TWENTY-TWO

Han and Leia were alone in the cockpit, sitting together in one chair, watching the opalescent nothingness of hyperspace slide silently past. The jump was a long one, and there was no reason for them both to spend it on watch. But the flight deck was the one place on the suddenly crowded Falcon to find some discreet time together, and—after the way things had ended with Jaina—Han was glad they had. Somehow, it helped to know that Leia was as frightened for Jaina as he was—that she, too, was determined to find out what Raynar really had planned for their daughter, to return to Qoribu the minute they could, and to put a stop to it.

“You’re in a better mood,” Leia said.

“Talking to you, I guess,” Han admitted. “How’d you know?”

“The humming. You never hum.”

“Humming?” Han frowned. “I’m not humming.”

“Really?” Leia cocked her head. “It certainly sounds like you are.”

Han spun the seat around until he was facing the same direction Leia had been, then he heard it—a faint, undulating purr.

“That’s not me.” Han jumped up, dumping Leia onto her feet. “It’s a coolant line!”

“A coolant line?” Leia slipped into the copilot’s chair and began calling up status displays. “What happened to the alarm?”

“Good question.” Han turned toward the back of the flight deck and started down the access corridor. “Disengage the hyperdrive and do a slow cool-down. I’ll see what I can find out back in systems.”

The hum grew steadily louder as Han advanced. By the time he entered the main cabin, it had risen to an irritating drone. He met the rest of his crew and passengers coming the other way. Cakhmaim and Meewalh were wide awake, but still pulling on their sleeveless robes. Alema and Juun were both bleary-eyed and dressed in their sleeping shifts, which, in Alema’s case, was considerably more than she wore when she was awake.

C-3PO was also present and, of course, fully alert. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the Falcon make a sound quite like this, Captain Solo. What is it?”

“Boiling coolant,” Juun said through a yawn. He stretched his arms. “The hyperdrive must be—” The bleariness vanished from the Sullustan’s bulbous eyes. “Bloah! The hyperdrive is overheating!”

A loud boom reverberated through the hull as the Falcon executed an emergency drop into realspace. The drone in the coolant lines became a loud, bubbling hiss.

Han pointed at Juun, then jerked a thumb toward the cockpit. “Take the navigator’s station and get a fix on where we are. Threepio, take the comm station in case we need to send an emergency hail. Everyone else, with me.”

Han led the way to the rear of the ship, then opened an access panel and peered in at the contorted tangle of valves and radiation-shielded conduits surrounding the unit itself. There was no need to ask for a thermoscanner to determine which lines were overheated. The lower inside conduit was bulging, glowing pale blue, and banging as if there were a profogg inside. Han activated the lighting and crawled into the sweltering cabinet, then traced the pipe up to the dark nook where it passed through the flow regulator. The diverter valve was stuck half closed, but Han could not see what had caused the malfunction—or why the sensor hadn’t sounded an alarm.

“Meewalh, get me some burn gloves and a face shield.”

Before he finished asking, the Noghri was passing the gloves and face shield into the cabinet.

As Han donned the equipment, Juun’s voice came over the intercom. “Captain Solo, I haven’t identified exactly where we are yet—”

“Well, keep working on it. I’m sure you can figure it out.” Han rolled his eyes. “Let me know when you do.”

“Of course,” Juun said. “But I thought I should report—”

“Look, I’m kind of busy here,” Han said. “So unless we’re under attack, hold the reports until you’re done.”

There was a moment of silence, then Juun asked, “Do you want me to wait until we’re actually under attack?”

“What?” Han turned, banging the side of his head on a strut. “Blast! What do you mean, actually?”

“Han, it looks like we’re still in Colony territory,” Leia said, breaking in. “We’ve got a swarm of dartships coming.”

“Rodder!” Han nodded the Noghri toward the cannon turrets, then pulled on the second burn glove. “Okay, forget the cool-down. Recalculate the rest of the jump using three-quarter power and go. This shouldn’t take long.”

“You’ve found the problem?” Juun’s voice was full of awe. “Already?”

“Even better.” Han reached up to the regulator and shut down the damaged coolant line. “I’ve found a fix.”

When Han pulled himself out of the cabinet, Alema was frowning down at him with her lekku crossed over her chest.

“Don’t scowl at me,” he said. “It gives you wrinkles.”

The frown vanished at once. “Are you sure it’s necessary to take this kind of risk?” she asked. “Those dartships are only coming to greet us. Their nest might even be able to help us make repairs.”

“First, not all dartships are friendly.” Han passed her his face shield, then pulled off his burn gloves. “Second, Saba can’t wait for repairs—and maybe not Luke and Mara, either.”

“And third?”

“There is no third.”

“There’s always a third,” Alema said.

