An anger flowed through her, deep and fine. She let her hands drop. The tiles had stopped falling, at least for the moment. She beckoned Meido and anyone else who could see her. If she couldn’t hear, they couldn’t either. And they all had to get out.
She glanced up once. The blast had made several holes in the ceiling—big, jagged, gaping holes in the crystal inlay. All of the tile put in by the Emperor had come loose and was falling like hail across the Hall. Other senators were standing. A few ancient protocol droids were lifting chunks of debris and pushing them aside, apparently in an attempt to get someone underneath free. M’yet Luure’s junior senator was already halfway up the stairs, his six legs and long tail blocking the exit for half a dozen other senators. Of Luure, she saw no sign.
The guard took her arm and gestured forward. She nodded, shook him free, and kept moving. She expected more blasts and got nervous each time one failed to happen. This attack was unlike any she had ever felt. Why hit the Senate Hall once and then quit?
She slipped on broken tile, almost fell, put out her left hand to brace herself, and found it in something squishy. She turned, and saw that her hand rested on one of M’yet Luure’s six legs. It had been blown away from his body. She scrambled toward him, hoping that he was alive, shoving aside rock, tile, and marble as she searched—
—and then stopped when she found his face. His eyes were open and empty, his mouth half-closed over his six rows of teeth. She ran a bloody hand along his torn cheeks.
“M’yet,” she said, the word rumbling in her throat. He didn’t deserve to die like this. She hated his politics, but he was a good friend, a decent friend, and one of the best politicians she had ever met. She had hoped to convert him to her ways. She had hoped he would work with the Republic in a leadership position one day, outside the Senate, where he would be a strong voice for change.
The doors opened. Blinding light filled the Hall. Leia braced herself and propped her blaster on a nearby rock. Then she saw her own security people hurrying in. She got up and ran to them, struggling on stairs and debris, trying not to trip.
“Hurry!” she said as she reached the top. “We have wounded below!”
One of the guards spoke back to her, but she couldn’t hear him. Instead, she surveyed the damage from above. Each seat was covered with debris. Most of the senators were moving, but many weren’t.
The tone had truly been set for this Senatorial term.
And for that, the Empire would pay.
Five
The boom made the glow panels dim in the Crystal Jewel. Then the ground shivered. Droid dealers all over the casino wailed as they shook on their moorings. Han’s precariously tilted chair fell. He slipped off it and caught it with one hand. Jarril toppled against the table, spilling the remaining drinks.
“What the—?”
“Groundquake?” someone asked.
“… falling …”
“… Look out!”
The screams and shouts drowned out any attempt at conversation, not that Han was going to try. He’d lived through enough over the years to know that that was no groundquake. That was an explosion.
He tapped Jarril on the shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”
“What is it?” Jarril yelled.
Han didn’t answer him, at least not directly. “We’re underground, pal. If we don’t get out now, we might not get out at all.”
Jarril probably hadn’t thought that through. These dives never felt as if they were six feet under, although they were. His scream joined the others as he stood. Han was already shoving his way to the door, his blaster in the face of anyone who tried to stop him. Along the way, he helped a Cemas to its feet, dodged the teeth of a freed nek battle dog, and pulled a wingéd Agee off a crumbling section of ceiling.
The crowd at the door was huge, all scrambling on top of one another, all trying to get free. Then Han realized some idiot had pulled the door shut.
“Let us out of here!” he shouted.
“You don’t know what’s out there!”
“I know that whatever it is, it’s a lot better than dying in here.”
Voices rose with his, all agreeing with his protests. He managed to shove his way to the front. An Oodoc, a species known for its size and strength but not its intelligence, stood before the door, its spiked arms crossed in front of its massive chest.
“It’s safer in here,” it said.
“Listen, toothpick brain,” Han said. “The roof’s about to cave in. I would rather take my chances with whatever’s out there than die with you in here.”
“I wouldn’t,” the Oodoc said.
“Then you don’t have to go.” Han shoved him aside and blasted the lock on the door. The ricochet caught the Oodoc in its spiny back. It growled and lunged for Han as the door swung open.
A tide of seamy creatures flowed into the corridors beyond, gathering Han and sweeping him away from the Oodoc. He pulled free, reached the turbolift by himself, scanned for Jarril, and didn’t see him. The lift stopped a level below the surface and Han went up the stairs two at a time, braced for the next blast, which seemed to take forever in coming.
The crowd reached the doors, bursting through them. The screaming and shouting stopped when people reached the surface.
Han reached the top and stopped so suddenly that the Gotal behind him slammed into his back. The Gotal shoved him as it pushed away, then it, too, stopped and looked up, its double-cone-shaped head pointing toward the sky.
Han stepped away from the entrance, his mouth dry.
Coruscant looked the same. Nothing had touched the city. Nothing at all.
The sunlight was bright, blinding, and warm. The afternoon was as beautiful as it had been when he went below.
“It couldn’ta been underground, could it?” asked one of the gamblers from the Crystal Jewel, a man who looked vaguely familiar.
Han shook his head. “Something happened somewhere.”
