by Timothy Zahn
And it was for sure they couldn’t swim while in a trance. Mara pushed a lock of wet hair off her face, trying to think.
Beside Luke, Artoo gave a sudden nervous squawk. “I see it,” Luke told him.
“See what?” Mara asked.
“The water level’s starting to rise again,” he said reluctantly. “That means the underground room must be full. The only drainage we’re getting is through the two holes we cut, the one into the stairway area and the one back down into the caverns.”
Mara swallowed. “Small holes.”
“Far too small to handle the amount coming in,” Luke agreed soberly. “I’m afraid …”
He trailed off. Mara gazed down at the surging water, now high enough to hide the inflow through the hole she’d cut. But it was still coming in; the steady rippling in the surface was enough to show that. “Back when you first came here,” she said, “I told you you could go back to Coruscant if you wanted to and let the Qom Jha and me tackle the fortress by ourselves. You said no, that you had to be here, and you said not to ask you why.”
He took a deep breath. “I had a vision of you on Tierfon,” he said quietly. “Back before I knew you’d disappeared. I saw you lying in a pool of water, surrounded by craggy rock.” He hesitated. “And you looked …”
“Dead?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
For a long moment they sat there together, the rushing of water the only sound. “Well, I guess that’s that, then,” Mara said at last. “At least I have the minor satisfaction of knowing I did it to myself.”
“Don’t give up yet,” Luke said. But there was no particular hope in his voice that she could detect. “There has to be a way out of this.”
“Too bad, too,” Mara said. She looked at him, tracing the contours of his face with her eyes. “You didn’t know, but after that pirate base thing, Faughn told me you and I made a good team. She was right. We really did.”
“We really do,” Luke corrected, looking almost nervously into her eyes. “You know, when we were fighting those sentinels down there, something happened to me. To us. We were so close in the Force that it was like we’d become a single person. It was … it was something very special.”
She lifted an eyebrow, a flicker of amusement worming its way through even the deadly seriousness of the situation. There was such an oddly awkward earnestness to his expression. “Really?” she said “How special?”
He grimaced. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?” he growled.
“Oh, come now,” she said, mock accusingly. “When have I ever made anything easy for you?”
“Not very often,” he conceded. Visibly bracing himself, he reached over and took her hands again. “Mara … will you marry me?”
“You mean if we get out of here alive?”
Luke shook his head. “I mean regardless.”
Under other circumstances, she knew, she would probably have considered herself honor-bound to make him sweat, just a little. But with the water still rising below them, such games seemed rather pointless. Besides, there was no reason for old defensive patterns to come into play. Not now. Not with him. “Yes,” she said. “I will.”
CHAPTER
40
A blast of turbolaser fire shot past, burning a scorch line in the Predominance’s bridge canopy. It was like an omen, Leia thought darkly as she stepped past the outer monitor ring and into the central control cluster: an omen of her own impending downfall. What she was about to do, she knew, would most likely be the end of her political career. It could possibly send her to a penal colony. It could even cost her her life.
But Han’s own life was hanging in the balance. Against that, nothing else mattered.
She stopped behind the Ishori at the helm station and looked over his shoulder at his control board. The indicators and controls were labeled in Ishori, of course, but the board itself was a straight Kuat Drive Yards design and she knew the layout. Taking a deep breath, she stretched out to the Force and keyed the sublight drive lever.
The helmsman himself was the first to notice something was wrong. Rumbling something under his breath, he pulled the lever back to its original position. Leia pushed it forward again, this time also laying in a new ship’s vector toward the comet blazing in the distance. The helmsman rumbled again, louder this time, and again grabbed the lever.
Except that this time it didn’t move. Leia held it firm against his struggles; and as he paused, confused, she took the opportunity to push it still farther forward. The helmsman swiveled in his seat to look at Captain Av’muru—
And out of the corner of his eye he spotted Leia standing behind him.
