FicWad

*Title: Love Ignites the Galaxy, Star by Star (*working title only, though it may become the permanent title by default).

Chapter Five: The Battle for Coruscant

Rating: Uhm, probably a borderline R (?), for the overall work, though I suppose that's debatable . . . PG-13ish, maybe, for this part (?)

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the lovely characters from the Star Wars ’verse, more’s the pity! What I do have is an extremely contrary muse that refuses to shut up and leave me alone . . .

Summary: The future is never a fixed thing. Though certain actions taken at particular possible points of divergence can, seemingly, preclude the possibility of specific future pathways ever coming into existence, other unexpected choices can have extremely powerful repercussions with far-reaching effects upon the possible probable pathways that the future might yet take . . . and sometimes the spreading ripples of those effects can be so powerful that even the present and a part of the past can be altered, if enough raw energy is poured into the process of causing those effects. For Tahiri Veila, the possibility of swaying the current balance of power in the galaxy from darkness and despair back to light and hope seems worth any sacrifice necessary . . . even if she will have to give up her own life and the life of her unborn son to accomplish this. Will her sacrifice be enough to change the shape of the future, though, or will evil yet find a way to triumph, in this the worst and most wide-spread of all galactic wars?

Story/Author's Notes: For general notes on this story and proposed series, please see the entry on this NaNo project, at http://polgarawolf. livejournal.com/140023.html

Specific Chapter/Part-Related Notes: N/A.

Specific Chapter/Part-Related Warnings: N/A.



Star Wars
The Rebirth of the New Jedi Order
Love Ignites the Galaxy, Star by Star


Chapter Five: The Battle for Coruscant

27:05:35-Productivity Day (Holiday 2) After the Battle of Yavin (~1,028 After Ruusan Reformations or ~25,029 After Republic’s Founding)

In a battle between those fighting for a political principle, and those fighting for the survival of their home and family, the latter usually win in the long run. They’ve got nothing more to lose, and it makes them terrible enemies. Just like us.

– Garm Bel Iblis, former Senator of Corellia, one of the three original founders of the Alliance to Restore the Republic (otherwise known as the Rebellion), and General of the New Republic, approximately 9 ABY, during the Thrawn crisis



It hurts/, pouring herself out into these individuals, doing so over and over and over again, even if they are (or were, once) her colleagues, her friends, her fellow Jedi warriors. She feels as if she’s reliving the whole stretch of time between the shock of agony and terror in the Force that was Sernpidal and the horror of Shedu Maad every time she wakes one of the Jedi to explain, to share, to show what it is that’s happened and why she had to come back, to stop it, and most of those days are, quite simply, /bad/. Painful. Nothing she would ever choose to dwell upon, if she had any real choice in the matter. But then, that’s the crux of all of this, isn’t it? She had no – /has no – choice. There’s nothing else she can do, to stop that future from happening, to make sure that everyone on the strike team lives (or at least has a chance to live. Even those who, in her opinion, may not necessarily deserve such a chance) through this and to be as certain as possible that they all understand just how important it is, that they go on to make different choices and do better with their lives, than to show them, in excruciating detail, just what will happen, if they fail to do so.

The network of ties – some only faint scar-like traceries from her mind/soul to another, all but worn away by long disuse (usually due to untimely death); some half-atrophied vestigial remains of a fully functional bonds (wearing gradually away, slowly but surely healing over, due to determined avoidance of their use); some still all but full-blown links (either fully functional or else potentially still fully functional in the final months, weeks, days of her life, as Caedus’ so-called apprentice) – helps. There are fragments of all of the members of the Myrkr strike team lodged deep within her, because of the battle melds and the resulting network of bonds, some of them chock-filled with personal memories, emotions, experiences, sensations, some of them stretching all the way up until the very end (either of that individual’s life or of her life, in that other time). All Tahiri has to do is to find the place within her that resounds most strongly of the individual she is trying to share with and concentrate on focusing herself through that place, and the information all but flows of its own accord, out into whomever she’s attempting to reach. The relative ease of the process doesn’t keep it from hurting, though, any more than it keeps her from feeling as if she’s reliving/ everything/ – especially the bits with the strongest feelings attached to them, most of which are, frankly, rather less than pleasant – or stops her from feeling exhausted (emotionally, physically, mentally) and as sore as if she’s been through a punishing battle every single time she’s finished sharing with someone.

There’s nothing else she can do, though, except to push forward as quickly as she can. This is taking much longer than she ever expected. She/ has/ to rest – sometime for hours, utterly wiped out by sharing – in between explanations, and, with sixteen individuals all needing to know what she does (not to mention the necessity of so thoroughly mind-wiping Lomi Plo and Welk that they cannot possibly remember anything that might make them an outright threat or danger to the galaxy or the Jedi), it’s taking a shocking amount of time for her to pass on what she needs to. Events around Coruscant are starting to catch up to her. She can’t let this go on for too long, or else the Yuuzhan Vong will have time to send reinforcements that the strike team may not be able to escape from cleanly. And, too, there is the fact that already she can feel herself occasionally flickering, her sense of herself whiting out into the blaze of the Force for whole seconds at a stretch as she begins to fade, the changes she’s making already starting to affect the future, already starting to destroy all of the things that have, over the years, added up to the sum total of the person who is her, who is Tahiri Veila.

She has to hurry. She can’t risk leaving anyone unaware of what the future could hold. It’s going to take everyone working together, to keep it from happening.

Gritting her teeth, she pushes herself up from the slump she’s fallen into, half across her younger self, and forces herself to turn to Raynar Thul. Raynar and Zekk are the last. Once she’s done with them, she can wake the others, and stop worrying, stop trying to fight back the flickers of utter absence of self, stop trying to fight back the onrushing tide of the Force, as it swallows her whole. Raynar and Zekk, and she will be done. It won’t be her problem, anymore, but /theirs/.

***

The Sabers drop out of the /Mon Mothma/’s forward fighter bay and are promptly able to see Coruscant’s thumb-sized disk twinkling at them through a gap in the Yuuzhan Vong fleet, the planet’s trillion-light aura a genial reminder of just what it is that they’re fighting so hard to protect. Ben is down there beneath one of those lights, sleeping soundly in his aunt’s apartment and innocently dreaming of his mother’s return. That much, Mara can sense through the Force. What she cannot feel is when his dream will be answered. Despite the steady flow of New Republic reinforcements – even Admiral Ackbar himself is rumored to be on his way with a Mon Calamari fleet – the Yuuzhan Vong brutally continue to press their advance. Their route insystem can be traced by the swath of derelict vessels littering space, but they still have roughly half their fleet, and now they’re within sight of Coruscant.

