Star Wars - Tatooine Ghost Read online

  Chewbacca yawled a warning, and Leia looked over at the auxiliary display to find an assault shuttle and three TIEs departing the Chimaera.

  "Nothing to worry about," Han said, studying his own display. "They just want to see if we get nervous."

  Leia was nervous, and a little exasperated, but she didn't say so. Maybe Han had drawn the Chimaera's attention, and maybe he hadn't. Appearing too relaxed was just as likely to raise suspicions as appearing too worried. Anything could raise Imperial suspicions.

  "Han, I didn't mean to put the Falcon at risk," Leia said. "I only wanted to spend some time together, and I thought this trip would be a good chance."

  "On a mission for the New Republic?"

  "I didn't know it would be a mission," Leia said. "I'm sorry." "So you thought we'd enjoy a little trip to scenic Tatooine, pick up the lost code key, maybe swing by Jabba's palace and relive old times?"

  Chewbacca reported that the shuttle and TIEs were approaching on an intercept vector. Han adjusted the Falcon's course enough to keep their line of escape open, then looked back at Leia.

  "I don't see why this code key's so important anyway," Han continued. "They must have updated it by now. It's ten years old." "Nine years old," Leia corrected. "And the code is updated every sixth broadcast. But even an old key would help the Imperials break the new codes. Worse, it would alert them to the existence of a network they haven't detected in nearly a decade. It would cost the lives of thousands of former agents still living on enemy worlds. And there's no telling how long it would take us to replace Shadowcast- or how many current agents we'd lose in the transition." Han looked away, his gaze dropping to his instruments, and Leia knew she had him. He would play hard to get, pretending to think it over, but Han Solo always came through when it counted. That was his weakness, and she loved him for it.

  "Han, I really do want Killik Twilight back," Leia said. "When you see it-"

  "When I see it?" Han interrupted. "You're taking a lot for granted."

  Chewbacca stopped monitoring the incoming assault shuttle long enough to turn and growl.

  "I know she's my wife," Han said. "That doesn't mean I'm responsible for dragging us out here. I can't control what she does."

  Chewbacca dropped his eyes in exasperation, then awrooed at Han... twice.

  "Me? I'm being Huttish?"

  Chewbacca snorted an affirmative, turned back to the sensors, and reported that the TIEs were starting to accelerate ahead of the assault shuttle. Han spent a moment considering his copilot's charge, then glanced at Leia again.

  "Me?" he asked. "Huttish?"

  Leia held her thumb and forefinger a few millimeters apart. "Maybe," she said. "Just a little."

  Han's expression turned from disbelieving to chagrined. He nudged the Falcon's nose back toward Tatooine, angling for the planet horizon, where the twin suns were casting a crescent of white brilliance.

  "I'm not doing this for the council," he said. "I'm doing it for you."

  "I know you are." Leia's smile was perhaps a little too broad, and she could not resist adding, "And the council is grateful." Han scowled, but his retort was cut short when the comm speakers crackled to life.

  "CEC transport Regina Galas" a gruff Imperial voice said. "Maintain position and stand by for inspection."

  Regina Galas was one of a dozen false transponder codes the Falcon used when traveling anonymously. Han turned to C-3PO.

  "You're on, Goldenrod."

  C-3PO tipped his head. "On, Master Solo?"

  "Stall." Han pointed to the microphone above the auxiliary navicomputer interface. "Try Gand. They'll have to rig for ammonia, and that'll buy us some time."

  "Of course," C-3PO said. "Perhaps I should suggest-"

  "Regina Galas," a smoother voice said. "This is the Star Destroyer Chimaera. Stand by for boarding, or we will open fire." "Threepio!" Leia pointed at the comm unit.

  C-3PO activated the transmitter and used his vocabulator to emit a staccato burst of drones and clicks. There was a long pause while the Imperials summoned a translator droid.

  Han smiled, satisfied, and rose from the pilot's chair. "You know what to do, Chewie."

