Star Wars_ Planet of Twilight - Barbara Hambly [139]
But all of that was secondary to the digitalized tallying of recognitive factors concerning the woman who sat in the room’s single chair: tall, tough, and athletic in her stripped-down version of the Imperial officer’s uniform, red hair hanging like a comet’s tail down her back and eyes cold as ball bearings in a pale, expressionless face. Threepio had never seen her in person, but as a specialist in protocol he was programmed with all sorts of files about people who were or had been in positions of authority, and he identified her at once.
“Good heavens, Artoo,” he exclaimed, “I seem to have been given inaccurate data. According to my most recent information, Imperial Admiral Daala should be dead.”
Daala said softly, “I am.”
Han Solo wondered whether there was any insanity in his family.
He folded his arms, considering the vista afforded him by the hard transparisteel of the viewport: two CEC gunships, the Courane and the Fireater, half a dozen smaller cruisers, and maybe twice that many escorts, X-wings and E-wings. They hung pale silvery against the darkness of realspace, sleek white fish among the stars. The newest Republic equipment, true—unlike the clunky, crotchety horrors of the Rebel fleet—but all of them, he knew, understaffed with men and women pushed to the brink of exhaustion. None of them a match for what he knew lay ahead.
But not a bad turnout for a faked video and a lot of bluster and fast talk.
He turned from the Falcon’s viewport to the main screen, where Lando, who’d hitched a ride back from Algar with the fleet, and his Sullustan co-pilot Nien Nunb, were handling the jump extrapolations while Chewbacca studied the sensor readouts beamed in from the few remote stations on the other side of the Spangled Veil Nebula.
“Pick ’em up?” Solo asked, and the Wookiee yowled assent.
“Where they headed?”
“Well, judging by the point at which they came out of hyperspace,” said Lando, tapping in a few more numbers, “it could be either Meridias itself, which would be stupid on the face of it considering that planet’s been dead for centuries, or any of the Chorios systems.”
Lando looked a little tired from his fast trip to summon reinforcements, but was shaven, bathed, and sleek as usual. Han, who felt and looked like many kilometers of bad road, didn’t know how he managed.
“For my money it’s Pedducis Chorios. They’ll have their work cut out for them getting rid of all the pirate Warlords who have alliances with local chiefs, but there’s a lot of profit there. Nam Chorios is just a rock.”
“Yeah,” agreed Han softly. “But by an amazing coincidence, it’s the rock Seti Ashgad comes from, with all his swearing up and down he saw Leia off safe and sound. And now all of a sudden while everyone’s all in a tizzy because Leia’s disappeared, by gosh, somebody comes along and tries to invade Nam Chorios.”
“But that’s crazy!” protested Lando, every entrepreneurial bone in his body offended to the marrow. “Who’d want anything on Nam Chorios?”
“I don’t know,” said Han. “But I think we’re gonna find that out.” He leaned over the comm, opened the main link.
“Captain Solo here. We’re taking hyperspace jump bearing seven-seven-five; coming out bearing nine-three-nine-three-two …”
Lando’s eyes flared wide at the nearness of that jump point. “Han, old buddy …”
Han put his hand over the mike, “We want to get there before them don’t we? I know what I’m doing.”
“What you’re doing is smashing us into Nam Chorios if somebody gets one hair off.”
“So don’t get a hair off,” said Han bluntly, and turned back to the comm. “Course for Nam Chorios. Possible interception on return to realspace, so keep your heads up.”
He turned back to the readouts. Three Star Destroyers. Half a dozen carracks. Two interdictors.
And the swarms that didn’t even register on the readout, the silent, deadly clouds of CCIR space needles, waiting to cut them to pieces the minute they came out of hyperspace.
He had to be crazy.
“Punch it, Chewie,” he said.
20
Luke felt the violence of the Force storm that surrounded the