Star Wars: The Jedi Academy Trilogy III: Champions of the Force

by Kevin J. Anderson

  The larvae shot several blaster bolts into the passages after him. Long spears of heat bounced along the tunnel walls, knocking boulders loose. The light sparked a scintillating glare of activated glitterstim.

  Then Han heard a new sound that turned his blood cold. A faint but chilling noise, hundreds of sharp legs like ice picks scrambling down the tunnel. Han could still hear Doole’s footsteps getting fainter and fainter as he fled. Han heard the tik tik tik of multilegged creatures, attracted by the heat of a living body … and Doole’s gasping, ragged breath as the Rybet searched blindly for a way out.

  Han heard many more sets of pointed legs scrabbling, like a stampede from converging tunnels as the energy spiders found nourishment after the long silence in the spice mines. Han’s skin crawled.

  At the tail end of a high-pitched and gut-wrenching scream, Doole’s footsteps suddenly stopped. The scream cut off abruptly, as did the sound of running ice-pick feet. The instant silence seemed even more horrible than the scream, and Han quickly pulled up the trapdoor and secured it before the energy spiders could seek other prey.

  He sat back, heart pounding. The smugglers looked grimly satisfied at the battle they had won. The Whiphid leaned against a wall with arms crossed. “A good hunt,” he growled.

  The Trandoshan glanced from side to side, as if seeking something to eat.

  The female Rybets hauled away the blasted larvae, tending the injured, mourning over the dead.

  Han sighed as Lando sank down next to him. “Well, Lando,” he said, “now you can start remodeling.”

  Han, Lando, and Mara rode back up to the garrison moon in the Falcon. Mara and Lando spoke more easily to each other, now that Lando wasn’t pushing so hard to get the slightest word or smile from her. Mara had even stopped avoiding Lando’s gaze or raising her chin whenever he spoke. She spent most of her time reassuring him that the Lady Luck would be just fine behind the security fields of the reoccupied prison. Lando didn’t seem to believe her entirely, but he did not want to disagree with Mara Jade.

  “We’ve got a lot of paperwork to do,” Mara said. “I have all the standard contracts and agreements up at the moonbase. We can take care of the formalities between us, but there are still a lot of forms to digitize and sign, a lot of records to cross-reference.”

  “Whatever you say,” Lando said. “I want this to be a long and happy partnership. You and I need to figure out how we can best implement production on Kessel. It’s in the best interests of both of us to get the glitterstim flowing soon, especially since I’m going to have to sink so much of an investment into the mining work again.”

  Han listened to them talk but devoted most of his thoughts to his family. “I just want to go home. No more side trips.”

  The Falcon sped away from the wispy corona of escaping air toward the large moon. Once leaving the turbulent atmosphere of Kessel, they coasted smoothly in the vacuum of space as if on glass.

  Suddenly an alert flashed on their communications panel from the moonbase. “Warning! We’ve detected a large vessel approaching Kessel—and I mean large.”

  Han reacted instantly. “Lando, check the scanners.”

  Lando stared at the copilot station and sat up quickly, his eyes as big as viewports. “Not just large,” he said.

  Han could see the globe-shaped object through the viewport. Spherical, but skeletal, crossbraced and arched with giant girders. The size of a miniature moon.

  “It’s the Death Star.”

  The repairs took longer than expected, much to Tol Sivron’s frustration, but the prototype was finally ready to approach, and attack, the nearest planetary system.

  Sivron shifted in his seat, pleased to observe the stormtrooper captain giving all the right orders. Delegating responsibility was the first lesson of management. He liked sitting in the pilot’s chair while others did the work.

  Squat, bald Doxin leaned forward from one of the other chairs. “The target is coming into view, Director Sivron.”

  “Good,” Sivron said, looking at the streaked atmosphere fuzzing around the planet and its close-orbiting moon.

  “There seems to be significant ship activity in the area,” Yemm, the Devaronian, said. “I’m tracking and documenting it for posterity. We’ll want a careful record in case we need to file a report on the performance of this prototype.”

