C-3PO tilted his golden head as if he were trying to see inside Cole's. "You do have a point, Master Fardreamer."
"I thought so," Cole said.
R2 squealed at them from inside the freighter.
"Let's go," Cole said.
C-3PO climbed onto the boarding ramp, and walked into the freighter.
"I think I'm going to regret this," he said.
THIRTY-SIX
Chewbacca rode as copilot with Blue. After their experiences on Skip 6, Han wasn't about to take any more chances. He'd known Blue as long as he'd known Kid, and not nearly as well.
The betrayals hurt, no matter how he could justify them. He sat in the air-breather's section of Nandreeson's Skipper. This Skipper was larger and slimmer than Blue's, and had a pond on the lower deck. Neither Han nor Lando wanted to get near slimy water again. They sat in the tiny compartment near the top, filled with old, moldy couches (which Han suspected came from drained ponds) and mildew-covered tables.
Lando was resting beside him. His old friend had his eyes closed. His normally pristine clothing was water-stained and he had lost weight.
Han sighed and went over the events in his mind. There had been nothing he could do. Kid and Zeen had gone with the intent of betraying him. They hadn't been his friends. They had made that clear from the moment he had arrived. Perhaps then they had been trying to warn him away.
That explained how Nandreeson's men had known to find him on Skip 5.
Chewbacca had said that he thought Wynni would have helped them if Chewie hadn't fought her intentions. Han wasn't so certain. She probably knew about Chewie's loyalty to his wife, or she might have felt rebuffed by Chewie all those years ago. With Wynni, the situation was always complex. She never did what was expected of a Wookiee.
Not even at the end.
He wondered how she was faring, alone in Nandreeson's lair.
He was glad that she, at least, was alive. Zeen and the Kid, no matter what they had done, would always ride on his conscience.
"You couldn't have done anything," Lando said. His voice grated against his throat, his exhaustion evident. He had eaten all the human stores in Nandreeson's Skipper and had drunk water as if he hadn't been trapped in it at all.
"About what?" Han asked.
"About whatl" Lando opened his eyes and pushed himself up on his elbows. His face wasn't as gray as it had been before. "About Kid and Zeen. They never were your friends."
"Stop trying to make me feel better," Han said.
"I'm not. I'm just trying to make you see the truth." Lando leaned his head against the steel wall. "You never belonged here, Han. We all knew it. Kid and Zeen, they tried to corrupt you from the beginning. They thought they could make you into one of them. But there were some lines you'd never cross. I think that made them mad."
"I did everything they wanted," Han said.
"No, you didn't. Profit was never the most important thing to you. You had this layer you kept trying to hide. It's what made you go on that wild-goose chase with Skywalker right from the beginning. He's told me about it. You could have bailed out at any time. You never did."
"It was an exception."
"It was the rule. Remember the case of the Wookiee slave you found?"
"Chewbacca doesn't count. That circumstance was unusual."
"Yeah," Lando said. "As unusual as all the others. They hated it, Han. With every breath you took, you showed them that the life they led was dirty, ugly, and hate-filled."
There was passion in Lando's words. Han turned. Lando was staring at him.
"Did you hate me too?"
"No," Lando said. "But you sure as hell made me ashamed of myself."
He pushed off the cot and paced around the room. Then he yelped, bent over, and grabbed his calves. His face had gone gray again. Han got up and helped Lando back to the cot.
"Who'd've thought you'd get leg cramps from treading water?"
"Anyone who's exercised," Han said. "You should have asked Nandreeson to let you warm up before he tossed you in that pool."
"Very funny."
Han slowly stretched Lando's leg, massaging the muscle. "No pushing, buddy. You almost didn't survive that one."
"I'm tough," Lando said.
"Stupid is more like it. What were you thinking, coming back to the Run?"
"I had to find you, Han." Lando stretched out his other leg. "You can let go now."
"Why? What's so important that you'd risk your life?"
"Someone's setting you up, old friend," Lando said softly. "They're trying to make it look like you're behind the bombing of the Senate Hall."
"With Leia inside? Anyone who knows me knows I'd never do that."
Lando smiled. "I think Kid and Zeen would probably agree with that. But most of the Imperials in the Senate don't know you. That sort of behavior was business as usual in the Empire."
"It would take pretty strong proof to make it look like I've done something."
Lando shook his head. "Strong isn't as important as the right kind of proof. You're lucky I brought this to Leia first." Then he told Han about finding the Spicy Lady, and the message inside.
Han sighed. "Jarril's dead, huh?"
Lando nodded. "It wasn't pretty."
"I think he was afraid that would happen when he came to me. I think he felt he didn't have much time left."
"Maybe he was part of the setup."
Han shook his head. "He was too scared for that. He tried to ask for help a smuggler's way, by offering me money, but I wasn't buying. And then, he asked for it directly."
"Maybe he had to."
"And maybe he needed it. Maybe he knew they were coming for him. Obviously, they found him and killed him on Coruscant. He never would have sent those messages."
Lando shook his head. "Jarril's dead. His motives don't really matter. What does is that someone wanted you involved."
"Do you think the Imperials in the Senate did this so that they could get rid of Leia?"
