The Thrawn Trilogy: Dark Force Rising
"I have no qualms about accepting a useful idea merely because it wasn't my own."―ThrawnHere's the other half of Dark Force Rising. First part was here. You can probably tell that this time I have the book in hand.
Senator Garm Bel Iblis meets Han and Lando and demands to know what's going on. Han says they know about the Katana fleet, and they really need the ships. But not as badly as they need good fighters. And commanders. Bel Iblis says he won't go to Mon Mothma like a beggar pleading to be let in. Han says he left for good reasons and can come back the same way. Bel Iblis says he has nothing to bring back. He dreamed of having a formidable fleet, but what he has barely qualifies as a strike force. Han tells him that six Dreadnaughts isn't something to sneer at, and neither is his combat record.
Bel Iblis says he'll think about it. Han and Lando leave in the Lady Luck, Bel Iblis's assistant Sena says if they betray the Senator, she will kill them. On the way out, Lando wonders how Han keeps getting him into these things. Han worries about Leia, thinking that something's gone wrong. Lando says she can take care of herself. Even Grand Admirals can make mistakes. Han disagrees. "He made his mistake at Sluis Van. He won't make another. Bet you the Falcon he won't."
Not a nice man, our Grand Admiral. (The book has an awesomely but subtly menacing bit where he looked at the transcript of the interrogation, still reading it when the Chimaera went to lightspeed. Reading it very, very carefully.)
Hey! These artists know that Wedge has brown hair! Anyway, this is the Etherway, which she's here to pick up. (And in the novel, this scene is better. Mara thinks that these bantering code words are lame and Wedge is a bad actor, but the pilot is clearly getting a kick out of them. He offers to fly as her escort, and she declines. The first rule of smuggling is to stay as inconspicuous as possible, and flying out of a third-rate spaceport with a shiny New Republic X-Wing starfighter in tow didn't exactly qualify as a low-profile stance.)
She takes off and finds the Star Destroyer Adamant. (I love Star Destroyer names.) For a moment she wonders if it's here to chase after Wedge, but no. It wants her to shut down her engines and prepare to be brought aboard. Mara congratulates their vigilance, saying she was afraid she'd have to search five systems to find an Imperial ship. She has to speak to their captain and set up a meeting with Grand Admiral Thrawn. She's got information for him. The captain comes on and wants to know who she is, telling her that she's on the record as being one of Karrde's smugglers. An interrogation should reveal more. She says that would be unwise. The Grand Admiral would be extremely displeased. Extremely displeased. When he doubts, then she shock-and-awes him by giving him the recognition code Hapspir, Barrini, Corbolan, Triaxis. Thrawn knew her as the Emperor's Hand.
(...And of course in the book there was more conversation and the scene is better. Endor hurts Mara. She can feel the evidence of his death, and it's not pleasant. Right after Thrawn asks that last question, she hears the Emperor's command YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER and flinches. Read the books! The comics are a visual aide, not a replacement for the novels.)
She says it wasn't her idea, she was on Myrkr under the influence of ysalamiri and it doesn't matter. She has a deal to offer. She wants Thrawn to stop harassing Karrde and his group, cancel the bounty, clear them with all Imperial forces, and give them a credit of three million towards the purchase of Imperial goods and services. Thrawn says Skywalker's not worth that much to him. Mara says she's offering the Katana fleet. She doesn't know, but Karrde does. She won't tell them where he is - she'll get the location from him, and they'll trade. Assuming the deal is to Thrawn's liking. Thrawn quietly tells her "Do not presume to dictate to me, Mara Jade. Not even in private." Then he tells her that as the Emperor's Hand she carried out his commands, no more, and says that whether she heard his commands more clearly than the rest of his Hands is irrelevant, something that devastates her. But she recovers, and it will take her two and a half days to get to where Karrde is. She's got eight days to bring him the location. And then they'll have a long discussion on why it took her so long to return.
(And then in the novel Thrawn looks over the art that was in the offices where the Katana Fleet was planned and designed while talking to Pellaeon, who used to have ambitions about finding that fleet. Thrawn looks at holos of Garm Bel Iblis's Dreadnaughts and identifies them as from the Katana Fleet. Pellaeon says that it doesn't make sense for Karrde to be selling them to a renegade Corellian like Bel Iblis, and Thrawn agrees. Someone else must know. He's got some leads. (Because he's Thrawn.) He tells Pellaeon to contact the ship thief Niles Ferrier, call him off of his search for Bel Iblis's home base, and set him after Solo and Calrissian. And the Chimaera is following Mara. She may want them to believe she's coming back, but she isn't. They have two leads, and one way or another, they will find the Katana fleet. Pellaeon nods, "feeling the stirrings of excitement again despite his best efforts to remain unemotional about this. The Katana fleet. Two hundred Dreadnaughts, just sitting there waiting for the Empire to take possession..." He has a feeling that their offensive against the Rebellion will be ready to launch a bit ahead of schedule.)
On Honoghr, Leia and Chewie take a break from planning and go outside. The maitrakh meets her and they talk a bit. Threepio has spent a lot of time with the decontamination machines. That area will be finished soon, and they'll be able to plant. Leia asks Chewie how long it should have taken for the droids to clean this much land; Chewie has also been thinking about this and gives her an analysis that boils down to about eight years. Right at about the height of the war.
(And there's a moment in the book where Leia thinks that the maitrakh and Khabarakh might die, and probably Chewie with them. But not her. They'd take her alive and give her to their lord the Grand Admiral.
Who would smile, and speak politely, and take her children away from her.)
The Lady Luck takes a comm from Winter, who says that no one in the New Republic has been able to fend off the Imperial attacks on their shipping lines, and people are feeling suspicious about Fey'lya and his motivations for getting Ackbar arrested. She hasn't heard from Leia, but she's got a message from Luke, who wants to meet them at the quote, money-changing center, unquote, on New Cov. Lando knows that that means the tapcafe. They decide to go there instead of that swimming casino - (okay, plot point that came up in the book time! Back at Bel Iblis's base, they'd asked Sena where they'd been getting Katana fleet dreadnaughts, and she'd described the man who sold it to them and said that all meetings with him had been on the Coral Vanda, a seagoing luxury casino on Pantolomin, where he was known to the staff.) That's what they mean. So they return to New Cov first, deciding that if this is a trap, well, they've gotten out of traps before. Landing, they meet Niles Ferrier, ship thief and occasional smuggler.
(In the book, before he told them Thrawn's name he told them he wasn't giving any free information.)
