Showdown at Centerpoint (30 page)

And she would get there first. All of a sudden, that didn’t feel like anything to be quite so pleased about.

For fleeting seconds Tendra considered aborting the run and bailing out of hyperspace early. But if she knew two things for sure, one was that she was not a particularly skilled or practiced pilot, and the second was that, lacking skill or practice, the odds on surviving an uncalculated jump out of hyperspace were near zero.

Besides, she didn’t have much more than fleeting seconds to think about it. The hop she was making was not long at all. In fact, the navicomputer was already counting down the final few seconds before the drop back into real space. There was little Tendra could do besides check her seat restraint and instrument display, and hang on for the end of the ride.

The navicomputer counted down to zero, and suddenly the viewport was a blaze of light once again, the starlines flaring down into the all-but-unchanged stars of the Corellian system.

The stars were the same, but not the rest of the sky. There, dead ahead, was the heart-stoppingly lovely sight of the Double Worlds, two blue, white, and green
globes seen in quarter phase, their cloud tops and oceans and continents bright and clear and beautiful.

And there, directly and exactly between them, the strange shape of Centerpoint, a white-gray sphere with a fat cylinder stuck on each end. Her destination was in sight.

Tendra all but sobbed in relief. She had made it. She had made it. After all the endless days and weeks, time that seemed as long as months or years, she was no longer alone, cut off from the outside universe. She was here. And soon she would be able to get off this damned ship, stretch her legs a bit on something besides one little bit of ship corridor, eat something besides—

“Unidentified ship! This is the Bakuran destroyer
Sentinel
. Respond at once or be fired upon!”

Tendra would have jumped right through the viewport if her seat restraints hadn’t held her down. It had been so long since the com system had been of any use that she almost forgot how to use it. But that “almost” had best not come true if she wanted to live through the situation. She concentrated for a moment, remembered what button to push, and spoke. “Ah, um, hello,
Sentinel
. This is, ah, Tendra Risant aboard the
Gentleman Caller
!”

“Stand by,
Gentleman Caller
. Please activate your standard identity code transponder.”

“What? Oh!” Tendra reached over and flipped the appropriate switch. The transponder would transmit the
Gentleman
’s identity whenever queried by a standard traffic control system. “I forgot that thing was off. Hasn’t been much use for a while.”

“True enough,
Gentleman Caller
. You are cleared to proceed, but are cautioned not to approach within one hundred thousand kilometers of Centerpoint Station. There will be no warnings if you approach closer.
Sentinel
out.”

That sounded ominous, and it definitely put a crimp in her travel plans. But it didn’t take much thought to
realize there was not much point in arguing with a destroyer. Nor did it seem the moment to call them back and ask if they knew where Lando was.

But then how was she going to find Lando? And where should she go, if not to Centerpoint?

But, at that moment, the
Gentleman Caller
’s detection system chimed for her attention. Tendra paged her main display to the appropriate screen to see what was up.

And suddenly where to go was the least of her problems.

Getting away from where she was, in any direction at all, had just become a top priority.

All of a sudden she had company out here. Lots of it.

*   *   *

The view from the flag bridge was certainly informative. There was no doubt about that, but what he could see from there did not exactly make Lando happy. The main screen was showing the tactical schematic display from the
Sentinel,
relayed back to the
Intruder
. It showed the
Sentinel,
the
Defender,
the relative positions of Talus, Tralus, and Centerpoint—and at least fifty unidentified ships, with more appearing at every moment. “The Sacorrian fleet,” Lando said to Kalenda. “The Triad fleet that Tendra warned us about.”

“But what are they doing here?” Kalenda demanded. “Whose side are they on?”

“I think a better question might be, ‘Who is on their side?’ ” said Admiral Ossilege, who seemed to have appeared from nowhere at all. “I expect they will change their minds in a hurry, but right at the moment, that fleet is in search of the people who have caused them the most trouble in this system—and I’m afraid our little squadron does not meet that qualification.”

“But who’s caused them more trouble than we have?” Gaeriel demanded.

“The Human League,” Kalenda answered. “The Human League hijacked their whole operation—or at least tried to.”

“Exactly,” said Ossilege. “The Sacorrians, or at least the Triad who rule that world, they were the ones behind it all.”

“The Triad?” Gaeriel asked.

“That is the name given to the oligarchy, or joint dictatorship, that rules Sacorria, so-called because there are three of them. One human, one Drall, one Selonian. No one knows anything about the three dictators—not even their names.

“In any event, they discovered the secret of Centerpoint, and the existence of the repulsors. I expect it was the Drall who found it, buried in records in some ancient archive. The Drall keep excellent records. But that is not important. They recruited malcontents on the various worlds to front revolutions for them, with the intent of creating chaos and confusion—something they could hide behind while digging up the repulsors. They timed the revolts to coincide with the trade summit on Corellia, with the hopes of catching as many big fish as possible in-system. That part of the plan certainly worked. I expect the other revolts were set to go off at the first report of trouble on Corellia.”

“How do you know all this?” Kalenda asked.

“I know almost none of it,” Ossilege said, “if you require a person to have proof, evidence, witnesses, documents before they know a thing. I am guessing. But if my guesses are wrong, I, frankly, would be astonished.”

“But you’re saying that something went wrong with the plan,” said Lando.

“Has there ever been a plan more complicated than crossing the street where something didn’t go wrong?” Ossilege asked. “But yes, something did go wrong. And
the something was named Thrackan Sal-Solo. Somehow or another, he inveigled his way into the inner reaches of the starbuster plot, and he betrayed it. I expect the Triad sent him technicians, and he either bribed or tortured them, or perhaps both, until they agreed to work for him. Those technicians were able to put him in control of Centerpoint’s jamming capabilities, and the interdiction system, but not its starbuster mode.”

