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 f
ighting 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.
"She's right. This is Ashgad's. I installed the components myself."
Caslo blustered angrily, "Which doesn't mean you didn't compose this
yourself, girl." But others were pulling the papers from his cousin's hands,
reading the memoranda, the deals, the concessions.
"An installation in Thornwind Valley? Six-month forcible recruitment?
A man can't live a week up there!"
"Mandatory labor pool?"
"Transfer of matriel--isn't the real word for that theft?"
"Price freeze standardization on Spooks?"
"At sixty-seven creds?"
"Occupation fleet . . . who said anything about an occupation fleet?"
"The occupation fleet is in orbit now," said Luke. He pointed upward.
Several of the Rationalists had electrobinoculars and focused them skyward,
where far overhead pinlights of brightness flared in the star-prickled
twilight sky.
Under the spate of exclamations and curses, Leia threw her arms around Luke
in a fierce hug. "What about Dzym. Ashgad's . . ."
"I know about Dzym," said Luke.
"If there's really a battle going on up there--if the Council really did
manage to get ships to stop Getelles's fleet--he'll still try to lift off in
the Reliant with all the drochs he can take."
"The lift programs aren't installed."
"Any competent engineer can do that." She looked up quickly as Liegeus
emerged from the Chariot, dodged through the milling men and women, the
angrily stirring cables and beams, the lawless Force winds. "Liegeus .
. . I" She flung her arms around him, and he held her tight, graying head
pressed to hers. "My dear child, I'm so glad to see you safe! I never, never
in my life thought you'd try to escape . . ."
"Then you didn't know me very well." She grinned at him and a moment later
he grinned back.
"Well--I suppose I did know you'd try it." He shook his head.
"Listen, Liegeus, how much does Ashgad know about the software on that
vessel?" demanded Luke. "How much of an education has he had? Can he install
it. Can he get the thing off the ground?"
"Of course he can," said Leia impatiently. "Seti Ashgad was one of the top
hyperdrive engineers of the Old Republic. The original Z-95s were his
design!"
"His design?" Luke stared at her blankly. "They were making Z-95s fifty
years ago!"
"Seti Ashgad is the original Seti Ashgad!" said Leia. "Dzym's been keeping
him alive all these years."
There was a rising clamor, men and women jostling and shoving aside Gerney
Caslo's heated protests of Ashgad's good intent. Sheets and streamers of
noticed that Umolly Darm and Aunt Gin were collecting the documents and
tucking them into the safety of their pockets.
The Theran cultists had come down from their defensive positions on the gun
shielding to join in the fray. With a yell of fury, Caslo broke from the mob
and, with a nimbleness Luke wouldn't have given him credit for, seized a
belt of grenades and sprang to the top of a broken girder, scrambled up
another one toward the muzzle of the cannon.
Leia yelled, "Stop him!" but it was too late. Someone fired a blaster rifle
just as Gerney hurled the grenades. A dozen lines of cold light stitched the
man like deadly needles, but no one had thought to fire at the grenades he
threw. They went over the stained black rim of the shielding. A moment later
a deep, shuddering concussion shook the building, jarring everyone from
their feet. White smoke belched from the cannon mouth. Gerney's body was
trampled as people scrambled up the sides of the shielding to look.
Around them, there was sudden stillness as the Force storm relaxed its grip.
Leia swore. Luke's hand stole to the red, swollen marks the drochs had left
on his flesh, and he shivered.
"Can you fix it?" he asked Liegeus softly.
"I don't know. I don't have tools."
"Umolly and Aunt Gin'll have some . . ."
"It won't be in time," said Leia. "There's an armored Headhunter in the same
hangar and an old Blastboat. You can mount the main turret guns in the
Headhunter; that'll give you enough firepower to bring him down."
"The place'll be guarded . . ."
"The synthdroids are
gone. Dead. I put them out of commission before I
escaped and I don't think Ashgad's had time to get them back online.
Come on."
Luke bolted back to the Chariot. Aunt Gin and Arvid were already
tearing loose the antigravs from the two lifter platforms that had gotten
the Rationalists to the top of the tower, affixing them to the black assault
speeder's sides.
Only when the Mobquet had disappeared over the parapet did the battered
metal doors of the stairway into the tower itself open, and Callista step
forth.
"Liegeus?" She held out her hand to the philosopher. The earpiece of the
ancient intercom system still hung around her neck. "We've got tools down
here."
"And they'll be about as much good as those silly arrows," stated Aunt Gin
fiercely, bustling over with her toolkit. She shoved the enormous, rusty box
into Liegeus's hands. "Take this, son. I for one haven't spent ten years on
this crummy rock to see it get taken over by those cheats at Loronar."
She led the way into the tower. Liegeus paused on the top step, studying
Callista's face. Comparing the thin, tired features with those of the woman
who had been Taselda's slave, the woman Beldorion had taken prisoner. "I'm
pleased to see you well, after all that--er--un-pleasantness," he said
gently. "I owe you a kind of thanks, for opening my eyes to what Ashgad was
doing, though I never thought I should be so mad as to say so. You were
right."
Callista shook her head. "You were afraid for your life," she said.
"All the knowledge could have done was hurt you, which it looks like it did.
I'm only glad you were able to take care of Leia."
"After having not taken care of you?" There was a self-deprecating wrinkle
behind the genuine shame in his eyes, and Callista smiled.
"I can take care of myself. Most ladies can."
"How well I know. You know your young man is looking for you."
Callista said softly, "I know."
"Quite honestly, Madame Admiral, that's all I'm able to tell you."
Threepio made one of his best human gestures, spreading his arms, palms out,
at precisely the correct angle and positioning to indicate a friendly
helplessness, a complete willingness to divulge whatever lay in his power.
And his digitalized recognition of human body language indicated to him that
Daala was not buying it one credit's worth.
But she said, her harsh voice slow, "My title is 'Admiral," droid, not