Corellian Trilogy_ Ambush At Corellia Part 8

"That's one of the tests."

Luke shook his head. "It can be a test. It doesn't have to be.

Yes, all the traditions say a Jedi is supposed to make his or her own lightsaber, as part of the progress toward knighthood. But tradition is all it is, after all. Nothing more.

There's no hard and fast law. And remember Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi gave me my first lightsaber, after all. i didn't build it. So take this one. i made it for you."

Leia looked at the Lightsaber for a long moment and hefted it once or twice.

"How does it feel?" Luke asked.

"Like it belongs there," Leia said. "As if it's supposed to be there, in my hand. It's perfect. But-but I haven't completed the training," she said. "i never built my own lightsaber because I never felt I was ready to do so."

Luke shook his head. "No," he said, "that's where you're wrong. If there is anyone in this galaxy with the right to wear a Jedi's lightsaber, it is Leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of the New Republic.

You are Jedi. Your training is complete. Different from mine, but complete."

"But that's not true!" Leia protested. "There is so much I don't know. There is so much you still need to teach me.

"But Mon Mothma reminded me that the reverse is also true, ' Luke replied. "There is much you have to teach that I must learn. None of us ever learns all that we should know. If it happens that you don't know a few mind tricks or haven't gotten every move with a lightsaber down cold, that has not prevented you from fighting for justice, or knowing right from wrong and acting on it. Take the lightsaber. You have earned it-and you might have need of it."

Leia tried the heft of the lightsaber again and then stepped back from Luke a pace or two. She pressed the power stud and the saber flared into life with a low-throated hum of power. A shaft of glowing ruby red leaped from the handle.

With a flick of her wrist, she whirled the blade through the air, and the hum was suddenly louder for a moment as the saber's lightblade slid through the air. "Try me," she said to Luke, stepping back another pace or two as she brought the saber to bear.

Luke hesitated a moment. There was something detached, distracted, about her voice and expression. By the way her eyes were locked on the saber's blade, Luke had no trouble understanding why.

Luke stepped back himself and shrugged off his black cloak, letting it fall to the ground. He drew his own lightsaber, keeping his eyes fixed on Leia. He switched the saber on and heard the familiar low throb of power as the blade came to life. Trained to watch his opponent and not himself, he did not see his own blade at all as he held it low, close to his body. Leia took a two-handed grip on her blade and raised it to the cla.s.sic guard position. Luke raised his own weapon to hers, touched his blade to hers, and was rewarded with a crackling hiss of power as the lightblades met.

Leia's face was a study in concentration and suppressed excitement as she drew her blade back. Luke could understand her reaction. His blood, their father's blood, coursed through her veins as well. Luke knew deep in his heart that he dearly loved the thrill of danger, of challenge, of battle.

Whether that was some aspect of the dark side of the Force, or merely a perfectly normal compet.i.tive drive, he did not pretend to know.

But for all of that, he knew the feeling in himself-and right now, he could recognize it in his sister as well.

No doubt she had fought many battles of the mind during her recent years of government service. She had won great victories for the New Republic-often by outmaneuvering the enemy so tidily, winning so completely at the conference table, that there was no need for fighting.

But it had been a long while since she had been given a chance to fight with her hands, her speed, her agility, rather than just her mind.

No wonder there was a gleam in her eye as she raised her lightsaber and swung it down toward Luke's blade.

He deflected her first thrust down and to the left and went back to guard just in time to parry another thrust that came close to getting under his guard. Leia let her blade slide down Luke's and then pivoted under his guard, freeing her blade to face him from the right. Luke stepped back and swung around as he adjusted his stance to meet her attack. He had intended to go easy on her, but it seemed that he was not going to get the chance. She was too fast, too good.

Luke decided to move to the attack. He dropped his left hand from the saber's grip and extended his blade in a one-handed thrust to give himself more reach as he advanced toward Leia. But she would have none of that. She brought her lightsaber cras.h.i.+ng down at the tip of his blade, striking with maximum violence at precisely the angle required to knock his blade downward. The strike forced Luke into an awkward backhanded stance while weakening his grasp on the saber's handle. His blade slammed down into the permacrete of the landing pad, gouging a hole in it, forcing him to concentrate, if only for a moment, on freeing his blade, rather than on his opponent.

