Chapter 85
It had been quite a bumpy ride indeed, but at last Han & his Wookie Co-Pilot had made it out of the system in one piece and it felt so good that their mission had been a full success. But of course, all of this didn't come without a prize: The Hyperspace Engine and the Deflector Shields had been heavily damaged in the space battle with the TIE Fighters but both of them had already expected in advance that they wouldn't get away that easy. As they still were in the middle of the danger zone, Han had maneuvered the Falcon behind one of the moons inside the star system, which high concentration of a rare metal prevented any by passing ship to discover the hidden ship behind the moon.
The communications system had been also one of the systems that had been damaged, so they weren't able to send back a short message to Coruscant and so that meant that Han and Chewie had to do get a lot of repairs done in a short amount of time.
The whole trick with the rare metal masking them from Admiral Thrawn's ships was a good thing for now, but as Thrawn and his soldiers were more accustomed to this area of space Han had the sneaking suspicion that they would find some way to adapt their sensors against this disturbance at some point. Han and Chewie had split up the workload: While Han was busy with getting the communications array working again, his big hairy Wookie Co-Pilot was in the middle of repairing the Hyperspace Engine. It was clear to the both of them that this system was on the top of the priorities list, because they clearly wouldn't get very far by only using the impulse engines. They could also count on the fact, that the enemy hadn't stopped pursuing them just because they weren't any ships in sight at this point and they wouldn't see them coming anyway as their sensors were also disturbed by the anomaly.
Coruscant
Mon Mothma had just finished a short video conversation with an intelligence officer, who had notified her that they hadn't heard anything from Solo so far but that wasn't any cause of concern for her at this point, because there was still a lot of time left till the scheduled point where his report was expected. She had enormous trust in the abilities of Han Solo, who had been a big help since the days of the Rebellion against the Empire and for a high stakes mission like this, he was by far the number one to get this work done.
Meanwhile somewhere else Padme was struggling a little bit to find the way to her daughter's quarters, but after asking one nice man for the way she was finally standing in front of Leia's quarters and pushed the doorbell on the right side of it. It didn't take long for Leia to open the door for her, the two hugged as a short greeting and then Padme said:
"What a wonderful quarter you have here and I bet that you sometimes need some time to relax, because as much as you want to deny it politics can be really stressful."
With her years of experience as a Queen of Naboo and a Senator back in the days of the Old Republic, it was quite obvious that her mother exactly knew what she was talking about and so Leia replied:
"Of course, the last couple of years since the end of war against the Empire had been very stressful because of the ongoing political rivalry between the Populists and Loyalists, the biggest factions in the newly formed Senate. But at the same time, I kept telling myself that I needed to continue fighting, because we all have sacrificed so much during the war that we couldn't afford to let this new democracy been torn apart just like that."
Padme couldn't help but be reminded of herself, back in the day when she fought with everything that she got to keep the Republic alive. Sadly, she failed in the end as the one man that she had trusted the most transformed it into the Empire but right now she was confident that this newly formed democracy wouldn't suffer the same fate.
theChimaera, Admiral Thrawn's Flagship
Commander Woldar hated to deliver bad news to a man like Admiral Thrawn, but if there was something that the Grand Admiral hated more than that then it was the fact that someone under his command was trying to keep secrets. Grand Admiral Thrawn was busy with going through some reports, as he heard familiar footsteps getting closer to his position in the middle of the bridge:
"I hope you got some good news for me Commander."
People, who didn't work that long with Grand Admiral Thrawn would be surprised that their superior was able to identify a person just like that, but this was something that Commander Woldar had gotten used to very quick:
"This is sadly not the case Sir, as our ships have lost contact with the enemy ship but I guarantee you now that both Captains are doing everything in their power to not let the Rebels get away."
"Tell both of them that I want them to keep the crew of the ship alive, as I want to make an example out of that rebel scum."
AN: What does that mean for Han and Chewie? Will they be able to leave enemy territory before it's too late?
