"You—stay here," he told the nearest one. "Watch for trouble. You—" He pointed to the other. "Help me seal off those doors. One good blaster shot into each control box ought to do it. I'll go this way; you go the other."
He was about two thirds of the way around his side of the walkway when he heard something over the eerie mechanical breathing sounds of the cavern below him. Looking back, he saw Threepio calling and beckoning to him from the pump room door. "Great," he muttered. Leave it to Threepio, and sooner or later he'd make a mess of it. Finishing the door he was on, he turned and hurried back.
"Captain Solo!" Threepio gushed in relief as Han came up to him. "Thank the Maker. Artoo says—"
"What are you trying to do?" Han snapped. "Bring the whole garrison down on us?"
"Of course not, sir. But Artoo says—"
"You want to talk to me, you come out and find me. Right?"
"Yes, sir. But Artoo says—"
"If you don't know where to look, you use your comlink," Han said, jabbing a finger at the little cylinder the droid was clutching. "That's why you've got one. You don't just shout around. You got that?"
"Yes, sir," Threepio said, his mechanical patience sounding more than a little strained. "May I continue?"
Han sighed. So much for the lecture. He'd do better talking to a bantha. "Yeah, what is it?"
"It's about Master Luke," Threepio said. "I overheard one of the Noghri say that he and Mara Jade were on their way to the Emperor's throne room."
"Yeah. So?"
"Well, sir, in the course of his inquiries Artoo has just learned that the Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth is imprisoned in that area."
Han stared at him. "What do you mean, that area? Isn't he in the detention center?"
"No, sir," Threepio said. "As I said—"
"Why didn't you say so?" Han demanded, yanking out his comlink and thumbing it on.
And just as fast thumbing it off. "The comlinks appear to be inoperable," Threepio said primly. "I discovered that when I attempted to contact you."
"Great," Han snarled, the burst of jamming static still echoing in his ears as he looked around. Luke and Mara, walking right into C'baoth's arms. And no way to warn them.
No way except one. "Keep Artoo busy looking for those schematics," he told Threepio, shoving the comlink back into his belt. "While he's at it, tell him to see if he can find out where the jamming is coming from. If he can, send a couple of the Noghri to try and get rid of it. Then get out to that work platform and tell Chewie and Lando where I've gone."
"Yes, sir," Threepio said, sounding a little surprised by the flurry of orders and command authority. "Pardon me, sir, but where will you have gone?"
"Where do you think?" Han retorted over his shoulder as he started down the walkway. It never failed, he thought sourly. One way or the other, no matter where they were or what they were doing, somehow he always wound up chasing off after Luke.
And it was starting to look more and more like a good thing he'd come along.
"All right, Garret's Gold, hatchways here are sealed," the controller's voice said. "Stand by to receive outbound course data."
"Acknowledged, Control," Aves said, easing the Etherway back from the docking arm and starting a leisurely turn. They were ready here; and from the looks of things, so was everyone else.
"There he is," Gillespee muttered, pointing out the viewport. "Right on schedule."
"You sure that's Mazzic?" Aves asked, peering out at the ship.
"Pretty sure," Gillespee said. "Want me to try giving him a call?"
Aves shrugged, looking around the shipyards. They'd set up the rest of the group with a good encrypt code, but it wouldn't be a smart idea to tempt trouble by using it before they had to. "Let's hold off a minute," he told Gillespee. "Wait until we've got something to talk about."
The words were barely out of his mouth when the whole thing went straight to hell.
"Star Destroyers!" Faughn barked from the comm console. "Coming in from lightspeed."
"Vectors?" Gillespee snapped.
"Don't bother," Aves told him, a cold knife twisting in his gut. He could see the Star Destroyers ahead, all right, appearing out of hyperspace at the edge of the shipyards. And the Dreadnaughts, and the Lancer Frigates, and the
Strike Cruisers, and the TIE squadrons. A complete assault fleet, and then some.
And practically every fighting ship of Karrde's smuggler confederation was here. Right in the middle of it.
"So it was a trap," Gillespee said, his voice icy calm.
"I guess so," Aves said, staring out at the armada still moving into formation. A formation that seemed wrong, somehow.
"Aves, Gillespee, this is Mazzic," the other smuggler's voice came over the comm. "Looks like we've been sold out after all. I'm not going to surrender. How about you?"
"I think they deserve to lose at least a couple of Star Destroyers for this," Gillespee agreed.
