Chapter 9
A/N: Thank you I Love Dance, Mireilles3, Forever-Luke, Treenahasthal, Glace96, and Arya of Ellesmera for reviewing! Reviews are definitely an awesome birthday present :)
It was the final match of the flying tournament — Luke Skywalker vs. Wedge Antilles across the holoscreen in bold blue letters.
Corran himself had been edged out by Tycho Celchu in the round before the semifinals, but he was in good spirits just like any of the other pilots crowded around the holoscreen.
The eliminated pilots and spectators had mostly finished placing their bets. Luke and Wedge were putting on their flight helmets now, climbing into the simulators.
The announcer started speaking. Apparently, the match was to consist of a simple race through the simulated waters of a Mon Calamarian ocean. Or not so simple, if the announcer was to be believed. Luke and Wedge would not be able to shoot at each other, but their ships would be attacked by various "predators" as they made their way through various underwater obstacles at breakneck speed.
The holoscreen flashed to numbers, counting down from ten to zero, and then they were off.
Corran was experienced enough to appreciate the skill and reflexes it took to navigate the course. He doubted that half the pilots in the simulator room could have done it, let alone with an opponent to contend with.
The holoscreen showed first Wedge, then Luke, then Wedge again. Both pilots were going virtually at full throttle, each unwilling to let the other take the lead. Both pilots were too good to rely on the other making a mistake.
But Luke began to pull ahead. While they were both brilliantly skilled, without the Force, Wedge simply couldn't take some of the chances that the Luke was taking.
But amazingly, he made a mistake.
Luke had turned from an aquatic rock formation just a trifle too close. He had made it, but the pile exploded from the shockwaves, spraying gravel everywhere. He managed to avoid the majority of it, but a few of the pieces exploded against the side of his ship.
The resolution on the holoscreen was good enough to show the thin cracks running down the sides of Luke's ship. Underwater, it wasn't enough to kill him, but it could pose a serious danger if he made another misstep.
Wedge pressed his advantage and shot through the cloud of debris ahead of Luke. At least, until a colo claw monster materialized in front of him. Wedge reversed the controls, but not quickly enough. The monster's mouth made a grab for his ship that delayed him long enough for Luke to recover and shoot past him to the finish line. There was cheering and groaning from those who won and lots money respectively.
Wedge climbed out of the simulator first, grinning ruefully. Luke followed shortly, soaked from head to toe in water.
Still, the two of them shook hands and offered each other sincere congratulations. Wedge frowned in confusion. "Why are you wet?"
Luke grinned. "Apparently, the simulator was a bit more realistic than anticipated."
General Salm, who had organized the event, wandered over to hand them their durasteel trophies. "I'm surprised you didn't notice the rest of its effects, Antilles."
Wedge winced slightly. "I guess I was too interested in the fact that I was being eaten by a sea monster."
The rest of the Rogues crowded around them. Corran turned to leave, but to his surprise, Luke pushed past the crowd and followed him.
"Corran," Luke asked him seriously, "Do you think I cheated?"
"Cheated?" Corran replied, even though he knew what Luke was talking about. "What do you mean?"
Luke's tone hadn't been accusatory. It had been questioning, as if he hadn't quite made up his mind about it either. He studied Corran, his face thoughtful. "Well, Corran, you believe in fair play. And you didn't look pleased when Wedge and I came out."
Corran sighed. "I don't think you cheated, exactly. But without training in the Force, can the rest of them really compete?"
Luke was too polite to mention that even with the Force, Corran hadn't beaten a few of those ordinary pilots. He took a different direction from what Corran expected, though. "Well, you do think Wedge has an unfair advantage?"
"Wedge?' Corran asked, taken aback.
"He's got talent and reflexes that few others can match."
Corran frowned. "Commander Antilles might have a lot of potential, but he has more experience and time in the simulators that pretty much anyone else, as well. His ability didn't just fall from the sky."
Luke nodded. "Tell me Corran, how long have you spent working on your force sense?"
Corran grimaced. "Point taken. So, what you're saying is that there really isn't much of a difference between the Force and raw piloting talent? Both Jedi and pilots have to work hard to develop them, and no, it's not fair to those with less, but all we can do is develop our potential?"
Luke looked to the side slightly, past Corran. "That's my interpretation of it, more or less. Of course," he continued, smiling slightly, looking back at Corran, "you shouldn't underestimate them. Flying is made of many things, intuition and reflexes among them – but be mindful of the other ones."
Minna Arcansite sank into the copilot's seat with a smug air. Sad, really, how Viin could see through a con faster than a pitten in front of gelmeat when it came to bounties and danger yet completely not notice that his partner was stacking the sabaac deck. Viin had just gambled himself into the monthly chore of doing the messy extruder valve check.
