by Timothy Zahn
"The ship ID's as the Relentless," someone else called. "Captain Dorja listed as commander."
Booster's bad feeling turned suddenly even worse. The Relentless wasn't that the ship that always showed up in the rumors about Grand Admiral Thrawn?
Bel Iblis had come up on Booster's side again. "General...?" Booster murmured.
"I know," Bel Iblis said, the calmness bending just a bit. "But running now would only make us look guilty. All we can do is play it through."
"Transmission from the Relentless, General," the comm officer called. "They're asking to speak to Captain Nalgol."
Booster looked at Bel Iblis. "All we can do is play it through," Bel Iblis repeated. "Go on, give it a try."
"Sure." Taking a deep breath, Booster caught the comm officer's eye and nodded. The man threw a switch and nodded back"This is Commander Raymeuz, temporarily in command of the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrannic," he called in his best imitation of a typical Imperial's overly stiff speech pattern. "Captain Nalgol was seriously injured in the last attack and is undergoing emergency treatment."
There was a low chuckle from the bridge speakers. "Really," a calm voice said. A steady voice; a cultured voice; a voice that scared Booster clear down to his boots. "This is Grand Admiral Thrawn. You disappoint me, General Bel Iblis."
Booster looked at Bel Iblis. The general was still staring out the viewport, his face not betraying any emotion at all.
"There's really no point in trying to maintain this charade," Thrawn said. "But perhaps you need a more convincing demonstration."
It was as if someone behind Booster had suddenly yanked a carpet out from under his feet. Suddenly he was toppling forward, arms flailing madly as he fought to regain his balance. Around him came the sounds of consternation from the rest of the bridge crew; from somewhere beyond that came the ominous sound of creaking metal.
"A small demonstration, as I said," Thrawn continued, his tone almost bantering. "Your Star Destroyer is now totally helpless, pinned in place by approximately fifty of our heavy-lift tractor beams."
Booster swallowed a curse that wanted desperately to come out. What was it with this ship and tractor beams, anyway?
He started as Bel Iblis tapped him on the arm. The general was glaring at him, gesturing him impatiently toward the comm station. Booster glared back, took a deep breath. "Admiral Thrawn, sir, what are you doing?" he called, trying to mix respect and bewildered fear into his tone. The latter part took no acting whatsoever. "Sir, we have injured officers and crewers aboard"
"That's enough," Thrawn cut him off coldly. The attempt at casualness had apparently been too much for the red-eyed mongrelit was back to being overbearing again. "I respect your courage in making this attempt, but the game is over. Must I order the turbolaser batteries to commence taking the ship apart?"
Bel Iblis exhaled softly. "No need for that, Admiral," he called. "This is General Bel Iblis."
"AhGeneral," Thrawn said. Once again he'd changed tone, Booster noted, this time switching from cold threat to the almost cordial unspoken camaraderie between fellow professionals. The man was nothing if not versatile. "I congratulate you, sir, on your attempt, futile though it may have been."
"Thank you, Admiral," Bel Iblis said. "However, I suggest the success or failure of the operation has yet to be determined."
"Do you, now," Thrawn said. "Well, then, let us make it official. I hearby call on you to suspend your diversion and surrender your ship."
Bel Iblis glanced at Booster. "And if I refuse?"
"As I suggested earlier, General, you're lying helpless before me," Thrawn said, his voice heavy with menace. "At my order, your ship will be systematically destroyed."
For a long moment the bridge was silent. Booster watched Bel Iblis; Bel Iblis, in turn, was gazing out at the Star Destroyer standing in their path. "I need to discuss this with my officers," he said at last.
"Of course," Thrawn said easily. "Take your time. Only I suggest you don't take too much time. Your diversionary force is fighting valiantly, if ineffectually, but my patience toward them will not last forever. Interdictor Cruisers are already moving into position to trap them there, and the various fighter commanders are pleading to be allowed to launch their TIEs and Preybirds."
"Understood," Bel Iblis said. "I'll deliver my answer as quickly as possible."
