by Timothy Zahn
Luke was still roaring around creating havoc as Han scrambled into the cockpit and dived into the pilot’s seat, throwing a quick look at the instruments as he did so. All the systems seemed to be ready; and anything that wasn’t was going to have to do so on the way up. “Grab onto something!” he shouted back to Irenez and lifted.
The stormtrooper Lando had mentioned as being near his position was nowhere in sight as Han brought the Lady Luck swinging over to the pile of shipping boxes. Luke was right with him, the X-wing’s lasers making a mess of the landing area floor as he kept the Imperials pinned down. Han dropped the ship to within a half meter of the floor, entrance ramp swiveled toward the boxes. There was a flicker of motion, visible for just a second through the cockpit’s side viewport—
“We’ve got him,” Irenez shouted from the hatch. “Go!”
Han swiveled the ship around, throwing full power to the repulsorlifts and heading upward into one of the huge exit ducts overhead. There was a slight jolt as he cleared the magnetic seal on the end, and then they were out in clear air, screaming hard for space.
Four TIE fighters were skulking around just above the city, waiting for trouble. But they apparently weren’t waiting for it to come this quickly. Luke got three of them on the fly, and Han took out the fourth.
“Nothing like cutting it close to the wire,” Lando panted as he slid into the copilot’s seat and got busy with his board. “What have we got?”
“Looks like a couple more drop ships coming in,” Han told him, frowning. “What are you doing?”
“Running a multisensor airflow analysis,” Lando said. “It’ll show up any large irregularities on the hull. Like if someone’s attached a homing beacon to us.”
Han thought back to that escape from the first Death Star, and their near-disastrous flight to Yavin with just such a gadget snugged aboard. “I wish I had a system like that for the Falcon.”
“It’d never work,” Lando commented dryly. “Your hull’s so irregular already the system would go nuts just trying to map it.” He keyed off the display. “Okay; we’re clear.”
“Great.” Han threw a glance out to the left. “We’re clear of those drop ships, too. They don’t have a hope of catching us now.”
“Yes, but that might,” Irenez said, pointing at the midrange scope.
Which showed an Imperial Star Destroyer behind them, already leaving orbit and moving into pursuit. “Great,” Han growled, kicking in the main drive. Using it this close to the ground wasn’t going to do New Cov’s plant life any good, but that was the least of his worries at the moment. “Luke?”
“I see it,” Luke’s voice came back through the comm speaker. “Any ideas besides running for it?”
“I think running for it sounds like a great idea,” Han said. “Lando?”
“Calculating the jump now,” the other said, busy with the nav computer. “It ought to be ready by the time we’re far enough out.”
“There’s another ship coming up from below,” Luke said. “Right out of the jungle.”
“That’s ours,” Irenez said, peering over Han’s shoulder. “You can parallel them by changing course to one twenty-six mark thirty.”
The Star Destroyer was picking up speed, the scope now showing a wedge of TIE fighters sweeping along ahead of it. “We’d do better to split up,” Han said.
“No—stay with our ship,” Irenez said. “Sena said we’ve got help coming.”
Han took another look at the ship climbing for deep space. A small transport, with a fair amount of speed but not much else going for it. Another look at die approaching TIE fighters—
“They’re going to be in range before we can make the jump,” Lando murmured, echoing Han’s thought.
“Yeah. Luke, you still there?”
“Yes. I think Lando’s right.”
“I know. Any way you can pull that Nkllon stunt again? You know—scramble the pilots’ minds a little?”
There was a noticeable hesitation from the comm. “I don’t think so,” Luke said at last. “I—don’t think it’s good for me to do that sort of thing. You understand?”
Han didn’t, really, but it probably didn’t matter. For a moment he’d forgotten that he wasn’t in the Falcon, with a pair of quad lasers and shields and heavy armor. The Lady Luck, for all Lando’s modifications, wasn’t anything to take on even confused TIE fighter pilots with. “All right, skip it,” he told Luke. “Sena just better be right about this help of hers.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a flash of brilliant green light shot past the Lady Luck’s cockpit canopy. “TIE fighters coming in from portside,” Lando snapped.
