Corellian Trilogy_ Assault At Selonia Part 18

"I am not sure there are any rebels anywhere," Ossilege said.

"Simultaneous uprisings by independent groups on five worlds?

That's stretching the bounds of credulity. I believe there is a more-intimate-relations.h.i.+p between the various rebellions. I do not wish to speculate further on that issue just at the moment. But in regard to your point, Mr. Skywalker, one reason I wish to mount an a.s.sault at Selonia is to find Out what happens there, find out who reacts and how.

We can learn from their reaction to us. If they welcome us as liberators, all to the good. If they attack, as I suspect they will, I expect we will learn a great deal as well-as well as forcing them to commit their short-range forces.

I hope that by drawing them out at Selonia, we can weaken the forces they can ma.s.s at Tralus and Talus."

Lando looked over the tactical display. "It makes a certain amount of sense," he said, "but it's risky. Extremely risky. You have a small force operating without support deep inside enemy territory, with no way to withdraw if things go badly.

Ossilege faded out the tactical display and brought the room lights back up. "Your point is well taken," he said. "But audacity is a weapon, as sure as that blaster at your side is one. But both are useless left where they are. Audacity is a weapon that must be drawn from its scabbard from time to time."

"That's very poetic," Lando said, "but with all due respect, I have some experience in these matters. I must say that you might be asking too much of four s.h.i.+ps."

Ossilege smiled thinly. "It is my experience," he said, "that you achieve more by asking too much rather than by asking too lillIe." Luke Skywalker said nothing. But he was coming to realize just how dangerous a man Ossilege was.

The question was, of courseHiangerous to whom?

r Han Solo crawled along behind Dracmus dwn the tunnel, bone weary of the journey, and wearier still of not knowing what was going on. It had been two days since the Selonians had rescued the two of them from the Human League's hidden fortress, and just about that long since Han had been clear on the situation. The rescue party had escorted Han and Dracmus out of the escape tunnel to a main pa.s.sageway, and then said their good-byes. Han and Dracmus had been traveling by themselves ever since, occasionally encountering other Selonians, but for the most part on their own.

He still was not sure if he was a prisoner, or if he was being taken to a place of safety, or both. Dracmus had revealed an impressive ability to avoid answering unwanted questions.

All Han knew for sure was that she was taking him someplace, and that he had to do a lot of crawling to get there, through a seemingly endless series of low-ceilinged tunnels lit in the gloomiest, dimmest red imaginable.

"Is it much further to some place I can stand up?"

Han asked, raising his voice a bit so Dracmus could hear him.

Dracmus was ahead of him in the tunnel, as she had been for most of the journey. Han had spent an awful lot of the last few days watching her hindquarters and tail as she moved ahead of him.

Dracmus laughed, making that hissing noise of hers.

Han would not miss that sound if he never heard it again. "Always you want to stand. Is it nOt a nice rest to be off your hind feet?

Stretch yourself, let forelegs do some of the job."

The Selonian hadn't answered his question that time, either, though Han could see no point to avoiding a reply. He had the distinct impression that Dracmus had received instructions from the rescue party to keep quiet and answer no questions. Han had asked her point-blank if that were the case, but if it was, then the prohibition extended even to questions about the prohibition. If she had received orders to keep quiet, she was obeying them in a rather slavish and literal-minded way.

What harm in letting Han know how high the ceiling was a bit farther along? But he and Dracmus had had some variant of this same conversation at least a dozen times since her friends had sprung them from the Human League prison. Han had yet to receive a straight answer, and he was still on his hands and knees threequarters of the time.

Han understood the reasons for the low tunnels, of course.

Selonians were as nimble on four feet as on two -perhaps more so.

They were in large part creatures of the underworld-tunnelers, diggers, burrowers. Tunnels dug for Selonians going on four feet had to be only a meter across and a meter high, while tunnels dug for Selonians walking on two feet had to be at least two meters high-and Selonians didn't see the point of digging out twice as much rock, just forthe sake of a vertical posture. Unfortunately, understanding the logic didn't make the crick in Han's neck go away, or relieve the throbbing ache in his knees.

