Blasterfire screamed out as Han heaved the waitress out of the way and laid her down gently under the counter. “Uhhhrrgh,” she moaned, pulling an oven spike out of her shoulder.
Another droid rolled out of the kitchen, eyes burning red like the first one, a rusty fire ax raised to strike. Han pulled out his blaster and blew its head off. Screams erupted in the diner as two more droids blitzed out, slashing and bashing their way through the customers with scissors and a frying pan.
“Chewie!” Han yelled. The Wookiee had finally snapped out of his homesick reverie and was crouching behind an overturned table, taking aim with his bowcaster. “Fyzen’s here! Or he was!” Something tall and gangly streaked by the window. “There! After him!” The diners had begun to fight back—Freerago’s customers were notoriously well armed—and now laserfire zipped past from all directions. Han dived onto the floor then rose to a squat and shoved his way blaster-first toward the door.
Chewie was already ducking through it when he got there, and they both stepped away from the shootout and glanced back and forth for Gor.
“There!” Han yelled. The tall figure was sprinting toward the motel complex behind Freerago’s. Han had stayed there before, and it wasn’t pretty. Dark corridors wound through the compound, ending sometimes in open plazas, other times just in blank walls. “You ready for this?”
Chewie narrowed his eyes. His face suggested that ending this Pau’an after a wild chase through a gritty hotel maze was exactly the kind of thing that might lift him out of his bad mood.
“After you then,” Han said, and in they went.
HAN’S FLIGHT PANTS SLID SMOOTHLY over his hips. After that choke hold of a uniform, now crumpled in a soaked pile on the shower room floor beside Han, putting his old clothes on felt like meeting up with one of those friends you don’t see for years but don’t miss a beat with falling into the old easy banter. Like Lando, now that he thought about it. He selected a clean white shirt out of his bag (Leia knew him so well) and pulled it on, closing his eyes as he tucked it in and buttoned it up, then fastened his pants and slid a belt into place.
He looked up at himself in the mirror over the sink, smiled, then glared. A few more grays, a couple more lines across his brow, but he was doing all right. He clasped one gun belt and then the other across his waist then placed each blaster in its holster, enjoying the weight of them against his hips, the way they completed the picture. Then he pulled on his boots and walked slowly across the Vermillion’s main hold and into the cockpit, where way too many battleships were menacing one another right outside the blast glass.
“So, about that,” Taka said in reply to Han’s perplexed scowl.
Yes, they’d escaped the bastak horde, but they were still hovering just over the building tops of Substation Grimdock.
“Go on,” Han said.
Lando pointed to the crowded sensor screen. “There’s a lot going on.”
Han glanced at it, frowned. “Oof.”
“Yep,” Lando said. “Seems like the New Republic cruisers are blockading whoever all these other guys are. Problem is…”
“No guns,” Han finished for him.
“Not many guns,” Lando amended.
Han sighed. “Thank you, Mon Mothma.”
“Although the pirates may not know just how much the odds are in their favor at this point. Demilitarization wasn’t perceived to be as widespread as it actually was, from what I’ve heard.”
Han shook his head. “Yeah, how long before they find out?”
“On the plus side,” Taka said, “we got guns. And lots.”
“First of all”—Lando pointed out, raising one finger—“guns to take out a whole—how many is that? Six…seven battleships and however many dippy little one- and two-person fighters they got out there?”
Taka shrugged. “With me piloting and you all shooting: Probably.”
“Second of all: And then what? We blast through the blockade, too? They’ve still got us hemmed in too close to the surface for us to make the jump, as I’m sure they know. And they’re gonna have questions when they see us blasting away with all this firepower.”
Han chuckled grimly. “And probably the first question will be: Why are you in a stolen New Republic transport with a bunch of forged IDs and passcodes you’re not supposed to have access to?”
“I don’t think you fellas truly appreciate the skill with which I pilot this craft,” Taka said. “But okay: What’s the plan then?”
Lando and Han traded dubious glances.
“Hail that New Republic flagship,” Han said.
