Corellian Trilogy_ Ambush At Corellia Part 15

CHAPTER TEN.

Showtime Something was happening to Star Number TD-10036EM-I 271, something that went against all experience, all patterns of stellar mechanics.

Strange forces reached out for it, huge and unseen hands manipulated its interior, forcing the internal heat and pressure up to levels that such a star never experienced.

The surface of TD- 10036-EM- 1271 began to roil more and more violently. Powerful seismic waves started to pulse through the supercompressed matter at the star's core. Its outer layers began to expand as a result of the increased heat and pressure. It changed in color from yellow to white to blue white to pulsating blue white glaring up into the ultravioletAnd then, quite impossibly, TD- 10036-EM- 1271 exploded.

The shock-wave sh.e.l.l of energy rushed out into s.p.a.ce in all directions, an incredible blast of light and heat that would be plainly visible to the naked eye from a half-dozen inha ited systemsnce the light from the explosion reached those stars, years or decades later.

But the event did not go un.o.bserved. By something more than chance, an automated probe droid was on hand to witness the explosion. It carefully recorded every detail of the supernova, noting the time, the place, and making a scan of the background stars to confirm the coordinates.

Then it powered down its detection systems and switched on its navicomputer. It headed out of the Th-lOO3EM1271 system, out toward where it could safely drop into hypers.p.a.ce. It dropped out of normal s.p.a.ce, and rushed into the dark between the stars. It had an appointment to keep.

An appointment on Corellia * * * Han Solo had gone to sleep happy indeed. After tucking the children in, he had gone to be by himself and shut his own eyes, thinking nostalgic thoughts about his old homeworld.

He had felt full of love and pride in his children, felt glad that everyone was safe and secure aboard the good old Millennium Falcon.

But all that good feeling vanished as he slept. Han was tormented by dreams that night, fearsome dreams of all the most nightmarish moments of his old adventures, the monsters that had tried to kill him or eat him, the crash landing he should not have survived, the deadly traps he had been caught in and, by all rights, should not have escaped. Han was not the sort of person who had nightmares very often, but when he did have them, they struck hard, and deeand the dangers he had faced in real life were ample fodder for a lifetime of bad dreams.

But the real dangers he had faced in the past paled in comparison with the imaginary terror Han faced in his dreams that night. Again and again, he found himself trapped in the same few horrifying moments.

A something, a faceless, secret, hidden, deadly something was stalking Han and his family, tracking them across a lurid, distorted jungle landscape full of the shrieks and cries of the hunter and the hunted, the air pungent with the stench of dead things putrefying in the steambath heat. But even as the heat and the stench and the sound hit Han smack in the face, he would find himself suddenly running, running for his life, his family just ahead of him, Chewie just behind.

The children were screaming in terror as they fled, and Leia was in the lead, slashing a path through the vegetation with her lightsaber.

Han knew he shouldn't waste time or energy trying to seethe something, but he could not help himself. He turned, looked back over his shoulder, and tripped over a vine in the path. He went sprawling, and landed faceup, looking straight up atHis eyes snapped open, and Han realized that he was awake, safe in his bed, on his ship, with Leia by his side and all safe, all well. He sat up and swung his feet out of bed and sat there for a moment, trying to steady himself.

He realized that he was covered in a cold sweat. He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax.

He got up, moving carefully in the darkness of the tiny cabin, and made his way out to the pa.s.sageway, out to the refresher stall. He turned on the light, squinted in the sudden brightness, ran some water, and splashed it on his face.

Why had the dream frightened him so much?

It didn't take much reflection for him to come up with an answer.

His family. The dream was not about Han being in danger, but about his family being in danger.

Here he was, about to bring his wife and children to Corellia, where New Republic Intelligence thought there was enough danger that their agents disappeared, but not so much that it would be any problem to have Han and his family serve as decoys. Corellia, where even in the good times, pirates had been part of everyday life. What in the universe had he been thinking of, bringing Leia and the kids to such a place?

"Ah, give it up," Han said to the face in the nrirror.

Leia would have gone anyway, to attend the trade summit, and Han knew full well just how determined she was to keep her family with her.

There had been too many separations over the years for Leia-or Han-to put up with yet another. Even Chewbacca would have insisted on goingespecially if he felt the kids were in any danger.

In short, thele really hadn't been anything he could have done to stop them all from going. Not without convincing everyone that the danger was a lot greter than it seemed to be.

And yet. And yet. That NRI agent had known more than she was tellingr perhaps telling more than she knew.

Something wasn't right. Han was certain of that.

He checked the time and sighed. He was supposed to be getting up in an hour anyway. No real sense in going back to sleep. Might as well head up to the c.o.c.kpit and start getting ready for their arrival in the Corellian System, a few hours from now.

