Ambush at Corellia Read online

  “Your wife’s attendance has been reported, yes,” Kalenda said. “But there has been little or no mention of your going along, or your children.”

  “What is all this about?” Han demanded. “My wife is going to a conference on my homeworld. So what? I’m going, and we’re taking the kids. Be nice to show them where the old man came from. Is that a crime? Is there something suspicious about that?”

  “No,” Kalenda said. “Not yet. But we’d like to make it suspicious.”

  “Now you’ve lost me. Chewie, if the next thing she says doesn’t clear things up, you get to throw her off the ship.”

  Chewie let out a half yelp, half howl that had the intended effect of unnerving their visitor. “That means he’s looking forward to it,” Han said. “So. This is your big chance to tell me, clearly and concisely, what this is all about. No more riddles.”

  Kalenda had lost some—but not all—of her poise. Han had to hand it to her. Even the vague notion of tangling with Chewie was enough to make most people snap. “Something’s going on in the Corellian Sector,” she said. “Something big, and something bad. We don’t know what. All we do know is that we’ve sent in a half-dozen agents—and none of them have come back. None of them have even managed to report.”

  Han was impressed by that news. The NRI was, by all accounts, very, very good at what it did. It was the successor to the old networks of Rebel spies, back during the war against the Empire. Anyone or anything that could kill or capture NRI agents at will was a force to be reckoned with. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “But what does it have to do with my family?”

  “We want to send in another team. And we want to provide cover for them. That’s you.”

  “Look, Kalenda, or whatever your name really is. If the Corellians are as paranoid as you’re saying they are, they probably suspect me already. I’m not the espionage type. I wouldn’t even make a good amateur. I’m not a very subtle person. Your files aren’t so good if they didn’t tell you that.”

  “Oh, but they did tell us that,” Kalenda said. “And we didn’t need them to tell us that, because everyone knows it already. The Corellians will be watching you like a hawk. We don’t want you to do anything except act suspiciously.”

  “I don’t get it,” Han said.

  “We want you to act as suspiciously as possible,” Kalenda said. “Give yourself a high profile. Be visible. Ask nosy, awkward questions. Offer bribes to the wrong people at the wrong time. Act like a bad amateur. We want you to draw their attention, distract them while we insert our real teams.”

  “What about my family?” Han asked. “What about my children?”

  “To be frank, your children have a reputation all their own. I doubt we’d even be approaching you if they weren’t in the picture. We’re assuming they’ll cause the opposition headaches all by themselves.”

  “I meant, will my children be safe?” Han asked. “I’m not so sure I should even be taking them if things are as bad as you say.”

  Kalenda hesitated a moment. “The situation on Corellia is unsettled. There is no question about that. However, if our understanding of the situation is correct, the role we are asking you to perform will not expose them to any additional risk. Family is still held in high respect on Corellia. It is considered most dishonorable to involve innocent family members in a quarrel. You should know that.”

  There was something in her tone of voice in that last answer that gave Han pause. As if she were talking about something more than planetary tradition, and something a lot closer to home. The trouble was, he had no idea what. Did the NRI know things about Han’s own past that Han did not? Han looked her straight in those strange eyes of hers, and decided that he did not want to ask. “If I understand what you’re saying,” he said, “you believe the job you are asking me to do will not make Corellia any more dangerous for my children. Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Kalenda said.

  That didn’t satisfy Han. He had the feeling that “yes” was a true answer, if not a complete one.

  “All right, then,” he said. “Now, this next question I am asking as a father, as a Corellian who believes it is dishonorable to involve the innocent. Would it be dangerous to take my children to Corellia?”

  Kalenda slumped back and sighed. All the surface smugness went out of her, and Han could see doubt and uncertainty. It was as if the NRI agent had suddenly vanished and the person behind was appearing. “I give up being careful. Not when you put it that way. But I wish to the dark suns you hadn’t asked me that,” she said. “I honestly don’t know. We simply don’t know what’s going on out there. That’s why we need to do anything we can to get agents in place so we can find out. But there are children on Corellia right now. Are they in danger? Is Corellia a riskier place than Coruscant? Almost certainly, though by how much I couldn’t say. On the other hand, travel all by itself is more dangerous than staying home. Maybe you should never travel at all. If avoiding all risk is your only concern, take your children and hide them away in a cave, just to be sure. But is that the way you want to live?”

  Han looked deep into those strange eyes that seemed to see things that were not there. In his old days, his reckless days, he wouldn’t even have thought twice about flying straight into the worst sort of danger. But fatherhood did things to a fellow. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to endanger his kids. It went beyond that. He didn’t want to endanger himself needlessly either. Not for fear of death on his own part—but the thought of leaving his children without a father—it was something he had to work into the equation.

  But suppose he did put his children in a cave, and put a round-the-clock guard on them. And suppose there was an underground rock slide? Or what if he did manage to protect them from all danger? What sort of life would they have? And how could they be expected to deal with a world full of risk and danger as adults if they had never faced them growing up?

  There were no good answers, no certainties. Risk was a part of life, and you had to take a slice of it along with everything else. But there were questions of honor, and duty, as well. If there was trouble back home, in the sector that had given him birth, what sort of man would he be if he could help and did not?

