Specter of the Past

by Timothy Zahn

  “And we certainly don’t want to give them time to dump any contraband while we fly around,” Rogue Nine agreed.

  “I guess we’ll have to go through the blockade, then,” Rogue Two concluded. “Just everyone be careful not to accidentally engage.”

  “Very careful,” Wedge said. “Let’s do it.”

  They were halfway to the Frezhlix forces before the alien commander suddenly seemed to notice what was happening. “General Bel Iblis, what are your starfighters doing?” he demanded. “You have no legal justification for an attack on my ships.”

  “Your ships are not under attack, Speaker Plarx,” Bel Iblis assured him. “We’ve identified one of the freighters waiting beyond your delegation as a smuggler flying under a false ID. By New Republic law, we have both the right and the duty to board any such ship and impound its cargo.”

  It was forever afterward unclear to Wedge just what exactly the Frezhlix commander thought was going to happen next. Whether he thought Bel Iblis was planning to transfer the perishable cargo from all hundred-odd freighters to the Peregrine, or just declare all the freighters suspect and insist they be escorted down to the planet for a proper search. But whichever it was, he leaped to the wrong conclusion—and the bait—with both hands. “No!” Plarx shouted. “They are not to approach. Do you hear? They will not approach.”

  “You can’t stop us,” Wedge put in. “Move out of the way; we’re coming through.”

  “No!” the Frezh shouted. There was a jabber of a hissing, guttural language, and then the comm abruptly shut off. Wedge took a deep breath, preparing himself—

  And suddenly the Frezhlix battle-wagons opened fire.

  “Evasive!” Wedge snapped, twisting his X-wing hard to starboard as the laser blasts blazed past, one of the shots nearly taking off his upper portside engines. There was another snarl of hissing gutturals, and another salvo of laser fire shot by. “Rogues, re-form,” he called. “Return to fleet.” Turning his nose farther around, ducking under one final blast of enemy laser fire, he headed back toward the Peregrine.

  But the Dreadnaught was no longer there. It and the rest of the New Republic fleet, reconfiguring into the general’s favorite combat formation, were moving decisively toward the Frezhlix blockade force.

  Something that sounded like a wheezing squawk came over the comm. “New Republic force!” the Frezhlix commander snarled. “What are you doing? You have no right to move against me.”

  “On the contrary, Speaker Plarx,” Bel Iblis said, his voice suddenly blade-sharp. “I have every right. You have just opened fire on New Republic spacecraft. Surrender immediately, or prepare to be destroyed.”

  “I protest!” Plarx gasped. “Your ships provoked us into defending ourselves.”

  “Last chance, Speaker,” Bel Iblis said. “Surrender or face the consequences.”

  There was a snarl of gutturals; and as the Rogues reached the Peregrine and curved around again into their positions in the battle formation Wedge saw that the Frezhlix ships had abandoned their blockade and were turning their guns to face the oncoming New Republic force. Fleetingly, Wedge wondered if Bel Iblis would be gracious enough to simply hold position in the standoff now that he’d broken the blockade, or if he’d insist on making the Frezhlix pay for their aggression.

  Plarx took the decision on himself. In an awesome blaze of laser fire the two Kruk battle-wagons opened fire as the Jompers pursuit ships leaped forward to meet the incoming X-wings. “New Republic forces,” Bel Iblis said coldly. “Engage at will.”

  “The Frezhlix government has delivered a sharp protest to me over your actions a few hours ago,” Admiral Ackbar’s gruff voice came over the Peregrine’s comm speaker. “They claim you launched an unprovoked attack on a peaceful delegation.”

  Standing a respectful distance from the general’s chair, Wedge caught Corran Horn’s attention and rolled his eyes in a silent gesture of disgust. The other grimaced in agreement. “On the contrary,” Bel Iblis told Ackbar. “They were engaged in a clear violation of free economic movement. Besides which, they attacked first.”

  “That’s not the way the Frezhlix tell it,” Ackbar rumbled. “They say you clearly overstepped New Republic authority.”

  “I’m sure they do,” Bel Iblis said. “Do you wish me to stand for an inquiry?”

