40
Xizor was angry and, save for the death of his family, could not recall ever having been more so. His castle was gone, his valuables, much of his massive information base, all destroyed in an instant. Artifacts and records that could not be replaced because they had no duplicates anywhere else. Blackmail files, personal projects, the most central secrets of Black Sun since he had taken over, gone—just like that. It would take years to recover, and should something happen to him, his successor would never know much of what was missing because he would never know it had ever existed. He wouldn’t even know who had been responsible—all of the files on Skywalker and the princess had been in his personal computer, and it and its backups were slag.
Whatever anger he felt, it was no longer in his voice as Xizor called ahead to his skyhook. He had figured out that the small Corellian freighter that had nearly smashed into him as he leaped away from his castle was the same one his people had been searching for.
The same one that had come to rescue Skywalker and Leia and their friends.
Perhaps it had failed in that mission. Given the way things had been going of late, likely that was not so. Best to be sure.
Being the head of a shipping concern had some advantages when it came to describing ships: “There is a dilemma-saucer-style Corellian freighter leaving the planet shortly,” he told the commander of his navy over the comm. “It is a YT-Thirteen Hundred, a little over twenty-five meters long, a hundred-ton capacity. Locate it and destroy it. If you can disable it and capture the crew and passengers, that would also be acceptable.
“If, however, it gets past, you and anybody else I consider responsible will be fertilizer before the next sunrise—are we perfectly clear on that?”
“Clear, my prince.”
“Good.” He reached for the comm switch to shut off the transmission. “I’ve got you now, Skywalker.”
“I beg your pardon, Highness.”
“What? Nothing. Never mind.”
He flipped the switch and killed the transmission. Probably should not have mentioned Skywalker’s name that way, but it didn’t matter. The opchan was scrambled. It did not matter. He was so close to finishing this now.
He looked at the console’s timer. He should be at the skyhook shortly.
“My lord Vader, you asked to see anything regarding this name,” the officer said.
Vader stared at the man. Took the printout flimsy from him and scanned it.
“Where did this originate?”
“An encoded transmission from the ship Virago, my lord, en route to the skyhook Falleen’s Fist in high orbit. The ship is registered to—”
“I know who it is registered to,” Vader said. He crumpled the thin plastic hardcopy sheet in his hand.
And though the attending officer could not see it, Darth Vader smiled, ignoring the pain it caused.
“Prepare my shuttle,” he said.
He had warned Xizor to stay away from Luke. The criminal had chosen to ignore that order.
That was a grievous error.
As much as it was possible, Vader was delighted. They had played Xizor’s game long enough. Now they would play his.
Dash said, “Take over, would you, Luke?”
“Sure.” Luke, already in the copilot’s seat, took the controls. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. I just need to whistle up my steed.”
“What?”
Dash pulled a small black rectangular box from his belt. “Long-range shielded single-channel comlink. Time to have Leebo lift and put my ship into orbit. We can rendezvous; I can borrow one of your suits—this bucket still has vac-suits, doesn’t it?—and get back to a real ship instead of this rickety crate.”
Luke smiled. “I guess we can do that.”
“After that, you go your way, I’ll go mine. I figure the cleanup bill for that building down there ought to go a long way to balancing my account with the Empire.”
“You really ought to consider signing on with the Alliance,” Luke said. “You’re a good man and we could use you.”
“Thanks, Luke, but I don’t think so. I’m not much of a joiner.”
He tapped the command button on his specialized comlink. “Hey, Leebo, you rust bucket, get your gears meshing and meet me at the following coordinates.”
“My master is not in at the moment. Who is calling, please?”
“Very funny,” Dash said. He looked at Luke. “Never buy a droid programmed by a failed comedian.”
Xizor’s landing at the skyhook was uneventful. His navy had already deployed. Since they had all the proper clearances, the Imperial Navy didn’t bother them.
Xizor strode to his command center, a deck surrounded by transparisteel plate that allowed him an almost 360-degree unimpeded view of space around the skyhook.
He had the comm to his commander opened. A holoproj of the man appeared. “Yes, my prince?”
“Have you deployed your vessels, Commander?”
