Fate of the Jedi: Backlash Page 18

  Allana glanced at the astromech. “Can you plug in to the computer?”

  He tweetled an affirmative. He extended his datajack arm and slotted it into a plug near the comm board.

  Monitors and readouts all over the control surfaces were now lighting up, many of them with notifications of an imminent hull breach at the loading ramp.

  What was next? Oh, yes, a checklist. She didn’t know the checklist. Well, she knew one item. “Passenger, buckle in.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  Tentatively, even fearfully, she put her hands on the yoke. No, that wasn’t right. First, the repulsors. She activated that system, diverting most of the Falcon’s motivator energy away from thrusters, and then gripped the yoke again. Distantly, she heard cries of alarm from the vicinity of the loading ramp—then she felt a big bump and heard a sharp bang.

  “Oh dear,” C-3PO said. “That sounded like an explosion.”

  Gently, as carefully as she could manage with her too-small hands, she pulled back on the yoke.

  The Falcon lurched nose-first into the sky. Reflexively, she shoved on the yoke and the nose came crashing to ground again, jarring Allana nearly out of the seat, sending a metallic clanging noise throughout the ship.

  R2-D2 tweetled.

  “Artoo reports that Monarg’s cutting torch exploded as he was trying to light it,” C-3PO said. “We appear to have taken some hull damage, but the rest of the intruders have fallen off.”

  “Good.” She tried again, even more gently this time, pulling up on the yoke as well as back.

  The Falcon rose, wobbly, into the air. The repulsor system whined like an uncertain adolescent.

  Perimeter lights all around the spaceport’s fences brightened into sun-like luminescence and swung around to train on the Falcon. Allana was momentarily dazzled by the unwelcome brightness, but the polarized transparisteel of the viewports darkened. She blinked against the spots before her eyes.

  The comm board lit up. “Dathomir Spaceport to Naboo Duckling, please state your intention.”

  “Tell him we’re leaving.”

  “Oh, dear. Um, Naboo Spaceport, this is the Dathomir Duckling. We are departing.”

  “Return to your berth at once. You have not filed a flight plan or received clearance to depart.”

  Allana glanced out her starboard viewport. Jade Shadow seemed so very close. All she had to do was twitch the wrong way and the two ships would crash together. “If they won’t protect us against big, ugly, mean droidnappers, we’re leaving.”

  “Our captain wishes you to know—”

  “I can hear your captain. What is she, ten years old?”

  Allana felt a flash of pleasure. Ten! They thought she was ten. She pushed the yoke forward a touch. The Falcon, nose-down but completely off the ground, began floating toward the fences ahead. “Tell them I’m twelve.”

  “Tell her it doesn’t matter how old she is. I will personally guarantee that she’ll be tried as an adult if she does not set that wreck down right where it is and surrender to our security team.”

  “I don’t think I’ll pass that along. The young miss is a child in command of concussion missiles, and I think that her temper at this moment could best be described as uncertain. In addition, she has legitimate grievances against your spaceport administration, which I can enumerate.”

  Allana pushed just a trifle harder, and the Falcon gained forward speed. The brilliantly lit fence came toward them at an alarming rate.

  R2-D2 tweetled.

  “Our astromech friend, who should know such things, calculates that we’re actually a couple of meters too—”

  The Falcon drifted over the fence. Mostly over the fence. The landing skids caught the flexible wire-weave construction. Electricity sparked in all directions from the points of contact. The skids caught the fence material, but the Falcon was unslowed. With each passing moment, a twenty-meter stretch of fence on either side yanked free of its support posts and was dragged along behind the ship.

  Finally there was a shudder through the Falcon. The nose dipped farther but did not come to ground again. The engines strained, and then the ship lurched and resumed her speed of a moment before, leaving in her wake a tremendous gap in the fence.

  “Artoo reports obstruction cleared. I calculate the total cost to repair damages at—”

  “I don’t care.”

