Hero's Trial: Agents of Chaos I (31 page)

Out of the corner of his eye, Han saw Droma’s jaw drop in unabashed wonder.

“Got’cha,” Reck said, beaming.

Two men stepped in to take charge of Elan. At the same time, the creature who had sniffed out the ooglith masquer leapt snarling from its handler’s arms and went after the living sheath with a vengeance, snatching it with its razor-sharp teeth and shaking it around as if it were a slab of meat. The Yuuzhan Vong followed, grabbed hold of the creature, and shoved it and the shredded flesh-garment back into the carry case.

Reck couldn’t have been more pleased.

“That’s the thing about ooglith masquers,” he said to newly decorticated Elan, “they’re as easy to intimidate as …”

Reck’s words trailed off as his gaze settled on Han. Then he, too, went a bit wide-eyed, in a manner that mixed pleasant surprise with sudden disquiet.

“Han?” he said. “Han, it is you, right? Grayer, heavier, but, son of a gun, same off-kilter mouth and lady-killer looks.”

“Hello, Reck.”

Reck grinned broadly and gestured to Han’s chin. “I don’t remember that scar.”

“I could have had it fixed, Reck, but it reminds me that my past was real.”

Reck looked confused for a moment, then laughed as if he meant it. “Han Solo.” Shaking his head back and forth, he swung to his comrades. “Can you believe this? Han Solo.” By the time he came full circle, however, the smile had been replaced by a look of vexation. “Figures they’d put you in charge of these two.”

“That isn’t exactly the way it happened, Reck.”

“I’m sure.” He gestured to the Yuuzhan Vong’s carry case. “What do you think of the unmasker?”

“I’ll say this much, you don’t make many mistakes.”

Reck snorted. “Hey, they don’t let me.”

“Have you taken a look outside, Reck? How far do you think you’re going to get?”

“I only need to get as far as that Yuuzhan Vong ship.”

“If I were you, I’d start rethinking my loyalties.”

“Loyalties?” Reck said in exaggerated dismay. “What’s loyalty worth on the open market?” He laughed again, mordantly this time. “Guys like you break me up, Han. Profiteers without the guts to change sides suddenly calling themselves patriots. I
know
who’s coming out on
top in this one, and I’ll do whatever I have to, to live happily ever after.”

“You’re talking treason, Reck.”

“I speak it fluently, friend.”

Han fought down an urge to throw his stiffened fingers into Reck’s windpipe. “Remember Chewbacca?”

“The Wookiee? Sure I do. Best of the best.”

Han swallowed. “Your new employers killed him. Pulled a moon down on him.”

Reck’s eyebrows arched. “The Wook was at Sernpidal?” He puffed out his breath and shook his head back and forth. “I’m sorry to hear that, Han—honest. But I had nothing to do with that op.”

“What about the op on Atzerri, Reck? That’s where Roa’s wife, Lwyll, died because of what the Peace Brigade set in motion.”

“Roa’s wife?” Reck blinked, then began to shake his head in protest. “That op wasn’t supposed to end like it did.”

Han’s eyes bored into him. “Does that make it easier to swallow?”

Reck frowned. “A man has to work.”

Han lunged for him, barely managing to wrap his hands around Reck’s neck before someone knocked him to the deck.

“I don’t mind a turncoat, Reck,” Han said, gazing up as he got to his feet, “but I draw the line at second-rate ones. You’re going to give mercenaries a bad name.”

Reck’s rejoinder was a sneer. He pulled out his personal comlink and thumbed it on. “We’ve got them,” he said into the pickup. “We’ll be heading back to the ship momentarily.”

“Won’t do you much good,” a brittle voice replied from the unit. “We can’t detach from the airlock. All systems, even sublight and repulsors, are down. No response at all from the dovin basal. It’s like the thing’s gone into stasis.”

Reck swung to the unmasker’s handler, who looked mystified.

“Have you attempted to contact the Yuuzhan Vong ship?” Reck said into the comlink.

“No response.”

Reck cursed. “All right,” he said after a moment. “I’ll take her to them in my shuttle.”

The man at the other end of the link laughed. “It’s doomsday out here, Reck. You’ll be lucky to clear the launch bay without getting yourself wasted.”

“Are the weapons operating?”

“Affirmative.”

“Then you just clear a path for me. The New Republic’s not going to interfere while we’re holding several thousand hostages. Once I make the Yuuzhan Vong ship, I’ll see to it that the rest of you are brought over.”

