Showdown at Centerpoint (24 page)

*   *   *

Gaeriel Captison stood on the hangar deck of the
Sentinel,
next to the
Lady Luck
. “I don’t think there’s any argument about what we should do,” she said. “We go on to Drall, and rendezvous with the
Intruder.
”

“Absolutely,” said Lando. “If someone has already found a repulsor there, that is the place to be.”

“Not for me it isn’t,” said Jenica. “
Sentinel
and
Defender
are keeping watch on Centerpoint Station, and I’m the closest thing to an expert on Centerpoint they’re going to get. I stay here.”

Lando nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “Lieutenant Kalenda, what about you?”

Kalenda cocked her left eyebrow up a bit and shook her head slightly. “A tough call,” she said. “But at this point, I’d say my place is with Admiral Ossilege.”

So you can keep an eye on him?
Lando wondered. “Good enough,” he said. “Get aboard, then.”

“What about me?” Threepio asked. “Shall I continue on with you? It is more likely that my language skills will be more useful on a trip to Drall than here.”

Lando was sorely tempted to refuse and leave Threepio behind. But the irritating thing was that the droid might be right. Suppose they got to the repulsor and encountered Drall who didn’t speak Basic? “Get aboard,” he growled. Threepio trotted up the access ramp.

Gaeriel and Kalenda said their farewells to Jenica and boarded the
Lady Luck
. Lando waited just a moment
before going aboard. There was something more he wanted to say to Jenica Sonsen, something he might not get the chance to say again. And by the amused look on her face, it seemed as if she was expecting
him
to say something. In fact, she said it first. “Is this the part where you tell me how you never met anyone like me, and how you want to get to know me better? That sort of thing? Maybe something about how we’ve been through a lot together, we’ve made a connection, and we shouldn’t just let it drift away? Some nice, smooth line a lady couldn’t help but fall for?”

Lando couldn’t quite tell if she was mocking him or daring him, warning him off or urging him on. The strange thing was it didn’t matter. He had been shot down in romance plenty of times before, but there was a little piece of him that felt quite sure this would not have been one of those times. But this time, there wasn’t going to be a this time.

Lando sighed and shook his head. “There was a time, not very long ago, when I would have said those words, and meant every one of them—at least, while I was saying them, even if I sort of forgot them later. The problem is, I did say something very like them to another lady, very recently, and I
did
mean it at the time. The funny thing is, for the first time in my life, I’m catching myself
still
meaning it. I might even mean it for a long, long time. So I’m afraid I’m going to have to back off.”

Jenica looked surprised—though not half as surprised as Lando felt. “You know,” she said, “that might be the classiest speech of its kind on record. I think you’ve got yourself a very lucky lady out there, and I don’t mean the
Lady Luck.
” She stuck out her hand to shake, and Lando took it. “Take care of yourself, Lando. I must admit I almost wish you
had
made a play for me—just so I could know for sure what I would have done about it. Now I guess I’ll never know.”

Lando smiled back, his broadest, most charming grin that showed every tooth in his head. “Neither will I,” he said. “You take care of yourself too.” He let go of her hand, boarded the
Lady Luck,
and made his way to the pilot’s station.

Gaeriel was waiting in the starboard observer’s seat, and Kalenda was at the copilot’s station. “So,” said Kalenda as she ran the preflight check, “is she going to let you call her?” Her eyes never left the instruments, but there was just the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. Lando wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a very un-ex-Prime-Ministerial giggle from behind him as he sat down.

“Excuse me?” he asked.

“Call her. You asked if you could look her up after this was all over. Did she say yes or no?”

Lando felt himself blushing. Had it been that obvious? Was his reputation that bad? “Um, ah, well—if you
have
to know, she asked if I was going to ask, and I said I couldn’t. Promises made elsewhere.”

This time Kalenda did turn away from the instruments, to look straight at him. “You’re kidding,” she said, that disconcerting over-her-shoulder gaze of hers throwing him more than a little off.

“Ah, no,” said Lando. “I’m not. I don’t know why I should tell you any of this at all, but that’s what happened. Trader’s Honor.”

