills have been helpful." Threepio turned his head rather briskly. "Helpful? I would say they have been essential. You wouldn't have been able to translate a tenth of that information without me." "Don't push it," Lando said. "Yes, you were a great help, all right? There, I said it. But I was about to say that without Administrator Sonsen, we wouldn't have gotten anywhere at all." Jenica Sonsen smiled broadly and gave Lando a jab in the ribs that was probably just a trifle harder than she had intended it to be. "Easy, all of you," she said. "All I did was show you the log files." But the log files had told them a lot-and led them in a lot of profitable directions. It was all down there, very clear. Looking from here, it was easy to spot signs of something going wrong. Station systems no one had even known about started coming to life. Power fluctuations. Spikes and drops in various forms of radiation, some of them significant enough to require the tempo- rary evacuation of part of the station. The station re-pointing its spin axis, gradually reaiming its poles in new directions. "The change in spin orientation. How did you people explain that away?" asked Lando. "Centerpoint has always been self-correcting," Jenica said. "The barycenter point isn't absolutely stable. The station has always moved itself around a little to stay properly oriented and positioned. It wasn't like it hadn't ever happened before." "That lo one side,'" said Lando, "the main thing is that I've now pretty much confirmed what I suspected the second I saw those conical forms in the poles of Hollowtown. That form of six small cones around a larger one is the exact geometry you need for a particular kind of old-style repulsor. Actually, if you get down and take a look on the microscopic level, you'll see exactly the same pattern, repeated over and over and over again, on the surface of modern repuisor systems. Crudely put, we don't make one big repuisor element like that anymore, because the bigger the repuisor, the heavier the object has to be for the repulsor to work efficiently." Lando brought up a wireframe diagram of Centerpoint and pointed to the image of the repulsors. "These are pretty big, but on the other hand, planets are pretty big too." "But all the inhabited planets have their own repulsors," Kalenda objected. "What did the builders of Corellia need this place for?" "Because this isn't just a repuisor," he said. "This is a hyperspacc' repuisor. This station was designed to open up a-a gate, a tunnel-through hyperspacc. grab a planet, and pull it back this way. It acts as more of a tractor beam than a repuisor, really, but that's the idea." "How?" Luke asked. "How does it work?" Lando shrugged. "I don't know. But as Administrator Sonsen has pointed out a time or two, knowing how it works isn't always that important. It's knowing that it the station to report al! the events, but the automatic logging reports I've found indicate there was more of the same. Then there was a different sort of power flow shifts from the automatic recording instruments that have kept up right until the present moment-and they start at exactly the time the jamming and the interdiction field come on. Then we get the second Glowpoint flare, and, shortly thereafter, the second induced supernova." "But how could it be we didn't feel any of that, or see anything?" Jenica asked. "You're talking about a hugely powerful pulse of energy being shot off from this station. No one saw anything. There wasn't any huge vibration or any burst of heat." "This station is putting out a hugely powerful interdiction field and a powerful jamming field right now. Can you feel either of those?" "The pointing," Kalenda said. "What does the re-pointing show?" Lando brought up a holographic projector, and threw up an image of the stars near to Corellia. "The red spot at the center of the display is our position. This is the pointing of Centerpoint's South Pole relative to the starfield before things started happening." A blue line streaked out from the center of the display and pointed toward nothing at all. "This is the pointing after the first shift in spin orientation." A line of red lanced out and stabbed straight through the heart of a star. "That is TD-10036-EM-1271," Lando said. "The first star to go nova." Lando punched in another command, and a shaft of gold streaked out and touched another star. "Thanta Zilbra," Lando said. "The second star on the list. A population in the tens of thousands. My guess is most of them are dead. I know logistics, and I don't see how they possibly could have gotten everyone out in time. And this," he said, "is where we're pointed now." A line of violet fire flashed out, and hit another star, square and true. "That is the third star on the hit list we got in the initial warning message. Bovo Yagen. I looked it up. One source says one planet with eight million. Another says two planets with a total estimated system population of twelve million on the planets, and who knows how many stations and habitats and mining camps and so on. Centerpoint is the starbuster, and it is getting set to blast that star and those planets and all those people down to cinders and dust." "When?" Kalenda asked. Lando hit another control button and a countdown clock appeared. "Artoo ran the problem. We