Heir To The Empire (48 page)

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?”

“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.

It took a while longer after the Imperial fleet pulled out for the battle to be officially over. But with the Star Destroyers gone, the outcome was never in doubt.

The regular stormtroopers were the easiest. Most of them were dead already, killed when Lando’s activation of the mole miners had ruptured the airseals of their stolen ships and left them open to vacuum, and the rest were taken without much trouble. The eight remaining spacetroopers, whose zero-gee suits had allowed them to keep fighting after their ships were disabled, were another story entirely. Ignoring all calls to surrender, they fanned out through the shipyards, clearly intent on causing as much damage as they could before the inevitable. Six were hunted down and destroyed; the other two eventually self-destructed, one managing to cripple a Corvette in the process.

He left behind him a shipyard and orbit-dock facility in an uproar . . . and a great number of severely damaged major ships.

“Not exactly what you’d call a resounding victory,” Captain Afyon grunted, surveying what was left of the Larkhess’s bridge through a pressure bulkhead viewport as he gingerly adjusted a battle dressing that had been applied to his forehead. “Going to take a couple months’ work just to rewire all the control circuits.”

“Would you rather the Imperials have gotten it whole?” Han demanded from behind him, trying to ignore his own mixed feelings about this whole thing. Yes, it had worked . . . but at what cost?

“Not at all,” Afyon replied calmly. “You did what you had to-and I’d say that even if my own neck hadn’t been on the line. I’m just saying what others will say: that destroying all these ships in order to save them was not exactly the optimal solution.”

Han threw a look at Luke. “You sound like Councilor Fey’lya,” he accused Afyon.

The other nodded. “Exactly.”

“Well, fortunately, Fey’lya’s only one voice,” Luke offered.

“Yeah, but it’s a loud one,” Han said sourly.

“And one that a lot of people are starting to listen to,” Wedge added. “Including important military people.”

“He’ll find some way to parlay this incident into his own political gain,” Afyon rumbled. “You just watch him.”

Han’s rejoinder was interrupted by a trilling from the wall intercom. Afyon stepped over and tapped the switch. “Afyon here,” he said.

“Sluis Control communications,” a voice replied. “We have an incoming call from Coruscant for Captain Solo. Is he with you?”

“Right here,” Han called, stepping over to the speaker. “Go ahead.”

There was a slight pause; and then a familiar and sorely missed voice came on. “Han? It’s Leia.”

“Leia!” Han said, feeling a delighted and probably slightly foolish-looking grin spread across his face. A second later, though- “Wait a minute. What are you doing back on Coruscant?”

“I think I’ve taken care of our other problem,” she said. Her voice, he noticed for the first time, sounded tense and more than a little ragged. “At least for the moment.”

Han threw a frown across the room at Luke. “You think?”

“Look, that’s not important right now,” she insisted. “What’s important is that you get back here right away.”

Something cold and hard settled into Han’s stomach. For Leia to be this upset . . . “What’s wrong?”

He heard her take a deep breath. “Admiral Ackbar has been arrested and removed from command. On charges of treason.”

The room abruptly filled with a brittle silence. Han looked in turn at Luke, at Afyon, at Wedge. But there didn’t seem to be anything to say. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he told Leia. “Luke’s here, too-you want me to bring him?”

“Yes, if he can manage it,” she said. “Ackbar’s going to need all the friends he can get.”

“Okay,” Han said. “Call me in the Falcon if there’s any more news. We’re heading over there right now.”

“I’ll see you soon. I love you, Han.”

“Me, too.”

He broke the connection, turned back to the others. “Well,” he said, to no one in particular. “There goes the hammer. You coming, Luke?”

Luke looked at Wedge. “Have your people had a chance to do anything with my X-wing yet?”

“Not yet,” Wedge said, shaking his head. “But it’s just been officially bumped to the top of the priority list. We’ll have it ready to fly in two hours. Even if I have to take the motivators out of my own ship to do it.”

Luke nodded and looked back at Han. “I’ll fly into Coruscant on my own, then,” he said. “Let me just come with you and get Artoo off the Falcon.”

“Right. Come on.”

“Good luck,” Afyon called softly after them.

And yes, Han thought as they hurried down the corridor toward the hatchway where the Falcon was docked; the hammer was indeed coming down. If Fey’lya and his faction pushed too hard and too fast-and knowing Fey’lya, he would almost certainly push too hard and too fast-

“We could be on the edge of a civil war here,” Luke murmured his thought back at him.

“Yeah, well, we’re not going to let that happen,” Han told him with confidence he didn’t feel. “We haven’t gone through a war and back just to watch some overambitious Bothan wreck it.”

“How are we going to stop him?”

Han grimaced. “We’ll think of something.”