Star Wars: Choices of One

by Timothy Zahn

  He had to get off the bridge and find some troopers or stormtroopers who could deal with this. The turbolifts were frozen, except for the one he’d arrived in, and given what he now knew of the situation, he wasn’t about to trust that one to still be working. But there were other ways out of the aft bridge—

  Abruptly his foot caught on something on the deck. He flailed his arms, trying to recover his balance. But he was moving too fast, and his foot was still caught. Throwing out his hands to catch his fall, hoping he could land without attracting the attention of whoever was firing in there, he fell heavily to the deck.

  Squarely on top of Captain Drusan.

  Pellaeon caught his breath. “Captain?” he breathed. The other’s eyes were closed, his face screwed up with pain, the center of his chest blackened with a close-range blaster burn. “Captain!”

  Drusan’s eyes flicked open. “Pellaeon?” he murmured.

  “Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said, glancing once toward the main bridge and then scrambling back to his knees. The aft bridge’s emergency medpac should have something he could use to treat the captain’s injuries.

  He started to get to his feet, but wobbled off balance again as Drusan caught his sleeve. “No,” the captain murmured.

  “Sir, you’re injured,” Pellaeon said, trying to pry away the other’s hand. But Drusan was gripping him tightly, with far more strength than a man in his condition ought to have. “I have to get the medpac.”

  Drusan shook his head weakly. “He lied to me,” he murmured. “He said that together we would bring a stunning defeat down on the Rebel Alliance. A victory they would never recover from.”

  “Yes, sir, we will,” Pellaeon assured him, pulling vainly at the clutching fingers. “But I have to get to the medpac—”

  “That’s why I endorsed his credentials,” Drusan said. “Don’t you see? He was going to bring us victory.”

  Pellaeon stared at the other, a sudden taste of bile in his mouth. “You endorsed—You knew he was a fraud?”

  “Victory over the Rebellion,” Drusan said, his hand finally loosening. “And then … it would be Admiral … Drusan … Admiral …”

  His hand slipped from Pellaeon’s sleeve, his arm fell to the floor, and he was gone.

  “Commander?” The faint voice came from Pellaeon’s belt.

  Pellaeon grabbed for the comlink and clicked it off, cursing under his breath as he once again looked toward the main bridge. Comlink voices didn’t usually carry, but this was no time to take chances. Fortunately, the firepac breath mask had its own built-in comlink, with its speaker right up against Pellaeon’s ear where no one except him would be able to hear. Turning it on, he again keyed to the ship’s emergency channel. “The bridge is under attack,” he murmured urgently. “Repeat: the bridge is under attack. They’re using vertigon gas, and I think they’re shooting the crewers—”

  “Identify yourself,” an unfamiliar voice ordered.

  Pellaeon frowned. “This is Commander Pellaeon,” he said. “Third bridge—”

  “Commander, this is Senior Captain Thrawn,” the voice said. “What’s your personal status?”

  Pellaeon felt his eyes widen. Thrawn was here?

  Of course he was. Parck had said that Thrawn would likely join them at the Poln system. “I have a breath mask from the bridge firepac,” he said. “Sir, Captain Drusan’s been killed, and I think Lord Odo is the one who murdered him.”

  “His name isn’t Odo, Commander,” Thrawn said grimly. “The man in the mask is Warlord Nuso Esva.”

  For a moment the name didn’t register. Then, in a sudden flush of recognition: “Nuso Esva?”

  “Yes,” Thrawn confirmed. “Are you armed?”

  Pellaeon took a deep, calming breath. “No, sir,” he said. “But if I can find the guards who were on duty I may be able to find a blaster.”

  “There’s no time,” Thrawn said. “You need to keep Nuso Esva from leaving the ship. How did you get to the bridge?”

  “Turbolift,” Pellaeon said mechanically, his mind still trying to wrap itself around this new revelation.

  “Which was obviously functional even though I’m told the rest of the system has been shut down,” Thrawn said. “It follows that he’s planning to use that particular turbolift to make his escape. Are you still with me, Commander?”

  Pellaeon took another deep breath of the cold oxygen. “Yes, sir, I’m here.”

