not-be able to see the Fire's blink code signals if she signaled again. In
theory, he could use the coneship's running lights to send blink code of his
own, but he would not be able to see the lights himself, rendering it just
that much harder to send accurate code. Han was hoping the question of
signaling wouldn't come up. The poor visibility to the stern made for
another good reason to have the Fire go in second. Better to have a ship you
trusted at your back. At least a ship you more or less trusted. Han had
managed to put to rest most-but not all-of his reservations regarding Mara.
He could think of no reason, no motive, for her acting against Han and Leia
and the Republic, and there was no hard evidence that she had done so. But
she had never explained her actions to his satisfaction, either. She had
been in the right piaces at the right times-and ihe wrong places at the
wrong times-a bit too often in recent days. On the other hand, if she had
wanted to do real damage, Mara was too much of a pro to let things be
bungled. And the opposition had certainly done some bungling, thank the
stars. Not everything had gone their way. Say whatever else you might about
the woman, but Mara was competent. And that was a compelling argument. No,
Han told himself as the Jade's Fire was lost completely to forward view.
Leave ii be. They really had no choice but to trust Jade. He watched as the
Fire came into somewhat fuzzy view on the stern viewscreen. It was time to
forget everything else and remember that the main thing was to get this
crate down onto the surface. "Now, Salculd, it is your task," he said. "Do
well." "I will," Salculd said. "Don't worry about that." The ship chose that
moment to lurch to one side, and Salculd grabbed frantically at the
controls. "Sorry, sorry," Salculd said. "Stabilizer overcompensating. All
right now." "I can't tell you what a comfort that is," Han said. For a
moment he considered the idea of shoving Salculd out of the pilot's station
and taking over, but he knew better than that. The controls were set up for
a Selonian, and the coneship had so many idiosyncra- sies it made the
Millennium Falcon look like a standard production ship. It might be an
alarming thought, but unless things got really hairy, it was probably safest
to trust Salculd. Saiculd edged the throttle up just a trifle more and the
coneship moved just a bit faster in toward the planet. At least the coneship
was not such a relic that it relied on ballistic reentry, using friction
with the atmosphere to slow itself down. It could make a nice, civilized
powered reentry. At least Han hoped so. Most spacecraft were designed to
survive at least one ballistic reentry, but not this thing. The planet moved
closer. In another few minutes Salculd would have to turn the ship over and
point its engines forward to slow the craft. That was the part that worried
Han. Once they were decelerating, they would be at their most vulnerable.
The coneship's fragility was far from the only source of danger. Someone on
Selonia had sent a whole fleet of Light Attack Fighters up to meet the
Bakuran ships. The Bakurans had done a fair amount of damage to the LAFs,
but Han had to assume that whoever commanded them would have the sense to
hold some of them in reserve. And as Dracmus assured him that the Hunchuzuc
had no such ships, it only made sense to assume that whoever it was who did
have Light Attack Fighters might take a dim view of the coneship's arrival.
Thingb could get sticky. Han had worked on the assumption that there would
be trouble, and done his best to plan accordingly. The Jade's Fire could
provide a certain amount of covering fire, if push came to shove, but the
other ship would be an uncertain protection at best. The coneship was
completely unarmed, and had no shields at all. It didn't even have enough
reserve power to hook up any weaponry-a moot point in any event, as there
was no practical way to dismount any of the Jade's weapons or attach them to
the coneship. Han had looked into it. Short of standing in the airlock and
taking potshots at any attackers with his hand-blaster, there was not much
he could do. But Han was used to working with nothing. Even a ship as
decrepit as this one could play a few tricks if need be. He had found a way
to rig up a defense that might provide some measure of protection if things
got hot. Of course, sometimes, when you worked with nothing, nothing was
exactly what you got. And sometimes, if you got into a fight with people who
had better hardware, those other people won. Not a happy line of thought
when you were on board a flying practice target headed into a war zone. And
his thoughts didn't get any happier a few minutes later when Leia sent that
attack warning.
CHA PTER TWO
Landing Leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of the New Republic, sat at the
navigator's station aboard the Jade's Fire, watching the coneship drift in
toward the planet Selonia. She had been a fool to let Han stay aboard that
bucket of bolts. But she knew perfectly well that there had been no chance
at all to get him off that ship, once he had decided he owed something to
the Selonians on board. But what, exactly, was he getting them into? Leia
was forced to think not just like a wife but like a politician. She could
not see any way of avoiding it, but there was no question that Han was being
drawn in by these Selonians-and that Leia was being drawn in as well. It
would be easy, all too easy, for the New Republic to find itself on one side
or another of a light it had no business in. It would be even easier to get
tempted into bargains with these Hunchuzucs, bargains that had a few too
many hidden strings attached . . . "He'll be all right, Leia," Mara said.
