Star by Star Page 7

  “You’re all Jedi?” Leia asked.

  “All of the pilotz, yes.”

  The blocky silhouette of a Damorian freighter eclipsed the tiny sun ahead, its glowing ion drives sliding across the cockpit canopy as Han brought the Falcon in behind it. The smaller disk of a YT-1300 appeared below them and a little off to one side, its back painted in a patternless kaleidoscope of the primary colors so favored by the Arcona. The Headhunters were barely visible, a trio of tiny black crosses chasing the bolts of their laser cannons up the Roamer’s half-kilometer hull.

  Han spoke over the intercom. “Ladies, we’re counting on you to take out the drive nacelles. Izal, why don’t you handle the tractor beam?”

  “On my way.”

  The Arcona unbuckled his harness and rose. The mere sight of the massive hull ahead was enough to convince Leia they could not change its vector in time.

  “Han,” she said, “this isn’t the way to do it.”

  Han half turned in his seat. “I’m listening.”

  “Won’t there be an escape hatch above the bridge?”

  “Yeah—locked from the inside,” Han said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Leia said. “We have Jedi.”

  Han frowned. “The CorDuro crew will be waiting.”

  “So?” Tesar asked. “We have Jedi.”

  For some reason even Izal Waz did not seem to understand; this sent Tesar into a fit of sissing. Leia waved the back of her fingers at Han.

  “We have five minutes,” she said. “I can handle the cofferdam.”

  “Four and a half minutes,” Izal Waz corrected, stepping to the back of the flight deck.

  “Two will do.” Tesar began to siss again. “We have Jedi.”

  “Right.” Han drew his blaster and passed it to Leia. “I just hope we still have Jedi when this is done.”

  Leia led the way to the port docking ring, where Bela and Krasov were already waiting in their brown Jedi robes. They were a terrifying contrast to Izal Waz, who if the truth was told, looked rather comical in his ragged flight tabard.

  Han set the Falcon on edge and brought it into position over the docking ring. The Roamer attempted to slide out from under them, but Han was too good a pilot to let such a cumbersome ship outmaneuver him. Leia put the cofferdam over the docking ring on the third try, then activated the magnetic clamp and pressurized the passage.

  “Three minutes,” Han warned. “If you can’t—”

  Tesar opened the hatch—and promptly hissed as a blaster bolt caught him in the shoulder. From her chair, Leia glimpsed a charging crew member in a CorDuro uniform and squeezed off two shots, then the two Hara sisters were leaping through the door with lit lightsabers. The human gurgled and thumped to the floor. A pair of blaster rifles opened up from the opposite hatch. The tunnel filled with flashes and hums and zings for about two seconds, then the sounds began to recede as the Barabels carried the battle into the Roamer.

  Izal Waz followed, stepping over two bodies in the cofferdam and kicking another out of the way as he boarded the freighter. Tesar was slower to react, pulling the cloth away from his shoulder to reveal the smoking hole and scorched scales beneath.

  Leia moved her chair forward. “Tesar, how bad?”

  “Bad,” he growled. “My best robe.” He stuck a claw through the hole. “This really burnz me.”

  Then, sissing with hilarity, he leapt through the hatch and followed his companions into the Star Roamer.

  Leia stared after him in dumbfounded silence. When the hatch at the other end of the cofferdam closed, she sealed the Falcon’s hatch and withdrew the cofferdam, then checked her chronometer.

  Two minutes.

  She activated the intercom. “Han, we’re clear. Maybe we can buy a little time if we use the—”

  “Don’t need to,” Han replied. “The Roamer has cut her throttles and is turning outbound.”

  “They’re surrendering?” Leia asked. “Good. Maybe now we can find out who wants me dead.”

  “Uh, maybe not,” Han said. “They’re not exactly surrendering.”

  “Not exactly surrendering?” Leia double-checked the hatch seal, then started for the main hold. “What are you talking about?”

  “Sensors are showing two escape pod deployments.”

  “Here?”

  Leia reached the main hold and went straight to the engineering station, where she saw the image of two escape pods arcing away from the Star Roamer. At escape pod speeds, it would have taken them over three years to reach the nearest habitable environment. But that was not going to be a problem. From the way it looked to Leia, both pods were already well down the white dwarf’s gravity well.

