Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [101]
A light flashed on the screen. He glanced at it only to have it disappear. He frowned, wishing he had his old X-wing, then he returned his attention to the landing. Precision landing of a kind he hadn’t done in years. He pulled the joystick—
—and felt the X-wing shudder beneath him.
The buildings were close on both sides. The X-wing shuddered again, and the computer locked. The screens went dark. Luke reached for the eject button only to find it was missing.
There was no droid eject either, of course.
He was stuck.
He grabbed for the hatch. He would open it by hand. He had no other choice. The ground spun close to him—
—as the X-wing exploded.
Twenty-six
This time it was Leia’s turn to call an Inner Council meeting on short notice. She decided to hold it in the Ambassadorial Dining Room. The X-wing problem had to be dealt with quickly, and she picked the room closest to the bays.
The corridors here were highly polished, and the plants around the pillars well-tended. The dining room was often used for state dinners, and the entrance always had to look spectacular.
Leia hated the formality of the area, even though she had helped design it.
She and Wedge had reached the grand staircase leading up to the dining room when she felt cold. Her vision blurred, and she stumbled, clutching the mahogany railing for support.
A face formed in the air before her. The same white face she had seen before the bombing. It smiled, its black, empty eyes glittering their amusement.
Leia, an unfamiliar voice said in her ear. Leia.
And then she collapsed, her elbows and knees hitting the marble edges of the stairs. She thudded down to the floor, the marble cutting into her already-ripped military fatigues.
“Leia!” Wedge said. He bent over her, his strong hands bracing her shoulders. “Are you all right?”
Her teeth were chattering. “Evacuate the building.”
“What?”
“Evacuate the building,” she said.
“On the basis of what?”
“That face.” She sat up. Her hands were shaking. “I had the same vision before the bombing.”
But it had been different. Then she had heard voices scream and had been overwhelmed by cold. The destruction that had sent Luke to Coruscant before the actual bomb went off.
“All right,” Wedge said. “I’ll—”
“No, wait.” She passed a hand over her face. The owner of that skeletal mask wanted her to panic. She had to think. She had to set her emotions aside and think. “This is an unscheduled meeting. No one would know we’re here.”
“Still,” Wedge said, “we should change locations.”
Leia shook her head. The disorientation was still there, but it wasn’t as strong. She used Wedge’s arm to help herself to her feet. “No. It feels different. That face. It was warning me of something else.”
And she could almost grasp what that something else was. Almost, but not quite. It would come to her, though. She was certain of that.
“Let’s have the meeting,” she said.
“All right.” Wedge sounded confused, but he obviously wasn’t going to ask more questions. “At least let me post some more guards.”
Leia shook her head. “We did that before the bombing, too. For all I know, this vision is stress-related. I was feeling stressed before the Senate meeting.”
“And now, too, huh?”
She smiled at him. “I don’t like these detonators, Wedge. Whoever planted them has found yet another way to penetrate my home. Coruscant is no longer safe.”
“It never really was, Leia.”
“I know. But until recently I could go about my business without feeling the threat of death hanging over me. Now I worry about everything. I worry about the children’s rooms. I worry about the hallways. I worry about Han and the Falcon. If the X-wings were tampered with, what else was? How much more of this are we going to find, Wedge?”
“I think the key is discovering who did it.”
“I suppose.” Leia straightened her shoulders. “Although I think I know.”
Wedge said nothing. He had made his thoughts clear in the maintenance bay. He agreed