Heir To The Empire (16 page)

He got an affirmative-sounding beep. Returning the comlink to his belt, he drew his lightsaber. Taking another deep breath, he ducked under the gnarled tree roots and stepped into the cave.

This, too, was as bad as he remembered it. Dark, dank, alive with skittering insects and slimy plants, it was generally as unpleasant a place as Luke had ever been in. The footing seemed more treacherous than it had been before, and twice in the first dozen steps he nearly fell on his face as the ground gave way beneath his weight; not badly, but enough to throw him off balance. Through the mists ahead a well-remembered spot loomed, and he found himself gripping his lightsaber all the more tightly as he neared it. On this spot, once, he’d fought a nightmare battle with a shadowy, unreal Darth Vader . . .

He reached the place and stopped, fighting back the fear and memories. But this time, to his relief, nothing happened. No hissing breath came from the shadows; no Dark Lord glided forward to confront him. Nothing.

Luke licked his lips and pulled the comlink off his belt. No; of course there would be nothing. He had already faced that crisis-had faced it and conquered it. With Vader redeemed and gone, the cave had nothing further to threaten him with except nameless and unreal fears, and those only if he allowed them to have power over him. He should have realized that from the start. “Artoo?” he called. “You still there?”

The little droid buzzed in reply. “All right,” Luke said, starting forward again. “How far do I have to-?”

And right in the middle of his sentence-practically in the middle of a step-the haze of the cave abruptly coalesced around him into a flickering, surreal vision . . .

He was on a small, open-air ground vehicle, hovering low over some sort of pit. The ground itself was indistinct, but he could feel a terrible heat rising all around him from it. Something poked hard in his back, urging him forward onto a narrow board protruding horizontally from the vehicle’s side-

Luke caught his breath, the scene suddenly coming clear. He was back on Jabba the Hutt’s skiff, being prepared for his execution in the Great Pit of Carkoon-

Ahead, he could see the shape of Jabba’s Sail Barge now, drifting a bit closer as the courtiers jostled one another for a better view of the coming spectacle. Many of the barge’s details were indistinct through the dream mists, but he could see clearly the small, dome-topped figure of Artoo at the top of the ship. Awaiting Luke’s signal . . .

“I’m not going to play this game,” Luke called out toward the vision. “I’m not. I’ve faced this crisis, too, and I’ve defeated it.”

But his words seemed dead even in his own ears . . . and even as he spoke them, he could feel the jab of the guard’s spear in his back, and could feel himself drop off the end of the plank. In midair he twisted around, grabbing the end of the board and flipping high over the guards’ heads-

He landed and turned back toward the Sail Barge, hand extended for the lightsaber Artoo had just sent arcing toward him.

It never reached him. Even as he stood there waiting for it, the weapon changed direction, curving back toward the other end of the Sail Barge. Frantically, Luke reached out for it with the Force; but to no avail. The lightsaber continued its flight-

And came to rest in the hand of a slender woman standing alone at the top of the barge.

Luke stared at her, a feeling of horror surging through him. In the mists, with the sun behind her, he could see no details of her face . . . but the lightsaber she now held aloft like a prize told him all he needed to know. She had the power of the Force . . . and had just condemned him and his friends to death.

And as the spears pushed him again onto the plank he heard, clearly through the dream mists, her mocking laughter . . .

“No!” Luke shouted; and as suddenly as it had appeared, the vision vanished. He was back in the cave on Dagobah, his forehead and tunic soaked with sweat, a frantic electronic beeping coming from the comlink in his hand.

He took a shuddering breath, squeezing his lightsaber hard to reassure himself that he did indeed still have it. “It’s-” He worked moisture into a dry throat and tried again. “It’s okay, Artoo,” he reassured the droid. “I’m all right. Uh . . .” He paused, fighting through the disorientation to try to remember what he was doing here. “Are you still picking up that electronic signal?”

Artoo beeped affirmatively. “Is it still ahead of me?” Another affirmative beep. “Okay,” Luke said. Shifting the lightsaber in his hand, he wiped more of the sweat from his forehead and started cautiously forward, trying to watch all directions at once.

But the cave had apparently done its worst. No more visions rose to challenge his way as he continued deeper in . . . and at last, Artoo signaled that he was there.

