Showdown At Centerpoint Read online

  not-be able to see the Fire's blink code signals if she signaled again. In

  theory, he could use the coneship's running lights to send blink code of his

  own, but he would not be able to see the lights himself, rendering it just

  that much harder to send accurate code. Han was hoping the question of

  signaling wouldn't come up. The poor visibility to the stern made for

  another good reason to have the Fire go in second. Better to have a ship you

  trusted at your back. At least a ship you more or less trusted. Han had

  managed to put to rest most-but not all-of his reservations regarding Mara.

  He could think of no reason, no motive, for her acting against Han and Leia

  and the Republic, and there was no hard evidence that she had done so. But

  she had never explained her actions to his satisfaction, either. She had

  been in the right piaces at the right times-and ihe wrong places at the

  wrong times-a bit too often in recent days. On the other hand, if she had

  wanted to do real damage, Mara was too much of a pro to let things be

  bungled. And the opposition had certainly done some bungling, thank the

  stars. Not everything had gone their way. Say whatever else you might about

  the woman, but Mara was competent. And that was a compelling argument. No,

  Han told himself as the Jade's Fire was lost completely to forward view.

  Leave ii be. They really had no choice but to trust Jade. He watched as the

  Fire came into somewhat fuzzy view on the stern viewscreen. It was time to

  forget everything else and remember that the main thing was to get this

  crate down onto the surface. "Now, Salculd, it is your task," he said. "Do

  well." "I will," Salculd said. "Don't worry about that." The ship chose that

  moment to lurch to one side, and Salculd grabbed frantically at the

  controls. "Sorry, sorry," Salculd said. "Stabilizer overcompensating. All

  right now." "I can't tell you what a comfort that is," Han said. For a

  moment he considered the idea of shoving Salculd out of the pilot's station

  and taking over, but he knew better than that. The controls were set up for

  a Selonian, and the coneship had so many idiosyncra- sies it made the

  Millennium Falcon look like a standard production ship. It might be an

  alarming thought, but unless things got really hairy, it was probably safest

  to trust Salculd. Saiculd edged the throttle up just a trifle more and the

  coneship moved just a bit faster in toward the planet. At least the coneship

  was not such a relic that it relied on ballistic reentry, using friction

  with the atmosphere to slow itself down. It could make a nice, civilized

  powered reentry. At least Han hoped so. Most spacecraft were designed to

  survive at least one ballistic reentry, but not this thing. The planet moved

  closer. In another few minutes Salculd would have to turn the ship over and

  point its engines forward to slow the craft. That was the part that worried

  Han. Once they were decelerating, they would be at their most vulnerable.

  The coneship's fragility was far from the only source of danger. Someone on

  Selonia had sent a whole fleet of Light Attack Fighters up to meet the

  Bakuran ships. The Bakurans had done a fair amount of damage to the LAFs,

  but Han had to assume that whoever commanded them would have the sense to

  hold some of them in reserve. And as Dracmus assured him that the Hunchuzuc

  had no such ships, it only made sense to assume that whoever it was who did

  have Light Attack Fighters might take a dim view of the coneship's arrival.

  Thingb could get sticky. Han had worked on the assumption that there would

  be trouble, and done his best to plan accordingly. The Jade's Fire could

  provide a certain amount of covering fire, if push came to shove, but the

  other ship would be an uncertain protection at best. The coneship was

  completely unarmed, and had no shields at all. It didn't even have enough

  reserve power to hook up any weaponry-a moot point in any event, as there

  was no practical way to dismount any of the Jade's weapons or attach them to

  the coneship. Han had looked into it. Short of standing in the airlock and

  taking potshots at any attackers with his hand-blaster, there was not much

  he could do. But Han was used to working with nothing. Even a ship as

  decrepit as this one could play a few tricks if need be. He had found a way

  to rig up a defense that might provide some measure of protection if things

  got hot. Of course, sometimes, when you worked with nothing, nothing was

  exactly what you got. And sometimes, if you got into a fight with people who

  had better hardware, those other people won. Not a happy line of thought

  when you were on board a flying practice target headed into a war zone. And

  his thoughts didn't get any happier a few minutes later when Leia sent that

  attack warning.

  CHA PTER TWO

  Landing Leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of the New Republic, sat at the

  navigator's station aboard the Jade's Fire, watching the coneship drift in

  toward the planet Selonia. She had been a fool to let Han stay aboard that

  bucket of bolts. But she knew perfectly well that there had been no chance

  at all to get him off that ship, once he had decided he owed something to

  the Selonians on board. But what, exactly, was he getting them into? Leia

  was forced to think not just like a wife but like a politician. She could

  not see any way of avoiding it, but there was no question that Han was being

  drawn in by these Selonians-and that Leia was being drawn in as well. It

  would be easy, all too easy, for the New Republic to find itself on one side

  or another of a light it had no business in. It would be even easier to get

  tempted into bargains with these Hunchuzucs, bargains that had a few too

  many hidden strings attached . . . "He'll be all right, Leia," Mara said.

