Star by Star (84 page)

“That’s what we do,” Ganner said. “Best thing for Jacen.”

“Jaina?” Zekk asked. “Your brother.”

Just do it
, Jaina thought.
Don’t make me say it
.

“All right.” Zekk turned the ship away. “I think I understand.”

“This one thinkz you do,” Tesar said. “We all do.”

Not possible. Mask filling with tears, Jaina craned her head around, and the worldship came into view, no larger than a fist. She closed her eyes, concentrated on that place in her chest that had always belonged to Jacen. She felt him there, just a flicker for just an instant, and then she lost him, then she could feel nothing except her own anger and hatred and despair.

“We’ll be back, Jacen,” she said, finding the strength to speak. “You hold on. We’ll come for you.”

Generally speaking, it was not good to skim a planetary surface with a ship’s artificial gravity fully activated. The conflicting perceptions of up and down played havoc with most species’ sense of balance, and Leia could feel the effects in her own queasy stomach and spinning head. She could also hear over the intercom, and smell in the circulation system, the effect it was having on the passengers.

There was nothing to be done about it. With the holds packed full of unrestrained passengers and the
Falcon
dodging and swinging through Coruscant’s hoverlanes and a skip squadron nosing their tail, they needed some way to hold everyone on the
floor. If that meant Leia had to sanisteam the entire ship later, she would consider it a privilege to be alive to do it.

Han rolled the
Falcon
upside down and bobbed over a bridge, then found two skips coming head-on and had to dive for the dark underlevels. Both laser turrets chuffed as Meewalh and a gunner from the palace poured fire over the stern. One of them hit, and a deafening rumble shook the towers. Their success had no effect on the number of magma balls streaking down all around.

Leia pulled herself back to the center of the oversized copilot’s chair, checked the map on her vid display, and cursed. “Missed our turn.”

“I knew that.”

“Of course, dear.”

Han leveled the
Falcon
out and headed back. The upper quad cannons chuffed constantly as Meewalh ripped into the bellies of half a dozen surprised skips, then Han stood the
Falcon
on its side and banked into the narrow side lane, and Leia had to grab the arm of her chair to hold herself up where she could see the map display.

“Left in three, two—”

“Got it.”

Han flipped the
Falcon
over on its other side, then they were shooting through the dank catacombs beneath the Great Western Sea. Meewalh and the palace gunner took out another pair of skips. Han splashed the
Falcon
through a swirling waterfall, made three quick turns, and the skips were gone.

“Not bad for an old man.” Leia centered herself in her chair. “Maybe Corran can teach you to fly an X-wing when we get out of this.”

“If Eclipse has any left,” Han said.

They picked their way through the dark maze of mildewed buildings and mossy pillars that supported the lake bed, then poked the
Falcon
’s nose out from under the ferrocrete beach and hovered on their repulsor engines. Directly ahead lay the smoking ruins of a planetary turbolaser battery. The weapons themselves were melted to slag. The massive support structure looked more like a meteor crater than a building.

“This the one?” Han’s voice was full of disbelief.

Leia checked the display. “This is it.”

Han cursed.

Leia could tell what he was thinking, that he was afraid they were too late, but knowing she had other resources, he waited and said nothing. He was the same Han, certainly, but somehow attuned to her in a way the old Han could never have been. She was beginning to like this—really like it.

Leia closed her eyes and reached for her brother, trying to let her sense of his presence lead her to him, as it had that time on Bespin when Darth Vader took his hand. After a moment, she raised her arm and, without looking, pointed in the direction she felt him.

“There,” she said.

“You mean right over there?” Han asked. “Where that drop ship is coming down?”

Leia opened her eyes and saw the small mountain of a Yuuzhan Vong drop ship descending toward the towertop she was pointing at. “Yes,” she said. “That would be about right.”

Pirouetting on her good foot, Mara raised her bacta cast and hook-kicked a Yuuzhan Vong in the temple. He dropped, and she continued her spin and slashed her lightsaber across the one behind him, then ducked an amphistaff striking from the right and saw Luke leave himself open to run her attacker through. She brought her blaster under her arm and fired twice, once to either side of Luke’s head, and burned holes between the eyes of two Yuuzhan Vong rushing to attack him.

