Under A Black Sun Trilogy Page 7
who you are. Are you a Jedi Knight?"
The woman snorted. "Just because I can use a lightsaber doesn't mean
I'm a Jedi. I don't need all that elite training mumbo jumbo. I can
fight just fine on my own."
"We could see that," Jacen said, enthralled.
Tenel Ka narrowed her eyes. "Fighting with finesse is a greater
challenge than indulging a simple battle frenzy."
The woman scowled. "Yeah? I seem to remember taking out more targets
in this little skirmish than you did."
At that moment, Han Solo came rushing in, accompanied by several
members of the Ord Mantell security forces. He looked around, taking
in the carnage and the sight of the young Jedi Knights standing with
their lightsabers still blazing. "We came as soon as we got Anakin's
alarm! Are you kids okay?"
Jaina switched off her weapon. "We handled it, Dad," she said.
"I can see that." Then he noticed the young stranger, who was now
staring at him, her dark eyes ablaze with fury. She stepped forward in
a tense, threatening posture, her yellow lightsaber held out in front
of her. "Han Solo!" she said, her voice dripping with anger.
Han looked at her, but his face showed no recognition.
"Han Solo," she repeated. "You killed my father!"
Upon hearing the stranger's shocking and sinister announcement, Jacen
instinctively moved with his sister to stand beside their father.
Anakin came out of the Rock Dragon, lifting his chin high.
"I don't know what you're talking about, young lady," Han said.
"I don't even know who you are."
"You'd better explain yourself," Jacen said. "Sure, we're glad you
helped us out, but how dare you go accusing my father of murder?"
The young woman did not tear her gaze away from Han Solo. Her dark,
sad eyes narrowed, as hard and glassy as chips of obsidian. Tenel Ka,
Lowie, and Zekk also stood beside Han, but the young woman did not seem
to care a whit about being outnumbered. She still held her flickering
lightsaber as if ready to take them all on.
"My name is Anja," she said, her voice cold and even. "Anja
Gallandro.
" Jacen watched his father flinch and draw back. His expression fell,
and he swallowed hard. Jacen blinked, surprised at the guilty reaction
his father had shown. Was there something to what this young woman had
- said?
"You ... you're Gallandro's daughter?"
"In the flesh," Anja said. "I was just an infant when you murdered my
father."
"Wait a minute." Han held up a hand. "I didn't kill Gallandro."
"I'm surprised you even remember him," Anja said bitterly. "With a
career like yours, the way you stepped on your competition, cheated
people, dumped your spice loads at the first sign of Imperial patrols,
no wonder you've had a price on your head for most of your life."
"Of course I remember Gallandro," Han spluttered. He looked around
nervously at the Ord Mantell security troops who had come with him to
investigate the alarm, at the dead chameleon creatures that lay strewn
on the floor. Han didn't seem to notice that the space mines had been
stolen.
He said to the troops, "Clean up this mess and ... report everything to
the authorities. I want to file an official complaint." He tossed his
dark hair back. "My kids were threatened. They could have been
hurt."
"How touching," Anja said.
Han marched briskly toward the Millennium Falcon with a strong
gesture.
"Come with me. We'll talk inside the Falcon, where we can have a bit
of privacy." He strode up the boarding ramp and did not look back.
Jacen turned to his sister, and they shared a hard glance. Then all
the young Jedi Knights quickly followed Han into his beloved, battered
ship. Anja sniffed, drew a deep breath, and switched off her
lightsaber.
She clipped it at her side. After waiting for them all to board the
Falcon ahead of her, she followed them up, wary, as if suspecting a
trap.
Han slumped heavily into a seat in the small recreation lounge, with
its scratched and dented hologame table in the center. Equipment,
spare parts, and leftovers from various cargo trips hung in the supply
bins and nets. The ship looked lived in, comfortable and messy, like a
familiar bedroom that wasn't cleaned up any more than it had to be.
Jacen knew that their mother Leia never made any demands on Han Solo's
upkeep of the Falcon. This was his private area, and he could do what
he wanted here, so long as it was safe.
"You can't lie to me, Solo," Anja said, preferring to stand despite the
empty seats available. Instead, she watched him, then paced around the
room looking at Han's mementos and trophies of missions he had flown.
"I've spent my life learningabout my father. My mother told me some
stories before she died, and there are plenty of records in the
Corporate Sector Authority archives."
"Well, your father was a hard one to forget," Han Solo admitted.
