by Brian Daley
The Executioner emitted an electronic scream. If it had sat there and pondered for an age, the killing ma-chine would still never have considered the possibility that a general-labor droid could have learned how to do the irrational.
The Mark X broke into motion, rolling this way and that, randomly. It had no way to get at Bollux, who clung beneath it. No one had ever programmed the Executioner to shoot at itself, or cut at itself, or to crush something it couldnt reach. Bollux was in the single safe place in the entire arena.
The Mark Xs internal temperature began rising at once; the killing machine produced enormous amounts of heat.
Hirken was on his feet now, screaming Cancell Cancell Executioner, I order you to cancel? Techs began rnnning around, bumping into one another, but the Mark X was no longer receiving orders. Its com-plicated voice-keyed command circuitry had been among the first things to go out of whack. Now it charged aimlessly around the arena, discharging blast-ers, flame guns, and missile pods at random, threaten-ing to overload the noise-suppression system.
The arenas transparisteel walls became a window into an inferno as the Executioner roamed, its trunk rotating, its weapons blazing, its malfunctioning guid-ance system seeking an enemy that it could confront It was hit by shrapnel from its own missiles. Smoke and fire could be seen pouring from its ventilators. Bollux hung on to the Mark Xs undercarriage with both hands now, being dragged back and forth, won-dering calmly if his grip would fail.
The Executioner rebounded from one of the arenas walls. Surviving targeting circuits thought the killing machine had found its enemy at last. It backed up, preparing for another charge, its engine revving.
Bollux decided correctly that it was tune to part company. He simply let go. The Executioner howled off again, all its remaining attention focused on the un-offending wall. The droid began to drag himself, squeaking laboriously, toward the exit.
The Executioner crashed head-on into the arena wall, bouncing back with a mighty concussion. Frus-trated, it fired all weapons at close range and was en-gulfed in the backwash of blaster beams, fiechette fragments, and acid spray. Then, as Hitken cried a last Wo.-oool, the Mark Xs internal heat reached critical, compounded by external damage.
The Mark-X Executioner, latest word in combat automata, was ruptured open by a spectacular explo-sion ju st as Bolhtx, semiobsolete general4abor droid, got his tired chassis out of the arena.
Han knelt by him. pounding the old droid on the back while Blue Max somehow produced a cheer from his vocoder. The pilot threw his head back and laughed, forgetting everything else in the absurdity of the moment.
Give me a minute, please, Bollux begged, his drawl even slower now. I must try to bring my mech-anisms into some sort of order.
I can help? Max squeaked. Link me through to your brain circuits, Bollux, and Ill handle all the by-passes. Thatll leave you free to deal with the cybero-stasis problems.
Bollux opened his plastron. Captain, if youd be so kind? Han put the little computer back into place.
Touching, whoever you are, said a smooth, dry voice behind Han, but pointless. Well pick them both apart for the information we want. What happened to all your pretty braid and medals, by the way?
Hah turned and stood fast. Uul-Rha-Shan was wait-ing there, gun in hand. Halls holstered blaster hung over the reptilian gunmans shoulder.
I-Iirken came up behind Uul-Rha-Shan, followed by the major and the other Espos, his execs, and his wife, all the trappings of his corporate importance. The air was filled with the smell of charred circuitry and molten metal, all that remained of the precious Mark X. Hirkens face held inexpressible rage.
He pointed a quivering finger at Hah. I shouldve
known youre part of the conspiracyl Trianii, droids,
the Entertainers Guildmtheyre all in on it. No one
on the Board will be able to deny it now; this con-
spiracy against the Authority and against me person
ally involves everyonel
Han shook his head, amazed. Hirken was sweating, bellowing, with a maniacal look on his face. I dont know your real name, Marksman, but youve come to the end of this plot. What I need to know, Ill dig out of your droid, and the Trianii. But since youve spoiled my entertainment, youll make up for it.
He went with the rest of his entourage and stood just inside the arena, safe behind the transparisteel slabs. Uul-Rha-Shan took Hans gunbelt from his shoulder and held it out to him. Come, trick shooter. Lets see if you have any tricks left.
Hall moved warily and collected the belt. He checked his holstered blaster by eye, and saw that it had been drained of all but a microcharge, not enough to damage the primary-control circuitry. His gaze went to Hirken, who stood gloating behind invulnerable transparisteel. The belt control unit was out of the question. Hah climbed the amphitheater stairs slowly, buckling the gunbelt around his hips, tying down the holster.
Uul-Rha-Shan came after, returning his disrupter to its forearm holster. The two stepped out onto the open area overlooking the arena; the gathered Author-ity officials looked up at them.
It had been a good try, Han told himself, just a
touch shy of success. But now Hirken meant to see
him dead, and Chewbacca and Atuarre and Pakka in
his interrogation chambers. The Viceprex held all the
cards but one. Han made up his mind on the spot that if he was going to die anyway, hed take all these warped minds of Corporate Security with him.
