right past us and zero in on the eoneship. My guess is that whoever is on
those LAFs is targeting the Hunchuzuc, not us." "But Han is- "Safer this
way," Mara said, watching her displays. "We can handle seven or eight of
them at once, but not twelve. Not in a direct engagement. But if the LAFs
don't engage us, we'll have nice, clear forward view shots right up their
stern plates while they're focused on the coneship. We can pick off three or
four of them before the rest bring fire to bear on us. Set up the targeting
system for tracking follow-fire. If they engage us directly, we return fire.
If they go past us, commence fire when they are three kilometers past us.
Understood?" "Yes, but- "No buts," Mara said. "This ship fights my way, or
not at ali." Leia gave in again. Mara had far more experience at this sort
of fight than she did. "Very well," she said. "Stand by. Here they come."
Leia watched the stern detector displays as the LAFs came in, directly
behind the Fire's stern, trying to hide in the detection shadow produced by
the sublight engines. They were trying to sneak up. From that bearing they
wouldn't even show up on most ships' detectors. The LAFs swept in, their
images in the detection screen breaking up just a bit due to interference
from the sublight engines. Leia tensed up as they swept through the optimum
firing range, and felt herself relax just a trifle as they swept on, past
the Fire. But she didn't relax too far-not when they were passing her by to
take a crack at her husband's ship. The LAFs flashed past the Fire, zeroing
in on the coneship. "The coneship!" she cried out. "It's spinning up. They
must have got our warning." "Let's hope Han's idea works better than it
ought to," Mara said. It wasn't the most tactful thing to say, even if Leia
had been thinking the same thing herself. But there was no time. "Coming up
on three kilometers distance," she said. "Commence fire," Mara ordered. "Not
unless they fire first!" Leia said. "Maybe they're just here to throw a
scare into us, or they might be on escort duty. No way to tell with
communications jammed." "All right," Mara said, the doubt plain in her
voice. "You can make that- But the first flash of turbolaser fire from the
lead LAF shut down the argument. Leia released the safeties on the Fire's
follow-fire circuits and started selecting targets, aiming first for the LAF
that had opened fire. "Here they come!" Han .shouted in Basic, forgetting
for a moment to speak in Selonian. Salculd got the message all the same. She
looked up through the viewport at the tiny spots of light in the sky, and
understood precisely what was going on. She let out a most undignified
squawk. The whole slowly spinning cone-ship lurched to one side and came
close to heeling over into a disastrous tumble. "Calmness!" Han shouted. "Be
calm, alert. Throttle down all engines. End all thrust. Stand by to open
outer airlock doors on my command." "Throu-throttling down ali engines,"
Salculd said. "Ready on the airlock doors." "Wait for it," Han said,
watching the LAFs come closer. Weight faded away as Salculd powered down the
engines. With the inertia] dampers off-line, and the engine thrust gone, Han
found himself in zero gee for the first time in a long time. Han knew people
who had spent half their lives in space without experiencing zero
gravity-and with the flip-flops his stomach was doing all of a sudden, he
could understand why. But there was no time for that now. Not with a sky
full of Light Attack Fighters heading in. "Be ready, ready." he told
Salculd. The lead LAF fired and caught them with a glancing blow to the
starboard side, slamming into the hull like a giant fist. "It's all right!"
Han shouted, having not the least idea if it was or not. "It's all right.
Stand by on the airlock doors. Wait for it. Be ready-" The Jade's Fire's
forward quad turbolaser blazed away, tracking the lead LAP across the sky.
The LAP broke off its attack run, trying to fly an evasive pattern and
escape. For a moment it managed to break out of the tracking pattern, but
the Jade's Fire regained a positive lock and poured in fire again. The LAF's
shields flared and blazed for a moment before giving way altogether. The
fighter exploded, a blossom of fire that flared up and was gone. Leia fed
two new targets to the follow-fire system, and got busy herself with the
manual guns, reading the detection screens for herself. But the rest of the
LAFs were not going to be such easy pickings. They had their rear shields
powered up to maximum, and did a better job of evasive maneuvers, good
enough to completely bamboozle the follow-fire systems. But not good enough
to fooi Leia. She settled in with the manual controls and began looking for
targets. She concentrated her fire on the toughest shots, the LAFs closest
to the coneship. She got a lock on one and fired, holding the guns on target
long enough to burn through the shields and blow the fighter to bits. Just
then the coneship cut its engines, allowing it to drop straight for the
planet's surface. It threw the LAFs off, if only for a moment or two. Leia
shook her head and sighed. Not much of an evasive maneuver, but probably the
best Han could manage with that clunky piece of junk. But suddenly her
detector displays showed a cloud of debris blooming out from the coneship in
all directions. Fear stabbed at her heart. That one hit on the cone-ship's
hull couldn't have done that much damage, could it? Could the craft be
breaking up before her eyes, with Han aboard? She had no desire to watch the
death of her husband-but then something happened to one of the LAFs, and
then another, and another. As they swooped in close to the coneship, they
bounced and skittered and wobbled off course. Two of them lost power, and
the third was rocked by a small explosion amidships. Leia got a target lock
on one of the survivors and fired, catching a piece of him before he managed
to get his shields up. Leia tried to track to a new target, but the LAFs had
plainly decided lo take the hint and accept the fact they weren't welcome.
