Galaxies Apart
Twelve
Sluis Van was, in its own way, just as much of a galactic wonder as Coruscant.
Fleet Admiral Thrawn sat humbly in his ridiculously lavish personal shuttle, his first dividend of promotion, and absorbed the sheer magnitude of the interstellar ship-building industry laid out like a tapestry before him.
It was his second magnificent approach in the space of five days, and his artistic soul appreciated every moment. To his left, he could see the TIE manufacturing process in operation; the fantastic, immense construction droids which devoured raw materials and gestated fully-formed fighter and bomber skeletons.
The floating mooring yards for seventeen Star Destroyers, in varying degrees of completion.
The nearest to him bore the name Chimaera. It was, in his opinion, a much better name than Palpatine.
"Two minutes to landing, Admiral."
"Mmm," Thrawn replied, absently. His attention turned to his right and the star of the show in Sluis Van. Filling the sky, filling everything it seemed, was the Death Star.
He marvelled at the scale of the undertaking. The repulsorlift bank supporting the Death Star's suspension above the surface was ludicrously immense in scope in itself. Thrawn had wondered at first what everyone else surely had wondered - why go to such amazingly difficult lengths to build a Death Star on an inhabited world, rather than to build it in a remote location, in secret?
It had come to him a few nights ago. An assembly line was being constructed here. The Empire was done with secrecy. It had won. It could build projects like this without fear of reprisals.
Sluis Van was an immense rock of a world, more than one hundred times the diameter of most inhabited worlds. A world able to cope with the stresses of having a small moon hovering three miles above its surface. All shipbuilding enterprises took part on the geo-stable northern hemisphere of the planet. The southern hemisphere, due to thinner crust, was a mass of volcanic activity through which the Old Republic had sunk huge generators.
Sluis Van could have produced enough energy to light Coruscant. Or, as the Emperor had realised, to project gravitational dampening fields to prevent the surrounding patch of planet from being ripped asunder from the gargantuan mass of the Death Star.
With all of this in place, a Death Star design that had taken over twenty years to complete first time around had been completed here on a larger scale in less than three.
Next time, he had been told, it would be half that.
His eyes followed the smooth curvature of the Death Star from the bottom up. There seemed to be no end to the thing. The main hangar bays on the Palpatine could comfortably swallow four Star Destroyers. Such thoughts thrilled him and intimidated him in equal measure.
A crew capacity of two million people. Two million. Under his care. A complement of ten thousand TIE fighters, three thousand TIE bombers, eight hundred of the advanced TIE Interceptors, more than a match for any Ssi-ruuk attack.
Seven hundred turbolaser batteries. All of which could remain operational when the main superlaser was charging. All thanks to the record-breaking size and complexity of the Palpatine's reactor core. A core which, at full capacity, could spit out enough energy per second to illuminate Coruscant for two minutes. A superlaser which had fourteen Main Stage beams.
And lastly, but certainly no less importantly...no thermal exhaust port.
He shook his head again at the folly of his appointment. The most incompetent stormtrooper trainee on Carrida could have taken the centre seat of this thing and spun victories whilst blindfolded and under instructions to give his orders in rhyming couplets. The whole notion of tactics simply broke down in the face of a superlaser's destructive capabilities.
Of course, he wasn't going to complain. Not just because doing so would surely have meant his death; Thrawn wasn't blind to the potential of being the captain of the most powerful ship in the galaxy. He could indeed act as a role model for the Empire's next generation of recruits.
It was also, of course, a perfect springboard for a later leap into the higher ranks, much like Tarkin's situation now.
Yet sill he was unable to shake the sense of unease that had been nagging at him ever since the Emperor had offered him the post. In doing so Palpatine was taking a very large step toward one day having a non-human as the most powerful man in the Empire, perhaps even becoming Emperor. It seemed to fit perfectly with Palpatine's racial tolerance speech he'd given.
Yet Thrawn knew that for all the Emperor's pandering propaganda the man was anti-alien to the core. Why give an alien he mistrusts so deeply a ship which can only improve his status?
As the shuttle touched down softly, and the crowds outside applauded, he found himself doubting the logic more and more. Why chose Victory Day to parade that same alien, if a backlash is inevitable?
The door opened. Thrawn emerged to an adoring crowd. His hands waved and his mouth smiled, but his mind was occupied elsewhere.
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Wedge cheered as loudly as anyone. He wasn't that awful a spy.
"Crush the soul-suckers!" the woman next to him hollered. Anti Ssi-ruuvi feeling was running high. Wedge could appreciate why; the mysterious race of conquerors had been almost Empire-like in the speed and the efficiency of their conquest.
