Part 29 (2/2)

”Ebrihim !” he shouted across the wind that was suddenly blowing through the room. ”Chewbacca's taking us to the Millennium Falcon on the roof. Follow if you can.

But Ebrihim had been knocked about by the second blast, and was still too dazed to respond. Q9 extruded a pair of his carry arms, scooped up his master, and levitated on his repulsors. ”Lead the way!”

he shouted.

Boom! Another explosion, farther off this time, shuddered through the building. Chewie turned and headed for the door, already wrenched halfway out of its frame. He kicked it the rest of the way down and rushed out into the hallway, Q9 right behind him.

The turpolift had been designed to survive a major earthquake and still keep working. Chewbacca slapped at the call b.u.t.ton, and the doors of the turbolift car slid open. He half dropped, half threw the children into it, and stood aside as Q9 hustled in.

The door slid shut-and Chewbacca suddenly roared in frustration again and started pounding on it. The controls were dead.

”It's okay, Chewbacca,” Jacen said. ”I've got my thumbprint card.

He pulled it from his pocket, put it in the slot, and pressed his thumb down on the verification plate.

The controls came to life, and Jacen punched the roof b.u.t.ton. The turbolift car staed moving up.

The first explosion had been at ground level, and had shaken the lower floors of Corona House with greater violence.

The second had been some sort of rocket fired into the seventh or eighth floor. No one seemed quite sure where the third had hit. Not a piece of furniture was still standing upright in Micamberlecto's sixth-floor office. All the lights and the wired com lines were dead, but the portable comlinks were still operational. There had been two or three bad injuries from broken gla.s.s, but no fatalities, for a miracle.

”Chewie! Chewie! This is Han! Come in!” Han had been frantically trying to raise Chewbacca on his comlink since the moment of the first blast. His children. His children were up there. If anything had happened to them .

”Chewie! Chewie! Come in, please!”

”Dad! It's me, Jacen. Dad, are you and Mom okay?”

”Jacen! Yes, yes, we're fine. Where are you?” Relief washed over Han, and vanished just as suddenly. They were still alive, but the danger wasn't going away.

”We're on the roof, headed for the Falcon. Chewie's too busy to talk.

”I'll bet he is. Did he get all of you out?”

”Yes! He got all three of us kids up here, and Ebrihim and Q9, too. But Chewie says we have to leave without you!”

”He's right, son,” Han said. ”He's right. Your mother and 1 have to stay here.” No sense telling him that they had to stay here because the lower turbolift shaft had almost certainly been blown to bits along with the stairwell. Han was fairly certain that the explosions had been touched off in order to bottle up the governor-general in his office.

”We'll meet up with you when we can. Right now you have to do what Chewie says, and take care of your sister and brother.

”But, Dad-”

”No time for that now,” Han said. ”Get in that s.h.i.+p and do what Chewie says. Tell your brother and sister that your mother and I love you very much. Now go. Go.”

”Okay,” said the tiny voice coming from the comlink.

”We'll do our best. Good-good-bye, Dad.”

”Good-bye, son,” Han said, wondering just how long a good-bye it might be. There were at least fair odds that it would be forever. He stuffed the comlink in his pocket and went over to where Leia was tending to the GovernorGeneral. It looked as if Micamberlecto was only shaken up, not seriously injured. Not even a broken bone, which was a bit of a miracle considering how long his arm and leg bones were.

”Chewie has the kids,” Han said. ”They've reached the Falcon and should be able to lift off any second now.

They're all okay.”

”Thank the stars for that,” Leia said. ”I reached out to them with the Force, and I could feel they were scared but all right, but they were so terrified I couldn't get anything more. Good. Good.”

”Well, it's the only thing that is good around here,” Han said.

Chewbacca powered up the Millennium Falcon's repulsor engines and slammed them over to maximum from a standard start. He did not want to let anyone get a chance to draw a bead on the s.h.i.+p. The Falcon shot straight up in the air, and Chewie cut in the main sublight engines the moment he was clear, not even thinking about a course. The Falcon leaped forward and up into the sky, toward s.p.a.ce and the safety of the stars.

Chewie had no course, and no navigational fixes, but he also had no options. He had to get out of there and far away as soon as possible.

Once they were in s.p.a.ce, he could worry about where they were going.

a.s.suming, of course, that the Falcon held together that long.

Two hours after the double explosions, the Governor-General's office was back in some sort of order. There didn't seem to be any hope of reaching the upper floors for the time being, but the lower-level explosion had not been as effective at cutting off escape-if that indeed had been its purpose. It might just have been someone raising a rather vigorous objection to New Republican policy. In any event, there seemed to be two or three places where it would be possible to drop to the ground from what was left of the second or third floor.

Of course, it seemed more than a little likely that there were snipers out there. But Han didn't see much chance of living through all this anyway. At this point, everyone still in Corona House was, to all intents and purposes, a political prisoner, and probably a hostage as well. And the people running this show didn't seem like the types who would need much excuse to shoot hostages. No, better to go out his own way. He had a job to do, and he would do it as soon as it was nightfall.

He found a private corner of the office, pulled out his comlink again, and set it to a new frequency. He had to a.s.sume that someone out there was listening in-but on the other hand, either the comlink's scramblers were working, or they weren't. It was not a time for playing it safe. If he started talking in vague, cryptic plrrases that could easily produce fatal confusion.

”Solo to Kalenda. Come in. Come in. Do you read.”

No answer. He tried again. ”Solo to Kalenda. Come in.

Come in. Do you read?”

”This is Kalenda to Solo,” said the voice over the comlink's tiny speaker. ”I was starting to worry.”

”Well, don't stop yet,” Han said. ”Things are not going to get better. I have a job for you, and it needs doing. Do you think you could get to the s.p.a.ceport and steal a s.h.i.+p?

One with a hyperrlrive?”

”Possibly,” Kalenda said. ”It won't be easy.”

”Then it's time to do something hard. Besides, I should be able to give you some help. I am going to try and get out of here an hour after sunset. Do you have a groundcar or a hovercar at this point?”

”Groundcar, yes.”

”Good,” he said. ”Then meet me in three hours at the corner of Starliner and Volbick.” He did not bother to ask her if she knew where that was. If she was the sort of person who couldn't manage to find it on her own, they were all dead anyway. ”I have a package-a very small packagefor you. You are to deliver it directly and personally either to Mon Motlima, Admiral Ackbar, or Luke Skywalker.”

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