  Izal Waz’s breathless voice came over the speaker. “Star Roamer secure,” he said. “With enough bacta to fill a lake.”

  “Izal,” Leia asked, patching through the intercom. “What about the crew?”

  “You mean survivors?”

  “Yes, survivors,” Leia said.

  There was a moment of silence, then Izal Waz’s voice fell to a whisper. “Well, what would you do if you saw three angry Barabels coming your way?”

  SIX

  Impossible as it was to ignore the stunning cascade of liquid metal outside the transparisteel walls of the Cinnabar Moon Retreat, Han tried. He sat in the natatorium of the abandoned spa the Wild Knights were using as a base, trying to concentrate on the two datapads before him, listening to Leia’s leg braces whir and clunk as she walked circuits around the empty pool. C-3PO was standing behind the covered bar, using a portable HoloNet hookup to access databases across the galaxy and add yet more entries to the catalog Han was studying. It was maddening work, if only because CorDuro had so many employees, and so many of them had at one time or another been affiliated with illicit organizations. Han wondered what his own dossier would have looked like in this light, or even Leia’s. Smugglers, insurrectionists, Hutt-killers …

  The name of a woman who had once served as a clerk in Thrackan Sal-Solo’s Human League appeared on a display. Han transferred it to the scrutiny list on the second datapad, then used an electronic stylus to bring up the next entry. Somewhere on this list he would find someone who knew Roxi Barl, and that would give him a thread he could follow to the person who wanted his wife dead. Or so he hoped. In the week since their capture of the Star Roamer, it was the best plan they had devised, and time was running out to develop a new one. The Wild Knights had spotted a mysterious task force sniffing around a nearby system; like the flotilla that had jumped the Falcon outside Corellia, this one operated with deactivated transponders and included Lancer-class customs frigates.

  Leia’s clunking grew louder. Han looked up to see her approaching, arms swinging wide to balance the cybernetic exercise braces that kept her legs from collapsing.

  “That’s all.” She stopped in front of her repulsor chair and turned her back toward it, arms extended for Han to take when he lowered her into the seat. “These braces still aren’t adjusted. I can’t even cock my ankle.”

  “Give it some time.” Han did not rise. Leia had only completed six of the twenty-five laps that Cilghal—the Jedi’s most accomplished healer—had prescribed, and today was the first day she had gone beyond four laps. “You just need to get used to them.”

  “Thanks for your opinion, Dr. Solo,” Leia said dryly. She continued to stand with her arms out. “Now, would you please help me into my chair and take these things off?”

  Han slapped the stylus on the table. “Sure.”

  Though thrice-daily bacta treatments had finally chased the infection from Leia’s legs, it seemed to Han another infection had been festering in a place bacta could not reach. There was a sadness in her that had been growing since Corellia. Any effort to encourage her invariably met a sharp-tongued riposte, any bid to urge her on only resulted in a sullen retreat. This was not the Leia he had married all those years ago, before … well, before he had gone crazy and shut her out. She had Leia’s face and voice and body and eve
n her wit, but she held herself apart now; it was as though the Yuuzhan Vong had taken Leia away from him without even killing her, and now he wanted her back.

  “Han?” Leia was suspended halfway above the seat of the repulsor chair, her arms still clasped in his grasp. “Are you going to keep me hanging here?”

  “No.” Han hauled her to her feet, then took her arm and pulled her two steps toward the pool. “Let’s do a couple of circuits together. If something’s out of alignment, maybe I’ll see it.”

  “If, Han?” Leia pulled her arm free. “Wouldn’t I be the one who could tell?”

  Han sighed. “Look, maybe they’re uncomfortable, but there are only so many adjustments. I’ve tried them all.”

  Leia narrowed her eyes. “So I don’t know what I’m talking about?”

  “I’m saying give them more time.” Han took her arm again. “Come on, just a couple more circuits.”

  “Are you listening?” Leia refused to move her feet, and Han had to stop pulling or drag her over. “It hurts. I can’t do any more today.”

