by Timothy Zahn
"I doubt they'll be foolish enough to return to the supply ship," Pellaeon suggested. "My guess is that they'll bypass the aft hangar bays entirely and try for one of the assault shuttles in the forward bays."
"Perhaps," Thrawn agreed slowly. "If Skywalker is directing the escape, I'd say that was likely. But if Karrde is giving the orders ..." He fell silent, again deep in thought.
It was somewhere to start, anyway. "Have extra guards placed around the assault shuttles," Pellaeon ordered the stormtrooper commander. "Better put some men inside the ships, too, in case the intruders make it that far."
"No, they won't make for the shuttles if Karrde's in command," Thrawn murmured. "He's more apt to try something less obvious. Perhaps TIE fighters; or perhaps he'll return to the supply shuttles after all, assuming we won't expect that. Or else-"
Abruptly, his head snapped around to look at Pellaeon. "The Millennium Falcon," he demanded. "Where is it?"
"Ah-" Again, Pellaeon's hand reached uselessly for his command board.
"I ordered it sent to deep storage, sir. I don't know whether or not the order's been carried out."
Thrawn jabbed a finger at the stormtrooper commander. "You-get someone on the hangar bay computer and find that ship. Then get a squad there."
The Grand Admiral looked at Pellaeon ... and for the first time since ordering the intruder alert, he smiled. "We have them, Captain." Karrde pulled away the section of cable duct that Luke had cut and carefully looked through the opening. "No one seems to be around," he murmured over his shoulder, his voice almost inaudible over the background rumble of machinery coming through from the room beyond. "I think we've beaten them here."
"If they're coming at all," Luke said.
"They're coming," Mara growled. "Bet on it. If there was one thing Thrawn had over all the other Grand Admirals, it was a knack for predicting his enemies' strategy."
"There are a half dozen ships out there," Karrde continued. "Unmarked Intelligence ships, from the look of them. Any would probably do."
"Any idea where we are?" Luke asked, trying to see past him through the cable duct. There was a fair amount of empty space out there surrounding the ships, plus a gaping light-rimmed opening in the deck that was presumably the shaft of a heavy vehicle lift. Unlike the one he remembered from the Death Star's hangar bay, though, this shaft had a corresponding hole in the ceiling above it to allow ships to be moved farther up toward the Star Destroyer's core.
"We're near the bottom of the deep storage section, I think," Karrde told him. "A deck or two above the aft hangar bays. The chief difficulty will be if the lift itself is a deck down, blocking us from access to the bay and entry port."
"Well, let's get in there and find out," Mara said, fingering her blaster rifle restlessly. "Waiting here won't gain us anything."
"Agreed." Karrde cocked his head to the side. "I think I hear the lift coming now. They're slow, though, and there's enough cover by the ships. Skywalker?"
Luke ignited his lightsaber again and quickly cut them a hole large enough to get through. Karrde went first, followed by Luke, with Mara bringing up the rear. "The hangar bay computer link is over there," Mara said, pointing to a freestanding console to their right as they crouched beside a battered-looking light freighter. "As soon as the lift passes I'll see if I can get us into it."
"All right, but don't take too long at it," Karrde warned. "A faked transfer order won't gain us enough surprise to be worth any further delay." The top of a ship was becoming visible now as it was lifted from the hangar bays below. A ship that seemed remarkably familiar ... Luke felt his mouth drop open in surprise. "That's-no. No, it can't be."
"It is," Mara said. "I'd forgotten-the Grand Admiral mentioned they were taking it aboard when I talked to him at Endor." Luke stared, a cold lump forming in his throat as the Millennium Falcon rose steadily up through the opening. Leia and Chewbacca had been aboard that ship ... "Did he say anything about prisoners?"
"Not to me," Mara said. "I got the impression he'd found the ship deserted."
Which meant that wherever Leia and Chewbacca had gone, they were now stranded there. But there was no time to worry about that now. "We're taking it back," he told the others, stuffing his lightsaber into his flight suit tunic. "Cover me."
