Assault at Selonia

by Roger MacBride Allen

  “Very well,” Ossilege said unhappily. “It would appear I already know all I am going to know. I would call upon Madame Captison to discuss the political side of the situation before we discuss the military side.”

  Luke looked toward Gaeriel, along with everyone else at the table. “It is fairly straightforward,” she said. “The Prime Minister and the government have ordered the Navy to assist the New Republic in this crisis, and authorized the Admiral to lead a task force for the relief of Corellia.”

  “Wonderful!” Luke said. “Please convey our thanks to the Prime Minister.”

  “Thank you, Madame Captison,” said Lando.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Kalenda said.

  “You are all most welcome, and it goes without saying that all Bakura will be proud to repay some part of the great debt we owe the New Republic. There is one other matter, a minor one perhaps, but it might be worth noting. While Admiral Ossilege will be in full military command of the operation, the Prime Minister has appointed me as her plenipotentiary, with full powers to speak for Bakura in matters of policy. She felt this was necessary because the communications jamming would render normal consultations with Bakura impossible.”

  “But, Gaer—uh, Madame Captison,” Luke objected. “What of your child?”

  “Malinza will stay with family here, of course. I am not the first parent called to hazardous duty.”

  “Yes, of course,” Luke said. He wanted to protest, to object to the idea of Gaeriel going along, but he knew there was no chance of his winning the argument.

  “Thank you for your concern, Jedi Master,” Gaeriel said, “but that decision has been made. Admiral, I think it best that we turn to you and discuss the practicalities of the mission.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Ossilege. “First and most important, I must tell you that Bakura, by herself, cannot fight this war for you. Grateful as we are for the New Republic’s aid in the past, we cannot strip all the defenses from our own world for months on end—and months on end it would be if we had to fly our ships in and out of the Corellian system in normal space. We cannot perform that task. But, I believe there is at least a fighting chance that we can do something at least as valuable. I believe we can get in, locate the interdiction-field generator, and knock it out, opening the door to whatever New Republic forces can be mustered in the meantime. And I believe we can do this without being unduly inconvenienced ourselves by the Corellian Field.”

  “How so?” Lando asked.

  “We believe we have developed a partial countermeasure to the interdiction field.” Ossilege held up his hand to the eager questions from all three of their visitors. “We do not know for sure if it will work in these circumstances or, if it does work, how well it will. There have been only limited tests to date. But the principle is quite simple. As you know, an interdiction field simulates the mass lines produced by a naturally occurring gravity well. A ship cannot travel in hyperspace inside a steep gravity well, and thus is decanted out into normal space, or realspace.

  “We have spent some time developing a device called a hyperwave inertial momentum sustainer or, as the technical staff insist on calling it, HIMS. I prefer the term hyperwave sustainer. It uses a gravitic sensor that provides a fast cutoff for a ship’s normal hyperdrive, causing it to shut off instantly before it can risk being damaged by the interdiction field. It simultaneously activates a static hyperspace bubble, produced by a hyperspace coil designed to burn up and blow out in the presence of an interdiction field.

  “The static hyperwave bubble cannot provide any thrust, of course, but it can hold the ship in hyperspace while the ship’s forward momentum carries it along. The first blowout coil activates the second, the second activates the third, and so on. In effect, the ship flickers in and out of hyperspace, jumping into it and being thrown back out of it, over and over again, until its forward momentum carries it clear of the interdiction field, and the normal hyperdrive system comes back on-line.”

  “Very elegant.” Luke said, impressed.

  “Yes, I suppose, in a crude sort of way. It’s brute-force engineering, and our tests show just how rough a ride it is, but it does get the job done.”

  “At least it allows the ship to escape any interdiction field of reasonable size,” Gaeriel said dryly. “Not the monstrosity you two found out there. There are limits.”

  “What sort of limits?” Luke asked.

