*** Chapter Twenty ***
Padme's return to Naboo was shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Within just a day of her return she went to the lake country. Her time in the lake country would inspire the imaginations of the entire world of Naboo years later, but as for the official reckoning, Padme's time was uneventful. She spent her days writing, reading and in private contemplation.
The Life and Times of Amidala, the People's Queen, By: Softa Jiane, Oralist and Historian
Han and Chewie pulled the Falcon out of lightspeed and into Naboo space. Han punched the Comm Unit, ready to ask for permission to land, but Chewie gave a loud roar and pointed out the windshield of the cockpit.
Han looked up and pulled has hand away, hopeful a transmission had not sent. In front of him, surrounding the plant of Naboo was the most complete blockade he had ever seen in his entire life. It was also the most unique. Unlike the imperial blockades Han had witnessed a few times in his life, where the imperial protocol dictated uniformity, tie fighters in one position, star destroyers in the next, this layout was a total and complete hodgepodge of cargo ships, starfighters that had not been in real operational use since the Old Republic and pleasure yachts, badly modified with weapons.
"Blast." Han yelled to no one particular, "Chewie, we need to jump back into Hyperspace, now!" Han exclaimed, even as he started flipping switches, looking through the Nav Computer for a location close enough where we could call in New Republic back up.
"Booom." The Falcon shook as a blast hit the shields surrounding the ship.
"New Plan, Chewie, head back to the gunnery, we're going to fight our way out." Han looked at the computer on the dash, there was a bit of luck on his side. There was just one lone ancient star fighter on his tail, he could outmaneuver that.
"Chewie, it's just one starfighter," Han yelled through the Falcon's comm unit.
Chewie gave a growl back in acknowledgement.
Han clicked another switch, and then ramped up the speed on the Falcon. There was a maneuver he had only heard of but had never had the opportunity to try. It was a progressive approach to lightspeed. Essentially, he would push the falcon to top speeds outside of Hyperdrive and then once the Falcon reached top speeds he would, he would jump into Hyperdrive. The only issue is that modern navigational computers were not equipped to handle this sort of jump. There was a real risk of getting sucked into a black hole. Avoiding death by blockade seemed like the perfect opportunity to attempt such an act.
"Boom!" The ship rocked again, another blast to the shields.
Han pushed the ship faster and faster, hoping to outrun the starfighter. "Booom!" The Falcon took another hit.
Then, the Falcon was going as fast as it could outside of hyperdrive. Han punched the hyperdrive and then stars bent as they entered light speed.
Han closed his eyes as he waited, now unable to control his fate and waited for the Nav Computer to catch up and calculate a route that would allow them safety.
Finally, he heard the familiar beep of the Nav Computer locking onto a route and opened his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief, they had made it out of the blockade, but that did not distract from the fact that there was still a battle to be fought. Han has calls to make, it was a good thing they had found that Com Fib Wire.
Wedge Antilles would have rather been on leave, but reserve duty was the next best thing. Reserve duty consisted of living on a starship carrier in deep space, waiting for the call that backup was needed. It also meant that his squadron was no longer fighting daily battle and instead had a bit of leisure time. It meant that everyone got eight hours of sleep every night and hot meals. Wedge, or course, made the men and woman of his squadron do training drills every other day or so, but the interim consisted of drinking Caf and Tea and playing cards or dice, X-Wing maintenance and compelling reports for the New Republic. New reports were required daily as the New Republic developed layers of governmental bureaucracy daily. Through all of this was the anticipation of waiting to answer the call of the New Republic. As much as his squadron claimed to want a break, they were not well equipped to sitting still.
Wedge was sitting in the lounge with half a dozen of his squadron when he heard the beep of his the Holo Unit. The face of General Ackbar appeared.
"Commander Antilles, we need you to report to Naboo…" And then General Ackbar quickly debriefed Wedge on what was waiting on a planet that had already been once freed.