  There was yet another factor. Leia was, after all, the Chief of State. She had been getting intelligence reports about Corellia. She had to know about the situation. Very probably she even knew the specific fact that the NRI had agents gone missing. Yet she was willing to bring her children along. And that was good enough for Han.

  “Thank you,” Han said. “I always appreciate a straight answer. But we’ll be going to Corellia—and I’ll do what I can to act suspiciously. I have a feeling it will fit in with my natural talents.”

  “Officially, I’m glad to hear that,” Kalenda said. “But unofficially—very unofficially—I wouldn’t blame you if you decided not to go at all.”

  “We go,” Han said. “We’re not going to be scared away from living our life.”

  “Just like that?” Kalenda asked. “Without even asking any questions? The NRI doesn’t have much information, but shouldn’t you know what we do?”

  Chewie let out a low, throaty rumble, the Wookiee equivalent of a chuckle, and then growled a retort.

  “What?” Kalenda asked. “What’s funny? What did he say?”

  Han smiled, even if the joke was more or less at his expense. “Something to the effect that I’ve never been one to let facts or information interfere with my decisions. But in all seriousness, it might just be that the less I know the better. If you want me to blunder around like an ignorant fool, maybe I’d do better if I was ignorant.”

  “We half expected you to say that,” Kalenda said.

  “If you know me that well, then the next thing you should be expecting me to say is that it’s dinnertime and the family’s waiting.”

  Kalenda stood up. “Very well.” She turned toward Chewbacca, who was still blocking the exit. “If your friend will excuse me?” she
asked, staring straight at Chewie. The Wookiee gave a sort of snort and let her by.

  After she was gone, Chewie looked toward Han. “I know, I know,” he said. “You’re going to say it’s none of my business. But our agents are vanishing on my turf. Is that my people doing that? She said something is going wrong in the Corellian Sector, my home sector. Should I just turn my back? You tell me. What should I have said?”

  Chewie didn’t have an answer for that one. Instead he grunted and turned back toward the cockpit. Han followed behind him to help him power down the ship.

  But the Wookiee stopped dead just inside the entrance to the cockpit, and Han nearly walked up his back. “Hey!” he cried out. “What are you—”

  Chewie moved his left arm slowly back until it was behind his back. He gestured for silence with a wave of his left hand as he stared straight ahead, out the cockpit’s viewport. Han froze, and tried to see around Chewbacca’s looming bulk. He saw nothing, but that told him as much as he needed to know. A probe droid or a living snooper. Chewie had spotted something, some tiny movement or other. Nothing else would explain his reaction.

  “What—what are we going to do about the shields?” Han asked, trying to make it sound smooth and convincing. Chewbacca took the cue, and growled a casual-sounding answer as he plopped down into the copilot’s seat. Han followed Chewie’s gaze as the Wookiee scanned his panels. Han saw Chewie’s eyes flicker toward the packing cases at the edge of the hard stand for just a moment. All right, then.

  Han sat down in the pilot’s seat and tried to think fast. Someone or something had been listening in on their little chat with Kalenda. The fact that the snooper was still out there could only mean they were hoping to hear more. Otherwise, the snooper would have pulled back the moment Kalenda was gone.

  And that meant the only chance of catching the snooper would be to keep him or her or it busy until Chewie and he had managed to set something up. Better do something to sound interesting. “That sounds good on the repulsor,” Han said. “But if our visitor was right, hardware glitches are going to be the least of our troubles.”

  Chewbacca looked toward Han in some surprise. “Oh, yeah,” Han said, improvising as best he could. “With what she was saying, we’re going to have a lot to talk about on the way home. Lots of profits in it for us if we play it right.” That ought to be intriguing enough to keep their friends interested. Han gestured with his hands, being careful to keep them well out of view of the cockpit ports. He pointed toward himself, and waggled his first two fingers back and forth in a pantomime of walking. He pointed toward the outside of the ship, and then pantomimed pulling a trigger.

  Chewie nodded very slightly, then pointed at himself, pointed down, indicating he would stay where he was, and then tapped the controls for the ventral laser cannon. Chewbacca burbled his agreement on the subject of profit and nodded a bit more emphatically for the benefit of whoever was outside.

  “Listen,” Han said. “You finish up the power-down, all right? I want to go take a look at the rear landing pads and see if they took any damage.”

  Chewie nodded. Han slipped his left hand under the pilot’s chair and pulled out the small holdout blaster that he kept there. It wasn’t the most powerful bit of armament, but it was small enough to hide in the palm of his hand.

  Han got up and headed toward the hatch. He made his way toward the open gangway, moving at what he hoped was a nice, casual pace. If he and Chewie were better actors than he thought they were, or if their snooper was a bit more gullible than average, they would still have company.

  He walked down the gangway, whistling tunelessly to himself, and paused at the bottom. He yawned and stretched in what he hoped was a convincing sort of way. He wandered over toward the port side of the ship, as if he was about to head around and look at the aft landing pad.

