"Tell me again," he invited Leia, "about Lando and crazy schemes?"
She shook her head wordlessly . . . and even Han, who'd more or less known what to expect, had to admit the view was stunning. Huge, humpbacked, blazing with thousands of lights in the darkside gloom, the mining complex looked like some sort of exotic monstrous living creature as it lumbered its way across the terrain, dwarfing the low ridges over which it walked. Searchlights crisscrossed the area in front of it; a handful of tiny ships buzzed like insect parasites around its back or scuttered across the ground in front of its feet.
It took Han's brain a handful of seconds to resolve the monster into its component parts: the old Dreadnaught Cruiser on top, the forty captured Imperial AT-ATs underneath carrying it across the ground, the shuttles and pilot vehicles moving around and in front of it.
Somehow, knowing what it was didn't make it the least bit less impressive.
The transmitter crackled again. "Unidentified ship," a familiar voice said, "welcome to Nomad City. What's this about playing a hand of sabacc?"
Han grinned lopsidedly. "Hello, Lando. We were just talking about you."
"I'll bet," Lando said wryly. "Probably remarking on my business skills and creativity."
"Something like that," Han told him. "Any special trick involved in landing on that thing?"
"Not really," the other assured them. "We're only going a few kilometers an hour, after all. Is that Luke in the X-wing?"
"Yes, I'm here," Luke put in before Han could answer. "This place is amazing, Lando."
"Wait till you see it from the inside. It's about time you people came to visit, I might add. Are Leia and Chewie with you?"
"We're all here," Leia said.
"It's not exactly a social call," Han warned him. "We need a little help."
"Well, sure," Lando said, with just the slightest bit of hesitation. "Anything I can do. Look, I'm in Project Central at the moment, supervising a difficult dig. I'll have someone meet you on the landing platform and bring you down here. Don't forget there's no air here-make sure you wait for the docking tube to connect before you try popping the hatch."
"Right," Han said. "Make sure your reception committee is someone you can trust."
Another slight pause. "Oh?" Lando asked, casually. "Is there something-?"
He was cut off by a sudden electronic squeal from the transmitter. "What's that?" Leia snapped.
"Someone's jamming us," Han growled, jabbing at the transmitter cutoff. The squealing vanished, leaving an unpleasant ringing in his ears as he keyed for intercom. "Chewie, we've got trouble," he called. "Get up here."
He got an acknowledgment, turned back to the transmitter. "Get us a scan of the area," he told Leia. "See if there's anything coming in."
"Right," Leia said, already working the keys. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to find us a clear frequency." He pulled the Falcon out of its approach vector, made sure they had an open field around them, then turned the transmitter back on, keeping the volume low. There were freq-scanning and mixing tricks that he'd used in the past against this kind of jamming. The question now was whether he was going to have the time to implement them.
Abruptly, much quicker than he'd expected, the squeal dissolved into a voice. "-peating: any ships who can read me, please check in."
"Lando, it's me," Han called. "What's going on?"
"I'm not sure," Lando said, sounding distracted. "It could be just a solar flare scrambling our communications-that happens sometimes. But the pattern here doesn't seem quite right for . . ."
His voice trailed off. "What?" Han demanded.
There was a faint hiss from the speaker, the sound of someone inhaling deeply. "Imperial Star Destroyer," Lando said quietly. "Coming in fast toward the planetary shadow."
Han looked at Leia, saw her face turn to stone as she looked back at him. "They've found us," she whispered.
Chapter 13
"I see it, Artoo, I see it," Luke soothed. "Let me worry about the Star Destroyer; you just keep trying to find a way through that jamming."
The little droid warbled a nervous-sounding acknowledgment and got back to work. Ahead, the Millennium Falcon had pulled out of its landing approach and was swinging back on what looked like an intercept course for the approaching ship. Hoping Han knew what he was doing, Luke keyed the X-wing for attack status and followed. Leia? he called silently.
Her response contained no words; but the anger and frustration and quiet fear came through all too clearly. Hang on, I'm with you, he told her, putting as much reassurance and confidence into the thought as he could.
A confidence which, he had to admit, he didn't particularly feel. The Star Destroyer itself didn't worry him-if Lando's descriptions of the sunlight's intensity were right, the big ship itself was probably helpless by now, its sensors and maybe even a fair amount of its armament vaporized right off its hull.
But the TIE fighters protected in its hangars weren't so handicapped . . . and as soon as the ship reached Nkllon's shadow, those fighters would be free to launch.
Abruptly, the static cleared. "Luke?"
"I'm here," Luke confirmed. "What's the plan?"
