his little brother were behind him, all three of them standing fight at the threshold of the cockpit. "I don't know," he said. "How close do you think it will be?" "Not close at all. I bet I'm a zillion times more scared than you." "Don't be so sure about that," said Jacen. "/ bet it's a tie." "I'm not scared," said Anakin. "I'll fly her, if you want." "I might take you up on that one if you weren't too short to reach the controls properly," said Jacen. "Might I remind ail of you of the need for haste at this point?" asked Q9. "I believe I have gotten over my recent bout with paranoia, but let us not forget that there really is someone out to get us." "He's got a point," Jacen said. He turned to Jaina. "Which seat do you want? Pilot or copilot?" Jaina paused for a moment, and then smiled. "Like father, like son. You take Dad's seat at pilot. He'd like it that way. I bet Mom would too." Jacen smiled back at her, then climbed in and took his place at the pilot's station, adjusting the seat up as high and as far forward as it would go. Jaina did the same. "All right, Chewie," said Jacen, "we're switching over to the ship's main comm system-now." He reached over to the com panel and threw the appropriate switch. "That's a relief," said Q9. "Can you still read us?" Jacen asked. An answering roar came from the overhead speaker, and Jacen hastily turned down the volume. "Good," said Jaina. "All right, Jacen. Seat restraint fastened?" "Definitely," said Jacen. He glanced behind him and made sure that Anakin, seated in the observer's seat behind Jaina, also had his belt on. Q9 had clamped himself to a stanchion. "Everyone set?" "Not quite," said Jaina. "Those Human League guys are going to come after us the moment we take off. Maybe we should sort of slow down good old cousin Thrackan a little bit before we leave." "Wait a second," protested Jacen, but Jaina had already activated the fire controls for the Falcon's ventral laser cannon. Jacen could hear the whir of the motors as the cannon came out of the hull. "I figure one aimed shot at the force field generator, and then I re-aim as fast as I can and take a crack at the assault boat." "The force field generator? Suppose you miss and hit Chewie and the Drall?" "I can't hit them. They're behind the force field, remember? You just be ready to get us moving straight up on the repulsors the split second I tell you to. I don't think we should try anything with the sublight engines until we have a little room to maneuver." Jacen shook his head doubtfully. "All right," he said. "But be sure you remember whose idea it was to start shooting. Hold on a second." He studied his control boards for a moment, and then flicked a series of power switches on. The ship gave a sort of eager little shudder, and Jacen felt a low hum of power flow through the ship. "There we go," he said. "Repulsors and sublight engines at standby." "Chewie---get as close to the center of the containment as you can and shield your eyes, and tell the others to do the same.1' A howl of protest came over the intercom. "Will you relax?" Jaina said. "This will work, trust me. You guys just get ready to run and hide as soon as the force field goes down. Here we go." Jaina stared down at the gunnery display, making minute adjustments to the ventral laser's aim. "One aimed shot," she said again. "Either it works or it doesn't. Chewie- Ebrihim-Aunt Marcha-get ready!" "And they all think I've been acting strangely," said Q9. "One shot, on the count of three, then I re-aim on
the assault boat and shoot it up as best I can. Jacen, don't boost till I tell you to, al! right?" "All right, fine! I heard you the first time!" "Here we go," Jaina said again. "One- Jacen boosted himself up on his scat a bit to see what was about to happen. "Two- Should he try harder to stop her? Jaina was going too far, but there really wasn't time to argue.
"THREE!"
