Showdown At Centerpoint

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Showdown At Centerpoint Page 10

by Roger MacBride Allen


  thing could have handled the Imruder, the Defender, and the Sentinel flying

  side by side. Luke's X-wing Hew in with as much room to spare as an insect

  flying into Jabba the Hutt's wide-gaping mouth. Lando followed right behind

  in the Lady Luck. Admiral Hortcl Ossilege was less than happy when the

  Intruder's detectors picked up the massive, off-1he-scale repulsor burst

  from Drall. Surprises were rarely welcome in a military operation, but

  doubly so when one was this far behind enemy lines and dealing with forces

  of such power. Lando Calrissian had warned him that his tactics of audacious

  advance might get him in over his head. Well, so be it. There was no real

  going back. Caution would gain him nothing. He would have to investigate

  that repulsor burst. It was almost certainly another planetary repulsor. But

  the burst seemed to have fired at nothing at all-almost like a flare shot

  straight up in the air for no better purpose than to attract attention.

  Ossilege frowned to himself as he stared at the detector screen.

  Perhaps-perhaps-that was exactly what it was. With all conventional

  communications shut down, how else to announce one had captured a repulsor?

  A signal flare. But the enemy, the opposition, had kept their repulsor at

  Selonia secret. That suggested the people holding this repulsor were on the

  other side. Perhaps warning the other side that they were not the only ones

  with such a mighty weapon. Not just a signal flare, but a warning shot,

  perhaps. Clearly, Ossilege had no choice but to investigate. But the timing

  could not have been worse. His ships had just taken up their positions

  around Ccnterpoint Station. Gaeriel Captison and her party were now inside

  the station, completely cut off from any communication with the Bakuran

  forces. He could not abandon his position at Centerpoint or leave his people

  behind. He would have no choice but to divide his forces. For the briefest

  of moments, he considered sending nothing more than a flight of fighters or

  an assault boat loaded with troops. But no. The opposition was likely to

  move on the Drall repulsor as well. The Bakuran forces would have to go in

  ready to fight, not just investigate. Ossilege smiled, his lips forming into

  a thin line. Calrissian had, indeed, warned him against audacious action.

  But Ossilege had been extremely cautious as he moved in toward Centerpoint

  Station, and he had discovered something about caution he did not like it.

  Ossilege turned toward the ensign standing next to him. "My compliments to

  Captain Semmac," he said to her, "and relay my order to set course for

  Drall. The Intnider is going to investigate that repulsion burst. Sentinel

  and Defender will remain at Centerpoint." Ossilege looked back toward the

  detector screen. "Someone has sent us an invitation. I think it is only

  common politeness that we accept." Luke's X-wing and the Lady Luck floated

  fifteen meters off the deck, moving slowly forward into the airlock, their

  shields up and in formation so as to give each other cover. What good such

  precautions might be up against a space station the size of a small planet,

  neither of them asked. Luke brought the X-wing into a hover over the center

  of the lock and swung the fighter around to cover the Lady Luck as she came

  in. The Lady moved forward slowly, easing her way into the interior. The

  airlock chamber was cavernously huge and profoundly dark. The Lady Luck's

  landing lights came on and swiveled about, throwing a shifting spot of

  brightness on the interior wall of the lock, but Luke was not able to make

  much of what the spot revealed. The huge exterior airlock door lumbered

  shut, sealing them inside. Now they were trapped, if they wanted to think of

  it that way. Then the lock's own interior lights bloomed into life, coming

  up slowly enough that Luke's eyes were not dazzled. The interior of the lock

  was a half cylinder on its side, with the flat wall of the half cylinder

  forming the deck. The deck was littered with debris, odds and ends of all

  sorts. Bits of clothing, broken pieces of luggage, freight containers,

  abandoned machinery, even a small spacecraft with all its access ports open

  and its nose assembly removed. Obviously it had been cannibalized for parts.

  "-ooks like -ome folks got out of here in a -urry," Lando said. "Looks

  like," Luke said. What, exactly, had they been in such a hurry to get away

  from? And had they made a run for it last week, or a hundred years before?

  He didn't feel easy in his mind. "Listen, Lando, normally I'd say land the

  ship with the passengers first and let the fighter fly cover. But with that

  airlock door shui, there doesn't seem much point to it. I'll land first.

  Maybe if it's a trap, they'll spring it on me first and then-" "Then what?"

