Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 20_ The Final Prophecy - J. Gregory Keyes [80]
“So what do you want with me?” Jaina asked. “Why did you stun me?”
“Well, frankly, Colonel Solo, I don’t want anything from you, especially trouble. But I need to borrow some parts from your X-wing.”
“You can’t all escape in a single X-wing.”
“No, we can’t. We’re going to escape in the station itself.”
“Come again?” Jaina said. “I thought you said it isn’t equipped with hyperdrive.”
“No, I said Golans aren’t usually equipped with hyperdrive. This one wasn’t, either. But how do you think we were planning on salvaging a space station without the Bilbringi authorities noticing?”
“You brought your own drive,” Jaina realized.
“Yes. We almost had it installed when the Vong showed up and torched our transport. Unfortunately, the motivator was still on the transport. No motivator, no hyperdrive.” He held his palms out. “So—we’ve been waiting.”
“You can’t use an X-wing motivator to jump a station this size,” Jaina pointed out.
“No, but we can cobble one together from seven.”
Jaina jerked at the webbing. “Leave my squadron alone!”
“Hey, calm down,” Prann said. “They’re all okay. We hit them with ion beams, hauled them in with tractor beams, and stunned them with sonics. And that wasn’t easy—not with the Wookiee and that crazy Twi’lek. Look, I’m not trying to make any enemies, here.”
Jaina could only stare at him in the face of such an absurd statement.
“We were hoping you would all dock,” he continued, “and make the whole thing easier, but we’ve been working out contingencies for a while now. Not a lot else to do here, you know.”
“Look, Prann,” Jaina said, “General Antilles needs this battle station.”
Prann laughed. “I’m sorry, Colonel, but we’ve all invested a little too much in this baby to just hand it over to be destroyed. Do you know how much I can get for the cloaker alone? No, forget it. In a few hours we’ll be ready to jump. Meanwhile, we’ve put the cloak back on.”
“And what about me?”
“You’re a bit of a problem. I know enough about you to know that the longer I keep you around, the better the chance you’ll be able to use those Jedi powers of yours to—well, I don’t know, do I, and that’s the problem. On the other hand, I don’t want to kill Han Solo’s daughter. I mean, I respect the guy, and I know he’s already been through a lot.”
“You’re just afraid he would hunt you down and kill you,” Jaina said.
“Yeah, that, too. Look, I’m a businessman—this is business. Once we’ve got the hyperdrive working and jump out of here, we’ll put you all off someplace safe—with your starfighters. Okay?”
“No,” Jaina said, “not okay. Who are you going to sell your cloaker to, Prann? The Vong? Because they’re going to be the only ones around to buy it if you don’t help us here.”
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Prann said. “I mean, there’s still plenty of market for this sort of thing in the Corporate Sector—heck, in lots of places. A small planetary government is what I’m looking for, one afraid they’ll soon need negotiating power. If this battle here goes sour, it’ll only make the market that much better.”
“Until there is no market,” Jaina snapped. “Until the Vong have everything, because Huttoads like you are still trying to make a profit rather than doing what they can to help us win.”
Prann’s smile vanished. “We sat out here for a year surrounded by Vong,” he said angrily, “in constant fear that they would find us. Sure, they can’t see us when we have the cloak on, but we can’t see them either. Every single time we pushed out the probe we all got the shakes. And who knew what the Vong have that might detect us at any second? Do you know what it’s like to be surrounded by that kind of pressure every day for a year and not be able