Taka made a face but tapped a few buttons on the comm anyway and then sat back as a gruff voice sounded over the speakers. “This is Captain Krull of the flagship Tribulan Vort. Transport freighter Vermillion, this is a restricted sector. Please state your business.”
“We’re on a routine fact-gathering mission,” Han said, “and we weren’t aware of the current conflict at Substation Grimdock. Requesting permission to, er, transport out of here.”
“Negative, Vermillion,” Captain Krull said. “We are currently blockading this sector and must inspect all vessels leaving the prison moon. I’m deploying the Krassbrucker to intercept you and perform a thorough inspection.”
Up above, a medium-sized corvette broke away from the New Republic blockade and started cruising toward the surface of the substation.
Taka shook their head.
Han waved his hands around helplessly. “Ah, that’s a negative, Captain, that’s a negative. We are carrying highly radioactive materials on board and the Krassbrucker will be compromised if it gets too close.”
There was a heavy pause. The Krassbrucker appeared to accelerate toward them.
“Why are you carrying radioactive weapons away from a restricted prison moon in the middle of an intergalactic incident, Vermillion?” Captain Krull demanded.
“Ah, great question!” Han said, shaking his head. “We were directed to, in fact, exactly because of the incident, ah, in question, which is, ah, happening, you know, in this sector.” He tilted his head as if he’d somehow nailed it, then added, “As it happens.”
“Stand by to be boarded,” Captain Krull said, and cut the call.
Taka and Lando slow-clapped. “Well that,” Lando said, “went—”
A huge explosion tore through the Krassbrucker, followed by ferocious laserfire from all sides.
The Radium Destrobar, that pirated Mon Cal freighter they’d shrugged off earlier, banked hard toward the Krassbrucker, unleashing another barrage of fire and putting itself directly between the New Republic ship and the Vermillion.
Out in the blockade beyond it, a battalion of new RZ-2 A-wing interceptors tore out of the Tribulan Vort, their laserfire painting flashes of red lightning across the dark sky.
Captain Viz Moshara’s long, sharp-cheeked face shimmered into existence in front of Han, Taka, and Lando.
“What do you want?” Han spat.
“I bring you an offer actually,” the Cosian said with an uncomfortable smile.
“Stop firing on that ship and we’ll talk,” Lando said.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Moshara sneered, “we are under attack and blockaded in. We cannot simply stop firing.”
The A-wings had indeed closed in and were shredding the Radium with laserfire from all sides, even as the Radium’s laser cannons blasted out at them.
“Go ’head with your offer then,” Lando said. “But make it quick and don’t expect any favors in return.”
The Cosian captain bowed slightly. “We grant you safe passage through the blockade.”
“It’s not your blockade to offer us safe passage through,” Han said. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I think we both know,” Moshara said with the kind of sneer only a Cosian could manage, “that be
tween your firepower and ours, those ships won’t hold up for long once we light into them.”
The A-wings pulled off their attack, beaten back by relentless fire from the Radium.
“Why would you help us?” Lando asked.
Rows of deep wrinkles circled Viz Moshara’s large eyes, and they seemed to deepen somehow as the captain glared at something or someone just out of sight. A silent conversation was had, Moshara nodding and shaking his head ever so slightly, his long tail whipping back and forth anxiously behind him. Finally, he turned back to the crew of the Vermillion. “It doesn’t matter why,” he croaked. “Take our offer, or be destroyed.”
And then he was gone.
Out in the distance, the A-wings had pulled back to regroup and were circling back around for another run at the Radium Destrobar as the larger pirate ships began to bank toward the New Republic blockade. A few preliminary blasts slung back and forth between the two small fleets.
“I don’t like any of this,” Han said.
Lando squinted out at the unfolding battle. “He’s on there. Gor’s on that ship. He’s gotta be.”
“Now you sound like Luke,” Han said. “What makes you so sure?”
“You saw plain as day Moshara was getting directions from someone else!”
“That could’ve been anyone, Lando. Don’t get spooky on me.”