At least he wasn't the first human to come up against the problem.

The Selonians had provided him with a helmet, knee pads, and padded gloves, but there were times when he wondered if the solutions weren't worse than the problem. The helmet was heavy and unventilated, and was not quite the right shape for a human head. The gloves were too big and clumsy, and the knee pads threatened to slide off with every step he took-if you could call moving on your knees stepping. It took hours of awkward trial and error before he learned the peculiar little extra lift and twist required of each knee to keep the pads in place.

Once or twice he had considered the idea of not going forward, of not doing what Dracmus said, of striking out on his own through the tunnel system. But he knew the idea was hopelessly impractical.

Dracmus could move through the tunnels a lot faster than he could, for AULK ar HWNM 175 one thing. And Dracmus knew her way around the tunnel system, for another. Besides, Dracmus could call for an awful lot of help, if need be. Han and she were far from alone down there.

Han heard a sort of chuffling sound behind him, and then a double hoot from the same quarter, followed by a squeak and a warble from Dracmus. The sounds were not any part of the Selonian language Han had learned.

They were tunnel-talk, signals meant to be clearly understood even in the echoing confines of the underground ways. It had not taken Han long to find out what they meant. s.p.a.ce knew he had heard them often enough. Here I come from behind yo called the Selonian in the rear.

Please feel free to overtake us, Dracmus replied. Han let out a sigh and lay down flat on his stomach. "Here we go again," he muttered to himself.

He heard the skittering and clicking of claws on stone behind him, then the pause as the Selonian behind him, surprised to find a human, stopped to snuffle at his feet and his clothes before scrambling over his body, managing to put all her weight on Han's chest and then step on his head. Han sighed again. Another set of aches and pains he would have to get over. The ones who overtook from the rear always seemed to find new places to set their claws. The ones who came from the front all seemed to walk on the same spots on his back and the backs of his legs.

The overtaking Selonian scuttled over Dracmus in turn, and that was some comfort, if not much. Selonians were used to it. But Han could not help but hope that Dracmus got at least a little bit of a jab in the ribs.

However, if she did take a bit of damage, she didn't show any sign of it.

Han got back up off his hands and knees and followed after his guide.

Unless, of course, she was his jailer. He still wasn't quite sure.

The d.u.c.h.ess Marcha of Mastigophorous liked to rea.s.sure herself that all of her nephew Ebrihim's eccentricities could not possibly come from her side of the family.

And yet there was no question that he had inherited one or two traits from her side of the bloodline. Ebrihim had endurance, even if he did not always take advantage of it. But when the circ.u.mstances called for it, he could keep going long after everyone else had collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

And he had the skills of a good scholar, even if he did not put those skills to good use. He could report on the facts, discuss them objectively, and then a.n.a.lyze a situatiOn dispa.s.sionately, speculate about it responsibly, and never get facts muddled up with opinions or ideas. And, of course, endurance was a great help in scholars.h.i.+p as well.

One needed to keep going, to keep chasing. No doubt, Ebrihim could have made something of himself if he had not also had the temperament of a dilettante.

Everything interested him, with the result that he had never pursued any single subject far enough.

But tonight, for once, he was putting all his scholar's skills to use. The children were long ago asleep, that Wookiee fellow Chewbacca had likewise turned in, and even Q9-x2, Ebrihim's absurd droid, had returned to the s.h.i.+p in order to recharge.

But Ebrihim was wide-awake, and alert, fresh as a dressel flower on a dewy morning. She and he had been sitting up in the kitchen for hours, talking over endless pots of strong tea and a stack of good, solid, hardbiscuits, the sort that really exercised the jaw and the gnawing muscles, the sort that chipped human teeth.

The family news had come first, of course. It had LID iuy. r - uaugrave; often been said of the Dralls that if the universe were swallowed by a mammoth black hole, and it happened on the same day a favorite cousin broke off an illadvised love affair, no member of the cousin's family would even be able to work in a mention of the end of the universe for days.