"We'll stay right with them, all the way down. The Fire can offer them more
protection than you think." "Hmmm? What? Oh, yes," Leia said, pointlessly
embarrassed. It was somewhat mortifying to be reassured by Mara Jade, of all
people. Somehow to have Mara assume that Leia was worrying about her
husband's safety when she was really thinking about the politics of the
situation made it even worse. Was she so callous that calculation of
political advantage even pushed aside worries about her husband? So
calculating that even Mara Jade was capable of more concern for Han? But
Leia told herself, rather firmly, that she had more sense than that. She had
no choice but to think on more than one level. What good would it do Han if
she got so tied up in sentimental worrying that she failed to foresee the
dangers ahead? "Han will be all right," Leia said again, trying to convince
herself as much as her companion. "If anyone can get that tub down to the
surface, he can." "If anyone can," Mara agreed, none too reassuringly. Mara
was at her usual post, at the pilot's station, guiding the Jade's Fire down
toward the surface. She frowned and adjusted the thrust controls a bit,
slowing them down again. "Trouble?" Leia asked. Mara shook her head without
taking her eyes off the viewport. "Nothing we can't handle, but I don't like
being behind the coneship. That Sefonian pilot needs a fly
ing lesson or two.
If she hits the brakes like that too many times, she's going to get our nose
assembly right up her stern." "Can we back off a little?" "Not if we want
them to stay in visual contact with us. That stern holocam has no resolution
at all. We might be too far back for it to see us as it is- Burning stars,
she doesn't know how to fly!" Mara pulled her joystick violently up and to
the right. "She's doing the pitchover maneuver way too early-and without
shutting off her engines. Nearly clipped her." Leia watched as the lumbering
bulk of the coneship began its turnover, flipping end over end to direct its
sublight engines toward the planet and slow its descent. It was painfully
obvious that the pilot was not managing very well. The ship was lurching
abruptly from one attitude to the next, pausing at intermediate stages of
the maneuver instead of moving smoothly from a nose-to-planet attitude
direct to stern-to-planet. It only made it worse-much worse-that the pilot
was doing it under power. Leia was a pretty fair pilot, and she would have
been very reluctant to try doing it that way. Mara was forced to fly two
more evasive patterns just to keep the Fire from crashing into the other
ship. Finally she backed the Fire off by five kilometers. "They're going to
be nose-on to us anyway," Mara said. "They'll be able to see us reasonably
well." "With a little luck," Leia said, a bit doubtfully. The Fire had
first-rate detection systems, and could have tracked the coneship halfway
across the Corellian system, but all the eoncship had was straight visual.
Leia peered out the Fire's viewport and managed, with great difficulty, to
spot the tiny dot that was the coneship. The bright bulk of the planet's
dayside loomed up behind the ship, rendering it all but invisible. How easy
would the Fire be to see. a little spot of red against the blackness of
space? Mara wasn't even using the main viewscreen anymore, but watching her
detector displays. She wasn't relying on visual detection. Oh, well. As long
as at least one ship could see the other, things should be all right-
"Trouble!" Mara announced. "Leia, weapons and shields to standby, fast!"
Leia ran the power-up routines as quickly as she could. She ran quick checks
on the ship's turbolasers and shields. "All weapon and shield systems
functional and on-line," she announced. "What's happened?" "Power up the
defense tracking systems and tell me," Mara said. "All the nav systems can
tell me is that a bunch of blips just showed up out of nowhere." "Light
Attack Fighters," Leia announced as the defense trackers came on. "A double
flight of them, twelve in all, coming in from right over our stern. Must
have dropped out of a high polar orbit." Mara shook her head as she stared
down at the navigation display. "We can handle them, but it won't be easy.
Not with the coneship to cover." "We're too far off to extend our shields
toward the coneship." "And we're going to stay that way," Mara said sharply.
"I'm not getting any closer to that pilot than I have to-especially in
combat. She's already nearly rammed us twice. Get close enough to provide
shield cover, and we'll all be dead. Covering fire is the best I'm going to
be able to do. How soon until the LAFs get here?" "Firing range in thirty
seconds." "Stand by for combat maneuvers." "No! Wait! We have to blink-code
to Han, warn them!" "You've got twenty-five seconds," Mara said, steel in
her voice. There was no point even trying to argue. Leia reached for the
landing light controls and flipped them back to blink-code mode. She forced
herself to take a full five seconds to compose her message, and then sent it
three times, in rapid succession. "Done," Leia said. "Good," Mara said.
"Hang on." Han was almost too busy trying to keep from being flung out of
his chair to notice the flashing lights visible in the overhead viewport.
"Smooth and gentle, Salculd! Not sudden!" he shouted as he tried to
concentrate on the blink code-not easy to do when the ship he was on was
flailing about like a cornered bantha. The trouble was that Han was only
marginally better at reading code than he was at sending it. Even under
perfect conditions, he might have had problems. He struggled to catch it
all. At least Leia used the special word-end signal between words.
