up into the copilot's chair and turned toward the weapons controls as the
enemy ship dropped down to a fast, assault-style landing. Burly figures in
combat gear were tumbling out of the attack boat's hatches even before it
had stopped bouncing on its landing legs. Weapons. Ebrihim did not know much
about such things, but he had to try. There had to be some sort of
auto-system to let the turbolasers- Suddenly huge hands were scooping him up
out of the seat, tossing him out of the way. Chewbacca scrambled into the
copilot's chair and started powering up the defense systems. Power began to
surge through the Falcon's weapons. "The children are aboard!" Marcha
shouted. "Raise the access ramp. Activate the shields!" Chewbacca hit the
ramp close button and reached for the shield controls-but it was too late. A
trooper with a very powerful-looking blaster was looking up at Chewbacca
from below the cockpit. The Falcon was surrounded by troops standing inside
the shield perimeter. Chewbacca tried the shields anyway. The lights in the
cockpit surged for a moment as power went to the shield generators, but
nothing else happened. Chewbacca roared in frustration. Shield jammers. They
must have attached shield jammers to the hull, preventing the shields from
forming. A tall, heavyset, bearded figure stepped out of the assault boat
and walked toward them, a most unpleasant smile on his face. "Sal-Solo,"
Ebrihim said. "It's him." "That's our dad's cousin?" Anakin asked. Ebrihim
turned around and realized for the first time that the children had crowded
their way in. All of them, the entire party, were there, in the cockpit.
"That is his cousin and yours, child," said Marcha. "But I doubt you will
gain much joy from knowing him." Ebrihim tried not to listen. There was
something that had just flitted across his mind, at the thought of their all
being together. Wait a moment. That wasn't true. They weren't all together.
But if he, Ebrihim, assumed they all were here, then surely their friends
outside might make the same mistake. Ebrihim had an idea. Not even a plan,
just an idea that would give them options, advantages. Maybe enough so that
there would still be a way out of this. It was a long shot, but still it was
a chance that could turn this thing around. That was the good news. The bad
news was in two parts. First, they only had a few seconds to put it in
motion. And two, his idea relied completely and entirely upon Q9-X2.
Thrackan Sal-Solo could not have been happier. It was a gift from the gods,
an absolute gift from the gods. He strode about his new possession, admiring
it, thinking of all it could do-and do for him. At last he had his hands on
a planetary repulsor. He had gambled everything that he would get to one in
time. He had thought it would be the one on Corellia. That he ended up
grabbing the one here on Drall was but a slight irony. He had one. That was
all that mattered. He had one in time to control the situation. He looked
up, admiring the view straight to the surface, that sharp-edge circle of
blue, kilometers above his head. He looked down a bit, at the massive,
graceful cluster of cones that made up the repulsor array itself. AS1 his.
All his. His eyes strayed lower, to the Millennium Falcon. What a bonus,
what a magnificent and glittering extra prize it was. Grabbing the Falcon by
itself would have been enough to humiliate Han Solo, to pay him back for the
crime of escape. But to find Han's Wookiee and his children aboard as
well-what could be better? There were two absurd Drall as well, but they
were no prize at all compared to the children. The children represented not
just a chance for personal vengeance, but something else, something more--an
opportunity. If he handled it right, a war winner. Now, suddenly, he could
control, could manipulate, Leia Organa Solo herself. Now she would have to
come to the bargaining table, because she had no choice. And once she came
to that table, Thrackan was cer- tain she would leave with nothing at all.
He would force her into a bargain that would leave the New Republic with its
heart torn out, so badly injured, so utterly discredited, that it could not
survive. Of course, the recent destruction of Thanta Zilbra and the coming
that saw that the New Republic could not prevent such a disaster would be a
galaxy that lost faith in the New Republic. It would be a galaxy thai
realized revolt against the New Republic was possible. That would be all to
the good, of course. But better, far better, if the galaxy saw Thrackan
Sal-Solo as a central figure in bringing the New Republic down. The man who
dared to grab the Chief of State's children and hold them hostage-that would
be a man to fear, a man to reckon with. Now he would be that man. But
holding them would do no good unless Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo knew
about it. The communications jamming would have to come down. That was easy
to accomplish. An encoded radionics command to the hidden control station on
Ccnterpoint would shut down the com jamming in short order. No doubt the
people who had built the hidden control center took a dim view of Thrackan
controlling it in their stead--but they should have thought of that before
sending in operatives who couki be bribed, operatives who would betray their
masters. But now, now, the last piece of the puzzle had dropped into place.
