Heir to the Empire

C H A P T E R 31

Captain Afyon of the Escort Frigate Larkhess shook his head with thinly disguised contempt, glaring at Wedge from the depths of his pilot’s seat. “You X-wing hot-shots,” he growled. “You’ve really got it made—you know that?”

Wedge shrugged, trying hard not to take offense. It wasn’t easy; but then, he’d had lots of practice in the past few days. Afyon had started out from Coruscant with a planetary-mass chip on his shoulder, and he’d been nursing it the whole way.

And looking out the viewport at the confused mass of ships crowding the Sluis Van orbit-dock area, it wasn’t hard to figure out why. “Yeah, well, we’re stuck out here, too,” he reminded the captain.

The other snorted. “Yeah. Big sacrifice. You lounge around my ship like overpriced trampers for a couple of days, then flit around for two hours while I try to dodge bulk freighters and get this thing into a docking station designed for scavenger pickers. And then you pull your snubbies back inside and go back to lounging again. Doesn’t exactly qualify as earning your pay, in my book.”

Wedge clamped his teeth firmly around his tongue and stirred his tea a little harder. It was considered bad form to mouth back at senior officers, after all—even senior officers who’d long since passed their prime. For probably the first time since he had been given command of Rogue Squadron, he regretted having passed up all the rest of the promotions he’d been offered. A higher rank would at least have entitled him to snarl back a little.

Lifting his cup for a cautious sip, he gazed out the viewport at the scene around them. No, he amended—he wasn’t sorry at all that he’d stayed with his X-wing. If he hadn’t, he’d probably be in exactly the same position as Afyon was right now: trying to run a 920-crew ship with just fifteen men, hauling cargo in a ship meant for war.

And, like as not, having to put up with hotshot X-wing pilots who sat around his bridge drinking tea and claiming with perfect justification that they were doing exactly what they’d been ordered to do.

He hid a smile behind his mug. Yes, in Afyon’s place, he’d probably be ready to spit bulkhead shavings, too. Maybe he ought to go ahead and let the other drag him into an argument, in fact, let him drain off some of that excess nervous energy of his. Eventually—within the hour, even, if Sluis Control’s latest departure estimate was anywhere close—it would finally be the Larkhess’s turn to get out of here and head for Bpfassh. It would be nice, when that time came, for Afyon to be calm enough to handle the ship.

Taking another sip of his tea, Wedge looked out the viewport. A couple of refitted passenger liners were making their own break for freedom now, he saw, accompanied by four Corellian Corvettes. Beyond them, just visible in the faint light of the space-lane marker buoys, was what looked like one of the slightly ovoid transports he used to escort during the height of the war, with a pair of B-wings following.

And off to the side, moving parallel to their departure vector, an A-class bulk freighter was coming into the docking pattern.

Without any escort at all.

Wedge watched it creep toward them, his smile fading as old combat senses began to tingle. Swiveling around in his seat, he reached over to the console beside him and punched for a sensor scan.

It looked innocent enough. An older freighter, probably a knockoff of the original Corellian Action IV design, with the kind of exterior that came from either a lifetime of honest work or else a short and spectacularly unsuccessful career of piracy. Its cargo bay registered completely empty, and there were no weapons emplacements that the Larkhess’s sensors could pick up.

A totally empty freighter. How long had it been, he wondered uneasily, since he’d run across a totally empty freighter?

“Trouble?”

Wedge focused on the captain in mild surprise. The other’s frustrated anger of a minute ago was gone, replaced by something calm, alert, and battle-ready. Perhaps, the thought strayed through Wedge’s mind, Afyon wasn’t past his prime after all. “That incoming freighter,” he told the other, setting his cup down on the edge of the console and keying for a comm channel. “There’s something about it that doesn’t feel right.”

The captain peered out the viewport, then at the sensor scan data Wedge had pulled up. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

“Me, either,” Wedge had to admit. “There’s just something … Blast.”

“What?”

“Control won’t let me in,” Wedge told him as he keyed off. “Too much traffic on the circuits already, they say.”

