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.