He had a planetary disrupter, and alone of all the rebel leaders in the
Corcllian system, he knew what a planetary repulsor could do. Being able to
smash a ship was trivial compared to the ability to hold the starbustcr plot
hostage. Thrackan knew it would take time-perhaps a long time-before his
technicians would be able to operate the repulsor, but even that did not
matter. For now he was in a position to bluff things out, to pretend he con-
trolled the repulsor. That ought to be more than enough to get what he
wanted. More than enough. Admiral Hortel Ossilege watched on the long-range
scanners as the Human League assault boat dove down the mouth of the
repulsor. The image was grainy and blurry; the scanners were working at
maximum range, which meant the assault boat was far beyond the maximum range
of the Intruder's weaponry. It was galling to be beaten to the punch.
Frustrating. Infuriating- But it would not do to show it. It would not do at
all. And one had to admire the nerve, the audacity, of the assau lt boat's
commander, quite literally diving his whole ship down the barrel of a weapon
that could have reduced his craft to dust and rubble in milliseconds. Even
if the Intruder had been capable of atmospheric operation or planetary
landing, he could not have risked it with a move like that. Not when the
Intruder represented such a huge fraction of the firepower on the Republic's
side of the equation. Ossilege envied his opponent's freedom to take
chances. But, speaking of taking chances, he faced a repulsor precisely like
the one that had smashed the Watch-keeper down to nothing at all. He had to
assume this repulsor would be just as powerful within a short period of
time-if it w
as not so already. After all, someone had turned it on. More
than likely, that someone knew how to aim it and fire it as well. And, it
occurred to him, more than likely that someone was an ally of the Human
League. If that was so, then the assault boat hadn't been taking chances,
but had flown in to take possession of a planetary repulsor that had been
located and activated by Human League agents. And yet. And yet. That was a
fast, hard assault landing, not a slower, safer arrival at a secured base.
Al- most as if the other side had been as surprised as Ossilege himself.
Almost as if they had been trying to do what he had been trying to do-take
advantage of an unexpected opportunity. Ossilege had the feeling the story
was not over. Something else was going to happen here, something more was
going to change. And change could usually be exploited. Besides, it was just
one small assault boat. There could not be more than twenty or thirty people
aboard it, at most. Surely the Intruder ought to be able to lake on a force
that small, no matter how powerful the weapon they controlled. Ossilege had
always been a great believer in the idea that weapons mattered far less than
the people who used them. The Intruder carried a small force of assault
troops, and she carried her own assault boats. Perhaps the Intruder would
not be able to attack the repulsor in a frontal assault, but there were
other forms of atlaek. Forms that took a bit more time, and a bit more
fines.se, but could work just as well, if one was audacious. Ossilege turned
to the ensign at his side. "My compliments to Captain Semmae. The Intruder
will move into an orbit synchronous with the planet's rotation, well out of
line-of-sight from the repulsor site. We will await developments here while
we commence preparations for a ground assault." The ensign saluted and
scurried away. Ossilege stared at the image of the planetary repulsor in the
scanner screen. He raised his hand and offered up a small, mocking salute to
the commander of the assault boat. "You have won the first round," he said
to the screen. "But let us not forget the main event is still to come."
CHAPTER TEN
Casting the Stone Luke stepped out into the huge airlock where the Lady Luck
and his X-wing were waiting, and breathed a sigh of relief. Jcnica had taken
them on a roundabout route, but they had gotten here faster than he had
thought possible. And with that clock counting down toward the death of Bovo
Yagen, there was no time at all to waste. He thought he knew what he had to
do next, but he had to be sure. He had to check. The others watched as Luke
found a packing crate that had been abandoned on the airlock deck and sat
down on it. He shut his eyes and concentrated, forcing himself to take it
slow, to be sure, to extend his senses as far as possible. "Leia is on
Selonia," he said at last as he opened his eyes. "No doubt about it. I can
feel her there. My guess is that Han is with her, and probably Mara Jade as
well. The three children are on Drall, and if what Kalenda told us is right
about how they all escaped from Corellia, that probably means Chewbacca and
the Falcon arc there with them. I can get a sense of a mind that's probably
Chewbacca, but I can't be sure. Not at this range. And I might add that all
of them seem worried. It's hard to explain, but-but I get the sense, the
feeling, that all of them-Leia and the kids, and the people with them-are
all prisoners of one sort or another." "Then we'd better get cracking and
bust them out," Lando said briskly. "You go to Leia," Lando said. "Take
Artoo and the X-wing. Figure out the coordinates for the kids' location on
Oral! and give them to me. I'll fly Gaericl and Jenica back to the Bakuran
fleet, where they can inform Admiral Ossilege of what we have learned.