have to backtrack a little to account for how long the pulse will take to travel through hyperspace, and how long it will take for the chain reaction to take hold inside the star and build up to an explosion. Centerpoint is going to have to send a tractor-repulsor hyperspace burst in exactly one hundred twenty-three hours, ten minutes, and thirteen seconds from now in order to keep to the schedule in the original warning message. Twelve hours and twelve minutes after that, the chain reaction induced by the energy pulse will bloom out of the star's core, and up it will go." "Burning stars. Centerpoint-my home-is a weapon," Jenica said, her voice full of shock. "And whoever controls it is going to have the power to control the Corellian Sector-and maybe the whole galaxy," Gaeriel said. "Do what we say, or we blow up your star." "Wait a second," Luke said. "There's a piece that doesn't fit. If Centerpoint is the starbuster, then it's the prize, the most important place in the Corellian system. Why the fuss over the planetary repulsors? Why didn't the plotters worry about Centerpoint?" "Three reasons," Lando replied. "The first is that they didn't try to get it because they already had it-or at least had found a way to control it. I figure there is some well-shielded, well-hidden control room on this station. Someplace we wouldn't find it if we looked for a hundred years. Probably there isn't anyone in it, any- way. All of it automated, set to work off timers and remote control. Second reason might be plain old misdirection. If you get everyone worried about the repul-sors, no one's going to have time to go looking for the starbuster. And the third reason- "Has been staring us right in the face," Kalenda said. "I think I just figured it out. I haven't really worked with repulsor field theory since school, but part of what makes repulsors work is that they can interfere and resonate with each other, right? And you can use that interference between two or more repulsor cells to provide steering and control. Power to a small side repulsor cell can deflect the beam from the main repulsor." Lando nodded. "Exactly. The planetary repulsors can jam Centerpoint's hyperspace tractor-repulsor beam. They are the only repulsors strong enough to do it. "But it goes deeper than that. The planetary repulsors can work as amplifiers, not just as jammers. In practice it would be the devil to manage, but, in theory, you could tune all the planetary repulsors into a single network slaved to Centerpoint. That would provide Centerpoint with even more power and range than it has now. Right now, Centerpoint gets its power by tapping a little bit of the gravitic potential of Talus and Tralus. Suppose it could tap into Selonia, and Corellia, and Dratl? For that matter, I haven't quite worked out the geometry of it yet, but with all five planets and Centerpoint in the network, you could probably tap into the star Corell's gravitic potential. If I'd designed this system back whenever it was designed, I'd make sure that was possible. Just imagine Centerpoint with that much power. It would be able to strike at any point in the galaxy. The masters of Centerpoint could grab any planet they wanted and pull it into this system-or drop into a star, if they wanted. Centerpoint could blow up any star its masters
chose. It could set up an interdiction field or communications jamming over the whole galaxy-or any part of it its masters ugrave; wanted to isolate. It could probably do a lot of other things we haven't even thought of yet." "A lot of things that didn't make sense are starting to make more sense than I'd like," said Luke. "But using the repulsors for jamming. How would that work?" "That's a lot simpler," Lando said . "If any of the planetary repulsors fired a properly tuned beam at Centerpoint, it would disrupt the aim and the tuning of the tractor-repulsor beam;" "Could the planetary beams actually move Centerpoint itself?" Luke asked. "Not enought to make any difference," said Lando. "Centerpoint's more powerful than any of the plancta-ries. If the planetaries pushed Centerpoint off its present position, Centerpoint could just push it back. But any one of the planetaries can shut Centerpoint down by sending out a jamming signal." "AH right," Kalenda said. "Now we know all this. What do we do about it?" Lando turned his hands palms-up in a gesture of helplessness. "Not much. We don't know it's being controlled, or from where, or how. We've got a rough idea of what the system is, but we're nowhere near understanding how to operate the system." "There must be some cable we can cut, some control system we can smash," Jenica said. "I bet there is-but I don't know where it is. And we won't find out unless we search every deck and shell and compartment on this station. And even if we found the control system, I'm not so sure we could smash it. Remember this system is robust enough that it's been up and running since before the Old Republic." "Then we could blow up the whole station," Gaeriel said. "With what?" Kalenda asked. "We have one light cruiser and two destroyers. None of them are carrying any bomb powerful enough to destroy something three hundred kilometers from end to end. Maybe, if you gave the Bakuran engineers enough time, they might be able to rig fixed-point detonators