Honor Among Thieves: Star Wars (Empire and Rebellion)

by James S. A. Corey

  “We can’t let them take control of it,” Leia said. She moved in a crouch to the other side of the panel and began firing at the doorway, forcing the stormtroopers to pull back.

  As Han and Leia traded ineffective shots with the stormtroopers, Scarlet studied the control panel. “I think . . . I think I found the thing that’s blocking the hyperwave relays from sending messages out. Maybe.”

  “Do it!” Leia shouted over the top of a fusillade of blasts from the stormtroopers. Han managed to drop one with a shot to the thigh, and the trooper dragged himself away from the doorway and out of sight. Han could see where his shots were landing, but he’d be much more accurate if he actually stood up and sighted down the blaster. Another wave of incoming fire splashing against the control panel convinced him it wasn’t worth the risk. He didn’t need to win this fight, really. He just needed to survive it.

  Han pulled his hand back to avoid the next barrage of shots, but Leia leaned out and fired off a few blasts that downed another stormtrooper.

  “How many do you think are left out there?” Han asked.

  “Pretty soon it will be all of them on this planet,” she replied. Scarlet grunted out a laugh but didn’t look up from her work.

  “At least Wedge and Luke guaranteed we won’t have that Star Destroyer dropping reinforcements,” Han said, firing off a couple more shots as punctuation. His blaster started flashing at him, so he pulled a charge pack from his belt and reloaded.

  “Luke! We’ll call Luke!” Leia shouted, scrabbling at her comlink. “Red Wave, this is Pointer, are you there?”

  “Uh-oh,” Han said to no one in particular. The stormtroopers were doing something just outside the door. He could only see the edge of their activity, but it looked as if they were setting up some sort of tripod-mounted heavy weapon.

  “Red Wave, this is Pointer, come in!”

  “Probably getting some interference from being so far underground,” Scarlet said.

  “One of us has to make a break for it,” Leia said. “Get far enough up that we can ask Luke to tell General Rieekan to start the attack. And then get back down here so that we know when he’s through.”

  “Another really bad plan,” Han muttered.

  Leia said something else, but it was drowned out by the massive concussion of the stormtroopers’ heavy weapon. They’d wheeled it around the doorway and fired it. They hadn’t taken time to aim, so the blast hit a meter and a half in front of the control panel. The thin grating of the floor instantly turned white with heat.

  “I hope our cover can survive a hit from that,” Han said.

  “I hope the floor can,” Leia replied.

  The big cannon fired again, this time hitting the control panel’s single fragile-looking support. The concussion of the blast knocked Han onto his back and sucked the wind out of his lungs. Both Leia and Scarlet were tossed across the floor, rolling to a stop several meters away.

  The blast had left a discoloration on the support glass. A vaguely yellowish spot, with tiny hairline cracks running through it. They couldn’t afford to let the troopers hit them again with the big gun. Not if it could actually damage the only thing they could hide behind.

  Scarlet and Leia began crawling across the floor back to the control table. The stormtrooper crew manning the cannon were lining up a second shot. They seemed to have noticed the damage the first shot had done and were trying to hit the same spot again.

  “Hey!” Han shouted. “You know that thing you’re shooting at controls the planet, right? What happens if you blow it up? You don’t know.”

  The stormtroopers ignored him. Han popped up, his arms braced on the top of the table to get one clean, accurate shot. The trooper at the back of the cannon was just about to fire when Han’s blaster bolt hit one of the supporting legs and blew it apart. The big cannon canted forward, pulling the gunner along with it. Halfway to the floor the weapon fired, hitting the grating just a little over a meter from the crew with a sound like thunder. The blast hurled the entire crew away. Two of them lay motionless and smoking. The third unlucky man went over the edge of the grating and pinwheeled down and out of sight toward the molten core. Han hoped for the stormtrooper’s sake that the blast had killed him before he went over. A few other stormtroopers peeked around the corner of the doorway at the carnage. Han drove them back. The K’kybak control panel glowed under his arms.

