Star by Star (11 page)

“I’m all for winning,” Han agreed. “But with what we’ve got so far, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.”

“Then, my dear, you need to broaden your definition of winning.” Leia patted his cheek, then turned to C-3PO, who was already approaching the shattered cube with a sweeper, and said, “Bring me a datapad. And get me the transceiver address for Senator Kvarm Jia. I need him to convene a corruption panel.”

“Without good evidence?” A knavish smile came to Han’s lips. “I didn’t think you played dirty.”

“I’ll make an exception,” Leia said. “This woman’s trying to outlaw my
children
.”

The black drop of a battered CEC YT-1300 light freighter swung into view outside the viewport, the efflux from its dilapidated ion drives flickering uncertainly against the dazzle of Coruscant’s night side. Though hardly the steady blue blast of his own ship’s overpowered sublight engines, Han doubted the wavering would give them away. The
Falcon
’s temperamental nature was too well known—and the possibility that she had taken battle damage on the journey home too high—for the contrast to draw more than a passing curiosity about what was wrong this time.

The cannon turrets were another story. Fabricated on the Cinnabar Moon from a pair of abandoned escape pods, they were not going to fool anyone who took a good look—especially if that person expected the support posts serving as cannon barrels to swivel around and start firing.

Han looked toward the front of the
Jolly Man
’s spacious crew deck, where Izal Waz sat at a communications station using a slave unit to fly the
Sureshot
onto Coruscant. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

“You suddenly think of a better way to spring their trap?” the Arcona asked.

Han shook his head. “There isn’t one.”

“Then stop asking.” Izal kept his attention focused on the systems display ahead of him, relying on computer keys and a pressure pad to control his battered ship. “She’s a piece of Jawa bait anyway.”

The faint scent of ammonia permeated the air, and one of the milky bubbles that served Arcona as tears appeared in the corner of Izal’s eye. Leia, magnoclamped to the deck next to Han’s seat,
cocked a brow and thumbed her fingers as though activating a credit chip. Han shook his head no. A wreck like the
Sureshot
wasn’t worth much, but there were some things no amount of money could replace.

“Thanks, Izal,” Han said. “If you ever need anything from us, let us know.”

“You’re doing it,” Izal said. “Just stop this Shesh woman and her Appeasement Vote.”

A pair of Rendili light cruisers—on-station in Coruscant’s innermost patrol perimeter—drifted past the viewport, then the
Jolly Man
entered a controlled-access area and had to slow as inbound vessels were herded into narrow approach bands. Above and below these bands, dozens of New Republic frigates were lacing the darkness with rocket fire as they set a shell of orbiting space mines.

As the traffic flow coagulated, Han and the three Barabels—crouched on the edges of their seats rasping in awe at Coruscant’s scintillating brightness—kept a close watch. If Shesh’s assassins were going to take the bait, this would be the logical place to stage an accident, but the
Sureshot
—flying under the
Falcon
alias
Shadow Bird
—passed through the mine shell unmolested. A few minutes later, crescents of sunlight started to reflect off the bottoms of orbital gun platforms. The traffic began to disperse as vessels fanned out toward their docking facilities.

The
Sureshot
and
Jolly Man
descended into low orbit. The
Sureshot
began to drift across Han’s viewport as it turned toward the Eastport Docking Facility, where the Solos kept a berth under an assumed name.

Finally, a collision alarm sounded from Izal Waz’s slave controls.

“Izal?” Han asked. He kept his gaze fixed out the viewport, but could see nothing moving toward the
Sureshot
. “I don’t see anything.”

“Something small.” Izal punched a button to activate the
Sureshot
’s distress alarm, and the electronic tones of an allchannels emergency beacon drifted down from the bridge speakers. “I think it came from—”

The
Sureshot
became an orange ball, hurling oddly shaped silhouettes and still-glowing drive nacelles in all directions.

Even the Barabels gasped, and the comm channels erupted into inquiries and exclamations. Han turned toward Izal Waz and found the Arcona pushed back from his station, wiping the bubbles from his eyes.

“A rescue ship,” Izal said. “It came underneath and ejected something.”

A wedge of broken sensor dish glanced off the particle shields outside Han’s viewport, drawing an involuntary recoil—and a chorus of sissing from the Barabels.

