ALLIANCES by Shayne
Pt 2
"If you're wondering about your friends," Merril said intuitively, "I did talk to them shortly after take-off. They seemed to want to follow me. I told them if they did, I'd return you to them...a piece at a time. Seems Han believed me."
"Looks like you've thought of everything," Luke said calmly, looking up into the gray eyes. "But I'd be careful if I were you, Merril Highstar. Sometimes, things aren't exactly as they seem."
There really wasn't any answer to a truism like that, and Merril made none. Yet, even within the strength of his own self-confidence, a small doubt began to blossom. He had an eerie feeling that, for once ego-based optimism mightn't be enough.
Leia looked through the Falcon's front viewports, her forehead creased in a frown. A day that had started out well had deteriorated into chaos, and she felt a strong sense of guilt. If it wasn't for her insistence, Luke wouldn't have come, and wouldn't be in the danger he was.
They had left the idyllic ocean world as soon as the Falcon's sensors reported another ship lifting off - Leia had known at once that Luke was aboard and under threat. The remainder of Highstar's crew had been left on the planet with supplies and an emergency beacon - the last thing on Leia's mind had been concern over a few criminals. Then Highstar's threat had made them draw back and she'd insisted they wait, so that the raider would believe his words had made them withdraw.
Han slipped back into the pilot chair and eyed her in silence for some moments, before twisting his mouth into a grin.
"Look, it'll be alright. That new sensor unit is better than anything Highstar has. He doesn't know were here, believe me."
"You'd better be right. If he does see us. he's just the type to follow through on that threat."
"Trust me," Han said cheerfully. "Luke's still alive. ..you'd know if he wasn't. So Highstar must want him that way for some reason." The logic of that statement was perfectly clear to Han, and he sought refuge from worry in it.
Leia, a little more imaginative than her mate, couldn't be comforted by facts. She could sense, even over so great a distance, that Luke was still alive. The continued thread of his existence was a magnet, pulling her onward.
"He's alive", she said softly, eyes unfocused as she strained her senses to refine the weak life signal. "Alive..and a prisoner. I'd like to know how...and why..." She turned back to Han. "Don't lose him now."
"Trust me," Han repeated, wondering, even as he said it, whether such trust was warranted. Space was very big and Highstar, like he, was adept at losing himself in that vastness. . .
Following a ship through jump was no simple thing; once it entered that strange non-space, a ship was no longer really anywhere at all. The only way to follow was to jump at precisely the same moment and track the ship by keeping tabs on the other ship's exhaust trail.
Luke had no way of knowing whether Han would be able to follow that faint trail, though he could sense that Leia was somewhere behind him - if 'behind', 'up' or 'down' had any meaning in Jump space. Although fairly certain that Highstar didn't know the Falcon was following, Luke found it difficult to read Merril. The man was no fool, and he must know that Leia and Han would follow, somehow. Perhaps not, though. His ideas of loyalty seemed very different to Luke's. As witness his entire disinterest in the fate of his crew.
"Their tough luck," Merril had said as he settled back into the chair after putting the Solar Song into Jump. "I hired them on for a couple of jobs, that's all. They took the risk of getting caught or killed, just like I did."
For the first time since his capture, Luke took the time to study his captor. Merril seemed to breathe confidence, a kind of placid arrogance that reminded him, a little, of Han. There was a
sense of bitterness too, underneath the surface. Luke's ability to sense the Darkness in all men told him that there was such Darkness there, but it was spotted, uneven. Like a piece of fruit, any being could be rotted with darkness to the core, as the Emperor had been, or simply tainted by a lifetime of neglect. He knew, somehow, that there was still much of the Light in Highstar - overshadowed, pushed down, but still there. If he could reach that Light, release it. . .
"Am I allowed to know where we're going?" Luke asked abruptly.
"Why not." Merril tapped the controls of the navcomputer and a set of diagrams flashed up onto its screen. "Planet called Agaroo. Heard of it?"
"Can I t say I have .'"
"No, it isn't that well known. It's mostly a farming planet, one of the Empire's foodbins. However, it does have a couple of cities, and one of them is a good place to go if you're a spacer looking for work, or with something to sell. I have quite a few contacts there. With the Empire in the mess its in, things should be a lot safer."
"Does your conscience ever bother you?" Luke thrust the question in like a weapon. Its abruptness took Merril by surprise, and he flushed.
"A conscience is something I can't afford to have. Ask Solo about it sometime."
Luke sat upright in the flight couch, surging to Han's defense. "Han isn't..!"
"Isn't what?'' Highstar interrupted, coldly angry. "Isn't a bad boy anymore? Wasn't a smuggler, a pirate. ..a killer? Or does being your friend make it alright?"
