Star Wars: The New Rebellion (6 page)

He dodged the wounded, even though she shouted his name again. He knew what she would say. Exactly what Leia would say in this instance: Don’t go inside. Let the trained personnel deal with it. But his wife was missing. He’d find her himself.

The large marble entrance was filled with dust, blood, and more bodies. Some were stacked against the wall like cargo. As he passed he realized those were droids. They weren’t even full droids, only pieces: arms in one corner, legs in another. He saw dozens of golden body parts and didn’t want to think about the possibility of Threepio being among the shattered.

The blood and dirt had made the floor slippery. He slid across part of the floor, finally stopping when he reached the entrance to the Hall itself.

All the doors were open, the emergency glow panels were on, and dust hovered in the air like a sandstorm on Tatooine. From inside, he heard wailing, moaning, and voices crying for help. Other voices mingled in the din, calling for assistance or giving orders. The medical personnel he had followed were already inside, as were dozens of guards and security people.

A huge bomb had to have gone off here to do this kind of damage. Bigger than anything he had seen outside of a space battle. And this bomb couldn’t have come from space. The outside of the building was fine. This one had to have come from within.

Then he saw Leia, drenched in blood, her white gown, white no longer, ripped and stuck to her frame. One braid had come loose and hung down her back. The other was half-undone, her beautiful brown hair tangled and matted as it fell along her face. She had her hands beneath the secondary bumps on an unconscious Llewebum. Two guards supported its feet. She limped as she moved backward, favoring her right leg.

Han hurried to her side, placed his hands beside hers on the Llewebum’s ridged skin. “I’ve got it, sweetheart,” he said, but she didn’t seem to hear him. He bumped her slightly with his hip, and she let go. The weight of the Llewebum made him stagger. He didn’t know how she had supported it. He put the Llewebum beside one of its comrades, near a medical droid that was tagging all the cases according to degree of emergency. Then Han went back to Leia.

She had started into the Hall again, but he put his arm around her waist and gently held her back.

“I’m getting you medical care, sweetheart.”

“Let me go, Han.”

“You’ve helped enough. We’re going to the center.”

She didn’t shake her head. She didn’t even look at him when he spoke. One entire side of her face was
bruised and her skin was covered with scorch marks. Her nose was bleeding and she didn’t even seem to notice.

“I’ve got to go in there,” she said.

“I’ll go in. You stay here.”

“Let me go, Han,” she said again.

“She can’t hear you,” one of the medical droids said as it passed. “A concussion of that size in an enclosed space damaged everyone with eardrums.”

She couldn’t hear? Han gently turned her toward him, trying not to let his fear for her show on his face. “Leia,” he said slowly. “Help is here. Let me take you to the medical center.”

Beneath the dirt, her skin was pale. “It’s my fault.”

“No, sweetheart, it’s not.”

“I let the Imperials in. I didn’t fight hard enough.”

Her words chilled him. “We don’t know what caused this. Come on. Let me get you help.”

“No,” she said. “My friends are dying in there.”

“You’ve done all you can.”

“Don’t be stubborn,” she said.

“I’m not the one—!” He bit back the words. He couldn’t stand here and argue with her. She couldn’t hear. She’d win. He scooped her into his arms. She was light and warm. “You’re coming with me,” he said.

“I can’t, Han,” she said, but she didn’t struggle. “I’m fine. Really.”

“I don’t want you to die because you don’t know when to quit,” he said as he stepped past the wounded.

Either her hearing was coming back or she could read lips. “I’m not going to die,” she said.

His heart was pounding against his chest. He cradled her close. “Lady, I wish I were as sure of that as you are.”

Jarril stopped running when he reached the hangars. He had seen activity all around the flight bases, but he figured it wouldn’t reach his ship yet.

He was right.

Although he probably didn’t have much time.

He had left the ship, the
Spicy Lady
, in the far corner of the hangar, behind two larger ships. The
Spicy Lady
was small but distinctive. Brown, shaped like the
Millennium Falcon
crossed with an A-wing, she was of Jarril’s own special design. She was built for carrying cargo, but if things got difficult, he could jettison the storage unit and let the fighter ship move on its own. The fighter could be remote-operated; he could lead a pursuer on a wild-goose chase with the fighter while in reality he was on the storage ship with all the cargo. He had only had to use that scenario once, and fortunately he’d been able to recover the fighter part of the ship later.

He was never so relieved to see anything in his life.

He had to get off Coruscant before they put a clamp on space travel. And they would, once the source of that explosion was located. He had to get back to the Run before anyone noticed he was missing. He was afraid someone already had.

This part of the hangar appeared to be empty. Odd. If he were in charge of Coruscant, he would close down access to and from the planet immediately. But the New Republic did things democratically, not logically.

He only hoped he had piqued Han’s interest enough. They wouldn’t have another chance at a conversation.

He hurried across the platform to his ship. Then he dropped the ramp and climbed in. It felt strange to enter an empty ship. Usually he traveled with Seluss, a Sullustan. They had started in the business together. Seluss was supposed to cover for him while he was gone.

The
Spicy Lady
smelled of cool processed air. He had left the interior pressurized, a mistake he didn’t usually
make. This time it didn’t matter, though. It would be easier for him to leave.