  "I don't know," Luke said. "But don't land until you're sure it's safe." "If

  1 wait that long, we're -oing to be sittin- here in hover mode for a long

  time," Lando replied. There didn't seem to be any good answer for that, so

  Luke didn't try to offer one. "I'm headed down," he said. Luke eased back on

  the repulsors and brought the X-wing slowly down onto the deck. He made a

  nice smooth landing and was getting ready to undo his canopy and get out

  when Artoo beeped furiously at him. "What? Oh!" Artoo was right-the airlock

  chamber hadn't been pressurized. That could be a problem. Luke hadn't worn a

  scalable flight suit, and he was not entirely clear on whether there were

  pressure suits for all aboard the Lady Luck. But what was the point of

  bringing them in here if they couldn't get out of their ships? Luke looked

  around the airlock chamber again and noticed that the debris was all inside

  a fairly well-prescribed perimeler. Why had everyone crowded together like

  that in the midst of what seemed to have been a panicked departure? A burst

  of light suddenly flared to life in the center of the airlock chamber's

  roof. Four streaks of light split off from the center and slid down to the

  four corners of the chamber. The streaks faded to darkness, and then the

  light burst came to life again, before splitting up and sliding down to the

  corners, and then the pattern repealed. It was as clear a signal as the

  airlock door opening and shutting. Go down, go down, go down. Now Luke

  understood. "Lando," he said, "bring her down. They're using a force bubble

  pressurization system in here. I don't think they want to activate the force

  field until you've landed." By using a force field system, they could avoid

  constantly pressurizing and depressurizing the chamber-no small issue in a

  chamber this size. "But then we'd both be trapped insi- the force field,"

  Lando objected. "What's the difference? We're already trapped inside the

  airlock." "There's a differenc e between being in a cage with a bantha and

  climbing into the bantha's gullet," Lando muitered. "But all right, here we

  come." The Lady Luck eased down on her repulsors and set down ten meters in

  front of Luke's X-wing. The moment she landed, there was a shimmering in the

  space over their heads. After a moment il settled down into a thin blue hazy

  blur that surrounded the two ships, forming a hemisphere over them. A tunnel

  formed of
the same blue haze came into being just behind the Lady Luck.

  Peering down it, Luke could see that it led to a more conventional-sized

  inner airlock hatch. "Leading us [here every step of the way," Luke muttered

  to himself. He heard a far-off, high-pitched hissing noise, and the body of

  the X-wing creaked and groaned once or twice as ii adjusted to the change in

  pressure. The hissing dropped in pitch down to a low roar of noise, and the

  incoming air was whipping up some of the smaller bits of debris and throwing

  them around, until the inside of the force field bubble was swirling with

  bits of paper and dust and torn-up packing material. The X-wing rocked back

  on its shock absorbers as the rush of air pushed at il. Luke watched his

  exterior gauges as the roaring sub- sided. At least as far as his

  instruments were concerned, it was perfectly normal air at perfectly normal

  pressure. Of course, it could contain some deadly nerve gas the X-wing's

  detectors couldn't sense, but if whoever was running the show here had

  wanted to kill them, they could have done the job about a dozen times

  already. Never mind. Time to get on with it. Luke popped the canopy of the

  X-wing and let it swing up out of the way. He pulled his flight helmet off

  and stashed it, then climbed up out of the pilot's compartment. He slid down

  the side of the fuselage and dropped lightly to the ground. Relatively light

  gravity here, he noticed. Of course, they were fairly close to the spin axis

  here. The apparent force of gravity would be a lot stronger close to the

  equator line of the sphere. The hatches of the Lady Luck swung open, the

  egress ramp came down, and Lando, Gaeriel, and Kalenda walked down it,

  closely followed by a rather agitated-looking Threepio. "I don't like this

  place," the protocol droid announced. "Not one little bit. I'm sure we are

  all in the most terrible danger here." "Yeah, whatever," Lando muttered.

  "Besides, what was the last place you did like?" Threepio hesitated a moment

  and cocked his head to one side. "A most interesting question," he said. "I

  can't recall one, offhand. I shall have to consult my onboard archives." "Do

  it later, Threepio," said Luke. "We might need you for other things."

  "Certainly, Master Luke." Gaeriel and Kalenda looked around the airlock

  chamber, and it was easy to tell the diplomat from the intelligence officer.

  Kalenda knelt down to examine some of the broken-up debris and snatched at a

  few of the bits of paper that were fluttering, no doubt in hopes of reading

  some important clue. Gaeriel made s.Thveepio, the protocol and translation

  droid, was close, and directed her attention to Ihe force field tunnel and

  the hatch that would lead them to their host. Luke heard a beeping and a

  blooping from the topside of his X-wing. "Don't worry, Artoo, I haven't

  forgotten you." Back at a base, the normal thing was to use a winch to get

  Artoo in and out of his socket in the stern of the X-wing. In the field, it

  was possible for Artoo to get himself out, but the process was not very

  graceful, and had ended with Artoo toppling over and landing with a crash on

  more than one occasion. But when the pilot of the X-wing was a Jedi Master,

  such awkwardness was not necessary. Luke reached out with his ability in the

  Force and lifted Artoo gently into the air. "Do be careful, Master Luke,"

  said Threepio. "It makes me nervous just to see you do that." Artoo let out

  a long, low moan that echoed his agreement with Threepio. "Relax, both of

  you," said Luke. "I could do this standing on my head." Artoo moaned again.

