Have no fear, Grubkiller is here.
Hey guys, this is part three of this story.
Please enjoy.
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Hydian Borderlands Region, Neutral space.
On the edge of the galaxy's spiral arms, just rim-ward of the Tion Cluster, a flight of New Republic X-wings were on a routine patrol of neutral space, on the lookout for any Imperial trespassers.
Up until recently, for the most part, the ceasefire between the Empire and the New Republic held. A renegade warlord will illegally cross the border and attack a New Republic outpost or supply route.
But recently, with an Imperial big-shot at the helm, all of the warlords had united around the Ruling Council on Orinda, and thus, the war was reignited. New Republic security was cranked up to eleven. If the Empire was planning something big, then the Republic military had to be ready for it. But they were stretched thin, and new resources and cloning facilities were adding up to the Empire's war machine.
To the veteran pilots of Rogue Squadron, war was hell. But what they were doing now was just boring as hell.
"I don't want to complain," Derek 'Hobbie' Klivian started, "But-"
"-You will anyway," Wes Janson finished over the intercom.
Hobbie rolled his eyes in response to his smart aleck wingman. "Ha ha, very funny. But seriously, what are we looking for out here in the borderlands? The Empire doesn't have a presence out here."
"That we know of." Wedge corrected. "We've been getting reports of deep-space raids for the last two months, mostly on civilian shipping. We thought it was pirate raids, but survivors report that they were TIE fighters that attacked. And they didn't have a mother-ship to report to." Wedge Antilles responded.
"But, how can that be if they're short range fighters?" Hobbie asked.
"We don't know for sure, that's why it's called recon." Wes said.
"Oh yes, I'm well aware of the ramifications: The Brass and the politicians get scared over nothing, and they cut our shore leave to go on boring recon missions." Hobbie said.
"The gospel according to Hobbie," Wes joked.
"Alright, cut the chatter." Wedge ordered. "Look guys, I don't like having shore leave cut either. But we've got a job to do. We don't know what's been going on, but the Empire has been hitting us all over the outer rim recently and we don't even know how. So let's stay focused and get on with doing our jobs."
The three pilots continued flying around for about twenty minutes, scanning every grid of this sector to see if they can spot anything out of the ordinary.
Suddenly, their scanners started beeping rapidly.
"I've got something on long-range scanners." Wes said. "It looks like we've got twenty fighter-sized contacts, heading our way."
"Alright, Wes, Hobbie, form up on me, and lock S-foils to attack position." Wedge ordered before he switched his comlink to the other sub-groups of the squadron. "Rogue Squadron, rally on us. We've got multiple contacts heading our way, and we're going to give them a warm welcoming."
Group Captain Klick led his squadron of TIE intercepters into the edge of the neutral borderlands regions on a mission to the Mon Cala system. The clone pilot and veteran of the Clone Wars actually fought there under the command of Generals Kit Fisto and Anakin Skywalker, back when the Jedi were the leaders of the Republic armies, before the Empire.
But since those old days, things had changed, and now he was coming back in order to bring it back under the Empire's control, once and for all.
The Mon Calamari, and their Quarren neighbors have been helping the rebels by supplying them with capital ships to feed their ever-growing navy, so destroying them would have to happen if the Empire was to ever truly destroy the rebels. The planet was actually scheduled to be destroyed by the 2nd Death Star once it was completed.
But with the Death Star gone, the Empire would have to use more conventional means. But with the warlords united, and under strong leadership, with new resources to feed the war effort, and with more of his brothers once again being bred for war, the Empire's day would finally come.
They were just on their way to the system on their scouting mission, when they were intercepted - quite unexpectedly - by the crack pilots of Rogue Squadron.
It was approximately the moment that R4-G7 squalled a proximity alarm though his X-wing's sensor panel and his HUD lit up with image codes for twenty TIE Interceptors on his tail that Lieutenant Derek 'Hobbie' Klivian, late of the Rebel Alliance, currently of the New Republic, began to suspect that Commander Antilles's brilliant plan to intercept them had never been brilliant at all.
Not even a little, and he said so. In no uncertain terms. Stripped of its blistering profanity, his comment was, "Wedge? This was a stupid idea. You hear me? Stupid, stupid, stu- YOW-!
His exclamation was a product of multiple cannon hits that disintegrated his right dorsal cannon and most of the extended wing it had been attached to. This kicked his fighter into a tumble that he fought with both hands to yoke and both feet kicking attitude jets and almost had under control the pair of the TIE interceptors closest on his tail blossomed into expanding spheres of flame and debris fragments. The twin shock fronts overtook him at exactly the wrong instant and sent him flipping end-over-end straight at another Interceptor formation streaking toward him head-on. Then tail-on, then head-on again, and so forth.
His ship's comlink crackled as Wedge Antilles's fighter flashed past him close enough that he could see the grin on his face. "That's 'stupid idea, sir', to you Lieutenant."
"I suppose you think that's funny."
"Well, if he doesn't," put in Wes Janson, Hobbie's wingman, "I sure do."
"When I want your opinion, Janson, I'll dust your ship and scan for it in the wreckage." The skewed whirl of stars around his cockpit gave his stomach a yank that threatened to make the slab of smoked terrafin loin he'd had for breakfast violently reemerge. Struggling grimly with the controls, he managed to angle his ship's whirl just a hair, which let him twitch his ship's nose toward the four pursuing marauders as he spun. Red fire lashed from his three surviving cannons, and the Interceptors's formation split open like an overripe snekfruit.
