Star Wars - Planet Of Twilight (40 page)

Threepio said, “Oh, dear.”

On the face of it, there seemed very little chance that any amount of money would persuade the inhabitants to drop him and Artoo off at Coruscant.

It was too late to turn tail, however. Figures in dark e-suits were coming down the ramp--both men and women, judging from the way they walked, which was unusual for the Imperial Service--followed by two black, spider-armed floating remotes that scanned the base with hard beams of white light while the troopers crossed the stained floor of the bay to where the two droids stood. One of them, a dusky Twi'lek woman with an enormously extended helmet, touched the comm button in her suit and said, “Two of them,” and again Threepio wondered.

The Imperial Service would ordinarily no more employ nonhumans than it would employ nonmales. On closer study he identified the e-suits of Imperial design--CoMar 980s--but without emblems, though the sleeves and chest bore marks where emblems had been removed.

“No other signs of life on the base?” inquired a very small, very tinny voice from the comm.

“No, Admiral. Looks well and truly looted to me.”

“There was, in fact, extensive looting during the final throes of the epidemic,” provided Threepio helpfully. “My counterpart and I counted five separate parties of looters, and the Computer Core of the base system was so extensively dilapidated that we could not even use it 'to signal out.”

“Put them through cleansing procedures,” said the tinny voice.

“Bring them to me. I want to find out once. and for all what's taking place in this sector.”

“You know, Artoo,” surmised Threepio, when after a very thorough passage through two radiation chambers and a chemical bath the two droids were conducted, still by the Twi'lek Sergeant, to a small lift marked “Private,”

“I think this isn't an Imperial mission at all. The ship, though of Imperial design and manufacture, does not bear the markings of any of the various satrapies of the former Empire. Neither do the uniforms of such crew members as we have seen. We might be dealing with a case of extensive theft of Imperial matdriel by a completely neutral third party.”

The doors of the lift closed soundlessly. There was a shivering vibration as it ascended. Artoo tweeped.

“Clandestine operation? What kind of clandestine operation would be undertaken by any of the remaining Imperial governors? I'm sure it can't be that.”

The doors slid open. Imperial Captains and Admirals always tended to favor a black sleekness in their offices, in part in the interests of spare unclutteredness, in part, quite frankly, in the interests of intimidation.

The chamber into which the two droids stepped now was no exception.

Threepio was quite well aware that computer screens and consoles lurked behind those obsidian-mirrored panels, that a touch on an access hatch would summon chairs, if necessary; more lamps; dictation equipment, if required; implements of torture; articles of restraint; a mirror and shaving equipment; or wine, caffeine, and beignets for that matter . .

.

But all of that was secondary to the digitalized tallying of recogni-tive factors concerning the woman who sat in the room's single chair tall, tough, and athletic in her stripped-down version of the Imperial officer's uniform, red hair hanging like a comet's tail down her back and eyes cold as ball bearings in a pale, expressionless face.

Threepio had never seen her in person, but as a specialist in protocol he was programmed with all sorts of files about people who were or had been in positions of authority, and he identified her at once.

“Good heavens, Artoo,” he exclaimed, “I seem to have been given inaccurate data. According to my most recent information, Imperial Admiral Daala should be dead.”

Daala said softly, “I am.”

Han Solo wondered whether there was any insanity in his family.

He folded his arms, considering the vista afforded him by the hard transparisteel of the viewport two CEC gunships, the Courane and the Fireater, half a dozen smaller cruisers, and maybe twice that many escorts, X-wings and E-wings. They hung pale silvery against the darkness of realspace, sleek white fish among the stars. The newest Republic equipment, true--unlike the clunky, crotchety horrors of the Rebel fleet--but all of them, he knew', understaffed with men and women pushed to the brink of exhaustion. None of them a match for what he knew lay ahead.

But not a bad turnout for a faked video and a lot of bluster and fast talk.

He turned from the Falcon's viewport to the main screen, where Lando, who'd hitched a ride back from Algar with the fleet, and his Sullustan co-pilot Nien Nunb, were handling the jump extrapolations while Chewbacca studied the sensor readouts beamed in from the few remote stations on the other side of the Spangled Veil Nebula.

