Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [24]
No answer, but Imperial Commander Thanas was busy too. Luke watched with relief as cluster after cluster vanished. “That’s it,” he said softly. “We’re done, for now. Get the outer-system scanners up, Delckis. It’s my guess they’re not going far.”
“Yes, sir.”
Luke sipped bland, recycled water down his parched throat. He’d been breathing hard. Better control next time, he promised himself.
“Sir,” said Delckis, “you were right. They’re already coming up, barely outsystem.”
“Mm-hmm.” He liked being right, but he did wish they’d simply gone home.
He stretched. What next? He set the drink bulb on the BAC. It made a better table than strategy counselor. “Code a message to Admiral Ackbar, Delckis. We need more ships. Include BAC recordings for that battle. They’ll show him what we’re up against. Can you have it off in half an hour?”
“Easily, sir.”
Thank the Force for contraband Imperial transceivers. “Do it.” Next: refuel and rest. “Squad Leaders, this is Flurry. Good work. Come on home.”
Manchisco exhaled, shook her braids, and whacked the Duro’s shoulder.
Blue Alliance glitter-dots converged on the Flurry. Luke’s radio crackled. “Alliance Commander, this is Commander Thanas. Do you have holonet capability?”
“Yes, but it’s slow. Give us five minutes.”
Lieutenant Delckis was already twisting levers and diverting power into recently patched-in components. Luke slid his chair into pick-up range. “Tell me when you’re ready.”
“Ready,” Delckis said at last. “Two-way.”
Over an instrument panel appeared the image of a man who looked about fifty, narrow faced with thinning brown hair cut almost short enough to hide its curl. “Thanks,” said Commander Thanas, “and congratulations.”
“They haven’t gone far.”
“I see that. We’ll be on watch. You, ah, might want to move out of the battle zone. Those alien ships leave very hot debris.”
“Hot?” Luke eyed a hull temp readout.
“Ssi-ruuvi drones burn heavy fusionables.”
New term: Ssi-ruuvi. More important, if the aliens meant to invade Bakura, why scatter the system with radioactive cinders?
And why did Thanas go to all the trouble of using holonet for this minor exchange? Luke wondered as Thanas’s image faded. Either Commander Thanas wanted to see his counterpart or—knowing the Rebels had holonet—Thanas might suspect they’d stolen other Imperial equipment.
Luke stared at the yellow-gold “allies” dots. “Analyze that,” he directed the BAC. The reading came up quickly, and he moved his drink bulb to see it all. The Imperial cruiser drifted, manifestly crippled. Thanas’s remaining forces had withdrawn from battle and established a defense web around that ship … and Bakura.
He guessed he wouldn’t trust Imperials who claimed to want to help him, either. Making people trust each other would be Leia’s job.
“Thanks again, Falcon,” he said on their private channel. “Didn’t things work out, at the sixth planet?”
“We’ll tell you about it sometime,” Leia’s voice answered out of the speaker at his elbow.
CHAPTER
5
Imperial Bakuran Senator Gaeriel Captison sat wiggling her toes and making patterns out of keys on her inset touchboard. Under a tiled ceiling that rose to a point above its center, the chamber of the Imperial Bakuran Senate lay silent—except for a soft trickle from four two-story, translucent rain pillars at its corners. Roof gutters channeled rain water into the pillars. Lit from below, they shimmered with the liquid pulse of Bakura’s biosphere.
Gaeriel had stood in the rain this morning to watch it drum on dancing pokkta leaves, letting it soak her skin, hair, and clothing. She took a deep breath of damp, soothing Bakuran air and folded her hands on the table. Imperial Center was now the only world where a student could do postgraduate work in government—one of the Emperor’s ways of ensuring that his philosophy trickled down to subject worlds. After a required year of indoctrination on Center, she’d returned last month. Confirmed now to the senatorial post she’d won as a youngster, she