Star Wars - The Corellian Trilogy - Assault At Selonia

by Allen McBride

  "It is approximately fourteen standard years since you have had any contact with her," Threepio went on, in the relentlessly cheerful tone of voice he always seemed to use when he was putting his foot in it. "While the diplomatic phase of our mission will be quite delicate, I would not concern myself overmuch about how she reacts to seeing you.

  Why, given the unreliability of human psychology, it is quite possible that she will not even remember you."

  "I remember her" Luke said in a quiet voice.

  "I see that you do," said Threepio. "But I do not believe that you have had the opportunity to review her career since your last contact."

  "Let me guess," Lando growled. "You took it upon yourself to link yourself to the Upper Bloovatavian Historical Reference Data Bank and download her entire life story into that ruSty tin head of yours."

  "I am not familiar with Upper Bloovatavia, Captain Calrissian. However, the material on Gaeriel Captison was readily available in the Diplomatic Archives of Co 52 Reeler--. Anna ASMULTATaWLONFA 53

  ruscant University. I might add that there was no tin at all used in the construction of my head, and, furthermore, tin does not rust."

  "Luke, would it really bother you that much if I put just a few blaster holes in him?" Lando asked.

  Luke managed a wan smile and glanced back at Threepio. "Don't be so hard on him, Lando. After all, he did save your life when you were about to marry the life witch on Leria Kersil."

  "Yeah, but if it means I have to listen to him, I'm not sure it was worth it," Lando said.

  "Well!" Threepio said. "I never! I don't know why I bother collecting information when it seems no one is the least bit interested in it"

  "Go ahead," Luke said in a soothing tone of voice.

  "Tell me what you've got on Gaeriel."

  "Would you care for a complete report, or just a summary?"

  "Just the summary, thank you very much." Threepio's idea of complete report might take from here until the end of time to recite.

  "Very good, Master Luke. Well, there is really not that much to tell. She continued in politics after the Ssiruuk were defeated and became a powerful figure in her faction of the senate. After holding various posts of increasing importance, she became the youngest person ever to hold the post of Prime Minister on Bakura."

  "I didn't know she had become Prime Minister,' Luke said, though there was no particular reason to be surprised. She was young and smart and ambitious. Why shouldn't she rise to the top?

  "I am afraid she not only became Prime Minister, but then ceased to be Prime Minister. Her party was defeated in the last elections.

  Several press accounts attribute this to her being distracted from the campaign by the illness and death of her husband."

  "Husband?" Luke said. "She had a husband?"

  "Oh, yes, Master Luke. Did I neglect to mention that? She married about six years ago, to a man called Pter Thanas a former Imperial officer. I believe you met him during our time in Bakur& They had a child, a girl, whom they named Malinza. She is now four and half standard years old. Thanas contracted a lingering ailment with which I am not familiar, something called Knowt's disease, just as the campaign was getting under way, and expired two days after Gaeriel's party was defeated. It would seem that she's out of active politics, at least for the moment."

  That large a dose of news hit Luke hard. Strange to think that Gaeriel had gained and lost a husband, reached to and fallen from the heights of power on her world, and given birth to a daughter, all without Luke knowing a thing about it.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind he had held a picture of Gaeriel. He realized with a shock just how unchanging that image had been. In his mind's eye, she had stayed the effervescent young woman he had known, all the drive and enthusiasm of youth eternally hers, frozen in time. But he should have known bette Life was not like that.

  Luke felt he should say something, but he didn't know what.

  Somehow he did not much want to explain his feelings to Landand certainly not to Threepio. "I hadn't heard any news of her in a long time," he said.

  "I'm sorry to hear that Thanas died."

  "But that was over a year ago, Master Luke. She is more than likely over it by now.

  Somehow Luke doubted that. The Gaeriel he remembered was not the type to many on a whim. She would have married a man she loved very deeply. She might well have gotten on with her life by now-but she would not have gotten over her husband.