Lando thought for a moment and nodded. “That makes sense. The starbuster seems to be running on automatic pilot right now, anyway. Somebody—this Triad, I guess—worked out a whole detailed program for it, with stars to shoot at and the times to do it, and so on. Then they just set it running, and it hasn’t stopped yet. There must be some way to transmit a stop code, once they got what they wanted. I don’t suppose you’ve figured out how that is transmitted, have you?”

Ossilege smiled coldly. “Not as yet,” he said. “But, in any event, getting back to Sal-Solo. In the first public message regarding the starbuster, he declared that he, not the Triad, controlled the device. He laid claim to the Corellian system—indeed, the Corellian Sector—in his own name, not in the name of the Triad, and made impossible demands for no better reason than to throw everyone into confusion. Then he activated the interdiction field and the communication jamming.”

“But what was the point of it all?” Lando asked. “He had to know that sooner or later all those ships out there would show up, one way or the other.”

“I’m starting to pile guesses on guesses here, but my hunch is that he understood the real power of the planetary repulsors, something none of the other rebel leaders did. Controlling one gives him tremendous bargaining power with the Triad. He can shut down their whole starbuster operation any time he wants to. I think he was planning to be in control of one before he
let in the Sacorrian ships. And, in point of fact, he is in control of one.”

“But where did all those ships come from?” Kalenda demanded. “Sacorria’s a pretty small planet to be able to throw that big a fleet around.”

“Quite right,” said Ossilege, “but I expect you’d be able to answer your own question, if you gave it a bit more thought.”

Kalenda frowned, and then her eyes widened. “From here,” she said. “They come from here. That’s why none of the Corellian rebels were able to throw anything but LAFs and PPBs at us. The Sacorrians had the rest of their ships.”

“But how did the Sacorrians get hold of them?” Lando asked. “And how were they able to find crews for that many ships?”

“My guess is that the plain old-fashioned answer is that this is the Corellian Sector,” said Ossilege. “Practically everything is for sale—or for rent—in these parts. Probably the Sacorrians bought or leased ships, and hired crews, from the rebel groups they created, the rebel groups having stolen them from wherever they could. Easy for them to arrange, when you recall that the Sacorrian Triad owns the rebellions.”

“But probably the majority of the ships and crews out there are ex-Corellian Defense Forces sold out to the highest bidder,” Kalenda said. “The spaceside CDF betrayed Governor-General Micamberlecto wholesale, the first chance they got—after they shot up my ship and threw a scare into Han Solo. And most of the CDF ships used to be Imperial ships. Probably a fair fraction of the crew too. They’re older ships, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good.”

“And what are you going to do about them?” Gaeriel asked Ossilege. “They’ve been continuing to arrive while we’ve been talking here. There must be seventy-five of them out there. Shouldn’t we be getting back to Centerpoint to help out
Defender
and
Sentinel
?”

“No,” said Ossilege. “We will do no such thing.”

“What?” Gaeriel said. “What do you mean?”

“The
Intruder
must complete her mission here before rejoining the other ships. The assault on the repulsor is still our top priority.”

“But
Defender
and
Sentinel
are outnumbered seventy-five to two!”

“And no one is shooting. Yet. Moving this ship toward the fleet could be seen as an aggressive act. And if it comes down to a shooting war, I doubt that seventy-five to three gives us much better odds. Frankly, seventy-five ships is a lower number than I expected. Either our friend Tendra Risant miscounted, or the Sacorrians have left a substantial reserve of ships back home.”

“But if those ships move on Centerpoint—”

“Two ships, or three, it will be impossible to stop them. Please try to understand. If we lose all our ships, and control a repulsor, we win. But if we completely wipe out the enemy fleet, and Thrackan Sal-Solo still controls this repulsor, we have lost. And then the eight million people, or twelve million people, of Bovo Yagen, on their one planet or two, depending on what report you believe, will all die.”

Gaeriel seemed about to protest further, but she said nothing. Lando understood how she felt. It seemed as if there should have been some way to answer Ossilege.

Unfortunately, of course, there wasn’t.

H
an Solo paced the ground, back and forth, back and forth, the gravel crunching underfoot. He almost tripped over Artoo once or twice, until he managed to shoo the droid out of the way. “Go over this one more time,” he said, turning to Dracmus.

The Selonian had joined Han, Leia, Luke, and Mara for dinner on the grounds of the villa. By all rights, they should have been lounging about the table, relaxing in the gentle breezes of perfect twilight, after a first-rate dinner.

But Han just couldn’t do it. It seemed utterly criminal just to be hanging around, lolling in the lap of luxury, while the whole star system was falling to pieces.

Everyone kept telling him that there was nothing they could do but wait, but Han had had enough of waiting about five minutes after Luke had told them about Centerpoint.

“I know I need to understand the situation,” said Han, “but I
also
know I’m completely lost. So please. Explain to me why it’s in our best interest to just sit here and wait. Explain to me what it accomplishes.”

“Yes,” said Luke. “Please do. I’d like to hear this.”

“Very wellness,” said Dracmus, “let me be trying it
again. You have to start with knowing the idea that the three things that matter most to Selonians are honor, consensus, and the Den. All else comes behind those three. Everything, and far behind.”

“All right, that much I get,” said Han. “But what’s that got to do with why having the Triad Selonians on repulsor duty was such a big deal?”