Gaeriel should get back to her post on the ship, and Jenica is our expert on
Centerpoint. She ought to be of some help if things get rough. After I've
dropped them off, Lieutenant Kalenda and I will fly on to Drall and see what
we can do about getting to Chewbacca and the kids." Jenica looked toward
Lando. "You're not very optimistic, are you?" "We don't know how to find the
Drall repulsor," Lando replied. "I don't care how good an engineer Chewbacca
is, there isn't going to be any way for him to work on a repulsor he can't
get to. We have to rescue them, of course, but unless they're sitting right
on top of a repulsor, I don't see how finding Chewbacca is going to help us
get one." He turned back to Luke. "Leia is by far the better chance. She's
on a planet where they've got a working repulsor, and it's probably
controlled by the people holding her. All you have to do is let her know
what's going on, and then hope she can talk her captors into jamming
Centerpoint." Luke smiled faintly. "Yeah. Easy. Should be a piece of cake."
Jenica rubbed her chin. "It all nearly makes sense," she said thoughtfully.
"But I don't like the fact that we're leaving Centerpoint unguarded." "I
don't think the loss of the overwhelming force represented by two small
ships, two droids, and five people is going to matter that much," Lando
said. "What are we going to be able to do, anyway? Wait for someone to land
and then sneak up and kick them in the shins?" Jenica cocked her head a bit
to one side and nodded. "Point taken. I guess I don't know what more we can
do." Luke stood up and nodded. "In that case," he said, "I suggest we do
what we can, right now." "We have you, but we'll not keep you long," said
Kleyvits, speaker for the Overden. She sat at a table opposite Mara, Leia,
and Han. Dracmus sat at Kleyvits's side, demonstrating simply by her
presence that her clan had submitted to the victors. She did not look happy
to be there. "We need merely come to certain straightforward agreements, and
then all may be on their way." "We're not going to come to your agreements,"
Leia said wearily. The morning had lengthened into late afternoon, and they
were in the sumptuous interior of the prison villa. For prison it had proved
to be. The Overden had thrown a force field around the Jade's Fire, and
guards around the force field. Leia could see the ship on the landing pad,
just outside the door, but there would be no escape aboard her this time.
"Even if we did wish to reach agreement, we could not do so while you were
detaining us. Even if we did, it would be pointless. My government would
never ratify any agreement made under duress." "How can you be under duress
when you will be free to go as soon as we are agreeing?" "We are under
duress now," Leia said, her voice and manner calm, imperious. "And we will
not agree in any event. Therefore, the point is moot." "I ask you again to
be reconsidering," Kleyvits said. "All we ask is that you are acknowledging
reality. We are free. We are no longer of the New Republic. We
have thrown you off. We are our own place, our own planet. We ask merely
that you are recognizing this fact." "You are no freer now than you were
under the New Republic," Mara said, her voice cold. "There was no dictator
over you, no one telling you how to think and feel and act. You have thrown
off no tyran
ny. It is not freedom for Selonia you ask her to recognize. It
is the dominance of the Overden." "Hey, I'll tell you what," Han said.
"Let's give them what they want. Complete freedom. Complete freedom from
trade, from interstellar commerce, from imports. Complete freedom from
travel off-planet. Total embargo. How does that sound?" "It sounds quite
pleasant to us of the Overden, who wish to be free of anti-Selonian
influence. Is that not so, my dear friend? Speak for the Hunchuzuc. Do you
not agree that complete isolation would be the greatest of blessings?" "Oh
yes, eminent Kleyvits," Dracmus said in a mournful tone, clearly feeling
miserable and humiliated. "There could be no doubt that all the people of
Selonia long to be isolated from the outside universe." "What about all your
friends and relations on Corel-lia, where you lived all your life?" Han
asked. "They will rejoice with me in knowing we are free of all outside
influence," Dracmus said, staring down at the table. "I'm afraid you're no
good at lying. Honored Dracmus," Han said. "I've seen dead people who were
more convincing." Dracmus looked up worriedly, and risked a quick look over
at Kleyvits. "Please be in no doubt at all about my sincerity, Honored
Solo." "Don't worry on that score," said Han. "I have no doubts at all." "I
insist that we return to the main point," Kleyvits said, clearly a bit put
off by Dracrnus's performance. "Recognize the freedom of Selonia under the
guidance of the Overden or never leave this planet alive." "You've got
yourself a deal," Leia said. Kleyvits looked toward her eagerly. "Then we
have persuaded you?" "Absolutely," said Leia. "We pick the second choice,
the one about not leaving alive. Go ahead and kill us all right now."
Kleyvits sighed wearily, and extended her claws to drum them on the
tabletop, making a rather unsettling clicking noise. It was hard to miss
just how sharp those claws were. "I can see," said Kleyvits, "that we are
going to be here for a while." Thrackan Sal-Solo sat in the copilot's seat
and watched intently as the pilot brought the assault boat up to the rim of
the huge cylinder that was the planetary repui-sor. Slowly, slowly, slowly
up and over. The assault boat hung motionless in the air for a moment, then
spun slowly about, until its nose was pointed directly at the two bright