Star Wars: Choices of One

by Timothy Zahn

  “I assume they didn’t do any better than the last bunch?”

  “Not really,” Mara said. “The bad news is that Pakrie got away. Are you still in contact with Skywalker?”

  “I can be,” LaRone confirmed. “What do you need?”

  “I’m guessing that Pakrie will be calling Stelikag, if he hasn’t already, with the bad news,” Mara said. “I’m not sure which way they’ll jump, but with Pakrie warning them I’m on the scene, I assume they’ll either intensify the hunt for you or else run off to bolster the guard on the hostages. Hopefully, it’ll be the latter. Either way, I need Skywalker to stay on top of Stelikag.”

  “Got it,” LaRone said. “I’ll call him right away.”

  “And watch yourselves,” Mara added. “Stelikag could just as easily decide to jump in your direction.”

  “We’ll be ready.”

  Mara clicked off the comlink and returned it to her belt, her eyes on the alien corpses littering the foyer floor.

  They hadn’t been in the suite an hour earlier. They hadn’t come in the front door with Pakrie. Ergo, there was another entrance somewhere in the suite, one she hadn’t spotted on her last trip through the facility.

  It was time to correct that omission.

  Shifting her lightsaber to her left hand, she drew her hold-out blaster and headed back inside.

  THEY LEFT THE TAPCAF ABOUT HALF AN HOUR AGO,” LUKE TOLD LaRone, holding the comlink surreptitiously at the edge of his hood as he moved casually along the busy walkway. “They picked up a couple of small portable scanners from their landspeeder, split up into two groups, and are walking the side streets near the palace. I think they’ve finally realized that Axlon’s call is overdue and are hunting for you.”

  “They’ll be hunting a lot harder in a minute,” LaRone said. “We think they’re about to get a call—”

  “Hold it,” Luke interrupted, peering through his electromonocular. “Stelikag’s got the call, all right. And he does not look happy.”

  “You need to stay with them,” LaRone said. “They may lead you to the hostages.”

  Luke grimaced. Great … except that Stelikag had a landspeeder, while Luke was on foot. If the kidnappers decided to drive to their destination, there was no way he could keep up with them.

  Sure enough, Stelikag made an abrupt U-turn and headed rapidly back down the walkway in the direction of their landspeeder. “They’re on the move,” Luke reported. “You have any vehicles parked southwest of the palace gate that I can borrow?”

  “No, nothing,” LaRone said. There was a faint, indistinct voice from somewhere at the other end. “Marcross says to knock a citizen down and steal one if you have to. Just don’t let Stelikag get away.” He clicked off.

  Luke returned the comlink to his sash. It was all very well, he thought darkly, for Marcross to talk about stealing a landspeeder. They were former stormtroopers who’d probably commandeered vehicles all the time. But that wasn’t something Luke was either comfortable or experienced with.

  But there were lives at stake. If he didn’t have to hurt anyone along the way, maybe he would be able to steal something.

  Unfortunately, that would take time, and Stelikag was already on his way back to the gang’s landspeeder. Luke was closer, but he wasn’t close enough to find a vehicle of his own before Stelikag got to his.

  Unless Luke could find a way to sabotage it.

  He wasn’t sure how he was going to do that, not without the damage being obvious. But it was worth a try. Ducking into one of the narrow alleyways that paralleled the street, he broke into a run.

  Stelikag had parked their vehicle in a similar alley behind the tapcaf where they’d been waiting for the confirmation call that Axlon never made. Luke glanced around the bales of compacted garbage and rows of bins as he jogged up to it, confirmed that he was unobserved, and popped open the hood.

  The landspeeder was larger and more ornate than the battered SoroSuub X-34 he’d owned back on Tatooine, but the engine layout was basically the same. He leaned over the opening, getting a grip on the lightsaber tucked into his sash, searching for a likely wire to cut.

  He froze as something hard pressed suddenly into his back. “Well, well, look who we have here.”