“Allow me.” Afyon turned to his own console. The freighter was shifting course now, the kind of slow and careful maneuver that usually indicated a full load. But the cargo bay was still registering empty …

“There we go,” Afyon said, glancing at Wedge with grim satisfaction. “I’ve got a tap into their records computer. Little trick you never learn flitting around in an X-wing. Let’s see now … freighter Nartissteu, out of Nellac Kram.¹ They were jumped by pirates, got their main drive damaged in the fight, and had to dump their cargo to get away. They’re hoping to get some repair work done; Sluis Control’s basically told them to get in line.”

“I thought all this relief shipping had more or less taken over the whole place.” Wedge frowned.

Afyon shrugged. “Theoretically. In practice … well, the Sluissi are easy enough to talk into bending that kind of rule. You just have to know how to phrase the request.”

Reluctantly, Wedge nodded. It did all seem reasonable enough, he supposed. And a damaged, empty ship would probably handle something like an intact full one. And the freighter was empty—the Larkhess’s sensors said so.

But the tingles refused to go away.

Abruptly, he dug his comlink from his belt. “Rogue Squadron, this is Rogue Leader,” he called. “Everyone to your ships.”

He got acknowledgments, looked up to find Afyon’s eyes steady on him. “You still think there’s trouble?” the other asked quietly.

Wedge grimaced, throwing one last look out the viewport at the freighter. “Probably not. But it won’t hurt to be ready. Anyway, I can’t have my pilots sitting around drinking tea all day.” He turned and left the bridge at a quick jog.

The other eleven members of Rogue Squadron were in their X-wings by the time he reached the Larkhess’s docking bay. Three minutes later, they launched.

The freighter hadn’t made much headway, Wedge saw as they swung up over the Larkhess’s hull and pulled together into a loose patrol formation. Oddly enough, though, it had moved a considerable distance laterally, drifting away from the Larkhess and toward a pair of Calamari Star Cruisers orbiting together a few kilometers away. “Spread out formation,” Wedge ordered his pilots, shifting to an asymptotic approach course. “Let’s swing by and take a nice, casual little look.”

The others acknowledged. Wedge glanced down at his nav scope, made a minor adjustment to his speed, looked back up again—

And in the space of a single heartbeat, the whole thing went straight to hell.

The freighter blew up. All at once, without any warning from sensors, without any hint from previous visual observation, it just came apart.

Reflexively, Wedge jabbed for his comm control. “Emergency!” he barked. “Ship explosion near orbit-dock V-475. Send rescue team.”

For an instant, as chunks of the cargo bay flew outward, he could see into the emptiness there … but even as his eyes and brain registered the odd fact that he could see into the disintegrating cargo bay but not beyond it—

The bay was suddenly no longer empty.

One of the X-wing pilots gasped. A tight-packed mass of something was in there, totally filling the space where the Larkhess’s sensors had read nothing. A mass that was even now exploding outward like a hornet’s nest behind the pieces of the bay.

A mass that in seconds had resolved itself into a boiling wave front of TIE fighters.

“Pull up!” Wedge snapped to his squadron, leaning his X-wing into a tight turn to get out of the path of that deadly surge. “Come around and re-form; S-foils in attack position.”

And as they swung around in response, he knew with a sinking feeling that Captain Afyon had been wrong. Rogue Squadron was indeed going to earn its pay today.

The battle for Sluis Van had begun.

They’d cleared the outer system defense network and the bureaucratic overload that passed for Control at Sluis Van these days, and Han was just getting a bearing on the slot they’d given him when the emergency call came through. “Luke!” he shouted back down the cockpit corridor. “Got a ship explosion. I’m going to go check it out.” He glanced at the orbit-dock map to locate V-475, gave the ship a fractional turn to put them on the right vector—

And jerked in his seat as a laser bolt slapped the Falcon hard from behind.

He had them gunning into a full forward evasive maneuver before the second shot went sizzling past the cockpit. Over the roar of the engines he heard Luke’s startled-sounding yelp; and as the third bolt went past he finally had a chance to check the aft sensors to see just what was going on.

He almost wished he hadn’t. Directly behind them, batteries already engaging one of the Sluis Van perimeter battle stations, was an Imperial Star Destroyer.