“What do you do here?” he shouted, swiveling farther around to glare up at her. “Guards!”
Leia turned. Two guards were striding toward her, blasters in hand. Stretching out again to the Force, she plucked the blasters away from them and slammed the weapons straight down to the deck with shattering force.
“Councilor!” Av’muru shouted, jumping up from his seat. “What are you doing?”
Leia didn’t answer, but reached again for the speed control. “No!” the helmsman screamed, leaping out of his chair with his hands reaching for her throat.
The clutching fingers never got there. Leia caught him in midair in a Force grip, redirecting the direction of his leap to send him soaring instead over the monitor ring to land in a confused heap at the back of the bridge.
“Guards!” Av’muru shouted. “All guards!”
Leia turned back to the helm, again increasing the ship’s speed. Her senses flared with warning, and she snatched up her lightsaber just as two other guards on the far side of the room brought their blasters up. They fired, their stun bolts scattering uselessly from her glowing blade. Again she snatched the weapons away, this time bringing them flying across the bridge toward her and slicing them neatly in half with her lightsaber.
“You will stop this at once,” Av’muru snarled, stalking with an even, deliberate pace toward her. “Otherwise, I will declare a state of war to exist between the Ishori Confederene and the New Republic.”
“This entire system is in deadly danger,” Leia said in a loud voice. “You’ve refused to take steps to oppose this danger. I have therefore done so in your place.”
“You risk war between Isht and Coruscant,” Av’muru shouted, still coming toward her. “You have until I reach you to cease this action and return this vessel to my command.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Leia saw Gavrisom trotting over toward Av’muru’s side … and there was now exactly one card left for her to play. “There is no need or reason to involve the New Republic,” she told the Ishori. “I hearby resign from the High Council, and the Senate, and the Presidency. I am no longer anything but a private citizen.”
“Then you also renounce all diplomatic privileges,” Av’muru snapped. Gavrisom had reached his side now, pulling slightly ahead of the Ishori as the two of them continued toward Leia. From Gavrisom’s gait, Leia could tell he was trying to reach her first. Probably hoping to stop her himself, with an eye toward minimizing the political damage to the New Republic that she had just caused.
But it was too late for that, and Gavrisom surely knew it. “You are aboard an Ishori war vessel,” Av’muru continued. “The penalty for mutiny aboard such a vessel is death.”
Leia felt her throat tighten. And that, she realized bleakly, was that. The captain had spoken the word “mutiny,” automatically invoking the highest level of Ishori war-law. If she didn’t back down before Av’muru reached her, he would have no choice but to bring the entire might of his warship to bear against her.
Could they stop her? Probably not. Certainly not before they reached the comet.
But at what cost? Though she could hold them back, she could almost certainly not do so without the eventual shedding of blood. And if her actions led to death, even deaths from ricochet shots from their own weapons, her fate would be sealed. The
strict code of Ishori war-justice would demand her death in return.
And for the sake of unity within the New Republic, she would have to submit. Av’muru and Gavrisom were nearly to her now …
And then, to Leia’s amazement, Gavrisom turned sideways and abruptly stopped, his long flank stretching across the aisle between two consoles, blocking Av’muru’s way. “I think not, Captain,” he said calmly. “I am declaring this war vessel to be under direct New Republic command.”
“So it is treason from the New Republic Presidency as well?” Av’muru screamed, trying to push Gavrisom bodily out of his way. “Move aside or die alongside her.”
“There is no treason involved,” Gavrisom said. His voice was still calm, but he hadn’t budged a millimeter. “Unless you bring such a charge upon yourself by refusing an official New Republic emergency requisition of your vessel as per Section 45-2 of the Treaties of Allegiance.”
Abruptly Av’muru stopped pushing. “You speak nonsense,” he said, screaming now at the top of his lungs. “There has been no official requisition.”
“The Treaties are vague about how such a requisition is to be made,” Gavrisom said coolly. “Deliberately so, for an emergency situation by its very nature requires flexibility.”