“They’re trying to cut us off,” Luke said. “I’ll get rid of them.”
Without waiting for comment, he dropped his X-wing below the Lady Luck’s vector and with a roar of main drive swung off to the left toward the incoming TIE fighters. “Watch yourself,” Han muttered after him, giving the rear scope another look. The pursuing batch of fighters was still closing fast. “Your ship got any weapons?” he asked Irenez.
“No, but it’s got good armor and plenty of deflector power,” she told him. “Maybe you should get ahead of them, let them take the brunt of the attack.”
“Yeah, I’ll think about it,” Han said, wincing at the woman’s ignorance of this kind of fight. TIE pilots didn’t much care which ship was first in line when they attacked; and sitting close enough to another ship to hide in its deflector shield was to give up your maneuverability.
Off to portside, the incoming group of TIE fighters scattered out of the way as Luke drove through their formation, wingtip lasers blazing away madly. A second wave of Imperials behind the first closed to intercept as Luke pulled a hard one-eighty and swung back on the tails of the first wave. Han held his breath; but even as he watched, the X-wing managed somehow to thread its way unscathed through the melee and take off at full throttle at an angle from the Lady Luck’s vector, the whole squadron hot on his tail.
“Well, so much for that group,” Irenez commented.
“And maybe for Luke, too,” Lando countered harshly as he jabbed at the comm. “Luke, you all right?”
“I got a little singed, but everything’s still running,” Luke’s voice came back. “I don’t think I can get back to you.”
“Don’t try,” Han told him. “As soon as you’re clear, jump to lightspeed and get out of here.”
“What about you?”
Luke’s last word was partially drowned out by a sudden twitter from the comm. “That’s the signal,” Irenez said. “Here they come.”
Han frowned, searching the sky outside the front viewport. As far as he could see, there was nothing out there but stars—
And then, in perfect unison, three large ships suddenly dropped out of hyperspace into triangular formation directly ahead of them.
Lando inhaled sharply. “Those are old Dreadnaught cruisers.”
“That’s our help,” Irenez said. “Straight down the middle of the triangle—they’ll cover for us.”
“Right,” Han gritted, shifting the Lady Luck’s vector a few degrees, and trying to coax a little more speed out of its engines. The New Republic had a fair number of Dreadnaughts, and at six hundred meters long each they were impressive enough warships. But even three of them working together would be hard pressed to take out an Imperial Star Destroyer.
Apparently, the Dreadnaughts’ commander agreed. Even as the Star Destroyer behind the Lady Luck opened up with its huge turbolaser batteries, the Dreadnaughts began pelting the larger ship with a furious barrage of ion cannon blasts, trying to temporarily knock out enough of its systems for them to get away.
“That answer your question?” Han asked Luke.
“I think so,” Luke said dryly. “Okay, I’m gone. Where do I meet you?”
“You don’t,” Han told him. He didn’t like that answer much, and he suspected Luke would like it even less. But it couldn’t be helped. With a dozen TIE fig
hters currently between the Lady Luck and the X-wing, suggesting a rendezvous point on even what was supposed to be a secure comm channel would be an open invitation for the Empire to send their own reception committee on ahead. “Lando and I can handle the mission on our own,” he added. “If we run into any problems, we’ll contact you through Coruscant.”
“All right,” Luke said. Sure enough, he didn’t sound happy about it. But he had enough sense to recognize there was no other safe way. “Take care, you two.”
“See you,” Han said, and cut the transmission.
“So now it’s my mission, too, huh?” Lando growled from the copilot’s seat, his tone a mixture of annoyance and resignation. “I knew it. I just knew it.”
Sena’s transport was into the triangular pocket between the Dreadnaughts now, still driving for all it was worth. Han kept the Lady Luck with them, staying as close above the transport’s tail as he could without getting into its exhaust. “You got some particular place you’d like us to drop you?” he asked, looking back at Irenez.