  And she had had a child, a daughter.

  Gaeriel. He thought of her, and all the possibilities that name had represented in his mind. He had always doubted that he would ever marry. Romantic love had never seemed to be part of his destiny. Even a Jedi Master could not see far into the future, but Luke needed little more than common sense to know that a life such as his had little room for the pleasures of ordinary people. There were times when his extraordinary gifts were compensation enough-and there were times when they were not.

  Luke knew perfectly well that he treasured leia's children in large part because they represented as much family as he was ever likely to have. He thought he had come to be at peace with that fact.

  Now he knew he was wrong.

  "Given that you once knew her well, I have a good deal of additional information on her that might prove interesting. Much of it is from the less reliable segments of the press, and is somewhat speculative. However-"

  "Look," said Lando, "I don't know the whole story, and I don't want to. But it seems to me that Luke might not want to have this discussion in front of me."

  "Thank you, Lando," Luke said. "I appreciate that.

  We'll talk later, Threepio." He undid his seat restraint.

  "Actually, I think I could do with a bit of time to myself right now. Call me if you need me for anything. I'll be in my cabin."

  "Sure thing, Luke," Lando said. "I don't think anything's going to come up." Luke nodded absently and headed aft toward his cabin. When he got there, he slid the hatch open, shut it behind him, and flopped down on his back. He lay back so he could stare at the overhead bulkhead in comfort.

  Amazing how a name from the past could affect someone.

  Belindi Kalenda watched the navicomputer's countdown clock and took a deep breath. Thirty seconds.

  Thirty seconds until she dropped out of hyperspace into the Coruscant system. The moment she did so, she knew she was going to land in a world of trouble. The X-TIE had nothing she could cobble together into an interrogator that would send an approved identity code. On top of that, her craft was of an unknown type that carried a lot of ex-Imperial hardware.

  Kalenda knew just how twitchy the automatic systems were on the subject of Imperial spacecraft. When the auto detectors spotted the TIE side shields welded to the X-wing body, every detector screen in the system would light up like a glitterdance projector.

  Her only hope was that she could patch through to NRI headquarters, and do it fast, before half of Coru cant Command started blazing away at her. She would have to make a voice call to NRI HQ, use a one-shot word code, and convince them she was legitimate, while doing her best to stay alive.

  Twenty seconds. Ty not to think about the last time you dropped out of hyperspace, into Corellian space, she thought. The locals shot your ship out from under you almost before you knew what was happening.

  You don't want to try a crash landing onto Coruscant No, indeed.

  Eighteen seconds. Check that comiink one more time. Confirm the frequency setting on the thing. You don't want to send your SOS to the Bureau of Agronomic Policy Adjustment by accident. No, indeed.

  Fifteen second& Check the navicomputer one last time. It would be just your luck if the brutalized thing scrammed up its programming and dropped you outside the authorized arrival zoneor locked up for good and all and never dropped you out of hyperspace. Ships vanished every once in a while. No doubt about that. Check it again. No desire to be one of them.

  Ten seconds. Weapons systems powered up or powere
d down? If Coruscant Command spotted your turbo laser juiced up, they'd be just that more tempted to fire at once. But if they fired missiles at you, you might be able to shoot them down, f your weapons were at the ready on arrival. But suppose the power surge from switching them on was just enough to wonk out the navicomputer? And how likely were they to shoot missiles and nOt blaster fire? Leave the weapons systems off.

  Seven seconds. Shields. Shields were a different matter. On, definitely on. But don't risk the power surge to the navicomputer.

  Slap the shield switch as soon as dropout is complete.

  If dropout ever happened. Five seconds.

  Four.

  Three.

  flwo. Be ready for manual cutoff if the autos drop the ball.

  One. Hand on manual cutoff switch.

  Zer And the universe flared into existence around her, star lines blasting out from the center, flashing past her before they resolved down mt0 the familiar stars and sky of Coruscant. She had made it.

