Ahem. Well, yes – we are back with these
things! Sorry for the long delay and
welcome to our new followers. Our next
book review on the list was the last book in the Corellian Trilogy: Showdown at Centerpoint. I hope I do this review justice, I apologize
if I’m a little rusty. The good news is,
in revisiting the EU following The Force Awakens, the EU has become quite
enjoyable to read. Little did we know
how good we had it when we thought we had it so bad. So there’s that.
A brief note to our new followers, or anyone else who hasn't enjoyed our previous reviews: These aren't typical book reviews in that we don't usually Cliff's Notes the plot for you in a way that would enable you to pass a test about it. We concentrate solely on what we call: The Han and Leia factor. We point out parts of the book that are relevant to Han and Leia, whether good or bad and we put excerpts of the good parts for you to enjoy. If you've never read any of the EU or if it's been a long time, these reviews are a fantastic way to peruse through the lot of them and just glean any Han and Leia awesomeness out of them while skipping all of the rest. For this reason alone, I do really hope and intend to finish this review series if only for the purely selfish reason that I like to go back and do just that. You'll find a link to all the reviews completed thus far down on the right hand side of the menu or you can just acces them at this link here: EU: The Book Club.
And,without any further ado, here
we go…
Well, if
at the end of the last book we were treated to a Han and Leia reunion, it only
goes without saying that this book starts off with them being separated. If we will all recall, Han was trying to
pilot a broken coneship down to Selonia when Mara Jade’s ship, the Jade’s Fire (with Leia inside) rescued
them and docked together. In order to
land, however, the two ships (and crew, read: Han and Leia) would once again
have to separate.
The very
first chapter has some cute bits with Han interacting with his cone
ship co-pilots, the Selonians: Dracmus and Salculd and dealing with their
language barrier:
Han slapped the answer switch and
tried to stay focused on his work. "Keep your shirt on, Dracmus," he
said, shouting just a bit. "The comm unit send-circuits needed work as
well. Tell honored Pilot Salculd that I'm nearly done." Why did the
universe require all shipboard repairs to be on the rush? What I wouldn't give to have
Chewbacca here, Han thought.
"What shirt?" the voice
asked worriedly, "Should shirts be worn? Is this for safety?"
Han sighed and pushed the answer
button again. "It's an expression. It means 'be patient,'" he said,
struggling to keep his own patience. Dracmus was a Selonian, and most Selonians
did not like being in space. Understandable for a species that mostly lived
underground, but having an agoraphobic being in command was enough to drive
anyone crazy.
And then a
little while later this:
"How does all go?" Han
asked Salculd the pilot, speaking in his rather labored Selonian. Salculd did
not speak Basic.
"All is well. Honored
Solo," Salculd replied. "At least until the next subsystem flips
out."
"Wonderful," Han said to
himself. "Everything be well, Honored Dracmus?" he asked in Selonian.
"Fine, fine, all is fine, until
we crash and die," Dracmus replied.
"Glad we have a
consensus," Han muttered to himself.
"It is good to plan ahead like
that," Salculd said. "Here I was just going to land the ship the
regular way. Now I am knowing that I will fail and we will crash. It is most
comforting."
"That is enough, Pilot
Salculd," Dracmus snapped. "Concentrate all attention on your
duties."
"Yes, Honored Dracmus,"
Salculd said at once, her tone of voice most apologetic.
Meanwhile,
Han does lament his luck with being away from Leia and describes their current
situation and reasoning better than I could:
Han did not like Leia being on one
ship while he was on the other, but the arrangement made too much sense. Mara,
not yet completely recovered from her leg injury, still needed some looking
after, and she needed a copilot, at least until she recovered. Space knew the
Selonians, Dracmus and Salculd, needed all the help they could get. Besides
which, Leia spoke Selonian- spoke it better than Han, for that matter-and given
recent events it made more than a little sense to have at least one speaker of
the Selonian language aboard each ship, in case of difficulties at the landing
field. The plan was for the two ships to fly toward Selonia in formation and
land side by side.
But even if it all seemed perfectly
reasonable and harmless for Leia to stay on Mara's ship while he flew in the
coneship, Han didn't have to like it.
Awwww. It’s alright, Han. You just don’t realize how good you have it,
either.
There’s a
cute bit where, unable to communicate verbally, Han and Leia are typing back
and forth to one another with something like morse code and Han misspells just
about every other word. Leia, to be
cheeky, misspells the words right back:
BEADY FO COMMENCE EMNTRY MANEUVERZ,
he signaled, managing to spot every mistake just after he made it.
"Someday I gotta take the time to brush up on this stuff," he
muttered to himself.
WE ARE JUST ABOUT BEADY OURSELVES,
Leia signaled back. TAKING POSITION TO YOUR STERN. WILL FOLLOW YOU IN.
"Ha, ha, ha." Han said.
"Glad I married such a humorist." He shifted back to Selonian.
"Very well, Salculd, take us in. With much care."
We move
onto Chapter 2 with perhaps the longest landing I have every read. But it
starts with a little Leia contemplation that I’d like to share:
Leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of
the New Republic, sat at the navigator's station aboard the Jade's Fire, watching the coneship drift in toward the planet Selonia. She had
been a fool to let Han stay aboard that bucket of bolts. But she knew perfectly
well that there had been no chance at all to get him off that ship, once he had
decided he owed something to the Selonians on board.
But what, exactly, was he getting
them into? Leia was forced to think not just like a wife but like a politician.
She could not see any way of avoiding it, but there was no question that Han
was being drawn in by these Selonians-and that Leia was being drawn in as well.
It would be easy, all too easy, for the New Republic to find itself on one side
or another of a fight it had no business in. It would be even easier to get
tempted into bargains with these Hunchuzucs, bargains that had a few too many
hidden strings attached . . .
"He'll be all right,
Leia," Mara said. "We'll stay right with them, all the way down. The Fire can offer them more
protection than you think."
"Hmmm? What? Oh, yes,"
Leia said, pointlessly embarrassed. It
was somewhat mortifying to be reassured by Mara Jade, of all people. Somehow to
have Mara assume that Leia was worrying about her husband's safety when she was
really thinking about the politics of the situation made it even worse. Was she
so callous that calculation of political advantage even pushed aside worries
about her husband? So calculating that even Mara Jade was capable of more
concern for Han?
But Leia told herself, rather
firmly, that she had more sense than that. She had no choice but to think on
more than one level. What good would it do Han if she got so tied up in
sentimental worrying that she failed to foresee the dangers ahead?
"Han will be all right,"
Leia said again, trying to convince herself as much as her companion. "If
anyone can get that tub down to the surface, he can."
"If anyone can," Mara
agreed, none too reassuringly.
I really
liked that part, I think it describes Leia’s situation as a wife, mother and a Galactic figure/politician. She has to think differently, but it doesn’t
make her uncaring or heartless as some might betray or interpret her.
Moving
on: Of course, the landing doesn’t go as
smoothly as planned and they are attacked on their way down.
