Millennium Falcon Week Begins!

"You gotta love this ship, Reeze said. "She knows her job, all right."

Jadak slipped the freighter in between a Corellian transport and a Santhe/Sienar passenger ship, then stood YT 492727ZED on her side to ease past the transport and continue to maneuver toward the front of the pack. Reeze muted the cockpit's enunciators so they wouldn't have to listen to the pilots and navigators who were cursing them out.

"Maybe they'll give us ownership after this run."

"We can hope," Jadak said.

"Ten years of sticking our necks out, Tobb. There should be a law."

"There should be, but there isn't. Besides, I'm just trying to help keep the galaxy on course. What's your excuse?"

"Like I told you, I want this ship to be ours." Both pilots were human, Jadak a bit taller and twenty years younger, with a lighter complexion and a clipped beard that accented a square jaw. Reeze was graying at the temples but clear-eyed and as fit as an athlete. A traffic jam was the last thing they had expected to encounter at Coruscant, but the Separatists' attack on the galactic capital had come so unexpectedly that nearly everyone inbound had been caught up in it. Some had arrived in time to hear the HoloNet announcement of Chancellor Palpatine's abduction and witness the reversion to realspace of the Republic Cruisers that made up the Open Circle Fleet. Together with the Home Fleet crusiers, the huge Venator-class ships had succeeded in keeping the battle confined to the upper reaches of Coruscant's envelope. A few deft pilots had managed to spin their ships out of the fray and jump back into hyperspace. But tens of thousands of other vessels -- ships of all sizes and makes and purposes -- were still holding at the forward line, waiting for the battle to end one way or another, so that they could either continue on to Coruscant or flee for the Outer Rim.

"Even if they did," Jadak went on, "how could we afford to keep her running?"

"Same as we've been doing. But for the private sector."

"Gainful employment?"

"I'll settle for employment. I'm not as particular as you."

Jadak frowned. "I've known too many smugglers. That life's not what it's cracked up to be."

Reeze barked a laugh. "Neither's this one."

Jadak had brought the YT to a point where they had a panoramic view of the fighting. More slugfest than coordinated battle, the clash pitted the big ships against one another, crimson hyphens of annihilation pulsing among them while flights of ARC-170, droid tri-fighters, and vulture fighters buzzed about in seeming pandemonium. The melee's backdrop was perpetually lighted Coruscant itself, the planet's scintillating urban rings ravaged in places where defensive shields had been breached or ships had gone to ground. The Republic with everything on the line, and Count Dooku's Confederacy of Independent Systems with nothing more to lose than a cyborg general and an army of droids.

Reeze whistled in surprise. "Front seat on the fall of civilization as we know it."

"Not likely. But all the more reason to deliver our cargo."

"So you say." Reeze gazed out the YT's circular viewport. "I see a problem in our getting downside in one piece. A bunch of problems, actually, and the words laser cannon figure into all of them."

Jadak swiveled his chair. "We can't be late, Reeze. They said it's important."

Reeze returned a glum nod. "Late being the operative word. As in the late Reeze Duurmun."

"I'll tell everyone you died a hero."

"What -- you'll survive?" Reeze stared at his friend, then laughed. "Yeah. You probably will."

Jadak swung forward. "See what you can pick up on the battle net."

Reeze tugged the headset over his ears and keyed a coded entry into the communications suite. He listened to the comm chatter for a moment, then craned his neck to study something off to starboard and brought a new view of the battle to one of the instrument panel display screens. He tapped his forefinger against the screen to indicate the icon profile of a large battle cruiser, with a stalked observation deck aft and a flyout bridge.

Jadak read the alphanumeric data beneath the icon. "What am I looking at?"

"The Invisible Hand."

"General Grievous's flagship."

"That's where they were holding Palpatine."

"Were?"

"The Jedi rescued him. Kenobi and Skywalker. But the three of them are still on board."

Jadak took the YT through a quick spin to improve the view. In the middle distance, a Republic Cruiser was hammering away at the Invisible Hand's waist, where its elongated prow met a bulbous aft section. Maybe in retaliation for what the Republic ship had endured from the Invisible Hand's flak arrays. Jadak glanced at the monitor.

"Looks like the captain of the Guarlara didn't get word that the Chancellor's onboard."

"Could be because of signal jamming. Or maybe he just doesn't care."

Jadak scowled. "Palpatine's death would create as many problems as it would solve."

For several moments, the two men watched in silence as the Guarlara subjected the Separatist flagship to repeated laser cannon broadsides, blowing gaping holes in the hull and igniting fiery explosions that swept through the Invisible Hand stem to stern. Jadak couldn't imagine the cybernetic Grievous surviving the onslaught, let alone Palpatine and his saviors, the force or no. When the flagship could endure no more, it listed, then fell victim to gravity and began a slow descent into Coruscant's atmosphere.

"She's dirt-bound," Jadak said.

"And already coming apart. Two to one she won't make it halfway."

"I'll take that bet."

With one hand clamped on the control yoke, Jadak tweaked the inertial compensator and shot the YT forward. No one tried to prevent them from plunging into the heart of the maelstrom. If they were hell bent on becoming just another battle casualty, it was their business.

"We could at least try an end run, you know," Reeze said, one hand clamped to the chair's armrest.

Jadak countered it with a shake of his head. "The Seps have the rest of the planet blockaded. Our best shot's here, with the Invisible Hand breaking trail."

Reeze shot Jadak a look. "We're following her down?"

"Let's say, in."

Reeze nodded. "I'm good with in."

"Even if it means losing the bet?"

"Even if."

