Planet of Twilight

by Barbara Hambley

  'Madame Admiral." I was--an officer of the Imperial fleet on exact parity

  with others of my rank, and you will employ that usage whenever you address

  me."

  Her eyes were like ash--burned out, exhausted, defeated. Threepio did not

  think he had ever seen such ruin, such bitterness, on a human face.

  "Once, Tarkin and I together could have ruled the Empire," she continued

  slowly. "Looking back on it, I can't even remember why. All I seek, now, is

  a place to live out the rest of my life where I will not be disturbed. I

  thought I had found such a place on Pedducis Chorios, a world in a neutral

  sector, with amenable local authorities, beyond the interference of those

  ham-fisted, brainless, contentious madmen who are engaged in the final

  throes of tearing to pieces what was once the finest system of government

  this galaxy has known. I want no more of it, or of them."

  Her hands lay smooth over the arms of her chair, her knees together, the

  square bones of the joints and the hard bulge of muscle clearly defined

  where the drab trousers tailored to the flesh. Threepio's copious databanks

  contained a great deal of very alarming information about this woman one of

  the most brilliant commanders in the Imperial fleet, but a mad bantha, a

  loose gun firing at random in battle. A woman of formidable competence and

  terrifying anger.

  "And now I come to take up the advisory position I and my partners have been

  offered by the Pedducian Warlords," she continued in that quiet voice, whose

  hoarse timbre spoke of burning gases inhaled in the last battle on board the

  Knight Hammer, the battle in which Callista had destroyed her flagship and

  in which she and Callista had both been thought to perish. "And what do I

  find?"

  Threepio had never been good at distinguishing rhetorical from actual

  questions.

  "Invasion, the Death Seed plague, wholesale rebellion, looting . . ."

  "Be silent."

  He logged the interchange in his Later Study file under the heading of

  "Determinative Cues to Separate Rhetorical from Actual Questions."

  It was his duty as a protocol unit to achieve perfection in that area, and

  he was aware that it would probably prolong his period of usefulness as

  well.

  "I find droids who have clearly been at large for some time in this sector,

  droids whose function is to accurately record all data taking place around

  them, whose answers to my questions are so comprehensively riddled with

  holes and omissions that they lead me to suspect that there is something

  going on."

  She rose to her feet, and touched a wall hatch. With silent efficiency the

  panel revolved, exhibiting a complete and up-to-date electronic analysis

  kit. She activated the data screens with three taps of those long,

  square-tipped fingers, and unhooked a coaxial cable.

  "Fortunately, many, many years ago I had a friend who taught me how to

  communicate with droids."

  Threepio said, with genuine interest, "How very kind of him," but Artoo,

  quicker on the uptake, made a nervous attempt to back away, thwarted by the

  restraining bolt that Daala's Sergeant-at-Arms had taken the precaution of

  installing on both droids before bringing them into her presence. Daala

  checked over the various interfaces and cables added by poor Captain Bortrek

  and finally hooked her own coax into one of the ports he had space-taped to

  Artoo's side.

  She flipped a switch on the analysis kit; Artoo quivered and gave a faint,

  protesting wail.

  "Now," said Daala, her green eyes narrowing. "Tell me what's happening in

  the Meridian sector."

  "What the blazes are those things?" Lando flipped through half a dozen data

  sectors, then cut back immediately to another screen of scan field to check

  on the next pass of the vicious, needlelike attackers. "And how much damage

  did that one do?"

  Chewbacca yowled something through the comm from the rapidly freezing rear

  quarter, where he was floating near the ceiling to fix burned-out wiring

  through hissing masses of emergency foam. "Those things are the things

  that're gonna appear on our headstones, pal," said Han.

  "The most i can figure is they're some kind of CCIR technology, like

  synthdroids," said Lando, brown hands flicking and scrambling over the

  shield controls while Han whipped and pivoted the Millennium Falcon through

  the desperate series of zigzags and loop the loops that was the only

  possible defensive strategy against the things. "The Antemeridian fleet

  isn't anywhere near us, they can't possibly be guiding them in the usual

  sense of the word."

  Around them, the Courane and the Fire-eateand the light explorer Sundance,

  in which Kyp Durron had shown up to assist--were doing the same, snaking and

  weaving in a desperate attempt to remain in position near Nam Chorios until

  the actual invading fleet showed up to fight.

  Only the fact that they'd made orbit before the arrival of the gnatlike

  attackers, with barely forty minutes to spare, let them hold any kind of

  position at all.

  "Are you kidding?" said Han. "You know what a synthdroid costs?

  That's crazy!"

  "I know synthdroid technology is based on a kind of programmable crystal,

  and that's what kicks up the price . . . Blast!" he added, as there was a

  jarring flash and more red lights went up on the board.

  "Chewie, we've got another hit, starboard shield--yeah, I know about the

  hole in the port shield!"