Reck switched off the comlink. He had his mouth open to say something to Han when another Peace Brigade contingent arrived on the scene, making haste for the docking bay. Supported by two of them was a wounded Rodian who had to be Capo.

“You people are supposed to be on the bridge,” Reck bellowed.

“This is your operation, Reck,” the largest among them answered. “You want to stay and feed refugees to the vacuum, that’s your business. But we’re out of here.”

The man who had discovered Han and Droma started to raise his disruptor rifle, but Reck restrained him.

“Knock it off. Fighting among ourselves isn’t going to do any good. We’ll pack the shuttles and convoy for the Yuuzhan Vong ship.”

Han smirked. “Proverbial droch in the ointment, huh, Reck?”

Reck gestured two of the men to take charge of Vergere, then he turned to Han. “You know, I’m less worried about interference from those starfighters than I am about interference from you.”

He drew his blaster and ordered Han to move to the nearest drop shaft. Droma followed silently. At the blaster’s insistence, Han backed himself to the edge of the tube, then he held his hand over it.

“Not much of a breeze,” he thought to point out.

Reck grinned. “You always were a funny guy, Han.”

Han shrugged. “You know what they say about a punch line being the best revenge.”

Reck considered it. “If we’d met somewhere else, we could be sharing ice-cold Gizers right now. But I can’t have you trying to follow us or talking to your New Republic friends. You’ve got way too much good fortune on your side. You always did.”

“Seem’s my luck’s run out,” Han and Droma said at the same time.

Reck looked from one to the other, then laughed shortly. “You two make quite a pair. Too bad I’ve got to split you up.” He lifted the blaster’s barrel. “Down you go, Han. Next stop, the cargo hold.”

Han gulped. “Come on, Reck, you don’t need to do this. For old times’ sake.”

“Oh, but I do, old friend.” Again, he motioned with the blaster. “Be a good sport. Don’t make me shoot you.”

Han tightened the straps of his travel pack, thinking that it might somehow cushion his fall. Then he squared his shoulders and blew out his breath. Narrowing his eyes at Reck, he took a backward step into the abyss.

Droma let out an anguished shriek and went rigid with shock.

Relayed to Obroa-skai by signal villip, the fierce fighting at the Rimward edge of the Bilbringi system unfolded in real time for commanders Malik Carr and Tla, tactician Raff, and Harrar, aboard the priest’s faceted starship.

“The Peace Brigade gunship has made several attempts at communication,” a villip of Nom Anor reported, “but we have refused all appeals to render aid.”

Behind him in the signal villip’s visual field, outside the frigate’s observation bay, light streaked and flashed in the black of space. Every so often a snub-nosed fighter would pass close to the bay, discharging blinding globes of encapsulated energy. Most were immediately gobbled up by singularities, but some detonated against the ship with trembling force, crazing the villip feed with undulating lines of interference or suspending it altogether.

“With due respect, Commander Malik Carr,” Tla said, “I find it irksome to have to abandon allies—even though they wrongly took it on themselves to redeem Executor Nom Anor’s infiltrators. More, I dislike having our forces leap about to avoid engaging the enemy directly.”

Harrar placed himself in full view of the issuing villip.
“Are you concerned that some may judge your actions cowardly?” he asked Nom Anor.

“Knowing that my actions are for a greater cause, no, I am not concerned.”

Tla glowered. “Your opinions matter not, Executor.”

Commander Malik Carr watched Tla for a moment, then turned to face the transmitting villip. “Would you surrender your command to assuage Commander Tla’s concerns, Executor?”

Nom Anor ridiculed the idea. “Even I know better than to exchange a lesser indignity for a greater one.”

From somewhere outside the confines of the visual field, the subaltern in command of the frigate bridge spoke. “Executor, an enemy ship has targeted the dovin basal we housed in a keeper. Thus far the dovin basal has been unsuccessful at repelling the attack. It reacts as if dazed.”

“Show us that ship,” Nom Anor ordered.

The receiving villip on Harrar’s vessel relayed an image of a gray-white saucer-shaped vessel with protruding mandibles and armaments of extraordinary firepower.

Nom Anor’s villip looked to the tactician. “You’ve studied the villip images of our previous battles with New Republic forces. Do you recognize this ship?”

Raff’s enhanced brain went to work on it. Finally, he nodded. “The ship was present at Helska,” he announced to those in the command center as well as to those aboard the frigate. “It was remembered by the villip beacons left in place by Prefect Da’gara.”

