frowned. "How would anybody know to transmit that? How would anybody even
know the Falcon's private code?"
Then Han Solo's angry voice burst over the speaker. "Whoever is on the
Falcon better have a damned good reason for flying my ship!"
"Han! Is that you?" Lando said. A sudden thrill surged through Luke.
"Lando?" Han said after a pause. Over the speakers Chewbacca's roar drowned
out Han's own exclamation. "What are you doing here?"
In space around them, blinding lances of light flashed as the weapons of two
fleets were brought to bear. Like rival krayt dragons in mating season, the
Kessel and Imperial forces slammed into each other in a total free-for-all
space brawl.
"Han, listen to me. Luke is here, too," Lando said. "We've got to get away
from Kessel, but the Falcon's navicomputer is disabled. We can't make the
jump into hyperspace."
An explosion rocked them from the starboard side, but most of the Kessel
fighters concentrated their firepower on the much larger threat of Daala's
Imperial fleet. Though hopelessly outmatched, the three Carrack cruisers
lined up and began to blast the Basilisk.
Over the private comm channel Han spoke to someone else behind him, then
answered Lando. "We can dump the coordinates to your navicomp, and we'll fly
tandem back to Coruscant."
Lando checked the computer, saw the numbers scrolling through, and raised a
fist in triumph. "Got it! Artoo, get ready to go."
"You'd better keep my ship safe, Lando," Han said. "On my signal."
"You have my word, Han." Lando's hands flew over the Falcon's familiar
controls.
"Ready to enter hyperspace!" Han said.
The Kessel forces flanked and attacked the far larger Star Destroyers,
pummeling the Imperial ships with blasts from their ion cannons and
turbolaser banks. But the Star Destroyers disgorged their own squadrons of
TIE fighters to butcher the unregimented forces from Kessel.
"On your mark, Han!"
"Punch it!"
The last thing they saw was Kessel's massive Loronar strike cruiser
exploding under the concerted fire from the Manticore and the Gorgon. They
watched the flaming hulk reel and ram into the Star Destroyer Basilisk,
causing the bottom of the arrowhead hull to buckle and burn.
Then the universe filled with starlines.
The reunion was everything Han had imagined. He had spent a lot of time
thinking about it during the long hyperspace flight back to Coruscant.
Leia and the twins met him the moment the Sun Crusher and the Millennium
Falcon touched down side by side at the high landing platform. Han backed
out of the Sun Crusher's hatch and began climbing down the ladder, but Leia
ran forward and hugged him before he managed to get all the way down.
"Glad I'm back?" he asked.
"I missed you!" she said, kissing him.
"I know," he said with a roguish smile.
She put her hands on her hips. "What? You didn't miss me?"
Han turned away sheepishly. "Well, first we crashed on Kessel, then we were
stuck in the spice mines, then we got captured by a bunch of Imperials in
the middle of a black hole cluster. I really didn't have a whole lot of--'
When Leia looked as if she were going to punch him, Han reacted with a grin.
"But even through all that I don't remember more than about two seconds when
I didn't miss you with all my heart."
Leia kissed him again.
Artoo trundled down the Falcon's ramp, and Threepio bustled to greet him.
"Artoo-Detoo! I'm so glad you're back. You wouldn't believe the difficulties
I've had while you were gone!"
Artoo bleeped something nobody bothered to translate.
Kyp Durron and Qwi Xux climbed down from the Sun Crusher and stared out at
the endless spires and towers of Imperial City, the metropolis of glinting
transparisteel and alloy that stretched to the horizon. Above them the tiny
lights of shuttles winked across the sky. "Now that's a city!" Kyp said with
a sigh.
Qwi looked overwhelmed. The Sun Crusher would be transferred to a
high-security hangar for study by the scientists of the New Republic.
Qwi did not like abandoning it, but she had no choice.
Han strode over to his two children, bending his knees and gathering Jacen
and Jaina into his arms.
"Hey, kids! Do you remember your daddy? It's been a long time, huh?"
He mussed their hair and stared down at them with the wide-eyed astonishment
he always felt when seeing how much they had grown between the visits Winter
arranged to the hidden planet of Anoth. Now, though, Jacen and Jaina's two
years of isolation and protection were over, and the children were home to
stay, leaving only baby Anakin in need of special protection.
Jacen nodded; then a moment later Jaina nodded as well. Han wasn't sure he
believed their answer, but he hugged them anyway. "Well, if you don't
remember me, I'll try to make it up to you from now on."