  Chewbacca groaned and took the yoke, continuing to angle for the bright crescent at the planet horizon. Han reached past C-3PO's shoulder and linked the comm speakers to the Falcon's intercom, then motioned for Leia to join him.

  "I'll need you in back with me," he said. Leia unbuckled her crash webbing, her heart rising into her throat. "Han, I don't know if shooting our way out of this-

  "Do I look like a gundark?" he asked. "If we shoot, we're dead."

  Happy to know they agreed, Leia followed him down the access to the rear hold. By the time they opened the hatch, the Imperials were back on the channel with their translator droid, and it was conversing with C-3PO in a cacophony of buzzes and clacks. Han retrieved a small cargo pod, then took it into the main ring corridor and opened one of the smuggling compartments in the floor. He began to extract the cases of fine Chandrilan brandy that he kept to pay off spaceport masters, passing them to Leia to stow in the cargo pod.

  "What are we going to do, bomb them with intoxicants?" "You might say that," Han said. "It's called 'bribe-on-the-run.' This stuff is good currency, especially to a junior officer who probably hasn't seen a payment voucher in months."

  "Han, didn't you hear what I said about Pellaeon?" Leia asked. "He won't go for that."

  Han smiled. "He won't have to."

  By the time he explained the details to Leia, the cargo pod was loaded and the Chimaera's officer was back on the comm channel, sounding as irritated as only C-3PO could make a sentient.

  "Regina Galas pilot, our droid assures me there is no reason a Gand can't speak Basic."

  C-3PO replied with a long rattle of a question. There was a momentary translation delay, then the officer replied, "My point is that I know you understand our instructions.

  Maintain position or you will be fired upon. Our targeting computers have you locked in."

  Leia nearly fell as Chewbacca suddenly decelerated and started what felt like a turn back toward the Chimaera. She knew it was really a maneuver to put the assault shuttle between them and the Star Destroyer's powerful turbolasers. Han and Chewbacca had been running Imperial checkpoints since before there was a Rebellion. They knew every smuggler's trick in the data banks-and a few more.

  "I said maintain position, not come about," the Chimaera officer barked. "And speak Basic!"

  C-3PO replied with a stream of flustered clicking. Han and Leia chuckled with appreciation; they knew how frustrating the droid could be when he was agitated. They sealed the pod and ejected it through the air lock. When they returned to the engineering station in the main hold and brought the tactical array up on the display, Chewbacca had already brought the Falcon around and was accelerating away, with the assault shuttle now squarely between them and the Chimaera.

  The officer began to yell. "Halt! Halt, or we'll open fire!" "Open fire?" C-3PO said, still in the voice of a Gand but now speaking Basic. "Oh my!"

  Chewbacca closed the channel and, laughing so hard his roars rumbled out the cockpit access tunnel, continued to accelerate. Unable to make good on the officer's threats without risking her own assault shuttle, the Chimaera held her fire. The Falcon's new bearing ran roughly parallel to Tatooine's surface instead of toward it. But knew that once they were beyond turbolaser range, or masked the electromagnetic blast of the twin suns, Chewbacca would turn. Leia continued to watch the tactical display, expecting the Star Destroyer to maneuver for a clear shot or divert her shuttle, but she did neither.

  "Good," Han said. "They think we're just spice runners. They'll stop to collect our jettisoned cargo, and then we're home free. The boarding officer won't want prisoners around to tell Pellaeon what was really in the pod."

  "You're sure about that?"

  Leia watched with growing alarm as the three TIEs passed the cargo pod, now angling to put themselves betwee
n Tatooine and their quarry. As long as Chewbacca continued on a straight course, they would be unable to catch the Falcon-but the instant she turned toward the planet, the TIEs would be in good position to cut her off.

  "They don't look all that interested in a bribe."

