Dark Nest_ The Joiner King Part 12

Leia reached over and laid her hand over Han's. "It'll be all right, Han. I can still feel them out there. They're not Joiners."

"Yet," Han grumbled. Over the comm, he asked, "How about those ideas?"

"Try a code search," Luke suggested helpfully.

Han rolled his eyes.

Leia smiled at him, then said to Luke, "Thanks for the suggestion.

We've already tried that."

"No need to worry," Mara said. "We haven't lost them."

"We haven't?" Leia asked. Before the XR808g left Lizil, Han and Juun had hidden a subs.p.a.ce transceiver beneath the c.o.c.kpit and linked it to the navicomputer. Each time the XR808g initiated a jump, the transceiver automatically encoded the galactic coordinates and broadcast them to the Shadow and Falcon - but that didn't help them now, when they were already at those coordinates. "I don't understand."

"Give me a second." Mara remained silent for a moment, then said, "Be ready to take a fix, in case Juun is smarter than he looked."

Han raised his brow. "I don't recall planting a homing beacon on the Exxer."

"Because you 're not the sneaky one-despite all reports to the contrary," Mara commed. "Ready?"

Leia smiled and prepared a navigation lock. "Ready." A red dot began to blink in the upper corner of the tactical display. "Got it."

Leia activated the lock, and Han swung the Falcon around behind the red dot. Yoggoy traffic proved an unimaginable free-for-all, with muscle-powered balloon-bikes competing for airs.p.a.ce against dilapidated cloud cars and modern airspeeders. Thick-waisted rocket planes flashed past in all directions, packed to bursting with goggle-eyed insects and trailing oily plumes of smoke. Battered s.p.a.ce freighters eased their durasteel hulks down into the mess, descending through the traffic toward the haze-blanketed towertops below.

A stubby little rocket plane shot out from under a cargo blimp off to starboard and began to climb, coming for Leia's side of the c.o.c.kpit.

"Rodder!" Han cursed, and the Falcon took a sudden skip upward.

"Watch where you're going!"

"Don't get so upset," Leia said. "We have plenty-"

A thirty-meter insect shuttle flashed into view from beneath Leia's side of the c.o.c.kpit, headed straight for the little rocket plane.

"Oh, my!" C-3PO said from the navigator's station. "That was too close-"

"Hard to port," Leia interrupted. "Now, Han!"

"Port?" Han shot back. "You're crazy!"

Leia glanced over and saw the mountainous hull of a giant transport gliding past above the Falcon's forward mandibles.

"Oh-" Leia slapped the crash alarm, bringing the inertial compensators to maximum, priming the fire-suppression systems, and setting off a cacophony of alerts farther back in the vessel. "Brace yourself!"

"Dead stop!" Luke's voice came over the comm. "Dead stop!"

Han already had his hand on the throttles-but before he could pull them back, the shuttle was diving and the rocket plane was climbing past the Falcon almost vertically, so close that Leia could have reached out and grabbed the pilot's antennae.

Han casually slipped his hand off the throttle and deactivated the crash alarm. "No need to get all excited." His hands were shaking as badly as Leia's, but she saw no use in pointing that out. "I've got it under control."

"Yes," C-3PO agreed. "It's fortunate that you were wise enough to do nothing. It gave the other pilots time to respond to your error."

"My error?" Han replied. "I was flying straight and level."

"Quite so, but the others are all following sine wave trajectories," C-3PO said. "And may I point out that any system functions optimally only when all elements use the same equations?"

A two-seater rocket plane dropped in ahead of the Falcon and bobbed along pouring fumes into their faces, then swerved aside to reveal the bulbous shape of a balloon-bike coming at them head-on. Han rolled into an inverted dive and spiraled past beneath it.

"Now you tell me," Han said.

"Watch it back there," Leia warned the Shadow. "And have Artoo plot a sine wave trajectory for us-a safe one."

"We'll send it up in a moment," Mara promised.

The moment went by, then two, then several. Finally, when her nerves could stand no more close calls-and no more of Han's grouching-Leia commed back to the Shadow.

"Uh, we didn't receive that trajectory."

"We're trying," Luke said. "Artoo's sort of locked up."

