Skywalker's Legacy, page 142
Chapter Nineteen
Apparently Etan Lippa had a flair for the dramatic.
Brenna knew they had come to the senators when the door was slow to open, like the one to the trophy room had been.
They weren't preserved in carbonite, but they were on display, as much of a display as the Jedi Knights had been, but not nearly so gruesome. Each senator was enclosed in a clear tube, still clothed in whatever day wear or evening wear he/she happened to have been wearing at the time of the kidnapping. They were all standing, eyes closed, hands down at their sides, not moving, not even breathing. Some of them were human. Some were species Brenna had only seen on computer images in school.
There were two rows of them, lining each side of the long side of the room. Lucy went running between them, head rotating from side to side, followed closely by Rupert. Han shoved Poul at Chewbacca and went after them. "Careful!" Han yelled. "Don't touch anything!"
Lucy found what she was looking for at the far end of the room. "Mom!" she cried.
"Don't touch anything!" Han repeated.
Lucy stopped just short of putting her hands on the case. Rupert stopped right behind her. Poul squirmed in Chewbacca's arms, unable to escape, screaming, "I want to see Mom!"
Brenna watched from just inside the door. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the wall. Now that she had gotten the group here, she seemed bored by the rest. Luke glanced at her, then went to catch up with the others.
Han parted his way through Lucy and Rupert, and studied the encasement around Leia. He walked all around the tube twice, squatted down to study the base, looked up to study the top. "How do we get her out of there?" he murmured. "There aren't any controls."
"Take the casing back with us?" Rupert suggested.
"But what about the others?" Lucy wanted to know. "We can't just leave them here."
Han shook his head. "It may be too dangerous to move any of them or do anything without knowing what the Hell we're doing. Luke? Any ideas?"
Luke peered inside the tube at the mechanisms at the top. "They're remote operated. We'd have to find the control center."
From her place by the door, Brenna sighed. Then she looked towards the ceiling and raised her voice. "I'd like them thawed out, please!" she called.
A second later, there was faint hum, and the tubes began to glow with orange light. A green liquid began to flow through narrow lines leading from the tops of the tubes to intravenous lines attached to the senators' necks. Han watched Leia, for any sign of life. In a few seconds, there was a faint fog on the inside of the tube near her nose and mouth. It disappeared, only to be replaced by another faint fog a couple seconds later. As more seconds ticked by, the fogging became denser and more frequent, and Han could detect movement in her chest. Then all at once, her knees gave out, and she collapsed inside the limited space of the tube, and began to shiver and hug herself.
Han remembered what it was like to come out of hibernation. She was freezing. He cupped his hands against the tube. "Leia!" he shouted.
Her eyes opened. "Han?" Her voice was muffled through the tube. She blinked, shivering and unseeing. "Ha-Han! Are you here?"
"Right here, Sweetheart! Just hold on! We'll get you out of there!"
The tubes lifted then, retracting into the ceiling, and Leia and a couple dozen other senators spilled out of them onto the floor. Leia was caught by four pairs of hands. The others weren't so lucky.
"Leia!" Han's jacket was off him in an instant, and covering her freezing shoulders.
"Mom!"
"Mom! Are you all right?"
"Lu-Lucy? Poul?" Leia blindly reached arms out, and they were instantly filled with warm bodies.
"Dad! She can't see!" Rupert cried, alarmed.
"It's okay," Han replied. "It's only temporary."
"Ru-Rupert! Are you here, too?"
"Right here, Mom," Rupert replied. He grabbed one of Leia's hands and breathed warm air onto it, to try to help warm her.
Han wanted nothing more than to hold his wife and get her warmed up, but there were two dozen other senators, all coming out of hibernation, shivering and crawling on the floor like blind kittens. Some of them called out in a panic of being cold and unable to see. "Sweetheart, the others are here. I have to---"
"I can hear them," Leia interrupted. "Go. Go. I'm fine."
"I'll be back," Han promised, and kissed her briefly on the mouth.
