Star Wars_ X-Wing 02_ Wedge's Gamble - Michael A. Stackpole [52]
Erisi’s hand tightened on Corran’s arm. “Oh, my, look.”
The shuttle had come about and gave them an unobstructed view of the planet. They sailed in beyond the sphere of Golan Space Defense platforms and the orbital solar reflection stations. The latter reflected sunlight down to the planet to warm zones near the glacial caps at either pole. While quite habitable, Coruscant’s orbit took it far enough from the sun that capturing and redirecting solar energy was needed to keep the world temperate year round.
The shuttle was heading down and in toward the daylight side of the planet, but a crescent of night gobbled up a big portion of it. The lighted side had a spiky, angular quality to it, with towers rising up and grand canyons sinking down through a khaki and grey landscape. Skyhooks, massive stone islands flecked with green and purple gardens, floated lazily over the ferrocrete terrain. Corran could see nothing natural on that side of the world, just the rough scars of humanity’s manufacture and constant reconstruction of the planet.
The nightside, by way of contrast, sparkled and shimmered with a full spectrum of colors that flowed through invisible channels. Millions of lights marked towers he could not see, and each light on them corresponded to one or two or four or a dozen people living in its proximity. Deep down at the base of the towers, winking in and out of life as buildings eclipsed his view, muted lights played out like those in ocean depths, hinting at life unseen and likely unknowable.
Approaching the line that marked the end of day and the beginning of the night, Corran saw a building that could only be the Imperial Palace. An arrogant edifice, it rivaled and mocked the Manarai Mountains to the south. Towers rose from it like coral spires from a reef and their sharp, angular construction made them seem as dangerous to Corran as the coral they reminded him of. Those towers, that artificial mountain, housed the bureaucracy and officials that could destroy planets with a rounding error in the budget. It is a hive of evil. He shivered. No one will ever be safe until it has been purged.
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
Corran looked up and found the shuttle’s pilot standing in the hatchway. “Shouldn’t you be flying this thing?”
“We’re on instrument approach to the Hotel Imperial. My droid copilot can handle it.” She gestured at the vision of the planet. “You’re lucky. It’s a clear night. If there were storms, I’d be at the helm dodging lightning and skyhooks and you’d not see much.”
Erisi lifted her chin. “My telbun and I …”
“You want the Emperor’s suite. Someone else has a previous reservation.”
Corran spoke slowly and carefully. “We thought it was arranged.”
“It can be.”
Erisi’s eyes narrowed. “Will a thousand credits suffice?”
“As a down payment, yes.”
Corran smiled. “You’re our contact?”
The pilot nodded and Corran took a good look at her for the first time. He found her pretty, and her dark eyes were full of fire, but there was another quality about her that he couldn’t place at first. He thought it had to do with her mood, and how quickly she had shifted from being just an anonymous pilot to their contact, but he recognized that mutability of personality as a mark of an excellent undercover operative. Iella could change like that—affect a mood and suddenly she was someone else.
As the woman drew closer he nailed it. Though her hair was white and gathered at the back of her head, he realized she reminded him very strongly of Princess Leia Organa. He’d not made the connection when she was the pilot—he knew he’d not really paid that much attention to her. It was obvious to him that she was not Leia Organa, but because of the resemblance he would have been willing to bet she came from Alderaan.
The pilot sat down in the chair in front of Corran and swiveled it around