He headed back to the cabin, and dressed as quietly as he could.

Leaa muttered in her sleep and rolled over, but did not awaken. Good.

Han stepped back into the corridor and made his way forward to the c.o.c.kpit.

He was not particularly surprised to see Chewbacca there already, in the copilot's chair, doing systems checkouts.

"Hey, Chewie," Han said, slapping his old friend on the shoulder.

"You couldn't sleep either, huh?"

Chewie let out a low growl and got on with his work.

Han sat down in the pilot's chair. He flicked on a few of the control systems, glanced at a readout or two, but then he dropped his hands away from the control panels, leaned back in his chair, folded one leg over the other, and proceeded to get lost in thought.

His knowledge of Corellian politics was at least twenty years out of date, but it might be enough to make some educated guesses. Who was stirring up the trouble? Humans? The Drall? The Selonians? And of course it could not be laid out that simply. All three of the races had their own factions, and the three races were, after all, on all five planets, making for a dizzying number of potential alliances and enemies for any given faction. And who could tell what groups had faded away or sprung to life in that time?

But Han realized that he didn't need to worry about any of that. He knew better. The Drall were too careful, too sensible, to start trouble they could not finish, and the Selonians ~iould see it all as beneath their notice, to say nothing of unrefined, to go knocking off NRI agents.

Besides, the NRI had a well< p="">

The NRI wouldn't have gone nosing around in Drallish or Selonian matters in the first place. Even if they had wanted to give it a try, they would have found it all but impossible to infiltrate native agents.

It was not much of an exaggeration to say the number of Drall or Selonians outside Corellian s.p.a.ce could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Even if the NRI had found a few, what were the odds of their finding one ready to play spy for them against their own kind?

No, the NRI couldn't go up against the Drall or Selonians very well, and it probably wouldn't if it could, and the Drall and Selonians were not likely to give the NRI a reason to try. Which, of course, left humans. And, if there were various external reasons that made it unlikely for the nonhuman species to be the source of the trouble, then there were lots of external reasons why it made a great deal of sense for humans to be the most likely suspects.

For starters, the Empire had been notoriously prohuman.

It had treated the members of nearly all other species as second-cla.s.s citizens, at best. Han glanced over to where Chewbacca was working. Some species, like Wookiees, were made slaves. Few nonhumans would have much reason to grieve at the Empire's demise, but there were plenty of humans for whom the Imperial era had been the best of times.

There were no doubt quite a few humans in the Corellian Sector who mourned the Empire's pa.s.sing, and had little reason to love the New Republic.

But the sheer fact that the NRI was involved made it likely that the opposition was human. The NRI had lots of human agents. That made it possible for the NRI to infiltrate a human opposition-and vice versa.

Han sat upright. Wait a second. That was the part that had been bothering him. Kalenda had told him that the opposition had managed to capture or kill at least six NRI agents. No one was that good. Not unless they had help.

In short, it was all but certain that the bad guys had infiltrated NRI. Han checked his instruments. They had another hour and a half before the drop out of light speed.

All right then, they would just have to make the best use of that time. "Chewie," Han said, "I'm a little worried about this one."

Chewie answered with a complicated hoot and a display of his fangs.

"I know," Han said. "I've been thinking about what Kalenda said myself. It's possible that they're waiting for us with something besides a marching band."

Chewie made an interrogatory sort of noise and gestured toward the navicomputer.

"No, that'd be worse," Han said. "What with the pirates and all, the Corellians have always been very particular about people coming out of hypers.p.a.ce in just the right place and just the right time. If we shifted our arrival coordinates, they'd blow us out of the sky first and ask questions later.

We'll just have to come in at the designated time and coordinates and be ready for any surprises they might have waiting for us. I want you to check all the systems and then doublecheck the weapons and defense systems. Even if you find a failure in a minor system, don't fix it until you know we can fight if we have to. I'd rather have the plumbing go out than find out the hard way that the turbo-lasers aren't working.

I'll be back soon to give you a hand, but first I'm going to go aft and get everyone ready."

Chewie shook his head mournfully and gave a sort of openmouthed snort.

"Hey, relax, will you? I'm just going to have a quiet word with Leia. I'm not going to act nervous and scare the kids, all right?"

Chewbacca hooted quietly, clearly unconvinced.

Han climbed up out of the low seat and went back to the rear of the Falcon, to find that the kids were already up and, needless to say, had gotten their mother up as well. They were all bustling about the lounge area, getting breakfast together. "How is everyone this morning?" Han asked.

"Hi, Dad! Fine," Jacen said as he opened up a meal pack. "We gonna get to Corellia today?"

"We sure are," Han said, smiling as cheerfully as he could. "But we have to jump back out of light speed first, in about an hour and a half."