Rupert made a similar promise and followed his father's lead to reassure one of the other senators briefly, just a word of comfort, a promise of rescue, and then on to the next one. Luke told Leia he was there, too, murmured a promise to return, kissed Leia on the cheek, and went to join Han and Rupert. Lucy excused herself and did likewise. Poul stayed with Leia. He wrapped his arms around her and said, "I'll warm you up, Mom."
"Th-thanks, Poul."
Chewbacca growled something and wrapped his arms around both her and Poul. "Chewie?" Leia said, touching the hairy arm trying to surround her. "You're here too?"
There was a rumble of affirmation.
"Thanks," Leia said, offering a smile through chattering teeth. The warm scratchy fur was the best blanket she could have hoped for. She let the closeness of Wookiee and child draw the worst of the chill out of her, and tried not to think of the other senators, who had neither.
Brenna watched the scene for a while with something akin to boredom. After a moment, she called, "Could we have a little heat, please!" A moment later, the temperature in the room started to climb. She continued watching until the senators were sufficiently warmed to stop chattering, watched Han, Luke, Rupert, and Lucy try to keep them corralled for a while, then sighed at the inefficiency and confusion of the situation. She decided it was time to take charge, and went to the nearest senator who was trying blindly to feel his way around the room, took him by the arm, and ordered him to "Stand up!" She led him to the spot next to the wall near the door where she had been standing earlier, told him to "Wait here!" got the next senator, and began to form a line, having them hold hands like a chain of school children.
Han, Rupert, Lucy, and Luke saw what she was doing, and began to follow suit. Brenna intercepted Lucy trying to lead her mother to the end of the group, and put Leia in the lead. "She'll set a better pace," Brenna said. "I don't want to be slowed any more than we have to. Nobody told me they'd be blind!" She seemed annoyed at the inconvenience.
"Who was that?" Leia wanted to know.
"That's Brenna," Lucy replied.
"Luke's daughter?" Leia said in surprise. She would have expected Brenna to have better manners.
"Yes."
In relatively short order, they had the senators lined up and ready to go. The hand-holding served the triple purposes of keeping the senators in a group, preventing them from rubbing at their unseeing eyes, and taking their minds off the fact that they were still cold.
"All right," Brenna said, when the last of them had been brought to the line. "Let's go!"
Leia awkwardly began groping along the wall with her free hand. With an impatient sigh, Brenna grasped Lucy's and Leia's wrists, and joined their hands. "Lead her!" she said impatiently to Lucy.
Like an accordion expanding, the line began to move. Brenna reviewed it as it passed in front of her, like a general reviewing her troops and finding them wanting. She watched for the weakest links, then positioned Rupert, Poul, and SeeThreepio at those points, to keep those senators from stumbling. She put Chewbacca at the end of the line, figuring the big, hairy presence would be motivation to prevent straggling. Luke, Han, and Artoo she left to their own devices.
"A little bossy, isn't she?" Han remarked.
"We're all stressed out," Luke replied.
Han refrained from pointing out that Brenna looked more bored than stressed out. He watched with a critical eye as Brenna none-too-gently reconnected a break in the hand-holding senators. She was keeping them moving, he supposed, and it was a better job than he would have been able to do.
And, he decided, there was something poetically right about a bunch of blind politicians being treated as if they were six years old.
"I'll talk to her when we get out of this," Luke promised.
"If we get out of this," Han reminded him. "We've got a long way to go before we're in the clear." He left Luke, and trotted to the front of the line to take Lucy's place in leading Leia. Brenna immediately repositioned Lucy elsewhere along the line.
Despite Han's warning, the corridors continued to cooperate, and they found themselves back in the landing bay, where they had started their bizarre trek.
There was, however, one difference: a second ship had appeared next to the Falcon. It was a shuttle, capable of transporting their blind human cargo in relative comfort. The door was open, and a ramp led up to it invitingly.
Han stopped, Leia with him, and the whole line began to accordion-fold to a halt.
"What are you waiting for?" Brenna asked. "Go on."
"Could be booby-trapped," Han said. His words caused a stir among those senators who could hear him. The stir rippled down the line.