"He was reputed to be the fastest draw in the galaxy. Challenged the
clan leader to a duel on the planet Ammuud, but when I was picked as
his opponent, Gallandro declined to fight me."
Anja snorted in disbelief "There was more to it than that. My father
was working for the Corporate Sector Authority to break a slaving
ring.
Slavers you were involved with, Solo."
"I didn't know!" Han said. "Anyway, I'm the one that got all the
records the Corporate Sector needed to convict the ringleaders."
"But then you overwhelmed my father, humiliated him, and fled justice
so you couldn't be charged for the crimes you had committed."
Han looked at his children, who stared back with questions in their
eyes. "Hey, that was a long time ago-and I didn't really do anything
wrong."
Anja laughed bitterly. "Nothing wrong? How about when you killed my
father?"
"But," Han insisted, "I didn't kill him. I wasn't even there. He had
stunned me, and then went off-" "Hah. You were in the buried derelict
Queen of Rangoon, searching for the lost treasure of Xim the Despot.
My father and you had agreed to work together to find the hoard that
had been hidden thousands of years before the rise of the Old
Republic.
But when you finally discovered the treasure vaults, you double-crossed
him. Shot him in the back, from what I hear."
"No. That's not true," Han Solo said, his face drawn and angry now.
Jacen looked back and forth, from the stern, troubled anger of the
young woman to his father's baffled yet clearly guilt-ridden denial.
"It wasn't my fault," Han said.
"And a few years later, I was left an orphan on war-torn Anobis.
My father had come through Ord Mantell many times. He met my mother on
nearby Anobis just as the civil war was starting. They fell in love,
but he wasn't home much because he had his missions to accomplish. My
father did great work as an agent for the Corporate Sector.
"But from one mission he never returned home. My mother was
devastated. My planet was being ripped apart by a civil war caused by
the Imperials and the Rebellion-and she died in despair, a widow. You
took my father away."
"Hey, I didn't kill your father. Gallandro was responsible for his own
death. He made a choice, and let down his guard...... Han struggled to
find the right words. "He set himself up for what happened."
"Yeah. And you shot him," Anja replied.
Han Solo spread his hands but seemed to see the futility of making any
further protestations. Jacen wondered why his father couldn't just
convince her, why he didn't haul out proof of what had actually
happened, why he didn't even explain himself fully. What did he have
to hide?
Anja sniffed the recirculated air inside the Falcon's enclosed
spaces.
Jacen suddenly noticed the sour smell of Ifibricants, old upholstery,
numerous meals from Corellian food packs, and the metallic tang from
air that had gone too many times through the oxygen scrubbers.
"You've done well for yourself, Solo," Anja said, her eyes huge and
tired. "Married to the New Republic's Chief of State, three kids
training to be Jedi, Grand Marshal of the Blockade Runners Derby. I'll
bet you're pretty proud. But at what price did you gain all this?
Everyone you stepped on along the way can see full well how you got
where you are." Anja abruptly turned and marched toward the boarding
ramp. "This isn't what I expected. I had hoped for a fight. I wanted
you to argue.
But you, Han Solo ... you're nothing. Compared to my father, what he
was and what he did, you're too insignificant for me to kill."
"Wait!" Han Solo said with no conviction in his voice whatsoever.
"There's a lot I can tell you about your father. He and I weren't
always enemies, you know. More like rivals, just competitors."
"I don't want to hear it, Solo. Especially not from you." She strode
out. The young Jedi Knights followed her to the boarding ramp, and Han
Solo joined them as Anja stalked away from the ship.
Outside, the Ord Mantell guards and cleanup crew had nearly finished
restoring the docking bay to a reasonably tidy appearance. They paid
no attention to the angry young woman who hurried away from the
battered spaceship.
Suddenly Anja stopped, as if gathering her nerve, and turned around to
flash another angry glance at Han. "If you're such a champion of
goodness and righteousness, Solo," Anja said, her voice laced with
venom, "and if you and the New Republic really have the best interests
of the galaxy in mind, why is it that for about twenty-five
yearsthroughout the Rebellion and now during the growth of the New
Republic-you have simply ignored my war-torn world? Why has Anobis
been completely passed over by all of your peacekeeping and reparation
efforts? Why have we received no help?" Her voice was choked with
emotion.
Jaina turned to her father. "I never even heard of Anobis before we
came to Ord Mantell," she said.