A blast of fire roared from the ventral laser cannon, catching the force field generator square in the center of the control panel. It exploded in a gout of fire that seemed to light up the entire repulsor chamber. The force field winked out of existence. The blaze of light dazzled Jacen, but Jaina had been watching her targeting screen. She swung the laser cannon around in the general direction of the assault boat and fired again. The first shot missed the boat completely, the blast of light bouncing off the reflective walls of the chamber to ricochet around a dozen times before it dissipated. She fired again, and hit the left rear landing skid of the boat, kicking the body of the boat up a half meter or so before it slammed down to the decks with a tremendous crash. She tried one more shot and missed completely again. The blast bounced back and forth off the walls and floors of the chamber. Jacen could see three figures, one large and two small, running for the nearest entrance to the side caverns. Good. At least his sister hadn't killed them outright when she blew up that generator. "Jaina, the way those shots are ricocheting, you're more likely to hit Chewie than Thrackan." She shook her head. "You're right," she said. "Go. Let's get out of here." "Everyone hang on to something," said Jacen. "I've never done this before." He pulled back on the repulsor power control, and the Millennium Falcon lumbered up into the sky. Thrackan Sal-Solo went sailing out of bed and crashed to the floor of his cabin. He lay there, half stunned for a moment, and then scrambled to his feet. The room was pitch-dark for a moment, but then the emergency lighting cut in. Thrackan had taken over the captain's cabin in the assault boat, putting him in the only private space on board. Even so, the cabin was small enough that it took him a minute to realize that the deck was canted badly downward to the right and rear of the boat. What had happened? He could hear shouting, panicking voices in the corridor. He pulled on a robe and stepped out of his cabin. Thrackan stepped out into a milling, chaotic throng, a tangled knot of frightened, confused men. He spotted the boat's captain, struggling to get forward to the control room. Thrackan grabbed the man by the shoulder. "Captain Thrag-what in blazes is going on?" he demanded. "I don't know, sir," Thrag shouted back. He was short, fat, and bald, and not the most appealing person to see in his underwear this late at night, so long since his last shave. But there was a clear-eyed, hard-headed sort of integrity about the man. He took orders from Thrackan without being afraid of him. A rarity, that. "Some shots, and then some explosions, at least two of them. One pretty far off, and the other right under us. I think we lost one of the landing skids." "That can't be. Let's get forward." The two of them shoved their way forward to the control cabin. The captain hit the button and the hatch slid open, offering a clear view out the forward viewport. "Burning stars," gasped Thrackan. "Look at that," said Thrag. "I don't believe it." The force field generator was a pillar of fire, the reflection of the flame glittering and gleaming from every corner of the silver walls of the repulsor chamber. The force field itself was gone, and the prisoners had vanished. There seemed little doubt about where they had gone, either. There was the Millennium Falcon, rising straight up off the ground, headed for the sky. "After them!" "But the ship was hit by laser fire!" Thrag protested. "We have damage! We have to check it first." "No! If the ship is damaged, we fly with damage! Fly! Go!" "That would put the life of every man aboard at risk." "Every man aboard is at risk of execution right now anyway, for dereliction of duty," Thrackan snarled. "What about the man on watch? He should have been here. He should have raised the alert. Where is he?" The captain laughed bitterly and hooked his thumb toward the rear of the boat. "With the rest of the sleepy drunks back there, would be my guess." "What are you saying?" "I'm saying look at the crew your people sent me. Dregs and scum, all of them. By the time men get posted to low-life duty like tending an assault boat, a lot of other people have turned them down. What do you expect when you recruit thugs?" "Weil, if they've all been rejected, then they won't be much missed when they all get killed. Launch this boat now!" Thrag looked Thrackan straight in the eye, and then saluted. "Very well, sir. But on your head be it," he said, and sat down in the pilot's chair. Ebrihim had a very nasty feeling that he had a large patch of singed fur somewhere in the small of his back. In any event, there was the acrid smell of burnt hair, and there was definitely a tender spot back there. However, this was not exactly the time or the place to worry about such things. Besides, his lungs were about to burst, and he was much more interested in catching his breath than in a lot of idle chitchat about
