Showdown At Centerpoint Read online

  Star Wars

  Corellian Trilogy

  book 3

  Shutdown at Centerpoint

  by Roger McBride Allen

  Chapter1 Approach Honored Solo, we are running out of time!" the voice

  squawked from the comm unit. "We will be entering atmosphere soonest if our

  approach is not controlled!" The intercom gave out a strangled squeal.

  Either the comm circuit up to the ship's control cabin was on the verge of

  giving out again, or else Han had just gotten lucky, and Dracmus was about

  to lose her voice. That would be a blessing. Han slapped the answer switch

  and tried to stay focused on his work. "Keep your shirt on, Dracmus," he

  said, shouting just a bit. "The comm unit send-circuits needed work as well.

  Tell honored Pilot Salculd that I'm nearly done." Why did the universe

  require all shipboard repairs to be on the rush? What I wouldn't give to

  have Chewbacca here, Han thought. "What shirt?" the voice asked worriedly,

  "Should shirts be worn? Is this for safety?" Han sighed and pushed the

  answer button again. "It's an expression. It means 'be patient,'" he said,

  struggling to keep his own patience. Dracmus was a Selonian, and most

  Selonians did not like being in space. Understandable for a species that

  mostly lived underground, but having an agoraphobic being in command was

  enough to drive anyone crazy. Han Solo made the last hookup, closed down the

  last of the inspection hatches, and crossed his fingers for luck. That ought

  to do the trick, he told himself. It had better, it was about time that

  something worked properly. If the coneship he was aboard was a fair example

  of the breed, Selonian spacecraft weren't much for reliability. Han engaged

  the power switch and waited for the inverter system to energize. Han was

  starting to question his own sanity in volunteering to help fly this

  particular coneship down out of free space to the surface of Selonia. He

  could have said so long and good luck and ridden down with Leia on the

  Jade's Fire. But when a job needed doing, and no one else could do it,

  volunteering was not really all that voluntary. He hadn't had much choice in

  the matter. He couldn't have left Dracmus high and dry. He had obligations

  to her, and to her people. And Dracmus had made it clear they had to get

  this ship down. Her people couldn't afford to abandon any spacecraft, no

  matter what shape the craft was in. The nameless coneship might be a piece

  of space-going junk, but Dracmus had assured Han that it was better than

  anything else the Selonians had at the moment. Or, more accurately, it was

  better than anything that the Hunchuzuc Den and their Republicists had.

  "Hurry, Honored Solo!" Dracmus called again. Why couldn't that intercom

  break down the way everything else did on this ship? Han hit the answer

  button again. "Stand by, Dracmus. Pilot Salculd-watch your power settings!"

  Knowing he was with the Hunchuzuc would have been a bit more useful if Han

  had had some clear idea about who or what the Hunchuzuc Den was. All he knew

  for sure about them was that the Den was part of an amorphous faction of

  Selonians who lived on Corel-lia, and that, so far as Dracmus knew, they

  were still allied to a pro-New Republic alliance of Selonian Dens called the

  Republicists, and that he was mixed up with them. Dracmus was a member of

  the Hunchuzuc, and she had either kidnapped Han or rescued him from Thrackan

  Sal-Solo-or both. Han was still not sure. The Hunchuzuc seemed to be having

  a fight with the Overden, the leadership on Selonia proper, a fight that was

  going on in parallel with the Republic's battle against the rebellions in

  the Corellia system, though the two fights did not seem to be directly

  related to each other. The Overden was on the Absolutist side, which wanted

  absolute independence For Selonia. But even if the Ilunchuzuc were

  Repubiicist and the Overden were Absolutist, Han was coming to the

  conclusion that neither side much cared about principles, either way. Each

  was primarily against the other. But Han did know a few things for sure. He

  knew that Dracmus had saved his life, and that she had taken risks to treat

  him well. He knew that a member of his own family-Thrackan Sal-Solo-had

  treated Dracmus's people with the utmost cruelty. By Selonian standards,

  that alone was enough to brand Han himself as a villain, a killer, a

  monster. Yet Dracmus had given Han every benefit of the doubt. She had

  treated him with decency and respect. If that was all Han knew, it was also

  all he had to know. "When will it be working?" Dracmus called, her voice

  growing more strident. "The planet is getting closer!" "That is the idea

  when you're trying to reenter," Han muttered to himself. Decency and respect

  to one side, there was no denying that Dracmus could be one major pain in

  the neck. Han pressed the answer stud again and spoke. "It's working now.

  Tell Salculd the inverter is back on-line. Have her power up the control

  circuits and let's see how it goes." "We shall do so, Honored Solo,'" said

  the faint, worried-sounding voice from the comm unit. "Saieuld says she is

  initiating control circuit power-up." Han was kneeling down in front of the

  inspection hatch, and a low-powered hum made him think he might be just a

  bit too close to the inverter array. He stood up and backed away. The hum

  faded out after a moment, and the array's indicator lights came on, showing

  normal operation. Han pressed down the answer button again. "Don't hold me

  to this," he shouted, "hut I think it's working. The spare parts off Mara's

  ship did the trick. We ought to be able to get underway anytime you like."

