Kelvan’s answer came back after only a moment, and his voice was unexpectedly decided. “We’ll help you, Your Highness. Captain Metara would have never forgiven us for forgoing a chance at an Imperial target.”
Leia lifted her brows and exchanged a look with Han, whose exasperated expression clearly conveyed what he thought of people who risked their ships for revenge. He tapped his finger significantly against his forehead. Leia narrowed her eyes at him and jerked her head toward Terae, who was looking down and fortunately hadn’t seen the gesture.
She understood Kelvan’s impulse. Viest and her pirates were beyond his reach, but the Imperials were available, and he didn’t even have to manufacture a reason to attack them. His motive was so obviously revenge that she had to fight the urge to talk him out of it. “You’re certain?”
“I’m certain, Your Highness.”
Terae stepped forward, within range of the comm pickup. “It’s the only thing we can do to honor Captain Metara’s memory.”
“You can honor Metara’s memory by not risking your lives needlessly,” Leia said drily.
“It’s not needless,” Terae said. “You need us. The crew of your ship needs us.”
All right, she has me there, Leia thought. Kelvan added, “Captain Metara isn’t here to see how we honor her. This is something we do for ourselves.”
Leia couldn’t argue with that one, either. Han’s slight smirk and lifted brow indicated he rather enjoyed seeing her stymied, even if he hadn’t been the one to do it.
“Very well,” she said. “But we can’t attack the Imperial ship at Arnot Station. The station itself is armed against pirates and has picket ships. There’s no reason the station authorities have to side with us at the moment, and all Degoren would have to do was reveal that he was acting under Imperial authority, and they would have to help him against us, whether they wanted to or not. We need to lure the Darsumae away from the station, make it come after us.” The inherent flaw in the plan was that Degoren might kill the Gamble’s crew before he left the station. If he hadn’t killed them already. The only hope Leia had was that he had been charged to capture and deliver them to some higher authority for questioning, and that he wouldn’t execute them unless he had to. “Kelvan, do you know of any systems nearby with asteroid fields, something that could conceal us from their sensors?”
Kelvan’s voice was thoughtful. “No, but I think I know of something even better. Terae, can you explain to the Princess about Rethel Point? I’ll send you the coordinates now.”
The first step in the plan was to send the merchants and freed prisoners on to Arnot Station. Three members of the ill-fated merchant ship’s crew had survived, and Davit was a pilot, so Leia felt comfortable handing over the ship to him. She, Han, Sian, Kifar, and Terae would transfer to the Millennium Falcon and follow the Aegis to the site they had picked for their trap.
The details of the plan had been carefully kept from all of the freed prisoners, so no one could betray them either accidentally or intentionally. Leia had let them believe that the Falcon and the Aegis would be fleeing the sector as soon as she and the others transferred off the pirate ship. She was fairly certain Davit might suspect otherwise, but she had faith in his discretion. Andevid also knew nothing of their plans, having been kept carefully out of the cockpit. Leia was sending him to Arnot Station with the merchants, as promised.
The two ships did not have compatible air locks, but the Falcon had an extendable pressure tunnel aboard. Chewbacca and Han were in the process of carefully maneuvering the two ships and extending the tunnel from the Falcon’s topside hatch to seal onto the pirate ship’s larger portside hatch. Leia stayed in the cockpit long enough to hear Han’s opinion that trying to make fine control adjustments in this ship was like driving a speeder bike while wearing pressure suit gloves. Then she went to wait in the ship’s small galley, the only spot that didn’t have anxious merchants gathered in it.
Sian found her there a few moments later, and from her expression she clearly wanted a word. From the way Sian had reacted, or tried not to react, while they had discussed the plan earlier, Leia was fairly sure she knew what the word was going to be about.
“Your Highness …”
“Go ahead.” Leia smiled, to make it clear she really did want Sian’s honest opinion. “You don’t like this plan, do you?”
“No, but it’s not like we have a choice. It’s either this, or leave everybody on the Gamble to the Empire.” Sian hesitated. “I don’t mean to question your judgment, but … Yeah, I guess I am questioning your judgment. Can we—can you really trust the Aegis crew? When we were all stuck on that rock and Viest turned against Metara so fast, we had a common goal. But now … we’re handing them you, and an Imperial ship, and the crew of the Gamble, and the Gamble itself if we can get it back and it’s not scrap by now, and the Millennium Falcon, which everyone knows is a hot smuggling ship. I just … They’ve been stealing and killing civilians for profit for two years now, even though they like to pretend the civilians are somehow not as dead when they’re killed in righteous revenge for Alderaan.” That one made Leia wince, and Sian saw it but forged on, “How do we know they won’t turn on us?”
Leia let out her breath. “We don’t. I don’t know if I can trust them. I hope this plays out the way I think it will, but they have the upper hand, and I don’t know that they won’t take advantage of it at some point. All we can do is be careful, and watchful.” It was nothing but the plain truth. Leia liked Kelvan, and even liked prickly Terae, but she had no real idea how they felt about her, and she had no idea what they would do in this situation. She was certain they wouldn’t hand her or the others over to the Empire, but there were a lot of other possibilities for betrayal. And it was clear that their loyalty to Metara far outweighed any love they might still have for the princess of their lost home world.
