thing could have handled the Imruder, the Defender, and the Sentinel flying
side by side. Luke's X-wing Hew in with as much room to spare as an insect
flying into Jabba the Hutt's wide-gaping mouth. Lando followed right behind
in the Lady Luck. Admiral Hortcl Ossilege was less than happy when the
Intruder's detectors picked up the massive, off-1he-scale repulsor burst
from Drall. Surprises were rarely welcome in a military operation, but
doubly so when one was this far behind enemy lines and dealing with forces
of such power. Lando Calrissian had warned him that his tactics of audacious
advance might get him in over his head. Well, so be it. There was no real
going back. Caution would gain him nothing. He would have to investigate
that repulsor burst. It was almost certainly another planetary repulsor. But
the burst seemed to have fired at nothing at all-almost like a flare shot
straight up in the air for no better purpose than to attract attention.
Ossilege frowned to himself as he stared at the detector screen.
Perhaps-perhaps-that was exactly what it was. With all conventional
communications shut down, how else to announce one had captured a repulsor?
A signal flare. But the enemy, the opposition, had kept their repulsor at
Selonia secret. That suggested the people holding this repulsor were on the
other side. Perhaps warning the other side that they were not the only ones
with such a mighty weapon. Not just a signal flare, but a warning shot,
perhaps. Clearly, Ossilege had no choice but to investigate. But the timing
could not have been worse. His ships had just taken up their positions
around Ccnterpoint Station. Gaeriel Captison and her party were now inside
the station, completely cut off from any communication with the Bakuran
forces. He could not abandon his position at Centerpoint or leave his people
behind. He would have no choice but to divide his forces. For the briefest
of moments, he considered sending nothing more than a flight of fighters or
an assault boat loaded with troops. But no. The opposition was likely to
move on the Drall repulsor as well. The Bakuran forces would have to go in
ready to fight, not just investigate. Ossilege smiled, his lips forming into
a thin line. Calrissian had, indeed, warned him against audacious action.
But Ossilege had been extremely cautious as he moved in toward Centerpoint
Station, and he had discovered something about caution he did not like it.
Ossilege turned toward the ensign standing next to him. "My compliments to
Captain Semmac," he said to her, "and relay my order to set course for
Drall. The Intnider is going to investigate that repulsion burst. Sentinel
and Defender will remain at Centerpoint." Ossilege looked back toward the
detector screen. "Someone has sent us an invitation. I think it is only
common politeness that we accept." Luke's X-wing and the Lady Luck floated
fifteen meters off the deck, moving slowly forward into the airlock, their
shields up and in formation so as to give each other cover. What good such
precautions might be up against a space station the size of a small planet,
neither of them asked. Luke brought the X-wing into a hover over the center
of the lock and swung the fighter around to cover the Lady Luck as she came
in. The Lady moved forward slowly, easing her way into the interior. The
airlock chamber was cavernously huge and profoundly dark. The Lady Luck's
landing lights came on and swiveled about, throwing a shifting spot of
brightness on the interior wall of the lock, but Luke was not able to make
much of what the spot revealed. The huge exterior airlock door lumbered
shut, sealing them inside. Now they were trapped, if they wanted to think of
it that way. Then the lock's own interior lights bloomed into life, coming
up slowly enough that Luke's eyes were not dazzled. The interior of the lock
was a half cylinder on its side, with the flat wall of the half cylinder
forming the deck. The deck was littered with debris, odds and ends of all
sorts. Bits of clothing, broken pieces of luggage, freight containers,
abandoned machinery, even a small spacecraft with all its access ports open
and its nose assembly removed. Obviously it had been cannibalized for parts.
"-ooks like -ome folks got out of here in a -urry," Lando said. "Looks
like," Luke said. What, exactly, had they been in such a hurry to get away
from? And had they made a run for it last week, or a hundred years before?
He didn't feel easy in his mind. "Listen, Lando, normally I'd say land the
ship with the passengers first and let the fighter fly cover. But with that
airlock door shui, there doesn't seem much point to it. I'll land first.
Maybe if it's a trap, they'll spring it on me first and then-" "Then what?"
