“I’ll need you in back with me,” he said.
Leia unbuckled her crash webbing, her heart rising into her throat. “Han, I don’t know if shooting our way out of this—”
“Do I look like a gundark?” he asked. “If we shoot, we’re dead.”
Happy to know they agreed, Leia followed him down the access to the rear hold. By the time they opened the hatch, the Imperials were back on the channel with their translator droid, and it was conversing with C-3PO in a cacophony of buzzes and clacks. Han retrieved a small cargo pod, then took it into the main ring corridor and opened one of the smuggling compartments in the floor. He began to extract the cases of fine Chandrilan brandy that he kept to pay off spaceport masters, passing them to Leia to stow in the cargo pod.
“What are we going to do, bomb them with intoxicants?”
“You might say that,” Han said. “It’s called ‘bribe-on-the-run.’ This stuff is good currency, especially to a junior officer who probably hasn’t seen a payment voucher in months.”
“Han, didn’t you hear what I said about Pellaeon?” Leia asked. “He won’t go for that.”
Han smiled. “He won’t have to.”
By the time he explained the details to Leia, the cargo pod was loaded and the Chimaera’s officer was back on the comm channel, sounding as irritated as only C-3PO could make a sentient.
“Regina Galas pilot, our droid assures me there is no reason a Gand can’t speak Basic.”
C-3PO replied with a long rattle of a question.
There was a momentary translation delay, then the officer replied, “My point is that I know you understand our instructions. Maintain position or you will be fired upon. Our targeting computers have you locked in.”
Leia nearly fell as Chewbacca suddenly decelerated and started what felt like a turn back toward the Chimaera. She knew it was really a maneuver to put the assault shuttle between them and the Star Destroyer’s powerful turbolasers. Han and Chewbacca had been running Imperial checkpoints since before there was a Rebellion. They knew every smuggler’s trick in the data banks—and a few more.
“I said maintain position, not come about,” the Chimaera officer barked. “And speak Basic!”
C-3PO replied with a stream of flustered clicking. Han and Leia chuckled with appreciation; they knew how frustrating the droid could be when he was agitated. They sealed the pod and ejected it through the air lock. When they returned to the engineering station in the main hold and brought the tactical array up on the display, Chewbacca had already brought the Falcon around and was accelerating away, with the assault shuttle now squarely between them and the Chimaera.
The officer began to yell. “Halt! Halt, or we’ll open fire!”
“Open fire?” C-3PO said, still in the voice of a Gand but now speaking Basic. “Oh my!”
Chewbacca closed the channel and, laughing so hard his roars rumbled out the cockpit access tunnel, continued to accelerate. Unable to make good on the officer’s threats without risking her own assault shuttle, the Chimaera held her fire. The Falcon’s new bearing ran roughly parallel to Tatooine’s surface instead of toward it. But Leia knew that once they were beyond turbolaser range, or masked by the electromagnetic blast of the twin suns, Chewbacca would turn. Leia continued to watch the tactical display, expecting the Star Destroyer to maneuver for a clear shot or divert her shuttle, but she did neither.
“Good,” Han said. “They think we’re just spice runners. They’ll stop to collect our jettisoned cargo, and then we’re home free. The boarding officer won’t want prisoners around to tell Pellaeon what was really in the pod.”
“You’re sure about that?”
Leia watched with growing alarm as the three TIEs passed the cargo pod, now angling to put themselves between Tatooine and their quarry. As long as Chewbacca continued on a straight course, they would be unable to catch the Falcon—but the instant she turned toward the planet, the TIEs would be in good position to cut her off.
“They don’t look all that interested in a bribe.”
Han studied the display, his jaw falling a little more with each kilometer the TIEs put between themselves and the ejected cargo. For a moment, it looked as though the assault shuttle would also ignore the pod and stay behind the Falcon. Then a tractor beam activated in its stern, and it veered toward the bribe. Han sighed in relief, but grabbed Leia’s hand and started for the laser cannon access tunnel.
“C’mon.”
