Corellian Trilogy_ Assault At Selonia Part 17

leia looked to Mara, but she already had the slave controller back out and powered up. She aimed it in the general direction of the s.p.a.ceport and switched it on.

Almost immediately a new light flashed on the control panel.

"Positive lock!" Mara said, looking back toward leia-and then, in the same instant, behind leia.

leia had the lightsaber on before she could turn back around. A Human League trooper had his head out the window, was bringing his blaster to bear. She had the lightsaber up over her head for a downward strike before she was finished turning. The trooper fired, and she deflected the shot with her lightsaber. She swung the blade around for an upper cut that chopped through the blaster before it sliced the trooper's head off at the neck.

The man's head tumbled down into the darkness, and his body fell back into the room. Now it was too late.

Another man stuck his head out, out of range of the lightsaber, and leia fired with the pocket blaster. He pulled his head back in.

Either she just clipped the man or else he had the sense to retreat.

A hand appeared, threw a mini-detonator toward leia, and then vanished. leia caught the detonator on her lightsaber blade and flipped it back into the building. It went off a split second later, with enough force to have thrown her off the ledge if she hadn't dropped the blaster and grabbed at the drapes again. A gout of flame spewed out the window, close and hot enough to singe her hair. She could feel Mara grab onto her right arm, and it took all the presence of mind leia had to shut off the lightsaber before the backswing on the blade sliced a few parts off both of them.

Flames were blossoming inside what had once been Mara's room.

They were running out of time and chances and choices with alarming speed. Leia looked toward the s.p.a.ceport, off toward the horizon. There it was! She could see it. A spot of light headed straight for them at high speed. It had to be the Jade's Fire, riding to the rescue. She pointed it out to Mara, who nodded and let go of leia. She worked the controls on her slave controller, looking back and forth between the incoming ship and the controller. They still weren't out of the woods. Mara had to fly that thing right to them.

leia looked to the burning room, watching for more unwelcome visitors. Nothing from that quarter, and not likely to be unless they had some troopers who didn't mind being roasted alive. She looked over her right shoulder and checked the window on the other side, behind Mara-and saw lights and movement inside.

"Mara!" she criedut either Mara had been deafened by the blast, or else flying the ship by remote was too delicate for anything else to interfere. leia let go of the drapes, scooped up the pocket blaster, and spun around.

She fired behind Mara's head, straight at the hand coming out of the window. She hit the blaster the hand was holding and blew it up, clearing the threat from that corner for the moment, but starting another fire-and leaving her completely flash-blinded.

leia closed her eyes and shook her head. She reopened her eyes and looked out into the sky. There.

Coming close enough to be a recognizable shape. The Jade's Fire, rushing closer.

But there, behind it, were other dots of light rising from the s.p.a.ceport. PPBPocket Patrol Boatsnt to chase down the ship that had suddenly launched itself.

The flames were growing brighter on either side of leia and Mara, but leia could hear the chaff, chuff of fire extinguishers being brought into play. The troopers would have the fires under control soon.

"leia!" Mara shouted over the roar of the flames.

"Get ready. I'm not sure how close I'll be able to fly her in, but the second she's close enough, jump! You might not get a second chance.

If you get aboard, go to the pilot's station and be ready to take control once I'm aboard!"

"Will do!" leia shouted, and watched as the Jade's Fire rushed closer. She was a bigger ship than leia had expected, significantly larger than the Millennium Falcon. She was a craft of graceful lines.

She had a snubbed-off nose and a wide fuselage that blended into the two thick elliptical wings. She was painted in a flame-pattern of oranges and red. leia certainly wouldn't want to try flying anything that size up to the side of a building by remote. And it looked like the job was giving Mara just a bit of trouble at that. The Fire slowed as it came nearer, and wobbled a bit in flight.

Turbulence.

Mara swore under her breath and made the slightest of adjustments to the controls. The Fire slowed down even more, and eased down just a trifle, bringing the top of the craft more or less even with the window ledge.

Mara brought her in to a complete halt in midair, about fifty meters from the ledge. At that moment a blaster fired from one of the upper windows of Corona House.

The shot pinged off the Fire's hull. A door opened in the top of the fuselage and a gun turret popped Out. It immediately swiveled about and returned fire. "Shootback system," Mara shouted before leia could ask.

"Automatically returns fire at anything that shoots at it.