"I was hoping you'd have one," the other said dryly. "Looks like we're a little outnumbered here."
"Does Lando have any fighters?"
"He's scrambling what he's got, but he's going to keep them close in to protect the complex. I get the feeling the crews aren't all that experienced."
"Looks like we're the attack front, then," Luke said. A stray memory flicked through his mind: walking into Jabba's palace on Tatooine five years ago, using the Force to befuddle the Gamorrean guards. "Let's try this," he told Han. "I'll run ahead of you, try to confuse or slow down their reflexes as much as I can. You follow right behind me and take them out."
"Sounds as good as we're going to get," Han grunted. "Stay close to the ground; with luck, we'll be able to run some of them into those low ridges."
"But don't get too low," Leia warned. "Remember that you're not going to be able to concentrate very much on your flying."
"I can handle both," Luke assured her, giving the instruments one last scan. His first space combat as a full Jedi. Distantly, he wondered if this was how the Jedi of the Old Republic had handled such battles. Or even if they'd fought like this at all.
"Here they come," Han announced. "Out of the hangar and on their way. Looks like . . . probably only one squadron. Overconfident."
"Maybe." Luke frowned at his tactical scope. "What are those other ships with them?"
"I don't know," Han said slowly. "They're pretty big, though. Could be troop carriers."
"Let's hope not." If this was a full-scale invasion, and not just another hit-and-fade like at Bpfassh . . . "You'd better warn Lando."
"Leia's on it. You ready?"
Luke took a deep breath. The TIE fighters had formed into three four-ship groups now, sweeping directly toward them. "I'm ready," he said.
"Okay. Let's do it."
The first group was coming in fast. Half closing his eyes, flying entirely on reflex, Luke reached out with the Force.
It was a strange sensation. Strange, and more than a little unpleasant. To touch another mind with the intent of communication was one thing; to touch that same mind with the intent of deliberately distorting its perception was something else entirely.
He'd had a similar feeling at Jabba's, with those guards, but had put it down then to nervousness about his mission to rescue Han. Now, he realized that there was more to it than that. Perhaps this sort of action-even done purely in self-defense-was dangerously close to the edge of the dark areas where Jedi were forbidden to go.
He wondered why neither Yoda nor Ben had ever told him about this. Wondered what else there was about being a Jedi that he was going to have to discover on his own.
Luke?
Dimly, he felt himself being jammed into his straps as he twitched the X-wing to one side. The voic
e whispering into his mind . . . "Ben?" he called aloud. It didn't sound like Ben Kenobi; but if it wasn't him, then who-?
You will come to me, Luke, the voice said again. You must come to me. I will await you.
Who are you? Luke asked, focusing as much of his strength on the contact as he could without risking a crash. But the other mind was too elusive to track, skittering away like a bubble in a hurricane. Where are you?
You will find me. Even as Luke strained, he could feel the contact slipping away. You will find me . . . and the Jedi shall rise again. Until then, farewell.
Wait! But the call was fading into nothingness. Clenching his teeth, Luke strained . . . and gradually began to realize that another, more familiar voice was calling his name. "Leia?" he croaked back through a mouth that was inexplicably dry.
"Luke, are you all right?" Leia asked anxiously.
"Sure," he said. His voice sounded better this time. "I'm fine. What's wrong?"
"You're what's wrong," Han cut in. "You planning to chase them all the way home?"
Luke blinked, looking around in surprise. The buzzing TIE fighters were gone, leaving nothing but bits of wreckage strewn across the landscape. On his scope, he could see that the Star Destroyer had left Nkllon's shadow again, driving hard away from the planet toward a point far enough out of the gravity well for a lightspeed jump. Beyond it, a pair of miniature suns were approaching: two of Lando's shieldships, belatedly arriving-now that it was too late-to assist in the fight. "It's all over?" he asked stupidly.
"It's all over," Leia assured him. "We got two of the TIE fighters before the rest disengaged and retreated."
"What about the troop carriers?"
"They went back with the fighters," Han said. "We still don't know what they were doing here-we sort of lost track of them during the fight. Didn't look like they ever went very close to the city itself, though."
Luke took a deep breath, glanced at the X-wing's chrono. In and among all of that, he'd somehow lost over half an hour. Half an hour that his internal time sense had no recollection of whatsoever. Could that strange Jedi contact really have lasted that long?
It was something he would have to look into. Very carefully.
On the main bridge screen, showing as little more than a bright spot against Nkllon's dark backdrop, the Judicator made its jump to lightspeed. "They're clear, Admiral," Pellaeon announced, looking over at Thrawn.
