by Timothy Zahn
An overprotectiveness that was about to come to an end. "Artoo, go back to the docking port and make sure the X-wing's ready to fly," he instructed the little droid as he headed toward the cockpit. "I'm going to take us in."
A minute later he was seated in the Fire's pilot's seat, reviewing the layout of the controls and displays one last time. The Veeone droid, perhaps recognizing Luke's expression as one he'd seen often enough on Mara's face, had decided not to argue the point. "Get ready," Luke told the droid, resting his hands on the controls. The counter ran to zero, and Luke pushed the hyperdrive lever forward. The starlines flared and shrank back down into stars, and they were there. The Veeone whistled softly. "That's the place," Luke confirmed, gazing out at the distant sun, its tiny red disk looking cold and aloof. The planet Nirauan itself was nowhere to be seen. "We're looking for the second planet," he told the droid. "Can you get me a reading on it?" The Veeone twittered an affirmative, and the nav displays came to life. "I see it." Luke nodded, checking the reading. It was a pretty fair distance away.
Which was by deliberate design, of course. The Fire had impressive shields and armament, but charging to the rescue with quad lasers blazing would be unlikely to do Mara any good, no matter what the situation she was in. Stealth and secrecy were the plan, and that meant leaving the Fire hidden out here while he and Artoo sneaked in in their X-wing.
He keyed the comm unit to the docking bay. "Artoo? Is everything ready?" There was a confirming warble. "Good," Luke said, looking back at the nav display. They were, he estimated, a good seven hours away from the planet by the X-wing's sublight drive. A long time to sit in a cramped cockpit worrying about Mara, besides giving whoever was down there a straight vector back to the Fire.
Fortunately, there was another way. "Start calculating our two jumps," he instructed Artoo, keying on the Fire's automatic weapons systems. "No more than five minutes each way—we don't want to take any more time with this than we have to."
Artoo twittered an acknowledgment, and got to work. "Now, you're clear on what you're supposed to do?" Luke asked the Veeone as he keyed the drive to low power and started the Fire moving. There was a convenient clump of small asteroids drifting through in the darkness just ahead that would make a perfect hiding place. "I'm going to put the ship in with those rocks; and then you're going to sit there and pretend to be one of them. Okay?"
The droid gurgled reluctant agreement. "All right," Luke said, easing the ship up into the asteroids. One of them, about shockball size, bounced lightly against the hull, and he winced in reaction. The Fire was Mara's most prized possession, and she was more protective of it than even the Veeone was. If he dented the hull, or even just scratched the paint, he would never hear the end of it from her. He finished his maneuvering with exaggerated care, and managed to get it into position without any further collisions. "Okay, that's it," he said, unstrapping and keying control back to the Veeone.
"You've got the code I gave you—we'll transmit that on our way back so you'll know it's us. Anyone else... well, don't let the ship shoot at them unless you're fired on first. Not until we have some idea what's going on down there."
Two minutes later, keeping a wary eye out for the floating rock pile outside, he eased the X-wing out of the Fire's docking bay and headed into deep space. Artoo had the course already plotted in, and with a burst of starlines they were off.
Luke had told him to keep it under five minutes, and the droid had taken him at his word. Two minutes after heading out, following Artoo's instructions, he dropped the X-wing back out of hyperspace, turned it around, and headed back in. Two minutes after that, they were there. Artoo whistled softly. "That's the place, all right," Luke confirmed, gazing out at the dark planet hanging in space in front of them. "Just like the pictures the Starry Ice brought back." And Mara was down there somewhere. Stranded, maybe injured, maybe a prisoner. Or maybe dead.
Pushing that thought firmly away from his mind, Luke stretched out to the Force. Mara? Mara, can you hear me?
But there was nothing.
Artoo gave a questioning warble. "I can't sense her," Luke admitted. "But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. We're still pretty far out, and she may not be strong enough to reach this far. She could be asleep, too—that would limit her range."
The droid didn't respond. But it wasn't hard to guess that his thoughts were paralleling Luke's. And there was also the vision Luke had had three and a half weeks ago at the Tierfon medical facility. That image of Mara floating lifelessly in a pool of water...