  Han studied the display, his jaw falling a little more with each kilometer the TIEs put between themselves and the ejected cargo. For a moment, it looked as though the assault shuttle would also ignore the pod and stay behind the Falcon. Then a tractor beam activated in its stern, and it veered toward the bribe. Han sighed in relief, but grabbed Leia's hand and started for the laser cannon access tunnel.

  "C'mon."

  "Han, what happened to no shooting?" Despite her protest, Leia allowed herself to be dragged along. " 'If we shoot, we're dead.' You said that. I remember."

  "I say a lot of things." They reached the access tunnel and Han jumped in, not climbing down so much as using the handholds to slow his descent. "But they're trying to grab the pod on the fly. The boarding officer needs us to make this look good, or his commander won't buy our escape."

  Leia was already climbing into the upper turret. "How good?"

  "Good. That Pellaeon must be a real stickler." The Falcon shuddered as Han test-fired his weapons. "Just don't hit anything. Hit something and we're-

  "Dead." Leia buckled herself into the firing seat. "I know." She slipped on the headset and spun her turret toward Tatooine's lambent disk.

  The canopy dimmed against the sapphire flash of an incoming turbolaser strike, and Leia's pulse stopped. She steeled herself to vanish in the crash of heat and light she had been half expecting to take her since the Rebellion began, then saw the tiny block of the assault shuttle silhouetted against the blossom of a distant eruption. "What was that?" Leia gasped.

  Chewbacca's rumbled answer made her stomach go hollow. "They blasted it?" Han cried. "The brandy alone was two thousand credits!"

  "It does eliminate our bribery plan." It was a bit of a struggle to keep her voice even. "What now?"

  Han answered by laying a wall of laser bolts in front of the TIEs. "The shuttle, we can outrun," he said. "But we need to check those fighters. Just don't-"

  "Hit anything." Leia activated her range finder. "I know." At this range, the TIEs were little more than blue barbs of ion efflux. She brought her sensor-augmented sights on-line, and the claw-shaped images of three TIE interceptors appeared on her targeting display. She set her lead ahead of the TIEs an extra length, then another one. She added another half length to be certain, and squeezed the triggers.

  The quad laser cannons fired in diametric sequence to minimize discharge shudder. Even so, the turret shook. Leia checked sights, found the interceptors still trying to cut them off, and fired again. The Falcon was still at maximum range, and the bolts took an eternity to reach their destination. Most winked out well ahead of the TIEs, but some-Han's, she hoped-merged with the blue glow of the starfighters' ion drives. She fixed her gaze on her targeting display and continued to fire, praying that none of the images vanished. The Imperials were accustomed to smugglers running and generally did not work very hard to chase them down, but they would prove a lot more determined with any vessel that actually destroyed one of their own craft.

  The distance between Han's bolts and the TIEs continued to diminish on Leia's display. She cut one of the lengths out of her own targeting lead, and their fire turned to an impenetrable storm. The Imperials lost their nerve and turned toward the Falcon so they could bring their own guns to bear.

  "Barge drivers," Han sneered. "What kind of plastiheads is the Empire recruiting for pilots these days?" The TIEs opened fire, and tiny lances of green light stabbed out of Tatooine's yellow glow. The lines faded to nothingness kilometers shy of the Falcon, but distant blossoms of laser energy began to burgeon against the shields almost before Leia could disengage the lead adjustment on her sights.

  Han's laser cannons began to stitch space alongside the TIEs. Leia followed his lead, and they forced the trio back toward the Star Destroyer. The image on her targeting display switched to true size, and the interceptors became thumb-sized blurs coming dead-on. Chewbacca continued ahead, keeping the assault shuttle between the Falcon's tail and the Chimaera's guns.

  They were going to make it, Leia saw. No Star Destroyer in the galaxy was a match for Han and Chewbacca together. Once Leia and Han forced the TIEs into the Falcon's rear quarter, Chewbacca would hide behind them and dive into Tatooine's atmosphere, and the Chimaera's big guns would be useless-unless Pellaeon cared to attack a whole planet to stop one vessel.