“Okay, third.” Han passed her the burn gloves and, as the Falcon slipped back into hyperspace, concluded, “I’m the captain. It’s safe if I say it is.”

Alema shrank back. “Okay—just asking,” she said. “Maybe we should check on Saba.”

“You go ahead,” Han said, wondering why the Twi’lek thought he was needed to check on the Barabel. Bugs and bug-lovers, he thought, you can’t trust either of ’em. He had a sudden image of Jaina and Raynar rubbing forearms and shuddered. He closed the access panel and started forward. “I need to keep an eye on things in the cockpit.”

Han had barely stepped onto the flight deck when Juun reported, “We have to recalibrate the warp controller. The heat buildup caused a performance spike in the number two nacelle, and we veered off course by seven one-thousandths of a degree.”

“We don’t have time,” Han said. Recalibrating meant days of trial jumps, then he’d have to do it all again when they returned to the Galactic Alliance and repaired the problem. “Just run a compensation program.”

“A compensation program?” Juun was aghast. “But procedure mandates recalibration anytime—”

“It also mandates obeying the captain’s orders,” Han said, slipping into the pilot’s seat. “Just run the blasted program.”

Juun was silent for a moment, then asked in a subdued voice, “Was the malfunction anything I should account for?”

Han softened. “Good question.” He considered for a moment, mentally reviewing the entire coolant system in his mind. An underactive diverter could cause another performance spike, but probably not a closed one—especially not if the hyperdrive remained below maximum power. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” Juun repeated. “Didn’t you identify the malfunction?”

“Didn’t have time,” Han said, growing irritated again.

“But if you haven’t identified the problem, how can you know it’s safe—”

“I know,” Han growled. “Now, are you going to stop bothering me and run that program, or do I have to do it myself?”

“I’d advise you to choose the first option,” C-3PO said. “When Captain Solo’s voice assumes that tone, he has a nasty habit of tripping primary circuit breakers.”

“It’s okay, Jae,” Leia said. “Han knows what he’s doing.”

“Oh, I realize that, Princess Leia,” Juun replied. “I was only asking because I’d like to understand how Han Solo makes decisions.”

“Wouldn’t we all?” Leia replied.

Juun ran the compensation program, then they jumped back into hyperspace and spent the next quarter hour riding in silence, watching status readouts and listening for the faintest hum in the coolant lines. Finally, Han felt confident enough to pronounce the emergency passed. He sent Juun back to tell the others they could return to their bunks, then looked over to find Leia staring raptly into her display, biting her lower lip as she double-checked Juun’s compensation parameters against status readouts.

She wore the same enthralled expression she’d often had as New Republic Chief of State, poring over a report on an initiative to feed hungry natives on Gottlegoob, or as Rebel leader studying a cruiser buildup on Farbog. It was a look Han had not seen since the end of the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, when the challenge of combat had faded to the drudgery of reconstruction and they had retreated into the Falcon to build a smaller, more private life together.

It was a look Han missed, and one he felt responsible for losing. As much as he loved having Leia all to himself—finally—he knew she needed more out of life; she would never be happy flying around just having adventures. She needed to be doing important things, putting the galaxy back together and seeing to it that the megaconglomerates did not end up owning everything.

Seeming to feel the weight of his gaze—or perhaps sense it through the Force—Leia looked up from the columns scrolling down her display. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing,” Han said. “I was just wondering…” He wanted to say if you were happy, but knew that would sound wrong—it would sound like he was unhappy. “Well, if…”

“Juun’s parameters are very complete, if you’re worried about that,” Leia said. “We’re not going to stay in the safety margin—but when do we ever?”

“Yeah,” Han said. “That’s kind of the point. Do you ever miss our old place back on Coruscant?”

Leia cocked her brow and remained silent, studying him like a worrt eyeing a kreetle.

“Having a whole bedroom suite to ourselves, and a real kitchen where we could cook real dinners?”

“That apartment is gone—along with everything else we might remember about that planet.” Leia made a point of not looking at Han. “And I don’t recall you doing much cooking.”

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t like the food,” he said. “And we could get another place. With the Reconstruction Authority trying to move the seat of government back—”

“What’s this talk about moving into an apartment?” Leia asked. “I thought you loved living on the Falcon.”

“I do,” Han said. “But there’s more to life than being happy!”

Leia frowned. “Han, you’re starting to sound confused. Have you been seeing color flashes? Feeling dizzy? Having trouble hear—”

“I’m not having a stroke,” Han interrupted. “I’m fine.”

“Good.” Leia returned to her status display. “So am I.”

“And I’m not old,” Han said.

“Did I say you were?”

Han activated his own display and went to work running sensor tests, trying to locate the fault that had prevented the safety system from detecting the coolant problem before it grew critical. An hour later, he had determined that all of the sensors on the coolant line were stuck at the optimum readings. It took another hour to determine that the number one nacelle readings were being repeated on the number two status bar. By itself, either malfunction was dangerous; together, they could prove catastrophic.