  C-3PO looked up at the sound of Leia’s sharp voice and started to say something, then wisely decided his assistance was not needed.

  “You mean won’t,” Han said.

  “All right, won’t.” Leia clunked the two steps back to her chair. “What’s the difference? Either way, you’re helping me into that chair and out of these braces. If you can’t do that—”

  “That I can do,” Han said, surrendering to his exasperation. “I can put you in and out of this chair for the rest of your life, if that’s what you want. What I can’t do is make those braces comfortable, so you’ll just have to take the pain and keep going. When that task force of killers finally finds us—and they will find us—it might be nice if you could actually run for cover.”

  “That’s fine advice, coming from you,” Leia said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You can figure it out,” Leia said. “After Chewbacca died, you certainly ran. And you kept running, farther and farther—”

  Leia stopped and looked away, and Han finally understood that they weren’t arguing about cybernetic braces, or how many circuits Leia made of the pool, or even how much she really wanted to walk again.

  Leia shook her head. “This won’t get us anywhere. Let’s just drop it.”

  “No, go ahead,” Han replied. “It’s time you said it.”

  Leia continued to look away. “I didn’t mean anything—”

  “Yes, you did.” Han spoke with a humility hard-earned over the last year. “The truth is, I might have a made a few mistakes in the way I handled things.”

  Now Leia looked at him, her eyes as round as sensor dishes. “I suppose you might have,” she said cautiously. “But you needed to grieve.”

  “Yeah, and maybe I even needed to go help Droma find his clan. What I didn’t need to do was concussion-bomb our family.”

  Han was quiet for a moment, then—forcing himself not to look away—he said, “Leia, I’m sorry.”

  Leia’s eyes brightened with tears. She held his gaze for a moment, then clunked forward. Han reached for her hands, but she surprised him by wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her cheek against his chest.

  “Me, too,” she said. “I’m sorry, too. All these years, I’ve devoted myself to the New Republic and asked you and the children to sacrifice so much.”

  “Hey, this is my apology.” Han took her by the shoulders. “And what you did for the New Republic is important.”

  “It is—but I had a part in letting this happen,” Leia said. “Without you around, it became very clear that I haven’t exactly been the glue that holds this family together.”

  “Your hands were pretty full trying to hold the galaxy together.” Han did not like where this was going; blaming herself for their family problems was not going to make Leia work harder in her braces. “I couldn’t have picked a worse time to leave you on your own.”

  “Haven’t my hands always been full? That’s the point. All these years, I think I’ve been trying to rebuild what I lost when Alderaan was destroyed.” Leia placed her fingers over his heart. “I couldn’t see that I already had it—here with you and the children.”

  Han was speechless. These days, even his apologies ricocheted.

  “If we hadn’t found each other on Duro when we did,” Leia continued, “I would have died alone—a stranger to my own family.”

  Han wanted to say that wasn’t true, or she couldn’t know what might have happened, or that the Force had brought them back to each other. But all that sounded somehow hollow and not what Leia needed to hear. He needed to give her a jolt, to make her see that they had come through it, if only she would open her heart and eyes and see it.

  “You know who you remind me of?” he asked. “Borsk Fey’lya, claiming all the credit for himself.”

  Leia’s jaw dropped. “Borsk Fey’lya! How dare …” She must have seen the mischief in Han’s face, because she let the sentence trail off and scowled. A hint of the old spark returned to her eye, and she gave him a sideways look. “Borsk! Not really?”

  Han half smiled. “Really. You’re taking way too much of this on yourself. You’d have had to chase me across half the galaxy—and drag me out of a thousand tapcafs.”

  Leia pondered this, then said, “You know, I am being too hard on myself.” She seemed to shed two years of worry lines in as many seconds, then added, “As you say, you’re the one who shut me out. What was I supposed to do, slap a set of stun cuffs on you and borrow an interrogator droid from NRI?”

  “Of course not,” Han said, beginning to wonder who was toying with whom. “But like you said, we both played our parts—”

  “No, when you’re right you’re right. I’m not going to argue.” Leia’s smile—not quite a victory smirk—turned as hard as durasteel. “But you’re never doing that again, Han. The next time you need help, you won’t escape.”