“At Helska,” Malik Carr said in surprise. “Jedi?” he asked Nom Anor. “Could they have grasped your intent?”

Nom Anor shook his head firmly. “Unlikely. And if in
fact they are Jedi pilots, they’re too focused on confusing the dovin basal and prevailing in this insignificant contest to realize what they’re doing.

“Subaltern,” he continued, “do nothing to protect the remote dovin basal. Should that ship succeed in destroying it, you will instruct our coralskipper pilots to behave as if thrown into sudden disarray.”

Tactician Raff spoke up. “I would point out that the destruction of the dovin basal will allow the smaller ships that boarded the starliner to launch—”

“The dovin basal has been destroyed,” the subaltern updated.

The villip field showed those aboard Harrar’s ship the saucer-shaped ship up on its side, streaking away from the annihilated remote.

“Three shuttles have left the starliner,” the subaltern reported to Nom Anor. “Two are disappearing behind the passenger vessel, bearing toward the planet. One is vectoring for our current position.”

“It would appear that the Peace Brigade has reclaimed Elan,” Commander Malik Carr said flatly, breaking the silence that fell over the command center. “I suspect they’re attempting to bring her home.”

“Their gunship is still held fast to the liner,” Nom Anor countered. “They could be hoping for sanctuary, and nothing more.”

Commander Tla was unsuccessful at concealing his self-satisfaction.

“Exercise discretion,” Harrar said at last, “but hold the shuttle at bay.”

“And if Priestess Elan is indeed aboard?” Malik Carr asked.

Harrar glanced at Nom Anor’s villip, who answered for the priest. “Elan will know what to do.”

Droma was still wailing when Han finally hauled himself hand over hand up the Ryn’s tail and swung panting to the deck, a safe distance from the edge of the deactivated drop shaft.

Droma immediately fell to all fours and began crawling around, weeping in pain.

Han caught his breath and went to his side. “Must be something I can do to help.”

“Yes,” Droma said, scowling at him through tears, “learn to fall more gracefully. Learn to fall brilliantly.”

Han dropped into a sitting position, with his hands resting on his raised knees. “Easy for someone with a tail to say.” He let a moment pass, then he grinned. “You saved my neck, Droma. I won’t forget this.”

Droma snorted. “I couldn’t very well let you fall. As you said, you’re too well-known to die.”

“You’d better believe it.” Clapping him on the back, Han helped him to his feet. “Come on, we might still be able to catch them.”

Droma exhaled in exasperation. “You never give up, do you?”

Han threw a smile over his shoulder. “Thanks to you I’ve got my second wind.”

“I’ll know better next time,” Droma muttered.

With the Ryn hobbling after, Han raced down the passageway for the hatch to the docking bay. But even from a distance it was clear that the hatch-release mechanism had been rendered inoperative by a well-aimed blaster bolt.

Han palmed the release pad anyway, then turned to Droma, frowning. “Reck doesn’t miss a trick.”

They raced back down the passageway and through a series of right-angle turns that brought them to another hatch—also fused by blasterfire. It was the same at every hatch that accessed the docking bay from that part of the
Queen
. But by the time they had circled back to the first hatch, the passageway was thick with the astringent smell of molten plasteel, and a neat half circle had been burned through the hatch.

“Hull cutter,” Han said excitedly.

He and Droma fell back as the cutter completed its work. Moments later a massive disk of alloy dropped from the hatch with a resounding boom and rolled a few meters down the passageway, gyrating like a coin before it ultimately settled to the floor. Through wisps of white smoke agitated by the pressure differential surged a dozen New Republic elite forces in black helmets and A/KT combat jumpsuits, carrying BlasTech E-15A rifles and grenade launchers.

Han and Droma ducked into a recess as the soldiers stormed down the passageway, seemingly unaware that most of the Peace Brigade had already abandoned ship. Han motioned Droma through the circular breach in the hatch. In the spacious pressurized bay beyond sat the sleek assault craft that had brought the troopers aboard, along with two X-wings.

One of the starfighter pilots was just climbing from the cockpit when Han ran up to him to ask if he’d seen any ships leaving the bay.

The pilot took off his helmet and shook his long hair out of his face. “Word is that three shuttles launched, but
I didn’t see any of them.” The pilot gave Han and Droma a distrustful look. “Who are you two?”