Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime (38 page)

The logic was sound, Han had to admit privately, but still, it did little to hold his broken heart together. “They’ll be coming at us in swarms,” he said. “How many fighters can you put up?”

Lando’s expression was not so cocky at that question. “We’ve got the fighters—it’s the pilots we’re lacking.”

“Even with your belt-running game?”

“You know who that attracts,” Lando remarked. “You think any of them will stick around when they hear there’s an armada moving against us?”

Han paused and considered the reasoning, and found that he could not disagree. He had dealt with smugglers all of his life, and he knew that most of them, above all else, saw to their own needs and safety first. And maybe, he mused, in this situation, that policy was right. Maybe they’d all be better off fleeing Dubrillion and running to the Core, where they could get some real firepower to back them up. He was still playing out that debate in his mind when one of Lando’s men called them over to a data screen. Lando spent along minute reading it, his expression turning fast to a frown.

“We might have more pilots than I expected,” he said, turning the console toward Han.

Han hardly glanced at it, focusing on Lando instead.

“Our enemies are already buzzing about the sector,” Lando explained. “We just got a call back from a couple of pilots who flew off planet before you arrived. They were under attack,
against some kind of multicolored starfighters—they claim the things looked like flying lumps of rock.”

“Like the ones Kyp described,” Han said somberly.

“We might do better just sitting tight on the planet,” Lando remarked. “Give them the sky, while we bury ourselves in bunkers. I’ve got mining tools that can burrow us underground too deep for their weapons.”

Han didn’t completely disagree, but he knew what had just happened to Sernpidal, and he deeply believed that all of these sudden catastrophes were connected. If they buried themselves behind defensive barriers, those enemy starfighters might not be able to get at them, but Dubrillion had a moon, a big one.

“Get patrols out across the planet right away,” he said. “Look for craters, look for energy fields and beams.”

Lando, who had just heard the story of Sernpidal’s brutal end, didn’t have to be told twice.

“Han!” came a shout from down the corridor, and Leia came rushing out a door, C-3PO right behind her. “Oh, I heard!” she cried, running up and wrapping her husband in a tight hug. “Anakin told me.”

Han buried his face in Leia’s dark hair, buried his expressions and let his inner turmoil remain a private thing. His frustration with Anakin and the evacuation of Sernpidal had not abated, not completely, even with his son’s quick-thinking heroics against the insect creatures. Nor had he even begun to come to terms with the loss of his closest friend, his trusted companion and copilot for decades. And he couldn’t begin to talk about it now, not without the weight of it defeating him, rendering him useless for that which was to come. His family was here, Leia’s hug pointedly reminded him, his wife and his three children. If he wasn’t sharp now, if he wasn’t at his very best, they might all be killed.

Leia broke the hug and pushed her husband back to arm’s length. “He died saving Anakin,” she remarked quietly.

Han nodded, his expression stern.

“Anakin’s feeling horrible about it,” she said with concern.

Han started to respond, sharply, that the boy deserved to feel horrible, but he bit it back. Still, that edge found its way onto his face momentarily, long enough, apparently, for perceptive Leia to catch it. “What is it?” she prodded.

Han looked away from her, to Lando. “Hurry up with that search,” he instructed, and Lando took the cue, gave a curt bow and a wink, and rushed away.

“What is it?” Leia prompted again, staring hard at Han, even reaching up to gently push his chin so that he was looking at her directly.

“Just some search to secure the planet,” Han answered.

“With Anakin, I mean,” Leia clarified. “What is it?”

Han blew a long sigh and stared at her hard. “A disagreement over our retreat,” he explained.

“What does that mean?”

“He left him,” Han blurted, ending with a sputtering growl. He shook his head and gently but firmly moved Leia aside. “We’ve got to get ready for the attack,” he said.

Leia held on to his arm, forced him to turn back.

“He left him?” she echoed suspiciously.

“Anakin left him, left Chewie,” Han spat.

Leia, too shocked to respond, just let go, and Han stormed away, leaving her full of questions and fears.

“There was nothing else I could do.”

Jacen paused at the door, hearing his little brother’s words. He had learned of the disaster at Sernpidal, had caught his mother crying over Chewie’s demise, and he had suspected, though he had no proof other than one of his father’s glances at Anakin, that his brother had somehow been involved.