“Yes, Highness. Our sensors have been set to detect any ship matching the criteria you gave me. If it comes this way, we will spot it.”
“Good. Keep me informed.”
The image vanished, and Xizor stared out into the blackness of space. He had heard the buzz of conversation when he arrived. The rumor had reached here fast, though no one dared speak directly to him about the disaster below. Well. No matter. He had survived worse.
He would survive this; survive it and somehow turn it into a victory.
“Thanks for the ride,” Dash said over the comm.
The Outrider hung just off the Millennium Falcon’s port bow in a matching orbit. If you had a good arm, you could hit it with a rock, even in full gravity. Dash had jetted across the short gap, complaining all the while about how bad the borrowed suit smelled.
“Want to race to the jump spot?” Luke said. He now sat at the controls, taking a turn piloting. Lando sat next to him, Leia stood behind them.
Dash laughed. “You want a parsec head start?”
“No, I—”
A hard green beam of light flashed between the two ships. The sighting ray of a big ship’s cannon—you couldn’t see the laser itself in vacuum, of course, but it followed the ionized marker you could see precisely.
Somebody was shooting at them.
“Uh-oh, looks like we got company.”
More laser and charged-particle bolts blinked, none really close. Well, no closer than a couple of meters—
Luke punched it. The Falcon jumped like a startled hopperoo.
Lando said, “We’ve got an unmarked corvette coming in at two-seventy! And four fighters at three-five-nine! Those aren’t Imperial ships! Who are these guys?”
“Who cares?” Luke said. “We’ve got to move! Chewie, the guns!”
“You heard the man, furball,” Leia said. “You want dorsal or ventral?”
Chewie harned. He and Leia disappeared.
“Good luck, Dash!” Luke yelled.
“You, too, Luke.”
Luke pointed the Falcon into the deep and ran. The ship rocked as a beam found the shields and splashed from them.
They needed to get clear of this system, fast, and make the jump to hyperspace.
“Prince Xizor, we have located the Corellian freighter,” came the commander’s voice from the holoproj.
“We are engaging it now. It should be destroyed momentarily.”
Xizor nodded. “Don’t be too sure, Commander. They seem to be extremely lucky.”
“They’ll need more than luck, my prince. We have them completely surrounded. They’ll need a miracle.”
Xizor nodded again.
“There is a wall between us and where we need to go,” Luke said.
“So find another way,” Lando said. “You want me to fly her?”
“No.”
A beam hit them, slapped them crooked. The shields held.
Lando yelled into the comlink. “I thought you two were supposed to be shooting back!”
Both Chewie and Leia yelled at him, but Luke was too busy flying to pay attention to what they said. He put the Falcon into a power climb and turned the move into a half twist at the top of the arc, heading back the way they’d come.
“Chewie wants to know how he’s supposed to hit anything with you looping like that,” Lando said.
“How can he miss? We’re surrounded! He should hit something no matter where he shoots!”
A black shape zipped past them. The Outrider, cannons blazing.
Ahead of the Falcon a fighter exploded.
Lando said, “See how it’s done, Chewie?”
Chewie yelled something back at Lando.
“Have you stopped the ship yet, Commander?”
“Not yet, Highness. They are, ah, quite skilled. And there are two ships returning our fire. We don’t have a transponder signal on the other one, but it is heavily armed.”
“If my navy can’t defeat two ships it certainly needs another commander,” Xizor said.
“We will defeat them. Our net is closing. They are running out of room.”
The attacking ships had formed a loose hemisphere in space. There were an awful lot of civilian freighter and passenger ships going to and coming from the planet, and it was all Luke could do to avoid hitting one of them as he dodged the fighters buzzing them. The civilians tried to get out of the way, which made things worse. And sooner or later, the Imperial Navy was going to wake up and probably add to the confusion. Why they hadn’t already made Luke wonder.
As he watched, one of the aggressors fired at the Falcon. The cannon’s beam struck one of those passenger ships, punched a hole through a power converter, and caused a bright flash as the unit shorted out. Lot of damage, probably nobody hurt.
“Lousy shots,” Lando said. “Don’t care who they hit.”
Luke nodded. He had thought they might weave in and out of the thick traffic and avoid being blasted, but it seemed Lando was right: The bad guys didn’t care who got fried.