"Skywalker-" Mara hissed; but Luke was already jogging toward the shaft. The lift plate itself came into view, revealing two men riding alongside the Falcon: a naval trooper and a tech with what looked like a combined data pad/control unit. They caught sight of Luke "Hey!" Luke called, waving as he hurried toward them. "Hold on!" The tech did something with his data pad and the lift stopped, and Luke could sense the sudden suspicion in the trooper's mind. "Got new orders on that one," he said as he trotted up to them. "The Grand Admiral wants it moved back down. Something about using it as bait."
The tech frowned down at his data pad. He was young, Luke saw, probably not out of his teens. "There's nothing about new orders here," he objected.
"I haven't heard anything about it, either," the trooper growled, drawing his blaster and pointing it vaguely in Luke's direction as he threw a quick look around the storage room.
"It just came through a minute ago," Luke said, nodding back toward the computer console. "Stuffs not transferring very fast today, for some reason."
"Makes a good story, anyway," the trooper retorted. His blaster was now very definitely pointed at Luke. "Let's see some ID, huh?" Luke shrugged; and, reaching out through the Force, he yanked the blaster out of the trooper's hand.
The man didn't even pause to gape at the unexpected loss of his weapon. He threw himself forward, hands stretching toward Luke's neck The blaster, heading straight toward Luke, suddenly reversed direction. The trooper caught the butt end full in the stomach, coughed once in strangled agony, and fell unmoving to the deck.
"I'll take that," Luke told the tech, waving Karrde and Mara to join him. The tech, his face a rather motley gray, handed the data pad to him without a word.
"Good job," Karrde said as he came up beside Luke. "Relax, we're not going to hurt you," he added to the tech, squatting down and relieving the gasping trooper of his comlink. "Not if you behave, anyway. Take your friend to that electrical closet over there and lock yourselves in." The tech glanced at him, looked again at Luke, and gave a quick nod. Hoisting the trooper under the armpits, he dragged him off. "Make sure they get settled all right, and then join me in the ship," Karrde told Luke. "I'm going to get the preflight started. Are there any security codes I need to know about?"
"I don't think so." Luke glanced around the room, spotted Mara already busy with the computer console. "The Falcon's hard enough to keep functional as it is."
"All right. Remind Mara not to waste too much time fiddling with that computer."
He ducked under the ship and disappeared up the ramp. Luke waited until the tech had locked himself and the trooper into the electrical closet as ordered, and then followed.
"It has a remarkably fast start-up sequence," Karrde remarked as Luke joined him in the cockpit. "Two minutes, maybe three, and we'll be ready to fly. You still have that controller?"
"Right here," Luke said, handing it to him. "I'll go get Mara." He glanced out the cockpit window Just as a wide door across the room slid open, to reveal a full squad of stormtroopers.
"Uh-oh," Karrde murmured as the eight white-armored Imperials marched purposefully toward the Falcon. "Do they know we're here?" Luke stretched out his senses, trying to gauge the stormtroopers'
mental state. "I don't think so," he murmured back. "They seem to be thinking more like guards than soldiers."
"Probably too noisy in here for them to hear the engines in start-up mode," Karrde said, ducking down in his seat out of their direct view. "Mara was right about the Grand Admiral; but we seem to be a step ahead of him." A sudden thought struck hike, and he threw a look through the side of the canopy. Mara was crouching beside the computer console, temporarily hidden from the stormtroopers view.
But she wouldn't remain concealed for long ... and knowing Mara, she wouldn't just sit and wait for the Imperials to notice her. If there were only some way he could warn her not to fire on them yet ...
Perhaps there was. Mara, he sent silently, trying to picture her in his mind. Wait until I give the word before you attack.
There was no reply?; but he saw her throw a quick look at the Falcon in response and ease farther back into her limited cover. "I'm going back to the hatchway," he told Karrde. "I'll try to catch them in a cross fire with Mara. Stay out of sight up here."
"Right."
Keeping down, Luke hurried back down the short cockpit corridor. Barely in time; even as he came to the hatchway he could feel the vibration of battle-armored boots on the entry ramp. Four of them were coming in, he could sense, with the other four fanning out beneath the ship to watch the approaches. Another second and they would see him-a second after that and someone would notice Mara-Mara; now.