"The Falcon could be booby-trapped by now, too," Brenna pointed out. "But it won't be. They're both safe."
"You're pretty sure about that?"
"Positive."
Han turned to his friend. "Luke?"
Brenna sighed.
Luke closed his eyes for a second. "I don't sense anything dangerous," he said. "But I don't trust our 'host.'"
"This is too weird," Han muttered. But he led the line out again, and up the ramp into the shuttle. Rupert and Lucy stationed themselves at the top and the bottom of the ramp, respectively, to help the senators up.
Han broke the chain between Leia and the next person, leaving her up at the front, then led the next senator and the rest of the line to the rear of the shuttle, then began seating each senator from the rear, making sure each one was securely buckled in before seating the next one.
Luke started the shuttle warming up, then squeezed down the ramp past the line of the few remaining senators waiting to board and sought out Brenna. "Come on, Bren. Time to strap in."
"You go with the senators, and I'll go on the Falcon," Brenna said.
"I'd rather have you with me."
She shook her head. "Etan Lippa has already given his word not to harm the senators, and he won't do anything to the Falcon if I'm aboard her. Besides "she raised her voice, just to make sure she was being picked up by the com-mics in the landing bay " Etan Lippa won't release the ships unless you're on the shuttle and I'm on the Falcon."
She smiled.
Luke didn't like her words, or her smile. She had just, in essence, told Etan Lippa not to release the ships unless he and Brenna were separated. "We'll talk later," he promised. Later, when there weren't cameras and microphones and sensors recording everything they said or did.
"Sure, whatever." Brenna shrugged. By the time 'later' arrived, it would be too late for her father to stop her, and she would already have shown Etan Lippa that she could make her own decisions.
Luke knew that he had no choice. He looked at Brenna a moment longer, then turned and walked up the ramp into the shuttle.
Then Rupert went over to speak to Brenna. "Are you sure they're safe?"
"Safe enough," Brenna replied. "Lippa knows it's in his best interests not to hurt them."
"He does?" Rupert said doubtfully.
Brenna smiled as she watched the next senator being guided on board the shuttle. The line was almost boarded. "He does. Now, shall we go?"
From the stand-by mode in which he had left the Falcon, it only took a couple of minutes to warm the ship. While he was waiting, Rupert opened a voice-link to his father. "I'll fall in right behind you, stay between you and the Star Destroyer as much as I can."
"Sure," Han chirped cheerfully. "Easiest damn rescue I ever made."
"I wouldn't call that trophy room 'easy,'" Rupert replied. But he did have to admit that Etan Lippa's making the whole thing so convenient was downright eerie.
Brenna waited until the channel was clear and the com-mics were off before she spoke. She gave a Rupert a smile of the sort he remembered from Tatooine. "Rupert, can I ask you for a favor?"
"What?"
"Can I pilot your ship?"
Rupert hesitated. It hardly seemed the time for flying practice. On the other hand, there was no atmosphere to complicate things on take-off.
Besides, it might offer the chance for reconciliation with Brenna that he'd been hoping for. "Sure," he said, sliding out of the pilot's seat. "But I'll do planetfall."
"No problem," Brenna murmured, taking the seat he had just vacated. She studied the unfamiliar arrangement of the cockpit for a moment, found the important controls, ignored everything having to do with cargo, but noting where the weapons systems were located. Then she flashed him another smile. "Ready?"
Rupert nodded, and stretched back the way his father had the first time he'd taken over the Falcon, hands clasped behind his head. "Take her out, Pilot."
"Aye, Captain," Brenna replied, with a salute.
The lift-off was smooth, smoother than Rupert had expected it to be, and she followed the shuttle at exactly fifty meters. Outside of the landing bay, they were once again in space, but the darkness was more of a distant fear now, not the overwhelming, mind-numbing fear like the krail-pit had given her. "She handles nice," Brenna commented. "A lot nicer than a skyhopper."
Rupert smiled at the compliment.
"We were about three thousand clicks out when the tractor beam got us, weren't we?" Brenna asked.
"Right," Rupert nodded.