  “It’s a Rebel base,” Tol Sivron said. “No doubt about it. Look at those ships. Look at its position. This must be where our prisoner Han Solo came from.”

  “How can you be sure?” said Golan da.

  Sivron shrugged. “We need to test this Death Star, right? We’ve got a handy target right here—so it might as well be a Rebel base.”

  The stormtrooper captain sat at the tactical station. “We’re picking up numerous alarms from the moonbase. It appears to be some sort of military installation.”

  A flurry of ships departed from a large opening in the moon, spewing a random collection of well-armed and fast cruisers around Kessel.

  “They can’t get away from us,” Tol Sivron said. “Target the planet. You may fire when ready.” He smiled, and his pointed teeth formed a serrated edge against his lips. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

  Doxin grinned in breathless delight. “I never thought I’d get a chance to see this weapon in action.”

  “It’s never been calibrated, you know,” Golanda said with a sour expression.

  “It’s a planet-destroying superlaser,” Doxin shot back. “We can turn that whole world into rubble. How well does it need to be calibrated?”

  “Targeting now,” the stormtrooper captain said.

  In shielded firing chambers below, lit only by flickering blazes of colored light from complex control panels, other stormtroopers functioned as Death Star gunners, after having been told to scour the instruction manuals.

  “What’s taking so long?” Tol Sivron fidgeted against the uncomfortable fabric of the command seat.

  Suddenly the white-noise background hum of the operating systems dropped an octave. The lights dimmed on the panels as the prototype consumed an incredible amount of energy.

  Out the front viewport, past main support struts that arched like giant steel rainbows over their heads, smaller superlaser beams fired out of the Death Star’s focusing eye, phasing together at the intersection point. The green beam gained in power and lanced out in an immense blast, greater in diameter than a starship.

  Its target erupted in a blaze of smoke, fire, and incandescent rubble.

  Tol Sivron applauded.

  Yemm took careful notes.

  Doxin let out a cry of triumph and amazement.

  “You missed,” Golanda said.

  Tol Sivron blinked his small dark eyes. “What?”

  “You hit the moon, not the planet.”

  He saw she was right. The moon that had served as a garrison for the fighter ships had exploded into fragmented rubble that was raining down in spectacular meteor showers on the planet Kessel.

  The fighter ships that had evacuated from the moonbase swarmed about in a flurry, like fire-mantids disturbed from their nests during mating season.

  Tol Sivron coiled and uncoiled his naked head-tails, feeling tingles along his nerve endings. He leaned back in the chair and waved a clawed hand in dismissal.

  “That can be corrected. The target was irrelevant. At least now we know the prototype is fully functional.” He nodded approvingly. “Just as all the progress reports said.”

  Sivron took a deep breath, feeling the thrill build within him. “Now we can put this weapon to use.”

  29

  Leia was amazed that Mon Mothma still clung to life. Anxiously, she stood over the deathbed of the Chief of State, looking at the kaleidoscope of medical apparatus and life-support systems that refused to let Mon Mothma die.

  The auburn-haired woman had once been such a fiery rival of Leia’s father on the Senate floor; now she could no longer stand on her feet. Her skin was gray and translu
cent, thin as crumpled parchment on a framework of bones. Her eyelids struggled open as if they were heavy blast doors. Her eyes took a long time to focus on her visitor.

  Leia swallowed, feeling hot lead in her stomach. She reached out with trembling fingers to touch Mon Mothma’s arm, afraid that the slightest pressure could cause bruises.

  “Leia …,” Mon Mothma whispered, “you came.”

  “I came because you asked me to,” Leia said.

  Han had dropped her and the children off on Coruscant, grumbling about having to go away again with Lando, but promising to return in only a few days. She would believe that when it happened. In the meantime Leia was shocked to see the accelerating decline of Mon Mothma’s condition.

  “Your children … are safe now?”

  “Yes. Winter is staying here to protect them. I won’t let them be taken from me again.”

  Leia would be even busier than before; she would see less of Han, less of her children. Momentarily she envied the peaceful life of a lower functionary who could leave work at the end of the day and go home, letting unfinished tasks wait for tomorrow. But she had been born a Jedi and raised by Senator Bail Organa. Her life had been focused toward a greater destiny, and she could not shirk either her public or her private burden.

