by James Luceno
Droma shrugged. “I decided I’d have better luck finding a ride to Ralltiir from Bilbringi.”
“Yeah,” Han said slowly. “But I thought you only had fare to Vortex.”
Droma adopted a docile look. “The truth is, I kept just enough of what you won at the sabacc table to secure onward passage.”
“A fine thing,” Han snorted.
The Ryn’s former pugnacity resurfaced. “You’d begrudge me a modest remuneration, even after I didn’t charge you for the card reading?”
Han stopped again. “Charge me? You’re the one who laid out the cards.”
“I don’t recall you telling me to desist.”
“I was being polite.”
“Impossible,” Droma said. “You’re incapable.”
“Hey, if you knew the company I keep …”
Droma looked bemused. “Rich and famous customers in the ship repair business?”
“I … Ah, this is hopeless,” Han said.
Shouldering the travel pack, he accelerated, figuring that the Ryn’s short legs wouldn’t allow him to keep up. Leaving Droma behind after twenty long strides, he quickly rounded a corner in the passageway, then another. Then, out of nowhere, powerful arms grabbed him from behind, holding him fast and whirling him around.
“Han!” his interdictor said, latching on to him for dear life. “I won’t even try to imagine how Scaur talked you into this duty, but I’m sure glad to see you.”
“Scaur?” Han said, then recognition dawned. “Showolter? What the—”
“They hit us in the cabin, Han. Agents working for the Yuuzhan Vong. Killed two of my people. I got one of them, but the other got away—a slippery-looking Rodian named Capo. He’s probably got reinforcements aboard, and they’re probably searching for us now. You’ve got to find a secure place to hide them.”
Han followed Showolter’s hand to Elan and Vergere. “What’s so important—”
“They’re Yuuzhan Vong,” Showolter rasped. “Defectors.”
Mouth falling open, Han gave them a closer look, then returned his attention to Showolter. “How’d you—”
“Is this your partner?” the NRI operative asked.
Han spun, found Droma standing behind him, and frowned. “He’s—”
“Just until Bilbringi, Han,” Showolter said with sudden frailty.
“Han?” Droma asked in mild surprise.
Showolter collapsed back against the corridor wall and slid to his rear, with Han following him down. “Backup personnel will meet you in Bilbringi. They’ll handle the transfer from there.” The NRI officer groaned in pain.
Han realized he had blood on his hands and cut his eyes to Showolter’s shoulder. “You’re hurt—”
Showolter shook his head. “Can’t afford the time. Send a med, I’ll be all right.”
Han rose and grabbed hold of a passing Duros steward. “This man needs to be moved to sick bay,” he said. “Immediately—got it?”
The steward’s round head bobbed nervously. “Yes, sir, immediately.”
Han sent him flying with a shove and bent down to support Showolter. “You have a weapon?”
Showolter looked up at him and nodded. “You need it?”
Han restrained Showolter’s hand from going to his shoulder holster. “No, you do—in case they find you.”
Showolter screwed his eyes shut against a wave of pain. “Get going, Han.”
Han turned to the defectors. “You two are coming with me. Any trouble and I’ll stick you in a locker for the rest of the voyage, understand?”
The woman bristled, but the little alien nodded. “We’re in your hands.”
Han raised his index finger. “Remember that.”
They hadn’t gone ten meters when he heard Droma ask, “Han?”
“My code name,” Han said over his shoulder.
“You’re an intelligence agent?”
Han came to a halt and whirled around. “Stay out of this, Droma. We’re not playing cards now.”
Droma tilted his head. “Where are you planning to hide them—in your cabin? I know this ship better than you do. The only safe place is down below, where you can lose them in the crowd.”
Han mulled it over, then nodded curtly. “All right. Let’s go.”
They set out for the nearest turbolift and were just shy of them when the Queen sustained an unexpected jolt, powerful enough to send Elan off her feet. While Droma helped her up, Han hastened to a nearby observation blister. In place of the purplish-white chaos of lightspeed, local space was fracturing into elongating lines of light. Han watched the lines compress to pinpoints, only to disappear and elongate once more. Finally, the pinpoints spun and arranged themselves into a starfield. In the middle distance a large, heavily pitted planetoid was revealed by a distant red-orange sun.