He swore under his breath and kicked the engines a little harder. Beside him, Luke clawed his way forward against the not-quite-compensated acceleration and into the copilot’s seat. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“We just walked into an Imperial attack,” Han growled, eyes flying over the readouts. “Got a Star Destroyer behind us—there’s another one over to starboard—looks like some other ships with them.”

“They’ve got the system bottled up,” Luke said, his voice glacially calm. A far cry, Han thought, from the panicky kid he’d pulled off Tatooine out from under Star Destroyer fire all those years back. “I make it five Star Destroyers and something over twenty smaller ships.”

Han grunted. “At least we know now why they hit Bpfassh and the others. Wanted to pull enough ships here to make an attack worth their while.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when the emergency comm channel suddenly came to life again. “Emergency! Imperial TIE fighters in orbit-dock area. All ships to battle stations.”

Luke started. “That sounded like Wedge,” he said, punching for transmission. “Wedge? That you?”

“Luke?” the other came back. “We got trouble here—at least forty TIE fighters and fifty truncated-cone-shaped things I’ve never seen before—”

He broke off as a screech from the X-wing’s etheric rudder came faintly over the speaker. “I hope you’ve brought a couple wings of fighters with you,” he said. “We’re going to be a little pressed here.”

Luke glanced at Han. “Afraid it’s just Han and me and the Falcon. But we’re on our way.”

“Make it fast.”

Luke keyed off the speaker. “Is there any way to get me into my X-wing?” he asked.

“Not fast enough,” Han shook his head. “We’re going to have to drop it here and go in alone.”

Luke nodded, getting out of his seat. “I’d better make sure Lando and the droids are strapped in and then get up into the gun well.”

“Take the top one,” Han called after him. The upper deflector shields were running stronger at the moment, and Luke would have more protection there.

If there was any protection to be had from forty TIE fighters and fifty truncated flying cones.

For a moment he frowned as a strange thought suddenly struck him. But no. They couldn’t possibly be Lando’s missing mole miners. Even a Grand Admiral wouldn’t be crazy enough to try to use something like that in battle.

Boosting power to the forward deflectors, he took a deep breath and headed in.

“All ships, commence attack,” Pellaeon² called. “Full engagement; maintain position and status.”

He got confirmations, turned to Thrawn. “All ships report engaged, sir,” he said.

But the Grand Admiral didn’t seem to hear him. He just stood there at the viewport, gazing outward at the New Republic ships scrambling to meet them, his hands gripped tightly behind his back. “Admiral?” Pellaeon asked cautiously.

“That was them, Captain,” Thrawn said, his voice unreadable. “That ship straight ahead. That was the Millennium Falcon. And it was towing an X-wing starfighter behind it.”

Pellaeon frowned past the other. The glow of a drive was indeed barely visible past the flashing laser bolts of the battle, already pretty well out of combat range and trying hard to be even more so. But as to the design of the craft, much less its identity … “Yes, sir,” he said, keeping his tone neutral. “Cloak Leader reports a successful breakout, and that the command section of the freighter is making its escape to the periphery. They’re encountering some resistance from escort vehicles and a squadron of X-wings, but the general response has so far been weak and diffuse.”

Thrawn took a deep breath and turned away from the viewport. “That will change,” he told Pellaeon, back in control again. “Remind him not to push his envelope too far, or to waste excessive time in choosing his targets. Also that the spacetrooper mole miners should concentrate on Calamari Star Cruisers—they’re likely to have the largest number of defenders aboard.” The red eyes glittered. “And inform him that the Millennium Falcon is on its way in.”

“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said. He glanced out the viewport again, at the distant fleeing ship. Towing an X-wing …? “You don’t think … Skywalker?”

Thrawn’s face hardened. “We’ll know soon,” he said quietly. “And if so, Talon Karrde will have a great deal to answer for. A great deal.”

“Watch it, Rogue Five,” Wedge warned as a flash of laser fire from somewhere behind him shot past and nicked the wing of one of the X-wings ahead. “We’ve picked up a tail.”

“I noticed,” the other came back. “Pincer?”