They scattered, hightailing out of there in all directions. But how in the
blazes had- Suddenly she understood. Of course. Of course. "Mara! His trick
worked! Get us out from behind Han, fast! New course, five or six kilometers
to one side of him, and try to overtake him if you can. It's not going to be
so safe to be behind him for a while." She smiled, relief flooding over her.
She should have known Han wouldn't give up without a fight. Han listened
closely as the last of the junk went lumbering out of the airlocks, banging
and clattering and thudding and reverberating through the ship. There was no
air in the locks left to transmit noise, of course, but there was on the
other side of the interior bulkheads-a fact that had made itself known with
every bit of broken-down hardware that had slammed around the locks. Han had
spent half a day policing the ship, looking for every bit of surplus or
broken hardware he could. Buckets of bolts, worn-out spare parts, garbage
from the galley, unidentifiable bits of machinery that had been sitting in
the hold for w
ho knew how long-he had thrown all of it into the locks. And
all of it had tumbled out into space when the locks were opened, thrown
clear by centrifugal force. Result-a cloud of slow-moving space junk left
right in the path of the attacking LAFs. And the LAFs had quite sensibly
configured their shields for maximum power aft, to defend against laser
blasts from the Jade's Fire-leaving them with minimum power forward. But
plowing through a cloud of hits and pieces of broken meta! and plastic at a
closing speed of something like a thousand kilometers an hour was very far
from a good idea. However, piling a ship into a planet was an even worse
one. "Good!" Han said. "They're gone! But we are not out of this yet.
Reestablish inertial dampers and cut ship spin." "At once, Honored Solo,"
Salculd replied. There was an odd shimmering sort of vibration as the
inertial field came back on and weight returned. The ship's ungainly spin
slowed, and stopped-and then started up again in the opposite direction-and
started lo get faster. "Salculd!" Han called out. "This is no time for the
playing of games!" "I am not doing so, Honored Solo. Failure in lateral
attilude control system. I cannot shut it off!" "Oh, for-" Han scrambled up
out of his seat and dove for the main circuit breaker box. He yanked it open
and tripped the lateral attitude control breaker by hand. That killed the
thrusters that were producing the spin-but also killed the ones that fired
in the opposite direction, and could bring it to it halt. He slapped the
access door shut and returned to his seat. "Hope everyone is liking lo
spin," Han announced in Selonian. "We are to do it for a while. Saiculd!
Restart to main sublight engines-and nice, slow throttle-up, please!" "At
once, Honored Solo," Salculd replied. She reached for the throttle controls
and began adjusting them. Nothing seemed to happen. "Not that slow, Salculd.
We need to do some braking!" Salculd looked a! Han, and the panicked !ook
that had seemed on the verge of fading away was there in full force, and no
doubt. "No activation!" she announced. "Engine initiator not responding!"
"Horror!" cried Dracmus. "We incinerate for certain." "Quiet, Dracmus, or I
send you out the airlock. Salculd, try again!" Han said. "Firstly confirm
you have power to all engine systems." "Board shows all power systems fine
and lovely," Salculd said. "Board says is working, but it not." "Not
helpful," Han said, jumping up. "Off I go again. Keep trying, and listen to
the comm!" Han rushed for the ladder to the lower decks and clambered down
as fast as he could. As soon as he reached the lower deck, he smelled smoke.
There was trouble, big trouble. That one hit from the LAF must have hit
something in the transverse power coupling. Han jogged around the
circumferentia! corridor until he reached the proper access hatch. It was
sealed, praise be. The bad news was the smoke was coming off the painted
metal on the hatch. Han checked the readouts. They showed there was still
pressure in there, if the numbers were to be believed. The temperature gauge
was pegged at the high end. He worked the hatch controls to pop the
compartment's spill valves. They should have operated automatically once
fire broke out. Obviously they hadn't. But even if the automatics were out,
at least the manual controls were still working. There was a sort of clank
and a thud from behind the hatch, and then a roaring hiss that faded off
into nothing as the air in the compartment vented into space. The ship
lurched slightly to one side before the inertial dampers corrected for the
off-center thrust. Han resealed the spiil valves. The hatch had a manual
spill valve of its own that allowed pressure between the two sides of the
hatch to equalize without opening it up. Han burned his fingers getting the
safeties off, and then popped the hatch valve. The corridor was suddenly
filled with a roaring, thundering rush of air that almost knocked Han over.
