Han turned right, skidding a little, and headed the other way. Another stun beam lashed at him. His breath burned his chest as he gasped in the freezing air.
He hurdled another spire, felt it brush the inside of his trouser leg, but made it and ran on, dodging into a patch of shadow to escape another stun bolt.
The shadow suddenly gave way to complete and utter emptiness as an airshaft dropped away into nothingness!
Han was going too fast to stop. With a yell of terror, he leaped as hard as he could—
—and managed to clear the yawning gap. He landed heavily on the other side, fell, and rolled over, gasping, wind knocked out, trying to get to his feet again. He skidded on the icy permacrete, flailing, just as a stun beam splatted right beside him.
Han’s entire right side went numb.
The Corellian crashed back to the permacrete with an agonized grunt. Letting himself go limp, he waited, hoping that he’d regain the use of his right side in time. Depending on the intensity level Shrike was using, it might take two minutes … or ten.
Breathing was torture, but Han gulped down every lungful, ignoring the pain. He needed to get his wind back, in case feeling returned to his right side.
Footsteps approached from his left. Shrike, going around the airshaft Han had hurdled. Han lay still. Only the white plume of his breath revealed that he still lived.
The footsteps paused beside him, circled him. Han could see Shrike’s form dimly, through his eyelashes. Then a boot kicked him viciously in his right leg. Han gasped with the pain. “You low-life scum,” Shrike spat. “For two credits I’d dump your worthless hide off the edge for what you did.”
The fact that Han could feel pain in the place where Shrike’s heavy boot had struck him was good. The stun paralysis was wearing off. But Han did not move, only lay limp as Shrike grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and dragged him over the permacrete, bumping and slithering, toward the nearest turbolift.
The trader captain was cursing steadily and, Han realized with a flare of satisfaction, walking with a distinct limp. The Corellian made himself the heaviest, deadest weight he could as he bumped along over the rooftop, feeling the icy scrape of the permacrete. His right hand tingled as it dragged, and that was good, too.
When Shrike reached the turbolift, he let go of Han’s collar. It was hard to just let himself fall, but Han managed to make it look good, without banging his head too hard. Shrike’s glittery-eyed countenance, a bruise darkening his jaw, appeared in his field of vision. “Now we’re going down in this lift, and you’re going to behave yourself, you little vrelt. We’re going to be real chummy, you and me. I’m going to say you’re my buddy who had too much to drink.”
Han could hear the turbolift coming. He flexed the muscles of his right leg, his right arm. They responded, if sluggishly. He didn’t have much time …
“So tell me, Han, did you make it into the Imperial Academy?” Shrike asked, just as though Han could speak. “Is that why you were out treating yourself good tonight, eh?”
He laughed. “The Imps must be real hard up if they’d take a loser like you.” He spat, and warm spittle hit Han’s face, just above his right eye. Han was careful not to react. The turbolift was very close. When those doors opened, Shrike would be distracted for a few precious seconds, and then … then he would make his move.
Imperceptibly, Han flexed his right fingers, and they answered the command of his brain. Shrike was still ranting. “Those Imperials … can’t shoot straight, can’t pilot, and can’t fight worth a hoot. It’s a wonder old Palpatine can get himself out of bed in the morning. All a bunch of losers …”
The turbolift doors opened. Shrike looked up, just as Han lunged up off the permacrete.
The element of surprise served him for a moment. Han managed to knock the blaster out of Shrike’s hand again, but then Garris was on him. Iron-hard hands clamped around the younger man’s throat. Han’s eyes bulged as he hooked a leg behind Shrike’s and sent the man over backward. Shrike didn’t release his grip, so Han went down with him, and they landed in a kicking, punching sprawl.
Han slammed a fist into Shrike’s midsection, heard the man grunt in pain. The fingers around his throat loosened for a second—then. Shrike released his grip and tried to gouge Han’s eye.
His right eye. The viciously gouging thumb skidded in Shrike’s own saliva, and Han turned his head and snapped like an animal. His teeth closed on Shrike’s thumb, clamped down. Shrike screamed as Han tore his flesh. The Corellian tasted blood.
