Tatooine Ghost Page 36

  Kitster fell silent for a moment, studying Leia, then added, “And there’s something you should know about what he did there.”

  “If you’re going to try to justify it—”

  “I couldn’t possibly,” Kitster said. “Your father was a Jedi. What he did was wrong. Quite possibly, it set him on the dark road he took later in life… and even he was sorry for his mistake.”

  “He was?” Leia furrowed her brow. “How would you know that?”

  “He said as much, I think.” Kitster buckled his crash webbing, then stared at the floor and continued. “When I heard that he had been asking about his mother at Watto’s, I went out to the Lars farm to visit him. I didn’t know Shmi had been taken, of course, but I happened to arrive shortly after they had buried her and Anakin had left. Beru—she was Owen’s—”

  “I know who Beru was,” Leia said. “And we don’t have much time before I must close the hatch.”

  Kitster nodded. “Of course. Beru told me that when they buried Shmi, Anakin spoke to her grave, saying he had not been strong enough to save her, but promising he would not fail again.”

  “Fail again?” Leia asked. “But his mother was already dead. How was he going to undo that?”

  Kitster nodded. “That struck me as odd, too, and I asked Beru about it. She told me that he had said twice that he was not strong enough—once that he was not strong enough to save his mother, and the second time just that he was not strong enough. I thought at the time that he had just repeated himself, but now I’m not so sure. After being at the oasis, I think maybe Anakin realized what a terrible mistake he had made. I think he knew how he had failed as a Jedi.”

  “Maybe,” Leia said. “It would be nice to believe that. I’d like to.”

  “Then you can,” Kitster said. “The boy I knew would have been sorry for what he had done, and even ten years away would not have changed that. He was still his mother’s son.”

  Chewbacca’s voice growled a warning over the intercom.

  Leia glanced at the ceiling. “That’s our signal. Thank you, Kitster.” She slapped the launch activator. “May the Force be with you.”

  “And with—”

  The escape hatch sealed, and Leia stood back, her heart growing heavier as she felt the gentle bump of the pod separating. Of course, she would never really know how her father had felt about what had happened at the oasis—or even if he had truly said what Kitster reported. But it did seem possible, and that was enough for now.

  The hold lights dimmed, and the Falcon bucked so hard that Leia landed on the floor. A sharp ringing filled her ears, and it took a moment to realize the sound was not inside her head but reverberating through the hold’s durasteel ceiling. She scrambled to her feet and raced for the flight deck.

  The cockpit looked much the same as it always did, with Chewbacca roaring and Han cursing, proximity alarms blaring, the console speakers hissing with electromagnetic blast, and C-3PO beside himself with prognostications of doom.

  “Mistress Leia, we’ll never escape this time!” The droid flailed his arms wildly, nearly knocking her off her feet. “There are three Star Destroyers now—three of them! This time we’ll be destroyed for sure!”

  “Nonsense.”

  Leia braced herself on the back of Han’s chair and peered out through the forward canopy. Forty degrees to port, she saw the twin suns blazing up from the gravity well of the Tatoo system.

  “How are the sensors, Chewie?”

  Chewbacca roared in disgust.

  “Good.” Leia pointed toward the two suns. “That way.”

  “Insystem?” Han looked back at her as though he had married a madwoman.

  Leia squeezed his shoulder. “Trust me. I have a feeling about this.”

  Chewbacca groaned loudly.

  “I know, I know.” Han turned the Falcon toward the suns and poured on the ions. “I was there, too!”

  Another barrage erupted outside the cockpit canopy, this time where the Falcon would have been had she not changed course. Leia dropped into the navigator’s chair and brought up the tactical display. The Chimaera and her two sister ships, the Death’s Head and the Judicator, were coming around Tatooine from three different directions, bleeding TIEs and leaving the Falcon nowhere to go except into the suns.

  Where nobody would be able to see a thing.

  Leia watched as the display melted into a snowstorm of white static, then looked up to find the two suns swelling to immense size in the forward viewport.

  “I’m quite certain the Imperials can’t see us now,” C-3PO reported. “They have stopped firing, and we are accelerating into the gravitational pull of a binary star at the rate of eighty-four thousand nine hundred seventy-four kilometers per—”

  “How long before we reach the point of no return?” Han asked.

  C-3PO shot a burst of static at the navicomputer, then said, “Fourteen seconds.”

  “Then that’s when the Imperials will be looking for us to make our break.” Han turned to Chewbacca. “We’ll pull out at sixteen. They won’t be expecting that.”

  “Sixteen!” C-3PO screeched. “Captain Solo, I’m afraid you misunderstood—”

  Leia reached over and tripped the droid’s circuit breaker, and Chewbacca set to work on the calculations for an emergency hyperspace jump.

  With the Wookiee engrossed in his work, Leia slipped forward and leaned on the back of Han’s chair. “Han, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

  “Sweetheart, we’re caught between three Star Destroyers and two suns.” Han’s eyes were fixed on the console chronometer. “I’m kind of busy here.”

  “I know. But this is important. It’s something I want to know in case we don’t… in case we miscalculate.”

  “Miscalculate?” Han actually glanced away from the instrument console. “You said you had a feeling!”

  “I do.” Leia glanced at the chronometer. Eight seconds to go. “But humor me. Why do you want little Solos running around so badly?”

  “Kids?” Han nearly yelled the question. “You want to talk about kids now?”

  “Isn’t that what I just said?” Leia asked. Three seconds to go. “There might not be another chance.”

  Chewbacca grunted and sent the hyperspace calculations to the pilot’s station. Zero seconds.

  “All right, if it has to be now.” Han brought their nose around, pointing them into deep space. The Falcon continued to slip farther toward the two suns—sideways. “I guess it’s just my way of facing the future.”

  “Facing the future?” Leia asked.

  “You know.” Han forced the throttles past the overload stops. The Falcon shuddered, seemed to hesitate… and finally pulled free of the gravity well. He exhaled in relief and activated the hyperdrive. “Believing in it.”

  “Good answer.” Leia leaned closer and, as the stars stretched into the iridescent blur of hyperspace, gently kissed Han on the neck. “I believe in it, too.”