“Threepio, pipe down,” Lando said. “And I don’t ever want to hear you agreeing with me again. Is that understood?”
“But, Captain Calrissian—”
Artoo cut Threepio off with a rude noise.
“Well, I never!” Threepio said. “Such language! Artoo, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“Ten seconds.”
Luke looked over to the tactical display, showing the colored dots of the four ships moving toward the dotted blue line of the field’s estimated limit. Then he turned back to the forward viewport, determined to see the actual moment of the Intruder’s impact on the interdiction field.
“Five seconds.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“One.”
“Zero.”
Nothing happened, but then, Luke hadn’t really expected it to. He looked over to Lando, and Lando shrugged. The two of them had done the best they could to measure the field using the Lady Luck’s instruments, but they knew better than anyone how rough and ready those measurements had been. It was no surprise at all that they were off by a substantial margin.
“Plus two seconds.”
“Plus three.”
Lando looked toward Luke. “Hey, who knows?” he asked. “Maybe they dropped the field. Maybe we can do this the easy—”
KA-RAM! Luke was slammed forward into his restraint harness, and thrown to one side at the same time. The forward viewport was suddenly a blaze of surging light, reds and oranges slashing down as star lines flared into view and then vanished again.
“WE ARE IN THE INTERDICTION FIELD!” the tactics officer shouted over the sudden din of hooting alarms and emergency systems. “MAINTAINING STATIC HYPERSPACE BUBBLE. FIRST STATIC BUBBLE GENERATOR DECAYING AT EXPECTED RATE. COLLAPSE IMMINENT—”
BLAM! The whole ship bucked and shuddered as the first bubble generator blew out and the second cut in. The main lighting died for a moment, but kicked back in before the emergency systems had a chance to come on. The shaking and shuddering got worse, moment by moment, and Luke heard the far-off crash of something slamming into a bulkhead on a lower deck.
BLAMM! The second generator blew, and the third snapped on, more abruptly than the first two. An overhead lighting fixture overloaded and blew out, throwing a shower of sparks across the flag deck. One spark managed to start a fire on the deck carpet, but Artoo had his built-in extinguisher out and on before Luke could even call out a warning.
BA-LAAMM! The third generator blew, and the fourth cut in. “Maintaining hyperspace bubble!” the tactics officer called out, the noise level down enough that she did not have to shout quite so loud. “Losing hyperspace momentum at rate inside projections. Projecting virtual full stop relative to interdiction field in thirty seconds.”
“If we hold together that long!” Lando shouted. There was another crash somewhere belowdecks, as if to emphasize his point.
BAA-LAAMMM! There was no doubt about it. Each bounce in and out of hyperspace was a bit slower—but a bit less violent—than the one before it. They were through the worst of it. Now if only the ship could hold together for whatever punishment was yet to come—
WHAMMM! The shock was the hardest yet, and suddenly the ship’s artificial gravity failed, just as the lights died again. The ship began to tumble, end over end, as new alarms began to blare and honk. The red emergency lights came on, revealing a scene of chaos. Two or three bridge officers had been thrown clear of their stations, and were flailing about in midair, struggling to grab hold of something, anything, and hang on.
Dozens of small objects had been thrown loose by the impact, and they were caroming about the interior of the bridge. A similar cloud of debris filled the flag deck. A command station down below on the bridge sparked and flared, throwing lurid shadows in the red-lit gloom.
“Main power coupling off-line!” the tactics officer announced. “We have lost positive ship control, but hyperspace bubble is holding.”
Ossilege punched the com key that linked him to the ship’s master. “Captain Nisewarner! Cut the hyperspace sustainer! Drop us into normal space at once.”
“At once, sir,” Semmac’s voice replied. A moment later, a long, rumbling thud, almost below the threshold of hearing, a sound more felt than heard, rolled across the ship. The star lines flared almost halfheartedly to life before dying out, leaving the stars of Corellia gently pinwheeling as the Intruder tumbled her stately way across the sky.