"That was my idea," Mazzic said. "Too bad Karrde isn't here to see us go out in a blaze of glory."
He paused, and Aves could feel Gillespee's and Faughn's eyes on him. They would, he knew, go to their deaths believing Karrde had betrayed them. All of them would. "I'm with you, too," he told the others quietly. "If you want, Mazzic, you can have command."
"Thanks," Mazzic said. "I was going to take it anyway. Stand by: we might as well deliver our first punch together."
Aves took one last look at the armada. .. and suddenly he had it. "Hold it," he snapped. "Mazzic—everyone—hold it. That assault force isn't here for us."
"What are you talking about?" Gillespee demanded.
"Those Interdictor Cruisers out there," Aves said. "Out past that Star Destroyer group—see them? Look at their positioning."
There was a moment of silence. Mazzic got it first. "That's not an enclosure configuration," he said.
"You're right, it's not," Gillespee agreed. "Look—you can see a second group of them farther back."
"It's an entrapment configuration," Mazzic said, sounding like he didn't believe his own words. "They're setting up to pull someone out of hyperspace. And then keep him here long enough to pound him."
Aves looked at Gillespee, found him looking back. "No," Gillespee breathed. "You don't suppose . . . ? I thought they were supposed to be hitting Tangrene."
"So did I," Aves told him grimly, the twisting knife back in his gut. "I guess we were wrong."
"Or else Thrawn is." Gillespee looked out at the armada and shook his head. "No. Probably not."
"All right, let's not panic," Mazzic said. "If the New Republic comes, it just means that much more to occupy the Imperials' attention. Let's stay on schedule and see what happens."
"Right," Aves sighed. Square in the middle of an Imperial base during a New Republic attack. Terrific.
"Tell you something, Aves," Gillespee commented. "If we get out of this, I'm going to go have some words with your boss."
"No argument." Aves looked out at Thrawn's armada. "Matter of fact, I think maybe I'll go with you."
Carefully, Mara eased her head out of the emergency stairway and took a look into the corridor beyond. The caution was wasted; this level was as deserted as the three below it had been. "All clear," she murmured, stepping out into the corridor.
"No guards here, either?" Skywalker asked, looking around as he joined her.
"No point to it," she told him. "Except for the throne room and the royal chambers, there was never much of anything on these top levels."
"I guess there still isn't. Where's this private turbolift?"
"To the right and around that corner," she said, pointing with her blaster.
More from habit than any real need, she tried to keep her footsteps quiet as she led the way down the corridor. She reached the cross corridor and turned into it.
There, ten meters dead ahead, two stormtroopers stood flanking the turbolift door, their blaster rifles already lifting to track toward her.
Half a ste
p into the corridor, all her momentum going the wrong direction, there was nowhere for Mara to go but down. She dived for the deck, firing toward them as she fell. One of the stormtroopers toppled back as a burst of flame erupted in his chest armor. The second rifle swung toward her face—
And jerked reflexively away as Skywalker's lightsaber came spinning down the corridor toward him.
It didn't do any real damage, of course—at that distance, and without the Force, Skywalker wasn't that good a shot. But it did a fine job of distracting the stormtrooper, and that was all Mara needed. Even as the Imperial ducked away from the whirling blade, she caught him with two clean shots. He hit the deck and stayed there.
"I guess they don't want anyone going in there," Skywalker said, coming up beside her.
"I guess not," Mara agreed, ignoring the hand he offered and getting up on her own. "Come on."
The turbolift car had been locked at this level, but it took Mara only a minute to release it. There were only four stops listed: the one they were on, the emergency shuttle hangar, the royal chambers, and the throne room itself. She keyed for the last, and the door slid shut behind them. The trip upward was a short one, and a few seconds later the door on the opposite side of the car slid open. Bracing herself, Mara stepped out.
Into the Emperor's throne room . . . and into a flood of memories.
It was all here, just as she remembered it. The muted sidelights and brooding darkness the Emperor had found so conducive to meditation and thought. The raised section of floor at the far end of the chamber, allowing him to look down from his throne as visitors climbed the staircase into his presence. Viewscreens on the walls on either side of the throne, darkened now, which had enabled him to keep track of the details of his domain.
And for an overview of that domain . . .
She turned to her left, gazing over the railing of the walkway into the huge open space that faced the throne. Floating there in the darkness, a blaze of light twenty meters across, was the galaxy.