  Carefully, Luke turned his head a few degrees, his hand still gripping his lightsaber. It was one of Stelikag’s men, the man Quiller had shot twice in the leg during the stormtroopers’ rescue outside the palace gate. His injuries must have gotten him assigned to watch over the gang’s vehicle. Clearly, Luke’s quick check of the area had missed him.

  And unless he did something fast, this whole thing was going to fall apart. “It’s not too late to change sides,” he told the thug. “You can’t win—the governor’s well hidden and you don’t have the numbers to find him. But you can still make a deal to get out of this.”

  “Nice try,” the man said. “Thing is, Skywalker, you’ve already been seen in public, so we really don’t need you anymore. And Stelikag will pay the bounty he put on you whether you’re alive or dead.” The blaster pressing against Luke’s back shifted slightly as the man repositioned it directly in line with Luke’s heart. “So long, kid.”

  There was nothing Luke could do. No time for thought, no time for any other action. Bracing himself, wincing with anticipation and regret, he ignited his lightsaber.

  The blade snap-hissed through his sash, the back of his tunic, and the gunman standing behind him. The pressure of the blaster muzzle against his back vanished, and without a sound the man crumpled to the ground.

  Luke closed down the lightsaber and turned around, his heart thudding in his throat as he stared at the body lying at his feet. It had been fully justified, he told himself firmly. The man was a kidnapper, a traitor, and a would-be murderer. And he’d clearly stated his intention to kill Luke where he stood.

  Still, killing this way felt different than it did from the isolation of his X-wing cockpit. Enormously, painfully different. It tore a fresh line across his heart every time he did it, and he suspected that it always would.

  And it would all be for nothing if he couldn’t hide the body and sabotage the landspeeder before Stelikag and the rest of the gang arrived.

  Or maybe there was another way.

  Luke’s X-34 hadn’t had any real storage space. Stelikag’s did, an impressively large lidded compartment in the rear, complete with a dozen large blaster rifles laid out on top of a blanket. A minute later, having dumped the blasters in the nearest garbage bin, Luke heaved the dead thug up over the edge and dropped him into the storage compartment in their place.

  And then, realizing all too well the horrible risk he was taking, he climbed in behind the body. Closing the lid over him, he covered himself with the blanket and laid himself as flat as he could, working a few folds into the material so that it would look like it was simply bunched up.

  Just in time. Even as he made his last adjustments to the blanket he heard voices approaching. He stretched out to the Force, trying to hear better.

  “—the blazes is Kofter?” he heard Stelikag snarl as the men hurried up to the vehicle. “Bams, get him on the comlink. Everyone else get in—”

  The voice suddenly cut off as, beside Luke, the comlink on the dead thug’s belt began to signal.

  The sound went on for a solid five seconds, accompanied by an utter silence from the men gathered outside. Luke braced himself, gripping his lightsaber tightly.

  And then, with a sudden violent creaking from the hinges, the storage compartment lid was flung open.

  For another moment the comlink was again the only sound Luke could hear. He held his breath …

  The comlink went silent. “Well,” Stelikag said into the rigid stillness, a bitterness in his voice that sent a chill up Luke’s back. “At least now we know where Skywalker and those stormtroopers went. Seems they’ve got our spare blasters.”

  “How did they get the drop on Kofter?” someone demanded. “No, wait a second—I want to see what
they did—”

  With a swoosh, the lid slammed shut. “You want to do an autopsy right out here?” Stelikag snarled, his voice muffled now by the closed lid. “Where anyone can look out of those windows up there and see that we’re lugging around a corpse? And never mind the blasters—there are more where those came from. Mikks, get in. Everyone else, get back out on the street. I want Ferrouz, and I want him now.”

  “What about Kofter?” someone asked.

  “We’ll take him back and deal with him when we’ve finished the job,” Stelikag said. “You just find Ferrouz.”

  “And Skywalker?”

  “Oh, yes,” Stelikag said, almost too quietly for Luke to hear. “You find him, too.” The landspeeder leapt forward, the acceleration shoving Luke back against the body beside him.