Hobbie only dusted one with the cannons, but the pair of proximity-fused flechette torpedoes he had thoughtfully triggered at the same time flared in diverging arcs to intercept the enemy fighters; these torpedo arcs terminated in spectacilar explosions that cracked the three remaining Interceptors like rotten snuffle eggs.
"Now, that was satisfying," he said, still fighting his controls to stabilize the crippled X-wing. "Eyeball shuffle!"
'Boy, I've got to stop thinking about food', he thought to himself.
"Better watch it, Hobbie - keep that up, and somebody might start to think you can fly that thing."
"Are you in this fight, Janson? Or are you just gonna hang back and smirk while I do all the heavy lifting?"
"Haven't decided yet." Wes Janson's X-wing came out of nowhere, streaking in a tight bank across Hobbie's subjective vertical. "Maybe I can lend a hand. Or, say, a couple torps."
Two brilliant blue stars leapt from Janson's torpedo tubes and streaked for the oncoming TIEs.
"Uh, Wes?" Hobbie said, flinching. "Those weren't the new flechette torps, were they?"
"Sure. What else?"
"Have you noticed that I'm currently having just a little trouble maneuvering?"
"What do you mean?" Janson asked as though honestly puzzled. Then, after a second spent watching Hobbie's ship tumbling helplessly directly toward his torpedoes' target, he said, "Oh. Uh . . . sorry?"
The flechette torpedoes carried by Rogue Squadron had been designed and built specifically for this operation. TIE interceptors were bad enough, being the Empire's premier space-superiority fighter. It was faster and more maneuverable than the standard TIE. But these latest Imperial raids indicated that they were given a shield generator, upgraded weapons, concussion missiles, and possibly a hyperdrive, making it equal or above the T-65s flown by the Rogues.
But they weren't armed with kinetic shielding. So each flechette torpedo had been loaded with thousands of tiny jagged bits of durasteel, packed around a core of conventional explosive. On detonation, these tiny bits of metal became an expanding sphere of shrapnel; though traveling with respectable velocity of their own, they were most effective when set off in the path of oncoming TIE Interceptors and Defenders, because impact energy, after all, is determined by relative velocity. At star-fighter combat speeds, flying into a cloud of metal pellets could transform one's ship into a very, very expensive cheese grater.
The four oncoming Imperial fighters hit the flechette cloud and just . . . shredded. The power core of one fighter erupted, the explosion overtaking the other three.
And now, the unfortunate Lieutenant Klivian was now tumbling directly toward a miniature plasma nebula that blazed with enough hard radiation to cook him like a bantha steak on an obsidian fry-rock at double noon on Tatooine.
"You're not gonna make it, Hobbie," Janson called. "Punch out."
"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Hobbie snarled under his breath, still struggling grimly with the X-wing's controls. The fighter's tumble began to slow. "I've got this, Wes!"
"No, you don't! Punch out, Hobbie - PUNCH OUT!"
"I've got it I'm gonna make it! I'm gonna-" He was interrupted by the final flip of his X-wing, which brought his nose into line with the sight of the leading edge of the spherical debris field expanding toward him at a respectable fraction of light speed, and Hobbie Klivian, acknowledged master of both profanity and obscenity, human and otherwise, not to mention casual vulgarities from a dozen species and hundreds of star systems, found he had nothing to say except, "Aw, nuts."
He stood the X-wing on its tail, sub-lights blasting for a tangent, but he had learned long ago that of all the Rogues, he was the one who should no better than to trust his luck. He reached for the eject trigger.
But when he couldn't feel for it, he looked to his left and found a long jagged piece of shrapnel piercing through the cockpit, causing atmosphere to vent. The metal shard had taken out the controls, including the eject trigger. It also took out his left hand.
He glared at his vacant wrist with more annoyance than shock or panic; instead of blood or cauterized flesh, his wrist jetted only sparks and smoke from overheated servomotors. He hadn't had a real left arm since the Battle of Hoth, when he crashed his speeder into an AT-AT walker's neck, severing it.
Oh, this sucks, he thought as he put on his oxygen mask and sealed his suit to protect himself from the vacuum, and the subzero temperatures. After everything he had survived in the Galactic Civil War, he was about to be killed by a minor equipment malfunction. He amended his previous thouhgt: This really sucks.
Hobbie didn't bother to say it out loud, because there wasn't enough air in his cockpit to carry the sound.
There being no other no other useful thing he could do with his severed left wrist, so he jammed it through the hole above him and sealed the cockpit.
He was about to talk to his astromech droid to review the damage, only to look over his shoulder to find that his droid's head had been ripped off.
He sighed. "Okay, ejection failure. And astromech damaged. Crippled here," he said into the comm. "Awaiting manual pickup."
"Little busy right now, Hobbie. We'll get to you after we dust these TIEs."
"Take your time. I'm not going anywhere. Except, y'know, that-away. Slowly. Real slowly."
Rogue Squadron began to chase off the remaining TIEs. They started this battle off outnumbered 20 to 12. Now they outnumbered the enemy 9 to 8. These TIEs were tough, but were no match for the veteran pilots of Rogue Squadron.