“Han, what happened to no shooting?” Despite her protest, Leia allowed herself to be dragged along. “ ‘If we shoot, we’re dead.’ You said that. I remember.”
“I say a lot of things.” They reached the access tunnel and Han jumped in, not climbing down so much as using the handholds to slow his descent. “But they’re trying to grab the pod on the fly. The boarding officer needs us to make this look good, or his commander won’t buy our escape.”
Leia was already climbing into the upper turret. “How good?”
“Good. That Pellaeon must be a real stickler.” The Falcon shuddered as Han test-fired his weapons. “Just don’t hit anything. Hit something and we’re—”
“Dead.” Leia buckled herself into the firing seat. “I know.”
She slipped on the headset and spun her turret toward Tatooine’s lambent disk.
The canopy dimmed against the sapphire flash of an incoming turbolaser strike, and Leia’s pulse stopped. She steeled herself to vanish in the crash of heat and light she had been half expecting to take her since the Rebellion began, then saw the tiny block of the assault shuttle silhouetted against the blossom of a distant eruption.
“What was that?” Leia gasped.
Chewbacca’s rumbled answer made her stomach go hollow.
“They blasted it?” Han cried. “The brandy alone was two thousand credits!”
“It does eliminate our bribery plan.” It was a bit of a struggle to keep her voice even. “What now?”
Han answered by laying a wall of laser bolts in front of the TIEs. “The shuttle, we can outrun,” he said. “But we need to check those fighters. Just don’t—”
“Hit anything.” Leia activated her range finder. “I know.”
At this range, the TIEs were little more than blue barbs of ion efflux. She brought her sensor-augmented sights on-line, and the claw-shaped images of three TIE interceptors appeared on her targeting display. She set her lead ahead of the TIEs an extra length, then another one. She added another half length to be certain, and squeezed the triggers.
The quad laser cannons fired in diametric sequence to minimize discharge shudder. Even so, the turret shook. Leia checked her sights, found the interceptors still trying to cut them off, and fired again. The Falcon was still at maximum range, and the bolts took an eternity to reach their destination. Most winked out well ahead of the TIEs, but some—Han’s, she hoped—merged with the blue glow of the starfighters’ ion drives. She fixed her gaze on her targeting display and continued to fire, praying that none of the images vanished. The Imperials were accustomed to smugglers running and generally did not work very hard to chase them down, but they would prove a lot more determined with any vessel that actually destroyed one of their own craft.
The distance between Han’s bolts and the TIEs continued to diminish on Leia’s display. She cut one of the lengths out of her own targeting lead, and their fire turned to an impenetrable storm. The Imperials lost their nerve and turned toward the Falcon so they could bring their own guns to bear.
“Barge drivers,” Han sneered. “What kind of plastiheads is the Empire recruiting for pilots these days?”
The TIEs opened fire, and tiny lances of green light stabbed out of Tatooine’s yellow glow. The lines faded to nothingness kilometers shy of the Falcon, but distant blossoms of laser energy began to burgeon against the shields almost before Leia could disengage the lead adjustment on her sights.
Han’s laser cannons began to stitch space alongside the TIEs. Leia followed his lead, and t
hey forced the trio back toward the Star Destroyer. The image on her targeting display switched to true size, and the interceptors became thumb-sized blurs coming dead-on. Chewbacca continued ahead, keeping the assault shuttle between the Falcon’s tail and the Chimaera’s guns.
They were going to make it, Leia saw. No Star Destroyer in the galaxy was a match for Han and Chewbacca together. Once Leia and Han forced the TIEs into the Falcon’s rear quarter, Chewbacca would hide behind them and dive into Tatooine’s atmosphere, and the Chimaera’s big guns would be useless—unless Pellaeon cared to attack a whole planet to stop one vessel.
And even the Imperials would not do that, not unless they knew the true identity of the Regina Galas.
The TIEs kept closing, swelling to the size of fists in Leia’s display. She grew bolder, timing her shots to seize the area vacated by their dodges, forcing the interceptors to slip farther into the Falcon’s rear quarter with each swing. Han shaved his attacks even closer, nearly scorching their solar wing panels, daring them to try to cut off the Falcon.