"Anyway, there's no point in worrying about it," Luke said, pushing that vision into the back of his mind as best he could. "Do a quiet sensor scan—nothing that'll set off their detectors. Or at least, nothing that'll set them off if they work the way ours do."
There was an acknowledgment, and another question scrolled across the X-wing's computer display. "We'll take the same route in that she did," Luke answered. "Down the canyon to the cave where she disappeared. Once we get there, we'll take the X-wing inside and see what happens." Artoo twittered an uneasy-sounding acknowledgment. Glancing at the course record Talon Karrde had given him, Luke eased the X-wing toward the planet, wishing for a moment that Leia were here with him. If those creatures that Mara had run into were intelligent, it might take not only Jedi skill but also diplomatic finesse to deal with them. Finesse that Leia had, and that he didn't. He grimaced. On the other hand, they probably weren't very happy back home that he'd taken off this way without notice, let alone if he'd tried to bring Leia along with him. No, Leia's diplomatic skills were needed most back in the New Republic.
What skills would be needed here he'd find out soon enough.
They were still well outside the planet's atmosphere when the X-wing's sensors picked up the two alien spacecraft rising from the surface toward them. "So much for stealth and secrecy," Luke murmured, studying the sensor profiles. They definitely looked like the ship he and Artoo had spotted on their way out of the Cavrilhu Pirates' nest in the Kauron asteroid field. That ship, though, had cut and run before he could get a close look at it. Now, as this pair rose rapidly toward him, he could see that his first impression of the craft had indeed been correct. Roughly three times the X-wing's size, they were an odd but strangely artistic combination of alien manufacture melded with that of the all-too-familiar TIE fighter design. At the bow of each ship was a slightly darkened canopy, through which he could just barely make out a pair of Imperial-style flight helmets.
Artoo whistled pensively. "Steady, Artoo," Luke warned. "It doesn't necessarily mean they're allied with the Empire. They might have found a TIE fighter somewhere and borrowed from it." Artoo's grunt showed his opinion of that one. "All right, fine, probably not," Luke said, eyeing the incoming ships. A minute later they were on him, rising slightly above the X-wing and altering course as they curved into flanking positions on both sides. "You getting weapons readings?" The droid whistled, and a rough schematic appeared on the computer display. The ships were quite heavily armed. "Great," Luke muttered, stretching out with the Force to try to get a feel for the situation. But all he could detect were the basic emotional backgrounds of the three beings aboard each ship. Alien minds thinking alien thoughts, with no point of reference for him to latch on to. On the other hand, their flanking positions were more suited to escort than attack. More importantly, Luke's Jedi senses weren't indicating any immediate danger. For the moment, at least, they were probably relatively safe.
And it was time to start acting friendly. "Let's see if we can talk to them," he suggested, reaching for the comm switch.
The aliens beat him to it. "Ka sba'ma'ti orf k'ralan," a surprisingly melodious voice said in Luke's ear. "Kra'miral sumt tara'kliso mor Mitth'raw'nuruodo sur pra'cin'zisk mor'kor'lae." Luke felt his stomach tighten. "Artoo?" he asked.
The droid warbled a worried-sounding confirmation: it was indeed the same transmission Karrde and Mara had picked up from the alien ship that had buzzed Booster Terrik's Errant V
enture. The transmission, according to Mara, that had included Thrawn's little-known complete name. Grimacing, Luke keyed his comm. "This is New Republic X-wing AA-589," he said. If the aliens didn't speak Basic, of course, this wasn't going to do any good. Still, it wouldn't do to just sit here and ignore them. "I'm looking for a friend who may have crashed on your world." There was a short pause. Watching out the canopy, Luke had the distinct impression that the two alien ships had pulled in just a hair closer to him. "New Republic X-wing," the voice came again, this time in quite passable Basic. "You will follow us to the surface. You will not deviate from our guidance. If you do, you will be destroyed."
"I understand," Luke said. There was a click from the comm; and suddenly the two alien ships dropped toward the surface. Luke was ready, following and sliding quickly back into his place in the formation. "Show-offs," he muttered under his breath.
He had spoken too soon. A second later the two ships again twisted away, this time curving slightly up and then hard to starboard. Artoo screeched as the portside ship shot uncomfortably close over his head, the tone of his displeasure rising sharply as Luke cut the X-wing hard over to again match the maneuver. He had barely settled back into his place in the center when they did it again, veering to portside this time.