“You’re sure of that?” came another voice inside the room, Jaina’s voice.

“The moon was dropping fast,” Anakin replied. “All the air was lighting up with fire.”

“From the compression,” Jaina reasoned.

“We didn’t even know where the wind had taken Chewie, or if he was even still alive.”

“But Dad said he saw him,” Jaina replied, and Jacen winced at hearing that, fearing that Anakin was lying to cover something.

“That was too late,” Anakin admitted. “That was even as we started blasting out of there. We had, maybe, four seconds before impact. How could we get to him and get out of there in four seconds?”

The door opened and Jacen walked in. He stared hard at his little brother, more out of sympathy than accusation, though that didn’t appear to be obvious to Jaina and Anakin, given their fearful expressions.

“You couldn’t,” Jacen said, and Anakin looked surprised indeed to find his older brother apparently backing him up. “If the air itself was starting to burst, the
Falcon
wouldn’t have been able to reverse course against the rush. You’d have probably crashed right on top of Chewie, or right beside him, and then you’d all be dead.”

Anakin blinked repeatedly, blinking back tears, Jacen knew. He could appreciate what his brother was going through. His own grief was intense and overwhelming—Chewbacca had been like an older brother, or a playful uncle, to all of them, and even closer to his father than Luke was. But he realized that Anakin’s grief, mixed as it was with such obvious guilt, likely dwarfed his own.

“Dad doesn’t see it that way,” Jaina offered, and she looked back to Anakin with sincere pity. “He’s pretty mad.”

“He’s outraged,” Jacen agreed, and Jaina sucked in her breath and gave him a look.

“He’s out of his mind with anger,” Jacen pressed, “about losing his best friend. It’s not really about anything you did or didn’t do,” he told Anakin. “It’s about losing Chewie.”

“But I—”Anakin started to reply.

Jacen walked right up to him, dropped his hands on his brother’s shoulders, and stared him in the eye hard. “Could you have gotten to him and pulled him to safety?” he asked, his voice dripping with the intensity of the Force, forcing both Anakin and Jaina to hear and register every word, every syllable, with crystalline clarity.

Anakin seemed as if he would topple as the weight of that question, the point central to his emotional existence at that time, fell over him, as he replayed those last terrible moments on Sernpidal.

“No,” he answered honestly.

Jacen patted his shoulders and turned away. “Then you did exactly the right thing,” he said. “You saved the rest of them.”

“But Dad—”Anakin started.

“Dad’s not half as devastated and angry as Chewie would have been if he knew that all the rest of you were going to die trying to save him,” Jacen snapped back before Anakin’s reasoning could even begin to take form. “Can you imagine trying to face the fears of your own death knowing that your best friends were going to die because of you? How would Obi-Wan Kenobi have felt if Uncle Luke had rushed back in to help him in his last fight with Darth Vader? He’d have been horrified, because Uncle Luke would have thrown his own life away and destroyed the only chance the Rebel Alliance had against the Empire. Chewie’s the same way. He saved you, saved the son of his dearest friend, and the act cost him his life. He died content in that knowledge.”

He turned away from Anakin then, looking back at Jaina, who stood open-mouthed, obviously stunned by his eloquence. Behind him, he heard Anakin sniffle, and knew the flood of tears, held back thus far because of that terrible guilt, was about to pour forth.

And he felt like crying, too, something he didn’t want to do in front of his little brother, and surely not in front of his sister.

With a nod to Jaina, Jacen rushed out of the room.

Jaina went to Anakin then, wrapping him in a big hug—and he didn’t even try to pull back from it. He buried his face in her thick hair, his shoulders bobbing.

“The
Rejuvenator
is at Ord Mantell,” Leia explained, looking up from the console and the communicator. “She can be here in three days.”

Lando looked over at Han, neither of them thrilled by the news. Leia had been calling out all morning, trying to locate some real firepower within the region, but Dubrillion was far from the Core and far from any current New Republic activities, leaving the
Rejuvenator
as the closest major warship. Unfortunately, the swarm of enemy ships would likely arrive within two days, if they kept their present course and speed.