It is as close to her child as Mara intends to ever let them come.

A sheet of blue energy lights space overhead as the /Mon Mothma/’s turbolaser banks open fire again. A moment later, a Yuuzhan Vong frigate vanishes from the tactical display, and the cockpit sensor alarms start to scream as a flight of skips head in their direction.

Wedge Antilles’s voice instantly comes over the comm. “All squadrons, stand by for close defense. This time, we’re going to make them stop and pay attention.”

Mara is promptly engulfed by the reassuring warmth of her husband’s Force touch. “He’s going to be all right,” Luke promises, his voice quiet but vehement. “We’re not going to let anything happen to him.”

“Damn straight, Farmboy,” she agrees, even though the hollow sensation in the pit of her stomach feels almost like a warning. “We’ll make sure of that – no matter what.”

Luke doesn’t need to say anything. She can feel his agreement, ringing in the Force almost like a challenge.

***

Blue eyes widening as the safe band narrows, the /Bail Organa/’s young comm officer asks, “Shall I ask Planetary Defense to deactivate a mine sector for us, General?”

Garm Bel Iblis twirls his mustache and, ignoring the tactical display on the bridge’s wall screen, stares out the viewport at the plasma storm that’s blossoming against the Star Destroyer’s forward shields. Between flashes, it’s just possible to see a swarm of blocky silhouettes moving forward behind the assault, rapidly swelling into the treacherously familiar shapes of New Republic starliners and mass transports. Never one to substitute technology for his own judgment, he knows instinctively that the refugee screen will be on him in less than a minute – just as he knows that Planetary Defense will need to deactivate two sectors of mines, not one, if Fleet Group Two is going to withdraw in order.

“General?” the young woman asks. “I have an open channel to Planetary Defense.”

“Very good, Anga.” Garm’s eyes shoot briefly over to the tactical display, where he sees that, with all the defections from Fleet Group One, his force currently is actually larger than at the beginning of the battle. “You may tell Planetary Defense to keep all sectors of the mine shell active. We won’t be retreating.”

Anga’s face instantly goes as pale as her hair. “Excuse me, General?”

“Give me an open channel to all fleet groups,” Garm quietly but firmly orders. “I’ll need to say a few words.”

***

Located in a repulsor-equipped satellite hovering on a station in front of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion route, Orbital Defense Headquarters is easily as large as a Mon Calamari floating city, and the control hub at its heart is the size of a full shock-ball court. Despite being packed to overflowing with weapons directors and traffic coordinators, the nerve center is also, at the moment Lando follows his escort through the hatch, as still as space.

Noting that every pair of eyes in the place is fixed on the ceiling, Lando lifts his chin and finds himself staring through a large transparisteel dome at a vast abyss of spiraling magma trails and blossoming fireballs. Some of the explosions appear close enough to lick the shields, and Lando’s instinct is to drop for cover and crawl back to the Lady Luck as quickly as his hands and knees can carry him; it’s a matter of pride with him never to be the first to panic, though, and so he forces himself not to react, not to let himself flinch or even let his breathing rate increase. Despite what his eyes are telling him, the station remains stable and, in a room packed with electronics, there’s not a single crackle of pulse static.

In a deliberately calm voice, he asks, “Optical ceiling?”

“That’s right,” his escort – a winsome petty officer who would have made even Tendra frown with jealousy – replies, her own voice remarkably steady. “Sometimes it helps to point the station and /see /what’s going on.”

“Uh-huh,” Lando acknowledges with a small nod.

Now that he’s sorting out the scene, he can see the blue circles of several thousand ion drives receding into the firestorm. Garm Bel Iblis has turned on the advancing invaders like a cornered wampa, and Fleet Group Two is accelerating through the refugee screen to meet the enemy head-on. New Republic corvettes and frigates are vanishing by the dozens; cruisers and Star Destroyers are belching fire and falling away one after another.

All in all, it doesn’t look very good – for either side in the conflict.

Lando takes his comlink off his belt and opens a channel to Tendra. “Have you finished with the weapons platforms yet?”

“I’m making the last delivery now,” she promptly answers./ “There’s still an open shield section on the far side of the planet, so I thought I’d drop the extras at the Imperial Palace.”/

“You’d better hold off on that,” Lando warns. “I think they’ll be closing that hole shortly. I’ll meet you at our rendezvous.”

/“When?” /Tendra sounds worried (not that he blames her, all things considered).

“Soon,” Lando replies, voice grim. “Very soon.”

The petty officer leans through the hatch to summon the two YVH war droids Lando’s delivering, then turns to lead the way across the control hub. By the time they’ve twined their way through the maze of aisles and checkpoints to the lift tube on the other side, Fleet Group Two has penetrated the refugee screen and is webbing the darkness beyond with violent bursts of colorful turbolaser fire. The hostage ships themselves are accelerating forward, their dark shapes backlit by blue halos of ion glow.

The petty officer presses her palm to a security pad to authorize access, then leads Lando and his droids onto the command deck. Though General Ba’tra is already surrounded by aides and junior command officers – all of whom are attempting to speak to him at once – the Bothan motions the newcomers over immediately. Muzzle curled into a faint snarl, he looks the war droids over and wordlessly grunts approval.

Gratified to finally find someone who appreciates the craftsmanship of the droids, Lando smiles warmly and extends his hand. “General Ba’tra, how nice to meet – ”

“Cache it, Calrissian,” Ba’tra merely snarls. “We’re in the middle of a battle.”

Lando lets his hand drop with his spirits, but keeps the smile firmly in place. “Yes, sir, that’s why I’m donating these war droids to your security detail.”

“Donating?”

“Free of charge,” Lando confirms.

Ba’tra looks doubtful. “And what do you get in return?”

“Nothing, yet,” Lando shrugs. “These are good droids, and I’m just trying to preserve the market long enough for people to realize that.”

“Preserve the market?” The Bothan smiles wryly, then plinks a claw off YVH 1-302A’s armor. “Quantum?”

“Better,” Lando replies, deliberately duplicating the general’s brusque manner. Echoing the customer’s tone is, after all one of his most effective sales techniques. “Laminanium. Developed it ourselves.”

“Ah.”

Sensing the Bothan’s approval, Lando adds, “I have twenty more aboard the /Lady Luck/, if you have a use for them.”

“They’re not spoken for?”

Lando shakes his head. “This is my last stop.”