Artoo grunted. "I don't know," Luke told him as he caught up with his escort again. "Maybe there's some kind of defense system they've got set up that requires a specific approach if you don't want to get blasted. Like the pirates had at their asteroid base, remember?" The obvious point scrolled down the computer display: according to the Starry Ice's record, Mara hadn't followed any such complicated approach. "Maybe they set it up in response to her sneaking in," Luke suggested. "Or we could be coming in over a different part of the planet than she did—we haven't been able to pick up a geographic match yet."
Artoo grunted. "Or they could be trying to create an excuse to open fire," Luke agreed grimly.
"Though why they'd think they'd need one I don't know."
The alien ships performed three more sets of maneuvers on the way down, none of which Luke had any particular trouble matching. But as they reached the upper atmosphere they seemed to tire of the game, settling into a hard, straight drive toward the western horizon. Luke stayed in formation, splitting his attention between the ships and the ground far below, and stretching out to the Force for any signs of trouble.
They were twenty minutes into their drive, and Artoo had finally made a match between the topography below and the Starry Ice's records, when the familiar tingling began. "We've got trouble, Artoo," Luke told the droid. "I'm not sure what kind yet, but it's definitely trouble. Give me a quick status rundown."
He ran an eye over the display as the status report appeared. There were no other air-or spacecraft registering on the X-wing's sensors, nothing in their escort's power usage or weapons systems that indicated attack preparation, and the X-wing's own systems were reading fully operative.
"How far to the fortress Mara found?" he asked.
Artoo beeped: less than fifteen minutes at their current speed. "Sometime in the next ten minutes, I'd guess," Luke told him. "Be ready." Taking a deep breath, settling his hands on the controls, he consciously relaxed his muscles and immersed himself in the Force.
They were registering six minutes to the fortress, and the canyon Mara had flown down had just appeared paralleling them on the distant horizon, when it finally happened. In perfect unison the two escort ships threw a quick spurt of power to their forward thrusters, dropping from flanking into following positions behind the X-wing as their velocities blipped down.
And from nozzles nestled half-hidden beneath their cockpits spat a deadly salvo of blue fire. But their target was no longer there. An instant before the aliens' thrusters had fired, Luke had caught the subtle disturbance in the Force; and by the time their weapons flashed he had thrown the X-wing into a sharp climb, curving up and around in a tight loop that would take him back around into attack position behind his attackers.
Or at least, that was the normal endpoint of the maneuver. This time, though, Luke had other plans. Instead of pulling out of his loop behind the aliens, he held the X-wing's nose pointed toward the ground for an extra pair of heartbeats. Then, at what seemed like the last second, he twisted the starfighter into a stomach-wrenching, twin-rotational turn. An instant later they were running bare meters above the ground on a vector perpendicular to their original course.
"What are they doing?" Luke called, not daring to take his eyes away from the landscape long enough to look for himself.
The droid's warning screech and a sudden tingling in the Force were his answer. From behind came another volley of blue fire, most of it going wide but a few shots splattering off his rear deflector shield. "Any new friends joined them?" he called.
Artoo warbled a negative. That was something, anyway. Still, those ships were good and the crews clearly knew what they were doing. At two-to-one odds, Luke was going to have his hands full. Especially since—
Artoo twittered an urgent question. "No, leave the S-foils as they are," Luke told him. "We're not going to shoot back."
The droid's question was a disbelieving whistle. "Because we don't know who they are or why they're here," Luke told him, eyes measuring the ground ahead. Just beyond Mara's canyon the terrain abruptly became something shattered-looking, broken into granite-walled cliffs and deep, sharp-edged crevices. "I don't want to kill any of them until I know who and what they are." Artoo's rejoinder became another screech as the latest enemy salvo blew a thin layer of metal from the top of the starboard S-foil. "Don't worry, we're almost there," Luke soothed him, risking a quick glance at his status displays. No serious damage yet, but that wouldn't last long once the attackers got a little closer.
Which meant that his best hope was to keep that from happening.