Even as Luke's own anger grew at the slander to his part-brother, a small voice told him that Highstar's words weren't that far from wrong - depending on your point of view. The old "point of view factor". Yet there were values, and honor and personal integrity that placed the lives of others equal on the scale with your own, if those lives were worthwhile and equally honorable. How could he explain that to the embittered man across from him? How could he get through, win through to his spirit? Could he? Or would it be through violence and death that he would need to win his freedom?
He stared at Highstar as he thought, hardly aware that the other saw something strange in the blue eyes that studied him with such apparent intensity. Not anger, even that faded quickly. Puzzlement? No, it was, what? Curiosity, concern, not inward-directed. Just what kind of man was this?
The silence was broken by the blipping of the navcomputer Highstar turned to the controls.
"Agaroo coming up, there shouldn't be any problem."
The Solar Song came out of jump and immediately began wailing its alarms. Luke swung around to check the sensors, as did Highstar, and he cursed loudly.
"Imperials! Where'd they come from!?"
The ship had come out of jump at the center of what appeared to be an Imperial convoy - half a dozen TIE fighters swarmed around them like agitated gnats. Two Star Destroyers could be seen orbiting the planet some distance off, along with three large freighters and a small horde of lesser ships. The Solar Song's emergence could have been better placed...
"Seems the Empire wants something on Agaroo," Luke said as he watched Highstar fling the ship about and head towards a small nearby moon. The TIE's roared in pursuit, probably figuring that anything that ran away was worth chasing.
"The food, probably, " Merril answered, as he dodged one of the fighters. He glanced at Luke, allowing himself a brief flash of smile, a touch of jauntiness. "Can you handle a turret?"
"If allowed."
"Consider yourself allowed. Take the Top and try and cut the odds down. If we can get behind the moon unseen, I'll land her and we may be able to hide this out."
Luke threw himself down the corridor and up into the turret. The ship roared and gyrated around him and he felt the thud of impact as one of the fighters scored a hit. Once in the turret, he clipped on the headphones and switched the turret to manual. He noted that Merril was operating the other turret through the main controls. Flying the ship and fighting it would lower his accuracy in both, but they had no choice.
Within moments the computer sensors had located the nearest target, and Luke zeroed in on it. They were quick, agile things and it required all of Luke's skill to keep the bobbing shapes centered. Cutting out all unnecessary thoughts and feelings, Luke centered his attention on the fighter, on its projected line of flight cast forward, figuring probables and flight paths in ways he could never describe. The turret slipped about and the big twin-muzzles spat fire in twin spears of blue-white...the TIE was there, captured in the light. Then it wasn't - where it had been was an outward flowing ball of debris and flame. Wasting no time, Luke swung the gun around and took out the second ship in a conservative flow of action. Off to one side he saw another TIE blaze up in a ball of flame from Highstar's guns.
The Solar Song's engines roared as Highstar pushed his ship through a series of crazy maneuvers to reach the far side of the moon before the bulk of the TIE fighters were in range. Taking far less time than normal safety dictated, he pushed the ship down to the surface and skidded in to a landing. Luke felt the ship lurch and grind its way across the rough surface before coming to an angled halt. There were no alarms, however, so it seemed they'd come in without rupturing the hull.
Luke jumped down from the turret and slid back to the flight deck. The angle of the floor made it more of a slide than a run. Merril was busy cutting all power as Luke pulled himself into the co-pilot seat.
"Well, we made it." He looked up at Luke, and,-nodded briefly. "You shoot good. The Force, I suppose."
"Something like that. Will they be able to track us here?"
"I doubt it. I've cut all power, including life support. We have as much air as is in the ship right now. Relative to our size, it's a big lump of rock we're on, and we're giving off no power readings worth mentioning. Our hull will blend in nicely with the metal readings and our coloring is a neutral camouflage, even if they should think to do something as simple as eyeballing the surface. Baring very severe ill fortune, we should be alright."
"Coming out of Jump into the center of an Imperial convoy might be your share of bad luck for awhile," Luke commented as he lay back in the seat. "I wouldn't take any large bets on it, though."
The Falcon's arrival at Agaroo was almost as alarming as the Solar Song's. Although not as centrally located, the Falcon's arrival point was still within the sensor range of the Imperial ships, and Han found it necessary to boost out of the system and Jump away at full speed.
"He certainly picked a hot spot to go to," Han muttered through as he punched in the hyperdrive co-ordinates with abysmal lack of care. "I'll have to come back later, when things have cooled down."
Leia watched the maneuvers with concern, unable to pick up any real feeling about Luke in the short time they were in the system. Still alive, certainly, and so close...for a little while they had been so close. She watched the stars blur out again silently, worried by the delay that stretched with each passing star.