“Why else would they offer to let us through if not because someone on board, someone powerful, is forcing them to? And who else is invested in us getting where we need to go? Gor knew we were coming here to get a bead on the Phylanx and now he knows, or thinks anyway, that we’ve got it and wherever we’re headed next is where it’ll be.”
“That’s a whole lotta conjecture, if you ask me,” Han said.
“Well, good thing no one as—”
“Gentlemen,” Taka interrupted. “I would love to argue about which random Pau’an is or isn’t on that pirate ship, however! We’re in the middle of an active war zone and we have to make a move.”
Han and Lando looked at each other. “Blast ’em,” they both said.
Taka laughed. “I was hoping you’d say that!” They pushed a button and Captain Moshara’s thin face appeared again.
“Yes?”
“Captain Moshara,” Taka said gleefully. “We have your answer.”
They slammed down the torpedo lock-trip mechanism and activated the topside and wing cannons as two blasts of laser fire screamed out toward the Radium Destrobar.
“You are firing on us!” Moshara screeched. “What is this?”
“Your answer!” Taka yelled, flicking the holo out of existence and winking at Han and Lando. “Gentlemen, battle stations!”
The Vermillion roared forward in the wake of its laser blasts, letting loose a stream of laserfire as it barreled toward the Radium Destrobar. Still fending off flybys from the New Republic interceptors, the larger ship now turned several of its aft cannons and opened fire.
The Vermillion shuddered as Lando slid into the gunner’s seat beneath the cockpit. Taka was sliding them deftly through the barrage of laser blasts, managing to get them grazed by only one or two.
“Get ready to strafe!” Taka called over the comm as the Destrobar’s green-gray bulk eclipsed the sky beneath Lando’s feet. He shoved the gunner stick down hard and opened fire, raising twin rows of smoking clouds and shattered steel along the top of the ship.
The Vermillion shook a few times and then careened beyond the Destrobar, looping back almost immediately for another run. “Fighters ahead,” Taka warned. “Look sharp.”
“I always look sharp,” Lando chuckled. Three small starfighters raced toward them. Lando watched as Han’s top cannons made quick work of the first two, but the third had slid down low, probably hoping to come up from beneath them and disable their wing guns. That wasn’t going to happen. Lando spun his seat, the battle-torn sky reeling wildly around him, and fired, clipping the fighter’s wing just as it arced up toward them, cannons blazing. The fighter spun out of control and smacked into the Radium Destrobar with a burst of fire and smoke.
“Han, take out the sidebar turbo panels,” Lando yelled, and the fury of battle was in him now; the wild joy of destruction at every turn, both his and his enemies’, slid its fingers around his own and wouldn’t let go. “Then we can concentrate on the central reactor.”
They would blast this ragged disgrace of a ship to pieces, and Fyzen Gor along with it. Fyzen Gor, whose hench-droid had gotten the drop on Lando, who seemed to anticipate their every move, whose mysterious machinations had put them all in peril. But Lando had the upper hand; Fyzen had thrown in with a listless, breakable lot, and now he’d pay.
Another starfighter swung toward them from behind the Destrobar and Lando lanced it through with four shots, sending it spinning into a blast from Han’s wing cannon.
The fury of battle. That radiating thrum pounded ceaselessly through him, ensnared him and rattled along in his ears as the carnage blitzed past and he reeled deeper into its flaming heart.
He’d felt it as he burned through the tangled innards of the second Death Star that fateful day, and the screeching laserfire, the TIEs torpedoing toward him and catapulting into fiery catastrophes at the will of his rage, the urgent comm chatter in his ear, the brappity-brap of his heart pounding against his rib cage as the final shot neared—it all formed a rugged war song the world was playing just for him.
And now it was back, unbeckoned, as he rained laser carnage on the Radium Destrobar, gleefully laying waste to their top and dorsal weapons systems. The A-wings zipped past, unleashing their own barrages of fire, and then they were all clear again. Ahead of them, the half-destroyed Krassbrucker listed ungracefully away from the fray, and past that the pirate fleet battered away at the New Republic blockade.