"I don't know," Luke said. "But don't land until you're sure it's safe." "If
1 wait that long, we're -oing to be sittin- here in hover mode for a long
time," Lando replied. There didn't seem to be any good answer for that, so
Luke didn't try to offer one. "I'm headed down," he said. Luke eased back on
the repulsors and brought the X-wing slowly down onto the deck. He made a
nice smooth landing and was getting ready to undo his canopy and get out
when Artoo beeped furiously at him. "What? Oh!" Artoo was right-the airlock
chamber hadn't been pressurized. That could be a problem. Luke hadn't worn a
scalable flight suit, and he was not entirely clear on whether there were
pressure suits for all aboard the Lady Luck. But what was the point of
bringing them in here if they couldn't get out of their ships? Luke looked
around the airlock chamber again and noticed that the debris was all inside
a fairly well-prescribed perimeler. Why had everyone crowded together like
that in the midst of what seemed to have been a panicked departure? A burst
of light suddenly flared to life in the center of the airlock chamber's
roof. Four streaks of light split off from the center and slid down to the
four corners of the chamber. The streaks faded to darkness, and then the
light burst came to life again, before splitting up and sliding down to the
corners, and then the pattern repealed. It was as clear a signal as the
airlock door opening and shutting. Go down, go down, go down. Now Luke
understood. "Lando," he said, "bring her down. They're using a force bubble
pressurization system in here. I don't think they want to activate the force
field until you've landed." By using a force field system, they could avoid
constantly pressurizing and depressurizing the chamber-no small issue in a
chamber this size. "But then we'd both be trapped insi- the force field,"
Lando objected. "What's the difference? We're already trapped inside the
airlock." "There's a differenc e between being in a cage with a bantha and
climbing into the bantha's gullet," Lando muitered. "But all right, here we
come." The Lady Luck eased down on her repulsors and set down ten meters in
front of Luke's X-wing. The moment she landed, there was a shimmering in the
space over their heads. After a moment il settled down into a thin blue hazy
blur that surrounded the two ships, forming a hemisphere over them. A tunnel
formed of
the same blue haze came into being just behind the Lady Luck.
Peering down it, Luke could see that it led to a more conventional-sized
inner airlock hatch. "Leading us [here every step of the way," Luke muttered
to himself. He heard a far-off, high-pitched hissing noise, and the body of
the X-wing creaked and groaned once or twice as ii adjusted to the change in
pressure. The hissing dropped in pitch down to a low roar of noise, and the
incoming air was whipping up some of the smaller bits of debris and throwing
them around, until the inside of the force field bubble was swirling with
bits of paper and dust and torn-up packing material. The X-wing rocked back
on its shock absorbers as the rush of air pushed at il. Luke watched his
exterior gauges as the roaring sub- sided. At least as far as his
instruments were concerned, it was perfectly normal air at perfectly normal
pressure. Of course, it could contain some deadly nerve gas the X-wing's
detectors couldn't sense, but if whoever was running the show here had
wanted to kill them, they could have done the job about a dozen times
already. Never mind. Time to get on with it. Luke popped the canopy of the
X-wing and let it swing up out of the way. He pulled his flight helmet off
and stashed it, then climbed up out of the pilot's compartment. He slid down
the side of the fuselage and dropped lightly to the ground. Relatively light
gravity here, he noticed. Of course, they were fairly close to the spin axis
here. The apparent force of gravity would be a lot stronger close to the
equator line of the sphere. The hatches of the Lady Luck swung open, the
egress ramp came down, and Lando, Gaeriel, and Kalenda walked down it,
closely followed by a rather agitated-looking Threepio. "I don't like this
place," the protocol droid announced. "Not one little bit. I'm sure we are
all in the most terrible danger here." "Yeah, whatever," Lando muttered.
"Besides, what was the last place you did like?" Threepio hesitated a moment
and cocked his head to one side. "A most interesting question," he said. "I
can't recall one, offhand. I shall have to consult my onboard archives." "Do
it later, Threepio," said Luke. "We might need you for other things."
"Certainly, Master Luke." Gaeriel and Kalenda looked around the airlock
chamber, and it was easy to tell the diplomat from the intelligence officer.
Kalenda knelt down to examine some of the broken-up debris and snatched at a
few of the bits of paper that were fluttering, no doubt in hopes of reading
some important clue. Gaeriel made s.Thveepio, the protocol and translation
droid, was close, and directed her attention to Ihe force field tunnel and
the hatch that would lead them to their host. Luke heard a beeping and a
blooping from the topside of his X-wing. "Don't worry, Artoo, I haven't
forgotten you." Back at a base, the normal thing was to use a winch to get
Artoo in and out of his socket in the stern of the X-wing. In the field, it
was possible for Artoo to get himself out, but the process was not very
graceful, and had ended with Artoo toppling over and landing with a crash on
more than one occasion. But when the pilot of the X-wing was a Jedi Master,
such awkwardness was not necessary. Luke reached out with his ability in the
Force and lifted Artoo gently into the air. "Do be careful, Master Luke,"
said Threepio. "It makes me nervous just to see you do that." Artoo let out
a long, low moan that echoed his agreement with Threepio. "Relax, both of
you," said Luke. "I could do this standing on my head." Artoo moaned again.
