Han gave him a lopsided grin. “Well then, I’ll be sure to do my best.”
“No need to worry, sir,” the bureaucrat said. “So far, in the ninetythree-year history of the Derby, only two Grand Marshals have failed to do it correctly.”
Jacen couldn’t imagine how anyone could possibly manage to push a single button incorrectly, but then he’d seen some pretty disastrous bungling of simple matters in the course of his adventures.
“All right then, let’s get this over with,” Han said, his finger hovering near the button.
“No, no! Not yet,” the bureaucrat insisted.
“You said, whenever I was ready,” Han reminded him.
“But we have to send the thirty-second warning to the contestants first. And the HoloNet reporters need to get into position.” The bureaucrat frantically twiddled some dials and punched codes into a small yellow touchpad.
In the observation tower several of the broad windowscreens dimmed, now displaying transmitted images of spacecraft up in orbit.
Other contestants remained on landing pads as a second wave in the breakneck race through the cometary obstacle course. All ships would be clocked, and the winner would be determined by the fastest time through.
Han grinned. “Did I ever tell you kids how I made the Kessel run in under—”
“Yes,” Anakin broke in.
“How could we not know, Dad?” Jacen said. “It’s one of the most famous things you’ve ever done.”
Han brushed his fingers down his vest. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. I mean, saving your uncle Luke countless times, infiltrating the Death Star, freeing your mom from an Imperial prison chamber, helping defeat the entire Empire, exploring unknown worlds—” The bureaucrat interrupted him. “Now you may proceed, sir,” he said. “All ships have been informed and are ready to begin.”
Han stepped forward to the red button and extended his finger.
“This button, right?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“You’re sure I’m doing this properly?”
The bureaucrat did not pick up on his sarcasm at all. “You seem to be performing most admirably.”
“Good,” Han said. He pushed the button. The Blockade Runners Derby began.
Ships roared off pell-mell, choosing their own preferred routes to the cometary cloud, some swinging around the planet for a gravitational boost, others heading in a straight-line path, still others taking an incomprehensibly convoluted course.
The holocam buoys captured some of the contestants as they streaked by, an odd assortment of supercharged vessels, modified so that the pilots could withstand excessive acceleration; some ships had heavily reinforced shields to allow them to rip through the course without worrying about ramming into a few comets along the way.
Jaina stared at the viewscreens, her face filled with fascination.
“Look at the range of spacecraft!” she said. “Skimmers, freighter’s, courier vessels… Dad, I don’t even recognize some of those vehicle types.”
“Anybody with a few spare parts and some ingenuity can create their own new vehicle type,” Han said. “Done it myself a few times.”
A new ship flashed across the screen so rapidly that though Jacen thought for just a moment that he recognized the configuration, he decided it must be just his imagination. After all, he’d been daydreaming about Tenel Ka. It was only natural. Even though he was glad about being able to spend some time with his father, he also missed the young warrior girl.
And Lowie, too, of course…
Since the discovery of the space mine cluster on the course, several contestants had dropped out. Han had commented that they must have been too fainthearted in the first place and it was no great loss. Now only the toughest, most seasoned pilots remained in the race.
The ships jockeyed for position, jostling each other and nearly causing a few collisions as they tried to find the best routes that didn’t intersect each other. The vehicles scraped by far closer than their collision-avoidance systems should ever have allowed, but most of these crack pilots had probably shut off their warning systems anyway.
One viewscreen showed a graphical representation of the race. Blips with code numbers traveled through the obstacle course on the grid.
Jacen could watch the progress of the contestants by tracking the colored lights. Some blips moved forward; others fell behind. The holocam buoys, while an ingenious idea to cover the race, nevertheless provided only infrequent snapshots at discrete points—not enough images for anyone to follow the entire spectacle.
A Sullustan Vector-class spaceskimmer went slightly off course, and careened into the comet field. The buoy holocams caught the image as the skimmer struck an icy protrusion, then went into a spin. Enhanced deflector shields protected the pilot from instant death, but the ship was knocked completely awry, and the Sullustan pilot, disoriented, zoomed away in the wrong direction.
A pair of Corellian single-occupant fightercraft swept along opposite sides of a comet and nearly collided with each other at the other end.
They spun out. One ship crashed in the ice field, its pilot ejecting in a lifepod at the last moment and sending out a distress beacon. To their credit, race officials reacted instantly, dispatching medical droids and rescue craft that waited just outside the cometary cloud.
“I wish Lowie were here to see this,” Jaina said, still fascinated by the dazzling images of the great race.
“And Tenel Ka,” Jacen said, narrowing his eyes. “She must be thinking of us. I feel like I’m sensing them somehow—as if they’re closer than we think.”
On the gridmap of all the racing ships, Anakin pointed to one blip that was slowly passing every competing vessel. “This one will win,” he said. “I can tell by the piloting, by the speed. It has already overtaken most of the others that were launched first, and this ship entered the race near the end. It won’t crash, either. I’m sure of it.”
Outside in the streets of Ord Mantell, spectators watched the flat unmarked walls of square buildings that had been turned into transmission screens to carry images from the buoys scattered along the racecourse. Elsewhere in the New Republic—particularly in gambling casinos such as those in Cloud City on Bespin, cantinas on Borgo Prime, and various other legal and illegal meeting places—people placed bets on the Derby’s outcome.
If Jacen had ever decided to gamble, he would certainly have taken his younger brother’s recommendation. Anakin had an uncanny ability to predict things such as this. He watched the blip creep past several other racers as the ship zoomed through the cometary debris.
“Who is that contestant?” Jacen asked. He looked down at the code number, but it meant nothing to him.
The bureaucrat came over, all smiles. “That one qualified at the last minute.” He rubbed his hands together in a nervous gesture. “And it looks as if we were correct to let them enter so late. The pilot seems most skillful.”
The mysterious ship passed two more competitors, swooped around a large comet, then zigzagged through the toughest part of the course.
The craft moved in time with the broken icy space debris, reminding Jacen of an intricate dance. The ship and the comets seemed to be cooperating, moving as one connected system. He had never before seen anyone fly with such sensitivity to the surrounding environment and obstacles.
The ship hurtled around the last comet and then looped back toward Ord Mantell and the finish line. The time displayed on one of the screens was better than any of the other competitors had clocked. No one would be able to beat it.
As the craft zoomed past the last holocam buoy, Jacen and Jaina watched the blur. Jaina recognized it almost immediately, but took a moment to put her thoughts into words. “That… that’s a Hapan passenger cruiser. I recognize the design.”