* * *
A puffed-up official wearing the bright uniform of an offworld
administrative office finally cornered Lando in a high-brow diplomatic
lounge. The official held an armored briefcase similar to the type credit
investigators carried, and he had the same pinch-faced demeanor of a person
being given a mission whose importance he drastically overestimated.
"Are you Lando Calrissian?" the official said. "I have been attempting to
locate you for several days. You've made my job most difficult." He bustled
forward.
Lando saw that he could not slip out the back entrance of the lounge. Beside
him at the table Han raised his eyebrows. Both of them had gone to the
lounge to relax and settle down after their long debriefings by the Alliance
High Command.
Unfortunately, the lounge catered to bureaucrats and political
functionaries, and served only cloyingly sweet drinks. Han and Lando sipped
theirs slowly, trying to keep from grimacing.
Lando had heard rumors about an investigator trying to track him down and
had managed to avoid him thus far. He feared some debtor coming after him,
or a complaint regarding the tibanna gas mining operations he had abandoned
on Bespin or the hot metal mines he had recently lost on Nkllon.
"Yes, you finally caught me," Lando said with a sigh. "What do you want? I
can get the best legal representation in the galaxy here in Imperial City."
"That won't be necessary," the investigator said, heaving his armored
briefcase onto the table, then fiddling with the cyberlock. "I'll be glad to
be rid of this."
He lifted the lid of his case, and glittering light sparkled out. Other
people in the lounge turned to gape. The briefcase brimmed with carefully
sorted packets of firefacet gems and shimmering chrysopaz.
"I am from the planet Dargul, and this is the reward owed to you by the
Duchess Mistal for the safe return of her beloved consort Dack. You can have
them appraised, but I am told these jewels are valued at approximately one
million credits. Plus the briefcase, which is worth another forty."
Lando stared, hunched over the briefcase and dazzled by its contents. "A
million?
" he said.
"A million, plus forty for the briefcase."
"But I was only supposed to get half of the reward."
The investigator reached into his pocket. "I neglected to give you this. It
is a message wafer for you from Slish Fondine, the owner of the blob stables
where you assisted apprehending our consort Dack." He handed Lando a small
rectangular object.
Lando turned it over in his hand, frowning, then ran his fingernail along
the crease in its center. He cracked the message wafer open, then folded the
two halves back to stand it upright on their small table.
An image of the blob-stable owner wafted up. "Greetings, Lando Calrissian.
Since you are listening to this message, I will assume you've received your
reward. I'm happy to say that your suggestion of not executing the criminal
Tymmo has proved advantageous to all concerned. Duchess Mistal was so
delighted to receive her consort back that she insisted on paying you the
full reward, as well as offering to build a subsidiary blobstacle course for
me in the main stadium on Umgul. We are already hiring creative engineers to
design even tougher blobstacles for the new course, which, at the Duchess
Mistal's request, will be called the "Dack Track."
"I am forwarding these firefacet and chrysopaz gems to you and hope you will
spend the reward wisely. Why not come to Umgul and do some gambling? I'd be
happy to be your host."
As the message dissolved into wisps of light, Lando could do little more
than stare open-mouthed at his fortune.
Han laughed, then gestured for the short investigator to sit down. "Join us
for a drink. In fact, here--you can have mine! It's too sweet for me
anyway."
The investigator shook his head, the hard expression remaining on his face.
"No, thank you. I don't think I would enjoy that. I'd rather get back to my
work." With that the investigator left the lounge.
Han clapped Lando on the shoulder. "What are you going to do with all that
money? Still thinking of investing it in spice mining?"
Lando came back to reality with a streak of defensiveness. "I hate to say
this, but when Moruth Doole showed us around, I was rather impressed by the
potential there. Spice has plenty of good uses, too--perfectly legitimate
alternatives in psychological therapy, criminal investigation, communication
with alien races, even artistic inspiration and entertainment. You knew
that, Han, or you wouldn't have run spice yourself in the old days."
"You've got a point, Lando."
But Lando's imagination kept working on the problem. "I don't see why the
spice mines have to be run as some sort of slave-lord operation. A lot of
that could be automated. Even if there are more of those energy spiders
running around, we could just use super-cooled droids down in the deeper
tunnels. No big investment. I don't see what the problem is."
Han looked at him skeptically, took a gulp of his sweet drink, then puckered
his lips. "Uh-huh."
"Besides," Lando said, "I'm in the market for a new ship. I had to leave the
Lady Luck stranded on Kessel. I may never get her back. What am I supposed
to do for the time being?"