“Fleet status,” Ossilege ordered, his eyes staring out into the sky.
One of the flag-deck technicians checked his displays, listened on his headphones for a moment, and then reported, “Defender and Sentinel have just dropped out of hyperspace in approximate formation with us, within projected parameters. Sentinel reporting only minor damage, Defender reports all boards green. As of yet, we have no track on Watchkeeper.”
“What is the Intruder’s location?” Ossilege asked, still watching the viewports.
“No navigational fix as yet, sir. Stand by, data coming in.”
The main lights suddenly cut back in, and an automated voice boomed out, “Warning. Warning. Artificial gravity resumes in thirty seconds. We will ramp up from zero to one hundred percent of full standard gravity over a twenty-second period. Stand by for resumption of artificial gravity.”
The bridge officers who had been thrown into midair had all managed to find handholds by this time and were scrambling across the overhead bulkheads to whatever ladders or guide wires they could find. The gravities came on again with a low hum that vanished into the subsonic almost at once. The debris caught in midair started floating downward, thudding and clattering to the deck as weight returned.
The stars stopped pinwheeling past the viewports as the navigation crew regained attitude control. Luke could see one of the destroyers—the Defender, it looked like—come into view as it took up station keeping.
“We now have a solid navigational fix,” the flag-deck technician announced. “We are off projected course line by approximately ten million kilometers, and we are seventy-two hours from Selonia at flank speed.”
“Are we capable of flank speed at this time?” Ossilege asked.
“Damage assessment still coming in, sir. Engineer reports maximum advisable acceleration is one third flank. It was a pretty rough ride. Stand by. Sir, the Watchkeeper has just dropped out of hyperspace. Attempting to plot a navigational fix on the Watchkeeper. We are not receiving any com- or data-link from Watchkeeper. Power emissions from Watchkeeper below normal minimums. She is tumbling badly, sir.”
“Tried to ride the hyperdrive sustainer a little too long, it would appear. Very well,” said Ossilege. “My compliments to the masters of Intruder, Defender, and Sentinel. Use laser visual signaling to order ships to get under way and rendezvous at Watchkeeper. She’s the furthest toward the inner system, and we may need to render aid. Inform me of any change in status of any ship.”
“Very well, sir.”
Ossilege turned to Luke and Lando. “Well,” he said, “it would seem we came through that in reasonably good shape. And I expect our friends on Corellia will be more than a bit surprised to see us pop out of hyperspace a mere three days out from the inner system. I wonder if they will be in any position to respond in time?”
* * *
R2-D2 was running at capacity. There was so much to do, so many demands on his attention. There was only so much one droid could do. He was responsible not only for the flight-readiness of Master Luke’s X-wing, but for Lando Calrissian’s Lady Luck as well. Handling the standard diagnostics and maintenance and navigational updates on two ships at once was not, in itself, enough to present him with any great problem. His master, Luke Skywalker, also required his attendance a fair amount of the time, and negotiating for supplies, equipment, and datalinks with the Bakuran droids was extremely time consuming. It took a great deal of background effort to make everything go smoothly.
Artoo wa
s aboard the Lady Luck at the moment. Lando Calrissian’s ship was safely in its lockdown point on the Intruder’s flight deck, right next to Luke’s X-wing, in the midst of the Bakuran fighter craft. Techs and droids were swarming over all the Bakuran vehicles, making sure they had ridden out the Intruder’s violent arrival. The Bakurans were using at least one human tech and two droids on each fighter check-out. Artoo was left to do the same check-job on the X-wing and the Lady Luck by himself, and both of them were far more complex spacecraft that the Bakuran fighters. He was on his own, save for the extremely marginal assistance of Threepio.
Artoo began his checks of the navigation systems. He plugged his dataport into the main navigation sensor arrays, and noted the dorsal infrared unit was slightly out of alignment. That he could fix from here by sending commands through the dataport link. He switched over and tested the navicomputer itself. The unit passed easily, solving all of the simulated problems with high precision.
