by Kathy Tyers
Dev frowned, leveled the blaster, and shot the alien cleanly through its skull.
“Dev!” Luke exclaimed. “Never kill when you don’t need to!”
“He’d have murdered us the instant we ignored him. We’ve got a few minutes. Let’s use them!”
“Watch it,” cried a strange voice in Han’s right ear. Han increased power to starboard shields. Combined Rebel and Imperial forces had almost closed an arc around two more alien cruisers, but the aliens resisted. Black space sparkled with ships, shields, and energy as the Ssi-ruuk concentrated firepower on Rebel ships that occupied key attack points—just as he’d anticipated.
“Dominant to Falcon. Close up that gap at oh-two-two.”
The Dominant had shot away its attackers, but it drifted to low starboard. Han smiled, guessing its lateral thrusters had gone down again. Maybe Luke would be safe a little longer. He spun his own ship to face solar north. The gap in question was big enough to send a Star Destroyer through. “Got it covered,” he answered Commander Thanas. “Red group, and the rest of you. Follow me.” After the Falcon like a flock of chicks sped four X-wings and five TIE fighters. Each wing kept to its own side of the Falcon.
“Dominant,” came an exclamation over the clear channel, “They’re counterattacking! Too much firepower at my—”
Silence. Han cracked his knuckles. He hated it when youngsters cashed in. But as losses mounted, Ssi-ruuvi ships vanished faster. The human forces would not be taken easily.
Something hit an Imperial patrol craft. “Falcon to Digit Six. Are you all right?” The patrol craft didn’t answer. Wobbling, it accelerated to ram the small alien cruiser. An hour later, Han was still dodging collision debris and approaching exhaustion. Thanas drove his pilots hard, but the battle was his.
A sensor lit. Massive communications had abruptly started to flow between Flutie ships. Han punched up Threepio’s translation program on a sideboard screen. With Captison’s copy of the program, Commander Thanas probably expected to know if the alien commander ordered retreat … but that the Allies wouldn’t.
Han’s sideboard screen flashed a single message, endlessly repeated by the Fluties’ command ship. Disengage, full retreat. Disengage, full retreat. Disengage …
Han slapped his control board madly, cutting Imperial ships out of his transmission channels. “Rebel ships,” he ordered, “the Fluties are getting out. Full shields—watch the Imperials. All squadron leaders, get your ships away from Imperial fighters. Manchisco, you’re in the Dominant’s range. Get out of it!”
“They’re retreating? What about Luke?” Leia exclaimed. “Is he still on board? We can’t fire on that cruiser.”
Han drained weapon power into the shields. “And we’re not shooting at the Imperials first.” There wasn’t much future for a smuggler with a conscience. Evidently the Alliance was stuck with him. “We don’t know who’s in control of Luke’s cruiser,” he added. “I see four picket ships still on it, riding close.” It was the only big Flutie ship not retreating. All across space, oddly shaped ships were shrinking.
The Falcon shuddered from beam lamps to hyperdrive. Han leaped back from momentarily ionized controls. Chewbacca snarled in his ears. Light splashed the starfield in front of him, a second blast from the Dominant. Han blinked. “Flurry?” he shouted. “Manchisco! Manchisco, are you there?”
The Flurry was static and debris. “They got her,” Han exclaimed. Our only cruiser. Clear skies, Manchisco. He clenched a fist at Thanas and mentally thanked Chewie for hiring that Bakuran tech to add power to the Falcon’s shields. He would’ve taken the Dominant if he could’ve, and if his conscience, down there at the lower quad guns, would’ve let him shoot first.
Leia seemed to speak in the middle of his head again. “Well, General, you’re in charge.”
Han keyed the command frequency back on. “Thanks for nothing, Thanas,” he shouted. Over to intersquad. “That’s it—you all saw it. The Empire just broke off our truce. We’re back at war, us against them. Remember the Death Star. Form up with the Falcon.”
“Falcon, this is Red Leader. We’re about a thousand kay out from you and we’ve got TIE fighters on all screens.”
“Dogfight it, then,” Han barked. “Wedge, where are you?”