“Pick 'em upS.” Solo asked, and the Wookiee yowled assent.

“Where they headed,”

“Well, judging by the point at which they came out of hyperspace,” said Lando, tapping in a few more numbers, “it could be either Meridias itself, which would be stupid on the face of it considering that planet's been dead for centuries, or any of the Chorios systems.”

Lando looked a little tired from his fast trip to summon reinforcements, but was shaven, bathed, and sleek as usual. Han, who felt and looked like many kilometers of bad road, didn't know how he managed.

“For my money it's Pedducis Chorios. They'll have their work cut out for them getting rid of all the pirate Warlords who have alliances with local chiefs, but there's a lot of profit there. Nam Chorios is just a rock.”

“Yeah,” agreed Han softly. “But by an amazing coincidence, it's the rock Seti Ashgad comes from, with all his swearing up and down he saw Leia off safe and sound. And now all of a sudden while everyone's all in a tizzy because Leia's disappeared, by gosh, somebody comes along and tries to invade Nam Chorios.”

“But that's crazy!” protested Lando, every entrepreneurial bone in his body offended to the marrow. “Who'd want anything on Nam Chorios?”

“I don't know,” said Han. “But I think we're gonna find that out.”

He leaned over the comm, opened the main link.

“Captain Solo here. We're taking hyperspace jump bearing seven-seven-five; coming out bearing nine-three-nine-three-two . . .”

Lando's eyes flared wide at the nearness of that jump point. “Han, old buddy . . .”

Han put his hand over the mike, “We want to get there before them, don't we? I know what i'm doing.”

“What you're doing is smashing us into Nam Chorios if somebody gets one hair off.”

“So don't get a hair off,” said Han bluntly, and turned back to the comm. “Course for Nam Chorios. Possible interception on return to realspace, so keep your heads up.”

He turned back to the readouts. Three Star Destroyers. Half a dozen carracks. Two interdictors.

And the swarms that didn't even register on the readout, the silent, deadly clouds of CCIR space needles, waiting to cut them to pieces the minute they came out of hyperspace.

He had to be crazy.

“Punch it, Chewie,” he said.

Luke felt the violence of the Force storm that surrounded the Bleak Point gun station kilometers away, as a throbbing in his head and a clutch of terror and rage in his chest. As the Mobquet flew down the canyons like a great black glide lizard, crystal boulders and whirlwinds of gravel would spontaneously leap and swirl in the air, spattering against the speeder's sleek body and scratching the tough transplex of the passenger hoods. Liegeus whispered, “Beldorion. He can still wield the Force after a fashion. But I've never seen it like this, never.” Luke gritted his teeth, knowing that this random torrent of energy was being duplicated elsewhere on the planet, w'recking machinery on which people's lives and livelihoods depended, overturning other forges to cripple other men.

So that Seti Ashgad could disable a gun station, he thought, and create a corridor through which a ship could fly.

He'd only need to disable one.

As they came out of the hanging canyon above the gun station Luke said softly, “They're in.”

Most of the wood and metal palisade that had crowned the ancient tower had been torn away by the violence of the uncontrolled Force.

Beams and shards and huge mats of razor wire strewed the gravel at the base of the walls; and with the sheer poltergeist wildness of the Force, these would rise up and hurl themselves like rabid things against the walls, the remains of the defenses, the surrounding rocks.

As Luke watched, a rusted beam flew like a javelin from the ground, dragging after it a whole tangle of wire, and fell among the struggling forms that ran and dodged and fired on one another on the top of the tower. The beam thrashed and whipped until it fell, dragging two of the Rationalist fighters down with it in a snarl of debris.

On the flat top of the tower they were still fighting before the door that led down into the building itself. From the mouth of the hanging canyon Luke couldn't tell, but he thought that there was another, smaller scrimmage going on around the coils and shielding of the barrel of the laser cannon itself. Rationalists were struggling to get up on top of it, raggedly dressed Therans fighting them hand to hand to keep them from damaging the gun. The flare of blasters and ion cannon burst like pale lightning in the morning air, but such was the nature of the Force storm that not many of the shots were getting in, and the Therans had quite clearly stopped even trying to throw spears or shoot arrows.