whether or not his back had caught fire. The three of them- Chewbacca, Marcha, and Ebrihim-were hiding at the base of the cone nearest where the Falcon had been. Had been. Ebrihim watched the Falcon rising straight up into the freedom of the night sky, her way illuminated by the glow of its repulsor pads, and fires lit by Jaina's marksmanship. Where the ship had been. That was the key point. Nothing else mattered. Not really. It was cold and hard to say it, but even if the Falcon crashed, even if Thrackan Sal-Solo shot it down with the loss of all hands, this moment was a great victory. For Thrackan Sal-Solo had been denied even the hope of influencing Leia Organa Solo's decisions. But he had paid a price even trying to use her kidnapped children against her. Ebrihim knew the Drall, and he thought he even knew the Selonians and humans fairly well. His attempt at blackmail had no doubt sickened and disgusted thousands, millions of people throughout the Corellian system. It must have turned millions against him, turned passive dislike into active resistance. It must have gained sympathy for Leia-and for the New Republic. All that would have been worth it for Thrackan, if he had succeeded in manipulating her, forcing her to recognize Corellian independence. Even if she had been forced into a public rejection of his demands, that would have done her tremendous damage. A mother turning her back on her children-yes, Thrackan Sal-Solo could have done a great deal with that. He hoped deeply, profoundly, with all his heart, that the children survived. But even if they did not, they had defeated their father's cousin, their enemy, simply by getting away. "Good-bye," he said into the comlink, though they were almost certainly out of range already. "Good-bye, and good luck. May-may the Force be with you." As he watched, the assault boat lifted off and lurched up toward the sky. There was no way to be sure, of course, but as best he could tell, the assault boat had lifted with all hands aboard. That left the three of them down here alone, even more stranded than they had been before. Of course, Ebrihim had no doubt they would have plenty of company in the near future. The question was-who would that company be? Jacen held the controls in a death grip as the Falcon rode her rcpuisors up into the early-morning sky. They came up out of the repulsor shaft, still moving straight up, but Jacen knew better than to try to fly too high and too long on repulsor power alone. He would have to make the transition to sublight engines--and make it quickly. The repulsors were not intended for indefinite boost in the first place-and Jacen knew just how much this ship had been through recently. He put his hand on the sublight engine throttles, and pulled back on them as slightly, and as gently, as he could. The Millennium Falcon took off like a lightning bolt, streaking across the sky. Jacen pulled the Falcon's nose up, trying to gain some altitude-or at least trying to avoid diving into the ground. He swallowed hard and eased the sublights back just a trifle, and then shut off the repulsors. The Falcon shuddered for a moment, but then settled down to smooth flight-at least for a moment or two. Then she was suddenly diving in toward the ground far below. Jacen pulled back up on the stick, forcing her nose up, fighting to keep her from fishtailing all over the sky. At last she seemed to stabilize as he got the feel of the controls. But he kept his tight grip on the joystick and kept his eyes constantly flitting back and forth between the viewports and the controls. "Well, we're out," Jaina asked. "Now where do we go?" "I don't know," Jacen said. "We never talked about that part, but- "Behind us!" Anakin shouted. "Look at the detector screen!" Jacen had to look for a moment before he could even find the detector screen. But once he did, he had not the slightest trouble reading it. There was cousin Thrackan's assault boat, hot on their heels. A blast of laser flared past the Falcon's starboard side, and Jacen flinched involuntarily-jerking the ship's controls, and heeling the Falcon up and flipping her over on her roll axis until the topside of the ship was pointed down. The Falcon was suddenly climbing at about a forty-five-degree angle of attack, but w ith the cockpit pointed down instead of up. The artificial gravity system held them in their seats, but Jacen could look up and back and see the ground where a piece of sky should have