Han took advantage of the man’s momentary distraction to bring his knee up into Shrike’s midsection. The older man’s breath whooshed out in a stinking rush of white, into the cold night air.
Han heaved upward, throwing Shrike off him. The man lost his grip and went sprawling backward. Han scrambled for where he’d heard the blaster land—and his fingers found it.
Shrike was already up and heading purposefully for the younger man, when Han came up onto his knees, the blaster pointed directly at him. Han ostentatiously thumbed the intensity level up to its highest setting. “Your turn to freeze, Shrike,” he said. Speaking brought on a spasm of coughing and searing pain in Han’s abused throat, but he managed to get Shrike in his sights.
Shrike laughed, and slowed, but didn’t stop. He was perhaps six meters away. “Now, Han, son,” he said coaxingly, “old Captain Shrike was just having a little fun with you, is all. I wasn’t going to turn you over to those Hutts, no indeed. Did you know you killed one of them, boy? Hutts don’t like that, no they don’t. They’re never going to stop searching for old ‘Vykk Draygo,’ you know?”
“Stop right there,” Han said, and was terrified to hear the quaver in his own voice. He’d never shot anyone down in cold blood before. Especially someone he knew. Could he do it?
Shrike grinned as if he could read Han’s mind. “C’mon, Han. You know you ain’t going to shoot me. You can’t. I’m like your daddy, almost.”
Han shook his head and replied with a Huttese obscenity so blistering that Shrike raised his eyebrows. “Oh, my, you’ve developed such a dirty mouth while you were gone, ain’t you, kid?”
He was still moving. Only about four meters separated them now. Han tightened his grip on the blaster, but he was horrified to realize the muzzle was wavering.
“Let’s go down below and talk about this, Han,” Shrike said, his voice low and soothing. “I won’t hurt you, you’ve got my word on it.”
“Your word?” Han laughed, then coughed. “That’s a laugh. Your word isn’t worth spit.”
“Sure, my word. Besides … if you shoot me, boy, you’ll never find out about your parents. Who they were … why you wound up being dumped into those alleys where I found you.”
Han stared at Shrike. “You know who they were? You know why I was abandoned?” He swallowed, and it was searing pain. “Tell me, and I may let you live.”
Shrike was almost within grabbing distance of the blaster now. Only a meter or so away. Han knew he should shoot him, knew Shrike couldn’t be trusted—but still he hesitated. “Tell me, Shrike!”
“I’ll tell you everything when you give me the blaster,” Shrike said. “Everything. You have my word.”
Shoot him! Now! Han’s mind screamed.
With a wash of red light, a blaster bolt struck Garris Shrike directly in the chest. The captain threw up his hands, a look of terror and pain contorting his features. He fell backward like a stone, dead before he hit the permacrete.
Han stared wildly at his hand. His finger was on the trigger of the blaster, but he hadn’t moved it … had he?
The shot, he realized, a second later, had come from behind him.
Han whirled, still on his knees, to find himself facing another man. He was human, young, medium tall, slender build. Darkish hair frosted by moonlight. He held a drawn blaster, and every line of him screamed “bounty hunter.”
“Okay, kid, it’s over,” he said, removing a pair of wrist-binders
from his belt. “Stand up. You’re coming with me.”
Those first two shots! Han thought. It must have been him. He followed me up here, and just waited for Shrike to take me down, so he could step in and get me.
As if he’d sensed what Han was thinking, the bounty hunter added, “I knew old Shrike would find you. The Hutts don’t have a picture of you, so I followed Shrike, ’cause he practically raised you, didn’t he, Vykk? I knew he’d pick you out for me.”
No! Han’s mind screamed. Not now! Not again!
He was still stiff from the paralysis, exhausted and hurt from the fight with Shrike. Every muscle screamed with pain and weariness.
The bounty hunter gestured with the blaster. “Drop your blaster, kid, or I’ll stun you right in the head and scramble your brains good. The Hutts want you alive, but they didn’t say nothing about in your right mind. Drop it.”
Shaking, Han dropped the blaster from his nerveless fingers. With a grunt of effort, he tried to get up, but his right leg buckled beneath him.