End this part
Pt 2
"If you're wondering about your friends," Merril said intuitively, "I did talk to them shortly after take-off. They seemed to want to follow me. I told them if they did, I'd return you to them...a piece at a time. Seems Han believed me."
"Looks like you've thought of everything," Luke said calmly, looking up into the gray eyes. "But I'd be careful if I were you, Merril Highstar. Sometimes, things aren't exactly as they seem."
There really wasn't any answer to a truism like that, and Merril made none. Yet, even within the strength of his own self-confidence, a small doubt began to blossom. He had an eerie feeling that, for once ego-based optimism mightn't be enough.
Leia looked through the Falcon's front viewports, her forehead creased in a frown. A day that had started out well had deteriorated into chaos, and she felt a strong sense of guilt. If it wasn't for her insistence, Luke wouldn't have come, and wouldn't be in the danger he was.
They had left the idyllic ocean world as soon as the Falcon's sensors reported another ship lifting off - Leia had known at once that Luke was aboard and under threat. The remainder of Highstar's crew had been left on the planet with supplies and an emergency beacon - the last thing on Leia's mind had been concern over a few criminals. Then Highstar's threat had made them draw back and she'd insisted they wait, so that the raider would believe his words had made them withdraw.
Han slipped back into the pilot chair and eyed her in silence for some moments, before twisting his mouth into a grin.
"Look, it'll be alright. That new sensor unit is better than anything Highstar has. He doesn't know were here, believe me."
"You'd better be right. If he does see us. he's just the type to follow through on that threat."
"Trust me," Han said cheerfully. "Luke's still alive. ..you'd know if he wasn't. So Highstar must want him that way for some reason." The logic of that statement was perfectly clear to Han, and he sought refuge from worry in it.
Leia, a little more imaginative than her mate, couldn't be comforted by facts. She could sense, even over so great a distance, that Luke was still alive. The continued thread of his existence was a magnet, pulling her onward.
"He's alive", she said softly, eyes unfocused as she strained her senses to refine the weak life signal. "Alive..and a prisoner. I'd like to know how...and why..." She turned back to Han. "Don't lose him now."
"Trust me," Han repeated, wondering, even as he said it, whether such trust was warranted. Space was very big and Highstar, like he, was adept at losing himself in that vastness. . .
Following a ship through jump was no simple thing; once it entered that strange non-space, a ship was no longer really anywhere at all. The only way to follow was to jump at precisely the same moment and track the ship by keeping tabs on the other ship's exhaust trail.
Luke had no way of knowing whether Han would be able to follow that faint trail, though he could sense that Leia was somewhere behind him - if 'behind', 'up' or 'down' had any meaning in Jump space. Although fairly certain that Highstar didn't know the Falcon was following, Luke found it difficult to read Merril. The man was no fool, and he must know that Leia and Han would follow, somehow. Perhaps not, though. His ideas of loyalty seemed very different to Luke's. As witness his entire disinterest in the fate of his crew.
"Their tough luck," Merril had said as he settled back into the chair after putting the Solar Song into Jump. "I hired them on for a couple of jobs, that's all. They took the risk of getting caught or killed, just like I did."
For the first time since his capture, Luke took the time to study his captor. Merril seemed to breathe confidence, a kind of placid arrogance that reminded him, a little, of Han. There was a
sense of bitterness too, underneath the surface. Luke's ability to sense the Darkness in all men told him that there was such Darkness there, but it was spotted, uneven. Like a piece of fruit, any being could be rotted with darkness to the core, as the Emperor had been, or simply tainted by a lifetime of neglect. He knew, somehow, that there was still much of the Light in Highstar - overshadowed, pushed down, but still there. If he could reach that Light, release it. . .
"Am I allowed to know where we're going?" Luke asked abruptly.
"Why not." Merril tapped the controls of the navcomputer and a set of diagrams flashed up onto its screen. "Planet called Agaroo. Heard of it?"
"Can I t say I have .'"
"No, it isn't that well known. It's mostly a farming planet, one of the Empire's foodbins. However, it does have a couple of cities, and one of them is a good place to go if you're a spacer looking for work, or with something to sell. I have quite a few contacts there. With the Empire in the mess its in, things should be a lot safer."
"Does your conscience ever bother you?" Luke thrust the question in like a weapon. Its abruptness took Merril by surprise, and he flushed.
"A conscience is something I can't afford to have. Ask Solo about it sometime."
Luke sat upright in the flight couch, surging to Han's defense. "Han isn't..!"
"Isn't what?'' Highstar interrupted, coldly angry. "Isn't a bad boy anymore? Wasn't a smuggler, a pirate. ..a killer? Or does being your friend make it alright?"