Seeing the eager stares from the others in the lounge, Lando snapped shut
the lid of the armored briefcase. "Well, anyway, it's wonderful just to be
solvent again!"
"Everybody in!" Wedge Antilles called inside the echoing Imperial City
spaceport. "Let's get ready to go."
The last of the New Republic colonization specialists, sociologists, and
survival instructors hauled their personal packs up the ramp of the medium
transport. The ninety-meter-long ship occupied the better part of an entire
bay in the supply sector, but the group needed a transport large enough to
haul the Eol Sha survivors and their meager possessions, as well as the
supplies necessary to set up a new home on Dantooine.
Wedge kept track of the final details of the operation, skimming a checklist
on his datapad. At least this was a better assignment than knocking down
ruined buildings--for the time being. He was glad to be flying again, even
if it was only a sluggish transport carrier instead of a fighter.
But he knew tougher assignments lay in the near future. Admiral Daala and
her three Imperial Star Destroyers had devastated the Kessel system, then
vanished into hyperspace. The New Republic had sent its best trackers to
find where she had gone to hide. Han insisted she was bound to make
destructive guerrilla strikes, popping out of hyperspace and blasting a
random planet. A loose cannon like Daala would not follow a predictable
overall strategy. The entire New Republic had to be on its guard.
Chewbacca insisted that a New Republic occupation force head out to the Maw
Installation to free the other Wookiee slaves. The Alliance High Command
also wanted to get their hands on any other plans and prototypes remaining
in the secret weapons lab. So much for relaxing and picking up pieces, Wedge
thought. Things are going to get a lot more interesting.
But right now his assignment was to get the people of Eol Sha to safety on
their new homeworld.
When everything checked out onboard, Wedge noticed Gantoris standing alone
beside supply containers piled next to the wall. The displaced colony leader
looked tall and powerful, but didn't seem to know how to react to seeing the
relocation ship leave.
"Don't worry," Wedge called, "we'll take your people to their new home.
After living with volcanoes and earthquakes all their lives, Dantooine will
seem like a paradise to them."
Gantoris nodded, furrowing his smooth forehead. "Give them my greetings."
Wedge waved to him. "You just go and become the best of the new Jedi
Knights."
Luke looked deep into the eyes of Kyp Durron, searching for the core of a
Jedi. The younger man flinched but continued to meet Luke's gaze.
"Are you nervous, Kyp?" Luke asked.
"A little. Should I be?"
Luke smiled as he remembered boasting to Yoda that he wasn't afraid of his
impending Jedi training. "You will be," Yoda had said, "you will be!"
Han interrupted them, clapping his hand on Kyp's shoulder. "You should have
been there to watch him zipping through the dark spice tunnels. And he
navigated us right through the Maw with his eyes closed! This kid has a lot
of potential, Luke."
Luke nodded. "I was about to do that trick in the Maw myself. I know how
difficult it must have been."
"Does that mean you'll take me for your Jedi academy?" Kyp asked. "I want to
know how to use this power I have. While I was sitting in a cell on the Star
Destroyer, I vowed never to be helpless again."
Luke withdrew the power pack and sheet-crystal sensor paddles from the old
Imperial scanner that had once been used to detect Jedi descendants. "Let's
try this scanner first."
Untangling the cords, Luke stretched out the sheet-crystal paddles on either
side of Kyp. "This won't hurt or anything. It just maps the potential of
your senses."
He tripped the scan switch on the control pack, and a narrow line of copper
y
light traveled down Kyp's body as a smaller image of the copper scan-line
reappeared in reverse motion in front of them, digitizing its analysis of
Kyp Durron.
Kyp's reproduction hung in the air, bathed with the pale-blue corona Luke
had found on the others with genuine Jedi potential. But the aura waxed and
waned, knotting itself, turning darker, growing brighter, streaked with red,
then becoming tangled.
"What does that mean?" Kyp said.
"He's okay, isn't he?" Han seemed eager to have his protégé accepted.
Luke wondered at the anomalous mapping, disturbed because he didn't know how
to interpret it. The shimmer could be a result of faulty scanning equipment,
since the instrument had been roughly treated and could no longer be
calibrated--or it could be that because of the strain and pressure on Kyp
for so many years, he hadn't quite sprung back to his full potential yet.
"I see a lot of power there. A lot," Luke said, and Kyp sighed at the
reassurance. "Let me try one other test."
Luke stretched out his hands to touch the curly black hair on Kyp's head.
"Let him do what he needs to," Han whispered to the young man. "Trust him."
Luke closed his eyes and sent a tendril of thought to the back of Kyp's mind
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