The Unifying Force (4 page)

Thorsh waited for the wedge-shaped assault craft to pass before saying, “We’re better off splitting up. We’ll rendezvous at the rally point.”

“Last one there …,” his passenger started to say, only to let his words trail off.

The Bith pilot revved the swoop’s engine. “Let’s hope for a tie.”

“The game is effectively over,” C-3PO told Han Solo. “I suggest that you surrender the rest of your players now, rather than risk further humiliation.”

“Surrender?” Han jerked his thumb at the golden protocol droid. “Who’s he think he’s talking to?”

Leia Organa Solo raised her brown eyes from the game table to glance at her husband. “I have to admit, things do look pretty bad.”

C-3PO agreed. “I’m afraid you can’t win, Captain Solo.”

Han scratched his head absently, and continued to study the playing field. “That’s not the first time someone’s told me that.”

The three of them were seated at the circular dejarik table in the forward hold of
Millennium Falcon
. The table was in fact a hologram projector, with a checkered surface etched in concentric circles of green and gold. At the moment it was displaying six holomonster pieces, some legendary, some modeled after actual creatures, with names that sounded more like sneezes than words.

Squatting on the grated portion of the compartment deck sat Cakhmaim and Meewalh, Leia’s Noghri protectors. Agile bipeds with hairless gray skin and pronounced cranial ridges, they were unnervingly predatory in appearance, but their loyalty to Leia knew no bounds. In the long war against the Yuuzhan Vong, several Noghri had already given their lives to safeguard the woman they still sometimes referred to as “Lady Vader.”

“Don’t tell me that you are actually contemplating a move?” C-3PO said.

Han looked at him askance. “What do I look like I’m doing—stargazing?”

“But, Captain Solo—”

“Quit rushing me, I tell you.”

“Really, Threepio,” Leia intervened in false sincerity. “You have to give him time to think.”

“But Princess Leia, the game timer is nearing the end of its cycle.”

Leia shrugged. “You know how he is.”

“Yes, Princess, I know how he is.”

Han glared at the two of them. “What is this, some kind of tag-team match?”

C-3PO started. “Certainly not. I’m merely—”

“Remember,” Han said, thrusting his finger out, “it’s not over till the Hutt squeals.”

C-3PO looked to Leia for explanation. “The Hutt squeals?”

Han cupped his scarred chin in his hand and took in the board. Early on he had lost a broad-shouldered Kintan strider to C-3PO’s venomous, corrugated k’lor’slug; then a pincer-handed ng’ok to the droid’s lance-wielding Socorran monnok.

Han’s quadrant of the board still showed a hunchbacked, knuckle-dragging, green-hided Mantellian savrip, and a bulbous-bodied ghhhk. But his alloy opponent had not only a claw-handed, trumpet-snouted grimtassh and a four-legged, sharp-toothed houjix, but also two rainbow-skinned Alderaanian molators waiting in the wings. Unless Han could do something to prevent it, C-3PO was going to send the grimtassh to the board’s center space and win the game.

Then it hit him.

A sinister laugh escaped his closed lips and his eyes sparkled.

Leia regarded him for a moment. “Uh-oh, Threepio. I don’t like the sound of that laugh.”

Han shot her a look. “Since when?”

“I understand completely, Princess,” C-3PO said, on alert. “But, really, I don’t see that there’s anything he can do at this point.”

Han’s fingers activated a series of control buttons built into the rim of the table. With Leia and C-3PO gazing intently at the board, the hulking Mantellian savrip sidestepped
to the left, took hold of the ghhhk—Han’s other remaining piece—and held the suddenly screeching creature high overhead.

C-3PO might have blinked if he had eyes in place of photoreceptors. “But … but you’ve attacked your own piece.” He turned to Han. “Captain Solo, if this is some kind of trick to distract me, or some attempt to instill compassion—”

“Save your compassion for someone who needs it,” Han cut in. “Like it or not, that’s my move.”

C-3PO watched the squealing, seemingly betrayed ghhhk struggle in the savrip’s viselike grip. “Most infuriating creature,” he said. “Still, a victory is a victory.”

The droid lowered his hands to the control panel and commanded the grimtassh to advance to the center. But no sooner did the snouted creature take a step than Han’s savrip tightened his hold on the ghhhk, squeezing the hapless thing so hard that holodrops of the ghhhk’s much-prized skin oil began to drip onto the playing field, creating a virtual puddle. Tasked, C-3PO’s grimtassh continued to move forward, only to slip on the ghhhk’s skin oil and fall hard onto its back, cracking its triangular-shaped head on the checkered board and deresolving.