Which reminds me. Don't do any more shooting yourself, or that thing will paste you for sure."

"Thanks for the tip," leia replied. Better late than never. She shoved the pocket blaster into her pocket and clipped the lightsaber to her belt.

Mara began sidling the Fire in closer, slowly closer, in toward Corona House. Another blaster fired, and the topside turret responded with a torrent of fire. Closer, closer. A topside hatch was opening, yellow light streaming out of the ship's interior. leia looked down at the portside wing of the big ship, and judged the distance as about two meters. A meter and a half.

Close enough. Don't give yourself time to think, she told herselL She jumped.

She landed hard on the upper hull of the ship and for a long, heart-stopping moment felt herself sliding down and off the rain-slicked hull. But then her hand found a purchase, and she pulled herself up and was on her feet, scuttling toward that open hatch, trying not to think of all the troopers in the building who might decide she would be worth taking a potshot at.

She heard a b.u.mp on the hull behind her and hoped to h.e.l.l it was Mara, but there was no time to look back.

She jumped down the hatch, not worrying about how she was going to land or what her ankle felt like, interested only in getting hull metal between herself and the line of fire.

leia managed to land full on her twisted ankle, and collapsed in a heap on the deck at the intersection of two corridors. She pulled herself up just as Mara came swarming down the hatch ladder. Mara hit the hatchclose b.u.t.ton the moment her head was clear of the hatch and came down the ladder.

leia caught Mara as her leg collapsed under her, and saw the blood soaking through the left leg of her coverall. That cut on Mara's calf must have been worse than it looked. But no time for that "This way,"

Mara shouted, pointing down one of the corridors.

Heavier blaster fire sounded from the rear of the craft, nearly knocking them over. The overhead shootback system returned fire.

"That'll be the PPBs," leia said. "Can the hull take that fire without shields?"

"For a while," Mara said. "But let's not try and find out how long." leia halfcarrying Mara, the two women hurried for the control room. They stopped in front of a hatch, and Mara punched codes into a keypad. The hatch slid open. Mara half lunged, half fell into the pilot's station and instantly powered up the shields.

"That'll hold the PPBs," she said, and then hit the throttle. The Jade's Fire leaped forward, grabbing for speed and alt.i.tude.

leia got herself to the navigator's station and collapsed. Soaked through to the bone, her teeth chattering, her ankle throbbing, her body no doubt a ma.s.s of bruises and sores she couldn't feel yet, onetime Princess, onetime Senator leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of the New Republic, breathed a sigh of relief. They were going to make it. She watched through the forward viewport as the Jade's Fire left Corellia behind.

She was not sorry to say good-bye.

- . IUJ.

CHAPTER TEN.

Getting There aeriel Captison sat down at one end of the long table and nodded to the man standing at the far end. "Admiral," she said, "I think we are ready to begin."

"Thank you, Madame Captison." Admiral Hortel Ossilege of the Bakuran Navy looked around the table. "I wish to review the situation," he said, "and make sure that I understand it completely.

Mr. Skywalker, once more, please, how long until your New Republic can refit and redeploy its ships in order to a.s.semble a fleet of its own?"

"Our best estimate is that ma.s.sing a force and preparing for action will take another forty-five standard days," Luke said.

"Indeed?" Ossilege asked, eyebrows raised. "I begin to wonder how you won against the Empire." He was a small man, of slight build, well-scrubbed and pinkskinned, completely bald on top of his head, but sporting a quite dramatic pair of bushy black eyebrows and a sharply pointed goatee. He wore a Bakuran dress naval uniform of creamy white, with a perfect fruit salad of ribbons and decorations on his chest. On the face of it, he should have looked ridiculous, a comic-opera caricature of the sort of officer who only fought-and wonthe sort of battles that took place in buffet lines, and in front of promotion board& Luke had learned very early on that appearances were deceiving.

In a day and a half of talks, Ossilege had demonstrated that his was a firstcla.s.s mind, and that he had little time for nonsense of any sort.

"Readiness is very low. There's no doubt about that," he said.

"But we have good evidence that the plotters on Corellia have penetrated our security system and timed their operation carefully."

"In short, they caught you with your pants down," said Ossilege.

He turned toward Kalenda. "Lieutenant, once more, please, your best estimate of the enemy's naval strength. Have you any reason to revise your opinion?"