The device, once he’d finally pried it out of the mud and moss, was a distinct disappointment: a small, somewhat flattened cylinder a little longer than his hand, with five triangular, rust-encrusted keys on one side and some flowing alien script engraved on the other. “This is it?” Luke asked, not sure he liked the idea of having come all the way in here just for something so totally nondescript. “There’s nothing else?”

Artoo beeped affirmatively, and gave a whistle that could only be a question. “I don’t know what it is,” Luke told the droid. “Maybe you’ll recognize it. Hang on; I’m coming out.”

The return trip was unpleasant but also uneventful, and a short time later he emerged from under the tree roots with a sigh of relief into the relatively fresh air of the swamp. It had grown dark while he’d been inside, he noted to his mild surprise; that twisted vision of the past must have lasted longer than it had seemed. Artoo had the X-wing’s landing lights on; the beams were visible as hazy cones in the air. Wading his way through the ground vegetation, Luke headed toward the X-wing.

Artoo was waiting for him, beeping quietly to himself. The beeping became a relieved whistle as Luke came into the light, the little droid rocking back and forth like a nervous child. “Relax, Artoo, I’m all right,” Luke assured him, squatting down and pulling the flattened cylinder out of his side pocket. “What do you think?”

The droid chirped thoughtfully, his dome swiveling around to examine the object from a couple of different directions. Then, abruptly, the chirping exploded into an excited electronic jabbering. “What?” Luke asked, trying to read the flurry of sounds and wondering wryly why Threepio was never around when you needed him. “Slow down, Artoo. I can’t-never mind,” he interrupted himself, getting to his feet and glancing around in the gathering darkness. “I don’t think there’s any point in hanging around here anymore, anyway.”

He looked back at the cave, now almost swallowed up by the deepening gloom, and shivered. No, there was no reason to stay . . . and at least one very good reason to leave. So much, he thought glumly, for finding any kind of enlightenment here. He should have known better. “Come on,” he told the droid. “Let’s get you back in your socket. You can tell me all about it on the way home.”

Artoo’s report on the cylinder was, it turned out, fairly short and decidedly negative. The little droid did not recognize the design, could not decipher its function from what his general-purpose scanners could pick up, and didn’t even know what language the script on the side was written in, let alone what it said. Luke was beginning to wonder what all the droid’s earlier excitement had been about . . . until the last sentence scrolled across his computer scope.

“Lando?” Luke frowned, reading the sentence again. “I don’t remember ever seeing Lando with anything like this.”

More words scrolled across the scope. “Yes, I realize I was busy at the time,” Luke agreed, unconsciously flexing the fingers of his artificial right hand. “Getting fitted with a new hand will do that. So did he give it to General Madine, or was he just showing it to him?”

Another sentence appeared. “That’s okay,” Luke assured the droid. “I imagine you were busy, too.”

He looked into his rear display, at the crescent of Dagobah growing ever smaller behind him. He had intended to go straight back to Coruscant and wait for Leia and Han to return from Bpfassh. But from what he’d heard, their mission there could run a couple of weeks or even more. And Lando had invited him more than once to visit his new rare-ore mining operation on the superhot planet of Nkllon.

“Change in plans, Artoo,” he announced, keying in a new course. “We’re going to swing over to the Athega system and see Lando. Maybe he can tell us what this thing is.”

And on the way, he’d have time to think about that disturbing dream or vision or whatever it was he’d had in the cave. And to decide whether it had been, in fact, nothing more than a dream.

“No, I don’t have a transit permit for Nkllon,” Han said patiently into the Falcon’s transmitter, glaring across at the modified B-wing running beside them. “I also don’t have any accounts here. I’m trying to reach Lando Calrissian.”

From the seat behind him came a sound that might have been a stifled laugh. “You say something?” he asked over his shoulder.

“No,” Leia said innocently. “Just remembering the past.”

“Right,” Han growled. He remembered, too; and Bespin wasn’t on his list of fond memories. “Look, just give Lando a call, will you?” he suggested to the B-wing. “Tell him that an old friend is here, and thought we might play a hand of sabacc for my choice of his stock. Lando will understand.”

“We want to what?” Leia asked, leaning forward around his chair to give him a startled look.