The attack
is actually a fun read. There’s some
exchange between Leia and Mara as the pair differ on how much they should put
themselves and the Jade’s Fire at
risk to protect the cone ship and Han.
Han, as usual, has a trick up his sleeve to try to use as defense for
the virtually defenseless coneship which Mara comments on:
"Let's hope Han's idea works
better than it ought to," Mara said.
It wasn't the most tactful thing to
say, even if Leia had been thinking the same thing herself. But there was no
time.
There’s also
mention of Leia’s ability as a gunner (surely due to her time on the Falcon):
Leia fed two new targets to the
follow-fire system, and got busy herself with the manual guns, reading the
detection screens for herself. But the rest of the LAFs were not going to be
such easy pickings. They had their rear shields powered up to maximum, and did
a better job of evasive maneuvers, good enough to completely bamboozle the
follow-fire systems.
But not good enough to fool
Leia.
And then Han
Solo uses that famous ingenuity to pull his trick, which apparently consisted
of putting the coneship into a spin and releasing a whole cloud of debris out
into the atmosphere. Not knowing what he
had planned to do, his trick is a little disconcerting to Leia at first glance:
Just then the coneship cut its
engines, allowing it to drop straight for the planet's surface. It threw the
LAFs off, if only for a moment or two.
Leia shook her head and sighed. Not
much of an evasive maneuver, but probably the best Han could manage with that
clunky piece of junk. But suddenly her detector displays showed a cloud of debris
blooming out from the coneship in all directions.
Fear stabbed at her heart. That one
hit on the cone-ship's hull couldn't have done that much damage, could it?
Could the craft be breaking up before her eyes, with Han aboard? She had no
desire to watch the death of her husband-but then something happened to one of
the LAFs, and then another, and another. As they swooped in close to the
coneship, they bounced and skittered and wobbled off course. Two of them lost
power, and the third was rocked by a small explosion amidships. Leia got a
target lock on one of the survivors and fired, catching a piece of him before
he managed to get his shields up. Leia tried to track to a new target, but the
LAFs had plainly decided to take the hint and accept the fact they weren't
welcome. They scattered, hightailing out of there in all directions.
But how in the blazes had- Suddenly
she understood. Of course. Of course. "Mara! His trick worked! Get us out
from behind Han, fast! New course, five or six kilometers to one side of him,
and try to overtake him if you can. It's not going to be so safe to be behind
him for a while."
She smiled, relief flooding over
her. She should have known Han wouldn't give up without a fight.
Whew! Han’s trick worked. But they weren’t on the ground yet:
The ship's ungainly spin slowed, and
stopped-and then started up again in the opposite direction-and started to get
faster.
"Salculd!" Han called out.
"This is no time for the playing of games!"
"I am not doing so, Honored
Solo. Failure in lateral attitude control system. I cannot shut it off!"
"Oh, for-" Han scrambled
up out of his seat and dove for the main circuit breaker box. He yanked it open
and tripped the lateral attitude control breaker by hand. That killed the
thrusters that were producing the spin-but also killed the ones that fired in
the opposite direction, and could bring it to it halt. He slapped the access
door shut and returned to his seat.
"Hope everyone is liking to
spin," Han announced in Selonian. "We are to do it for a while. Salculd!
Restart to main sublight engines-and nice, slow throttle-up, please!"
"At once, Honored Solo,"
Salculd replied. She reached for the throttle controls and began adjusting
them.
Nothing seemed to happen. "Not
that slow, Salculd. We need to do some braking!"
Salculd looked at Han, and the
panicked look that had seemed on the verge of fading away was there in full
force, and no doubt. "No activation!" she announced. "Engine
initiator not responding!"
"Horror!" cried Dracmus.
"We incinerate for certain."
"Quiet, Dracmus, or I send you
out the airlock. Salculd, try again!" Han said. "Firstly confirm you
have power to all engine systems."
"Board shows all power systems
fine and lovely," Salculd said. "Board says is working, but it
not."
"Not helpful," Han said,
jumping up. "Off I go again. Keep trying, and listen to the comm!"
Poor
Han. Can he ever take a ride on a ship
that just works all fine and lovely?
Needless to say, if Han doesn’t figure something out, his ship is going
to enter atmosphere and what’s left of its incinerated pieces will crash into
Selonia. So, no pressure there.
There’s a
good bit of Han running around the small ship and trying to figure out how to
save his life. Meanwhile, Leia is
watching from the Jade’s Fire:
"Something's wrong," Leia
said, watching her detector screens. "The spin has reversed instead of
stopping, and they haven't restarted their main engines."
"Maybe they took some bad
damage from that hit," Mara said.
"Can we dock with the ship and
get them off?" Leia asked.
"Not before they hit
atmosphere," Mara said. "There's nowhere near enough time. Besides,
that cloud of debris they threw out is still traveling with them. We'd get hit
the same way the LAFs were."
"A tractor beam, then,"
Leia said. "We could set that up and-
"And what? That ship isn't all
that much smaller than this one. The tractor on this ship doesn't have a tenth
the power to hold that ship. If we tried it, more than likely they'd pull us
down instead. I'm sorry, Leia. There's nothing at all we can do."
Deep in her heart, Leia knew Mara
was right. But it felt wrong to give up without a fight. They had to do something. "Stay close," Leia said. "Get as close as you can
without getting into the debris cloud and take up station keeping."
"Leia, there is nothing we
can-”
"Suppose they get temporary
control, or slow just enough that they can abandon ship?" Leia asked.
"We need to be close enough to get in and help."
Mara hesitated a moment. "All
right. But we won't be able to hold station keeping long. We're about five
minutes from atmosphere right now, and once we hit it-well, that will be the
end of things."
Leia knew that. Without shielding,
without braking from the engines, the coneship would turn into a meteorite, a
streak of fire that burned across the sky before crashing in the planet.
"I'll stay close as long as I
can," Mara said. "But it won't be long."
"Do it," Leia said. But
even as she urged Mara onward, she wondered why. What good would it do to watch
from closer in as her husband was incinerated?
I know,
right? All very tense and dramatic. The first two chapters of this book, in my
opinion, were very Star Wars, very Han and Leia-ish and just very fun to read
overall. We saw Han at his best:
improvising. And Leia getting some girl
time with Mara, firing guns, worrying about Han and just being very badass
Leia.
And so,
I’ll steer you guys to though to the landing.
First we have Han improvising:
One chance, Han told himself.
Exactly one chance. For a fleeting moment he thought of Leia, watching from the
Jade's Fire and unable to do anything. He thought of his three children, off
somewhere in the care of Chewbacca and Ebrihim the Drall. No. No. He could not
die. Not when they all needed him. One chance. The ship bucked and shuddered as
the atmospheric buffering shook it hard enough to get past the inertial
dampers. One chance.
Well, of
course his trick works and they land on Selonia in the middle of friendly
territory. Yay! This last bit was cute:
The old Selonian looked at the ship
and shook her head. "Coneships," she said, her tone derisive.