  By doing so, he came around the side of the heap of packing cases. Anything or anyone hiding behind them would have to drift back a bit, back into the corner, in order to stay out of sight. Han swung his left hand around so his body hid it from view, and got the holdout blaster into position. He continued his leisurely walk toward the rear of the ship—and then suddenly shifted direction, started running straight toward the packing cases, moving as fast as he could, blaster at the ready.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the ventral laser cannon pop out of its recess and blaze away. The cannon swept along the cases from starboard to port, herding their visitor toward Han. The cases blew apart under the withering fire, lighting up the hard stand.

  And suddenly, in the flashing strobelike bursts of the laser cannon, it was bright enough for Han to see the thing he was chasing.

  A probe droid, an old-style Imperial probot, floated in midair not ten meters from him, its eight cruel-looking sensor arms hanging down from its rounded central body. The laser cannon stopped firing and darkness returned. No doubt Chewie didn’t want to risk shooting Han. Thoughtful of him.

  Even without the laser fire, the packing cases were burning bright enough for Han to see his adversary. But if Han could see the probe droid, the probe droid could see him. One of its arms swung around, aiming a built-in blaster dead at him.

  Han fired without taking the time for conscious thought, and thanks either to luck or marksmanship he shot the blaster off the droid.

  But the loss of its blaster didn’t even slow the droid down. It brought another arm to bear, one with a cruel, needle-sharp end, and moved toward Han at speed. Han dove for the ground and rolled over on his back as it bore down on him, that needle arm reaching to skewer him through the chest. The arm jabbed down, and Han rolled out of the way just barely in time. The needle arm spiked into the permacrete and jammed there for a moment.

  Han fired up at the droid, but it must have been luck on the first shot, because this time he missed completely. He squeezed the trigger again and nothing happened. The holdout blaster’s tiny energy cell had been depleted with only two shots. Han scrambled to his feet and realized he was boxed in by the sound barrier wall of the hard stand. The droid pulled its needle arm up out of the permacrete, and then turned back toward Han, ready to move in for the kill.

  A single shot from the Falcon’s laser cannon flared out, and caught the droid square in the body. The ghastly thing crashed to the ground, and Han started breathing again.

  Chewie came running up a moment later, carrying a glow rod. He pointed it at the droid as he looked at Han and let out a complicated series of snarls and burbling roars.

  “I can see that,” Han said. “Imperial probe droid. Twenty years old at least. Someone dug it up from somewhere and reprogrammed it.”

  Chewie knelt down by the droid and shone the light on it. He glanced up toward Han and yelped a question.

  “Because that’s not the way the Imperials programmed the things. They weren’t supposed to fight, they were supposed to spy. If they got caught and couldn’t run, they transmitted their data on a tight beam and self-destructed. This one tried to shoot its way out. And don’t ask me what that tells us, because I don’t know.”

  Except he did know, at least in part. It told him that someone out there was playing for keeps. What the game was, or who the players were, Han had not the slightest idea. But it had to be Corellia. It had to be.

  Han stared at the dead machine by the light of the burning packing cases, and wondered what to do about the probe’s carcass. The fact that it had been here at this particular time and place had some unpleasant connotations. If the NRI’s agents were being followed, he certainly wasn’t going to rush to them and report this little incident. No. Best keep it as quiet as possible. “No one hears about this,” Han said. “Not the NRI, not Luke, not Leia. Nothing they could do about it except get upset, and there might be other listeners out there. We get rid of this thing, fast, clean up the mess, and that’s that.”

  Chewbacca looked at Han and nodded his agreement.

  Han knelt down next to the Wookiee and started trying to figure out h
ow to get rid of the probe. Later he could worry about the other trifling problems, such as the question of who had sent the thing and why.

  It occurred to Han that he really only knew two things for certain.

  First, he knew that if someone out there was trying to make him not want to head for Corellia, they were going about it the wrong way. Spies and vague threats and probe droids might intimidate other men, but Han never had been much for responding to intimidation.

  And second, he knew it was going to be an interesting trip.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Breakage and Repairs

  Jaina Solo squatted down next to her younger brother and handed him one of the circuit boards. “Come on, Anakin. You can figure it out. You can make it work.”

  Anakin Solo, all of seven and a half years old, sat on the floor of the playroom, surrounded by broken bits of droid and rather worn-looking circuit units.

  Jacen, Jaina’s twin brother, had done most of the scavenging for parts, digging through the discard bins and refuse parts of all the droid repair shops and part suppliers. Jaina had done most of the mechanical assembly work, but now it was up to Anakin. All three of them were good with their hands, gifted in mechanical things—but Anakin went beyond merely being gifted.

  He could fix things so they worked—even if he didn’t know what they did, or what they were. It was almost as if he could see inside machines, read the circuit patterns of even the tiniest microscopic components—and even tempt the broken circuits to heal themselves. Outsiders would have thought it all very remarkable, and perhaps even impossible. But the twins were used to it. To them, all it meant was that Anakin could tap into a different aspect of the Force than most people. Or maybe he didn’t know yet that what he did was impossible. If and when the grown-ups found out and convinced him that he could not do what he did, then perhaps the game would be over.