How far away was she?
Lando checked the launch clock. Just under half a minute to go.
Barely time to do anything. But he had to do something. He punched up the corn system, switched it to the rarely used radionics mode, and set it for repeater transmission. He thought for a minute before he replied. There was so much to say, and so little time.
"Lando replying to Tendra. It's a long story why, but I only arrived in-system very recently, and have just now received your transmission." He paused for a moment, and then went on, feeling more than a bit awkward. "It, ah, might sound melodramatic, but I'm about to go into battle, and there is no time for anything. There's a lot I want to say-but all of it will have to wait. The main question is, where are you? I will do my best to monitor your original frequency from here on in. Good luck to you, and to all of us. Lando out Message repeats."
Lando just sat there for a moment, thinking of all the ways he should change that message. It said too much, and it said not enough-but there was no time. It would have to do. Ten seconds until launch. Lando hit the continuous transmit-repeat button, brought his sublight engines to standby, and began concentrating on staying alive.
Han Solo was not a happy man. There are few things that make a pilot feel as helpless as being aboard a derelict ship. It was bad enough for a pilot to be a passenger aboard a craft with someone else, anyone else, at the controls. But when no one is at the controls, when the ship is out of control, the sensation was far worse.
The nameless coneship might as well have been an asteroid, a lump of spacerock, for all that could be done to maneuver it. All they could do was wait. Sooner or later someone would shoot them down, or they would crash into something, or the food would give out, or the air and water would go bad. With the luck this ship had, it -wUWSS MS .ugrave;LUn L I I wouldn't be more than a day or two before two or three of those things happened.
Unless. Unless Han could jury-rig some sort of propulsion system and bring the navicomputer back online. The odds for success weren't good, of course. But Han had never been one to give up easily. And the first stage of the job was clearly to make a detailed survey of the damage. It was lucky that they had nothing but time on their hands, because that was what this job would take. A lot of time.
Han stared at the mined initiator liuk, trying to fix every part of it in his mind, doing his best to memorize it before he touched it.
He was going to have exactly one chance to repair this thing, and he had to get it right. He noticed a slender crack in the base of the impeller bracket. If that crack went all the way through, the bracket would be useless. Well, he'd jut have to build a new one. Maybe he could find something on the ship that would"Honored Solo!"
The voice boomed down from the upper deck, loud enough and suddenly enough that Han nearly jumped out of his skin. "Dracmus, don't do that!" he shouted back. "Scared me half to death. I could have snapped the impeller bracket clean off, if I had been touching it."
"My apologies, Honored Solo," Dracmus called back.
"But there is another matter, an urgent one. A ship is about to dock with us."
"what!" Han forgot all about the impeller and scrambled up the ladder to the upper deck. "what are you talking about?" he demanded.
He looked up at the detector screen and saw from the visual-mode display that there was indeed another ship out there, only a half kilometer away and closing fast. He looked up through the cone-apex viewports and spotted the ship easily.
"Salculd, why didn't you spot it until now?"
"She came up from our stern," Salculd said apologetically. "Our stern detectors were never very good, and the overload must have damaged them in some way the diagnostics couldn't spot."
"Great," Han said. "We've been flying blind and we didn't even know it."
"But what do we do, Honored Solo?" Dracmus asked.
"Do? What can we do? We have no com system with the jamming, So we can't talk with them. We have no propulsion system, so we can't move-unless we all get Out and push." He pointed to the fast-approaching ship land shrugged hopelessly. "All we can do is put out the welcome mat and hope they're friendly. I'd say I hoped they were on our side if I knew what side that wa" Han stopped talking and looked harder at the incoming ship. "Wait a second," he said. "I know that ship. I know that shijH"
"What ship is it?" Dracmus demanded.
"Are they friend or foe?"
"I'm not sure. Dracmus, Salculd, both of you. Grab sidearms and get to the air lock. Hurry!"
Salculd and Dracmus both froze for a second, not sure whether to obey Han. "Go!" he shouted again.