He went, carefully, and stood by the wall, unsnap-ping the retaining strap of his holster. His opponent, squared off a few paces away, wasnt through taunt-ing.
Uul-Rha-Shan likes to know whom he kills. Who are you, imposter?
Drawing himself up, Han let his hands dangle loosely at his sides, fingers working. Solo. Han Solo.
The reptile registered surprise. I have heard your name, Solo. You are, at least, worthy of the killing.
Hans mouth tugged, amused. Think you can bring it off, lizard?
Uul-Rha-Shan hissed anger. Han cleared his mind of everything but what lay before him. Farewell, Solo, Uul-Rha-Shan bade him, tensing. Han moved with a dipping motion of the right shoulder, a half turn, all done with the blinding abrupt-ness of the gunfighter. But his hand never closed on the grip of his blaster.
Instead, feigning his draw, he hurled himself out on the floor. As he fell, he felt Uul-Rha-Shans disrupter beam lash over him, striking the wall. It set off a belching explosion that caught the reptile full in the face, flinging him backward. His shot had blown apart the ancillary circuitry for Hirkens belt unit, freeing swirls of energy. Secondary explosions told of the de-struction of power-management routers.
Han had hit the floor rolling, surviving the blast with little more than singed hair. His blaster was in his hand now, the cautionary pulser in its grip tingling his palm in silent, invisible warning that the gun was nearly empty. As if he needed to be reminded. Uul-Rha-Shan, somewhere in the din and smoke, was shrilling, Solo-ooo.t in furious challenge. Hah couldnt pick him out.
A far-off vibration reached him, the overload spiral hed had Blue Max build into the secondary defense program. Now that the primaries had been damaged and Hirkens belt unit circumvented, the power-rerouting had taken over. Wont be long now, he told himself.
Everyone in Stars End suddenly felt as if he were being immersed in thick mud, as the weight of a planet seemed to be pressing down. The anticoncussion field ---Han had forgotten about it, but it didnt matter.
Then, with an explosion beyond words, the power plant blew.
ATUARRE restrained herself from running back through the maze of tunnel-tubes, conscious of the Espo guard at her heels. Hans desperate plan left her so much room for doubt. What would happen if the bluff failed? But on that thought she corrected herseft at once-Solo-Captain was not bluffing, and was more than capable of taking all his enemies with him in an act of awesome revenge.
But she approved of the gamble. This might be Stars Ends only v
ulnerable moment. Even so, she took her longest strides now, dragging a stumbling Pakka along breakneck-quick.
They passed into the final junction station, the one nearest the Falcon. A tech lounged on duty behind his console. The Espos com-link signaled for attention, and Atuarre heard the crackled order, relayed from Hirken through the Espo major, as clearly as did her escort himself. The two Trianii were to be brought back to the tower. She wondered if that meant Han had successfully intervened in Bolluxs combat.
But Atuarre had no intention of going back now;
Solo-Captain specifically wanted her onboard the Millennium Falcon. She tried her most reasonable tone. Officer, I have to pick up a very important item on my ship, then we can return. Please? Its very vital; thats why I was given clearance to go in the first place.
The Espo wasnt paying heed. He drew his side arm.
Orders say at once. Move it!
The attention of the duty tech was aroused now, but the guard was the immediate danger. Atuarre held Pakkas paw high, so that his toes barely touched the floor, showing him to the guard. You see, I was also told to leave my cub onboard ship. His presence dis-pleased the Viceprex. She felt Pakkas short, elastic muscles tighten.
The Espo opened his mouth to reply, and she whipped the cub up. Pakka took snapping momentum from the launch, and both of the Trianii split the air with predatory howls, astounding the Authority men.
Pakkas dropkick caught the astonished Espo in the face and throat. Atuarre, coming in behind her cub, threw herself on the mans arm, prying his hand loose from his blaster. The Trianii bore their antagonist over backward, the cub with arms and legs and tail wrapped around the Espos head and neck, Atuarre wrenching the blaster free.
She heard a scuffle of sound behind her. Whirling, she saw the duty tech half standing from his chair behind the console. His left forefinger was stabbing some button on his board, hard. She assumed it to be an alarm, but the techs right hand was bringing up a blaster, and that was first on the agenda. She fired with the dispatch of a Trianii Ranger. The brief red flash of the blaster knocked the tech off his feet, back-ward, overturning his chair.
The Espo, bleeding from his wounds, threw Pakka off and charged at Atuarre, hands clutching for her. She fired again, the red bolt lighting the junction sta-tion. The Espo buckled and lay still. She cotfid hear alarms jangling through the tunnel-tube layout.