  “Installing a hyperwave sustainer is no simple or inexpensive task,” Ossilege said. “It is costly and time-consuming. We have, at present, only four ships—three destroyers and one light cruiser—equipped with the system. Installing every static hyperwave bubble generator we can on the ships, we estimate that we can hold the ships in hyperspace for roughly three quarters of the distance from the edge of the interdiction field to its center. The ships will not be able to hold formation, and might well become somewhat scattered. But they will be able to drop into the Corellian planetary system well inside the defense perimeter—and within close striking distance of Selonia.”

  “Selonia? But what good does that do?” Lando asked. “I thought we had figured out the interdiction-field generator had to be somewhere in the double-planet system, somewhere on Talus or Tralus. Why go to Selonia?”

  “Because Selonia provides us with a target of opportunity, and a diversion from our attack on the Double Worlds,” Ossilege said. “Let me show you.” He pushed a series of buttons on the control panel by his hand. The room’s light dimmed, and a standard wire-frame schematic of the Corellian planetary system appeared, floating over the center of the table. “These are the present relative positions of the five inhabited planets of the Corellian system. As you can see, Corellia is on the opposite side of the star Corell from Tralus and Talus. Drall is about ninety degrees ahead of Corellia, but Selonia is nearly at its closest approach to the double planets, Tralus and Talus. As you can also see, Selonia’s orbit is exterior to that of the double planets. If we make a direct coplanar radial approach to Tralus and Talus from the system’s exterior, we more or less have to pass by Selonia. And Selonia is a major target. The rebels there will be forced to defend it.”

  “If there are rebels there,” Luke said. “We know almost nothing about what’s going on there.”

  “I am not sure there are any rebels anywhere,” Ossilege said. “Simultaneous uprisings by independent groups on five worlds? That’s stretching the bounds of credulity. I believe there is a more—intimate—relationship between the various rebellions. I do not wish to speculate further on that issue just at the moment. But in regard to your point, Mr. Skywalker, one reason I wish to mount an assault at Selonia is to find out what happens there, find out who reacts and how. We can learn from their reaction to us. If they welcome us as liberators, all to the good. If they attack, as I suspect they will, I expect we will learn a great deal as well—as well as forcing them to commit their short-range forces. I hope that by drawing them out at Selonia, we can weaken the forces they can mass at Tralus and Talus.”

  Lando looked over the tactical display. “It makes a certain amount of sense,” he said, “but it’s risky. Extremely risky. You have a small force operating without support deep inside enemy territory, with no way to withdraw if things go badly.”

  Ossilege faded out the tactical display and brought the room lights back up. “Your point is well taken,” he said. “But audacity is a weapon, as sure as that blaster at your side is one. But both are useless left where they are. Audacity is a weapon that must be drawn from its scabbard from time to time.”

  “That’s very poetic,” Lando said, “but with all due respect, I have some experience in these matters. I must say that you might be asking too much of four ships.”

  Ossilege smiled thinly. “It is my experience,” he said, “that you achieve more by asking too much rather than by asking too little.”

  Luke Skywalker said nothing. But he was coming to realize just how dangerous a man Ossilege was.

  The question w
as, of course—dangerous to whom?

  * * *

  Han Solo crawled along behind Dracmus down the tunnel, bone weary of the journey, and wearier still of not knowing what was going on. It had been two days since the Selonians had rescued the two of them from the Human League’s hidden fortress, and just about that long since Han had been clear on the situation. The rescue party had escorted Han and Dracmus out of the escape tunnel to a main passageway, and then said their good-byes. Han and Dracmus had been traveling by themselves ever since, occasionally encountering other Selonians, but for the most part on their own.

  He still was not sure if he was a prisoner, or if he was being taken to a place of safety, or both. Dracmus had revealed an impressive ability to avoid answering unwanted questions.

  All Han knew for sure was that she was taking him someplace, and that he had to do a lot of crawling to get there, through a seemingly endless series of low-ceilinged tunnels lit in the gloomiest, dimmest red imaginable.