“Ha!” Han said, clapping his hands once, then rubbing them together in anticipation. “Now who’s losing?”

“Oh, Threepio,” Leia said sympathetically, hiding a smile behind her hand.

C-3PO’s photoreceptors were riveted to the board, but disbelief was evident in his response. “What? What? Is that permitted?” He looked up from the table. “Princess Leia, that move can’t possibly be legal!”

Han leaned forward, his eyebrows beetled. “Show me where the rules say different.”

C-3PO stammered. “Bending the rules is one thing, but this … this is a flagrant violation not only of the rules, but also of proper game etiquette! At the very least, you have performed a suspect move, and very likely a rogue one!”

“Good choice of words, Threepio,” Leia said.

Han leaned away from the table, interlocking his hands behind his head and whistling a taunting melody.

“I suggest we allow Princess Leia to be the final judge,” C-3PO said.

Han made a sour face. “Ah, you’re just a sore loser.”

“A sore loser? Why, I never—”

“Admit it and I’ll go easy on you for the rest of the game.”

C-3PO summoned as much indignation as his protocol programming allowed. “You have my assurance that I’ve no need to emerge victorious from each engagement. Whereas you, on the other hand—”

Han laughed sharply, startling the droid to silence. “Threepio, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times: you always have to be ready for surprises.”

“Pompous man,” C-3PO said. When Cakhmaim and Meewalh added their gravelly comments and guttural laughs to the merriment, he threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat. “Oh, what’s the use!”

Abruptly, a warning tone sounded from the engineering station across the hold. The Noghri shot to their feet, but Leia propelled herself from the dejarik table’s arc of padded bench and beat both of them to the communications display.

Han watched expectantly from the game board.

“A surprise?” he asked when Leia turned from the displays.

She shook her head. “The signal we’ve been waiting for.”

Han rushed from the table and followed Leia into the starboard ring corridor, where he nearly tripped over a pair of knee-high boots he had left on the step. Early in his career as a smuggler, the
Falcon
had been the only home he knew, and now—this past year especially—it had become the only home Han and Leia knew. Whether in their living quarters or in the forward hold, personal items were strewn about, waiting to be picked up and put away. The mess was just that, in desperate need of cleaning—maybe even fumigating. And indeed the dented and bruised exterior of the old freighter, with its mishmash of primers and fuse-welded borrowed parts, was beginning to resemble that of a house, well loved and lived in but too long neglected.

Han slid to a halt just short of the connector that accessed the cockpit, and swung to the Noghri.

“Cakhmaim, get to the dorsal gun turret. And this time remember to lead your targets—even though I know it goes against your grain. Meewalh, I’m going to need you here to help our packages get safely aboard.”

In the outrigger cockpit, with its claustrophobic surround of blinking instruments, Leia was already cinched into the copilot’s chair, both hands busy activating the
Falcon
’s startup systems and console displays. Han slid into the pilot’s seat, strapping in with one hand and throwing overhead toggles with the other.

“Can we locate them yet?”

“They’re on the move,” Leia said. “But I’ve got a fix on them.”

Han leaned over to study one of the display screens. “Lock their coordinates into the tracking computer, and let’s get the topographic sensors on-line.”

Leia swiveled to the comm board, her hands moving rapidly over the controls. “Take her up,” she said a moment later.

Awakened from what amounted to a nap, the YT-1300’s engines powered up. Han clamped his hands on the control yoke and lifted the ship out of its hiding place, an impact crater on the dark side of Selvaris’s puny moon. He fed power to the sublight drives and steered a course around the misshapen orb. Green, blue, and white Selvaris filled the wraparound viewport.

Han watched Leia out of the corner of his eye. “Hope you remembered to look both ways.”

Leia shut her eyes briefly. “We’re safe.”

Han smiled to himself. The Yuuzhan Vong couldn’t be sensed through the Force, but Leia had never had any problem sensing trouble.

“I just don’t want to be accused of making any more illegal moves.”

She looked at him. “Only daring ones.”

