[Short Stories] - [New Jedi Order ...

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Star WarsTatooine Ghostby Troy Denning###############################################################################Leia Organa, newly Leia Organa Solo, sat behind Han and Chewbacca on the flight deck of the Millennium Falcon. The twin suns of the Tatoo system were hanging outside the forward viewport, a pair of white eyes blazing up from the black well of space. Like all twins, they were bound together by a tie as unpredictable as it was powerful. Sometimes, the bond boosted their luminosity far beyond that of two normal suns. At other times, it sent waves of ionic discharge pulsing across space to scramble circuits and reorient core-relative compasses. Today, the twins were assailing the Falcon with electromagnetic blasts, overloading her sensors and filling the cockpit speakers with static. As Chewbacca worked to raise the proper filters, the static faded from a roar to a crackle, then softened to a hiss, which rose and fell in a sharp rhythm. Puzzled by the odd snickering sound, Leia glanced over at the master comm console and found the reception indicator still scanning for signals. She leaned forward against her crash webbing."Han, do you hear..."No sound came from her mouth. The snicker became a deep chuckle, and a nebula of black gas began to gather in front of the Falcon. Han showed no reaction to it. Neither did Chewbacca, even when it coalesced into the cowl of a Jedi cloak."Han! Don't you see..."Again, her voice made no sound. Glaring out from beneath the cowl, the twin suns looked more than ever like eyes-heartless eyes, full of malice and power lust. Where the cloud was thin, crooked streaks of purple radiance created the impression of a twisted mouth and wrinkled face.The mouth rose at the corners. "Mine."The voice was cruel and distinct and rife with dark side power. Leia gasped-silently-and tried to raise an arm that had suddenly grown as heavy as the Falcon.The smile became a sneer. "Mine."Still, neither Han nor Chewbacca seemed to notice what was happening. Leia would have screamed, had her mouth been willing to obey.The nebula began to thicken, and the purple wrinkles faded behind its inky veil. The twin suns dimmed to darkness, and the black cloud assumed the shape of a familiar mask-a mask of harsh angles and obsidian sheen, framed by the long, flaring neck apron of an equally black helmet. Vader's helmet.A chill wave of nausea washed over Leia. The curved eye lenses grew transparent, but instead of the blazing brightness of Tatooine's twin suns-or the angry red-rimmed gaze of Darth Vader-she found herself looking into her brother's soft blue eyes. "Luke! What are you..."Her question remained as silent as the others she had asked. Luke's eyes grew hollow and hard and haunted, and the helmet moved slowly from side to side. Blue flickers of electricity snaked across the speech circuits behind the respiratory screen, but his words were rendered nearly inaudible by static crackling. Leia made out something about not following and staying out of darkness; then Luke fell silent again. She tried to tell him that his equipment was malfunctioning, that his voice had been obscured, but before she could find a way to make herself heard, the helmet stopped moving.Luke locked gazes and held her transfixed for what might have been seconds... or minutes... his eyes now the lifeless blue of ice. Leia grew cold, and frightened, and the mask dissolved back into the black nothingness of space, leaving her to stare out once again into the mind-stabbing brilliance of the Tatoo system's twin suns.Chapter 1Instead of bed, where she usually awoke from her dreams, Leia found herself slumped forward in her crash webbing, ears hissing with static and eyes aching from the glare of twoG-class suns. Han and Chewbacca were still busy at their stations, Han plotting approach vectors and Chewbacca setting sensor filters. The planet Tatooine was just drifting into view, its yellow sodium-rich sands glowing so brightly it resembled a small sibling star in orbit around the big twins. A metallic hand tapped Leia's shoulder. She turned to see C-3PO's photoreceptors shining at her from the adjacent passenger seat."Pardon me for asking, Princess Leia, but are you well?""Don't I look well?""Oh dear," C-3PO replied, a diplomatic subroutine activating in response to her tone of voice. "Why yes, you do look as splendid as ever, but it seemed for a moment as though you might have overloaded your primary circuits.""My circuits are fine.""I'll need to confirm that later." Han twisted around and glanced over his seat with the same crooked smile that had alternately charmed and worried Leia since their first meeting on the Death Star. "Princess.""Oh, really?" Leia straightened herself in her chair without fully realizing she was doing it. With his tough-guy good looks and eyes sparkling with trouble, Han still made her sit