To be fair, Minna mused lazily, He's pretty absorbed with this new assignment.
As bounty hunting partners, Viin Nord and Minna relied deeply on trust and loyalty. You couldn't work with another being if you knew they were going to shoot you in the back the moment they didn't feel that the reward was worth sharing. Cheat you at card games, perhaps, but not shoot you in the back.
Minna wondered what their next assignment was going to be like. It was pretty rough, taking an assignment on faith, but the contact had proven to be reliable so far with the credits. And so far, the only thing that they had to do was rendezvous with their contact in the Xandra system.
Viin glanced over at her from the pilot seat. "We're dropping out of hyperspace in twenty seconds."
Minna bit back a sarcastic comment about just happening to come to the cockpit at that particular moment. Instead, she opened her mouth to ask Viin about the landing site on Xandra – only to be cut off by an ominous crunch as the ship jerked.
Minna froze.
The front viewscreen melted into normal space and the frightening visage of an Interdictor Cruiser.
For a moment, Minna could only gape. Beside her, she saw Viin do the same.
Interdictor Cruisers used gravity well generators to pull starships out of hyperspace. As they had to be placed on exact hyperspace routes, they were used to bring enemy ships out of hyperspace for an ambush— but only if you knew exactly where they were going to be and how they were going to get there.
Which could meant a lot of things, but most likely that their contact had set them up.
Viin recovered enough to begin evasive maneuvering. Or he would have, if the ship hadn't been held still by a tractor beam.
"I'm getting communications," Viin barked out. Minna entered a command to perform a sensor scan that she knew to be futile, and the results did not surprise her. They had no chance of escape.
There was no way to fight an Interdictor Cruiser without any advance warning. In fact, the only way to fight an Interdictor Cruiser with a ship that size was to avoid it and take a different route. But it wasn't as if one could anticipate them. There was no point in it. They were far too expensive to waste on small smuggler ships. So what was going on?
Minna did so, and to Viin's surprise, a holoscreen display winked on. It resolved itself into the image of an auburn-haired woman with slightly slanted dark blue eyes. She had delicate features, even if they were a bit too mild to be considered stunningly beautiful.
A few seconds passed in silence before she spoke. "You opened a communications link?" she inquired politely.
Viin gave her a disbelieving look. "You pulled my ship out of hyperspace and grabbed it with a tractor beam?"
The woman smiled. "That was unintentional. The black holes and star clusters surrounding Xandra on this particular side make it difficult to approach the system on any vector from the Coruscanti section of the Core save this one. But it was rather lucky you decided to drop in at this particular moment."
When it was clear she wasn't going to give another response, Viin asked, "Why?"
By that point, the ship had been dragged nearly all the way to the Interdictor Cruiser's docking bay.
"You delivered an important prisoner to Admiral Talinia, as per my request." This woman was the contact? "This is the only task for which we required your services – and after all, we can't have you squealing to any Tom, Dick, or Cracken."
Leia Organa Solo sat across from Syal Antilles, formerly known as Farsiria Adanis. Each was glaring Adumari blastswords at the other. Leia because Syal had betrayed her brother into the hands of the Empire, and Syal apparently just for the heck of it.
The difference is, Leia thought, I have the blaster. No one was taking chances, especially since prison breaks tended to be frowned upon by most organized governments. A prison break that led to the successful rescue of Luke Skywalker would be forgiven; however, a prison break that had a prisoner escaping would not be looked upon quite so indulgently.
They had kept it to a very small group— only Leia, Han, and Syal. The children were at home, being babysat by Leia's aide, Winter.
Han's voice came through the Millenium Falcon's intercom. "We're approaching the Xandra system. Forty seconds— you might want to get up here. I'm pulling out a little early." It was a common precaution for Han; the Solos had been ambushed too many times to be unwary.
The three of them arrived at the cockpit just as Han was pulling out of hyperspace. The planet Xandra hung dully in star-studded darkness.
It had patches of green and blue, like any other inhabited planet, with a strange washed-out look. It did not have a thin veneer of silver and rust on top like many city-covered planets, but a thick gray smoke that had descended and settled in, seeming to permeate every layer of the planet, soaking through. The only sign of life on the planet was the presence of a few dimly shining lights on the surface, marking large cities in the middle of local night.
Han turned to Syal. "Any of this look familiar?"
Syal made a noise of disbelief. "Oh yeah, there's my favorite dust cloud."
Leia saw her husband open his mouth for a sarcastic reply. However, space chose that moment to flash with the illumination of neon lasers and an enormous Imperial ship.