And that was a big if, Han knew. Those tracking the incoming ships had indicated that they were accelerating, which left a bad taste in his mouth. If those ships were accelerating now, why hadn’t they done so earlier, and thus caught up to the defenseless refugees? Han knew when he had been baited, and he had to wonder now if he and the other refugees had inadvertently led their enemies right to Dubrillion.

“Put out the call for the Star Destroyer,” Lando said to Leia. Then he turned to Han. “We’ll hold them off until the
Rejuvenator
gets here.”

“Anything from your brother?” Han asked Leia, who just shook her head. They believed that Luke and Mara would have made Belkadan by that time, were perhaps even on their way back, but they had heard nothing to confirm that belief.

“We might still be able to get out of here,” Leia offered. “We pack the fastest ships and head out for Ord Mantell, and put a call ahead to the
Rejuvenator
to have them meet us halfway.”

“That warship doesn’t pack half as much firepower as Dubrillion,” Lando argued. “If we’re going to fight them anyway, I’d rather it be right here.”

Leia looked to Han, who nodded that Lando had a point.

“We’ll hold them off and let the
Rejuvenator
come in here to help,” Lando went on, his tone showing more confidence, as if the plan was fully unfolding even as he spoke. “And if we can get the call relayed down the line, we can have half the fleet here in a matter of a week.”

“If they listen,” Leia reminded him. “The New Republic has got its own problems, and closer to home. I don’t think they’ll send out half the fleet to worry about some minor problem at the Outer Rim.”

“Minor?” Lando echoed incredulously, and Han winced as if he had just been slapped. After all, Han had just seen an entire planet destroyed. But the councilors wouldn’t view things in the same way as Han, or anyone else out here at the Outer Rim, Leia knew without a doubt. They had cities with more people in them than every planet in the closest three sectors combined, and stories of complete catastrophe rolled in to Coruscant every day. They’d send some help, of course, likely in the form of a single explorer ship, or a squadron of X-wings, if Dubrillion was lucky.

“The
Rejuvenator
has got a task force with her—a few smaller cruisers, gunships, cargo support, and even a crew transport,” she explained. “We’ll put out the call for them to come in with all speed.”

“And we’ll have the way clear for them to link up with our own forces,” Lando said confidently. He looked to Han. “What do you plan to do with the
Falcon
?”

“I’ll be up there fighting,” Han promised, and there was indeed the promise of death in his eyes, a cold, hard stare, as chilling a look as Leia had ever seen on his face. He was transferring his grief into anger, she knew. He was intending to make every enemy pay for the loss of his closest friend.

A shudder coursed down her spine.

Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin walked into the control room then, their expressions equally solid and determined. “We’ll be up, too,” Jaina declared.

“Oh, no,” Han started to argue.

“We’re Jedi Knights,” Jacen interrupted. “You can’t keep us out of the fight.”

“I don’t need three copilots,” Han shot back.

“And you’ve already got one, because I’m coming with you,” Leia declared. Everyone in the room turned to regard her curiously. Leia had long ago traded in her warrior garb for one of diplomacy. But she steeled her gaze, an expression that offered no room for compromise.

“There you have it,” Han agreed. “Your mother’s flying beside me.”

All three of the kids were shaking their heads, telling Leia clearly that Han was missing their intention.

“I’m not your copilot,” Jaina agreed. “I fly better in a starfighter.”

“Oh, no,” Han said again, shaking his head emphatically.

“You’ve got plenty of ships,” Anakin protested to Lando.

“And there aren’t any better pilots on Dubrillion than us,” Jacen added. “And if we lose the battle up there, the fighting will come down here in a hurry.”

“I’d rather be up there fighting, where I have the advantage,” Jaina agreed, and Leia knew that it was confidence, not bravado, carrying those words, a confidence well-placed, given Jaina’s top score among the belt-runners. Once again, Leia was reminded of the splendid job Mara was doing with her talented daughter, emotionally as well as physically.

“All three of us can fight,” Jacen added. “You know that, and you need pilots.”

Han started to reply, stopped, and took a deep and steadying breath, then looked to Lando. “Can you give them shields from on planet?” he asked. “Like the ones they had in the asteroid belt?”