Then the blast-tinting went black, though not quickly enough to spare Leia a moment of flash blindness as another turbolaser strike—this one much closer than the first—erupted. Her shoulders hit crash webbing as the shock wave bucked the Falcon. Again her pulse stopped, and she hung suspended in that last infinitely long instant between life and atomization, and she did not realize she was still holding her triggers open until the synthetic rumble of the targeting computer announced the destruction of a TIE interceptor.
Leia cursed and released the triggers, struggling to blink the blast-dazzle from her eyes and not quite able to believe they had survived the strike.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean—”
Chewbacca cut her off with an astonished yawl.
“The Chimaera hit it?” Leia gasped. “By mistake?”
“To make a point.” Han’s laser cannons opened up again. “She didn’t like her TIEs being pushed around.”
Leia checked her display and found the last two interceptors weaving wildly as they rushed for the Falcon’s forward quarter. She swung her turret around but was too distracted to open fire safely. Something here did not make sense.
“Pellaeon would never destroy his own interceptor,” she said. “The Empire is too short of good fighters.”
“A lesson the survivors’ll never forget.” Han’s cannon bolts were dancing around the lead TIE in a tightening web of light. “If there are any.” Finally, the interceptor had no place left to maneuver and flew into a dash of laser energy, exploding in a white cloud of fire and light. “He’s using us as a training mission. I hate that.”
“Han, you said don’t hit—”
“Change of plans.” Han began to fire at the last TIE. “Now we make it cost them.”
Leia joined in, forcing the TIE into Han’s stream of fire. It bobbed and weaved in ever-smaller oscillations, but maintained discipline and continued on course—no doubt mindful of the lesson the Chimaera had delivered earlier.
Finally, it turned directly toward the Falcon, and the space beyond bloomed into brilliant smears of color as it opened fire. Leia kept her eyes fixed on the targeting display and held her triggers down, spraying bolts at the interceptor in tightening spirals, trying not to think about how large its image was growing, or how her display kept dimming, or why the turret’s blast-tinting had gone black.
Finally, the TIE had no room left to maneuver. The pilot broke high, his wings and spherical cockpit rotating so smoothly that Leia did not realize he had changed attitude until the cannon bolts stopped coming.
“He’s yours!” Han yelled over the intercom. “Roll me up, Chewie!”
Leia raised her cannons and thumbed the automatic lead active, but the TIE was already too far ahead. She managed only a few more shots before the computer designated it out of range.
“That’s it, he’s been recalled,” Han said. “They aren’t going to give us any more trouble.”
Leia checked the tactical display and saw the assault shuttle still trailing them. No match for the Falcon’s speed, it was out of range and steadily falling farther behind, but it was coming.
“You’re sure about that?” Leia asked.
“I’m sure. Experience isn’t much good to dead pilots.”
“What about assault troopers?”
As Leia spoke, the shuttle broke off pursuit and angled for the planet. Chewbacca was quick to parallel its course, keeping the shuttle between them and the Star Destroyer, now traveling more or less in the direction they wanted to go. Leia kept waiting for the shuttle to turn toward the Chimaera, to weave or bob or try anything to give the turbolasers a clear shot, but it only continued its dive toward the planet, still angling in the Falcon’s direction.
Leia swung her turret around, unsure whether she should thank the shuttle pilot or open fire.
Han figured it out before she did. “Chewie, cut behind them! Go sandside, fast!”
Chewbacca didn’t ask why. He brought the Falcon around so sharply that Leia had to close her eyes against the starspin, and then Han began yelling for her to bring her guns to bear.
Leia opened her eyes again and wished she hadn’t. Space was flying past the canopy in a flashing whirl of stars and sand as Chewbacca spiraled toward Tatooine. She still had no idea what Han wanted her to be ready for, but she focused on the display and swung her cannons toward the assault shuttle.
