Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 06_ Balance Point - Kathy Tyers [53]
Through a bay door that resealed instantly, there whirred a small ground-effect vehicle marked ADMINISTRATION. Four figures sat inside, wearing brilliant orange chem suits and full helmeted masks. Jacen appreciated their situation. Like the crewers, anybody who joined them in quarantine would face decontamination. But why hadn’t they just set up a holoprojector?
Then he got a feeling about that vehicle.
Incredulous, he nudged Jaina. She’d been right here. Here, all along. At Gateway!
Jaina nudged him back. They turned toward one another so each one could watch their father with side vision.
The second-smallest of the three orange-suited figures jumped out of the vehicle. Her face was shrouded, but her determined gait was unmistakable, and Jacen felt her through the Force. Her smaller shadow had to be one of the Noghri.
Han and Droma strode up. Han looked half-ready to send Droma flying. “No, they don’t have repulsor combs. We’re just going to have to do this—”
“The hard way?” Droma interrupted. “What do you care, if they take off that little patch of fur on top of your empty head? Do you have any idea how cold—”
The orange-suited figure reached them.
“Hello,” Han said, hastily setting his dirt-streaked face to a slight smile. “Thanks for sending the crawlers, but we’ve got a slight problem. One of your crewers just found something he thought was an egg. We’ve got to find out where those bugs came from, but my people here deserve a little respect.”
“We’ll do our best.”
Jacen strained his ears. The voice sounded husky, but right.
“Equal treatment for everyone. SELCORE is enormously grateful for refugee sponsors.”
Han extended a hand. “Glad you understand. Han Solo.”
Instead of taking his hand, the administrator reached up for her mask’s clasps.
“Hey, wait,” Han exclaimed. “You’ll end up in decontamination.”
She pulled off her mask one-handed. A long coil of dark-brown hair tumbled loose. “That’s all right,” she said somberly.
Leia stared at Han’s weary face—his gaping hazel eyes, his slack jaw stubbled with gray. Luke and Mara must have known Han was here, and assumed she did, too. How many people made that assumption—and so they just didn’t tell her?
Now, she knew she might have only a moment to reach him, before he remembered the last time she spoke to him. Angrily. “If your people have to be decontaminated,” she told Droma, “I’ll show them Gateway and SELCORE are with them, not against them.” For the moment, her aide Abbela could manage Gateway’s day-to-day business. Before Han’s eyes went hard and empty again, she had to reach him. She stepped closer. “Besides, I had no idea you were here. I should’ve known, but … I don’t think you ever sent over a roster.”
“We, ah, didn’t.” A lopsided grin appeared. “I suspect SELCORE’s been too busy administering Gateway to notice.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Olmahk stayed close, on watch, as C-3PO assisted the newcomers. Where would she put them all? She’d hoped to bring those poor Thirty-two people inside her more permanent dome eventually, and send workers back in week-long shifts. Gateway had plenty of space, but construction equipment was booked for weeks ahead, her new apartments filled before she built them. There were tents, carefully struck when her first charges moved into sturdier huts—and there was the decontamination issue …
Later! She had four-fifths of her family in plain sight, everyone but Anakin. This hadn’t happened in months!
She flung her arms around Han. His body remained stiff, but he laid an arm on her shoulders.
She