Which was why they made such ideal, and yet such uncomfortable allies.
He shivered at the memory. Sure, the Alliance was on its knees and had been that way for a long time…but the idea of siding himself with the cold species chilled him to his bones. If he ever discovered for sure that the rumours about their power source were true...
Wedge would gladly have fought arm in arm with the Imperial forces against the Ssi-ruuk had things been different. As if, he thought bitterly.
"Are you finished?" he asked the woman who had shouted her support. She sighed in exasperation.
"Honestly, Wedge Antilles…" she began, about-facing and striding away with Wedge in bemused tow, "…you simply are the least fun person to be with on a great day like this. I mean look around you-the birds are singing…"
"Sluis Van has no birds."
"…the sun is shining…"
"It's a binary system. I don't think that's too rare."
"…the Death Star is looking all spruce and polished and indestructible…"
There was a silence.
"Yeah," Wedge grinned. "It is, isn't it?"
They exchanged glances, and continued walking through the chaos of the assembled masses. Only at the fringes of the crowd where Imperials were scattered thinly across the viewing platform did his companion's demeanour change. Watching this process never failed to amaze Wedge.
Though this wasn't his first meeting with Winter, he found she still captivated him.
Winter had been a top-level operative firstly on Alderaan with Leia Organa's family. She'd earned her living back then as the eyes and ears of the Organa clan, the innocuous and seemingly insignificant beauty who would waltz from one function to the next. He wondered how many had known back then that this striking, silver-haired woman had an eidetic memory and one of the keenest brains he'd ever known.
When Bail Organa had made the decision to join the Alliance Winter had been pressed into Rebel service right away. Over the course of the next few years she had hurt the Empire time and again through espionage and subterfuge.
Wedge had heard stories that the Imperials had dedicated an entire section of their intelligence service to the identification and capture of this elusive Rebel operative.
The demise of the Rebellion's military exploits had meant that, if anything, Winter's role had increased.
"Thrawn was looking well," she commented, "a little troubled, though. From his profile, I don't think he would have wanted the Palpatine command. It's not the right ship for him."
"Who wouldn't want to command the most powerful ship in history?" Wedge said, incredulously.
Winter didn't reply; she had slipped into that analytical mode that made her such a good operative. "I'd still rather have any other Imperial tomorrow than him, though. He seems to have something that the rest of them lack…that little bit of mystique, the three-dimensional touch."
"He's not invincible."
This time she heard him. Her high-bred complexion flushed as she muttered, "He'd better not be, Antilles. There are an awful lot of lives hanging on this - including ours."
They sat together on a memorial bench. In the distance Thrawn was addressing the crowd, overshadowed by the immensity of the Death Star looming over all of them.
"Ackbar has been planning this for the last nine months. No one is expecting us to attack anyone or anywherethese days, particularly an Imperial stronghold like Sluis Van. We have the fleet standing by and ready to go. We have the ground teams set, and in position. And we have our little surprises for the Empire and for Thrawn."
He stopped, his voice faltering a little. His attention was being pulled toward that gargantuan station whether he liked it or not. It was bringing back painful memories. Words like exhaust port and snatches of conversations (…I can't stay with you…) whispered in his psyche.
"I've had to suffer for five years," he said. His tone caused her to jump slightly. "No more. We should have beaten the Empire once, at Yavin. They won that day, but the victories stop here."
He set his jaw.
"Tomorrow," he said, "the Alliance strikes back."
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The Rancor pit was deep, and its floor solid.
Han felt every inch of the drop as his shoulder impacted first on the ancient sandy floor. Trying to ignore the pain as best he could, he staggered to his feet. Above him the blinding light of Jabba's throne room was contrasted against the cheering and whooping figures screaming obscenities at him. He could hear the deep and cruel rumble of the Hutt's laughter, mocking him.
The Jedi lay about ten feet from him, not moving. Han felt his stomach lurch. Dead as they were anyway, without the Jedi to back him up he was deader all the quicker. He staggered to the prostrate warrior.
The noise of machinery whirring into life snapped his head around. As he'd feared, it was the sound of the gate being released. The gigantic metal structure pulled with terrifying speed from the ground. And behind it-
Han felt his throat dry up.
Behind the gate he could see the crouching Rancor, a huge monstrosity of claws and teeth thirty feet tall, looking at him. Those black pupils, tiny in that huge face, seemed to etch into his soul.
He turned in desperation to the Jedi. Shook him. "Get up!" Han cried, "Wake up, damn you!"