"No sir, but I wish I did. I am forced to report that, from all I could see, the naval strength of the Human League and their allies is almost negligible. They seem to have a large number of fighter craft and corvettecla.s.s craft, but nothing at all larger. That's the evidence, but I just can't believe it. I think it would be suicidal to take that information at face value. They must have more ships somewhere. We have to a.s.sume that they are hiding their strength. We just don't know where they are hiding the ships, or why they are hiding them."

"Doesn't your outfit keep track of that sort of thing?"

Lando asked.

Kalenda shrugged. "The NRI does its best to track ship inventories, but it's almost impossible. And it's hard to get the information you have to the people who need it. We've got agents all over the Outlier Worlds, but their intelligence reports would go through Coruscant before they were sent on here. The reports haven't caught up with me yet. Maybe a courier ship will bring all Sorts of news tomorrow.

On the other hand, maybe it won't. And even if does, I wouldn't put much stock in the information. The Galaxy is pretty big You can hide 164 whole fleets full of ships, or whole shipyards, without much trouble. And there's an awful lot of surplus hardware from the Republic-Empire war floating around."

"You have no way of counting ships?" Ossilege asked in astonishment. "You, the much-vaunted NRI?"

"With respect, Admiral, you only have your own star system to contend with. But we have to watch everything. Suppose someone patches up a derelict cruiser and sells it on the black market in a system our people have never been to? Or what if a shipyard takes on a military-to-civilian conversion job and tears all the weaponry out of a frigate, and turns the frigate into a cargo for a nice, peaceful, well-established shipping companyxcept it turns out that the weapons were never actually removed, and the shipping company never existed except in whatever database the slicers got into? How are we supposed to deal with that? Or suppose someone just builds whatever ships they want for themselves, and never tells anyone about it? How would you count all the ships fitting that description within a thousand light-years of Corellia?"

Ossilege raised one bushy eyebrow. "You have just described a large fraction of the Bakuran procurement process," he said, "a subject I would prefer not to discuss further. I take your point." He turned toward Lando. "Captain Calrissian. You were to attempt a more detailed a.n.a.lysis of the so-called starbuster plot.

Your findings?"

Lando turned his palms upward in a gesture of helplessness. "The droids and I went over every bit of data we could squeeze out of the datachip Kalenda brought out. Nothing. We crunched the numbers as hard as we could, and it still came up ambiguous. There is no way to prove, absolutely, that the message to leia was sent before the star blew uand likewise no way to disprove the idea that the message was sent after the explosion, in such a way as to make it look as if it were delayed. But one thing we do know for suromeone blew that star.

There is simply no natural explanation for its having detonated on its own.

"There is also the imagery sent to Governor-General Micamberlecto, showing the star blowing up at close range. That couI have been faked, but it would be extremely difficult. If we a.s.sume it's genuine, either whoever shot the imagery just happened to have the probe in exactly the right position at exactly the right time, or else they had a probe waiting and ready to collect the imagery that would prove their claims.

"There's another related issue," Luke said. "The New Republic has to at least try to evacuate the next planetary system on the starbuster list. Plans weren't finalized before we left, but more than likely the Naritus and two or three other ships currently on patrol duty in the Coruscant system will be diverted to that job. That means that m, any fewer ships for operations in Corellian s.p.a.ce.

"Very well," Ossilege said unhappily. "It would appear I already know all I am going to know. I would call upon Madame Captison to discuss the political side of the situation before we discuss the military side."

Luke looked toward Gaeriel, along with everyone else at the table.

"It is fairly straightforward," she said. "The Prime Minister and the government have ordered the Navy to a.s.sist the New Republic in this crisis, and authorized the Admiral to lead a task force for the relief of Corellia."

"Wonderful!" Luke said. "Please convey our thanks to the Prime Minister."

"Thank you, Madame Captison," said Lando.

"Thank you, ma'am," Kalenda said.

"You are all most welcome, and it goes without saying that all Bakura will be proud to repay some part of the great debt we owe the New Republic. There is one other matter, a minor one perhaps, but it might be worth noting. While Admiral Ossilege will be in full military command of the operation, the Prime Minister has appointed me as her plenipotentiary, with full powers to speak for Bakura in matters of policy. She felt this was necessary because the communications jamming would render normal consultations with Bakura impossible."

"But, Gaer-uh, Madame Captison," Luke objected.

"What of your child?"

"Malinza will stay with family here, of course. I am not the first parent called to hazardous duty."

