CORUSCANT

CHAPTER 12

Leaving the Jedi praxeum behind, Luke took Callista with him to Coruscant where Luke had set up a private audience with his sister. He quickly met with Leia and delivered the information Mara Jade had brought. Added to what they had already learned at the ruins of Jabba’s palace, the rumors of a Hutt secret plan grew more threatening. Leia had already reinforced her network of spies, hoping to gather more hints and details.

In the ornate presidential briefing chambers, Callista sat next to Luke, her fingers resting lightly on his forearm, but he could not feel the binding of her presence around him. It was as if she did not exist in the Force.

Luke looked into his sister’s large brown eyes, mapping out the faint tired lines that had begun to form around them. The weight of leadership pressed down heavily upon her. The New Republic was large and scattered, beset by hundreds of problems, brushfire squabbles, and growing threats. And Leia had three children to contend with, as well as a husband.

“Leia,” Luke said, “I have a request, an important favor to ask.”

She sat up straighter, looking at Callista and then at her brother. “The last time you asked for a favor was to let Kyp Durron destroy the Sun Crusher.” She bit her lower lip. “But I suppose that came out all right.”

Luke relaxed. “Nothing so monumental this time,” he said. “Callista and I have a lot of things to work out between ourselves. We need some time alone so we can devote our attention to reawakening her Jedi powers. She could be one of our strongest Jedi, if she regains her affinity for the Force. She could teach me a lot. I think the only way we can crack that wall around her is if Callista and I work together. Intensely.” He grasped her hand. “We need a week or so alone, to focus on salvaging her powers, not a thousand other problems. No distractions.”

Leia smiled wistfully. “I know exactly how you feel.…” Then she became serious. “I can’t order you around, Luke. There’s no need for you to ask my permission.”

Leia looked at Callista, and Luke could see that her face held a whirlpool of conflicting emotions: the need to see her brother happy, the desire for Callista to be his equal again, and her own need to keep Luke focused on training new Jedi Knights to strengthen and protect the New Republic.

But Leia loved her brother very much, and her choice was clear. “Take all the time you need. I wish you the greatest success.” She looked up. “Or should I say, may the Force be with you?”

Later, still holding hands, Luke and Callista went to the upper westside docking platform of the former Imperial palace. The air was thin so high above ground level, and the gusting breezes were cold and cutting.

He squeezed Callista’s hand, and her grip returned his twice as strong. Though Luke couldn’t read anything from her with his Jedi senses, he saw her obvious eagerness mixed with reluctance. Callista shared his high hopes for their journey alone, but she was also afraid they would fail.

Leia, her robes of state whipping briskly around her, held the hands of the twins, Jacen and Jaina, as she came to see Luke off, while Han carried young Anakin propped against his hip; the dark-haired boy blinked his ice blue-eyes, drinking in the sights.

Threepio and Artoo came along at their own pace, though the hairy Wookiee urged them to greater speed. “Do be patient, Chewbacca,” Threepio said. “I can only move so fast. If you had replaced my leg servomotors last week—as I suggested—I’d be able to move much more efficiently.” The Wookiee groaned something untranslatable back at the golden droid.

Callista stood by Luke’s side at the boarding ramp to a nondescript space yacht. Luke saw her in profile—her long face and generous lips, her highlighted blond hair that had been cropped short and was still growing out from her stormtrooper cut on the Eye of Palpatine. Han had once called her “the blonde with the legs,” and Luke couldn’t argue with that description.

Callista was so beautiful to him—but that wasn’t all. Many women were beautiful. With the Force, he had seen Callista inside. He knew her in a way it was impossible to know most women. They had fallen in love before they had even seen each other face to face, back when Callista had been no more than a wandering presence. Now she inhabited another body—a beautiful body, to be sure, but Luke would have loved her no matter what. They had treasured one another in Luke’s dreams before Callista had manifested herself in the body of one of his former students.

Now, as they stood in front of the space yacht, Luke watched Callista staring wistfully at Han and Leia’s children. Her lips were firm, and her eyes remained wide and clear, but he knew exactly what she was thinking.

The children. Luke and Callista had spoken of having children of their own if they were to get married. Callista insisted that Luke, being the foremost Jedi Master of the day, must have powerful children, to make the strong Jedi bloodline flourish—if one were to look at romance in such a cold and … Imperial fashion.

She was terrified that if they had children while she had no access to her powers, their descendants might suffer the same Force blindness. But Luke didn’t care: he wanted Callista, though she would not listen when he tried to reassure her. Their only chance lay in severing the invisible chains around her, breaking through the maddening transparent wall.

Leia came forward to hug Luke. High above the skyline, the wind picked up, and breezes stung his blue eyes, whipping his hair in all directions. He bent down to scoop up the kids in a warm hug.

“Now do I get to hug Callista?” Han said, and came forward to give her a brief embrace as Leia laughed. Chewbacca blatted something, and Han waved him aside. “Nah, Chewie—you can hug Threepio if you want.”