Anyway, they don't like his vagueness and how bad the offer is, so they leave. On the way offplanet they notice that someone put a homing device on the hull, and decide to lose it creatively. Ferrier talks to his Defel, who says they won't find the second beacon. He tells him? her? it? that it had better be right, he didn't stand there and take that garbage for nothing. As is, Solo looked right at it. The Defel says there was no danger. Humans need movement to see. Nonmoving shadows are of no concern. They get ready to lift off, to make a fortune and take out a smart-mouthed gambler.
Mara lands and greets Karrde, and then jamming starts, making their comlinks squeal. TIEs arrive, and stormtroopers. Karrde tries to fire at them, but Mara takes his blaster.
She stands over him with it. (In the book she tries to explain, but he can't hear what she's saying. Strangely, he's not angry, but feels chagrin that he'd been fooled so easily, so thoroughly... and regret for losing such a skilled associate. Also, stormtroopers take him away.) Thrawn meets Mara in the shuttle bay of the Chimaera, and Mara is furious. (Transcribing from the book:
"Eight days, Thrawn. You said eight days. You promised me eight days."
"I changed my mind. It occurred to me that Karrde might not only refuse to divulge the Katana fleet's location, but might even abandon you here for suggesting that he make such a deal with us."
"The gates of hell you did. You planned to use me like this right from the start."
"And it got us what we wanted. That's all that matters.")
So she lunges at him, and Rukh gets her by the neck.
(*sigh* All right, I'll explain what happened in the book at this point. Mara tried to shift Rukh, but his forearm was pressing against her carotid artery, and she was about to black out. His grip loosened when she stopped. Thrawn seems amused, so Mara tries to Force Choke him. Yes, really. That's why he's touching his throat, and he gets angry. She keeps trying, ignoring the order, waiting for him to signal Rukh to choke her or the stormtroopers to burn her down. But he doesn't, and neither does he blink, and finally she has to stop.)
(Those who've read up on Thrawn know that Force-Choking him never works. Never. Sure, he'll get choked, but something will always happen and he will be angry. Threatening him with the Force never works, period.)
She says it won't happen again. To summarize, he tells her that Joruus C'baoth is a mad Jedi Master and Luke Skywalker has already fallen into his trap, he'd hate for her to join him and so would she. Does she in fact want to rejoin the Empire? She deflects this by asking about Karrde. Karrde will stay on the Chimaera until he gives them the location, the bounty has been called off, and no, Mara can't see him. They're softening him up with a sense of utter abandonment before they try harsher treatment. This angers Mara all over again, but she submits, since the alternative is giving Karrde to an interrogation droid right away. She says that Karrde helped her when she had nowhere else to go. Thrawn understands her feelings, but they have no place here. The deck officer will take her down to the surface. Then he leaves. (There's a whole thing in the book where she realizes that with a single casual act of betrayal, Thrawn finally destroyed her last hope that the new Empire could live up to the one she'd been proud to serve. She realizes that this mess, at least in part, is her fault. It's up to her to fix it. And she can't do it alone. There's only one person who can help her now, even though he has no reason to do it.)
Mara takes the moment to hack into a computer, get the location of C'baoth, and memorize various details about the prison deck and where the Chimaera is going to be in the next six days. Then she finds the deck officer, who's suspicious until he sees that the computer is still locked down.
She's taken back to the surface. Karrde's man Aves is suspicious, but despite himself he believes her when she says she didn't betray Karrde. She's going to get him back, and she needs something. The others won't help her. She needs one of their Skipray blastboats and a ysalamiri on a nutrient frame.
On Jomark, C'baoth has Luke sit in judgment of the last case of the evening. Luke hears two people out and rules a compromise that involves the village council and himself going out to examine the damage to a fence. C'baoth is angry, wondering if Luke has really been listening over the past few days. He had it all right in his hands and should have cut them off, made the decision himself, pulled the knowledge of the fence damage from their minds! Luke says that reading someone's thoughts like that seems wrong. C'baoth asks how that can be wrong when he's using that knowledge to help them? Hasn't he ever violated someone's personal preferences to help them? Or ignored a stupid rule that stood between him and something that needed doing? Luke has. But this is different. Like he's taking more responsibility for these people's lives than he should.
Mara comes out of hyperspace with the Emperor's command ringing in her head. She approaches the planet and descends, wondering why she feels so tired, then straps on the ysalamiri as she realizes that it's C'baoth's doing. The planet has no obvious weapons or shields, but flying rocks that her ship doesn't detect take out her repulsorlifts. She fights the ship into crash landing more or less intact.
Then she climbs out of the ship, out of the ditch, and finds Artoo in Luke's X-Wing. The droid doesn't like her, but it doesn't shoot her either, and she tells it that Luke doesn't know that C'baoth's working for the Empire. They find C'baoth and Mara demands to know if he always treats visitors this way. C'baoth says he has no visitors save lackeys from Thrawn. Everyone else is an intruder. Mara tries to bluff him and say that Thrawn sent her, but C'baoth knows she's lying. He saw it all in her mind. Did she really think she could take his Jedi away? (In the book he also says that he's sensed her presence over the years. One day she will come to him of her own free will, and kneel before him. He's seen it.) A human shadow comes up behind him.
Notice how the ysalamiri's head completely changes between panels. *sigh* Anyway, his look of shock comes from realizing that coming near the ysalamiri makes that exhaustion disappear. (In the book he also paraphrased Yoda. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense. Never for attack.)
Luke ignites his lightsaber - and hey, the sound effects use the Zahnian snap-hiss - telling Mara that he'll hold him off while she gets behind the ship. C'baoth tries to electrocute them with Force Lightning. Luke parries it. The X-Wing lifts off and fires into the ground near C'baoth.
And then the next issue starts. A lot happens here so again, comic book triage.
Four days later, Luke and Mara in an Imperial shuttle touch down in the Chimaera's shuttle bay. Control tells them to shut down all systems and prepare for unloading. Mara tells them that this is her first cargo run. How long before they can leave? Couple of hours. They unload all the shuttles before they let any of them leave.
The two of them head to the lowest part of the shuttle, Mara hoping they haven't started the interrogation. She points to a section of floor and tells him to cut through it there since no one should see and he probably won't hit anything vital, and he carves a hole. The lights go out, but his lightsaber makes enough light. They use the shuttle's magnetic winch to haul the piece of docking out. Mara tells Luke to bevel the hole.
They jump through, note that it's quiet so far, and start hunting for uniforms, since there are pilot ready rooms here. Mara wants Luke to tell her which room has the fewest people and she'll do the rest, but Luke, being Luke, doesn't want her to do that. He thinks he can suppress their curiosity so they won't notice or care about him going in, taking flight suits, and leaving. Mara doesn't like losing the element of surprise, and Luke says he doubts even she could take out all three without any noise, surprise or not.
