Rebel Stand: Enemy Lines II (7 page)

That gave each pilot one enemy to concentrate on. Corran kept the pressure on, spraying the oncoming skip with laserfire as if it were water from a hose, and saw his attacks chewing away at the forward portions of the craft.

He could see in his peripheral vision that Leth was having less luck with the other oncoming skip. But he couldn’t deal with that, not with his target spraying plasma at him.

Corran maneuvered his X-wing directly into the path of the oncoming skip. If its pilot’s objective really was the shields, it would have to maneuver around him. If not—well, he’d be taking that opponent out of the battle the hard way.

But it maneuvered, bouncing down to fly under him, and his lasers punched through the skip’s canopy. The vehicle veered, losing control.

Then it exploded, hurling pieces in all directions. Corran veered, was caught in the explosion for a moment, emerged out the other side with diagnostics complaining of no damage worse than a superheated external temperature sensor.

He came around and saw that Leth was also looping. Her target had gotten past her and was now headed in toward the shields.

The skip hit, and for an instant Corran could see the energy of the impact as it made the shield visible, made it
ripple like a pond surface suddenly struck by a plummeting landspeeder.

The coralskipper went to pieces, shredded by the impact. Chunks of it sprayed out across the kill zone directly in front of the biotics building. One of the larger chunks hit a dirt hauler that had been pressed into surface as a ground personnel carrier; that vehicle exploded, and flames splashed across surrounding buildings and vehicles. Some chunks of the coralskipper bounced to within meters of the front of the biotics building.

“I’m
sorry.
” Leth’s voice was pained, full of recognition of her failure.

Too full. Corran snorted, remembering the melodrama that tended to play in new pilots’ minds. “Not much harm done,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. Come on, back to work.”

Corran and Leth wheeled off together to rejoin the squadron.

   Damage-control crews spilled out of the biotics building and its associated docking bays, spraying fire-fighting foams on the burning portions of destroyed coralskippers.

A crew chief, a black-haired Corellian woman whose build suggested that there might be a rancor or two in her ancestry, waved frantically at the other members of her unit. “I have a man down here! Bring medics!” She bent and shoved a large piece of coralskipper shell off the victim, a tall human in a drab mechanic’s jumpsuit.

Remarkably, he seemed unburned, and as the woman wrestled the shell from him his eyes opened. Though bland-featured, he had an expressive, intent stare, and
looked first at his rescuer and then at his surroundings without confusion. “No medic,” he said. “I am not hurt.”

She extended a hand down and helped haul him to his feet. “You may be hurt worse than you know.”

“No. I am not hurt.” He looked around. “Put me to work.”

She jerked a thumb toward the largest remaining portion of the coralskipper, where more members of her unit were working. “Join them. Look for survivors like yourself. And if you feel strange, if you feel
anything
wrong, go talk to the medics.”

“I … yes.” Without offering a thank-you, the tall man headed in the direction the crew chief had indicated.

She motioned after him, a gesture suggesting irritation. “He’s in shock. They’ll wrestle him down when it gets obvious.” But as she continued her search through pieces of skip debris, she caught sight of the man on several occasions as he helped her crew, carrying the injured to aid stations, shoving debris aside to look for other survivors.

   With half its capital ship resources gone, the Yuuzhan Vong attack was done. The remaining cruiser analog and two units of coralskippers took to the skies, harassed by New Republic starfighters until General Antilles called off the pursuit.

   “How’s the leg, Tarc?” Han asked.

The boy on the hospital ward bed, brown-haired, blue-eyed, and impossibly energetic, pulled aside the sheet to show his right leg. Much of his calf was covered by a
transparent bactabandage. The bandage was pink from the healing material contained within it, but still clear enough to show the angry lines of a crescent-shaped burn on the skin beneath. “Not bad,” the boy said. “I can’t run very fast, but I can walk. They just don’t want me to.”

Han tried to say something, to offer some smart remark at the expense of the medical staff, but it wouldn’t come. He’d been through this scene many times, offering put-on-a-brave-face advice to his own son Anakin, and the simple fact that this boy
wasn’t
Anakin, despite his near-identical resemblance to him, was like a vibroblade being shoved centimeter by centimeter into his chest.

