the operators and scrambling the analyzers.
The mines continued to explode at ten-second intervals, effectively
masking the Cronau radiation from both ends of the Falcon's
microjump.
Meanwhile, Chewbacca whipped the transport into a smart half turn,
standing it on its tail with the engines at maximum thrust. That
maneuver quickly killed off the ship's velocity, at g-loads that tested
the limits of even Wookiee physiology. For the gun crews aboard the
Yevethan flagship, it was like looking up into the subatomic fury of a
fusion reactor. For seconds afterward,
the best-positioned batteries could not see to find their target.
Those were precious seconds to the Falcon. As quickly as the ship
slowed, Chewbacca diverted engine power to the combat shields,
reserving only enough to wheel the ship over on its back and match
orbital velocities with the great Star Destroyer. By the time the
first blaster bolts lanced out from the side of Pride of Yevetha and
from the two trifoil fighters closing in, the Falcon was inside the
shield radius, and Chewbacca had spotted his landing site.
Following their instructions, the moment the Falcon came under fire,
Jowdrrl and Dryanta began a savage counterattack with the ship's quad
turrets.
Chewbacca roared with delight as a Yevethan fighter disappeared in a
fireball, and growled at Shoran to launch the remaining mines. When
the mines were away, he sent the Falcon diving edgewise toward the
many-faceted hull of the Star Destroyer.
[Go stand by the cutter,] Chewbacca ordered Shoran as he guided the
Falcon low across the face of the flagship.
By the time Shoran reached the port pod hatch where the hatch-cutting
mechanism was attached, Chewbacca had gently nestled the Falcon against
the enemy vessel's hull, allowing the cutting ring's magna grapples to
grab hold. By the time Chewbacca rejoined Shoran at the hatch, the
cutting ring had already burned halfway through the armored plasteel.
Lumpawarrump was there as well, holding both Chewbacca's weapons and
his own, ready to take up his assigned task of defending the entrance
to the Falcon.
[Chewbacca!] Jowdrrl shouted down the access tunnel.
firing on us--all of a sudden, just like that. I can see half a dozen
fighters flying past, but they're ignoring us. Should I fire on
them?
Maybe they've lost us in the clutter down here.>
just means they expect to handle us from the inside.> Chewbacca
collected his blaster rifle from Lumpawarrump, then placed a paw on his
son's shoulder. [Go trade places with Jowdrrl.] [Father--] [Hurry.]
The nitrogen overpressure pumped into the space between the two ships
before the final burn-through caused the metal disc cut from Pride of
Yevetha's hull to blow back into the enemy ship as a spectacular
half-ton projectile.
Chewbacca and Shoran poured through the opening moments later, each
wielding a heavy blaster in each hand. Standing back to back, they
quickly cut down the half dozen Yevetha who came running at the sound
of the breach.
As Chewbacca stepped over the bodies he saw that none of the Yevetha
had been armed. [Ship's crew,] he said to Shoran. [Troops will be
next.] Still back-to-back, they hurried down corridor 278 toward
detention block three.
Lin Prell, senior tender of the breederies of Viceroy Nil Spaar, paid
no mind to the alarms sounding at the monitoring console. They
concerned matters outside his realm, and the new hanging in alcove five
needed its blood wash.
After that, he would check the temperature of all the active alcoves,
record the growth of the other fertilized casks, and wet-sweep alcove
seven for the mara-nas expected later that night. And when he could
find no more work in this breedery, there were four others he could
inspect--anything to keep his hands and mind busy, to keep his thoughts
away from the castration knife that had been delivered to his quarters
this morning, and the example he was expected to set.
In that frame of mind, Lin Prell almost welcomed the interruption when
two hulking, shaggy-furred vet
min blasted through the wall of the monitor room and began shooting up the consoles.
There will be much work to do--much work, he thought as he hurried down
the narrow corridor toward the commotion.
"What is it? What do you want?" he called ahead, catching a glimpse
of one of the invaders moving about the outer compartment.
The only answer was a horrible growl and another volley of blaster fire
around the mouth of the corridor.
Lin Prell quickly reexamined his commitment to protecting Nil Spaar's
progeny, and then began to back-pedal down the metal walkway.
The monsters were apparently incapable of speech, so Lin Prell made no
further attempts to communicate with them. When one of the creatures
appeared at the end of the corridor, roaring in savage fury, the senior
keeper hurled himself into the nearest unused alcove and secured the
door behind him. As he huddled in the corner, waiting, he comforted
himself with the thought that he might never see the black-handled
knife again.