And it works, although there are four people, not three. Sheesh, comic. They change clothes, Mara putting her hair in a bun and asking if he still wants to do it this way. Luke says he and Han tried a frontal approach on the Death Star. It wasn't a success. Mara says that he didn't have access to the main computers. They should be able to get him out undetected. She directs him into his access door.
It's a garbage chute, though unlike on the Death Star there isn't water or a dianoga. (In the book, he explicitly thinks of how much this is like the Death Star, and then thinks he was a wide-eyed kid then, dazzled by the thought of heroism and unconscious of the risks. Now he's older, seasoned, knew what he was walking into... and still doing it. Did that make him more or less reckless than before?)The walls start closing in, Luke fleetingly hopes that Mara's hatred of him doesn't get the best of her, and they stop a meter apart. He jumps up, manages to wedge himself with his feet on one wall and his shoulders and arms on the other, and rock chimneys up to the dump chute in good time.
Heh. Yeah, that's a textbook Help Face Turn. If you're neutral and one side does something like this to you, of course you'll favor the side that comes to rescue you.
(And in the book, Luke breathes easy, thinking that they've done it. A few more minutes, and they can relax. But of course, they are on Thrawn's flagship.
And in the book, Thrawn shows up behind Pellaeon, who thought the Grand Admiral had retired for the night. But he'd decided to make one last survey before he went to his quarters.)
See, they'd picked the Falcon up at Endor and set a trap for anyone coming into the system, since Leia Organa Solo was bound to try and return for it. (And this, of course, is much more awesome in the book. "Karrde is to be recaptured alive. As to his would-be rescuers, I want them also alive if possible. If not - if not, I'll understand.")
In the turbolift car an alarm sounds, and the gunners mutter in irritation about another drill and start swiping their ID cards. (Turbolift cars, the book says, have sensors for how many people are in them, and if during a breakout there are people without the right identification...) Mara punches them out, Luke carves out a door, the three of them run into a service droid storage room, and to Mara's shock, they've shut down the main computer. (Not just bypassed or put it on standby. They shut it down. That never happens except in spacedock! ) But they have to keep moving. Now they're above the vehicle deep storage areas. Karrde says they should steal a ship from there; the Imps are probably expecting them to head for the normal hangar bays.
Stormtroopers and some naval troopers show up. Luke and Mara kill them. They head for deep storage.
(Reports by comlink and intercom are slow, but they come. There's a really nice detail in the book about a stormtrooper commander relaying something to Pellaeon with the distracted air of someone trying to hold one conversation while listening to another. And Thrawn tells Rukh that they don't have enough ysalamiri to cover the whole hangar; use his better judgment. And he knows where they're running to keep concealed.)
Thrawn is a little scary, guys.
The three get into the deep storage hangar, Karrde obliviously saying that he thinks they're beaten them here. There's a lift coming up with a ship on it. And it's the Falcon! Luke is very surprised. Mara says she'd forgotten the Grand Admiral was taking it aboard. Luke decides to take it back. He runs to find a trooper and a technician and tells them there are new orders. The Grand Admiral wants it moved back down.
They don't believe him, they don't see and haven't heard new orders, and they want to see his ID. He uses the Force to knock the trooper out - without killing him either - with his own weapon, and Mara steals the technician's datapad before they have him drag the gasping trooper into a closet and lock the two in. Karrde gets into the Falcon and starts the pre-flight while Mara works on the hangar bay computer. Stormtroopers show up. Luke telepathically tells Mara to wait for his signal.
And then he gives it and they kill the stormtroopers. The lift goes down and Luke with it. He tells her to jump, he'll catch her with the Force. And they do.
They get into the Falcon, and there's a certain amount of drama about getting out and then not getting killed by TIE fighters. (And when they're in hyperspace, Karrde says they're headed for Coruscant. He'll give them the Katana Fleet.)
(In the book, Pellaeon touches his throat because he's expecting Thrawn to be furious. But he doesn't seem strained or angry at all.)
And here's the part I love.
She tells them that the truth is that the ships that came after Lord Vader were not looking for survivors, but seeding the plant that looks like kholm-grass, but isn't. She notices that one of the decon droids followed her, and when it flees the Noghri catch it and bring it to her. She takes a cylinder out of it.
She tells them that this false kholm-grass has one purpose - to inhibit the growth of all other plant life. Then she puts a drop from the cylinder on a handful of the grass. It withers instantly, and they all go silent. She tells them that this is her proof. They must now decide whether the Noghri debt has been paid. She cuts down Khabarakh from his chains, telling him that it's time to go. (In the book, this whole thing is much more complicated. She'll get them more of the substance that kills the kholm-grass. And talking with Khabarakh, she decides not to return to Endor for the Falcon just yet; the planting season is almost over.)
She's her father's daughter. (Moreso in the book, where this entire section is one massive Crowning Moment of Awesome. Snarling furious anger and self control and forcing herself to be calm. READ. The BOOK. Paperback 350-369.) I love Zahn-style Leia. She's so badass. Why did other writers have to dim her down and make her all soft?
On the Coral Vanda casino-ship, Lando and Han finally got there and are looking for that guy who sold Katana Fleet ships to Bel Iblis. They see Niles Ferrier, and go after him. A shadow yanks Han through a doorway. It's Ferrier's Defel, the one that planted a homing beacon inside of the Lady Luck. Ferrier basically says he's doing Han a favor, keeping him here instead of letting him go out and get shot at like Lando. Then he leaves, keeping the Defel guarding Han.
Next issue. More triage!
A rather long story short, Han gets away from the Defel, finds Lando, they see that the whole thing is too well planned and Ferrier's already got the guy, and they're too late. They head to the escape pods. (There's bitterness as Han thinks about two hundred heavy Dreadnaughts in the Empire's hands; the New Republic is stretched enough as it is. Lando says that the Empire won't have four hundred thousand recruits to man the Dreadnaughts, not yet. This isn't much comfort.)
On Coruscant, Leia, Han, Karrde, and Luke sit in a meeting with Mon Mothma and Fey'lya. Mon Mothma says it's incredible to think of the Katana fleet, real. Fey'lya accuses them of lying, to everyone else's irritation. Why would they be lying? The Empire could have set this up, getting them to draw off personnel. Leia says it won't be hard to send a tech crew to check, and if it's real they can start a full-scale salvage operation. Mon Mothma tells Fey'lya to talk to Admiral Drayson about assigning an escort frigate and two X-Wing squadrons to this mission. The meeting is adjourned.
Yeah, Fey'lya is always like that. He's the Bothan stereotype that makes all nonpolitical Bothans cringe.