"Now!"
That got them moving. "I have two blasters in my cabin," Dracmus announced, and rushed to get them, Salculd hard on her heels.
Han scrambled back down the ladder and rushed over to the air lock, wishing for a wrench, a hammer, anything big and heavy. But there wasn't time. He heard the thud of hull clamps linking to the coneship, heard a high-pitched hum as a force field coming on vibrated through the hull. Standard operating procedure when two ships with nonmatched hatches docked up. One would activate a tubular force field between the two air locks, allowing free transit from one ship to the other.
Assuming all parties cooperated. Han briefly considered disabling the air lock, preventing the boarders from coming over. But there would be very little point to that. Any cutting laser worth its salt would be able to slice through the coneship's hull metal in a matter of minutes. Better to let them aboard and take it from there. And besides, she might be friendly. She might be . . . But then he heard the coneship's outer doors slide open. It was too late to worry about it.
"Solo!" Dracmus shouted as she rushed down the corridor, blaster at the ready. "Solo! what is going on?
what ship is that?" She stopped short, and Salculd almost knocked her over. "what is going on?"
"That's the Jade's Fire that just latched herself to our hull," Han said. "Mara Jade's ship. Your swell friend has just tracked mer you, or uhalfway across the Corellian system. And I can tell you right now, I am not giving her any more benefit of the doubt. She had better do a damned good job of convincing me she's on our side or-" The inner airlock door slid open, and Han stopped talking. He just stood there, openmouthed and in shock, for a full five seconds. And then, somehow, suddenly, they were in each other's arms, seemingly without either of them crossing the distance between them. "leia," he said.
"leia, how did you-" leia Organa Solo wrapped her arms around Han and hugg,e,d her husband. "Hello, Han," she said. "I missed you.
Luke Skywalker kept his X-wing in formation with the Lady Luck, both cratt flying escort on the Intruder. The four ships of the Bakuran task force were set in a modified flying-wedge formation, a three-sided pyramid with the Watchkeeper at the leading point and the other three ships forming up in an equilateral triangle directly behind her. The hope was that the opposition would not be able to detect the tractor beams the three other ships were using to hold Watchkeeper in formation. At any rate, the formation looked impressive, and that was most of the point.
"-uke, come in, Lu-" It was Lando on the line-of-sight laser corn system.
The best that could be said about the system was that it worked, which was a great deal more than could be said about any other corn system available to the fleet. However, it did not work welL It just about sufficed for conversation between a fighter and his wingman.
Anything else, and it was hopeless. "Still breaking up a bit, Lando," Luke said. "What's up?"
"mine re-ibrate this -ing again. There we go. I just wanted to know if you had any better idea what we're looking for out there." In other words, Lando wanted to know if Luke had sensed anything through the Force. "Not really," he said. "I don't feel anything much from the other side, besides the emotions you might expect before a battle.
My guess is that they don't have any more idea than we do. The brass knows, but the troops don't."
"Great," Lando said. "How about leia and
Han?"
"They're still Out there. I can sense the two of them together now-and someone else, too, now that I know where to focus my awareness.
Mara Jade. I think they're on her ship now, and if I'm matching up my Force sense with the tracking data properly, they are on the shortest, fastest course that will get them clear of the battle zone."
"Can't blame them for -at," Lando said, still breaking up just a trifle. "But I sure wish Mara had decided to join in the fun. Her ship packs some serious firepower.
We could use the help."
"Not really," said Luke. "Ossilege was right. The enemy formations are all wrong for fighter4o-fighter battle. II that was what this was about, we'd wipe them out in a minute. They have to know that. They aren't going to offer battle. Not unless they're suicidal."
" what are they going to offer?" Lando demanded.
"Musical entertainment?"
Luke shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "But we're about to find out. Here they come."
