Realizing he couldn't catch up with the one he had just missed and ignoring his comlink, Han yelled down the lad-derwell, "Chewie ! One in the Money Lane!"
Because of the Falcon's design, a flattened sphere, and the position of her main batteries at the precise top and bottom of the ship, her turrets' fields of fire overlapped in a wedge expanding from the freighter's waist all the way around. This overlap was what Han and his first mate called the Money Lane; kills scored there counted extra, since it was a shared responsibility; their standing wager on who was better with a quad-mount carried a double payoff for hits in the Money Lane.
But right now Han didn't care if he ended up owing the Wookiee his shirt. Chewbacca brought his weapon around and just barely failed to get a bead on the pinnace out in the Money Lane, chopping the air behind it with crimson can-nonfire.
"Spray, keep your eye on the long-range sensors," Han called into his mike. "If their parent ship sneaks up on us, Interstellar Collections will have nothing to auction off but a gas cloud! "
The ship missed by Chewbacca came up into Han's field of fire. He led it, reaching out for it with red cannon blasts, but the pinnace's pilot was quick and threw his ship out of the line of fire before his shields gave. The enemy scored on the Millennium Falcon's upper hull, and the freighter bucked. Han caught the smell of smouldering circuitry.
"Captain Solo, there's a large vessel moving up rapidly from magnetic southwest. At current courses it'll close with us in another ninety seconds!"
Han was too busy to answer the skip-tracer. Hearing his first mate's frustrated growl at a near miss, reverberating in the ladderwell, he saw the ship the Wookiee had just lost. It arced out beyond the bow mandibles, its pilot going into a fast bank as he realized he'd flown into another line of fire.
Han didn't bother with the targeting computer but tracked by eye, catching the pinnace at the slow point in its turn with a sustained burst. A moment later the pinnace disappeared in a fireball, shreds of it hurled outward.
The third pinnace, coming about for another run, swerved to avoid the explosion of its companion, rolled, and was again in the Money Lane. Han's and Chewbacca's fire probed at it simultaneously. It, too, became an eruption of enormous violence.
Han was instantly at the ladderwell, not bothering to climb down but sliding with toes clamped to its side-pieces, brak-ing himself with his hands, worrying about the oncoming mother ship.
As he reached main deck level, he found Chewbacca swarming up the rungs beneath him. The Wookiee crowed happily and Han found time to sneer "What d'you mean,
pay up? 1 made the kill in the Money Lane; you never even touched him! "
Chewbacca snarled as they dashed together toward the cockpit, but the issue of who owed whom had to be dropped. Once Chewbacca was in place, Spray squirmed out of the pilot's seat, breathing with relief as Han dropped into it.
"That ship's coming at vector one-two-five-slash-one-six-zero, " Spray said, but Han had already read that information off the console. Bringing the starship's helm over and accel-erating, he angled all deflectors aft with one hand, belting himself in with the other.
Spray had taken on more altitude than Han would have liked. With the hyperdrive still inoperable, things boiled down to a simple race. His best chance to deny the enemy a clear shot at him was to put the planet between them.
He was still increasing speed, the engines' rumble growing louder and louder, when the Falcon was jolted by a teeth-rattling explosion. Checking combat information feeds, Han found that the approaching mother ship was firing from extreme range even though its shots had little chance of penetrating the freighter's shields at this dis-tance.
Their pursuer was indeed the slaver, the would-be -"pi-rate" that had stopped and grappled the Lady of Mindor. That left him nonplused about Fiolla's part in matters and why the lifeboat transceiver had been left keyed open. Surely the slavers were out to get Fiolla, too?
Then he had no more time for imponderables; the slaver ship was closing the gap between them and nothing he did seemed to make any difference. She was an extremely well-armed vessel, easily three times the Millennium Falcon's size, and fast in the bargain.
If we had had time to retune the engines, Han carped at himself, we d be highstepping away from them right now.
A voice crackled over the open commo board. "Heave to, Millennium Falcon, or we fire for effect!" Han recognized the voice.
