Star by Star (19 page)

Han did not look at her. “It’s late.”

“But we’ve already been paid for the job.” Leia was playing the role, but she was also truly irritated at being dismissed. “And you know how he is about runners who don’t keep their contracts. I’d hate to see you frozen in carbonite or something.”

Han winced, then took another long drink of his eyeblaster. “There’s a clause,” he said. “If the load’s more than a day late, we pick it up later. Let’s hear him out.”

“Can’t say much until you’re in,” Plaan said.

“We don’t need much,” Han said. “As long as it’s not that refugee scam. The last thing I want is a New Republic fleet breathing down my neck.”

Plaan shook his head. “No more of that. This time they get where they’re going, a sweet deal for them and us. You won’t believe it.”

Leia slumped back and folded her arms across her ribs, doing her best imitation of an angry moll. It wasn’t hard.

“How long would it take?” Han asked.

“We have to hop out and pick up the rest of our cargo,” Plaan said. “Then it’s a two-day run, no more.”

Han looked across the table. “What do you think, Red?”

Realizing he was still probing for information, Leia said, “What about the
Longshot
, Miek? Are we hitchhiking back?”

“We’ll drop you,” Plaan said. “We’ll be coming back by.”

“How much?” Han asked.

“Five thousand,” Plaan answered.

“Each?” Leia asked.

Plaan frowned. “For both—and that covers the docking fees for leaving the
Longshot
here.”

Han looked to Leia. “Well?”

Leia rolled her eyes and reached for her eyeblaster.

“We’ll think about it,” Han said.

Plaan started to make a higher offer, then looked at Leia and changed his mind. “Don’t think too long. We’re pulling out in an hour.”

He took his drink and left, weaving his way through the crowd
toward another pair of likely looking prospects. Leia watched as he sat down and began his pitch, then she glanced up with everyone else when the electronic attention bell chimed. This time, the name
Light Racer
appeared above the Bith’s heads.

“So, where’s he going?” she asked.

“With that schedule, three possibilities,” Han replied. “Kuat, Borleias, or Coruscant.”

“Coruscant,” Leia surmised. “Kuat and Borleias are turning away refugees. If he expects to get where he’s going, it’s Coruscant.”

Plaan found his two crew members and stood, waving to Han and Leia as he shouldered his way toward the exit with a pair of flop-eared Ossan. Han raised his glass to the big Weequay and took a long drink, then waited until they were gone and thumbed the service pad on the table.

“Where are you going?” Leia put the emphasis on you.

“To gargle—I can’t stand eyeblasters,” Han replied. “And then
we’re
going to Coruscant.”

Leia remained seated. “I can’t. You know how worried my brother is about his students.”

The young students of Luke’s Jedi academy were currently aboard the
Errant Venture
with Booster Terrik, jumping around the galaxy at random to prevent the Yuuzhan Vong from tracking them down. Unfortunately, in the two days since Alema Rar had awakened on Eclipse and described the attack on her sister, two more Jedi had fallen to voxyn—one on the supposedly secure world of Kuat. Concerned the
Venture
might stumble across one of the Jedi-killers during a supply stop, Luke had asked Han and Leia to pass Booster the coordinates of the new Jedi base at Eclipse and suggest that he resupply only from there. Booster being Booster, he was now three days overdue for his regularly scheduled rendezvous, and even Leia had to admit it seemed unlikely he meant to keep it.

“Let’s wait one more day,” she suggested. “The
Longshot
is fast. If Booster doesn’t show, we can still reach Coruscant ahead of Plaan.”

“Well, I’m not leaving here without you,” Han sighed. “But Rogue Squadron is rotating through Coruscant right now, and
Wedge owes me a favor. At least let me talk to him and make sure the
Sweet Surprise
receives a warm welcome.”

“Wedge Antilles owes you a favor?”

“Everybody owes me a favor,” Han said.

Booster failed to show, of course, and Wedge—General Antilles—was reluctant to order the boarding of a properly registered starship without “evidence of suspicion,” in this case the presence of the complaining witness. Knowing this to be no more than an essential concession to the anti-Jedi sentiments on the Advisory Council, Leia reluctantly kept her promise to Han and informed Luke it was impossible to wait for the
Errant Venture
any longer. They left Nova Station and jumped into hyperspace at the Perlemian Trade Route. Han guessed they would be fast enough to beat the
Sweet Surprise
to Coruscant.