The remaining TIEs began to retreat, and some of the Rogues chased after them.
"We've got those 'squints' on the run," one of the pilots called out.
"Nice work Rogues. As soon as you splash those TIEs, we'll pick up Hobbie, and head for the rendez-" Wedge said before he was interrupted by his scanners. He looked at them and saw that a lot of large ships were coming out of hyperspace. "Heads up guys, we've got multiple contacts coming right towards us."
No sooner had Wedge finished his sentence than a fleet of Star Destroyers, escorts, and support ships came out of hyperspace.
"Oh, stang!"
"Contacts confirmed."
"They've got an Interdictor cruisers. We won't be able to jump to light speed. What are your orders, Lead?"
"Send a distress signal to the Defiance. We'll have to hold them off until the fleet arrives. Form up on me."
The men and women of Rogue Squadron formed up on Wedge and flew straight into the Imperial fleet.
The Star Destroyers unleashed a maelstrom of firepower on the Republic fighters. Two more of Wedge's pilots were shot down, their screams turning into static in the blink of an eye.
But when the Rogues were close enough, they unleashed a volley of torpedoes at the oncoming Imperial ships, TIE fighters broke off, and Imperial targeting computers were thrown off by the additional contacts. Some TIE fighters were destroyed by the subsequent chain of explosions, one of which vaporized a Gozanti-class freighter and damaged a light cruiser. One of the Interdictors also took a direct hit to one of their gravity generators.
The Imperial fleet ceased fire when the Rogues were mixed in with their fleet, not wanting to cause friendly fire incidents. The TIEs chased the Rogues around the large capital ships like a swarm of angry bees.
Such was the daring and bravery of the best pilots in the New Republic.
Later on, the 2nd fleet of the New Republic Navy jumped put of hyperspace and began to exchange fire with the Imperial fleet. But after exchanging fire for just a few minutes, the Imperial fleet jumped into hyperspace, presumably to its main target. And if their trajectory was right, then their target represented a major threat to the New Republic.
Hobbie spent the rest of the battle hoping for a bit of help from the Force when Wedge sent out the pickup detail. Please, he prayed silently, please lit it be Tycho. Or Nin, or Strando. Anyone but Janson.
He continued this plea as a sort of meditation, kind of the way Luke would talk about this stuff: he closed his eyes and visualized Wedge himself showing up to tow his X-wing back to the fleet. After a while, he found this image unconvincing - somehow he was never that lucky - and so he cycled through the other Rogues, and when those began to bore him, he decided it'd be Luke himself. Or Leia. Or, say, Wynssa Starflare, who always managed to look absolutely stellar as the strong, independent damsel-sometimes-in-distress in those pre-war Imperial holodramas, because, y'know, as long as he was imagining something that was never gonna happen, he might as well make it entertaining.
It turned out to be entertaining enough that he managed to pass the balance of the battle drifting off to sleep with a smile on his smile lasted right up to the point where a particularly brilliant flash stabbed through his eyelids and he awoke, glumly certain that whatever had exploded right next to his ship was finally about to snuff him. But then there came another flash, and another, and with painful twist of his body he was able to see Wes Janson's fighter cruising alongside, only meters away. He was able to see the handheld imager Janson had pressed against his cockpit's canopy, with which Janson continued to snap picture after picture.
Hobbie closed his eyes again. He would have preferred the explosion.
"Just had to get a few shots." Janson's grin was positively wicked. "You look like some kind of wierd cross between a star-fighter pilot and a Batavian gumplucker."
Hobbie shook his head exhaustedly; dealing with Janson's pathetic excuse for a sense of humor always made him tired. "Wes, I don't even know what that is."
"Sure you do, Hobbie. A starfighter pilot is a guy who flies an X-wing without getting blown up. Check the Basic Dictionary. Though I can understand how you'd get confused."
"No, I mean the-" Hobbie bit his lip hard enough that he tasted blood "Um, Wes?"
"Yeah, buddy?"
"Have I told you today how much I really, really hate you?"
"Oh sure - your lips say 'I hate you,' but your eyes say-"
"That someday I'll murder you in your sleep?"
Janson chuckled. "More or less."
"What'd I miss out there?"
There was a pause, and then a sigh. "The TIEs were just an advance force. An Imperial task force just dropped out of hyperspace, and then Ackbar's fleet came in and drove 'em off. Avan and Feylis ejected clean, but Anj and Ooryl were vaporized." Wes said, with a serious tone . . . for once. "Look, why don't you get some rest, it'll take me a while to this tow cable attached."
"Suits me just fine," Hobbie said, closing his eyes again. "I have this dream I really want to get back to . . ."
RSV Defiance, flagship of the 2nd Fleet, near Mon Cala.
"Your pilots performed admirably, Commander Antilles. We weren't expecting an Imperial fleet to be operating in this sector, and you were able to hold your own" Fleet Admiral Gial Ackbar, of the New Republic Navy, nodded grave approval toward the flickering bluish holo-form of Wedge Antilles that hovered a few inches above his console. "Did you suffer any casualties?"
"Five of my pilots were shot down, but we managed to recover three of them. One of them - Lt. Klivian - needs a new hand . . ."
Ackbar nodded. "Very well."
"Sir, why were they so quick to leave?"