She was gazing out the viewport at the underside of the Dreadnaught they were passing beneath. “Actually, our Commander was rather hoping you’d accompany us back to our base,” she said.
Han threw a look at Lando. There had been something in her tone that implied the request was more than merely a suggestion. “And just how hard was your Commander hoping this?” Lando asked.
“Very much.” She dropped her gaze from the Dreadnaught. “Don’t misunderstand—it’s not an order. But when I spoke to him, the Commander seemed extremely interested in meeting again with Captain Solo.”
Han frowned. “Again?”
“Those were his words.”
Han looked at Lando, found the other looking back at him. “Some old friend you’ve never mentioned?” Lando asked.
“I don’t recall having any friends who own Dreadnaughts,” Han countered. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m being nicely maneuvered into a corner here,” Lando said, a little sourly. “Aside from that, whoever this Commander is, he seems to be in contact with your Bothan pals. If you’re trying to find out what Fey’lya’s up to, he’d be the one to ask.”
Han thought it over. Lando was right, of course. On the other hand, the whole thing could just as easily be a trap, with this talk about old friends being designed to lure him in.
Still, with Irenez sitting behind him with a blaster riding her hip, there wasn’t really a graceful way to get out of it if she and Sena chose to press the point. They might as well be polite about it. “Okay,” he told Irenez. “What course do we set?”
“You don’t,” she said, nodding upward.
Han followed her gaze. One of the three Dreadnaughts they’d passed had now swung around to fly parallel with them. Ahead, Sena’s ship was heading up toward one of a pair of brightly lit docking ports. “Let me guess,” he said to Irenez.
“Just relax and let us do the flying,” she said, with the first hint of humor that he’d yet seen from her.
“Right,” Han sighed.
And with the flashes of the rear guard battle still going on behind them, he eased the Lady Luck up toward the docking port. Luke, he reminded himself, had apparently not sensed any treachery from Sena or her people back in the city.
But then, he hadn’t sensed any deceit from the Bimms on Bimmisaari, either, just before that first Noghri attack.
This time the kid better be right.
The first Dreadnaught gave a flicker of pseudomotion and vanished into hyperspace, taking the transport and the Lady Luck with it. A few seconds later, the other two Dreadnaughts ceased their ion bombardment of the Star Destroyer and, through a hail of turbolaser blasts from still-operating Imperial batteries, made their own escape.
And Luke was alone. Except, of course, for the squadron of TIE fighters still chasing him.
From behind him came an impatient and rather worried-sounding trill. “Okay, Artoo, we’re going,” he assured the little droid. Reaching over, he pulled the hyperdrive lever; and the stars became starlines, and turned to mottled sky, and he and Artoo were safe.
Luke took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh. So that was it. Han and Lando were gone, to wherever Sena and her mysterious Commander had taken them, and there really wasn’t any way for him to track them down. Until they surfaced again and got in touch with him, he was out of the mission.
But perhaps that was for the best.
There was another warble from behind, a questioning one this time. “No, we’re not going back to Coruscant, Artoo,” he told the droid, an echo of déjà vu tugging at him. “We’re going to a little place called Jomark. To see a Jedi Master.”
CHAPTER
9
The little fast-attack patrol ship had dropped out of hyper-space and closed to within a hundred kilometers of the Falcon before the ship’s sensors even noticed its presence. By the time Leia got to the cockpit, the pilot had already made contact.
“Is that you, Khabarakh?” she called, slipping into the copilot’s seat beside Chewbacca.
“Yes, Lady Vader,” the Noghri’s gravelly, catlike voice mewed. “I have come alone, as I promised. Are you also alone?”
“My companion Chewbacca is with me as pilot,” she said. “As is a protocol droid. I would like to bring the droid along to help with translation, if I may. Chewbacca, as we agreed, will stay here.”
The Wookiee turned to her with a growl. “No,” she said firmly, remembering just in time to mute the transmitter. “I’m sorry, but that was the promise I made to Khabarakh. You’ll stay here on the Falcon, and that’s an order.”