been. The accidental maneuver seemed to have shaken Thrackan off their tail, at least for the moment, but he would be back, no doubt about it. And he'd start shooting at them again. "Shields up!" Jacen shouted. "Where-where are the shield controls?" Jaina asked. "Chewie moved 'em when he rewired the cockpit," Anakin said from the observer seat. "Under your left hand, sort of. The panel with the big red buttons." "Where? Where?" Jaina said. "I don't see it." "I'll get it," Anakin said. He undid his seat restraint, hopped out of his seat, and wriggled in between the two pilot stations. He reached in and flicked the safeties off a row of red switches, stabbed his chubby finger down on a big red button, and twisted two dials. "All right, now shields up! Top, bottom, and forward shields at-um-twenty percent. Rear shields at full." A dull crash and a shudder that ran through the whole ship told Jacen that Anakin had gotten the shields up just in time-and that cousin Thrackan's aim was getting better. Was he trying to shoot them down? Were those warning shots? Or was he trying to disable them? So far, as best Jacen could tell, Thrackan had just used the assault boat's chin guns, low-caliber lasers intended more for antipersonnel work than ship-to-ship fighting. But what did it mean? Jacen knew his dad would have been able to interpret the shots, know just what Thrackan intended, and what to do about it. But his father was not here, however devoutly Jacen might wish that he were. Probably-probably-Thrackan was trying to disable the Falcon, not kill them. The thought was not much comfort. Thirty seconds before, he had been worrying about figuring out where to go. Suddenly he wasn't all that interested in getting to anyplace at all. All he wanted to do was get away from here, right now. "Shoot!" Thrackan shouted. "Shoot, damn your eyes!" "I can't shoot them if I can't get a lock on them," Thrag growled. "The chin guns don't have any sort of automatic target tracking. I can't fly a pursuit and try for a pinpoint disabling shot at the same time. Maybe you're that good, but I'm not." "We'll see how good I am," Thrackan said, climbing into the copilot's chair. "Switch gunnery control to this station," "But it's your own blood relatives!" Thrag protested. "I ordered you to shoot at them, and I'm going to shoot at them myself. I'm not hypocrite enough to pretend there's a difference there." Thrag turned his attention from his flying long enough to look Thrackan up and down. "Do your own dirty work, then, and welcome to it," he said, and switched over gunnery control. "But I never thought I'd meet a man who thought it a special point of pride to shoot down his own flesh and blood." Ossilege's ensign rushed onto the flag deck, almost stumbling over his own feet in his hurry. "Sir, something's happened!" Ossilege turned, raised one eyebrow, and regarded the young man with a withering stare. "Thank you for that cogent and highly detailed report," he said. "Ah, yes, sir. I'm sorry. At the repulsor. Something's happened there. We detected several energy pulses that read like laser fire and explosions, and then-then two ships came out of the repulsor, one in pursuit of the other. They've just gained enough altitude for us to see them over the limb of the planet. Both are being flown very badly, and one of them seems to be damaged." "Two ships?" Kalenda said. "That's all there were down there, unless someone is playing a very cagey game." Ossilege stabbed a button on the flag deck's main console. "Putney here," said a slightly high-pitched and nasal voice. "Commander Putney, this is Ossilege. It looks like everyone has cleared out of the repulsor. Both ships have taken off." "Why?" Putney asked. "We're not sure, but one ship seems to be pursuing the other. We need to take advantage of the situation. They may or may not have left troops behind, but even if they have, some of their troopers and most of their firepower just headed off toward orbit. We are going to seize this chance with both hands. I don't care if your assault boat is only half loaded and your troops don't have their pants on. I want them headed toward an assault-speed landing in the repulsor now." "Yes, sir!" Putney replied. "Our heavy weapons aren't aboard, but if we're lucky, we won't need them. We can launch in five minutes." "Do it in four," Ossilege said, and cut the connection. He turned and gestured toward Kalenda. "Get me visual and tactical on the two ships now," he ordered. Kalen