His next words were drowned out as the Rancor crouched under the three-quarters open gate, stepped free into the pit and roared at them. Han's throat seemed to constrict as the monster screamed.
The Jedi unfolded as casually as a man waking up from sleep.
"Had to meditate for a moment," he explained, as if it were the most logical thing in the world.
"Your lightsaber!" Han screamed. "Use it! Use it now!"
"Relax," the Jedi reassured him, as the Rancor bore down upon them, "it's all under control."
Han froze.
Corellians didn't go in for religion, much. Even if they had Han doubted he'd have been very pious. Over the years he'd learned to rely on his wits, his intelligence, and on more than one occasion a few well-placed shots from his blaster to survive.
He'd heard stories, though. Chewie kept it pretty quiet, but Han knew his Wookiee friend had a religion, one bound in honour and life debts instead of gods and demons. When a good man died something deserved to happen to him, that was certain.
It had only been in the semi-recent past that Han had actually ever been exposed to the Force, and the religion that had sprung up from it. A lot of hokum, from what he could make out.
He'd heard that before you died, your life flashed before your eyes.
Nothing flashed through Han's. Because at the moment when he thought he was about to be grabbed and gobbled by the Rancor, the Jedi crouched, spread his arms, and sang.
And the Rancor froze.
The throne room went very quiet.
Han didn't dare move. Didn't dare breathe. He risked pivoting his eyes around to stare at his companion. The young man, eyes closed in concentration and hands sweating, was singing at the top of his voice.
The melody meant nothing to Han, yet its effect on the Rancor was immediate. The huge beast swayed gently from side to side, powerful claws opening and closing in rhythm to the tune.
It was dancing.
The Jedi stopped singing.
He turned to Han, and flashed a relieved smile. "That's a relief. I thought for a moment there this one had been too long in captivity to remember. They've been treating him atrociously, I'm afraid."
The Rancor stirred. Han flattened himself against the wall, making small involuntary noises in the back of his throat.
He watched as the Jedi approached the thirty-foot animal, and slapped its leg heartily.
The silence from above was truly phenomenal.
"You poor thing," tutted the Jedi, as the Rancor growled and yowled at the attention. "All right now?"
He glanced upward. The Rancor did likewise, then looked at the Jedi with what could only be described as a mournful expression.
"Later," promised the Jedi. "Don't you worry about those people, any more."
He beckoned Han over. The smuggler took a second to convert, and shuffled slowly forward.
"Erk?" he croaked.
"He reminds me of a Rancor I rescued on Dathomir," the Jedi said conversationally. "Except this one's a male. They're a lot smaller. Very loyal creatures, you know. They get quite fierce when they're hungry."
He gestured to the Rancor, and pointed very firmly at the closed gate to the pit.
"Destroy!" he said.
Blam. A blaster bolt rained down as the crowds above finally got to terms with what had happened. Han hurried forward, all fears forgotten as the self-preservation instinct kicked in on cue.
Blam. Blam. Blam.
Bolts showered the pit floor. Jabba was obviously not a very happy slug at the moment. A shot kicked up dirt inches ahead of him, spurring Han on to higher speeds. There was too many of them-
A shadow fell over him.
He looked up, incredulous suspicions confirmed by the sight of the Rancor standing over him, shielding both he and the Jedi from the laser fire above. The creature moaned in pain, forced to absorb shot after shot. He made himself as small a target as possible as, twenty feet above, the Rancor's immense foreclaws ripped into the huge gates like they weren't there.
When a big enough hole had been created, the Rancor forced its way through. This feeder tunnel to the pit in which the Rancor had lived for so long led to a tiny metal grille behind which stood several palace guards. More blaster fire arrowed toward him. He dived left into an alcove in the tunnel, the air sizzling inches from his face as it was vaporised by the supercharged light.
Something brushed his arm. He cast it aside, only realising then that it was a humanoid skeleton. Other body parts littered the tunnel at various intervals. They get quite fierce…he thought darkly.
The Jedi leapt into the tunnel, clearing the entrance by some fifteen feet. The guards began to track him with their blasters. Han gestured to his alcove, expecting the Jedi to take shelter until the Rancor itself could force a way through.
The Jedi sprang forward instead. Blue light flashed once, twice. The blasters fell silent. The Jedi turned and made a few passes with the lightsaber to widen the hole and help the Rancor struggle through the gap.
At least he's on my side, Han thought. For now, anyway…
Emerging cautiously from the alcove, he jogged to the grille end of the tunnel as with one almighty heave the Rancor pulled it clean from its moorings. The animal began to tunnel its way out. Earth flew. He could see the light of a savage Tatooine day faintly ahead in the labyrinth of small passages.