  “Don’t be absurd, General,” Ackbar said; and for the first time since the conversation had started the Mon Cal’s voice seemed to Wedge to have relaxed a little. “We need all the good commanders we can get. And I don’t doubt the Frezhlix deserved whatever you delivered to them. You said there was a smuggling ship in among the other freighters?”

  Bel Iblis glanced up at Corran, who nodded. “Yes, sir, without question,” the general confirmed. “One of Booster Terrik’s. The Sif’krie authorities have impounded the ship and are checking for contraband.”

  “I can imagine the conversation that will take place on the Errant Venture sometime in the near future,” Ackbar said, his voice going a little odd. Mon Cals had a long hatred for smuggling and smugglers, and the admiral was undoubtedly finding a certain poetic humor in what had happened. “Though the justification of your position will be dulled if there was indeed no contraband aboard.”

  “The regulations don’t care whether the search comes up dry or not,” Bel Iblis reminded him. “Or are you suggesting that President Gavrisom might not choose to see it that way?”

  “The President is bound by certain diplomatic and political necessities,” Ackbar said. “However, I’m certain that he will read your report on this incident before rendering any judgment. Still, I suggest you cut your patrol circuit short and return to—”

  Abruptly the signal squealed and vanished. “Comm station, what’s going on?” Bel Iblis demanded.

  “The problem’s not at our end, General,” a new voice reported. “Looks like the HoloNet carrier’s been cut off.”

  Bel Iblis threw a look at Wedge and Corran. “Trouble on Coruscant?” he asked the comm officer.

  “I don’t know, sir. I’m checking the other relays … no, sir, it’s not Coruscant. Looks like the relay at Mengjini has gone down.”

  “Sir, we’re picking up a general alert on the secondary net,” a new voice put in. “The relay at Mengjini has allegedly come under attack from a small group of, quote, ‘dissident elements,’ unquote.”

  “Acknowledged,” Bel Iblis said. “Navigation, plot us a fast course for Mengjini. Comm, relay the alert to all New Republic forces and bases in the area. Tell them we’re going in and request backup reinforcements.”

  He got acknowledgments and turned again to Wedge and Corran. “It looks as if your reports will have to wait,” he said. “Get back to your squadron, and get ready to fly.”

  “Not good,” Corran puffed as he and Wedge jogged down the Peregrine’s ventral corridor toward their docking bays. “When they start messing with long-range communications, you know they’re getting serious.”

  “We don’t have any proof it’s this Vengeance group,” Wedge pointed out, dodging around a Dresselian crouched over an open access panel.

  “Maybe not,” the other countered. “But I never mentioned Vengeance. You thought of them on your own.”

  Wedge grimaced. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I did, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did,” Corran said. “And you’re also thinking that between killing riots, overt interplanetary attacks, and now long-range comm-kicking, this has gone way beyond a few zealots protesting Bothan involvement in Caamas.”

  “Yeah,” Wedge agreed soberly. “I can hardly wait to see what happens next.”

  CHAPTER

  19

  “Read and cry,” Lando said, laying his sabacc cards down on the table. “Twenty-three—a Pure Sabacc run.”

  “Interesting,” Senator Miatamia murmured, his leathery Diamalan face unreadable as he studied his own cards. “I presume the reference to crying is not a literal part of the game as you play it. A Pure Sabacc run, you say?
”

  “Yes,” Lando confirmed, an uncomfortable sensation tickling at the back of his neck. The Senator had made this same dramatic pause on the sabacc pot hand in exactly five out of the eight complete games they’d played since the Lady Luck’s hurried scramble off Cilpar. Five games that the Senator had also happened to win.

  “Unfortunate,” Miatamia said, laying his cards almost daintily on the table. “I have an Idiot’s Array. I believe that wins?”

  “Yes, it wins,” Lando said, shaking his head in disgust. Make that six out of nine. “I can’t believe you haven’t played this game professionally,” he grumbled, starting to gather up the cards.

  The Diamal flicked his fingers in the air. “You don’t truly believe the Diamala have created our vast financial and business empire from mere common sense and hard work, do you?”