“On my mark,” Wedge confirmed as a second bolt shot past him. Directly ahead, a Calamari Star Cruiser was pulling sluggishly away, trying to get out of the battle zone. Perfect cover for this kind of maneuver. Together, he and Rogue Five dived underneath it—

“Now.” Leaning hard on his etheric rudder, he peeled off hard to the right. Rogue Five did the same thing to the left. The pursuing TIE fighter hesitated between his diverging targets a split second too long; and even as he swung around to follow Wedge, Rogue Five blew him out of the sky.

“Nice shooting,” Wedge said, giving the area a quick scan. The TIE fighters still seemed to be everywhere, but for the moment, at least, none of them was close enough to give them any trouble.

Five noticed that, too. “We seem to be out of it, Rogue Leader,” he commented.

“Easy enough to fix,” Wedge told him. His momentum was taking him farther under the Star Cruiser they’d used for cover. Curving up and around it, he started to spiral back toward the main battle area.

He was just swinging up along the Star Cruiser’s side when he noticed the small cone-shaped thing nestled up against the larger ship’s hull.

He craned his neck for a better look as he shot past. It was one of the little craft that had come out with the TIE fighters, all right. Sitting pressed up against the Star Cruiser’s bridge blister as if it were welded in place.

There was a battle going on nearby, a battle in which his people were fighting and very possibly dying. But something told Wedge that this was important. “Hang on a minute,” he told Five. “I want to check this out.”

His momentum had already taken him to the Star Cruiser’s bow. He curved around in front of the ship, leaning back into a spiral again—

And suddenly his canopy lit up with laser fire, and his X-wing jolted like a startled animal beneath him.

The Star Cruiser had fired on him.

In his ear, he heard Five shout something. “Stay back,” Wedge snapped, fighting against a sudden drop in power and giving his scopes a quick scan. “I’m hit, but not bad.”

“They fired on you!”

“Yeah, I know,” Wedge said, trying to maintain some kind of evasive maneuvering with what little control he had left. Fortunately, the systems were starting to come back on line as his R2 unit did some fast rerouting. Even more fortunately, the Star Cruiser didn’t seem inclined to shoot at him again.

But why had it fired in the first place?

Unless …

His own R2 was too busy with rerouting chores to handle anything else at the moment. “Rogue Five, I need a fast sensor scan,” he called. “Where are the rest of those cone things?”

“Hang on, I’ll check,” the other replied. “Scope shows … I don’t find more than about fifteen of them. Nearest one’s ten kilometers away—bearing one-one-eight mark four.”

Wedge felt something hard settle into his stomach. Fifteen, out of the fifty that had been in that freighter with the TIE fighters. So where had the rest of them gone? “Let’s go take a look,” he said, turning into an intercept vector.

The cone thing was heading toward another Escort Frigate like the Larkhess, he saw, with four TIE fighters running interference for it. Not that there was much potential for interference—if the Frigate was manned anywhere near as sparsely as the Larkhess, it would have precious little chance of fighting back. “Let’s see if we can take them before they notice us,” he told Five as they closed the distance.

Abruptly, all four TIE fighters peeled off and came around. So much for surprise. “Take the two on the right, Rogue Five; I’ll take the others.”

“Copy.”

Wedge waited until the last second before firing on the first of his targets, swinging around instantly to avoid collision with the other. It swept past beneath him, his X-wing shuddering as it took another hit. He leaned hard into the turn, catching a glimpse of the TIE fighter dropping into a pursuit slot as he did so—

And suddenly something shot past him, spitting laser fire and twisting back and around in some kind of insane variant on a drunkard’s-walk evasive maneuver. The TIE fighter caught a direct hit and blew into a spectacular cloud of fiery gas. Wedge finished his turn, just as Rogue Five’s second target fighter did likewise.

“All clear, Wedge,” a familiar voice called into his ear. “You damaged?”

“I’m fine, Luke,” Wedge assured him. “Thanks.”

“Look—there it goes,” Han’s voice cut in. “Over by the Frigate. It’s one of Lando’s mole miners, all right.”

“I see it,” Luke said. “What’s it doing out here?”

“I saw one stuck onto the Star Cruiser back there,” Wedge told him, swinging back on course for the Frigate. “Looks like this one’s trying to do the same thing. I don’t know why.”

