Planet of Twilight

by Barbara Hambley

  hitched a ride back from Algar with the fleet, and his Sullustan co-pilot

  Nien Nunb, were handling the jump extrapolations while Chewbacca studied the

  sensor readouts beamed in from the few remote stations on the other side of

  the Spangled Veil Nebula.

  "Pick 'em upS." Solo asked, and the Wookiee yowled assent.

  "Where they headed,"

  "Well, judging by the point at which they came out of hyperspace," said

  Lando, tapping in a few more numbers, "it could be either Meridias itself,

  which would be stupid on the face of it considering that planet's been dead

  for centuries, or any of the Chorios systems."

  Lando looked a little tired from his fast trip to summon reinforcements, but

  was shaven, bathed, and sleek as usual. Han, who felt and looked like many

  kilometers of bad road, didn't know how he managed.

  "For my money it's Pedducis Chorios. They'll have their work cut out for

  them getting rid of all the pirate Warlords who have alliances with local

  chiefs, but there's a lot of profit there. Nam Chorios is just a rock."

  "Yeah," agreed Han softly. "But by an amazing coincidence, it's the rock

  Seti Ashgad comes from, with all his swearing up and down he saw Leia off

  safe and sound. And now all of a sudden while everyone's all in a tizzy

  because Leia's disappeared, by gosh, somebody comes along and tries to

  invade Nam Chorios."

  "But that's crazy!" protested Lando, every entrepreneurial bone in his body

  offended to the marrow. "Who'd want anything on Nam Chorios?"

  "I don't know," said Han. "But I think we're gonna find that out."

  He leaned over the comm, opened the main link.

  "Captain Solo here. We're taking hyperspace jump bearing seven-seven-five;

  coming out bearing nine-three-nine-three-two . . ."

  Lando's eyes flared wide at the nearness of that jump point. "Han, old buddy

  . . ."

  Han put his hand over the mike, "We want to get there before them, don't we?

  I know what i'm doing."

  "What you're doing is smashing us into Nam Chorios if somebody gets one hair

  off."

  "So don't get a hair off," said Han bluntly, and turned back to the comm.

  "Course for Nam Chorios. Possible interception on return to realspace, so

  keep your heads up."

  He turned back to the readouts. Three Star Destroyers. Half a dozen

  carracks. Two interdictors.

  And the swarms that didn't even register on the readout, the silent, deadly

  clouds of CCIR space needles, waiting to cut them to pieces the minute they

  came out of hyperspace.

  He had to be crazy.

  "Punch it, Chewie," he said.

  Luke felt the violence of the Force storm that surrounded the Bleak Point

  gun station kilometers away, as a throbbing in his head and a clutch of

  terror and rage in his chest. As the Mobquet flew down the canyons like a

  great black glide lizard, crystal boulders and whirlwinds of gravel would

  spontaneously leap and swirl in the air, spattering against the speeder's

  sleek body and scratching the tough transplex of the passenger hoods.

  Liegeus whispered, "Beldorion. He can still wield the Force after a fashion.

  But I've never seen it like this, never." Luke gritted his teeth, knowing

  that this random torrent of energy was being duplicated elsewhere on the

  planet, w'recking machinery on which people's lives and livelihoods

  depended, overturning other forges to cripple other men.

  So that Seti Ashgad could disable a gun station, he thought, and create a

  corridor through which a ship could fly.

  He'd only need to disable one.

  As they came out of the hanging canyon above the gun station Luke said

  softly, "They're in."

  Most of the wood and metal palisade that had crowned the ancient tower had

  been torn away by the violence of the uncontrolled Force.

  Beams and shards and huge mats of razor wire strewed the gravel at the base

  of the walls; and with the sheer poltergeist wildness of the Force, these

  would rise up and hurl themselves like rabid things against the walls, the

  remains of the defenses, the surrounding rocks.

  As Luke watched, a rusted beam flew like a javelin from the ground, dragging

  after it a whole tangle of wire, and fell among the struggling forms that

  ran and dodged and fired on one another on the top of the tower. The beam

  thrashed and whipped until it fell, dragging two of the Rationalist fighters

  down with it in a snarl of debris.

  On the flat top of the tower they were still fighting before the door that

  led down into the building itself. From the mouth of the hanging canyon Luke

  couldn't tell, but he thought that there was another, smaller scrimmage

  going on around the coils and shielding of the barrel of the laser cannon

  itself. Rationalists were struggling to get up on top of it, raggedly

  dressed Therans fighting them hand to hand to keep them from damaging the

  gun. The flare of blasters and ion cannon burst like pale lightning in the

  morning air, but such was the nature of the Force storm that not many of the

  shots were getting in, and the Therans had quite clearly stopped even trying

  to throw spears or shoot arrows.

  Even pellets and bullets from projectile weapons were whirled away like

  chaff.

  "Beldorion's there," said Liegeus. He shoved back the long ash-colored hair

  hanging in his eyes. "Back out of the front lines somewhere, I should

  think--there!" He pointed down to the silvery shape of a round floater, some

  distance from the base of the walls. Luke could see the coiled shape of the

  giant Hutt on it, muscular and serpentine, not at all like Jabba's slothful

  bulk.

  The sense of decayed Force, of rotted abilities and spent purpose, rose to

  Luke like a stench, as it had from Taselda.

  In many ways it was worse than Vader, worse than Palpatine. At least their

  dream had been grand.

  "What do we do." said Liegeus.

  Luke began to back the assault speeder up the canyon again, the way they had

  come. A speeder wasn't an antigrav platform and generally couldn't be used

  as one without restructuring of the buoyancy

  tanks, but Chariots had motors on them that would do credit to many of the

  combat vessels Luke had flown. "We hold on tight."

  Liegeus gasped, "What are you going to do?--A silly question, thought Luke,

  as he slammed the speeder into full-bore acceleration and readied his hand

  on the turbothrust lever. It should have been patently obvious what the only

  possible course of action was. The walls of the canyon blurred into a

  shining curtain, wind and flying gravel scorched back over hood and metal,

  the gap of the canyon walls rushed toward them and beyond that, the wide

  break in the tower's defensive crown beckoned like a ridiculously enormous

  bull's-eye.

  Liegeus wailed, "Luke!" and hid his eyes.

  The speeder cleared the twenty-five-meter gap between the last ridge of the

  mountain's shoulder and the top of the tower like a nek battle dog, like a

  trained Tikkiar rising for a kill. Luke cut the turbos and hit the brake,

  skidding in among the combatants who scattered before him.

  He recognized Gerney Caslo in the f
ighting around the door and, springing

  out of the speeder, plunged across the stained and battered paving blocks of

  the tower's open top and up the steps to where he stood.

  "You've got to stop this!" he yelled. Everyone was so startled for a moment

  by the appearance of the Mobquet among them that they did halt.

  "You're being duped!" shouted Luke, turning to the men and women who

  crouched behind makeshift barricades, guns in hand, to those who had for the

  moment fallen back from fighting on the laser gun itself.

  "You're being used! Seti Ashgad has only one reason for wanting to open this

  planet--so that he can sell the whole place to Loronar Corporation to

  strip-mine! He doesn't care about your farms!

  He doesn't care about medical supplies, or water pumps, or machinery for

  you!"

  He looked around him, at the dusty, cut, bloody faces, the battered forms

  stepping cautiously forth from their places of cover, at the angry eyes, not

  wanting to believe. Arvid was among them, and Aunt Gin, and the

  brother-in-law of the owner of the Blue Blerd.

  His arms dropped to his sides. "He isn't doing this for you." Someone said,

  "Shoot the whiner," and Luke reached forth with the Force and pulled the

  man's blaster away before he could get the shot off-. The white bolt of

  energy scattered chips from the wall of the stairway housing behind him.

  "A lot you know about it!" yelled someone else.

  "i know," said Luke quietly. "We been into Ashgad's house. He isn't doing

  this for any of you."

  "He's right."

  Behind Luke, the door opened, very quickly, and closed again--Luke could

  hear the locks slamming open even as Gerney Caslo and the two men with him

  made a jump to catch it as it opened.

  Leia had stepped through.

  Leia grimy, in tatters, her hair hanging down in strings in her eyes and her

  palms and knuckles bandaged. Leia with strips of space tape and leather

  binding what remained of her ornamental golden boots, empty-handed but with

  a blaster on one hip and her lightsaber on the other.

  But definitely Leia Organa Solo, known on a thousand news holos to many and

  certainly, from Seti Ashgad's faked video, to every man and woman there.

  There was goggling silence.

  "He's telling the truth," she said. She reached into one of the thigh

  pockets of a pair of far-too-big trousers she wore and produced a wad of

  computer printouts. "Here's a copy of Ashgad's correspondence with the CEO

  of Loronar, with Moff Getelles of Antemeridian, with pawns and cat's paws in

  the Republic Council. Is anyone here a neep?"

  Booldrum Caslo stepped forward. "I am, ma'am."

  "Then you'll recognize the system codes as coming from Ashgad's computer."

  The chubby man changed the lens ratio of his visiamps and flipped quickly

  through the hardcopy, then glanced back at Gerney, apologetic.

  "She's right. This is Ashgad's. I installed the components myself."

  Caslo blustered angrily, "Which doesn't mean you didn't compose this

  yourself, girl." But others were pulling the papers from his cousin's hands,

  reading the memoranda, the deals, the concessions.

  "An installation in Thornwind Valley? Six-month forcible recruitment?

  A man can't live a week up there!"

  "Mandatory labor pool?"

  "Transfer of matriel--isn't the real word for that theft?"

  "Price freeze standardization on Spooks?"

  "At sixty-seven creds?"

  "Occupation fleet . . . who said anything about an occupation fleet?"

  "The occupation fleet is in orbit now," said Luke. He pointed upward.

  Several of the Rationalists had electrobinoculars and focused them skyward,

  where far overhead pinlights of brightness flared in the star-prickled

  twilight sky.

  Under the spate of exclamations and curses, Leia threw her arms around Luke

  in a fierce hug. "What about Dzym. Ashgad's . . ."

  "I know about Dzym," said Luke.

  "If there's really a battle going on up there--if the Council really did

  manage to get ships to stop Getelles's fleet--he'll still try to lift off in

  the Reliant with all the drochs he can take."

  "The lift programs aren't installed."

  "Any competent engineer can do that." She looked up quickly as Liegeus

  emerged from the Chariot, dodged through the milling men and women, the

  angrily stirring cables and beams, the lawless Force winds. "Liegeus .

  . . I" She flung her arms around him, and he held her tight, graying head

  pressed to hers. "My dear child, I'm so glad to see you safe! I never, never

  in my life thought you'd try to escape . . ."

  "Then you didn't know me very well." She grinned at him and a moment later

  he grinned back.

  "Well--I suppose I did know you'd try it." He shook his head.

  "Listen, Liegeus, how much does Ashgad know about the software on that

  vessel?" demanded Luke. "How much of an education has he had? Can he install

  it. Can he get the thing off the ground?"

  "Of course he can," said Leia impatiently. "Seti Ashgad was one of the top

  hyperdrive engineers of the Old Republic. The original Z-95s were his

  design!"

  "His design?" Luke stared at her blankly. "They were making Z-95s fifty

  years ago!"

  "Seti Ashgad is the original Seti Ashgad!" said Leia. "Dzym's been keeping

  him alive all these years."

