Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [40]
Lando could have …
… prevented …
He sat up on his cot, the thin gold thermal blanket gathered around his thighs. He was cold despite the perfectly adjusted temperature. This particular nightmare hadn’t come to him in a long time, but he remembered its effects vividly.
It always left him cold, shivering with the most intense cold of his life. And the chill came from within. He felt as if—
—as if he’d been shoved in carbon freeze and left to die.
Lando glanced at his screen. No responses from Coruscant. He’d left messages for Han, Chewbacca, Leia, and finally for Winter. Repeated messages of urgency, and he received no response at all. Usually someone got back to him.
He had also tried Yavin 4, figuring Luke would know where everyone was, but all he got was Streen, who made certain the academy ran smoothly in Luke’s absence. Streen said Luke had left rather suddenly for Coruscant, but didn’t know why.
Lando had left Luke several messages after that. One keyed to his X-wing, which got bounced back to Lando over the vagaries of interspacial communications, another at Coruscant, and another at the Imperial Palace.
Then he tried Mon Mothma, Admiral Ackbar, and Wedge Antilles. He’d even left a general message for any member of the Coruscant Inner Council.
None of those was answered either.
Someone should have answered him by now.
The hair stood up on the back of his neck. His teeth were chattering. He got out of bed, slipped on his thickest, warmest robe, and poured himself a cup of hot Aitha protein drink. He wrapped his fingers around the cup to gain additional warmth. Then he sat in front of the computer, trying to quell the low-grade panic his dream had left him with, and called Mara Jade.
She answered with such immediacy that he was startled. He had half-expected her to have disappeared as well. She was in the cockpit of Talon Karrde’s ship, Wild Karrde, his vornskrs partially visible behind her.
She grinned as she answered his hail. “Can’t be away from me even a few days, huh, Lando?”
“Each moment seems like years, Mara,” he said, knowing he had to keep up his side of the banter, even though his mood was anything but light.
“You can do better than that,” she said, suddenly serious. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been trying to raise Han and Leia for almost a day now, and I can’t,” he said. He no longer tried to keep the worry from his voice. He braced his wrists on the desk so that she couldn’t see his hands shaking. “In fact, I can’t raise anyone on Coruscant.”
“That’s not a surprise,” she said.
His spine stiffened. She wasn’t smiling.
“You’ve been busy with something, haven’t you?” she asked.
Big news, then. News he should have heard.
“Don’t toy with me, Mara.”
“I’m not, Lando. It’s been the buzz of this sector, at least.”
“What has?”
“The bombing. Of the Senate Hall.” Her lips formed a thin line. Behind her, Karrde came into the cockpit and paused as he saw Lando on the screen. “Don’t worry. From all I heard, Organa Solo only had minor bruises, and Han wasn’t anywhere near the Hall.”
“And Luke?”
“Wasn’t on Coruscant at all when it happened. But a lot of people died and even more were injured. It’s played havoc with the communications array.” She glanced over her shoulder. Karrde sat down beside her.
Lando’s mouth was dry. It was, as he had expected, something bad. How bad yet he wasn’t sure. “I thought you said the destruction was at the Senate Hall?”
She nodded. “But everyone’s been trying to contact Coruscant. From political problems to inquiring about relatives. The volume of calls actually knocked part of the array off-line.”
“It’s been a mess with business,” Karrde said.
“I expect it has,” Lando said. “But traffic is getting onto Coruscant?”
Karrde nodded. “Not the place I’d want to go now, Calrissian. From what I hear, they’re all waiting for another attack.”
… could have prevented