“Whatever it’s doing, let’s stop it,” Han said.

“Right.”

It was, Wedge saw, going to be a close race; but it was quickly clear that the mole miner was going to win it. Already it had turned its base around toward the Frigate and was starting to nestle up against the hull.

And just before it closed the gap completely, he caught a glimpse of an acridly brilliant light.

“What was that?” Luke asked.

“I don’t know,” Wedge said, blinking away the afterimage. “It looked too bright for laser fire.”

“It was a plasma jet,” Han grunted as the Falcon came up alongside him. “Right on top of the bridge emergency escape hatch. That’s what they wanted the mole miners for. They’re using them to burn through the hulls—”

He broke off; and, abruptly, he swore. “Luke—we got it backwards. They’re not here to wreck the fleet.

“They’re here to steal it.”³

For a long heartbeat Luke just stared at the Frigate … and then, like pieces clicking together in a puzzle, it all fell into place. The mole miners, the undermanned and underdefended capital ships that the New Republic had been forced to press into shipping service, the Imperial fleet out there that seemed to be making no real effort to push its way past the system’s defenses—

And a New Republic Star Cruiser, mole miner planted firmly on its side, that had just fired on Wedge’s X-wing.

He took a moment to scan the sky around him. Moving with deceptive slowness through the continuing starfighter battle, a number of warships were beginning to pull out. “We’ve got to stop them,” he told the others.

“Good thinking,” Han agreed. “How?”

“Is there any way we can get aboard them ourselves?” he asked. “Lando said the mole miners were two-man ships—the Imperials can’t possibly have packed more than four or five stormtroopers in each one of them.”

“The way those warships are manned at the moment, four stormtroopers would be plenty,” Wedge pointed out.

“Yes, but I could take them,” Luke said.

“On all fifty ships?” Han countered. “Besides, you blast a hatch open to vacuum and you’ll have pressure bulkheads closing all over the ship. Take you forever to even get to the bridge.”

Luke gritted his teeth; but Han was right. “Then we have to disable them,” he said. “Knock out their engines or control systems or something. If they get out to the perimeter and those Star Destroyers, we’ll never see them again.”

“Oh, we’ll see them again,” Han growled. “Pointed straight back at us. You’re right—disabling as many as we can is our best shot. We’re never going to stop all fifty, though.”

“We don’t have fifty to stop, at least not yet,” Wedge put in. “There are still twelve mole miners that haven’t attached themselves to ships.”

“Good—let’s take them out first,” Han said. “You got vectors on them?”

“Feeding your computer now.”

“Okay … okay, here we go.” The Falcon twisted around and headed off in a new direction. “Luke, get on the comm and tell Sluis Control what’s happening,” he added. “Tell them not to let any ships out of the orbit-dock area.”

“Right.” Luke switched channels on the comm; and as he did so, he was suddenly aware of a slight change in sense from the Falcon’s cockpit. “Han? You all right?”

“Huh? Sure. Why?”

“I don’t know. You seemed to change.”

“I had half a grip on some idea,” Han said. “But it’s gone now. Come on, make that call. I want you back on the quads when we get there.”

The call to Sluis Control was over well before they reached their target mole miner. “They thank us for the information,” Luke reported to the others, “but they say they don’t have anything to spare at the moment to help us.”

“Probably don’t,” Han agreed. “Okay, I see two TIE fighters running escort. Wedge, you and Rogue Five take them out while Luke and I hit the mole miner.”

“Got it,” Wedge confirmed. The two X-wings shot past Luke’s canopy, flaring apart into intercept mode as the TIE fighters broke formation and came around to meet the attack.

“Luke, try to blow it apart instead of disintegrating it,” Han suggested. “Let’s see how many people the Imperials have got stuffed inside.”

“Got it,” Luke said. The mole miner was in his sights now. Adjusting his power level down, he fired.

The truncated cone flared as the metal dead center of the shot boiled away into glowing gas. The rest of the craft seemed intact, though, and Luke was just lining up for a second shot when the hatch at the top abruptly popped open.

And through the opening, a monstrous, robotlike figure came charging out.