[Where are they?] Chewbacca roared. [Where are the prisoners? What
are these repulsive things?] Raising the rifle, he blasted the fleshy
sac hanging from the cell wall, causing a pulpy explosion. [Honor
brother!] he roared. [Call to me!] There was no response, leading to a
murderous growl of frustration. With Shoran guarding his back,
Chewbacca picked his way down the corridor, peeking into each cell in
turn and then laying heavily on the triggers of his weapons.
[Come on,] Shoran urged. [This is a hothouse--they're holding him
somewhere else. We have to keep moving.] Chewbacca peered through the
grating of the cell door at the Yevetha cowering within. He bared his
teeth and growled, low and ominously.
[Come on!] Shoran said, pulling Chewbacca away.
An eerie silence continued to surround the Falcon. From the gun
turrets, LumpaWarrump and Dryanta could count dozens of fighters
cruising over the hull of the Star Destroyer--obviously searching for
the intruder, and inexplicably unable to locate it. One fighter had
passed within seventy meters of the ship, so close that Dryanta could
see the pilot's face, so close that it was all Lumpawarrump could do to
keep his hands off the triggers of the Dennia quad.
Even stranger were the comlink reports from Jowdrrl at her station
guarding the hatch.
[Someone talk to me,] she said.
[We're here,] Dryanta assured her.
[I just had visitors,] she said. [Nine of them, almost as big as
Shoran and armed like stormtroopers.] [Help's coming,] said
Lumpawarrump.
[No, stay where you are--they're gone now. But I don't know why,]
Jowdrrl said. [They looked over the bodies in the corridor, stood
around jabbering for a minute or two, then walked right past the
cut-hatch on their way out.] [That doesn't make any sense,]
&nb
sp; Lumpawarrump protested.
[I know. I was ready for them to rush me, but they never even glanced
in my direction-as if they couldn't see that there was a hole in the
bulkhead big enough to crawl through.] [Just like our fighters up
here,] said Dryanta, both wonder and worry evident in his voice. [Like
we've become invisible. I don't understand it.]
Detention block two had been modified as well, though it was empty and
deserted. But by the time Chewbacca and Shoran were ready to leave it,
their noisy entrance had drawn a small crowd of Yevethan soldiers to
the corridor outside.
With no more than a glance between them, the two Wookiees plunged
through the destroyed entryway,
turning back-to-back the moment they were clear of it.
By the luck of the draw, Chewbacca had five targets in front of him,
Shoran eight.
Roaring defiance, Chewbacca sprayed the corridor with crisscrossing
blaster bolts. The las of his targets was tottering when he heard
Shoran grunt, and felt him sag against his back. A whiff of burnt hair
and fresh blood reached Chewbacca's nostrils.
Whirling, Chewbacca caught Shoran up with one hand before he could fall
and dispatched the last two Yevetha with a flurry of shots from the
blaster in the other hand.
Then he turned his attention to the limp weight cradled in the crook of
his arm. And what he saw drove him to howl with fury and scatter a
dozen more blaster bolts into the corpses littering the floor.
"Shoran has fallen,] he called over the comlink when the impulse was
spent. [Dryanta, come for him.]
Lumpawarrump was the first to the cut-hatch, beating Dryanta by three
steps. [I'm going,] he said to Jowdrrl. [I know the map. You don't
need me in the gun turret. And Dryanta shouldn't go alone.] Jowdrrl
saw the determination in his eyes, the eagerness in his stance, and did
not argue. [Go,] she said.
[Just remember that the Yevetha can see you perfectly well.] Glancing
down at his hands, the youth clicked his blaster's lock to off and
checked the power level.
[We'll remember,] he said. [Dryanta?] She nudged him from behind.
[Take the lead.] They met Chewbacca halfway to detention block two.
Dryanta took Shoran from him without a word and hurried away back
toward the Falcon, leaving Lumpawarrump with his father.
The two stood looking into each other's eyes appraisingly, one
searching for strength, the other for approval.
Then Chewbacca grunted and turned away.
[Follow,] he said. [Protect my back.]
Detention block one was being guarded by half a dozen armed Yevetha,
which raised Chewbacca's hopes.
But when he and his son had blasted their way through the interference,
all they found were more of the grossly distended fleshy sacs hanging
in the cells.
[This is taking too long--there are too many places he could be,]
Chewbacca fumed. [They will have killed him or moved him by now.]
[Father, when I think about Han, I do not see him in a place like
this--] [Be quiet--I have to think.] [I keep seeing him in a room full
of people--a large room, and all different species. I don't know where
this picture comes from--] [I do not believe this,] Chewbacca said.
But Lumpawarrump's words had put the picture in his mind as well.
[And yet I see what I see, Father. It comes to me without imagining.
Is it a deception?] [When did this vision present itself to you?]