"For the last five years, the Empire has been fractured, and low on resources, and its supply lines were disorganized. They can't afford long drawn out fights like they used to. But with that new Grand Admiral launching strikes against us all over the outer rim, I suspect that things may have changed for the worst. They must've been saving their energy for their next objective."
"What is their objective, Admiral?"
Ackbar looked at one of his officers, who gave him the report. He looked it over, and found the trajectory of the Imperial task force, tracking to the planet . . .
His eyes widened, and he shook his head. "No!" He softly exclaimed.
"What is it sir?" One of his officers asked.
"Mon Cala. The Imperial fleet is heading for Mon Cala."
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Berchest, Inner Rim.
It was called the Calius saj Leeloo, the City of Glowing Crystal of Berchest, and it had been one of the most spectacular wonders of the galaxy since the earliest days of the Old Republic. The entire city was nothing more or less than a single gigantic crystal, created over the eons by saltile spray from the dark red-orange waters of the Leefari Sea that roiled up against the low bluff upon which it rested. The original city had been painstakingly sculpted from the crystal over decades by local Berchestian artisans, whose descendants continued to guide and nurture its slow growth.
At the height of the Old Republic Calius had been a major tourist attraction, its populace making a comfortable living from the millions of beings who flocked to the stunning beauty of the city and its surroundings. But the chaos of the Clone Wars and the subsequent rise of the Empire had taken a severe toll on such idle amusements, and Calius had been forced to turn to other means for its support.
Fortunately, the tourist trade had left a legacy of well-established trade routes between Berchest and most of the galaxy's major systems. The obvious solution was for the Berchestians to promote Calius as a trade center; and while the city was hardly to the level yet of Svivren or Ketaris, they had achieved a modest degree of success.
The only problem was that it was a trade center on the Imperial side of the line.
A squad of stormtroopers strode down the crowded street, their white armor taking on a colored tinge from the angular red-orange buildings around them. Taking a long step out of their way, Luke Skywalker pulled his hood a bit closer around his face. He could sense no particular alertness from the squad, but this deep into Imperial space there was no reason to take chances. The stormtroopers strode past without so much as a glance in his direction, and with a quiet sigh of relief Luke returned his attention to his contemplation of the city. Between the stormtroopers, the Imperial fleet crewers on layover between flights, and the smugglers poking around hoping to pick up jobs, the darkly businesslike sense of the city was in strange and pointed contrast to its serene beauty.
And somewhere in all that serene beauty was something far more dangerous than mere Imperial stormtroopers.
A group of clones.
Or so New Republic Intelligence thought. Painstakingly sifting through thousands of intercepted Imperial communiques, they'd tentatively pinpointed Calius and the Berchest system as one of the transfer points in the new flood of human duplicates beginning to man the ships and troop carriers of Grand Admiral Thrawn's war machine.
That flood had to be stopped, and quickly. Which meant finding the location of the cloning tanks and destroying them. Which first meant backtracking the traffic pattern from a known transfer point. Which first meant confirming that clones were indeed coming through Calius.
A group of men dressed in the dulbands and robes of Svivreni traders came around a corner two blocks ahead, and as he had so many times in the past two days, Luke reached out toward them with the Force. One quick check was all it took: the traders did not have the strange aura he'd detected in the boarding party of clones that had attacked them aboard the Katana.
But even as he withdrew his consciousness, something else caught Luke's attention. Something he had almost missed amid the torrent of human and alien thoughts and sensations that swirled together around him like bits of colored glass in a sandstorm. A coolly calculating mind, one which Luke felt certain he'd encountered before but couldn't quite identify through the haze of mental noise between them.
And the owner of that mind was, in turn, fully aware of Luke's presence in Calius. And was watching him.
Luke grimaced. Alone in enemy territory, with his transport two kilometers away at the Calius landing field and his only weapon a lightsaber that would identify him the minute he drew it from his tunic, he was not exactly holding the high ground here.
But he had the Force... and he knew his follower was there. All in all, it gave him fair odds.
A couple of meters to his left was the entrance to the long arched tunnel of a pedestrian bridgeway. Turning down it, Luke stepped up his pace, trying to remember from his study of the city maps exactly where this particular bridge went. Across the city's icy river, he decided, and up toward the taller and higher-class regions overlooking the sea itself. Behind him, he sensed his pursuer follow him into the bridgeway; and as Luke put distance between himself and the mental din of the crowded market regions behind him, he was finally able to identify the man.
It was not as bad as he'd feared. But potentially at least, it was bad enough. With a sigh, Luke stopped and waited. The bridgeway, with its gentle curve hiding both ends from view, was as good a place as any for a confrontation.
His pursuer came to the last part of the curve. Then, as if anticipating that his quarry would be waiting there, he stopped just out of sight. Luke extended his senses, caught the sound of a blaster being drawn— "It's all right," he called softly. "We're alone. Come on out."
There was a brief hesitation, and Luke caught the momentary flicker of surprise; and then, Talon Karrde stepped into sight.
"I see the universe hasn't run out of ways to surprise me," the smuggler commented, inclining his head to Luke in an abbreviated bow as he slid his blaster back into its holster. "From the way you were acting I thought you were probably a spy from the New Republic. But I have to admit you're the last person I would have expected them to send."
Luke eyed him, trying hard to read the sense of the man. The last time he'd seen Karrde, just after the battle for the Katana, the other had emphasized that he and his smuggling group intended to remain neutral in this war. "And what were you going to do after you knew for sure?"