(Mara has no more excuses for not killing Skywalker. And uh, "You have a ship for me to use?" is supposed to come from Mara. He's also getting her to make Ghent slice through the records that show Admiral Ackbar as receiving a lump of money from the Imperials, since it's suspicious.)
(They needed a small team, with a starfighter squadron if they could find one that doesn't mind risking official wrath. The point is to make sure there are more people out at the Katana fleet than Fey'lya's handpicked lackeys. And Wedge's Rogue Squadron fits the bill - I mean, they once quit the New Republic to go after the previous head of the Empire. They're also really good at what they do.)
(In the book, Fey'lya hears about this by morning, accuses them of treason, wants arrest orders on everyone who went out, and tries to take personal charge of this mission. Mon Mothma is reluctant. Leia and Karrde exchange glances and come with him.)
(On the way, Han confesses to Luke that he wishes they didn't have to rush around top speed all the time. He hadn't seen Leia for a month, she looked twice as pregnant, and there hadn't been time for her to tell him what she'd done to turn the Noghri to their side. Plus, he's worried about Delta Source.) Han, Luke, and the Rogues show up at Karrde's coordinates, all of them loaded into a transport. The X-Wings launch and head into an escort position and yep, numerous Dreadnaughts, drifting in space with their running lights on. Luke picks one on a vague hunch.
They head in, and their little team, which also includes Lando and Chewie, spreads out when they're inside the ghost ship. The air is better than it should be after so long, probably because of the droids still on duty. Han and Luke head for the bridge. (Luke finds this place creepy.) When they get there, they find that this ship is the Katana, the head of the fleet, the ship that gave it one of its names(the other being the Dark Force). Someone reports that the ship won't be going anywhere without a complete overhaul. Wedge reports over the comm that they have an escort frigate incoming. The captain of the escort frigate Quenfis regrets to inform them that they are under arrest.
But they don't surrender. Fey'lya tells the captain to launch his X-Wing squadrons, and he does. Wing Commander Wedge Antilles of Rogue Squadron wants to know what authorization they have. Mon Mothma's orders, and the captain's orders that they stand down. Wedge asks "What if I refuse?" Han tells Wedge to forget it, they don't need him anymore, and signs off. Fey'lya tells Leia to get him back. And then an Imperial Star Destroyer shows up.
Katana is squarely between the Star Destroyer and the Quenfis. The Destroyer sends out dropships. Han tells Wedge to get back the the Quenfis. "Like blazes we will! Rogue Squadron - let's go!" (You may have noticed a recurring theme in this post. People who are not terrible are awesome.) On the Quenfis, Fey'lya calls the Rogues insane and orders the captain to recall his squadron and get them out of here. The captain protests, asking if he suggests that they abandon him. Fey'lya says he's in charge here. Leia gets angry - that's her husband and brother out there! - and Fey'lya pulls a blaster on her. (She suddenly wants to kill him. She really wants to kill him. He points out that if they stay, the Star Destroyer will kill all of them, including her unborn twins, which freezes her more than the blaster.) On the Katana, Han and Luke can't leave yet. (They're not leaving Wedge to fight alone.) They need to see if any of the turbolasers are functional, and do it fast - they won't be able to hit the dropships once they break formation.
And they do hit some, and tell the rest of the team to prepare for a boarding party. Luke says this had better be some defense. They're facing forty-to-one odds. "Never tell me the odds." (Besides, you never know when the odds are going to change.)
(Clarifying. Leia maneuvered Fey'lya into an Engineered Public Confession; Karrde signaled her to turn on the intercom with the Force, and then the smuggler said this isn't the Quenfis's usual crew. It's composed entirely of the people most loyal to Fey'lya, his most ardent supporters, and they don't know why he shuffled duty assignments like that, they thought it was a special security arrangement. Karrde then says that Fey'lya is unwilling to risk his supporters over anything as outmoded as loyalty to someone else, especially after working so hard to convince them that he cares for them. And Fey'lya didn't deny any of that. Those who are not on his side are his enemies.)
(And outside, Fey'lya's X-Wings head to support the Rogues. Fey'lya tries one more time, saying that it's a lost cause. The captain says that's fine. The whole Rebellion was considered nothing more than a lost cause.)
(The navigation officer, released, collapses shivering. That's what the sick bay comment was about. Picking up C'baoth means delaying for fifteen minutes before arriving at the scene.)
The Rogues fight. (Luke tells them to go; he and his team can't fight in the transports, and on the Katana they'll have a better chance than twelve X-Wings against a Star Destroyer. Go.) And then the two Quenfis squadrons show up and reinforce them, saying that Organa Solo is in charge now. There is fancy flying, but one of the drop ships still gets through.
On the Katana, Luke and Han fight stormtroopers. (Luke finds something about their minds strange and disturbing.) Han finds a scaled-down scout walker (probably brought out of storage during the madness of the hive virus) and goes in (with a shudder at what's inside). He tells Luke he doesn't want to know and fires on the advancing troopers.
(The Chimaera is still seven minutes away, which could make all the difference.)
Aw, they tricked Garm Bel Iblis! (Leia tells him that now it's an official New Republic request. He cheers up a bit.)
They plan to flee as soon as they get the tech team off the Katana. Leia says they can't just leave the fleet to the Empire, but Karrde tells her that she hasn't counted the Dreadnaughts out there yet. Out of two hundred, there are fifteen left. They underestimated the Grand Admiral. And a second Star Destroyer comes out of hyperspace. (Aves calls for a retreat, and Karrde agrees.) Mara is hit.
On the Katana, Chewie, Lando, Luke, and Han have been forced back to the bridge. Luke gets them to go inside and throws his lightsaber, telling them to seal the door. The lightsaber cuts a hole in the viewport, sucking the stormtroopers into space.
(Luke felt Mara get hit. Han thinks Luke looks like someone who just lost his best friend, not someone trying to kill him. Aww.) Han gets a last-minute idea - this is the slave-circuited Katana fleet, and they are on the Katana - gets to the slave circuits, and finds that there is exactly one ship hooked up that has engines. They ram it into the second Star Destroyer. (The captain of the first one has a moment of denial, and decides that since the Chimaera's not coming, they've got to retreat. They'd lost this one, but it was a battle, not the war.)
(C'baoth smiles, making Pellaeon, who's currently sticking close to Thrawn to stay in his ysalamir field, shiver. It's the smile he remembers from Jomark, the one that first convinced him that C'baoth was insane.)
The bad news Han had to tell Luke? They've gathered dead Imperials, and they are all clones. Meaning the Empire has found a set of working Spaarti cylinders. And it's not going to take them years to find and train crews for their new dreadnaughts. (Maybe only a few months. Maybe not even that long.)