He waved a wing toward Leia. “In this case, the requisition began when High Councilor Organa Solo—”
“She is no longer a High Councilor, by her own statement!”
“When High Councilor Organa Solo,” Gavrisom repeated, emphasizing each word, “began moving this vessel toward a perceived source of danger.”
Av’muru glared at Gavrisom, transferred the look to Leia, turned it back on Gavrisom again. “You cannot seriously believe the Confederene will accept such a ludicrous claim,” he bellowed.
“What they will or will not accept is a matter for future discussion,” Gavrisom pointed out. “Regretfully, the Diamalan jamming has eliminated any chance for you to communicate with your governments for counsel.”
He tossed his mane. “It is your decision, Captain. You must base it on the requirements of the law, my position as New Republic President, and the word of a Jedi Knight that your ship is in deadly danger.”
Av’muru was trembling with emotion, his eyes flicking back and forth between Gavrisom, Leia, and the view out the canopy. Leia stole a glance out there herself, confirmed that the Predominance was indeed moving toward the comet.
“Helmsman?” Av’muru shouted.
“Here, my captain,” the other replied, stepping hesitantly forward.
“Resume your post,” Av’muru ordered, his voice starting to calm down. “Continue on the course which the Jedi Knight Organa Solo has put us on.” He paused. “And increase to flank speed.”
“Yes, my captain,” the helmsman said, brushing gingerly past Gavrisom as the Calibop moved aside. Leia stepped aside as well, and he sat warily down in his seat again. “Course and speed as ordered, my captain.”
“Come, Councilor,” Gavrisom said, gesturing to Leia with one of his wing tips. “Let us move back out of their way.”
Together, they retreated again behind the monitor ring. “Thank you,” Leia said quietly.
“I was only doing my job,” Gavrisom said. “I have often heard it said that Calibops are long on words and short on deeds.”
He ruffled his mane. “Sometimes, though, it is the words that must come first.”
“Yes,” Leia murmured, gazing out the canopy at the comet. She could only hope that the deeds that followed would be in time.
“We have them both, Captain,” the starboard tractor beam officer called up to the command walkway. “Two freighters: a YT-1300 and a Corellian Action II.”
“Very good,” Nalgol said, still seething over the unexpected and unannounced change in their carefully precise schedule. The strike team on the surface, he promised himself ominously, would have some serious explaining to do when this was all over.
But in the meantime, the Tyrannic was ready to do whatever needed to be done. And the first job on that list would be to take care of those spies out there. “Bring them in closer, Lieutenant,” he called. “Make sure they don’t break away.”
“They won’t, sir,” the tractor officer promised.
Nalgol felt a movement beside him. “You sent for me, Captain?” Oissan said.
“That priority/threat list I asked for,” Nalgol said shortly. “Where is it?”
“The preliminary list has been filed,” Oissan said, sounding a bit flustered. “We were expecting to have more time to complete it.”
“Well, you didn’t, did you?” Nalgol bit out, thoroughly disgusted. First the strike team, now Oissan. “Get back to work. We still have an hour or two before the battle out there winds down to where we’ll be entering it.”
“Yes, sir,” Oissan said stiffly. “Will you be wanting my staff to interrogate the prisoners?”
“What prisoners?”
“Why—” Oissan floundered. “The crews of those freighters out there.”
Nalgol shook his head. “There will be no prisoners.”
“But you said—”
“I said to bring them closer, that’s all,” Nalgol cut him off tartly. “I don’t want any debris floating outside the cloaking shield where someone might notice it.”
He looked back out the viewport. The YT-1300 was twisting madly in the grip of the tractor beam, still trying to escape, the larger Action II curiously quiet. “Another minute or two,” he added, “and they’ll be taken care of. Permanently.”