Kalenda let out a low whistle and shook her head. “Well then, Madame Prime Minister. It looks like our little bet is off. Captain Calrissian, why don’t you get us out of here?”

“Uh, um—right, yes,” said Lando. He finished his own preflight check and gently lifted the
Lady
up onto her repulsors. There were definitely times and places when he realized that he still had a lot to learn about women.

The
Lady Luck
left the hangar deck, gathered speed, and headed for Drall—and for the
Intruder
.

*   *   *

Luke Skywalker eased the X-wing’s throttle up to maximum thrust and kept it there. The dance of the orbits had put Selonia just about as close to Centerpoint and the Double Worlds as it ever got, but the distances were still great—and he was in a hurry. He, too, had wondered what the absence of the
Intruder
had meant, but he had no time to worry about it. He had a job and a duty. Bovo Yagen, and its millions of people. Now, at last, they had at least a hope of saving them. And if—if—they could stop the destruction of Bovo Yagen, it might well mark the beginning of the end for the starbuster plot and the rebellions on the worlds of the Corellian system.

But the galaxy had little interest in
ifs
. The universe concerned itself with what
did
happen, not with what
might
. They had a slender chance here, but that was all. And the survival of those twelve million people might well depend on how fast he got to Selonia, and Leia.

Twelve million people
. Luke remembered thinking, not so long ago, that in the galactic time scale, what happened here scarcely mattered at all. All of recorded history, all the days of myth and legend before that time, were a blink in the cosmic eye. But twelve million people, twelve million lives. That many hopes, that many dreams and pasts, that many families, that many memories and histories that would vanish as well, as if they had never been. All the unborn generations that would never be born, all the promise, all the potential, that would be gone, stolen from the galaxy’s future.

Surely it was wrong to destroy a star, something that old, that big, that powerful and complex and beautiful, just for the sake of some transient political advantage.

Luke smiled. No one was going to use supernovas as weapons. Not during
his
eye blink of history. Not if he could help it.

Artoo beeped and whirred in tones of warning, and Luke checked his display screens. “Oh, boy,” he said,
“company.” A flight of eight Light Attack Fighters was climbing out of orbit to meet him. It was not the sort of trouble Luke needed just now. Maybe he could scare them off without getting too involved.

Luke eased back the throttle of the X-wing and zeroed out his shields completely, shunting all the surplus engine and shield energy to his weapons system.

Artoo let out a twittering squeal of protest. “Take it easy, Artoo. I’ll have the shields back up before we’re in range of their weapons.” Luke had flown against LAFs not so long ago. He knew what they could do—and what they could not. The LAFs were overmatched by the basic X-wing, but not to the point where he cared to take his chances against eight LAFs single-handed. The best way for Luke to win this fight was to avoid it altogether.

The trick now would be to convince them that Luke and his enhanced X-wing fighter put together were unbeatable rather than just very good.

Luke reached out with the Force, extending his senses as far as he could, touching the minds of the Selonian fighter pilots, seeking not to manipulate their emotional state but to judge it. The Selonian temperament, with its desire for group consensus, was not one much given over to the strains of battle. They did better when fighting alone, on behalf of a group, rather than as part of a group fighting side by side.

He felt at once that the Selonian pilots were nervous, jumpy, unsure. From two or three of their minds he detected the sensation of returning to a place of doom and fear. At a guess, those were veterans of the recent fight against the Bakurans, veterans who had just barely come back.

It was enough. If Luke did this right, then everyone would come back from this one. They might not enjoy it, but they’d be alive.

Luke checked his power displays. Weapons power was at maximum. Luke shifted all his shield generation power and weapons-charging power into the propulsion
system, and throttled up to a hundred twenty percent of maximum rated thrust. The X-wing leapt toward the LAFs at terrifying speed. Two of the LAFs fired at him, panicky unaimed shots that went completely wild. One of them nearly shot his own wingman.

Luke knew the chance he was taking, flying without shields. If one of those random shots turned lucky and managed to connect—well, that would be too bad.