Metara had been a fanatic, but she had also had a good amount of self-control, and would have put the welfare of her crew above anything. Kelvan and Terae and the others had been under her tight reins for two years; it was possible they really had no idea yet what they wanted to do.
Sian stared at her a moment. “See, this is the part where you yell at me and prove with, I don’t know, brilliant logic or secret information, how of course we can trust them and I go away embarrassed but reassured.”
Leia smiled wryly at her. “I wish.”
Once the two ships were connected, Leia said good-bye to Davit and the other merchants. He told her, “I cannot thank you for rescuing us, for there is no thanks that would be adequate.”
“It was partly my responsibility that you were in that situation to begin with,” she told him, “and it was just lucky we found ourselves in a position to help you.” Leia wouldn’t forget the ship’s murdered captain and copilot, and the others on board who had been killed or injured.
“Your responsibility because the pirates came from Alderaan? I could argue that with you, but I doubt I would convince you.” He shook his head. “I am only sorry our conference will not continue. The consortium will be too fearful now. But …” He shrugged a little. “There are a few wealthy beings who will not be slaves because of your intervention, and I may be able to arrange something with them privately. The death of that monster Viest was surely worth several cargo loads of supplies.”
“That would be very welcome,” Leia told him. Especially at this point when all she wanted to do was get out of this situation with all the surviving personnel she had brought into it. “You know how to contact Han.”
“I do,” he told her. “Good luck.”
The pressure tunnel had been successfully attached and both hatches were open, and Leia could hear Luke up in the Falcon, talking to Chewie over the ship’s comm. “Yes, I’m keeping an eye on the seal. Chewie, I know how to do it, okay?” There was insistent muttering in Wookiee in reply, and C-3PO’s worried, “Be careful, Master Luke!”
Kifar, Sian, and Terae had already started up the tunnel
to the Falcon when Leia and Han found Andevid sitting on a folded-down jumpseat in the ship’s common area. Leia handed him a small but heavy box. He eyed her only a little suspiciously. “What’s this?”
Leia told him, “I can’t go to the station as I planned, so I don’t have access to my own funds. But we found this hidden in the captain’s cabin. I think it will fulfill the terms of our arrangement.”
He opened the box, eyed the credcoins of various planets crammed into it, and then closed it again. “That’ll do,” he said. He hesitated. “You sure you don’t want to hire me permanently?”
Leia lifted a brow. “Do you want to join the Rebel Alliance?”
Andevid recoiled in horror. “No!”
Han sighed. “Yeah, that’s what I said. It didn’t help. Run while you can.”
Leia spared a moment to toss him a look, then told Andevid, “That’s what I thought you’d say. Good luck, Andevid.”
He peered after them. “Good luck, crazy human lady. It was fun destroying stuff with you.”
As they headed toward the access ladder for the hatch, Leia asked Han, “Is that why you stick around? The thrill of destroying stuff with me?”
His sideways glance at her was hard to read. “One of the reasons.”
Han had never heard of Rethel Point, but wasn’t surprised by its existence. Smugglers were generally good at finding bolt-holes, and the locations tended to get passed around to the local operators.
It was only a short hyperspace jump from their current location, and an even shorter jump from Arnot Station, which made it ideal. On the way there, Terae explained that Rethel Point was a field emanating from a planet in a system that had only a numerical designation, no name. The rumor was that the Rethel had been the sentient race who had lived there at one time. But the ruins were so old, with so little evidence left behind by the builders, that the idea that their name had somehow survived, passed down among the pirates and smugglers who used their dead city, was hard to believe.
No one had ever investigated why, but at some point in the unremembered past, a smuggler’s ship on the run from the authorities had discovered that something in the ruins generated a field that blocked sensors. Any kind of sensors, even the specialized military-grade system suites. The field spread across most of the planet, growing slightly weaker the farther it stretched from the ruins, finally ending just before reaching the orbital paths of the two small moons.
“You can send comm signals in and out,” Terae said, “but sensors—any kind of sensors—don’t show power signatures, life signs, or metallic substances. No one’s ever figured out what does it, but there’s been speculation it might be some sort of mineral. If you fly over the ruins, you can see places where there were old excavations, as if someone was digging to try to find jamming equipment, but the field’s still there and no one knows why. It must be nearly impossible to search for whatever it is, since any kind of deep terrain sensors won’t work there.
“But it’s been used as a hiding place and a cargo transfer spot by smugglers and pirates for years. It has a breathable atmosphere, which just makes it all the more useful. We heard about it from Viest’s people, when we first came to this sector.”
“It sounds like a trap,” Han said. That was the problem with bolt-holes that weren’t kept private, and smugglers who arranged too many meetings in them and talked too much.
Terae frowned at him. It was the glare she usually reserved for him, but with an element of genuine curiosity added. “What do you mean?”