“Very funny,” Han said. “I’ll bet you guys wouldn’t flinch in a meteor storm.”

More debris began bouncing off the
Jolly Man
’s shields, and the freighter started to slow. The captain patched a comm channel through the intercom.

“… mine spill,” an official voice was saying. “Cut speed to dead stop, and we’ll tractor you out. Repeat, dead stop.”

“In a Sarlacc’s eye,” Leia scoffed. She turned to Han. “Could they have seen through our decoy?”

Han shook his head. “The mine would’ve hit us,” he said. “They’re just trying to figure the
Jolly Man
. They might have been watching for a while, or maybe they picked up some of Izal’s signal traffic.”

“What do you think?” the
Jolly Man
’s captain asked over the intercom. “Should I call in our backup?”

“No, we don’t want Viqi to know her assassins failed.” Leia looked over at Han, then added, “We can still pull this off.”

Han raised his brow, then rose and, waving Leia toward the back of the ship, told the captain, “Just keep your launching bay in the
Jolly
’s sensor shadow.”

The Barabels’ slit pupils widened to diamonds, and Izal Waz gasped, “You two are getting out
here
?”

In the
Jolly Man
’s makeshift docking bay, the freighter’s normal complement of primitive starfighters had been replaced by two dozen twin-pod cloud cars. Long ago converted for civilian tours on the Cinnabar Moon, they were a cargo far less likely to draw unwanted attention from Coruscant customs. Han opened the canopy of the vehicle he would fly. The backseat had already been removed, so Tesar used the Force to deposit Leia—chair and all—in the passenger compartment facing aft.

C-3PO came clunking into the hold. “Captain Solo, Mistress Leia, wait! You’re forgetting me!”

“Sorry, Threepio,” Leia said. “You’ll have to stay with Izal and the Barabels until they can send you home.”

“Stay?” C-3PO regarded the Barabels for a moment, then asked, “Are you quite sure there’s no room?”

“You’re a little large for the trunk,” Han said.

He floated the cloud car out into the launching bay and shut down all non-life-support systems to lower their sensor profile. Then, with Izal and the Barabels waving good-bye through the observation port, he and Leia watched nervously as the outer hatch opened.

The cloud car lurched sharply as one of the Jedi used the Force to launch it from the bay. There was just enough time to be overwhelmed by the immensity of space compared to the tiny cockpit—and to wonder how much more vast the darkness must have seemed to Jaina when she went EV at Kalarba—before one of the Barabels reached out again. The cloud car began to tumble like an ordinary piece of space flotsam.

“Oh—nice touch,” Leia said. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Fighting to keep his gaze fixed on the
Jolly Man
—and his own stomach down—Han alternated between trying not to watch Coruscant’s sparkling surface slide by and trying not to notice the stars swirling past in ever-widening spirals. Tails of ion efflux appeared and disappeared at random. Once, the tiny halo of an approaching vessel swelled into the backlit silhouette of a New Republic frigate. It vanished beneath the floor of the spinning cloud car and reappeared an instant later, less than a kilometer overhead and veering sharply away.

At last, the
Jolly Man
’s blocky silhouette disappeared over Coruscant’s horizon. Han waited a few more minutes, then fired the attitude thrusters to stabilize their tumble. Shaken by their close call with the frigate—and all too aware that being bounced off a particle shield would demolish their little craft—he activated the transponder next, and then the navigation systems.

It was at about that time Leia asked, “Why do I doubt those rescue launches are coming to help?”

Not waiting for the traffic display to come on-line, Han pushed their nose down and fired the cloud car’s little ion drive.

They streaked out of orbit like a meteor and began to buck and burn in the thickening atmosphere. Finally, he had time to glance at the jiggling screen. A pair of rescue launch symbols sat almost atop their own. Farther away, the
Jolly Man
was turning away from Coruscant, a quartet of Cinnabar Moon cloud cars rushing back to its launching bay. Behind them tumbled the blinking codes of nearly a dozen damaged rescue launches. The rescue ship itself was nowhere to be seen.

Han opened a private channel to the
Jolly Man
. “You guys okay back there?”