There was a flash of blaster fire from Mara's position, coming quickly enough on the tail of his command that Luke got the distinct impression Mara had planned to attack at that time whether she'd had his permission or not. Ignighting his lightsaber, Luke leaped around the corner onto the ramp, catching the stormtroopers just as they were starting to turn toward the threat behind them. His first sweep took off the barrel of the lead stormtrooper's blaster rifle; reaching out with the Force, he gave the man a hard shove, pushing him into his companions and sending the whole bunch of them tumbling helplessly down to the lift plate. Jumping off the ramp to the side, he deflected a shot from another stormtrooper and sliced the lightsaber blade across him; caught a half dozen more shots before Mara's blaster fire took the next one out. A quick look showed that she'd already dealt with the other two.
A surge in the Force spun him around, to find that the group he'd sent rolling to the bottom of the ramp had untangled themselves. With a shout he charged them, lightsaber swinging in large circles as he waited for Mara to take advantage of his distraction to fire on them. But she didn't; and with the blaster bolts beginning to flash in at him there weren't many alternatives left. The lightsaber slashed four times and it was over.
Breathing hard, he closed down the lightsaber ... and with a shock discovered why Mara hadn't been firing there at the end. The lift carrying the Falcon was dropping steadily down toward the deck below, well past the point where the stormtroopers would be out of Mara's line of fire. "Mara!" he called, looking up.
"Yeah, what?" she shouted back, coming into view at the rim of the lift, already five meters above him. "What's Karrde doing?"
"I guess we're leaving," Luke said. "Jump-I'll catch you. An expression of annoyance flickered across Mara's face; but the Falcon was receding fast and she obeyed without hesitation. Reaching out with the Force, Luke caught her in an invisible grip, slowing her descent and landing her on the Falcon's ramp. She hit the ramp running, and was inside in three steps.
She was seated beside Karrde in the cockpit by the time Luke got the hatchway sealed and made it up there himself. "Better strap in," she called over her shoulder.
Luke sat down behind her, suppressing the urge to order her out of the copilot's seat. He knew the Falcon far better than either she or Karrde did, but both of them probably had had more experience flying this general class of ship.
And from the looks of things, there was some tricky flying coming up. Through the cockpit canopy Luke could see that they were coming down, not into a hangar bay as he'd hoped, but into a wide vehicle corridor equipped with what looked like some kind of repulsorlift pads set across the deck. "What happened with the computer?" he asked Mara.
"I couldn't get in," Mara said. "Though it wouldn't have mattered if I had. That stormtrooper squad had plenty of time to call for help. Unless you thought to jam their comlinks," she added, looking at Karrde.
"Come now, Mara," Karrde chided. "Of course I jammed their comlinks. Unfortunately, since they probably had orders to report once they were in position, we still won't have more than a few minutes. If that much."
"Is that our way out?" Luke frowned, looking along the corridor. "I thought we'd be taking the lift straight down to the hangar bays."
"This lift doesn't seem to go all the way down," Karrde said. "Offset from the hangar bay shaft, apparently. That lighted hole in the corridor deck ahead is probably it."
"What then?" Luke asked.
"We'll see if this control can operate that lift," Karrde said, holding up the data pad he'd taken from the tech. "I doubt it, though. If only for security they'll probably have-"
"Look!" Mara snapped, pointing down the corridor. Far ahead down the corridor was another lift plate, moving down toward the lighted opening Karrde had pointed out a moment earlier. If that was indeed the exit to the hangar bays-and if the lift plate stopped there, blocking their way Karrde had apparently had the same thought. Abruptly, Luke was slammed hard into his seat as the Falcon leaped forward, clearing the edge of their lift plate and shooting down the corridor like a scalded tauntaun. For a moment it yawed wildly back and forth, swinging perilously near the corridor walls as the ship's repulsorlifts strobed with those built into the deck. Clenching his teeth, Luke watched as the lift plate ahead steadily closed the gap, the same bitter taste of near-helplessness in his mouth that he remembered from the Rancor pit beneath Jabba the Hutt's throne room. The Force was with him here, as it had been there, but at the moment he couldn't think of a way to harness that power. The Falcon shot toward the descending plate-he braced himself for the seemingly inevitable collision And abruptly, with a short screech of metal against metal, they were through the gap. The Falcon rolled over once as it dropped through to the huge room below, cleared the vertical lift plate guides And there, straight ahead as Karrde righted them again, was the wide hangar entry port. And beyond it, the black of deep space. A half dozen blaster bolts sizzled at them as they shot across the hangar bay above the various ships parked there. But the shooting was reflexive, without any proper setup or aiming, and for the most part the shots went wild. A near miss flashed past the cockpit canopy; and then they were out, jolting through the atmosphere barrier and diving down out of the entry port toward the planet below.