"And bomb their own? It doesn't seem too likely, does it,
Han?"
said.
"All these sales of old Imperial equipment tie in too," Han
Lando closed his eyes. "You ever hear of Almania?”
“Not until you mentioned it," Han said.
"Me, either," Lando said. "That's odd, don't you think?"
"Odd?"
"Someone worked hard to keep a place we never heard of out of the visible spectrum. When someone works hard to keep something hidden, it's usually something we need to find out about."
"Exactly," Han said. "Maybe it should be our next stop."
"Provided we both have ships left," Lando said.
"We will," Han said. "I can promise you that."
Luke slipped between the creature's teeth, pulling his legs inside just as it bit down. Its mouth was large and had a flat, ridged top. Even with the teeth clamped, there was still room inside.
Except near the tongue. It kept slamming Luke against the roof of the mouth, as if it were trying to lick him. Each time he slid toward the throat, the tongue slammed him against the roof again. He had the sense that this creature usually swallowed its food whole.
Everything inside was slimy. There was nothing to grab on to. So the next time the tongue slammed him against the roof, he dug his fingers into the soft palate.
The creature yelped and pushed at him with its tongue. Luke let go, the jaws opened, and he was sailing through the air. He hit the metal walls and slid to the ground, the wind knocked from him.
The creature stood over him, a hurt expression on its gigantic face. It pawed at him, claws extended, and he couldn't roll away. It pulled him onto his back and sniffed him again, as if it couldn't believe something so small would cause it so much pain.
Luke held his hands up, and put them on the nose, trying to push it away. The creature snuffled at him, then licked him once as if tasting him. Luke's entire body smelled like the interior of the creature's mouth, a combi
nation of raw meat, dirty teeth, and saliva. He couldn't get away.
The creature backed up, contemplated him for a moment, then batted him so hard he slid across the wood floor and slammed into the wall on the other side. Splinters the size of knives stuck out of his arms and back. He hadn't gotten his breath back from the last time, and this second hit made him feel just as bad. He was stunned, unable to move, and soaking wet.
But he had to move. This thing couldn't beat him. It would be a horrible way for a Jedi Knight to die. He'd fought rancors and Tus-ken Raiders all by himself. He could survive anything.
Anything.
The creature came toward him again. Luke eased himself to his feet, and pulled one of the splinters out of his arm. When the creature raised its paw to him, Luke shoved the splinter into the pad.
The creature yelped again, and shook its paw. Hair fell around him like snow. The creature stood on three legs and bit the base of the fourth one.
Luke wasn't going to wait to see what happened next.
He ran as fast as his ankle would allow him around the creature's back and toward the pallet. There was nowhere to hide. The grates were too high to reach because of his ankle, and the pallet provided the only thing for him to lie beneath, something the creature would look at first.
Luke limped into the next room to find the emptiness there just as overwhelming. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Once they did, he saw that the rooms went on, deeper and deeper. The creature must have come from that direction. There might be more of its kind farther on.
One was difficult enough. Several would be a nightmare.
The creature was whimpering in the far room. Luke understood how it felt. He took the momentary respite to pull the remaining splinters from his own flesh. He set them beside him like long knives, the only weapons he had against this creature.
Except his mind.
The creature didn't seem intent on harming him. In fact, the most harm had occurred when Luke had attacked it. The creature seemed to be trying to figure out what he was.
If Luke could figure out a way to convince it that he wasn't food, then he might stand a chance.
The question was how.
The creature had stopped whimpering. It was snuffling its way toward Luke. It must have gotten the splinter out of its pad. Luke lined his splinters around him. All they would do was buy him time, but time was what he needed.
He wasn't going to die at the paws of this hairy beast.
He wouldn't give Kueller the satisfaction.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Kueller watched the skies through the observatory. He had modified this, the Great Dome of the Je'har, into a Command Central when he was fighting his conventional war against the Je'har. After he had killed their leaders, he systematically destroyed their followers, and watched it all on the screens around him. The screens were now showing him various readings from space. The screens on his right magnified the same darkness a hundredfold. The screens to his left showed a fleet of ships coming out of hyperdrive into Almanian space.
A dozen of his best employees were scattered throughout the room. Yanne stood beside him. "Milord, I think we should send our own people up there. Those are New Republic battleships. They could destroy Almania."
"They won't," Kueller said.
"Still," Yanne said. "I think we should be cautious."
"And let them know we've seen them?"
"They're too far away. They won't know."
Kueller sighed. His assistants were always worried about failure first, instead of expecting success. He had learned that preparing for both success and failure served him best.
"Fine," he said. "Send out three Star Destroyers, and the attendant support vehicles. And Yanne?"
"Yes, milord?"
"If they fail, you will have failed also."
Yanne's gray skin whitened, but his voice remained calm. "Yes, milord."
He turned and softly gave the order to one of the guards. The guard nodded, clicked his heels together, and left the room.
The New Republic's fleet was not yet visible in the sky overhead. It wouldn't be, until it was debris floating through space. Even then, all he would see would be an occasional flare breaking through the atmosphere.