Han decided part of his problem with Terae was that she made him feel world-weary and old. “If pirates know smugglers use it for drops and meetings, then all they have to do is hang around and wait.”
Terae clearly didn’t like that, but reluctantly admitted, “I suppose that could happen.”
Han snorted derisively.
Once they arrived, the Aegis went through the sensor disruption field to demonstrate. Han and the others on the Falcon watched it disappear from the sensors like a ghost fading into the afterlife. The planet itself showed up on the imaging screen, but any attempt to bring up closer images of the terrain or look for energy trails just made the pictures dissolve into static, as if the planet were moving out of range.
“See?” Terae said, bringing up a more detailed sensor view so they could watch the planet turn fuzzy. “And we can’t pick up the Aegis at all.”
“Wow,” Sian commented softly, “this place lives up to its reputation.”
Luke nodded. “Too bad no one can figure out how it works, or how to move it. We could sure use something like that.”
Leia’s mouth twisted in wry appreciation of the irony. “It would make a great site for a base, except for the fact that every pirate in the sector knows about it.”
Han could see how useful it could be, but the apparent emptiness between the planet’s surface and the two visible moons just gave him the creeps. The sensor blackout might mask anything, from orbital debris to an Imperial cruiser. “Yeah, I just hope nobody else got here first.”
Chewbacca grumbled a comment about Han being a pessimist that Han stopped listening to halfway through.
Leia leaned over the comm to call the Aegis. “Captain Kelvan, you’re right, I think this will work.”
The idea was to draw Degoren’s ship, or whichever ship showed up, into the sensor disruption field so the Aegis could approach it for boarding without warning. This would hopefully prevent Degoren from using General Willard or any other Gamble crew members he might have aboard as hostages.
They decided to use the Falcon to carry a distress beacon down to the planet to lure Degoren’s ship into position, while the Aegis waited in the shadow of the first small moon. That close to the field, the Aegis’s sensor capability would be somewhat erratic, but they would still be able to detect Degoren’s ship entering the system. Han just hoped it didn’t detect them.
Once Degoren’s ship tried to contact the source of the distress signal, the Falcon could use its comm to help track the ship’s position inside the field and tell the Aegis where to strike.
Han had intended to take the Falcon down to the planet himself, until Leia came into the cockpit to ask him to match locks with the Aegis so she, Sian, and Terae could go aboard.
“Why?” Han asked her, though he had a bad feeling he knew exactly why.
“We’re going with the boarding party,” Leia said as if it were obvious. “I need to be there to identify any prisoners from the Gamble, make certain that there isn’t another attempt by Degoren to masquerade as Alliance personnel. Sian is going along as backup in case something happens to me.”
“You’ve been shot at enough on this trip. Why don’t you take a break?”
Leia’s expression suggested that this was just nonsensical and she didn’t have time for it. She put on her pretending-to-be-patient-with-you face and said, “This isn’t the Aegis’s fight. They’re doing this as a favor to me, to honor Metara’s memory. I have to be there.”
Han was angry, and he wasn’t even sure why. He wanted to accuse Leia of acting like a martyr; he wanted to accuse the Aegis’s crew of expecting her to somehow fix their problems when she had enough of her own to deal with. “You think you have to be there, but you don’t.”
It wasn’t exactly a persuasive speech, and Leia was clearly unimpressed. “I think I have to be there because I do.”
“Fine,” he said, “Chewie and I will come with you. You can get us killed, too. When we’re all in a bloody pile, that’ll teach the High Command a lesson.”
Leia smiled, unperturbed. “I’m sure it will. And you’ll have the satisfaction of being right, which I know is very important to you.”
Chewbacca, who was apparently amusing himself by siding against Han and with Leia in every argument lately, made a growl of approval. Han wanted to argue, but everything that came to mind sounded lame and inadequate. He blamed his head wound. He said, “Hey, as long as you admit I’m right.”
 
; Leia made a decidedly un-Princess-like noise of derision. Then Han went to the ship’s lounge to tell Luke the new plan, and that someone needed to fly the Falcon down to the planet, and Han had nominated him. Unfortunately, Itran was there, too.
As Han finished explaining, Itran said, “I’ll take it down. I’ve flown plenty of small freighters.”
Han stared at him. Sometimes he wondered if Itran was really serious, or if he just had a sense of irony so deadpan it was indiscernible by normal humans. “Hah, no.” Han turned to Luke. “Kid?”
Luke looked resigned. He had clearly intended to be in the boarding party, too, but knew there was no other option, at least as far as Han was concerned. “I’ll do it.”
“I’ll go with you,” Itran said.
Han tightened his jaw but didn’t object. At least it would keep Itran out of the boarding party so he wouldn’t accidentally shoot anybody or surrender.
“Glad to have you,” Luke said. He sounded sincere. Han supposed that was because Luke barely knew Itran.
Luke waited until Itran had headed off before he clapped Han on the shoulder and said, “It’ll be okay. He can’t get into any trouble this way.”
“He better not,” Han said, making it a threat. Luke just grinned.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN