Abyss (9 page)

His hopes of making an easy getaway came to an abrupt end when he heard a pair of small feet land atop the wall behind him. Both Not-Solos did a credible job of looking surprised. Not-Han even let his jaw drop.

“Jaina?” Not-Han gasped. “What are
you
doing here?”

“Long story,” Not-Jaina said. By the sound of her voice, she was less than two meters behind Bazel—easily within reach of his gangling arms. “But maybe you’d better let
me
take Yaqeel.”

Not-Han and Not-Leia both frowned and cast uneasy glances in Bazel’s direction. It was then that Bazel saw the flaw in his plan. If the
impostors were replacing real Jedi with their own copies, they would
know
whom they had already replaced—and whom they
hadn’t
. They had been fooling
Bazel
, manipulating him into a vulnerable position so it would be easier to take him down. And his Ramoan mind had been too stupid to see it! Sometimes he hated being such a big spotted oaf, hated himself for being so easy to trick. And hated
them
for taking advantage of it.

Bazel let out an angry bellow, then spun around, flinging his long arm out toward Not-Jaina. He heard her yell in surprise, then felt a satisfying impact as he caught her across the torso and sent her flying.

The next thing Bazel heard was the
phoot-phoot
of flying darts. His face and arms erupted in fiery waves of stinging pain, and he instantly grew dizzy and sick. He felt himself falling and crashing into an oblivion of crumpling metal, and he hoped that all that throbbing meant there wasn’t going to be enough of him left to copy.

“Sorry about your limo, Jag.” Han was staring at Jagged Fel’s damaged speeder, now half hidden beneath Bazel Warv’s green bulk. Through a side window, he could see that the impact had folded the roof a good sixty centimeters down into the passenger compartment. “Maybe you should find another dealer. You’d think an armored speeder would take a hit better than this.”

“Crumple zones are part of the design. I assure you, it can take a volley of concussion grenades and still speed away.” Jag turned toward Jaina, who was standing at the limousine’s front fender with the driver’s raincoat buttoned over her torn dress. “I’m just glad Jaina wasn’t hurt.”

Jaina glared at him. “I can take a hit, too, Jag.”

Jag’s steely eyes widened ever so slightly. “I’m sure you can,” he began apologetically. “I just meant to say that you’re more important to me than a million-credit limousine.”

“I’d
better
be,” Jaina shot back. “That doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself.”

Han had to bite his cheek to keep from bursting into laughter. He still found it hard to believe that Jaina was really going to marry this guy, and it was foul-ups like this that made him hope she’d come to her senses before it was too late. Jagged Fel was a decent enough fellow, and a fine pilot, to be sure. But he was also a stickler for rules and a slave to his honor, and Han had seen enough of
that
kind to know Head of State Fel would never,
ever
put Jaina ahead of his duty. And that just wasn’t good enough for Han’s only daughter—not by a long shot.

Jag finally withered under Jaina’s glare and turned to Han, who laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.

“Son, you’ve got a lot to learn before you’re ready to marry a strong woman,” he said. “You might start by always remembering she can break your neck with just a glance.”

“Han!” Leia scolded. She was sitting atop the safety wall, one hand reaching out over the speeder lane as she used the Force to lower Yaqeel Saav’etu’s unconscious form down to the others. “You’ll scare him off!”

“Hey, he should know what he’s in for.” Han winked at Jaina, and her scowl melted away, probably because she realized she was being too touchy about Jag’s protective streak. “You’ve been threatening to break my neck for forty years,” he reminded Leia.

“That has nothing to do with being a strong woman,” Leia retorted. “Just one whose patience is too often tested.”

Han turned to Jag. “And
that
reminds me—it pays to keep life interesting. These women can get bored just sitting around the apartment.”

“That depends on who we’re sitting around
with,
” Leia said drily. She swung her hand toward the limousine, lowering Yaqeel onto its hood. “As interesting as it might be to explore my husband’s nerf-headed theories on marriage, we’d better take care of our two patients. That GAS squad is right behind me.”