Han’s calculations were a little off. They emerged from hyperspace to the news that Rogue Squadron was already on its way to intercept the
Surprise
. Wedge asked Han to meet him at Orbital Control to file a report, and Han surprised no one by promising to be there
after
he saw what happened with the
Surprise
.

Coruscant’s usual aura of flickering starship light was now squeezed into a stack of luminous halos. To guard against the possibility of a Yuuzhan Vong surprise attack, the military had surrounded the planet with a shell of orbiting space mines, leaving open only a few dozen narrow travel bands—and slowing the normal traffic-storm to a crawl.

Han took the
Falcon
over the top of a travel band and came down within a few hundred meters of the
Sweet Surprise
’s blocky stern, drawing an ear-popping comm squeal from the thousand-meter cargo hauler he had cut off. He reached for the comm unit to return the affront and Leia practically had to throw herself out of the Wookiee-sized copilot’s seat to stop him.

“Easy, flyboy. This is no place to start a screech fight.”

When Han removed his hand, she opened a private frequency to the freighter. “Sorry to cut in, Freight. There’s about to be a military delay ahead. Suggest you veer port.”

“Delay?” an icy Duros voice responded. “What do you call
this
?”

The huge freighter began to slide across the traffic band,
prompting such a squall of random comm squeals that Leia had to turn down the volume.

“Who needs the military?” Han asked. “Let the Yuuzhan Vong into this traffic-storm and see how long they last.”

The storm grew worse as four tiny X-wings streaked into view, then pivoted on their noses and fell in behind the
Sweet Surprise
. Leia scanned comm channels until she heard Gavin Darklighter’s familiar voice.

“… and stand for inspection,
Sweet Surprise.
”

“What for?” Plaan’s voice replied. “We aren’t violating any trade laws. We haven’t even entered customs control.”

“Be advised this is a New Republic military inspection.” In a more reassuring voice, Gavin added, “No need to worry. It’s just random.”

“Random?” Plaan sounded doubtful. “I’ll talk to my captain.”

“Remind him we’re not interested in customs regulations,” Gavin said. “But we are armed.”

The discussion between Plaan and his captain must have been a lively one, because the
Sweet Surprise
continued forward until the traffic band narrowed to a mere three hundred meters. The space mines became a tangible presence, more because of the vast swaths of darkness they occupied than because of the tiny shapes Leia occasionally saw silhouetted against Coruscant’s scintillating surface. Gavin again warned the ship that his X-wings were armed and authorized to fire, and Plaan replied that the
Surprise
was carrying a thousand innocent refugees.

“They’re not going to stop,” Leia said.

Monitoring the exchange from its network of orbital weapon platforms, the Planetary Defense Force was slowly coming to the same conclusion. Over the
Falcon
’s military comm unit, Leia listened to a series of increasingly senior officers query first Gavin Darklighter, then Wedge Antilles about what was happening. Finally, the groggy voice of General Rieekan, who had been called out of retirement to command the PDF, demanded an explanation from Han.

Han told him who Plaan was, the Weequay’s refugee-selling history, and what had transpired aboard Nova Station.

“So, basically, you’re telling me you’ve got a bad feeling about these guys?”

Han winced. “That’s about it, General.”

There was a crackle as the general switched comm channels, then his voice came over the unsecured channel being used between Rogue Squadron and the
Surprise
. “Colonel Darklighter, you know who this is?”

“General Rieekan, yes, sir.”

“Good. As commander of Coruscant’s Planetary Defense Force, I am ordering you not to allow the
Sweet Surprise
inside the mine shell. Do you understand?”

Leia looked at Han. No more than three kilometers ahead of the
Falcon
, traffic was already passing under the minefield. By the time Gavin responded, both Rogue Squadron and the
Surprise
would be between the mines.

“Uh, sir, we’re already entering the safe lane.”

“You have your orders, Colonel Darklighter. Rieekan out.”