The attackers had them boxed. There didn’t seem to be any way out. Too bad he couldn’t get to his X-wing—though one more ship probably wouldn’t be much help.
Things looked bad. Really bad …
One of the attacking fighters came straight at them, cannons winking hot plasma eyes—
The attacker exploded. The Falcon blew through the cloud of debris. It pattered like hard rain against the shields.
“Good shot!” Luke yelled. “Who got it, was that you, Leia?”
“Not me,” her voice came back. “I’ve got plenty to worry about coming in from my side. Must have been Chewie.”
Chewie said something.
Lando said, “Chewie says he didn’t get it, either.”
Luke blinked. Then who did?
Over the comm: “Hey, Luke! Okay if we join your party?”
“Wedge! What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you. Dash’s droid sent us a distress signal. Sorry it took so long to get here.”
Another of the unmarked attackers blossomed into a fireball.
“Well, just don’t let it happen again,” Luke said. He grinned. Now that Rogue Squadron was here, the odds were a little better.
He swung the Falcon into a wide turn.
“There seems to be a slight problem, my prince,” the commander said.
Xizor, watching the flashes of weapons and exploding ships from his deck, frowned. “So I noticed. Why are your ships blowing up, Commander?”
“A squadron of X-wing fighters has joined the fray. No more than a dozen of them. It will merely … delay the inevitable.”
“Are you certain, Commander?”
“We still outnumber them twenty to one, Highness. And our frigates are standing by in case they get past the corvettes and fighters. They cannot escape.”
“Hope that you are right, Commander.”
Luke did a belly-twisting power dive at almost a ninety-degree angle to their path. A trio of fighters stayed with him, firing all the while. He was glad to see the Rogues on the one hand; on the other hand, they were losing the fight. With all the civilian traffic around, the wheelworlds and skyhooks, the power sats, the communications switching platforms and who knew what else, the space around Coruscant was anything but pure vacuum.
The comm hummed with conversations:
“I got ’em, Luke,” Wedge said.
“No, let me,” Dash said.
Another attacker blew up off the port side.
“That one was mine,” Leia said. “You figured out who these guys are?”
“Not yet,” Luke said.
“Bet you a credit they’re Xizor’s.”
Luke and Lando exchanged glances. Of course, that made sense.
Not that it made any difference—
“Two coming in at one-fifty!” Lando yelled.
Luke punched it. The Millennium Falcon rocketed away in a steep turn.
“What are you doing up there?” Leia yelled.
“Giving you a perfect setup shot,” Luke yelled back.
Vader stalked the bridge of the Executor.
“How long before we can get around the planet?” he asked.
“A few minutes, my lord,” the nervous commander answered.
“As soon as we come within range, establish communications with the skyhook Falleen’s Fist. I will speak with Prince Xizor.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“I think we got problems, buddy,” Dash said. His voice was calm over the comm, but it was also resigned.
Luke nodded. “Wedge?”
“I’m afraid he’s right, Luke. These guys are only so-so pilots, but there are a lot of ’em. I figure we’re still outnumbered fifteen to one, and there are a couple of frigates who are just sitting there waiting. We don’t have room to run, don’t have room to maneuver. They’re closing in and they don’t care if they kill civilian ships, either.”
“Yeah,” Luke said. He took a deep breath. “Well, I guess all we can do is take as many of them with us as we can. Unless anybody wants to surrender?”
Both Dash and Wedge laughed.
“That’s what I thought. May the Force be with you.”
Luke flew as he had never flown before. He weaved, rolled, stalled, dived, threw power turns that came close to blacking them all out. He was giving it his best and he had the Force helping him, but they were losing.
It would only be a matter of time.
“Prince Xizor, we are starting to pick them off. Three of the X-wings have been destroyed or disabled. Our net is closing in. It will be only a matter of time.”
Xizor nodded. Finally.
“Coming within range, Lord Vader.”
“Good. Deploy your fighters.”
Leia tracked the incoming fighter, fired, missed, swiveled in the gun seat. The fighter streaked past.