A wave of Corellian PPBs came in from sunward, trying to stay hidden in Corell's glare. They went straight for the Watchkeeper but broke off their attack almost before it had started, only getting off a few token turbolaser shots before shifting course and diving away. A flight of Selonian light attack fighters came in right behind the PPBs and performed almost the identical maneuver, coming in just a trifle closer-and being rewarded by a series of rapid bursts from the Watchkeeper's main battery. The Watchkeeper scored two direct hits on the IA'Fs. Luke had to hand it to Ossilege, who was flying the Watchkeepu by remote. That was some pretty fair shooting.
The surviving LAFs moved off on the same heading as the PPBs, on a bearing that would take them just over the limb of Selonia. Luke reminded himself that they were coming up on the planet. It would be downright embarrassing to get preoccupied with the dogfight and crash into it. More PPBs came in from directly above the Bakuran ships, diving straight into the center of the wedge formation to come up behind the Watchkeeper and give her a dose of firepower from the rear.
The other big Bakuran ships opened fire on the interlopers, but they were restrained by the fear of firing on their own ship. Shooing them away was a job for the fighters, and several flights of Bakuran fighters took up the task.
Luke decided to join them. "Lando, let's encourage those PPBs to go on about their business," he said.
"Form on my port wing and follow me in."
"I'm with you, -uke," Lando replied.
Luke brought his fighter's wings to attack position and lit the engines. The X-wing dove into the center of the flying wedge, the Lady Luck off her port wing. Luke spotted a pair of PPBs below and off to starboard. He swooped in on them, locking his guns-but both PPBs blew up before he could even fire.
"Score two," Land announced. "At least I think it was me. Lot of shooting going on. Luke! Coming up from the rear and below!"
Luke had his X-wing in a diving barrel roll before he could see the threat. You had to trust your wingman.
And sure enough, there was a PPB and an LAF coming straight for him. Both of the light fighters opened up on him, and the X-wing took a glancing hit to the portside lower wing. Artoo bleeped protestingly but recalibrated the shielding to compensate.
Luke fired two short bursts. The first hit the LAF and blew it sky-high. The second burst only caught a piece of the PPB, sent it tumbling out of control and out of the fight. Luke forgot about it and pulled the X-wing's nose up, heading back toward the Watchkeeper coming up under her keel.
"That's it," Lando said. "They've broken off."
"Yeah," Luke said. "And they're heading for that same piece of sky as all the other flights bugged out toward. That's where they want us to go."
"And that's where we are going," Lando replied.
"Watchkeeper's changing course to pursue. Just what Ossilege said they'd want him to do."
"Great," Luke said. "But I'm not sure who's outsmarting who in all this. I'm going to fly formation on the Watchkeeper high and to the rear. Stay with me."
"Received and understood," Lando said. "Don't get too close to her, though. If Ossilege is flying into a trap on purpose, I don't want to go along for the ride."
"Agreed. Double standard formation distance."
The Watchkeeper broke formation with the other big ships and lumbered toward the massed formations of PPBs and LAFs. The Watchkeeper was very definitely not moving fast. Whatever propulsion they had managed to patch together for her wasn't anything much, that was for sure. But she was moving, for all of that.
Luke slowed his X-wing to match her velocity and took up station keeping five kilometers behind and three above her stern.
"Luke, another -ight of LAFs coming in fr--low the Watchkeeper" Lando warned.
"Let `em come," Luke said. "Shields at maximum, but don't respond or return fire."
"But-"
"Just do it," Luke said. "I want to see how they respond.
But be ready to drop shields and fight if they come back for a second pass."
The LAFs came up from behind, six of them. Four turned to take a firing pass right over the topside of the Wztchkeeper, doing a strafing run across her upper deck.
Explosions flickered and flared over the decks of the Watchkeeper but her shields held. The main batteries swung about and poured fire at the LAFs. Thro of them flew right into the battery fire before the others peeled off and headed for that same slice of sky.
But Luke had very little time to worry about that. The other two LAFs were on them, sweeping past in a blaze of turbolaser fIre, catching both ships with repeated hits; but with shields at maximum, the small lasers on the LAFs weren't able to do any appreciable damage.