He gestured to the comm officer to cut the transmission. "What are you going to do now?" Booster demanded. The thought of the Errant Venture ending up again in Imperial hands...
"As I promised, I'm going to deliver my answer," Bel Iblis said coolly. "Tanneris, Bodwae, where are those tractor beams originating? From the base or the defense perimeter?"
"I'm getting thirty-eight from emplacements in the perimeter," Bel Iblis's sensor officer reported.
"Fjifteen more comjing from the base jitself," Bodwae added. "JI have thejir locatjions marked."
"Thank you," Bel Iblis said. "Simons, do we have any freedom of movement at all?"
"Not really, sir," the helmsman said. "We're pinned pretty solidly in place."
"What about rotational? Can we swivel around a vertical axis?"
"Ah... yes, sir, actually I think we can," the other said, frowning at his displays. "Probably no more than a quarter turn, though."
"Not nearly enough to turn us around and get the blazes out of here," Booster muttered.
"Getting out isn't the goal," Bel Iblis reminded him. "Simons, bring us around ninety degrees to portside, or as near to that as you can manage. Portside turbolasers and proton torpedo tubes, prepare to fire at the defense perimeter at my command, targeting the tractor beam emplacements holding us here. Starboard weapons, same thing, only targeting the emplacements on the base."
There was a chorus of acknowledgments. Booster gazed out at the base and the Star Destroyer standing ready in front of it; and as he watched, they started moving to the right. Slowly and ponderously, but moving.
He took a step closer to Bel Iblis. "You realize, of course, that you're not going to fool anybody with this," he warned. "Least of all someone like Thrawn. He's going to see us targeting the tractor beams and start slicing the ship up beneath us."
Bel Iblis shook his head. "I don't think so. Not yet, anyway. All the evidence indicates that he's trying to rebuild the Empire, and a mass of wreckage won't help him do that. What he really wants from us is a few high-ranking New Republic prisoners he can parade in front of potential converts to his cause."
"Not to mention picking up an extra Star Destroyer to use against anyone who isn't so easily converted?"
"That, too," Bel Iblis conceded. "Bottom line he's not going to start shooting until we're nearly free. Maybe not even then."
Booster grimaced. No, Thrawn would be in no hurry. Not with the Errant Venture on the wrong side of all that firepower waiting at the perimeter. "So how are you planning to get us out?"
Bel Iblis shook his head. "I'm not trying to get us out. I already told you that. We have a job to do; and that job is waiting for us in there." He nodded out the viewport at the Ubiqtorate base.
"With Thrawn and a Star Destroyer sitting between us and it?" Booster snorted. "Don't take this personally, General, and I'm sure you're a fine military mind and all that. But you try to slug it out with Thrawn and we're all roast dewback."
"I know," Bel Iblis said, his voice suddenly very deadly. "That's why we're not going to engage him. At least, not the way he expects us to."
Booster eyed him cautiously. There was something about the other's face and voice that was starting to send shivers through him. "What are you talking about?"
"We have to get past the Relentless, Terrik," Bel Iblis said quietly, gazing out the viewport. "And we have to disable it enough in the process that it won't be able to blast our slicers out of the sky before they can get to the computer extension and cut their way in."
"What about the base's own weapons?"
"And we have to do it fast enough that the base's own we
aponry won't have time to turn on us," Bel Iblis agreed. "Add it all up, and there's only one way we can possibly pull it off."
Still gazing out the viewport, he seemed to brace himself. "As soon as we can break clear of the tractor beams, we're going to turn and drive as hard as we can straight for the Relentless.
"And we're going to ram it."
Booster felt the air go out of him in a silent rush. "You're not serious," he breathed.
Bel Iblis turned, looking him straight in the eye. "I'm sorry, Booster. Sorry about your ship; sorry about letting you and your crew come aboard in the first place."
"General?" the helmsman called. "We've got a seventy-nine-degree displacement now. That's the best we're going to get."