  And even the Imperials would not do that, not unless they knew the true identity of the Regina Galas.

  The TIEs kept closing, swelling to the size of fists in Leia's display. She grew bolder, timing her shots to seize the area vacated by their dodges, forcing the interceptors to slip farther into the Falcon's rear quarter with each swing. Han shaved his attacks even closer, nearly scorching their solar wing panels, daring them to try to cut off the Falcon.

  Then the blast-tinting went black, though not quickly enough to spare Leia a moment of flash blindness as another turbolaser strike-this one much closer than the first-erupted. Her shoulders hit crash webbing as the shock wave bucked the Falcon. Again her pulse stopped, and she hung suspended in that last infinitely long instant between life and atomization, and she did not realize she was still holding her triggers open until the synthetic rumble of the targeting computer announced the destruction of a TIE interceptor.

  Leia cursed and released the triggers, struggling to blink the blast-dazzle from her eyes and not quite able to believe they had survived the strike.

  "Sorry! I didn't mean-"

  Chewbacca cut her off with an astonished yawl.

  "The Chimaera hit it?" Leia gasped. "By mistake?"

  "To make a point." Han's laser cannons opened up again. "She didn't like her TIEs being pushed around."

  Leia checked her display and found the last two interceptors weaving wildly as they rushed for the Falcon's forward quarter. She swung her turret around but was too distracted to open fire safely. Something here did not make sense.

  "Pellaeon would never destroy his own interceptor," she said. "The Empire as too short of good fighters."

  "A lesson the survivors'll never forget." Han's cannon bolts were dancing around the lead TIE in a tightening web of light. "If there are any." Finally, the interceptor had no place left to maneuver and flew into a dash of laser energy, exploding in a white cloud of fire and light. "He's using us as a training mission. I hate that."

  "Han, you said don't hit-

  "Change of plans." Han began to fire at the last TIE. "Now we make it cost them."

  Leia joined in, forcing the TIE into Han's stream of fire. It bobbed and weaved in ever-smaller oscillations, but maintained discipline and continued on course-no doubt mindful of the lesson the Chimaera had delivered earlier.

  Finally, it turned directly toward the Falcon, and the space beyond bloomed into brilliant smears of color as it opened fire. Leia kept her eyes fixed on the targeting display and held her triggers down, spraying bolts at the interceptor in tightening spirals, trying not to think about how large its image was growing, or how her display kept dimming, or why the turret's blast-tinting had gone black. Finally, the TIE had no room left to maneuver. The pilot broke high, his wings and spherical cockpit rotating so smoothly that Leia did not realize he had changed attitude until the cannon bolts stopped coming.

  "He's yours!" Han yelled over the intercom. "Roll me up, Chewie!"

  Leia raised her cannons and thumbed the automatic lead active, but the TIE was already too far ahead. She managed only a few more shots before the computer designated it out of range.

  "That's it, he's been recalled," Han said. "They aren't going to give us any more trouble."

  Leia checked the tactical display and saw the assault shuttle still trailing them. No match for the Falcon's speed, it was out of range and steadily f
alling farther behind, but it was coming.

  "You're sure about that?" Leia asked.

  "I'm sure. Experience isn't much good to dead pilots."

  "What about assault troopers?"

  As Leia spoke, the shuttle broke off pursuit and angled for the planet. Chewbacca was quick to parallel its course, keeping the shuttle between them and the Star Destroyer, now traveling more or less in the direction they wanted to go. Leia kept waiting for the shuttle to turn toward the Chimaera, to weave or bob or try anything to give the turbolasers a clear shot, but it only continued its dive toward the planet, still angling in the Falcon's direction. Leia swung her turret around, unsure whether she should thank the shuttle pilot or open fire.

  Han figured it out before she did. "Chewie, cut behind them! Go sandside, fast!"