hips, pushing back the cape to hang behind him. Then he noticed Luke
standing in the room. "Luke, are you going to do anything about this?"
"I don't know what you're talking about--but I think Leia was just about to
tell me."
Both men looked at her. She sighed and sat down. "Yes, Han is missing. He
went off to Kessel about two weeks ago, but now he's four days late coming
back. He never contacted me, so yesterday I got in touch with Kessel. I
spoke to someone who seems to be in charge, a Rybet named Moruth Doole.
"Doole says that Han and Chewie never arrived. Kessel has no record of the
Millennium Falcon. Doole suggested they might have gotten lost in the black
hole cluster."
"Not Han!" Lando said. "And not in the Falcon. He knows how to fly that
thing almost as well as I do."
Leia nodded. "All through the conversation I sensed something wrong with the
way Doole was acting. His answers were too pat, and he seemed nervous. I had
the distinct feeling he was expecting my call and had already made up
appropriate excuses."
"I don't like that," Lando said.
"Well, if Han is missing and you knew since yesterday, why didn't you send
out a fleet of New Republic scouts?" Luke said. "A formal search party? What
if he is lost in the Maw somewhere?"
Leia sighed. "Think about it, Luke. If I mobilized an official force, I
could create a galactic incident just when we're trying to get Kessel into
the New Republic. And besides," she admitted, "you know Han. There's a very
real chance he's just goofing around. He forgot his kids were coming back.
Maybe he found a good game of sabacc or started talking old times with some
of his spice-smuggler buddies--that's why he wanted to go on the mission in
the first place."
"We'll go look for him ourselves," Lando said.
Luke could tell by the way Leia's face brightened that this was what she
intended to ask all along. "We'll go snoop around," he said. "There won't be
any official dispatch or record of our mission."
Lando said, "We'd better take the Lady Luck. She's just a privately owned
yacht with some pretty good punch in her engines."
Leia stepped forward and plucked Jaina out of Luke's lap and cradled her.
"I'll watch over Gantoris and Streen while you're gone."
Luke nodded and spread his hands wide. "You see, that's why you're a
diplomat--you think of details like that. Just don't let the two of them get
into any trouble."
"We should take Artoo with us," Lando said. "That little droid sure helped
me out at the blob races."
Luke had heard of Lando's exploits with the scam artist Tymmo. "You can tell
me all about it on our way there. Leia's waited long enough."
"Let's go to Kessel," Lando said.
They managed to steal the second shuttle.
Han and Chewbacca wasted precious time in the first cargo ship on the
atmosphere factory's landing pad, trying to cross-circuit the controls as
Kyp Durron kept watch in the open hatch. The air was cold on their exposed
skin, and they didn't know how much stray radiation from the Maw actually
penetrated the atmospheric shield; the sounds of breathing hissed behind
their breath masks. No one had seen them. Yet.
After only a few minutes, Han accidentally triggered the shuttle's automatic
lockout systems. He slammed his hand on the panel. "Should have known I
couldn't beat the high-level security interlocks!"
Chewbacca pulled off an access plate and tossed it into the back compartment
with the sound of a crashing landspeeder. Roaring in his Wookiee language,
he began yanking wires out of the controls and jamming them into override
ports, but the few lights still functioning on the panels continued to burn
red.
"Forget it, Chewie. We'll try the other ship," Han said. "I think I know
what I did wrong last time."
Kyp kept watch on the tiny doors of the atmosphere factory's massive stack.
"Still no movement from inside. We're clear."
They raced across the open spaces of the landing field to the second cargo
shuttle, an old Imperial model with scarred armor and long planar wings that
made it look like a mechanical flying fish. Han and Chewbacca had flown a
similar Lambda'-class shuttle on their guerrilla mission to Endor; but this
model looked even older. Prison facilities must have low priority for new
equipment acquisitions, he thought.
Chewbacca opened the hatch, and Han ducked inside, moving straight to the
controls. The Wookiee clambered after him as four guards marched into view
around the perimeter of the atmosphere stack. The squad wore
cobbled-together uniforms of old stormtrooper armor and thermal suits from
the mines.
Kyp plastered himself to the wall just inside the open hatch. Looking across
the landing field, he saw that they had forgotten to close the doorway on
the first shuttle, and now their tampering was painfully obvious. He
swallowed. "Better hurry, Han. We've got company, but they haven't seen us
yet."
"If this doesn't work, we're in deep bantha dung," Han muttered, punching up
the command screens and removing the access plate to the security override.