  Lando paused, half the cards still on the table, eyeing the Senator suspiciously. Was he actually implying—?

  No, of course not. Ridiculous. “That was a joke. Right?”

  “Of course,” Miatamia said, flicking his fingers again. “Common sense and hard work are all any being or species require to succeed. Luck is merely an illusion, trusted by the ignorant and chased by the foolish.”

  With an effort, Lando fought down a flicker of annoyance. His professional gambling days were long in the distant past, but the Diamal’s obvious contempt still rankled a little. “So in other words, if you’re smart enough, nothing ever happens you can’t anticipate?”

  “Of course the unanticipated may happen,” Miatamia said. “But those who are prepared can always find their way through.”

  “All by themselves?” Lando persisted. “They never need any help?”

  “They may,” the Diamal said, unruffled. “But anticipating the need for assistance is merely one more part of common sense.”

  “Ah,” Lando said, nodding. “So, in other words, the fact that I recognize my need for extra security for my ore shipments means that I have good common sense.”

  “It may,” Miatamia agreed. “It could also mean—”

  And suddenly, with a loud crack of released energy coming from the direction of the Lady Luck’s hyperdrive, the mottled sky above them abruptly flowed into starlines.

  Lando was at the top of the circular staircase by the time the starlines finished shrinking back into stars. “What is it?” Miatamia demanded from behind him.

  “Hyperdrive failure,” Lando shouted over his shoulder as he all but threw himself down the stairs. If one of the couplings had failed, he needed to get the power rerouted before it started into surge instability and took out everything else on the circuit. With visions of a major repair job out here in the middle of nowhere looming before him—a repair job that would not exactly endear him to his Diamalan guest—he sprinted across the dining area, past the cabins, and skidded to a halt in front of the engineering control panel.

  And frowned. There were none of the glowing red lights that would have indicated major systems failures, or even the blinking red status lines pointing to minor systems failure. In fact, according to the displays, the hyperspace drop-out was simply the normal automatic response of close planetary approach. There was a duly logged note that course comparison with the nav computer indicated that no planets should be in range at the moment …

  “Oh, no,” Lando breathed, leaping up the short stairway and jabbing at the bridge-door release. The door slid open, and he stepped through.

  And there it was, floating silently in the darkness directly in front of him: the all-too-familiar shape of an Imperial Star Destroyer.

  Biting back a curse, he dived for the helm, slapping the row of emergency power-boost switches on his way. He dropped into the chair, threw full power to the drive, and twisted the yacht’s nose hard to starboard.

  Or rather tried to twist it. Even with full emergency power, the Lady Luck wasn’t moving.

  Or rather she wasn’t moving where Lando wanted her to go.

  “We are in a tractor beam,” the Senator’s cool voice said from behind him.

  “I noticed,” Lando said shortly, shifting into a sharp up-down wiggling motion. If the tractor beam operator thought his target was trying to go vertical, he might overcorrect and allow the yacht to slip the lock.

  But no such luck. “Strap down,” Lando ordered Miatamia, letting the tractor damp out the yacht’s residual wiggling and taking a quick look around. The Imperials had to have an Interdictor Cruiser around here somewhere … yes, there it was, off in the distance to portside, its nose pointed in the Lady Luck’s direction.

  But not all that precisely pointed. In fact, the projected cone of hyperdrive-dampening gravity waves was not even close to being centered on the tug-and-back contest taking place out here. If Lando could break free of the tractor beam, there was an even chance he could get to the edge of the cone and escape before the Star Destroyer could reestablish the lock.

  If. “Call your aide on the intercom and have him strap down,” he told the Senator. The Lady Luck had one last trick up her sleeve, a little something that one of Luke’s exploits a few years back had inspired Lando to install. Powering up the backup proton torpedo launcher, he keyed for a Stage Three torpedo and fired.

  The torpedo flashed out from under the yacht’s bow, accelerating suddenly as the tractor beam yanked at it. There was a flicker from Lando’s board as one of the Star Destroyer’s turbolaser batteries began to track it—

  And then, no more than twenty meters in front of the Lady Luck, the torpedo exploded.