“I don’t know where we serviced the hyperdrive last time,” Han said, “but the next time we’re in the neighborhood, remind me to send them a concussion missile.”

“Bad coolant?” Leia asked. Corrosive impurities were the cause of most coolant problems.

“Yeah, and that’s not all,” Han said. “Some short circuit ran a double status feed from the number two nacelle.”

“Really?” Leia grew thoughtful. “I wonder what the chances of making those two mistakes are.”

“Approximately one hundred twelve thousand to one, Princess Leia,” C-3PO said helpfully. “The hangar staff at the Jedi Temple are generally quite proficient.”

“That’s where we got our last coolant change?” Without waiting for a reply, Han turned to Leia. “Something smell bad to you?”

“Very,” she said. “The Temple would know by now if it had been using bad coolant. Someone would have warned us.”

“Yeah,” Han said. “It’s gotta be something else.”

“Sabotage?”

“That’d be my bet,” Han said. “Threepio, find out how Saba’s doing—and have Meewalh and Cakhmaim do another sweep of the ship. Tell them to look for droppings and bug tracks. That may be the only way we know they’re here.”

“They?” C-3PO asked.

“Killiks,” Han said. “Stowaways.”

The droid left to obey. Han turned to find Leia staring out the viewport with a distant expression. It was the same look he’d seen a dozen times, as she reached out in the Force and tried to warn Luke about the assassin bugs Saba had found.

He waited until her attention returned to the cockpit, then asked, “Any luck?”

“Luke’s preoccupied with something about our family. I think he thought I was trying to tell him about Saba.” Leia shook her head. “And I just don’t have a strong enough connection with Mara.”

“What about Jacen?”

“I don’t know,” Leia said. “I can’t tell if he doesn’t believe me or just doesn’t understand.”

“Blast,” Han said. “We could us a little help here. If this is sabotage…”

Han let the sentence trail off, for a faint thread of blue had appeared ahead, stretched horizontally across the pearly void of hyperspace.

“Leia, do you see that?”

“What?”

Han pointed at the thread, which had thickened into a line of mottled colors ranging from white to dark purple. “Colors.”

“Very funny,” Leia said. “I’m sorry I called you old.”

“No, really.” Han jabbed his finger toward the line, which was now a finger-width band darkening toward sapphire. “Look.”

Leia looked, and her jaw dropped. “Should that be there?”

Fangs of blue light began to flash out from both sides of the sapphire stripe.

“No,” Han said.

“Then why hasn’t the proximity alarm dropped us out of hyperspace?”

“You don’t want to know.”

By the time Han had a hand on the hyperspace disengage, the sapphire stripe had thickened into a braided grimace of purple and white, and the tips of the blue fangs were flashing clear up to the canopy. He pulled the control lever back to emergency override…and a muffled bang sounded deep in the Falcon’s stern.

“Han!” Leia demanded. “What don’t I want to know?”

“Tell you in a minute.” The entire ship began to buck and shudder, and an eerie chorus of whirs hummed up the access corridor. “Blast!”

Han reengaged the hyperdrive. The ship stopped shuddering and the whirs faded to silence, but the crimson blue ahead reached out and closed around the Falcon.

“Tell me, Han. What don’t I want to know?”

“What is this?” a reedy voice asked from the back of the flight deck. “Have we flown into a nebula?”

Han was vaguely aware of Leia turning toward Juun’s voice—but only vaguely. The blue teeth had become the interior of a white-veined mouth, and most of his mind was busy trying to figure out what to do next.

“You’ve flown into a nebula before?” Leia asked Juun.

“Of course—many times,” Juun assured her. “But usually I disengage the hyperdrive and fly right back out.”

“Not an option.” Han eased the hyperdrive control lever back until he heard the first hint of a whir. It didn’t take much. “We’ll blow that bad coolant line when the shutdown temperature spikes.”

“I thought you fixed that!” Juun complained.

“So did I.” Han glanced up at Juun’s reflection in the canopy. “Someone unfixed it.”

If Juun noticed the fear in Han’s voice, he hid it well. “Well, you can’t just keep going. The gas friction will distort the continuum warp.”

“Distortion won’t kill us,” Han said. The Falcon’s stabilizers would probably keep their warp within safe parameters. “It’s the dust shell I’m worried about.”

“Oh, yes.” Juun’s voice was forlorn. “The dust shell.”

“How long?” Leia asked.

She was too good a copilot to need to ask what would happen when a vessel traveling through hyperspace tried to punch its way through the striated layers of dust and debris that hung inside an expansion nebula.