He almost had the blade clear, but it was already too late. Leia reversed her stroke and swung hard at his blade from the opposite direction, slamming it clear of the permacrete-and knocking Luke's lightsaber completely out of his hand. The lightblade cut off automatically when Luke's hand was off the grip. The weapon went sailing through the air, landing fifteen meters away on the hard stand.

Luke looked up at his sister in stunned surprise, and caught the wide grin on her face. She raised her blade in salute, and then shut off the lightsaber. The ruby-red blade vanished with a final whir of power, and she clipped her Iightsaber to her belt.

Luke walked over to his own lightsaber and picked it up. He clipped it to his belt. He stood there and regarded his sister from a new angle. She was a fighter. She might not beat him the next time, but she had beaten him this time, and even a fluke victory over Luke Skywalker was impressive. She lacked the polish that could only come from endless years of practice, she had an inborn talent that needed little urging to come out. He walked back toward her, shaking his head in amazement. You're good," he said. "Very good."

Leia grinned and patted him on the shoulder. "You'll get me next time," she said.

"Maybe," he said. "If I do, it'll be because I'll know what to watch out for." He glanced over toward the s.h.i.+p, and saw that the three children had seen their mother take a Jedi master apart. Well, if it made them treat Leia with a bit more respect, maybe getting beaten was no bad thing.

"I've been practicing when I can, on the quiet," she said, her voice a bit more serious. "Even Han doesn't know about it.,.

"Practiced how?" Luke asked.

Leia shrugged. "With the lightsaber I already havewhich is nothing like as good as this one, by the way.

Against a series of drone opponents. Mostly I've been working in the courtyard behind my office. I haven't been able to do much practice, but I guess it's done some good."

"I'll say," Luke said, ma.s.saging his wrist. It still stung a bit from having the lightsaber knocked out of his hand.

"I don't think you realize just how much good. Come on, let's see how Han is getting on with the safety people."

"I'm afraid to look," Leia said. "I could have gotten us waived through all the port formalities, of course. But this is a private trip.

It didn't seem right to pull rank just to let us go on vacation.

Han told me not to worry about it. He said to file it all as a private trip, and that he would handle all the formalities in his way."

Luke couldn't help but smile at that. Han's way of doing things was rarely the quiet way.

Han was getting on about as well as could be expected, which was to say not well at all. By now there was a small crowd of s.p.a.ceport bureaucrats around him, all of them pointing at this regulation or that in their datapacks, each of them engaged in loud argument with Han. It was probably lucky for all concerned that Han was not wearing a blaster.

Luke would not have put it past him to quiet them all down with a few shots into the air-and the stars only knew how many safety regulations that would have violated.

In the old days, there had been none of this sort of fuss over a takeoff. You just sealed up your s.h.i.+p, got departure clearance, and off you went. But in the old days, there had been something like a tenth the traffic in and out of Coruscant.

In recent years, there had been one or two crashes too many caused by hot-wired piles of junk that should have been grounded. Elsewhere, flight regs were still pretty free and easy, but Coruscant just had too many s.h.i.+ps coming and going to let things slide. There was really no choice but to follow the regulations to the letter, and never mind that no one had paid attention to the regs in generations.

The trouble was that the regs required s.h.i.+ps as old as the Falcon to have a thorough inspection once every standard year. Somehow, the Falcon had just happened to miss every inspection for the last umpteen years, but now the bureaucrats had finally caught up with her.

Well, you really couldn't blame the pencil pushers for wanting the Chief of State to fly in a s.p.a.cecraft that was at least within hailing distance of the safety regs. No doubt the aforementioned Chif of State could have smoothed everything over with a quiet word or two, or an official signature on the right sort of waiver, but Leia made no move to wade into the fracas, and Luke felt no urge to get involved if she didn't. After all, in some strange way, Han enjoyed this sort of thing.

Let him have his fun. Leia and Luke stood by and watched the show.

'Hold it!" Han shouted at last. ne at a time! One at a time, or I call the Wookiee down off the s.h.i.+p and let you shout at him." That quieted them down. "All right, then.

You," Han said, stabbing a finger in the direction of the fussiest-looking official. "Go."

"It's your hyperdrive regulators, Captain Solo. The radiation s.h.i.+elds failed their inspection last week-" Han held up his hand, signaling the inspector to stop talking. "A slight misunderstanding." He reached into one of the pockets of his vest and pulled out a sheet of paper.

He unfolded it to show the profusion of stamps and seals and official initials that obscured half the text of the underlying form.