  He hesitated, then tapped at it and ducked back down.

  “How are we doing?” he asked.

  “I’m okay,” Leia said, crawling back over to her side of the control board and taking cover, blaster in hand. She didn’t look okay. There was a trickle of blood running from her hairline and down her cheek, and her forehead was bruised. She’d get upset if he pressed the issue, so he let it drop. Scarlet groaned.

  “Are you all right?” Han asked the spy. The wound in her leg looked bad.

  “I’m fine,” she said, but she seemed a little unsteady. “I just need to . . .”

  She wobbled up to her feet to look at the control board, which took her out of cover. The stormtroopers crowded the doorway to fire at her, too many for Han and Leia to drive back all at once. Scarlet yelped and dropped to her knee, clutching her elbow. The troopers paid for it, with two more dead before they could withdraw.

  “This is getting old,” Scarlet said. She was examining her upper arm, where a blaster bolt had burned through the flesh just above her elbow. It was another ugly wound, but it wasn’t bleeding. “Can you believe today’s the first time I’ve ever been shot? Years in the field, nothing. Today, shot twice.”

  “No!” Han said. “Anyone as reckless as you should be getting shot all the time!”

  “Sort of thought it would never happen to me,” Scarlet continued. Han hoped she wasn’t going into shock.

  One of the stormtroopers leaned out and tossed out an explosive device. It rolled across the floor at them. Han shot it, sending it rolling in the opposite direction. The stormtroopers peeking out ducked back just before it blew up right outside their doorway.

  “There might be a pattern, though,” Scarlet said. Her eyelids were drooping and she started to sag onto her back. “We should ask him . . .”

  “Sure, sweetheart, I’ll give him a call. Whoever ‘he’ is,” Han said. “Leia, grab her medpac and give her something to keep her on her feet.”

  Leia pulled the pack off Scarlet’s belt and started rummaging through it.

  “Did you hear what she said earlier? Force fields and tricky-to-balance energies?” Han asked. “That means we can blow this place.”

  “Are you insane?” Leia asked. “If we figure this device out, it ends the war.”

  “If—”

  “It ends the war,” she repeated, looking up from her work to stare him in the eye. Han didn’t know how her eyes could be that soft and that hard at the same time. “No more Alderaans. No more Kiamurrs. Never again, Han. What is that worth? We stay here. We hold this position until General Rieekan comes.”

  A stormtrooper risked a quick look into the room, but Han put a blaster bolt into the door frame right next to his face and he pulled back.

  “We can’t do it,” he said, keeping his pistol trained on the same spot, waiting to see if the trooper would peek out again. “And even if we could, you’re talking about making a government with absolute power to control travel. The first government that can enforce its laws without anybody slipping through the cracks.”

  Leia pressed an injection ampoule to Scarlet’s neck, then began winding a bandage around her arm. The spy mumbled something unintelligible.

  “This isn’t the time for that conversation,” Leia shouted. But a few seconds later she went on, “You say that like it’s a bad thing. Only criminals would have anything to worry about.”

  Han laughed and fired a few shots at a trooper who’d looked around the corner to take a few desultory blasts at him.

  “Leia, hate to break it to you. We’re criminals. I’m shooting at the govern
ment right now. That’s why they call it a rebellion!”

  “We’re fighting to restore—”

  “Yeah, yeah, the glorious Republic of old,” Han snorted. “I’ve heard the sales pitch, sister. But tell me this: if that glorious Republic had had this technology, would it have stopped Palpatine from taking control?”

  Leia opened her mouth to answer, then closed it and frowned. Han stood up and fired off a few more shots at the doorway. No one was visible, but he wanted it to stay that way. Scarlet blinked and sat forward, rubbing her eyes.

  “Probably not,” Leia finally admitted. “By the time anyone realized what he was up to, he controlled the bureaucracy.”

  “And would there now be a Rebel Alliance?” Han asked gently. He trusted her to see what he saw. He didn’t need to browbeat her into it.

  “No,” she said. Her expression was almost hurt. “I’d never misuse this, you know. I’d never let anyone else, either.”