I just love this book.
Senator Garm Bel Iblis meets Han and Lando and demands to know what's going on. Han says they know about the Katana fleet, and they really need the ships. But not as badly as they need good fighters. And commanders. Bel Iblis says he won't go to Mon Mothma like a beggar pleading to be let in. Han says he left for good reasons and can come back the same way. Bel Iblis says he has nothing to bring back. He dreamed of having a formidable fleet, but what he has barely qualifies as a strike force. Han tells him that six Dreadnaughts isn't something to sneer at, and neither is his combat record.
Bel Iblis says he'll think about it. Han and Lando leave in the Lady Luck, Bel Iblis's assistant Sena says if they betray the Senator, she will kill them. On the way out, Lando wonders how Han keeps getting him into these things. Han worries about Leia, thinking that something's gone wrong. Lando says she can take care of herself. Even Grand Admirals can make mistakes. Han disagrees. "He made his mistake at Sluis Van. He won't make another. Bet you the Falcon he won't."
Not a nice man, our Grand Admiral. (The book has an awesomely but subtly menacing bit where he looked at the transcript of the interrogation, still reading it when the Chimaera went to lightspeed. Reading it very, very carefully.)
Hey! These artists know that Wedge has brown hair! Anyway, this is the Etherway, which she's here to pick up. (And in the novel, this scene is better. Mara thinks that these bantering code words are lame and Wedge is a bad actor, but the pilot is clearly getting a kick out of them. He offers to fly as her escort, and she declines. The first rule of smuggling is to stay as inconspicuous as possible, and flying out of a third-rate spaceport with a shiny New Republic X-Wing starfighter in tow didn't exactly qualify as a low-profile stance.)
She takes off and finds the Star Destroyer Adamant. (I love Star Destroyer names.) For a moment she wonders if it's here to chase after Wedge, but no. It wants her to shut down her engines and prepare to be brought aboard. Mara congratulates their vigilance, saying she was afraid she'd have to search five systems to find an Imperial ship. She has to speak to their captain and set up a meeting with Grand Admiral Thrawn. She's got information for him. The captain comes on and wants to know who she is, telling her that she's on the record as being one of Karrde's smugglers. An interrogation should reveal more. She says that would be unwise. The Grand Admiral would be extremely displeased. Extremely displeased. When he doubts, then she shock-and-awes him by giving him the recognition code Hapspir, Barrini, Corbolan, Triaxis. Thrawn knew her as the Emperor's Hand.
(...And of course in the book there was more conversation and the scene is better. Endor hurts Mara. She can feel the evidence of his death, and it's not pleasant. Right after Thrawn asks that last question, she hears the Emperor's command YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER and flinches. Read the books! The comics are a visual aide, not a replacement for the novels.)
She says it wasn't her idea, she was on Myrkr under the influence of ysalamiri and it doesn't matter. She has a deal to offer. She wants Thrawn to stop harassing Karrde and his group, cancel the bounty, clear them with all Imperial forces, and give them a credit of three million towards the purchase of Imperial goods and services. Thrawn says Skywalker's not worth that much to him. Mara says she's offering the Katana fleet. She doesn't know, but Karrde does. She won't tell them where he is - she'll get the location from him, and they'll trade. Assuming the deal is to Thrawn's liking. Thrawn quietly tells her "Do not presume to dictate to me, Mara Jade. Not even in private." Then he tells her that as the Emperor's Hand she carried out his commands, no more, and says that whether she heard his commands more clearly than the rest of his Hands is irrelevant, something that devastates her. But she recovers, and it will take her two and a half days to get to where Karrde is. She's got eight days to bring him the location. And then they'll have a long discussion on why it took her so long to return.
(And then in the novel Thrawn looks over the art that was in the offices where the Katana Fleet was planned and designed while talking to Pellaeon, who used to have ambitions about finding that fleet. Thrawn looks at holos of Garm Bel Iblis's Dreadnaughts and identifies them as from the Katana Fleet. Pellaeon says that it doesn't make sense for Karrde to be selling them to a renegade Corellian like Bel Iblis, and Thrawn agrees. Someone else must know. He's got some leads. (Because he's Thrawn.) He tells Pellaeon to contact the ship thief Niles Ferrier, call him off of his search for Bel Iblis's home base, and set him after Solo and Calrissian. And the Chimaera is following Mara. She may want them to believe she's coming back, but she isn't. They have two leads, and one way or another, they will find the Katana fleet. Pellaeon nods, "feeling the stirrings of excitement again despite his best efforts to remain unemotional about this. The Katana fleet. Two hundred Dreadnaughts, just sitting there waiting for the Empire to take possession..." He has a feeling that their offensive against the Rebellion will be ready to launch a bit ahead of schedule.)
On Honoghr, Leia and Chewie take a break from planning and go outside. The maitrakh meets her and they talk a bit. Threepio has spent a lot of time with the decontamination machines. That area will be finished soon, and they'll be able to plant. Leia asks Chewie how long it should have taken for the droids to clean this much land; Chewie has also been thinking about this and gives her an analysis that boils down to about eight years. Right at about the height of the war.
(And there's a moment in the book where Leia thinks that the maitrakh and Khabarakh might die, and probably Chewie with them. But not her. They'd take her alive and give her to their lord the Grand Admiral.
Who would smile, and speak politely, and take her children away from her.)
The Lady Luck takes a comm from Winter, who says that no one in the New Republic has been able to fend off the Imperial attacks on their shipping lines, and people are feeling suspicious about Fey'lya and his motivations for getting Ackbar arrested. She hasn't heard from Leia, but she's got a message from Luke, who wants to meet them at the quote, money-changing center, unquote, on New Cov. Lando knows that that means the tapcafe. They decide to go there instead of that swimming casino - (okay, plot point that came up in the book time! Back at Bel Iblis's base, they'd asked Sena where they'd been getting Katana fleet dreadnaughts, and she'd described the man who sold it to them and said that all meetings with him had been on the Coral Vanda, a seagoing luxury casino on Pantolomin, where he was known to the staff.) That's what they mean. So they return to New Cov first, deciding that if this is a trap, well, they've gotten out of traps before. Landing, they meet Niles Ferrier, ship thief and occasional smuggler.
(In the book, before he told them Thrawn's name he told them he wasn't giving any free information.)
Anyway, they don't like his vagueness and how bad the offer is, so they leave. On the way offplanet they notice that someone put a homing device on the hull, and decide to lose it creatively. Ferrier talks to his Defel, who says they won't find the second beacon. He tells him? her? it? that it had better be right, he didn't stand there and take that garbage for nothing. As is, Solo looked right at it. The Defel says there was no danger. Humans need movement to see. Nonmoving shadows are of no concern. They get ready to lift off, to make a fortune and take out a smart-mouthed gambler.