"I hadn't planned on turning you in, if that's what you mean," Karrde said, throwing a glance behind him down the bridgeway. "If it's all the same to you, I'd like to move on. Berchestians don't normally hold extended conversations in bridgeways. And the tunnel can carry voices a surprising distance."
And if there were an ambush waiting for them at the other end of the bridgeway? But if there were, Luke would know before they reached it. "Fine with me," he said, stepping to the side and gesturing Karrde forward.
The other favored him with a sardonic smile. "You don't trust me, do you?" he said, brushing past Luke and heading down the bridgeway.
"Must be Han's influence," Luke said apologetically, falling into step beside him. "His, or yours. Or maybe Mara's."
He caught the shift in Karrde's sense: a quick flash of concern that was as quickly buried again. "Speaking of Mara, how is she?"
"Nearly recovered," Luke assured him. "The medics tell me that repairing that kind of light neural damage isn't difficult, just time-consuming."
Karrde nodded, his eyes on the tunnel ahead. "I appreciate you taking care of her," he said, almost grudgingly. "Our own medical facilities wouldn't have been up to the task."
Luke waved the thanks away. "It was the least we could do after the help you gave us at the Katana."
"Perhaps."
They reached the end of the bridgeway and stepped out into a street considerably less crowded than the one they'd left. Above and ahead of them, the three intricately carved government headquarter towers that faced the sea could be seen above the nearby buildings. Reaching out with the Force, Luke did a quick reading of the people passing by. Nothing.
"You heading anywhere in particular?" he asked Karrde.
The other shook his head. "Wandering the city," he said casually. "You?"
"The same," Luke said, trying to match the other's tone.
"And hoping to see a familiar face or two? Or three, or four, or five?"
So Karrde knew, or had guessed, why he was here. Somehow, that didn't really surprise him. "If they're here to be seen, I'll find them," he said. "I don't suppose you have any information I could use?"
"I might," Karrde said. "Do you have enough money to pay for it?"
"Knowing your prices, probably not," Luke said. "But I could set you up a credit line when I get back."
"If you get back," Karrde countered. "Considering how many Imperial troops there are between you and safe territory, you're not what I would call a good investment risk at the moment."
Luke cocked an eyebrow at him. "As opposed to a smuggler at the top of the Empire's locate-and-detain list?" he asked pointedly.
Karrde smiled. "As it happens, Calius is one of the few places in Imperial space where I'm perfectly safe. The Berchestian governor and I have known each other for several years. More to the point, there are certain items important to him which only I can supply."
"Military items?"
"I'm not part of your war, Skywalker," Karrde reminded him coolly. "I'm neutral, and I intend to stay that way. I thought I'd made that clear to you and your sister when we last parted company."
"Oh, it was clear enough," Luke agreed. "I just thought that events of the past month might have changed your mind."
Karrde's expression didn't change, but Luke could detect the almost unwilling shift in his sense. "I don't particularly like the idea of Grand Admiral Thrawn having access to a cloning facility," he conceded. "It has the long-term potential for shifting the balance of power in his favor, and that's something neither of us wants to see happen. But I think your side is rather overreacting to the situation."
"I don't know how you can call it overreacting," Luke said. "The Empire has most of the two hundred Dreadnaughts of the Katana fleet, and now they've got an unlimited supply of clones to crew them with."
" 'Unlimited' is hardly the word I would use," Karrde said. "Clones can only be grown so quickly if you want them mentally stable enough to trust with your warships. One year minimum per clone, as I recall the old rule of thumb."
A group of five Vaathkree passed by in front of them along a cross street. So far the Empire had been only cloning humans, but Luke checked them out anyway. Again, nothing. "A year per clone, you say?"
"At the absolute minimum," Karrde said. "The pre-Clone Wars documents I've seen suggest three to five years would be a more appropriate period. Quicker than the standard human growth cycle, certainly, but hardly any reason for panic."
Luke looked up at the carved towers, their sunlit red-orange in sharp contrast to the billowing white clouds rolling in from the sea behind them. "What would you say if I told you the clones who attacked us on the Katana were grown in less than a year?"
Karrde shrugged. "That depends on how much less."
"The full cycle was fifteen to twenty days."
Karrde stopped short.
"What?" he demanded, turning to stare at Luke.
"Fifteen to twenty days," Luke repeated, stopping beside him.
For a long moment Karrde locked eyes with him. Then, slowly, he turned away and began walking again. "That's impossible," he said. "There must be an error."
"I can get you a copy of the studies." Karrde nodded thoughtfully, his eyes focused on nothing in particular. "At least that explains Ukio."
"Ukio?" Luke frowned.
Karrde glanced at him. "That's right—you've probably been out of touch for a while. Two days ago the Imperials launched a multiple attack on targets in the Abrion and Dufilvian sectors. They severely damaged the military base at Ord Pardron and captured the Ukio system."
Luke felt a hollow sensation in his stomach. Ukio was one of the top five producers of foodstuffs in the entire New Republic. The repercussions for Abrion sector alone— "How badly was Ukio damaged?"
"Apparently not at all," Karrde said. "My sources tell me it was taken with its shields and ground/space weaponry intact."
The hollow feeling got a little bigger. "I thought that was impossible to do."
