The Black Fleet Crisis_ Tyrant's Test Part 4

[We are family--the life debt to Han Solo does not stop with you,]

said Jowdrrl, following closely behind.

[And you do not have enough hands. What can you do alone to help him?] Chewbacca had reached the c.o.c.kpit by then and slipped into the pilot's seat. Turning on the ion coil preheaters, he began running through the Falcon's streamlined preflight procedures. [You have three minutes to collect your belongings from the crew quarters and leave the ship.] [Aren't you going to talk to Malla before you lift?] Jowdrrl said, gesturing sideways.

Chewbacca glanced in the direction of Jowdrrl's gesture. He saw Malla, Shoran, and Dryanta standing together on the landing platform, looking up at the c.o.c.kpit. Dryanta and Shoran were wearing hunting bandoliers instead of baldrics, and a pair of tough-sh.e.l.led tree bags were lying on the ground at their feet.

With a fiercely impatient growl, Chewbacca clambered out of the pilot's seat and half ran to the boarding ramp.

[What is this?] he demanded over the rising whine of the Falcon's idlers.

[The rest of your crew,] said Malla.

Shoran grinned brightly and drew himself up to attention. [The First Wookiee Expeditionary Force, reporting for duty.] [Malla told us that you're going straight to Koor-nacht,] said Dryanta. [We can't let you go alone, We're here to help.] Chewbacca looked to his wife. [You can't ask them to risk their lives on my debt.] [I did not have to ask them,] said Mallatobuck. [I only had to tell them why you are going and what you face.] [It was our idea,] Shoran said, reaching down and shouldering his well-stuffed bag. [And you can't deny us this hunt without risking betrayal of your debt--if you go alone and fail, you will have no honor.] Behind Chewbacca, the hiss of injectors and the clicking of compressors told him that Jowdrrl was continuing the Falcon's preflight without his a.s.sistance.

[I never wanted any of my family to have to fight again,] said Chewbacca. [I am honor-bound. If I must, I will give my life for my friend. But I will not give yours.] [My life is not yours to offer,] said Dryanta. [It is mine. And I pledge it to you, my cousin, and to your friend.] [You cannot refuse us without shaming us, cousin,] added Shoran.

[Jowdrrl, too.] [Go, then, and get aboard,] he said, shooting an annoyed look at his wife. They hastened toward the ship, leaving Chewbacca alone with his Malla. [Your cleverness could cost our family their lives.] [Or save yours,] Malla said. [I am at peace with my choice.] Chewbacca seized her in a firm embrace, and they growled with fierce affection into each other's shoulder fur. Then the high whistle of the thrust vents called him toward the ship, telling him that it was ready to lift. But a new voice called him back.

[Father--] Chewbacca turned and saw Lumpawarrump standing in the wooden arch of the landing platform entryway.

He was wearing his bowcaster and carrying the freshly camouflaged tree bag he had taken on his aborted journey of ascendance.

[We will finish your tests when I return,] Chewbacca called.

Lumpawarrump drew closer with tentative steps.

[Take me with you. You have already broken with tradition once. I ask you to do so again.] Malla cried out a protest, but Chewbacca silenced her with a warning gesture as he crossed the platform to where his son stood.

"Why?] Chewbacca demanded. [Why do you ask this?] [I will be neither child nor adult until you return--I do not belong in the nursery ring or in the council ring,] said Lumpawarrump.

[Are you afraid I will not return?] [Yes.] [Then are you not afraid that you will not return?] [I am more afraid to fail than to die,]

Lumpawar-rump said. [Much is expected from the son of Chewbacca--he cannot be a coward.] [You need not fear that now. By offering yourself, you have shown your mettle. ] [That is not what they will see.

They will say that it was only words, that I knew you would not take me, that I knew Malla would forbid it,] said Lumpawar-rump.

[They will see that even you did not have faith in me--that Jowdrrl and Shoran and Dryanta were good enough for you, but I was not.]

Chewbacca shook his head. [It is not a matter of faith. I have a full crew.

What skills do you bring to this hunt?] [Everything of you that is in me, and everything that you can teach me,] Lumpawarrump said. [Father, please--I have accepted your long absences, the duties that take you away from us. But I must have a chance to prove my worth to you. I want my baldric and my new name. Give me a chance to earn them beside you, and know that you are proud of me.] Chewbacca cast a sideways glance at Mallatobuck, who was watching anxiously but keeping her distance.