  Scarlet coughed and struggled to focus on them. “What are we talking about?” she asked, but they both ignored her.

  “I know you wouldn’t,” Han said, taking her left hand with his. “I trust you, Princess. But the guy who’s elected after you? I don’t know him.”

  Leia frowned and looked away. Something moved in the shadows on the other side of the doorway, and Leia took a quick shot at it. Whatever it was stopped moving.

  “If we take this,” Han said, using his blaster to wave at the massive machine all around them, “the next evil galactic empire that rises never ends. Does the fact that we probably won’t be there to see it make you feel better?”

  “No,” Leia said. “No. You’re right. Let’s blow it.”

  Han let out a long breath. “I’ve got to admit, it’s a huge relief to hear you say that,” he said with a grin. Leia frowned at him, confused. Her eyes went wide.

  “You already set it to collapse?”

  “Yeah, that one thing Scarlet told me not to touch? I touched it about a minute ago. But I was having trouble figuring out how to break the news.”

  Thirty-One

  “What did you do?” Scarlet asked, staring down at the planet’s core as it shifted from dull red to a brighter orange. “What did you do?”

  The platform trembled, and a hot wind blew up from below through the grating—a gentle presentiment of worse things to come. Han stood up, but a barrage of fire from the stormtroopers drove him back into cover.

  “We can’t get out the way we came in,” he said. “Think I could explain to those guys that we should all be leaving?”

  Leia didn’t answer. “There.” She pointed at a nearby platform where there was a set of irising doorways the twins of the ones on their platform. “We need to get to that one.”

  “Long jump, sweetheart,” Han said. It was at least fifteen meters from the edge of their platform to the one she was pointing at.

  “Your grapnel,” Leia said to Scarlet. “Would it reach that far?”

  Scarlet shifted her gaze between them, struggling to put Leia’s question together with the one she’d asked.

  “Yes,” Scarlet said, nodding. She was moving her head too fast. The drugs Leia had pumped into her to keep her from going into shock were making her jittery. “But nothing to secure it to on this side. The magnet’s only on the grapple end.”

  An electronic voice came from the doorway yelling, “Go go go!” and seven stormtroopers rushed into the room, shooting wildly. Han and Leia returned fire from cover, but Scarlet stood up and fired over the top of the control panel. When the troopers were finally driven back to the doorway, they left three of their number behind on the grating. Several blaster bolts had passed close enough to Scarlet to singe her hair and shirt.

  “Please stop doing that,” Leia said. “Getting shot three times in one day won’t be better.”

  The core below shifted from orange to yellow, and the platform shook more vigorously. A gentle rain of dust and pebbles fell toward the core from the rocks above.

  “We should leave now,” Han said.

  “There!” Leia shouted, pointing up at a bright metal support arm for the platform above them. “Attach it there. We should be able to swing across.”

  “Swing across,” Scarlet repeated. “That’s crazy.”

  “It’ll work,” Leia insisted. “Trust me.”

  Scarlet shrugged and handed her blaster to Han. She pulled the grapnel rig off her belt and programmed in the length of line she wanted.

  “I’ll be exposed while I’m doing this,” she said. “And while we’re. . . swinging across.”

  “I’ve got you covered. Get it set up,” Han said. When Scarlet moved off to the edge of the ramp to line up her grapnel shot, Han went with her, keeping his back to her and firing into the open doorway with both blasters as fast as he could pull the triggers. When one started to flash a warning at him, he yelled, “Reloading!” and Leia stood up to take over covering fire while he slapped in a new charge.

  The grapnel line flew off with a smooth hiss, the magnetic head striking the support beam with a thud. Whatever the beam was made of, magnets stuck to it. Scarlet leaned all her weight back on the line, and it held.

  A few brave stormtroopers poked their heads around the corner to take shots, but the blistering return fire from Han and Leia drove them back. One of them caught a blaster shot in the eye of his helmet and dropped, half in and half out of the round doorway.

  “Do we go one at a time, or all at once?” Scarlet asked.

  “Oh, we’re all leaving right now,” Han assured her. “Leia, go, I’m right behind you.”

  Leia ran past him, but he was too busy firing at the doorway to watch her attach herself to the line. “Han, go!” she shouted, and a wave of blasterfire flew past him as she opened up on the doorway.

  Han turned and ran to the edge of the platform, firing back over his shoulder as he went. Scarlet and Leia had both attached the end of the line to their utility belts, so Han just ran at them at full speed, dove into a bear hug around them, and launched all three of them off the edge of the grating.

  Scarlet yelped when Han’s arm gripped her injured elbow, and Leia gasped as he squeezed all the air out of her. Han looked down, nothing between him and the almost white-hot planetary core but a few thousand kilometers of empty space. Galassian’s tumbling body was too far away to see. A second later they were above the next platform and Scarlet released the line. They crashed to the metal grating in a knot. Han wound up on the bottom, with Leia’s elbow in his eye and Scarlet’s knee in his stomach.

  “Ouch,” he said as they climbed off him. He didn’t have time for more complaint, as a few blaster shots hit the grating and nearby wall.

  Scarlet raced to open the platform’s door, and Leia dived through, chased by incoming fire. Han stood and fired a few shots back at the stormtroopers, but at that range, any hits on either side would be completely up to luck. One of the remaining troopers wasn’t firing, just looking across the gap at them, head cocked to the side in an obvious you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me pose.

  Han fired off a few more shots to keep them off balance, then followed Scarlet and Leia through the door. Scarlet shut it immediately behind him, and the sound of blaster shots hitting it echoed through the wall.

  They were in a small chamber with one long, sloping shaft leading up at the end. A platform like the one they’d ridden down sat at the bottom.

  “I hope that thing has power,” Han said.

  Scarlet limped toward it. “It seems like everything down here is still powered up.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Han said. “Because there’s no other way out of this room, and going back out onto the platform right now seems like a terrible idea. Also, the planet is imploding.”

  Scarlet began flipping switches on the control panel, whispering to herself while she worked. Han heard the word “blue” and realized she was repeating the code from their last ride. His first thought was I hope the same code means up; his second was How doe
s she remember it at all?

  When the massive metallic clang came and the elevator started to climb, Han said a silent thank-you to whatever force of the universe protected heroes and fools. A new round of tremors hit, shaking the floor hard enough to knock him to his knees. Scarlet held on to the control panel to stay upright, but Leia was knocked onto her backside with a thump. Hot wind rushed past them, blowing Scarlet’s dark hair into wings on the sides of her head. Han smelled hot metal and lubricant. He hoped the K’kybak had built their transport as well as they had their control panels.

  When the shaking stopped, Leia climbed to her feet with a grunt and a wince. “I’m going to need a very long soak in a very hot bath after this trip.”

  “You know,” Scarlet said to Han, eyes narrowing, “I spent two years of my life tracking down the leads that eventually led to this place. Two years of dangerous undercover work. And when we found it, you blew it up on a whim.”

  “Wasn’t a whim,” he replied. “It was intentional and well thought out.”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Leia said to Scarlet. “With Han, it’s easy to mistake well thought out for spur of the moment. They look exactly the same.”

  “As much as I’d like to argue the point, we don’t have time,” Han said, then pulled out his comlink. “Chewie, buddy, you there?”

  The only answer was static.

  “Chewie, I hope you’re not sleeping, because we’re all going to die.”

  That got a yowling response.

  “We seem to be high enough to get through, if you want to call Luke with an update,” Han said to Leia. As she nodded and turned her attention to her comlink, Han went back to Chewbacca. “We need the Falcon up right now. Get it over to the temple. Jungle’s too thick there to land, so we’ll climb up to the top for pickup.”

  Chewie rumbled out a reply and closed the connection.

  “Again with the climbing to get picked up,” Scarlet said with a sigh.

  “No stormtroopers shooting at us this time,” Han replied.

  “No, you’re right. Instead we get a planet blowing up below us.”