"The Hunchuzuc are foolhardy. Selonians do not belong in space."
Han looked at the Selonian for a
long moment.
"You know," he said,
"I'd just about worked that out for myself." He turned his back on
the coneship and staggered off toward the other side of the clearing, where the
Jade's Fire was settling in for a nice, calm, sedate landing.
If you
were expecting another nice reunion to read about, there wasn’t any – at least
not that we got to read about (missing moment!) but I’m sure we can all imagine
how it went down.
The next six
chapters dealt with two things:
First:
with Lando, Luke, Kalenda and Gaeriel (and R2 and 3PO) landing on Centerpoint, some
kind of ancient space station which has been deserted save for one scientist. That scientist is giving everyone a guided
tour. There are some cute exchanges
between 3PO and Lando. Lando apparently
loves 3PO just about as much as Han does.
And I actually like the patience that Luke shows with 3PO. You know that guy that can be nice to the
annoying friend/aunt/relative no one else wants to deal with? That’s Luke.
Anyway, I
thought the tour was pretty boring other than that and during the tour the
entire station starts to go berserk and there’s a big rescue, but I definitely
didn’t enjoy it as much as the Han and Leia suspense in the first two chapters. Big surprise.
They all
make it out in the end and figure out that Centerpoint is most probably the
thing that has been causing stars to go super-nova. Now, to find out who or what
is causing it to fire…
Second:
The Solo kids. Anakin Solo has figured
out how to turn on and work the ancient device buried beneath the surface of
Drall, which gets the attention of the Human League (and their uncle Thracken
Sal-Solo). There is some suspense here
and there’s Chewbacca flying the Falcon
and protecting the children. Again, I
didn’t find them as fun or as interesting a read. Anakin is being very Anakin and figuring out
this machine with eerie ease. I did mark
a spot where Anakin and Jacen hug each other and admit how much they miss their
parents.
Chapter 8
brings us back to Han and Leia. They are
the ‘guests’ of the Selonians they had landed on (almost literally) and Han is
very tired of sitting around and waiting:
"I am tired of waiting.
Dracmus," Han said.
"Patience, Honored Solo.
Waiting is not yet tired of you."
"Whatever that means,' Han
growled.”Have you ever given a straight answer in your life?"
"What, exactly are you meaning
by straight answer?"
Han Solo turned to his wife, who was
sitting placidly at the breakfast table. "You see what I've had to put up
with?" he asked. Dracmus had come to pay her morning call, as she did
every day. And as he did every day, Han found himself wondering what the point
of the visit was. "Riddles. Incoherent riddles. That's all I ever got.
It's all we ever get."
"Take it easy, Han," Leia
said. "Patience is the hardest part of diplomacy."
"But mine has reached its
limits," Han said.
Apparently
the Selonian culture is very strange and they are ‘holding’ Han, Leia and Mara
as guests/prisoners but they won’t really say why and keep trying to
stall. There’s a good bit a dialogue and
exchanges/postulating between Han, Leia and Mara. I really enjoyed Mara in this book and I
liked watching the relationship between Mara and Leia develop in this
trilogy. I didn’t cut and paste any of
their conversation, but I’d go back and read Chapter 8 just for their
interactions.
Um, I’m
gonna confess here that I really didn’t follow what was going on with the Selonians
and really a lot of what was going on with the politics during this entire
trilogy, but suffice it to say there’s a big reveal at the end of this section
that I guess might make sense to someone who followed the plot a little better
than I did. I’ll just paste it:
"And you think our noble
Hunchuzuc allies have decided that they've lost," Han said. "You
think they're dickering with the Overden and we're part of the deal?"
"Something like that. Maybe the
Overden wants us as bargaining chips, maybe as hostages, maybe they want to
negotiate directly with Leia. Of course we don't even know for sure that it's
the Overden and not the Hunchuzuc who have the repulsor. Maybe our side
won."
'It is most regrettable," said a
new voice, "but I fear that is not the case. The inestimable Mara Jade has
described the situation exactly."
Han looked behind himself in
surprise. The newcomer had arrived in utter silence from inside the villa. She
was an older-looking Selonian, tall, but a little stooped over, her fur shot through
with gray, but her eyes bright. "I am Kleyvits," she said, "and I
speak for the Overden. We have won our Hunehuzuc sisters over to our
cause." She paused, and then smiled, displaying an unpleasantly impressive
collection of teeth. "And that means that we have also won all of
you."
Duhn,
duhn, duhn. Very dramatic…I guess.
Let me not
fail to mention that sprinkled throughout the book we are kept up-to-date on
Lando’s girlfriend and love life. I just
had to laugh out loud while I typed that.
Seriously, I don’t know how Lando’s love life rated an entire thread
throughout three books, but it did.
Anyway, just so this review is not remiss, let it be known that she’s
out there, floating around in her ship, looking for love in all the wrong
places…
Okay, so
we get a little bit more with the kids fixing droids and some unknown ship
coming to land near them. And then Luke
and Lando figuring out how the Corellian System was formed with each planet
having one of these repulsor things to push it into the right orbit or
whatever. The jist of the plot is
outlined in this one paragraph:
"Well, there's one thing we can
do," Luke said. "Get the word out. Tell our people what we've found
out. If we can find Han and Leia and Chewbacca, if we can find our allies on
the worlds here, and let them know what we know, that's a start. If they can
get to a planetary repulsor in time, and if they can figure out how to run it,
and if they can jam that hyperspace tractor-repulsor beam, then maybe we can
save some lives."
Thanks for
that nice summary, Luke.
Another
thank you to Luke as he closes his eyes and uses his Force thing to figure out
exactly where Han, Leia, Chewie and the kids are and everyone disperses to
rescue everyone else. Luke is heading to
Han and Leia and Lando is heading toward the children and Chewie (and the Falcon).
Back to
Han and Leia: apparently the group that
has them wants complete freedom and autonomy from the New Republic and everyone
else and wants Leia to give it to them.
Well, of course she can’t and they go round and round and negotiations
end something like this:
"Recognize the freedom of
Selonia under the guidance of the Overden or never leave this planet
alive."
"You've got yourself a
deal," Leia said.
Kleyvits looked toward her eagerly.
"Then we have persuaded you?"
"Absolutely," said Leia.
"We pick the second choice, the one about not leaving alive. Go ahead and
kill us all right now."
Kleyvits sighed wearily, and
extended her claws to drum them on the tabletop, making a rather unsettling
clicking noise. It was hard to miss just how sharp those claws were. "I
can see," said Kleyvits, "that we are going to be here for a
while."
Meanwhile,
Han’s cousin: Thrackan Sal-Solo manages to capture the Solo kids and Chewie (he
was the mysterious ship that was seen landing).
