Star Wars - Thrawn Trilogy - Dark Force Rising 02 by Timothy Zahn Read Free Book Online

cloud cover that hung over the whole region like some brooding menace. He'd never put much stock in omens, but those clouds sure didn't help his mood any.

    And speaking of bad moods : Reaching over, he tapped the ship's intercom switch. "Get ready for landing," he called. "We're coming into our approach."

    "Thank yo, Captain Solo," C-3PO's stiffly precise voice came back. A little stiffer than usual, actually; the droid must still be nursing a wounded ego. Or whatever it was that passed for ego in droids.

    Han shut off the intercom, lip twisting with some annoyance of his own as he did so. He'd never really liked droids much. He'd used them occasionally, but never more than he'd absolutely had to. Threepio wasn't as bad as some of those he'd known : but then, he'd never spent six days alone in hyperspace with any of the others, either.

    He'd tried. He really had, if for no other reason than that Leia rather liked Threepio and would have wanted them to get along. The first day out from Sluis Van he'd let Threepio sit up front in the cockpit with him, enduring the droid's prissy voice and trying valiantly to hold something resembling a real conversation with him. The second day, he'd let Threepio do most of the talking, and had spent a lot of his time working in maintenance crawlways where there wasn't room for two. Threepio had accepted the limitation with typical mechanical cheerfulness, and had chattered at him from outside the crawlway access hatches.

    By the afternoon of the third day, he'd banned the droid from his presence entirely.

    Leia wouldn't like it when she found out. But she'd have liked it even less if he'd given in to his original temptation and converted the droid into a set of backup alluvial dampers.

    The Falcon was through the cloud layer now and in sight of the monstrosity that was the Emperor's old palace. Banking slightly, Han confirmed that pad eight was clear and brought them down.

    Leia must have been waiting just inside the canopy that shrouded the pad's accessway, because she was already beside the ship as Han lowered the Falcon's ramp. "Han," she said, her voice laced with tension. "Thank the Force you're back."

    "Hi, sweetheart," he said, being careful not to press too hard against the increasingly prominent bulge of her belly as he hugged her. The muscles in her shoulders and back felt tight beneath his arms. "I'm glad to see you, too.

    She clutched him to her for a moment, then gently disengaged. "Come on-we've got to go.

    Chewbacca was waiting for them just inside the accessway, his bowcaster slung over his shoulder in ready position. "Hey, Chewie," Han nodded, getting a growled Wookiee greeting in return. "Thanks for taking care of Leia."

    The other rumbled something strangely noncommittal in reply. Han eyed him, decided this wasn't the time to press for details of their stay on Kashyyyk. "What've I missed?" he asked Leia instead.

    "Not much," she said as she led the way down the ramp corridor and into the Palace proper. "After that first big flurry of accusations, Fey'lya's apparently decided to cool things down. He's talked the Council into letting him take over some of Ackbar's internal security duties, but he's been behaving more like a caretaker than a new administrator. He's also hinted broadly that he'd be available to take charge of the Supreme Command, but he hasn't done any real pushing in that direction."

    "Doesn't want anyone to panic," Han suggested. "Accusing someone like Ackbar of treason is a big enough bite for people to chew on as it is. Anything more and they might start choking on it."

    "That's my feeling, too," Leia agreed. "Which should give us at least a little breathing space to try and figure out this bank thing."

    "Yeah, what's the lowdown on that, anyway?" Han asked. "All you told me was that some routine bank check had found a big chunk of money in one of Ackbar's accounts.

    "It turns out it wasn't just a routine check," Leia said. "There was a