by Greg Keyes
“But our weapons aren’t sufficient to incapacitate a ship of that size,” the droid pointed out.
Leia leaned over and kissed Han on the cheek. “That’s never stopped him before.”
Han felt the lump in his throat swell, but he forced a smile. “This is just more of the usual, Threepio. Don’t worry yourself.”
He opened a channel to the TIEs.
“Captain Devis, can I trust you to advise Grand Admiral Pellaeon of this situation immediately?”
“I thought you were going to do that, sir,” Devis replied.
“Pellaeon might not arrive in time. He might even decide not to come at all, given the situation. Heck, he might have troubles of his own. We’re going to stay and take out that interdictor.”
“That could be quite a task,” Devis said.
“All in a day’s work,” Han replied. “Just hurry up and bring us a little relief, will you?”
“I’ll send a wingmate,” Devis said, “but I’m staying to help.”
“I—” Han looked back at the battle, remembering that Jaina was down there, somewhere. “I would appreciate the help, Captain Devis. Thank you.”
He laced his fingers together and cracked them. “All right,” he said, “let’s get this show on the road.”
He turned to Leia. “Sweetheart, could you get to one of the turbolasers? Our Noghri friends are picking it up pretty fast, but in this situation, I’d rather have you—” He stopped, almost unable to continue, and most of the swagger went out of his voice. “I’d rather have you here, next to me,” he finished. “But I need you in the upper turret.”
She gave his hand a squeeze. “I know. I’ll put Meewalh in the other.”
She stood to go, but before she could leave the cockpit, he pulled her down for a kiss. “Be careful up there, huh?” he said.
“I always am.”
He watched her go, wishing suddenly that they could just leave, go find Pellaeon, go watch a sunset …
But Jaina was here, and despite the fact that the odds were—
“Oh, great,” he murmured. “I’m turning into Threepio.”
“What was that, sir?” C-3PO asked.
“I said, I’m glad you’re up here, Threepio.”
“Why—thank you, sir. I’m really quite touched.”
“Right,” Han said. He opened the channel again.
“Okay, TIEs, we’re going in—just hang back until they start throwing skips at us.”
The interdictor was two spicular cones with their bases touching, and it was nearly the size of a Star Destroyer. Usually they were covered with skips, but this time the skips were elsewhere—either in battle or between the interdictor and the battle, guarding against a push in its direction.
Han dived the Falcon toward the thickest part of the vessel, knowing he would get only one good run before they were aware of his presence and set about a thousand skips on him. The TIEs dropped into formation on his port and starboard.
“Watch the gravity well, fellows,” he warned them. “We want to mess up their paint job, but not by splatting all over ’em.”
“I hear you,” Devis replied. “Correcting.”
Han tilted the ship to put the seam where the two cones met in the Money Lane and started in with the quad lasers. An instant later, the turret guns joined him. Voids appeared in spidery clusters, sucking the blasts into nothingness. Han launched a concussion missile to either side of the fire lane, and had the satisfaction of seeing both plow into the craggy yorik coral surface, rupturing it and sending shock waves crawling out toward the thin ends of the ship.
Then he was curving around the interdictor, his course bent by gravity. But instead of using the force to sling him away, he settled into a tight orbit, firing constantly, trying to dig a trench into the thing deep enough to do real damage.
The interdictor’s plasma cannons began to fire, but one reason Han had picked the centerline as his target was that the ship angled away from it in every direction, making it tough to fire at him at all and impossible to put him in a cross fire. Nevertheless, a near miss roared by the cockpit, an eight-meter-wide explosion of superheated matter that grazed his shields and sent an ion jolt through the ship’s protective circuitry.
Meanwhile, less than one in ten of his laser shots were getting through, and he had only a few concussion missiles left. His trench wasn’t getting deep very fast.
“Skips coming in,” Devis reported. “Six in the first wave.”
“Can you keep them off us for another pass or so?” Han asked.