"A knack for doing the impossible was one of the things Grand Admirals were selected for," Karrde said dryly. "Details of the attack are still sketchy; it'll be interesting to see how he pulled it off. Word is, that the Empire is also making some movements through neutral space."
So Thrawn had the Katana Dreadnaughts; and he had clones to man them with; and now he had the ability to provide food for those clones. "This isn't just the setup to another series of raids," Luke said slowly. "The Empire's getting ready to launch a major offensive."
"It does begin to look that way," Karrde agreed. "Offhand, I'd say you have your work cut out for you."
Luke studied him. Karrde's voice and face were as calm as ever, but the sense behind them wasn't nearly so certain anymore. "And none of this changes your mind?" he prompted the other.
"I'm not joining the New Republic, Skywalker," Karrde said, shaking his head. "For many reasons. Not the least being that I don't entirely trust certain elements in your government. You know as well as I do how fond the Mon Calamari have always been of smugglers. Now that Admiral Ackbar's been reinstated to his Council and Supreme Commander positions, all of us in the trade are going to have to start watching over our shoulders again."
"Oh, come on," Luke snorted. "You don't think Ackbar's going to have time to worry about smugglers, do you?"
Karrde smiled wryly. "Not really. But I'm not willing to risk my life on it, either."
Stalemate. "All right, then," Luke said. "Let's put it on a strictly business level.
We need to know the Empire's movements and intentions, which is something you probably keep track of anyway. Can we buy that information from you?"
Karrde considered. "That might be possible," he said cautiously. "But only if I have the final say on what I pass on to you. I won't have you turning my group into an unofficial arm of New Republic Intelligence."
"Agreed," Luke said. It was less than he might have hoped for, but it was better than nothing. "I'll set up a credit line for you as soon as I get back."
"Perhaps we should start with a straight information trade," Karrde said, looking around at the crystalline buildings. "Tell me what started your people looking at Calius."
"I'll do better than that," Luke said. The distant touch on his mind was faint but unmistakable. "How about if I confirm the clones are here?"
"Where?" Karrde asked sharply.
"Somewhere that way," Luke said, pointing ahead and slightly to the right. "Half a kilometer away, maybe—it's hard to tell."
"Inside one of the Towers," Karrde decided. "Nice and secure and well hidden from prying eyes. I wonder if there's any way to get inside for a look."
"Wait a minute—they're moving," Luke said, frowning as he tried to hang on to the contact. "Heading... almost toward us, but not quite."
"Probably being taken to the landing field," Karrde said. He glanced around, pointed to their right. "They'll probably use Mavrille Street—two blocks that direction."
Balancing speed with the need to remain inconspicuous, they covered the distance in three minutes. "They'll probably use a cargo carrier or light transport," Karrde said as they found a spot where they could watch the street without being run over by the pedestrian traffic along the edges of the vehicle way. "Anything obviously military would attract attention."
Luke nodded. Mavrille, he remembered from the maps, was one of the handful of streets in Calius that had been carved large enough for vehicles to use, with the result that the traffic was running pretty much fore to aft. "I wish I had some macrobinoculars with me," he commented.
"Trust me—you're conspicuous enough as it is," Karrde countered as he craned his neck over the passing crowds. "Any sign of them?"
"They're definitely coming this way," Luke told him. He reached out with the Force, trying to sort out the clone sense from the sandstorm of other thoughts and minds surrounding him. "I'd guess twenty to thirty of them."
"A cargo carrier, then," Karrde decided. "There's one coming now—just behind that Trast speeder truck."
"I see it." Luke took a deep breath, calling on every bit of his Jedi skill. "That's them," he murmured, a shiver running up his back.
"All right," Karrde said, his voice grim. "Watch closely; they might have left one or more of the ventilation panels open."
The cargo carrier made its way toward them on its repulsorlifts, coming abruptly to a halt a short block away as the driver of the speeder truck in front of it suddenly woke up to the fact that he'd reached his turn. Gingerly, the truck eased around the corner, blocking the whole traffic flow behind it.
"Wait here," Karrde said, and dived into the stream of pedestrians heading that direction. Luke kept his eyes sweeping the area, alert for any sense that he or Karrde had been seen and recognized. If this whole setup was some land of elaborate trap for offworld spies, now would be the obvious time to spring it.
The truck finally finished its turn, and the cargo carrier lumbered on. It passed Luke and continued down the street, disappearing within a few seconds around one of the red-orange buildings. Stepping back into the side street behind him, Luke waited; and a minute later Karrde had returned. "Two of the vents were open, but I couldn't see enough to be sure," he told Luke, breathing heavily. "You?"
Luke shook his head. "I couldn't see anything, either. But it was them. I'm sure of it."
For a moment Karrde studied his face. Then, he gave a curt nod. "All right. What now?"
"I'm going to see if I can get my ship offplanet ahead of them," Luke said. "If I can track their hyperspace vector, maybe we can figure out where they go from here." He lifted his eyebrows. "Though two ships working together could do a better track."
Karrde smiled slightly. "You'll forgive me if I decline the offer," he said. "Flying in tandem with a New Republic agent is not exactly what I would call maintaining neutrality." He glanced over Luke's shoulder at the street behind him. "At any rate, I think I'd prefer to try backtracking them from here. See if I can identify their point of origin."
"Sounds good," Luke nodded. "I'd better get over to the landing field and get my ship prepped."