“We’ve been decanted,” he said, not without puzzlement.
Droma glanced at a time display on the corridor wall. “It’s too soon for Bilbringi—”
Howling sirens silenced him, and the PA annunciators came alive.
“Attention, all passengers,” someone began in standard Basic. “This is the captain speaking. We have been forcibly reverted to realspace by unknown raiders. Onboard confederates of the raiders are already assaulting the bridge.”
“Raiders,” Han sniggered. “They’re not raiders, they’re after someone in particular.”
“Are you sure?” Droma asked warily.
Han thought back to another time he’d been separated from Chewie and the Falcon, booking commercial passage aboard the luxury liner Lady of Mindor with Fiolla, a companion far more enjoyable than the Ryn beside him. That ship, too, had suffered a phony pirate attack—led by Fiolla’s traitorous right-hand man, Magg.
“Pretty sure,” Han deadpanned.
“It’s my people!” Elan said, stricken with fear. “They’ve brought a dovin basal to bear on the ship.” She dug short nails into Han’s biceps. “Please don’t let them find us—please!”
“Our shields have been rendered useless,” the captain continued, “and our pursuers are coming alongside to board. Distress calls have been dispatched. I’m certain that someone will come to our aid. But in the meantime I request that everyone remain calm. I repeat, I urge everyone to remain calm.”
“The nerve of him,” Leia said, venting to Luke and Mara as she paced the tile floor of their apartment on Coruscant. “Telling me I’m incapable of understanding his grief, then running off to who knows where.”
“You can take the boy out of Corellia, but you can’t take Corellia out of the boy,” Mara remarked from the couch.
Luke smiled faintly. “Leia, this isn’t the first time Han’s done something like this. Remember when he and I went to Crseih Research Station?”
“That was different,” Leia said, shaking her head. “All right, he might have been yearning for the good old days, but that trip was more about his resignation from the military.” She took a seat opposite her brother and his wife. “What he’s doing now has nothing to do with nostalgia or his feeling hemmed in by an honorific. It’s all about Chewie.”
“But that’s natural,” Mara offered carefully.
“The grief and confusion, yes,” Leia said. “But I think he’s bent on vengeance.” She sighed with purpose. “An old friend came to see him—a man named Roa. And off they went to Ord Mantell. Why would they venture so close to enemy-held space unless Roa had information of some sort?”
“But of what sort?” Luke asked. “The Yuuzhan Vong directly responsible for what happened on Sernpidal are dead. Han helped see to that himself at Helska 4.”
“Luke, if that was any consolation, he wouldn’t be out there,” Leia said.
Luke saw the truth of it. “Even so, Han’s beyond doing anything rash.”
Leia pinched her lower lip between her teeth.
“When Han and I first met, he had me convinced that he was as reckless as he pretends to be,” Luke continued. “But Obi-Wan said something I’l
l never forget. He said that there was more to Han than met the eye, and that he had real substance beneath his callous front.” He smiled in recollection and looked at Leia. “Obi-Wan also said that only a special person would have a Wookiee for a companion—and that not just any Wookiee would be found roving the galaxy in the company of someone like Han.”
Leia smiled sadly. “You don’t have to remind me that Han’s special. But that’s just the problem. He needs that kind of companionship. Chewie and Han, I don’t know, they seemed to steady each other. Chewie kept Han in check.” Forcing herself to brighten, she turned to Mara. “I’m sorry to unleash on you two. I haven’t even asked how you are.”
“I’m feeling a lot stronger,” Mara said, and let it go at that.
Leia smiled to herself, thinking about how deeply she cared for Mara. She asked herself how she could ever have distrusted her. “I thought you would have returned to Yavin 4 by now,” she said after a moment.
Luke and Mara traded secretive looks. “Have you been informed that a Yuuzhan Vong has defected?”