“Not from above,” the Gotal said. “If it had come from above, we’d see the effects.”
“We’d be ducking and running, hoping nothing else hits the city,” the gambler said.
Han put a hand up to shade his eyes as he looked for movement. Finally he saw it: a contingent of guards and medical personnel heading toward the Imperial Palace.
The palace.
The children.
Leia.
He took off after the guards at top speed, nearly mowing down that nek battle dog, which was scampering away from its master. Han dodged in and out of building columns, through streets, always keeping the guards and medical staff in sight.
It was the medical personnel who worried him.
People had been hurt.
They avoided the main entrance to the palace and instead ran along its side. He felt a moment of relief until he realized where they were going.
The Senate Hall.
His breath was coming in sharp gasps. A stitch had formed in his side. He was in shape, but it had been a long time since he had run at top speed anywhere. And he had been going at top speed for a long time now.
No more blasts.
Odd. Very odd.
He rounded the corner and the sight before him made him run harder. Senators were scattered across the lawn, covered with dirt and several different colors of blood. A black ichor trailed from the senator from Nyny. All three of his heads were tilted backward. If he wasn’t dead, he was close.
Mon Mothma was bent over another senator, talking carefully. Han stopped long enough to tap her shoulder.
“Leia?” he asked.
Mon Mothma shook her head. She looked ten times older than she had that morning. “I haven’t seen her, Han.”
He dodged the wounded, even though she shouted his name again. He knew what she would say. Exactly what Leia would say in this instance: Don’t go inside. Let the trained personnel deal with it. But his wife was missing. He’d find her himself.
The large marble entrance was filled with dus
t, blood, and more bodies. Some were stacked against the wall like cargo. As he passed he realized those were droids. They weren’t even full droids, only pieces: arms in one corner, legs in another. He saw dozens of golden body parts and didn’t want to think about the possibility of Threepio being among the shattered.
The blood and dirt had made the floor slippery. He slid across part of the floor, finally stopping when he reached the entrance to the Hall itself.
All the doors were open, the emergency glow panels were on, and dust hovered in the air like a sandstorm on Tatooine. From inside, he heard wailing, moaning, and voices crying for help. Other voices mingled in the din, calling for assistance or giving orders. The medical personnel he had followed were already inside, as were dozens of guards and security people.
A huge bomb had to have gone off here to do this kind of damage. Bigger than anything he had seen outside of a space battle. And this bomb couldn’t have come from space. The outside of the building was fine. This one had to have come from within.
Then he saw Leia, drenched in blood, her white gown, white no longer, ripped and stuck to her frame. One braid had come loose and hung down her back. The other was half-undone, her beautiful brown hair tangled and matted as it fell along her face. She had her hands beneath the secondary bumps on an unconscious Llewebum. Two guards supported its feet. She limped as she moved backward, favoring her right leg.
Han hurried to her side, placed his hands beside hers on the Llewebum’s ridged skin. “I’ve got it, sweetheart,” he said, but she didn’t seem to hear him. He bumped her slightly with his hip, and she let go. The weight of the Llewebum made him stagger. He didn’t know how she had supported it. He put the Llewebum beside one of its comrades, near a medical droid that was tagging all the cases according to degree of emergency. Then Han went back to Leia.
She had started into the Hall again, but he put his arm around her waist and gently held her back.
“I’m getting you medical care, sweetheart.”
“Let me go, Han.”
“You’ve helped enough. We’re going to the center.”
She didn’t shake her head. She didn’t even look at him when he spoke. One entire side of her face was bruised and her skin was covered with scorch marks. Her nose was bleeding and she didn’t even seem to notice.
“I’ve got to go in there,” she said.
“I’ll go in. You stay here.”
“Let me go, Han,” she said again.
“She can’t hear you,” one of the medical droids said as it passed. “A concussion of that size in an enclosed space damaged everyone with eardrums.”
She couldn’t hear? Han gently turned her toward him, trying not to let his fear for her show on his face. “Leia,” he said slowly. “Help is here. Let me take you to the medical center.”
Beneath the dirt, her skin was pale. “It’s my fault.”
“No, sweetheart, it’s not.”
“I let the Imperials in. I didn’t fight hard enough.”
Her words chilled him. “We don’t know what caused this. Come on. Let me get you help.”
“No,” she said. “My friends are dying in there.”
“You’ve done all you can.”
“Don’t be stubborn,” she said.
“I’m not the one—!” He bit back the words. He couldn’t stand here and argue with her. She couldn’t hear. She’d win. He scooped her into his arms. She was light and warm. “You’re coming with me,” he said.
“I can’t, Han,” she said, but she didn’t struggle. “I’m fine. Really.”
“I don’t want you to die because you don’t know when to quit,” he said as he stepped past the wounded.
Either her hearing was coming back or she could read lips. “I’m not going to die,” she said.
His heart was pounding against his chest. He cradled her close. “Lady, I wish I were as sure of that as you are.”
Jarril stopped running when he reached the hangars. He had seen activity all around the flight bases, but he figured it wouldn’t reach his ship yet.
