CHAPTER TEN
Casting the Stone Luke stepped out into the huge airlock where the Lady Luck and his X-wing were waiting, and breathed a sigh of relief. Jcnica had taken them on a roundabout route, but they had gotten here faster than he had thought possible. And with that clock counting down toward the death of Bovo Yagen, there was no time at all to waste. He thought he knew what he had to do next, but he had to be sure. He had to check. The others watched as Luke found a packing crate that had been abandoned on the airlock deck and sat down on it. He shut his eyes and concentrated, forcing himself to take it slow, to be sure, to extend his senses as far as possible. "Leia is on Selonia," he said at last as he opened his eyes. "No doubt about it. I can feel her there. My guess is that Han is with her, and probably Mara Jade as well. The three children are on Drall, and if what Kalenda told us is right about how they all escaped from Corellia, that probably means Chewbacca and the Falcon arc there with them. I can get a sense of a mind that's probably Chewbacca, but I can't be sure. Not at this range. And I might add that all of them seem worried. It's hard to explain, but-but I get the sense, the feeling, that all of them-Leia and the kids, and the people with them-are all prisoners of one sort or another." "Then we'd better get cracking and bust them out," Lando said briskly. "You go to Leia," Lando said. "Take Artoo and the X-wing. Figure out the coordinates for the kids' location on Oral! and give them to me. I'll fly Gaericl and Jenica back to the Bakuran fleet, where they can inform Admiral Ossilege of what we have learned. Gaeriel should get back to her post on the ship, and Jenica is our expert on Centerpoint. She ought to be of some help if things get rough. After I've dropped them off, Lieutenant Kalenda and I will fly on to Drall and see what we can do about getting to Chewbacca and the kids." Jenica looked toward Lando. "You're not very optimistic, are you?" "We don't know how to find the Drall repulsor," Lando replied. "I don't care how good an engineer Chewbacca is, there isn't going to be any way for him to work on a repulsor he can't get to. We have to rescue them, of course, but unless they're sitting right on top of a repulsor, I don't see how finding Chewbacca is going to help us get one." He turned back to Luke. "Leia is by far the better chance. She's on a planet where they've got a working repulsor, and it's probably controlled by the people holding her. All you have to do is let her know what's going on, and then hope she can talk her captors into jamming Centerpoint." Luke smiled faintly. "Yeah. Easy. Should be a piece of cake." Jenica rubbed her chin. "It all nearly makes sense," she said thoughtfully. "But I don't like the fact that we're leaving Centerpoint unguarded." "I don't think the loss of the overwhelming force represented by two small ships, two droids, and five people is going to matter that much," Lando said. "What are we going to be able to do, anyway? Wait for someone to land and then sneak up and kick them in the shins?" Jenica cocked her head a bit to one side and nodded. "Point taken. I guess I don't know what more we can do." Luke stood up and nodded. "In that case," he said, "I suggest we do what we can, right now." "We have you, but we'll not keep you long," said Kleyvits, speaker for the Overden. She sat at a table opposite Mara, Leia, and Han. Dracmus sat at Kleyvits's side, demonstrating simply by her presence that her clan had submitted to the victors. She did not look happy to be there. "We need merely come to certain straightforward agreements, and then all may be on their way." "We're not going to come to your agreements," Leia said wearily. The morning had lengthened into late afternoon, and they were in the sumptuous interior of the prison villa. For prison it had proved to be. The Overden had thrown a force field around the Jade's Fire, and guards around the force field. Leia could see the ship on the landing pad, just outside the door, but there would be no escape aboard her this time. "Even if we did wish to reach agreement, we could not do so while you were detaining us. Even if we did, it would be pointless. My government would never ratify any agreement made under duress." "How can you be under duress when you will be free to go as soon as we are agreeing?" "We are under duress now," Leia said, her voice and manner calm, imperious. "And we will not agree in any event. Therefore, the point is moot." "I ask you again to be reconsidering," Kleyvits said. "All we ask is that you are acknowledging reality. We are free. We are no longer of the New Republic. We
Star Wars - Correlian trilogy 3 - Showdown at Centerpoint Page 10