There’s one part where the kids react to seeing him for the first time (remember:
he looks a great deal like Han):
"Hello," said Jaina, and
Jacen muttered a hello as well. Anakin took one look at his father's cousin and
burst into tears-and Jaina couldn't blame him. It was upsetting just to look at
Thrackan. He looked so much like their father-just a little darker, a little
heavier, the hair a different shade. The beard helped make him seem at least a
little different from Dad, but somehow that only made the similarities more
upsetting. It was like looking at a dark side version of her father, the way he
could have been, if anger and resentment and suspicion had taken hold of him.
I liked
this reaction and introspection. Given
the background that Han has he could’ve easily turned out differently. Thank the gods he turned out the way he
did!
Thracken
takes holos of the kids (and of the Drall repulsor) and broadcasts it across
the airwaves. Good guy, that
Thracken. Great fun at family reunions,
I’m sure.
In between
we volley back and forth between all the forces congealing in the Corellian
System to partake in this final showdown (at Centerpoint). The Bakurian Forces, the New Republic Forces,
Luke, Lando and of course, Lando’s girlfriend.
Suffice it to say they are all doing something and they will all have
their part to play.
Back to
Han and Leia, they had been under planetary jamming but Thracken lifts it to
send his message. First he claims to
have control of Drall’s planetary repulsor (which he does since he has the Solo
kids and Anakin had gotten it to work).
Second he claims this:
"The second prize that we have
won is of a more personal nature," Thrackan went on. "We have rescued
the three children of Leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of that same New
Republic."
Han felt the blood drain from his
face, felt his heart turn to ice. He looked to Leia and saw the same horror
there.
I don’t
care if this is all imaginary or not (obviously) but it just gives me the
chills when they mess with their children, doesn’t it? It’s needless of me to say that Han and Leia
are distraught, but I’ll paste a few more passages to drive home the point.
At first
Han and Leia are skeptical about both Thracken having the repulsor and of him
having the children. But that is what he
took the holos for, right? Here’s Han
and Leia’s reaction to the holo:
It was the children, held inside a
force field containment, with Chewbacca, Ebrihim, and a Drall Leia did not know
held in an adjacent containment. The cam moved from face to face, showed a
close-up of each of them. Jacen, looking sad but determined; Jaina worried, her
gaze straying to Anakin; Anakin glaring straight at the cam. His face was
streaked with tears, and he looked snuffly, as if he had just calmed down after
crying. The cam moved along to show Thrackan, smiling coldly.
Leia choked back a sob, and Han felt
a lump in his own throat. Thrackan had them. Thrackan had stolen children,
Han's children. Thrackan had kidnapped his own flesh and blood. But then Han
felt his sickness at heart, his fear, his horror, turn to cold, hard anger,
clear-sighted anger. Thrackan wanted them scared, and shocked. But already Han
was determined not to give Thrackan what he wanted.
And then
when the video is over:
"Han-Han-he's got our children.
He's got our children, and we-we can't do what he says. We can't." Leia
looked to her husband, her eyes full of tears.
"I know." said Han, the
words tearing at his insides.
Ouch. I hate when they kidnap the kids!
So, then
Han gets really fired up as you can imagine and argues with the Selonians that
are holding them captive. We then have
this little tidbit as Han presses his argument and all the captors abruptly
leave the room:
"I don't understand," said
Han, drastically understating the case. "1 had a hunch there had to be
some ringers brought in. I figured it had to be outsiders who had researched
its operation that were actually running the repulsor. I figured that would
make Kleyvits look a little bad-but nothing like that. What happened?"
"I'll explain later," Mara
said. "Right now, see to Leia."
Han turned toward his wife, who had
sat back down in one of the splendid, luxurious chairs that filled this
splendid, luxurious prison of a villa. She was sobbing quietly to herself, the
tears falling quietly. "Oh, Han. Our children. That man has our
children."
"I know," said Han.
"I know. But he is not going to keep them. I promise you that we will get
them-
But suddenly Leia was on her feet,
looking up, an eager, faraway look in her eyes, the change in her demeanor
bewilderingly fast. Han exchanged a glance with Mara, and it was plain they
were both wondering, for a fleeting moment, if Leia had suddenly become
unhinged. But Han should have known better. Leia was made of sterner stuff than
that.
"It's Luke!" she said.
"Luke is coming this way. I can feel him, reaching out with the Force to
me. He's homing in on me."
"How soon is he coming?"
Han asked. "How fast will he-
Han's question was answered even as
it was drowned out by the roaring thunder of a fast, low-flying aircraft.
Yay! Luke to the rescue. Even I got the goosebumps when Luke arrived
here! Everyone greets each other and you
just know things are going to start going right because the Big Three are
together. They say their hellos,
exchange information and reassure each other that everything is going to be set
straight. Just the way it should be.
Now we go
to perhaps one of my favorite moments with the Solo kids. They are being held prisoner, remember? Well, they wouldn’t be Han and Leia’s kids if
they didn’t take some action, right?
Right. They don’t sit around and
wait to be rescued like some princess…oh, wait, nevermind. Anyway, we have some more Anakin machine
machinations and the kids escape from their prisons. Unfortunately Chewbacca and all other adults
are not and they cannot free them for reasons I can’t remember.
This
leaves the children and the Falcon
free to take off. What do you think they
do? Well, we have to wait a few more
chapters to find out, but I’m sure you can guess.
We go back
and forth between all those other forces gathering. I apologize that I don’t really give a good
synopsis on what they are all doing, but you know, go reread Luke’s synopsis up
there and you can bet they are all doing something to accomplish that –
especially Lando’s girlfriend. Let’s not
forget about her.
Long story
short, they are all gathering together over this system to take this star
burster thing down, to uh, have a Showdown at Centerpoint.
We get a
little more of Han, Leia, Luke and Mara who apparently, in spite of Luke
arriving all heroic like, are still captives of the Selonians. It basically boils down to the fact that
Selonians cannot separate what one family member does from another, so they
blame Han for what Thrackan is doing.
Luke does comment that he and Leia are lucky that humans don’t do that…
But
anyway, enough of all that. Let’s get
back to the kids and the Falcon.
The kids
set off to fly the Falcon and get
help. There is a little bit of the kids
having to get the Falcon up and
running again. But then we have this:
Jacen paused at the entrance to the
cockpit of the Millennium
Falcon. He had been in the cockpit many
times before, of course-but this was different, very different. No one was
keeping an eye on him this time, or making sure he didn't press any buttons, or
shooing him away. No. This time, he was here to fly the ship. Fly her. The very
idea terrified him.
"Want to have a contest to see
which one of us is more scared?" Jaina asked.
Jacen turned around and smiled. His
twin sister and his little brother were behind him, all three of them standing right
at the threshold of the cockpit. "I don't know," he said. "How
close do you think it will be?"
"Not close at all. I bet I'm a
zillion times more scared than you."
"Don't be so sure about
that," said Jacen. "I bet it's a tie."
"I'm not scared," said
Anakin. "I'll fly her, if you want."
"I might take you up on that
one if you weren't too short to reach the controls properly," said Jacen.