Chewbacca growled again, more insistently this time … and with a sudden prickly sensation on the back of her neck, Leia became acutely aware of something she hadn’t really thought about for years. Namely, that the Wookiee was quite capable of ignoring pretty much any order he chose to.
“I have to go alone, Chewie,” she said in a low voice. Force of will wasn’t going to work here; she was going to have to go for logic and reason. “Don’t you understand? That was the arrangement.”
Chewbacca rumbled. “No,” Leia shook her head. “My safety isn’t a matter of strength anymore. My only chance is to convince the Noghri that I can be trusted. That when I make promises I keep them.”
“The droid will pose no problem,” Khabarakh decided. “I will bring my ship alongside for docking.”
Leia switched the transmitter back on. “Fine,” she said. “I also have one case of clothing and personal items to bring along, if I may. Plus a sensor/analyzer package, to test the air and soil for anything that might be dangerous to me.”
“The air and soil where we shall be is safe.”
“I believe you,” Leia said. “But I am not responsible only for my own safety. I carry within me two new lives, and I must protect them.”
The comm speaker hissed. “Heirs of the Lord Vader?”
Leia hesitated; but genetically, if not philosophically, it was true enough. “Yes.”
Another hiss. “You may bring what you wish,” he said. “I must be allowed to scan them, though. Do you bring weapons?”
“I have my lightsaber,” Leia said. “Are there any animals on your world dangerous enough for me to need a blaster?”
“Not anymore,” Khabarakh said, his voice grim. “Your lightsaber, too, will be acceptable.”
Chewbacca snarled something quietly vicious, his wickedly curved climbing claws sliding involuntarily in and out of their fingertip sheaths. He was, Leia realized abruptly, on the edge of losing control … and perhaps of taking matters into those huge hands of his—
“What is the problem?” Khabarakh demanded.
Leia’s stomach tightened. Honesty, she reminded herself. “My pilot doesn’t like the idea of me going off alone with you,” she conceded. “He has a—well, you wouldn’t understand.”
“He is under a life debt to you?”
Leia blinked at the speaker. She hadn’t e
xpected Khabarakh to have ever heard of the Wookiee life debt, much less know anything about it. “Yes,” she said. “The original life debt was to my husband, Han Solo. During the war Chewie extended it to include my brother and me.”
“And now to the children you bear within you?”
Leia looked at Chewbacca. “Yes.”
For a long minute the comm was silent. The patrol ship continued toward them, and Leia found herself gripping the seat arms tightly as she wondered what the Noghri was thinking. If he decided that Chewbacca’s objections constituted betrayal of their arrangement …
“The Wookiee code of honor is similar to our own,” Khabarakh said at last. “He may come with you.”
Chewbacca gave a throaty rumble of surprise, a surprise that slid quickly into suspicion. “Would you rather he have said you had to stay here?” Leia countered, her own surprise at the Noghri’s concession quickly covered up by relief that the whole thing had been resolved so easily. “Come on, make up your mind.”
The Wookiee rumbled again, but it was clear that he’d rather walk into a trap with her than let her walk into one alone. “Thank you, Khabarakh, we accept,” Leia told the Noghri. “We’ll be ready whenever you get here. How long will the trip to your world take, by the way?”
“Approximately four days,” Khabarakh said. “I await the honor of your presence aboard my ship.”
The comm went silent. Four days, Leia thought, a shiver running up her back. Four days in which to learn all that she could about both Khabarakh and the Noghri people.
And to prepare for the most important diplomatic mission of her life.
As it turned out, she didn’t learn much about the Noghri culture during the trip. Khabarakh kept largely to himself, splitting his time between the sealed cockpit and his cabin. Occasionally he would come by to talk to Leia, but the conversations were short and invariably left her with the uncomfortable feeling that he was still very ambivalent about his decision to bring her to his home. When they’d set up this meeting back on the Wookiee world of Kashyyyk, she had suggested that he discuss the question with friends or confidants; but as they neared the end of the voyage and his dark nervousness grew, she began to pick up little hints that he had not, in fact, done so. The decision had been made entirely on his own.