  Leia took a deep breath, tasting the nauseating chemicals that clung to the air, the disinfectants, the medicines, the ozone smell of atmospheric sterilizers.

  She felt so helpless. Her excitement at defeating the Imperial strike force and rescuing her son seemed trivial in the face of Mon Mothma’s battle against the slow-acting poison. Leia took little consolation in knowing that Ambassador Furgan was no longer alive to gloat.

  “I …,” Mon Mothma spoke ponderously, “have tendered my resignation to the Council. I will no longer serve as Chief of State.”

  Leia realized that empty encouragements would be useless. She reacted in a way that Mon Mothma had taught her to respond, thinking of the New Republic first.

  “What about the government?” she said. “Won’t the Council bicker with each other and accomplish nothing because they can’t reach a consensus? Who will they look to for leadership?”

  She looked down at Mon Mothma, and the haggard woman blinked at her with shining, hopeful eyes. “You will be our leader, Leia,” Mon Mothma said.

  Leia blinked in shock and opened her mouth. Mon Mothma found the strength to nod slightly. “Yes, Leia. While you were away, the Council met to discuss our future. My resignation is no surprise to anyone, and we voted unanimously that you should be my replacement.”

  “But—” Leia said. Her heart pounded; her mind whirled. She had not expected this, at least not now. Perhaps after another decade or two of dedicated service, then …

  “You, Leia, will be the Chief of State for the New Republic. If I had any strength left to give, I would give it all to you. You’ll need it to hold this newborn Republic of ours together.”

  Mon Mothma closed her eyes and squeezed Leia’s hand with a surprisingly firm grip. “Even when I’m gone, I will be watching over you.”

  Speechless, Leia knelt at Mon Mothma’s bedside for a long time, far into Coruscant’s night.

  30

  Inside Maw Installation one of the members of Wedge’s Special Forces Team had deciphered enough of the primary controls to sound the facility-wide alarm. Through the intercom system an unfamiliar voice barked, “Red alert, an Imperial Star Destroyer has entered the vicinity. Red alert! Prepare for attack.”

  Wedge stood next to Qwi inside her empty old laboratory as they gaped at the scarred and blackened hulk of the Gorgon. The mammoth ship maneuvered into position over the cluster of lashed-together rocks.

  “Oh, my!” Threepio said. “I thought we were supposed to be safe in here.”

  Wedge grabbed Qwi’s pale hand. “Come on, we have to get to the operations room.”

  They ran through the corridors. Qwi did her best to lead him, though frequently she couldn’t remember which direction to go. Threepio, his servomotors whirring, tottered after them as fast as he could go. “Wait for me! Oh, why does this always happen?”

  Inside the operations room Wedge was relieved to see that a dozen of his troops had gotten there ahead of him and were already scrambling to operate the controls. A few of the computer banks had malfunctioned, but the rest had been jump-started. Sensor arrays spilled data across their screens.

  Wedge put his hands on Qwi’s shoulders, pressing his face close to hers and looking into her big eyes. “Qwi, try to remember! Does Maw Installation have any of its own defenses?”

  She looked up through the latticed skylight, seeing the looming arrowhead shape of the Star Destroyer. Qwi pointed up. “Those were our defenses. Maw Installation depended entirely upon Admiral Daala’s fleet.”

  She hurried over to one of the deadened computer consoles and used her musical keypad to whistle her password into the system, hoping to bypass the damaged circuits with her own files and select some of the higher-order functioning routines. “We do have shields,” Qwi said, “if only we could increase them.”

  Five harried technicians came over to help her, using their own expertise to access the generators and reinforce the protective force field around the primary planetoids.

  “That’ll hold for now against an assault,” a tech said, “but this makes me very uncomfortable, General Antilles. The power reactor is already unstable, and we’re placing a tremendous drain on it. We could be sealing our own fate.”