  He took a careful breath. So far, the gamble was working. Stelikag’s reaction to a dead body in his landspeeder had been to get it out of sight instead of pausing to investigate more closely. Until they reached their destination, and probably even for a while past that, Luke should be able to avoid detection.

  Now, if only LaRone was right about them heading to the place where Ferrouz’s family was being held.

  Sliding his lightsaber back into his sash, Luke stretched out to the Force for calm and settled in to wait.

  Han had never liked Axlon. The man had been condescending and irritating, and more than once on the way to the Poln system Han had toyed with the idea of giving him a walk out the Falcon’s air lock.

  But never in his wildest dreams had he suspected this.

  “You’re sure?” he asked Chewie across the makeshift conference table Cracken had set up in his transport.

  The Wookiee warbled a grim confirmation. “I’m sure Chewbacca is telling the truth as he was told it,” Cracken said. “The question for you, Solo, is whether you believe this LaRone character.”

  “Absolutely,” Han said without hesitation. “Chewie and I worked with LaRone and his pals before. So did Luke. Besides, he’s got no reason to lie.”

  “Why?” Cracken pressed. “Because Governor Axlon was a Rebel and LaRone is a stormtrooper?”

  “Former stormtrooper,” Han corrected. “And yes, because Axlon was a Rebel. There’s a bounty on all our heads. You know that. An Imperial—any Imperial—can shoot any of us down in the street. He wouldn’t need to concoct a story.”

  Cracken pursed his lips. “What about Luke?” he asked. “You think he was telling the truth on that, too?”

  Han looked over at Leia. But she was just sitting quietly at her end of the table, staring at her datapad like she had been ever since the meeting started. As if she wasn’t even listening to the discussion.

  “If LaRone says he’s all right, then he is,” he said, looking back at Cracken. “And no, I don’t know why he hasn’t contacted us. You can ask him when he gets back.”

  “Assuming travel between here and Poln Major isn’t about to be violently disrupted,” Cracken said grimly. “Which brings us to your cheerful bit of news. First of all, do you have any idea whose warships they are?”

  Han shook his head. “They weren’t any design I’ve ever seen. But given that Nuso Esva’s the only alien in the equation, and given that everything Axlon told us about him being on our side was probably a lie, I’m guessing they’re his.”

  “You think he’s working for the Empire?” one of the chief techs asked.

  “Not unless the Empire’s started assassinating its own governors,” a major whose name Han hadn’t caught growled. “The big question is what an independent contractor could possibly need with that much firepower. Especially here.”

  “I see three possibilities,” Cracken said. “Straight-up piracy against Poln Major’s shipping, an attack on one of the Imperial facilities in the system, or an attack on us.”

  “I vote for the latter,” the major rumbled. “No point in luring us here otherwise.”

  “Agreed,” Cracken said. “Which leads to the next question: how fast can we pack up and run?”

  “Well, that’s going to be a problem, isn’t it?” the major said grimly. “Even if we abandon everything that’s not already on the transports, it’ll take a couple of hours just to collect everyone and get them aboard the ships.”

  “And then to get them out of here,” one of the transport captains put in, “we either have to get the transports back to Yellowstrike Spaceport or else maneuver them through the conveyance tunnel maze and find a different way out.”

  “Something Nuso Esva will already have thought of,” one of the other captains pointed out. “Odds are that private hangar of his is within easy striking distance of the spaceport.”

  “We’ll never get those transports out through the spaceport,” the major warned. “Not with enemies sitting that close. The blasted things take off like overstuffed waddle birds.”

  “Which means we need to find that nest and neutralize it,” Cracken said, turning to Wedge. “Antilles?”

  Wedge shook his head. “Sorry, Colonel. We tried every tunnel in the whole area where we intercepted Solo and Princess Leia. There was no sign of the landspeeders that were chasing them, or anything else we could track.”

  Han grimaced. He knew now that the landspeeders hadn’t been trying to catch their speeder bus, but had been simply following behind them in order to wipe out the telltale repulsorlift marks he and Leia had been using to find their way back.

  With all the twists and turns they’d made along the way, it was for sure they weren’t going to get back to the cavern without those marks. Not anytime soon. “There has to be some way to find them,” he insisted.

