Vision of the future

'That, too,' Bel Iblis conceded. 'Bottom line: he's not going to start shooting until we're nearly free. Maybe not even then.'

Booster grimaced. No, Thrawn would be in no hurry. Not with the Errant Venture on the wrong side of all that firepower waiting at the perimeter. 'So how are you planning to get us out?' Bel Iblis shook his head. 'I'm not trying to get us out. I already told you that. We have a job to do; and that job is waiting for us in there.' He nodded out the viewport at the Ubiqtorate base.

'With Thrawn and a Star Destroyer sitting between us and it?' Booster snorted. 'Don't take this personally, General, and I'm sure you're a fine military mind and all that. But you try to slug it out with Thrawn and we're all roast dewback.'

'I know,' Bel Iblis said, his voice suddenly very deadly. 'That's why we're not going to engage him. At least, not the way he expects us to.'

Booster eyed him cautiously. There was something about the other's face and voice that was starting to send shivers through him. 'What are you talking about?'

'We have to get past the Relentless, Terrik,' Bel Iblis said quietly, gazing out the viewport. 'And we have to disable it enough in the process that it won't be able to blast our slicers out of the sky before they can get to the computer extension and cut their way in.'

'What about the base's own weapons?'

'And we have to do it fast enough that the base's own weaponry won't have time to turn on us,' Bel Iblis agreed. 'Add it all up, and there's only one way we can possibly pull it off.' Still gazing out the viewport, he seemed to brace himself. 'As soon as we can break clear of the tractor beams, we're going to turn and drive as hard as we can straight for the Relentless.

'And we're going to ram it.'

Booster felt the air go out of him in a silent rush. 'You're not serious,' he breathed. Bel Iblis turned, looking him straight in the eye. 'I'm sorry, Booster. Sorry about your ship; sorry about letting you and your crew come aboard in the first place.'

'General?' the helmsman called. 'We've got a seventy-nine-degree displacement now. That's the best we're going to get.'

For another second, Bel Iblis held Booster's gaze. Then, turning his eyes away, he stepped past him. 'It will do,' he said. 'All weapons: commence firing at tractor beam emplacements.' Abruptly, out the viewport, a firestorm of turbolaser fire erupted, lancing outward from the angled hull in both directions. 'And helm and sublight engines,' the general added calmly, 'stand by for full emergency power.'

* * *

'There he is,' Elegos said, pointing. 'Over there, just to starboard.'

'I see him,' Han said. For a minute there he'd lost Carib's freighter in the swirling glare of the comet's tail. 'You see any of the miners he was talking about?'

'Not yet,' Elegos said. 'Perhaps he was mistaken.'

'Not likely,' Han growled, the hairs on the back of his neck starting to tingle. He might not agree that Carib could pick out Imperials just by their flying style; but he sure didn't doubt the guy could tell the difference between ore buckets and empty space. 'I wonder where they could have gotten to?'

'Perhaps they're being masked by the tail,' Elegos suggested. 'They may be working on the back quarter of the comet's surface.'

'Miners never work back there,' Han said, shaking his head. 'The dust and ice foul up alluvial dampers something fierce.'

'Then where are they?'

'I don't know,' Han said grimly. 'But I'm starting to get a very bad feeling about it. Key me a transmission to Carib's freighter, will you?'

Elegos keyed the comm. 'Ready.'

'Carib?' Han called. 'You see anything?'

'Nothing,' the other's voice came back. 'But they were here, Solo.'