  “That doesn’t include punitive compensation, pain compensation, sentimental value compensation assuming that the fence serves as a treasured memento to someone—”

  “I don’t care. I just want to know how long I’m going to be grounded.”

  R2-D2 tweetled.

  “The odds say fifty point four two Coruscant years.”

  Allana flew for a while at treetop level. For her, this meant flying with the comforting noise of treetops scraping their way to oblivion along the Falcon’s lower hull. While that went on, she was sure that she was far enough above the ground. But R2-D2 pointed out via C-3PO that this tactic would allow pursuers to find her without effort once dawn broke, so she gained a little altitude.

  At R2-D2’s urging, she changed direction several times, eventually heading east into marshy territory characterized by very tall trees, festooned with moss, with open spaces between their trunks. Then, in a harrowing five-minute exercise in trial and error, she brought the Falcon to the ground. The crunch of landing, reduced by the softness of the soil, was not too alarming, and only a few diagnostic screens came up with damage alerts.

  “Artoo points out that, if we are to elude pursuit, it might be best if we deploy the camouflage covering, which will help conceal us from aerial observation. It does mean walking about on the ship’s top hull.”

  Allana nodded, feeling old, wise, and as successful as one can be when facing a punishment destined to last more than half a century. “I can do that.”

  BESIDE REDGILL LAKE, DATHOMIR

  Han was still screaming into his comlink, demanding to know how Zekk and Taryn could have allowed someone to fly off in the Falcon with Allana and the droids aboard, when Leia’s comlink beeped.

  She answered it immediately. “Jedi Solo.”

  “Leia?”

  “All—Amelia! Are you all right? Where are you?”

  C-3PO’s voice was next. “Actually, that’s a lengthy story.”

  And it was. It went on long enough for Han to sign off with Zekk and for the Skywalkers to come over and eavesdrop, and between Allana and C-3PO it was recounted in enough detail that Han, pale, gave in to a sudden urge to sit on the ground. “She flew the Falcon.”

  Leia glowered down at him. “Hush. It sounds like she did quite well.” She spoke back into the comlink. “Amelia, sweetie, have Artoo transmit us your coordinates. We’ll be back there as soon as we can. Very, very soon.”

  “All right.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Solo out.” Leia looked among her comrades. “How do we want to handle this?”

  Yliri, standing uncertainly nearby, stepped up. “We should load Carrack onto the cargo speeder. I’ll take you to your ship, dump the speeder’s memory so spaceport security can’t use it to track you down. Then I’ll take Carrack in to the spaceport.”

  “That’ll probably be best.” Leia sighed. “I hate leaving before things are resolved here.”

  Luke shook his head. “You have to.”

  “I know.” There was a beep from the pouch at Leia’s waist, though her comlink was still in her hand. She dug around in the pouch and came up with her datapad, which she flipped open. “Artoo is also forwarding your mail, Ben. Your datapad hasn’t been picking it up.”

  “Yeah. My datapad is a lump of charred circuitry. Can I borrow yours?”

  “Keep it. I’ll get another one on the Falcon.”

  In minutes they had the unconscious Carrack and the shell-shocked Han loaded aboard the cargo speeder. Tarth Vames also boarded, apologizing for abandoning the party, explaining that he
could do more good smoothing matters over at the spaceport. Then Yliri accelerated the lot of them southward.

  Luke sighed. “Circumstances and the Nightsisters seem to be winning. Not one of us died and yet we’re down more than half our strength.”

  “More bad news.” Looking unhappy, Ben snapped the datapad shut. “I got a message from Jaina. There was a government raid on the Temple. Daala sent Mandos to do the job. No casualties, but it’s a mess.”

  Luke took a look around, noting Vestara’s location—beside Olianne, at the Raining Leaves’ chiefs’ campfire. Ben felt better knowing that Vestara had not been close enough to hear their exchange.

  Ben whistled to himself. “I’ve got it. I wish I’d thought of it before.”

  “Got what?”