  “Is it much further to some place I can stand up?” Han asked, raising his voice a bit so Dracmus could hear him. Dracmus was ahead of him in the tunnel, as she had been for most of the journey. Han had spent an awful lot of the last few days watching her hindquarters and tail as she moved ahead of him.

  Dracmus laughed, making that hissing noise of hers. Han would not miss that sound if he never heard it again. “Always you want to stand. Is it not a nice rest to be off your hind feet? Stretch yourself, let forelegs do some of the job.”

  The Selonian hadn’t answered his question that time, either, though Han could see no point to avoiding a reply. He had the distinct impression that Dracmus had received instructions from the rescue party to keep quiet and answer no questions. Han had asked her point-blank if that were the case, but if it was, then the prohibition extended even to questions about the prohibition. If she had received orders to keep quiet, she was obeying them in a rather slavish and literal-minded way. What harm in letting Han know how high the ceiling was a bit farther along? But he and Dracmus had had some variant of this same conversation at least a dozen times since her friends had sprung them from the Human League prison. Han had yet to receive a straight answer, and he was still on his hands and knees three–quarters of the time.

  Han understood the reasons for the low tunnels, of course. Selonians were as nimble on four feet as on two—perhaps more so. They were in large part creatures of the underworld—tunnelers, diggers, burrowers. Tunnels dug for Selonians going on four feet had to be only a meter across and a meter high, while tunnels dug for Selonians walking on two feet had to be at least two meters high—and Selonians didn’t see the point of digging out twice as much rock, just for the sake of a vertical posture. Unfortunately, understanding the logic didn’t make the crick in Han’s neck go away, or relieve the throbbing ache in his knees.

  At least he wasn’t the first human to come up against the problem. The Selonians had provided him with a helmet, knee pads, and padded gloves, but there were times when he wondered if the solutions weren’t worse than the problem. The helmet was heavy and unventilated, and was not quite the right shape for a human head. The gloves were too big and clumsy, and the knee pads threatened to slide off with every step he took—if you could call moving on your knees stepping. It took hours of awkward trial and error before he learned the peculiar little extra lift and twist required of each knee to keep the pads in place.

  Once or twice he had considered the idea of not going forward, of not doing what Dracmus said, of striking out on his own through the tunnel system. But he knew the idea was hopelessly impractical. Dracmus could move through the tunnels a lot faster than he could, for one thing. And Dracmus knew her way around the tunnel system, for another. Besides, Dracmus could call for an awful lot of help, if need be. Han and she were far from alone down there.

  Han heard a sort of chuffling sound behind him, and then a double hoot from the same quarter, followed by a squeak and a warble from Dracmus. The sounds were not any part of the Selonian language Han had learned. They were tunnel-talk, signals meant to be clearly understood even in the echoing confines of the underground ways. It had not taken Han long to find out what they meant. Space knew he had heard them often enough. Here I come from behind you, called the Selonian in the rear. Please feel free to overtake us, Dracmus replied. Han let out a sigh and lay down flat on his stomach. “Here we go again,” he muttered to himself.

  He heard the skittering and clicking of claws on stone behind him, then the pause as the Selonian behind him, surprised to find a human, stopped to snuffle at his feet and his clothes before scrambling over his body, managing to put all her weight on Han’s chest and then step on his head. Han sighed again. Another set of aches and pains he would have to get over. The ones who overtook from the rear always seemed to find new places to set their claws. The ones who came from the front all seemed to walk on the same spots on his back and the backs of his legs.

  The overtaking Selonian scuttled over Dracmus in turn, and that was some comfort, if not much. Selonians were used to it. But Han could not help but hope that Dracmus got at least a little bit of a jab in the ribs. However, if she did take a bit of damage, she didn’t show any sign of it.

  Han got back up off his hands and knees and followed after his guide.

  Unless, of course, she was his jailer. He still wasn’t quite sure.