da worked the controls with lightning speed and brought up the imagery from the long-range visual scanner and the tactical. The images of two ships appeared. Both were clawing for altitude, the one in the lead flying erratically-and upside down. "That's the Falcon," Lando said. "That's the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo's personal ship. It's flying upside down, and I think the pilot must be drunk, but I'd know that ship anywhere." "That's the assault boat behind it," Ossilege said eagerly. "And it looks to have taken some damage." "Who the devil is flying the Falcon1?" Kalenda asked. "It's not Chewbacca, I can tell you that much," said Lando. "He could fly her better than that blindfolded and with one arm in a sling-and I'm not speaking poetically." "Then who is it?" "I have an idea, but none of you would believe me anyway," said Lando. "You didn't last time." Ossilege looked at him sharply. "You're saying one of the children is flying that ship?" "You said it, I didn't,'1 Lando replied. "The assault boat is firing again!" Kalenda cried out. "Direct hit-but they're still flying," Lando said. "They must have gotten the shields up, somehow." Ossilege peered intently at the tactical screen, trying to make sense out of the course projection, but the Falcon was flying so wildly all over the map it was impossible to know for sure. "Where are they going?" he demanded. "Where are they headed? Whatever course they're trying to keep doesn't lead even remotely toward anything. Where do they think they're going?" "Nowhere," Lando said. "Away. Out." "Do they know we're here?" Ossitege demanded. Lando shook his head. "If they did, they'd be heading toward us, or hailing us, or something. They're just flying in whatever direction they happened to be heading in when the pilot managed to get control of the ship." Ossilege was plainly excited, agitated-and just as plainly trying not to show it. "Can we get a tractor beam on either ship? Or both?" Kalenda checked. "Not quite. But even if they are not moving straight toward us, they're moving in our general direction. We ought to have the Falcon within tractor range in twenty seconds, and the assault boat in range ten seconds after that." "Wait until they're both in range, and then get tractor beams on both of them. Pull the Falcon in, but just hold the assault boat where it is, at least for the moment." "Yes, sir," Kalenda said, and set to work relaying the orders. "If we work this right," said Ossilege, "we can grab the repulsor and Thrackan Sal-Solo, all at the same time." He looked up to the main screen, still showing the Triad fleet forming up, getting ready to do whatever it was here for. "Except for the trifling fact of an enemy fleet massing for the attack, I think we might be in very good shape indeed." The Falcon lurched wildly to one side as the assault boat managed another hit. "Shields didn't like that one," Anakin said, watching the defense display. "That's it," said Jaina. "I've had it. Let's give them some of their own back. Powering up ventral laser cannon and setting for aft-aim." "What?!" Jacen cried. "Are you out of your mind?" "I think you're all out of your minds," Q9 said. "Quiet, Q9. Jacen, he's already shooting at us! How could shooting back make things any worse?" "I don't know," said Jacen, "but I bet we find a way." "Ventral laser on auto target seek. I've got a target lock!" Jaina squeezed the trigger and the laser cannon blazed away. "Hit him!" she said. "Shields absorbed the shot, but I made him back off a little." "Shields down five percent!" Thrag said. "A nice clean shot, and no mistake. If that had had any power behind it, we'd be a hulk in space right now." "Shoot at me?" Thrackan said. "Those miserable whelps have the gall to shoot at me? Activating main armament!" "But you'll blow them out of the sky!" Thrag protested. "You need them alive!" "But I want them dead," said Thrackan Sal-Solo. "Main armament powered up and ready to fire." Jacen risked a peek at the detector screen. "Jaina, he's not backing off, he's bringing his main turret cannon to bear! We've got to get out of here. Hang on!" Jacen pulled back up on the stick, pulling the nose of the Falcon up. The Falcon climbed over its nose, into an inside loop, up and over before pulling out of the loop, right on Thrackan's tail. "Anakin! Forward shields to full!" Jacen shouted, and his little brother scrambled to reset the switches, just in time to deflect a near miss from the assault boat's turret gun. The Falcon bucked and shuddered, but her shields held. "We're i n behind their shields! I have a shot! Hang on!" Jaina called. She fired twice. The first caught the turret gun right at the join with the assault boat's upper hull, blowing the gun clean off the hull. The second caught the sublight engine array, smashing the sublight emitters down to nothing. The assault boat was dead in space. Jacen had to stop cheering long enough to keep from ramming the Falcon