“I’ll get Bazel.” Jaina turned to Han. “Dad, if you can take Yaqeel—”

“I’ll help,” Jag said, stepping toward the Bothan’s feet. At the same
time, he glanced across the hood at the big-shouldered hump standing beside the driver’s door with a T-21 repeating blaster at the ready. “Put that weapon away and stay quiet about this, Baxton.”

“Yes, sir,” Baxton confirmed, tucking the weapon back inside the driver’s door. “As far as GAS is concerned, I didn’t see anything.”

“Lying to a GAS agent is a crime here,” Jag said. “Just tell them you’re not authorized to discuss my activities with anyone. That’s well within your immunity rights, and you won’t run the risk of arrest.”

Baxton snapped to attention. “Thank you for considering my welfare, sir.”

Han took Yaqeel’s shoulders and helped Jag lift her, then started toward the tunnel. Bazel Warv’s huge form floated off the limousine roof and followed them through the gate, where Han tripped over a cleaning droid with a faulty right-of-way routine. He fell to the floor with Yaqeel’s shoulders slumped in his lap.

“Captain Solo?” Jag asked. “If she’s too heavy, I can—”

“I just
tripped,
” Han barked, clasping the Bothan to his chest with one arm and using his free hand to push off the tunnel floor. “The droid got in my way. I’m not
old
, you know.”

“Of course not. I wasn’t thinking that.”

Han rose to his feet and glared at Jag across Yaqeel’s unconscious form. “Kid, for a Head of State, you’re a lousy liar.”

The color drained from Jag’s face. “Captain Solo, I have no doubts about your—”

“Jag!”
Jaina’s voice came from somewhere on the far side of the huge Ramoan bulk that was still out in the speeder lane waiting to float into the access tunnel. “Will you stop worrying about the old man’s feelings and get
moving
? The last thing you need is a GAS squad seeing you actually help us hide a pair of crazy Jedi.”

“Right.” Jag stepped past Han and started down the tunnel backward. “
I’ll
take the lead.”

Knowing there was no time to protest, Han simply nodded, then shot a glower toward the little dome-shaped droid watching from just inside the gate. Its response modules must have detected his anger, because the droid expelled a cloud of steam cleanser and quickly spun its photoreceptor away.

Cursing under his breath, Han followed Jag around a tunnel bend into the hangar itself. Two apprentices stood at the entrance, looking worried and uncertain as to whether they should leave their duty stations. Han pushed Yaqeel’s shoulders into the arms of the closest guard, a red-furred Jenet, then stepped out of the way as Bazel Warv’s green bulk floated through the entrance behind him.

“Comm Master Cilghal and tell her we lost two more,” Han ordered. He pulled the tranquilizer pistol from his waistband and slapped it into the hands of the Jenet’s partner, a young Duros female whose dark eyes seemed about twice as bulging as normal. “And if either one twitches before someone gets here to take them off your hands, hit ’em
both
with a couple of tranquilizer darts.”

The Duros accepted the pistol with an air of bewilderment and fear. “They went sick?
Both
of them?”

“You have your orders, apprentice,” Jaina said, lowering Bazel into an empty speeder bay. “Just carry them out.”

With that, she started back up the tunnel, Han and Jag following close behind.

By the time they rounded the bend, Han could see Leia just inside the tunnel entrance, standing toe-to-toe with a blue-uniformed captain who had managed to position himself on the threshold before she could lower the gate. A couple of paces behind him were ten troopers in black assault armor. And ten paces beyond
them
, four more GAS agents had Jag’s driver, Baxton, at blasterpoint.

But what really bothered Han were the holocams. They were peering down from atop the adjacent safety wall, carefully recording every word and gesture that passed between Leia and the GAS captain.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Captain Atar,” Leia was saying. “Nothing has happened here that is any concern of yours.”