Leia gaped at him. “What? When?”
“Shortly before you left for Ord Mantell. She’s being brought to Coruscant for further debriefing.”
“That’s great news.” Leia’s eyes lit up briefly, then she trained them on Luke. “Does the defector have something to do with your still being here?”
“She’s asked to meet with some of us.”
“ ‘Us’ as in Jedi?” Leia straightened in her chair. “Don’t tell me you’ve agreed to it.”
“She claims to have information about an illness the Yuuzhan Vong brought to our galaxy,” Mara answered.
Leia brought one hand to her mouth. “But, Mara—”
A familiar shriek emanated from the adjoining room, and C-3PO hurried into view, jerky movements reflecting his inner agitation. Behind him rolled R2-D2, razzing and squeaking in what was clearly derision.
“Oh, please don’t deactivate me!” C-3PO whined. “It wasn’t my fault! I was only trying to help!”
R2-D2 zithered something scornful.
“Oh, switch off, you little … drink caddy.”
“Threepio, calm down,” Leia said. “What’s this all about?”
He swung to her. “It was just on the newsnet, Mistress Leia. The Queen of Empire has been set upon by raiders, Rimward of the Bilbringi system! A distress call was dispatched, but the ship is probably being boarded at this very moment!”
Luke showed Leia a quizzical look.
“A vessel transporting refugees from Ord Mantell to the Core,” she explained. “Threepio, access the newsnet and see if you can learn anything more. It may be pirates rather than Yuuzhan Vong.”
“But Master Solo!” C-3PO said.
Leia stared. “What about him?”
C-3PO threw his hands in the air. “He’s aboard the ship!”
Leia shook her head as if she hadn’t heard him correctly. “Threepio, I don’t understand—”
“Oh, I shouldn’t have listened to him. But when he repeated the very same words you had used earlier, I was certain that my decision was justified.”
“What words?”
“That sometimes it’s better not to know what others are thinking. That sometimes it’s less painful not to know the truth. You yourself said so, mistress.”
R2-D2 whistled in sarcasm.
“Be still!” C-3PO said, hopelessly flustered.
“But what does all that have to do with Han being aboard the Queen of Empire?” Leia asked.
“Master Han asked me to arrange for his passage, and I did so by impersonating you, Mistress Leia—your vocal patterns, at any rate. And as to why I never made mention of Master Han’s whereabouts, that was because you never once asked me directly if I had knowledge to that effect. Master Solo promised to arrange for my memories to be stored, in the event of my deactivation. That way I might be able to practice detachment—”
“Threepio!” Leia cut him off. “I’m certain you’re not fully to blame—not when it concerns Han. But be honest with me now, why was he going to Bilbringi?”
“I know nothing of his reasons, Mistress.”
R2-D2 rotated his domed head in a full circle, chirping and chittering, in a mix of rebuke and concern.
Leia narrowed her eyes at her brother. “So Han wouldn’t do anything rash, huh?”
“Threepio,” Luke said, “you said that the ship issued a distress call?”
“According to the newsnet reports, yes, Master Luke.”
Luke looked at Leia. “Help is probably on the way.”
Leia shook her head in anger. “Who’s going to care enough about the lives of a few thousand refugees—especially if they’ve fallen into Yuuzhan Vong hands?”
“We could go,” Luke said.
Mara threw him a dubious glance. “Even if we used the Namadii Corridor, we’d never make it in time.”
Leia shot to her feet. “You’re forgetting one thing. We’ll be flying the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy!”
TWENTY-THREE
“You mustn’t let them find us!” Elan wailed into Han’s ear as they threaded and shouldered their way through a mixed-species mob jamming the passageway.
Han angled his head just enough to throw her a warning look. “Either you pipe down or I turn you over to them myself!”
Elan’s eyes became hooded.
Han snorted in response. “That the best you can do?”
“You’d do well to fear me,” she told him.
“Save the threats for someone who cares, sweetheart. I’m only doing this because Showolter took a blaster beam for you, which means he thinks you’re pretty important.”