Well. There was another right behind it, and more behind that one. She lined up, fired, saw the lances of energy rake the attacker, saw part of a wing shatter and spew away, saw the wounded fighter spin out of control. There were hundreds of the blasted things, and counting Dash and the Falcon, they were down to what? nine, ten ships?
It looked as if Xizor was going to win after all.
Luke saw the TIE fighters screaming toward them. A dozen, at least.
Lando said, “Uh-oh.”
“Yeah, I wondered what was keeping them.” Luke looked at Lando. “Listen, thanks for everything, Lando. You’ve been a good friend.”
“I don’t want to hear that kind of talk. I still am a good friend.”
Luke nodded, turned back to look at the TIE fighters. There was nowhere to go; space was thick with ships; it was like trying to fly through a hailstorm without being hit. He took a deep breath—
Saw the TIEs flash past. Watched them take out two of the unmarked attackers.
“Huh?” Lando said.
“Luke,” came Leia’s voice over the comlink, “I just saw—”
“I know, I know. What’s going on?”
Xizor heard the panic in his commander’s voice: “Highness, we’re being attacked by the Imperial Navy!”
Next to him, a communications tech waved frantically.
Xizor fixed the man with a baleful stare. “This better be good, your life hangs in the balance.”
“It—It’s Lord Vader. He wants to speak to you.”
Vader! He should have known!
“Put him on.”
Vader’s image swirled into being in front of him. Xizor went on the offensive immediately: “Lord Vader! Why is the Navy attacking my ships?”
There was a pause; then Vader said, “Because the ships, under your orders, are engaging in criminal activity.”
“Nonsense! My ships are trying to stop a Rebel traitor who destroyed my castle!”
There came another pause. “You have two standard minutes to recall your vessels,” Vader said. “And to offer yourself into my custody.”
The coldness at Xizor’s core blossomed uncontrolled into an angry heat. He tried to keep his voice calm. “I will not. I will take this up with the Emperor.”
“The Emperor is not here. I speak for the Empire, Xizor.”
“Prince Xizor.”
“You may keep the title—for another two minutes.”
Xizor forced a confident smile. “What are you going to do, Vader? Destroy my skyhook? You wouldn’t dare. The Emperor—”
“I warned you to stay away from Skywalker. Recall your ships and surrender into my custody or pay the consequences. I will risk the Emperor’s displeasure.” He paused. “However, you will not be there to see it, this time.”
Xizor felt a surge of fear as the image of Vader turned ghostly and vanished. Would he do it? Would he fire on the skyhook?
He had less than two minutes before he found out. He had better decide what he was going to do.
Fast.
“Luke, look out!” Lando yelled.
“I see him!”
Luke put the Falcon into a steep climb, but there were more ships looming at that angle, and he peeled off to starboard. The vacuum was filled with energy flashes, debris of destroyed fighters, more ships than he’d ever seen in such a small space. The area looked like a nest of angry mermyns.
But—while the TIE fighters occasionally fired on the X-wings, they seemed to be targeting the unmarked attackers. Xizor’s ships. Why? “They’re on the same side, aren’t they?”
Luke didn’t realize he’d spoken this aloud until Lando said, “Thank your lucky stars for small favors. If they’re shooting at each other, they aren’t shooting at us! Look out!”
Luke zagged, missed the incoming fighter by centimeters.
He felt a familiar disturbance in the Force then. Vader?
No time to worry about that, either. Luke put his questions aside for later—if there was a later for them—and concentrated on flying the Falcon.
The commander of Xizor’s navy put in a frantic call to his master. Vader listened to the decoded communication over the speaker system.
“My prince, we are being destroyed by the attackers! We are outnumbered and being slaughtered! I need permission to offer our surrender! Highness?”
Vader watched the chronometer, enjoyed the time melting away. Not much left for the Dark Prince now.
Seven seconds … six seconds … five …
The terrified commander kept babbling: “Prince Xizor, please respond! We must surrender or we will be blown to pieces! Please!”
… four seconds left … three seconds …
“Highness, I—” The commander’s transmission ended abruptly. One of the Imperial fighters must have gotten him.
… two … one—
“Commander, destroy the skyhook.”
One did not stay in command of Darth Vader’s ship by questioning orders. “Yes, my lord.”