  Not into a devastating blast, but into a brilliant cloud of trac-reflective particles. Particles that should, in theory, confuse the lock, tie up the entire tractor beam, and let him slip free.

  And it was working. The yacht shuddered for a moment and then jerked hard as the invisible grip was abruptly broken. “Hang on!” Lando shouted, turning the ship’s nose hard over. If Luke’s experience with the covert-shroud gambit was anything to go by, he would have bare seconds to get to the edge of the Interdictor Cruiser’s mass-shadow cone before the Imperials woke up and started shooting.

  But even as the Lady Luck started to turn, there was a burst of light from behind the particle cloud between him and the Star Destroyer. He had just enough time to see the glittering trac-reflective particles turn a dull, nonreflective black—

  And with another jolt the yacht was once again trapped in the tractor beam.

  “What now?” Miatamia asked.

  “Only one thing we can do,” Lando told him, his stomach tight as he shut down the Lady Luck’s sublight engines. “We surrender.”

  • • •

  Six stormtroopers led the way, clumping along in perfect unison in three ranks of two each. Behind them, their softer footsteps not even trying to stay in step, strode Miatamia and his aide. Lando walked behind the two Diamala, obscurely glad to be in the less noticeable position in the back.

  Not that that spot really gained him anything. There were six more stormtroopers behind him bringing up the rear.

  Apart from a brief “come with us” from the stormtrooper commander, there had been no communication between captors and prisoners. But Lando had been aboard more than one Star Destroyer in his time, and he didn’t need either an invitation or a map to know that they were being herded into senior-officer country. Possibly to the Intelligence officer’s nerve center; possibly even to the captain’s office complex itself.

  He’d been unable to read the ship’s ID before the Lady Luck had been drawn into the gaping hangar bay, and had been hoping against hope that this was some monstrous practical joke being played on him with one of the New Republic’s captured Star Destroyers. With each passing step, with each Imperial officer or crewer who stepped respectfully aside to give the stormtroopers room, the hope faded a little further.

  It seemed to take forever, but finally they came to a halt at a door marked simply SECONDARY COMMAND ROOM. “You are expected,” the commander said from behind Lando as the leadi
ng stormtroopers formed a guard semicircle around the door. “Enter.”

  “Thank you,” Miatamia said, his voice impossibly calm. The door slid open and, without hesitation, the two Diamala strode inside. Reluctantly, Lando followed—

  And nearly ran into Miatamia’s back as both aliens suddenly jerked to a halt. Lando caught his balance, peering between them to try to see what had startled them so much.

  The room was sparsely decorated, with little more than some tactical wall monitors and a double ring of repeater displays encircling a command chair in the middle of the room. Standing beside the chair was a hard-faced man wearing major’s insignia.

  And rising calmly from the chair itself—

  Lando felt his heart seize up in his chest. No. No, it couldn’t be.

  But it was.

  “Good day, gentlemen,” Grand Admiral Thrawn said, gesturing to them. “My apologies as to the rather informal method by which you were brought here. Please, come inside.”

  The horrified moment seemed to stretch itself toward eternity as Lando gazed in stunned horror at that face. It couldn’t be. Grand Admiral Thrawn was dead. He was dead. He had to be.

  And yet here he was. Very much alive.

  No one had yet moved. “Please, come inside,” the Grand Admiral repeated, this time with an edge of command in his voice.

  Miatamia stirred and continued forward, his movement seemingly breaking his aide’s own paralysis. Numbly, Lando followed, sensing as he did so their stormtrooper rearguard filing in behind them.

  “That’s far enough,” the major said harshly as Miatamia came within three meters of the outer display ring. “They’ve been disarmed?”

  “None of them were carrying any weapons,” the stormtrooper commander reported. Three of them, Lando noted, had moved up to form a flanking column along their right; a glance over his shoulder confirmed that the commander and the other two had spread out along the wall behind them. A simple yet effective positioning that provided close guard while at the same time keeping the stormtroopers out of each other’s crossfire.