The squad of guards marched on what was probably a routine patrol. Han
glanced up to see them through the shuttle's windowport, but the
reflectorized transparisteel would prevent them from observing the pilot's
compartment. He wondered how many times a day the guards walked around the
circular perimeter of the atmosphere stack. He hoped they were sleepwalking
by now.
He tried to fire up the shuttle's engines. The control panel gave him an
ERROR message. "Bantha dung it is, then," he said. But he had one more thing
to try.
The lead guard suddenly stopped and gestured toward the open hatch in the
first shuttle. He tilted his head to speak into his helmet comlink, then
went cautiously forward. He took another guard with him, while the remaining
two drew their weapons and spread out, looking from side to side.
"Oh boy," Kyp said.
Han rewired the security circuit, feeding the password-checking mechanisms
back into themselves; then he snapped the plate back on. "Let's try it. Kyp,
get ready to close the hatch. If this works, those guards are going to be
upset. If it doesn't work, I'm going to be upset."
The two guards poked their heads out of the first shuttle, gesturing wildly.
They had seen the sabotage. The other two jabbered into their helmet radios,
then sprinted toward the second shuttle, drawing their weapons.
Kyp slapped the button that slammed the hatch shut. All the guards began
running, pointing their blasters at the shuttle.
Han punched the start controls. With a merciful whine and hum, the engines
ignited. Power surged through the shuttle. Han gave a whoop of triumph, but
Chewbacca knocked him back into the pilot's seat as he furiously worked the
controls with his big hairy hands to lift them off the pad.
The guards fired blasters at the shuttle. Han heard the sizzling thumps as
the beams struck, but the ship's armor could withstand attack from minor
hand weapons.
At the base of the atmosphere stack, doors opened and an entire squad of
guards boiled out like Anoat lizard-ants in mating season. One bright laser
bolt splashed across the transparisteel directly in front of Han's eyes,
dazzling him. "Time to leave this party," he said.
Chewbacca raised them off the ground, maneuvering the shuttle away from the
other vehicles on the landing pad.
Two guards wrestled a blaster cannon into place, erecting it on its tripod
and cranking up the aim point. Chewbacca growled, and Han took over the
controls. "I know. That thing could be real trouble if we don't get some
altitude fast."
A flurry of hand-blaster bolts pinged against the lower hull. Han flew the
ship higher, adjacent to the gigantic stack, spiraling upward and using the
curving walls as a shield. The guards managed to fire only one shot from the
blaster-cannon, but the beam scattered wide as Han corkscrewed up, keeping
the stack between him and the troops. Below, the guards ran around the
perimeter to keep within firing range, but Han flew the shuttle beyond the
reach of small weapons fire.
"We're out of here!" Han said. "Punch it, Chewie!"
Then the massive laser turrets mounted on the atmosphere tower began firing
at them.
"What!" Han cried. "What are they doing with weapons on an atmosphere stack?
It's a factory, not a garrison!"
One brilliant green bolt struck the starboard planar wing of the shuttle,
sending the vessel into a roll. Han and Chewbacca grappled with the controls
as they spun, and Kyp clung to the supports of the pilot's chair.
They careened into the gushing white updraft from the stack, knocked from
side to side by manufactured air dumping into Kessel's atmosphere. "Hang
on!" Han yelled. He did not want to crash on the planet again.
At the shuttle's top acceleration, he took them along the stream of air,
roaring upward like a boat riding the rapids. Green blasts from the turret
lasers continued to streak up, but by riding the center stream, Han kept the
shuttle in the blind spot of their targeting mechanisms.
They zoomed toward the fringes of the atmosphere. Han looked at both Kyp and
Chewbacca.
"Well, so much for sneaking out of here. Now Moruth Doole is going to know
we escaped."
As if on cue the shuttle's comm crackled, and they could hear Doole's
croaking voice in the background. "Is this it? Did you get the right
override channel this time?"
"Yes, Commissioner."
"Solo! Han Solo, can you hear me?"
"Why, it sounds like my old friend Moruth Doole!" Han said. "How are you
doing, buddy? I hope you feel better than your assistant Skynxnex."
"Solo, you have caused me more grief than any other life-form in the
galaxy--including Jabba the Hutt! I should have squashed you when I had you
in my office."
Han rolled his eyes. "Well, you missed your chance, and I don't plan on
giving you another one."
Doole chuckled, a hissing heh-heh-heh laugh like a fat man choking on sand.
"You won't get away. I'll mobilize everything against you. Better start
thinking about the afterlife now."