He doubted she could have heard much of the conversation over the noise from the Falcon.

[Go,] Chewbacca said, seizing Lumpawarrump by the arm and sending him toward the ship with a push.

Malla raised a sharp wail of protest, but Chewbacca moved quickly to block her from reaching their son.

[You can't take him--he's not ready,] Malla insisted.

[If I let you tell him that, if I tell him that, it will destroy him,] said Chewbacca. [That is why I must take him. Now step back and let him see a mother's fierce pride, not her fear.] Her eyes sad but resigned, Malla cuffed him across the face, and he returned the kiss with equal tenderness and affection. Then he turned and bounded up the boarding ramp while Malla retreated into the growing crowd drawn to the platform by the sound of the Falcon's engines.

Moments later, the ship lifted and wheeled toward the sky.

Vagabond The Teljkon vagabond had finally ceased Shuddering and groaning around its prisoners. With the starship once again hurtling through hypers.p.a.ce, at last there was silence.

"Attagirl," Lando said, patting the wall of the chamber in which he and the others floated. "It'll take a lot more than one rusty old escort frigate to run you down."

"But Master Lando, this is terrible, simply terrible," said Threepio, his damaged arm jerking spastically as he gestured animatedly.

"That ship could have rescued us, and now we've run away from it. We may even have destroyed it."

"I hope we did," Lando said. "Trust me on this--any rescue offered by an Imperial warlord in the Core is going to be no rescue worth having.

There's probably still a price on my head, maybe on you two droids, too.

War hero or war criminal it's all a matter of your point of view.

Chances are we'd find ourselves traded around until we were in the hands of whoever was willing to pay the most for the pleasure of killing us."

"I see what you mean, sir."

Artoo-Detoo burbled a terse comment.

"I'm quite sure he's not interested in your linguistic pretensions, Artoo," Threepio said haughtily. "And neither am I." The droid's tone suddenly changed to a melodramatic melancholy. "Killed or deactivated or disintegrated to atoms, it's all the same to me. Oblivion, the final cessation of awareness- -" Then annoyance suddenly took over Threepio's voice. "Not that it means anything to a random jumble of circuits such as yourself," he added, clanging a golden fist against Artoo's dome. "If you want to do something useful, you might see about fixing those sensors Master Lando placed on the hull. Why you let them be damaged just when we needed them most, I'll never understand."

Artoo's shrill reply needed no translation, even for Lando.

"There's no need to be rude," Threepio sniffed.

"If you two keep wasting your power cells on bickering, you'll visit oblivion a lot faster than you were planning on," Lando said, drifting between them.

"Artoo, is there any hope for the limpet?"

"I can answer that," said Lobot, who had suddenly busied himself with collecting the parts of his contact suit and climbing back into them.

"Just before it ceased transmitting, the sensors measured a monopolar ion density of more than twenty thousand Rahm units. It is a near Certainty that the limpet is damaged beyond repair."

"Twenty thousand? Better than I thought. I'd have given you odds that it wouldn't take more than twelve," Lando said. "Well, no matter."

"The primary component of all spectral sensors is Favervil dielectric ribbon," Lobot said. "Dielectric ribbon begins to debond under ion bombardment at a density of fifteen thousand Rahms."

"Is that so," Lando said.

"Master Lando, why didn't the vagabond's shields stop the ion barrage?"

Threepio asked.

"Now, that's an interesting question," said Lando.

"The answer might be because there are no shields--no ray shields, anyway."

"No shields?" Threepio echoed. "Isn't that un-usual-and dangerous?"

"It's unusual--" Lando began.

Lobot interrupted with another encyclopedic answer.

"Since the inception of s.p.a.cecraft licensing under the Registry Office, noncombatant vessels have been required to carry ray shielding generators of at least grade two strength, to protect the crew and pa.s.sengers from cosmic radiation and stellar flares. More than ninety-six percent of alien ship types in the Registrar's Catalog are known to carry both ray and particle shielding in some form."

Lando looked curiously at his old partner. Before he could give voice to his thoughts, however, Threepio filled the silence with a burst of indignant words.

"Master Lando, this is intolerable. I am certain that Master Luke did not intend for us to be marooned on a vessel with no ray shielding.