“That depends on how old the nebula is,” Han said. Two-meter circles of white began to flash ahead of the Falcon as the first dust particles blossomed against her forward shields. “But not long enough.”

“This is a young one,” Juun agreed. “A very young one.”

The whir finally went silent, and Han eased the control lever back until he heard it again. He was only prolonging the inevitable, but sometimes stalling was the only move you had.

“Han.” There was a tremor in Leia’s voice, and she was staring straight out the forward viewport. “Tell me the truth—are we going to die?”

“Can you do that fog-parting trick you used on Borao again?” Han asked. “And extend it to about twelve light-years?”

“I doubt it,” Leia said.

“Then, yeah, we’re probably gonna die.”

“What a pity Tarfang isn’t here!” Juun said.

Han scowled into the canopy reflection. “I thought you liked that mattball.”

“Very much!” Juun exclaimed. “And I’m sorry his name won’t be listed among those who died with Han Solo.”

“Not so fast,” Leia said. The dust particles were blooming fast and furious now, turning hyperspace almost solid white with microscopic novae. “If we’re going to die anyway, there’s nothing left to lose.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Juun said. “But—”

“Watch and learn,” Leia said.

She activated the Falcon’s attitude control system, then—before Han could stop her—spun the ship around so that it was traveling backward through hyperspace.

The white blossoms vanished, and for a moment, the Falcon felt as though she were simply traveling through hyperspace backward.

Then the nebula turned red and started to spiral away from the viewport. Han’s stomach turned somersaults faster than a Jedi acrobat, and the Falcon’s hull began to wail and screech like a rancor in full rut.

“Ke…b…ff!”

Han could not understand Leia above the terrible clamor, but it was easy to guess what she was yelling. He eased the lever back another centimeter. There was no question of listening for the humming coolant line, so he decided to count to thirty and do it again. What did it matter? They were going to die anyway.

Then Leia did something really foolish…she fired the sublight drives.

The shrieking and wailing stopped at once, and suddenly it was the Falcon spinning instead of space. Han felt as though his heart were going to fly out between his ribs, and he lost his last three meals.

But incredibly, he was still alive to know how bad he was feeling. He realized he had lost his count and eased the control lever back some more.

The whir returned. It occurred to him that the Falcon had fallen otherwise silent—which meant they weren’t being pelted by dust particles, which meant the sublight drives were blasting a hole through the dust shell. Han looked over to congratulate Leia. Her face was a meter wide and five centimeters tall.

Nice try, he said. It came out yiiiiirt eeeeeciiiiN in his own head. He doubted he would ever know how it sounded to Leia.

The whir vanished. He eased the control lever back. Leia’s face went to a meter tall and ten centimeters wide. Something big exploded against the Falcon’s rear shields and the ship shook so violently that Juun—who had not strapped himself in—ended up splayed against the forward viewport.

Han eased the control lever back and took a long deep sniff, smelled only the sour barf of five different species—maybe a hint of verbobrain actuating gas—and eased the lever farther.

Leia’s face shrank to half a meter on the diagonal, and Han said, I love you, Princess, even if you drive like a…

He didn’t finish. The words came out Eeeyyyyeeee wooooobe ooooooo, which wasn’t half bad, considering.

Han eased the control lever back again, and Juun slid down the canopy and disappeared behind the instrument console.

Then the proximity alarm went off, and the color outside the canopy went from blue to red to blue to whirling stripes of silver. Suddenly, Leia’s face was the proper size and shape—still far too green, but at least oval and no more than twenty-five centimeters from chin to hairline—and Han felt even sicker than before.

That was when C-3PO came tumbling up the access corridor. “Doomed!” He crashed to a halt behind the navigator’s chair, then fell to the deck, flailing. “We’re doomed for sure!”

Han immediately knew they were going to make it. He took control of the Falcon and began to fire attitude thrusters, slowly bringing their spin under control. There was just a hint of coolant sweetness in the recycled air—enough to mean they would have to decontaminate the ship, but not so much they would die before they had a chance.

A pair of small hands appeared at the top edge of the control panel, and Juun pulled himself up to peer over the edge. “Real space?”

“Yeah.” Han glanced out the viewport and saw nothing but the veined, red sky of a still-cooling nebula. “I think.”

“It is,” Leia said. “The proximity alarm dropped us out of hyperspace.”

“And we survived?” Juun sounded almost disappointed. His sunken eyes swung toward Han. “That wasn’t in any of the history vids. Did you teach her that?”

“No,” Leia said. “And it hasn’t worked yet. There’s still one tiny problem.”

“As long as it’s tiny,” Han said, eyeing the white static on his sensor screen.

“Well—not really tiny.” Leia used the attitude thrusters to spin the Falcon around, bringing into view the green, rapidly swelling disk of the planet they were about to crash into. “It was big enough to drop us out of hyperspace.”