"Yes, of course," Luke said. He wanted to protest, to object to the idea of Gaeriel going along, but he knew there was no chance of his winning the argument.

"Thank you for your concern, Jedi Master," Gaeriel said, "but that decision has been made. Admiral, I think it best that we turn to you and discuss the practicalities of the mission."

"Yes, ma'am," said Ossilege. "First and most important, I must tell you that Bakura, by herself, cannot fight this war for you.

Grateful as we are for the New Republic's aid in the past, we cannot strip all the defenses from our own world for months on end-and months on end it would be if we had to fly our ships in and out of the Corellian system in normal s.p.a.ce. We cannot perform that task. But, I believe there is at least a fighting chance that we can do something at least as valuable. I believe we can get in, locate the interdiction-field generator, and knock it out, opening the door to whatever New Repnblic forces can be mustered in the meantime. And I believe we can do this without being unduly inconvenienced ourselves by the Corellian Field."

"How so?" Lando asked.

"We believe we have developed a partial countermeasure to the interdiction field." Ossilege held up his hand to the eager questions from all three of their visitors.

"We do not know for sure if it will work in these circ.u.mstances or, if it does work, how well it will. There have been only limited tests to date. But the principle is quite simple. As you know, an interdiction field simulates the ma.s.s lines produced by a naturally occurring gravity well. A ship cannot travel in hypers.p.a.ce inside a steep gravity well, and thus is decanted out into normal s.p.a.ce, or reals.p.a.ce.

"We have spent some time developing a device called a hyperwave inertial momentum sustainer or, as the technical staff insist on calling it, HIMS. I prefer the term hyperwave sustainer. It uses a gravitic sensor that provides a fast cutoff for a ship's normal hyperdrive, causing it to shut off instantly before it can risk being damaged by the interdiction field. It simultaneously activates a static hypers.p.a.ce bubble, produced by a hypers.p.a.ce coil designed to burn up and blow out in the presence of an interdiction field.

"The static hyperwave bubble cannot provide any thrust, of course, but it can hold the ship in hypers.p.a.ce while the ship's forward momentum carries it along The first blowout coil activates the second, the second activates the third, and so on. In effect, the ship flickers in and out of hypers.p.a.ce, jumping into it and being thrown back out of it, over and over again, until its forward momentum carries it clear of the interdiction field, and the normal hyperdrive system comes back on-line."

"Very elegant." Luke said, impressed.

"Yes, I suppose, in a crude sort of way. It's bruteforce engineering, and our tests show just how rough a ride it is, but it does get the job done."

"At least it allows the ship to escape any interdiction field of reasonable size," Gaeriel said dryly. "Not the monstrosity you two found out there. There are limits."

"What sort of limits?" Luke asked.

"Installing a hyperwave sustainer is no simple or inexpensive task," Ossilege said. "It is costly and timeonsuming. We have, at present, only four ships-three destroyers and one light cruiserquipped with the system. Installing every static hyperwave bubble generator we can on the ships, we estimate that we can hold the ships in hypers.p.a.ce for roughly three quarters of the distance from the edge of the interdiction field to its center. The ships will not be able to hold formation, and might well become somewhat scattered. But they will be able to drop into the Corellian planetary system well inside the defense perimeter-and within close striking distance of Selonia."

"Selonia? But what good does that do?" Lando asked. "I thought we had figured out the interdictionfield generator had to be somewhere in the doubleplanet system, somewhere on Talus or Tralus. Why go to Selonia?"

"Because Selonia provides us with a target of opportunity, and a diversion from our attack on the Double Worlds," Ossilege said. "Let me show you." He pushed a series of b.u.t.tons on the control panel by his hand. The room's light dimmed, and a standard wire-frame schematic of the Corellian planetary system appeared, floating over the center of the table. "These are the present relative positions of the five inhabited planets of the Corellian system. As you can see, Corellia is on the opposite side of the star Corell from Thalus and Thius.

Drall is about ninety degrees ahead of Corellia, but Selonia is nearly at its closest approach to the double planets, Tralus and ThIus.

As you can also see, Selonia's...o...b..t is exterior to that of the double planets. If we make a direct coplanar radial approach to Tralus and Talus from the system's exterior, we more or less have to pa.s.s by Selonia. And Selonia is a major target. The rebels there will be forced to defend it."

"If there are rebels there," Luke said. "We know almost nothing about what's going on there."