  "We'll stay right with them, all the way down. The Fire can offer them more

  protection than you think." "Hmmm? What? Oh, yes," Leia said, pointlessly

  embarrassed. It was somewhat mortifying to be reassured by Mara Jade, of all

  people. Somehow to have Mara assume that Leia was worrying about her

  husband's safety when she was really thinking about the politics of the

  situation made it even worse. Was she so callous that calculation of

  political advantage even pushed aside worries about her husband? So

  calculating that even Mara Jade was capable of more concern for Han? But

  Leia told herself, rather firmly, that she had more sense than that. She had

  no choice but to think on more than one level. What good would it do Han if

  she got so tied up in sentimental worrying that she failed to foresee the

  dangers ahead? "Han will be all right," Leia said again, trying to convince

  herself as much as her companion. "If anyone can get that tub down to the

  surface, he can." "If anyone can," Mara agreed, none too reassuringly. Mara

  was at her usual post, at the pilot's station, guiding the Jade's Fire down

  toward the surface. She frowned and adjusted the thrust controls a bit,

  slowing them down again. "Trouble?" Leia asked. Mara shook her head without

  taking her eyes off the viewport. "Nothing we can't handle, but I don't like

  being behind the coneship. That Sefonian pilot needs a fly
ing lesson or two.

  If she hits the brakes like that too many times, she's going to get our nose

  assembly right up her stern." "Can we back off a little?" "Not if we want

  them to stay in visual contact with us. That stern holocam has no resolution

  at all. We might be too far back for it to see us as it is- Burning stars,

  she doesn't know how to fly!" Mara pulled her joystick violently up and to

  the right. "She's doing the pitchover maneuver way too early-and without

  shutting off her engines. Nearly clipped her." Leia watched as the lumbering

  bulk of the coneship began its turnover, flipping end over end to direct its

  sublight engines toward the planet and slow its descent. It was painfully

  obvious that the pilot was not managing very well. The ship was lurching

  abruptly from one attitude to the next, pausing at intermediate stages of

  the maneuver instead of moving smoothly from a nose-to-planet attitude

  direct to stern-to-planet. It only made it worse-much worse-that the pilot

  was doing it under power. Leia was a pretty fair pilot, and she would have

  been very reluctant to try doing it that way. Mara was forced to fly two

  more evasive patterns just to keep the Fire from crashing into the other

  ship. Finally she backed the Fire off by five kilometers. "They're going to

  be nose-on to us anyway," Mara said. "They'll be able to see us reasonably

  well." "With a little luck," Leia said, a bit doubtfully. The Fire had

  first-rate detection systems, and could have tracked the coneship halfway

  across the Corellian system, but all the eoncship had was straight visual.

  Leia peered out the Fire's viewport and managed, with great difficulty, to

  spot the tiny dot that was the coneship. The bright bulk of the planet's

  dayside loomed up behind the ship, rendering it all but invisible. How easy

  would the Fire be to see. a little spot of red against the blackness of

  space? Mara wasn't even using the main viewscreen anymore, but watching her

  detector displays. She wasn't relying on visual detection. Oh, well. As long

  as at least one ship could see the other, things should be all right-

  "Trouble!" Mara announced. "Leia, weapons and shields to standby, fast!"

  Leia ran the power-up routines as quickly as she could. She ran quick checks

  on the ship's turbolasers and shields. "All weapon and shield systems

  functional and on-line," she announced. "What's happened?" "Power up the

  defense tracking systems and tell me," Mara said. "All the nav systems can

  tell me is that a bunch of blips just showed up out of nowhere." "Light

  Attack Fighters," Leia announced as the defense trackers came on. "A double

  flight of them, twelve in all, coming in from right over our stern. Must

  have dropped out of a high polar orbit." Mara shook her head as she stared

  down at the navigation display. "We can handle them, but it won't be easy.

  Not with the coneship to cover." "We're too far off to extend our shields

  toward the coneship." "And we're going to stay that way," Mara said sharply.

  "I'm not getting any closer to that pilot than I have to-especially in

  combat. She's already nearly rammed us twice. Get close enough to provide

  shield cover, and we'll all be dead. Covering fire is the best I'm going to

  be able to do. How soon until the LAFs get here?" "Firing range in thirty

  seconds." "Stand by for combat maneuvers." "No! Wait! We have to blink-code

  to Han, warn them!" "You've got twenty-five seconds," Mara said, steel in

  her voice. There was no point even trying to argue. Leia reached for the

  landing light controls and flipped them back to blink-code mode. She forced

  herself to take a full five seconds to compose her message, and then sent it

  three times, in rapid succession. "Done," Leia said. "Good," Mara said.

  "Hang on." Han was almost too busy trying to keep from being flung out of

  his chair to notice the flashing lights visible in the overhead viewport.