“
I
decide what my concerns are, Jedi Solo,” Atar spat back. He was a tall human with a dark mustache and shoulders as square as his chin, the kind of pushy officer who mistook his chest patch for a badge of entitlement. “And crazy Jedi are definitely at the top of my list.”

Leia shrugged. “We don’t have any of those here.”

“Yeah?” Atar pulled his datapad off its belt clip and spun the screen around to face Leia. “What’s
that
?”

Han, Jaina, and Jag were close enough now to see a green blob that could only be Bazel landing atop Jag’s limousine. A moment later Jaina rose into view beyond the front end of the speeder, staggering slightly and holding her torn dress closed. The cam panned to the top of the safety wall and showed both Solos peering down into the speeder lane, looking horrified and still holding their tranquilizer pistols.

Han’s gut began to tie itself in knots. Atar
had
them. And these weren’t even shots from one of the holocams. Somehow, he had caught the whole thing on a … Han remembered the cleaning droid and spun around, intending to stomp it back to its circuits.

Fortunately, Jag had a better idea and seized the initiative by going to stand nose-to-ear with Atar. “What have you
done
to my speeder limousine, Captain?”

Atar did not quite snap to attention—Jag wasn’t
his
Head of State, after all. But he reacted as any security officer would in such a situation, cringing almost visibly as he tried to weigh his assignment against the potential career recriminations of causing a diplomatic incident.

Finally, he said, “
We
didn’t do anything, Head of State.” He turned the datapad toward Jag. “If the Head of State cares to have a look—”

“I’m not interested in holodramas, Captain.” Jag plucked the datapad from the captain’s hands and tossed it down the access tunnel, where it could be heard shattering into a dozen parts. “I can see that you’ve done something—unless those
aren’t
your men holding my driver at blasterpoint.”

“No, sir, they, uh, I mean yes, they are, sir.” Atar glanced back up the lane. “But we didn’t realize the limousine belonged to you.”

“You didn’t query the transponder?” Jag demanded. He stepped forward, purposely bumping the captain back away from the threshold. “Or did you just
choose
to ignore the diplomatic code?”

“Neither, sir.” Finally seeming to realize that he was being manipulated, Atar stood his ground when Jag tried to bump him back again, then said, “Sir, we are in hot pursuit of two criminally insane Jedi Knights, and diplomatic immunity does
not
give you the right to interfere. If you insist—”

“By all means, feel free to continue your pursuit,” Jag said, “
after you release my driver and vehicle
.”

Jag continued to stand in front of Atar, who glared down at him for a moment before he finally turned and waved his men away from the limousine.

“Thank you,” Jag said. “I’ll be sure to mention your cooperation to Chief Daala when I meet with her in the morning.”

“That won’t be necessary, sir,” Atar replied with ice in his voice. “She’ll have a full report this evening. Now, if you’ll stand aside, I
do
have my duties to fulfill.”

“Certainly.”

Jag pivoted on one foot, taking pains to move aside without removing himself from the area. It wasn’t what Han would have done, but he had to admit that Fel knew how to be a major pain in the rear without breaking rules. As long as he was standing in the area, the GAS captain did not dare risk starting a firefight and endangering the Imperial Head of State.

When Atar finally accepted that Jag would not be moving any farther, he let out a snort of exasperation and pushed forward again. By then, of course, Han had slipped over to the gate controls, and Jaina and her mother were standing just in front of the threshold, lightsabers in hand. The blades were not ignited, but the message was clear—GAS would not be coming inside without a fight.

“Jedi Solo, I
am
going to arrest Jedi Knights Bazel Warv and Yaqeel Saav’etu. Will you stand aside, or do I have to move you?”

Leia did not flinch. “I don’t see anyone in imminent danger,” she said, “and that means you would need a warrant to arrest them. We’re not going
anywhere
unless I see one.”

The hint of a smile flashed beneath Atar’s thick mustache. “In that case …” He extended a hand behind him and called, “Karpette, front and center!”