Vision of the future swhot-2

by Timothy Zahn

  * * *

  Han hit the Falcon's cockpit at a full run, skidding to a halt just barely in front of the control board. "Where?" he barked, dropping into the pilot's seat.

  "There," Elegos said tightly, pointing through the viewport at the dark ship lying in space not two kilometers away. "I don't know whose ship it is, but—"

  He broke off as another flash of red fire cut through the black of space on its way toward the planet below. "There—did you see it?"

  "Oh, yeah, I saw it," Han snarled, a hard jab of fear punching up under his heart as he slapped at the emergency start-up switches. Elegos might have lost track of which ship was which out there, but he hadn't. That shot had come from the flagship of the Ishori task force, the war cruiser Predominance.

  The ship Leia was currently aboard.

  There was another flash, again heading down toward the Bothawui surface. "You know how to release a docking collar?" Han snapped at Elegos, his hands darting over the control boards.

  "Yes, I think so—"

  "Do it," Han cut him off. "Now."

  "Yes, sir." Lunging out of his seat, the Caamasi headed aft.

  The engines were starting to come up to power now. Han keyed the comm, setting for full-frequency scan. There was going to be hell to pay for this one, all right, no matter what the Ishori thought they were doing. The sync numbers for the stabilizer he'd just installed were coming in now; it seemed to be firming up—

  "All ships, this is New Republic President Gavrisom," Gavrisom's taut voice boomed from the cockpit speaker. "Stand your positions and hold your fire; repeat, please stand down and hold your fire. The incident currently under way is not—"

  He never got to finish his plea. Abruptly there was a squawk of blanketing jamming static on that frequency, drowning him out—

  "Attack!" a new voice bit out. "All Corellian forces, attack at will!" Han gaped at the speaker. What in blazes was the Corellian doing?

  And then the scan locked on to another frequency. "Attack!" a guttural Mon Calamari voice rumbled. "All Mon Cal ships, attack."

  [Attack,] a Diamalan voice called calmly in their own language on another frequency.

  {Attack,} came the snarling Ishori reply on yet another.

  Han looked out at the mass of ships, heart thudding in his throat. No. No—this was insane. Surely they wouldn't.

  But they were. All around the area, the various warships were coming sluggishly to life, heading for the better maneuverability of open sky or else simply turning their weapons to target their opponents.

  And even as he watched, the first flashes of turbolaser fire began.

  Behind him, Elegos charged back into the cockpit. "The collar's released," he announced, breathing heavily as he resumed his seat. "We can leave—"

  He broke off, staring in disbelief at the scene outside. "What's happened?" he gasped.

  "Han—what's going on?"

  "It's just what it looks like," Han said grimly.

  "The New Republic is at war."

  CHAPTER

  37

  It was a trip of only perhaps fifteen minutes, as the Qom Qae flew, to the far side of the Hand of Thrawn and the lake Child Of Winds had mentioned. At first Luke had been skeptical of the whole idea, concerned about the young aliens' ability to handle the weight of their passengers, not to mention whether or not they would be able to keep out of sight and targeting range of what were surely by now a seriously hostile group of enemies in the fortress.

  But the Qom Qae had surprised him on both counts; and as they weaved expertly in and out of the cover of trees and rocks and mountain gullies, he almost began to relax about this phase of the operation. Mara, too, he could sense, had already turned her thoughts ahead to what they would find at the end of the short flight.

  The same, unfortunately, could not be said of Artoo. Suspended in the center of the framework they'd rigged out of their last lengths of syntherope, he moaned and gurgled the whole way. The cut in the rock was no more than ten meters from the edge of the lake, descending at a fairly steep angle from under a partial overhang of grass-clumped soil. "At least the rock isn't too rough," Mara commented, running a hand experimentally along the lower surface. "Probably worn down by years of little fire creeper feet running over it."

  Artoo seemed to shudder, warbling uncomfortably. "I doubt we'll run into any more of them this time around," Luke soothed him as he untangled the syntherope and tucked it back into the droid's storage compartment. "Swarms that size can't travel too close together—there won't be enough food for them all."

