The Last Command (29 page)

He smiled. “Then let’s get to it.”

Together, they headed for the stairway down to the command floor; and with a newly humbled sense of her own limitations, Leia realized that probably half of what she’d just witnessed had passed her by completely. The long and perilous history Mon Mothma and Bel Iblis had shared had created an empathy between them, a bond and understanding far deeper than Leia’s Jedi insights could even begin to track through. Perhaps, she decided, it was that empathy that formed the true underlying strength of the New Republic. The strength that would create the future of the galaxy.

If it could withstand the next few hours. Clenching her teeth, she hurried after them.

A pair of Corellian Gunships shot past the
Chimaera
, sending a volley of turbolaser fire spattering across the bridge deflector shield. A squadron of
TIE
fighters was right on their tail, sweeping into a Rellis flanking maneuver as they tried for a clear shot. Beyond them, Pellaeon spotted an Escort Frigate cutting into backup position across the Gunships’ exit vector. “Squadron A-4, move to sector twenty-two,” Pellaeon ordered. So far, as near as he could tell, the battle seemed to be going well.

“There they go,” Thrawn commented from beside him.

Pellaeon scanned the area. “Where?” he asked.

“They’re preparing to pull back,” Thrawn told him, pointing to one of the two Rebel Dreadnaughts that had joined the battle. “Observe how that Dreadnaught is moving into cover position for a retreat. There—the second one is following suit.”

Pellaeon frowned at the maneuvering Dreadnaughts. He still didn’t see it; but he’d never yet seen Thrawn wrong on such a call. “They’re abandoning the battle stations?”

Thrawn snorted gently. “They never should have brought those ships out to defend them in the first place. Golan defense platforms can take considerably more punishment than their former ground commander apparently realized.”

“Their former ground commander?”

“Yes,” Thrawn said. “At a guess, I’d say our old Corellian adversary has just been put in command of Coruscant’s defense. I wonder what took them so long.”

Pellaeon shrugged, studying the battle area. The Grand Admiral was right: the defenders were starting to pull back. “Perhaps they had to wake him up.”

“Perhaps.” Thrawn sent a leisurely look around the battle area. “You see how the Corellian offers us a choice: stay here and duel with the battle stations, or follow the defenders down into range of the ground-based weaponry. Fortunately”—his eyes glittered—”we have a third option.”

Pellaeon nodded. He’d been wondering when Thrawn would unveil his brilliant new siege weapon. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Shall I order the tractor launching?”

“We’ll wait for the Corellian to pull his ships back a bit further,” Thrawn said. “We wouldn’t want him to miss this.”

“Understood,” Pellaeon said. Stepping back to his command chair, he sat down and confirmed that the asteroids and the hangar-bay tractor beams were ready.

And waited for the Grand Admiral’s order.

“All right,” Bel Iblis said. “
Harrier
, begin pulling back—cover those Escort Frigates on your portside flank. Red leader, watch out for those
TIE
interceptors.”

Leia watched the tactical display, holding her breath. Yes; it was going to work. Unwilling to risk the ground-based weaponry, the Imperials were letting the defenders retreat back toward Coruscant. That left only the two battle stations still in danger, and they were proving themselves more capable of absorbing damage than Leia had realized they could. And even that would be ending soon—the Grand Admiral would know better than to be here when the sector fleet arrived. It was almost over, and they’d gotten through it.

“General Bel Iblis?” an officer at one of the monitor stations spoke up. “We’re getting a funny reading from the
Chimaera
‘s hangar bay.”

“What is it?” Bel Iblis asked, stepping over to the console.

“It reads like the launching tractor beams being activated,” the officer said, indicating one of the multicolored spots on the Star Destroyer silhouette centered in his display. “But it’s pulling far too much power.”

“Could they be launching a whole
TIE
squadron together?” Leia suggested.

“I don’t think so,” the officer said. “That’s the other thing: near as we can tell, nothing at all left the bay.”

Beside Leia, Bel Iblis stiffened. “Calculate the exit vector,” he ordered. “All ships: sensor focus along that path for drive emissions. I think the
Chimaera
‘s just launched a cloaked ship.”

Someone nearby swore feelingly. Leia looked up at the master visual display, her throat suddenly tight as the memory of that brief conversation she and Han had had with Admiral Ackbar flashed back to mind. Ackbar had been solidly convinced—and had convinced her—that the double-blind properties of the cloaking shield made it too user-dangerous to be an effective weapon. If Thrawn had found a way around that problem…

“They’re firing again,” the sensor officer reported. “And again.”

