Star Wars - Thrawn Trilogy - Dark Force Rising 02 (41 page)

"Right here," Luke said, handing it to him. "I'll go get Mara." He glanced out the cockpit window-

Just as a wide door across the room slid open, to reveal a full squad of stormtroopers.

"Uh-oh," Karrde murmured as the eight white-armored Imperials marched purposefully toward the Falcon. "Do they know we're here?"

Luke stretched out his senses, trying to gauge the stormtroopers' mental state. "I don't think so," he murmured back. "They seem to be thinking more like guards than soldiers."

"Probably too noisy in here for them to hear the engines in start-up mode," Karrde said, ducking down in his seat out of their direct view. "Mara was right about the Grand Admiral; but we seem to be a step ahead of him."

A sudden thought struck hike, and he threw a look through the side of the canopy. Mara was crouching beside the computer console, temporarily hidden from the stormtroopers view.

But she wouldn't remain concealed for long : and knowing Mara, she wouldn't just sit and wait for the Imperials to notice her. If there were only some way he could warn her not to fire on them yet :

Perhaps there was. Mara, he sent silently, trying to picture her in his mind. Wait until I give the word before you attack.

There was no reply?; but he saw her throw a quick look at the Falcon in response and ease farther back into her limited cover. "I'm going back to the hatchway," he told Karrde. "I'll try to catch them in a cross fire with Mara. Stay out of sight up here."

"Right."

Keeping down, Luke hurried back down the short cockpit corridor. Barely in time; even as he came to the hatchway he could feel the vibration of battle-armored boots on the entry ramp. Four of them were coming in, he could sense, with the other four fanning out beneath the ship to watch the approaches. Another second and they would see him-a second after that and someone would notice Mara-Mara; now.

There was a flash of blaster fire from Mara's position, coming quickly enough on the tail of his command that Luke got the distinct impression Mara had planned to attack at that time whether she'd had his permission or not. Ignighting his lightsaber, Luke leaped around the corner onto the ramp, catching the stormtroopers just as they were starting to turn toward the threat behind them. His first sweep took off the barrel of the lead stormtrooper's blaster rifle; reaching out with the Force, he gave the man a hard shove, pushing him into his companions and sending the whole bunch of them tumbling helplessly down to the lift plate. Jumping off the ramp to the side, he deflected a shot from another stormtrooper and sliced the lightsaber blade across him; caught a half dozen more shots before Mara's blaster fire took the next one out. A quick look showed that she'd already dealt with the other two.

A surge in the Force spun him around, to find that the group he'd sent rolling to the bottom of the ramp had untangled themselves. With a shout he charged them, lightsaber swinging in large circles as he waited for Mara to take advantage of his distraction to fire on them. But she didn't; and with the blaster bolts beginning to flash in at him there weren't many alternatives left. The lightsaber slashed four times and it was over.

Breathing hard, he closed down the lightsaber : and with a shock discovered why Mara hadn't been firing there at the end. The lift carrying the Falcon was dropping steadily down toward the deck below, well past the point where the stormtroopers would be out of Mara's line of fire. "Mara!" he called, looking up.

"Yeah, what?" she shouted back, coming into view at the rim of the lift, already five meters above him. "What's Karrde doing?"

"I guess we're leaving," Luke said. "Jump-I'll catch you.

An expression of annoyance flickered across Mara's face; but the Falcon was receding fast and she obeyed without hesitation. Reaching out with the Force, Luke caught her in an invisible grip, slowing her descent and landing her on the Falcon's ramp. She hit the ramp running, and was inside in three steps.

She was seated beside Karrde in the cockpit by the time Luke got the hatchway sealed and made it up there himself. "Better strap in," she called over her shoulder.

Luke sat down behind her, suppressing the urge to order her out of the copilot's seat. He knew the Falcon far better than either she or Karrde did, but both of them probably had had more experience flying this general class of ship.

And from the looks of things, there was some tricky flying coming up. Through the cockpit canopy Luke could see that they were coming down, not into a hangar bay as he'd hoped, but into a wide vehicle corridor equipped with what looked like some kind of repulsorlift pads set across the deck. "What happened with the computer?" he asked Mara.

