Star Wars_ Legacy of the Force 01_ Betrayal - Aaron Allston [59]
Leia tapped the sensor board, which showed a starfighter squadron, too far away for the sensors to analyze, break from the Corellian fleet and vector in toward the Falcon’s position.
“Hey, there’s a whole squadron coming in at me,” Han said. “You’ve sent me an escort?”
“They’re not ours,” Dodonna said. “Meaning they’re probably coming in to blow you up.”
“Oh. Look, I’m plotting an exit course back along your orbital track. I’ll use your ships for protection. Tell ’em not to shoot at me. Falcon out.”
“Wait—”
Han cut his comm board. “Strap in, sweetheart,” he said.
Leia did so, grudgingly. “Han, you’re playing a dangerous game.”
“I’m sorry about the whole protect-my-wife thing, that was just to confuse them—”
“I don’t mean that. I mean joyriding around in the middle of a battle.”
“I want to see the composition of their forces. I want to see how they conduct themselves when they’re assaulting my homeworld. Hold on.”
Han set the Falcon into a tight, stomach-turning loop, sending her back toward the prow of Dodonna—but lower, a couple of kilometers below the carrier in orbit.
The sensor board showed the oncoming starfighters closing on the Falcon. Now it popped up a diagram of their pursuers: fuselage shaped like a beetle’s body, two down-slanted wings stretching out to support lengthy thruster pods, a laser cannon turret under the fuselage main body.
“A-Nine Vigilance Interceptors,” Leia said. “Speedy little things.”
“Weak hulls,” Han said. “I used to crack ’em with my teeth and suck out the meat inside.”
“I’ll grant that you have a mouth big enough to do it.”
Dodonna flashed by to their port side. Her turbolaser batteries did not track the Falcon as they passed.
“Besides,” Han said, “they won’t fire on me. I’m a Corellian celebrity.”
Leia snorted. “Make sure your transponder is sending out your real identity. Otherwise they have no reason not to blow you out of the sky.”
“Good point.” Han checked his comm board and nodded, satisfied. “Turn on the bow holocam, would you? I want to record what we’re about to see.”
Leia sighed and did as she was asked.
CENTERPOINT STATION
Ben lay atop a square-sided conduit a meter wide and tall. It was suspended five meters above the passageway floor, just a meter below the ceiling, and immediately below him CorSec agents were talking.
One said, “Any word?”
Another: “They’ve got him boxed in at one of the empty theater chambers.”
“They’ve got him, then.”
“I don’t know. He’s a Jedi. They’re sneaky.”
Ben grinned. Sneaky. He liked that.
Footsteps approached, and the first CorSec agent shouted, “Halt! Show your identicard.”
A new voice, female: “Ables, Transportation.”
“You need to evacuate this area. It’s under lockdown.”
“No, I’m excluded. Emergency personnel.”
“So you are. All right, get to your station. And fast.”
The footsteps left. The first CorSec agent said, “Back to the patrol.”
“Don’t get lightsabered.”
“Very funny.”
The CorSec agents moved away in opposite directions, leaving Ben alone.
His face fell as a realization hit him. He was sneaky, and he was really good at being sneaky, but being sneaky wasn’t enough. Sneaky was slow. Skulking, crouching, hiding, crawling—it took forever. He was in the corridor that would take him to the station’s repulsor control chamber. By his calculation, it was just a few hundred meters away. But moving stealthily along every centimeter of that distance might take hours.
And all because the enemy knew they were facing Jedi.
Ben sat up so fast he banged his head on the ceiling above. He rubbed at the point of impact and considered. He didn’t have to be a Jedi right now. Clumsy in his haste, he began pulling his boots off, pulling his Jedi robe and all its accoutrements free, and in a minute was left wearing just a black undershirt and black shorts. His lightsaber and all the electronic toys intended to make this mission a success went into his pouch.
Pouch in hand, he