Satisfied that the navigation systems were operational, Artoo moved on to test the communications equipment. As all normal com frequencies were being jammed, rendering all the com gear useless, communication testing was at lower priority than normal, but sooner or later the jamming would be lifted. It would be prudent to at least do a cursory check.
The standard hyperwave channels all tested out normally, with no aberrations. It was impossible to do detailed checks under jamming conditions, of course, and the laser line-of-sight communications could likewise not receive a full check until the ship was out in clear space. But all the circuits seemed functional, and the com control system was operational.
“Artoo! Where are you?” Artoo could hear Threepio calling from somewhere near the Lady’s main hatch. Artoo elected to complete his present task before responding. He continued the com check, moving on to tests on the ship’s lowest priority communications device, the radionics system.
All the radionics systems seemed functional. But there was one odd thing. In spite of the jamming, it seemed to be receiving a signal. But of course. The archaic electromagnetic-radiation signaling system could not be affected by jamming of hyperwave subspace frequencies anymore than poisoned human food could hurt a droid. There was no way for the radionics system to detect subspace signals, let alone be jammed by them.
Artoo began to examine the signal. It was repeating, over and over again. A beacon, perhaps, or a distress call.
“Artoo! Artoo! Where are you!” Threepio’s voice again, closer and more insistent this time. Artoo tried to concentrate on interpreting the signal. It was quite a simple pattern in many ways, but he was not used to dealing with nondigital signaling, or with radionics. It appeared to be an analog transmission, though he could not be sure of that without—
BLANG! Threepio’s hand slapped down on the top of Artoo’s sensor dome. “Artoo! Look alive, will you? Master Luke wants you on the flag deck at once to record the tactics report. Stop running those redundant checks, unplug yourself, and come with me at once!”
Artoo ceased his analysis at once, disengaged from the Lady Luck’s data port, and hurried after Threepio. The tactical report could well provide vital data. Analysis of low-priority signals would just have to wait.
* * *
Han sat back in his flight chair, immensely restless. Watching Salculd do a semicompetent job of flying her ship was not doing his mood much good. Han was aboard the Selonian’s nameless cone-shaped ship as it lumbered across space, taking its own sweet time about the passage to Selonia. Han was starting to lose whatever slight patience he had for the situation. They were a day and a half out from Corellia with perhaps another day’s travel to go. Unfortunately, the key word in all that was “perhaps.” Han was starting to believe they were never going to get anywhere.
The coneship had already suffered two propulsion failures, and Han had been drafted to perform repairs both times. What he saw of the propulsion systems in the process had not put him at his ease. It seemed the whole sublight propulsion system was held together with spit and string.
Nor had Dracmus, serving as the ship’s commander, shown the best judgment. Dracmus had ordered three evasive course changes in response to what seemed to be wholly imaginary threats from the handful of craft that were braving the spaceways. Given the extremely limited capacity of the coneship’s sensors, there seemed very little point to any attempt at evasive maneuver. The only ships they could detect were the ones moving very slowly and not very far away. Nor could the coneship run fast if she were attacked, and she could not shoot at all. Unless they were attacked by an overburdened spacetug, they were fair game for anyone. There was, therefore, very little point in trying to stay out of sight. Dracmus, however, was not convinced by these arguments. It was starting to sink in with Han that the Selonians might be the masters of the underworld, but they needed a little practice to get good at ship handling, to put it charitably.
Of course, there were benefits to being a passenger on a slow-moving ship. Being onboard any ship, even one this crude, meant getting off his hands and knees, meant a chance to take at least a sponge bath and rinse out his clothes—opportunities he had not had since being captured by the Human League forces. It meant a chance to rest, to recuperate, to let a full day pass without sustaining a new injury, to use the medkit to patch himself up at least a little.
Yes indeed, looked at it that way, there were benefits. Maybe he should take a little nap. He was just on the verge of closing his eyes when the alarms blew. He was halfway out of his restraint harness, about to rush to battle stations, when it dawned on him that he had no battle station on this boat.