"I couldn't get in," Mara said. "Though it wouldn't have mattered if I had. That stormtrooper squad had plenty of time to call for help. Unless you thought to jam their comlinks," she added, looking at Karrde.

"Come now, Mara," Karrde chided. "Of course I jammed their comlinks. Unfortunately, since they probably had orders to report once they were in position, we still won't have more than a few minutes. If that much."

"Is that our way out?" Luke frowned, looking along the corridor. "I thought we'd be taking the lift straight down to the hangar bays."

"This lift doesn't seem to go all the way down," Karrde said. "Offset from the hangar bay shaft, apparently. That lighted hole in the corridor deck ahead is probably it."

"What then?" Luke asked.

"We'll see if this control can operate that lift," Karrde said, holding up the data pad he'd taken from the tech. "I doubt it, though. If only for security they'll probably have-"

"Look!" Mara snapped, pointing down the corridor. Far ahead down the corridor was another lift plate, moving down toward the lighted opening Karrde had pointed out a moment earlier. If that was indeed the exit to the hangar bays-and if the lift plate stopped there, blocking their way-

Karrde had apparently had the same thought. Abruptly, Luke was slammed hard into his seat as the Falcon leaped forward, clearing the edge of their lift plate and shooting down the corridor like a scalded tauntaun. For a moment it yawed wildly back and forth, swinging perilously near the corridor walls as the ship's repulsorlifts strobed with those built into the deck. Clenching his teeth, Luke watched as the lift plate ahead steadily closed the gap, the same bitter taste of near-helplessness in his mouth that he remembered from the Rancor pit beneath Jabba the Hutt's throne room. The Force was with him here, as it had been there, but at the moment he couldn't think of a way to harness that power. The Falcon shot toward the descending plate-he braced himself for the seemingly inevitable collision-

And abruptly, with a short screech of metal against metal, they were through the gap. The Falcon rolled over once as it dropped through to the huge room below, cleared the vertical lift plate guides-

And there, straight ahead as Karrde righted them again, was the wide hangar entry port. And beyond it, the black of deep space.

A half dozen blaster bolts sizzled at them as they shot across the hangar bay above the various ships parked there. But the shooting was reflexive, without any proper setup or aiming, and for the most part the shots went wild. A near miss flashed past the cockpit canopy; and then they were out, jolting through the atmosphere barrier and diving down out of the entry port toward the planet below.

And as they did so, Luke caught a glimpse across the entry port of TIE fighters from the forward hangar bays scrambling to intercept.

"Come on, Mara," he said, slipping off his restraints. "You know how to handle a quad laser battery?"

"No, I need her here," Karrde said. He had the Falcon skimming the underside of the Star Destroyer now, heading for the ship's portside edge. "You go ahead. And take the dorsal grin bay-I think I can arrange for them to concentrate their attack from that direction."

Luke had no idea how he was going to accomplish that, but there was no time to discuss it. Already the Falcon was starting to jolt with laser hits, and from experience he knew there was only so much the ship's deflector shields could handle. Leaving the cockpit, he hurried to the gun well ladder, leaping halfway up, then climbing the rest of the way. He strapped in, fired up the quads:and as he looked around he discovered what Karrde had had in mind. The Falcon had curved up past the portside edge of the Chimaera, swung aft along the upper surface, and was now driving hard for deep space on a vector directly above the exhaust from the Star Destroyer's massive sublight drive nozzles. Skimming rather too close to it, in Luke's opinion; but it was for sure that no TIE fighters would be coming at them from underneath for a while.

The intercom pinged in his ear. "Skywalker?" Karrde's voice came. "They're almost here. You ready?"

"I'm ready," Luke assured him. Fingers resting lightly on the firing controls, he focused his mind and let the Force flow into him.

The battle was furious but short, in some ways reminding Luke of the Falcon's escape from the Death Star so long ago. Back then, Leia had recognised that they'd gotten away too easily; and as the TIE fighters swarmed and fired and exploded around him, Luke wondered uneasily whether or not the Imperials might have something equally devious in mind this time, too.