  "Smooth and gentle, Salculd! Not sudden!" he shouted as he tried to

  concentrate on the blink code-not easy to do when the ship he was on was

  flailing about like a cornered bantha. The trouble was that Han was only

  marginally better at reading code than he was at sending it. Even under

  perfect conditions, he might have had problems. He struggled to catch it

  all. At least Leia used the special word-end signal between words.

  Otherwise, he'd have never gotten anywhere. "B-A-N-D-I- something- something

  word ends," he muttered to himself. "Bandi? Bandits! Oh, great!" He tried to

  concentrate on the next word. Missed something -R-O-M word ends. Burning

  suns, Leia, do you have to send so fast? Missed something -E-H-l-N-D word

  ends J-A-D-E-S-F-I- Han missed the end of it as the coneship bobbled about

  again, but he had read enough to know the score. Bandits, enemy fighters,

  were headed this way, coming from behind the Jade's Fire. And either by bad

  luck or good timing they were heading in right as the coneship was at its

  most vulnerable. Han glanced over at the Selonians. You didn't have to be an

  expert at reading Selonian expressions to know that they were both scared

  silly, Salculd only slightly less so than Draemus. Han reminded himself she

  did not speak Basic. There was no point at all to telling Salculd about the

  bandits until she had the ship under control. Han was sure she hadn't even

  seen the blink-code message. Good. Let her work. Let her work. The coneship

  slowly lumbered around into braking position, its fat stern pointed almost

  precisely straight down at the planet, but canted just slightly into the

  ship's direction of travel, so the braking run could kill the craft's

  forward momentum as well. Han checked his instruments, doing his best to

  make sense out of the Selonian notation. By some miracle or other, Salculd

  seemed 10 have gotten them into the right position, and at the right

  attitude. "Good, good," he said as calmly as he could. Probably they had

  just a few seconds left before the bandits jumped them. But trying to rush

  Salculd would be worse than useless at this point. If she got any more

  scared, she might freeze completely. "Now then, Salculd, one other matter.

  Is time to, ah, lest our defense plan. You will bring the ship to spin,

  please, of three spins per minute." "Test?" Draemus sputtered. "But you said

  it was a one-time-only trick." Han had been hoping no one would bring that

  up. At least Dracmus had spoken in Basic. There was still a million-to-one

  chance Salculd hadn't caught on. "Quiet," he said in Basic before switching

  back to Selonian. "Make the spins, please, Honored Salculd. Make sure all is

  weli, in case needed." It was clear that Salculd did not believe him-but it

  would seem she was willing to pretend she did, at least for a little while.

  "Yes, yes," she said, "of course. Commencing axial spin." The ship began to

  rotate around its conical axis, so the stars pinwheeled across the sky. Han

  studied the overhead view, as best he was able. He could just about spot the

  Fire, and the bandits were almost certainly sma ller, and coming from

  behind. There was no way he could find them, especially with the ship

  spinning like a top. He gave it up. No point in worrying about things he

  could not change. "
Disable internal damping," Han said calmly, casually. The

  inertial dampers prevented anything more than a few percent of a ship's

  acceleration and motion from being felt by those aboard. Without them, the

  occupants of a ship accelerating to light speed could be squashed to jelly.

  No one liked turning them off-but sometimes you had to do what you didn't

  like. "But if we cannot restart inertial damping-" "Worry about such later!"

  Han snapped. He knew better than Salculd what it might mean if they couldn't

  get the dampers back on. But they would have to live long enough for the

  problem to come up. "We need to use centrifugal effect if plan is to work,

  and inertial damping cancels it out. End damping!" Salculd inhaled nervously

  and reached out her hand to cut off the inertial damping system. All of a

  sudden, Han felt his weight double, then triple, as the dampers stopped

  compensating for the ship's deceleration. A moment later he felt the

  disorienting sensation of the ship spinning. "Confirm all inner airlocks

  sealed," Han ordered. "All inner airlock doors sealed. Pressure in locks,"

  Salculd said. '"Honored Solo, must we truly- "Quiet! We must. Be ready for

  next step! Maintain course, maintain thrust, unless I order otherwise!" Han

  struggled to concentrate on the spinning starfield overhead. If this was

  going to work, it would take exact timing. But how could he time anything if

  he couldn't see? Maybe he would get lucky and the Jade's Fire would signal

  the all clear. And maybe he would wake up and discover the whole nightmare

  trip to Corellia had just been a dream. If only wishing could make it true.

  He had done his best. Now all they could do was hang on and see how it came

  out. "Rear, ventral, and dorsal shields to full, forward shields to one

  quarter," Mara ordered. "Divert shields as needed for ship safety." Leia

  worked the shield settings. "Shields conligured as ordered." "Good," Mara

  said. "Maintain turbolasers at standby. We arc going to hold this course and

  speed. Act like they aren't there. They can't know how good or bad our

  detectors are. They've never seen this kind of ship before, but I know LAFs.

  They have the gear to detect turbos going on-line, but not shield

  activation. If we keep the guns off and stay on course, they might decide we

  can't see them." "What good does that do us?" Leia asked. "They might blow