Star Wars - Tatooine Ghost Read online

  Star Wars - Tatooine Ghost

  by Troy Denning

  Leia Organa, newly Leia Organa Solo, sat behind Han and Chewbacca on the flight deck of the Millennium Falcon. The twin suns of the Tatoo system were hanging outside the forward viewport, a pair of white eyes blazing up from the black well of space. Like all twins, they were bound together by a tie as unpredictable as it was powerful. Sometimes, the bond boosted their luminosity far beyond that of two normal suns. At other times, it sent waves of ionic discharge pulsing across space to scramble circuits and reorient core-relative compasses. Today, the twins were assailing the Falcon with electromagnetic blasts, overloading her sensors and filling the cockpit speakers with static. As Chewbacca worked to raise the proper filters, the static faded from a roar to a crackle, then softened to a hiss, which rose and fell in a sharp rhythm. Puzzled by the odd snickering sound, Leia glanced over at the master comm console and found the reception indicator still scanning for signals. She leaned forward against her crash webbing.

  "Han, do you hear..."

  No sound came from her mouth. The snicker became a deep chuckle, and a nebula of black gas began to gather in front of the Falcon. Han showed no reaction to it. Neither did Chewbacca, even when it coalesced into the cowl of a Jedi cloak.

  "Han! Don't you see..."

  Again, her voice made no sound. Glaring out from beneath the cowl, the twin suns looked more than ever like eyes-heartless eyes, full of malice and power lust. Where the cloud was thin, crooked streaks of purple radiance created the impression of a twisted mouth and wrinkled face.

  The mouth rose at the corners. "Mine."

  The voice was cruel and distinct and rife with dark side power. Leia gasped-silently-and tried to raise an arm that had suddenly grown as heavy as the Falcon.

  The smile became a sneer. "Mine."

  Still, neither Han nor Chewbacca seemed to notice what was happening. Leia would have screamed, had her mouth been willing to obey.

  The nebula began to thicken, and the purple wrinkles faded behind its inky veil. The twin suns dimmed to darkness, and the black cloud assumed the shape of a familiar mask-a mask of harsh angles and obsidian sheen, framed by the long, flaring neck apron of an equally black helmet. Vader's helmet.

  A chill wave of nausea washed over Leia. The curved eye lenses grew transparent, but instead of the blazing brightness of Tatooine's twin suns-or the angry red-rimmed gaze of Darth Vader-she found herself looking into her brother's soft blue eyes. "Luke! What are you..."

  Her question remained as silent as the others she had asked. Luke's eyes grew hollow and hard and haunted, and the helmet moved slowly from side to side. Blue flickers of electricity snaked across the speech circuits behind the respiratory screen, but his words were rendered nearly inaudible by static crackling. Leia made out something about not following and staying out of darkness; then Luke fell silent again. She tried to tell him that his equipment was malfunctioning, that his voice had been obscured, but before she could find a way to make herself heard, the helmet stopped moving.

  Luke locked gazes and held her transfixed for what might have been seconds... or minutes... his eyes now the lifeless blue of ice. Leia grew cold, and frightened, and the mask dissolved back into the black nothingness of space, leaving her to stare out once again into the mind-stabbing brilliance of the Tatoo system's twin suns.

  Chapter 1

  Instead of bed, where she usually awoke from her dreams, Leia found herself slumped forward in her crash webbing, ears hissing with static and eyes aching from the glare of two

  G-class suns. Han and Chewbacca were still busy at their stations, Han plotting approach vectors and Chewbacca setting sensor filters. The planet Tatooine was just drifting into view, its yellow sodium-rich sands glowing so brightly it resembled a small sibling star in orbit around the big twins. A metallic hand tapped Leia's shoulder. She turned to see C-3PO's photoreceptors shining at her from the adjacent passenger seat.

  "Pardon me for asking, Princess Leia, but are you well?"

  "Don't I look well?"

  "Oh dear," C-3PO replied, a diplomatic subroutine activating in response to her tone of voice. "Why yes, you do look as splendid as ever, but it seemed for a moment as though you might have overloaded your primary circuits."

  "My circuits are fine."

  "I'll need to confirm that later." Han twisted around and glanced over his seat with the same crooked smile that had alternately charmed and worried Leia since their first meeting on the Death Star. "Princess."

  "Oh, really?" Leia straightened herself in her chair without fully realizing she was doing it. With his tough-guy good looks and eyes sparkling with trouble, Han still made her sit up and take notice. "And you think you can read my schematics?"

  "Sweetheart, I know your schematics by heart." Han's smile faded, and his expression grew concerned. "Threepio's right. You look like you've seen a ghost."

  "Something like that. A bad dream."

  Han looked doubtful. "I've sat in that chair. That chair isn't comfortable enough for dreams-good or bad."

  "It's been a long trip," Leia said, perhaps a little too quickly. "I must have nodded off."

  Han regarded her a moment longer, then shrugged. "Well, see if you can stay awake." He looked forward again, to where the twin suns were slowly being eclipsed by Tatooine's steadily swelling disk. "Until the sensors come up, we need to keep an eye out for other traffic."