Mara lands and greets Karrde, and then jamming starts, making their comlinks squeal. TIEs arrive, and stormtroopers. Karrde tries to fire at them, but Mara takes his blaster.
She stands over him with it. (In the book she tries to explain, but he can't hear what she's saying. Strangely, he's not angry, but feels chagrin that he'd been fooled so easily, so thoroughly... and regret for losing such a skilled associate. Also, stormtroopers take him away.) Thrawn meets Mara in the shuttle bay of the Chimaera, and Mara is furious. (Transcribing from the book:
"Eight days, Thrawn. You said eight days. You promised me eight days."
"I changed my mind. It occurred to me that Karrde might not only refuse to divulge the Katana fleet's location, but might even abandon you here for suggesting that he make such a deal with us."
"The gates of hell you did. You planned to use me like this right from the start."
"And it got us what we wanted. That's all that matters.")
So she lunges at him, and Rukh gets her by the neck.
(*sigh* All right, I'll explain what happened in the book at this point. Mara tried to shift Rukh, but his forearm was pressing against her carotid artery, and she was about to black out. His grip loosened when she stopped. Thrawn seems amused, so Mara tries to Force Choke him. Yes, really. That's why he's touching his throat, and he gets angry. She keeps trying, ignoring the order, waiting for him to signal Rukh to choke her or the stormtroopers to burn her down. But he doesn't, and neither does he blink, and finally she has to stop.)
(Those who've read up on Thrawn know that Force-Choking him never works. Never. Sure, he'll get choked, but something will always happen and he will be angry. Threatening him with the Force never works, period.)
She says it won't happen again. To summarize, he tells her that Joruus C'baoth is a mad Jedi Master and Luke Skywalker has already fallen into his trap, he'd hate for her to join him and so would she. Does she in fact want to rejoin the Empire? She deflects this by asking about Karrde. Karrde will stay on the Chimaera until he gives them the location, the bounty has been called off, and no, Mara can't see him. They're softening him up with a sense of utter abandonment before they try harsher treatment. This angers Mara all over again, but she submits, since the alternative is giving Karrde to an interrogation droid right away. She says that Karrde helped her when she had nowhere else to go. Thrawn understands her feelings, but they have no place here. The deck officer will take her down to the surface. Then he leaves. (There's a whole thing in the book where she realizes that with a single casual act of betrayal, Thrawn finally destroyed her last hope that the new Empire could live up to the one she'd been proud to serve. She realizes that this mess, at least in part, is her fault. It's up to her to fix it. And she can't do it alone. There's only one person who can help her now, even though he has no reason to do it.)
Mara takes the moment to hack into a computer, get the location of C'baoth, and memorize various details about the prison deck and where the Chimaera is going to be in the next six days. Then she finds the deck officer, who's suspicious until he sees that the computer is still locked down.
She's taken back to the surface. Karrde's man Aves is suspicious, but despite himself he believes her when she says she didn't betray Karrde. She's going to get him back, and she needs something. The others won't help her. She needs one of their Skipray blastboats and a ysalamiri on a nutrient frame.
On Jomark, C'baoth has Luke sit in judgment of the last case of the evening. Luke hears two people out and rules a compromise that involves the village council and himself going out to examine the damage to a fence. C'baoth is angry, wondering if Luke has really been listening over the past few days. He had it all right in his hands and should have cut them off, made the decision himself, pulled the knowledge of the fence damage from their minds! Luke says that reading someone's thoughts like that seems wrong. C'baoth asks how that can be wrong when he's using that knowledge to help them? Hasn't he ever violated someone's personal preferences to help them? Or ignored a stupid rule that stood between him and something that needed doing? Luke has. But this is different. Like he's taking more responsibility for these people's lives than he should.
Mara comes out of hyperspace with the Emperor's command ringing in her head. She approaches the planet and descends, wondering why she feels so tired, then straps on the ysalamiri as she realizes that it's C'baoth's doing. The planet has no obvious weapons or shields, but flying rocks that her ship doesn't detect take out her repulsorlifts. She fights the ship into crash landing more or less intact.
Then she climbs out of the ship, out of the ditch, and finds Artoo in Luke's X-Wing. The droid doesn't like her, but it doesn't shoot her either, and she tells it that Luke doesn't know that C'baoth's working for the Empire. They find C'baoth and Mara demands to know if he always treats visitors this way. C'baoth says he has no visitors save lackeys from Thrawn. Everyone else is an intruder. Mara tries to bluff him and say that Thrawn sent her, but C'baoth knows she's lying. He saw it all in her mind. Did she really think she could take his Jedi away? (In the book he also says that he's sensed her presence over the years. One day she will come to him of her own free will, and kneel before him. He's seen it.) A human shadow comes up behind him.
Notice how the ysalamiri's head completely changes between panels. *sigh* Anyway, his look of shock comes from realizing that coming near the ysalamiri makes that exhaustion disappear. (In the book he also paraphrased Yoda. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense. Never for attack.)
Luke ignites his lightsaber - and hey, the sound effects use the Zahnian snap-hiss - telling Mara that he'll hold him off while she gets behind the ship. C'baoth tries to electrocute them with Force Lightning. Luke parries it. The X-Wing lifts off and fires into the ground near C'baoth.
And then the next issue starts. A lot happens here so again, comic book triage.
Four days later, Luke and Mara in an Imperial shuttle touch down in the Chimaera's shuttle bay. Control tells them to shut down all systems and prepare for unloading. Mara tells them that this is her first cargo run. How long before they can leave? Couple of hours. They unload all the shuttles before they let any of them leave.
The two of them head to the lowest part of the shuttle, Mara hoping they haven't started the interrogation. She points to a section of floor and tells him to cut through it there since no one should see and he probably won't hit anything vital, and he carves a hole. The lights go out, but his lightsaber makes enough light. They use the shuttle's magnetic winch to haul the piece of docking out. Mara tells Luke to bevel the hole.
They jump through, note that it's quiet so far, and start hunting for uniforms, since there are pilot ready rooms here. Mara wants Luke to tell her which room has the fewest people and she'll do the rest, but Luke, being Luke, doesn't want her to do that. He thinks he can suppress their curiosity so they won't notice or care about him going in, taking flight suits, and leaving. Mara doesn't like losing the element of surprise, and Luke says he doubts even she could take out all three without any noise, surprise or not.