Lunara Seras hurried across the polished stone bridge connecting the two temples. As she neared the steps up from the bridge, she slowed her pace to an even glide.
Lunara entered the temple, blithely ignoring the heavily armed red-cloaked guards at the entryway. One of them made a half-hearted attempt to get her attention but was quickly held back by his fellows, who likely remembered the last time one of them tried to question her. Suffice to say, it had involved blue lightning, charred flesh, and screaming.
It was good to be a Sith apprentice sometimes. But this was not, in fact, one of those times. Lunara resisted the urge to slow her pace further. A dignified entrance was one thing; keeping her master waiting was another.
All too soon, she had passed through the intricately carved hallways and reached the inner courtyard. It was surrounded by deceptively fragile panels of Xandrian glass, the dim light shining through, scattering swirling patches of cobalt and mauve and silver light onto the temple's walls and floor.
Lunara stepped into the courtyard. It was the one patch of truly healthy plant life for miles. Her master, Darth Cinerate, was waiting.
"Welcome, Lady Lunara," he said imperiously, the familiar slightly sibilating tone in his voice. "What tidings have you?"
"Unfortunate news, my master," she replied coldly, the apathy in her voice hiding the trepidation she felt. "Syal Antilles has been captured by the New Republic and successfully interrogated. They are heading to Xandra now, and will soon arrive."
Lunara imperceptibly steeled herself for the rage that to come.
Instead, a chilling smile crept onto Cinerate's face. "All is going well, then."
Lunara raised an eyebrow pensively, although she shouldn't have been surprised. Her master hardly chose to confide in her every scheme that wormed its way around his ghastly brain, after all. "There is more," she continued, outwardly indifferent.
"My spies have also informed me that Admiral Talinia has not been able to hold on to Luke Skywalker. Soontir Fel turned traitor and escaped with him –" Lunara didn't bother to continue, her one faint hope that this information was also part of Cinerate's plans dying out at the sight of his face, pale hideous features contorted in rage.
"That fool!" Cinerate hissed in fury. "She can't hold on to one injured, tied-up man?" His features turned frigid. "Soontir Fel is dead."
He turned to glare at Lunara, who nearly recoiled. "Arrange it!"
"As you wish, Master," she murmured with as much respect as she could muster while hastily backing away.
About an hour later, aboard a transport journeying back up into the Interdictor Cruiser above Xandra, Lunara could not wait to escape the leeches back on the ground. The other Sith had, in the past few years, been slowly Force Draining the planet's population, and it was exhausting to keep a continual mental shield up. She did get a brief respite now and then when Darth Cinerate called her into his temple (as if anyone would dare drain anything in the Master's lair).
But if possible, being ordered around and zapped with Force lightning turned out to be even more tiring.
Lunara had hurried to put out an exorbitant price on Soontir Fel's head, but now she had nothing to do but wait for someone to carry out the deed. Until then, she hoped to keep Cinerate happy by being a good little minion and taking the initiative to oversee the traffic in and out of Xandra. There wasn't much chance of messing up that.
"My lady?" The pilot called out from the cockpit. "We've arrived."
Lunara stood, shaking out her auburn hair, and waited for the doors to slide open. They did so, revealing a few men in officer dress. "I have come to take control of this Interdictor," she informed them severely.
To her surprise, she sensed not mutinous servility or impotent anger, but pure relief. One of them stepped forward. "Thank you, my lady," he said gratefully.
She scowled. Something must have gone wrong. "May I ask if you've been having any difficulties?" she asked, politeness layered over hard-edged durasteel.
Each officer struggled not to cringe. With a timid air, the same one that had addressed her before spoke again. "One ship – small, Corellian make – dropped out of hyperspace early. Despite our best efforts, they managed to escape into the atmosphere. With the sandstorms and the damage we did to the ship, it is highly unlikely that they managed to successfully land."
Lunara narrowed her slanted eyes. "Why didn't you give chase?"
"We did, my lady. But we were forced to break off. Our sensors don't work well in Xandra's atmosphere."
Lunara contemplated this. It was unlikely to be anyone important, and it didn't really look like they could have prevented the escape, but just to be thorough. . . . She raised her hand and saw the terror creep into the eyes of the officers in the split second before they were engulfed in lightning.
She only let them scream for a few minutes before she let them go. They lay moaning on the smooth metal floor. "I trust," she hissed deliberately, "that we will not have any mishaps in the future." Not waiting for a response, Lunara turned and headed for the command center. Just in case, she decided that there really was no need to inform her master about the escape.
It probably wasn't important.
A/N: Okay, so this is a fairly short and uneventful chapter. But I plan a longer, more exciting update this weekend, so it won't be too long. Hopefully I'll get it finished in time before I go to school again!