He would pilot out of the storage section. Safer. If the Coruscant command gave him any troubles, he would separate the sections and let them worry about the fighter while the storage unit escaped. He had just slid into the pilot’s chair when he heard something behind him.

He stiffened but did not turn. He might have been mistaken about the sound.

No. There it was again. The hollowy inhale of someone breathing through a mask.

Jarril swallowed. As he turned, he put his hand on his blaster.

Two stormtroopers faced him, blasters already trained on him. “Where do you think you’re going?” one of them asked. The voice was unrecognizable through the helmet’s mouthpiece.

Then Jarril realized they weren’t stormtroopers. They were wearing his cargo. He recognized the battle scorch on the helmet on the right.

They must have come on the ship wearing other clothing. They had put on the stormtrooper uniforms to scare him? He wasn’t afraid of stormtroopers. At least, not stormtroopers wearing his own haul.

“I think it’s high time to leave Coruscant, don’t you?” Jarril asked. He wished he knew whom he was addressing.

“We plan to leave,” the other trooper said, “after you tell us your business here.”

“I was visiting an old friend,” Jarril said.

“Strange time to be visiting,” the first stormtrooper said.

“Strange time to be helping yourselves to my equipment,” Jarril snapped.

“It’s ours ultimately,” the second stormtrooper said.

“You don’t want to get caught wearing those on Coruscant,” Jarril said.

“We won’t get caught,” the first stormtrooper said. He nodded his helmet toward Jarril. “Put down the blaster.”

Jarril shrugged and let go. “I wasn’t going to use it anyway.”

“Tell us again why you’re on Coruscant.”

“Why are you?” Jarril said. “Did you have anything to do with that bombing?”

“We’ll ask the questions,” said the second stormtrooper.

Jarril swallowed. His head was woozy from exertion on top of too many drinks. It was his ship. He should be able to find a way out of this. “I was following a lead.”

“A lead,” said the first stormtrooper. “I thought you were visiting an old friend.”

“Where’d you think I was going to get the lead?”

“From Han Solo, husband to the leader of the New Republic?”

They had followed him. He wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of this one. He grabbed the control console, but too late. A well-placed blaster shot hit his hands. He screamed as pain burned through him.

He clutched his hands to his stomach and looked at the troopers. “What do you want with me?” he asked, voice shaking.

“To silence you forever,” said the first stormtrooper.

And then they did.

L
uke had seen the medical center near the Imperial Palace this full only once before, and that had been in the days after the Empire attack that had forced the New Republic leadership to lead. A long time ago now, but it felt close, with all these wounded around him. Wounded waited in reception areas just like guests, while medical personnel found beds for them, or moved them to more-specialized wings of the medical center.

Luke walked among them, feeling more shaken than he had when he learned of the attack.

Familiar faces, some gray with pain, others so scarred he could barely recognize them, looked away from him. The attack had to have been horrible. He had been worried when he approached Coruscant and all the defenses were up. He had had to get special clearance from Admiral Ackbar—no one could raise Leia—and it wasn’t until he had spoken to Mon Mothma that he had known why.

As he strode through the hallway to the recovery areas, something grabbed him around his booted leg. He looked down to see Anakin clinging to his thigh.

“Uncle Luke,” Anakin said, his face upturned, his blue eyes tear-streaked, his eyelashes gummed together.

Luke bent down and picked up the boy, even though, at six, Anakin was getting too big to be held in this way. Anakin clung to him so tightly that Luke could barely breathe.

“Is your mother all right?” Luke asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

Anakin nodded.

“Then what is it, little Jedi?” Luke kept his voice soft, soothing. And suddenly he knew. His own words had brought it clear to him. But before he could say anything, he heard his name. Jacen and Jaina were running toward him, looking as ravaged as Anakin.

“Hey, guys,” he said, gathering them around him.

“Uncle Luke,” Jaina said. “Daddy said you could talk to us.”

He didn’t know if they had felt the cold and heard the screaming. Many of his students hadn’t. But his students weren’t as talented in the Force as the children. Or maybe the children had felt some impact from the explosion. Whatever had happened to them, though, had traumatized them in a way the other adults weren’t able to deal with yet.

“Come on,” he said. He led them to a bench alongside the metallic wall. A medical droid passed without giving them a second glance.

“Did we do it?” Anakin asked.

“Do what?” Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t this.

“Hurt Mama.”

Luke set Anakin back on his lap. Jacen and Jaina squeezed beside him. They had obviously discussed this. Luke suppressed a sigh. Raising Force-sensitive children was more a trial than anyone had thought. Each time something new came up, he found himself wishing he could talk with his aunt Beru. She had managed with
him despite his uncle Owen’s hostility, on a planet so far away that no one knew about it.

Except Ben.

She had probably talked with Ben.

“How could you have hurt your mother?” Luke asked.

All three children started to speak at once, hands moving, arms waving, voices raised in concern.

“Wait, wait, one at a time,” Luke said. “Jaina, you explain it, then you boys can add if you want.”

Jaina glanced at Jacen as if for support. The movement always made Luke’s heart ache. Would he and Leia have been like that if they had been raised together? They would never know.