Luke smiled and swept the feet from beneath a fresh warrior as he skipped in to attack. For each warrior they killed, a dozen more rushed forward to die. They launched themselves into side-by-side backflips and came down in the middle of the turbolaser crew’s firing line and began to bat swarm and lay bolt. The Yuuzhan Vong charge faltered, then dribbled to an end as the crew members opened up with their blaster rifles.

A junior officer—one of two remaining to the battery—stepped to their side. “We’re out of here—going under.”

“No!” Mara told him. “The
Falcon
can’t find us
inside
a building.”

“Won’t much matter.” The officer pointed into the sky, where a thousand-meter drop ship was moving into position over the building. “Like the lady said, ‘Fight until you can fight no longer.’ Your friends aren’t coming. We’ll do more damage below.”

The drop ship started to rain firejellies, melting hand-sized holes into the durasteel roof. One landed too close and drew an alarmed whistle from R2-D2, and Mara and Luke began to use the Force to redirect those coming in their direction.

“What do you think?” Mara asked Luke. She knew he still felt Leia searching for them. “Maybe we’re just drawing them into a world of hurt.”

The drop ship’s belly hatches opened and began to dangle lines, reptoid slave-soldiers already sliding down. A dozen ropes landed on their building alone.

Luke raised his blaster and opened fire. “We have to stay. Han and Leia won’t leave until they know one way or another.”

Mara nodded. “Fine. Ben is safe. I’ll trust the Force for the rest.”

“Hey, where’s everybody going?” Han demanded of nobody in particular—least of all Leia. “Wouldn’t you think they could stay in one place for five minutes?”

The tower was one of those mirrsteel jobs with a stepped roof, and of course the lightsabers and blaster flashes had been on the wrong side when Leia finally spotted Luke and Mara and the battery crew. It had taken five minutes of wild flying to circle the area and approach from Luke’s side of the roof, and now the New Republic crew members were running for the stairwell.

“Tighten your crash webbing,” Han said. “And arm the concussion missiles.”

“The concussion missiles?” Leia gasped. “Han—”

Han took his eye off the rooftops and glanced over. “Yeah?”

Leia swallowed, then reached for the arming switches. “How many?”

Han smiled crookedly. “How many do you think?”

“All of them.” Leia started flipping toggles.

Han brought them in fast and low, streaking under the drop ship barely three meters above roof level. Too slow to react, the
big vessel released a volley of firejellies that did more harm to the reptoids on its drop lines than to the well-shielded
Falcon
. Han slammed the decelerators and—hoping he wouldn’t ion-scorch Luke or Mara—brought the ship up on its tail.

“Launch!”

Leia hit the launcher. The first pair of missiles flashed away and slammed into the drop ship’s belly before the shielding crews could react. The shock wave banged the
Falcon
down on its tail, and she launched the second and third volleys. By the time she hit the fourth wave, the massive vessel was belching fire from its drop hatches and raining shards of yorik coral from its hull.

The New Republic troops reversed course, racing for the
Falcon
. Han could not see Luke and Mara, but felt sure they were already running up behind.

“Get the boarding ramp.” Han set the
Falcon
down on its struts. “And make it—”

Leia was already rushing down the outrigger access tunnel. Meewalh and the palace gunner opened up on the reptoids with the quad cannons. Han lowered the retractable repeating blaster for good measure. He kept expecting the drop ship to lay down a suppression barrage, but soon realized the real danger was being crushed beneath the flaming boulders that kept crashing down around the
Falcon
. Maybe there was such a thing as overkill.

Han withdrew the retractable blaster. As soon as the status light indicated the ramp was rising, he lifted off and streaked out from under the drop ship, diving into the hoverlanes and shooting under the Great Western Sea, navigating more by sensor and display map than by what he could see. They were about halfway across when Luke entered the cockpit with Mara, Leia, and R2-D2.

“Thanks for the lift.” Luke clasped Han’s shoulder and slipped into the copilot’s seat. “We were beginning to think you wouldn’t make it.”

“The hoverlanes were murder.” Han glanced at the map on Leia’s display and started to ask Luke to find a good place to break for orbit—then thought better of it and hitched his thumb toward the back of the cockpit. “Sorry, kid, that seat belongs to Leia.”