Not the standard galaxy hologram any school or shipping business might own. Not even the more precise versions that could be found only in the war rooms of select sector military headquarters. This hologram was sculpted in exquisite and absolutely unique detail, with a single accurately positioned spot of light for each of the galaxy's hundred billion stars. Political regions were delineated by subtle encirclements of color: the Core systems, the Outer Rim Territories, Wild Space, the Unknown Regions. From his throne the Emperor could manipulate the image, highlighting a chosen sector, locating a single system, or tracking a military campaign.
It was as much a work of art as it was a tool. Grand Admiral Thrawn would love it.
And with that thought, the memories of the past faded reluctantly into the realities of the present. Thrawn was in command now, a man who wanted to re-create the Empire in his own image. Wanted it badly enough to unleash a new round of Clone Wars if that would gain it for him.
She took a deep breath. "All right," she said. The words echoed around the chamber, pushing the memories still further away. "If it's here, it'll be built into the throne."
With an obvious effort, Skywalker pulled his gaze away from the hologram galaxy. "Let's take a look."
They headed down the ten-meter walkway that led from the turbolift into the main part of the throne room, walking beneath the overhead catwalk that ran across the front edge of the hologram pit and between the raised guard platforms flanking the stairway. Mara glanced at the platforms as she and Skywalker walked up the steps to the upper level, remembering the red-cloaked Imperial guards who had once stood there in silent watchfulness. Beneath the upper-level floor, visible between the steps as they climbed, the Emperor's monitor and control area was dark and silent. Aside from the galaxy hologram, all of the systems up here appeared to have been shut down.
They reached the top of the steps and headed across toward the throne itself, turned away from them toward the polished rock wall behind it. Mara was looking at it, wondering why the Emperor had left it facing away from his galaxy, when it began to turn around.
She grabbed Skywalker's arm, snapping her blaster up to point at the throne. The massive chair completed its turn—
"So at last you have come to me," Joruus C'baoth said gravely, gazing out at them from the depths of the throne. "I knew you would. Together we will teach the galaxy what it means to serve the Jedi."
Chapter 26
"I knew you would be coming to me tonight," C'baoth said, rising slowly from the throne to face them. "From the moment you left Coruscant, I knew you would come. That was why I set this night for the people of my city to attack my oppressors."
"That wasn't necessary," Luke told him, taking an involuntary step backward as the memories of those near-disastrous days on Jomark came rushing back to him. C'baoth had tried there to subtly corrupt him to the dark side . . . and when he'd failed at that, he'd tried to kill Luke and Mara both.
But he wouldn't be trying that again. Not here. Not without the Force.
"Of course it was necessary," C'baoth said. "You needed a distraction to gain entrance to my prison. And they, like all lesser beings, needed purpose. What better purpose could they have than the honor of dying in the service of the Jedi?"
Beside him, Mara muttered something. "I think you have that backwards," Luke said. "The Jedi were the guardians of peace. The servants of the Old Republic, not its masters."
"Which is why they and the Old Republic failed, Jedi Skywalker," C'baoth said, jabbing a finger toward him in emphasis. "Why they failed, and why they died."
"The Old Republic survived a thousand generations," Mara put in. "That doesn't sound like failure to me."
"Perhaps not," C'baoth said with obvious disdain. "You are young, and do not yet see clearly."
"And you do, of course?"
C'baoth smiled at her. "Oh, yes, my young apprentice," he said softly. "I do indeed. As will you."
"Don't count on it," Mara growled. "We aren't here to get you out."
"The Force does not rely on what you think are your goals," C'baoth said. "Nor do the true masters of the Force. Whether you knew it or not, you came here at my summons."
"You just go ahead and believe that," Mara said, motioning to the side with her blaster. "Move over there."
"Of course, my young apprentice." C'baoth took three steps in the indicated direction. "She has great strength of will, Jedi Skywalker," he added to Luke as Mara moved warily over to the throne and crouched down to examine the armrest control boards. "She will be a great power in the galaxy which we shall build."
"No," Luke said, shaking his head. This was, perhaps, his last chance to bring the insane Jedi back. To save him, as he had saved Vader aboard the second Death Star. "You aren't in any shape to build anything, Master C'baoth. You're not well. But I can help you if you'll let me."
C'baoth's face darkened. "How dare you say such things?" he demanded. "How dare you even think such blasphemy about the great Jedi Master C'baoth?"
"But that's just it," Luke said gently. "You're not the Jedi Master C'baoth. Not the original one, anyway. The proof is there in the Katana's records. Jorus C'baoth died a long time ago during the Outbound Flight Project."