by Troy Denning
“There is no escape now, Captain Solo,” Barduun said. He extended a hand, and Han suddenly found himself being dragged down the corridor. “We are in this to the end, the three of us.”
Twenty-one
Like all of the repeater beacons the Millennium Falcon had located in the Bubble, the one ahead was an immense, bulging cylinder pocked by conical transceiver dishes. The Falcon’s approach had triggered its automatic hazard strobe, and now, every two seconds, a brilliant silver flash lit vast blue banks of plasma rolling in on it from either side. Luke thought the resulting navigation lane was probably a kilometer wide and a million kilometers high.
But this time the Falcon wasn’t the only vessel in the abyss. When the hazard strobe went dark, a tiny blue halo appeared to each side of the beacon and grew larger before Luke’s eyes. The tactical display was so filled with plasma static that it did not show the two craft at all, but Luke had flown in enough space battles to recognize oncoming starfighters when he saw them—a pair of Mandalorian Bes’uliiks, most likely. This deep in the Bubble, there was not much else they could be.
“There,” Omad said, pointing through the forward viewport. Still seated behind the pilot’s yoke, he had called everyone to the flight deck just a few moments earlier. “You see them? They launched from the beacon’s service deck, right after the strobe activated.”
“We see them,” Leia said, slipping into the copilot’s chair. “Are you sure those are the only two?”
“Of course,” Omad replied. “The beacon’s service deck is too small to hold more than two Bessies.”
“There could be more on patrol,” Tahiri suggested. The first to reach the flight deck, she was wedged against the tug captain’s left shoulder. “And how do you know they’re Bessies?”
Omad looked up at her and flashed a dazzling smile. “Trust me,” he said. “There are no more on patrol, and those two are Bes’uliiks.”
Tahiri arched her brow. “Because …”
“Because what good would it be to fly a patrol route through this stuff?” Omad asked. “The plasma is so thick you can’t locate your own cannon tips. And who else would be hanging around out here? Only the Qrephs and their Mandos, guarding the final approach to Base Prime.”
“The final approach?” Leia asked hopefully. “Are you sure?”
Omad nodded. “I’m sure.” He flashed another grin. “But if you need another day to plan, we could always turn—”
“Don’t even think about turning back,” Leia interrupted. She hooked her thumb toward the access corridor. “Tahiri, you and Ben get back there and take the laser cannons. Lando, get those YVHs ready. Omad, you prep the dropsuits.”
“Me?” Omad asked. “I don’t know anything about Jedi equipment. Besides, I’m the pilot.”
Lando spoke from the back of the flight deck. “Sorry, friend—you’re a great pilot, but you’re no Jedi.” He stepped aside so Ben and Tahiri could run for the cannon turrets. “Come on—I’ll show you how to prep dropsuits. They work like those vac shells your prospecting crews use to blast samples.”
As Omad relinquished the yoke, Luke motioned Leia toward the pilot’s seat. She stayed put.
“You take pilot,” Leia said, strapping herself in. “I’ll handle the missiles.”
“Leia,” Luke said patiently. “I know you’re worried about Han, but you can’t—”
“Quit worrying about me,” Leia protested. “I’m not going Dark Leia on you. It’s just that our missile-loader has been sticking lately, and—”
“Gotcha.” Luke slipped into the pilot’s seat, then strapped himself in and took the helm. “It’s better to have someone who knows the kinks handling the loader.”
By then the approaching haloes had swelled to the size of Luke’s thumbnail, which meant the Falcon was well within their attack range. He glanced down at the tactical display, but it continued to show only static. He was guessing that, with Rift plasma all around, the Mandalorian displays looked just as useless.
“Artoo, let me know the instant they have a target-lock on us,” Luke said. “Leia, try to hail them. It probably won’t do any good, but—”
“I know, I know. We can’t launch an unprovoked attack,” Leia finished, reaching for the comm set. Her voice dropped to a wispy mutter. “Even if they are Mandalorians.”
She stopped short of hailing the vessel when R2-D2 let out an alert whistle. Lock alarms began to scream throughout the ship, then a series of deep whumps rolled through the Falcon as Ben and Tahiri test-fired their weapons in response.