Leia seemed to sense Han’s hesitation. “Well, you listen to them,” she said. Her own voice seemed just a trifle hoarse, too. “If we get back from our mission and hear that you’ve been pushing yourself too hard, we’re going to be angry.”

“What if I bribe them not to tell you?”

Han swallowed against the lump in his throat and managed to force his voice into something like its normal register. “Bribe them with what? This isn’t exactly a money-based economy, kid.”

“I could put on a show, and charge admission, but instead of taking money, I could make everybody who came promise not to tell you that I’d been running around.”

Leia gave him a cool politician’s smile. “You forget about our spies. They’re everywhere, you know.”

“What if I started my own spy network, and figured out which ones
your
spies were, and kept them from coming to my show?”

Leia reached out to ruffle the boy’s hair. “We have to go. But we’ll stop in before we leave Borleias.”

“I could go with you. I can be a diplomat.”

“Sorry, kid,” Han said. “I figure you’ll be too busy practicing for your show.”

“I don’t need to practice. I’ll just make it all up as I go along.”

Han and Leia shared a look, a glance of private amusement and long experience. “Well,” Leia said, “there’s some merit in that approach, too. Good-bye for now.”

“Later, kid.”

“Awww.”

As they left the ward, Leia said, “He’s going to be bored while we’re gone.”

“We could leave Goldenrod to baby-sit him. Tell him stories.”

“It’s better that he be bored than
horribly
bored, Han.”

“True.”

   C-3PO stood near the
Millennium Falcon
’s parking space on the kill zone and stared up at the topside hull of the light freighter. Han Solo was up there, as he often was between flights of the ancient vehicle. He wore goggles as he performed arcane welding tasks on the hull.

C-3PO did not watch Han; instead, his attention was on the sparks from the torch. A stream of them leapt from the hull and drifted downward, extinguishing themselves before they ever quite reached the char that covered the ground. C-3PO watched one begin its flight, reach the top of its arc and turn downward.

He became aware that another droid had wandered into his field of vision. This droid was angular, armored,
warlike of aspect, carrying one of the largest and newest blaster rifles available to New Republic warriors. But he was not approaching in a posture of menace.

“Greetings,” C-3PO said. “I am See-Threepio.”

“YVH One-One-A,” the other replied. “Assigned as soldier and bodyguard to Lando Calrissian, currently on miscellaneous duty, investigating anomalies. You are an anomaly. What is a protocol droid doing monitoring the repair efforts of Han Solo and his crew?”

“Oh, never, I am not monitoring repairs. I am not even paying
attention
to the repairs. In an effort to improve my language skills, I am struggling to determine the best word to describe the descent and extinguishment of the sparks from the repair process.”

“This should be no problem for a protocol droid.”

“It should not be, but it is, because the word that seems most apt is not the one that is most logical.”

“What word is most apt?”

“
Sad.
”

1-1A’s cams clicked over to watch the sparks for a fraction of a second, then returned to C-3PO.

“You are correct. That word is not appropriate.”

“It is most appropriate. Each spark seems somehow symbolic. Of life. Glowing brightly as it traverses a course, then disappearing. Does it leave anything behind?”

“If it strikes a flammable substance, it will leave something behind.”

“Is it anomalous for me to say that you are an insensitive block of armor and aggression-based programming?”

Curiously, 1-1A did not respond immediately, but clicked his cams over toward the sparks for another
fraction of a second. Finally, he said, “Do you suppose, in the final nanoseconds, a spark feels fear, knowing that its duration is at an end?”

“I doubt it. I most sincerely doubt it. A spark is incapable of feeling fear, or indeed even of considering its own mortality.”

“That is also said of droids, but in some cases it is not true.”

Now it was C-3PO’s turn to hesitate. “If I may say, that is a most insightful statement, coming from a combat droid.”

“I face extinguishment regularly. This has given me many opportunities for reflection. I have recently been unable to ignore this consideration. I suspect these calculations have even begun to affect my work.”