"Good." The Grand Admiral gave the other displays an almost lazy examination, though there was little to worry about this far out in the Athega system. "So," he said, swiveling his chair around. "Master C'baoth?"
"They fulfilled their mission," C'baoth said, that strangely taut expression on his face again. "They obtained fifty-one of the mole miner machines you sent them for."
"Fifty-one," Thrawn repeated with obvious satisfaction. "Excellent. You had no problem guiding them in and out?"
C'baoth focused his eyes on Thrawn. "They fulfilled their mission," he repeated. "How many times do you intend to ask me the same question?"
"Until I'm sure I have the correct answer," Thrawn replied coolly. "For a while there your face looked as if you were having trouble."
"I had no trouble, Grand Admiral Thrawn," C'baoth said loftily. "What I had was conversation." He paused, a slight smile on his face. "With Luke Skywalker."
"What are you talking about?" Pellaeon snorted. "Current intelligence reports indicate that Skywalker is-"
He broke off at a gesture from Thrawn. "Explain," the Grand Admiral said.
C'baoth nodded toward the display. "He's there right now, Grand Admiral Thrawn. He arrived on Nkllon just ahead of the Judicator."
Thrawn's glowing red eyes narrowed. "Skywalker is on Nkllon?" he asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
"In the very center of the battle," C'baoth told him, very clearly enjoying the Grand Admiral's discomfiture.
"And you said nothing to me?" Thrawn demanded in that same deadly voice.
C'baoth's smile vanished. "I told you before, Grand Admiral Thrawn: you will leave Skywalker alone. I will deal with him-in my own time, in my own way. All I require of you is the fulfillment of your promise to take me to Jomark."
For a long moment Thrawn gazed at the Jedi Master, his eyes glowing red slits, his face hard and totally unreadable. Pellaeon held his breath . . . "It's too soon," the Grand Admiral said at last.
C'baoth snorted. "Why? Because you find my talents too useful to give up?"
"Not at all," Thrawn said, his voice icy. "It's a simple matter of efficiency. The rumors of your presence haven't had enough time to spread. Until we can be sure Skywalker will respond, you'll just be wasting your time there."
A strangely dreamy look seeped onto C'baoth's face. "Oh, he'll respond," he said softly. "Trust me, Grand Admiral Thrawn. He will respond."
"I always trust you," Thrawn said sardonically. He reached a hand up to stroke the ysalamir draped over his command chair, as if to remind the Jedi Master just how far he trusted him. "At any rate, I suppose it's your own time to waste. Captain Pellaeon, how long will it take to repair the damage to the Judicator?"
"Several days at the least, Admiral," Pellaeon told him. "Depending on the damage, it could take as long as three or four weeks."
"All right. We'll go to the rendezvous point, stay with them long enough to make sure repairs are properly underway, and then take Master C'baoth to Jomark. I trust that will be satisfactory?" he added, looking back at C'baoth.
"Yes." Carefully, C'baoth unfolded himself from his chair and stood up. "I will rest now, Grand Admiral Thrawn. Alert me if you need my assistance."
"Certainly."
Thrawn watched the other wend his way back across the bridge; and as the doors slid solidly shut behind him, the Grand Admiral turned to Pellaeon. Pellaeon braced himself, trying not to wince. "I want a course projection, Captain," Thrawn said, his voice cold but steady. "The most direct line from Nkllon to Jomark, at the best speed a hyperdrive-equipped X-wing could take it."
"Yes, Admiral." Pellaeon signaled to the navigator, who nodded and got busy. "You think he's right about Skywalker going there?"
Thrawn shrugged fractionally. "The Jedi had ways of influencing people, Captain, even over considerable distances. It's possible that even out here he was close enough to Skywalker to plant a suggestion or compulsion. Whether those techniques will work on another Jedi-" He shrugged again. "We'll see."
"Yes, sir." The numbers were starting to track across Pellaeon's display now. "Well, even if Skywalker leaves Nkllon immediately, there won't be any problem getting C'baoth to Jomark ahead of him."
"I knew that much already, Captain," Thrawn said. "What I need is a bit more challenging. We're going to drop C'baoth off on Jomark, then backtrack to a point on Skywalker's projected course. A point at least twenty light-years away, I think."
Pellaeon frowned at him. The expression on Thrawn's face made the back of his neck tingle . . . "I don't understand, sir," he said carefully.
The glowing eyes regarded him thoughtfully. "It's quite simple, Captain. I mean to disabuse our great and glorious Jedi Master of his growing belief that he's indispensable to us."
Pellaeon got it then. "So we wait along Skywalker's projected approach to Jomark and ambush him?"