[Dark Nest] - 3(74)
Leia leaned over and grabbed Han’s hand. “Han, I love-“
The barrage vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving nothing ahead of the Falcon but the blotchy red surface of Tenupe’s moon.
“Yeah, me, too.” Han pulled the throttles back to the overload stops, gripping the handles tightly to keep his hands from shaking. “See what I mean? They killed that barrage to keep from vaping us.”
“Yes. Okay. I believe you.” Leia’s voice was still shaky. “They promised someone not to kill us.”
“Yeah.” Han’s tone was bitter. “I wonder who that could have been?”
“You’re thinking Omas?”
“That’s the only thing that makes sense,” Han said. “Cal Omas would sacrifice us in a minute if he thought it would convince the Chiss that the Alliance isn’t at war with the Ascendancy.”
Leia shook her head. “Why would he bother making them promise to keep us alive?”
“Because he needs the Jedi, too,” Han said. The moon ahead had swelled into a lumpy, fist-sized ovoid laced with a spidery web of dark rifts. “And if his double cross ever comes out, Omas would never be able to make peace with Luke if we were dead.”
Leia frowned. “Maybe …”
“Look, it’s either him or Pellaeon or someone in the Jedi,” Han said. “And Pellaeon never double-crossed anyone, even when he was an Imperial.”
“I guess, when you put it like that.”
Leia still sounded doubtful, but their discussion was interrupted by Jagged Fel’s astonished voice.
“I’m finally starting to understand Jaina,” he said. “Insanity runs in her family. Only a madman would attempt a planet-skip in a damaged ship.”
“Han’s not crazy,” Leia said. “Just good.”
“I’m sure you believe that, Princess Leia,” Jagged said. “But I’m warning-no, I’m advising-you not to attempt taking refuge in that moon cluster.”
“Moon cluster?” Han peered more closely at the red lump ahead and saw that the rifts might, indeed, be interstitial spaces. He deactivated his Comm microphone, then asked, “What the blazes is that?”
“I’ll find out,” Leia said, reaching for the terrain mappers. “In the meantime, stall.”
“Stall Jag?” Han turned his microphone back on, then commed, “Thanks for the advice, Jag, but we were planning on going around anyway.”
“Really?” Jagged sounded smug. “Then the Falcon must be even faster than Jaina always claimed.”
Han glanced down at his tactical display and saw that the Zark Squadron had taken advantage of his planet-skip to put on their own burst of acceleration. They had stopped firing-a sign that they now felt certain of a successful capture-and were arrayed in a semisphere around the Falcon. The squadron’s escort was not far behind, and the Star Destroyers had already closed to within tractor beam range of the moon cluster’s near side.
Han cursed under his breath, but said, “Just watch, kid. You’ll be surprised.”
“I have no doubt,” Jagged said. “But please believe me about the moon cluster. It’s gravitationally unstable. Every one of our scoutships has been smashed flat. You’ll be much safer surrendering to us, and I give you my word that we won’t torture or humiliate you during your interrogations.”
“Thanks, that’s real good of you,” Han said. “Let me think it over for a second.”
Han closed the comm channel, then experimented with the yoke, pushing it around and feeling almost no reaction from the Falcon.
“How bad is it?” Leia asked. She was still staring at the terrain mapper, frowning and adjusting the controls.
“Bad,” Han said. “How about those moons?”
“Even worse than he said.” Leia looked out at the moons, which were close enough now for her to see that they were all shifting around, bumping against each other. “It looks like something shattered the old moon into fifty or sixty pieces. It must still be in there, because I’m detecting …”
Leia let her sentence trail off, then gasped and stared out the viewport.
“Yeah?” Han asked.
Leia raised her hand to quiet him, then closed her
eyes
in concentration.
Han frowned and leaned over to look at the terrain scanners. He saw only the shattered moon she had described, with a density reading near the center that suggested a metallic core-probably whatever had shattered it in the first place. He tried to be patient, waiting for Leia to do whatever Jedi thing she was preparing, but they were running out of time. The two Star Destroyers had activated their tractor beams and were already reaching out toward the moon cluster, trying to block any chance the Falcon had of slipping into one of the crevices.