A flare of orange light abruptly strobes through the control hub’s observation dome as a pair of space mines fire their rockets and accelerate towards a Ralltiiri refugee vessel. The converted freighter’s shields absorbs the detonation of the first mine, but the second slams into the bow, igniting a wave of secondary explosions that vaporize the ship from stem to stern.

“Answers that question,” Ba’tra comments, watching the vessel explode. “Definitely Vong guards aboard.”

A flickering sheet of orange fills the control hub as a dozen more mine rockets ignite.
The faces of the general’s assistants fall, and a Bith female asks, “Shall I have sector two-twenty-three deactivate, General?”

Before answering, Ba’tra turns to consult a tactical display hanging on the command deck wall. Wedge’s Fleet Group Three is sweeping down from behind, but even a quick glance at the situation reveals that Garm’s force can’t possibly hold the Yuuzhan Vong in place. While the remnants of Fleet Group Two has already carved out a sizable hollow at the front of the column, enemy vessels are sweeping past on all sides, chasing the refugee ships towards the mine shell. The orange light in the control hub dies away suddenly and is not replaced by the flash of detonating mines. Ba’tra’s head snaps back long enough to take in the sight of a dozen refugee vessels streaking through the mine shell unimpeded.

The Bothan whirls furiously on the Bith who suggested deactivating the sector. “I did not authorize that!”

What little color there is fades from the Bith’s face. “Neither did I.”

Ba’tra quickly snatches his comlink from a pocket and steps to the transparisteel wall that overlooks the control hub’s main floor.

“Activate sector two-twenty-three!”

The Bothan is staring at a lone Mon Calamari seated forty meters away in the heart of the giant floor. She merely folds her long hands in her lap and looks up at the ceiling. The mine controllers flanking her do likewise.

“I see.” Ba’tra snaps his comlink off and turns rapidly towards Lando. “Are your droids as adept at dealing with traitors as they are infiltrators?”

Lando glances at the controllers and swallows nervously, not at all certain that he wants to answer that particular question truthfully.

“Do you know how quickly the enemy will reach us once they have cleared the mine shell?” Ba’tra urgently presses. “And I should mention that you will not be leaving this station until I have an answer.”

“You designate targets and issue an override command,” Lando reluctantly replies.

“Which is?”

Lando does not answer, for his thoughts are suddenly full of thrust calculations and pitfalls.

“Calrissian?”

“General, do you have any way to keep your mines from targeting your orbital defense platforms?”

Ba’tra scowls, but looks towards an Arcona assistant.

“We could give them the deactivation codes,” the aide suggests hesitantly, sounding slightly confused. “With a tight-beam transmission, they could kill the warhead and let the mine bounce off their shields.”

“Good,” Lando nods. “Then I suggest you deactivate all sectors.”

“/What/?”

“Let them through,” Lando clarifies. “The refugees, the Yuuzhan Vong, everyone.”

Ba’tra’s eyes narrow in thought, and Lando can see that the General is already thinking along the same lines. This particular Bothan, at least, clearly deserves his post.

After a moment, Ba’tra asks, “You know what will happen when those ships hit the planetary shields?”

Lando shrugs. “Your mines might stop the first hundred ships – ”

“Not even that many,” the Bith cuts in.

“So you might as well put your assets to their best use.”

Ba’tra glances up at the stream of hostage vessels pouring through the deactivated sector towards the surface of Coruscant. The first transports are already vanishing behind the rim of the observation dome, long needles of ion efflux trailing them as they accelerate rapidly into the planetary shield.

“You know this won’t save the hostages?” Ba’tra asks.

“But at least the New Republic won’t be the ones killing them,” Lando grimly replies. “And it just might save Coruscant.”

A bowl of golden light rises from the planet as the first refugee ship disintegrates against the shield.

Ba’tra winces, swallowing thickly, and then nods. “Very well, Calrissian. Do it.”

Lando’s jaw falls. “Me?” he squeaks, stunned.

“Your idea, your assignment,” the Bothan firmly declares. “I’ll have someone fetch you some stars, General. You’ve just been reactivated.”

***

By the time Fleet Group Three has connected with Fleet Group Two, local space is too littered with battle debris to enter at anything approaching combat speed. Through the flotsam cloud, Mara can see half a dozen Star Destroyers and perhaps twenty or thirty smaller vessels using their turbolasers to clear an exit path, but even they are barely crawling forward. At least half are venting bodies and atmosphere, and a dozen more are moving only under the power of a nearby vessel’s tractor beam. Clearly, Garm Bel Iblis and his followers are out of the battle. The Yuuzhan Vong rearguard is taking brutal advantage of this fact, pouring with gut-wrenching rapidity around the devastation on all sides, trading fusillades with Fleet Group One as they stream past into the deactivated mine shell. Traest Kre’fey has apparently chosen not to engage until he’s joined up with Wedge’s group, given that the few thousand vessels remaining to him are all standing off, content to attack from a distance while the invaders pour into orbit and swarm Coruscant’s defense platforms. Though they’re badly outnumbered, Mara finds it difficult to believe the Admiral could be so cowardly. Despite his Bothan heritage, he’s always struck her as an honorable soldier and loyal citizen, and she wonders what could’ve possibly changed, to suddenly make him back off like this.

The scene at the edges of Coruscant’s atmosphere makes Mara’s heart race wildly with fear for Ben’s safety. A thousand-kilometer circle of shield is glowing vividly gold beneath the constant bombardment of hostage ships. Every new impact launches a kilometers-high pillar of fire and sends clearly visible shock circles rippling across the surface of that shield. Occasionally, a refugee vessel will break away at the last second as the crew finally manages to overpower their captors. Every such attempt ends badly, though, with the craft crashing into the shield anyway, or being blasted out of space by a waiting frigate, or eventually disintegrating under the stress of trying to escape. For the most part, the Yuuzhan Vong suicide squads are forcing the pilots to all hit the same area, and so the largest detonations are already causing forks of disruption static to dance madly across the shield.

Danni Quee’s voice comes over the channel, startling her out of her increasingly grim thoughts. “We’ve got another yammosk.”

Mara drops her gaze to the tactical display, where a targeting box has appeared around a heavy cruiser already deep inside the mine shell. A dozen weary sighs sound from the comm speaker. This will be Eclipse’s fourth yammosk kill. They managed to take out the second one with Saba’s glowball tactic, but the third kill ended up costing so many pilots that Luke had to reorganize Eclipse’s forces into a single wing of two fifteen-pilot squadrons. When Danni had detected no more gravitic pulses, afterwards, they began to dare to hope that they’d killed the last one; now, though, it seems apparent that the invaders have been holding another one in reserve.