Even as Luke's own anger grew at the slander to his part-brother, a small voice told him that Highstar's words weren't that far from wrong - depending on your point of view. The old "point of view factor". Yet there were values, and honor and personal integrity that placed the lives of others equal on the scale with your own, if those lives were worthwhile and equally honorable. How could he explain that to the embittered man across from him? How could he get through, win through to his spirit? Could he? Or would it be through violence and death that he would need to win his freedom?
He stared at Highstar as he thought, hardly aware that the other saw something strange in the blue eyes that studied him with such apparent intensity. Not anger, even that faded quickly. Puzzlement? No, it was, what? Curiosity, concern, not inward-directed. Just what kind of man was this?
The silence was broken by the blipping of the navcomputer Highstar turned to the controls.
"Agaroo coming up, there shouldn't be any problem."
The Solar Song came out of jump and immediately began wailing its alarms. Luke swung around to check the sensors, as did Highstar, and he cursed loudly.
"Imperials! Where'd they come from!?"
The ship had come out of jump at the center of what appeared to be an Imperial convoy - half a dozen TIE fighters swarmed around them like agitated gnats. Two Star Destroyers could be seen orbiting the planet some distance off, along with three large freighters and a small horde of lesser ships. The Solar Song's emergence could have been better placed...
"Seems the Empire wants something on Agaroo," Luke said as he watched Highstar fling the ship about and head towards a small nearby moon. The TIE's roared in pursuit, probably figuring that anything that ran away was worth chasing.
"The food, probably, " Merril answered, as he dodged one of the fighters. He glanced at Luke, allowing himself a brief flash of smile, a touch of jauntiness. "Can you handle a turret?"
"If allowed."
"Consider yourself allowed. Take the Top and try and cut the odds down. If we can get behind the moon unseen, I'll land her and we may be able to hide this out."
Luke threw himself down the corridor and up into the turret. The ship roared and gyrated around him and he felt the thud of impact as one of the fighters scored a hit. Once in the turret, he clipped on the headphones and switched the turret to manual. He noted that Merril was operating the other turret through the main controls. Flying the ship and fighting it would lower his accuracy in both, but they had no choice.
Within moments the computer sensors had located the nearest target, and Luke zeroed in on it. They were quick, agile things and it required all of Luke's skill to keep the bobbing shapes centered. Cutting out all unnecessary thoughts and feelings, Luke centered his attention on the fighter, on its projected line of flight cast forward, figuring probables and flight paths in ways he could never describe. The turret slipped about and the big twin-muzzles spat fire in twin spears of blue-white...the TIE was there, captured in the light. Then it wasn't - where it had been was an outward flowing ball of debris and flame. Wasting no time, Luke swung the gun around and took out the second ship in a conservative flow of action. Off to one side he saw another TIE blaze up in a ball of flame from Highstar's guns.
The Solar Song's engines roared as Highstar pushed his ship through a series of crazy maneuvers to reach the far side of the moon before the bulk of the TIE fighters were in range. Taking far less time than normal safety dictated, he pushed the ship down to the surface and skidded in to a landing. Luke felt the ship lurch and grind its way across the rough surface before coming to an angled halt. There were no alarms, however, so it seemed they'd come in without rupturing the hull.
Luke jumped down from the turret and slid back to the flight deck. The angle of the floor made it more of a slide than a run. Merril was busy cutting all power as Luke pulled himself into the co-pilot seat.
"Well, we made it." He looked up at Luke, and,-nodded briefly. "You shoot good. The Force, I suppose."
"Something like that. Will they be able to track us here?"
"I doubt it. I've cut all power, including life support. We have as much air as is in the ship right now. Relative to our size, it's a big lump of rock we're on, and we're giving off no power readings worth mentioning. Our hull will blend in nicely with the metal readings and our coloring is a neutral camouflage, even if they should think to do something as simple as eyeballing the surface. Baring very severe ill fortune, we should be alright."
"Coming out of Jump into the center of an Imperial convoy might be your share of bad luck for awhile," Luke commented as he lay back in the seat. "I wouldn't take any large bets on it, though."
The Falcon's arrival at Agaroo was almost as alarming as the Solar Song's. Although not as centrally located, the Falcon's arrival point was still within the sensor range of the Imperial ships, and Han found it necessary to boost out of the system and Jump away at full speed.
"He certainly picked a hot spot to go to," Han muttered through as he punched in the hyperdrive co-ordinates with abysmal lack of care. "I'll have to come back later, when things have cooled down."
Leia watched the maneuvers with concern, unable to pick up any real feeling about Luke in the short time they were in the system. Still alive, certainly, and so close...for a little while they had been so close. She watched the stars blur out again silently, worried by the delay that stretched with each passing star.
End this part