up and take notice. "And you think you can read my schematics?""Sweetheart, I know your schematics by heart." Han's smile faded, and his expression grew concerned. "Threepio's right. You look like you've seen a ghost.""Something like that. A bad dream."Han looked doubtful. "I've sat in that chair. That chair isn't comfortable enough for dreams-good or bad.""It's been a long trip," Leia said, perhaps a little too quickly. "I must have nodded off."Han regarded her a moment longer, then shrugged. "Well, see if you can stay awake." He looked forward again, to where the twin suns were slowly being eclipsed by Tatooine's steadily swelling disk. "Until the sensors come up, we need to keep an eye out for other traffic."Leia gazed out the canopy and began to search for the rapidly swelling silhouette of blocked starlight that would mean an approaching vessel. Her thoughts remained focused on the strange dream. It had a similar feel to the Force-vision she had experienced nearly five years earlier at Bakura, when her father had sent an apparition begging for the forgiveness she would never- could never-grant. But that had been his doing, not hers.Han's hand rose into view between the pilot and copilot's seats, pointing toward a blocky silhouette floating some distance to one side of Tatooine's yellow disk. The twin suns were now completely hidden behind the planet, and Leia could see that the tiny silhou ette was growing larger as they approached. It seemed to be staying in the same place relative to Tatooine, deliberately hanging in the shadow of the planet."That's too square to be a moon," Han said."And it's no asteroid, not hanging in one place like that," Leia added. "But at least it doesn't seem to be coming our way.""Yet," Han replied. "How about those filters, Chewie?"An impatient rumble suggested that the Wookiee was still struggling with the filters. Anyone else might have been frightened, but Leia found the groan reassuring, a touch of the familiar in a time of shifting alliances and random annihilation. When she had marriedHan six months ago, she had known Chewbacca would be an honorary member of their family, and that was fine with her. Over the years she had come to think of the Wookiee as something of a furry big brother, always loyal to Han and protective of her, and now she could not hear him growl without feeling that she lived in a safer place, that with Chewbacca and Luke and Han-when he was in the mood-and millions of others like them, the New Republic would beat back the Empire's latest onslaught and one day bring peace to the galaxy.That, and she liked how Wookiee fur always smelled of trillium soap.The comm hiss finally fell silent as Chewbacca found the right combination of filters. He brought the sensors up, fiddled a moment longer, then let out a startled ruumph. "The mass calibration is off," Han said. "That reads like a Star Destroyer."Chewbacca oowralled indignantly, then sent the data readout to the auxiliary display beside Leia's seat and glanced back for her affirmation. She had to look only a second to see that he was correct."Sixteen hundred meters, six comm bands in use, and a TIE squadron circling on station," Leia said, feeling a little sick and worried. When the Millennium Falcon came across a Star Destroyer these days, it was usually because one was stalking the other. "I don't know, Han. The mass calibration looks fine to me."As she spoke, the Falcon's computer found a profile match in its military data banks and displayed the schematic of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. Below the image appeared the vessel's name."The Chimaera" Han read. "Isn't she still in service to the Empire?""As of two months ago, she was one of their most efficient Destroyers." Leia did not need to look up the information. The death of Warlord Zsinj eight months earlier had emboldened theImperial fleet, and the Provisional Council had been mired in war minutiae ever since. "Admiral Ackbar has been wondering what became of her.""Deserters?" Han caught her eye in the canopy reflection. "Another captain wanting to set himself up as a warlord?""Please, no! The situation out here is already too confused." With the New Republic battling the Imperials over the scraps of Zsinj's empire and the surviving warlords exploiting the war to enlarge their own territories, confused was an understatement. Several times, the New Republic Navy had moved against one enemy to find itself engaging another, and sometimes two or three at once. "And the Ckimaera's commander isn't the type. By all accounts, Gilad Pellaeon is both loyal and competent.""Then what's he doing at Tatooine?" Han asked. "There isn't a conflict zone within fifty systems of here."Chewbacca groaned the opinion that it was someone else's job to analyze Imperial objectives, then began to plot hyperspace coordi... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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