  * * *

  The Duchess Marcha of Mastigophorous liked to reassure herself that all of her nephew Ebrihim’s eccentricities could not possibly come from her side of the family. And yet there was no question that he had inherited one or two traits from her side of the bloodline. Ebrihim had endurance, even if he did not always take advantage of it. But when the circumstances called for it, he could keep going long after everyone else had collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

  And he had the skills of a good scholar, even if he did not put those skills to good use. He could report on the facts, discuss them objectively, and then analyze a situation dispassionately, speculate about it responsibly, and never get facts muddled up with opinions or ideas. And, of course, endurance was a great help in scholarship as well. One needed to keep going, to keep chasing. No doubt, Ebrihim could have made something of himself if he had not also had the temperament of a dilettante. Everything interested him, with the result that he had never pursued any single subject far enough.

  But tonight, for once, he was putting all his scholar’s skills to use. The children were long ago asleep, that Wookiee fellow Chewbacca had likewise turned in, and even Q9-X2, Ebrihim’s absurd droid, had returned to the ship in order to recharge.

  But Ebrihim was wide-awake, and alert, fresh as a dressel flower on a dewy morning. She and he had been sitting up in the kitchen for hours, talking over endless pots of strong tea and a stack of good, solid, hard-biscuits, the sort that really exercised the jaw and the gnawing muscles, the sort that chipped human teeth.

  The family news had come first, of course. It had often been said of the Dralls that if the universe were swallowed by a mammoth black hole, and it happened on the same day a favorite cousin broke off an ill-advised love affair, no member of the cousin’s family would even be able to work in a mention of the end of the universe for days.

  But even though Ebrihim had been gone for a long time, sooner or later even family gossip had to give way to the wave of crises that seemed to be drowning the Corellian planetary system. “Things have never been this bad,” Aunt Marcha said. “It seems that a half-dozen separatist groups popped up over night, all of them squawking how they hate the Corellian Sector government and chittering on about how the New Republic is no better than the Empire, and urging everyone to band together to oppose the Human League oppressors, and they all seem to hate each other most of all. All sorts of nonsense. Most un-Drallish.”

  “Which were the ones that gave you trouble?” Ebrihim asked. “You mentioned something about a group called the Drallists?

  “Those are the ones. Of all the foolish groups
, the Drallists are the worst. They’re the ones who have been cutting power links and terrorizing travelers. It seems they denounce someone else for being a collaborator every day. Declared me a collaborator, if you can believe that. They didn’t bother to say who I was collaborating with, or who my imaginary collaborators were for or against. They seem to be in favor of chaos, and against everything else. But I knew what being a collaborationist could mean. Houses have been bombed, you know.”

  “What!” Ebrihim said. “Dralls blowing up the houses of Dralls! I can’t believe it.”

  “I could not believe it myself, nephew, but I could not endanger others on my behalf. I sent away everyone I could—relatives, servants, friends, everyone. The house seems so empty without them all. I hope they can all come back when the trouble is over. If it ever is over.”

  Marcha shook her head and refilled her nephew’s tea mug. “I don’t know what is to come next. Truly I don’t.”

  “Nor do I, Aunt Marcha. Neither do I.”

  “Do you want anything else?” she asked, her reflexes as a hostess taking over. “Another hard-biscuit, perhaps?” she said, offering the bowl.

  “I’d be delighted,” Ebrihim said. “Your biscuits are splendid, as usual. Hard as wood, and most flavorful. I had forgotten how much I enjoy them. Human food gives no benefit to the incisors.”

  “I am glad to hear that you enjoy them, nephew. But what of you? How in the stars did you end up here with three human children and a Wookiee?”

  “Those are not just any human children, Aunt Marcha. Didn’t their names mean anything to you? Their parents are people of note.”

  “Well, perhaps they are,” she said with a sniff. “I have never made much effort to see what airs humans are putting on at the moment. I take it you have been tutoring the children of some minor member of the Corellian aristocracy. All very well, I suppose, but you can’t expect me to recognize their names.”