  “How she’s managed to hide her lightsaber and other gear. And maybe even what she’s doing here. Part of it, anyway.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “We know she didn’t crash. The yacht at Monarg’s shop that Amelia and Threepio were talking about has to be hers. Same model and antiquity. She leaves it behind to be fixed, maybe so she can escape in it later.”

  “Good. And?”

  “She moves around in the wildlands to keep us moving, keep us guessing. And either her stuff is back with Monarg, or …” Ben looked off into the darkness beyond the encampment. “Or the first Dathomiri she ran into weren’t Raining Leaves, but Nightsisters. Sith and Nightsisters go together like caf and cream. Her stuff is with them. She gave them the intelligence they needed to execute this attack.”

  Luke thought it over and shook his head. “Maybe she did encounter them first. That’s not unreasonable. But we know that every clan has a Nightsister or two secretly among its members, so they didn’t need her for the intelligence you mention.”

  “I guess not. I just want to blame her for something.”

  “Figure out what she’s really doing and blame her for that.”

  “Yeah. Good plan.”

  MARSHES EAST OF THE SPACEPORT, DATHOMIR

  HAN SWITCHED OFF THE WELDER AND LIFTED THE NEARLY OPAQUE goggles from his eyes. He stood in the starboard-side loading ring of the Millennium Falcon, the hatch open to the moist night air beyond. The armor-grade durasteel patch he’d just applied to the Falcon’s exterior hull was no thing of beauty, but it would maintain hull integrity in space and undo all the damage caused when Zekk had used the Force to sabotage Monarg’s cutting torch. Han nodded, satisfied with his work.

  “A little sanding, a little paint, and you’ll never know it was touched.”

  Han jumped and turned to glare at the speaker. Leia stood a couple of meters back along the access, atop the end of the boarding ramp, which was in its up position and locked into place. “Keep sneaking up on me when I’m using power tools, sister, and there’s going to be one amazing accident someday.”

  She grinned. “I waited until you’d shut it off. This time.”

  “The kid asleep?”

  She nodded. “I kind of had to reassure her that we weren’t going to ground her until she was our age.”

  “I wish you hadn’t done that. I wanted to keep our options open.” Han stepped away from the hatch and hit the button to close it. It slid into place and locked with a reassuring thump.

  “I’m already making her wait until the next time we’re on Dathomir to ride her rancor,” Leia said.

  “Oh yeah, the rancor. I forgot you promised her she could ride one.”

  Leia’s brow shot up. “That wasn’t exactly me, you know.”

  Han shrugged and smiled. “It is the way I remember it.”

  He took Leia’s arm and walked with her up to the cockpit, depositing welder and goggles in a locker en route. “And how’s the nexu?”

  “I think she’ll be fine. Lots of bruises.” Leia said.

  C-3PO loitered in the cockpit, his body language more than usually uncertain. “We are all sealed in, sir?”

  “All sealed.” Han flopped into the pilot’s chair, which was now empty of Allana’s pillows. “You and Artoo have finished all the cosmetic fixes?”

  “Artoo’s handling the last of the panels that popped free during our most distressing landing, sir. Otherwise your diagnostics boards are showing all green, I believe the expression is.”

  Leia took her customary seat in the copilot’s chair. “Threepio, why didn’t you inform us when Artoo first went missing? A lot of this trouble could have been avoided.”

  “Oh, dear, I knew this topic would arise. I was under specific instructions from Artoo not to disturb you unless a certain amount of time passed without further communication from him. I assume he felt that his investigations might take some time. And as I’m quite familiar, from decades of suffering the consequences, with his tendencies to initiate activities without anyone’s go-ahead, I acquiesced. I truly do regret that this led Mistress Allana into harm’s way.”

  “Not your fault.” Han sighed. “Heredity and environment are to blame, just like usual.”

  Leia gave him a close look. “Usually it’s enough for you to say It’s not my fault, without actually coming to a conclusion about what is to blame.”