"Locked up?" Han asked. "An astromech?"

"He's been acting strange lately," Luke explained. "All we got before he went blank was not safe, not safe, not safe."

"Oh, dear!" C-3PO exclaimed. "It sounds as though he's trying to resolve an unknowable variable. We're doomed!"

"Yeah?" Han waved at the traffic outside the forward viewport.

"Then how come none of them are cras.h.i.+ng?"

C-3PO was silent for a moment, then said, "I wouldn't know, Captain Solo. Their processors certainly aren't any better than Artoo's."

"They don't need processors." Leia was thinking of Luke's description of the cantina where Saba met Tarfang, of how the mysterious Joiners had arrived to lead away any patron with whom he struck up a conversation. "It was pretty clear that the Lizil can communicate telepathically. Maybe the Yoggoy can, too."

"Probably," Mara agreed. "And since we don't have any Yoggoy navigators aboard-"

"We're flying blind!" Han finished. "Better bring the s.h.i.+elds to maximum, Leia. We're going to get some bug spatter."

"Perhapz not," Saba commed from the Shadow. "Leia, have you been doing your reaction drill?"

Leia felt a stab of guilt. "When there's been time."

Saba was kind enough not to remind her that she was supposed to make time for her training. That was the obligation of a Jedi Knight-though Leia, in all honesty, had a hard time thinking of herself as anything other than an eternal apprentice. Perhaps that was why she found it so hard to find training time.

"Do the drill now," Saba said. "But instead of stingerz, imagine the remote is shooting vesselz at you."

Leia started a breathing exercise, then closed her eyes and opened herself to the Force. She immediately felt something swooping down on them from above.

"Down and starboard," she said.

The Falcon continued on the same course.

"Han-"

"Are you crazy?" he interrupted. "With your eyes open, maybe. But not. .."

The Falcon dropped five meters, and Leia opened her eyes to see the swollen underbelly of a big Gallofree transport gliding over them.

'Wow you will... listen... to your nestie!" Saba was sissing hysterically. "Mara is flying with her eyes closed."

"Who isn't?" Han gave Leia a quick nod. "Whatever you say, dear."

Leia closed her eyes again and began to call directions. At first Han emitted an alarming string of oaths and gasps, but gradually the sensations grew more concrete-and Han's willingness to follow the blind more ready. Within the hour, they were bobbing and dodging along more or less steadily behind the XR808g.

Finally, Han said, "Looks like he's going to ground."

Leia opened her eyes to see the tracking blip drifting down toward the middle of the display, its color deepening to red as the XR808g lost alt.i.tude. She looked out the canopy and found the distinctive wafer of a YT light freighter in the distance ahead, descending into the hazy labyrinth of insect pinnacles. Traffic remained heavy above the spires, but there were only a handful of drifting balloon-bikes and slow-moving airspeeders among the towers themselves.

"We'll take point," Leia commed. "Why don't you fly top cover?"

"It's a plan," Luke answered.

As the Falcon descended, Leia saw that the mottled colors decorating the pinnacles had been created by pressing colored pebbles into the exterior walls. The effect was remarkably calming. If she watched them out of the corner of her eye, or allowed her gaze to go unfocused, the bright blotches of color reminded her of a meadow in full bloom-and, she realized, of the elaborate mosaics inside the spires depicted in Killik Twilight.

"Could it be?" she gasped.

"Could be anything," Han answered. "So let's be ready. Send Cakhmaim and Meewalh to the cannon turrets, and tell Beady to go to ready standby."

They followed the XR808g down to within a hundred meters of ground level, where the balloon-bikes and airspeeders gave way to rivers of racing landspeeders, speeder bikes, and dangerous-looking rocket carts steered exclusively by Yoggoy pilots. Pedestrians were forced to scurry along the tower bases, hanging on the walls sideways if they were insects or keeping themselves tightly pressed against the foundations if they were bipeds.

Juun began to fly erratically, making last-second turns and doubling back on his own trail. If not for the tracking blip, Leia would have lost him a dozen times in half an hour. Finally, they swung onto a large curving boulevard and began to circle a ma.s.sive complex of fused towers sheathed in an eye-pulling mosaic done in every imaginable shade of red. The XR808g eased steadily toward the interior lanes, then abruptly dropped to ground level and disappeared into the dark mouth of a huge, barrel-vaulted gateway.