They had escaped.
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"…AFTER THEM, SCUM!" Jabba finished, releasing the captain of his guards across the throne room. The dazed mercenary picked himself up and dashed off, a regiment of Gamorreans in tow.
Jabba took a few seconds to calm down. He'd been double-crossed. That was it. Some lowlife scum had sold him a defective Rancor, and this was the result. In fact the Jedi had probably been employed by one of his rivals, specifically to make him look foolish.
The Hutt made plans. They would not escape, obviously. A party of two humans and one thirty-foot saurian carnivore would be far from inconspicuous on a world with all of three major cities.
What to do with them when they were captured, now…that was a quandary. Their deaths were mandatory, of course, but their manner of execution would be under scrutiny from the Core to the Rim. His long-practised brain ticked over one of its favourite problems.
Slow-acting poison had its plus points. The victims could be put on public display, and the effects of some such toxins were nothing short of spectacular. One, an elixir concocted from leaves of the tyahr bush native to Talos Prime, was legendary.
Firstly, the victims' skin would break out in sores and rashes that burst with blood every six hours, slowly draining away the life-stream. Next the internal organs swelled to twice their normal size. After that the poison seeped into the nervous system and prevented the body from heating any extremities. Fingers and toes would drop off, soon followed by arms and legs. Lastly the remaining blood would accelerate around the body. The pressure buildup usually resulted in the victims' head being blown off.
It was a real crowd-pleaser.
Of course, for sheer visual pleasure nothing beat the parasitic deaths. All manner of bugs would find the warm bodies of humans and Rancors an irresistible morsel. As a young Hutt Jabba had accompanied many an uncle to watch a local criminal being eaten alive by such ravenous little beasts. The screams of pain and of humiliation were something to be cherished.
No…
He had it! He had it! Jabba's mouth fell open in his trademark laugh as the delicious solution came to him. He would take all three and plunge them into the mouth of the Sarlacc.
The ancient, passive predator would take a thousand years to digest them. It would mean a day out in his sail barge to the pit of Carkoon-another bonus. There would probably be considerable media interest. He even considered strapping a reinforced holocam to one of them, so he could watch the acid do its work over the next few decades whenever he felt the need.
Chuckling at the prospect, one of his arms reached absently for a small snack to complete the happy moment. His selection of prey was getting low-he'd have to get the thing refilled soon.
Decisions…
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Thirty feet below Han's complaining stomach the Tatooine desert lurched and spun. His brain tried again to comprehend the last twenty minutes, and failed. Part of him wished the Rancor had just eaten them both and been done with it.
"ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?!" the Jedi yelled at him over the thundering gallop. From his vantage point-tucked in behind the crest of the head and the back-Han replied by tightening his grip and staying alive.
The up-and-down motion the creature was employing was hugely nauseating and clumsy, but was covering a lot of ground. The painfully bright sand positively flew past…way…down… there…
Han gulped, and dared to free a hand to clutch at his gut. This was ridiculous; he'd been through level fifteen ion storms and surfed along the gravity of black holes. A fifty miles-per-hour joyride hanging on a Rancor's neck should be nothing, right?
That damned Jedi was shouting again. Han was unable to make out the words, but he understood the mimicry well enough. Call your ship, the guy was saying. Get us out of here.
Han buried himself into the leathery folds of the Rancor's crest, ignoring the stench and the moisture and the various small parasites as best he could. He placed his feet against the heaving shoulder muscles and braced himself, before reaching into his pocket and retrieving his commlink.
"Chewie!"
Static replied. Han hadn't seen any evidence of jamming equipment at the palace, but that meant little.
"Chewie," he tried again. "This is Han. PLEASE reply. Over. Repeat; this is Han. Please reply. Over."
Wedging the commlink into his ear, he was able to screen out the noise of the Rancor's heavy footfalls.
"…-olo. This is See-Threepio calling Han Solo. We're receiving your transmission. Repeat; this is-"
"Threepio," Han interrupted the droid. "We're moving out from the palace…" he risked a quick glance around the landscape and back to the receding silhouette of Jabba's lair, "… due west, I think. Tell Chewie to bring the Falcon in and pick us up. Now. Tell him we'll be moving pretty fast."
"Us?"
Han cut the transmission, unwilling as yet to reveal the exact nature of the group he was travelling in.
He waved frantically to the Jedi. Finally managing to attract his attention, he pantomimed the Falcon sweeping in and picking them up. The Jedi smiled, and gave him the thumbs up. Han shook his head and pointed to the Rancor. He shrugged his shoulders; what the hell do we do with this thing?