  "Let's just hope they're smart enough to know that," Mara added. You are fortunate you have come when you did, Child Of Winds said. There has been much rain in the past few seasons, and the Lake of Small Fish has been growing ever larger.

  "And have the small fish been getting bigger, too?" Mara asked. Child Of Winds fluttered his wings. I do not know. Is it important?

  Mara shook her head. "It was a joke. Skip it."

  Oh. Child Of Winds looked back at Luke. I simply meant that soon this entrance may be covered over with water.

  "I understand," Luke said. "But for the moment it's not, and you got us here safely." It was to our great honor, Child Of Winds said. What do you wish us to do now?

  "You've done more than enough already," Luke assured him. "Thank you. Thank you all." Shall we wait for you? the Qom Qae persisted. We would be honored to wait and take you again to your flying machine.

  Luke hesitated. A ride back to the ship could be very useful indeed. Unfortunately—"The problem is that I have no idea where we'll be coming out," he said. Then we will watch, Child Of Winds said firmly. And others will watch also.

  "Yes, all right," Luke agreed, anxious to cut off the discussion and get on their way. "Thank you."

  "So what's our marching order?" Mara asked.

  "I'll go first," Luke said, sitting down on the edge of the slope and putting his legs into the opening.

  "Artoo next, you last. I'll watch for bottlenecks and try to widen them as I pass. If I miss one, you'll have to deal with it."

  "Right," Mara said, pulling her lightsaber from her belt. "Happy landings, and try not to cut off your own feet along the way."

  "Thanks." Igniting his lightsaber, holding the blade ready over his outstretched legs, Luke eased onto the slope and started down.

  It wasn't nearly as bad as he'd feared. Years of little fire creeper feet might indeed have smoothed down the rock; more importantly, they'd also worn away most of whatever obstructions might once have existed there. Only twice did he have to slice out pieces of rock as he slid his bouncy way down, and in one of those cases it probably hadn't really been necessary. Behind him, he could hear the much louder metallic clattering as Artoo slid down the slope, almost but not quite covering up his continual unhappy twittering.

  The slope emptied into one of the same sort of tunnels they'd spent far too much time in over the past couple of weeks. Luke caught Artoo as he fell out, getting him out of the way in time to give Mara a clear landing spot. "Well, here we are again," she said, playing her glow rod around. "Doesn't look particularly familiar. Any guesses as to which way?"

  "From the position of the fortress, I'd say that way," Luke said, pointing to the left.

  "Okay," Mara said. "Let's go."

  The Qom Qae, whether by design or simple luck, had chosen their entrance well. They had gone no more than a hundred meters along the tunnel when Luke rounded a curve to see an all-too-familiar natural stone archway in the near distance. "We're here," he murmured back toward Mara. "Be ready; if they know about the stairway, they'll probably have guards waiting for us inside." There were no guards. Fifteen minutes later, having struggled through the narrow gap in the cortosis-laden rock, they were once again standing in the underground room.

  "I guess they don't know about the stairway, after all," Mara commented, playing her glow rod across the cut they'd made earlier in the yellow inner wall.

  "Or else d
on't have any way of getting into it," Luke reminded her. "Even the locking mechanism on those doors seemed to be made of Hijarna stone."

  "Don't misunderstand—I'm just as happy to give them a miss this time through," Mara hastened to say. "I wonder how many of those power conduits are running at the moment?"

  "Probably more than the last time we went through," Luke said, turning his glow rod to point the other way. As before, the far end of the room was lost in the shadows beyond the light. "I wonder how long this room is?"

  "It can't be too long," Mara pointed out. "There's a lake somewhere that direction, remember?"

  "Right," Luke agreed. "Got any sage advice before we start?"

  "Just that we be careful," Mara said, joining him. "Side by side as long as we can with the droid behind us, lightsabers and senses ready."

  "Succinct and practical," Luke said, stretching out ahead of them with the Force. There was no danger yet that he could sense. "Come on, Artoo."

  Mara's point about the room's size turned out to be correct. They had gone only a few steps when the back wall came within range of their glow rods. In the center was an open archway leading farther back into the rock.