"Might I remind all of you of
the need for haste at this point?" asked Q9. "I believe I have gotten
over my recent bout with paranoia, but let us not forget that there really is
someone out to get us."
"He's got a point," Jacen
said. He turned to Jaina. "Which seat do you want? Pilot or copilot?"
Jaina paused for a moment, and then
smiled. "Like father, like son. You take Dad's seat at pilot. He'd like it
that way. I bet Mom would too."
Jacen smiled back at her, then
climbed in and took his place at the pilot's station, adjusting the seat up as
high and as far forward as it would go. Jaina did the same.
I just
love this entire exchange. The twins
reassuring one another and the little brother charging forward. Jacen taking his father’s seat and adjusting
it to fit. I thought it was all so cute
while the whole time I’m wondering how Han will react to his kids flying his
baby.
The kids
are able to talk to Chewie over a comm, so they are not entirely alone and they
do develop a plan to try and free him.
Jaina has an idea to blow up the generators that are working the
containment field. Jacen doesn’t quite
agree, but supports his sister warily.
Jaina
quickly explains her plan to Chewie and the other prisoners and we get this:
"Chewie---get as close to the
center of the containment as you can and shield your eyes, and tell the others
to do the same.”
A howl of protest came over the
intercom.
"Will you relax?" Jaina
said. "This will work, trust me. You guys just get ready to run and hide
as soon as the force field goes down. Here we go."
Poor
Chewie. How many times has he been told
to ‘relax and trust me’ by some crazy human with the last name of Solo?
Sadly, her
idea doesn’t work and the kids realize that they’ll have to fly off in the Falcon and try to find help to come back
for Chewbacca as their plan has drawn unwanted attention from their captors and
bad guys are closing in on them.
"Everyone hang on to
something," said Jacen. "I've never done this before." He pulled
back on the repulsor power control, and the Millennium Falcon
lumbered up into the sky.
Thracken
Sal-Solo is not far behind the children in another ship and in hot
pursuit. I enjoyed reading about the
kids trying to handle the cantankerous Falcon,
so I’ll paste a bunch of it here:
Jacen held the controls in a death
grip as the Falcon rode her repulsors up into the early-morning sky. They came
up out of the repulsor shaft, still moving straight up, but Jacen knew better
than to try to fly too high and too long on repulsor power alone. He would have
to make the transition to sublight engines--and make it quickly. The repulsors
were not intended for indefinite boost in the first place-and Jacen knew just
how much this ship had been through recently. He put his hand on the sublight
engine throttles, and pulled back on them as slightly, and as gently, as he
could.
The Millennium Falcon took off like a lightning bolt, streaking
across the sky. Jacen pulled the Falcon's nose up, trying to gain some altitude-or at least trying to avoid
diving into the ground. He swallowed hard and eased the sublights back just a
trifle, and then shut off the repulsors. The Falcon shuddered for a moment, but then settled down to smooth flight-at
least for a moment or two. Then she was suddenly diving in toward the ground
far below. Jacen pulled back up on the stick, forcing her nose up, fighting to
keep her from fishtailing all over the sky. At last she seemed to stabilize as
he got the feel of the controls. But he kept his tight grip on the joystick and
kept his eyes constantly flitting back and forth between the viewports and the
controls.
"Well, we're out," Jaina
asked. "Now where do we go?"
"I don't know," Jacen
said. "We never talked about that part, but-
"Behind us!" Anakin
shouted. "Look at the detector screen!"
Jacen had to look for a moment
before he could even find the detector screen. But once he did, he had not the slightest
trouble reading it.
There was cousin Thrackan's assault
boat, hot on their heels. A blast of laser flared past the Falcon's starboard side, and Jacen flinched involuntarily-jerking the ship's
controls, and heeling the Falcon up
and flipping her over on her roll axis until the topside of the ship was
pointed down. The Falcon was suddenly
climbing at about a forty-five-degree angle of attack, but with the cockpit
pointed down instead of up. The artificial gravity system held them in their
seats, but Jacen could look up and back and see the ground where a piece of sky
should have been.
The accidental maneuver seemed to
have shaken Thrackan off their tail, at least for the moment, but he would be
back, no doubt about it. And he'd start shooting at them again.
"Shields up!" Jacen
shouted.
"Where-where are the shield
controls?" Jaina asked.
"Chewie moved 'em when he
rewired the cockpit," Anakin said from the observer seat. "Under your
left hand, sort of. The panel with the big red buttons."
"Where? Where?" Jaina
said. "I don't see it."
"I'll get it," Anakin
said. He undid his seat restraint, hopped out of his seat, and wriggled in
between the two pilot stations. He reached in and flicked the safeties off a
row of red switches, stabbed his chubby finger down on a big red button, and
twisted two dials. "All right, now shields up! Top, bottom, and forward
shields at-um-twenty percent. Rear shields at full."
A dull crash and a shudder that ran
through the whole ship told Jacen that Anakin had gotten the shields up just in
time-and that cousin Thrackan's aim was getting better.
Was he trying to shoot them down?
Were those warning shots? Or was he trying to disable them? So far, as best
Jacen could tell, Thrackan had just used the assault boat's chin guns,
low-caliber lasers intended more for antipersonnel work than ship-to-ship
fighting. But what did it mean? Jacen knew his dad would have been able to
interpret the shots, know just what Thrackan intended, and what to do about it.
But his father was not here, however devoutly Jacen might wish that he were.
Probably-probably-
Thrackan was trying to disable the Falcon, not kill them. The thought was not much comfort.
Thirty seconds before, he had been
worrying about figuring out where to go. Suddenly he wasn't all that interested
in getting to anyplace at all.
All he wanted to do was get away
from here, right now.
I really
enjoyed that entire sequence both because it was just fun to see the Falcon in the Solo kids’ hands and
because it demonstrated just how much Han (and Chewie) do with quiet ease, even
the part about how Han would know what the firing shots from the pursuing ship
meant and what to do. I thought that was
all pretty cool to read/experience.
Lando and
his crew are hovering over the same planet that the children are escaping from:
remember he had left to get the kids when Luke had left to get Han and
Leia? Their Republic ship sees the two
smaller ships escaping and chasing each other.
They don’t know who is who and it is commented that “one ship is being
flown very badly”. Instantly (of
course), Lando recognizes the Falcon:
Kalenda worked the controls with
lightning speed and brought up the imagery from the long-range visual scanner
and the tactical. The images of two ships appeared. Both were clawing for
altitude, the one in the lead flying erratically-and upside down. "That's
the Falcon," Lando said. "That's the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo's personal ship. It's flying
upside down, and I think the pilot must be drunk, but I'd know that ship
anywhere."
"That's the assault boat behind
it," Ossilege said eagerly. "And it looks to have taken some
damage."
"Who the devil is flying the Falcon?" Kalenda asked.
"It's not Chewbacca, I can tell
you that much," said Lando. "He could fly her better than that
blindfolded and with one arm in a sling-and I'm not speaking poetically."
"Then who is it?"