“My leg …” he mumbled. “Right leg won’t take my weight … Shrike kicked me.”
“Yeah, I saw him. Not very professional of him, but old Shrike always was hot-tempered,” the bounty hunter said. Moving forward, he added, “Now I’m going to give you a hand up. Don’t try—”
With a demented howl, Han hurled himself headfirst into the bounty hunter’s midsection.
This man was younger than Shrike, stronger and faster. But Han was fighting like a madman, with the strength borne of utter desperation. He had nothing to lose, and he knew it.
The bounty hunter went over backward with a yell of surprise. Han threw himself after him, pummeling the man. Recovering himself, the bounty hunter slammed Han across the temple with the muzzle of his blaster.
Blood spurted, ran into Han’s left eye, but the Corellian didn’t let it slow him down. He clawed his way up the other’s body as though it were a jungle vine and headbutted the bounty hunter, slamming his forehead into the man’s nose. Han heard and felt cartilage break against the bone of his skull. The man’s shrill scream rang through the night.
Cursing, the bounty hunter grappled with Han, slamming him on the back and in the kidneys with the blaster. Han grabbed his arm and slammed his hand against the permacrete, wham … WHAM! The blaster dropped from the man’s fingers. Han butted the bounty hunter in the face again, ignoring the splitting of his own skin.
“You’re NOT taking me!” the Corellian yelled, slamming his head into the man’s face repeatedly. With a yell of terror, the bounty hunter heaved upward with all his strength and sent Han flying.
The Corellian hit, tried to roll, and slammed up against the structure that housed the turbolift. The bounty hunter, his face a gory mask from his broken nose and split lips, rushed for Han, murder in his eyes.
Han waited until the last possible second, then dodged. As the man went by, Han slammed his full weight into the other’s shoulder.
The bounty hunter’s head impacted with the stone structure with a crack that seemed to echo throughout the icy night.
The man jerked, went limp, then slid down the wall, to lie motionless on the permacrete.
Weaving, biting his lip, and swallowing bile, Han lurched to his feet and stumbled over to the man. Two fingers against his throat assured the Corellian that the bounty hunter was now as dead as Garris Shrike, who was lying sprawled a few meters away, staring up at the twin moons with blank, sightless eyes.
Han slid down the wall in his own turn and just sat there, his head whirling, sick and exhausted. He began to shake all over, and the bout lasted for nearly a minute.
Gotta get hold of myself, he thought dully. Gotta think. Think …
Climbing back to his feet, Han staggered over to the bounty hunter again and stood eyeing him. The man was about his own size, and he, too, had brown hair. Darker than Han’s own, but that might not be noticed …
Han’s breath puffed white as he yanked on the man’s boots, pulling them off. Slowly, methodically, he set about stripping the bounty hunter.
Five minutes later, Han stood swaying, dressed now in the bounty hunter’s clothing. Grimly, he began putting his own clothes onto the corpse … his worn gray pilot’s jumpsuit, his battered lizard-skin jacket, his boots. He replaced the bounty hunter’s blaster in his holster. Lastly, he took a handful of credits, and all of his faked IDs, and placed them in the man’s inside pocket, sealing the pocket shut. Then he sealed the jacket closed, too.
Stumbling and limping, Han went looking for Shrike’s blaster. He found it, finally, and went back to the body. Wincing, he adjusted it to its highest setting, aimed the weapon, then, turning his head to the side, he fired directly into the corpse’s face. When he forced himself to look, the dead man no longer had a face—or eyes.
Or retinas.
Han staggered away a few feet and was thoroughly, wretchedly, sick. The thought of what that meal had cost him made him even sicker …
With a groan of effort, he grabbed the body beneath the arms and dragged the bounty hunter across the icy permacrete, just as Shrike had dragged him. He went backward slowly, carefully, until he was once again beside that deep, deep airshaft that he’d jumped.
Han peered down, then looked away quickly, fighting dizziness. The shaft went down a long, long way.
He rolled the body to the edge, then, with a hard push of both hands, sent the bounty hunter over the edge, tumbling out into empty air.
Han didn’t watch the body fall. With dragging, limping steps, he lurched back to Shrike’s body and placed the captain’s blaster in the dead fingers. Then he pressed the button to summon the turbolift.