But even though Ebrihim had been gone for a long time, sooner or later even family gossip had to give way to the wave of crises that seemed to he drowning the Corellian planetary system. "Things have never been this bad," Aunt Marcha said. "It seems that a halfdozen separatist groups popped up over night, all of them squawking how they hate the Corellian Sector government and chittering on about how the New Republic is no better than the Empire, and urging everyone to band together to oppose the Human League oppressors, and they all seem to hate each other most of all. All sorts of nonsense. Most un-Drallish."

"Which were the ones that gave you trouble?"

Ebrihim asked. "You mentioned something about a group called the Drallists?

"Those are the one Of all the foolish groups, the Drallists are the worst. They're the ones who have been cutting power links and terrorizing travelers. It seems they denounce someone else for being a collaborator every day. Declared me a collaborator, if you can believe that. They didn't bother to say who I was collaborating with, or who my imaginary collaborators were for or against. They seem to be in favor of chaos, and agaffist everything else. But I knew what being a collaborationist could mean. Houses have been bombed, you know."

"What!" Ebrihim said. "Dralls blowing up the houses of Dralls!

I can't believe it."

"I could not believe it myself, nephew, but I could not endanger others on my behalf. I sent away everyone I could-relatives, servants, friends, everyone. The house seems so empty without them all. I hope they can all come back when the trouble is over. If it ever is over."

Marcha shook her head and reffiled her nephew's tea mug. "I don't know what is to come next. mily I don't."

"Nor do I, Aunt Marcha. Neither do I."

"Do you want anything else?" she asked, her reflexes as a hostess taking over. "Another hard-biscuit, perhaps?" she said, offering the bowl.

"I'd be delighted," Ebrihim said. "Your biscuits are splendid, as usual. Hard as wood, and most flavorful. I had forgotten how much I enjoy them. Human food gives no benefit to the incisors."

"I am glad to hear that you enjoy them, nephew. But what of you?

How in the stars did you end up here with three human children and a Wookiee?"

"Those are not just any human children, Aunt Marcha. Didn't their names mean anything to you?

Their parents are people of note."

"Well, perhaps they are," she said with a sniff. "I have never made much effort to see what airs humans are putting on at the moment.

I take it you have been tutoring the children of some minor member of the Corellian aristocracy. All very well, I sujpose, but you can't expect me to recognize their names.

"I expect even you have heard of their people. Their father was a hero of the war against the Empire-and, it appears, the cousin of the Human League's leader, though he was less than pleased to hear that, I can tell you! Their mother is leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of the New Republic. Their uncle is Luke Skywalker himself."

"Heavens!" Aunt Marcha said, impressed in spite of herself.

Marcha, as head of a very grand family, had always known that there were times when long family lineages merely meant that a pack of idiots had been reproducing for too long. She had always been more interested in accomplishment than in hereditary status.

I I But some families were impressive. "You are traveling in interesting circles, nephew. Thll me all."

"Very well, Aunt Marcha. But I warn you, it is a long story.

"I have never known you to tell a short one, nephew."

Ebrihim took another cup of tea and proceeded to tell her a remarkable tale, of all that had happened since he had been hired by leia Organa Solo. Clearly, intrigues had been swirling around Corellia for some time. It was typical of Ebrihim that he would manage to get himself right in the middle of it all.

Marcha had always worried about her nephew. To humans, perhaps, he seemed levelheaded, sensible, even dour. By Drallish standards, he was flighty, irresponsible, a flibbertigibbet. She had long ago given up on him settling down and starting his own family. It did not take much knowledge of psychology to tell her that his affection for the human children might be some sort of subst.i.tute for the children of his own he would never have.

On the other paw, it took even less knowledge of psychology to suspect herself of reading too much into it.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Mastigophorous had little time for nonsense, especially her own.

But, nonetheless, every family had its eccentric nephews and cousins, and there were unquestioned benefits to that arrangement. The d.u.c.h.ess Marcha learned this anew as she listened to Ebrihim's account of his adventures with the Organa Solo family. The spying, the secret attacks, Han Solo's kidnapping and release, the attack on Corona House; all of it was quite remarkable.

