Under A Black Sun Trilogy Page 4

  "Thanks, Czethros," Han said, polite but uncertain. "I appreciate the

  gesture." Moving in unison, the formal guards spun about on their

  heels.

  Their machine precision reminded Jacen eerily of trained

  stormtroopers.

  "I've assigned this honor guard to escort you to your quarters, Solo.

  Tomorrow is the big opening rally, and the Millennium Falcon will be

  the 'pace craft." You'll run through the course before any of the

  actual contestants. The honor is always given to a pilot who has

  demonstrated great bravery and skill ... in the past." Shoulders back,

  head held high, Han walked close to the former bounty hunter.

  "Well, it's all just a bunch of show, if you ask me. Limp gun dark

  noodles."

  "But the spectators love it," Czethros said, without looking at him.

  "Remember your old glory days, when you were one of those hotshot

  pilots ... a long time ago?"

  Han stiffened, but said nothing as Czethros continued. "The course

  changes each year due to orbital mechanics, and we've mapped out a

  particularly convoluted obstacle path. I think it will make this

  year's Derby the most exciting ever."

  "I'm familiar with the routine," Han said in a clipped voice. "I've

  won the race three times, remember."

  Jaina and Han Solo spent the next morning in the docking bay facilities

  fully reconditioning the Falcon's hyperdrive and coolant systems, as

  well as its maneuvering jets.

  When Jaina assured her brothers that the repairs were under control,

  they retired to a corner of the docking bay. Jacen produced a

  programmable holoprojector puzzle and tried to concoct intricate

  designs to stump the younger boy, but Anakin managed to solve each 3-D

  maze before Jacen could come up with a new one.

  Han stubbornly resisted most of his daughter's attempts to recalibrate

  the systems, but she won out eventually, after demonstrating to him

  that the ship really would be safer and would fly more precisely.

  't quite manage to conceal his proud smile.

  inally, when the time had come for their exhibition run through the

  space course, Jaina signaled for her brothers to join them in the

  ship.

  In less than a minute, Jacen and Anakin were fastening themselves in

  with crash restraints as Jaina sealed the boarding ramp and Han powered

  up the repulsor engines. From the Falcon's cockpit, Han informed the

  Derby officials they were ready.

  "Hang on, kids," Han said. He was clearly not comfortable to be the

  center of so much attention as Grand Marshal of the Blockade Runners

  Derby, but he was also just cocky enough to want to show off for all

  the spectators.

  "It's just a little practice trip," Jacen said. "No big deal." Both

  Jaina and Han turned to look at him with mischievous glints in their

  eyes.

  "We might have to execute a few fast turns," Jaina said.

  "Just to make it more realistic," Han added.

  " 'Execute,' " Jacen said. "I'm not sure I like the sound of that."

  Anakin gave his brother a teasing look. "Nervous?"

  "Don't worry, we've got everything under control," Jaina assured her

  twin.

  Together, she and her father worked the Falcon's systems, moving like

  an experienced team. Jaina could sense what her father intended to do,

  and she realized she might indeed have the makings of a great

  copilot.

  "Hey, where does a full-grown bantha sit?" Jacen asked.

  Jaina groaned and rolled her eyes, but Anakin played along. He

  answered in a serious voice, as if this topic had been of a lifelong

  concern to him. "I've always wondered about that-where does a

  fullgrown bantha sit?"

  Jacen chortled. "Anywhere he wants to!"

  Jaina reached behind her seat to give her twin a good-natured swat as

  the comm speakers crackled to life.

  "This is Ord Mantell docking control to Millennium Falcon," a voice

  announced. "We are ready for you to begin."

  "We're coming," Han said as the Falcon drifted up through the rooftop

  hatches. The bright sunlight in Ord Mantell's open sky splashed across

  the hull, gleaming through the cockpit windowports.

  As Jaina's eyes adjusted, she saw that the blocky, drab buildings were

  now festooned with colorful banners. Bobbing repulsorspheres floated

  in the air, trailing narrow metallic streamers. Rainbow-hued tassels,

  like levitating balls of tangled ribbon, flitted about in flocks.

  Jacen cried out with delight. "Hey, they're alive! I've heard of

  them-Ord Mantellian flutterplumes."

  Jaina could see that the tiny ribbons were indeed alive, drifting like

  clusters of colorful worms in the air.

  The voice over the cockpit speakers grew louder, as if shouting to

  millions of other listeners. "The Ninety-Third Annual Blockade Runners

  Derby is about to begin! Please welcome the Millennium Falcon, piloted

  by General Han Solo, three-time winner of the Derby!"