Darth Vader took a deep breath, painful as it was to do so, and let it out slowly. Smiled, unseen.
Goodbye, Xizor. And good riddance.
As it happened, the Millennium Falcon was facing it when the skyhook exploded.
Luke saw the giant Star Destroyer’s powerful beam strobe, saw it pierce the skyhook. The planetoid shattered, blew apart, went nova, became a small star that burned brightly for an instant before it faded, leaving millions of glowing pieces behind.
It was a spectacular sight, for all its violence. It reminded Luke of the explosion that had destroyed the Death Star.
“Oh, man,” Lando said softly. “They must have made somebody real mad.”
Luke shook his head, didn’t speak.
Dash said, “Heads up, boys. Follow me.”
Luke blinked. “Huh?”
“Somebody just opened us an escape hatch.”
“Are you crazy? We can’t fly through that wreckage!”
“We don’t have a choice. There are ships everywhere. What’s the matter, kid? Don’t think you can do it?”
“If you can, my droid can. Go.” Luke understood what Dash meant. It would be tricky, dangerous, but the space around the destroyed skyhook was relatively clear—the debris was expanding outward. If they could avoid being holed by the stuff on the way there, it was their best chance.
“Yeeeehaww!” somebody in Rogue Squadron yelled.
Luke laughed. He knew just how they felt.
They headed for the debris, and it looked as if it was going to be just fine. The good guys had triumphed!
“Look out, Dash!” Lando yelled.
Luke could hardly spare a glance, but he did. Just in time to see a block of shattered skyhook the size of a resiplex zero in on the Outrider.
“Dash!” Luke yelled. It was too close to avoid—
There was an actinic flare of light too bright to look at. Luke turned away, saw Lando throw one arm up to block the glare.
When the light faded, the Outrider had vanished.
“Oh, man,” Lando said. “He—he’s … gone.”
Just like that.
The sweet taste of triumph went bitter in Luke’s mouth.
There wasn’t time to worry about it now. “Brace yourselves! This is going to be rough!”
The debris flashed around them, impacts waiting at every turn. He was sorry about Dash—the man had turned out to be okay after all—but he didn’t want to end up a pile of flaming rubble. He let the Force take him and flew.
The secret Alliance base was light-years away from Coruscant and they had barely made it—but they had made it.
Luke stood with Leia, Lando, and Chewie, with Threepio and Artoo behind them. The building was, like so many of the Alliance structures, a big, cheap prefab unit. It did boast a large transparisteel that faced out from the surface of the asteroid into the blackness of space. Luke stared through the thick transparisteel into the depths of the galaxy.
“So, if Xizor was on that skyhook like our intelligence reports say, I would guess that would put a stop to Black Sun bounty hunters looking to kill you,” Lando said.
“There’s still Vader,” Leia said.
Luke looked at her, shook his head. “I don’t think Vader wants me dead. Yet, anyway. I’ll deal with him when the time comes.”
They looked up to see Wedge approaching. “Got a message for you, Luke,” Wedge said, “from the Bothans. It was for Dash, but, well …” He trailed off. “Um. Anyway, that missile Dash supposedly missed during that fracas off Kothlis? Turns out he didn’t miss.”
“What?” Luke blinked at Wedge.
“Thing was one of the Empire’s new diamond-boron-armored jobs. Nothing he had to throw at it could have stopped it. The Bothans wanted him to know.”
Luke felt a lump of liquid air form in his belly. Oh, man. Dash hadn’t screwed up, but now he would never know. How awful, to get taken out before you could learn that you hadn’t been responsible for the loss of your comrades. And worse was the knowledge that Luke had felt just a little bit glad—not for the deaths, but to see the braggart Dash taken down a notch.
Oh, man.
“What are you going to do now?” Wedge said.
“We’re going to get Han,” Luke said. “If he isn’t on Tatooine yet, he soon will be.”
“Going to dance into the Hutt’s guarded palace and get him? Just like that?” Wedge said.
“I have a plan,” Luke said.
He turned and looked at the stars. Maybe he wasn’t a Master yet, but he had learned a lot.
He was a Jedi Knight, and that was enough for now.