That was all it took. Save for the
Falcon
and the X-wings, every ship within ten kilometers of the
Sweet Surprise
began to veer away.

“What about it,
Sweet Surprise
?” Gavin asked. “Come to a halt and prepare for boarding.”

The proper response would have been to fire a burst of braking rockets from the bow thrusters. Instead, the
Surprise
nosed sharply up.

“We don’t want any trouble,” Plaan said.

“Negative,
Surprise.
” The voice belonged to Colonel Tycho Celchu, Gavin Darklighter’s immediate superior and a veteran Rogue Squadron pilot himself. “You can’t pull a flipover here. You’re too long for the safe lane.”

“You let us worry about that,” Plaan’s reply came. As he spoke, all three hundred meters of the
Sweet Surprise
shot straight up in front of the
Falcon
, then began to arc back overhead.

“Colonel?” Gavin called. “Orders?”

“Shields!” Tycho’s reply came.

“Good idea,” Han muttered, reaching for the controls.

Leia’s hand was already bringing the glide switches up. “Full power?”

“You Jedi—always reading minds.”

Leia locked the glides at maximum, then opened an intercom
channel to the main hold and crew quarters. “Strap in, back there. We’re about to have some fun.”

The Noghri, of course, said nothing. A pair of mine rockets flared to life. The
Sweet Surprise
’s belly laser flashed in response, and both mines erupted before they had traveled a hundred meters.

“Wormheads!” Han nosed the
Falcon
down.

On the military channel, Gavin called frantically, “Mine control, deactivate—”

The ten closest mines fired their rockets and streaked toward the
Sweet Surprise
in a funnel-shaped web of orange. The freighter’s belly laser lashed out again, destroying three more mines. Another ten ignited.

“You’d think they’d learn,” Leia said, struggling to cinch her crash webbing. It was still Wookiee-sized, and she almost said something about replacing it, then realized how that would sound to Han and grabbed hold in a cross-chest grip. “We should have filed the report first.”

The first wave of mines blossomed into white fire against the
Sweet Surprise
’s shields. So did most of the second. But three devices passed through the shields, their vibropoint heads penetrating the ship’s durasteel walls. One erupted on the bridge, shattering the transparisteel viewing panels, spraying X-wing-sized shards down through the safe lane. A second warhead vaporized the ion drives and sent the crippled freighter tumbling down behind the
Falcon
. Leia did not see where the third detonated. She was distracted by several orange halos expanding above their own cockpit.

“Han—”

“I know,” he said. With the
Sweet Surprise
falling away, the
Falcon
had become the largest target mass. “Just hold on. I think …”

The halos went dark, and a half-dozen black silhouettes bounced harmlessly off the
Falcon
’s shields.

Han finished, “… they’ll deactivate.”

He rolled the
Falcon
down after the
Surprise
. Leia sank into her oversized chair, then grunted as she snapped back up into her loose shoulder restraints.

Han glanced over. “This could get tricky. Dial up the inertial compensator. Tighten your crash webbing.”

“It’s as tight as it goes,” Leia said. “I’ll just hold on.”

If Han heard, he was too busy to answer. They were diving through the next band of traffic.

Rogue’s X-wings were spiraling after the tumbling
Sweet Surprise
.

Startled starships were looping in all directions, their deflector shields rubbing, forks of blue lightning dancing between their hulls. Han swerved away from a space yacht, bounced the
Falcon
off a particle shield, slipped between two Gallofree transports, then shot out the bottom of the traffic band.

Pilots below began to respond to Rogue Squadron’s emergency warnings, and a series of gaps opened ahead of the
Sweet Surprise
. Leia reached out with the Force to see how many survivors there were. She felt a wave of fear that convinced her Plaan had not been lying about his hostages—and also a feral stirring, a strange sense of hungry agitation unlike anything she had ever experienced.

“Han …”

“In a minute.”

Below, a trio of X-wings were struggling to align themselves with the
Sweet Surprise
’s center of gravity. Leia glimpsed the freighter’s belly and saw where the third mine had struck. A plume of cargo and vapor streamed from the hole. The three X-wings finally arranged themselves and advanced at berthing speed, their laser cannons blasting a docking breach in the ship’s hull.