Ambush at Corellia

by Roger MacBride Allen

  Han shook his head. “I don’t know yet. Before I could tell you what we’ll need her for, I’ll have to figure out what game we’re playing. But she’s there, and the people we don’t trust don’t know it. That might be useful.”

  “Shall I attempt to signal her in some way?” Q9 asked. “By some means that the CDF agents could not detect?”

  “No,” Han said. “Not yet. Not until I know more. The situation is complicated enough without introducing a new variable. And the CDF might have a few tricks up their sleeve we don’t know about.”

  “Very well, sir,” Q9 said. “The situation is rather serious, is it not?”

  “More so than any of us thinks, if you want my opinion,” Han said. He handed the photo back to Q9. “Destroy this,” he said. “Keep a very low-key eye on our friend. And do not discuss this situation with anyone. Not even with me, unless I bring up the subject, or unless the situation changes. Is that understood?”

  “Quite well, sir.”

  “Thank you, Q9. You may well have just done the most important work in your life.”

  Q9 backed away, and dipped down on his repulsors a bit, doing a pretty fair simulation of a bow. “So far, at least,” he said, without a trace of humor. “So far.”

  Han watched the droid leave, and swore under his breath. Something was going to blow. Something. Things could not hold together under all this pressure for long.

  And meanwhile, all they could do was play tourist and pretend they knew nothing and that everything was fine.

  Han hated politics.

  Outside, the rain thundered down.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sightseer

  The rain continued into the next day, but by that time, everyone had had quite enough of being cooped up in the house. Rain or no rain, they piled into a hovercar the Governor-General had loaned them, and took off, with Han at the controls. He reached for altitude as quickly as possible, punching through the gray misery of the driving rainstorm, bouncing and bucking the hovercar’s way through the storm clouds themselves, and then up into the clear blue gleaming skies above.

  It was remarkable what a change the sight of blue skies made. Everyone’s mood lifted, even Chewbacca’s, shoe-horned though he was into a copilot’s seat not nearly large enough for him. The bickering children suddenly went quiet, and forgot the sulky arguments about who was crowding whose seat. All at once they were pointing out the cloud tops below to each other, and telling each other what monsters and aliens the clouds looked like.

  Han felt better, too. Getting out from under the rain was part of it, of course, but it was also the idea of getting away—far away—from Coronet, if only for a while. There was something to be said for playing tourist if it kept you out of town.

  * * *

  Kalenda watched the family hovercar with feelings of relief and fear. It was impossible for her to follow them. She could rest, at least for a while. However, it didn’t seem as if they had taken a great deal of luggage. Probably they were only heading off on a day trip. But that would be enough for her to wash up a bit, get a decent meal, and catch some sleep. Of course, there was always the chance that the opposition would take advantage of their absence for some sort of skulduggery. But she could set the macrobinoculars on time-lapse record while she slept, and play the recording back later. If there was any hanky-panky, she could still catch it on the recording and take action in time.

  The situation was no better, and she knew that she was not likely to do anyone any good anytime soon. But she could think of no activity more worthwhile than staying close to the Chief of State’s family.

  She would figure out what to do next later.

  In the meantime, she could get some sleep.

  * * *

  They flew past the clouds, and down below them, the rolling landscape of Corellia came into view. Low tree-covered hills and steep valleys broke up the steady march of tidy fields, and here and there, a small town slid past the left or right of the hovercar’s line of flight.

  Han looked down, and it felt good to see it all. This was the Corellia he remembered, or at least he could pretend it was. Perhaps all those tidy little farms, all those handsome little towns, were as destitute as Coronet. But at least he could imagine they were happy and prosperous.

  The autopilot alert beeped, and an indicator light came on. They were getting close to the archaeology dig. Han looked ahead, and saw a huge pit, a dark blot on the landscape. “Ebrihim!” he called out.

  Ebrihim undid his seat belt, hopped out of his seat, and came forward. “Yes, Captain Solo. What is it?”

  “Is that where we are going?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir. At least that looks like what I have heard described.”

  Han looked at the Drall in surprise. “You’ve never been here before?” he asked. “I thought you were going to be our guide.”

  “And so I shall be,” Ebrihim said smoothly. “I have studied this site from afar for some time. I have read all the published papers concerning it, and talked with many of the principal investigators. It is the first major archaeology site ever studied on this planet, and thus of considerable interest. It is just that I have never before been able to get clearance to get to it.”

  “So you’re using the Chief of State of the New Republic as your personal ticket into this place?” Han asked, his tone somewhere between annoyance and amusement.

  “Absolutely,” said Ebrihim. “How could I pass up the opportunity?”

  “This is the first ever archaeological dig on the whole planet?” Leia asked from the second row of seats. “How could that be?”

  “Yeah. No one was interested in that kind of stuff when I lived here,” Han said. “Why are they interested now?”

  Ebrihim turned the palms of his hands upward and shook his head. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “I believe it comes from the sudden strong species-ist feelings on Corellia and the other worlds in this system.”

  “I don’t see the connection,” Leia said.