Even pellets and bullets from projectile weapons were whirled away like chaff.

“Beldorion's there,” said Liegeus. He shoved back the long ash-colored hair hanging in his eyes. “Back out of the front lines somewhere, I should think--there!” He pointed down to the silvery shape of a round floater, some distance from the base of the walls. Luke could see the coiled shape of the giant Hutt on it, muscular and serpentine, not at all like Jabba's slothful bulk.

The sense of decayed Force, of rotted abilities and spent purpose, rose to Luke like a stench, as it had from Taselda.

In many ways it was worse than Vader, worse than Palpatine. At least their dream had been grand.

“What do we do.” said Liegeus.

Luke began to back the assault speeder up the canyon again, the way they had come. A speeder wasn't an antigrav platform and generally couldn't be used as one without restructuring of the buoyancy tanks, but Chariots had motors on them that would do credit to many of the combat vessels Luke had flown. “We hold on tight.”

Liegeus gasped, "What are you going to do?--A silly question, thought Luke, as he slammed the speeder into full-bore acceleration and readied his hand on the turbothrust lever. It should have been patently obvious what the only possible course of action was. The walls of the canyon blurred into a shining curtain, wind and flying gravel scorched back over hood and metal, the gap of the canyon walls rushed toward them and beyond that, the wide break in the tower's defensive crown beckoned like a ridiculously enormous bull's-eye.

Liegeus wailed, “Luke!” and hid his eyes.

The speeder cleared the twenty-five-meter gap between the last ridge of the mountain's shoulder and the top of the tower like a nek battle dog, like a trained Tikkiar rising for a kill. Luke cut the turbos and hit the brake, skidding in among the combatants who scattered before him.

He recognized Gerney Caslo in the fighting around the door and, springing out of the speeder, plunged across the stained and battered paving blocks of the tower's open top and up the steps to where he stood.

“You've got to stop this!” he yelled. Everyone was so startled for a moment by the appearance of the Mobquet among them that they did halt.

“You're being duped!” shouted Luke, turning to the men and women who crouched behind makeshift barricades, guns in hand, to those who had for the moment fallen back from fighting on the laser gun itself.

"You're being used! Seti Ashgad has only one reason for wanting to open this planet--so that he can sell the whole place to Loronar Corporation to strip-mine! He doesn't care about your farms!

He doesn't care about medical supplies, or water pumps, or machinery for you!"

He looked around him, at the dusty, cut, bloody faces, the battered forms stepping cautiously forth from their places of cover, at the angry eyes, not wanting to believe. Arvid was among them, and Aunt Gin, and the brother-in-law of the owner of the Blue Blerd.

His arms dropped to his sides. “He isn't doing this for you.” Someone said, “Shoot the whiner,” and Luke reached forth with the Force and pulled the man's blaster away before he could get the shot off-. The white bolt of energy scattered chips from the wall of the stairway housing behind him.

“A lot you know about it!” yelled someone else.

“i know,” said Luke quietly. “We been into Ashgad's house. He isn't doing this for any of you.”

“He's right.”

Behind Luke, the door opened, very quickly, and closed again--Luke could hear the locks slamming open even as Gerney Caslo and the two men with him made a jump to catch it as it opened.

Leia had stepped through.

Leia grimy, in tatters, her hair hanging down in strings in her eyes and her palms and knuckles bandaged. Leia with strips of space tape and leather binding what remained of her ornamental golden boots, empty-handed but with a blaster on one hip and her lightsaber on the other.

But definitely Leia Organa Solo, known on a thousand news holos to many and certainly, from Seti Ashgad's faked video, to every man and woman there. There was goggling silence.

“He's telling the truth,” she said. She reached into one of the thigh pockets of a pair of far-too-big trousers she wore and produced a wad of computer printouts. “Here's a copy of Ashgad's correspondence with the CEO of Loronar, with Moff Getelles of Antemeridian, with pawns and cat's paws in the Republic Council. Is anyone here a neep?”

Booldrum Caslo stepped forward. “I am, ma'am.”

“Then you'll recognize the system codes as coming from Ashgad's computer.”

The chubby man changed the lens ratio of his visiamps and flipped quickly through the hardcopy, then glanced back at Gerney, apologetic.