Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime (39 page)

“I’m bringing
Belt-Runner I
back in,” Lando replied. “For all her power, the ship’s got no offensive arrays, so she’d be a sitting target up there. I’m going to put her in high dock but
keep her powered up, so she’ll be able to lend some shielding power to the equipped starfighters as long as they stay close to home.”

“How many starfighters can we equip?” Han asked, and he narrowed his eyes, obviously plotting.

But Lando shook his head, throwing those visions far away. “Not an easy thing to do and takes up too much room,” he explained. “And too much time. I couldn’t even get the
Falcon
wired to take the power-shield boost within a week, and I’d have to take away half of your systems just to make your power grid accessible to the signal.”

“So you’ve got a few TIE fighters and a couple of TIE bombers,” Han remarked.

“Enough for the kids,” Lando replied with a shrug.

“Those TIE fighters don’t carry any weapons,” Jaina protested. None of the three kids liked where this conversation was going.

“They do now,” Lando assured her with a cocky grin.

Jaina eyed him skeptically.

“Not much,” he admitted. “Just a single laser cannon and one bank of torpedoes. It’ll take some pretty amazing flying for you guys to hand out any real damage to the enemy fleet …”

He paused there and let the words hang in the air, and Leia saw the intrigue mounting on the faces of her three children. She looked back to Lando and wasn’t sure if she should be grateful or angry with him for the sly way he had just played on the egos of her three children. For Leia, despite her recognition of their skills, judgment, and training, and despite her understanding that the situation here was purely desperate, wasn’t thrilled at all about the prospect of having the three kids up there in the middle of the fighting. She looked to Han, but she found no answers in his perplexed expression, and indeed, there seemed few options. They had seen the tracking data on the incoming force, and it was huge.

“You stay close to the planet,” Leia said.

“All three of you!” Han added, loudly and firmly, poking his finger at the kids.

“Within reach of
Belt-Runner I’s
help, and the planet’s turbolasers,” Leia finished.

Jaina and Jacen beamed at the news that they wouldn’t be left out of it this time.

There was no smile on the face of young Anakin, though. He stared at his father, looking for some hint of forgiveness.

He found none.

Jaina and Jacen started out of the room then, sweeping Anakin up in their wake.

“You think Mom will be able to help Dad up there?” Jacen asked Jaina, honestly concerned. “She hasn’t done much flying lately. Maybe one of us should go with him.”

Jaina considered the words for a few moments, then shook her head, reminding herself that her mother was no novice to action. Sure, Leia and Han were older now, but both still had plenty of fight in them. “They’ll hand it out to the enemy,” she assured her brother. “What’s Lando got that can match the
Millennium Falcon
?”

Jacen returned his sister’s smile and turned the conversation toward their own strategy for the upcoming battle. They looked to Anakin to join in, but he was obviously paying no attention to them at all, lost somewhere deep inside himself.

Indeed, Anakin’s thoughts were locked in the past, replaying those last terrible moments of Sernpidal, again and again, trying to determine if he had indeed done something wrong, if there might have been something, anything, he could do to change events, to save Chewbacca.

Logically, there seemed no answers. Logically, Anakin had to believe that he had done the right thing, taken the only option available to save the
Falcon
and the many people aboard her. But logic couldn’t hold in the young boy’s heart, not against his father’s judgmental look, not against the reality
that Chewie was gone, was really gone, and there was nothing anyone could do about that.

“They’re in the system,” Leia announced. She sat in the
Falcon
’s second seat, beside Han, with a nervous C-3PO standing behind them, chattering away about everything and nothing all at once.

“Possibly you could intercept their transmissions,” the droid remarked. “I would be most happy to translate if they are in a language unintelligible to you.” He went on, offering his skills, and Han turned to Leia and scowled.

“Couldn’t we have just left him behind?” he asked.

With a smile, Leia glanced briefly back to C-3PO—a friend, and one she usually considered fine company—then turned her attention forward again.

“Or I could translate our own communications into code,” the droid rambled on, despite the fact that neither Han nor Leia was listening to him.

Han nodded to Leia. He could hear the first sounds of battle, from the starfighters Lando had put on patrol along the orbits of the outer planets. Pilots called in descriptions of the incoming enemy fleet—which matched exactly the descriptions Kyp Durron had offered of the enemy starfighters.