  The cheers drifting up from the rooftops below sounded like a distant

  avalanche. Small one-person fliers drew close to the Falcon, shoving

  holocams to the viewports and taking pictures as the ship cruised

  along. Han grinned and waved at the nearest HoloNet news reporter.

  "Didn't expect such a big send-off," Jaina muttered.

  Han grinned at her. "Guess we'd better give them a show worth

  watching." He punched the sublight engines, and a blue-white glow

  flared from the rear of the Millennium Falcon, pushing them forward.

  They arrowed up into the sky, leaving the holocams and the crowds

  behind. Their journey would be broadcast, though, by remote observer

  cams planted in buoys all along the route to record the race.

  Jaina called up the course diagram and displayed it in three dimensions

  so that Anakin and Jacen could study it to find any potential points of

  difficulty Han and Jaina might have missed. The Blockade Runners Derby

  ran up out of the orbital plane into the tangled, diffuse cometary

  cloud that surrounded the Ord Mantell system like a distant bubble made

  up of mountains of ice and rock.

  Frequently, gravitational perturbations from nearby star systems or

  planetary alignments would knock some of these tenuously held comets

  loose from their holding patterns, and the comets would fall down

  toward the sun. As they heated up, the gases would evaporate,

  stretching out into wispy tails of dust and ionized gas, making

  beautiful sights in the Ord Mantellian sky. But out here, in the deep

  cold of space, the comet chunks were dark, erratic navigational

  hazards, as dangerous as a swarm of piranha beetles.

  During the Blockade Runners Derby, ships weaved through the tumbling

  ice cloud, ducking around and through protocomets. Speed and skill

  counted for everything ... including a ship's survival, of course.

  Leaving the planet's atmosphere, Han Solo increased the Falcon's

  speed.

  He roared up at full acceleration, straight out of the ecliptic and

  into the cometary cloud. Jaina felt the skin on her cheeks pulled back

  by gravitational force as the engines labored. She was glad they had

  just
tuned them up.

  "Why so fast, Dad?" Jacen said from his seat in the rear. "We're just

  a slow, sedate pace craft, not an official contestant."

  Anakin said in a level voice, "I think Dad's just trying to get some of

  the frustration out of his system."

  "Not exactly," Han said to his sons. "We're running through the

  course, but"-he raised his forefinger-"they're also recording our

  time.

  So wouldn't it be wonderful if the old Falcon happened to do better

  than any of the actual contestants? How could the real winner ever

  live down his shame?"

  "Or her shame," Jaina said.

  "Or its shame," Jacen added.

  "I get the point," Han said. "I intend to beat even my last speed

  record, when I actually won this thing."

  "Is that breaking the rules?" Anakin asked.

  "Naw. But it'll give the crowds something to talk about for years."

  Han worked the controls, increasing speed again. "Hang on,

  everybody.

  Comet cloud ahead."

  Jaina adjusted the controls, activating the newly installed windowport

  filters. "I'm increasing infrared pickup," she said. "There's not

  much reflected sunlight out here, but this way we'll be able to detect

  the comets a little better."

  Suddenly the view changed color as they hurtled forward. Glinting,

  tumbling specks became visible like a cloud of sparks drifting toward

  them. In the holographic projection of the cometary cloud, a dotted

  line wove like a needle and thread through the loosely packed cluster

  of ice fragments.

  "All right," Han said. "Get ready for some tricky maneuvers."

  Almost before Jaina realized it, they exploded into the blizzard of ice

  chunks. Some were nearly round, some blocky and geometric, others

  spiny with crystalline formations.

  Han gave a howl of delight as he spun the Falcon around. Jaina watched

  the engines while Anakin monitored their course. They skimmed low over

  one ice field, then looped around. The comets were so small and light

  that their weak gravity had little effect on the ship's navigation.

  A tiny fragment of ice too small to be detected on their sensors

  evaporated against their deflector screen in a sparkle of light. More

  bright flashes appeared as the Falcon continued without slowing.

  "Hey, it's like we're in a snowstorm," Jacen said.

  "More like a hailstorm," Jaina said. "Those little bits of ice would

  poke holes right through us at our speed if the deflector shields

  weren't working."

  "You did tune them up, didn't you?" Jacen asked.

  "Naturally. Nothing to worry about."

  Han focused ahead and plowed through a gaping cave in a fragile ice

  latticework, a comet that looked like crystal straws melted together.

  One of the tiny shafts struck the deflector shield and snapped. The

  entire cave opening began to collapse as the Falcon soared through and

  burst out the other side. But the comet's gravity was so low that it

  would take well over an hour for the avalanche to complete itself "I'm

  increasing speed," Han said.