“What—?”

“It’s a spacetrooper,” Han snapped back. “A stormtrooper in zero-gee armor.⁴ Hang on.”

He spun the Falcon around away from the spacetrooper, but not before there was a flash from a protuberance atop the other’s backpack and the hull around Luke slammed with a violent concussion. Han rolled the ship around, blocking Luke’s view, as another concussion rocked them.

And then they were pulling away—pulling away, but with agonizing slowness. Luke swallowed hard, wondering what kind of damage they’d taken.

“Han, Luke—you all right?” Wedge’s voice called anxiously.

“Yeah, for now,” Han called back. “You get the TIE fighters?”

“Yes. I think the mole miner’s still under way, though.”

“Well, then, blast it,” Han said. “Nothing cute; just blow it apart. But watch out for that spacetrooper—he’s using miniature proton torpedoes or something. I’m trying to draw him away; I don’t know if he’ll fall for it.”

“He’s not,” Wedge said grimly. “He’s staying right on top of the mole miner. They’re heading for a passenger liner—looks like they’ll make it, too.”

Han swore under his breath. “Probably got a few regular stormtrooper buddies still in there. All right, I guess we do this the hard way. Hang on, Luke—we’re going to ram him.”

“We’re what?”

Luke’s last word was lost in the roar from the engines as Han sent the Falcon flying straight out and then around in a hard turn. The mole miner and spacetrooper came back into Luke’s line of sight—

Wedge had been wrong. The spacetrooper wasn’t standing by the damaged mole miner; he was, in fact, sidling quickly away from it. The twin protuberances on top of his backpack began flashing again, and a couple of seconds later the Falcon’s hull began ringing with proton torpedo blasts. “Get ready,” Han called.

Luke braced himself, trying not to think about what would happen if one of those torpedoes hit his canopy—and trying, too, not to wonder if Han could really ram the spacetrooper without also plowing into the passenger liner directly behind him. Ignoring the proton blasts, the Falcon continued accelerating—

And without warning, Han dropped the ship beneath the spacetrooper’s line of fire. “Wedge: go!”

From beneath Luke’s line of sight an X-wing flashed upward, laser cannon blazing.

And the mole miner shattered into flaming dust.

“Good shot,” Han told him, a note of satisfaction in his voice as he veered underneath the liner, nearly taking the Falcon’s main sensor dish off in the process. “There you go, hotshot—enjoy your view of the battle.”

Belatedly, the light dawned. “He was listening in on our channel,” Luke said. “You just wanted to decoy him into moving away from the mole miner.”

“You got it,” Han said. “I figured he’d tap in—Imperials always do when they can …”

He trailed off. “What is it?” Luke asked.

“I don’t know,” Han said slowly. “There’s something about this whole thing that keeps poking at me, but I can’t figure out what it is. Never mind. Our hotshot spacetrooper will keep for now—let’s go hit some more mole miners.”

It was just as well, Pellaeon thought, that they were only here to keep the enemy tied up. The Sluissi and their New Republic allies were putting up one terrific fight.

On his status board, a section of the Chimaera’s shield schematic went red. “Get that starboard shield back up,” he ordered, giving the sky in that direction a quick scan. There were half a dozen warships out there, all of them firing like mad, with a battle station in backstop position behind them. If their sensors showed that the Chimaera’s starboard shields were starting to go—

“Starboard turbolasers: focus all fire on the Assault Frigate at thirty-two mark forty,” Thrawn spoke up calmly. “Concentrate on the starboard side of the ship only.”

The Chimaera gun crews responded with a withering hail of laser fire. The Assault Frigate tried to swerve away; but even as it turned, its entire starboard side seemed to flash with vaporized metal. The weapons from that section, which had been firing nonstop, went abruptly silent.

“Excellent,” Thrawn said. “Starboard tractor crews: lock on and bring it in close. Try to keep it between the damaged shields and the enemy. And be sure to keep its starboard side facing toward us; the port side may still have active weapons and a crew to use them.”