  Now if she could just manage to stay alive long enough to enjoy it.

  She powered up the X-TIE's shieldand saw the navicomputer flicker and wink out before it popped back on with zeroed-out coordinates.

  Kalenda congratulated herself on holding off the shields until after arrival, and then started worrying about other things.

  Comlink. Activate the comlink. Pray that the NRI was still on that frequency. She keyed the switch and spoke.

  "Dartmakers out of luck with frequently iced manifolds.

  Dartmakers out of luck with frequently iced manifolds. Dartmakers out of luck with frequently iced manifolds."

  The nonsense phrase was supposed to be stored in some NRI computer somewhere, keyed to her voice pattern. In theory, three repeats of the phrase would track the coordinates of whatever craft sent the signal, and send an emergency clearance to Coruscant Thallic Control, while sending an allclear to Coruscant Command. A nice theory, all in all.

  Unless the computers were down, or some fogbrain had changed the procedure, or erased her phrase-voice match, or someone in Coruscant Command decided not to take NRI's word that the mystery ship was on their side.

  Three repeats of the phrase. Wait two minutes, and send three more repeats. Wait another two minutes, and send the third and final set of repeats. That was the standard procedure, and Kalenda planned to follow it, if she lived long enough.

  In the meantime she'd best get her ship's detector such as they were-powered up. She threw the appropriate switches and was more disappointed than surprised when nothing happened. Whoever had slapped this Ugly together out of spare parts had probably meant it for some sort of raider support job. It was supposed to follow the other ships in and start shooting when the enemy showed up. Keeping the detection system up to speed would be a real low-maintenance priority.

  "Should have been more choosy about what ship I stole," Kalenda muttered to herself. She might be able to bring the detectors back on-line if she worked on it for half an hour. Then again, she might not-and besides, she definitely did not have half an hour.

  In fact, it looked as if she did not have even half a minute.

  There. Coming in hard and fast from dead ahead-a full flight of six Y-wings, all of them looking very much as if they meant business.

  Her hand was on the joystick and she was doing a hard roll to starboard before she had even consciously decided to take evasive action. A turbolaser blast sliced straight through the piece of space she occupied just a moment before. Still working on sheer reflex, she started powering up the weapons systems before she realized that the Y-wings were on her side. She didn't want to shoot them down. If it had been a choice between trading the life of one or two fighter pilots and the chance to get word of the plot to blow up the star of an inhabited planet, she would have gone to the attack without a moment's hesitation, although with a great deal of regret. But against six fighters-and whatever else Coruscant would throw at her if she acted hostileshe knew there was no chance at all of her information surviving.

  Her only hope was to go evasive and stay that way long enough for the NRI to scramble a clearance. She checked her chronometer and realized it was time for her to repeat the message. Another laser blast nearly clipped her portside screen, and she flipped the X-TIE and jinked sideways.

  She switched on the comlink and started talking.

  "Dartmakers out of luck with frequently iced manifolds.

  Dartmakers Out of luck with frequently iced manifolds. Dartmakers out of luck with frequently iced manifolds." She chanted the words as if they were some sort of mantra, a magic spell that could save her life.

  And with any luck, that would be exactly right.

  Speaking of communications, it might be that the Y-wings were trying to reach her. She hit the scan command on her com panel and sent it sniffing for all the standard frequencies. Nothing. Not that she expected it.

  Fighter pilots rarely tried to chat with the people they were attempting to kill.

  The Y-wings were splitting wide, trying to get her in a spherical cross fire. If they managed that, it was going to be all over in short order. Well, if they couldn't talk to her, maybe she could talk to them. Kalenda punched in what had been the standard channel for the general fighter command link last time she had been briefed.

  "Y-wing fighters! This is the X-TIE you are pursuing.