Half a dozen blips appeared at the edge of the tactical screen, and her heart had barely finished falling before the interceptor symbols confirmed what Han had realized two moments before. Another flight of TIEs was coming fast from the blind side of the planet.
Leia forced her attention back to the firing display. With the Falcon gyrating so wildly, the turret broke into a nauseating whirring spin-dance as the servomotors struggled to keep the shuttle centered in the crosshairs.
“I have a lock.” Noticing that Han had not yet opened fire, she asked, “Should I—”
“Not yet,” Han said. “Chewie, see that sandstorm? The really big one?”
An affirming grunt came over the intercom. Leia glanced out and saw only dizzying smears of yellow and stars whirling against a violet backdrop and felt instantly sick to her stomach. She fixed her gaze on the targeting display and hoped she was wrong about why Han had pointed out the sandstorm.
The Falcon shuddered and slowed abruptly. Leia wondered if they could have reached the outer edge of the atmosphere so soon, but there was still too much darkness outside, then Han was cursing and asking no one in particular if all the Chimaera’s pilots had a death wish. She saw the assault shuttle tumbling around the tactical display like a flitnat, connected to the Falcon by the invisible ribbon of a tractor beam that was pulling the two vessels slowly, steadily closer.
“Now, Han?”
“Not yet,” Han said. “Chewie, launch the—”
A soft thud reverberated through the Falcon as two concussion missiles shot from their tubes, riding the tractor beam toward the shuttle.
“Now, sweetheart!”
Leia squeezed the triggers. The turret shook as the quad lasers loosed their fury. The center of the targeting display erupted into a dazzling glow, and her canopy darkened to black as the shuttle returned fire. All non-essential systems diverted power to the shields, and an ominous silence fell over the Falcon. She tried to aim down the tractor beam, but with the Falcon reeling half out of control, Leia was doing well just to hit the thing.
Then the missiles vanished into the glow. The tractor beam twinkled out of existence, and the brightness behind the crosshairs dissolved into a fading starburst.
Chewbacca wrenched the Falcon out of her tumble and dived straight for Tatooine. The tactical display showed the interceptors closing, but they remained well out of range. Leia brought her turret around and finally found the sandstorm Han had pointed out to Chewbacca—a raging swirl of amber that covered a tenth of the planet’s visible surface. Even from space, she could see
clouds of turbulence eddying up far above the primary plane of the storm.
Chewbacca sent the Falcon corkscrewing into a new helix of evasion. Leia checked her tactical display and found the TIEs still out of range and likely to stay that way. They could not cut off the Falcon without entering the atmosphere, a prospect even slower than taking the long route around the planet. Nor was the Chimaera, still sitting in a remote orbit, near enough to launch another boarding mission. There was only one thing the Star Destroyer could do to block the Falcon.
A bright line of turbolaser strikes erupted ahead, trying not to hit the Falcon but to force her toward the approaching TIEs. Chewbacca flew directly at the nearest blossom. The shields crackled with sapphire energy as they passed through the dissipation turbulence; then the Falcon was plunging into Tatooine’s atmosphere, bucking wildly and engulfed in entry flame.
Han was instantly out of his seat, half tumbling and half climbing up the access corridor as Chewbacca struggled to control the ship at an air velocity approaching meteoric. The Chimaera did not fire into the atmosphere—no doubt because the captain believed the Falcon was about to crash anyway.
“Stay put.” Han started toward the main hold. “Pellaeon’s got to be as mad as a rancor. Those TIEs may follow us down.”
“So where are you going?”
“Flight deck,” he said. “When we slip into that sandstorm—”
“Into the sandstorm?” Leia started to object, but saw the TIEs dropping into the atmosphere and knew they had no choice. “Okay, Han. Just don’t—”
“Hit anything,” Han finished. “I know.”
THE OLD REPUBLIC
(5,000–33 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS:
A NEW HOPE)
Long—long—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights. Originally a reclusive order dedicated to studying the mysteries of the life energy known as the Force, the Jedi became the Republic’s guardians, charged by the Senate with keeping the peace—with wise words if possible; with lightsabers if not.
Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia Page 36