“There!” Lando snapped, pointing out the Industrious Thoughts’s viewport. “Didn’t I tell you? The Ishori have recognized the danger and are heading out to take a look.”
“They are merely running in an attempt to save their skins,” Senator Miatamia countered calmly. “Or else feel that the heightened maneuverability available in deep space will serve their defense better.”
“Fine,” Lando said. “Either way, you can’t just let them go.”
“The Diamala seek no vengeance against anyone,” the Senator said. “We have thwarted their unprovoked attack against Bothawui. That is sufficient for now.”
“But what about the threat I warned you about?” Lando demanded. “We bet on it, remember?”
“If such a threat exists, and if the Ishori are indeed searching for it, they will surely discover it on their own,” Miatamia said equably. “There is no reason for any Diamalan ships to expose themselves to danger.”
Lando glared out the viewport at the departing ship. However she’d done it, Leia had gotten the Predominance to move against the comet and whatever surprise the Imperials had hidden out there.
But with Thrawn pulling the strings, the surprise was likely to be a memorable one. Almost certainly too big for a single Ishori war cruiser to handle by itself … “I see,” he said, striving to keep his voice casual, the tone of a disinterested party who has nothing to gain one way or the other. “I’m sure the Ishori are just as happy to get away from you, too.”
“What does it matter how the Ishori see things?” Miatamia said.
“Oh, no reason,” Lando said with a shrug. “I was just thinking that if they decided they wanted to make a real fight of it, they’d need to call in reinforcements. And of course, once they’re out of range of your jamming, they’ll be able to do that.”
Miatamia’s ears curled over. “Surely they would not do such a thing.”
“Why not?” Lando said. “Remember, they think the whole Bothan species should pay for their part in the destruction of Caamas. If I were them, I’d figure that the space over Bothawui would be the perfect spot to hash out their differences with the Diamala.”
He nodded back in the direction of the planet beneath them. “Especially with part of the planetary shield collapsed the way it is. Any battle debris that falls through that hole is just a bonus as far as they’re concerned.”
Miatamia was already at the intercom, speaking urgently into it. Lando stared out the vi
ewport, holding his breath …
And then, to starboard and portside, he saw the other two Diamalan ships turn ponderously toward the departing Ishori war cruiser and begin to give chase. A moment later, he felt the slight tug of acceleration as the Industrious Thoughts followed suit.
“We will keep them silent until the Drev’starn shield generator is repaired,” Miatamia said, rejoining Lando. “But when that is done, they will be free to leave if they wish.”
“Good enough,” Lando said. “You’re just bringing the three ships?”
Miatamia gazed out the viewport. “I have suggested to the captain that all Diamalan ships also be summoned to our side.”
“Just in case I’m right after all?”
The Senator’s ears twitched. “As I have said to you before, the unanticipated may sometimes happen,” he said evenly. “The Diamala believe in being prepared for such an eventuality.”
“Hang on,” Han gritted, throwing the Falcon hard over first to starboard and then to port. No good; the tractor beam still had a solid grip on them. Reaching to the weapons board, he shifted the aim of the upper quad laser, now firing continuously toward the Star Destroyer. Like the swivel maneuver, all the firepower was doing no good, either.
“The portside stabilizer is flickering again,” Elegos announced, peering at the monitor displays. “You may do serious damage to it if you continue this way.”
Han bit back a curse. Yes, he might blow the stabilizers. He might also burn out a section of the sublight drive, or melt the quads, or even crack the hull.
But he had no choice but to do whatever was necessary to get clear, even if he had to tear the life out of the Falcon to do it. A cloaked Star Destroyer meant an ambush … and the last thing an ambushing Imperial would want would be to leave witnesses behind.
Elegos, though, hadn’t figured that one out yet. “Perhaps we should attempt to surrender,” the Caamasi suggested.
“Yeah?” Han grunted. “Why?”
“To prevent our destruction, of course,” Elegos said. “Besides, Carib and his group seem to have already done that.”
