The Unseen Queen (31 page)

“Hoersch-Kessel gravity system,” Han observed. “Boy are they going to regret that.”

Tarfang chittered an indignant question.

“Tarfang would like to know what you think is wrong with—”

“Everything,” Han said. “I just hope we can keep this rock from lighting its hyperdrive. I really hate what those g burps do to my joints.”

Juun sat the pod down on the sagging edge of a deck section surrounded by antennas and dishes and data feeds, all
of it very un-Killik-looking and all of it arranged around a half-melted relay station.

“They had help building these things,” Han said, peering out the pod’s viewport. “And a lot of it. That heat sensor looks Balmorran, and the signals package is definitely a Kuat Drive Yards Eavesdropper.”

“Probably had help from the pirates—financed by the black membrosia trade,” Luke said. “But we’ll sort that out later. Right now, we need to get to those hyperdrives.”

“Good idea.” Han opened the pod’s survival pack and sprayed Luke’s back with bacta salve, then passed him a blaster and took one for himself. “Any idea how we’re going to get there through a nest full of bugs?”

“We’re not going to go
through
them,” Luke said. He pulled the top of his vac suit over his shoulders and began to seal the closures. “We’re going to go around them.”

Juun frowned and stopped short of pulling his helmet visor down. “I don’t understand.”

“Outside the ship.” Luke secured his own helmet to the collar ring. “By crawling across the hull.”

“I was afraid that’s what you had in mind,” Han said.

Luke lowered his visor, then picked up the heavy survival pack and turned toward the hatch. Han and the others sealed their own vac suits, then they all left the escape pod and started to push it toward the still-glowing crater.

A shudder ran through the deck. They all scrambled back, afraid it was about to collapse. But the deck remained where it was. While it was sagging slightly, it was clearly in no danger of falling, even with the heavy escape pod sitting just a meter or so from its edge.

The shuddering grew stronger. The severed lines and equipment dangling on the walls began to bounce around soundlessly, then Han’s voice came over the vac suit comm system.

“We’d better wait awhile.” He pointed out through the crater hole, where the pirates’ unnamed planet was starting to glide by ever more rapidly. “I’m not sure I want to be crawling around outside when this thing goes into hyperspace.”

Leia found the command deck of the
Admiral Ackbar
to be as spotless, orderly, and efficient as the rest of the Star Destroyer. The mixed-species crew was both alert and focused, glancing up as she stepped out of the lift, then quickly returning to their tasks when they saw she was escorted by a detail from bridge security. Bwua’tu himself was in the Tactical Salon—the TacSal—at the back of the command deck, surrounded by his staff and studying a holodisplay of the Murgo Choke. An opalescent bust of the great admiral sat in a niche on the back wall, keeping a solemn watch over the entire deck … and causing a cold tingle in the middle of Leia’s back.

The security detail stopped outside the TacSal, where the admiral’s aide, Wurf’al, met Leia with a disapproving sneer. He gestured curtly for her to follow, and as they approached the holodisplay, Bwua’tu ended the discussion he was having with his staff to greet Leia with a smug grin.

“Princess Leia, you wanted to see me?”

“That’s right, Admiral,” Leia said. “Thank you for not making it difficult.”

“Why should I?” Bwua’tu asked. “I’m as concerned as you are.”

This surprised Leia. “You are?”

“Of course,” Bwua’tu said. “Even if your friends in the
StealthXs are carrying extra air scrubbers in their cargo compartments, they must be breathing their own fumes by now. I only hope it’s not too late.”

Leia’s surprise changed to irritation. “My friends are fine. I came to warn you that the Killiks are about to contest your blockade.”

“Truly?” Bwua’tu’s expression remained smug, but Leia could tell by the way his neck fur flattened that this news troubled him. “And this knowledge came to you while you were staring at the wall of your cell?”

“More or less,” Leia said. “Luke reached out to me through the Force.”

“Of course … your Jedi sorcery.” Bwua’tu considered this for a moment, then asked, “Did your brother also reveal where to expect this threat—or what form it might take?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Leia said. “Communication through the Force isn’t usually that precise. All I could tell was that Luke is very concerned.”

“I see.”

Bwua’tu’s gaze slid back toward the holodisplay, where the starfighter complement from both the
Admiral Ackbar
and the
Mon Mothma
—well over a hundred craft—were deployed in a double screening formation between the two Star Destroyers. The admiral seemed to forget Leia for the moment and lose himself in thought, then he abruptly looked back to her.