“Copy that, Captain Solo.”
Han fired another pair of concussion missiles—one got through, the other exploded when it was about to be sucked in by a void. That happened near enough to the Falcon that the shock wave bounced him from his orbit and sent him away from the centerline. Suddenly he was no longer outside the interdictor’s line of direct fire, but squarely in it. He stood the Falcon on her thin side relative to the interdictor to minimize his target surface, weaving through withering fire, dropping lower to keep the blasts from converging on him. When he was practically skating on the ship’s surface, he turned abruptly up and out.
“Wow,” he heard Devis say. Han’s jaw nearly dropped—the two TIEs had stayed with him the whole way. Behind them were only three skips of the original six. Han didn’t have to wonder what had happened to the other three—not with pilots like that.
Even as he watched, the TIEs broke and came around, putting the skips between them and the big guns of the cruiser, and proceeded to take them apart.
“That’s some pretty fancy flying,” Han commented. “Good thing there weren’t more like you when we were fighting the Empire.”
“Thank you, sir,” Devis said. “But we’ve got more company. A lot more.”
Han glanced at the monitor. “We can make one more pass,” he said. “After that it’s going to be way too hot here.”
In fact, he knew, this pass was going to be more than a little warm itself—probably fatally so.
“Wow,” Prann said, gazing out through the Golan II’s viewport. “Look at that. And you wanted us to help them.”
“What?” Jaina said.
“Come here,” Prann said.
She got up and made her slow way to the viewport. They had traded out the webbing they had bound her with for stun cuffs on her hands and feet and a slave collar around her neck. Moreover, the Toydarian was still sticking close to her. Prann didn’t seem too worried that she would try anything.
She reached the viewport, and to her dismay saw what Prann was talking about.
“The rest of the Vong fleet came back,” she said dully.
“Yep. In a few hours your fleet’s going to be scrap metal, and even if we were inclined to lend a hand, I don’t think we could do much good against that many.”
“Don’t try to justify your cowardice to me,” Jaina said. “They’re all going to die, and you’re just going to watch.”
“Watch?” Prann said. “No, I’m going to run. The hyperdrive is ready to go, thanks to your spare parts. Why do you think I dropped the cloak? But it looks like they’ve forgotten us out here, so we’re going to finish running computer simulations. Our cobbled-together drive is a little quirky, and we don’t want to end up in a star.”
“Please,” Jaina said. “If you’ll just listen to me—”
“Solo, I said no. Hey, look at it this way: you’re going to live to tell the uppity-ups what happened here, which no one else is likely to be able to do. You’re going to live, Colonel—and it’s not even your fault.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jaina asked.
“It means,” Prann said, leaning over her, “I’ve done a little fighting myself, in my time, and I know your type. Getting dead is your goal in life, and you’ll keep throwing yourself into the fray until it happens. In the meantime, you live in constant disappointment.”
“You don’t know me,” Jaina said. “Don’t pretend you do.”
“W
hatever, kid. I’m not going to make an argument out of it. It’s not worth it.”
“Take this station into battle, now!” Jaina said, as dramatically as possible. Prann blinked at her. She felt the Toydarian tense.
“Well,” Prann said. “Nice try.”
Jaina let her face sag in defeat, but inwardly, she conjured a wicked little smile. She’d only lightly nudged Prann with the Force, just enough to let him know she was there.
Because, in the middle of their little discussion, she had found a plan. She wasn’t sure it would work, but it had a better chance of succeeding now than it had a moment ago.
“Pash?” Wedge said.
“Get me General Cracken!”
He’d just seen Memory of Ithor take a series of hard hits, and sensors said its core was going critical.
“Here, Wedge,” the general’s tired voice said a moment later. “Sorry, we’re not going to much help to you from here on out.”
“Just get out of there,” Wedge said.