"I'd better give them twice that, just to make sure."
Alarms went off in Rupert's brain. "Make sure of what?"
She gave him the same smile she had given him earlier, the one that had convinced him to let her pilot the Falcon out of the Star Destroyer. "Make sure they're out of range. Lippa won't fire on them, but that doesn't mean he won't try to use them as leverage."
"What...are you planning?"
"Don't worry, Rupert. I won't hurt your ship."
Han was actually starting to relax. He figured they were well out of tractor-range, and the destroyer hadn't taken even a single pot-shot at them. It was the easiest rescue he'd ever made, certainly a lot easier than the first time he'd rescued Leia. She hadn't even given him a single insult this time around.
Well, that had been a few years back, and she'd had time since then to appreciate his finer qualities.
He leaned back, much like Rupert had done on take-off, and grinned at the man in the co-pilot's seat. "Comin' up on six thousand clicks, and not a peep! I don't know what kind of magic that daughter of yours has, but I---"
Luke frowned at the short-range sensors. "What the Hell "
Han scanned the displays, looking for what had grabbed Luke's attention. "What is it?"
"They're turning back! Going back to the Star Destroyer!"
Han flipped on the com-line. "Rupert, turn that ship back around right now!"
The voice that answered, however, was female. "Sorry, I tricked Rupert into letting me fly. Go on ahead. We'll catch up in a couple of minutes."
Han flipped off the mike, and motioned to Luke. "Hook me up to the Falcon's private frequency. Put me through to the co-pilot's station."
Luke made a few adjustments. "You're on."
Han flipped his mike back on. "Rupert! Are you there?"
There was a hesitation, then "Yeah, Dad."
Han sighed in relief. "Use the cut-off switch to transfer control of the Falcon to your station."
Inside the Falcon, Rupert looked over at the pilot. Brenna's face was set determinedly. He hesitated again, then turned off the mic.
"That your Dad?" Brenna asked.
"Yeah. He...wants me to regain control, and turn the ship around."
"How? By knocking me on the head and dragging me out of the seat?"
"Nothing so dramatic. There's a...cut-off switch."
"So why are you telling me about it instead of doing it?"
"I want to know what you have in mind."
Brenna glanced at him, no trace of the smile he was so enamored of. "I want to take over the Star Destroyer."
"Can you do that?"
"All we have to do is knock out the communications system. There isn't anyone on board. The destroyer is being controlled by another ship somewhere."
"You know where the communications system is?"
"Etan Lippa led me to the former bridge. I caught a glimpse of the antenna array through a secondary portal before you joined up with me again."
Rupert turned the microphone back on. "Sorry, Dad. She's got my permission."
Brenna looked at him briefly, and the smile was back. Then she pushed the sublight engines even faster towards the Star Destroyer looming ahead of them. "I knew you were smarter than you looked," she said softly.
Han ripped off his headset angrily. "Deities damn that daughter of yours!" he yelled to the person sitting next to him. "She's got Rupert twisted around her little finger like a love-sick juju!" Han looped the shuttle to turn it in the opposite direction. "I'm going to kill her!" he declared. "I'm just going to kill her."
"You may not get the chance," Luke pointed out. "Etan Lippa may do it first."
"Thirty-five hundred clicks," Rupert said, relaying the information on his screen. "Thirty-four hundred. We'll be coming into tractor-beam range any time."
"Good," Brenna murmured, continuing to accelerate. She glanced at the weapons systems, then hit the switches to power them up without looking at them again.
"Three thousand---we're in the beam! Should I shut the engines down?"
"Not on your life!"
Tractor-beams were made to draw in, not repel, and the pull of the beam added to the power of the Falcon's sublight engines caused the ship's velocity to increase even more.
"This is fun!" Brenna yelled, grinning at Rupert. "Better than Beggar's Canyon!"
"Fun?" Rupert echoed, staring at her. "Are you out of your mind?" He looked at his read-outs. "They're turning to follow us, by the way."
Brenna's grin disappeared instantly. "The shuttle?"
"Nobody but."