  “Very good,” Thrawn said. “Here’s what you’re going to do …”

  The Golan’s commandant was waiting as Han rode the Falcon’s lift to the upper hatch and into the docking entry bay. So were half a dozen of his fellow officers, plus every single one of the ten trooper types Han had estimated would have ground combat experience. Unlike the officers, those particular ten were wearing belted blasters.

  Han didn’t even glance at them as he strode toward the assembly. The commandant stirred and opened his mouth—

  “Commandant Barcelle,” Han said briskly. Imperial agents and ISB, he knew, always got in the first word. “I need a quick rundown of your current operational status.”

  “Major Axlon, you can’t just come in here—” one of the other officers began.

  “Operational status!” Han snapped, not bothering to look at him as he thrust Axlon’s pass into his hands. “If I have to ask again—”

  “No, sir,” Barcelle said hastily. “We’re at thirty percent capacity, with nine turbolaser batteries and one proton torpedo launcher still functional. Our tractor beam projectors are all down, but—”

  “Commandant!” a frantic voice barked from the bay speaker. “Sir, you have to get up here right away. We’ve got trouble. We’ve got big trouble.”

  Barcelle’s eyes flicked to the speaker, then back to Han. “On my way,” he called. “Major—”

  “We’re wasting time,” Han bit out. He had no idea what the trouble was, but it probably had something to do with him and the Falcon, and he absolutely didn’t want the commandant finding out about it before he did. “Let’s go.”

  The bridge ventilation system had begun to make some headway against the billowing vertigon gas as Nuso Esva’s shadowy figure swept through the archway that separated the main bridge from the aft bridge. He turned toward the turbolift, his cloak rippling through the air.

  From his crouched concealment by the consoles at the other side of the aft bridge, Pellaeon moved toward him quickly and silently, the air-filled hypo he’d taken from the aft bridge medpac gripped in his hand. As he reached Nuso Esva, he raised the hypo over his head and plunged it past the edge of the black metal mask and into the side of the other’s neck.

  Nuso Esva twitched violently, his hand flailing as he tried to slap Pellaeon’s hand away. But it was too late. He half turned, twitched again, and collapsed to the deck.

  Pellaeon took a deep breath, gazing down at the crumpled figure. Thrawn had assured him that an air embolism would kill his target quickly. He hadn’t said whether it would be painful.

  With Captain Drusan dead, plus all those mangled bodies scattered around the Chimaera’s engine room, Pellaeon rather hoped it would be very painful.

  “He’s down,” he announced, dropping to one knee beside the figure. He checked the other’s hands first, knowing it would be a hollow victory indeed if Nuso Esva got a final shot at him.

  But both hands were empty. He must have dropped the blaster somewhere along the way. Turning the other over, Pellaeon got his fingers under the edges of the mask and pulled it off. “Hello, Nus—”

  He broke off, his eyes widening. It wasn’t an unknown enemy alien behind the mask. It was a human.

  It was Sorro.

  “Sorro?” he breathed.

  The other’s eyes fluttered. “My family,” he murmured. “Have I now redeemed them?”

  Pellaeon stared into the gray face, feeling his heart sink. With those four words, it had suddenly become clear. The hold Nuso Esva had had on the melancholy pilot, a hold that had even extended to
the lengths of sabotage and murder. The whole obscure Arkanian legend of a tragic figure named Salaban.

  And the reason the man had taken the name sorrow.

  “Yes, you’ve redeemed them,” Pellaeon said quietly. “They’ll be released now.”

  A small, bitter-edged smile touched Sorro’s lips. “Thank you.”

  The smile was still there as his breathing came to an end.

  “Commander?” Thrawn’s voice came.

  Swallowing hard, Pellaeon got back to his feet. “It wasn’t Nuso Esva,” he said bitterly, turning to the archway leading into the main bridge. The smoke was definitely clearing, and he could see the hazy figures of collapsed crewers scattered across the deck and crumpled in the crew pits. Some were starting to move a little. Others had the immobility of death. “It was Sorro, dressed in Nuso Esva’s mask and clothing.”