“More important than you know.”
“We’ll see about that. But right now you’re my charge and you’ll do as I say, got it?”
She allowed a defiant nod.
The captain’s request for calm notwithstanding, disorder reigned. Reports of raiders were seldom greeted with enthusiasm, but the fact that most of the Queen’s passengers had experienced the Yuuzhan Vong firsthand had only made matters worse. Most were searching out places of concealment in utility lockers, ventilation shafts, cargo containers, and the narrow closets of lower deck cabins. As a consequence, crowds of passengers and crewmembers swarmed the corridors and clogged the interdeck transfer chutes. Many had made frantic dashes for escape-pod bays only to find them locked down; others had stormed the upper decks only to be repelled by armed contingents of ship’s officers and vendors. Clearly intent on ignoring the time-proven dictum that surrender was the best survival strategy against pirates, the Queen’s refugees had turned the starliner into a seething catacomb.
In spite of everything, Han and company had succeeded in making their way to the docking bay deck, where if nothing else, the crowd was more dispersed and acquiescent. The worst that could happen, Han had told himself, is that he would end up in the same fix as Roa and Fasgo.
From a portside blister it was possible to observe the approach of the raiders’ ship, from relatively below and slightly aft of the starliner. Running lights suggested a long, cylindrically shaped vessel, equivalent in size to an old Blockade Runner.
As it maneuvered within range of the Queen’s outboard illumination arrays, Han saw—much to his initial bafflement—that the ship was in fact an old Corellian corvette, though heavily modified and anodized a non-reflective black. In addition to the standard aft and ventral turbolaser batteries, the vessel’s barrel-shaped bow boasted side-mounted Taim & Bak H9 cannons, and the dome that usually supported the communications array had been elongated to house either a formidable interdiction field generator—or the Yuuzhan Vong dovin basal that had tugged the Queen from hyperspace.
A trio of twenty-year-old Martial-class shuttles dropped from a retrofitted launch bay in the corvette’s belly and made for the Queen’s own ventral docking bay deck. As the corvette’s steering thrusters fired to bring her into alignment with the liner’s portside airlock, H
an got a good look at the starboard side, where just aft of the cockpit module the matte hull was emblazoned with the clasped-hands insignia of the Peace Brigade.
The words of Big Bunji’s Aqualish lieutenant rushed to mind. They have an operation planned for Bilbringi.
Reck! Han said to himself in astonishment.
The Peace Brigade was after the defectors. Reck might already be aboard the Queen, he thought. With luck the mercenary would turn out to be the one Showolter claimed to have killed.
“Why are we standing here?” Elan asked anxiously. “The agent who escaped will be searching for us.”
“That isn’t a Yuuzhan Vong ship,” Han told her.
“But that is,” Droma said, pointing.
Han followed the Ryn’s thin, velvety finger. High up in the blister, starlight glinting off a curve of scabrous surface, a flattened oval of yorik coral was paralleling the corvette, as if waiting in the wings. Fear laddered up Han’s back as he recalled going to guns with similar Yuuzhan Vong at Dubrillion and Helska months earlier.
He turned to Elan. “I take back what I said. You must be pretty important for them to send a warship.”
“As important to my people as I am to yours,” she answered in a rush, without a trace of arrogance. “I have vital information for your Jedi Knights.”
Han’s brows knitted in interest. “Concerning what?”
“An illness my people introduced.”
Before he could stop himself, Han had taken her roughly by the shoulders. “You’re serious about this?”
She nodded, seemingly unruffled by the pressure of his hands. “I am against the use of bacterial weapons. Such a tactic demeans the Yuuzhan Vong.”
Han tightened his grip and held her gaze. “Don’t toy with me, sister. I was at Sernpidal and Dubrillion. I know exactly what you people are capable of, and a little thing like disease wouldn’t rattle the Yuuzhan Vong conscience for a moment.”
She raised her head haughtily. “It prompted me to secrete myself in an escape pod and allow myself to be captured by your forces.”
Han looked over at the woman’s wondrous companion. “And you?”