  Please hold your fire! I am not hostile. I am on a courier mission." Another laser, blast streaked out. This one caught her X-E amidships. The Ugly shuddered, bucked and swayed, and the interior lights dimmed, but the shields heldhis time. A whole bunch of the lights that had been amber abruptly clicked over to red. The next hit was going to do plenty of damage. She twisted the X-E through a oneeighty and dove straight for the closest pair of Y-wings. She flew right between them and managed to get outside the formation-and then instantly wished she hadn't.

  A Mon Calamari star cruiser had appeared from out of nowhere and was bearing down on her. If she had been inside the Y-wing cross fire, the cruiser wouldn't have dared fire on her. Now, however, the cruiser could blaze away as she liked. And there was the cruiser's forward turbolasers turning ponderously about, bearing down on her.

  Kalenda went vertical, flipped her ship through ninety degrees, and punched for sky, trying to move faster than that gun turret could.

  Hopeless, of course, but she had to go down fighting. She punched back to the NRI frequency and spoke, perhaps for the last time.

  Strange that her last words were going to be a nonsense phrase.

  "Dartmakers out of luck with frequently iced manifolds.

  Dartmakers out of luck with frequently iced-" Suddenly a giant, invisible hand grabbed at her X-E and grabbed at it hard. She was nearly thrown up against her restraint harness and banged her helmet against the inside of the canopy. Momentarily stunned, she needed a moment to regain her senses. A near miss.

  It must have been a near miss from the cruiser. She

  slammed over the joystick, trying to heel the ship over to port, trying to go evasive one last time. But the X-E only shuddered and moaned, and the cabin was suddeuly full of the smell of something burning. Then she got it. She cut the engines, pulled her hands off the joystick, and breathed a sigh of relief.

  A tractor beam. They had caught her with a tractor beam.

  She shut her eyes and slumped back against her seat back. She started breathing again, not realizing she had stopped for a little bit there. "Praise be to the dartmakers," she said to no one at all.

  "Praise be to the dartmakers, and may their manifolds never ice up again.

  Bakura.

  Even in all the years of peace since the invasion crisis, Bakura had maintained its powerful defense forces.

  There had been no sign of a renewed attack from the Ssi-ruuk, but on the other hand, there had been no warning at all before the Ssi-ruuk's first attack. It would be a long time before Bakura let down her guard again.

  Which led to the inevitable question of why the N
ew Republic had let its guard down. Part of the answer was that it hadn't. Though the fleet and the surface forces were far smaller than they had been during the war against the Empire, they were still formidable fighters.

  They were simply committed elsewhere at the moment, or else undergoing repairs. The Mons Calamari shipyards were doing big business these days. If the revolt in Corellia had happened six months earlier or three months later, the New Republic could have sent a massive fleet.

  And, truth be told, Luke had a hunch that Mon Mothma cotdd have raised a New Republic force if absolutely necessary. It would have been risky and expensive, and would have left this outpost or that with minimal defenses for a while, but it could have been done.

  But Mon Mothma was not just a strategist. She was a politician, and a good one. Good politicians know how to make use of a crisis, how to use one problem to solve several others. By sending Luke and Lando to call on the Bakurans, she was killing a multiplicity of birds with one stone. She was indeed conserving Republic resources, so that she could deal with other potential crises that might erupt. But she was also appealing to the Bakuran psychology. Bakura was near the borders of the New Republic, and its citizens were often fearful of being forgotten, left out of the equation. If Mon Mothma's guesses were correct, asking them for help would encourage Bakurans to retain close ties to the Republic, making them feel needed, committed to the cause.

  And there was another matter. She had, not so very long ago, told Luke that it was only a matter of time before he entered the political arena, and she was perfectly capable of using this opportunity to give him a hearty shove in that direction. Going to Bakura was not a job for a hero who charged in with his lightsaber at the ready. It was a job for a negotiator. Mon Mothina was forcing Luke to act not like a lone swashbuckler, but like a leader, a representative-a politidan.