  “There is,” Leia said, looking up in triumph from her datapad. “And I have.”

  Han glanced around the table. Practically everyone there was staring at Leia with one degree or another of astonishment or disbelief.

  All of them except Cracken. But then, he’d probably known her the longest. “Explain,” he said.

  “When Han and Chewie first landed at Quartzedge Port, three of Nuso Esva’s men were there on guard,” she said. “It wasn’t anything to do with us, because once Han told them he was heading for the Anyat-en caverns they basically lost interest in him.”

  “Because they were there to keep an eye on something else,” Han said as he saw where she was going. “They were moving the missiles from the port to their cavern.”

  “That’s my guess,” Leia confirmed. “Because we also know it was only a couple of days later that they started hiring outside people to mount and calibrate them. That must be when they realized the job was going to take too long for them to handle on their own.” She tapped her datapad. “There’s only one other long-distance tunnel coming out of Quartzedge, and it only connects with a certain number of others that are wide enough for heavy-lift speeder trucks. Add in the conveyance tunnel we know is at the other end of the target cavern, add in the tunnel area where Wedge picked us up, throw in the fact that the cavern is close to the surface, and we get—”

  “Wait a second,” Han interrupted, frowning. “How do you know we were close to the surface?”

  “Because the whole ceiling was wired with shaped charges,” Leia said, frowning. “That’s probably how they plan to get the ships out—they’ll want to bring them out all together, and with the conveyance tunnel they’d have to go one at a time. Didn’t you notice?”

  “ ’Course I did,” Han lied. All that time studying the ships, the tunnels, the aliens, and the hired thugs, and he’d never once thought to look up. That was just plain embarrassing. “I meant how do you know blowing the ceiling won’t just take them into another cavern or a different conveyance tunnel?”

  “Because the conveyance tunnels aren’t that close together, and just moving to a different cavern makes no sense,” she said patiently. “Anyway, put that all together and assume they’re within a couple hundred kilometers of here, and you get only one possibility.” She gave the datapad a push, sending it sliding across the table t
o Cracken.

  “So we do,” he said, picking it up and peering at the screen. “Excellent work, Princess. Okay. How do we want to take them out?”

  “It won’t be with X-wings,” Han said. “The tunnel we were using is too small, and the conveyance tunnel’s too well defended.”

  “How about our new T-47s?” Wedge suggested. “Ten of them have been checked clear, and they’ll get through anything a speeder bus will.”

  “They aren’t nearly as well armed as the X-wings,” Cracken warned.

  “Firepower won’t matter if we can’t get to them,” Wedge pointed out. “Besides, they think they’re hidden. We’ll have surprise on our side.”

  “Possibly.” Cracken looked around the table. “Any other suggestions?”

  There was a moment of silence. “Then we have a plan,” the colonel concluded. “Let’s get busy and—”

  “One other thing,” Han said, lifting a finger. “What were you planning to do about the Dreadnought and the Golan out there?”

  “I thought your Duros friend said neither of them was a threat,” Leia reminded him.

  “Maybe not to smugglers in little freighters,” Han said. “But big fat Rebel transports are a different matter. Especially since the safe-conduct ID code Axlon got from Ferrouz may have expired.”

  The major hissed something under his breath. “He’s right, Colonel,” he said grimly. “Even if the code’s still functional, we may very well find it was only good for getting our ships into the Poln system, not out of it.”

  Cracken gestured to Han. “You have a suggestion?”

  “Yeah,” Han said, nodding. “Chewie and I take the Falcon over to the Golan, get aboard, and start shooting at the Dreadnought. In all the confusion, you and the transports lift and get clear.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence. “You’re not serious,” Leia said.

  “Why not?” Han said. “Even a full-complement Golan One carries only four hundred men—”

  “Only four hundred?”

  “—and this one’s running at maybe thirty percent,” Han continued. “I figure eighty or ninety, tops, and most of them will be techs and turbolaser gunners. There probably won’t be more than ten with any actual ground combat experience.”