  Wedge’s gaze flicked to Qwi and then back to the soldiers. “Well, it’s certain death if we don’t do something to protect ourselves now. We’ve taken what we need. I think it’s time to leave Maw Installation. Have the ships prepare for departure.”

  “If Daala will let us,” Qwi said. “I doubt she’ll allow us to walk off now that we’ve uncovered its secrets.”

  Wedge’s eyes suddenly blinked in realization. “We took one of the corvette engines off-line for spare parts for the power reactor! One of my ships is crippled and can’t move.” He ran to the communications station and switched on a narrow-beam to the disabled corvette.

  “Captain Ortola, launch all starfighter squadrons from your bay—now. Take all personnel and shuttle over to the Yavaris or one of the other two corvettes. Without maneuverability, your ship is a prime target.”

  “Yes, sir,” Captain Ortola’s voice acknowledged.

  The broad trapezoidal viewscreen at the far end of the operations room surged with static, and then an image of fiery-haired Admiral Daala filled the screen. She leaned forward into the viewing area. Her eyes seemed to throw pointed javelins right into Wedge’s heart.

  “Rebel scum, you’ll not leave Maw Installation alive. The information contained in this facility is now forfeit, tainted by your sabotage. I’m not interested in your surrender or your flight. Only your destruction.”

  Daala ended the transmission herself before Wedge could formulate a reply. He shook his head at the flickering static that faded into a dull gray. He turned back to Qwi and felt his heart pounding. “Qwi, are you sure there’s nothing else here we can use? Any other weapon?”

  “Wait,” Qwi said. “Chewbacca took a team down into the maintenance bay to rescue the Wookiee slaves. There were always several assault shuttles or fighter ships being worked on. Maybe those?”

  One of the New Republic commandos snapped his head up. “Assault shuttles? Probably gamma class. They’re nothing spectacular, but they are heavily armored and well outfitted with weapons, worth ten of our starfighters. It could be a welcome addition in the battle. Daala’s got only one Star Destroyer against us, but she still outguns the combined force of the corvettes and the Yavaris.”

  The squad leader looked down at a scrolling list of equipment on a data screen. “Just as I feared, sir. These are old models. They require a piloting droid to fly complicated maneuvers, especially in this gravitational environment. We could probably do it with only one droid and cross-link to the separa
te navigational systems.”

  At that moment, with heavy footfalls and buzzing servomotors, Threepio hurried into the operations room, emitting a loud sigh of relief. “Ah, there you are! I’ve finally found you.”

  Wedge, Qwi, and everyone else turned to look at the golden droid.

  Threepio moved forward, his arms waving in dismay as he negotiated a steep ramp into the rock-lined maintenance bay. “I don’t know why everyone keeps treating me as if I were some sort of … property,” he said.

  Chewbacca grunted a sharp retort, and Threepio snapped at him. “That’s quite beside the point. In actual fact, I—”

  Chewbacca lifted up the golden droid and set him bodily on the entrance ramp of a gamma-class assault shuttle. The recently freed Wookiee slaves, along with a group of New Republic commandos, scrambled into the five armored shuttles that remained in the bay. Each ship had been maintained in perfect working order by Wookiee crews.

  From above sudden hollow thumps echoed through the asteroid as the Gorgon pummeled them with turbolaser blasts. Chewbacca and the other Wookiees howled at the ceiling, their bestial noises echoing louder than the thunder of attack. Faint dust trickled down, split from the sealed rock walls.

  “I still think I’m going to regret this,” Threepio said. “I wasn’t designed for this kind of work. I can communicate with other tactical computers and coordinate your flight paths, but putting me in charge of strategy—”

  Chewbacca ignored him and climbed into the vehicle. Seeing that his arguments were useless, the golden droid shuffled up the ramp into the confines of the assault shuttle. “But, then again, I am always happy to help, where needed.”

  The other Wookiees, including stunted old Nawruun, took their places in the gunnery seats, ready to blast TIE fighters.

  Chewbacca slumped into the assault shuttle’s too-small pilot seat and made Threepio sit beside him in the copilot’s chair. “Oh, very well,” Threepio said, and inspected the computer, deciding how best to communicate with it.