That biggest Ssi-ruuvi cruiser revolved crookedly, still defended by its pickets. He couldn’t begin to guess how to protect Luke … or if he even dared. Luke might’ve scared off the whole crew, but maybe not. And he certainly didn’t command those four picket ships.
Meanwhile, another big egg-shaped cruiser labored to turn. A third jumped into hyperspace too quickly to have made calculations, fleeing blindly.
“Behind the planet from you. Or I was,” answered Wedge’s voice. “Barely heard you on satellite relay. Wait—” After a few seconds, he spoke again. “There’s a lot of TIE fighter activity over at eight-niner-two-two. You might check to see what’s up.”
“That’s the Dominant!” Leia exclaimed. “Go the long way around!”
Headache turned to nightmare as Thanas destroyed Rebel squadrons and Han slowly rounded up the survivors into a loose double squadron. He eyed the wallowing Ssi-ruuvi cruiser. “Leia? Tell Luke there’s trouble out here.”
“I’ll try!”
CHAPTER
19
Gaeriel whooped as the Ssi-ruuvi fleet fled, but within a minute, all the silver Alliance ship dots on Governor Nereus’s projection turned red. One by one, they began darkening. She gasped and sprang off her chair. “They’re not!”
Wilek Nereus rolled his nectar goblet’s stem between his heavy fingers. “Not what, Senator?”
“Turning on—attacking—the Rebels!” Not only that, but she had to assume that the retreating Ssi-ruuk still held Luke prisoner, and he was dying without knowing it. She drew a deep breath, hoping her attempt to gather her wits looked like a dramatic pause. “Sir,” she started over, “on behalf of my constituency, I wish to lodge a formal protest over the forces’ conduct, which I assume follows your orders. The Alliance people risked their lives—some spent their lives—helping us repel the Ssi-ruuk. Is this gratitude?”
“Your constituency?” Governor Nereus’s bland smile affected only the edges of his effeminate lips. “You’ve already been in contact? Have you been taking telepathy lessons from someone?”
She ignored the implied, repeated accusation of collaboration and set her chin. “My people have been grateful for Rebel assistance. They would not wish to see us—”
A comlink beeped. “Yes?” Nereus called.
“Sir, our sensors show thirty people gathered at the intersection of Tenth Circle and High Street, with more approaching.”
“What are you bothering me for? Suppress it,” he snapped. Again she glimpsed a tremor in his fingers, instantly controlled. Governor Nereus cut the connection and then sipped from his goblet. “Rebel assistance is already in the past. Now we must take thought for the future. What would Bakura suffer if Imperial Command learned that we accepted aid from Rebel forces?”
She clamped her jaw shut. Eppie Belden was raising Bakura, preparing civilians for the troopers’ return. She mustn’t think about Luke … although if she’d helped instead of hindered him, Bakura might already be free of Imperial rule.
But how could Bakura have repelled the Ssi-ruuk without Rebel and Imperial resources? What insane trick had fate played here?
Nereus picked up his multifaceted crystal full of human teeth. “My dear, you’ve not tasted your nectar.”
She wondered if he was threatening her. “My throat hurts.”
“I understand. That must have been uncomfortable. I apologize. You were not the intended recipient.”
“Is there nothing you won’t—” Stoop to, she thought, but said, “do, for the Empire?”
“You have always supported the Imperial presence. I have heard you speak eloquently of the benefits Bakura reaps through its affiliation with the Empire.”
“Yes, I spoke that way. I learned
the language well.” The language of treachery.
“You will remember that your offworld education was subsidized by the Empire.”
“For which I and my family have thanked you repeatedly.”
“You have not yet begun to repay that debt. Now that I’ve had time to consider, I am certain that there is room for you on my personal staff.” He slitted his eyes.
If Eppie’s revolt succeeded, that threat would be empty. If the revolution stalled, though, she might serve the Bakuran underground in Imperial uniform. What had Leia Organa endured as an Imperial senator?
Governor Nereus studied the projection of near space, smiling. Noticeably fewer red Rebel dots “menaced” the system now.
“Did you order Commander Thanas to kill them all?” she asked bitterly.