"I have an idea, but none of
you would believe me anyway," said Lando. "You didn't last
time."
Ossilege looked at him sharply.
"You're saying one of the children is flying that ship?"
"You said it, I didn't,” Lando
replied.
The
Republic crew assesses the situation and deduces that the children are flying
the Falcon and Thrackan Sal-Solo is
most likely the one chasing them. They
decide to capture both ships in their tractor beam, pulling the children to
safety and capturing the bad guy in one fell swoop.
Meanwhile,
back on the Falcon:
The Falcon lurched wildly to one side as the assault boat managed another hit.
"Shields didn't like that one," Anakin said, watching the defense
display.
"That's it," said Jaina.
"I've had it. Let's give them some of their own back. Powering up ventral
laser cannon and setting for aft-aim."
"What?!" Jacen cried.
"Are you out of your mind?"
Quite
understandably, Thrackan did not appreciate being shot at.
"Shoot at me?" Thrackan
said. "Those miserable whelps have the gall to shoot at me? Activating
main armament!"
"But you'll blow them out of
the sky!" Thrag protested. "You need them alive!"
"But I want them dead,"
said Thrackan Sal-Solo. "Main armament powered up and ready to fire."
Jacen risked a peek at the detector
screen. "Jaina, he's not backing off, he's bringing his main turret cannon
to bear! We've got to get out of here. Hang on!"
Jacen pulled back up on the stick,
pulling the nose of the Falcon up. The Falcon climbed over its nose, into an inside loop, up and over before pulling
out of the loop, right on Thrackan's tail.
"Anakin! Forward shields to
full!" Jacen shouted, and his little brother scrambled to reset the
switches, just in time to deflect a near miss from the assault boat's turret
gun. The Falcon bucked and shuddered, but her shields held.
"We're in behind their shields!
I have a shot! Hang on!" Jaina called. She fired twice. The first caught
the turret gun right at the join with the assault boat's upper hull, blowing
the gun clean off the hull. The second caught the sublight engine array,
smashing the sublight emitters down to nothing.
The assault boat was dead in space.
Jacen had to stop cheering long
enough to keep from ramming the Falcon right into her
stern.
And then a giant, invisible hand
reached out and yanked the Millennium Falcon by the scruff of the neck.
"Assault boat has lost main
propulsion. Tractor beam on!" Kalenda announced. "Positive lock on
assault boat. Provisional lock on Falcon. Falcon attempting to break free. We can't hold Falcon for too long without damage to her."
Lando went to the flag deck com
panel and punched in a comm access code he had not used in a while. "Let's
hope Han didn't go and change codes on me," he muttered, then pushed the
transmit key. "Lando Calrissian to Millennium Falcon.
This is Lando Calrissian calling Millennium Falcon. Shut down your engines and do not resist the tractor beam. We are
taking you aboard a Bakuran vessel, allied with the New Republic. Do you
copy?"
"Lando?" came a young,
eager voice over the com line. "Is that you? Is that you?"
"That you, Jaina?" Lando
asked.
"No, I'm Jacen," came the
rather irritated reply. "But Jaina and Anakin are here too. And so is
Q9."
Another
yay! The children are hauled onboard the
Republic frigate safely as is Thrackan Sal-Solo, but not before his toady pokes
a little fun at him:
Captain Thrag sat in the smoky
control cabin of his assault boat, and laughed, but there was little joy or
happiness in the angry sound.
"How have the mighty fallen, O
mighty Diktat," he said. "They have beaten you, beaten you
completely. Shot down by children. Children so young they probably had trouble
seeing over the control panel."
"Shut up, Thrag," said
Thrackan. "Shut up or I'll kill you on the spot."
The
children witness Thrackan being taken into custody and he glares at them
menacingly:
Anakin stood between his brother and
his sister, holding each of them by the hand. He stared, wide-eyed and solemn,
as they led Thrackan Sal-Solo, Diktat of Corellia, away. “Our cousin is a very bad man,” he said.
Neither of the other children could
think of anything more to say.
Lando’s
first order of business was to get word to Han and to describe a little more
plot stuff much better than I could:
It was a full-length view of Lando,
shown at about half life size. "Hello," he said in a very solemn
voice. "I don't know exactly what your situation is, so I will send
duplicate copies of this to all of you. A lot has happened. The bad news is
that the real enemy has finally shown up. It's the fleet from the Sacorrian
Triad. Luke knows about it. They are the real enemy. Everything else-all the
rebellions-are not much more than diversions. The fleet has a total of about
eighty ships of all sizes, and they are closing-very slowly-on Centerpoint.
They seem to be timing it so they will get to Centerpoint just as the Bovo
Yagen shot goes off. We haven't interfered with them-yet- and they haven't made
any hostile gesture toward our ships. I doubt that's going to last long,
though.
"That's the bad news, and it's
bad." The image of Lando paused for a moment, and then broke into a broad
smile. "The good news is very good indeed. Don't ask me how, because we
haven't had time to sort it all out yet, but the children have escaped from
Thrackan-and they did it aboard the Millennium Falcon.
They flew the ship. And before you can turn blue, Han, the Falcon doesn't have so much as a scratch on her.
But the punch line is-they captured Thrackan. Han, you should have seen it. The
kids flew a classic inside loop and put two disabling shots right into
Thrackan's stern. The Bakurans have taken Thrackan prisoner. Anyway, I know you
won't believe it, but the kids did it all-
"I don't believe it," Han said.
"Sssh!" said Leia.
"-and they are all safe and
sound aboard the Intruder. Chewbacca and two Drall who got mixed up in all this
are being picked up from the repulsor right now. They're okay too, as best we
can tell.
“But the real reason I sent this
message is to ask you to come here. Gaeriel Captison has called a council of
war for eighteen hours from now. We need you all there. Madame Captison wants a
Selonian representative as well. Please arrange that if you possibly can. Also,
to be blunt about it, the odds are good we're going to need every scrap of
firepower we can get before the end of this. We need all of you, we need the Jade's Fire, and we need Luke's X-wing. Send a return message as soon as possible,
reporting your intentions. But whatever you do, please hurry. We are almost out
of time."
In the
very next chapter, titled: The Last Good-bye,
we get the Solo family reunion without a moment’s delay:
Leia Organa Solo, Chief of State of
the New Republic, ran full-tilt down the access ramp of the Jade's Fire, onto the hangar deck of the Intruder, and nearly knocked over two of the honor guard as she rushed forward
to her children, flinging her arms around the twins. Anakin escaped her first
swooping hug simply because he was hopping too fast and too high with
excitement to be an easy target. But Han Solo was hard on the heels of his
wife, and he scooped Anakin clear up off the ground. Luke joined the happy
little knot of chaos, hugging the children, greeting them, tousling Jacen's
hair, tickling Jaina, lifting Anakin out of Han's arms to hold him in his own.
Threepio tottered around, offering his own greetings- and generally getting in
the way.