An instant later, two tiny red dots appeared in front of the lead Bes’uliik and rapidly began to grow larger—a pair of rocket engines, propelling missiles toward the Falcon.
“Okay, now we’ve been provoked,” Luke said. “Take them out.”
The launch doors clunked open, and a slender white cylinder drifted out past the viewport. It quickly ignited, then shot forward on a pillar of orange flame. Neither Bes’uliik took evasive action—probably because their own astromechs were reporting that the Falcon had not even attempted to achieve a target-lock on them. The Mandalorian pilots were no doubt chuckling into their comm mics, assuming that the Falcon’s gunner had simply panicked and launched a wild shot without remembering to get a target-lock.
Never assume.
Luke glanced over at Leia. She had closed her eyes and was raising her hands, reaching out in the Force to locate their foes. The Falcon’s missile began to drift toward the rear Bes’uliik—the one that hadn’t launched its own missiles yet—and still the pilot maintained his course.
By then the two Mandalorian missiles had become flickering circles of fire the size of Luke’s fists. Too close.
Luke toggled the intercom. “Anytime back there.”
“Just waiting for the order, Dad.”
Eight streaks of color lanced out from the Falcon’s laser cannons, and the enemy missiles vanished in boiling balls of flame.
That made the Mandalorian pilots reevaluate. The lead Bes’uliik rolled to port and disappeared into the plasma. His wingman launched all four of his missiles, then opened fire with his laser cannon and went into an evasive gyre—which did nothing at all to prevent Leia from guiding her own missile into him.
Usually, when one of the Falcon’s concussion missiles struck a starfighter, the only thing left of the target was a ball of flame and shrapnel. But Bes’uliik hulls were made of beskar, an iron so tough that even lightsabers could not cut it. Instead of obliterating the craft, the detonation merely punched a hole through both walls of its fuselage. The Bes’uliik continued to spiral up the lane, more or less on its original course. But now its cannons had gone silent, and it was bleeding smoke and flame into the starless void.
The Falcon’s laser cannons chugged steadily as Ben and Tahiri opened fire again. The first two missiles erupted into flame almost instantly. But the second set kept coming, approaching so fast that the Falcon’s turrets couldn’t swing around fast enough to track the targets.
Tahiri’s voice came over the intercom. “A little help up there!”
Luke immediately turned toward the oncoming missiles and rolled the Falcon up on edge. The fiery circles of efflux expanded to a meter across—then finally diverged, one silver cylinder streaking beneath the Falcon’s belly and the other passing across her back.
Luke clenched his jaw and waited for the whump–jolt of a proximity detonation. He heard only Ben and Tahiri gasping over the intercom, then the pounding squeal of their laser cannons discharging.
“Got mine,” Tahiri said.
“Show-off.” The rising screech of a prolonged burst followed, then Ben announced, “Got it. We’re clear.”
Luke rolled the Falcon back down and steered toward the repeater beacon.
“No,” Leia said. She began to power down the sensor and communications equipment. “We’re going after that Bessie.”
“Leia, you know we can’t,” Luke said. “That pilot bugged out.”
; “A Mandalorian? Bugging out that easy?” Leia shook her head and took the navigation computer off-line. “Think about it, Luke. With all this plasma, there’s only one sure way to deliver a message.”
“In person,” Luke said, feeling a little foolish. “Those Bes’uliiks weren’t guards—they were lookouts.”
Leia nodded. “If we can catch the one that just left, we can follow him straight back to Base Prime—”
“And hit the Qrephs before they know we’re coming.”
Luke swung the Falcon into the plasma bank, doing his best to follow the same vector as the fleeing Bes’uliik. He found himself flying blind, with nothing ahead but a swirling blue glow, so vast and deep that he lost all sense of distance and direction.
“Whoa, Dad!” Ben called. “Where’d the lake come from?”
“Jokes … later,” Luke said, taking a breath to calm himself. “Busy now.”