“Well, the very idea!” Threepio said.

Luke set foot on the boarding platform with Callista at his side. Artoo whistled mournfully, blinking his optical receptor from red to blue. “Don’t worry, Artoo,” Luke said. “You enjoy your time with Threepio. We need to be by ourselves for a bit.”

When Artoo gave a low hoot, See-Threepio placed a golden hand on the dome of the astromech droid in indignation. “Humph! I’m sure I see no need for a starry-eyed couple to turn down the companionship of a faithful droid. I can’t imagine why they’d need to be completely alone.” He patted his counterpart. “Come along, Artoo. We’ll find something useful to do.”

As the droids hurried toward the turbolift, Luke and Callista waved farewell again and prepared for launch.

* * *

See-Threepio and Artoo-Detoo passed through nine security checkpoints as the turbolift descended deep into Coruscant’s crust. “We’re obviously droids,” Threepio muttered. “I simply don’t understand why they need to put us through such indignities to get down here. Virus scanning, indeed!”

Finally the doors hissed open, and they stepped into the sterile chambers of pulsating mainframe computers in the Imperial Information Center.

“Remember when you and I were here, Artoo, trying to find Jedi candidates for Master Luke?” Artoo bleeped that of course he remembered.

“This time it’s nothing terribly exciting, I’m afraid, but in the process of studying backup files for Mistress Leia, I discovered some troubling computer glitches that I’m at a loss to account for. I cannot find any trace of them before the day that horrid Durga the Hutt came to visit and all chaos broke loose. At first I was concerned that our mitigation efforts might have caused some deep core damage, but standard diagnostics yielded nothing. I have been reticent to point this out to Mistress Leia because I’m sure she’s still upset about that entire debacle.”

Artoo trundled across the polished floor. The assassin droids trained their implanted blasters on the two newcomers, targeting systems tracking the large motions. A battery of observation cams studied them with cold objectivity from near the juncture of wall and ceiling.

“This place gives me the chills … rather, it would give me the chills, if I had the physical capability to have them,” Threepio said. “As it is, my circuits are merely … uneasy—but if you could do anything to assist me, Artoo … ?”

The astromech droid was already accessing a terminal, requesting further details. Artoo’s input jack locked into the main drive and spun around. Threepio paced about in stiff discomfort. The assassin droids stared at them. The sheer droids paid no attention whatsoever.

“Would you like me to tell you a story to pass the time, Artoo?” Threepio said.

Artoo blatted an emphatic NO.

“Well, really!” Threepio bent over one of the keypads and detected something most surprising. He reached down with his gold-plated fingertips and held up a small tuft of grayish fur. “Oh dear, I wonder how this got here?” he said. “This room is supposed to be kept meticulously clean.”

He examined the floor and inspected the wall. His optical sensors were drawn to a small ventilation intake for the huge intake fans that circulated supercooled air to the deep levels of the Information Center. The cover plate stood ajar, but it was far too small for any intelligent creature to have come through. Could the Imperial Information Center be inhabited by some sort of large rodent?

Artoo shrilled in alarm, and Threepio strutted over to a screen where the astromech droid had begun replaying archival video records from the security monitoring cameras. Threepio saw from the date on the images that the footage had been taken while Durga’s entourage met with the Chief of State in the reception halls far above. Because no security breach had been recorded down here in the Imperial Information Center, though, no one had bothered to do more than a cursory scan on them.

Artoo manipulated the images, enhancing and enlarging them, massaging out shadows by playing virtual light into the images.

“Why, I recognize those!” Threepio said. Just at the edge of the frame, motion gave away three of the furry, multiarmed Taurill scampering out of the ventilation ducts and up to the unmanned computer consoles.

“Whatever are they doing?” Threepio said. “How could they possibly have gotten down here? We rounded them all up, didn’t we?”

Artoo chittered, then froze another image that showed the Taurill deliberately punching commands into a keypad.

“This is most suspicious,” Threepio said.

The droids watched as the three Taurill completed their command strings and copied a file into a data cylinder, which they secreted in their own fur; then they dashed back to the ventilation shafts.

“It would appear that they’ve copied something from our records. What could they possibly want?” Threepio said. At Artoo’s warbled reply, he added, “Of course I’d like you to find out! Why else would 1 have brought you along, you silly whistling trash can?”

Artoo replayed the images slowly, noting the Taurill command strings, then input them himself. The pass-worded files scrolled onto the screen, immediately recognizable. In fact, Artoo had once carried the complex blueprints inside himself.

Threepio wailed, “We must warn Mistress Leia immediately!” He ran toward the turbolift doors, shrilling an alarm. Artoo rolled after him. The assassin droids snapped to attention and trained their weapons on them.

“Summon Chief of State Organa Solo!” Threepio said. “This is an emergency. The fate of the entire galaxy is at stake.”

The assassin droids were not impressed, and Threepio increased the volume in his vocal circuits. “Don’t you understand? The plans to the Death Star have been stolen!”