“Of course,” sissed a Barabel—Han thought it was Bela. “But one of those spilled mines changed course and struck the rescue ship, and the debris field has been very hard on her launchez. Only two escaped.”

“No need to worry about those,” Leia said. “We have them in sight. Have a safe journey home.”

“We will,” Izal Waz said. “We’re clear of danger now. May the … well, you know.”

“We do, and the same to you,” Leia said. “Thank you again, and send C-3PO back when you get a chance.”

Han continued to accelerate until the hull temperature warning light came on—then went faster. The first towers appeared far below, their spires jutting through the clouds like spikes through a bed. The rescue launches began to drift back. Han thought they might be losing nerve—until they brought their tractor beams on-line. He began to juke and jink like a fighter pilot.

The voice of a startled approach-control officer came over the comm speaker. “Cinnabar Moon cloud car five-three, what is the nature of your damage?”

“Damage?” Han said.

“From the mine spill,” Leia whispered over the seat. “He thinks we were hit.”

“Uh, no damage,” Han commed. “We’re fine.”

“Then
slow down
!”

Han checked the traffic display. “Negative, Control.”

There was a puzzled silence, then a disbelieving supervisor growled, “Negative?”

“This is an emergency,” Han said. “My wife is, uh, having a baby.”

“
Whaaaaat
?” Leia managed to modulate her startled outburst into something resembling a scream. “It’s coming!”

“We can confirm that.” The voice was so gravelly it might have been human or Aqualish. “We been escortin’ ’em.”

“Very well, cloud car,” the supervisor said. “We’ll clear a direct lane to Lamoramora Medcenter. Please follow the beacon on your traffic display … and slow down. You have the time to arrive in one piece.”

“Like
you’d
know!” Leia snapped, playing her role. “Ronto brain!”

A deep chuckle came over the channel. A winking safety beacon flashed past as they reached the towertops and dived into the clouds. Han shifted to instrument-flying and found himself plummeting through a canyon of display lines. A blue bar illuminated the route to Lamoramora, but the hoverlane was too narrow for maneuvering. Han swung into a broader skylane and circled an ancient cylindrical tower he could see only on his screen.

“Not going to lose them that way,” Leia reported. “If I can see them, they can see us.”

“You can see them in
this
?” Han did not dare glance up from his instruments, but he suspected he could not have seen five meters beyond the cloud car’s nose. “How close are they?”

“Close.” Leia’s voice assumed the eerie calm that meant things were really bad. “Close enough to—”

Lines of blaster bolts started to flash past.

Control’s angry voice squawked over the comm channel. Han slapped the unit off, then dropped out of the clouds through a crowded hoverlane, tipped the cloud car on its side, and ducked around a corner into oncoming traffic. Hovercars went everywhere. Han picked his way up to an emergency access level.

“Are the launches still back—”

The crackle of melting canopy told him they were.

“You all right?”

“Define
all right.
” Leia had to yell to make herself heard over the rush of air. “I’m staring down the barrels of two blaster rifles, and I’ve got nothing but spit to fight back with.”

Han dived for the dark underlevels, buying enough time to pull his blaster. He pushed it over the seat into Leia’s hands, then the launches were on them again. Another bolt hit the canopy. The plasteel shattered. The wind filled Han’s eyes with tears, and his blaster began to screech.

“Han, do something.” That calm voice again.

“Can’t see!”

Han squinted and thought he saw a bridge below. No, a roof! He leveled off and shot along a few meters above its surface, weaving through exhaust stacks and intake vents, then the roof dropped away and the cloud car was over a black abyss again.

Something pinged in the rear of the vehicle.

“Smoke!”

“Good,” he said. “Maybe it’ll blind ’em.”

Han widened his eyes and saw a pair of dark bars ahead. Two bridges, stacked. He’d have to shoot through a hoverlane, but not a congested one. Wherever they were, this part of the city was not exactly prosperous.

The cloud car chugged. Han thought at first a tractor beam had snagged them, but the whine of the little ion engine began to fall in pitch, not rise. The dark bars ahead started to assume shape and depth. Half a kilometer away, maybe, with about the same distance separating them vertically.

“Leia, activate your chair’s repulsors,” Han said. “And be ready to shut off the magnoclamp.”