And then the sky flared with starlines and went mottled, and they were free.

Luke took a deep breath as he cut power to the quads. "Good flying," he said into the intercom.

"Thank you," Karrde's dry voice came back. "We seem to be more or less clear, though we took some damage around the starboard power converter pack. Mara's gone to check it out."

"We can manage without it," Luke said. "Han's got the whole ship so cross-wired that it'll fly with half the systems out. Where are we headed?"

"Coruscant," Karrde said. "To drop you off and also to follow through on the promise I made to you earlier."

Luke had to search his memory. "You mean that bit about the New Republic standing to gain from your rescue?"

"That's the one," Karrde assured him. "As I recall Solo's sales pitch to me back on Myrkr, your people are in need of transport ships. Correct?"

"Badly in need of them," Luke agreed. "You have some stashed away?"

"Not exactly stashed away, but it won't be too hard to put my hands on them. What do you think the New Republic would say to approximately two hundred pre-Clone Wars vintage Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers?"

Luke felt his mouth fall open. Growing up on Tatooine had been a sheltered experience, but it hadn't been that sheltered. "You don't mean the Dark Force?"

"Come on down and we'll discuss it," Karrde said. "Oh, and I wouldn't mention it to Mara just yet."

"I'll be right there." Turning off the intercom, Luke hung the headset back on its hook and climbed onto the ladder - and for once, he didn't even notice the discontinuity as the gravity field changed direction partway down the ladder.

The Millennium Falcon shot away from the Chimaera, out maneuvering and outgunning its pursuing TIE fighters and driving hard for deep space. Pellaeon sat at his station, hands curled into fists, watching the drama in helpless silence. Helpless, because with the main computer still only partially operational, the Chimaera's sophisticated weapons and tractor beam systems were useless against a ship that small, that fast, and that distant. Silent, because the disaster was far beyond scope of any of his repertoire of curses.

The ship flickered and was gone : and Pellaeon prepared himself for the worst.

The worst didn't come. "Recall the TIE fighters to their stations, Captain," Thrawn said, his voice showing no sign of strain or anger. "Secure from intruder alert, and have Systems Control continue bringing the main computer back on line. Oh, and the supply unloading can be resumed."

"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, throwing a surreptitious frown at his superior. Had Thrawn somehow missed the significance of what had just happened out there?

The glowing red eyes glinted as Thrawn looked at him. "We've lost a round, Captain," he said. "No more."

"It seems to me, Admiral, that we've lost far more than that," Pellaeon growled. "There's no chance that Karrde won't give the Katana fleet to the Rebellion now."

"Ah; but he won't simply give it to them," Thrawn corrected, almost lazily. "Karrde's pattern has never been to give anything away for free. He'll attempt to bargain, or else will set conditions the Rebellion will find unsatisfactory. The negotiations will take time, particularly given the suspicious political atmosphere we've taken such pains to create on Coruscant. And a little time is all we need."

Pellaeon shook his head. "You're assuming that ship thief Ferrier will be able to find the Corellian group's ship supplier before Karrde and the Rebellion work out their differences."

"There's no assumption involved," Thrawn said softly. "Ferrier is even now on Solo's trail and has extrapolated his destination for us : and thanks to Intelligence's excellent work on Karrde's background, I know exactly who the man is we'll be meeting at the end of that trail."

He gazed out the viewport at the returning TIE fighters. "Instruct Navigation to prepare a course for the Pantolomin system, Captain," he said, his voice thoughtful. "Departure to be as soon as the supply shuttles have been unloaded."

"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said, nodding the order on to the navigator and doing a quick calculation in his head. Time for the Millennium Falcon to reach Coruscant; time for the Chimaera to reach Pantolomin :

"Yes," Thrawn said into his thoughts. "Now it's a race.

The sun had set over the brown hills of Honoghr, leaving a lingering hint of red and violet in the clouds above the horizon. Leia watched the fading color from just inside the dukha door, feeling the all-too-familiar sense of nervous dread that always came when she was about to go into danger and battle. A few more minutes and she, Chewbacca, and Threepio would be setting out for Nystao, to free Khabarakh and escape. Or to die trying.