For another second, Bel Iblis held Booster's gaze. Then, turning his eyes away, he stepped past him. "It will do," he said. "All weapons commence firing at tractor beam emplacements."
Abruptly, out the viewport, a firestorm of turbolaser fire erupted, lancing outward from the angled hull in both directions. "And helm and sublight engines," the general added calmly, "stand by for full emergency power."
* * * "There he is," Elegos said, pointing. "Over there, just to starboard."
"I see him," Han said. For a minute there he'd lost Carib's freighter in the swirling glare of the comet's tail. "You see any of the miners he was talking about?"
"Not yet," Elegos said. "Perhaps he was mistaken."
"Not likely," Han growled, the hairs on the back of his neck starting to tingle. He might not agree that Carib could pick out Imperials just by their flying style; but he sure didn't doubt the guy could tell the difference between ore buckets and empty space. "I wonder where they could have gotten to?"
"Perhaps they're being masked by the tail," Elegos suggested. "They may be working on the back quarter of the comet's surface."
"Miners never work back there," Han said, shaking his head. "The dust and ice foul up alluvial dampers something fierce."
"Then where are they?"
"I don't know," Han said grimly. "But I'm starting to get a very bad feeling about it. Key me a transmission to Carib's freighter, will you?"
Elegos keyed the comm. "Ready."
"Carib?" Han called. "You see anything?"
"Nothing," the other's voice came back. "But they were here, Solo."
"I believe you," Han said, throwing a quick look at the Falcon's weapons board. The quads were ready, keyed remotely down here to him. "I think maybe it's time for a real close look at the surface. See what might be tucked away in there out of sight."
"Agreed," Carib said. "You want us to lead the way down?"
"That freighter of yours armed?"
There was just the briefest of hesitations. "No, not really."
"Then I'd better take point," Han said, throwing more power to the sublight engines. "Hang back and let me pass you."
"Whatever you say."
"Do you wish me to go to one of the weapons bays?" Elegos asked quietly.
Han threw him a quick glance. "I thought Caamasi hated killing."
"We do," Elegos said soberly. "But we also accept that there are times when killing a few is necessary for a greater good. This may well be one of those times."
"Maybe," Han grunted, easing way back on his speed as the Falcon shot past the Action II. They were starting to get close in to the comet now, and he didn't want to run into some loose piece of rock that might suddenly decide to break off into their path. "Don't worrywhatever they're hiding down there, I should be able to handle it okay by myself. It's not like you can cram a lot of firepower into one of those ore buckets"
And right in the middle of his sentence, right before his eyes, the comet and the stars beyond it abruptly vanished.
And in their place, its lights glowing evilly in the total blackness around it, was the dark shape of an Imperial Star Destroyer.
"Han!" Elegos gasped. "What"
"Cloaked Star Destroyer!" Han snapped back, twisting the helm yoke viciously, the whole plan suddenly coming clear. That battle back there over Bothawuiall those ships beating each other into rubblewith a Star Destroyer waiting hidden here, ready to finish them all off and maybe burn Bothawui in the bargain. No survivors, no witnesses, only a battle everyone in the New Republic would blame everyone else for.
And the civil war that single battle would spark might never end.
"Get ready on the comm," he told Elegos as the Falcon veered hard around back toward the invisible edge of the cloaking shield. "The second we're clear"
The order choked off as he was abruptly thrown hard against his restraints. Beneath him, the Falcon jerked to the side like a wounded animal, the roar of the sublight engines mixing with the creaking of stressed joints and supports. "What is it?" Elegos gasped.
Han swallowed hard, his hands tightening uselessly on the yoke. "It's a tractor beam," he told the Caamasi, throwing a desperate glance at the sensor display. If it was an edgewise grab, something marginal or tenuous, he might be able to wiggle his way out.
But no. They had him. They had him solid.
He looked up again as a motion caught his eye Carib's freighter, now inside the cloaking shield with him, twisting helplessly in the same invisible grip. "They've got us, Elegos," he sighed, the bitter taste of defeat in his mouth.
"They've got us both."