“Master Sebatyne is more adept with the Force, is she not?”

“She is,” Leia said. “That’s one reason she’s a Master.”

“Then perhaps Master Sebatyne could provide me with a more thorough report,” Bwua’tu said. “Inform her that I require her presence on the command deck.”

“I’ve already been in contact with Master Sebatyne, as
I’m sure your comm officers have informed you.” As Leia spoke, she was puzzling over what seemed an odd, almost desperate starfighter deployment. “She’s unavailable at the moment.”

“That’s right,” Bwua’tu said. “She’s hunting gankers.”

Leia shrugged. “There’s no reasoning with her when she’s hungry. Barabels like their meat fresh.”

“As do we all,” Bwua’tu said. “But there
are
no gankers aboard this ship, Princess Leia.”

“Come, Admiral.” Leia touched Bwua’tu through the Force and confirmed what she had already surmised: he did not believe a word she was saying. “There are
always
gankers aboard a capital ship.”

“Not aboard my ship.” Bwua’tu stepped closer and spoke in a low, gravelly voice. “Your plan is a good one,
Jedi
Solo, but you forget with whom you are dealing.”

“My plan, Admiral?” Leia glanced back at the holodisplay and realized what she was seeing. The starfighters from the
Mon Mothma
were carefully working their way toward those from the
Admiral Ackbar
, slowly weaving back and forth in a tight search pattern. “You think I’m trying to stage a diversion!”

“It will do your friends in the StealthXs no good, of course,” Bwua’tu said. “But I
am
impressed with the tactical coordination you Jedi achieve with your sorcery.”

“You give us too much credit.” Leia stretched her Force-awareness into the Choke and felt the familiar presence of a StealthX battle-meld. Then Kyp Durron reached out to her, assuring her that his team would soon be coming to help her and Saba. Leia seethed inwardly; she hardly needed rescuing. But the idea that someone could believe she
did
made her think it had been a mistake to sit in a cell just to avoid further straining relations with the Galactic Alliance. “Until I saw your starfighter deployment, Admiral Bwua’tu,
I didn’t even know that Master Durron and his squadron were out there.”

“Now you mock me, Jedi Solo.” Bwua’tu sounded genuinely irritated. “The Rurgavean Sleight is obscure, but did you really think
I
would fail to recognize it?”

“Of course not.” Leia racked her brain, trying to remember what the Rurgavean Sleight
was
. “But you must believe me. Luke’s message is real. I’m not trying to distract you.”

“For someone who is not trying, you are doing an exceptional job,” Bwua’tu said. “If Master Sebatyne fails to report to the nearest officer within thirty seconds, the StealthX fuel will be destroyed. After that, we will move on to the
Falcon
’s drive nacelles.”

“What will it take to prove I’m telling the truth?” Leia had to struggle to keep an even voice. “Would you believe me if I called in both teams of StealthXs?”

Bwua’tu narrowed his eyes, contemplating her offer, then tapped a bent claw in her direction. “Well done, Princess. A classic slide into the Mandalorian Surrender.”

Leia sighed. “I’m trying to
help
you, Admiral—not capture the
Ackbar
.”

A cold knot formed between Leia’s shoulder blades as she spoke. She half turned, expecting to see Wurf’al or some other officer glaring in her direction. Instead she found herself looking into the vacant eyes of the admiral’s bust.

“Admiral, I continue to sense something wrong aboard this ship.” She pointed at the bust. “May I ask what kind of security scans were performed on that piece?”

“You may not,” Bwua’tu said sternly. “I won’t be distracted, Jedi Solo.” He raised his hand and studied his chrono for a moment, then added, “And your thirty seconds have passed. Since we still have no sign of Master Sebatyne, I’ll have to carry out my threat.”

Wurf’al produced a comlink and passed it to the admiral. “Security Two, Admiral.”

Bwua’tu kept his gaze fixed on Leia. “That would be the detail guarding your StealthX fuel.”

“Go ahead,” Leia said. She still had a bad feeling about the bust, but it seemed clear Bwua’tu would not listen while he thought she was trying to stage a diversion. “Perhaps it will convince you of my sincerity.”