  Stars whirled and flashed past the viewport as Han put the vessel through

  another series of evasions. He wondered as he scratched past another line of

  laser light, perilously close to the main shields on the ship's spine, how'

  long he could keep up this pitch of alertness and activity, not to mention

  how much more of this kind of activity the power supplies could take. Though

  everything was a spangled flash of stars and blackness, he had seen, in a

  rare moment of pause, the Fire-eater drifting helpless and being cut to

  pieces by the Needles at their leisure. He could only pray that the crew was

  already dead or at least unconscious from anoxia.

  Lando, who could never leave an explanation unfinished, added, "If

  somebody's synthesized those crystals, or found a way to get them cheap,

  there's no problem."

  "There's a problem for us!" yelled Han. How did you fight things like that?

  After long concentration and plenty of practice he'd managed to hit two of

  them, but with so many wasted shots it wasn't worth it. They could only

  evade, until the toll of the speed and hyperquick reactions wore them down.

  The Needles, as far as he could tell, were tireless.

  "One thing's for sure," yelled Lando, "they sure want that rock.

  You got any ideas how we're gonna deal with the main fleet when they show

  up?"

  "I'll think of something."

  There was a jarring concussion from somewhere in the ship, and more red

  lights went on.

  "Moff Getelles."

  Daala sat back from the primary readout screen, letting it go black.

  The lesser screens still held the record of Attoo's long, persistent batt
le

  to retain the secret files concerning Leia's disappearance, her doubts

  concerning the integrity of the Council, and all the information for which

  Yarbolk Yemm had been chased and shot at across half the sector. The little

  droid rested tipped back on his two main limbs, a posture curiously

  evocative of defeat. Cables and wires trailed from the various ports and

  interface hatches, short-circuiting through his defenses to every portion of

  his memory.

  Threepio felt sorry for him and considerably apprehensive for his own safety

  as well.

  It did not take an interrogation unit to deduce that this tall, redhaired

  woman sitting so motionless in her black chair was very, very angry indeed.

  "The quibbling, incompetent, boot-licking, corset-laced little sand maggot,"

  she said, in a perfectly soft conversational tone. "Still has his sycophant

  Larm on a leash, i see--with whom he shared the test results at the Academy,

  when he was promoted to captain over my head.

  Selling out to Loronar Corporation, a gang of legalistic thieves who'd

  peddle their sisters to either side so long as they got paid Slime molds.

  All of them. Ranats and Hutts have more honor."

  Threepio made a quick examination of his Determinative Cues sub-file, but

  could not accurately ascertain whether a response was being solicited from

  him or not.

  Daala slid from her chair to her knees, and began uncoupling the various

  cables from Attoo's innards.

  As she worked she spoke, still softly, almost to herself. "I pity her, your

  Chief of State," she said--speaking to Artoo, Threepio thought, slightly

  indignant. "She was Prince Bail Organa's daughter. A man of honor, by his

  own rights, who raised her to be honorable. We had honor in those days.

  Honor and courage."

  She stood and shook back her hair, which flashed like fire in the dim

  lighting of the office. Still her eyes were dead, but filled with the stony

  anger of the dead. "It was honor that drew me to the fleet.

  Power, yes, but honor and courage as well. And now they have come to this.

  Maggots feeding off the corpse of the Empire. Ghouls selling it to procurers

  and money grubbers.

  Tarkin would have died of shame."

  She was looking in his direction, so Threepio ventured, "I have no

  conclusive data as to whether Loronar Corporation is in the business of

  procuration . . ."

  "I was a fool."

  She touched the side of the electronic extraction kit, and it retreated

  soundlessly into the wall. "I was a fool to think that leaving them behind

  would be so simple as cursing them, and walking through the door. Maybe I've

  always been a fool."

  She returned to her chair, and touched an almost invisible toggle in its

  arm. "Yelnor.

  Get me a conference with the captains of all the ships."

  "Ships?" inquired Threepio, startled.

  Daala raised her head, her poisoned eyes seeming to take in again that she

  was not alone in the room. "Ships," she said. "I am the President of the

  Independent Company of Settlers, over three thousand of us, counting spouses

  and children. We who were loyal to the old ways, loyal to the order and

  efficiency that was the heart of the New Order.

  Most were officers of the fleet, who sickened, like me, at this constant

  petty struggle for power, this stupid diplomatic bandying of words with

  upstarts and scum.

  Some others--the heads of business and their families, civil servants.

  We ask only to be let alone, and to that end we

  entered a contract with Warlord K'iin of the Silver Unifir for one and a

  half billion acres--the smallest of the three southern continents--on

  Pedducis Chorios, to colonize and to live as we see fit.

  "And I have no intention," she concluded, reaching out and tapping Artoo on

  his domed cap, "of seeing my investment-our investment--come to nothing

  because a boot-kissing, talentless, jumped-up catamite like Moff Getelles

  wants to be supported in comfort by Loronar Corporation for the rest of his

  sycophantic life. Even if pushing him out of the sector means saving your

  Chief of State--and her spineless alien trash of a Senatorial Council--from

  the embarrassment they so richly deserve."