right into her stern. And then a giant, invisible hand reached out and yanked the Millennium Falcon by the scruff of the neck. "Assault boat has lost main propulsion. Tractor beam on!" Kalenda announced. "Positive lock on assault boat. Provisional lock on Falcon. Falcon attempting to break free. We can't hold Falcon for too long without damage to her." Lando went to the flag deck com panel and punched in a comm access code he had not used in a while. "Let's hope Han didn't go and change codes on me," he muttered, then pushed the transmit key. "Lando Calrissian to Millennium Falcon. This is Lando Calris-sian calling Millennium Falcon. Shut down your engines and do not resist the tractor beam. We are taking you aboard a Bakuran vessel, allied with the New Republic. Do you copy?" "Lando?" came a young, eager voice over the com line. "Is that you? Is that you?" "That you, Jaina?" Lando asked. "No, I'm Jacen," came the rather irritated reply. "But Jaina and Anakin are here too. And so is Q9." "Who or what is Q9?" Admiral Ossiiege asked irritably. "I haven't the faintest idea," said Lando. "But it looks like we'll get the chance to find out." He pressed the transmit key again. "Where are Chewbacca and the Drall?" "Still in the repulsor chamber on the planet," Jacen answered. ''We'll have to send someone to get them." Lando glanced at the flag deck's hangar status board. "We've just launched our own assault boat to them," Lando said. "They'll be all right." "Good," said Jacen. "We'll be really glad to see you, Lando." "And I'll be glad to see you too," he said. "Oh-and one more thing. Nice flying-and nice shooting. Your father will be proud." "Thanks, Lando!" "Don't mention it," Lando said, and cut the connection. He looked up at the main tactical display, where the fleet of the Sacorrian Triad was moving in, slowly and carefully in toward Centerpoint Station, and the two lonely destroyers that stood guard on it. From there, his eye shifted to a countdown clock, showing the eighty-two hours remaining until Centerpoint would fire at Bovo Yagen. "At least," said Lando to the dead microphone, "he'll be proud of you if we all live long enough for him to hear about it." And it occurred to Lando that he ought to make it his business to tell Han. Now. Before it was too late. Captain Thrag sat in the smoky control cabin of his assault boat, and laughed, but there was little joy or happiness in the angry sound. "How have the mighty fallen, O mighty Diktat," he said. "They have beaten you, beaten you completely. Shot down by children. Children so young they probably had trouble seeing over the control panel." "Shut up, Thrag," said Thrackan. "Shut up or I'll kill you on the spot." Thrag let out one last chuckle and looked out through the assault boat's viewport. The enemy ship's tractor beam was pulling them in. They would be aboard in a few seconds' time. "The horrible thing is that you might even do it," he said. "And why not? If there has ever been a man with nothing left to lose, you are that man now. They have you, Diktat Sal-Solo." He nodded to the ship in the viewport, the ship that was getting closer with every second. "Now they have you, body and spirit." eyed and solemn, as they led Thrackan Sal-Solo, Diktat of Corellia, away. "Our cousin is a very bad man," he said. Neither of the other children could think of anything more to say. The Millennium Falcon set down in the hangar deck of the Intruder, the tractor-beam operator setting the ship neatly down. The three children powered down the ship's systems as best they could, and made their way to the access ramp. Anakin worked the controls, and the ramp came down. The three of them filed down the ramp-and stopped dead at the foot of it. They had brought the assault boat in first, and already the Bakurans were taking the Human League troopers into custody. One by one, they were led out of the boat, hands on their heads, and hustled out toward the detention block. The next-to-last man out was a short, grubby-looking
man, dressed only in his underwear and a thin undershirt. All the other prisoners had looked scared or angry, but this man was laughing. Laughing out loud. But the last man out, the last one of all, was not laughing. Thrackan Sal-Solo came out of the assault boat, walking straight and tall, hands at his side. He paused for a moment as he stepped down onto the hangar deck, and looked around himself. He spotted the three children by the Millennium Falcon, and the smooth, arrogant look on his face melted away. A look of pure hatred, pure anger and malice, took its place. The three children backed away a step or two, and Thrackan actually took a step or two toward them before the guards grabbed him by the arms and