"Anakin! Jacen! Jaina!"
said Leia. "Oh, let me look at you all." But then she threw her arms
around all three of them, and held them so tight it didn't seem likely she
could see much of anything at all.
Lando Calrissian joined the tangle
of welcome, throwing his arm around Han, shouting a friendly insult in his ear,
pounding him on the back, giving Leia a kiss, teasing the children. The other
new arrivals, Mara Jade and the Selonian representative, Dracmus, followed.
Admiral Ossilege allowed himself a
thin, wintry smile as he watched the proceedings. "Not the most dignified
of entrances, eh, Madame Prime Minister? I would have expected more poise from
the Chief of State."
Gaeriel probably could have managed
some commonplace comment about ceremony giving way to family, or that there
were other considerations besides dignity in the universe, but somehow she
couldn't bring herself to do it. She thought of her own little daughter, Malinza,
back home on Bakura. She looked to Luke Skywalker, lifting his niece up onto
his shoulders, and thought of how good he was with children, and of all the
things that might have been, but never could be now. But still, the admiral
seemed to be expecting some kind of reply. So she decided to speak, and
somehow, the truth slipped out. "I think it's beautiful," she said,
Admiral Hortel Ossiiege turned
toward her and regarded her with frank surprise. "Indeed?" he said.
"Clearly, then, standards of beauty vary greatly. Mine do not include
noisy and unruly children."
"Then I pity you," said
Gaeriel, quite surprised with herself for being so blunt. "I know of
nothing else that brings more beauty into my life."
Gaeriel Captison stepped forward,
leaving a stunned Admiral Ossiiege in her wake. She moved toward the newcomers
and offered them a simple, graceful bow. "Madame Chief of State," she
said. "Captain Solo. I bid you welcome to the Intruder, and wish you much
joy of this wonderful reunion." And with that, she knelt down in her very
official ministerial robes and gave each of the children a kiss.
Let the old sourpuss chew on that
for a while, she told herself. Gaeriel had had something of a wild streak in
her youth. It was good to know it had not completely abandoned her.
Cute
little reunion scene and I included the latter half for two reasons: One to demonstrate what Zyra had talked about
in the previous book review, the ‘what might have been’ between Gaeriel and
Luke and secondly, the reaction from the grumpy old man at Leia’s
behavior. I just thought it was
something that she had to deal with all the time and I like seeing her when she
just doesn’t give a damn and acts how she wants for the sake of herself, Han
and/or the children.
Now that
everyone is together, they start to talk strategy. In what I paste below, the characters will sum
up their plan, so I won’t go into it here.
Towards the end, Kalenda the secret agent, suggests that the kids
(particularly Anakin) are the best hope to get the repulsor firing and to do
what they want with the machinery. Old
grumpy from the passage pasted above, was not too keen on this idea, as you can
imagine:
Ossilege looked up at Kalenda, his
expression utterly unreadable. Was there anger seething under there? Was he
simply considering her words? Was he infuriated at the assault on his
authority, or simply wondering if she might be right? It was impossible to
tell. The man was completely inscrutable. "You argue most effectively,
Lieutenant Kalenda. You marshal your facts well. You will either go far as an
intelligence officer or end your career in the brig for insubordination. I had
intended to disembark all noncombatants on Drall in any event, and it occurs to
me that the shielded side chambers of the repulsor are probably the safest
place to be right now. Madame Chief of State, Captain Solo-if, as Lieutenant
Kalenda claims, your children might be of help, would you consent to their
being put to work?"
"Absolutely," said Han.
"Not that it matters what we think. Get them within a hundred kilometers
of trouble, and they'll find it all on their own."
"Madame Chief of State?"
"We need all the help we can
get," said Leia. "Let them do their part."
Ossilege raised his eyebrows and
looked hard at both of them, "Very well," he said. "Then let us
move on. Lieutenant?"
"Well, sir, to sum up, we have
two objectives, neither of them very easy. First is to defeat the Triad fleet
and prevent it from dominating this star system. Second is to do whatever we
can to prevent Centerpoint from firing again. I believe that covers everything
we were going to discuss, except for Source A-and I believe you wanted to cover
that yourself."
We’ll get
to more plot stuff later, but before all the heroes go off to save the galaxy,
you know what needs to happen, right? If
you don’t, here you go:
If the day had started with joyous
reunions, it ended with tearful good-byes. "Do you really have to go,
Mommy?" asked Anakin, his voice a little snuffly, his chin quivering just
a bit. They were in the Intruder's
hangar deck again, the last load of
noncombatants boarding the shuttle that would take them down to the safety of
the repulsor's shielded side caverns.
"Yes I do, dearest," Leia
said, kneeling down in front of him, forcing a reassuring smile onto her face.
"And so do you. Everyone has a job today. I have to help Daddy and
Chewbacca fly the Falcon. You and your brother and sister have to go
down to the repulsor again, and see if you can make it work the way we need it
to."
"I bet we can," said
Anakin.
"I'll bet you can too,
sport," said Han, tousling his son's hair. He was smiling too, but even
Anakin must have been able to see the pain in his eyes. And even Anakin knew
that everyone had to pretend that everything was fine.
Leia looked up at Jaina and Jacen.
"You two take care of each other, and of Anakin, all right? And do what
Threepio and Ebrihim and the Duchess tell you to do. And be sure to-be sure
to-"
Suddenly Leia stopped, her voice
choked up. It was all too ridiculous. She was going into battle, she was
sending her children to operate a machine that could move a planet around,
sending them off to face more responsibility than most intelligent beings ever
dreamed of, she might be killed and never see them again, and yet she was left
with nothing to tell them but the age-old motherly admonitions to behave
themselves and brush their teeth.
"We will, Mom," said
Jaina, her voice gentle and low. "Don't worry, we'll do all the things
we're supposed to do."
"Fear not, Madame Chief of
State," said Threepio. "I shall take good care of them all-assuming
the Drall permit me."
Leia threw her arms about her
children, shut her eyes, and squeezed them as tight as she could. "I love
you all," she managed to say, before her voice choked up altogether.
She held them for as long as she
could, and a little bit longer besides, until Han knelt down beside her and
gently pulled her arms back. "It's time to go," he said. "The
ship has to leave."
Leia nodded, unable to speak. She
kissed each of them one last time, and Han did the same. The three children and
Threepio walked aboard the shuttle transport, and the shuttle transport lifted
off.
And they were gone.
Poor Leia.
Han goes
and sees old Thrackan in the brig and the two exchange words and then everyone
is getting ready to head out and do their part in the final chapter aptly
named: Showdown at Centerpoint.
At last, at long last, it was time
to board ship, launch, and head out into space. But getting to that point was
not easy. The Bakurans needed all the firepower of the newly repaired Millennium Falcon, and no one could argue that the Falcon needed a crew of at least three-a pilot, a
copilot, and a gunner-in order to provide the maximum firepower. There was, of
course, never even the slightest debate over who the pilot and copilot should
be. Han and Chewbacca belonged in those seats, and there was no doubt about it.