He began to open himself more fully to the Force, extending his awareness ahead, reaching out to search … He found the Bes’uliik crew—a pair of tense, focused presences—just ahead and a little to port. He swung the Falcon into line behind them, shoved the throttles forward, and then it really did feel like he was flying through a lake.
The viewport became a solid wall of blue, and an eerie silence fell over the flight deck. All sensation of movement ceased, and Luke realized that even R2-D2 had gone quiet. He glanced back to find the droid’s processor light frozen in mid-blink, his logic display caught midway between one readout and another. Luke shifted his gaze to Leia and found her eyes fixed on him, unmoving as glass yet still alert and alive, frozen in blue amber.
A heartbeat later, the Mandalorian presences were there, so close that Luke felt as if he were on top of them. The bright-hot disks of twin ion engines appeared in front of the Falcon and swelled larger, then Luke sensed another presence ahead—a dark, ancient presence that seemed to be reaching into him even as he reached for it.
A cold ache came to his chest. His breath grew short, and he felt his body’s warmth oozing from his old wound.
“Luke!”
Leia grabbed his shoulder. She shook him, hard, and he saw that they had caught the Bes’uliik—that the Falcon was about to fly straight up its thrust nozzles.
“Luke, are you trying to get us—”
“Open fire!” Luke ordered. “Take them out now!”
Two torrents of cannon bolts converged on the Bes’uliik, so quickly that it seemed Ben and Tahiri had opened fire before Luke gave the order. No matter. The starfighter exploded from the inside out, its hatches and access panels tumbling away on boiling pillars of flame, its canopy flashing orange before it disintegrated into a spray of molten beads. Luke slammed the yoke forward, diving beneath the fireball into the blue miasma beyond.
Once he felt certain they had cleared the explosion, Luke pulled the throttles back and exhaled in relief—then felt a cold wave of agony spreading through his chest.
“Luke, have you gone spacesick?” Leia demanded. “Without that Bessie, we can’t find Base Prime!”
“Finding Base Prime isn’t going to be a problem,” Luke said. He took another breath, this time more gingerly, then reached under his robe and massaged the scar tissue over his old wound. “I’m pretty sure it just found us.”
Twenty-two
Han had not gone three steps before he heard loud banging behind him. When he stopped to look, the dead Nargon’s crushed arm was still protruding from the hatch he had just short-circuited, but now it was waving back and forth. For a moment, he feared the thing had somehow reanimated. Then the big green appendage began to jerk up and down, and he realized someone was on the other side, trying to use the arm to pry open the hatch.
“Captain Solo,” Barduun called impatiently.
Han felt himself being Force-dragged down the corridor, and he turned to see Barduun’s hand raised in his direction.
“Hurry,” Barduun continued. “We have little time.”
“Hey, take it easy, will you?” Han started to walk on his own again. “I was just checking my work.”
Barduun and Ohali had already entered the number-three air lock. Han stepped in after them. Barduun used the Force to seal the outer hatch, then he activated the cycle. Instead of the distant thrum of an air compressor, Han heard the clunk of tiny doors overhead, and when he craned his neck back, he saw a dozen spray nozzles descending from the ceiling.
Barduun gripped Han’s neck and tipped his head forward. “Eyes closed,” he commanded. “You must be ready to shoot straight, and we are about to be sanitized. The sterilizing agent will blur your vision.”
“Shooting straight is always good,” Han said. The nozzles began to hiss, and he closed his eyes as the air grew acrid. “So, what am I shooting?”
“Anything that gets in the way,” Barduun replied. “You will find many targets.”
“And what is our way?” Ohali asked. “Because, unless you know a secret route to the hangar, we can’t escape through here.”
Barduun responded with a booming, sinister laugh. “Escape? It is not escape that Han Solo desires. It is revenge—and Jhonus Raam will give it to him.”
“Revenge?” Han had a feeling he knew what Barduun was hinting at, and he didn’t like it. “Revenge for what, exactly?”
Barduun chuckled. “You know. The Qrephs told you.”
“Look, if you’re saying Leia is dead, forget it. Jedi don’t die that easy.” It was the same thing Han had been telling himself since the Qrephs bragged about ambushing her and Luke on the Ormni—and it was beginning to sound old, even to him. “In case you haven’t noticed, the Qrephs are liars.”