“Same from the
Death’s Head
,” another officer put in. “—firing again.”

“Signal the battle stations to track and fire along those vectors,” Bel Iblis ordered. “As close to the Star Destroyers as possible. We’ve got to find out what Thrawn’s up to.”

The word was barely out of his mouth when there was a flash of light from the visual display. One of the Escort Frigates along the first projected vector was suddenly ablaze, its aft section trailing fiery drive gases as the whole ship spun wildly about its transverse axis. “Collision!” someone barked. “Escort Frigate
Evanrue
—impact with unknown object.”

“Impact?” Bel Iblis echoed. “Not a turbolaser shot?”

“Telemetry indicates physical impact,” the other shook his head.

Leia looked back at the visual, where the
Evanrue
was now wreathed in burning gas as it fought to get its spin under control. “Cloaking shields are supposed to be double-blind,” Leia said. “How are they maneuvering?”

“Maybe they’re not,” Bel Iblis said, his voice dark with suspicion. “Tactical: give me a new track from point of impact with the
Evanrue.
Assume inert object; calculate impact velocity by distance to the
Chimaera
, and don’t forget to factor in the local gravitational field. Feed probable location to the
Harrier
; order it to open fire as soon as it has the coordinates.”

“Yes, sir,” one of the lieutenants spoke up. “Feeding to the
Harrier
now.”

“On second thought, belay that last,” Bel Iblis said, holding up a hand. “Order the
Harrier
to use its ion cannon only—repeat, ion cannon only. No turbolasers.”

Leia frowned at him. “You’re trying to take the ship intact?”

“I’m trying to take it intact, yes,” Bel Iblis said slowly. “But I don’t think it’s a ship.”

He fell silent. On the visual, the
Harrier
‘s ion cannon began to fire.

The Dreadnaught opened fire, as indeed Thrawn had predicted it would. But only, Pellaeon noted with some surprise, with its ion cannon. “Admiral?”

“Yes, I see,” Thrawn said. “Interesting. I was right, Captain—our old Corellian adversary is indeed in command below. But he’s allowed us to lead him by the nose only so far.”

Pellaeon nodded as understanding suddenly came. “He’s trying to knock out the asteroid’s cloaking shield.”

“Hoping to take it intact.” Thrawn touched his control board. “Forward turbolaser batteries: track and target asteroid number one. Fire on my command only.”

Pellaeon looked down at his magnified visual display. The Dreadnaught had found its target, its ion beams vanishing in midspace as they flooded down into the cloaking shield. It shouldn’t be able to take much more of that….

Abruptly, the stars in that empty region vanished. For a couple of heartbeats there was complete blackness as the cloaking shield collapsed in on itself; then, just as abruptly, the newly uncloaked asteroid was visible.

The ion beams cut off. “Turbolasers, stand by,” Thrawn said. “We want them to have a good look first…. Turbolasers: fire.”

Pellaeon shifted his attention to the viewport. The green fire lanced out, disappearing into the distance as they converged on their target. A second later, there was a faint flash from that direction, a flash that was repeated more strongly from his visual display. Another salvo—another—and another—

“Cease fire,” Thrawn said with clear satisfaction. “They’re welcome to whatever’s left. Hangar bay: firing status.”

“We’re up to seventy-two, sir,” the engineering officer reported, his voice sounding a little strained. “But the power feedback shunt’s starting to glow white. We can’t keep up these dry firings much longer without burning out either the shunt or the tractor projector itself.”

“Close down dry firing,” Thrawn ordered, “and signal the other ships to do likewise. How many total firings have there been, Captain?”

Pellaeon checked the figures. “Two hundred eighty-seven,” he told the Grand Admiral.

“I presume all twenty-two actual asteroids are out?”

“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon confirmed. “Most of them in the first two minutes. Though there’s no way of knowing if they’ve taken up their prescribed orbits.”

“The specific orbits are irrelevant,” Thrawn assured him. “All that matters is that the asteroids are somewhere in the space around Coruscant.”

Pellaeon smiled. Yes, they were… except that there were only a fraction of the number the Rebels thought were there. “And now we leave, sir?”