Best to try to get this over with before anything like that could happen. This one would require all his skill, all his ability in the Force—and a fair amount of luck as well. Luke disengaged the firing computer, shut his eyes, and aimed the X-wing by feel, by instinct, through the Force. Once, twice, three times, he fired. Three turbolaser bursts leapt out. One, two, three, the bursts hit the LAFs, catching each of them square on the ventral weapons pod. Suddenly three of the LAFs could fly, but could not fight.

It was flying, and shooting, intended to send a message.
I am faster than you, bigger than you, have better weapons than you, and can shoot from farther away. I could destroy you all if I chose to do so. I do not so choose. Do not make me change my mind
.

The three veterans got the message right away, it seemed, reversing course immediately and heading for home. Two of the other LAFs hesitated for a moment, then followed the others.

That left three to deal with, and three was a lot better than eight. On the other hand, it left him facing the three pilots who were hardest to scare. The three of them were headed for him in a face-on triangle, one fighter at each angle of the triangle. They were rapidly closing to firing range. Luke throttled back enough to let him put his forward shields back on, but he didn’t switch power back to weapons charging. One way or another, this engagement would be over before his weapons systems ran out of stored power.

Suddenly Artoo began to whistle excitedly, and a
text message began to scroll past Luke’s display screen, much too fast for Luke to follow. “Artoo, what is it?”

The droid’s half-frantic beeping and whistling sounded in Luke’s headphones. Luke checked his detector display, saw the three LAFs closing fast, and made a quick, easy decision about priorities. “Artoo, later,” Luke said. “I’ve got another problem right now. Whatever it is, it’s going to have to wait.”

These three pilots weren’t easy to scare, but they weren’t the best tacticians, either. They were bunched up too close, too tight. A shot that missed one of them was almost bound to hit one of the others. Maybe he could use that. But he would have to do it before he got in under their firing range.

Still unwilling to kill without need, Luke thought fast. Suddenly he thought he saw a way. He switched the fire control selector from
LASER
to
TORPEDO
, and rapidly punched in a series of commands, reprogramming one proton torpedo for distant proximity fusing.

Suddenly all three LAFs fired at once, concentrated volley fire. It would seem the LAF pilots were managing to coordinate their fire in spite of the communications jamming. Maybe these pilots knew their business better than he thought.

The laser blasts slammed into the X-wing, and Luke gave thanks that he had thought to reactivate the shields when he did. The X-wing’s forward shields handled the multiple hits, but just barely.

Luke knew he had to get out of here, and fast, if he was going to live through this. One last trick. He fired the reprogrammed proton torpedo square into the center of the LAF formation. The X-wing shuddered slightly as the torpedo leapt away.

Part of what Luke was counting on was the element of surprise. No one used proton torpedoes in fighter-to-fighter encounters. They were slower and less accurate—but more powerful—than turbolasers, intended for use against bigger targets.

The three LAFs fired in volley again, the incoming
laser blasts streaking past the outgoing torpedo. Luke’s X-wing shuddered from stem to stern as the second laser volley slammed into it. Luke checked his shields and shook his head. The next volley would punch through his shield for sure.

Luke cut his engines, letting the X-wing move on its own forward momentum alone. Let them think he had lost engine power. It might make him that much harder to find when—

The proton torpedo exploded precisely in the middle of the LAF formation, lighting up the sky, no doubt blinding the pilots, at least for a second or two, and, with any luck, scrambling half their instruments as well. Luke reengaged his engines, accelerating at maximum power, right into the blast of the proton torpedo, right through the middle of the opposing fighter formation.

The X-wing bucked and slammed and shuddered as it flew straight into the explosion’s shock wave, its weakened shields offering just barely enough protection.

Luke flew into the blast of the torpedo, hanging on for dear life as he rode the maelstrom. Then, suddenly, it was over. He was through, clear, safe. Luke checked his detector screens. Two of the LAFs were tumbling, clearly disabled, at least for the moment, while the third seemed to be in only marginal control. One of the disabled fighters seemed to be starting to recover as he watched, but Luke knew better than to stick around to see how it all came out. He came about on a new heading, straight for Selonia.