Brenna switched on the microphone. The Falcon's faster speed had given them about a thousand-meter lead over the shuttle, but it might not be enough. Brenna kicked herself mentally for not putting more distance between them and the Star Destroyer before turning around, but she wanted to make sure Lippa didn't jump the Star Destroyer into hyperspace. "Falcon to shuttle! Stay out of tractor-range! I repeat, stay back! Don't come any closer!"
"They're still following," Rupert commented.
Brenna looked at him. "Rupert," she said, "the only one out of his mind is your father! He's going to ruin the whole thing! You'd better convince him to turn around, and I mean now!"
"If you don't turn around, you'll get caught in the tractor-beam! Please, Dad, we have a plan!"
The worry in Rupert's voice convinced Han more than ever to keep following them. Han had known Brenna would snap. He just hadn't known it would happen so soon, and while Rupert was around, too. "We're in this together, remember? Where you go, I go," Han replied. He pushed the fragile shuttle to the limits of her engines. The Falcon was pulling away, but it wouldn't be long before the shuttle was caught in the beam, too.
"Forget it!" Brenna said, watching the distance between the Falcon and Star Destroyer. "We're running out of time. The antenna array is just aft of the port maneuvering thrusters. That's our target. We take that out, and Etan Lippa is as blind as the senators on the shuttle. The destroyer's ours. Now, are you with me? I need your help. Would you rather fly or shoot?"
"Shoot," Rupert said instantly.
"Then get your rear into the belly turret! If your father weren't such an idiot, I could give you as many passes as you needed. As it is, you only get one. If Lippa gets the shuttle on board before we get the array, he could make the jump to hyperspace, and we'll never see them again. He'll use them as leverage against me. Got that?"
"Yes."
"Then go!"
"Coming up on three thousand," Luke said. "This is where the Falcon got caught the first time."
A second later, Han announced, "Yup, we're in range. We're being pulled in." He watched the Falcon up ahead, about to crash into the Star Destroyer. "You could have told me your daughter was suicidal, Luke! She's trying to ram it!"
Then, inexplicably, the Falcon pulled up. Luke checked his readings and frowned. "The tractor released them."
"It released the Falcon?" Han said incredulously. "Hey, maybe the same thing will work for us!" He had been in the process of powering down, but changed his mind and started to accelerate.
"Han, break out of the beam!" Luke said suddenly.
"What?"
"Break out of the beam! Brenna's not on board. Lippa won't care if we crash, but he wouldn't let Brenna! She knew that! That's why she went in!"
"Damn it, Luke, your sense of timing leaves something to be desired!" Han switched his engines to full reverse, but there was little effect on their forward momentum.
"Can you turn the shuttle around?" Luke asked. "Give us more thrusting power?"
"Yeah, I was just thinking that myself. Let's try reverse starboard, forward port, full power. Let's see what that does."
What it did was turn the shuttle 180 degrees, and by increasing power to the aft thrusters, Han managed to slow their approach, but he couldn't break free or stop. It also, however, created a different problem. "Engine temperature is starting to climb," Han noted. "We won't be able to keep this up for long."
"Keep it up as long as you can," Luke advised.
"That," Rupert asked incredulously, looking at the display for his approaching target. "You want me to hit that?"
"Can you hit it, or not?"
"How close in can you get me?
"As close as you like. He's not going to shoot back."
"You're sure?"
"Positive."
Brenna brought the Falcon in closer to the antenna array. Ignoring the weapons-lock, which was useless against such a small target, Rupert pulled the trigger to fire the gun as soon as he was in any sort of range.
Nothing happened.
"Any time now," Brenna said over the com-link.
"Weapons malfunction!" Rupert yelled back. "Lippa must have disabled the guns while we were on the Star Destroyer!"
Brenna groaned.
"Want me to try topside?"
Brenna tried firing the top turret from the bridge, which wasn't as accurate as actually manning the thing, but accuracy wasn't what she was after. A "Weapons Malfunction" warning appeared on her display.
"Don't bother. It's disabled, too."
"What now?" Rupert asked over the intercom. "We don't have any weapons."