  "Sorry," said Luke. "It's not nice to lease." Luke moved Artoo clear of the

  X-wing and was just about to start bringing him down to the deck when the

  hatch at the end of the force field tunnel began to lumber open. Everyone

  stopped what they were doing and turned to look. Luke felt his hand move

  toward his lightsaber, but then he pulled it away. No. All he knew for sure

  was that he had touched the mind of a human who seemed to bear them no ill

  will. Whoever was about to come through that door had not summoned them all

  here to engage in single combat. They would be dead many times over by now,

  if that was her intent. He saw Lando and Kalenda make the same reflex reach

  for their own sidearms, and then pull their hands back. The doors rumbled

  open, and a tall, thin, nervous-looking, pale-skinned woman came in. She

  hesitated at the entrance for a moment, and then shrugged and walked toward

  them at a brisk clip that seemed to say less about her eagerness to get lo

  the end of the tunnel and more about her rather agitated state. Luke watched

  her as she came closer. She was an attractive-looking woman with a long,

  thin face, thick black curly hair that reached to her shoulders, and

  prominent, expressive eyebrows. She looked worried as she came toward them,

  her eyes moving from one member of the party to the next. But then the

  worried look faded away to be replaced by one of pure bafflement as she

  looked upward. "How are you doing that?" she asked. "And why?" "Huh?" Luke

  asked, and looked up himself. "Oh!" He had nearly forgotten that Artoo was

  still hanging in midair. If he had lost any more concentration, Artoo would

  have crashed to the deck. Distracted by the sight of their hostess's

  arrival, it would seem that Artoo had forgotten it himself. Luke willed

  Artoo to move down and landed him gently on the deck. "It's sort of a long

  story," he said. "I'll be!," the young woman said, giving Luke a long, hard,

  quizzical look. "Well, anyway. I'm Jenica Sonsen, C-point COO Ad-Op."

  "What?" Luke asked. Sonsen sighed. "Sorry. Force of habit. Centerpoint Chief

  Operations Officer, Administration and Operations. Basically, I run the

  place, these days. The C-point CE declared a bug-out right after the first

  major flare incident, and the whole Exec Sec evaced along with practically

  all the C-point civpop. I wish / could get out of here, but I was OOD when

  the bug was called, so regs said I was stay-behind." Luke was about to ask

  her what that meant when Threepio stepped forward. "Perhaps I might be of

  help, Master Skywalker," said the droid. "She is using many terms that are

  similar to the bureaucratic; argot of Coruscant. I believe that what

  Administrative Officer Sonsen means is that Centerpoint's Chief Executive

  ordered a full evacuation after the first flare disaster, and the entire

  Executive Secretariat left along with most of the civilian populace.

  Although she wished to leave with everyone else. Administrative Officer

  Sonsen happened lo be [he Officer On Duty at the moment when the evacuation

  was declared, and under those circumstances, she was automatically

  designated the officer lo stay behind and serve as a caretaker," "She didn't

  say anything about a disaster," Lando said suspiciously. "I beg your

  pardon," Threepio said, "but she did refer to a 'major incident." That is a

  common bureaucratic euphemism for a major catastrophe." "Hold it," Sonsen

  said, "the tin box got it all correct, but I am right here. You could ask me

  what I meant." "Only if you promise to speak Basic like everyone else,"

  Lando said. Luke had lo smile. Lando never had had much use for
bureaucratic

  double-talk. For a moment it looked as if Sonsen were aboul to bite Lando's

  head off, bul then backed down. "Maybe you've got a point. But I have to

  know whal you're doing here. Your ships blew out of nowhere and then those

  fighters bugged out too." "Were they your fighters?" Kalenda asked. "And

  what government do you represent?" "The fighters you were shooting at? They

  weren't Fed-Dub." "Fed-Dub?" "Sorry. The Federation of the Double Worlds.'

  Kalenda nodded and looked to Luke, her gaze seemingly somewhere over his

  left shoulder. "The Federation is the duly elected government of Talus and

  Tralus." "You people still haven't told me who you are and what you're doing

  here," Sonsen said. "Our apologies," Gaeriel said, speaking for the first

  time, "I am Gaerie! Captiscm, plenipotentiary of the planet Bakura. This is

  Captain Lando Calrissian, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, and Lieutenant Belindi

  Kalenda, all of the planet Coruscant. We represent the New Republic and the

  planet Bakura." She went on in a tone of voice that suggested she was

  expecting argument, but wasn't going to put up with it. "We are," she said,

  "taking possession of Centerpoint Station in the name of the New Republic."

  "Well, good," said Sonsen. "It's about lime somebody did. Come this way and

  I'll show you where everything is." She turned around abruptly and starting

  walking down the tunnel toward the inner hatch. Gaeriel looked at Luke,

  clearly taken aback. "She's not what we expected," she said. "Most things

  aren't, around Luke," Lando said. "But if she's going to hand over the keys

  to us, I think we'd better not let her get too far ahead." The four humans

  and two dro ids found Sonsen waiting for them on the other side of the inner

  hatch. "There you all are," she said. "Shall we start the tour?" Her tone

  was utterly matter-of-fact, as if handing over space stations to more or

  less allied forces was all part of the daily routine. "I can't show you all

  of the station, of course, unless you all want to die of old age before

  we're half done, but I can show you the basics. This way." She ushered them

  all into a waiting turbovator car on the opposite side of the lock chamber.

  They followed her in. Luke entered the car after everyone else, feeling

  quite bewildered. The turbovator car was huge and scruffy-looking. All the

 

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