Luke opens a channel to the Mon Mothma/. /“We’ll need that support, Command.” /During their last rearming break, Wedge had offered the support of both Rogue Squadron and the Wraiths – who’re being tapped for combat duty despite their status as an intelligence unit – for the next yammosk attack. /“This is a tough one.”

“Negative, Farmboy,” Wedge responds. “You are not authorized for attack.”

Mara feels /Luke bristle and can easily gauge how tired he is from the unexpected strength of his offense. Luke /never lets himself get so angry she can feel it, not if he can possibly help it.

“This is not the time to be looking out for old buddies, Command. You can see how desperate things are. If we don’t take out that – ”

“I said /no/,” Wedge quickly interrupts. “I can’t order you to hold back, but trust me. There are some things I can’t say over a combat channel.”

Mara feels Luke perform the Jedi equivalent of counting to ten. They still have no reason to believe that the Yuuzhan Vong can eavesdrop on their communications – much less break classified military codes – but the same, unfortunately, can’t be said for the refugee ships. If any of those pilots happen to be smugglers in the Han Solo or Talon Karrde mold, they’ll have the finest comm-scanning equipment in the galaxy, and that, regrettably, means that the Yuuzhan Vong likely have a way to listen in to their supposedly secure communications.

“Copy,” Luke finally (grudgingly) acknowledges./ “Let us know when we have authorization.”/

“Count on it.”

“Wedge?” Mara is as surprised as anyone to hear herself saying Wedge’s name over the comm, and even she isn’t entirely sure why she’s done it until her mouth keeps moving and she finds herself asking, “Can you patch me through to Coruscant civil communications?”

There’s a slight pause, and then Wedge says, “Sure, we can do that. Who do you want to talk to?”

“My brother-in-law,” she replies.

The curiosity she senses from Luke lasts only as long as it takes for the next refugee ship to strike Coruscant’s shields. This time, the disruption static shrinks back on itself and burns straight through the shields. Two more vessels crash beside the hole, enlarging it by a factor of ten, and then a third pilot manages to guide his lumbering starliner through the breach to safety. The comm channels crackles with an odd sort of half cheer as Fleet Group Three gives voice to the jubilation of finally seeing a refugee ship survive. The accolades cease when a pair of Yuuzhan Vong frigates dart swiftly through the hole after it.

Han Solo’s voice comes over the comm speaker while she’s helplessly watching the frigates chase after the starliner, dropping down into atmo. “Mara? What happened?” The channel is full of static. “Is Luke – ”

“He’s fine,” Mara interrupts. “Listen to me. The shields are going. Can you get Ben offplanet?”

“Threepio is already packing,” Han replies. “We’ll be in the air as soon as we can reach the /Falcon/.”

“Thank you.” There’s an awkward pause during which Mara finds herself caught between saying again how sorry she is and apologizing for thinking the mission to Myrkr had ever been a good idea, and then she asks, “How’s Leia?”

“Hanging on,” Han answers, voice gruff. Mara flashes on an image of Leia clutching Ben to her breast, and then Han says, “We’ll see ya.”

He abruptly switches off, then, leaving Mara and Luke alone with the war again. She feels Luke reaching out to her through the Force, trying to fill her with a sense of reassurance she can tell he does not quite feel himself.

/I’m fine, Luke, /she determinedly thinks towards him.

But Mara can feel Luke’s irritation mounting, as well. Even Master Earnest is growing impatient with this strange game of follow-and-wait. More than a dozen Yuuzhan Vong vessels have managed to slip through the overload breach into Coruscant’s atmosphere in the time it’s taken planetary shielding to bring a replacement generator on-line.

Fleet Group Three is almost at the mine shell when Wedge finally gives the order to cease pursuit. Though there hasn’t been an enemy vessel close enough for the X-wings to fire at in twenty minutes, Luke orders the Sabers and Wild Knights to take up static combat stations two hundred kilometers ahead of the Star Destroyer. Puzzled by Wedge’s hesitation, both squadrons settle in to watch the deadly light storm being hurled back and forth by the big capital ships, and, given the amount of increasing frustration she can sense building in Luke, Mara considers it a good thing that the puzzle is solved less than a minute later, when the entire mine shell suddenly sprouts rocket candles. The capital ships cease firing. An astonished silence falls over the comm channels as the mines lock onto enemy vessels and curve after them. The Yuuzhan Vong maneuver wildly, but they’re trapped against Coruscant with nowhere to go. No sooner do they manage to escape one mine than they run afoul of another. Some vessels skim the planetary shields and are instantly torn into rubble, a few collide with each other outright, and still others grow so distracted that they fall prey to missiles and turbolaser fire from the orbital defense platforms. Eventually, the Yuuzhan Vong realize they’re better off to stop and weather the storm, relying on their weapons and shielding singularities to destroy the approaching mines. Many fail, though, and are blasted into rubble. A thousand more suffer hull breaches and begin to vent internal systems. Almost all take at least one hit; nevertheless, though, an astonishing number shows little sign of damage. And those ships quickly return to their earlier mission, attacking the orbital defense platforms and herding refugee ships to destruction.

Then, almost as one, the crippled Yuuzhan Vong vessels drop rapidly out of orbit, hurling themselves into the planetary shields. Disruption static shoots wildly across the atmosphere. Whole grids shimmer erratically before winking out. Planet-bound generator stations explode with flashes brilliant enough to be seen from space. Skips begin to drop off the surviving Yuuzhan Vong vessels and dive toward the surface.

On Mara’s tactical display, the cruiser carrying the fourth yammosk is blinking slowly to show damage. But it’s still intact, drifting toward the sunny side of the planet.

“Okay, Farmboy,” Wedge comms, sounding tired. “/Now you are authorized to attack.”/

***

Relying heavily on both lightsaber technology and several borrowed focusing crystals to help control the enormous power it requires to jam the yammosk waves, Cilghal’s new gravitic amplitude modulator is part gravity generator and part plasteel rectenna. It’s also even larger than the one that had been destroyed when the skips from the Yuuzhan Vong tracking vessel attacked her lab, so when she and Kyp start across the hangar with the unwieldy apparatus in tow, Booster Terrik doesn’t look very happy. He comes striding rapidly down the /Jade Shadow/’s boarding ramp to meet them, shaking his head and wagging his finger.

“Your orders are to evacuate, not relocate,” he growls. “The /Venture/’s already packed bilge to bridge with Reecee refugees. We’ve no room for Jedi sculptures.”

“This is no sculpture,” Kyp retorts. “This is a GAM, and it just might win the war for us.”