He switched his headset to transmit mode. "No free meals today, Magg! "
Fiolla's onetime assistant said nothing more. The pur-suer's shots came closer; the shields' drain on the Falcon's power grew acute. Han trained batteries aft by servo-remote. The slaver with her heavier guns was still out of range.
Though Han flew a twisting, evasive course, parting the cold air of Ammuud with a high whistle of speed, he knew the slaver would soon close. All he could hope for was that in-spired piloting, more than a little luck, and a well-placed salvo to damage the slaver would get him clear.
He brought his ship out of a quick bank with a flourish, sideslipping as thick streams of turbolaser fire belched past to starboard, just missing the Falcon. He thought, we could still make it, unless-
Fulfilling his silent fear, the freighter wobbled and shook herself as if in the throes of a fit. Instruments confirmed that a brute tractor beam had fastened onto the Falcon. Her max-imum effort failed to free her.
With the freighter held fast, the slaver closed rapidly. In another moment, Han knew, their pursuer would be on top of them. He tried not to be distracted by regrets; his hands flew across the console and he lacked even the time to tell his copilot what he was about to do.
Han brought the Falcon about at full power, just barely overcoming the drag of the tractor, redeploying defensive shields to maximum over the upper half of his ship's hull. Before the startled pilot of the slaver vessel knew what was happening, the Millennium Falcon had come about, revers-ing field in the tractor beam, and dived under his bow. Evad-ing the tractor projector set in the bottom of the slaver's hull took an extra twist and full power from the freighter's already overworked engines; using both the tractor's draw and the Falcon's thrust to snap-roll free of the beam.
Dumbfounded fire-control officers began redirecting their gun crews' aim, but the suddenness of the freighter's evasion had won Han the advantage of surprise.
Streaking under the length of the slaver, Han fired salvos from his top turret and waited with some dread for the mo-ment his shields failed. But they didn't, and Han's wild aer-obatics eluded all fire coming from the surprised slaver.
Nearly. There was a monumental jarring. Such of the Falcon's alarms and warning lights as were not already alive came on. Chewbacca, taking damage readings, hooted wor-riedly as Han accelerated again, leaving the slaver to match him if she could.
He turned to Spray. "Some of that new stuff we put in today must've been hit; I don't get any readouts from it. Try the forward tech station and see if you can find out any-thing. "
The skip-tracer staggered off, lurching this way and that as the ship swayed around him. Reaching the forward com-partment, he found Fiolla and Bollux still seated in the ac-celeration couch. From the tech station's chair Spray began examining readouts and squinting into scanners and scopes, twisting in the chair and scratching at his hand nervously.
"Does your hand still hurt, Spray?" asked Fiolla.
"No, it's much-" he started to say, then stopped and swung his chair around to face her with a shocked look. "I meant-that is-"
"Somatigenerative treatments always leave the skin itchy, don't they?" Fiolla went on, ignoring his protests. "You've been scratching since we got here. Solo told me he bit the hand of whoever jumped him in the hangar at the Bonadan spaceport. It was you, wasn't it? " There was little of inquiry in her tone, more of statement.
Spray was very calm. "I forgot how bright you are, Fiolla. Well, yes, as a matter of fact-" The Falcon quaked again; the slaver was gaining on her once more.
&n
bsp; "And you left the lifeboat transceiver keyed open, too, didn't you?" she snapped. "But how? Han was right; you weren't anywhere near that boat."
"I did not," Spray declared soberly. "That, you may be-lieve. I hadn't expected things to go quite this far, either; I abhor all this useless violence. This will end soon; your am-bitious former assistant is close."
Still not sure she credited any of what he had said, she told him, "You know I'm going to tell Han, don't you?" Bollux turned red photoreceptors from one to the other,
wondering if he dared leave them alone long enough to in-form Han of what he'd heard.