Luke’s face fell. “I’m sorry.” He stood and fished a piece of flimsiplast from his pocket. “I just needed to give this to you.”

An uneasy silence fell over the cockpit. Luke started to hand the flimsiplast to Han, then caught himself and turned to Leia instead.

Han rolled his eyes. “Look, I didn’t mean anything. I just need my copilot in her own seat and you on the belly gun. That’s all.”

The relief in the cockpit was thick enough to taste, and Han was content to leave it that way. The last thing he wanted was someone apologizing for Anakin’s death. That would have cheapened it, implied that Anakin had died for nothing.

“Will you guys get to it?” Han demanded. “Mara, maybe you can see about reloading the missile launchers. We’ve got a lot of people on this tub who’d like to get out of here.”

“Sure.”

Mara and Luke stepped aside so Leia could slip into her chair, then Luke handed her the flimsiplast and explained where it had come from. By the time he finished, the
Falcon
was streaking out from beneath the far side of the Western Sea. Han took it down deep in the hoverlanes and began to bob and weave through broken-down bridges. Leaving R2-D2 to plug into the droid socket, Luke and Mara retreated to their combat posts.

Leia looked over. “My seat, huh?”

“You’ve been doing all right.” Han eyed the huge copilot’s chair—Chewbacca’s old chair—then added, “If we get out of here alive, we’ll make it official and get you a seat that fits.”

Leia raised her brow. “Now that
would
be something.” She studied the flimsiplast, checked the chronometer, then punched in a set of coordinates. “Take us up, flyboy.”

Han laid on the power and pulled the yoke, and the
Falcon
streaked out of the tower canyons into the opalescent sky.

They were past the drop ships and assault ships before the Yuuzhan Vong had time to react, but as they left the upper atmosphere, a cruiser analog tagged as the
Kratak
dropped skips and moved to cut them off. Luke and Meewalh sounded off with the quad cannons. R2-D2 chirped and whistled, searching the comm channels for a friendly voice.

Han activated the intercom. “Mara, how are those—”

“Three loaded.”

“That’ll do.” Han tried to sound confident. “Stand—”

R2-D2 trilled wildly, then Danni Quee’s familiar voice broke in. “
Falcon
, break to ten degrees. Continue with all due speed—and
don’t
fire those concussion missiles.”

Han obeyed instinctively—then looked at his tactical display. Nothing but skips ahead.

“Uh, ten degrees doesn’t look good.”

“It will.” This from Lando.

Mara was instantly on the channel. “Calrissian? What are you
doing
? I don’t want—”

“Your package is safe with Tendra,” Lando replied. “Aboard the
Venture.
”

Han looked over. Leia could only shrug and wave the flimsiplast Luke had given her.

“Trust me,” Danni said.

R2-D2 tweedled, then the Jedi wing appeared on the tactical display streaking in the skips’ flank.

“Copy.” Han continued toward the converging coralskippers. “What have we got to lose?”

The enemy closed another few seconds and began to fire. Luke and Meewalh answered, and the
Kratak
rushed to join the battle. The first plasma balls blossomed against the forward shields.

Then the Jedi wing reached range and opened fire, and half the skips vanished.

The cruiser suddenly had other concerns and veered away from the battle, and the skips fell into chaos. Four wheeled around to meet this new challenge, all moving in different directions with no hope of concentrating their fire. Another pair collided. The six skips in the lead continued forward, oblivious to the danger behind. The Jedi wing loosed another volley, then nothing lay between the
Falcon
and freedom.

“Think you can put the bird through there, you old pirate?” Lando commed. “Even you ought to be able to handle that.”

Han was speechless. A disciplined skip squadron did not dissolve into a mess that would have embarrassed a swoop gang—yet that was what he had seen. He piloted the
Falcon
past the few remaining skips. The
Venture
appeared on the tactical display, and he veered toward it.

Finally, he asked, “Did that really happen back there?”

“I think so,” Luke said over the intercom. “A yammosk has just been jammed.” He switched to the general comm channel, then added, “Danni, Cilghal, congratulations. Your success came too late for Coruscant, but it gives me hope for the future.”