"This ought to clear that up, and a lot of the other problems as well,"

he said. "This certifies that the hyperdrive regulators, the navicomputer, the repulsor subsystems, and all the other systems have been reinspected and cleared."

"But if you had this form all along, why have you been arguing with us?" the inspector demanded.

"Maybe I just don't like paperwork," Han said.

Or maybe he was waiting until !Lia, his wtfr and your boss, was standing next to him, Luke thought. It had to be a lot harder to kick up a fuss over incomplete paperwork with the Chief of State tapping her foot and waiting to be on her way.

"Here. Take it. Hope it makes you real happy." He handed the form to the chief inspector, and the rest of the inspection team cl.u.s.tered around the paper, studying it carefully, pointing to the various stamps and signatures and approvals, and discussing them quite animatedly.

Luke couldn't hear what they were saying, but by the tone of their voices, it was clear they weren't entirely convinced.

However, there were three or four other officials who didn't seem the least bit interested in the doc.u.ment. "Let's see," Han said, addressing the one he had been shouting at the hardest, "you're from immigration, right? Okay, like I told you, my wife here has all the departure forms and pa.s.sports and stuff for the family. Leia?"

Leia stepped forward and produced the doc.u.ments, doing a very bad job of hiding her amus.e.m.e.nt. All the officials knew perfectly well that Leia was the Chief of State and, ultimately, was the boss. But they all likewise knew perfectly well that Leia was traveling with her family as a private citizen, to be treated just like everyone else.

And if that weren't a pile of nonsense, Luke didn't know what was.

The idea that some lowly pa.s.sport clerk was going to dare find anything wrong with the Chief of State's papers was laughable. And while the s.h.i.+p inspectors might have had the nerve to challenge Han's paperwork, they certainly weren't willing to do so in front of Leia Organa Solo. Luke didn't need the Force to sense the doubt, the uncertainty, in their minds even as they stamped the finaldeparture approvals on the form.

Luke heard quiet footsteps behind him, and turned to see Lando Calrissian coming out onto the landing stage. Lando was, if anything, looking more dapper than ever, in a turquoise cape over a gleaming white tunic and trousers the same shade as the cape. But for all of that, he did not, for once, seem much interested in being noticed. His movements were quiet, almost subdued. Luke did not need his Force sense to know that Lando was here to see, not to be seen. Something was up, even if Luke could not quite tell what.

Lando came up beside him and nodded absently. "h.e.l.lo, Luke," he muttered as he watched Han and Leia dealing with the bureaucrats. Luke looked closely at Lando, but could read nothing from his face. His expression was utterly blank, dead-pan, determined to give nothing away.

Luke was tempted to use his powers in the Force to reach into Lando's mind and see what he had to do with this, but his own momentary curiosity was no excuse for such a huge invasion of privacy. Let it be.

"Well, uh, hmm," said the chief inspector. "Everything, uh, seems to be in order here," he said, the doubt plain in his voice. "It would appear that we have nothing more to do than wish you a safe and pleasant journey."

Han gave the inspector a roguish, lopsided grin and a clap on the shoulder that the inspector clearly did not appreciate.

"Thanks," Han said, grabbing the official's right hand in his own and pumping it vigorously. The inspector nodded and gave a sort of gulp, then backed away, turned, and hurried away as quickly as he could while maintaining a modic.u.m of dignity. His underlings scuttled away after him, and the immigration officers and the other officials seemed no less eager to be on their way.

Han grinned wolfishly at the man's back. "Come on, kids," he called to his children. "Go ahead and get aboard.

Chewie, you can shut that inspection panel and stop looking intimidating. Get aboard and start the preflight sequence.

I'll be there in a minute."

Chewie gave a short, growled bark and nodded agreement. He pulled his tools out of the service compartment-it would seem he hadn't actually been doing anything with them in there-and slammed the panel shut.

Luke turned toward Lando, intending to ask him what was going on, but before he could, Lando shook his head and let out a low chuckle. "You did it, you old pirate," he said as he stepped forward and shook Han's hand. "I guess that means you lose our little bet."

"Han! You and Lando haven't been betting on the Falcon again,"

Leia said.

"Nah, nothing that exciting," Han said. "I just bet Lando dinner that we wouldn't get past the safety inspectors.

"Well, that's all right, then." Leia smiled and patted her husband on the arm. "I'd better go ride herd on the children before they try rewiring the weapons panel." She turned and followed the children into the s.h.i.+p.