“We’re evacuating now,” Pash said. “We’ll have to take our chances in escape pods—we’ve got none here. I tried to aim her at one of the interdictors, but she’s not going to make it, I’m afraid.”
“Just take care of yourself, Pash. This isn’t over yet.”
“Good luck, Wedge. Cracken out.”
A few moments later, the Memory flashed out of existence. Wedge hoped Pash made it out, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. The Mothma was limping itself, and it wouldn’t be long before he was sharing his old friend’s fate. Unless something changed, and quickly, they were all going down.
Millennium Falcon and her escort had picked up twenty skips by the time they came into firing range again. The TIEs were staying behind them, drawing fire in an effort to keep them from hitting the Falcon, but plenty of shots were getting through, making it an awfully rough ride.
“Captain Solo,” C-3PO moaned from the copilot’s seat, “I’m afraid our rear deflector is beginning to fail.”
“See if you can reroute the power,” Han said, wishing Leia were in that seat, despite what he’d said earlier.
“Can’t keep them off,” Devis said. “I’ve lost my shields.”
“Thanks for the help,” Han told him. “I can handle it from here. You just get clear.” He fired off the last of his concussion missiles, blowing another gouge in the interdictor, and focused his quad lasers on the hole. Yorik coral churned and evaporated. He dropped even lower, hoping a void didn’t get him, and continued to strafe.
An enormous explosion rocked the ship.
“What was that?” he asked of everyone and no one in particular.
“My wingmate,” Devis replied. His voice had a rattling quality to it. “He took a direct hit.”
“You’re still back there?” Han snapped. “Get out! Make sure Pellaeon is coming!”
“A little late for that, I’m afraid,” Devis said. “But maybe I can still be of service. It was a great honor flying with you, Captain Solo. Tell … tell Admiral Pellaeon I did what I thought was best.”
“Devis, what are you—”
But then the TIE came screaming by on his starboard. It was spinning as if it had lost a stabilizer, but somehow the kid had still managed to aim it. It smacked into the interdictor like a meteor, blasting off a chunk of yorik coral almost the size of the Falcon and leaving an incandescent hole. Atmosphere blew out into the void, along with a few figures that could only be Yuuzhan Vong.
Han pulled up, pulling a few skips through the explosion as he did so.
“Threepio?” he demanded.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the droid said. “The interdictor is still functioning.”
Which means it was all for nothing, kid, Han thought. He realized he didn’t even know what Devis had looked like.
“Han, what’s happening?” Leia’s voice drifted up.
“Nothing,” he said. “We’ve lost the TIEs and the interdictor is still on-line. If we make another pass, they’ll bring us down for sure.”
“If we don’t—”
“Yeah, I know,” Han said. “Even if Pellaeon comes, it’ll be too little, too late. So we make another pass, right?”
“Right.”
“Right.” He spun the ship in a vicious roll that brought the interdictor back into view. “I love you, sweetheart,” he said.
“I love you too, you old pirate.”
“Okay,” Prann said, “looks like we’re ready, guys. I’m laying in the final calculations.”
This is it, Jaina thought. She reached out through the Force, subtly, not taking control, but instead substituting her own coordinates for the ones Prann thought he was entering. She didn’t have much skill controlling minds through the Force, and like Jacen she didn’t think much of the practice.
But this time there was no choice.
One-one-two, not aught-aught-two, she thought at Prann. Aught-nine-one, not one-one-nine. Everything else is right, it’s perfect, the best jump ever calculated, and then you’ll be home, rich, safe from the Vong forever. She couldn’t change the jump much, or he would notice. But she didn’t need to.
“Hey,” the Toydarian said. He must have noticed her look of concentration. “What are you doing? Stop it, or I shoot your hand off.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Jaina said, desperately trying to keep up her monologue through the Force. “What could I be doing?”
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Prann said. “Here we go.”
He pulled back on the jump lever, and they went.
“What in the—” Han yanked back on the stick, pulling the Falcon out of her dive and just whispering by the huge object that had appeared in his path.