Booster rolls his eyes. “And a Gamorrean /might /be the next Chief of State – but it won’t happen today.”

Kyp’s face reddens with temper, his eyes dark with anger. “Listen, you old – ”

“That’s enough, Kyp,” Cilghal quickly interjects, cutting him off. She passes him the hoversled controls, then turns to Booster and raises her hand towards him. “I’m sure that when Captain Terrik sees this instrument in action, he will be happy to find a place for it aboard the /Errant Venture/.”

Booster scowls and starts to reiterate his denial, only to cry out in surprise as his feet abruptly rise off the ground and Cilghal floats him out of the way.

“Okay, /okay/,” he growls, looking a little wild around the edges. “If it means that much to you, I’ll take a look at this gizmo in action.”

“A wise idea,” Cilghal acknowledges. She dislikes using the Force on a friend in this manner, but Booster is extremely stubborn and time is far too short. “I am sure that you’ll be impressed – so impressed that you’ll let us run a power feed off one of your fusion reactors.”

Booster’s scowl returns to its most deeply set obstinate lines. “Don’t push it, Cilghal. We’ll talk about that after you show me what this thing can do.”

***

The Solo entourage is about halfway across the last pedestrian bridge outside the Eastport Docking Facility when a deafening crackle suddenly (if not entirely unexpectedly) roars out of the sky and shakes the surrounding skyscrapers. Reflexes conditioned to instant reaction by far too many brushes with death, Han drops to his haunches and casts his gaze about quickly, searching for the source of the trouble. He finds it in the form of a million orange fireballs reflecting off the transparisteel panes of a million tower viewports, their harsh light silhouetting the dazed figure of his wife with Ben cradled close in her arms.

Like almost everyone else on the bridge, Leia is still standing upright, craning her neck to see what’s making all the noise. Han grasps her elbow and pulls her down beside him.

“Get down, sweetheart.”

The smell of ozone and ash wafts down to them on a hot wind. A corvette-sized fireball roars overhead and impacts half a kilometer up the durasteel canyon, vaporizing forty floors of a residential tower and blasting the walls out of three adjacent buildings. The shock wave clears the hoverlane of traffic, then hits the bridge and turns the air as hot as a Tatooine drought. Adarakh and Meewalh promptly drop the luggage and use their own bodies to cover Han and Leia, C-3PO skidding three steps across the walkway before both he and the potted ladalum he’s carrying are caught by the YVH war droid Lando gave them earlier, while Ben’s TDL nanny is swept off the bridge along with a hundred screaming pedestrians.

“How dreadful!” C-3PO exclaims, peering over the safety rail. “She’ll be smashed beyond components!”

“And so will we if we don’t get off this bridge,” Han notes, quickly rising to his feet.

Still holding Leia’s arm, he starts to push forward through the crowd. With the battle for Coruscant now being fought in an orbit so low that the weapon discharges look like a colossal skydazzle show, the planet is being bombarded with a steady rain of flaming spacecraft and partially blasted parts and rubble. The kilometer-long walk from the apartment has been one long smoke-stroll, and twice already they’ve been forced to detour around impact craters where the bridge came to an abrupt end a hundred meters above the stump of a truncated building. To make matters worse, the closer they get to the docking facility, the slower the crowd seems to move. Han finally sees why as they draw to within a few meters of the building. A pair of burly Defense Force soldiers in full biosuits and headgear are flanking the half-closed access gate, carefully scanning identichips and waving pedestrians through one at a time. It seems a ludicrous endeavor, given the circumstances – something about par for the course, given the way things have been going lately.

One of the guards turns his dark-visored gaze on Han and holds out his scanner. “Identichip.”

“You don’t know?” Han asks, more a little incredulously, as he presents the group’s chips. Not being in disguise, he and Leia have been the subject of countless whispers and pointed fingers along the way; at times, only the menacing presence of Lando’s YVH war droid keeping frightened citizens from besieging them with questions they cannot answer and bringing their progress to a halt. “Where’d they recruit you guys, Pzob?”

“Procedure . . . ” The soldier looks at the datareader on the back of his scanner. “Solo. I read only four chips. There are five of you.”

“Give me a break,” Han snaps irritably. He feels the YVH war droid easing up behind him and quietly signals him to stay back. “The baby’s only four months old.”

The soldier continues to stare silently out from behind his visor.

“It takes six months to get the chip,” Han bluffs. If this guy doesn’t recognize him and Leia, then chances are he won’t know Coruscant documentation law either. “Until then, the kid travels on a parent’s chip.”

“Of course.” The soldier lowers his scanner, then points down an exterior walkway to a large balcony packed with droids. “You may enter, but your mechanicals must remain. There is no room to evacuate them.”

“Remain?” C-3PO echoes, sounding horrified at the notion. “But my place is with – ”

Han waves the protocol droid silent. “They won’t be taking a public berth. We have our own vessel.”

“Which you should use to evacuate living beings,” the second guard notes, stepping over. “Not these lifeless – ”

“Please remain calm,” the YVH war droid declares, pushing an arm between Han and Leia. “This is a military emergency.”

Han starts to turn. “What – ”

A pair of blaster bolts streaks past his face, burning holes through the chests of both soldiers. Leia shrieks and Ben wails, and an astonished murmur rustled through the crowd. C-3PO, still holding the pot with Leia’s blast-stripped ladalum, begins to carefully distance himself from the larger droid.

“Really, One-dash-Five-Oh-Seven, that was uncalled for! Your primary programming must be garbled.”

The war droid squeals something in machine language that makes C-3PO take a rather noticeable step backwards, and then turns to Han. “I apologize for the identification delay. The biosuits were obscuring the criteria.”

“Criteria?” Han breaks the seal on one of the helmets and, to his astonishment, finds an ooglith masquer already peeling away from the face of its host. “Huh. And here I thought you just didn’t want to be left behind.”

***

Bureaucrats, businessbeings, and bankers, the beings pouring through Gate 3700 of the Eastport Docking Facility are not the ordinary sort of refugee. They swirl into the terminal area escorted by droids, sentient assistants, and hoversleds loaded with art treasures and portable gem vaults. Most are protected by hastily armed servants, bodyguards of various intimidating species, and even Ulban Arms S-EP1 security droids. But only one family has a pair of Noghri luggage porters, a protocol droid carrying a heat-blasted ladalum, and a fully operational YVH 1 war droid providing crowd control. As ever, the Solos are the most conspicuous of the conspicuous. Pores still raging against the ooglith masquer she’s been forced to wear ever since the failed kidnapping attempt at their apartment, Viqi Shesh turns to the child standing with her at the observation deck safety rail. With a mop of unruly dark brown hair and bright blue big eyes as round as Old Republic valor medals, he could have been a twin to the twelve-year-old Anakin Solo portrayed in newsvid archives. He ought to have been; it had certainly cost Viqi a small fortune in cosmisurgeon and bacta tank fees to make him look that way.