The Jedi began to shout an answer.
He never got to complete it.
The dune they were scaling fountained with sand. Han saw the world around him spin crazily as the huge Rancor tumbled to the ground. The shock of impact was too much for his grip on the crest; he fell from the creature seconds before the momentum would have crushed him under its weight.
Hot sand scalded him as he rolled over and over. The stuff invaded him, getting under his clothes and burning his skin. He spat out mouthfuls of the ancient sediment, each new dose roasting his tongue. Finally his flailing limbs brought him to a halt.
Battered and bruised, he lifted his head to see the Rancor locked in combat with another monster-
Corellian though he was, even an offworlder had heard of the Krayt dragon.
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Decisions…
In no mood for a game struggle with a resisting morsel, Jabba selected a particularly docile specimen. He slobbered in anticipation as his stubby fingers grasped its cool skin and brought it up to that three-foot long mouth which fairly bisected his head. As the helpless prey passed down his foodways Jabba's tongue coated it with mucus and saliva, before it was finally swallowed.
His eyes bulged.
The thing hadn't tasted right at all. His tongue sang with the indignation of the strange flavour. It was almost as if…as if the food hadn't been organic at all.
That was impossible, surely. Jabba prided himself on his paranoia - he had his snack bowl regularly checked for any and all known poisons and toxins. The last time had been an hour ago, just before Solo and the Jedi and the thermal detonator had shown up-
- thermal detonator-
There wasn't time to do anything about it. There wasn't time for one last curse, or one final threat, or even a bellow of rage at what had been done to him. A Hutt had a fantastic digestive system. The acid-
"Uuuurp," said Jabba the Hutt, before exploding.
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The Millennium Falcon sped in low and fast over the desert.
"Hurry, Chewbacca!" Threepio's prissy tones worried from the back of the cockpit. The droid had entered one of his more lucid phases, much to everyone's relief.
A blinding flash illuminated the cockpit, and was gone. Chewbacca shook his head to clear the dancing spots from his vision and flew on, uncaring. Threepio, by nature a little more inquisitive, did his best to peer out of the small windows.
"That looked like an explosion!" the droid exclaimed. "I do hope it wasn't near Captain Solo."
Chewbacca growled a quick negative. His displays told him the epicentre of the blast had been Jabba's palace. He filed the information away for later investigation. Right now Han was in trouble.
"There!" Threepio cried out in triumph, gesturing with a newly-reattached metal arm to a point in the desert. "I can see Master Solo, and…" the droid was silent for a moment. "…and…hurry!"
Chewie kept the Falcon at full throttle, and thumbed for pilot control of the lasers. A light told him the underside blaster was extended and ready for use. It was a smaller-scale weapon than the huge quad guns, but at this range he couldn't risk hitting Han.
Chewie saw his friend for the first time, lying injured in the sand barely twenty feet from the raging battle between what looked like - no, surely it couldn't be - a Rancor and a Krayt Dragon?
The Wookiee wasn't about to let them fight over the privilege of who got to make Han a snack. He aimed the blaster and fired.
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"No!" Han screamed as the Falcon roared by overhead. Dammit, Chewie, he thought. The Rancor had just been establishing dominance in the tussle. Now the beleaguered pet hissed in pain as a volley of blaster shots impacted on its left arm and shoulder.
A movement on the horizon caught his attention. What looked astonishingly like a huge fireball was spiralling into the desert air, from the direction of Jabba's palace. Could it be?, Han wondered. Could that vile slug finally have perished?
Could he be free, at last?
"Han!"
It was the Jedi. He was limping a little and holding his right arm. Han speculated what he himself must look like at this time. "Call off the Falcon. The Rancor can vanish into the desert. It's us who need rescuing."
"Chewie's on it," Han said.
The Jedi nodded, satisfied. "Quickly. Jabba may have dispatched a few squads before he died."
The commlink paused on Han's lips. "You...?" he repeated, not daring to believe it was true.
"Bad diet."
Han felt like taking on the Krayt dragon himself. The Hutt was gone. His bounty would disappear once news broke across the galaxy. No doubt most of Jabba's former subordinates would either be killed or simply vanish into the shadows. He had a clean slate, after all this time. He could start again. He-
"Chewie?" he called. "We're not in danger. Stop firing. Land as close as you can and pick us up."
His commlink buzzed. "Understood, Master Solo." Threepio sang happily.
The Jedi stirred. "Threepio...?" he whispered softly, as the Falcon banked and began to turn above them.
Han frowned. "Yeah. You know the model?" he asked, as they hobbled up the nearest sand hill together.
"A long time ago," the Jedi replied.