Of course, with the shields maxed up, neither ship could fight back, either, but that scarcely mattered just at the moment. The two LAFs swooped past, unmolestedand followed their fellows down the same vector, toward the limb of the planet, which every other enemy fighter had taken. All of them were rendezvousing there now, coming together in a mass formation.
"Now I get it," Lando said. "That clinches it for me.
They are trying to draw us toward that one point at all costs, and they are under very strict orders to do so.
There isn't a fighter pilot living who wouldn't want to take another crack at two nice big fat slow-moving targets who didn't shoot back. Luke, you sure five kil meters up and three back is distance enough?"
"Not really," Luke admitted. "Make it ten and six and re-form at that station-keeping point. But what are they trying to pull us toward?" he asked as he flipped the X-wing around and flew toward the new escort point.
"Got me," Lando said. "A big cloaked ship, or some kind of minefield, maybe."
"Except a ship or mines would have to be between us and the fighters for that to make sense," Luke said, watching the Watch keeper move forward in leisurely pursuit of its tormentors. "Their fighters just flew straight through that patch of space." The Watchkeeper sailed on, bringing her main battery to bear on the enemy fighter fleet. She fired again and again, making a lot of hits.
"whatever it is, they're willing to pay a big price to get a ship to it. But what is it?"
"You've got me, Luke. Maybe they've got some sort of-" Suddenly, out of nowhere, a giant, invisible fist slammed into the Watchkeeper.
The lower hull slammed upward, pancaking it against the upper hull, as huge sections of ship broke free and flew off into space. Massive explosions ripped through the ship, and merged into a single fireball that completely engulfed it.
"Evasive!" Luke called out, and flipped his X-wing around to boost away from the expanding fireball at maximum thrust. The Lady Luck was beside him, matching the X-wing's acceleration, but the shock wave of the explosion was moving faster. Luke cut the X-wing's engines and went to maximum shields a half heartbeat after the Lady Luck did so. The shock wave rushed past the two ships, slamming into them, sending them tumbling off wildly into space before it passed by them.
Debris of al
l sizes clattered intO the shield, bouncing the ship around even more.
At last the explosion shock wave was past them, and Luke was able to bring the X-wing back under control.
But he could not see the Lady Luck. "Lando!" he called.
"Lando!"
"I'm here," he said. "Behind and below you. Took some hull damage and lost the port sublight engine, but I'm here. You okay?"
"I'm okay," Luke said. He brought the nose of the X-wing about and looked back toward the point in space where a destroyer had been swatted like a fly.
Where the Watchkeeper had been was nothing, absolutely nothing at all. "But what happened?"
"I was about to ask you. Luke-what was that?"
"I don't know," Lando. "But I've got a very nasty hunch we haven't seen the last of it." "It is as we feared," said Dracmus as she watched the main display aboard the Jade's Fire. "The fools have used it. They have gone ahead and used it."
"Used what?" Han asked. "What was that?"
"A planetary repulsor," said Dracmus. "Similar in principle to the repulsors used in spacecraft to make them hover, but immeasurably more powerful. The device itself is buried under the surface of Dracmus. There is such a device hidden on each of the planets on this system. It was by use of the planetary repulsors that the long-lost architects of the Corellian system transported the various planets here."
"What?" leia said.
"The Corellian system is an artifact, a built thing, Honored Chief of State. Built when, and by whom, and for what reason, I could not say. But it was built."
"A huge buried repulsor," said Han. "That was what the Human League was looking for!"
"Yes," said Dracmus, "though they may well have found it by now.
The Dralls and the folk of the Double Worlds are searching for their repulsors as well. We Selonians found ours first, and quickly made it operational. Not surprising, given our skill at underground work. I am told that aiming the device is still quite difficult, which was why that ship needed to be lured to a certain point. But our engineers will soon solve that, I have no doubt. Then we will be able to strike any point in the sky, at will, whenever we choose."
Star Wars - The Corellian Trilogy - Assault At Selonia Page 26