  Leia gazed out the canopy and began to search for the rapidly swelling silhouette of blocked starlight that would mean an approaching vessel. Her thoughts remained focused on the strange dream. It had a similar feel to the Force-vision she had experienced nearly five years earlier at Bakura, when her father had sent an apparition begging for the forgiveness she would never-could never-grant. But that had been his doing, not hers.

  Han's hand rose into view between the pilot and copilot's seats, pointing toward a blocky silhouette floating some distance to one side of Tatooine's yellow disk. The twin suns were now completely hidden behind the planet, and Leia could see that the tiny silhou ette was growing larger as they approached. It seemed to be staying in the same place relative to Tatooine, deliberately hanging in the shadow of the planet.

  "That's too square to be a moon," Han said.

  "And it's no asteroid, not hanging in one place like that," Leia added. "But at least it doesn't seem to be coming our way."

  "Yet," Han replied. "How about those filters, Chewie?"

  An impatient rumble suggested that the Wookiee was still struggling with the filters. Anyone else might have been frightened, but Leia found the groan reassuring, a touch of the familiar in a time of shifting alliances and random annihilation. When she had married

  Han six months ago, she had known Chewbacca would be an honorary member of their family, and that was fine with her. Over the years she had come to think of the Wookiee as something of a furry big brother, always loyal to Han and protective of her, and now she could not hear him growl without feeling that she lived in a safer place, that with Chewbacca and Luke and Han-when he was in the mood-and millions of others like them, the New Republic would beat back the Empire's latest onslaught and one day bring peace to the galaxy.

  That, and she liked how Wookiee fur always smelled of trillium soap.

  The comm hiss finally fell silent as Chewbacca found the right combination of filters. He brought the sensors up, fiddled a moment longer, then let out a startled ruumph. "The mass calibration is off," Han said. "That reads like a Star Destroyer."

  Chewbacca oowralled indignantly, then sent the data readout to the auxiliary display beside Leia's seat and glanced back for her affirmation. She had to look on
ly a second to see that he was correct.

  "Sixteen hundred meters, six comm bands in use, and a TIE squadron circling on station," Leia said, feeling a little sick and worried. When the Millennium Falcon came across a Star Destroyer these days, it was usually because one was stalking the other. "I don't know, Han. The mass calibration looks fine to me."

  As she spoke, the Falcon's computer found a profile match in its military data banks and displayed the schematic of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. Below the image appeared the vessel's name."The Chimaera" Han read. "Isn't she still in service to the Empire?"

  "As of two months ago, she was one of their most efficient Destroyers." Leia did not need to look up the information. The death of Warlord Zsinj eight months earlier had emboldened the

  Imperial fleet, and the Provisional Council had been mired in war minutiae ever since. "Admiral Ackbar has been wondering what became of her."

  "Deserters?" Han caught her eye in the canopy reflection. "Another captain wanting to set himself up as a warlord?"

  "Please, no! The situation out here is already too confused." With the New Republic battling the Imperials over the scraps of Zsinj's empire and the surviving warlords exploiting the war to enlarge their own territories, confused was an understatement. Several times, the New Republic Navy had moved against one enemy to find itself engaging another, and sometimes two or three at once. "And the Ckimaera's commander isn't the type. By all accounts, Gilad Pellaeon is both loyal and competent."

  "Then what's he doing at Tatooine?" Han asked. "There isn't a conflict zone within fifty systems of here."

  Chewbacca groaned the opinion that it was someone else's job to analyze Imperial objectives, then began to plot hyperspace coordinates. Leia braced herself, more concerned with Han's reaction than Chewbacca's when she explained why they still had to risk a run planetside.

  She was spared the necessity when Han scowled at the Wookiee's flying fingers.

  "Chewie! I can handle this, no problem." Han looked vaguely insulted. "It's only one little Star Destroyer."

  Chewbacca grunted doubtfully, then added a yawl about the folly of tempting fate for a piece of art.

  "Killik Twilight means a lot to Leia," Han said. "It hung in the palace on Alderaan."

  Chewbacca growled a long question that suggested they might be flying into a trap; the painting might not even be real.

  "You can't forge moss-paintings," Leia answered. "Not anymore. They require strains that don't spread or reproduce, the cultivation of which was a closely guarded secret even in Aldera. That secret died with the rest of Alderaan."

  "You see?" Han asked. "Besides, if the Imperials were trying to lure Leia to Tatooine, they wouldn't leave their Star Destroyer out in the open like that."

  Han pointed at the tiny silhouette of the Chimaera, which had started an edgeward drift across the canopy as the Falcon eased past it toward the planet. Chewbacca stubbornly shook his head, reminding them of the syren plant on his native Kashyyyk, which drew victims to certain death with a scent so alluring it could not be resisted.

  "Not a certain death," Han corrected. "Or there wouldn't be so many Wookiees in the galaxy." Never one whose purpose could be deflected by humor, Chewbacca reiterated the questions that had been troubling them all since learning of the auction. Why was such a valuable painting being sold in a seedy spaceport like Mos Espa? Where had it been all these years? Why was it surfacing now?