Nereus swept dust that she couldn’t see off his ivory desktop. “Yes. For the safety of your people. Commander Skywalker is another matter. The larvae will be beginning to migrate again. They require a plentiful blood supply in which to pupate. The aorta is sweetly close to the bronchial tubes. He won’t suffer long. He is an excellent physical specimen. It’s my guess that the aliens will take him with them, as they retreat. They should preserve his body for one day, long enough for adult Trichoids to emerge and infest the Ssi-ruuk. Trichoids are short-lived, but they survive by sheer numbers. We are free from the threat of entechment, Gaeriel. You and your constituency should thank me.”
Nothing—not her habit of diplomacy or her fear of Wilek Nereus or even her deliverance from entechment—could entice her to thank him for murdering Luke Skywalker this way. And Senator Leia Organa, and all the Rebels who’d come to help Bakura. Once Bakura understood what had happened, Governor Nereus would need an Imperial legion to put down the resultant uprising … and thanks to the Alliance, he could not call down that legion. She ought to feel victorious.
Hollow desperation made her shiver. Luke had saved her from the Ssi-ruuk and their captive human, but she couldn’t help him in return. That disrupted the Balance of her life. She fingered her pendant and dared to think of the gravest extreme: civil war, long and bloody, Bakuran lives against Imperial technology, unless … perhaps … she and Eppie could rid Bakura of Wilek Nereus. She steeled herself to stay with him and hope for a chance.
Han didn’t need a cruiser’s threat board to know they were losing. He’d managed to gather several X-wings and an A-wing into a moderately effective formation, but no matter how he and his shipmates used the Falcon’s armaments, one arc at a time Commander Thanas closed a tight, classic globe. System patrol craft and TIE fighters hung in all directions, drawing Rebels out of the Dominant’s dead zone into tractor range. Though Commander Thanas’s damaged flagship drifted on minimal thrusters, its turbolaser batteries had already swung toward him. The Falcon’s power banks were all but exhausted. He needed to shut down all systems and let them recharge.
“All right, Leia,” he said over the comlink. “Admit it. That ‘bad feeling’ of yours was the smart side of the Force.” He feinted toward a TIE fighter. Its big brother, a carbon-streaked patrol craft, matched his vector. He backed off. “We’re all dead, every ship in the battle group, unless somebody comes up with something brilliant … and fast.”
Leia answered from the lower gun turret, “There must have been something we could’ve done.” She sprayed a weakening energy burst from her quad guns. “Some way we could have—”
“You’re dealing with Imperials. Every one that’s high up enough to give orders is only in it for number one.”
“We’re starting to leave Luke out of the equation,” she insisted again.
“Maybe he is out,” Han answered soberly. “Thanas’s drift vector is going to take him right past that Flutie cruiser.”
From the upper gun turret, Chewie roared angrily.
Something in the pattern in front of him sparked his memory of a gaming table long ago and far, far away. Something brilliant.… “But if we could take the Dominant, our fighters might be able to break out and scatter.”
Leia’s turret suddenly felt chilly. “Sure. How?”
“Look where that Imperial patrol craft’s hanging, the one about sixteen degrees north. If we dropped back about twenty degrees and rammed it, it’d squirt out of formation and hit the Dominant hard aft. The Falcon’s the only ship we’ve got left with enough mass to carry it off. Thanas deserves his behind cooked.”
“Carrack-class cruisers have their generators just aft of midline.”
“Exactly. Ka-boom.”
Leia felt strangely detached. “Count on you to try a carom shot. Can you get nav computer confirmation on that course?”
“Just did. With full power to front shields until the last possible moment, we could do it. Of course, hitting the patrol craft that hard would finish the Falcon.”
“Of course.” Leia tapped two fingers on her firing controls. Luke? she pleaded toward the drifting cruiser. She sensed nothing in return but a harried flicker. Busy.
She heard a soft click. “Listen up,” Han announced in a genuine general’s voice. “Form up behind the Falcon and get ready to break for open space. Get home as best you can. Don’t try hyperspace jumps unless you can pair up with somebody with nav computer capability.”
That would take years, but they’d make it. Leia cleared her throat and added, “Scatter the fire of Rebellion. It will flare up everywhere the tinder is dry.”
“Poetic,” muttered Han.