“As you wish.” Bwua’tu activated the comlink. “Tibanna detail—”

The admiral stopped speaking when the comlink in Leia’s sleeve pocket echoed his words.

Bwua’tu scowled and motioned Wurf’al to retrieve the device. Once Wurf’al had done so, the admiral raised his own comlink and spoke again.

“Tibanna detail, come in.”

The call was repeated over the comlink in Wurf’al’s hand—the same comlink that Saba had left for Leia to find on her bunk.

Bwua’tu raised his bushy brow and turned to Leia. “My compliments. It appears I am no longer in control of your StealthX fuel.”

A loud sissing came over both comlinks.

Bwua’tu frowned, then spoke into his. “I wouldn’t gloat, Master Sebatyne. I still control the
Falcon
.”

This only drew more sissing.

Bwua’tu deactivated the comlink, then surprised her by not immediately ordering an attack on the
Falcon
’s drive nacelles. Instead he turned to his aide, Wurf’al.

“Send a detail to investigate what became of the squad guarding the StealthX fuel,” he said. “And sound battle stations in the capture bay.”

Before Wurf’al could acknowledge the order, the sharp
wail of a proximity alarm sounded from the flight deck speakers.

“Contact cluster exiting hyperspace,” an efficient female sensor officer announced. “No transponder codes, outbound from the nebula.”

Fifteen black triangles—the tactical symbols for unknown vessels—appeared at the edge of the holodisplay, coming from the direction of the Utegetu Nebula. Instead of stopping to reconnoiter or plot their next jumps, as most starship fleets would do, they streaked straight toward the heart of the Murgo Choke at a substantial percentage of lightspeed.

Leia was still trying to comprehend what she was seeing when Bwua’tu began to rattle off orders. “Wurf’al, make that general battle stations.”

“Sir!”

“Grendyl, recall all starfighters … Jorga, assign targets to turbolaser batteries … Rabad, have Commodore Dark-lighter bring the
Mothma
forward to support us … Tola, start a withdrawal toward the
Mothma
 …”

The acknowledgments came faster than Leia could track them—“Sir … sir … sir … sir …”—and the flight deck erupted into a controlled frenzy as the officers jumped to execute their orders.

“Batteries five, nine, and seventeen have acquired targets, Admiral,” a Duros gunnery officer reported.

“Well done, Jorga. Open fire.”

“Open fire?” Leia gasped. “You don’t even know—”

Bwua’tu raised a finger, warning her to remain silent. An instant later clouds of tiny black triangles began to stream from the fifteen larger vessels.

“Contacts launching fighters,” the sensor officer announced.

Leia was stunned. The Killiks were not merely attempting
to run the Galactic Alliance’s blockade, they were going to
attack
it. Implications and ramifications raced through her mind in a mad swirl, and she was filled with the deepening fear that she was watching the outbreak of another galactic war—one born of desperation and misunderstanding, and all the more tragic for it.

The colored glare of an outgoing turbolaser barrage flashed through the viewport and lit up the
Ackbar
’s flight deck. A couple of seconds later the tactical display showed strikes against three different targets.

“Affirmative hits,” the sensor officer reported. “No shields, damage unknown.”

The unknown-vessel triangles began to assume three-dimensional shapes, each with a figure ranging between 7,952 and 8,234—its length in meters—shining inside it. They looked like fifteen egg-shaped rocks, all trailing stubby tails of ion efflux. The fighters were just clouds of tiny slivers, but an inset in one of the swarms displayed the image of what was basically a dartship mounted on an oversized ion engine.

“Interesting.” Bwua’tu seemed to be speaking to himself. “The Killiks have some new toys. I wonder what other surprises they may have brought us?”

Leia’s thoughts went instantly to all the busts of Admiral Bwua’tu she had seen aboard the
Ackbar
. They resembled spinglass too much to be anything else. She turned toward the one watching over the TacSal and did not even need to reach out in the Force to know she was right. A bolt of danger sense shot down her spine, so cold and crisp that she broke into goose bumps.

Leia turned to Wurf’al. “Excuse me, Captain, where is the nearest disposal chute?”

“Disposal chute?” Wurf’al frowned as though he was going to question her need for one. Then the rest of the
Ackbar
’s batteries cut loose, filling the command deck viewport with a multihued glare and causing the overhead lighting to flicker and dim. He pointed absentmindedly toward a spotless cover-flap on the far wall. “There.”