If they were to ride the Invisible Hand's wake to the surface, first they had to reach her. That meant threading a path among the countless frigates and gunboats that stood in the way, dodging the fighters that continued to spill from the bellies of the KDY carriers and the curving arms of the Neimoidians' behemoth Lucrehulks, and avoiding the turbolaser fire that crosshatched near space. But they didn't doubt for a moment that the YT was up to the task. The ship had never let them down, and there was no reason to think she would fail them now.

An unknown quantity to the friend-or-foe interrogators of the warships they streaked past, the YT became a target of opportunity for one and all. Absent weapons of their own, Jadak and Reeze had to rely on the freighter's remarkable speed and near-preternatural agility. They pushed the ship for all she was worth, corkscrewing through churning clouds of fighter dogfights and executing twists and turns better left to Jedi Interceptors than forty-year-old light freighters-- even one as upgraded and enhanced as the YT was. Power that wasn't being consumed by the YT's sublight engine was being gobbled up by the deflector shields, taxed by each glancing bolt the ship sustained.

Leaping out from behind one of Coruscant's crazed orbital mirrors, they raced to fall in behind the flaming deteriorating hulk the Separatist flagship had become, her blunt bow dipped toward Coruscant in a gesture of surrender, ablative shielding glowing red-hot, and sloughing pieces of armor like a monar serpent shedding scales.

"Cruiser's escape pods are away," Reeze said.

Jadak magnified the forward view of the ship. Hands vised on the yoke as the YT slalomed through a fragment cloud of parts and components, Jadak watched in awe as the warship altered vector for the planet's governmental district. The Invisible Hand was falling to be sure, but it was clear that someone still had the helm and was determined to guide the vessel in by deploying the drag fins and using the exterior hatches as needed to keep the ship from burning up in the atmosphere.

"Skywalker?" Reeze said.

"I doubt it's Palpatine -- unless he's got talents he hasn't revealed."

Hundreds of warships too large to be annihilated by Coruscant's artillery and rocketry had penetrated the umbrella and cratered the urbanscape. But it was obvious that the standoff gunnery crews had been ordered to allow the Invisible Hand through, which in turn upped the YT's chances of making planetfall. All they had to do was remain close enough to the ship not to be spotted, but far enough from it not to be incinerated.

Jadak had his hand on the throttle when the entire aft portion of the Invisible Hand tumbled away in a mass of flaming wreckage. Only Reeze's last-moment evasive actions kept the YT from being atomized. Just as quickly, Jadak brought the freighter up on her side and barrel-rolling out of harm's way. But the hail of debris that slammed into the shields was worse than anything they had flown through earlier, and the deflectors might as well have yowled for all the alert tones the instrument panel issued.

Without warning, the YT veered sharply. Only the copilot chair's safety harness kept Reeze from landing in Jadak's lap. Status indicators flashed on the console, and another chorus of alarms filled the cockpit.

"Port braking thruster's taken a bad hit," Jadak said as he brought the YT back on course. "We'll check it out when we set down."

Reeze snugged the harness. "The eternal optimist."

"Someone in this cockpit's gotta be."

With half of the warship's mass lost to space, whoever had the controls was managing to keep the truncated forward portion on track for a controlled crash, probably on one of the old hardened landing strips in the government district. Repulsors howling, the YT continued to follow it down, shedding altitude and velocity. But with only twenty kilometers to go, icons began to paint the threat screen and proximity alarms wailed. Jadak saw flights of ships screaming up the well to render aid to the Invisible Hand.

"Fireships," Reeze said. "Couple of clone fighters, too."

"Time to make ourselves scarce."

"We've got that authorization code--"

"Better save it for when we really need it. Switch us over to terrain-following."

"Quick circumnavigation?"

"No time for that."

Jadak consulted the topographic display then banked out of the warship's wake, main thrusters protesting and intense waves of heat assaulting them. Two of the clone fighters gave chase but ultimately peeled away to rejoin the Invisible Hand, which was fast approaching the landing strip.

The YT slewed west over the spaceport tower and the Jedi Temple, then out over The Works, through columns of oily black smoke billowing from crash craters and fires that had spread into some of the outlying districts.

"Looks like the alien sectors took the brunt of it," Reeze said.

"A lot of folks have been trying to get rid of those slums for decades."

"Grievous in league with the urban renewal lobbyists?"

"Why not?"

Jadak had never seen the striated airlanes so empty. But in among the emergency vehicles and police cruisers were clone-piloted ARC170s on the prowl for intruders until martial law was lifted. In the time it took to bring the YT about, several of the fighters had taken an interest in the freighter.

"About twenty gun emplacements have us in target lock," Reeze said.

"Open the comm."

"YT-Thirteen-hundred," someone said over the subspace comm. "Identify yourself and state your destination."

"Stellar Envoy out of Ralltiir," Jadak said toward the microphone. "Destination is the Senate Annex."

"The Senate is restricted airspace. If you've an authorization code, transmit it now, or turn about. Failure to comply will be met with lethal force."

Jadak nodded to Reeze. "Go ahead."

Reeze swiveled his chair and punched a code into the comm board.

"Transmitting authorization."

"Stellar Envoy," the same voice said a moment later, "you are cleared for the Senate Building."

For other Millennium Falcon stories, don't forget to check out:

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• A Millennium of Gaming The history of the Millennium Falcon in video games.

• Millennium Falcon Collectibles The best Falcon toys, puzzles, models and more.

• Learn to Draw the Millennium Falcon Step-by-step instructions on how to draw the classic vessel.

• Draw a Millennium Falcon Battle Scene Tips on how to compose a dynamic space battle starring the Falcon.

• Make a Millennium Falcon Neck Rest Turn an ordinary neck rest into a crafty Star Wars one.

• Secrets of the Millennium Falcon Millennium Falcon week concludes with this behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Ultimate Blueprints.