Han muted the transmitter. “The Imperials might have spies here, too,” he reminded her. “If they do, announcing our names to the whole Athega system wouldn’t be very smart.”

“Point,” Leia conceded reluctantly. “That’s a pretty strange message, though.”

“Not to Lando,” Han assured her. “He’ll know it’s me-provided that middle-level button pusher out there loosens up and sends it in.”

Beside him, Chewbacca growled a warning: something big was approaching from aft-starboard. “Any make on it?” Han asked, craning his neck to try to get a look.

The transmitter crackled back to life before the Wookiee could answer. “Unidentified ship, General Calrissian has authorized a special transit waiver for you,” the B-wing said, his tone sounding a little disappointed. He’d probably been looking forward to personally kicking the troublemakers out of his system. “Your escort is moving to intercept; hold your current position until he arrives.”

“Acknowledged,” Han said, not quite able to bring himself to thank the man.

“Escort?” Leia asked cautiously. “Why an escort?”

“That’s what you get for going off and doing politics stuff when Lando drops by the Palace for a visit,” Han admonished her, still craning his neck. There it was . . . “Nkllon’s a superhot planet-way too close to its sun for any normal ship to get to without getting part of its hull peeled off. Hence-” he waved Leia’s attention to the right “-the escort.”

There was a sharp intake of air from behind him, and even Han, who’d seen Lando’s holos of these things, had to admit it was an impressive sight. More than anything else the shieldship resembled a monstrous flying umbrella, a curved dish fully half as big across as an Imperial Star Destroyer. The underside of the dish was ridged with tubes and fins-pumping and storage equipment for the coolant that helped keep the dish from burning up during the trip inward. Where the umbrella’s handle would have been was a thick cylindrical pylon, reaching half as far back as the umbrella dish was wide, its far end bristling with huge radiator fins. In the center of the pylon, looking almost like an afterthought, was the tug ship that drove the thing.

“Good skies,” Leia murmured, sounding stunned. “And it actually flies?”

“Yeah, but not easily,” Han told her, watching with a slight trickle of apprehension as the monstrosity moved ever closer to his ship. It didn’t have to move all that close-the Falcon was considerably smaller than the huge container ships the shieldships normally escorted. “Lando told me they had all sorts of trouble getting the things designed properly in the first place, and almost as much trouble teaching people how to fly them.”

Leia nodded. “I believe it.”

The transmitter crackled again. “Unidentified ship, this is Shieldship Nine. Ready to lock; please transmit your slave circuit code.”

“Right,” Han muttered under his breath, touching the transmit switch. “Shieldship Nine, we don’t have a slave circuit. Just give me your course and we’ll stay with you.”

There was a moment of silence. “Very well, unidentified ship,” the voice said at last-reluctantly, Han thought. “Set your course at two-eight-four; speed, point six sublight.”

Without waiting for an acknowledgment, the huge umbrella began to drift off. “Stay with him, Chewie,” Han told the copilot. Not that that would be a problem; the Falcon was faster and infinitely more maneuverable than anything that size. “Shieldship Nine, what’s our
ETA
for Nkllon?”

“You in a hurry, unidentified ship?”

“How could we be in a hurry, with this wonderful view?” Han asked sarcastically, looking at the underside of the dish that filled pretty much the entire sky. “Yeah, we’re in kind of a hurry.”

“Sorry to hear that,” the other said. “You see, if you had a slave circuit, we could do a quick hyperspace hop inward together and be at Nkllon in maybe an hour. Doing it this way-well, it’ll take us about ten.”

Han grimaced. “Great.”

“We could probably set up a temporary slave circuit,” Leia suggested. “Threepio knows the Falcon’s computer well enough to do that.”

Chewbacca half turned toward her, growling a refusal that left no room for argument, even if Han had been inclined to argue. Which he wasn’t. “Chewie’s right,” he told Leia firmly. “We don’t slave this ship to anything. Ever. You copy that, shieldship?”

“Okay by me, unidentified ship,” the other said. They all seemed to be taking a perverse pleasure in using that phrase. “I get paid by the hour anyway.”

“Fine,” Han said. “Let’s get to it.”

“Sure”

The transmission cut off, and Han poised his hands over the controls. The umbrella was still drifting, but nothing more. “Chewie, has he got his engines off standby yet?”