  Han felt like the spa’s supplemental gravity inducers had reset themselves. He had flutters in his stomach and bells in his ears, and he even felt a little weak in the knees. This was the Leia he remembered. She took his shirt collar and, unable to rise on her toes, began to pull him down so she could kiss him.

  “Not so fast.” Han disengaged himself and retreated to the edge of the empty pool. “If you want to do that, you come over here.”

  Leia raised her brow. “You’re going to make me work for this?” She looked him up and down, then finally clanked after him. “It had better be good.”

  Han gave her his finest smirk. “Oh, it’ll be good.” He waited until she was almost to him, then began to retreat along the pool’s edge toward C-3PO. “Just the way you remember.”

  “The way I remember?” Leia echoed. “Taking a lot for granted, aren’t you?”

  They were interrupted by an excited cry from C-3PO. “I’ve found something!” He transferred an entry to one of the datapads Han was using, then said, “CorDuro’s vice president of fleets is related to Roxi Barl by marriage, and he has a substantial equity interest in the Kuat Drive Yards corporation.”

  Han rushed toward the table—then heard Leia struggling to keep up and went back to walk with her.

  “How substantial?” Leia asked.

  “Almost a thousandth of a percent,” C-3PO reported. “Current value well over a hundred million credits.”

  Han whistled and picked up the datapad, turning it so both he and Leia could see. They made it almost to the end of the first screen before the problem grew apparent. The vice president of fleets had died several months earlier under mysterious circumstances, shortly after he petitioned to divorce Roxi’s sister.

  “Oh dear,” C-3PO said. “I don’t see how it could be him.”

  “I don’t think it ever could have been,” Leia said. “We have an entire task force hunting us. This guy didn’t have the resources to buy that kind of influence. We need somebody with government pull on a world that uses those
Lancer-class customs frigates—a lot of pull. You don’t send an anonymous task force after the Millennium Falcon on a flotilla commander’s say-so.”

  “Or maybe you need somebody in the government,” Han said. He sat down and began an associates search. “Threepio, get everything you can on Viqi Shesh. I think we’ve been coming at this from the wrong end.”

  “Senator Viqi Shesh?” Leia didn’t sound all that surprised, just cautious. “What makes you think of her?”

  “Lancer-class frigates and A-9 Vigilances,” Han said. “They’re manufactured on Kuat, and that first frigate captain had a Kuati accent.”

  “Interesting,” Leia said. “And we know she has ties to CorDuro. But that doesn’t mean she’s the one.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t,” Han said. “But I know what would.”

  He began to compose a message to Luke.

  Leia stood behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “No, don’t ask if Viqi has been making inquiries about my whereabouts. Ask if anyone has.”

  Han finished the message, coded it, and transferred it to C-3PO for transmission. They received a reply three days later, informing them that there was an inquiry, but it didn’t come from Shesh. Her chief of staff had been trying to track down Leia’s whereabouts since the fall of Duro, haranguing New Republic Intelligence and SELCORE both on the pretense of being concerned for her safety. He had even shown up at their apartment—where he had learned absolutely nothing from the two Noghri bodyguards who had arrived to replace the pair killed on Duro. It was not quite a smoking blaster, but close enough that both Solos felt sure they had identified the person behind the assaults.

  Given the evidence they had already recorded showing CorDuro’s treason, Han and C-3PO spent the next few days trying in vain to establish a solid link between Viqi Shesh and the corporation. The most they could prove, at least from the data banks accessible over the HoloNet, was that she had had the bad judgment to assign all SELCORE shipping to a collaborationist corporation.

  Leia contributed what she could—mostly ideas—but spent her time either in bacta tanks or clanging around the empty pool in her cybernetic exercise braces. By the end of the week, she could do fifty circuits, but her legs ached constantly, and she was no closer to making them obey. When she sent a message to Cilghal reporting uncontrollable tremors, a reply came back telling Leia to find a nervesplicer as quickly as possible. The interruption in her bacta therapy had likely caused the nerves to regrow incorrectly, and every day she delayed in having the damage repaired increased the likelihood she would never walk properly again.