• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Jacen and an uneasy Harrar had taken the cockpit’s rear chairs after Leia and Luke had climbed into the quad laser turrets. Mara, Kenth, Tahiri, Cakhmaim, Meewalh, and the droids were in the forward compartment. At the cost of some discretionary power, Han planned to keep the Falcon’s, artificial gravity enabled for as long as possible, if only to prevent everyone from being bounced all over the ship.

Alliance capital vessels were concentrating fire along the transitor and well into Coruscant’s bright side, but the battle was raging planetwide. Star Destroyers, cruisers, and frigates were still vectoring in from hyperspace routes rarely used since the days of the Old Republic, and enemy forces were blasting up the gravity well to reinforce the defense flotilla. The Yuuzhan Vong were widely dispersed but consolidated over the equator, above what had been Imperial/New Republic City, in the western hemisphere. The Alliance had yet to press any capital ships through the blockade of kilometer-long, weapons-studded vessels, but hundreds of starfighters had penetrated enemy lines and were attacking the arrays of dovin basals in orbit at the edge of Coruscant’s atmosphere.

Now it was the Falcon’s turn to try to slip past.

It was the opposite of what Han had had to do to get the freighter safely off Zonama Sekot. There the upper reaches of the envelope had been a dizzying clash of coralskippers and Sekotan fighters. From what Luke had been able to gather from Kyp and the other Jedi pilots, the sight of living ships had thrown the skips into disarray. But the Jedi had also discovered that Magister Jabitha hadn’t been understating anything when she had said that the Sekotan ships were for defense only. As often as not, the fleet fighters wouldn’t fire unless fired upon, and for all their astounding alacrity, they weren’t flying circles around the coralskippers so much as matching them maneuver for maneuver.

Two hundred thousand kilometers from the living world drifted the enemy task force that had delivered the coral-skippers, along with the yammosk-carrying clustership that was guiding them.

It was still anyone’s guess why Warmaster Nas Choka had sent a splinter group to Zonama Sekot, but it stood to reason that the Yuuzhan Vong wouldn’t wait long before bringing their capital ships to bear on the planet. Although Errant Venture and Tenel Ka’s flotilla of Hapan Battle Dragons and Nova-class cruisers were reported to be on the way, it was unlikely that they could prevail against the task force. Engaged in a ferocious battle near Muscave, Wedge Antilles and Keyan Farlander wouldn’t be able to lend support until Kre’fey’s First Fleet arrived to relieve them.

With so much action in the Coruscant system—from Vandor 3 clear to the Ulabos ice bands—Han had considered staging the Falcon through a series of microjumps. Ultimately, however, he had decided to jump the ship directly to Coruscant. They had reverted to realspace behind Alliance lines, but close enough to their target to be staggered by what they saw. Green and white where it had once been a sheen of artificial light, orbited by the remains of a shattered moon, its polar caps reduced to icebergs … Coruscant might as well have been an unfamiliar world.

A tone sounded from the comm board, and a baritone voice issued from the cockpit annunciators. “Millennium Falcon, this is Right to Rule control. Your best insertion point is presently at Bacta Sector, eight-one-seven. But we’ll keep you updated on the situation.”

Jaina leaned forward to study the tactical display. “Copy that, Right to Rule. And thanks for the help.”

“Millennium Falcon, Grand Admiral Pellaeon wishes you good fortune.”

“Tell him the same from us,” Han said into the headset mouthpiece.

Pellaeon’s Fourth Fleet, which included a trio of Star Destroyers and an assortment of Strike- and Carrack-class cruisers, was pounding the Yuuzhan Vong battle group. In several sectors the orbital dovin basals had