No wonder my circuits are so sluggish and Artoo has been so peevish. This could have the most serious consequences for us. We simply must leave this vessel now."

"That's it," Lando said, snapping his fingers.

"That's the reason there's no ray shielding outside.

There are no droids, no computers, no electronic devices of any kind on the hull--just organic machines, with organic sensors, and organic repair mechanisms.

Different rules. We didn't know because that's the first time we've actually seen the vagabond under fire. Boldheart only fired across her bow. Pakkpekatt's task force never fired on her at all. What do You think, Lobot?"

"The issues for biological systems exposed to radiation are rate of damage versus the efficiency of repair, and heat absorption per unit of area versus heat dispersal per unit of area," Lobot said in a flat voice.

"The i ntegumentary system of some organisms can provide effective protection for internal structures against charged-particle radiation, and significant protection against the J and C ranges of photonic radiation."

Lando was staring with open concern. "Lobot, what is wrong with you?"

"Was there an error in my summation?"

"I'm not talking about your summation--I'm talking about you,"

Lando said. "Don't take this wrong, old pal, but your conversational style's regressed back to Early Mechanical. You've started nattering like an overeager knowhot. But I can't find you anymore--just a wall of data."

Lobot plucked a drifting glove out of midair, avoiding Lando's eyes.

"It is possible that I am retreating to the certain and the familiar as a means of rea.s.surance, or in an attempt to enhance my sense of control over my circ.u.mstances."

"What kind of answer is that? You sound like a droid running a self- diagnostic," Lando said. "I get the feeling that if your links were up, you wouldn't be talking at all. Come on, partner--what's cracking your glue?"

After a few moments, Lobot stopped fussing with his suit. "I confess I am having difficulty maintaining a positive outlook," he said, his eyes still downcast. "Perhaps you could share with me some of the reasons for your apparent optimism."

"Didn't you feel her wheel around before we jumped into hypers.p.a.ce?

We escaped from the Prakith, and we're headed back to where we do have friends.

And we now have all the air we need to hang on until they find us,"

Lando said. "What's more, we're moving through the ship more or less at will, and we've figured out how to operate Qella mechanisms. On top of all that, we're being treated like visitors, not hunted like intruders.

Things could be a lot worse."

"Things are worse. We're headed for an unknown point within an enormous volume of s.p.a.ce in a ship that routinely manages to escape detection for years at a time," said Lobot. "We have no food and limited water, and the droids and the suits are both running low on power. None of the mechanisms we can operate allow us to either control the ship or communicate with it.

We're being guided through public s.p.a.ces and kept out of private s.p.a.ces-- if we're going to get control of the ship, we need to be treated like the owners, not visitors."

"I admit we haven't yet found the doors marked RESTRICTEDAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY," said Lando.

"But we can't be more than two or three compartments away from the bow, according to the map Artoo's been keeping. I say we gather up the gear and keep looking for the control center."

"There is no reason to believe that the control nexus is located in the bow," said Lobot.

Lando peered at Lobot questioningly. "I thought it was you who pointed us in this direction."

"On general probabilities derived from known designs," said Lobot.

"But this vessel was not derived from known designs. It was not engineered by starship-wrights working within an established design paradigm.

It is unique. And we will never unravel all its secrets, because we are Unable to think as the Qella thought," "One secret at a time will be enough to keep me happy," said Lando. "Why are you so sure the bridge isn't forward?"

"Look at the map. The-compartments we've entered over the last few days have gradually been defining a s.p.a.ce in the center of the ship to which we have no access."

"Then we have to keep going, don't we?" Lando said. "The link between the two zones--the hatch that says Staff OR STaFF ONLY, the key to the executive refresher, the turbolift to the penthouse--could be in the next compartment, or the one after that."

"Or it could be so well hidden that we will never find it. There may not even be a link between the two."

"If we have to, we can make one," Lando said, flashing a quick grin.

"But right now, it looks like we have a bet to settle. What do you have that's worth anything?"

"Pardon me?"

"If I'm right and you're wrong, I want something out of it," said Lando. "Nothing like a little wager to keep things interesting when the life-or-death stuff gets old. So what are you willing to risk on your opinion that says we die here like trapped rats?"

Lobot stared blankly at Lando. Then his normally expressionless face began to shudder and twitch. His mouth worked, his eyes blinked.