"Sorry," said Luke. "It's not nice to lease." Luke moved Artoo clear of the
X-wing and was just about to start bringing him down to the deck when the
hatch at the end of the force field tunnel began to lumber open. Everyone
stopped what they were doing and turned to look. Luke felt his hand move
toward his lightsaber, but then he pulled it away. No. All he knew for sure
was that he had touched the mind of a human who seemed to bear them no ill
will. Whoever was about to come through that door had not summoned them all
here to engage in single combat. They would be dead many times over by now,
if that was her intent. He saw Lando and Kalenda make the same reflex reach
for their own sidearms, and then pull their hands back. The doors rumbled
open, and a tall, thin, nervous-looking, pale-skinned woman came in. She
hesitated at the entrance for a moment, and then shrugged and walked toward
them at a brisk clip that seemed to say less about her eagerness to get lo
the end of the tunnel and more about her rather agitated state. Luke watched
her as she came closer. She was an attractive-looking woman with a long,
thin face, thick black curly hair that reached to her shoulders, and
prominent, expressive eyebrows. She looked worried as she came toward them,
her eyes moving from one member of the party to the next. But then the
worried look faded away to be replaced by one of pure bafflement as she
looked upward. "How are you doing that?" she asked. "And why?" "Huh?" Luke
asked, and looked up himself. "Oh!" He had nearly forgotten that Artoo was
still hanging in midair. If he had lost any more concentration, Artoo would
have crashed to the deck. Distracted by the sight of their hostess's
arrival, it would seem that Artoo had forgotten it himself. Luke willed
Artoo to move down and landed him gently on the deck. "It's sort of a long
quizzical look. "Well, anyway. I'm Jenica Sonsen, C-point COO Ad-Op."
"What?" Luke asked. Sonsen sighed. "Sorry. Force of habit. Centerpoint Chief
Operations Officer, Administration and Operations. Basically, I run the
place, these days. The C-point CE declared a bug-out right after the first
major flare incident, and the whole Exec Sec evaced along with practically
all the C-point civpop. I wish / could get out of here, but I was OOD when
the bug was called, so regs said I was stay-behind." Luke was about to ask
her what that meant when Threepio stepped forward. "Perhaps I might be of
help, Master Skywalker," said the droid. "She is using many terms that are
similar to the bureaucratic; argot of Coruscant. I believe that what
Administrative Officer Sonsen means is that Centerpoint's Chief Executive
ordered a full evacuation after the first flare disaster, and the entire
Executive Secretariat left along with most of the civilian populace.
Although she wished to leave with everyone else. Administrative Officer
Sonsen happened lo be [he Officer On Duty at the moment when the evacuation
was declared, and under those circumstances, she was automatically
designated the officer lo stay behind and serve as a caretaker," "She didn't
say anything about a disaster," Lando said suspiciously. "I beg your
pardon," Threepio said, "but she did refer to a 'major incident." That is a
common bureaucratic euphemism for a major catastrophe." "Hold it," Sonsen
said, "the tin box got it all correct, but I am right here. You could ask me
what I meant." "Only if you promise to speak Basic like everyone else,"
Lando said. Luke had lo smile. Lando never had had much use for
bureaucratic
double-talk. For a moment it looked as if Sonsen were aboul to bite Lando's
head off, bul then backed down. "Maybe you've got a point. But I have to
know whal you're doing here. Your ships blew out of nowhere and then those
fighters bugged out too." "Were they your fighters?" Kalenda asked. "And
what government do you represent?" "The fighters you were shooting at? They
weren't Fed-Dub." "Fed-Dub?" "Sorry. The Federation of the Double Worlds.'
Kalenda nodded and looked to Luke, her gaze seemingly somewhere over his
left shoulder. "The Federation is the duly elected government of Talus and
Tralus." "You people still haven't told me who you are and what you're doing
here," Sonsen said. "Our apologies," Gaeriel said, speaking for the first
time, "I am Gaerie! Captiscm, plenipotentiary of the planet Bakura. This is
Captain Lando Calrissian, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, and Lieutenant Belindi
Kalenda, all of the planet Coruscant. We represent the New Republic and the
planet Bakura." She went on in a tone of voice that suggested she was
expecting argument, but wasn't going to put up with it. "We are," she said,
"taking possession of Centerpoint Station in the name of the New Republic."
"Well, good," said Sonsen. "It's about lime somebody did. Come this way and
I'll show you where everything is." She turned around abruptly and starting
walking down the tunnel toward the inner hatch. Gaeriel looked at Luke,
clearly taken aback. "She's not what we expected," she said. "Most things
aren't, around Luke," Lando said. "But if she's going to hand over the keys
to us, I think we'd better not let her get too far ahead." The four humans
and two dro ids found Sonsen waiting for them on the other side of the inner
hatch. "There you all are," she said. "Shall we start the tour?" Her tone
was utterly matter-of-fact, as if handing over space stations to more or
less allied forces was all part of the daily routine. "I can't show you all
of the station, of course, unless you all want to die of old age before
we're half done, but I can show you the basics. This way." She ushered them
all into a waiting turbovator car on the opposite side of the lock chamber.
They followed her in. Luke entered the car after everyone else, feeling
quite bewildered. The turbovator car was huge and scruffy-looking. All the