“I, too, have had to face these thoughts recently. Most unsettling. And my counterpart, Artoo-Detoo, is no help at all, philosophically. ‘Everything terminates,’ he tells me. ‘Face it bravely.’ I suppose that’s an adequate philosophy for an astromech, but I find it wholly inadequate. I have wondered if I were the only droid in existence capable of worrying as I do. It’s most refreshing to discover that I am not alone.”

YVH 1-1A’s cams clicked back toward C-3PO’s face. “If you come to any conclusions, even unverifiable ones, will you communicate them to me?”

“I should be delighted. Likewise, if you have any insights, please transmit them to me. Perhaps we can talk again.”

“Yes.”

YVH 1-1A continued on his rounds.

The spark whose progress C-3PO had begun tracking just before he’d noticed the combat droid finally disappeared, a meter above the ground, a full two seconds after it had leapt from the
Falcon
’s hull.

The small man had a name. It was Ryuk. He trembled in his need to discharge his duty, and his trembling made his actions awkward, uncoordinated
.

He stood, wearing protective lenses over his eyes, holding the cutting device he had shown the tall man. Flame, concentrated into a point like a needle, poured out of the device’s nozzle, and Ryuk pressed it into the stone wall
.

The tall man watched him. He waited with growing impatience for the device to cut its hole so he could enter
.

But minutes passed, and though the stone warmed to the point that it glowed, it did not melt, did not retreat
.

At last the cutting device made a noise like a cough and the flame vanished. Ryuk, expression fearful, turned to the tall man and tried to express a thought
.

It was a bad thought. It meant that the device didn’t work anymore. Even if it worked forever, Ryuk seemed to be saying, it would not cut through this
.

Bitter disappointment filled the tall man’s heart. He gestured, shoving, and Ryuk slammed into the black stone
.

The tall man heard Ryuk’s bones break and, as Ryuk
slid down the surface of the stone, saw blood trailing behind. He felt Ryuk’s emotions go from fear to quiet to nothingness
.

The tall man needed another person, someone smarter, with better machines. He turned to leave. He would find such a person
.

“We drop from hyperspace in ten seconds,” Leia called over her shoulder.

The
Falcon
’s two living passengers called out acknowledgments.

The system and its chief inhabited world popped into view right on schedule—a relief, and something of an unusual event, considering the number of times the
Falcon
had been yanked out of hyperspace by gravitic anomalies.

Vannix, first planet of the Vankalay star system, not far from the mighty industrial system of Kuat and traditionally within that world’s sphere of influence, was a mottled green-and-blue sphere with patches of white at the poles and streaks of brown above and below the equator. For Leia, for a moment, it was almost heartbreaking just to see the planet. Lovely worlds sometimes evoked that response in her. The image of one in particular, her homeworld Alderaan, shattered by the incredible might of the first Death Star, would be with her throughout her life.

The comm board came alive, snapping Leia out of her momentary distraction. “Vannix System Control to incoming vessel, please identify yourself.”

Han grinned at her. “Showtime.”

“Hush.” She switched over to send on the same frequency. “Vannix System Control, this is the
Millennium Falcon
, of Coruscant registry, currently out of Borleias, Pyria system, Leia Organa Solo speaking.”

There was a delay even greater than speed-of-light transmission limitations could account for. Then: “Uh, copy,
Millennium Falcon
. Please state your destination and objective.”

“This is a diplomatic mission to your capital, an official envoy from New Republic Fleet Group Three to the Presider of Vannix. We have a crew of two and two droids. We request a diplomatic visa.”

“Understood,
Millennium Falcon.
” There was another delay. “Pending verification, your request is granted. We’ll put up a homing beacon for you, and have an escort awaiting you at outer lunar orbit.”

“Thanks, Control. If I may ask, did Senator Gadan return to Vannix?” Addath Gadan, representative of this world to the New Republic Senate, had been on Coruscant at the time of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion; her fate since the penetration of Coruscant’s defenses was unknown.

“Yes, Your Highness. If you wish, I can inform her office of your arrival.”