"That kreetle!" Han said. "I should've blasted him when I had the chance."

Leia immersed herself in the Force, then reported, "It looks more dangerous than it feels."

"You sure?" Han gave her a sidelong look. "No offense, but I know how much time you have to practice that Jedi stuff."

"Would it make any difference if I wasn't sure?"

Han gave her that crooked grin of his. "What do you think?"

He eased the yoke forward and swung the Falcon into the murky gateway. Leia activated the forward maneuvering lights, illuminating the interior of a huge, winding pa.s.sage covered in a wavy pink-and-yellow mosaic. The tunnel was longer than Leia had expected, and each time the s.h.i.+p rounded a new bend, they sent a swarm of insects scurrying for the vault edges.

After a couple of minutes, they emerged in a small, flower-shaped plaza enclosed by a dozen fused towers. The mosaics were bright and disorienting, with solid bands of color gradually paling from deep amber at ground level to pure white at the pinnacletops. At the far side of the area, the XR808g sat on its landing struts, its boarding ramp already dropping into position.

Han brought the Falcon to within twenty meters and set her down with the missile launchers facing the XR808g. "Cakhmaim, Meewalh, be ready with those cannons," he ordered over the intercom. "Ready-"

"Prepared to open fire, Captain," the droid reported.

"Not yet," Leia said, unbuckling her crash webbing. "Only if they shoot first."

"Survival rates decrease thirty-two percent for combatants firing in reaction," BD-8 objected.

"We're not shooting first." Han strapped on his BlasTech holster.

"Just stand ready to look tough."

"Look tough?" BD-8 inquired.

"Intimidation mode one," C-3PO clarified. He turned to Han. "You really should use the standardized terms with the BD series. Their tactical overlays leave little processing power for semantic a.n.a.lysis."

Han rolled his eyes. "Yeah, maybe I'll read the manual someday."

He led the way off the flight deck, and they descended the boarding ramp to find Juun scurrying toward them in a torn tunic.

"Han! Princess Leia!" he called cheerfully. "I was afraid we'd lost you!"

"Sure you were," Han replied coldly. He stopped a few steps from the end of the ramp and rested a hand on his holstered blaster. "Your transponder just happened to go on the blink?"

"Of course not!" Juun said. "Our guide disabled it. After the last jump, he found the subs.p.a.ce transceiver."

BD-8 came up behind Leia and glared over her shoulder, clicking and whirring loudly. Juun stopped three meters away and gawked up at the battle droid. Leia tried to get a read on the his truthfulness, but she felt only alarm and confusion.

Juun raised his hands. "Please! It wasn't my fault!"

Leia glimpsed movement on the tower walls behind him, then saw several tiers of insect soldiers stepping into view. They looked much like Lizil workers, except they were the size of a Wookiee, with meter-long mandibles and scarlet carapaces covering their backs. The undersides of their thoraxes were bright gold, and their eyes were a deep, haunting purple. In their four hands, they each carried a crude electrobolt a.s.sault rifle and a short, thick-shafted trident. It took an instant to realize they were standing on small terraces instead of midair, for human eyes found it difficult to interpret the subtle interplay of hue and shadow that defined each belt of the wall mosaic.

"That does it!" Han said, reaching for his holster. "I'm gonna blast you myself."

The edges of Juun's cheek folds turned blue. "What for?"

"What for?" Han waved his blaster at the surrounding walls. "For leading us into a trap!"

Juun's eyes went wide. "I did?"

Leia reached out to the insects above, searching for any hint of hostile intentions, and felt none.

"Don't play dumb," Han said to Juun. He aimed his blaster at the Sull.u.s.tan's knees. "It just makes me mad."

Leia reached over and covered Han's blaster hand. "Put that thing away!" she whispered. "It isn't what it looks like."

"Then what is it?" Han continued to glare at Juun.

"We'll have a better chance of finding out if you keep that thing in its holster."

Han allowed her to push the blaster down, but BD-8 was harder to convince.