  There was a rising clamor, men and women jostling and shoving aside Gerney

  Caslo's heated protests of Ashgad's good intent. Sheets and streamers of

  hardcopy were flourished in dust-covered, blood-covered hands, though Luke

  noticed that Umolly Darm and Aunt Gin were collecting the documents and

  tucking them into the safety of their pockets.

  The Theran cultists had come down from their defensive positions on the gun

  shielding to join in the fray. With a yell of fury, Caslo broke from the mob

  and, with a nimbleness Luke wouldn't have given him credit for, seized a

  belt of grenades and sprang to the top of a broken girder, scrambled up

  another one toward the muzzle of the cannon.

  Leia yelled, "Stop him!" but it was too late. Someone fired a blaster rifle

  just as Gerney hurled the grenades. A dozen lines of cold light stitched the

  man like deadly needles, but no one had thought to fire at the grenades he

  threw. They went over the stained black rim of the shielding. A moment later

  a deep, shuddering concussion shook the building, jarring everyone from

  their feet. White smoke belched from the cannon mouth. Gerney's body was

  trampled as people scrambled up the sides of the shielding to look.

  Around them, there was sudden stillness as the Force storm relaxed its grip.

  Leia swore. Luke's hand stole to the red, swollen marks the drochs had left

  on his flesh, and he shivered.

  "Can you fix it?" he asked Liegeus softly.

  "I don't know. I don't have tools."

  "Umolly and Aunt Gin'll have some . . ."

  "It won't be in time," said Leia. "There's an armored Headhunter in the same

  hangar and an old Blastboat. You can mount the main turret guns in the

  Headhunter; that'll give you enough firepower to bring him down."

  "The place'll be guarded . . ."

  "The synthdroids are
gone. Dead. I put them out of commission before I

  escaped and I don't think Ashgad's had time to get them back online.

  Come on."

  Luke bolted back to the Chariot. Aunt Gin and Arvid were already

  tearing loose the antigravs from the two lifter platforms that had gotten

  the Rationalists to the top of the tower, affixing them to the black assault

  speeder's sides.

  Only when the Mobquet had disappeared over the parapet did the battered

  metal doors of the stairway into the tower itself open, and Callista step

  forth.

  "Liegeus?" She held out her hand to the philosopher. The earpiece of the

  ancient intercom system still hung around her neck. "We've got tools down

  here."

  "And they'll be about as much good as those silly arrows," stated Aunt Gin

  fiercely, bustling over with her toolkit. She shoved the enormous, rusty box

  into Liegeus's hands. "Take this, son. I for one haven't spent ten years on

  this crummy rock to see it get taken over by those cheats at Loronar."

  She led the way into the tower. Liegeus paused on the top step, studying

  Callista's face. Comparing the thin, tired features with those of the woman

  who had been Taselda's slave, the woman Beldorion had taken prisoner. "I'm

  pleased to see you well, after all that--er--un-pleasantness," he said

  gently. "I owe you a kind of thanks, for opening my eyes to what Ashgad was

  doing, though I never thought I should be so mad as to say so. You were

  right."

  Callista shook her head. "You were afraid for your life," she said.

  "All the knowledge could have done was hurt you, which it looks like it did.

  I'm only glad you were able to take care of Leia."

  "After having not taken care of you?" There was a self-deprecating wrinkle

  behind the genuine shame in his eyes, and Callista smiled.

  "I can take care of myself. Most ladies can."

  "How well I know. You know your young man is looking for you."

  Callista said softly, "I know."

  "Quite honestly, Madame Admiral, that's all I'm able to tell you."

  Threepio made one of his best human gestures, spreading his arms, palms out,

  at precisely the correct angle and positioning to indicate a friendly

  helplessness, a complete willingness to divulge whatever lay in his power.

  And his digitalized recognition of human body language indicated to him that

  Daala was not buying it one credit's worth.

  But she said, her harsh voice slow, "My title is 'Admiral," droid, not