Leia was certainly taking things rather casually, Luke thought, feeling more and more confused. Han was dodging a safety inspection and she didn't care? "Why isn't Leia upset?" he asked. "And what's Lando got to do with your s.h.i.+p getting clearance?" he asked.

"Who do you think arranged for all the clearance doc.u.ments to be forged?" Lando asked, grinning more broadly still. "So when do I collect on that dinner?" he asked, turning to Han.

Han frowned. "I'd say here and now, onboard s.h.i.+p with the family, before we take off, except we're in a bit of a hurry to get away. Your people might have forged the paper and sliced into the data banks to show we pa.s.sed all the safety checks, but I don't think we should push our luck.

Something might go wrong." Lando laughed again. "The man who plans to fly a museum piece across the galaxy is worried about pus.h.i.+ng his luck with the safety inspectors! That's a good one. Let's just say I'll pick my own time and place to collect," Lando said. "Good enough for now?"

"Good enough," Han said.

But it wasn't good enough, Luke told himself. Not by half. "Han-wait a second," he said. "It's one thing to risk your own neck in a dicey s.h.i.+p. But you can't take your wife and children along in a s.h.i.+p that the safety people won't pa.s.s."

"Take it easy, kid," Han said.

"You think I'd take chances on my children? Or that Leia would let me even if I wanted to try? I promise you all the safety systems they were worried about are at spec or above. That wasn't the problem."

"I don't get it,', Luke said.

"Real simple," Lando said. "According to the official records on file with Coruscant control, the Falcon is now a nice, normal light stock freighter. All of the illegal weapon systems and smuggling hardware removed. Except Han never did get around to removing all the handy little modifications and add-ons and military-specification sensors and weapons, and it wouldn't be a good thing if the inspectors happened to notice all the things Han forgot to remove."

"I've had other things on my mind," Han said, with a deadpan voice and expression that didn't fool anyone-and was not meant to. "Besides, that sort of gear could come in awfully handy out there. Peacetime or no peacetime, the Corellian Sector can be a tricky piece of s.p.a.ce. Safety regs are all very well, but I want a little extra firepower on hand in case the pirates decide it's time to go shopping."

"Well, I certainly can't blame you for that," Luke said.

He didn't need his Jedi abilities to sense Han was worried about more than the remote possibility of tangling with halfmythical pirates.

But whatever had Han worried, Luke was not going to make things better by pressing him on the subject. "You take care of your family, and never mind about the rest of it.,.

"That's the plan, kid," Han said. "An"'way come on aboard you two, and say your good-byes.

Han led the way up the Falcon's ramp with Lando and Luke following behind. Inside, they found Leia and the children in the lounge. It felt good to be aboard the old Falcon again, Luke thought. So many of the key events in his life revolved around the Falcon in one way or another.

He looked around, letting the flood of memories wash over him. It was here, in the lounge compartment, that Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi had given him his first practice with a lightsaber.

It was this s.h.i.+p that had saved his life at Cloud City, that had given him the covering fire he needed to take out the first Death Star.

But all that was in the past. Just now the s.h.i.+p seemed too full of bustle and life for such things to matter. Han had already wandered over to the c.o.c.kpit to check Chewie's preflight settings. The twins were in their seats, their seat belts fastened, but bouncing with so much excitement that the belts did not seem likely to hold them down for very long. Leia was just getting an equally bouncy Anakin strapped in for takeoff.

"All right, everybody," Han said, coming back from the c.o.c.kpit, Chewie right behind him. "Time to say goodbye to Lando and Uncle Luke."

After a deafening chorus of shouted good-byes, Luke gave each child a kiss and a hug. He stood up, hugged his sister, slapped Han on the shoulder, and made a formal bow of farewell to Chewbacca. It was not wise to get too emotional or demonstrative with a Wookiee. If the Wookiee got demonstrative and hugged back, you'd be lucky to escape with crushed ribs.

Lando was making his own farewells, further complicating the ch.o.r.eography in the tight s.p.a.ces of the s.h.i.+p. But at last all the goodbyes were complete, and it was time to head down the ramp, offer one last wave good-bye to Han as he raised the ramp and sealed the s.h.i.+p, and move back to a safe distance for the takeoff.

No s.h.i.+p takes off without a few moments of delay that seem inexplicable from the outside-least of all, the Falcon.

Luke and Lando could see Han and Chewie settling into the Falcon's c.o.c.kpit, checking switches, setting up the controls.