And it works, although there are four people, not three. Sheesh, comic. They change clothes, Mara putting her hair in a bun and asking if he still wants to do it this way. Luke says he and Han tried a frontal approach on the Death Star. It wasn't a success. Mara says that he didn't have access to the main computers. They should be able to get him out undetected. She directs him into his access door.
It's a garbage chute, though unlike on the Death Star there isn't water or a dianoga. (In the book, he explicitly thinks of how much this is like the Death Star, and then thinks he was a wide-eyed kid then, dazzled by the thought of heroism and unconscious of the risks. Now he's older, seasoned, knew what he was walking into... and still doing it. Did that make him more or less reckless than before?)The walls start closing in, Luke fleetingly hopes that Mara's hatred of him doesn't get the best of her, and they stop a meter apart. He jumps up, manages to wedge himself with his feet on one wall and his shoulders and arms on the other, and rock chimneys up to the dump chute in good time.
Heh. Yeah, that's a textbook Help Face Turn. If you're neutral and one side does something like this to you, of course you'll favor the side that comes to rescue you.
(And in the book, Luke breathes easy, thinking that they've done it. A few more minutes, and they can relax. But of course, they are on Thrawn's flagship.
And in the book, Thrawn shows up behind Pellaeon, who thought the Grand Admiral had retired for the night. But he'd decided to make one last survey before he went to his quarters.)
See, they'd picked the Falcon up at Endor and set a trap for anyone coming into the system, since Leia Organa Solo was bound to try and return for it. (And this, of course, is much more awesome in the book. "Karrde is to be recaptured alive. As to his would-be rescuers, I want them also alive if possible. If not - if not, I'll understand.")
In the turbolift car an alarm sounds, and the gunners mutter in irritation about another drill and start swiping their ID cards. (Turbolift cars, the book says, have sensors for how many people are in them, and if during a breakout there are people without the right identification...) Mara punches them out, Luke carves out a door, the three of them run into a service droid storage room, and to Mara's shock, they've shut down the main computer. (Not just bypassed or put it on standby. They shut it down. That never happens except in spacedock! ) But they have to keep moving. Now they're above the vehicle deep storage areas. Karrde says they should steal a ship from there; the Imps are probably expecting them to head for the normal hangar bays.
Stormtroopers and some naval troopers show up. Luke and Mara kill them. They head for deep storage.
(Reports by comlink and intercom are slow, but they come. There's a really nice detail in the book about a stormtrooper commander relaying something to Pellaeon with the distracted air of someone trying to hold one conversation while listening to another. And Thrawn tells Rukh that they don't have enough ysalamiri to cover the whole hangar; use his better judgment. And he knows where they're running to keep concealed.)
Thrawn is a little scary, guys.
The three get into the deep storage hangar, Karrde obliviously saying that he thinks they're beaten them here. There's a lift coming up with a ship on it. And it's the Falcon! Luke is very surprised. Mara says she'd forgotten the Grand Admiral was taking it aboard. Luke decides to take it back. He runs to find a trooper and a technician and tells them there are new orders. The Grand Admiral wants it moved back down.
They don't believe him, they don't see and haven't heard new orders, and they want to see his ID. He uses the Force to knock the trooper out - without killing him either - with his own weapon, and Mara steals the technician's datapad before they have him drag the gasping trooper into a closet and lock the two in. Karrde gets into the Falcon and starts the pre-flight while Mara works on the hangar bay computer. Stormtroopers show up. Luke telepathically tells Mara to wait for his signal.
And then he gives it and they kill the stormtroopers. The lift goes down and Luke with it. He tells her to jump, he'll catch her with the Force. And they do.
They get into the Falcon, and there's a certain amount of drama about getting out and then not getting killed by TIE fighters. (And when they're in hyperspace, Karrde says they're headed for Coruscant. He'll give them the Katana Fleet.)
(In the book, Pellaeon touches his throat because he's expecting Thrawn to be furious. But he doesn't seem strained or angry at all.)
And here's the part I love.
She tells them that the truth is that the ships that came after Lord Vader were not looking for survivors, but seeding the plant that looks like kholm-grass, but isn't. She notices that one of the decon droids followed her, and when it flees the Noghri catch it and bring it to her. She takes a cylinder out of it.
She tells them that this false kholm-grass has one purpose - to inhibit the growth of all other plant life. Then she puts a drop from the cylinder on a handful of the grass. It withers instantly, and they all go silent. She tells them that this is her proof. They must now decide whether the Noghri debt has been paid. She cuts down Khabarakh from his chains, telling him that it's time to go. (In the book, this whole thing is much more complicated. She'll get them more of the substance that kills the kholm-grass. And talking with Khabarakh, she decides not to return to Endor for the Falcon just yet; the planting season is almost over.)
She's her father's daughter. (Moreso in the book, where this entire section is one massive Crowning Moment of Awesome. Snarling furious anger and self control and forcing herself to be calm. READ. The BOOK. Paperback 350-369.) I love Zahn-style Leia. She's so badass. Why did other writers have to dim her down and make her all soft?
On the Coral Vanda casino-ship, Lando and Han finally got there and are looking for that guy who sold Katana Fleet ships to Bel Iblis. They see Niles Ferrier, and go after him. A shadow yanks Han through a doorway. It's Ferrier's Defel, the one that planted a homing beacon inside of the Lady Luck. Ferrier basically says he's doing Han a favor, keeping him here instead of letting him go out and get shot at like Lando. Then he leaves, keeping the Defel guarding Han.
Next issue. More triage!
A rather long story short, Han gets away from the Defel, finds Lando, they see that the whole thing is too well planned and Ferrier's already got the guy, and they're too late. They head to the escape pods. (There's bitterness as Han thinks about two hundred heavy Dreadnaughts in the Empire's hands; the New Republic is stretched enough as it is. Lando says that the Empire won't have four hundred thousand recruits to man the Dreadnaughts, not yet. This isn't much comfort.)
On Coruscant, Leia, Han, Karrde, and Luke sit in a meeting with Mon Mothma and Fey'lya. Mon Mothma says it's incredible to think of the Katana fleet, real. Fey'lya accuses them of lying, to everyone else's irritation. Why would they be lying? The Empire could have set this up, getting them to draw off personnel. Leia says it won't be hard to send a tech crew to check, and if it's real they can start a full-scale salvage operation. Mon Mothma tells Fey'lya to talk to Admiral Drayson about assigning an escort frigate and two X-Wing squadrons to this mission. The meeting is adjourned.
Yeah, Fey'lya is always like that. He's the Bothan stereotype that makes all nonpolitical Bothans cringe.