“Now we leave,” Thrawn confirmed. “For the moment, at least, Coruscant is effectively out of the war.”

Drayson nodded to the battle ops colonel and stepped back to the small group waiting for him a short distance behind the consoles. “The final numbers are in,” he said, his voice sounding a little hollow. “They can’t be absolutely certain they didn’t miss any through the battle debris. But even so… their count is two hundred eighty-seven.”

“Two hundred eighty-seven?” General Rieekan repeated, his jaw dropping slightly.

“That’s the number,” Drayson nodded, turning his glare on Bel Iblis. As if, Leia thought, all this was somehow Bel Iblis’s fault. “What now?”

Bel Iblis was rubbing his cheek thoughtfully. “For starters, I don’t think the situation is quite as bad as it looks,” he said. “From everything I’ve heard about how expensive cloaking shields are, I can’t see Thrawn squandering the kind of resources three hundred of them would take. Especially when a much smaller number would do the job just as well.”

“You think the other tractor beam firings were faked?” Leia asked.

“They couldn’t have been,” Rieekan objected. “I was watching the sensor board. Those projectors were definitely drawing power.”

Bel Iblis looked at Drayson. “You know more about Star Destroyers than the rest of us, Admiral. Is it possible?”

Drayson frowned off into the distance, professional pride momentarily eclipsing his personal animosity toward Bel Iblis. “It could be done,” he agreed at last. “You could run a feedback shunt from the tractor beam projector, either to a flash capacitor or a power dissipator somewhere else on the ship. That would let you run a sizable surge of power through the projector without it really doing anything.”

“Is there any way to tell the difference between that and an actual asteroid launch?” Mon Mothma asked.

“From this distance?” Drayson shook his head. “No.”

“It almost doesn’t matter how many are up there,” Rieekan said. “Eventually, their orbits will decay, and letting even one hit ground would be a disaster. Until we’ve cleared them out, we cant risk lowering the planetary shield.”

“The problem being how we locate them,” Drayson agreed heavily. “And how we know when we’ve gotten them all.”

A movement caught Leia’s eye, and she looked over as a tight-faced Colonel Bremen joined them. “Again, it could be worse,” Bel Iblis pointed out. “The sector fleet can have the out-orbit relay station replaced in a few hours, so at least we’ll still be able to direct the New Republic’s defense from here.”

“It’ll also make it easier to transmit an all-worlds alert,” Bremen spoke up. “Mara Jade’s escaped.”

Mon Mothma inhaled sharply. “How?” she asked.

“With help,” Bremen said grimly. “The guard droid was deactivated. Some kind of jury-rigged restraining bolt. It erased that section of memory, too.”

“How long ago?” Rieekan asked.

“No more than a few hours.” Bremen glanced around the war room. “We’ve had extra security on the command floor since the break was discovered, thinking they might have been planning some sabotage to coincide with the Imperials’ attack.”

“That could still be the plan,” Bel Iblis said. “Have you sealed off the Palace?”

“Like a smuggler’s profit box,” Bremen said. “I doubt they’re still here, though.”

“We’ll need to make certain of that,” Mon Mothma said. “I want you to organize a complete search of the Palace, Colonel.”

Bremen nodded. “Right away.”

Leia braced herself. They weren’t going to be happy about this. “Don’t bother, Colonel,” she said, touching Bremen’s arm to stop him as he turned to leave. “Mara’s not here.”

They all looked at her. “How do you know?” Bel Iblis asked.

“Because she left Coruscant earlier tonight. Along with Han and Luke.”

There was a long silence. “I wondered why Solo didn’t come to the war room with you,” Bel Iblis said. “You want to tell us what’s going on?”

Leia hesitated; but surely none of these people could possibly have anything to do with the Delta Source security leak. “Mara thinks she knows where the Empire’s cloning facility might be. We thought it would be worth sending her and a small team to check it out.”

“
We
thought?” Drayson snapped. “Who is this
we?
”

Leia looked him straight in the eye. “My family and closest friends,” she said. “The only people I can be absolutely certain aren’t leaking information to the Empire.”

“That is a gross insult—”

“Enough, Admiral,” Mon Mothma cut him off calmly. Calmly, but there was a hardness around her eyes. “Whatever reprimands may be due here can wait until later. Whether it was prudent or otherwise, the fact remains that they’re on their way, and we need to decide how best to help them. Leia?”