“Just when you think things can’t get worse—”
“Sir! Sir!” C-3PO shouted. “It’s a Golan Two Battle Station. Where in the galaxy could that have come from?”
“A Golan?…”
“We’re saved!”
* * *
“What—what happened?” Prann shrieked.
“You tried to jump through an interdictor,” Jaina replied. “It didn’t work.”
“I did not! I set the jump in exactly the opposite direction.”
“Yes, well, obviously you didn’t.”
Prann leapt up, pulling his blaster. “You did this. Somehow you got in my head—”
“Listen to me, Prann,” Jaina snapped. “You’re interdicted. They have a solid read on you by now, so if you put the cloak up you’ll not only be a sitting target, you’ll be a blind sitting target. You’ve got just one choice now—take out that interdictor, or die. What’s it going to be?”
Prann kept the blaster on her, his face contorted with fury.
“She’s right, Erli,” Ghanol said. “We have to fight our way out now.”
Prann’s finger twitched on the blaster contact—then he slammed it back into his holster.
“To the guns, then. But so help me, Jedi, you’re going to pay for this.”
Han cut hard in next to the station as the shields went on. The next instant, heavy laserfire began pounding the interdictor. Now his only worry was the dozen or so skips still on his tail, his own failing shields, and twenty other things that were going wrong in his ship.
“Hang on, everybody,” he said. “This is going to be tight.”
“Han,” Leia called up.
“Little busy right now, honey,” he said.
“Jaina’s in that station.”
“Really? There ought to be a good story behind this one—but hey, that’s our girl.”
“I don’t think—Han, she’s still in trouble.”
“Oh, yeah?” He yawed and straightened, leading a skip through cannon fire. “Well, we’ll see about that.”
“Sir!” Cel shouted. “The Golan Two just appeared right next to the Interdictor. It’s really giving it a pounding!”
Wedge looked at the display, not believing what he was seeing.
“How did they move it?” he wondere
d.
It didn’t matter. “Change heading. When that field goes down, I want to be out of range of the other one. We’ll take up the rear.”
Ponderously and under heavy fire, what remained of his tattered fleet turned to obey. All except Mon Mothma.
The ships between them and the interdictor had realigned to deal with the battle station. His battle group had a clear run at it, but someone had to prevent that other interdictor from keeping pace with them. And since this was his fiasco, it looked like he was elected.
THIRTY-THREE
“Remember, you’re supposed to be training me,” Tahiri commented as she and Corran moved to stand back to back. “What does the wise Jedi do in a situation like this?” The warriors were advancing toward them in a tightening circle. In the distance, near where the tops of the field guides could be seen, the sky was a mass of white vapor.
“The wise Jedi avoids situations like this,” Corran said.
“Oh,” Tahiri said. “I don’t guess I know any wise Jedi, then. Very disillusioning.”
She counted thirty warriors.
“Right,” Corran said. “And that’s your lesson for the day—don’t hang on to your illusions.”
“I was hoping more for a crash course in ‘how to kick butt when you’re outnumbered thirty to two.’ ”
“Well, if you’re going to be picky about what I teach …”
“Quickly!” Nom Anor shouted, from near the ship. “There is little time.”
The circle contracted more rapidly. The ground trembled again, and pain pulsed through the Force. Pain and something else—something familiar.
She hadn’t had time to sort it out when a track of green laserfire ran through the warriors on their right flank, then their left, and suddenly a gleaming spacecraft come into view. It dropped to hover a few meters off the ground.
“Jade Shadow!” Corran whooped. “It’s Mara and Luke!”
Even as he said it, the landing ramp dropped down, and Luke Skywalker and Jacen Solo leapt out, followed by the hulking reptilian figure of Saba Sebatyne. Three new lightsabers flared to life. Then the Shadow leapt back up, turned, and began raining fire on the Yuuzhan Vong craft.