Otherwise, he'd have never gotten anywhere. "B-A-N-D-I- something- something
word ends," he muttered to himself. "Bandi? Bandits! Oh, great!" He tried to
concentrate on the next word. Missed something -R-O-M word ends. Burning
suns, Leia, do you have to send so fast? Missed something -E-H-l-N-D word
ends J-A-D-E-S-F-I- Han missed the end of it as the coneship bobbled about
again, but he had read enough to know the score. Bandits, enemy fighters,
were headed this way, coming from behind the Jade's Fire. And either by bad
luck or good timing they were heading in right as the coneship was at its
most vulnerable. Han glanced over at the Selonians. You didn't have to be an
expert at reading Selonian expressions to know that they were both scared
silly, Salculd only slightly less so than Draemus. Han reminded himself she
did not speak Basic. There was no point at all to telling Salculd about the
bandits until she had the ship under control. Han was sure she hadn't even
seen the blink-code message. Good. Let her work. Let her work. The coneship
slowly lumbered around into braking position, its fat stern pointed almost
precisely straight down at the planet, but canted just slightly into the
ship's direction of travel, so the braking run could kill the craft's
forward momentum as well. Han checked his instruments, doing his best to
make sense out of the Selonian notation. By some miracle or other, Salculd
seemed 10 have gotten them into the right position, and at the right
attitude. "Good, good," he said as calmly as he could. Probably they had
just a few seconds left before the bandits jumped them. But trying to rush
Salculd would be worse than useless at this point. If she got any more
scared, she might freeze completely. "Now then, Salculd, one other matter.
Is time to, ah, lest our defense plan. You will bring the ship to spin,
please, of three spins per minute." "Test?" Draemus sputtered. "But you said
it was a one-time-only trick." Han had been hoping no one would bring that
up. At least Dracmus had spoken in Basic. There was still a million-to-one
chance Salculd hadn't caught on. "Quiet," he said in Basic before switching
back to Selonian. "Make the spins, please, Honored Salculd. Make sure all is
weli, in case needed." It was clear that Salculd did not believe him-but it
would seem she was willing to pretend she did, at least for a little while.
"Yes, yes," she said, "of course. Commencing axial spin." The ship began to
rotate around its conical axis, so the stars pinwheeled across the sky. Han
studied the overhead view, as best he was able. He could just about spot the
Fire, and the bandits were almost certainly sma ller, and coming from
behind. There was no way he could find them, especially with the ship
spinning like a top. He gave it up. No point in worrying about things he
could not change. "
Disable internal damping," Han said calmly, casually. The
inertial dampers prevented anything more than a few percent of a ship's
acceleration and motion from being felt by those aboard. Without them, the
occupants of a ship accelerating to light speed could be squashed to jelly.
No one liked turning them off-but sometimes you had to do what you didn't
like. "But if we cannot restart inertial damping-" "Worry about such later!"
Han snapped. He knew better than Salculd what it might mean if they couldn't
get the dampers back on. But they would have to live long enough for the
problem to come up. "We need to use centrifugal effect if plan is to work,
and inertial damping cancels it out. End damping!" Salculd inhaled nervously
and reached out her hand to cut off the inertial damping system. All of a
sudden, Han felt his weight double, then triple, as the dampers stopped
compensating for the ship's deceleration. A moment later he felt the
disorienting sensation of the ship spinning. "Confirm all inner airlocks
sealed," Han ordered. "All inner airlock doors sealed. Pressure in locks,"
Salculd said. '"Honored Solo, must we truly- "Quiet! We must. Be ready for
next step! Maintain course, maintain thrust, unless I order otherwise!" Han
struggled to concentrate on the spinning starfield overhead. If this was
going to work, it would take exact timing. But how could he time anything if
he couldn't see? Maybe he would get lucky and the Jade's Fire would signal
the all clear. And maybe he would wake up and discover the whole nightmare
trip to Corellia had just been a dream. If only wishing could make it true.
He had done his best. Now all they could do was hang on and see how it came
out. "Rear, ventral, and dorsal shields to full, forward shields to one
quarter," Mara ordered. "Divert shields as needed for ship safety." Leia
worked the shield settings. "Shields conligured as ordered." "Good," Mara
said. "Maintain turbolasers at standby. We arc going to hold this course and
speed. Act like they aren't there. They can't know how good or bad our
detectors are. They've never seen this kind of ship before, but I know LAFs.
They have the gear to detect turbos going on-line, but not shield
activation. If we keep the guns off and stay on course, they might decide we
can't see them." "What good does that do us?" Leia asked. "They might blow
Showdown At Centerpoint Page 2