But more than a few people tried to
talk Leia out of sitting in the quad laser turret. It was not proper for a
Chief of State to go flying around taking potshots at enemy ships. But Leia was
adamant. She had had enough of being pushed around in recent weeks. It was high
time she paid a little of that back. The harder people tried to talk her out of
going on the mission, the more determined she became. Even Ossilege tried to
talk her out of it. But even Ossilege realized, eventually, that he had to back
down.
Go
Leia! So, with everyone in place now the
big battle is about to start. Anakin is
down at the big machine working his magic and all the ships are flying around
in formation. Han even makes a comment
about how well Mara Jade flies a ship, so even he is warming up to her by the
end of this trilogy. But wait, what
about Lando’s love life? Don’t worry, it
hasn’t been forgotten. Although I didn’t
mark this, I guess I’ll go ahead and treat you to it.
Lando sees
a civilian ship floating nearby and on a hunch, goes off to investigate (you
know right in the middle of the big galactic crisis that is going on). Of course, it is Tendra and we have this
scene as they reunite:
"Lando?" she asked. He was
the first human being she had seen in a month.
"Tendra."
And suddenly they were in each
other's arms, holding each other tight. "Oh, Lando. Lando. You shouldn't
have come. You shouldn't have. There are ships on all sides of us, and sooner
or later the shooting is going to start and-"
"Hey, hey," said Lando.
"Shh. Take it easy," he said. "Take it easy. My ship is plenty
fast enough to get us out of here. We'll be all'right."
"But it's too dangerous!"
she insisted. "It was too risky."
"Come on," Lando said,
stroking her chin and giving her a big, warm smile. "I had to think of my
image. How could I possibly turn down the chance to rescue the damsel in
distress?"
Alright, I
have to admit that was kinda cute to read.
Lando that old rogue, it’s good to see him happy.
We bounce
right back to a bunch of getting in position and waiting around and other plot
stuff, until things begin to heat up and we have the crew of the Falcon preparing to go into battle and
it looks a little something like this:
"All right, Chewie," said
Han, half an hour later. "Jump off in five minutes. Let's look sharp.
Leia-time for you to get up to the turret and strap in."
Leia stood up from the observer's
seat and nodded. "I know," she said. But she didn't leave. Not
immediately. First she stepped forward, pulled Han's head toward hers, and gave
Han a kiss. A warm, lingering kiss that did not so much end as fade gently
away. "I love you," she said.
"I know," said Han.
"And you know I love you."
Leia smiled. "You're
right," she said. "I do." She stood up straight, reached over,
and ruffled the fur on top of Chewbacca's head. "So long, Chewie,"
she said. "See you on the other side." And with that, she turned and
left the cockpit.
Han turned and watched her go, then
looked over to Chewbacca. "You know, Chewie," he told the Wookiee,
"there's a lot to be said for this being married business.”
Chewbacca let out a low, rumbling laugh
and went back to double-checking the shield settings."
Ooh,
pretty nice kiss and exchange, right?
So the end
of the book is very fast-paced, going paragraph to paragraph between all the
different players. Anakin gets upset and
runs off and hides and his brother has to talk him into coming back and helping
which was cute. All the major players do
all their major parts and the big bad machine gets properly blown up and the bad
guys lose and the good guys win.
Yay! And maybe, just maybe,
proving that this trilogy of books was supposed to be about Lando all along, he
even gets to close out the novel:
But the repulsor beam broke up the
opening into hyperspace, defocused the beam, detuned it enough that some small
part of its energy was converted into visible light. The South Pole of
Centerpoint began to glow, began to throb and pulse with its own power. The
glow spread, expanding outward, stretching itself out into a magnificent bubble
of light, harmless light, that lit the skies of all the Corellian worlds,
gleaming, shining, blooming, growing-and then guttering down to nothing.
Lando Calrissian watched it all from
the North end of Centerpoint, and started breathing again. He hadn't even
realized he had stopped.
"Now," he said to Tendra.
"Now, it's over."
And indeed
it was. There is an epilogue that has a
happy scene of Han and Leia watching their kids run around and everyone smiling
and watching as well. There’s a bunch of
plot wrap up stuff and then we end again with Lando:
"Lando?" asked Tendra as
they wandered about on the churned-up land that the rise of the repulsor had
produced. It was not the loveliest of landscapes, but it did have the advantage
of providing a good deal of privacy behind every hummock and furrow of ground.
"Yes?" Lando asked.
"What is it?" Tendra had found herself on top of a higher than usual
clump of loose rock. Lando offered his hand, and she took it, used it to steady
herself as she slipped and slithered down into the next little furrow of
ground. He did not let go of her hand once she was on level ground, and she did
not let go of his.
"Remember how I told you that a
Sacorrian woman is not allowed to marry without her father's consent, no matter
how old she is?"
Lando felt a little flutter in his
chest, a flutter of fear, and excitement, and interest, all mixed up together.
"Yes," he said, managing to keep his voice steady. "What about
it?"
"Well," she said,
"there's just one thing. We don't have to do anything about it
immediately, but there's something more I want to tell you about that law. An
interesting legal technicality. It's been well established by many precedents
that a Sacorrian woman is not bound by that law- ifshe is outside the Sacorrian
system. If she were on, oh, Drall for example."
"Is that so?" Lando asked,
quickly regaining his old equilibrium. The idea needed time, and thought-but he
definitely liked it at first glance. He smiled, and looked at her lovely face.
"Is that a certifiable fact?" he asked.
"It is," she said, smiling
right back at him.
"Then why don't we get back to
the Lady Luck and discuss the whole matter over dinner?" he asked. "I've
always found legal technicalities to be downright fascinating."
And that’s
that. I have to say that I enjoyed this book for the most part. I thought several parts of it, as I mentioned, were very Star Wars-y and that the characters seemed written fairly well and on point. There were a few sluggish parts, like the tour of the facility and some other plot heavy scenes/chapters but other than that, it was an overall good read, escpecially from a Han and Leia perspective.
Now a word
on scoring. As I mentioned at the
beginning of this review, the EU does not seem as grim as it used to following
TFA. So, I’m thinking our scoring system
and our reviews themselves might be skewed a bit as this is the first book to
be reviewed following the release of the movie.
Regardless, there isn’t anything that can be done about it, but I will
at least try to keep in alignment with the previous scores, not giving an
undeserving book a 5 star rating just because, as bad as it was, it was still
better than TFA, if you know what I mean.
Funny, I wonder how we would rate COPL now? I'd venture to guess that it might've at least eeked up a little higher on its score. Haha!
With all
that being said, I’m giving this book a rating of 3.5 stars. It was a fun read and had just enough of Han
and Leia and their children sprinkled throughout to keep it enjoyable. Even Mara and Lando were fun to read about. There was some Leia girl time, Lando in love, a few kisses - yeah, not too bad at all.
And that's it. Hope you
enjoyed this review and thanks for reading.
Up
next: The Hand of Thrawn Duology by
Timothy Zahn.