"I'll be in touch," Karrde promised. "Make sure that credit line is a generous one."
Standing at the uppermost window of Central Government Tower Number One, Governor Staffa lowered his macrobinoculars with a satisfied snort. "That was him, all right, Fingal," he said to the little man hovering at his side. "No doubt about it. Luke Skywalker himself."
"Do you suppose he saw the special transport?" Fingal asked, fingering his own macrobinoculars nervously.
"Well, of course he saw it," Staffa growled. "You think he was hanging around Mavrille Street for his health?"
"I only thought—"
"Don't think, Fingal," Staffa cut him off. "You aren't properly equipped for it."
He sauntered to his desk, dropped the macrobinoculars into a drawer, and pulled up Grand Admiral Thrawn's directive on his data pad. It was a rather bizarre directive, in his private and strictly confidential opinion, more peculiar even than these mysterious troop transfers the Imperial High Command had been running through Calius of late. But one had no choice under the circumstances but to assume Thrawn knew what he was doing.
At any rate, it was on his own head—not Staffa's—if he didn't, and that was the important thing. "I want you to send a message to the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera," he told Fingal, lowering his bulk carefully into his chair and pushing the data pad across the desk.
"Coded as per the instructions here. Inform Grand Admiral Thrawn that Skywalker has been on Calius and that I have personally observed him near the special transport. Also as per the Grand Admiral's directive, he has been allowed to leave Berchest unhindered."
"Yes, Governor," Fingal said, making notes on his own data pad. If the little man saw anything unusual about letting a Rebel spy walk freely through Imperial territory, he wasn't showing it. "What about the other man, Governor? The one who was with Skywalker down there?"
Staffa pursed his lips. The price on Talon Karrde's head was up to nearly fifty thousand now—a great deal of money, even for a man with a planetary governor's salary and perks. He had always known that someday it would be in his best interests to terminate the quiet business relationship he had with Karrde. Perhaps that time had finally come.
No. No, not while war still raged through the galaxy. Later, perhaps, when victory was near and private supply lines could be made more reliable. But not now. "The other man is of no importance," he told Fingal. "A special agent I sent to help smoke the Rebel spy into the open. Forget him. Go on—get that message coded and sent."
"Yes, sir," Fingal nodded, stepping toward the door.
The panel slid open... and for just a second, as Fingal stepped through, Staffa thought he saw an odd glint in the little man's eye. Some strange trick of the outer office light, of course. Next to his unbending loyalty for his governor, Fingal's most prominent and endearing attribute was his equally unbending lack of imagination.
Taking a deep breath, putting Fingal and Rebel spies and even Grand Admirals out of his mind, Staffa leaned back in his chair and began to consider how he would use the shipment that Karrde's people were even now unloading at the landing field.
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Senate Building, Coruscant, NRDF situation room.
The battle data from the Woostri system scrolled to the bottom of the data pad and stopped. "I still don't believe it," Leia said, shaking her head as she laid the data pad back down on the table. "If the Empire had a superweapon that could shoot through planetary shields, they'd be using it in every system they attacked. It has to be a trick or illusion of some kind."
"I agree," Mon Mothma said quietly. "The question is, how do we convince the rest of the Council and the Assemblage of that? Not to mention the outer systems themselves?"
"We must solve the puzzle of what happened at Ukio and Woostri," General Rieekan said, his voice even more gravelly than usual. "And we must solve it quickly."
Leia picked up her data pad again, throwing a quick look across the table at Rieekan as she did so. Her fellow Alderaanian seemed unusually heavy-lidded, his normal fair-skin color noticeably paler. He was tired, desperately so... and with the Empire's grand offensive still rolling toward them across the galaxy, he wasn't likely to be getting much rest anytime soon.
Neither were any of the rest of them, for that matter. "We already know that Grand Admiral Thrawn has a talent for understanding the minds of his opponents," she reminded the others. "Could he have predicted how quickly both the Ukians and the Woostroids would be to surrender?"
"As opposed to, say, the Filvians?" Mon Mothma nodded slowly. "Interesting point. That might indicate the illusion is one that can't be maintained for very long."
"Or that the power requirements are exceedingly high," Rieekan added. "If the Empire has learned a method for focusing nonvisible energy against a shield, it could conceivably weaken a section long enough to fire a turbolaser blast through the opening. But such a thing would take a tremendous power output."
"And should also show up as an energy stress on the shield," Mon Mothma pointed out. "None of our information suggests that was the case."
"Our information may be wrong," Rieekan retorted. "Or it may have been manipulated by the Empire," he added pointedly. "Such things have happened before."
If we get the situation stabilized, Leia amended silently, again feeling her stomach tighten. So far, the offensive was going uniformly the Empire's way—
The thought broke off in midstride, a sudden belated awareness flooding in on her. No—it wasn't her stomach that was tightening...
Rieekan was speaking again. "Excuse me," Leia cut him off, getting carefully to her feet. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need to get down to Medical."
Mon Mothma's eyes widened. "The twins?"
Leia nodded. "I think they're on their way."
The walls and ceiling of the birth room were a warm tan color, with a superimposed series of shifting lights that had been synchronized with Leia's own brain wave patterns. Theoretically, it was supposed to help her relax and concentrate. As a practical matter, Leia had already decided that after ten hours of looking at it, the technique had pretty well lost its effectiveness.
