And it had been too long since Wedge was responsible only to himself.
Sometimes he missed those days.
“General, a fleet of ships has just left the planet’s surface,” the lieutenant on the lower level said.
“Keep me apprised,” Wedge said.
“I think, sir, that we should reactivate the droids,” said Sela, his second in command. She was a thin, nervous woman who had been a crack shot and an invaluable assistant on Coruscant. She had yet to prove herself in a battle command.
“We can fight without them,” Wedge said.
“Begging the general’s pardon, but our support services are hampered without their presence.”
Wedge nodded. “But President Organa Solo went to some trouble to let us know about the droids. I think we should respect her choice.”
“President Organa Solo does not command the fleet,” Sela said.
Wedge debated whether or not he should call her on her breach of military etiquette. Finally, he decided on the soft approach. “President Organa Solo has led more troops into battle than you have ever seen, Major. I have learned, over the years, to pay attention to her suggestions.”
Sela sighed, clearly understanding the rebuff. “Yes, sir.”
“However, Major, if you can find a way to duplicate the droids’ services without reactivating them or pulling essential personnel, I will be grateful.”
Sela smiled and nodded. “Yes, sir.” She turned and hurried along the catwalk, as if his order had been her intention all along.
“Sir,” said Ginbotham, a Hig, from below. He was a slender blue creature whose piloting skills were renowned. “Those ships are moving toward us quickly.”
“How quickly?” Wedge asked.
“They’re moving faster than anything we have, sir.”
“They appear familiar, sir,” said Ean, a Mon Calamari. “I think they’re Imperial.”
“What?” Wedge asked. “How is that possible?”
“Their design, sir. They’re Victory-class Star Destroyers, modified Imperial style.”
“They’re?” Wedge asked, not liking the sound of this. He had gone up against Victory-class destroyers before. They had their weaknesses, but those weaknesses were hard to breach. “How many are we looking at here?”
“Three by my count, sir,” said Ean. “Along with a full complement of TIE fighters. Although there’s something odd about the fighters.”
“Figure out what that is,” Wedge said. “Let Sela know that we need A-wings out there, and quickly.”
He took a deep breath. He had not expected this. A ragtag fleet of some sort, perhaps, cobbled together from various other ships. Or maybe even a home complement. But not Star Destroyers, nor so many.
This Kueller had trained military personnel operating some of the most powerful ships in the galaxy. How had he come by all of this? And so quickly?
And why did it feel so wrong?
Wedge didn’t have time to reflect on the answers. He gave the instructions to follow command pattern 2-B, and almost belayed that order. Something was wrong here. Very wrong.
“Get Sela back into the command center. And get me General Ceousa,” he said.
“We’re breaking communication silence then, sir?” asked Ean.
Wedge nodded. He needed to know if Ceousa’s instruments showed the same squadron heading toward them, if somehow Kueller had manipulated their technology. Leia, and the message she had sent with his staff, had implied that somehow Kueller had messed with the droids. Maybe he controlled the scanning equipment as well.
Still, Wedge had to prepare for a full-scale battle.
For the first time in years, he was nervous.
He hated being caught by surprise.
His entire military zoomed through space. Several thousand troops and ground personnel. He had never expected to use them.
But Kueller was prepared. Despite what he had said to Yanne, he planned for all contingencies. He was just surprised that his weapon hadn’t worked. For the first time, it had failed to work in the way it was designed. Someone else had died. The droids hadn’t been delivered to the right place.
Brakiss would pay.
Later.
Kueller had to concentrate on the battle now.
Although Leia Organa Solo’s nearness was distracting. He had felt her ship break through the atmosphere, but he hadn’t checked on her since. She wouldn’t be hard to find. Her Jedi powers radiated from her like a searchlight.
He would concentrate on her after he had defeated her fleet.
He almost wished he was with his people.
Almost.
But he knew the risks that entailed, and he didn’t need risk now. Not with his objective so close.
Whatever happened in space mattered less than his defeat of Skywalker and his sister. Once they were gone, the galaxy would be his. It would take only an instant, and every threat to him would disappear.
If Brakiss hadn’t betrayed him again.
“Sir,” said Gant, his advisor. “Commander Bur wants to know if you will be commanding from below.”
Kueller smiled. His people never knew what he would do. “Tell Commander Bur that I have full faith in his ability. And that I will be watching.”
“Yes, sir,” said Gant.
That would be warning enough. His people knew that Kueller judged failure harshly. If he got even a whiff of loss from his favorite commander, that commander would die. Kueller would never lead a fleet in a traditional sense. He’d often felt that leaders who bothered with the trivia of who shot whom lost the battle. But he would lead as best he could from below. All he cared about was that the battle went his way.
He didn’t care who survived, as long as no one from the New Republic landed on Almania.
No one except Leia Organa Solo, that is.
Forty-two
Han was frantic for Leia. More bombs on Coruscant. She might be dead by now. The entire planet might be in flames.
He hoped she had gotten the children away.
He backed away from Blue, from another old friend who had never been a friend at all, leaving her with Davis’s body. All around them, the cries and the screams continued. Lando was powering up the Lady Luck. Han’s repairs at least allowed that.