“Jhonus Raam felt no deception in their words.” Barduun’s voice shifted toward Ohali. “Perhaps Jedi Soroc felt something different?”
Ohali hesitated before answering—and a black hole opened in Han’s gut.
“No.” Eyes clamped shut, he spun back toward the corridor—not sure why, exactly, just knowing that he needed to go back and kill something. “They really got Luke and Leia?”
The nozzles stopped hissing. A whir sounded overhead, and the purple glow of a disinfection lamp shone through his closed eyelids. Ohali laid her hand on Han’s shoulder. He could feel her touch growing warm and soft as she called on the Force, trying to soothe him.
“What Barduun and I felt only suggests what the Qrephs believed,” she said. “They could easily have been mistaken.”
Han knew better than that. A Columi lie? Sure. But make a mistake? Not real likely.
He shook his head. “Columi don’t make that kind of mistake.”
The purple glow faded, and Han opened his eyes. Ohali was standing between him and Barduun, her blaster rifle held at port arms across her chest. The emitter nozzle might not have been aimed at Barduun’s head, but it was pointed in that direction.
“Everybody makes mistakes, Captain Solo,” Ohali said. “You must believe that. If you give up on Leia now, the Qrephs have already won.”
As much as Han wanted to believe the Duros, he wasn’t sure he could do it anymore. The Qrephs had outplayed him too many times. They had shaved his head and stuck probes in his brain, and they had shocked him until he had a permanent headache and a tremor in his left hand.
But that was nothing compared to this, to taking Leia.
“If you think I’m giving up,” Han said, “you’re dead wrong.” Now he wanted blood—purple Columi blood. “I’m not giving up. In fact, I’m just getting started.”
“Captain Solo!” Ohali hit Han in the gut with the butt of her blaster rifle. “Han! You must see what Barduun is doing.”
“Yeah, I see.” Han glanced over at Barduun, who was watching the exchange with a confident smirk. “He’s using me to settle his score with the Qrephs. So what?”
“He’s using you to feed his dark-side power,” she said. “Don’t you see that? He needs your rage.”
Han scowled. “Fine,” he said. “I hope he puts it to good use. As long as
the Qrephs pay, I’m good with that.”
The inner hatch hissed open, revealing the lab beyond. Roughly twelve meters square, the room was divided into half a dozen aisles, each lined with a row of tall, upright vats resembling bacta tanks. The sides of the vats were opaque, but the front panels were curved and transparent.
“The Nargons will be after us again soon,” Barduun said. “And, this time, more will come.”
Motioning his companions to follow, Barduun left the air lock and started toward the left wall of the lab. Ohali blocked Han’s way. He rolled his eyes and gently pushed her aside, then stepped past her.
“Captain Solo, please don’t do this,” she said to his back. “You may be happy to die here … but I am not.”
Her plea hit home. Han realized he was doing it again—running off half-cocked, not thinking about the consequences to himself or anyone else. If he wanted to beat the Qrephs, he had to stay sharp; he needed to think.
Finally Han nodded. “Whatever happens, don’t let me get in your way.” He glanced back at her. “If you see a chance to run, you take it.”
“Without you? Captain—”
Han raised a hand to stop her. “Look, one of us has to take a shot at stopping these guys now, before things really get out of hand. That’s me.” He pointed at himself. “And one of us needs to get back to the Jedi Council to report.” He pointed at her. “That’s you.”
Ohali studied him for a moment, then dipped her chin. “As you wish, Captain Solo,” she said. “But I would feel better if you—”
“Then we have a plan,” Han said, cutting her off. “Now all I have to do is figure a way to make it work.”
He turned to survey the lab, looking for ways he could use it to draw the Columi into a trap—and survive long enough to take them out.
Lit in bright-blue tones, the facility had a cold, sterile feel. Han counted five aisles lined with eight vats each—forty in all. Like bacta tanks, each stood vertically and had a clearplas front. Instead of bacta, however, the tank was filled with a green viscous liquid that was so cloudy and thick that the occupant could barely be seen.