Behind him, Artoo whistled suspiciously. "That's exactly where we're going," Luke confirmed. They were nearly to the shattered landscape now; and off to portside he spotted a likely looking gorge. "Oh, relax—it's no worse than some of the other things we've pulled off," he added, twisting the X-wing's nose toward the gorge. "Anyway, we haven't got a choice. Hang on—here we go." Beggar's Canyon on Tatooine had been a tricky but familiar obstacle run of twists and corners and switchbacks. The Death Star trench had been far straighter, but with the addition of turbolaser fire and attacking TIE fighters to keep it interesting. Now, the Nirauan cliffs took the challenge a step farther by adding unpredictable curves and breakpoints, with varying widths and depths, jutting rocks, and clinging tree vines.
The newly signed Rebel recruit at Yavin would have recognized the risks involved. Even the cocky adolescent on Tatooine would have hesitated at the stupidity of tackling such an unknown labyrinth at such high speeds. The seasoned Jedi Luke had become, though, knew he wouldn't have a problem with it.
He was mostly right. The ship sliced through the first series of twists with ease, Luke's piloting skill and prescience in the Force combining with the X-wing's innate maneuverability to leave the alien ships far behind. He shot through an open valley, changed direction toward a new canyon—
And nearly lost control as a burst of blue fire raked across the portside fuselage.
"It's all right," he called back to Artoo, feeling a flash of annoyance with himself as the X-wing plunged again into the relative safety of his chosen ravine. This had happened before: focusing his attention—and the Force—too narrowly in one direction had a tendency to blind him to anything happening outside that cone. Clearly, at least one of the alien pilots had been smart enough to abandon the chase and fly up over the maze to wait for the target to show himself. But the gambit had failed; and if the terrain cooperated, he wouldn't get another chance at it. The X-wing emerged into a second valley, this one smaller than the first, and veered off into another ravine. Letting the Force guide his hands, Luke watched the cliffs around him, looking for just the right place...
And then, suddenl
y, there it was. On both sides of the X-wing steep cliffs rose upward, one of them angling sharply toward the other until only a tiny ribbon of daylight showed at the top between them. Lines and clusters of drab and scraggly bushes clung to various parts of the craggy rock, with a thick matting of brown bushes and squat trees covering the canyon floor below. Ahead and behind, the canyon curved sharply to either side, leaving this center part as an isolated bubble surrounded by rock.
It was the perfect place to go to ground.
Artoo didn't squeal or screech as Luke swung the starfighter around in a hundred-eighty-degree skid in a classic smuggler's reverse. Probably, Luke decided as he fed power to the thrusters, because the little droid was too busy holding on for dear life. For a handful of seconds the X-wing bucked beneath him, and he fought hard for stability as it tried to flip out of control. Outside, the canyon walls shooting past began to slow, and as they did so he eased off on the drive and keyed in the repulsorlifts. The deceleration pressure crushing him against the seat cushions faded; spinning the X-wing around to face forward again, he threw a quick look around. Directly ahead, a pair of squat but bushy trees rose up from the canyon floor, straddling what appeared to be a dry creek bed, their trunks just the right distance apart. Killing the last of the X-wing's forward velocity, he dropped its nose down to slide neatly between the tree trunks.
"There," he said, running the last steps of the landing cycle and shutting down the repulsorlifts.
"That wasn't so hard, now, was it?"
There was a weak and slightly shaky whistle from behind him. Apparently, Artoo hadn't found his voice yet.
Smiling tightly, Luke popped the canopy, wincing at the high-pitched scratching sounds as dozens of thorn-edged leaves scraped across the transparisteel, and slid off his helmet and gloves. The air flooding in from outside was cool and smelled vaguely mossy. For a long minute he listened, stretching out with Force-enhanced senses for sounds of pursuit. But there was nothing except the normal sounds of wind rustling through the leaves and the distant chirps of avians or insects. "I think we've lost them," he told Artoo. "At least for now. You figured out where we are?" Artoo beeped, still sounding a little dazed, and a map appeared on the computer display. Luke studied it. Not too bad, but not too good either. They were no more than ten kilometers from Mara's cave, but most of the territory between here and there consisted of the same kind of narrow gorges and rocky cliffs they'd just been flying through. At least a full day's travel, probably two, possibly three.