  “Well, the past has become an issue of pride. Who was here first? Who has the strongest claim to this or that spot of land, or this or that planet? Even among those not particularly interested in that sort of politics, antiquities have become all the rage on all five worlds. I’m told there are teams of human, Selonian, and Drall researchers on all the Five Brothers, performing digs, doing research, vying against each other to prove their species was the first to arise, or had the highest achievements earliest, and so on.”

  “Political archaeology,” Han said. “That’s a new one on me. What are we going to see down there, anyway?”

  “That is the interesting question,” Ebrihim said. “No one quite knows what it is. It is an extremely ancient system of artificial underground chambers, many of them collapsed or filled in by sediment or what-have-you. Some of the chambers are in quite good condition, however. They are full of machinery of one sort or another, and no one knows what the machines are for, or who built them, or why.”

  Han frowned. “Isn’t archaeology usually mud huts and pottery shards?” he asked.

  “That’s the way we usually think of it,” Ebrihim admitted. “But civilization has been around a long, long time in one way or another. We talk of the thousand generations of the Old Republic, as if that was all that came before. But that is only, what, twenty thousand standard years or so? Perhaps twenty-five thousand at most?”

  “That’s a long time,” Jacen said.

  “Is it?” Ebrihim asked. “How long have the stars been shining? How long has there been life on the planets?”

  “A really long time?” Jacen asked.

  Ebrihim laughed, a sort of er-er-er noise. “It certainly has been a long time,” he said. “A thousand times, three or four thousand times as long as those thousand generations. More than enough time for all sorts of things to happen that we don’t know about anymore.”

  “So sometime before the Old Republic even got started, someone built the whatever-it-is
down there?” Han asked.

  “The belief is that it is that old,” Ebrihim said. “No one really knows for sure. There are dating techniques we could probably use, but no one in the Corellian Sector knows how to use them. Perhaps, in better days to come, that sort of expert will come in and visit us again.”

  Han checked his controls. “Maybe they will,” he said, “but just now we’ve got to come in for a landing. Back to your seat, Ebrihim, and the rest of you, check your seat belts and here we go.”

  * * *

  The surface level of the dig resembled a colony of social insects that someone had stepped on, with the insects now frantically racing to repair the damage.

  Workers—all of them human—were rushing in all directions, moving piles of dirt and debris out of the excavation in big roller cars. Droids of all sorts and descriptions were carrying various sorts of hardware in and out of the huge pit.

  It was organized chaos, and Han and his family stepped from the hovercar a bit uncertain about where to go or what to do. But there was more than uncertainty in Han’s mind. “Leia,” he said under his breath. “Look at the uniforms on the workers.”

  “What about them?” she asked.

  “They’re the same as on the fun boys who roughed me up. The only thing missing is the Human League armbands. The marchers around Corona House had them on, too.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “But we can’t talk about it now. Here comes our guide, I think.”

  A man of middle age, looking rather on the portly and well-fed side, was coming toward them. He was dark-skinned with short-cropped dark hair and a broad, toothy smile. He wore the same uniform as the rest of his team, and his uniform had the same sweat stains as everyone else’s, but there was an elaborate insignia pinned on the shoulder boards of his tunic, and no one else had that. His hat was a bit more elaborate as well, and he wore it at a jaunty angle. “Greetings to you all,” he said in a surprisingly soft and mellow voice, with the slightly slurred accents of the northern reaches of the main Corellian landmass. “I am General Brimon Yarar,” he said. “Welcome to our little project.” He bowed respectfully to Leia. “Madame Organa Solo. It is an honor to have you here.” He stuck his hand out to Han. “Captain Solo, an honor as well.”

  Han could not help but notice that their host was giving him a good hard look, as if Han were some particular curiosity he had been eager to see for some time. It was not a pleasant sensation. “Thanks,” he said slowly as he accepted the proffered hand. “We’re glad to be here. General of what, if I might ask? Were you in the war?” And on which side? he wanted to ask, but did not.

  “Hmmm? What? Oh, that,” the general said, clearly a bit nonplussed. “An honorific only, I am afraid. An informal title in a private organization.”

  “The Human League, perhaps?” Han asked. “Are you with them?”

  Yarar’s smile dimmed, if just for a moment. “Why, yes,” he said. “They provide the bulk of our financing. But we try not to advertise that too broadly. Some people might get the wrong idea. But the workers today are from a Human League Heritage Squad, working to reveal our species’ glorious past here on Corellia. Are you familiar with our work, Captain Solo?”

  “I’m becoming so,” Han said.

  “And these must be your children,” Yarar said, sweeping on past the awkward moment. He squatted down and gave Jacen a friendly wink. “I’m surely glad to meet you all,” he said.

  “Yeah, great,” Jacen said, sidling back a bit. “Glad to meet you, too.”

  Jaina gave a forced little smile, and left it at that. Anakin didn’t move a muscle, but simply stared at Yarar.

  Yarar stood up again, smiling as if he had completely charmed all of the children. “Shall we head in?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Han said. He noticed that Yarar had completely ignored both Chewbacca and Ebrihim. Han exchanged glances with Chewbacca, and Chewie responded with a slight shake of his head indicating no. He looked at Ebrihim and got the same response. Han agreed. No sense in forcing the introduction and making an incident out of it. That would distract from—

  Distract from what? Looking at a cave full of rusting machines? No. No, there were hidden currents here. Currents that needed to be explored. What was an outfit like the Human League doing digging up old machines?