On the screens to his left, he watched a tiny ship break away from the pack. "Bravo, President," he said. "Soon you'll be able to talk with your wretched brother all you want."
"Sir?" Yanne said.
Kueller ignored him. He was concentrating, not just on the visuals around him, but on his feelings. The dark side had its strengths. He knew that the fleet was uncertain about what it would find.
He smiled.
It would find nothing.
"Yanne."
"Yes, milord?"
"Are my plans in place?"
"Of course, milord."
"Then you can execute them. Now."
Yanne hurried to comply with his order. Kueller rocked back on his heels, and patted the remote under his cape. If Yanne failed to follow orders, Kueller would do the deed himself. He had been telling the truth when he spoke to President Leia Organa Solo. He preferred elegant, refined weapons.
She would learn just how elegant, and how refined, shortly.
No one had taken anything off the Falcon, although the wedged-open doors, and a scorch mark from Han's personally designed security system near the support, suggested that someone had tried. The Lady Luck wasn't as fortunate. Most of its interior was gone, including some of the easy-to-remove hardware.
To say that Lando was furious was, in Han's opinion, a bit of an understatement.
Han remained on the Lady Luck, repairing the engine systems with all the pieces he could find. The cockpit was already functional, but had lost all its fancy gadgetry. Lando and Chewbacca were searching Skip 1 for the rest of the equipment, and Lando's missing droids. Han insisted that if they didn't find enough materials to rebuild the Luck, they should leave within the day. He felt a sense of urgency he didn't quite understand.
Blue had offered to help, but Han had turned her down. She had proven to be the most loyal of his old friends, but that no longer meant much. Perhaps Lando had been right. Perhaps they all had resented him. But he didn't like recasting all those memories. They had been friends once. That time had simply passed. There was no going back, much as he wanted to.
And he wasn't even sure he wanted to anymore. The longing for the good old days that came during moments of quiet on Corus-cant seemed to be longing for romanticized versions of his past, not his real past.
Han had just reassembled the hyperdrive when the hair on the back of his neck rose. He grabbed it with his left hand, and a shudder ran down his spine. The feeling made him nervous. It was too close to the stuff Leia and Luke described about the Force. The stuff his children experienced but he never had.
Something had happened, was about to happen, could have happened. He crawled out of the maintenance tube and into the Luck's stripped corridor.
Then a series of booms echoed throughout the Skip. The Luck rocked, and Han slid to the other side of the corridor. More explosions occurred, and still more. He lay still, his arms over his head, but nothing happened inside the Luck.
Nothing at all.
Just like the moment when the Senate Hall exploded. Only panic around him, and no injuries inside the casino.
But Leia had been injured.
Han pushed to his feet. "Chewie!" he shouted. "Lando?"
Of course, there was no reply. He had been alone in the Luck. He grabbed his blaster and let himself out the doors and walked—
—into a scene of devastation.
The Skip landing bay was in ruins. It looked as if someone had dropped a series of bombs from above. But the bay was a huge cavern carved in stone, and the ceiling hadn't been touched. Whatever had happened, happened inside.
Small fires burned near many of the ships. A pile of exploded metal had welded itself onto the Falcon's side, but no fire burne
d below her. Nothing burned near the Luck, either.
Smugglers lay on their sides, on their backs, body parts strewn all over. Several ships had holes in their sides the size of boulders, but those holes had been blown outward. Over the crackle of flames, Han could hear moaning and wailing from the survivors. Black, thick smoke was filling the bay, making it difficult to breathe.
He went back into the Luck and grabbed a breath mask that, fortunately, had not been taken. No telling what he would find in the rest of the Skip. No telling what the damage would do to the asteroid. They were shaky things at best. This might destroy the entire place.
He left the Luck, calling for Chewbacca and Lando. He had no idea where they'd gone. They were going after the parts, but they hadn't said who they were chasing, although Han had said he had seen stuff in Kid's and Zeen's possessions. They probably had gone to their rooms first, and then deeper into the Skip.
Han hoped they hadn't gone too deep. Some of those corridors were narrow, and made of rock. That rock would be very fragile in explosions like this.
As he stepped onto the ground, hands groped at his legs. People he didn't know called out to him. He stopped several times to move debris off trapped smugglers, then helped them to a place away from the fires. The smoke was getting so thick, it was impossible to see. If he wanted to save the Falcon and the Luck, he would have to work in the bay.
But that meant leaving Chewie and Lando to their own devices. He could mentally picture Chewie, trapped beneath a rock, Lando crushed beside him. Yet Han knew that the odds of finding them at all were small.
He had to try.
He stepped over debris and flaming metal. This devastation looked similar to the devastation on Coruscant. Only there, he had heard one explosion. Here he had heard several.
The cries were growing more and more pitiful. He seemed to be one of the few uninjured people in the entire area. He couldn't pass these people by. He had to start helping, and hope that Chewie and Lando were getting equal consideration from someone else.
He wound his way around several flaming piles to the Falcon. Then he went inside, grabbed the fire extinguishers, and came out blasting. The foam put out the fires nearby, leaving charred bits of metal, and several charred bodies.
Star Wars - The New Rebellion Page 32