led him away. Anakin stood between his brother and his sister, holding each of them by the hand. He stared, wide- "This is doing no good, Dracmus," Han said. "You come. You tell us there might be progress. You go away. You come back. You say it again. Around and around. There are people at war out there. A whole star system could die while you go back and forth." "I am knowing, I am knowing, I am knowing," said Dracmus. "But believe me, there is nothing more we can be doing. We Hunchuzuc know the deadline. We are trying. But it is a very delicate situation. Push the Sacorrians of the nameless clan too hard, and they might commit suicide. Or die of shame. And die of shame not expression, like with you people." Dracmus seemed ready to offer an explanation of that statement, but then she caught Han's eye and got back to the point. "The best thing you humans can do to hurry us along is just to be here, looking impatient, checking the time, reminding us to hurry. I go tell negotiators you impatient, time growing short, and they work faster." Just then, there was an odd, muted sort of beeping noise coming from Mara's pocket. At exactly the same moment Artoo suddenly kicked up a fuss, whistling and chirping and spinning his view dome back and forth. Mara looked confused for a minute, and then seemed to remember something. She stood up, shoved her hand in the pocket of her coveralls, and pulled out a comlink. "It's been so long since these things worked I forgot it was there," she said. She pressed a stud on the side of the comlink, and the beeping stopped. 'That's a call from the ship's monitoring systems. A high priority message just came in." "Artoo," asked Luke, "are you getting it too? The same message?" Artoo let off an affirmative-sounding trill. "Gotta be the same one," Mara said. "I've got to go over to the Jade's Fire to read my copy. Anyone care to tag along and see what it is?" Artoo confirmed it was the same message the moment he plugged into the dataport on the cockpit of the Jade's Fire. That saved having to decode it twice. The decryption system on board the Jade's Fire was good, very good. It unbuttoned the message in only a few seconds-a job that would have taken Artoo a good many minutes. Mara, sitting at the ship's command station, hit the play button, and a hologram shimmered into life a meter or so above the floor. It was a full-length view of Lando, shown at about half life size. "Hello," he said in a very solemn voice. "I don't know exactly what your situation is, so I will send duplicate copies of this to all of you. A lot has happened. The bad news is that the real enemy has finally shown up. It's the fleet from the Sacorrian Triad. Luke knows about it. They are the real enemy. Everything else-alt the rebellions-are not much more than diversions. The fleet has a total of about eighty ships of all sizes, and they are closing-very slowly-on Centerpoint. They seem to be timing it so they will get to Centerpoint just as the Bovo Yagen shot goes off. We haven't interfered with them-yet- and they haven't made any hostile gesture toward our ships. I doubt that's going to last long, though. "That's the bad news, and it's bad." The image of Lando paused for a moment, and then broke into a broad smile. "The good news is very good indeed. Don't ask me how, because we haven't had time to sort it all out yet, but the children have escaped from Thrackan-and they did it aboard the Millennium Falcon. They flew the ship. And before you can turn blue, Han, the Falcon doesn't have so much as a scratch on her. But the punch line is-they captured Thrackan. Han, you should have seen it. The kids flew a classic inside loop and put two disabling shots right into Thrackan's stern. The Bakurans have taken Thrackan prisoner. Anyway, I know you won't believe it, but the kids did it all- "I don't believe it," Han.said. "Sssh!" said Leia. "-and they are all safe and sound aboard the Intruder. Chewbacca and two Drall who got mixed up in all this are being picked up from the repulsor right now. They're okay too, as best we can tell. "But the real reason I sent this message is to ask you to come here. Gaeriel Captison has called a council of war for eighteen hours from now. We need you all there. Madame Captison wants a Selonian representative as well. Please arrange that if you possibly can. Also, to be blunt about it, the odds arc good we're going to need every scrap of firepower we can get before the end of this. We need all of you, we need the Jade's Fire, and we need Luke's X-wing. Send a return message as soon as possible, reporting your intentions. But whatever you do, please hurry. We are almost out of time."
Star Wars - Correlian trilogy 3 - Showdown at Centerpoint Page 16