  "Good to hear, most Honorable Solo," Dracmus said, the relief in her voice

  almost painfully obvious. "Very good to hear indeed. We shall proceed at

  once." The indicators flickered a bit to show the inverters were drawing

  more power. "Take it easy up there," Han said. "Throttle up nice and slow,

  all right?" "We are doing so, Honored Solo. And we shall hold at one-third

  power. We have no desire to overload our systems again." "That's very

  reassuring," Han said. "But 1 think I'd better head up there and keep an eye

  on you just the same." Han crossed to the access ladder and climbed up to

  the nose cabin of the coneship. The coneship was just that-a fat cone, with

  the engines at the base and the control cabin in the point. The nose itself

  was nearly all transparent transplex, affording a spectacular overhead view.

  The pilot, Salculd, lay flat on her back, looking up and out at the sky

  ahead. For a human pilot, it would not be the most comfortable way to work.

  Of course, Selonians were most decidedly not human. Salculd looked over to

  the lower deck access hatch as Han climbed out of it. She gave him a toothy

  smile and then returned her attention to her work. She looked comfortable

  enough. Dracmus was pacing at the rear of the cabin, looking anything but

  cairn or relaxed. Though they we
re fairly standard bipeds, Selonians were

  taller but thinner than humans. Their arms and legs were shorter, and their

  bodies rather longer. They could manage equally well walking on two feet or

  four. Retractable claws in both their hand-paws and foot- paws made them

  impressive climbers and diggers. Their tails were only about half a meter

  long, but they packed a major wallop when used as a club-as Han had reason

  to know. They had long, pointed faces, and their entire bodies were covered

  in sleek, short-haired fur. Dracmus was dark brown. Salculd was mostly

  black, but her belly fur was light brown. They both had bristly whiskers

  that were as expressive as human eyebrows, once you got a little practice in

  interpreting them. They also had mouths full of very sharp teeth. Han had

  been able to interpret the teeth with no practice at all. In short, they

  were elegant and impressive-looking creatures. "How does all go?" Han asked

  Salculd the pilot, speaking in his rather labored Selonian. Salculd did not

  speak Basic. "All is well. Honored Solo," Salculd replied. "At least until

  the next subsystem flips out." "Wonderful," Han said to himself. "Everything

  be well, Honored Dracmus?" he asked in Selonian. "Fine, line, all is fine,

  until we crash and die," Dracmus replied. "Glad we have a consensus," Han

  muttered to himself. "It is good to plan ahead like that," Salculd said.

  "Here 1 was just going to land the ship the regular way. Now 1 arn knowing

  that I will fail and we will crash. It is most comforting." "That is enough,

  Pilot Salculd," Dracmus snapped. "Concentrate all attention on your duties."

  "Yes, Honored Dracmus," Salculd said at once, her tone of voice most

  apologetic. Salculd was a fairly experienced pitol, and knew her ship at

  least reasonably well, if not as well as Han would have preferred. Dracmus,

  on the other hand, was trained to deal with humans, and incompletely trained

  at that. When it came to ship handling, she had ' no experience, no

  knowledge, and no skill. Even so, she commanded the ship-not just in

  deciding where it would go, but down to the last detail of every maneuver.

  Salculd could not, or would not, overrule her. Dracmus was of higher status,

  or seniority, or something, relative to Salculd, and that was that, insofar

  as either of the Selonians was concerned. Neither seemed much concerned by

  the fact that Dracmus had only the slightest understanding of space

  operations, or by the fact that during the raid on Selonia she had

  repeatedly ordered the ship to do things it could not, and come alarmingly

  close to getting them all killed. Saiculd might have a smart mouth, and an

  irreverent attitude, but she followed all of Dracmus's orders-no matter how

  boneheaded-with alarming dispatch. It took some getting used to. Han took

  his own place in the control seat next to Salculd. He had done his best to

  adjust the padding to fit a human frame, but the seat would never be

  comfortable. Han lay back and looked up. The view out the transparent nose

  of the coneship was nothing less than spectacular. The planet Selonia hung

  big and bright in the sky, filling the middle third of the field of view.

  Selonia had smaller oceans than Corellia, and the land mass was broken up

  into thousands of medium-sized islands, more or less evenly spaced across

  the face of the planet. Instead of two or three large oceans and four or

  five continental landmasses, Selonia's surface was a maze of water and land.