  Not the rough natural rock of the caverns, though. The walls and floor of this passageway were smooth and finished.

  "Interesting," Mara said, playing her glow rod around as they stood just outside the archway.

  "Notice anything peculiar about the ceiling?"

  "It hasn't been smoothed down like the walls have," Luke said, eyeing the jutting rock hanging down from the arched ceiling.

  "I wonder," Mara murmured. "Artoo, your sensors getting anything?" Artoo warbled a rather distressed-sounding negative, and Luke leaned over to check the datapad translation. "He says the output from the power generator is masking pretty much everything else," he told Mara. "That's probably where that hum is coming from, too. You think there's something else up there?"

  "Keeper Of Promises said this area was lethal to Qom Jha," Mara reminded him. "And we all know how much Qom Jha like to hang from ceilings."

  "And we had that cave of predators who eat flying things like Qom Jha." Luke nodded, seeing where she was going with this. "And a bunch of Chiss up in the fortress who think of them as vermin."

  "Not to mention that layer of cortosis ore back there," Mara said. "Which I still don't believe got there naturally. This place has defense rings six ways from Coruscant."

  "As one would expect with Thrawn in charge of it," Luke said. "Question is, do we try to do something about that ceiling, or assume it isn't something that will bother us?"

  "It's never a good idea to leave a danger at your back," Mara declared, taking a step just inside the archway. "Here goes." Igniting her lightsaber, she hurled it expertly up to slice into the rocky ceiling.

  There was a brilliant flash, the crackle and stench of high-energy current—

  And suddenly the whole ceiling seemed to collapse.

  Mara was back out of the room in an instant, even as Luke ignited his lightsaber and jabbed it protectively over where her head had been. The ceiling fell onto it, draping itself over the green-white blade for a second before it was cut through and fell the rest of the way onto the floor.

  "How cute," Mara said, peering in over his shoulder. "It's like a sculpted Conner net. A Qom Jha settles to a landing, there's a high-energy discharge that fries him, and the whole thing drops to take out any of his friends who happen to be with him."

  "That's cute, all right," Luke murmured, poking at the netting with the tip of his lightsaber.

  "Question is, is it safe now for us to walk over?"

  "Probably," Mara said. "Conner nets are usually single-charge gadgets, and it doesn't do much good to leave it active once it's on the floor."

  "Makes sense," Luke said, stretching out to the Force as he eased his foot out over the net. No tingling of danger... and sure enough, his foot came down onto the net without even a spark of residual charge. "It's clear," he said.

  "Hold it!" Mara hissed, taking a long step forward and putting her lightsaber handle across his chest to stop him, her sleeve blaster now gripped in her free hand. "Something's coming." Luke stopped, listening to the soft clicking of feet on rock. More than one something, too, by the sound of it. He played his glow rod down the tunnel trying to see what was coming... And abruptly, from a group of narrow side openings he hadn't noticed came a swarm of fist-sized insectlike creatures scuttling rapidly across the walls toward them.

  "Watch it!" Mara snapped, her blaster tracking.

  "No, wait," Luke said, pushing her arm to the side off target. He'd caught a glint of metal... "Just keep moving. Artoo, come on, hurry."

  He could sense Mara's strong disapproval, but she did as instructed without argument. The skittering creatures passed them by without slowing, apparently without even so much as a second glance. Luke reached the end of the collapsed Conner net and stepped off onto the stone floor; and as Mara and Artoo did likewise, he turned around to look.

  The creatures had grouped themselves around the front edge of the collapsed net. Even as Luke watched, they began to ease their careful way up the walls, carrying the edge of the net with them. Beside him, Mara snorted gently. "Of course," she said, sounding mildly disgusted with herself.

  "Maintenance droids, there to get the trap reset. Sorry—I guess I overreacted a bit."

  "Considering it's Thrawn we're dealing with, overreaction isn't likely to be a problem very often," Luke said.

  "Thanks, but you don't have to try to soothe my feelings," Mara told him, sliding the sleeve gun away and shifting her lightsaber to her right hand again. "Lesson learned. Shall we go?"