Anja continued, hurling the words at him like weapons. "Anobis began
to fight with itself in the last days of the Empire when the
agricultural plains villages took up the cause of the Rebellion, hoping
to overthrow Imperial rule. The mountain mining villages, though,
required interstellar trade to survive and wanted to maintain the
stability of the Empire. Thus a civil war began, with Rebel
sympathizers and Imperial sympathizers tearing each other apart. It's
never stopped, and our world is now one big scar."
"But the Rebellion's been over for decades," Jacen said. "How could it
still be an issue? The Emperor's long dead."
"And my people are still fighting. Only now they're fighting for a
cause rather than for reality. You should go to Anobis, Solo. Take a
good look at what's happening there. If you can tear yourself away
from such important diplomatic duties as watching space races or waving
banners in the winner's circle."
She glanced one more time over her shoulder. "Why don't you find out
where your help is really needed? If you're brave enough to accept the
challenge." Then Anja marched away, leaving Han Solo and the young
Jedi Knights behind, flustered and disturbed.
Putting the despised Han Solo behind her, Anja hurried away from the
docking bay, moving faster than she had expected. Emotions surged
through her, and adrenaline flooded her body. She had been warned that
the encounter might affect her strongly, but she now found herself
relishing the moment she had anticipated all her life.
The setup had been perfect, and Solo's reaction was priceless. Guilt
had been written like a brilliant holographic billboard across his
face.
Even his own children would have to doubt him now.
Oh, how she hated the man. Anja gripped the lightsaber hilt that hung
at her waist. Her fingers spasmed. She stretched out her hand in
front of her and watched her fingers tremble until she forced a calm
upon them.
Calm ... calm.
She stepped into a turbolift that took her down to the lower levels of
the tall, nondescript warehouses. She paced inside the enclosed lift,
feeling like a trapped animal. With a clenched fist she pounded on the
metal wall, but the slow repulsor engines took no notice of her
frustration. She gritted her teeth and breathed deeply, but the cold
air held a tart and metallic smell. Sweat trickled down her temples
and leaked out from under the leather headband.
Han Solo's face kept flashing in front of her mind's eye, taunting her
with the thought of all the unfair advantages he had in his life-his
three delightful children, his beautiful quarters at the old Imperial
Palace ...
After an eternity, the lift doors opened, and Anja dashed out onto the
midlevel connecting walkways. She glanced at her wrist chronometer.
It was late. She would miss her meeting unless she ran. A feral grin
spread across her face. She could handle it. She had plenty of excess
energy to burn off, so she sprinted. Her small feet made light
clanging sounds on the metal walkways as she turned, descended a
hollow-sounding staircase, and ran between a pair of large buildings in
search of the right entrance.
Because of the privacy and secrecy requirements on Ord Mantell, most
buildings were not numbered or identified in any way. That proved a
detriment only to people who didn't know where they were going.
And Anja Gallandro knew where she was going.
Inside the echoing, complicated enclosures, she saw a host of
shadylooking creatures. Some were bounty hunters or scavengers,
criminals of various sorts huddling in the alleyways. Suspicious eyes
gleamed at her, some on swiveling stalks, some with faceted insect eyes
that captured multiple images of her figure as she flitted down one
narrow alley into another. When she finally reached a sealed door with
a hidden keypad, Anja punched in the code, then paced and fidgeted for
the two seconds it took for the door to acknowledge her presence and
slide open.
She ducked inside, hot, anxious, burning with inner energy. The
door
sealed behind her with a thunk. Inside, the room was dark. Anja
waited, refusing to be intimidated. Her heart still pounded, and her
head seemed to crackle with static from the fading aftereffects of the
dose she had taken.
Suddenly all the chamber lights blazed on. Anja stood blinking,
unmoving. She knew this couldn't be a trap, because her employer had
had ample opportunity to kill her before-and now she had information he
needed.
"So what have you learned, little velser?" Czethros said from his
comfortable seat. His single cybernetic eye blazed red behind his
visor.
Velser. At first, Anja had hated the nickname Czethros gave her after
taking her under his wing and training hell- to be his tool, his
weapon.
But then Anja had learned that velsers- :re fearsome, fastflying
predatory creatures from Bespin. They were sleek, deadly attackers.
She could think of worse things to be called.
"I learned quite a bit. I met Han Solo," she said. "I told you those
old space mines you set as a trap wouldn't fool him for an instant.
Now he's on his guard. I hate the man, but I respect his abilities.
His children have excellent skills as well-I watched them fight." She
tossed her streaked hair back, adjusted her headband, and raised her