• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Carrack’s second blaster bolt hit that rancor, a forehead shot that staggered the beast. Then Yliri’s speeder topped the hill, slewing around in a smuggler’s reverse that brought its relative speed to zero. Its left rear panel hit the stunned rancor in the back of the head, a deliberate maneuver, no accident.

The rancor’s arms flailed and an almost comic expression of dismay crossed its face. Then it fell down the hill slope toward the pass below, carrying a landslide of rock and scrub with it.

Farther down the pass, Luke gestured as if making an upward palm strike against the empty air. Meters away, the farthest rancor stumbled backward and fell, landing full on its rider.

Ben gestured to Leia, saying something Han couldn’t hear. Fresh from having hammered a Witch one–two–three with snap-kicks to the midriff and leveling her, Leia switched off her lightsaber. She flicked it toward Ben, a toss that should have only carried it a meter or two, but the weapon flew straight into his outstretched hand.

Ben ignited it and placed the tip of the glowing blade mere centimeters from the throat of the woman he’d kicked.

And that was the fight.

GALACTIC EMPIRE EMBASSY COMPOUND,

CORUSCANT

THE OFFICE, OUTFITTED WITH RICH, TRADITIONAL WOOD PANELING AND furniture, had a chameleon-like quality Moff Lecersen appreciated. Though it belonged permanently to no Imperial representative and was assigned to any high-ranking official as needed, it was made to be customizable in seconds. The aide of the admiral or general or Moff using it would enter, slide a datacard into the slot on the desk, and the transformation would begin. Holodisplays on the walls would glimmer to life with the VIP’s favorite images; for this meeting, Lecersen had chosen vistas of space docks and orbital vessel construction platforms. The datacard would supply information on preferred ambient temperature, scents, white noise, available entertainments, the array of beverages to be stocked in the small cabinet bar, and more. In extremely expensive hotels, the information would also dictate the hue and apparent texture of color-changeable carpets and walls.

All that information took only moments to impart. Then the aide, if he knew what was good for him, would spend the next hour scanning for listening and recording devices. A pity that this task couldn’t also be relegated to a datacard.

With the air cooled to his favorite temperature, the walls gleaming with demonstrations of military might in the making, Lecersen smiled a sand panther’s smile across his temporary desk at Haydnat Treen, Senator from Kuat. A lean, imposing woman of about eighty standard years, she wore gold-and-brown robes in a very up-to-date Kuati style; her silver-blue hair peeked out from beneath her golden scarf. She held a saucer and cup of very thick, very strong caf with aristocratic grace, and the smile she directed at Lecersen was just like his.

“You’ll imagine my surprise,” he told her, “when I conducted a private investigation into the recent kidnapping attempt on our Head of State and found no evidence implicating any of the usual suspects.”

“The Moffs, you mean?”

“It would be disingenuous of me to say otherwise. Yes, of course. The Moffs.”

“Did you look into your own affairs?” Treen asked. “Perhaps this was one of your plans, made while you were sleepwalking.”

“Well, sleepwalking would explain why it was so crude, so thoroughly botched.”

She did not rise to the bait; she merely sipped at her caf.

“So a deeper investigation was warranted.” Lecersen continued. “Fortunately, one of the Borleias banks used for the transactions had a duplicate set of books—the second set being the sort one never shows the government—and that had not been so thoroughly scrubbed. The flow of credits led back to a Coruscanti vehicle importer, which led to a Kuati construction firm, which led … to you.”

“Oh, my. Your accusation positively rends me. I think I’m going to swoon.”

“Please do. I know you’ll make a graceful display of setting the caf safely aside as you collapse. I look forward to seeing