Another contraction came, the hardest one yet. Automatically, Leia reached out with the Force, using the methods Luke had taught her to hold off the pain coming from protesting muscles. If nothing else, this whole birth process was giving her the chance to practice her Jedi techniques.
And not just those having to do with pain control. It's all right, she thought soothingly toward the small minds within her. It's all right. Mother's here.
It didn't really help. Caught in forces they couldn't comprehend, their tiny bodies being squeezed and pushed as they were driven slowly toward the unknown, their undeveloped minds were fluttering with fear.
Though to be perfectly fair, their father wasn't in much better shape.
"You all right?" Han asked for the umpteenth time since they'd come in here. He squeezed her hand a little more tightly, also for the umpteenth time, in sympathetic tension with her hunching shoulders.
"I'm still fine," Leia assured him. Her shoulders relaxed as the contraction ended, and she gave his hand a squeeze in return. "You don't look so good, though."
Han made a face at her. "It's past my bedtime," he said dryly.
"That must be it," Leia agreed. Han had been as nervous as a tauntaun on ball bearings ever since the labor started in earnest, but he was making a manly effort not to show it. More for her sake, Leia suspected, than for any damage such an admission might do to his image. "Sorry."
"Don't worry about it." Han threw a look to the side, where the medic and two Emdee droids were hovering around the business end of the birth bed. "Looks like we're getting close, sweetheart."
"Count on it," Leia agreed, the last word strangled off as another contraction took her attention. "Oh..."
Han's anxiety level jumped another notch. "You all right?"
Leia nodded, throat muscles momentarily too tight to speak through. "Hold me, Han," she breathed when she could talk again. "Just hold me."
"I'm right here," he said quietly, sliding his free hand into a comfortable grip under her shoulder.
She hardly heard him. Deep within her, the small lives that she and Han had created were starting to move...
and abruptly their fluttering fear had become full-blown terror.
Don't be afraid, she thought at them. Don't be afraid. It'll be all right I'm here. Soon, you'll be with me.
She wasn't really expecting a reaction—the twins' minds were far too undeveloped to understand anything as abstract as words or the concept of future events. But she continued anyway, wrapping them and their fear as best she could in her love and peace and comfort. There was another contraction—the inexorable movement toward the outside world continued—
And then, to Leia's everlasting joy, one of the tiny minds reached back to her, touching her in a way that neither twin had ever responded to her nonverbal caresses before. The rising fear slowed in its advance, and Leia had the sudden mental image of a baby's hand curled tightly around her finger. Yes, she told the infant. I'm your mother, and I'm here.
The tiny mind seemed to consider that. Leia continued her assurances, and the mind shifted a little away from her, as if the infant's attention had been drawn somewhere else. A good sign, she decided; if it was able to be distracted from what was happening to it—
And then, to her amazement, the second mind's panic also began to fade. The second mind, which to the best of her knowledge had not yet even noticed her presence...
Later, in retrospect, the whole thing would seem obvious, if not completely inevitable. But at that moment, the revelation was startling enough to send a shiver through the core of Leia's soul. The twins, growing together in the Force even as they'd grown together within her, had somehow become attuned to each other—attuned in a way and to a depth that Leia knew she herself would never entirely share.
It was, at the same time, one of the proudest and yet one of the most poignant moments of Leia's life. To get such a glimpse into the future—to see her children growing and strengthening themselves in the Force... and to know that there would be a part of their lives together that she would never share.
The contraction eased, the grand and bittersweet vision of the future fading into a small nugget of ache in a corner of her mind. An ache that was made all the worse by the private shame that, in all of that flood of selfish emotion, it hadn't even occurred to her that Han would be able to share even less of their lives than she would.
And suddenly, through the mental haze, a bright light seemed to explode in her eyes. Reflexively, she clutched harder at Han's hand. "What—?"
"It's coming," Han yelped, gripping back. "First one's halfway out."
Leia blinked, the half-imagined light vanishing as her mind fumbled free of her contact with her children. Her children, whose eyes had never had to deal with anything brighter than a dim, diffuse glow. "Turn that light down," she gasped. "It's too bright. The children's eyes—"
"It's all right," the medic assured her. "Their eyes will adjust. All right: one last push."
And then, seemingly without warning, the first part was suddenly over. "Got one," Han told her, his voice sounding strangely breathless. "It's—" He craned his neck. "It's our son." He looked back at Leia, the tension in his face plastered over with the lopsided grin she knew so well.
"Jacen."
Leia nodded. "Jacen," she repeated. Somehow, the names they'd decided on had never sounded quite the same as they did right now. "What about Jaina?"
"Offhand, I'd say she's anxious to join her brother," the medic said dryly. "Get ready to push—he looks like he's trying to crawl out on his own. Okay... push."
Leia took a deep breath. Finally. After ten hours of labor—after nine months of pregnancy—the end was finally in sight.
No. Not the end. The beginning.
They laid the twins in her arms a few minutes later... and as she looked first at them and then up at Han, she felt a sense of utter peace settle over her. Out among the stars there might be a war going on; but for here, and for now, all was right with the universe.
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Well folks, that was part 3.
It was originally going to be longer, but I decided to move the other part to next chapter.
I hope you're enjoying the story so far.
Until next time, this is Grubkiller, over and out.