Chewbacca was beside him. Han didn’t know how much Chewie had heard.
“We have to get out of here. Coruscant was the intended target,” Han said.
Chewbacca moaned.
“But we can’t leave these people like this.” Han’s brain was moving faster than his mouth. He wanted to be gone, wanted to be outside the Run so that he could contact Coruscant and find out if anyone had survived.
Find out if Leia had survived.
His hands were shaking. All he could see was his beautiful wife, her white dress torn and scorch-marked, her hair falling around her ears, her nose bleeding, her body bent with the strain of carrying a senator three times her own weight. Leia during the last bombing. She might have collapsed if he hadn’t taken her from there.
He wasn’t there to rescue her now.
Chewbacca was talking to him. Han hadn’t heard much more than the last yowl.
“Yeah, I know, buddy. They need us here. Find out how many ships still work, how much rescue power we have here. Then let’s load up the Falcon. I want to be one of the first ships off the Run. We can find out about Coruscant then.”
Chewie moaned.
Han nodded. “We’ll check Kashyyyk too. I’m sure your family is fine. There aren’t many droids, at least that I remember.”
Chewie agreed with Han’s recollection, and then walked off into the smoke to check on the availability of the other ships. Han took a deep breath, grateful for his mask. The smoke, though thinner, still filled the air. The air-filtration system on Skip 1 had never been good. He wondered how many would die from smoke inhalation alone.
A few of the smugglers with medical experience were working their way through the rubble, separating t
he survivors into groups. Han knew what they were doing, even though he deplored it. They were separating those who were likely to survive the next few hours from those who weren’t. With limited medical resources, those who were likely to survive would have to receive treatment first. The cuts and bruises would wait, of course, but the risky procedures would wait as well. Better to save several lives than lose them, and the person being operated on, by wasting time.
Time. This could be happening all over. It might be occurring on Coruscant even now.
Leia.
He climbed back over the rubble, resisting the urge to pull his blaster and shoot Blue out of existence. Doing that would only fuel his anger. That kind of revenge would only make matters worse.
But it would make him feel a little less helpless.
Because he knew, despite the efforts of the medical teams, and the other survivors, that this scene of devastation would be repeated all over the Run. Skip 1 had droids, but so did Skips 2, 3, 5, and 72. He would wager even Nandreeson’s skip, Skip 6, had several droids. Only there the loss of life might have been minimal, given the fact that Nandreeson was gone.
Han climbed the ramp to the Falcon. Inside he detached seats, and made room on the floor, filling tiny storage areas with nonessential items. He would be able to carry a large group of wounded.
He hurried down the ramp. The smoke was even thinner now. Across the devastation, he saw Lando loading stretchers of wounded onto the Lady Luck. Chewie was talking to the Sullustans who had sprayed the last of the fires. They were nodding as they spoke.
Han stopped near one of the few medical workers. “I can take a shipload of the critically wounded,” he said. “Let’s load them up.”
The medic’s face was covered with soot and blood. He kept wiping his hands on the antiseptic wipes in his medical kit, but even then Han could see that the wipes were doing little good. The medic had several pairs of gloves in the kit, too, and he pulled them out each time he worked on a patient.
“I don’t even know where to start,” the medic said.
Han’s stomach was churning. For each life this man saved, he would lose another. The choices were impossible. They were not choices anyone should ever be required to make.
Ever.
Chewbacca had returned. He growled over the crying around him.
“Fifteen ships is better than I expected,” Han said. “Why don’t you get them started loading the Falcon? I want to be in the first wave out of here.”
Chewie yarled his agreement. He hurried over to the medic, and together they examined which group of survivors should be moved.
Han made his way across the rubble. As the smoke cleared, he saw more and more body parts among the stone and still-hot metal. Fingers, wings, even one severed head. The stench of burning flesh made his already disturbed stomach churn even more. This time, though, as he passed wounded, he clasped the hands reaching for him.
“We’ll get you out of here,” he kept repeating over and over, hoping that the promise would keep the injured alive until someone did pull them free. Sometimes hope was all it took.
Finally he reached the Lady Luck. Lando was carrying a Ruurian. Its woolly coat was scorched, and most of the feathery antennae had burned away from its face. Its tiny mouth kept opening and closing, the only sign that it was alive.
“It’ll take us days, Han, just to find everyone.” Lando bent as he climbed up the ramp. The Lady Luck was a ghost of herself. Seluss was making final repairs on the computer systems.
Han scowled at him. “Can you trust him?”
“I honestly don’t care,” Lando said. “He’ll help me get these wounded off this rock. That’s all that matters.”
Han nodded. The injured were already strewn around the Luck. She no longer looked like a pleasure craft, but instead like a hospital ship from the Rebellion. The moaning was terrible. Sstys without hair, Oodocs without spikes, humans without arms, made the devastation seem even more personal in here.
“I’m going to take a load out of the Run. Blue told me that the droids that exploded were meant for Coruscant.”