“You hear that, kid?” Han asked, clicking on the comm to the top gunnery pod.

“It’s going to be a rough ride,” Kyp replied. He was seated comfortably in the gunnery pod atop the
Falcon
, having offered to sit in as gunner. He hadn’t quite recovered from his escape ordeal yet, not enough for him to take a ship of his own into the fight—and Lando didn’t have a ship he wanted to fly anyway.

Leia opened up the communications to all channels, scanning and listening, and the reports came in fast and furious, cries for help, cries of victories scored, warnings that the enemy force was rolling in closer to the inner planets, closer to Dubrillion and Destrillion.

“Getting hot out there,” Han muttered.

Leia understood his tone, recognizing the nervous edge that went beyond his fears of battle. Like Leia, Han wasn’t afraid for himself, but for his three kids, each flying a TIE fighter down there, below, in close orbit to Dubrillion.

The
Falcon
’s console warning signals chirped in, and glancing down at the small viewer, Han and Leia caught the approach of the first retreating friendly starfighters, just a few greenish blips on the screen.

And then, abruptly, that screen practically turned red for the sheer number of ships tracking in behind them.

“Too many!” came a cry over the comm from one of the starfighters, and Han and Leia could certainly appreciate the sentiment.

Han took a deep and steadying breath. He expected Leia to tell him to go to the lower gun pod, that she could take the helm, but he knew that his place was up here, flying the
Falcon. “
Just feed me the data as it comes in,” he said to preempt any requests. To his surprise, though, Leia stood up. He looked at her curiously.

“I’ll be in the lower gun pod,” she explained, and Han’s expression turned even more incredulous.

“I feel like shooting something,” Leia said, and though it was obviously a joke, a statement made to alleviate the tension, neither Han nor Leia even cracked a smile.

Han stared at his wife for a moment, at her grim expression. Then he nodded and Leia kissed him on the cheek and headed for the lower gunnery pod. Han, too, could do some shooting from up here, just the small front lasers, but his real job was to keep the enemy fighters in line for the bigger guns.

“Can you hear me?” came Leia’s call over the comm.

“I got you,” Han assured her. “Make sure you hold the left flank, and, Kyp, you’ve got the right.”

“Ready to start these monsters singing,” Kyp called back.

Han shook his head at the man’s unending cockiness. He,
too, had that in him, but strangely, he didn’t feel overly confident at all at the moment. He looked down at his tracking instruments, the screen glowing red from the sheer number of blips.

Not confident at all.

They heard the reports, as well, and the first cries of battle joined and the first losses to their comrades cut deep into the hearts of the three younger Solos as they swept past Lando’s tallest towers in their shield-enhanced TIE fighters.
Belt-Runner I
was working perfectly on them, they knew, but their first runs since coming up from Dubrillion had shown them that the shield effect grew minimal as soon as any of the TIE fighters broke out of the planet’s atmosphere.

Their father’s subsequent orders had been unyielding and thoroughly predictable: they were to run out the duration of the battle as surface patrol for Dubrillion. The three weren’t pleased, but in truth, their only advantage over ordinary starfighters was the shield enhancement, and without it, they weren’t even fractionally as good as normally equipped TIEs.

“Watch your wing!” came one cry over the comm.

“On my tail! On my tail!” came another.

“Kruuny, get out of there!” came a third.

“Keep your calm, kid,” came a familiar voice, Han’s voice. “And hold your course. I got you.”

“I can’t shake him!” the troubled pilot, Kruuny, cried.

The kids heard the
whump!
of the
Millennium Falcon
’s quad laser cannons.

“Thanks,” an obviously relieved Kruuny said.

“On your tail now,
Falcon
!” came another frantic voice.

“We got him,” the unshakable Han replied.

Jaina grasped her stick so hard with frustration that her knuckles whitened; she gritted her teeth so tightly that her jaw hurt. “Going up to black space,” she called to her brothers.

“You know Dad’s orders,” Jacen protested, but Jaina had already put her nose up, with Anakin right behind her.

“We’ll stay atmospheric, but just within,” Jaina explained. “I want to see what’s going on.”