[While I was in the turret--and it will not leave me.
It is most insistent.] Chewbacca growled and blasted the ceiling at
random.
The thought of Han was now inextricably connected to an oddly detailed
vision of a high-ceilinged compartment half filled with a zoo of
species. The image would not leave his mind either, and he could not
see Han in any other surroundings. [This is powerfully annoying-and I
do not understand it.] [Father, what if the enemy' has taken many
hostages?
What if Han is just one of hundreds? Where would he be then?] There
were noises in the outer corridor, and Chewbacca moved to the ruined
security door. [In your mind, as you see Han,] he called. [Are there
any markings, any numbers or words?] Lumpawarrump squeezed his eyes
closed. [Yes.
Yes, on the wall--D-two.] It was the same as what Chewbacca saw--bold
black lettering high on the bulkhead above the prisoners: CARGO [The
mass detention holds,] Chewbacca roared.
[Come!]
Back to back, Chewbacca and Lumpawarrump fought their way forward to
cargo hold D2. Strangely, the resistance seemed to weaken rather than
strengthen as they went, almost as though they were moving too fast for
their pursuers to find them---or as though the carnage they left in
their wake discouraged other Yevetha from getting in the way of a
headlong Wookiee charge.
But the guards and patrols they did encounter fought tenaciously, never
flinching or fleeing. Armed or unarmed, alone or in groups, the
Yevetha confronted the intruders with a foolish courage that made them
easy targets and persistent threats. Chewbacca and Lumpawarrump were
forced to fire on anything that moved and to keep firing until it
stopped moving. By the time their objective was in sight, the gauge on
Lumpawarrump's hand blaster was nearing the POWER LOW mark, and the
gauges on both of Chewbacca's were closing in on POWER CRITICAL.
Ahead of them was one final hurdle. Unlike with the detention blocks,
blowing a hole in the bulkhead with a grenade threatened the occupants
of the cargo hold. But the sectional doors of the hold were guarded by
half a dozen Yevetha deployed behind a pair of Imperial portable
shields. The waist-high curved panels contained both ray-shield
generators and energy absorbers, and the Yevetha had nothing to fear
from hand blasters so long as they stayed behind the arc of the
shields.
Worse, the doors to the hold were on the other side of a hundred-meter
wide flight deck--a deck that normally housed some of the fighters now
searching for the Falcon, and offered no cover whatever when they were
gone.
"Your bowcaster,] Chewbacca said as they crouched in the hatchway.
Lumpawarrump unslung the weapon and began to surrender it to his
father, but found to his surprise there was no hand extended to take it
from him. Instead, Chewbacca was offering him slug cores--the nuclei
of the explosive quarrels.
[First, the shields,] Chewbacca said, gesturing with his blaster.
[Then go for your enemies on the extreme left and right. That will
likely freeze the others and keep them bunched up for you. You must
fire as quickly as your bowcaster allows--as when trying to take
fiarion before the flock scatters into the cover.] [Yes, Father.] [I
will divide their attention, as one gives the thar-riarr a morsel to
distract it,] Chewbacca said. [Try to keep your quarrels out of my
back, son.] Lumpawarrump laughed easily. [Try not to run in front of
my sights, Father.] Chewbacca thumbed his comlink. [Jowdrrl.] [Here,
cousin.] [P
repare to make a pickup from the flight deck which is
directly forward of your position.] [I will seal the hatch and be ready
for your call.] Chewbacca looked back at Lumpawarrump. [This is your
brrtayyk.] [I am ready.] Chewbacca gestured, and Lumpawarrump stood up
into the hatchway, bringing the bowcaster up to chest height as he
rose. The first explosive quarrel was away before he was fully erect,
the second before Chewbacca had taken his first long stride out onto
the flight deck.
The twin explosions that came an instant later were compact and
focused. One shield was driven violently backward, knocking two of the
Yevetha off their feet. The other shield simply shattered, pelting the
deck, the bulkhead, and the guards with sharp-edged fragments.
Tracking his targets through the smoke as though
they were shadows in the underbrush, Lumpawarrump kept firing. One
quarrel burned out the thorax of a Yevethan guard, and the next spun
his nearest companion around like a ragdoll.
Just then, Chewbacca loosed a blood-chilling howl and began spraying
the flight deck with his blaster. The howl contained all of
Chewbacca's grief over Shoran and his fury over Han, and it riveted the
attention of the surviving guards. With Chewbacca's hunger for
vengeance driving his long legs, he crossed the open deck with stunning
speed. None of the few blaster bolts directed his way came anywhere
THE BLACK FLEET CRISIS #3 - TYRANTS_TEST Page 34