“You see them, Dab? The ones with the big war droid?”

“How could I possibly miss them?” the boy answers, his voice pitched high with a combination of shock and contempt. “Everybody in the galaxy knows the Solos. You didn’t say they were the ones.”

“I didn’t say a lot of things,” Viqi snaps irritably back. Thanks to a thumb-sized Yuuzhan Vong leech-creature lodged in her throat, Viqi’s once-silky voice is now almost reedy and quavery. “But if you and your family want passage off Coruscant with me, I won’t need to.”

The boy looks away, his shoulders twitching nervously. “I understand.”

His mother and two sisters are already aboard Viqi’s yacht, which is berthed under a false name on the other side of the /Falcon/, just beyond a public starferry named the /Byrt/. She studies the boy, wondering if she had perhaps misjudged the urchin’s character when she spotted him in the underlevels rifling the pockets of a salted Arcona. If the child turns out to have a sense of honor – or even the shadow of a conscience – then she is as doomed as Coruscant itself. After the HoloNet had reported her failure at the Solos’ apartment, Tsavong Lah’s villip everted just long enough to say as much.

“I hope you do understand, Dab,” Viqi replies, trying to make her thin voice sound menacing and only succeeding in making herself sound querulous. “I will not suffer failure lightly . . . I will not suffer it at all.”

***

Leave it to the Eastport docking master to squeeze a ronto into a rabac hole. By keeping the dome irised open and landing the /Byrt /nacelles-down inside a magnolock hull-hoist, the remarkable Shev Watsn has managed to squeeze a two-hundred-meter starferry into a berthing bay designed for yachts and light transports.

Leia could have easily (gladly, even!) slapped him with a lightsaber.

Ten thousand terrified people stand waiting to board a vessel that will hold no more than five thousand at best, most of them standing in front of Docking Bay 3733 where the Falcon is kept under an assumed name. As much as Leia wants to simply board their ship and get off of Coruscant with Ben, she knows they will be mobbed by desperate refugees the instant they try to push through the throng. For now, the best thing to do is just wait at the edge until the Byrt begins to board, then work their way over to their berth as the crowd presses forward.

Leia hopes that they’ll have enough time. Through the narrow crescent of sky visible above the /Byrt/’s nose, she can see a steady stream of government yachts rising out of Imperial City – the New Republic’s dedicated Senators and loyal government officials abandoning their posts. So far, the Yuuzhan Vong are still too busy with the New Republic military to harass fleeing civilians, but that will change soon. She has even heard of Senators asking Admirals from their own sectors to escort them home, and in far too many cases those requests are apparently being honored. She finds it difficult to believe that this is the same New Republic she helped found . . . and for which her beloved youngest child, Anakin, may well have given his life.

“General?” The voice that asks this is reedy and quavering. “General, is that you?”

Leia turns with Han, the Noghri, and the droids to see a luggage-burdened woman with a large nose and tired eyes pushing through the crowd towards them. Trailing along at her side is a brown-haired boy of about twelve, also struggling beneath a mound of baggage.

“General!” As the woman says this, she suddenly finds her path blocked by Adarakh and Meewalh. “It is you!”

“I haven’t been a general for a long time.” Han speaks quietly and tries not to be too obvious as he glances around to see who might be eavesdropping. “Do we know each other?”

“You don’t remember?”

The woman uses a bag to sweep her son forward, and Leia is suddenly struck by just how much he looks like Anakin had at that age. It’s more than just the slightly upturned nose and the ice-blue eyes and lightly freckled, pale skin; his whole face is shaped the same, and he even has the same round little chin. Her heart immediately goes out to this boy and his mother.

Han studies the woman and her son carefully, then says, “No, I don’t remember.”

The woman does not seem offended. “Well, of course, I’m sure it was more important to me than to you. After all, you were the General, and Ran was only a flight officer in Rogue Squadron.”

“Ran?” Han asks, frowning slightly. “Ran Kether?”

“Yes,” the woman replies with an eager nod. “I was only his girlfriend then, but I met you twice on Chandrila – ”

“Okay,” Han declares, warming instantly. He motions the Noghri aside. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you. How is Ran?”

The woman’s expression falls. “You didn’t hear?”

Han shakes his head regretfully. “I’ve been, uh, out of touch.”

“He was flying refugee transports for SELCORE. We lost him at Kalarba.” The woman glances over at Leia for the first time. “I understand your daughter was injured there, too.”

“She recovered quickly.” Balancing Ben on a hip, Leia reaches out to gently squeeze the woman’s hand. It’s the first time since it – since the disaster that she fears may well have claimed Anakin’s life – that she’s been able to feel at all sorry for someone other than herself, and, in a self-centered sort of way, it’s almost a relief to feel pity for this woman. “I’m so sorry about Ran. There’s too much of that these days.”

“Thank you, Princess.”

“Leia, please.” Leia touches the shoulder of the boy who looks so much like Anakin. “I’m sorry about your father, young man.”

The boy ducks his head in an awkward sort of nod, his eyes cast down as though he’s shy, and looks hugely uncomfortable. “Thanks.”

“This is Tare, I’m Welda.” The woman smiles down at the child in Leia’s arms. “The gossip vids haven’t said anything about you being pregnant, so I assume this beautiful boy is Ben Skywalker?”

“Actually, we’re trying to keep that quiet,” Leia replies, a little hesitantly. She casts a meaningful look around the crowd. “You understand.”

“I’m sorry.” Welda’s tone is abashed, but she does not blush. “How foolish of me.”

A loud clunk sounds from five meters up the/ Byrt/, and a cloud of vapor shoots into the air as the boarding hatch breaks its seal and opens. Although the boarding ramp has not yet been lowered, the crowd immediately begins to compress itself forward.

“It looks like they’ve worked out the artificial gravity alignment problems.” Welda looks at the still-growing crowd, which now has to be far closer to twelve thousand than ten. “I hope there’ll be room for us all.”

Han looks behind the woman’s head and raises his brow questioningly at Leia. She nods immediately. They’ll be taking as many refugees with them as the Falcon can carry anyway, and she has no intention of leaving this particular pair behind.

Han smiles crookedly, his expression sly, and leans close to Welda’s ear. “Actually, that won’t be a problem.”