Then the Falcon jolted again in response to a barrage. "I doubt if that would make any difference now," Spray stated calmly. "And it's in your own best interests, Fiolla, to co-operate with me; your life has reached a critical juncture. "
Han and Chewbacca had run out of options. The slaver had fastened her tractor on them again. This time there would be no survival value in a sudden reversal; the next volley would almost certainly penetrate shields and convert the Mil-lennium Falcon into an explosive nimbus. Han was busily training batteries for a last futile salvo in an attempt to avert death. But the volley didn't come. Chew-bacca began pointing at the sensors and hooted excitedly. Han gaped, wanting to rub his eyes, at the size of the ship moving up hard astern the slaver.
She was an Espo destroyer of the old Victory class, close to a kilometer long, an armored space-going fortress. Where she'd come from wasn't as important to Han as what she would do. The tractor beam pulling at the Falcon dissipated; the slaver had seen the destroyer, too, and wanted no part of her. But the Security Police battlewagon had tractors of her own, mightier than the slaver's. Suddenly the Millennium Falcon and her pursuer were both held in an inflexible, invisible grip.
Somebody aboard the slaver had the bad judgment to try a volley at the destroyer. Cannonade splashed harmlessly off the Espo's immense shields and a turbolaser turret in the warship's side answered, opening a huge hole in the slaver's hull and evaporating most of her power plant. The slaver offered no further resistance. She was drawn up, uncontesting, into the gaping boarding lock in the de-stroyer's underbelly. The Falcon's commo board sounded with a general override broadcast: "All personnel in both captive ships remain where you are. Follow all instructions and offer no opposition. " There was something familiar about the voice. "Shut down your engines and- lock all sys-tems except commo. "
Since the slaver was already occupying the destroyer's boarding lock, the Falcon was eased down toward the ground, the vast bulk of the battlewagon settling in over her, blocking out the sky. Relaxing to the inevitable, Han extended his ship's landing gear; the Falcon could never break from this tractor beam, and he had just seen the stupidity of trying to slug it out. He shut off his engines and cut power to weapons, shields, tractors, sensor suite:
He nudged his partner. "Keep your bowcaster ready; maybe we can make a break for it when we're outside. " If they could get away, perhaps the Mor Glayyd could use a couple of good pilots. If not, there was nothing to worry about anyway, except which periodicals to subscribe to while in prison. But Han was determined to go out kicking.
The Espo craft. descended until it was no more than fifty meters above the grounded Falcon. By leaning forward in the cockpit, Han could see the captive slaver ship. A board-ing tube, no doubt packed with combat-armored Espo as-sault troops, was extending itself and fastening to the slaver's main lock.
Now, Magg, see how you like it, thought Han. It was only a knot of satisfaction in his long string of bad luck, but it was something. He savored it while he could.
From another lock in the destroyer a safety cage appeared, lowered by a utility tractor beam, coming down slowly and silently. The safety cage was a circular, basketlike affair with high guardrails and an overhead sling for hoist work. Within the cage, where Han would have expected a flock of trigger- happy Espos, there was only the man who had given the instructions over the commo a few moments before. It was Gallandro, the gunman.
Part 13
GALLANDRO approached the Falcon at a sedate pace. When he stopped, looking up at the cockpit, his hand moved to his belt and brought something up. A moment later the _ gunman's voice came over the commo board, obviously channeled through the Espo warship.
"Solo, can you hear me?" Rather than answer, Han flashed the ship's running lights once. "Oh, come now, Solo! How can you be surly to the man who saved your skin?"
Easily, Han reflected, when he's so slick and so fast with a blaster. But he opened his headset mike. "It's your play, Gallandro." There was satisfaction in the other's tone. "That's better; isn't cordiality more pleasant? I'm sure that even you can grasp the realities here, Solo. If nothing else, you're a prag-matist. Kindly open your main hatch and come down, if you'd be so good, and we'll sort out this entire affair."