Dracmus materialized from her stateroom. “What is it?” she called to Salculd.
Salculd was at her pilot’s station, frantically twisting dials and setting switches, and did not answer at once. It took a full fifteen seconds for her to get the alarms cut off and the flight system back under some sort of control. Good thing it wasn’t a real emergency, Han thought. Otherwise we’d all have been killed before she had the alarms reset.
“Detector alert,” Salculd said at last. “Another ship. No, three—no, four others. They just popped out of nowhere, out of hyperspace.”
“But what about the interdiction field?” Han protested.
“It’s still there,” Salculd said. “But the ships got through it, somehow. They’re coming from starboard, moving straight for us, and for Selonia.”
“Full evasive!” Dracmus ordered at once, not waiting for details.
“Wait! Hold it!” Han shouted, trying to get them to stop in time. A glance at the display boards made it clear the newcomers were at least two and a half days away at any sort of reasonable acceleration. Besides which, who would send four big ships in pursuit of this glorified go-cart?
But it was too late. For all of Salculd’s irreverent posturing, she had never been anything but quick off the mark in obeying Dracmus’s orders. She slammed the sublight engines up to maximum and heeled the nose of the ship hard over.
“Don’t throttle up so hard!” Han shouted. “Your power relay inverters can’t handle too many hard power-ups!”
And the sickening thud they heard a moment later told Han he had understated the case. The inverters could not handle any more hard power-ups.
“You’ve blown the primary power regulator!” Han shouted. “Throttle down before you lose the backup, too!”
Salculd looked over at Han, a wild look in her eye. “But Dracmus ordered me to—”
“But nothing! You can’t perform evasive maneuvers if the engines blow out! Throttle down!”
Salculd needed no more convincing. She lunged for the controls and pulled the throttle back.
Nothing happened. The ship continued to accelerate wildly.
“Backup regulator’s blown!” Han said. Without the regulators in place to mediate—and end—the power reactions, the ship’s sublight engines would do nothing more than run flat out at maximum power, until they melted down or exploded, taking the ship with
them.
Han scrambled out of his flight chair and dove for the access ladder to the lower deck. He swarmed down the ladder and rushed to the power relay inverter array. He popped the access panel open and spent a frantic moment or two searching through the mishmash of nonstandard components for the manual emergency cut-off switch. He spotted it and yanked it down hard. The sublight engines died with a sickening lurch. The switch was already hot enough to burn his fingers. A moment’s examination confirmed his worst fears. The power coupling runaway had blown out the sublight engine initiator link. No point in even checking to see if the engines had held together. Without the initiator link, there was no way to start the engines in the first place.
They were stranded but good.
Han made sure that the array had dropped into cool-down mode properly and then went back forward to the control cabin at the apex of the cone, stopping off at the head just long enough to wet down a towel and wrap it around his burnt hand.
“We’re all right for the moment,” he announced. “I found the cut-off in time to keep the ship from blowing out. But we’re derelict.”
“Derelict?”
“We can’t maneuver the ship,” Han said. “Whatever course we had at the time I threw the cut-off is the course we’re going to have, unless someone comes along and rescues us.”
“Is there no way to fix it?” Dracmus asked.
“Maybe,” Han said, “if we’re very lucky and we don’t crash into a planet or into Corell or starve to death before we can do the job. If the engines themselves haven’t melted down, all we have to do is make ourselves a new initiator link—but that could take months.” The coneship made the Millennium Falcon look maintenance-free. “Who maintains this ship for you—your worst enemy?”
“In a sense, yes,” said Dracmus. “It is because our enemies have denied us access to regular spaceports and seized all our ships that we are forced to use these craft. They’ve been in storage for twenty standard years.”
“And you just wheeled them out, pushed the ‘on’ switch, and hoped for the best?” Han asked.
Assault at Selonia Page 24