The boarding ramp finally comes down. The crowd starts to ascend rapidly, each group being detained at the hatch just long enough for an epidermal scan to ensure that they’re not Yuuzhan Vong infiltrators.

The Noghri quickly take advantage of the movement to start easing the group towards the /Falcon/’s berth. There are a few angry glares and muttered comments about pushy Solos, but the presence of a war droid and the fact that the group is not cutting forward limits the objections to the nonphysical kind. Leia is, nonetheless, careful to keep Tare and Welda close at hand, and is relieved when the group reaches the entrance to Docking Bay 3733 intact. Now comes the tricky part – getting inside without being trampled by desperate refugees. Han quietly stations YVH 1-507A in front of the durasteel door and reaches for the security pad.

“If you’re trying to slice the security, save yourself the bother,” a gravelly voice declares. Leia turns to find a horn-headed Gotal in a gaudy scintathread tunic speaking to them from within the crowd. “Whoever owns that junk heap couldn’t afford the berthing fees. The umbilicals are all disconnected.”

“What?” Han cups his hands to the viewing panel and peers inside. “You’ve got to be kidding! There’s containment fluid all over the floor.”

Even after sitting idle for several days, the Falcon could be cold-started in only a few minutes, but certainly not without a fully charged fusion containment unit. Too devastated to ask the helpful Gotal what he’s been doing looking so closely at the Falcon – she has no doubt that he’s considered trying to slice the security panel himself – Leia turns to apologize to Welda.

The woman is no longer beside her.

Something metallic hits the floor a couple of meters away, and Leia glimpses Tare pushing away through the crowd. She switches Ben to the other hip so that her weapon hand will be free, and then YVH 1-507A clangs past towards the sound, his powerful arms batting people aside as gently as possible.

“Remain calm and please seek shelter,” he intones. “There is an active thermal detonator in the area.”

Of course, the crowd does anything but stay calm. Determined to board the Byrt at any cost, someone kicks the detonator and sends it skittering across the floor, and the mob begins to push towards the boarding ramp even more urgently.

“Do not kick the detonator,” YVH 1-507A sternly orders. “Remain calm and step away.”

Someone boots it back at the original kicker, though, and the droid is forced to skid over a family of Aqualish in an attempt to change direction. Incredibly, the crowd continues to shove forward, between the Solos and to both sides of them. Determined to avoid becoming separated from Han, Leia snaps her lightsaber from beneath her jacket and turns back toward the berth. She finds Welda blocking the way, raising a small hold-out blaster and pointing it at Leia’s chest.

The weapon remains there for about half a second before Adarakh, still holding on to the luggage he’s been carrying, sinks his teeth into the woman’s arm. There’s a sickening crunch, and Welda’s hand falls open and lets the blaster fall. The Noghri promptly uses a bag to knock her feet out from beneath her, and then he’s on her, tearing at her head with both hands. Even this does not stop the desperate mob from pressing forward around the fight, though.

Far too accustomed to assassins and kidnappers to waste time wondering who’s sent them or why, Leia positions her body between Ben and Welda and starts to push her way around the fight. Han is only two steps away from her, holding his blaster in one hand and using the other to punch the admittance code into the security panel.

“See-Threepio, where’s Meewalh?” Leia calls out.

“She went after Tare, mistress.” Still holding her blast-scorched ladalum, the droid is following Leia around the fight. “I do hope the boy set a long fuse on that thermal detonator! One-dash-Five-Oh-Seven is so terribly clumsy.”

The soft drone of an active vibroblade sounds behind Leia. Surprised that Adarakh hasn’t finished the fight already, she turns to find a powershiv rising in Welda’s good hand. The Noghri blocks easily, then counters with a slash that catches the woman beside the ear and lifts her entire face off. The woman’s scream is nowhere near as ghastly as it should have been, though. Her face squirms in Adarakh’s hand like a thing alive, and neither Leia nor the Noghri understands for an instant what they’re actually looking at.

That, unfortunately, is all the time Welda needs to drive the powershiv into Adarakh’s ribs. The Noghri’s eyes grow wide with shock and his mouth falls open, then Leia feels the life leave his body in a rush of pained fury. All of the disappointment and sadness she’s been feeling since Anakin’s death instantly turns to white-hot anger. She thumbs her lightsaber active and, still holding Ben, steps forward to attack.

Welda hurls Adarakh’s body into Leia’s knees, knocking her legs from beneath her and rolling away. Leia is barely quick enough to catch herself with the Force and avoid landing on Ben. A pair of blaster bolts zing overhead from Han’s direction, forcing her attacker back and eliciting an even louder uproar from the panicked crowd. Leia gathers her feet beneath her in a fighting crouch only to find the assassin mirroring her position from two meters away, a wide-eyed Ho’Din family squeezing past behind her.

Even with every pore still oozing blood from where the ooglith masquer has been forcibly ripped away, the slender face across from her is unmistakable.

“Viqi Shesh,” Leia angrily spits out. Ben has finally enough and begins to cry, but Leia is far too outraged to pay attention. “I would’ve thought you’d be down in the grotto levels waiting for your masters with the rest of the granite slugs.”

“Leia – always the proper word for every occasion.”

Shesh flicks her wrist, hurling the powershiv at Ben. Leia blocks easily with her lightsaber, then curses inwardly as Han chases the traitor off by zinging another pair of blaster bolts over her head.

“You’re a better shot than that, Han!” Leia snarls angrily, although she knows that he’s only been trying to avoid hitting innocent bystanders. She thrusts Ben at C-3PO. “Put that tree down and hold him.”

“Me?” The droid drops the pot and cups his metallic hands carefully under the child. “But, Mistress Leia, you had my child-care module wiped after that time – ”

“Wait on the /Falcon/,” Leia brusquely orders.

“Of course, Princess, but I must remind you . . . ”

The droid’s objection is lost to the general din as Leia pursues Shesh into the crowd. She hears Han call out her name, but does not turn back for him either. The traitor will not escape, not after betraying the New Republic, selling out SELCORE, and no doubt arranging the deaths of a great many Jedi. Perhaps she has even had a hand in whatever has happened on Myrkr.

The whine of a pair of repulsor-enhanced legs echoes through the docking facility girders and YVH 1-507A bounds over the crowd towards Gate 3700.