  “You didn’t really think I would be so easy to catch, did you?” a new voice cut into the circuit. “Is Sorro dead yet, Commander Pellaeon?”

  Pellaeon felt his breath catch in his throat. The voice was subtly different without the mask. But it was definitely the voice of Lord Odo.

  The voice of Nuso Esva.

  “Yes,” Pellaeon said through stiff lips.

  “Pity,” Nuso Esva said. “He rather liked you, you know. I think he might have told you all about me, had he cared less for his family. Well, Captain Thrawn. Our paths cross one final time.”

  “Perhaps,” Thrawn said. “Commander Pellaeon, a quick assessment of the bridge control settings, if you would.”

  “No need, Commander,” Nuso Esva said as Pellaeon picked his way carefully through the scattered bodies. “I can tell you exactly what your settings will show. The Chimaera is currently under low power, its course locked and, for the moment at least, completely unchangeable.”

  “Commander?” Thrawn prompted.

  “Yes, sir, I’m almost there,” Pellaeon said as he headed down the steps toward the helm station.

  “Your Star Destroyers are remarkable instruments of war,” Nuso Esva continued, his tone almost that of a training course lecturer. “But they have serious weaknesses. The ventilation system, for one. Not only is it totally inadequate for the rapid clearing of a gas attack, as Commander Pellaeon has already discovered, but it also provides a perfect pathway for Arakyd Mark Two seekers.”

  Pellaeon frowned. “You were holding that seeker,” he said. “It wasn’t in the ventilation system.”

  “That one wasn’t, no,” Nuso Esva said scornfully. “That was the one the other seekers were set to search for.”

  Pellaeon clenched his teeth. Seekers in the vents, following Odo as he carefully walked the target seeker along the proper pathway to the engine-control consoles. With the big MSE droid show purely there to distract the crewers’ attention.

  And as Pellaeon stood over the remains of the bridge’s blaster-wrecked helm console, he saw why.

  “The helm station has been destroyed, sir,” he reported, his pulse pounding suddenly. “The Chimaera is locked on a collision vector with the Golan defense platform orbiting Poln Major. ETA—” He swallowed. “ETA, fourteen minutes.”

  “Sir!” another voice cut in. “Commander Pellaeon? Aft sensors are reporting that a new group of ships has entered the region. Configurations match those of the alien warships of Captain Parck’s engagement at Teptixii.”

  “I mean to destroy you, Captain Thrawn,” Nuso Esva said, his voice soft and cold. “But first, your soldiers and subordinates are going to watch as you make your final, fatal choice.”

  “What choice is that?” Thrawn asked.

  “In fourteen minutes, unless something is done, the Chimaera and the Golan will destroy each other in a fiery collision,” Nuso Esva said. “The other ships of your task force are helpless to interfere. I have all of them trapped here by Poln Minor, and should any of them attempt to leave their current positions my Firekilns have been ordered to intercept and destroy. The only way to prevent the collision is for either the Chimaera or the Golan to open fire and destroy the other.”

  Pellaeon looked up at the bridge viewport. Through the last remaining tendrils of smoke he could see the blinking lights of the Golan defense platform in the distance.

  And the Chimaera was indeed heading straight toward it.

  “You, Captain Thrawn, will make that decision,” Nuso Esva said quietly. “You will decide which of your Empire’s precious war machines you will order destroyed.

  “You will decide which of your Emperor’s warriors will die.”

  LUKE’S FIRST WARNING WAS A SUDDEN BARKING OF ORDERS FROM THE cavern, the clink of weapons being yanked off racks, and the sound of scrambling feet.

  His first, horrified thought was that they were on to him. But a second later he realized that couldn’t be the case. If Stelikag knew or suspected someone was out here, he wouldn’t be making nearly this much noise about it. He would instead order a quiet, stealthy search, hoping to catch the intruder napping.

  So all the noise and flurry out there wasn’t on account of him. But then who was it on account of?

  His stomach tightened. It was LaRone, of course. LaRone, the other stormtroopers, and Governor Ferrouz.

  And whatever they’d done, they’d managed to make Stelikag extremely angry.