When the doors opened, he nearly fell into the lighted interior.
The turbolift started down, and Han stood swaying, bracing himself with both hands. He had to work at not passing out.
It had been a long night …
Han Solo stood alone amid the teeming mass of cadets gathered at the rooftop landing field on Coruscant. The tight collar of his new uniform chafed his neck, but he resisted the urge to tug at it. Doing so might wrinkle it, and Han wanted to look his best.
All around him, cadets were being hugged and kissed farewell by their families. Only a few cadets were alone, as he was. Han scanned the crowd and noticed a dark-skinned boy a few meters away, who didn’t seem to have anybody. And there was a young woman with military-short hair standing across the landing field who was also alone.
But most of the cadets had fathers, and mothers, brothers and sisters and grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins, who’d come to see them off in their hour of triumph. Han felt a wave of loneliness. He was older than the other cadets, and that, too, set him apart.
But hey … I’m here. I made it.
The transport Imperator lay waiting for them on the landing field. Soon, the cadets would be boarding it for their trip to Carida, the Imperial military training world. Han smiled a little as he studied its lines, its oversized dorsal fin. A Corellian corvette. How fitting …
He gazed at the crowd again, searchingly, and suddenly realized that he’d been hoping to see a certain red-gold head among the well-wishers. Dumb, Solo. Really dumb. You didn’t really expect her to show up, did you? She’s long gone!
No, Han decided, he really hadn’t expected Bria to show up. But maybe, deep down, he’d hoped she would …
He sighed. Dewlanna had used to quote an old Wookiee proverb at him, something that translated into Basic as, roughly: “Joy unmixed with sorrow is suspect.”
Dewlanna …
If only she could see him now. Han imagined her, her tall, shaggy form, her snubbed black nose, her little, twinkling eyes nearly hidden beneath tufts of graying tan Wookiee hair. She would be very proud today, he knew that. For a moment she was so real that he could almost imagine her, could almost hear her growls and moans as she told him how proud he’d made her. She’d ruffle up his hair so he’d look attractively “scruffy.”
Ha
n smiled faintly at the idea. I made it, Dewlanna, he told her image silently. Look at me. You’re my family, my only family, so it’s right that you be here today, even if you’re only in my memory …
And Bria …
Face it, Solo, you still care. You still watch for her, and listen for the sound of her step, her voice. You need to get over this, man …
Han shook his head, as though he could dismiss Bria’s image as easily as he’d summoned Dewlanna’s. But he was taking Bria aboard the Imperator, as surely as if she were here, walking beside him. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t forget her.
Another of Dewlanna’s old Wookiee proverbs surfaced in his mind: “To have a good memory is to be both blessed and cursed …”
How right you are, Dewlanna, Han thought.
He shifted his weight, and stabbing pain in his right leg reminded him of the fight the night before last. Han blew out his breath. He’s dead, Dewlanna, he thought. Your killer is dead. You can rest easier, knowing that, I’ll bet …
An Imperial officer was making his way through the crowd, now. As he passed Han, the Lieutenant paused and looked at him sharply. “Your name, Cadet?”
Han snapped to attention. “Cadet Han Solo, sir!”
“You forget how to salute, Cadet Solo?”
“No, sir!” Han said, and gave the man his best salute.
The officer gazed at Han’s face. “Cadet Solo, what happened to your face?”
For a moment Han was tempted to say he walked into a door, but he decided that the truth was probably the best answer. “Sir, I got in a fight.”
“Really? I could never have told,” the lieutenant said, a tinge of sarcasm in his voice. “What was the fight about, Cadet Solo?”
Han thought fast. “My opponent insulted the Imperial Navy, sir.”
After all, it was true.
The lieutenant raised an eyebrow. “Really, Cadet? That was most … unwise … of him. Did you give him a good thrashing for his disrespect, Cadet Solo?”
Han remembered just in time not to nod. “I did, sir. I assure the lieutenant that he will never say anything insulting about the Imperial forces again, sir.”
Star Wars: The Han Solo Trilogy I: The Paradise Snare Page 31