powerful enough to wreck the interior pretty thoroughly. With enough time. But not with only one hundred twenty-odd hours to do it." "Well, there's one thing we can do," Luke said. "Get the word out. Tell our people what we've found out. If we can find Han and Leia and Chewbacca, if we can find our allies on the worlds here, and let them know what we know, that's a start. If they can get to a planetary repulsor in time, and if they can figure out how to run it, and if they can jam that hyperspace tractor-repulsor beam, then maybe we can save some lives." Lando shook his head. "That's a lot of ifs, Luke," he said, the doubt heavy in his voice. "I know," said Luke. He looked up at the countdown clock, the clock that showed how long Bovo Yagen had to live. The seconds were melting away. "And it's going to take all the ifs we have to beat that when up there." The ship dove down into the repulsor chamber, moving fast and aggressively, but not so fast that Ebrihim wasn't able to see the insignia painted on the underside of its fuselage as he looked up at it. A stylized human skull with a knife in its teeth. "Human League!" he cried out. "Can we get the shields up?" "No!" Aunt Marcha shouted. "The children are still outside. We have to wait for them to get aboard." Ebrihim hopped up into the copilot's chair and turned toward the weapons controls as the enemy ship dropped down to a fast, assault-style landing. Burly figures in combat gear were tumbling out of the attack boat's hatches even before it had stopped bouncing on its landing legs. Weapons. Ebrihim did not know much about such things, but he had to try. There had to be some sort of auto-system to let the turbolasers- Suddenly huge hands were scooping him up out of the seat, tossing him out of the way. Chewbacca scrambled into the copilot's chair and started powering up the defense systems. Power began to surge through the Falcon's weapons. "The children are aboard!" Marcha shouted. "Raise the access ramp. Activate the shields!" Chewbacca hit the ramp close button and reached for the shield controls-but it was too late. A trooper with a very powerful-looking blaster was looking up at Chewbacca from below the cockpit. The Falcon was surrounded by troops standing inside the shield perimeter. Chewbacca tried the shields anyway. The lights in the cockpit surged for a moment as power went to the shield generators, but nothing else happened. Chewbacca roared in frustration. Shield jammers. They must have attached shield jammers to the hull, preventing the shields from forming. A tall, heavyset, bearded figure stepped out of the assault boat and walked toward them, a most unpleasant smile on his face. "Sal-Solo," Ebrihim said. "It's him." "That's our dad's cousin?" Anakin asked. Ebrihim turned around and realized for the first time that the children had crowded their way in. All of them, the entire party, were there, in the cockpit. "That is his cousin and yours, child," said Marcha. "But I doubt you will gain much joy from knowing him." Ebrihim tried not to listen. There was something that had just flitted across his mind, at the thought of their all being together. Wait a moment. That wasn't true. They weren't all together. But if he, Ebrihim, assumed they all were here, then surely their friends outside might make the same mistake. Ebrihim had an idea. Not even a plan, just an idea that would give them options, advantages. Maybe enough so that there would still be a way out of this. It was a long shot, but still it was a chance that could turn this thing around. That was the good news. The bad news was in two parts. First, they only had a few seconds to put it in motion. And two, his idea relied completely and entirely upon Q9-X2. Thrackan Sal-Solo could not have been happier. It was a gift from the gods, an absolute gift from the gods. He strode about his new possession, admiring it, thinking of all it could do-and do for him. At last he had his hands on a planetary repulsor. He had gambled everything that he would get to one in time. He had thought it would be the one on Corellia. That he ended up grabbing the one here on Drall was but a slight irony. He had one. That was all that mattered. He had one in time to control the situation. He looked up, admiring the view straight to the surface, that sharp-edge circle of blue, kilometers above his head. He looked down a bit, at the massive, graceful cluster of cones that made up the repulsor array itself. AS1 his. All his. His eyes strayed lower, to the Millennium Falcon. What a bonus, what a magnificent and glittering extra prize it was. Grabbing the Falcon by itself would have been enough to humiliate Han Solo, to pay him back for the crime of escape. But to find Han's Wookiee and his children aboard as well-what could be better? There were two absurd Drall as well, but they were no prize at all compared to the children. The children represented not just a chance for personal vengeance, but something else, something more--an opportunity. If he handled it right, a war winner. Now, suddenly, he could control, could manipulate, Leia Organa Solo herself. Now she would have to come to the bargaining table, because she had no choice. And once she came to that table, Thrackan was cer- tain she would leave with nothing at all. He would force her into a