Clearly against its will, the Assault Frigate began to move inward. Pellaeon watched it for a moment, then returned his attention to the overall battle. He had no doubt the tractor crew would do the job right; they’d shown a remarkable increase in efficiency and competence lately. “TIE Squadron Four, keep after that B-wing group,” he instructed. “Port ion cannon: keep up the pressure on that command center.” He looked at Thrawn. “Any specific orders, Admiral?”

Thrawn shook his head. “No, the battle seems to be progressing as planned.” He turned his glowing eyes on Pellaeon. “What word from Cloak Leader?”

Pellaeon checked the proper display. “The TIE fighters are still engaging the various escort ships,” he reported. “Forty-three of the mole miners have successfully attached to target ships. Of those, thirty-nine are secure and making for the perimeter. Four are still encountering internal resistance, though they anticipate a quick victory.”

“And the other eight?”

“They’ve been destroyed,” Pellaeon told him. “Including two of those with a spacetrooper aboard. One of those spacetroopers is failing to respond to comm, presumably killed with his craft; the other is still functional. Cloak Leader has ordered him to join the attack on the escort ships.”

“Countermand that,” Thrawn said. “I’m quite aware that stormtroopers have infinite confidence in themselves, but that sort of deep-space combat is not what spacetrooper suits were designed for. Have Cloak Leader detail a TIE fighter to bring him out. And also inform him that his wing is to begin pulling back to the perimeter.”⁵

Pellaeon frowned. “You mean now, sir?”

“Certainly, now.” Thrawn nodded toward the viewport. “The first of our new ships will begin arriving within fifteen minutes. As soon as they’re all with us, the task force will be withdrawing.”

“But …”

“The Rebel forces within the perimeter are of no further concern to us, Captain,” Thrawn said with quiet satisfaction. “The captured ships are on their way. With or without TIE fighter cover, there’s nothing the Rebels can do to stop them.”

Han brought the Falcon as close as he could to the Frigate’s engines without risking a backwash, feeling the slight multiple dips in ship’s power as Luke repeatedly fired the quads. “Anything?” he asked as they came up around the other side.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Luke said. “There’s just too much armor over the coolant-feeder lines.”

Han glanced along the Frigate’s course, fighting back the urge to swear. They were already uncomfortably close to the perimeter battle, and getting closer all the time. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. There’s got to be some way to take out a capital ship.”

“That’s what other capital ships are for,” Wedge put in. “But you’re right—this isn’t working.”

Han pursed his lips. “Artoo?—you still on line back there?” he called.

The droid’s beeping came faintly up the cockpit corridor. “Go through your schematics again,” Han ordered. “See if you can find us another weak point.”

Artoo beeped again in acknowledgment. But it wasn’t a very optimistic beep. “He’s not going to find anything better, Han,” Luke said, echoing Han’s own private assessment. “I don’t think we’ve got any choice left. I’m going to have to go topside and use my lightsaber on it.”

“That’s crazy, and you know it,” Han growled. “Without a proper pressure suit—and with engine coolant spraying all over you if it works—”

“How about using one of the droids?” Wedge suggested.

“Neither of them can do it,” Luke told him. “Artoo hasn’t got the manipulative ability, and I wouldn’t trust Threepio with a weapon. Especially not with all the high-acceleration maneuvers we’re making.”

“What we need is a remote manipulator arm,” Han said. “Something that Luke could use inside while …”

He broke off. In a flash of inspiration, there it was—the thing that had been bothering him ever since they’d walked into this crazy battle. “Lando,” he called into the intercom. “Lando! Get up here.”

“I’ve got him strapped in,” Luke reminded him.

“Well, go unstrap him and get him up here,” Han snapped. “Now.”

Luke didn’t waste time with questions. “Right,” he said.

“What is it?” Wedge asked tensely.

Han clenched his teeth. “We were there on Nkllon when the Imperials stole these mole miners from Lando,” he told the other. “We had to reroute our communications through some jamming.”

“Okay. So?”

“So why were they jamming us?” Han asked. “To keep us from calling for help? From who? They’re not jamming us here, you notice.”

“I give up,” Wedge said, starting to sound a little testy. “Why?”

“Because they had to. Because—”

“Because most of the mole miners on Nkllon were running on radio remote,” came a tired voice from behind him.