He was right.
Although he probably didn’t have much time.
He had left the ship, the Spicy Lady, in the far corner of the hangar, behind two larger ships. The Spicy Lady was small but distinctive. Brown, shaped like the Millennium Falcon crossed with an A-wing, she was of Jarril’s own special design. She was built for carrying cargo, but if things got difficult, he could jettison the storage unit and let the fighter ship move on its own. The fighter could be remote-operated; he could lead a pursuer on a wild-goose chase with the fighter while in reality he was on the storage ship with all the cargo. He had only had to use that scenario once, and fortunately he’d been able to recover the fighter part of the ship later.
He was never so relieved to see anything in his life.
He had to get off Coruscant before they put a clamp on space travel. And they would, once the source of that explosion was located. He had to get back to the Run before anyone noticed he was missing. He was afraid someone already had.
This part of the hangar appeared to be empty. Odd. If he were in charge of Coruscant, he would close down access to and from the planet immediately. But the New Republic did things democratically, not logically.
He only hoped he had piqued Han’s interest enough. They wouldn’t have another chance at a conversation.
He hurried across the platform to his ship. Then he dropped the ramp and climbed in. It felt strange to enter an empty ship. Usually he traveled with Seluss, a Sullustan. They had started in the business together. Seluss was supposed to cover for him while he was gone.
The Spicy Lady smelled of cool processed air. He had left the interior pressurized, a mistake he didn’t usually make. This time it didn’t matter, though. It would be easier for him to leave.
He would pilot out of the storage section. Safer. If the Coruscant command gave him any troubles, he would separate the sections and let them worry about the fighter while the storage unit escaped. He had just slid into the pilot’s chair when he heard something behind him.
He stiffened but did not turn. He might have been mistaken about the sound.
No. There it was again. The hollowy inhale of someone breathing through a mask.
Jarril swallowed. As he turned, he put his hand on his blaster.
Two stormtroopers faced him, blasters already trained on him. “Where do you think you’re going?” one of them asked. The voice was unrecognizable through the helmet’s mouthpiece.
Then Jarril realized they weren’t stormtroopers. They were wearing his cargo. He recognized the battle scorch on the helmet on the right.
They must have come on the ship wearing other clothing. They had put on the stormtrooper uniforms to scare him? He wasn’t afraid of stormtroopers. At least, not stormtroopers wearing his own haul.
“I think it’s high time to leave Coruscant, don’t you?” Jarril asked. He wished he knew whom he was addressing.
“We plan to leave,” the other trooper said, “after you tell us your business here.”
“I was visiting an old friend,” Jarril said.
“Strange time to be visiting,” the first stormtrooper said.
“Strange time to be helping yourselves to my equipment,” Jarril snapped.
“It’s ours ultimately,” the second stormtrooper said.
“You don’t want to get caught wearing those on Coruscant,” Jarril said.
“We won’t get caught,” the first stormtrooper said. He nodded his helmet toward Jarril. “Put down the blaster.”
Jarril shrugged and let go. “I wasn’t going to use it anyway.”
“Tell us again why you’re on Coruscant.”
“Why are you?” Jarril said. “Did you have anything to do with that bombing?”
“We’ll ask the questions,” said the second stormtrooper.
Jarril swallowed. His head was woozy from exertion on top of too many drinks. It was his ship. He should be able to find
a way out of this. “I was following a lead.”
“A lead,” said the first stormtrooper. “I thought you were visiting an old friend.”
“Where’d you think I was going to get the lead?”
“From Han Solo, husband to the leader of the New Republic?”
They had followed him. He wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of this one. He grabbed the control console, but too late. A well-placed blaster shot hit his hands. He screamed as pain burned through him.
He clutched his hands to his stomach and looked at the troopers. “What do you want with me?” he asked, voice shaking.
“To silence you forever,” said the first stormtrooper.
And then they did.
Six
Luke had seen the medical center near the Imperial Palace this full only once before, and that had been in the days after the Empire attack that had forced the New Republic leadership to lead. A long time ago now, but it felt close, with all these wounded around him. Wounded waited in reception areas just like guests, while medical personnel found beds for them, or moved them to more-specialized wings of the medical center.
Luke walked among them, feeling more shaken than he had when he learned of the attack.
Familiar faces, some gray with pain, others so scarred he could barely recognize them, looked away from him. The attack had to have been horrible. He had been worried when he approached Coruscant and all the defenses were up. He had had to get special clearance from Admiral Ackbar—no one could raise Leia—and it wasn’t until he had spoken to Mon Mothma that he had known why.
As he strode through the hallway to the recovery areas, something grabbed him around his booted leg. He looked down to see Anakin clinging to his thigh.
“Uncle Luke,” Anakin said, his face upturned, his blue eyes tear-streaked, his eyelashes gummed together.
Luke bent down and picked up the boy, even though, at six, Anakin was getting too big to be held in this way. Anakin clung to him so tightly that Luke could barely breathe.
“Is your mother all right?” Luke asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.
Star Wars: The New Rebellion Page 4