(Mara has no more excuses for not killing Skywalker. And uh, "You have a ship for me to use?" is supposed to come from Mara. He's also getting her to make Ghent slice through the records that show Admiral Ackbar as receiving a lump of money from the Imperials, since it's suspicious.)
(They needed a small team, with a starfighter squadron if they could find one that doesn't mind risking official wrath. The point is to make sure there are more people out at the Katana fleet than Fey'lya's handpicked lackeys. And Wedge's Rogue Squadron fits the bill - I mean, they once quit the New Republic to go after the previous head of the Empire. They're also really good at what they do.)
(In the book, Fey'lya hears about this by morning, accuses them of treason, wants arrest orders on everyone who went out, and tries to take personal charge of this mission. Mon Mothma is reluctant. Leia and Karrde exchange glances and come with him.)
(On the way, Han confesses to Luke that he wishes they didn't have to rush around top speed all the time. He hadn't seen Leia for a month, she looked twice as pregnant, and there hadn't been time for her to tell him what she'd done to turn the Noghri to their side. Plus, he's worried about Delta Source.) Han, Luke, and the Rogues show up at Karrde's coordinates, all of them loaded into a transport. The X-Wings launch and head into an escort position and yep, numerous Dreadnaughts, drifting in space with their running lights on. Luke picks one on a vague hunch.
They head in, and their little team, which also includes Lando and Chewie, spreads out when they're inside the ghost ship. The air is better than it should be after so long, probably because of the droids still on duty. Han and Luke head for the bridge. (Luke finds this place creepy.) When they get there, they find that this ship is the Katana, the head of the fleet, the ship that gave it one of its names(the other being the Dark Force). Someone reports that the ship won't be going anywhere without a complete overhaul. Wedge reports over the comm that they have an escort frigate incoming. The captain of the escort frigate Quenfis regrets to inform them that they are under arrest.
But they don't surrender. Fey'lya tells the captain to launch his X-Wing squadrons, and he does. Wing Commander Wedge Antilles of Rogue Squadron wants to know what authorization they have. Mon Mothma's orders, and the captain's orders that they stand down. Wedge asks "What if I refuse?" Han tells Wedge to forget it, they don't need him anymore, and signs off. Fey'lya tells Leia to get him back. And then an Imperial Star Destroyer shows up.
Katana is squarely between the Star Destroyer and the Quenfis. The Destroyer sends out dropships. Han tells Wedge to get back the the Quenfis. "Like blazes we will! Rogue Squadron - let's go!" (You may have noticed a recurring theme in this post. People who are not terrible are awesome.) On the Quenfis, Fey'lya calls the Rogues insane and orders the captain to recall his squadron and get them out of here. The captain protests, asking if he suggests that they abandon him. Fey'lya says he's in charge here. Leia gets angry - that's her husband and brother out there! - and Fey'lya pulls a blaster on her. (She suddenly wants to kill him. She really wants to kill him. He points out that if they stay, the Star Destroyer will kill all of them, including her unborn twins, which freezes her more than the blaster.) On the Katana, Han and Luke can't leave yet. (They're not leaving Wedge to fight alone.) They need to see if any of the turbolasers are functional, and do it fast - they won't be able to hit the dropships once they break formation.
And they do hit some, and tell the rest of the team to prepare for a boarding party. Luke says this had better be some defense. They're facing forty-to-one odds. "Never tell me the odds." (Besides, you never know when the odds are going to change.)
(Clarifying. Leia maneuvered Fey'lya into an Engineered Public Confession; Karrde signaled her to turn on the intercom with the Force, and then the smuggler said this isn't the Quenfis's usual crew. It's composed entirely of the people most loyal to Fey'lya, his most ardent supporters, and they don't know why he shuffled duty assignments like that, they thought it was a special security arrangement. Karrde then says that Fey'lya is unwilling to risk his supporters over anything as outmoded as loyalty to someone else, especially after working so hard to convince them that he cares for them. And Fey'lya didn't deny any of that. Those who are not on his side are his enemies.)
(And outside, Fey'lya's X-Wings head to support the Rogues. Fey'lya tries one more time, saying that it's a lost cause. The captain says that's fine. The whole Rebellion was considered nothing more than a lost cause.)
(The navigation officer, released, collapses shivering. That's what the sick bay comment was about. Picking up C'baoth means delaying for fifteen minutes before arriving at the scene.)
The Rogues fight. (Luke tells them to go; he and his team can't fight in the transports, and on the Katana they'll have a better chance than twelve X-Wings against a Star Destroyer. Go.) And then the two Quenfis squadrons show up and reinforce them, saying that Organa Solo is in charge now. There is fancy flying, but one of the drop ships still gets through.
On the Katana, Luke and Han fight stormtroopers. (Luke finds something about their minds strange and disturbing.) Han finds a scaled-down scout walker (probably brought out of storage during the madness of the hive virus) and goes in (with a shudder at what's inside). He tells Luke he doesn't want to know and fires on the advancing troopers.
(The Chimaera is still seven minutes away, which could make all the difference.)
Aw, they tricked Garm Bel Iblis! (Leia tells him that now it's an official New Republic request. He cheers up a bit.)
They plan to flee as soon as they get the tech team off the Katana. Leia says they can't just leave the fleet to the Empire, but Karrde tells her that she hasn't counted the Dreadnaughts out there yet. Out of two hundred, there are fifteen left. They underestimated the Grand Admiral. And a second Star Destroyer comes out of hyperspace. (Aves calls for a retreat, and Karrde agrees.) Mara is hit.
On the Katana, Chewie, Lando, Luke, and Han have been forced back to the bridge. Luke gets them to go inside and throws his lightsaber, telling them to seal the door. The lightsaber cuts a hole in the viewport, sucking the stormtroopers into space.
(Luke felt Mara get hit. Han thinks Luke looks like someone who just lost his best friend, not someone trying to kill him. Aww.) Han gets a last-minute idea - this is the slave-circuited Katana fleet, and they are on the Katana - gets to the slave circuits, and finds that there is exactly one ship hooked up that has engines. They ram it into the second Star Destroyer. (The captain of the first one has a moment of denial, and decides that since the Chimaera's not coming, they've got to retreat. They'd lost this one, but it was a battle, not the war.)
(C'baoth smiles, making Pellaeon, who's currently sticking close to Thrawn to stay in his ysalamir field, shiver. It's the smile he remembers from Jomark, the one that first convinced him that C'baoth was insane.)
The bad news Han had to tell Luke? They've gathered dead Imperials, and they are all clones. Meaning the Empire has found a set of working Spaarti cylinders. And it's not going to take them years to find and train crews for their new dreadnaughts. (Maybe only a few months. Maybe not even that long.)
I just love this book.