"Wow!" Jacen said. "That must be neat to see. Can we ride up in the c.o.c.kpit and watch?"

"Not this time, sport." if things got dicey once they were in-system, the last thing Han would need would be frightened children in the backseat. "Maybe some other time. Right now I want you three kids to get everything stowed, do what your mother says, and be strapped in for the jump out of hypers.p.a.ce-or we turn around and go back home. Got it?"

"Yes, Dad," Jaina and Jacen replied in unison as Anakin nodded, wide and solemn.

"Good," Han said. "Now, I want to borrow your mother for just a second, and then I have to go back to the c.o.c.kpit, so I won't see you again until after we're in Corellian s.p.a.ce.

So behave yourself until then. Okay?"

Han was rewarded with a ragged chorus of "okays" and nodded. He led leia out into the corridor and shut the hatch to the lounge behind them.

"What is it, Han?" she asked, before he even had a chance to speak.

"What's what?" he asked, a little baffled by her rather clipped tone of voice.

"What is it that has had you worried since before we left?"

Out of reflex more than anything else, Han threw a big, lopsided grin on his face, and got all set to deny it all. But then he stopped, and let the smile fade away. This was his wife. This was the mother of his children. More to the point, this was Leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of the New Republic, war hero, strong in the Force, and capable of being every bit as ruthless as a Noghri a.s.sa.s.sin. He couldn't play the fool with her and have the slightest hope of getting away with it.

Besides, it would be wrong to try. It was his duty to play it straight, and there was nothing more to be gained by his pretended things were fine. Not when it was plainly obvious he wasn't fooling her.

"I don't know what's wrong," he said, "but something is. I didn't see any point in worrying you when I didn't know anything in the first place. An NRI agent approached me a few days ago and said their agents in the Corellian Sector weren't checking in. That was the one piece of hard information I got out of her. I don't think she knew much more herself."

"So why come and tell you that?" leia asked.

"They wanted me to draw attention to Corellia, act suspiciously.

Make whoever it is look in my direction so maybe the heat wouldn't be on their people."

"I don't see any need to ask you that either," Leia said.

"I can't remember the last time you didn't draw attention or act suspiciously." Han smiled, but knew she had a point. "I know. No Corellian local bad guy would ever believe I was just a tourist. They'd have to watch me."

"So what's the point of NRI asking you to do what you'd do anyway so the opposition will do what they'd do anyway?"

"I've been thinking on that," Han said. "I think it was a warning.

Looking back on it, I'm not so sure this agent was authorized to tell me what was up."

"A warning of what?"

"That we might just be about to walk into a bad situation.

I don't know. A half-dozen times since then, I've almost canceled the whole trip. But if the NRI felt the chief of state's family shouldn't go somewhere, they'd say so. I think the agent was trying to tell me to be careful. I don't think she was trying to say we were in danger."

Icia sighed and leaned back against the bulkhead.

"That's it?" she asked. "Nothing beyond that to get you worried?"

"Well, one other thing. Five minutes after she left, Chewie spotted a probe droid snooping around. We made a try for it, but this particular probe droid shot back instead of self-destructing. Chewie nailed it just before it nailed me. I don't think it had a chance to report in before it died, and I don t think we said all that much of interest in the first place."

Leia raised an eyebrow. "I thought I noticed something burned smelling when you came home that night."

"I don't know why I bother trying to fool you," Han said.

"Well, don't try. Was there anything else? Nearly getting killed by a probe droid is bad enough, but is there more that's got you worried?"

"Nothing besides the fact that it's Corellia," Han said.

"But that's enough to make me want to find reasons to bail out. The place has the politics of a snakepit."

"That's why I'm headed there in the first place," leja said. Leia had managed to avoid most of the demands for her to appear at this planet's coronation or give a speech at that planet's university commencement, or rush out and settle this diplomatic tiff or stomp out that minor political brush fire. It had taken a lot of time and determination on her part to get things running so that she wasn't being hauled off to every ribbon-cutting and every jurisdictional fuss throughout the New Republic.

The very fact that she had agreed to go to Corellia showed how important the place was-and how difficult it was going to be to straighten things out. But if they could open Corellia back up to trade and normal relations with the rest of the Core Sectors, it would be an incredible breakthrough.

It would resolve half the New Republic's diplomatic problems at a stroke. Ieia's very presence sent a signal, telling everyone just how much importance the New Republic attached to resolving the Corellian situation.

However, it also raised the trip's visibility level that much more.

It meant the stakes, which had been high, were suddenly that much higher.

The dangers were too hypothetical, too unclear, to allow them to interfere. Besides, the dangers might not even exist outside the fertile imagination of a junior NRI agent.

"We have to go in, don't we?" Han asked.

"But we don't have to like it,', Leia said. "It's almost time,"