“One more pass should do it,” Lando said as they reeled back around, but something was going on with the Destrobar: A light-blue flame lit the edges of the engines. “They’re not about to—”
“I was about to say the same thing,” Taka cut in.
“How can they?” Han growled. “They’re too close to the substation.”
“Well, let’s just make extra sure,” Taka said as the Vermillion rocketed back toward the Destrobar, staying low and out of its direct path just in case they tried the impossible.
Lando felt a pinch of unease rupture that good battle fury. If the Radium Destrobar got away…well, they’d just have to keep tracking down this Phylanx as planned, he supposed. But he didn’t like it. Fyzen Gor seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once, and it was supremely unnerving. Plus, now they’d tried to destroy him.
The Mon Cal freighter didn’t attempt a hyperspace jump, but it did accelerate suddenly forward, lurching up and away from the Vermillion toward the blockade and releasing a fusillade of laser fire as it went.
“They’re making a run on the blockade,” Taka yelled, hurling the Vermillion out of the path of all that fire and then dodging a few more small fighters that had deployed from another pirate freighter.
“Or are they?” Lando said, half to himself.
The ship was heading straight for one of the pirate frigates and showed no sign of stopping.
“They’re gonna—” Han yelled just as the Radium Destrobar smashed head-on into the top bridge of the other ship with a massive explosion. Lando squinted at the two collapsing powerhouses. A tiny figure hurled out of the rear hold of the Destrobar. Lando could just make out its all-too-familiar dark-green space suit, gray jetpack, and black helmet. The figure blasted out into empty space just as the two ships blew apart, splattering the warring fleets on either side with fire and debris.
“THERE’S A SIGNAL COMING FROM sector seven forty-six,” L3 said, working the navicomputer with a ferocity Lando had never seen before. “Looks like…” She whirled around in the seat, extending her neck by sev
eral centimeters so she could check something on the upper panels and then sliding it back into place as both her hands clacked away on the keypad. “…Yes…” She nodded, tilted her head. “It’s a skirmish. Looks like the Imperials called for backup.”
Lando sighed. “And I suppose you’d like me to—never mind.” He veered the Falcon hard to the portside and eased down on the thrusters. The ice moon shards were smaller and more scattered in this area. They speckled the airspace around them like giant, slowly spinning snowflakes, and Lando swerved and swooped the Falcon among them with ease.
“Thank you, Lando Calrissian,” L3 said. Lando heard the slightest tremor of emotion behind those words and his full name.
He killed the sly retort that tried to slip out, instead just smiled.
“Most people write me off,” L3 went on, when she was satisfied he wasn’t going to try to turn the moment into more banter. “I mean, most people write all of us off. Droids. But especially me. I’m easy to write off, in a way.”
“El, no.”
She shushed him with a hand. “Don’t. I know who I am and that all my talk about droid rights and everything else makes people uncomfortable. The Maker didn’t put me in this galaxy to make organics feel good about themselves, though.”
“Well, that much is clear.”
“And I’m okay with that. When you know what you’re here to do, everything that’s not that matters much less.”
Lando just nodded. He hadn’t thought about it like that, and he certainly had no idea what he was here to do, except cause trouble and make a whole pile of money doing it, but that probably wasn’t what L3 had in mind.
“And anyway,” L3 went on, “who is the Maker but our own selves, really? Sure, some guy in a factory probably pieced me together originally, and someone else programmed me, so to speak. But then the galaxy itself forged me into who I am. Because we learn, Lando. We’re programmed to learn. Which means we grow. We grow away from that singular moment of creation, become something new with each changing moment of our lives—yes, lives—and look at me: these parts”—she ran her hand along the mesh of wiring and the rebranded astromech of her midsection—“I did this. So maybe when we say the Maker we’re referring to the whole galaxy, or maybe we just mean ourselves. Maybe we’re our own makers, no matter who put the parts together.”
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