“Inspiration is three tenths of courage.” Somebody protested over the intersquad frequency. Leia didn’t stay to listen. She unstrapped and climbed up/sideways out of the gunwell’s artificial gravity to the main level.
“Have we nearly finished?” Threepio asked brightly as she passed the gaming table.
Leia didn’t want to hear the odds of surviving this maneuver. “Yes. Nearly finished.”
“Oh, good. My servomotors won’t stand much more of this bashing about … Princess Leia …!”
She swung into the cockpit. Han glanced at her, frowned, then waved one soot-streaked hand gallantly at the copilot’s seat.
Little gestures like that—not pillows or berry wine—made her love him. “Thank you.”
“Chewie wants to ride it out in the turret,” he explained.
“I understand.”
“Only takes one to execute a ram anyway,” Han muttered. “Sorry, old girl.”
Leia opened her mouth to complain.
“Not you. The Falcon.” He started shunting power away from all systems except a few: thrusters, she guessed, fore shields, and the upper gun turret. Again she tried to touch Luke. Again, the harried flicker.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s programmed. Now we get you to the escape pod.”
“Oh-ho, no,” she retorted. “Not unless there’s room for two. Or three.”
“You can’t ram on autopilot, and we need a gunner. Kiss me for luck and get clear. The Alliance needs you.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“Go on, move,” he said. “You’re valuable.”
“Valuable, schmaluable. I’m not running away. I’m a Skywalker, too. Maybe this is my destiny.”
“All right, you’re valuable to me. Chewie,” Han shouted. “Get down here and get the princess into—”
Chewbacca’s answer roared through her head. “He means ‘no,’ ” Leia said primly, but she laid a hand on Han’s shoulder and squeezed, thanking him without words. Wouldn’t this be perfect justice—Vader’s daughter, ramming an Imperial ship for the sake of the Alliance? Even if the maneuver failed, she’d achieved a victorious kind of symmetry. Finally, she could think about Darth Vader without flinching. Watch this, Father!
Two TIE fighters broke formation and swooped up at them. Possibly their scanners showed no power to the lower turret.
But their scanners had no way of detennining this was no stock freighter. Han flipped the Falcon one hundred eighty degrees. Chewie snarled gleefully and picked them off.
>
Leia adjusted her hand on Han’s shoulder. He squeezed her fingers before lunging again for the controls. As the Falcon approached the patrol craft from behind, the patrol craft almost doubled its rate of fire. Either it had brought another bank of laser cannon online or Commander Thanas had figured out what Han had in mind. Han added a twisting maneuver to the ram program. A display indicated seventeen seconds to impact. They had to survive that long. A massive energy bolt breezed past the Falcon’s belly.
Chewbacca growled. “Tickles,” Han translated. He switched off fore shields, so that impact would transfer more energy to the patrol craft’s mass. “Look out, Thanas.”
While Dev examined one freestanding bridge station, Luke finished a deep, rasping cough. If he weren’t so busy, he’d try to heal himself. He glanced at the deck and twitched his right leg, still unable to shake a sense of impending disaster. Maybe the unseen future was closing in. Ever since he’d glimpsed Han and Leia’s future sufferings at Bespin, he’d wondered if he would foresee his own death.
He reached out to check on Leia.
Her determination to face certain destruction caught him off guard. Hurriedly he searched her consciousness and found …
Ramming? In the Falcon? Luke tumbled down to a sitting position on the deck and ignored Dev’s questions. Ignored his body, the Ssi-ruuk still on board, and everything else. He had only seconds.
His itching chest demanded another cough. He had to get out of this bad air! He sent his awareness questing across space in another direction for a presence he knew only faintly: Commander Pter Thanas, aboard the Dominant.
Thanas leaned over his pilot’s station as Luke seized the edge of his consciousness. Thanas’s thoughts, will, and worldview surrounded him. This battle was only a game, but a game he must win, or finish his life in … in a slave mine? That explained plenty! Luke eyed the pilot’s velocity control slide. Full speed ahead would blow the Dominant out of offensive formation and cause heavy damage to already crippled thrusters.
Full speed would also bring him into striking range for the Shriwirr. Thanas wanted that.