  "Dad, you're already close to the red lines," Jaina warned.

  "And close to beating my record, too. Let's keep on with it, but keep

  your Jedi senses alert for anything unexpected."

  "We will," Jacen said with conviction.

  "We always do," Anakin added.

  The ice boulders spun around as they whipped through a denser orbit.

  Jaina spotted holocam buoys mounted on some of the ice chunks, and she

  knew that thousands of spectators on Ord Mantell were even now watching

  their flight. By now everyone would see that Han Solo was recklessly

  trying to break his speed record, and that his kids were helping him.

  Jaina smiled to herself. She would just have to make sure her father

  didn't get embarrassed.

  "Let's tighten the course," she said, looking at the projection.

  "Gravity calculations show we could come even closer to that next

  comet, make a sharper turn to shave off a bit of distance here and

  increase our speed, whip around this hazard, come out in a backward

  spiral, and pull up."

  "Yeah. That might make just enough difference," Han said with a

  grin.

  They soared so close to the rotating ball of ice that Jaina could have

  extended the landing ramp and scraped a long gouge across the ice

  field.

  "This is just like when we ran through the rubble field of Alderean,"

  Jacen said.

  Ahead, four large fragments drifted close together where one comet had

  broken into loosely attached boulders. Han narrowed his eyes, and

  Jaina scanned the motion of the chunks.

  Anakin watched them intently. "I see the patterns" he said. "We can

  go straight through-if you time it right."

  "At full speed?" Han said.

  "You're going to have to," Anakin answered.

  Han roared ahead, straight toward the apparent blockade, but Jaina

  could see the comets moving, opening up. She saw the gap spreading and

  wondered if it would be wide enough to allow their ship to pass

  through.

  "I've got a bad feeling about this," Jacen said. Jaina thought her

  brother was making a joke with their father's oft-used phrase, but as

  they approached the broken comet, she felt uneasiness herself.

  "Yes, something's wrong," Anakin said.

  Jaina watched the fragments moving, plotted their course again. It

  would be tight, but it seemed clear they would make it. The ship

  entered the slowly opening gap between rocky mountains of snow. Their

  deflector shield sizzled, vaporizing some of the snow and ice away from

  the broken comet.

  "If you're worried about something, kids, tell me now."

  "It's not the comet, Dad," Jaina said. "It's. . ." Then she looked

  up at the enhanced infrared filter and saw an array of small artificial

  objects, a matrix of tiny spheres, hovering just outside of the broken

  cometary hulk.

  "Hey, what are those?" Jacen said.

  "Space mines," Anakin answered in a maddeningly calm voice.

  "Punch it, Dad!" Jaina cried. Han Solo reacted instantly, hammering

  at the emergency thrusters. The Falcon was already sailing at twice

  the expected speed for the pace craft, and now it went into an

  overdrive launch.

  Jaina grabbed the navigation controls herself and yanked the ship to

  one side, putting the Falcon into a tight corkscrew that plowed through

  the array of space mines like a drill bit. They zoomed by so fast

  Jaina barely caught a glimpse of the deadly explosive devices as the

  cluster detonated.

  The Falcon roared away as fast as the shock wave accelerated toward

  them. Fourteen of the space mines blew up behind them. Jaina could

  count them through the rear sensor screens. When it struck, the shock

  wave knocked them about, but they were already tumbling. The Falcon

  narrowly missed another large comet as Jaina regained control in the

  copilot's seat.

  "Space mines!" Han cried. "How did they get out here? This is the

  Derby course! It's supposed to be completely mapped and checked out

  before anyone ever flies it."

  The Fa
lcon slowed, recovering, and Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin all looked

  at each other. Han gasped, "If we hadn't been traveling so fast, and

  you kids hadn't warned me in time, we would've been right in the middle

  of that cluster when it exploded. But you dodged it, Jaina. Good

  piloting. And our speed helped us outrun most of the shock wave."

  "But the course should have been clear and safe," Jacen insisted.

  "That's why they have a pace craft, isn't it, Dad?" Anakin said

  suddenly. "To prove that the course is safe for the contestants?"

  "Sure ... but it's always been just a formality. Until now."

  Jaina shivered and gripped her crash restraints tightly. "You mean

  maybe somebody put the explosives there on purpose-knowing the Falcon

  would be the first ship to fly through."

  After the "accident," Han Solo circled back to collect debris from the

  space mines and deactivate two unexploded duds. The pieces would serve

  as evidence of the explosions and help them to find out who had set the

  trap.

  "I guess this ruined your chance at a record-breaking time," Jacen said

  as the ship headed back toward Ord Mantell. Jaina and Anakin