“Blue?” Lando set the Ruurian down on a pallet near a Rodian who was missing both eyes. “But I thought—”
“She was working for someone named Kueller. From Almania. He wants Leia.”
“Almania.” Lando stood and put his hand on the small of his back as if it hurt him. “It all comes back to that, doesn’t it?”
Han nodded. “I guess I was bait.”
“If the droids were meant for Coruscant …” Lando’s voice trailed off. Then he smiled wanly. “Tell you what, buddy. I’ll do double runs here. You do what you have to.”
Han squeezed Lando’s shoulder. “You’re a good friend, Lando. I’ve realized that more and more on this trip to the Run.”
“I reformed, Han,” Lando said softly. “There was a time when I wasn’t much better than Blue.”
Han shook his head. “You’d never have been a part of this, Lando. Ever. She knew what those droids would do.”
Lando grimaced. “Karrde said things had changed here. No wonder he never wanted to come back.”
“Yeah.” Han started down the ramp, then stopped. “Thanks,” he said.
Lando made a vain attempt at a smile. “You have it all, pal. I envy that.”
“Someday, Lando,” Han said.
“Someday,” Lando agreed, and turned back to the Ruurian to make it more comfortable.
Han hurried out of the Luck. He hoped he still had it all. Losing Leia and the children was a threat he seemed to have to deal with constantly, and it was one he never wanted to contemplate. He knew what he would do if they were murdered, and it would be ugly.
If something happened to Leia and the children, Han would never be considered nice again.
The creature licked him.
Luke put his arms over his head as the smooth tongue washed over him, once, twice, three times. The stench was incredible, but the sensation was actually pleasant. The burning pain in his back was easing.
And he felt as if he had been wrapped in a thick, warm blanket.
He had read about such things before: creatures with anesthetic in their saliva so that the intended victim would feel no pain as it died. Although he thought the anesthetic would also sap his will to live. It did not. He felt as if he was gaining strength.
But he couldn’t move. The tongue was heavy and effectively held him down.
Then a picture grew in his mind. A little Luke cringing on the floor, holding a weapon. The pain in his hand—no, paw—and the blood. The confusion—why do these creatures constantly hurt him?—and the deep, deep loneliness. A longing for cool woods and fresh water, and sunlight.
Sunlight.
It—the Thernbee—missed sunlight.
It was psychic. The creature had psychic powers. The Thernbee had tapped into Luke’s mind.
“Hey,” Luke said. His voice was muffled against the large tongue. “I need to breathe.”
Immediately the tongue pulled away from him. He felt a twinge of fear in the large creature, a hope that he wouldn’t attack it again. Luke took a deep breath and held out his hand.
“I’m not holding anything.”
The creature tilted its head. It didn’t understand him.
Luke formed a picture in his own mind: that of himself, breaking the splinters over his knee and tossing them away. Then he imagined pulling the splinter from the Thernbee’s paw, and medicating the wound.
I’m sorry, Luke said. I thought you were going to hurt me.
The Thernbee sent images. Tiny people attacking it, biting it, slapping at it, screaming, poking it with sticks and flames. It would bat them away, and eventually, they would die. Its meals came so irregularly that sometimes it would have to eat the dead, a thought that made it vaguely ill. Even the meat it had eaten upset its stomach. Here it had to chew its food, which disgusted it even more. Thernbees could eat meat, but they preferred vegetation and small slithery creatur
es that resembled snakes. Its teeth were made for ripping branches and leaves, and pulling the slithery creatures into its mouth. It preferred to eat something large, and then not eat again for weeks. But in this place, it had only had tiny bits of food.
Its body was three times smaller than it should be.
The Thernbee was starving to death.
Slowly.
All alone in the dark.
Luke shuddered. He had no idea how long the creature had been here, but he deduced it had been a while. He stood and walked over to it, then pointed at the grates in the ceiling. He imagined the Thernbee batting the grate out with its paws.
The Thernbee stood on its hind legs, and stretched its long body. The grate was about a meter higher than its paws could reach.
It showed him all its attempts to escape, trying to get the guards, trying to use pieces of wood, trying to jump. Nothing loosened the grate.
I could, Luke thought.
The Thernbee looked quizzical again. Its eyes were round and blue and very gentle, its nose a delicate pink. Its teeth had the blunted edges of vegetarian animals.
Luke wondered how he had ever thought it dangerous.
He imagined himself on the tip of the Thernbee’s paws, climbing through the bars in the grate, and releasing the Thernbee.
The creature sat on its haunches, glanced at the grate, then at Luke, and sent him a picture of himself, pulling through the bars in the grate and walking away.
It had happened before. The creature showed a few other humans doing the same thing. The images came mixed with a lot of sadness, and an unwillingness to trust again.
Luke pondered the image for a moment. Then he let his memories slide into images, showing himself working with Yoda, helping the Jawa on the Eye of Palpatine, talking to Anakin, Jacen, and Jaina in the medical center. He showed examples of his work with the students from various species, and he showed what he could of Jedi philosophy. Most of it seemed simplistic, done in imagery alone, but it apparently got the message across.
Star Wars: The New Rebellion Page 37