And as they did so, Luke caught a glimpse across the entry port of TIE fighters from the forward hangar bays scrambling to intercept.
"Come on, Mara," he said, slipping off his restraints. "You know how to handle a quad laser battery?"
"No, I need her here," Karrde said. He had the Falcon skimming the underside of the Star Destroyer now, heading for the ship's portside edge.
"You go ahead. And take the dorsal grin bay-I think I can arrange for them to concentrate their attack from that direction."
Luke had no idea how he was going to accomplish that, but there was no time to discuss it. Already the Falcon was starting to jolt with laser hits, and from experience he knew there was only so much the ship's deflector shields could handle. Leaving the cockpit, he hurried to the gun well ladder, leaping halfway up, then climbing the rest of the way. He strapped in, fired up the quads...and as he looked around he discovered what Karrde had had in mind. The Falcon had curved up past the portside edge of the Chimaera, swung aft along the upper surface, and was now driving hard for deep space on a vector directly above the exhaust from the Star Destroyer's massive sublight drive nozzles. Skimming rather too close to it, in Luke's opinion; but it was for sure that no TIE fighters would be coming at them from underneath for a while.
The intercom pinged in his ear. "Skywalker?" Karrde's voice came.
"They're almost here. You ready?"
"I'm ready," Luke assured him. Fingers resting lightly on the firing controls, he focused his mind and let the Force flow into him. The battle was furious but short, in some ways reminding Luke of the Falcon's escape from the Death Star so long ago. Back then, Leia had recognised that they'd gotten away too easily; and as the TIE fighters swarmed and fired and exploded around him, Luke won
dered uneasily whether or not the Imperials might have something equally devious in mind this time, too. And then the sky flared with starlines and went mottled, and they were free.
Luke took a deep breath as he cut power to the quads. "Good flying," he said into the intercom.
"Thank you," Karrde's dry voice came back. "We seem to be more or less clear, though we took some damage around the starboard power converter pack. Mara's gone to check it out."
"We can manage without it," Luke said. "Han's got the whole ship so cross-wired that it'll fly with half the systems out. Where are we headed?"
"Coruscant," Karrde said. "To drop you off and also to follow through on the promise I made to you earlier."
Luke had to search his memory. "You mean that bit about the New Republic standing to gain from your rescue?"
"That's the one," Karrde assured him. "As I recall Solo's sales pitch to me back on Myrkr, your people are in need of transport ships. Correct?"
"Badly in need of them," Luke agreed. "You have some stashed away?"
"Not exactly stashed away, but it won't be too hard to put my hands on them. What do you think the New Republic would say to approximately two hundred pre-Clone Wars vintage Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers?" Luke felt his mouth fall open. Growing up on Tatooine had been a sheltered experience, but it hadn't been that sheltered. "You don't mean the Dark Force?"
"Come on down and we'll discuss it," Karrde said. "Oh, and I wouldn't mention it to Mara just yet."
"I'll be right there." Turning off the intercom, Luke hung the headset back on its hook and climbed onto the ladder - and for once, he didn't even notice the discontinuity as the gravity field changed direction partway down the ladder.
The Millennium Falcon shot away from the Chimaera, out maneuvering and outgunning its pursuing TIE fighters and driving hard for deep space. Pellaeon sat at his station, hands curled into fists, watching the drama in helpless silence. Helpless, because with the main computer still only partially operational, the Chimaera's sophisticated weapons and tractor beam systems were useless against a ship that small, that fast, and that distant. Silent, because the disaster was far beyond scope of any of his repertoire of curses.