  She flicked over another comm button. Viewscreens revolved into existence

  all along the wall before her, viewscreens bearing the faces of eight

  men--three of whom wore, like her, drab variations of em-blemless Imperial

  uniforms--and two women. Stern, disciplined faces, with those same bitter,

  burned-out eyes.

  "My friends," said Daala, "it seems that there is one battle yet to fight."

  "He's behind us." Leia reared up to her knees, wind and dust tearing at her

  long hair, and adjusted Aunt Gin's electrobinoculars. Whipping and veering

  through the fathomless, glittering gashes of the canyons, scaling hogbacks

  of diamond scree or dropping down precipices ten and twelve meters deep to

  catch again on the Mobquet's antigravs, it was impossible to see behind them

  for more than thirty meters at the most, sometimes only half that. But Leia

  knew.

  "Beldorion."

  She dropped back down into the sheltered cockpit, began checking loads on

  the flamethrowers and blaster rifles that Arvid and Umolly Darm had thrust

  in after them on their departure. She smiled a little grimly at the truly

  excellent quality of the weapons, all sleek, all new, all black and silver,

  and all bearing the discreet double-moon logo

  LORONAR WEAPONS DIVISION

  "All the finest--All the first."

  As a rule Leia discreetly avoided riding in any vehicle that Luke was

  driving; but for one of the first times in her life, she was grateful that

  her brother had developed the skill that had made him one of the best pilots

  of the Rebellion. And indeed, the Chariot was equipped with internal grav

  control as well, so she was able to prime and check everything without

  having her bones jounced out of her body every time the antigravs kicked in

  as they went over small cliffs--or big cliffs She was being very careful not

  to look. She might have been sitting on her own bed at home.

  "How'd they import this thing, anyway?" she asked, looking around her at the

  comfortable black leather of the seats, the small, enclosed bar and the bank

  of electronic toys and communications equipment. "It's nearly as big as a

  B-wing itself."

  "According to Arvid, Loronar must have made seven or eight drops before they

  got past the gun stations." Luke flung the Chariot over a chasm that was

  considerably deeper than he'd supposed, whipped in a long, banking curve

  over the near-vertical face of a crystalline canyon to take some of the

  stress, and headed up a ridge like a mating sun dragon taking to the sky.

  "At least Aunt Gin found pieces of wrecked ones two or three diffbrent

  times. She's made a fortune charging Ash-gad for repairs. She's bought parts

  from the Therans, too, so they've found some as well. All in the past year,

  she says."

  "While Q-Varx was putting together the meeting with the 'head of the

  Rationalists' on this world." Leia shook her head. "I won't
say I'd have

  trusted Q-Varx with my life, but he seemed sincere. Never in a million years

  would I have thought he'd be part of something like this."

  "Maybe he was sincere," said Luke softly. "Maybe he sincerely thought that

  embroiling the whole sector in warfare and risking the spread of some plague

  he'd been told they could control were worth the rights of those who seek

  progress over stagnation. And he can't have known it was the Death Seed

  they'd be spreading."

  "He didn't," said Leia. "But my point is that he should have. A man in that

  position can't afford to be that stupid."

  And all the while Luke was flicking the controls, stretching out his mind

  and the Force to feel the ground beyond the next ridge, to slip past

  obstacles before they came into view, he was thinking, There's something

  else. There's something I'm missinG.

  There was life on the planet. Invisible, intangible, but intelligent, and

  lambent with the Force.

  Don't let them. Don't let them.

  Don't let who?

  Why did he remember his vision last night, of stormtroopers and J awas?

  Why did he feel that whoever it was, who had stood near the broken-down

  speeder in the canyon, watching him at his repairs, avaited him just beyond

  the next rise, around the next elbow of the rocky way?

  But there was never anything there.

  "And it's a sure thing," he added, almost to himself, "that Q-Varx didn't

  know' about Dzym."

  The hangar doors were locked. So were the doors that led from the hangar to

  the stairway, up to Ashgad's house. Luke was of the opinion that half-power

  on the ion blaster should be sufficient for the second pair of doors, for

  the first had nearly disintegrated when Leia had fired at them full-force.

  But the first blast only dented the inner ones, so Leia turned up the

  blaster to full and let them have it again.

  The noise in the enclosed space of the hangar was quite astonishing, and

  brother and sister waded to the resultant, gaping hole through a calf-deep

  rubble field and a choking cloud of dust.

  "I told you three-quarters would do it."

  "We can't waste time."

  Leia might have learned diplomacy and patience with ambassadors, reflected

  her twin wryly, slinging one of the two flamethrowers into place over his

  shoulder, but it was quite clear that she still dearly loved the destructive