  The answers were a mystery-as much a mystery as the Star Destroyer's appearance here. At the time of Alderaan's destruction, Killik Twilight had been returning home from a museum loan on

  Coruscant. It had dropped out of sight, and Leia had believed the painting destroyed with her home-at least until Lando Calrissian reported that it would soon be offered at auction on Tatooine.

  Chewbacca continued to press his case, maintaining that the Chimaera's presence was no coincidence. With an Imperial Star Destroyer hanging off Tatooine, there would almost certainly be Imperials at the auction. The argument was all too sensible, and though Chewbacca clearly did not realize this-one that made it all the more imperative that Leia attend the sale herself. She leaned forward and grasped the Wookiee's shoulder, and his tirade rumbled to an end.

  "Chewie, everything you say makes sense. The Star Destroyer worries me, too. If this were just any piece of Alderaanian art, I wouldn't ask you to take the risk. But for Killik Twilight, I must." Chewbacca studied her in the canopy reflection. He was a ferociously brave Wookiee-one who would never deny a friend's request for aid once he knew a matter to be important. Leia only hoped she could win his help without having to explain herself now. Han was still stinging from that whole Hapan incident eight months ago, and being asked to risk his beloved Falcon on behalf of the Provisional Council would not sit well with him at the moment. Maybe not ever.

  Leia held Chewbacca's gaze with a sober expression that came to her face all too readily these days. Finally, he wrumpffed softly and nodded.

  Han glanced over, his jaw dropped in disbelief. "That's it? She says must, and you don't even want to know why?"

  Chewbacca shrugged.

  "But you'll argue with me?" Han glanced at Leia's reflection in the canopy. "Those are some powers of persuasion you have there, Princess. You been studying with Luke when I'm not looking?"

  "I'm no Jedi," Leia said. Then, slipping back into the flirty mood that had been the norm between them since their wedding-it had to be driving Chewbacca mad, judging by how he turned away to look out the viewport-she gave Han a sultry half smile.

  "Just your common everyday Princess."

  "There's nothing common or everyday about you," Han replied in a tone so cloying that it made Chewbacca groan. "Or your hidden agendas."

  "Hidden agendas?" Leia cringed inwardly as she vacillated between sounding innocent and playful and came off as neither.

  "We're just here to buy a moss-painting."

  "Yeah?" Han's eyes assumed an amused twinkle. "Maybe Chewie's right."

  "I didn't say he was wrong," Leia said, trying to sound cool-and failing. He had her, and he knew it. She hated that. "Han, I really want that painting."

  Han shook his head. "Something here smells wrong." He began to ease the Falcon's nose away from the planet. "In fact, I'm sure of it."

  "Han!"

  He glanced again at her reflection. "Yeah?"

  "You'll draw attention to us."

  Han shrugged. "What's it matter, if we're leaving?" He turned to Chewbacca. "You about done with those hyperspace calculations?" Chewbacca snorted and, clearly not wanting any part of what was to follow, threw up his hands. Tatooine began to slide across the viewport, and Leia knew she had to call Han's bluff. He was too good a sabacc player to blank his cards without making her show her hand.

  "Han, we need to be at that auction," she said. "If the Killik Twilight is down there we have to buy it. Thousands of New Republic lives depend on it."

  "Really?" Han did not look at all surprised. "Imagine that." Tatooine stopped drifting toward the edge of the viewport, but Han did not turn the Falcon back toward the planet. Leia took a deep breath, then said, "There's a Shadowcast code key hidden in the painting. In the moisture-control circuitry." Chewbacca's eyes grew as round as bubbles. Shadowcast was a secret communications network that had sent Rebel messages, encrypted within the commercial advertisements that paid for Imperial propaganda programming, via the HoloNet. The system remained undiscovered, and the New Republic still used it to send instructions deep behind Imperial lines to its most delicately placed spies.

  Han's eyes only hardened at the corners. "Honey, I think we're about to have our first married fight. Why didn't you tell me the Provisional Council was behind this trip?"

  "Because it's not," Leia said, sounding more defensive than she would have liked. Why did her political skills always desert her with Han? "I'm the one who said Killik Twilight would be a good place to hide the code. I'm the one who thought the painting had been destroyed with Al
deraan. This is on me, Han. The Provisional Council has authorized purchase funds, but only because Mon

  Mothma strong-armed them. She's the only one who knows why we're really here."

  "Oh, that makes me feel better."

  Eight months earlier, Mon Mothma had been among those urging Leia to cement an important strategic alliance by marrying the prince of a powerful consortium of planets known as the Hapes

  Cluster. Han still felt so betrayed by the Chief Councilor and the rest of the council that, despite several generous offers, he had so far refused to reactivate his military commission or assume any other formal role in the New Republic.

  Han's reaction was only one aspect of the Hapan matter that Leia regretted. Had she made it clear to Queen Mother Ta'a Chume that marriage to her son, Isolder, was not really a possibility- and that, given her genetic heritage, she had no interest in bearing children-she might well have salvaged an alliance via some other arrangement, and she would not have hurt Han.