But the one thing that shocked her most was, of course, his using the family's high status as a means of getting into an archaeological dig, for no other reason than so he could see the dig himself. If the dig proved interesting to his employers, and educational to the children, so much the better. The sheer effrontery of it was breathtaking. Even most humans would have trouble taking advantage of their position in that way.

No sensible Drall would have gotten mixed up in such goings-on.

At least good had come of it. For if they had never gone to the dig, little Anakin would never have found that strange, huge chamber.

But the story reminded her of something. Something strange she had seen in the news some time before.

"Nephew," she said. "Have you ever heard of such a thing as an archaeological dig on Drall?"

Ebrihim looked at her and frowned. "Of course not," he said.

"That was part of why I was so interested in seeing one. There's no such thing as Drallish archaeology, any more than there's such a thing as human tail grooming."

"That," said Marcha, "was my impression. We have no need of archaeology. There is nothing worth digging for." The Drall were a tidy people, and an ancient one, much given to keeping good records and keeping things organized. For thousands of years, everything of importance had either been neatly filed away in storage or else recycled.

There was no such thing as Drallish prehistory, or preliterate history. At least, if there were, they were so long forgotten that they might as well not exist. "That is why it surprised me some time ago to see a brief mention in the press recently of a large archaeclogical prect near the equator."

"That's absurd!" Ebrihim protested.

"I quite agree," she said. "I found it peculiar enough that I tried to learn more. I was able to establish the exact location of the dig, but that was all. There were no further news stories, and I could not get anywhere at all making private inquiries. It was nothing more than idle curiosity that made me pursue the question, and perhaps I gave it up too quickly. What intrigues me is that the account of the dig made it sound a great deal like the one you described."

Ebrihim looked at his aunt in openmouthed astonish Lou - ment.

"Aunt Marcha! The implications of what you are saying-"

"I know, I know. They are enormous. But I don't see that we have any choice but to pursue the question. I think we have to know more-a great deal more-about what the children discovered." Tendra Risant guided her newly acquired s.h.i.+p through hypers.p.a.ce toward the Corellian planetary systeand whatever awaited her there. The s.h.i.+p was a slow and elderly Corellian runabout she had named Gentleman Caller, and the Gent wasn't much to look at. But looks didn't count for a great deal.

The s.h.i.+p would get her thereventually. That was all that mattered.

She was only half a day out from Sacorria, but had already learned a lot of interesting things about interstellar travel, and she was eager to sit down and talk about them with Lando, if and when she ever found him. She had a feeling they were the sorts of lessons he often found useful in his work.

The first and greatest lesson was that money made nearly all things possible, and most things dead easy, especially when you were ready to throw cold hard cash around in the form of bribes and other encouragements.

Embargoes? Orders grounding all s.p.a.cecraft and forbidding the sale of used s.p.a.cecraft? Registration filing?

None of those impediments could stand up to a good strong dose of money properly applied.

The second was that people were awfully spoiled about s.p.a.ce travel.

Everyone seemed to a.s.sume that the interdiction field around Corellia might as well have been a solid, impenetrable wall, impossible to get through. Nonsense, all of it. The interdiction field simply prevented a s.p.a.cecraft from entering the Corellian system while moving faster than the speed of light; nothing more.

Getting to Corellia was no problem, provided you didn't mind taking your time on the way. The navicomputer told her the trip from the edge of the interdiction field to the planet Corellia would take her three long months at the Gentleman's best sublight speed, but Tendra half expected she would not have anywhere near that long to wait.

The Corellians could not keep the interdiction field in place forever.

They would have to take it down some time-if someone else didn't take it down for them. Or perhaps the jamming would end, even if the interdiction field stayed up.

Besides, Tendra knew she might well be able to do a great deal of good without ever getting close to Corellia All the normal comlink frequencies might be jammed, but that meant nothing to the special communications gear Lando had given her before he left for Corellia He had intended it as a romantic gift, a way for them to send secret lovers'

messages back and forth to Sacorria, but the system could be put to other uses.

It was a strange old system he had given her. It transmitted and received modulated electromagnetic radiation in the radio band of the spectrum. Because the signal sent by the system used electromagnetic radiation, the broadcast was limited by the speed of light.

Lando had said it was called a radionics communications system.