Han turned around, to see Lando easing his way carefully into the cockpit, clearly running at half speed but just as clearly determined to make it. Luke was right behind him, a steadying hand on his elbow. “You heard all that?” Han asked him.

“Every part that mattered,” Lando said, dropping into the copilot’s seat. “I could kick myself for not seeing it long ago.”

“Me, too. You remember any of the command codes?”

“Most of them,” Lando said. “What do you need?”

“We don’t have time for anything fancy.” Han nodded toward the Frigate, now lying below them. “The mole miners are still attached to the ships. Just start ’em all running.”

Lando looked at him in surprise. “Start them running?” he echoed.

“You got it,” Han confirmed. “All of them are going to be near a bridge or control wing—if they can burn through enough equipment and wiring, it should knock out the whole lot of them.”

Lando exhaled noisily, tilting his head sideways in a familiar gesture of reluctant acceptance. “You’re the boss,” he said, fingers moving over the comm keyboard. “I just hope you know what you’re doing. Ready?”

Han braced himself. “Do it.”

Lando keyed a final section of code … and beneath them, the Frigate twitched.

Not a big twitch, not at first. But as the seconds passed, it became increasingly clear that something down there was wrong. The main engines flickered a few times and then died, amid short bursts from the auxiliaries. Its drive toward the perimeter fighting faltered, its etheric control surfaces kicking in and then out again, striving to change course in random directions. The big ship floundered almost to a halt.

And suddenly, the side of the hull directly opposite the mole miner’s position erupted in a brilliant burst of flame.

“It’s cut all the way through!” Lando gasped, his tone not sure whether to be proud or dismayed by his handiwork. A TIE fighter, perhaps answering a distress call from the stormtroopers inside, swept directly into the stream of superheated plasma before it could maneuver away. It emerged from the other side, its solar panels blazing with fire, and exploded.

“It’s working,” Wedge called, sounding awed. “Look—it’s working.”

Han looked up from the Frigate. All around them—all throughout the orbit-dock area—ships that had been making for deep space were suddenly twisting around like metallic animals in the throes of death.

All of them with tongues of flame shooting from their sides.

For a long minute Thrawn sat in silence, staring down at his status boards, apparently oblivious to the battle still raging on all around them. Pellaeon held his breath, waiting for the inevitable explosion of injured pride at the unexpected reversal. Wondering what form that explosion would take.

Abruptly, the Grand Admiral raised his eyes to the viewport. “Have all the remaining Cloak Force TIE fighters returned to our ships, Captain?” he asked calmly.

“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon told him, still waiting.

Thrawn nodded. “Then order the task force to begin its withdrawal.”

“Ah … withdrawal?” Pellaeon asked cautiously. It was not exactly the order he’d been anticipating.

Thrawn looked at him, a faint smile on his face. “You were expecting, perhaps, that I’d order an all-out attack?” he asked. “That I would seek to cover our defeat in a frenzy of false and futile heroics?”⁶

“Of course not,” Pellaeon protested.

But he knew down deep that the other knew the truth. Thrawn’s smile remained, but was suddenly cold. “We haven’t been defeated, Captain,” he said quietly. “Merely slowed down a bit. We have Wayland, and we have the treasures of the Emperor’s storehouse. Sluis Van was to be merely a preliminary to the campaign, not the campaign itself. As long as we have Mount Tantiss, our ultimate victory is still assured.”

He looked out the viewport, a thoughtful expression on his face. “We’ve lost this particular prize, Captain. But that’s all we’ve lost. I will not waste ships and men trying to change that which cannot be changed. There will be many more opportunities to obtain the ships we need. Carry out your orders.”

“Yes, Admiral,” Pellaeon said, turning back to his status board, a surge of relief washing through him. So there would not be an explosion, after all … and with a twinge of guilt, he realized that he should have known better from the start. Thrawn was not merely a soldier, like so many others Pellaeon had served with. He was, instead, a true warrior, with his eye set on the final goal and not on his own personal glory.

Taking one last look out the viewport, Pellaeon issued the order to retreat. And wondered, once again, what the Battle of Endor would have been like if Thrawn had been in command.⁷