  That didn’t sound good. Not for them, and not for Luke. He was still huddled in the firing niche beside the vehicle barrier, where he would be in the direct view of anyone who happened to look to his left as he hurried past.

  For a second Luke wondered if he had time to get back out into the main tunnel, where there was more cover. But it was way too late for that.

  But he still had the blanket he’d taken from Stelikag’s landspeeder. If the kidnappers were in as much of a hurry as they’d been back in the city, the same trick might work again.

  At this point he had little choice but to try it. Scrunching himself down into as small a package as he could all the way at the back of the niche, he flipped the blanket up and over his head, draping it into a casual covering over his torso, legs, and feet.

  Three seconds later, the hurrying footsteps became a thundering stampede as the men charged past.

  Luke held his breath, reaching out to the Force. Back on Tatooine, Ben Kenobi had been able to deflect stormtrooper interest away from himself, Luke, and the two droids Leia had sent. Unfortunately, Luke had no idea how to do that particular trick. All he could do was stay motionless, try to look innocent, and hope that would be good enough.

  Apparently, it was. The running footsteps rose to a crescendo, then faded echoing into the near distance. The steps stopped, were replaced by the hum of half a dozen repulsorlifts and the opening and closing of doors, and then the repulsorlifts too faded into silence.

  Cautiously, Luke eased the blanket away from his head and focused his senses. There were still the sounds of footsteps coming from the cavern, plus the murmur of low voices.

  How many of the kidnappers were left he couldn’t tell. But the number was certainly much smaller than it had been a few minutes ago.

  Small enough, maybe, that he could now risk going in there to try to find Ferrouz’s family?

  He chewed at his lip. Not yet, he decided reluctantly. LaRone had said there was someone else on the way. For now, he would sit back and let whoever it was take the lead.

  Moving back up to the edge of the niche, he gazed into the cavern, fingered his lightsaber restlessly, and settled down to wait.

  Lying on her stomach on the catwalk, Mara permitted herself a small smile. The comlink call had come in, Stelikag had gone berserk, and twenty men and aliens had grabbed blasters and grenades and taken off down the vehicle tunnel. There they’d loaded themselves into what had sounded like at least half a dozen landspeeders and burned out of there as if Lord Vader himself were after them.

  Whatever LaRone had done to the team back in town, it must have been highly impressive. She just hoped he hadn’t pushed Stelikag into handing him and the o
thers more than they could chew.

  Resolutely, she pushed the thought away. They were Imperial stormtroopers, and they would handle their part of the operation.

  It was time for Mara to get busy and handle hers.

  The remaining guards, she noted, were still glancing up occasionally in her direction. But the looks seemed now to be more casual than they had been before, more from rote obedience to orders rather than from a sense that they would actually see anything. At this point, in fact, it was quite possible that they were assuming Mara wasn’t coming in at all, but had gone back into the city and joined forces with LaRone.

  The more she thought about it, the more likely that seemed. It would certainly help explain Stelikag’s decision to send more than half of his force away.

  Unless Stelikag had decided that there was no need for them because there would soon be no one left for anyone to guard.

  Mara squeezed her hand around her hold-out blaster, then consciously relaxed her grip. Allowing tension to get hold of her would do nothing but block her access to the Force. Willing calmness to flow into her instead, she gazed down at the men wandering around below. They all knew where the governor’s family was being kept. If she could read their eyes and body language accurately enough, maybe she could figure it out, too.

  Stelikag was standing near the vehicle tunnel, next to one of the shed-sized buildings, talking with two other men. His face looked calm enough, but Mara could tell from the way he was drumming his thumb against the side of his hand that he was still on the bleeding edge of fury.

  She focused on his eyes. They seemed to be gazing mostly on his discussion companions. Even when he glanced away it wasn’t toward any of the cavern’s structures but to the vehicle tunnel. The other two men had their backs to Mara, but their head movements didn’t seem to indicate any particular interest in any of the buildings, either.

  And then, just as she was wondering if they were simply talking about weather or politics, Stelikag gestured behind him. Behind him, and above him.

  The direction of the stairs at the far end of the cavern, and the decrepit overseer control cabin up at the ceiling.