Kyp squinted out the port, as if deep in concentration. The atmosphere
thinned around the fleeing ship at the far limit of where Kessel's gravity
could keep hold. He saw Kessel's moon and suddenly shivered uncontrollably.
He blinked in confusion.
Chewbacca bellowed into the speaker mesh. "You tell him, Chewie," Han said,
then switched off the radio.
Kyp scrambled forward and grabbed the controls, activating the maneuvering
rockets and making the shuttle lurch forward with enough force to slam Han
and Chewbacca against their seats. Kyp tumbled backward, unable to keep his
balance in the acceleration.
"What did you do that for?" Han demanded, glaring at Kyp.
But Chewbacca made an alarmed noise and dragged Han back to the console.
Just below them the atmosphere shimmered and crinkled as an impenetrable
ionized screen appeared, blanketing the planet.
"They've got their energy shield operational!" Han said. The workers on
Kessel's moonbase had repaired the protective screen that blocked off the
prison planet. If Kyp hadn't punched their acceleration exactly when he did,
they would have been sizzled in the bath of power or trapped beneath the
shield, unable to escape.
"How did you know?" Han said, looking over his shoulder at Kyp. Kyp picked
himself up off the floor, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. "Never
mind. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Just get us away from Kessel."
Han spun around to the shuttle's controls. "Chewie, contact the New
Republic. No waiting this time. They've got to learn what's going on here,
just in case we don't make it back."
The Wookiee bent over the comm controls as Han struggled with the
navicomputer. Han gawked at the task in front of him. "Damn! This thing's an
old five-hundred-X model! Haven't seen one of these outside a museum. I hope
they gave us a scratchpad to do backup calculations. That might be faster
and more accurate!"
Chewbacca moaned and pounded his hairy fist on the console with enough force
to buckle the panels. Han flashed a sidelong look at him. "What do you mean
we're being jammed? Who's jamming us?"
Kyp turned to the side viewport, said in a low voice, "Here they come."
The garrison on Kessel's moon spewed fighters, dozens of rejuvenated battle
craft, armored freighters, slim and heavily armed X-wings, and TIE fighters.
Many of the ships must have been damaged during the recent war and then
salvaged. Now Doole had also gotten his planetary defense shield running
again. Kessel would be a veritable stronghold against any attack.
Streams of X-wings and Y-wings coursed out, flanked on either side by a
squadron of TIE fighters. They roared through the wispy tail of atmosphere
in Kessel's orbital wake, leaving a glowing window of ionized gas from their
sublight engines.
"Strap yourselves in," Han said. "This is going to be a hell of a ride." He
reached for the controls, preparing to fight, then felt a boulder drop in
his stomach. "What? This ship is unarmed!" He frantically scanned the
console. "Nothing! Not a single laser! Not even a slingshot!"
Kyp held the back of Han's pilot chair, bracing himself. "We stole a supply
ship, not a fighter. What did you expect?"
"Chewie, pump everything into our shields--and I mean everything, including
life support. We've got enough air in here to last longer than this ship is
likely to hold. Boost shields until they're off the scale. We're going to
have to outrun them."
The first wave of TIE fighters soared in, their Twin Ion Engines howling
over the cockpit's feedback speakers. Laser spears shot out, pummeling the
shuttle, but the shields held. X-wings attacked from the rear.
"Can't this ship go any faster?" Kyp asked. The lights dimmed as Chewbacca
reinforced the shields.
"Like you said, kid, we stole a cargo shuttle. This isn't a racing ship, and
it sure isn't the Falc
on. Get ready for a jump to hyperspace as soon as this
fossilized navicomputer gives an answer." He stared at the readout, then
pounded on the panel. "It'll be another ten minutes before it coughs up a
safe trajectory. Damn! The black hole cluster is screwing up the
calculations."
Chewbacca interjected a loud, bleating comment.
"What did he say?" Kyp asked.
"He said our shields are going to fail in about two minutes. I wish I had
weapons--I'd even settle for a rock to throw out the window!" His eyes were
wide and suddenly empty of hope. "There's no way we can last long enough,
and Doole sure won't take prisoners a second time. Sorry I got you into
this, kid."
Kyp bit his lip, then turned to point out the front windowport. "Go there."
The Maw.
Swirling clouds of gas looped into the bottomless pits of black holes,
making space look like a tangled skein of incandescent yarn. Gravity waited
to tear apart any ship that came too close. The inexorable Maw cluster was
destined to swallow up the Kessel system itself in only another thousand
years--but Han didn't want to feed its appetite any sooner than that.
Chewbacca roared something that needed no translation. "Are you crazy?" Han
asked.
"You said we're dead anyway."
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