NOTHING STAYS THE SAME

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The old woman, as she was resigned to refer to herself—after all, she certainly wasn't growing any younger, and her white streaked hair seemed to indicate old age—stood in front of the transparisteel viewport.  She could see the entire city, the kingdom from which the Empire would be resurrected.  With little coaxing on her and her daughters' parts, the former citizens quickly left their pitiful homes.  Why anyone would voluntarily live on the gods-forsaken planet was beyond her comprehension.  With smugglers, thieves, and various other alien scum, the place was a hellhole she tolerated only for its ability to hide her small business.  She never considered what she did to be weapons smuggling or thievery.  According to her beliefs, everything belonged to the Galactic Empire.  No meager Rebellion would ever change that.

It was night and she wondered why she was still awake.  Any sentient creature on planet (and only the humans were sentient, in her mind) would have been asleep already.  Too much was on her mind.  He was loose.  Someone allowed him to escape, and although the ysalimiri would severely hinder his ability to completely escape her playground, and chance in his favor was simply not allowed.

Besides.  She was coming.  How she escaped from the New Republic's prison was unknown.  The rest of the Republic believed she was still imprisoned.  Of course, such an obvious lie on the behalf of the leaders of the Republic would certainly cause trouble within the lower ranks.  That was something to keep in mind.

"Arienne," she said, to the younger woman she knew to be standing by her door, her bodyguard.  "Tell the Retaliator to ensure no one else attempts to land on planet.  Anyone who tries to is to be shot down immediately."

No sense in leaving skilled enemies at your back.

Han was panicking.  In his own ship, he'd have been able to slow the descent to the surface, but he didn't know the Asteroid Belt as he did his Falcon.  He tried to level the ship out, to glide, since the ImpStar's ion cannon disabled much of the YT 2400 freighter.  "Damn it, Chewie, find the repulsorlifts!  Someone moved them around."  Although the 2400 model was alike the 1300 in many ways, the cockpit had the devices moved around a bit, supposedly to make it easier on the pilot, if he or she decided to fly solo.  But with the surface of Caratos looming in the viewport, nothing seemed worse than changing the controls around.

Corran knew they were in trouble—the blue lightning of the ion cannon had completely disabled the lower gun turret, and he was trying to climb out of it, but the clasp on his safety harness wouldn't let go.  He reached out with the Force to try and slow the ship down, knowing that his nonexistent telekinetic powers would do no good now.  Then he realized there was something he could do.  He recognized the energy out there, as the Asteroid Belt was streaking through the thin atmosphere.

"Mara!" he called.  "Help me!"

She could already feel what he was doing, and she added her own Force strength to it.  The ship slowed a little more, and she could hear the curses of the Corellian pilot in the cockpit.  He had no idea why the ship suddenly began to slow.  She was using telekinesis, but he absorbed power.  But she knew Corran could only absorb so much power.  What could he do with the power before he couldn't take any more?  She could feel that he'd already thought of that, and a shield was being created around the ship.  He was trying to focus on making the shield around the three in the cockpit, as well as her and himself, but he couldn't refine it that well.  His shield encompassed the majority of the ship.  The surface seemed to come even closer faster, though he knew the ship was actually slowing down.  He was no longer holding onto the power; he was only converting it to the shield, and helping Mara with telekinesis.

The impact knocked him out.

He looked up at the sky as the asteroid streaked through the sky.  Then he realized it wasn't an asteroid—it was a ship!  He didn't see the crash, but he saw the flames flicker, and the dim pillars of smoke barely visible against the rain and grey sky.

Maybe the ship wasn't damaged too badly.  Maybe someone onboard was still alive.  Maybe they could help him.

He grabbed the cloak he'd found and limped towards the crash site.

A part of his mind tried to warn him off.  If she saw the crash, wouldn't she send people out to investigate?  But she was busy trying to do something else, though he wasn't sure what.  Maybe she was trying to…bring back the Empire?  Shit.

Another piece fell onto the puzzle.  He remembered what he'd been doing.  He'd been searching for the imposter who was smuggling weapons to the Empire.  How could he have missed it?

Glancing at the sky, he knew it would only be an hour or so before the darkness.  Night was darker here than anywhere else he'd seen.  Day was grey, much like dusk on Coruscant.  He tried to jog to the wreck.

The first thing Talon felt was something dripping on his face.  He touched it, feeling the warm liquid.  He forced his eyes open.  What happened?

He tried to sit up, but his back felt like it was on fire, and he couldn't move his legs.

What did he remember?  The ship.  The TIE fighters.  Ion blast.  They must have crashed.  He glanced around, everything red-tinted from the blood that had run into his eyes.  Chewbacca was still in the copilot's seat, the back of the chair broken backwards.  The Wookiee appeared to be mainly unhurt.  His blue eyes were open, though dazed.  Then Talon looked above him.  He just began to realize how badly the ship was damaged.  It was tilted upwards—Chewie was slightly above him, and he saw that Solo should have been near him—he was against the door from the cockpit, his safety restraints having been broken—and Solo was pinned to the ceiling by a large rock.  He remembered that the pilot had undone his safety restraints so he could reach all the controls.

Oh, gods, we must have hit boulders.  How the hell do we get him down?  The smuggler chief wasn't sure where Solo was bleeding from—the blood dripped from the rock.

Corran heard something that sounded like rain, and he slowly opened his eyes.  The cloudy sky above him opened with a bolt of lightning and he shook his head to clear it of the cobwebs.  Where the hell was he?  A simulator, maybe.  He recognized the mess of electronics in front of him to be a weapons console.  But what had happened?  It felt like he'd been knocked out.  And the rain would destroy the simulator.  Didn't they know that?

"Oh, shit," he said, with strong feeling.  Now he remembered.  But hadn't there been a gun turret above him?