  “Yeah, well. Unusual times. Threepio, go ahead and knock off. We’ll let you know when we’ve figured out what to do.”

  “As you say, sir.”

  Han waited until the golden droid waddled his way aft. “I hate to say it, but we’ve got to go back to Coruscant.”

  “I know.”

  “If Daala’s mad enough to throw Mandos at the Jedi—at our daughter—we’ve got to do something about it.”

  “I agree.”

  He gave her a narrow look. “Since when did you become so agreeable?”

  “Since when did you become so responsible?”

  Han glanced over his shoulder toward the aft sections of his ship. He couldn’t see her through intervening bulkheads, but Allana would be back there now, asleep, at peace. “Since we got another chance—and I’m not making the same mistake again.”

  “Oh, I think I can count on you to foul up this time, too.” There was no real sting in her words, just amusement.

  “Now, that’s the disagreeable girl I married.” He grinned at her and turned around to begin a preflight checklist. “You want to call Luke and let him know?”

  “No.”

  He glanced at her, puzzled.

  “Just being disagreeable.” She leaned forward to activate the comm board.

  CORUSCANT

  Somehow, while Daala wasn’t looking, the funeral of Admiral Cha Niathal had been transformed into a morning procession to be followed by a public service scheduled for broadcast on major news services.

  In her quarters in the Senate Building, Daala struggled to straighten her freshly pressed white dress uniform jacket while keeping her comlink and datapad in hand and watching the coverage of the pre-procession preparations on the wall monitor. “So Coruscant Security signed off on the procession itself. But, specifically, who?”

  The voice from her comlink was male and sounded defensive. “Well, it’s spelled three different ways on three different forms. It appears to be something like Captain Koltstan.”

  “And is there a Captain Koltstan in Coruscant Security?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then that’s not the name. Find out who it was. And who paid for the transportation and for the drum line and for the security deposit.” Her door chimed to announce the presence of a visitor—and since it was a chime and not a query from a security agent, it was someone with standing authorization to enter. “Come.”

  The door slid up and Wynn Dorvan walked in. Seeing the rows of buttons on Daala’s dress jacket unfastened and the jacket gaping open over her undershirt, he turned his back with an unobtrusive grace that suggested he had, in fact, dropped in to study the Super Star Destroyer holo prominently framed on the white wall before him.

  “Oh, don’t be an idiot.”

  “Ma’am?” That was the voice on her comlink.<
br />
  “Not you. You, go away and get me answers. Daala out.” She flipped the switch on her comlink with enough force to break a device built to less than mil-spec standards. She hurled the comlink onto an off-white sofa, then threw the datapad after it. “Any more delays and I’m going to be late to the procession.” She got to work on her buttons. “What is it?”

  Dorvan hazarded a look over his shoulder, then turned to face her. “Security estimates that the threat level for the service is rising.”

  Daala blinked. “I was just speaking with security.”

  “Yes, with their investigative arm. I’m talking about the arm that handles protection of high-profile targets such as, oh, you.”

  “And they’re estimating increased danger for high-profile targets?”

  He shook his head. “No, just for you.”

  She finished with the top buttons and turned to look at a blank section of wall. “Mirror.”

  The wall panel slid aside, revealing a full-length mirror. Daala couldn’t stand the notion of having such a testimonial to vanity on display at all times, but she did need one for any self-examination before a public appearance, and having one hidden behind a wall panel was her compromise. “Would you be more specific?”

  “Your public approval rating has been dropping since the announcement of Niathal’s suicide, and Security thinks someone might take a shot at you during the service. It’s that simple.”

  “Niathal was on Most Hated lists as recently as—”

  “As recently as the day before her death. Now she’s being looked on as a noble officer who took a blaster bolt for the squad. And you’re the officer who attacked Mon Calamari a while back.”

  “So it’s dissident Mon Cals and Quarren we have to worry about?” She swept her hair up, freeing strands from her collar, and let it fall into place against her back again. “What do you think—loose, braid, or up?”