  Yarar had to know he wasn’t fooling anyone. It was armies that had generals, not archaeology clubs. And it was armies that could enlist and finance the amount of manpower on display here.

  So what was a private army doing, not so secretly digging up an ancient civilization? Ebrihim might have suggested they were out to prove some ideological point, and maybe Yarar would tell them the same thing, but Han was not ready to believe it. These boys were out here looking for something, and Han wanted to find out what. That was what he did not want to be distracted from.

  “We’re glad to be here,” Han said. “We’re all very interested to see what you’re doing out here.”

  Yarar laughed, and grinned hugely. “We’re not doing much at all out here, but come and take a look at what we’re up to underground.”

  * * *

  Maybe the grown-ups found all this stuff interesting, but Jacen most assuredly was finding his attention starting to wander. At first it had been kind of fun to be underground in the strange old tunnels. According to what Ebrihim had said, they had found the tunnels all full of dirt that drifted in from the entrance, and water that had leaked in, and some of them had just plain fallen in on themselves. The tunnels they had cleaned up so far felt weird, somehow. Maybe it was just that he was not used to being underground. Maybe it was just the strange musty smell of the tunnels. It was hard to say.

  That General Yarar guy was all full of excitement and enthusiasm about all the mysterious old machines they had found, but Jacen didn’t see why. There were a lot of big rooms where you could see the floors and walls and ceilings had been smooth and white and perfect about a zillion years ago, but now they were cracked and half caved in, and even where they had been cleaned and fixed up some, they were still broken up and dirty.

  And most of the machines they were finding looked as if they were a million times worse off than the rooms themselves. Most of them were just piles of rust and rotted-out plastic and moldered-away synthetics. Jacen couldn’t see any way you could possibly tell much about any of them. The lettering—if it was lettering—on some of the machines was so faint as to be hard to make out, and General Yarar told them it wasn’t in any alphabet or other writing system anyone had ever found. Even Ebrihim seemed a bit disappointed by the tour.

  They didn’t even get to see much of the guys doing the work. Understandably enough, they didn’t want a bunch of tourists wandering around the active work sites. The general let them see one room where they were going at it with all sorts of complicated digging machines, but after that, he just took them down a bunch of side tunnels where no one was doing anything anymore.

  But something else seemed odd to Jacen. He had read some books about archaeology, and about how you always had to be careful about leaving everything just as you found it, and being sure to go through all the crud you dig out, to make sure that you didn’t miss some incredibly vital clue that was hidden there.

  They weren’t doing that here, and they weren’t, as best Jacen could tell, doing much to investigate the things they did find. They weren’t even digging them out all the way. They went through room after room after room that was only half dug out. It was like they were only digging far enough to make sure that they hadn’t found the one thing they were looking for, and then moved on. They had even left a few skeletons half dug out—Selonian and human, mostly, and one Drall—and some of the bones looked as if they had been damaged in the process. If there was one thing Jacen’s books had told him, it was how important it was to be careful digging out bones, and how much a set of remains could tell you. But these guys acted as if they didn’t care about the bones.

  At least it was kind of exciting to look
at the skeletons and enjoy a creepy little thrill of fear from looking at the grinning skulls and the empty eye sockets.

  But Jacen didn’t even get a chance to do much of that. General Yarar was always determined to trot them off to the next room, ready to boast about how fast his men had dug out so much dirt and rock, and how much it all cost, and how it was the equivalent of digging a hole straight down, this big around, and this far down.

  Now he was turning a corner, leading them all into yet another tunnel, just like all the others. At first Jacen and his brother and sister had been leading the pack, scooting ahead, eager to see the next room. By now, however, all three children were hanging back, bored by it all. Jacen was following behind the adults, with Jaina and Anakin behind him.

  But then Jacen turned around and noticed they weren’t following anymore. He went back around the corner to see what was up.

  Anakin was staring fixedly at a spot on the floor of the tunnel, muttering to himself. Jaina was watching her little brother. “What’s he doing?” Jacen asked.

  Jaina shook her head. “I don’t know, exactly. He just walked over to that spot and stopped dead, and started talking to the floor.”

  “Has it answered?” Jacen asked, almost but not quite kidding. With Anakin around, stranger things could happen.

  “Not yet,” Jaina replied.

  The twins watched their little brother intently, wondering what he would do next. Whatever it was, it was bound to be more interesting than General Yarar blabbing on again about how much dirt they had dug up.

  “There!” Anakin suddenly announced, and pointed in the opposite direction of the side tunnel the grown-ups had gone down. He turned and started trotting down it, still staring intently at the tunnel floor. Jacen and Jaina looked at each other, shrugged in perfect synchronization, and followed along behind him.

  “Anakin!” Jaina called out. “What is it? What is it you’re following?”

  “There!” he said. “Under.”

  “Under the tunnel floor?” Jacen asked, puffing a bit with the effort of talking while he jogged along. “Is it a cable or something?”