  * * *

  "What in the Empire are you talking about?" Captain Nalgol demanded, blinking the sleep from his eyes as he grabbed for his uniform and started pulling it on. "How can they be shooting at each other? The flash point is still three days away."

  "I don't know, sir," the Tyrannic's duty officer said tautly. "All I know is that the probe ships report the battle has begun, and that the section of planetary shield over the Bothan capital has collapsed. It's hard to tell from this distance, but they say the capital appears to be on fire in several places."

  Nalgol swore viciously under his breath. Someone had blundered, and blundered badly. Either the Intelligence strike team—

  Or Thrawn himself.

  It was a shocking thought. A shattering thought, even. If Thrawn's timing could be that far in error—

  He shook away his misgivings. What was done was done; and whatever mistakes or miscalculations had been made, he was determined that he and the Tyrannic wouldn't add to them.

  "Have the Obliterator and Ironhand been informed?" he asked, grunting out the last word as he leaned over to pull on his boots.

  "Yes, sir. Probe ships report they're coming to full battle stations now."

  "Make sure we get there ahead of them," Nalgol told him tartly.

  "Yes, sir," the officer said again. "Estimate we'll be at battle readiness in five minutes. Probe ships are continuing to feed us reports."

  "Good," Nalgol muttered. Now that the shock of the news was fading, he realized it wasn't quite as bad as it had first seemed. All right, so the battle had started early. The three Star Destroyers were ready, or would be before their presence was needed to eliminate the survivors of the battle raging out there.

  And blinded by the cloaking shield as they were, they definitely needed up-to-the-minute reports from the probe ships. The danger was that, with the ships dipping in and out of the shield with that kind of regularity, someone might notice something odd happening around the comet head and come over to investigate.

  But there was a way to minimize that risk. "Put all tractor beam operators on full alert," he ordered. "If any ship besides our own probe ships—and I mean any ship—pokes its nose inside the cloaking shield, I want it grabbed and held inside out of communication. Make sure that message gets to the other ships, too. No one
is going to stumble in on us and live to talk about it. Understood?"

  "Understood, sir," the officer said.

  "I'll be on the bridge in two minutes," Nalgol said, grabbing his tunic and belt. "I want the ship at full battle readiness by the time I get there."

  "We will be, sir."

  Nalgol slapped off the intercom and headed out the door of his quarters. Fine; so the aliens and alien-lovers couldn't contain their self-destructive hatreds as long as Thrawn had expected. Fine. It just meant that the pent-up boredom and frustration of his crew would get released a little earlier. Smiling grimly, he headed down the corridor toward the turbolift at a carefully measured walk. This was going to be a pleasure.

  * * *

  A turbolaser flashed, its lethal red beam sizzling perilously close to the Falcon's starboard side on its way toward an Escort Frigate with Prosslee markings. Han spun the ship away from a second shot, dodged the other direction barely in time to avoid a pair of Bagmim customs ships driving with laser cannon blazing toward the Prosslee.

  The whole universe had gone mad. With him square in the middle of it.

  "What happened over there?" he called toward the comm, weaving between a pair of Opquis gunships.

  "According to the Ishori, three humans came aboard about half an hour ago," Leia's voice came back, the sound of an alert tone droning in the background. "They had New Republic tech IDs and a letter from the Ishori High Conflux authorizing them to examine the Predominance's power couplings for oxidation damage."

  "All phony, of course," Han growled, maneuvering the Falcon into a relatively clear space and looking around. It was like Endor all over again out there.

  Except that this time the Empire was nowhere to be seen. It was Rebels fighting other Rebels.

  "We know that now," Leia agreed. "Once aboard, they killed their escort and took over one of the turbolaser clusters. When the Drev'starn shield went down... Han, they got eight shots off onto the surface before we were able to cut off power to their cluster. The Ishori still haven't been able to storm the room and get to them, even with Barkhimkh and Sakhisakh helping them." Beside Han, Elegos murmured something in the Caamasi language. "How bad did Drev'starn get hit?" Han asked. "Never mind—that's not important right now. What's happening with you and the ship?"