Han continued to watch her secretly. Through all the rough-and-tumble years, her face had not lost its noble beauty. Her skin was as flawless now as it had been when Han had first set eyes on her, in a detention cell, of all places. Her long hair retained its sheen; her eyes, their deep, inviting warmth.

Han and Leia had experienced some troubled months following Chewbacca’s death. But she had waited him out; and wherever they traveled now, no matter how much danger they put themselves in—mostly at Han’s instigation—they were completely at home with each other. To Han, each and every action felt right. He had no yearning to be anywhere but where he was—with his beloved partner.

It was a sappy thought, he told himself. But undeniably true.

As if reading his thoughts, Leia turned slightly in his direction, lifting her chin a bit to show him a dubious look. “You’re in a good mood for someone setting out on a dangerous rescue mission.”

Han made light of the moment. “Beating Threepio at dejarik has made a new man of me.”

Leia tilted her head. “Not too new, I hope.” She placed one hand atop his, on the yoke, and with the other traced the raised scar on his chin. “It’s taken me thirty years to get used to the old you.”

“Me, too,” he said, without humor.

Exhaust ports ablaze, the
Falcon
rolled through a sweeping turn and raced for Selvaris’s binary brightened transitor.

Bent low over the swoopbike’s high handgrips, Thorsh threaded the rocketing vessel through concentrations of saplings and opportunistic Yuuzhan Vong plants, under looping vines, and over the thick trunks of toppled trees. He hugged the fern-covered ground when and where he could, as much for safety’s sake as to spare his spindly passenger any further torture from thorned vines, sharp twigs, and the easily disturbed hives of barbflies and other bloodsuckers.

But Thorsh’s best efforts weren’t enough.

“When do we get to switch places?” the Bith asked over the howl of the repulsorlift.

Thorsh knew that the question had been asked in jest, and so replied in kind. “Hands at your sides and no standing on the seat!”

Taking into account only the difference in heights, the Bith should have been the one in the saddle, with Thorsh scrunched down behind him, fingers clasped on the underside of the long seat. But Thorsh was the more experienced pilot, having flown swoops on several reconnaissance missions where speeders hadn’t been available. His large wedge-shaped feet weren’t well suited to the footpegs, and he had to extend his arms fully to grasp the handgrip controls, but his keen eyes more than made up for those shortcomings, even when streaming with tears, as they were now.

Thorsh kept to the thick of the large island, where the branches of the tallest trees intertwined overhead and provided cover. The swoop was still running smoothly, except when he leaned it hard to the right, which for some reason caused the repulsorlift to sputter and strain. He could hear the other swoop—to the east and somewhat behind him—weaving
a path through equally dense growth. The four escapees would have made better progress out over the estuary, but without the tree cover they would be easy prey for coral-skippers. One skip had already completed two return passes, paying out plasma missiles at random, and hoping for a lucky strike.

The morning air was thick with the smell of burning foliage.

Flat out, the swoop tore from the underbrush into a treeless expanse of salt flats, pink and blinding white, the nighttime sleeping grounds for flocks of Selvaris’s long-legged wading birds. Determined to reach cover before the coral-skipper showed up again, Thorsh gave the accelerator a hard twist and banked the swoop for the nearest stand of trees.

Thorsh had just reentered the jungle when a clamor began to build in the canopy. His first thought was that another coralskipper had joined the pursuit. But there was a different quality to the sound—an eagerness absent in the deadly sibilance of a coralskipper.

Thorsh felt his rider sit up straighter on the seat, in defiance of the hazards posed by overhanging branches.

“Is that what I think it is?” the humanoid asked.

“We’ll know soon enough,” Thorsh yelled back.

Again he twisted the accelerator. Wind screamed over the swoop’s inadequate fairing, forcing another flood of tears from his eyes. But his actions were in vain. The objects responsible for the escalating tumult passed directly overhead, silencing the racket of the swoop, then outracing it.

“Lav peq!” the Bith screamed.

Thorsh knew the term; it was the Yuuzhan Vong name for netting beetles, voracious and meticulous versions of the winged sentinels that had roused the prison guards. Lav peq were capable of creating webs between trees, bushes, or just about any type of barked foliage. Typically the beetles arrived in successive fronts, the first fashioning anchor lines, and those that followed feeding on bark and other organics to replenish the fibers needed to complete the filigree. A well-constructed web could ensnare or at least slow down a human-sized being. The strands themselves were tenaciously sticky, though not as adhesive as the enemy’s blorash jelly.