Han looked around, and, for a miracle, spotted a fire extinguisher within
reach right where it was supposed to be. He peeled off his shirt and wrapped
it around his left hand, then look the extinguisher in his right. He grabbed
the manual hatch control with his left hand, and the shirt instantly began
to smolder. He pulled the lever and swung the hatch open. A blast of heat
struck him in the face; he ehecked his grip on the extinguisher. If the
renewed supply of oxygen started something burning, he wanted to be ready
for it. But he did not want to try doing emergency repairs on equipment that
was covered with spray foam if he could possibly avoid it. Not that spray
foam could have made things much worse. Han stood in the hatchway, stared at
the compartment, and felt sick. The initiator was just not there anymore.
There was no need for the extinguisher. Anything that could have burned
already had. Han looked down at the blackened deck plates. The compartment
was just under the outer hull, ft looked as if the LAF's turbolaser hadn't
quite burned through the hull, but it had clearly come close. The entire
compartment was still hot, but was cooling rapidly now, the metal pinging
and clinging as it gave up its heat to space. But Han wasn't here to see
what happened after an equipment bay fire. Think, Han told himself. Think as
fas! as you ever have. The coneship had a very awkward engine-start system,
and one that had caused plenty of trouble already on this trip. More modern
systems worked differently, but on this bucket, the initiators served as
massive capacitors, storing up huge amounts of energy and slamming it all
out at once to get the sublight engines over the power threshold where their
energy reaction was self-sustaining. With the initiators out, the sublight
engines could not restart. And without those engines the coneship was going
to drop like a slone, a shooting star aimed straight for the planet. They
had to restart those engines. They had to. But there was no other system in
the ship with anything like enough power to let the sublights reach their
minimum start-up energy. Even if they overloaded every single- Wait a
second. Thai was it. It was unlikely it would work. But it definitely
wouldn't work if he didn't give it a try. And give it a iTy fast. They were
in free fall, heading straight for a spot that was going to have a new
crater in a few minutes. Han stepped back out of the initiator compartment
and rcsealed the hatch. Where would the repulsor feedback dispersal system
be on this tub? Useless to ask Salculd. She was so close to the edge she
probably wouldn't remember where the pilot's station was. She had given him
a tour of the ship when he had first come aboard-that was it! Just on the
other side of the main power room. Perfect. Han rushed back down the
circumferential corridor the way he had come and found the right access
panel on the wall. He pulled it open and traced the connections. Good. Good.
For a wonder, they were all standard hookups. He tripped the breaker by
hand. Cable. He needed power cable. Stores room. They had all but cleaned it
out to fill the airlocks with junk, but there had to be something left. He
Nothing. Down to the bare walls. Utterly empty. Han started to swear to
himself and at himself with impressive fluency, but there was no time for
such indulgences. Think, Think. Life support. Main power to life support. No
sense keeping it on. They were all going to be dead in about five minutes
anyway if he didn't get some power cable. Life support. Where could he kill
power to life support? Right! Cut it right at main power and yank the cable
from there. Han rushed back to the main power room, threw the hatch open,
and went inside. Not everything was labeled, and what was labeled was in
Selonian, of course. He struggled to sort out what was what. There! If he
was reading the labels right, that junction was main device for rue blowing
of air MEANT FOR BREATHING, and thilt One was CLEANSING OF AIR FROM
POLLUTANTS FOR PLEASANT BREATHING. A little verbose, perhaps, but clear
enough. He found the circuit breakers on the junctions and slammed them off.
Han could hear the fans and blowers dying all over the ship. He yanked the
power cables out of their sockets and pulled them down off their cable
guides. He pulled the other ends of the cables, and then found a label
reading power input herk from the powerful INITIATORS WHICH ARE IN ANOTHER
COMPARTMENT. He pulled the cables running from the destroyed initiators and
plugged in his borrowed life-support cables. He snaked the cables out into
the corridor, praying they would reach, and gave thanks when they did. He
made sure the repulsors were off-line, then yanked the lines running to the
rcpulsor feedback dispersal unit and plugged in his borrowed cables. He
stepped back and double-checked his work. "Okay," he said to no one at all.
"That ought to work. I thi nk." He turned and ran for the ladder up to the
command deck. "Something's wrong," Leia said, watching her detector screens.
"The spin has reversed instead of stopping, and they haven't restarted their
main engines." "Maybe they took some bad damage from that hit," Mara said.
"Can we dock with the ship and get them off?" Leia asked. "Not before they
hit atmosphere," Mara said. "There's nowhere near enough time. Besides, that
cloud of debris they threw out is stil! traveling with them. We'd get hit
Showdown At Centerpoint Page 3
