Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 01_ Jedi Search - Kevin J. Anderson [135]
“On your mark, Han!”
“Punch it!”
The last thing they saw was Kessel’s massive Loronar strike cruiser exploding under the concerted fire from the Manticore and the Gorgon. They watched the flaming hulk reel and ram into the Star Destroyer Basilisk, causing the bottom of the arrowhead hull to buckle and burn.
Then the universe filled with starlines.
29
The reunion was everything Han had imagined. He had spent a lot of time thinking about it during the long hyperspace flight back to Coruscant.
Leia and the twins met him the moment the Sun Crusher and the Millennium Falcon touched down side by side at the high landing platform. Han backed out of the Sun Crusher’s hatch and began climbing down the ladder, but Leia ran forward and hugged him before he managed to get all the way down.
“Glad I’m back?” he asked.
“I missed you!” she said, kissing him.
“I know,” he said with a roguish smile.
She put her hands on her hips. “What? You didn’t miss me?”
Han turned away sheepishly. “Well, first we crashed on Kessel, then we were stuck in the spice mines, then we got captured by a bunch of Imperials in the middle of a black hole cluster. I really didn’t have a whole lot of—”
When Leia looked as if she were going to punch him, Han reacted with a grin. “But even through all that I don’t remember more than about two seconds when I didn’t miss you with all my heart.”
Leia kissed him again.
Artoo trundled down the Falcon’s ramp, and Threepio bustled to greet him, “Artoo-Detoo! I’m so glad you’re back. You wouldn’t believe the difficulties I’ve had while you were gone!”
Artoo bleeped something nobody bothered to translate.
Kyp Durron and Qwi Xux climbed down from the Sun Crusher and stared out at the endless spires and towers of Imperial City, the metropolis of glinting transparisteel and alloy that stretched to the horizon. Above them the tiny lights of shuttles winked across the sky. “Now that’s a city!” Kyp said with a sigh.
Qwi looked overwhelmed. The Sun Crusher would be transferred to a high-security hangar for study by the scientists of the New Republic. Qwi did not like abandoning it, but she had no choice.
Han strode over to his two children, bending his knees and gathering Jacen and Jaina into his arms. “Hey, kids! Do you remember your daddy? It’s been a long time, huh?”
He mussed their hair and stared down at them with the wide-eyed astonishment he always felt when seeing how much they had grown between the visits Winter arranged to the hidden planet of Anoth. Now, though, Jacen and Jaina’s two years of isolation and protection were over, and the children were home to stay, leaving only baby Anakin in need of special protection.
Jacen nodded; then a moment later Jaina nodded as well. Han wasn’t sure he believed their answer, but he hugged them anyway. “Well, if you don’t remember me, I’ll try to make it up to you from now on.”
• • •
A puffed-up official wearing the bright uniform of an offworld administrative office finally cornered Lando in a high-brow diplomatic lounge. The official held an armored briefcase similar to the type credit investigators carried, and he had the same pinch-faced demeanor of a person being given a mission whose importance he drastically overestimated.
“Are you Lando Calrissian?” the official said. “I have been attempting to locate you for several days. You’ve made my job most difficult.” He bustled forward.
Lando saw that he could not slip out the back entrance of the lounge. Beside him at the table Han raised his eyebrows. Both of them had gone to the lounge to relax and settle down after their long debriefings by the Alliance High Command. Unfortunately, the lounge catered to bureaucrats and political functionaries, and served only cloyingly sweet drinks. Han and Lando sipped theirs slowly, trying to keep from grimacing.
Lando had