“Make a hole! Thermal detonator coming through!” The droid crashes down on a hoversled loaded with priceless sculptures and immediately bounds up into the air again. “Remain calm and – ”

The command ends in a deafening crackle as the detonator ignited, taking with it five hundred cubic meters of docking facility, sentient biomass, and durasteel substructure. As the sizzling sphere contracts on itself, a long metallic groan reverberates through the docking facility, and then a large section of floor suddenly begins to sink towards the now-nonexistent Gate 3700. The crowd roars with panic and somehow starts to run at the /Byrt/, half pushing, half carrying those in front up the boarding ramp. Leia finds herself suddenly being carried backward by the crowd and has to use the Force to stay in place. Her quarry is nowhere to be seen, but she does spy a blood-smeared Rodian rushing in her direction. She pushes through the crowd and plants herself in his path, raising her inactive lightsaber to stop him.

He buzzes an objection at her in Huttese.

“Everyone is trying to board that ship.” As she speaks, Leia gestures at him with an open palm. “And I’m sure you’ll make it that much sooner, if you just take the time now to tell me where the woman who smeared this on you went.”

The Rodian obediently repeats her suggestion, then points towards Docking Bay 3732 – the next one after the /Falcon/’s. Leia lets him go and fights her way fifty meters up the corridor, her fury growing with every step. The damage that Viqi Shesh has done to the New Republic is immeasurable, the pain she has caused the Solos unforgivable. Leia feels that she owes it to Anakin and the strike team – and to all of the millions of others who have selflessly risked their lives and even given their lives defending an ideal – to repay her in kind.

Leia reaches the bay to find it already secured. Not bothering to try the control button, she ignites her lightsaber and jams the blade into the seam, slicing through the durasteel locking bolt as though it were so much tin. The security alarm that starts to blare both inside the berth and outside does little to add to the general commotion in the docking facility. Following close behind to shield herself from attack, she uses the Force to push the durasteel door open . . . and is surprised to find blaster bolts already ricocheting around the launch bay’s dreary interior.

In the center of the bay sits a sleek KDY staryacht, the pilot peering through the cockpit viewing panel as he powers up the repulsor drives. Viqi Shesh is about a third of the way around the circle, holding her mangled arm and dodging for the boarding ramp while Han fires at her through a hole that someone has apparently recently cut through the durasteel wall separating Docking Bay 3732 from Bay 3733. He is being fired on, in turn, by a pair of crew members trying to cover their employer from the well of the boarding ramp.

Leia starts across the bay after her quarry, only to hear the ominous whir of the yacht’s roof-mounted weapons turret revolving in her direction. She barely has time to hurl herself to the floor before the weapon depresses and fires, burning a fifty-centimeter hole into the durasteel beside her head.

Leia simply rolls and comes up with her blade ignited.

“Leia, are you /crazy/?” Han yells, forgetting himself and rising up in front of the hole. “You’re not that good with that thing anymore!”

The crew members pour a flurry of blaster bolts through the hole, forcing Han to dive for the floor and giving Shesh a clear path to the boarding ramp. The turret laser fires again, but Leia is already dodging across the floor – if a bit awkwardly, then at least also fast enough to keep from getting hit. She stumbles once and nearly falls, then hears a blaster rifle off to one side. She turns towards the sound to find Viqi Shesh rushing under the yacht towards its boarding ramp. Determinedly ignoring the blaster bolts pinging off the durasteel all around her, Leia locks her lightsaber on and hurls the weapon at the traitor, using the Force to keep it spinning towards its target. The turret laser fires again, as do the crew members at the top of the boarding ramp. Leia gives her body over to her instincts and continues to focus her mind on the attack, trusting to the Force to move her arms and legs in the correct manner.

At the last moment, Shesh hurls herself down on the boarding ramp, and, instead of cutting her in half, the blade slips along her back, burning away her clothing and a thick layer of skin and bone. She screams and collapses, then reaches up with her arms and begins to pull herself towards the interior of the ship. The ramp rises, and the last thing Leia sees of the traitor is a pair of male hands pulling her aboard.

Leia does not even realize she is also being dragged out of harm’s way until she hears Meewalh say, “Lady Vader, you must get down!”

Leia allows the Noghri to pull her to the floor just as another cannon bolt tears through the wall above her. When the yacht’s repulsor engines have whirred to life and a second bolt hasn’t followed, she reluctantly raises her head, her heart already bursting with the news she will have to give Meewalh.

Instead of the Noghri, though, she finds herself staring at Anakin’s twelve-year-old face.

“Do whatever you want to me,” Tare vehemently – if also somewhat tearfully – insists. He’s sitting with his back to the wall and his hands bound by a pair of Meewalh’s plasteel restraining cuffs. “At least my mom and sisters are safe.”

“Safe?” Leia can only shake her head. A bitter laugh lodges painfully in the back of her throat. “Is that what you think?”

The boy scowls at her darkly, his expression of defiance somewhat ruined by the excess moisture in his eyes. “It’s what I know.” The boy tips his head back and looks up at the ceiling, where Shesh’s yacht is being forced to wait until the docking master has cleared it for departure by opening the dome. “They’re on the Wicked Pleasure right now.”

Leia is already reaching for her comlink when Han comes running up beside her.

“Forget it,” he declares, displaying his own comlink. “I tried. Shev’s not holding vessels for anyone.”

Leia nods. It hardly matters what Shev might says; with its big laser cannon, the yacht could blast out of the bay anyway.

Han holds out her deactivated lightsaber. “Feel any better?”

“Not really,” Leia is forced to admit. She stands up and takes the lightsaber, hanging it inside her jacket again. “How about you?”

“Worse,” Han scowls. He points at Tare. “What are we going to do about him?”

The absolute last thing Leia wants to do now is to take this particular child along with them on the /Falcon/, but she’s certainly not going to abandon a twelve-year-old boy – no matter how idiotic – on Coruscant. She grabs him by the wrist restraints and pulls him to his feet.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Han frowns again, even more deeply, before looking expectantly towards the door. “What’d you do with See-Threepio and Ben?”

“They’re supposed to be with the /Falcon/.”

Han’s expression plummets like a downed ship. “Not likely. When you ran off, I secured the door to keep the mob out.”

A low rumble shakes the berth as the dome irises open, and they automatically look up to see the /Byrt /rising on a pillar of ion efflux. The /Wicked Pleasure /slips out of the bay and follows it skyward, then C-3PO’s frantic voice comes over the comlink.

“Master Han? Mistress Leia?”

Leia and Han activate their comlinks together. “Where are you?”

“This isn’t my doing!” the droid wails in reply. “The berth was locked, and I was helpless to defend us.”

“See-Threepio!” Leia cries, her stomach clenching with dread. “Are you telling me you’re aboard the /Byrt/?”

“I’m afraid so, Mistress Leia,” he replies dolorously. “And they’re threatening to put a restraining bolt on me!”

***