"We have one," Brenna said grimly. "Get up here!"
It only took him a few seconds, and Brenna realized he'd already been well on his way when she'd spoken to him. He saw that she had looped around and was heading back towards the docking bay, where the shuttle was alarmingly close to entering. She didn't wait for him to sit down before she spoke again.
"Rupert," she said, "I don't know how badly Etan Lippa wants me alive, whether he's willing to sacrifice his Star Destroyer to keep me that way. I do know that if that shuttle goes inside, we'll never see our families again."
"What's your plan?"
"Ram it."
"Ram the shuttle? You've got to be kidding. We won't get it out of the tractor beam that way!"
"The docking bay, you idiot. Imperial Star Destroyers were retro-fitted with self-destruct mechanisms after the battle of Death Star One, to keep them from falling into enemy hands. That's why the Alliance could never get its hands on one, even after the Battle of Endor. Lippa will have to trigger the self-destruct if he wants me alive. He won't have time to shut off the beam and jump to hyperspace."
"Uh, Brenna?" Rupert said. "You were wrong about the antenna array. Are you sure Lippa wants you alive?"
Brenna looked at him. "I wasn't wrong about the array. I was wrong about you having better locks on your ship. If I am wrong, at least we take out the tractor beam with us. He'll either destroy the Star Destroyer, or let us destroy ourselves. Either way, the shuttle's clear."
"Falcon to shuttle," Rupert's voice came in clear. "Prepare to pull out. Jump to hyperspace, if you can. You're going to have to get out of here fast."
"What are you up to, Rupert?" Han wanted to know.
"We're going to ram the docking bay and turn off that tractor."
"I can't let you do that, Son. It's suicide."
Rupert's voice was calm in reply. "I don't see how you can stop us. And besides it isn't just you, but my mother and my brother and my sister are on that shuttle. You're responsible for them. Etan Lippa won't let them go a second time. Brenna and I are in agreement about this."
"Maybe he'll just let us go again."
"If he were going to let you go, he'd have just turned off the beam. I don't have time to argue about it now, Dad. But if you don't pull out, we'll have an eternity to discuss it. Falcon out."
"No!" Luke cried.
"Here they come!" Han yelled, hand on the joy-stick even though they were still caught in the tractor beam. The shuttle's thrusters were already on full, and in danger of giving out, as the weaker ship tried to push away from the beam in the opposite direction.
The Falcon swept by in an arc overhead, on full thrusters, past the shuttle that was trying vainly to head the other way.
A second later, there was an explosion of light from behind them, and the shuttle jumped forward.
Han fought to keep the shuttle under control as it shuddered and rocked under the dual shocks of engine stress and debris collision. Their backwards momentum from the tractor beam before they could pile on the forward speed meant that a certain amount of wreckage hit them before they could thrust their way clear.
When the rocking stopped and left only the shuddering, Han turned control of the shuttle over to Luke, and glanced backwards towards the passenger compartment. "Everyone okay?" he yelled.
"We're fine!" Lucy yelled back. "What the Hell was that?"
Han didn't answer. He turned and looked at Luke, who was more pale than Han had ever seen him. Luke's blue eyes were scanning the shuttle's instrument panel in a panic.
"Any sign of the Falcon?" Han asked.
"With all this debris, it's hard to tell," Luke replied grimly.
Han also began scanning the instrument panel. He flipped a switch, "Shuttle to Falcon, do you read? Shuttle to Falcon, do you read me? Come in, Falcon!"
The channel was filled with static, a residual effect of the explosion.
Han kept trying. "Shuttle to Falcon, come in, Falcon!"
And then, just barely audible over the static, he thought he heard Rupert's voice yelling, "Yeeeee-haaaaaaw!" accompanied by the sounds of delighted feminine laughter, and then the Falcon swooped past them overhead.
Han let out a breath of relief, then turned to look at Luke.
Luke's eyes were closed, and his head was tilted up against the seat back. As Han watched, Luke raised his hands and used them to cover his face, then drew in a shaky breath and let it out slowly.