bargain that would leave the New Republic with its heart torn out, so badly injured, so utterly discredited, that it could not survive. Of course, the recent destruction of Thanta Zilbra and the coming destruction of Bovo Yagen might well accomplish that on their own. A galaxy that saw that the New Republic could not prevent such a disaster would be a galaxy that lost faith in the New Republic. It would be a galaxy thai realized revolt against the New Republic was possible. That would be all to the good, of course. But better, far better, if the galaxy saw Thrackan Sal-Solo as a central figure in bringing the New Republic down. The man who dared to grab the Chief of State's children and hold them hostage-that would be a man to fear, a man to reckon with. Now he would be that man. But holding them would do no good unless Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo knew about it. The communications jamming would have to come down. That was easy to accomplish. An encoded radionics command to the hidden control station on Ccnterpoint would shut down the com jamming in short order. No doubt the people who had built the hidden control center took a dim view of Thrackan controlling it in their stead--but they should have thought of that before sending in operatives who couki be bribed, operatives who would betray their masters. But now, now, the last piece of the puzzle had dropped into place. He had a planetary disrupter, and alone of all the rebel leaders in the Corcllian system, he knew what a planetary repulsor could do. Being able to smash a ship was trivial compared to the ability to hold the starbustcr plot hostage. Thrackan knew
it would take time-perhaps a long time-before his technicians would be able to operate the repulsor, but even that did not matter. For now he was in a position to bluff things out, to pretend he con- trolled the repulsor. That ought to be more than enough to get what he wanted. More than enough. Admiral Hortel Ossilege watched on the long-range scanners as the Human League assault boat dove down the mouth of the repulsor. The image was grainy and blurry; the scanners were working at maximum range, which meant the assault boat was far beyond the maximum range of the Intruder's weaponry. It was galling to be beaten to the punch. Frustrating. Infuriating- But it would not do to show it. It would not do at all. And one had to admire the nerve, the audacity, of the assau lt boat's commander, quite literally diving his whole ship down the barrel of a weapon that could have reduced his craft to dust and rubble in milliseconds. Even if the Intruder had been capable of atmospheric operation or planetary landing, he could not have risked it with a move like that. Not when the Intruder represented such a huge fraction of the firepower on the Republic's side of the equation. Ossilege envied his opponent's freedom to take chances. But, speaking of taking chances, he faced a repulsor precisely like the one that had smashed the Watch-keeper down to nothing at all. He had to assume this repulsor would be just as powerful within a short period of time-if it was not so already. After all, someone had turned it on. More than likely, that someone knew how to aim it and fire it as well. And, it occurred to him, more than likely that someone was an ally of the Human League. If that was so, then the assault boat hadn't been taking chances, but had flown in to take possession of a planetary repulsor that had been located and activated by Human League agents. And yet. And yet. That was a fast, hard assault landing, not a slower, safer arrival at a secured base. Al- most as if the other side had been as surprised as Ossilege himself. Almost as if they had been trying to do what he had been trying to do-take advantage of an unexpected opportunity. Ossilege had the feeling the story was not over. Something else was going to happen here, something more was going to change. And change could usually be exploited. Besides, it was just one small assault boat. There could not be more than twenty or thirty people aboard it, at most. Surely the Intruder ought to be able to lake on a force that small, no matter how powerful the weapon they controlled. Ossilege had always been a great believer in the idea that weapons mattered far less than the people who used them. The Intruder carried a small force of assault troops, and she carried her own assault boats. Perhaps the Intruder would not be able to attack the repulsor in a frontal assault, but there were other forms of atlaek. Forms that took a bit more time, and a bit more fines.se, but could work just as well, if one was audacious. Ossilege turned to the ensign at his side. "My compliments to Captain Semmae. The Intruder will move into an orbit synchronous with the planet's rotation, well out of line-of-sight from the repulsor site. We will await developments here while we commence preparations for a ground assault." The ensign saluted and scurried away. Ossilege stared at the image of the planetary repulsor in the scanner screen. He raised his hand and offered up a small, mocking salute to the commander of the assault boat. "You have won the first round," he said to the screen. "But let us not forget the main event is still to come."
Star Wars - Correlian trilogy 3 - Showdown at Centerpoint Page 9