The three TIE fighters came into black space a moment later, that thin area between atmospheric and space flight. Outside the reflective light of the planet’s atmosphere, they could see the streaks of the raging battle now, lending a visual to the constant stream of cries and tactical calls on the comm. Focusing on Han’s call, and on the rushing lights above, Jaina thought she had spotted the
Falcon
.

“A dozen breaking for Dubrillion!” came Jacen’s sudden call, and Jaina turned to regard her brother in the fighter beside her, then followed his look to the horizon, where a squadron of enemy ships were firing through the atmosphere.

“They’ll come above the city from the southeast,” Jaina explained. “Let’s go!”

And down the three went, bursting back into the daytime blue sky of Lando’s planet.

“Shields strengthening,” Anakin reported.

The TIE fighters roared over the city, swerving in and out of the tall towers. Jacen called out first, spotting the flight of enemy fighters coming in hot, their volcanolike cannons firing repeatedly.

The three TIEs soared out of the southeastern corner of the city, charging to meet the challenge.

But then the surface cannons roared to life, a blazing, thunderous volley of blue-streaking energy bolts filling the sky.

“Back!” Jaina called, pulling into a loop that turned her back for the city, and her brothers followed suit. As they came back around for a visual, Jaina’s eyes confirmed what her sensors were already telling her: the strafing enemy fighters had all been destroyed.

Far from satisfied, though, the battle-hungry trio went right back up to black space.

“Widen the formation,” Jaina ordered. “And keep your eyes open. Let’s get the next group before they get in range of Lando’s cannons.”

Even as she finished, a smaller group of enemy fighters soared down at Dubrillion. The three TIE fighters rushed off to meet them, Jaina in the middle, with her brothers moving out wide at her flanks. As they approached the incoming five enemies, the boys rolled back in, wingtip to wingtip with Jaina. They worked in unison, seeming more like one starfighter than three, each with its single laser cannon roaring to life.

A pair of enemy fighters disappeared under the sudden barrage, but the remaining three reacted fast, leveling to meet this new threat. Their cannons blared, and the three Solos didn’t try to evade, but took hit after hit.

The shields held; the ships came together.

A trio of torpedoes, a burst of laser fire, and the threat was gone.

That particular threat at least, for now calls from Dubrillion’s surface mingled with the cries from the swerving and dodging fighters above. More enemies had come in at the city, from every angle, and the three Solo kids knew that Lando’s gunners were hard-pressed.

“This is Gauch in TB-1,” came a call from one of the TIE bombers. “We’ve got them.”

Jaina led her brothers back into blue space and saw the TIE bomber rolling out from the city, trading hits with several enemy fighters, but taking all they could hand out with its enhanced shields.

The city, though, was starting to take a beating, with fires burning in several buildings. The surface turbolasers continued to thunder away, scoring hit after hit, but for every enemy fighter that went down, a dozen more seemed to take its place.

“Let’s go!” Jaina cried.

“Belt-Runner I
here!” came a cry. “We’re hit! We’re hit! Taking shield energy back!”

“We’re stripped!” Anakin confirmed, and Jacen and Jaina, too, glanced at their instruments to confirm that
Belt-Runner I
had taken back the shielding power. “What do we do?”

“Don’t get hit,” a grim Jaina returned, and she led the way down, soaring in between the buildings, dodging the volcanic missiles and tremendous surface-cannon blasts, her lasers blaring away.

“I’m hit!” came pilot Gauch’s voice. “Can’t hold it! Can’t—”

A huge fireball rolled up from the eastern side of the city, a poignant reminder to the three young Jedi that this time was for real.

Jacen got the first kill, firing off a shot as he rounded a tower, scoring a hit blindly on an enemy fighter and luckily avoiding the return shot.

Another enemy had him in line, though, and he started to cry out.

Jaina blew past him, firing her second torpedo, and that enemy, too, went away.

“Thanks, Sis,” Jacen remarked, and he followed Jaina’s bank down to the left. They found Anakin pursuing one enemy, but with a trio pursuing him. He shot through a gap between towers, then pulled up fast as the fighter he was chasing crossed through the crosshairs of one of those mighty surface cannons and seemed to simply disintegrate. And as Anakin rose, he found his siblings diving down on either side of him, lasers blasting away.