'Oh, yeah, I saw it,' Han snarled, a hard jab of fear punching up under his heart as he slapped at the emergency start-up switches. Elegos might have lost track of which ship was which out there, but he hadn't. That shot had come from the flagship of the Ishori task force, the war cruiser
The ship Leia was currently aboard.
There was another flash, again heading down toward the Bothawui surface. 'You know how to release a docking collar?' Han snapped at Elegos, his hands darting over the control boards.
'Yes, I think so—'
'Do it,' Han cut him off. 'Now.'
'Yes, sir.' Lunging out of his seat, the Caamasi headed aft.
The engines were starting to come up to power now. Han keyed the comm, setting for full-frequency scan. There was going to be hell to pay for this one, all right, no matter what the Ishori thought they were doing. The sync numbers for the stabilizer he'd just installed were coming in now; it seemed to be firming up—
'All ships, this is New Republic President Gavrisom,' Gavrisom's taut voice boomed from the cockpit speaker. 'Stand your positions and hold your fire; repeat, please stand down and hold your fire. The incident currently under way is not—'
He never got to finish his plea. Abruptly there was a squawk of blanketing jamming static on that frequency, drowning him out—
'Attack!' a new voice bit out. 'All Corellian forces, attack at will!' Han gaped at the speaker. What in blazes was the Corellian doing?
And then the scan locked on to another frequency. 'Attack!' a guttural Mon Calamari voice rumbled. 'All Mon Cal ships, attack.'
[Attack,] a Diamalan voice called calmly in their own language on another frequency.
{Attack,} came the snarling Ishori reply on yet another.
Han looked out at the mass of ships, heart thudding in his throat. No. No—this was insane. Surely they wouldn't.
But they were. All around the area, the various warships were coming sluggishly to life, heading for the better maneuverability of open sky or else simply turning their weapons to target their opponents.
And even as he watched, the first flashes of turbolaser fire began.
Behind him, Elegos charged back into the cockpit. 'The collar's released,' he announced, breathing heavily as he resumed his seat. 'We can leave—'
He broke off, staring in disbelief at the scene outside. 'What's happened?' he gasped.
'Han—what's going on?'
'It's just what it looks like,' Han said grimly.
'The New Republic is at war.'
CHAPTER
37
It was a trip of only perhaps fifteen minutes, as the Qom Qae flew, to the far side of the Hand of Thrawn and the lake Child Of Winds had mentioned. At first Luke had been skeptical of the whole idea, concerned about the young aliens' ability to handle the weight of their passengers, not to mention whether or not they would be able to keep out of sight and targeting range of what were surely by now a seriously hostile group of enemies in the fortress.
But the Qom Qae had surprised him on both counts; and as they weaved expertly in and out of the cover of trees and rocks and mountain gullies, he almost began to relax about this phase of the operation. Mara, too, he could sense, had already turned her thoughts ahead to what they would find at the end of the short flight.
The same, unfortunately, could not be said of Artoo. Suspended in the center of the framework they'd rigged out of their last lengths of syntherope, he moaned and gurgled the whole way. The cut in the rock was no more than ten meters from the edge of the lake, descending at a fairly steep angle from under a partial overhang of grass-clumped soil. 'At least the rock isn't too rough,' Mara commented, running a hand experimentally along the lower surface.
