Leia swallowed. So had she ... but it was Bel Iblis's voice, all right. Or else an excellent copy. 'Garm, this is Leia Organa Solo,' she said.
'Leia!' Bel Iblis said. 'It's been a long time, hasn't it?
I didn't expect. you to be out here personally. Though perhaps I should have. Was all this your idea?'
Leia frowned out the viewport. 'I don't understand what you mean by all this. What are you doing here, anyway?'
'Captain Solo sent my assistant the coordinates and asked us to come along as backup,' Bel Iblis said, a note of caution creeping into his voice.
'I assumed it was at your request.'
Leia smiled tightly. She should have guessed. 'Han's memory sort of slips sometimes,' she said. 'Though to be honest, we haven't had much time since we got back to compare notes.'
'I see,' Bel Iblis said slowly. 'So it wasn't actually an official request from the New Republic?'
'It wasn't, but it is now,' Leia assured him. 'On behalf of the New Republic, I hereby ask for your assistance.' She looked over at Virgilio. 'Log that, please, Captain.'
'Yes, Councilor,' Virgilio acknowledged. 'And speaking for myself, Senator Bel Iblis, I'm delighted to have you along.'
'Thank you, Captain,' Bel Iblis said, and in her mind's eye Leia could see the other's famous smile. 'Let's do some damage, shall we? Peregrine out.'
The six Dreadnaughts had moved into encirclement formation around the Star Destroyer now, smothering it with a flood of ion cannon fire and ignoring the increasingly sporadic turbolaser blasts raking them in return.
'Mara's right, though,' Karrde said, stepping close to Leia. 'As soon as we can get the tech team off that ship, we'd better get them and run.' Leia shook her head. 'We can't just leave the Katana fleet to the Empire.'
Karrde snorted. 'I take it you haven't had a chance to count how many Dreadnaughts are left out there.'
Leia frowned. 'No. Why?'
'I did a scan,' Karrde said grimly. 'Earlier, when you were arguing with Fey'lya. Out of the original two hundred Katana ships ... there are fifteen left.'
Leia stared at him. 'Fifteen?' she breathed. Karrde nodded. 'I'm afraid I underestimated the Grand Admiral, Councilor,' he said, an edge of bitterness seeping in beneath the studied urbanity of his voice. 'I knew that once he had the location of the fleet he would start moving the ships away from here. But I didn't expect him to get the location from Hoffner this quickly.'
Leia shivered. She'd undergone an Imperial interrogation herself once. Years later, the memory was still vivid. 'I wonder if there's anything left of him.'
'Save your sympathy,' Karrde advised. 'In retrospect, it seems unlikely that Thnvn needed to bother with anything so uncivilized as coercion. For Hoffner to have talked so freely implies the Grand Admiral simply applied a large infusion of cash.'
Leia gazed out at the battle, the dark feeling of failure setting over her. They'd lost. After all their efforts, they'd lost. She took a deep breath, running through the Jedi relaxation exercises. Yes, they'd lost. But it vas just a battle, not the war. The Empire might ha'e taken the Dark Force, but recruiting and training crewers to man all those Dreadnaughts would take years. A lot could happen in that time.
'You're right,' she told Karrde. 'We'd do best to cut our losses. Captain Virgilio, as soon as those TIE fighters have been neutralized I want a landing party sent to the Katana to assist our tech team there.' There was no reply. 'Captain?'
Virgilio was staring out the bridge viewport, his face carved from stone. 'Too late, Councilor,' he said quietly.
Leia turned to look. There, moving toward the besieged Imperial ship, a second Star Destroyer had suddenly emerged from hyperspace. The Imperials' backup had arrived.
'Pull out!' Aves shouted, his voice starting to sound ragged. 'All ships, pull out! Second Star Destroyer in system.'
The last word was half drowned out by the clang of the Z-95's proximity warning as something got entirely