  Hundreds of seas and bays and inlets and straits and shoals separated the

  islands. Han remembered reading somewhere that no point on land anywhere on

  Selonia was more than one hundred fifty kilometers from open water, and no

  point on the water was more than two hundred kilometers from the nearest

  shoreline. But there was more to the view than the spectacular planet. Mara

  Jade's personal ship, the Jade's Fire, hung in space a kilometer or two

  away, her bow hiding a bit of the planet's equatorial region. She was a

  long, low, streamlined ship, painted in a flame pattern of red and gold. The

  ship looked fast, sleek, strong, maneuver-able-and Han knew she was all of

  those things. He wished, not for the first time, that he was aboard her, and

  not just because the Fire was a better ship. Leia was aboard the Fire, along

  with Mara Jade. After Dracmus had managed to blow out nearly every system on

  board the coneship, the Fire had rescued them and provided Han with the

  spare parts he needed to repair the craft. Now the Fire was preparing to see

  the coneship to a safe landing. Han did not like Leia being on one ship

  while he was on the other, but the arrangement made too much sense. Mara,

  not yet completely recovered from her leg injury, still needed some looking

  after, and she needed a copilot, at least until she recovered. Space knew

  the Selonians, Dracmus and Salculd, needed all the help they could get.

  Besides which, Leia spoke Selonian- spoke it better than Han, for that

  matter-and given recent events it made more than a little sense to have at

  least one speaker of the Selonian language aboard each ship, in case of

  difficulties at the landing field. The plan was for the two ships to fly

  toward Selonia in formation and land side by side. But even if it all seemed

  perfectly reasonable and harmless for Leia to stay on Mara's ship while he

  flew in the coneship, Han didn't have to like it. He didn't need to ask what

  could go wrong. So many things had gone wrong already. A bright light

  flashed on and off from the forward port of the Fire. Leia was using the

  landing lights on the Jade's fire to send Mon Calamari blink

  code--combinations of long and short flashes to form the letters of the

  Basic alphabet. The technique was slow and clumsy, but the normal com

  channels were jammed and it beat not being able to talk at all. READY TO

  BEGIN ENTRY, Han read. SIGNAL WHEN YOU arE ready. "They say they are ready."

  He turned to Salculd. "Are we prepared?" "Yes," said Salculd. "Very well,"

  Han said, "Honored Dracmus," he said in Basic, so that Salculd could not

  understand. "You will now do what I say. Stop pacing, take your seat, and

  instruct Salculd to accept orders from me. I would then ask you most kindly

  to shut up until we are on the ground. I want you to give no orders and say

  nothing. I just want you to sit quietly. Or else I tell the Jade's Fire that

  escorting us is a suicide run. I will instruct them to leave us here." It

  was all bluff, of course, hut Dracmus was panicky enough that she wasn't

  likely to think it through. "But-" she protested. "But nothing. I know blink

  code and you don't. I can talk to the Fire and you can't. You nearly got us

  killed ordering this ship around before, and I'm not going to put up with

  that again." "I must protest! This is robbery of the worst kind!' Han

  grinned. "Actually, it's more like piracy. Or you could call it a pretty

  miid form of hijacking. And I might add that if you don't know robbery from

  piracy, you have no business running a ship." Dracmus glared at Han, about

  to protest-but then she shook tier head. "So be it. I must accede. Even to

  my eye, my ship orders were none too good, and I wish to live some more."

  She
shifted to Selonian. "Pilot Salculd! You will obey the orders of Honored

  Han Solo as you would rny own, and do so until such time as we reach the

  ground." Salculd sat up in her seat and looked from one to the other before

  grinning even more widely than before. "Yes, Honored Dracmus!" she said. "I

  obey with pleasure!" "See that you don't find too much pleasure in obeying,

  Salculd," Dracmus growled. "Honored Solo, if you would proceed." "Take your

  seat," Han said to Dracmus in Selonian. "We all must strap in and prepare

  for acceleration. Salculd, you will fly a standard approach to the in-

  tended field of landing, starting on my command. Is that understood?" "Yes,

  indeed," Salculd said. "Absolutely." Han picked up the handlight placed next

  to his seat for the purpose, and signaled back to the Fire. BEADY FO

  COMMENCE EMNTRY MANEUVERZ, he signaled, managing to spot every mistake just

  after he made it. "Someday I gotta take the time to brush up on this stuff,"

  he muttered to himself. we are jus'i about beady ourselves, Leia signaled

  back. TAKING POSITION TO YOUR STERN. WILL FOLLOW

  YOU IN.

  "Ha, ha, ha." Han said. "Glad 1 married such a humorist." He shifted back to

  Selonian. "Very well, Salculd, take us in. With much care." As he watched,

  the Jade's Fire came about on her long axis, putting her stern toward the

  coneship. Salculd edged the throttle upward, transferring minimum power to

  the engines. As the coneship began to accelerate toward the planet, the Fire

  drifted back, falling astern off the port side. As the faster, more

  maneu-verable ship, and the one that was easier to control, it made sense

  for the Fire to go in second, where she could keep watch on the coneship.

  But even the spares on board the Fire had not been enough to patch up the

  coneship's stern detector grid. The coneship was, and would continue to be,

  all but completely blind astern. All she had was one wide-angle holocam set

  in the base of the cone, between two of the sublight engines. It would be

  useful during the final approach and landing, but even with the main engines

  off, its resolution was so poor that the Jade's Fire would be lost to view

  if she drifted only a few kilometers away. Once the engines came on, the

  stern holocam view could only get worse. In other words, Han might-or might