Han considered suggesting that Gallandro go sit in a con-verter, but one glance up at the great underbelly of the de-stroyer changed his mind. Turbolaser emplacements, twin and quad batteries, missile tubes, and tractor beam projec-tors were all aimed at the freighter. One wrong move and we'll all be random energy. He sighed and unbuckled his seat belt. Perhaps something outside would change the situ-ation, but he knew nothing he could do there in the cockpit would help. He turned to find that Spray had been standing at the rear of the cockpit, watching him. A moment later Fiolla ap-peared next to the Tynnan. It occurred to him that she might have some use as a hostage, but in view of the number of times her life had been in real danger already, he doubted that threatening her would deter Gallandro; the man seemed to know what real ruthlessness was. Besides, Han wasn't sure Gallandro would believe Han could kill her in cold blood, even now.
"Your friends have shown up, " Han told her bitterly. "The Authority has things well in hand. There ought to be that big promo in this one, Fiolla. "
She moved away toward the main hatch. Spray gave Han an odd look, then followed after. Encountering Bollux in the passageway, Han nodded at him. "Step into the cockpit and keep a photoreceptor on things, old-timer. If we don't come back the ship is yours, unless Interstellar Collections grabs it. Good luck; business has been lousy lately. "
When Han got the hatch open he found Gallandro waiting at the ramp's foot. The gunman met his stare with a polite inclination of the head. "I mentioned earlier today, Captain, that there would perhaps be another occasion."
The invitation was obvious. Han thought about hooking for his blaster but, recalling Gallandro's incredible speed, set it aside as an option he could take later. Han was prepared to believe that the man confronting him was his equal or better with a sidearm.
Gallandro saw that in his expression and evinced a certain disappointment. "Very well then, Solo. You may keep your blaster for now, in case you change your mind. I don't sup-pose I need to tell you how many weapons are trained on you right now; please don't do anything abrupt without let-ting me clear it beforehand. "
Han and Chewbacca stepped off to opposite sides of the ramp's foot, but Gallandro stayed far enough back to keep them both in view. The Wookiee, as aware of the situation as Han, kept his bowcaster slung at his shoulder.
Han was expecting to see a profuse greeting or at least a cordial welcome for Fiolla. But Gallandro accorded her only a suave smile and sketchy bow, and waited expectantly.
Spray was last down, coming at his slightly uneven dry-land gait, the tip of his tail brushing the ramp, some moisture from his recent swim still gleaming in his pelt. Gallandro bowed to him deferentially, although the gunman never lost sight of Han.
"Odumin, " Gallandro said, "welcome, sir. You've brought yet another project to a successful conclusion. You haven't lost your touch for field work, I see."
Spray made a depreciating gesture, squinting up at the tall, aristocratic gunfighter. "I was fortunate, old friend. I must confess, I find I much prefer administration. "
Han, who'd been gaping from one to the other while Chewbacca made little strangling sounds, fina
lly got out "Odumin? You're the territorial manager? Why you treach-erous, mutinous worm, I ought to-" Words failed him for a fate sufficiently horrible.
"That's hardly called for, Captain, " Spray chided, sound-ing wounded. "I did start out as a skip-tracer, you see. But as I advanced myself in the structure of the Corporate Sector Authority, I found it expedient, as a nonhuman, to use others as go-betweens and remain an anonymous figure. In this slavery business, which extends to my own deputies and of-ficials of the Security Police, I found myself obliged to do my own investigating with the help of a few trusted aides like Gallandro here. "
He laced his webbed fingers together and assumed the introspective air of a teacher. Han found himself listening despite his fury.
"It was a very convoluted problem," Spray/Odumin be-gan. "First, there was the evidence that you had taken off of Zlarb, which, you see, led you to Bonadan and convinced me that you were the slaver. At the spaceport, when you headed for the hangar, I concluded that you were about to depart the planet. There were materials at hand, a pair of work gloves and an industrial solvent that could double as ananesthetic; that prompted an overly hasty decision on my part to attempt to take from you whatever information you pos-sessed in such a manner as to make you suspicious of your, um, confederates. But you turned out to be a resourceful man, Captain." Han snorted. "I still can't believe you worked up the guts to jump me, even with the lights out. "
Star Wars - Han Solo's Revenge Page 17