“I’m sure that will prove useful in the future,” Pellaeon offered diplomatically.
“I doubt it,” Thrawn said, in that same wistful voice. “I wound up destroying their world.”
Pellaeon swallowed. “Yes, sir,” he said, starting again for the door. He winced only a little as he passed the sculpture.
Chapter 16
There was no dreaming in the Jedi hibernation trance. No dreaming, no consciousness, virtually no awareness of the outside world. It was very much like a coma, in fact, except for one interesting anomaly: despite the absence of true consciousness, Luke’s time sense still somehow managed to function. He didn’t understand it, exactly, but it was something he’d learned to recognize and use.
It was that time sense, coupled with Artoo’s frantic gurgling in the foggy distance, that was his first hint something was wrong.
“All right, Artoo, I’m awake,” he reassured the droid as he worked his way back toward consciousness. Blinking the gummy feeling out of his eyes, he gave the instruments a quick scan. The readings confirmed what his time sense had already told him: the X-wing had come out of hyperspace nearly twenty light-years short of Jomark. The proximity indicator registered two ships practically on top of him ahead, with a third off to one side in the distance. Still blinking, he raised his head for a look.
And with a rush of adrenaline came fully awake. Directly ahead of him was what looked like a light freighter, a blazing overload in its engine section visible through crumpled and half-vaporized hull plates. Beyond it, looming like a dark cliff face, was an Imperial Star Destroyer.
Anger, fear, aggression-the dark side of the Force are they. With an effort, Luke forced down his fear. The freighter was between him and the Star Destroyer; concentrating on their larger prey, the Imperials might not even have noticed his arrival. “Let’s get out of here, Artoo,” he said, keying the controls back to manual and swinging the X-wing hard around. The etheric rudder whined in protest with the turn-
“Unidentified starfighter,” a harsh voice boomed from the speaker. “This is the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera. Transmit your identification code and state your business.”
So much for hoping he wouldn’t be noticed. In the distance now, Luke could see what it was that had yanked the X-wing out of hyperspace: the third ship was an Interdictor Cruiser, the Empire’s favorite tool for keeping opponents from jumping to lightspeed. Obviously, they’d been lying in wait for the freighter; it was just his bad luck that he’d run across the Interdictor’s projected mass shadow and been kicked out of hyperspace along with it.
The freighter. Closing his eyes briefly with concentration, Luke reached out with the Force, trying to discover whether it was a Republic ship, a neutral, or even a pirate that the Chimaera had caught. But there was no hint of any life aboard. Either the crew had escaped, or else they’d already been taken prisoner.
Either way, there was nothing Luke could do for them now. “Artoo, find me the nearest edge of that Interdictor’s gravitywave cone,” he ordered, throwing the X-wing into a stomach-churning downward drop that even the acceleration compensator couldn’t quite handle. If he could keep the freighter directly between him and the Star Destroyer, he might be able to get out of range before they could bring a tractor beam to bear.
“Unidentified starfighter.” The harsh voice was starting to get angry. “I repeat, transmit your identification code or prepare to be detained.”
“Should have brought one of Han’s false ID codes with me,” Luke muttered to himself. “Artoo? Where’s that edge estimate?”
The droid beeped, and a diagram appeared on the computer scope. “That far, huh?” Luke murmured. “Well, nothing to do but go for it. Hang on.”
“Unidentified starfighter-“
The rest of the harangue was drowned out by the roar of the drive as Luke abruptly kicked the ship to full power. Almost lost in the noise was Artoo’s questioning trilling. “No, I want the deflector shields down,” Luke shouted back. “We need the extra speed.”
He didn’t add that if the Star Destroyer was really serious about vaporizing them, the presence or absence of shields wouldn’t matter much at this range, anyway. But Artoo probably already knew that.
But if the Imperials didn’t seem interested in vaporizing him out of hand, neither were they willing to just let him go. On the rear scope, he could see the Star Destroyer moving up and over the damaged freighter, trying to get clear of its interference.
Luke threw a quick look at the proximity indicator. He was still within tractor beam range, and at their current relative speeds would remain so for the next couple of minutes. What he needed was some way to distract or blind them …