CHAPTER
38
They ran into two more of the disguised Conner nets along the way, both of which Mara insisted on tripping and disposing of. Luke wasn't convinced himself that that was necessary; but on the other hand he couldn't see how it could hurt, either. If the first net hadn't triggered any alarmsand there was no indication it hadthen taking down the other two probably wouldn't do anything, either. And at least it gave the insectoid service droids something to do that was back out of their way.
The background hum had also increased as they traveled down the tunnel, reaching a volume where Luke could definitely tell it was coming from above them. The fortress's huge power generator, undoubtedly, sealed safely away inside solid rock beyond their reach.
And eventually, after perhaps a hundred meters, the tunnel ended in a large, well-lit room.
"I was right," Mara murmured from Luke's side as they stood together at the archway entrance. "I knew he'd have a place like this stashed away. Even in his own fortress, hidden away from his own people. I just knew it."
Luke nodded silently, gazing into the chamber. It was roughly circular, dome-shaped at the top, sixty meters across at the base, and a good ten high at the center, all carved out of solid rock. A three-meter-wide ring of tiled floor ran around the outer edge at the level of the tunnel, dropping then a meter down to the main floor, which was also tiled. Five meters up the sides, behind a protective railing, a balcony deeply indented into the rock ran two-thirds of the way around the room, its inner walls lined with electronic equipment.
On the main floor to their far right was a more modest version of the command center they'd found in the upper floor of the Hand of Thrawn. This one was only a single ring of consoles, centered not on a galactic holo but on the wide, squat cylinder of a superstorage library/computer information base. Again, as in the fortress above, a handful of glowing lights indicated the equipment was waiting patiently on standby. The rest of the main floor was empty except for a row of furniture lined up against one edge of the raised walkway beneath a plastic sheet.
But all of that was just background, things to be peripherally noted and filed away into his mind for later evaluation. From the first moment he and Mara had entered the room, Luke's full attention had been focused on the deep alcove coming off the main room over to their left. Sealed there behind a solid transparisteel wall was a complete cloning apparatus a Spaarti cylinder wrapped in nutrient tubes and flash-learning cables, surrounded by support equipment, all of it tied into a humming fusion generator.
And floating gently in the center of the cylinder, asleep or perhaps not even yet truly alive, was a blue-ski
nned adult humanoid. A humanoid with an exceptionally familiar face.
Grand Admiral Thrawn.
"Ten years," Luke said quietly. "Just like you said. Just like you figured. He told them he'd return in ten years."
"The old fraud," Mara muttered, the words in sharp contrast to the reluctant awe Luke could sense in her. He could sympathize; the alcove and its occupant were intimidating in their subtle grandeur, and in their equally quiet threat. "Probably had the cycle set on a ten-year timer and just reset it back to zero every time he dropped by for a visit."
"Probably," Luke agreed, tearing his eyes away from the almost hypnotic sight of the floating clone and looking over at the ring of consoles at the other end of the room. "Artoo, get over there and find a computer jack you can link into. Start downloading everything you can find about the Unknown Regions area Thrawn opened up."
The little droid warbled acknowledgment and rolled past him to one of the half-dozen ramps leading from the outer ring down to the main floor. He made it down the ramp without tipping over and headed for the console ring, his wheels clattering rhythmically across the small gaps between the tiles as he went. He stopped beside one of the consoles, whistled a confirmation, then extended his computer jack and plugged in.
"He's in," Luke said, turning back to the cloning tank. "Come on, I want a closer look at this."
Together, he and Mara circled the room to the transparisteel wall. "Don't touch it," Mara warned as he leaned in close. "It's probably wired with alarms."
"I wasn't going to," Luke assured her, peering inside. From this angle he could see something that hadn't been visible from the archway. "You see what else he's got in there with him?"
"A couple of ysalamiri." Mara nodded. "Just in case a wandering Jedi happened by."
"Thrawn was the type to think of everything."
"He sure was," Mara agreed. "Except maybe that lake out there."
Luke frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Over there," Mara said, half turning and pointing across the room.