Atuarre was about to go to the junction station con-sole, to disconnect the tunnel-tubes and cut off pursuit, when the station jolted on its treads, as if the surface of Mytus VII had surged up under it. She and Pakka were bounced in the air like toys by the tremors of an explosion of incredible force.
Atuarre picked herself up dazedly and staggered to one of the thick exterior observation ports. She couldnt see the tower. Instead, a column of incandes-cent fire had sprung up where Stars End had stood. It seemed impossibly thin and high, reaching far up into the vacuous sky of Mytus VII.
Then she realized that the force of the explosion had been contained by deflector-shield generators around the tower. The pillar of destruction began to dissipate, but she could see nothing of Stars End, not a fragment. She couldnt believe that even an explod-ing power plant could utterly vaporize the nearly im-pregnable tower.
Then, on some impulse, she looked up, beyond the tip of the explosions flare. High above Mytus VII she saw the wink of the small distant sun off enhanced-bonding armor plate.
Oh, Solo-Captain, she breathed, understanding
what had happened, you madman.t
She pushed herself away from the port unsteadily and assessed her situation. She must move without hesitation. She raced to the console, found separator switches, and matching them with indicators over the junction stations tunnel-tubes, worked the three not connected to the Falcon. The tubes disengaged, their lengths contracting back toward the junction, pleating in on themselves.
Then she brought the junction stations self-propulsion unit to life, setting its treads in motion, steering it toward the Millennium Falcon, gathering in the intervening tube length as she went.
She chilled the discord in her mind with the dis-cipline expected of a Trianii Ranger, and a plan be-gan to form. One minute later, the Millennium Falcon raised from Mytus VII.
Atuarre, at the controls with Pakka perched in the copilots chair, scanned the base. She knew the per-sonnel must be coping desperately with pressure drop-pages and air leaks through their ruptured systems. But the armed Espo assault ship had already boosted clear of the base; she could see its engine glowing as it climbed rapidly in the distance. That someone had comprehended what had happened and responded so quickly gave her one more worry. No more Authority ships must be allowed to lift off.
She guided the starship in a low pass at the line of smaller Authority vessels. The FaIcons guns spoke again and again in a close strafing run. The parked, pilotless ships burst and flared one after another, yielding secondary explosions. Of the half-dozen craft there, none escaped damage. She swooped past the deep crater where Stars End had once stood.
She opened the main drive, screaming off after the departed Espo assault craft. She kept all shields an-gled aft, but there was only sporadic, inaccurate turbo-laser cannon fire. The personnel at the base were too busy trying to keep the breath of life from bleeding off into the vacuum. That was one advantage, a small help to her in what seemed like a hopeless task.
Stars Ends anticoncussion field must very nearly have overloaded, Hah thought; for the first seconds af-ter the power plant blew, stupendous forces had been exerted on the tower and everything in it. But the ira-mobilizing effect began to recede as the systems ad-justed.
Smoke and heat from both the ruined Executioner and the now-defunct primary-control ancillaries rolled and drifted through the dome, choking and blinding. There was a universal rush of indistinct bodies for the elevators. Han could hear Hitken yelling for or-der as the Espo major bellowed commands and the Viceprexs wife and others shrilled in panic.
Hah skirted the mob headed for the elevators, wad-ing through the anticoncussion field and the drifting smoke. Like all standbys, the anticoncussion field fed off emergency power inside Stars End. The towefts reserves would be limited. Hah grinned in the murk and confusion; the Espos were in for a surprise.
He made his way down the steps of the amphithe-ater, groping along, coughing and hoping he wasnt being poisoned by burned insulation and molten cir-cuitry. His toe hit something. He recognized Viceprex Hirkens discarded belt unit, kicked it aside, and went on. He located Bollux when he stumbled over the droids foot.
Captain, sir? Bollux hailed. Wed thought youd quite left, sir.
Were bowing out now; can you make it?
Tin stabilized. Max improvised a direct linkup be-tween himself and me.
Blue Maxs voice drifted up from Bolluxs chest. Captain, I tried to tell you when I rechecked the fig-ures that this might happen.
Hah had gotten a hand under the droids arm, helping him to rise to his wobbly legs. What did hap-pen, Max? Not enough power in the plant? He started moving Bollux off unsteadily through the drift-lag reek.
No, there was plenty of power in the plant, but the enhanced-bonding armor plate is a lot stronger than I thought at first. The exterior deflector shields contained the force of the explosion, all except the overhead one, the one that dissolved in the overload. All the force went that way. Us too.
Hah stopped. He wished he could see the little com-puter, not that it would have helped. Max, are you telling me we blew Stars End into orbit?
No, Captain, Max answered darkly. A high-arc trajectory, maybe, but never an orbit.
Han found himself leaning on Bollux as much as the droid was leaning on him. Oh, myl Why didnt you warn me?
I tried, Max reminded him sulkily.
Hah was in mental overdrive. It made sense Mytus VIIs relatively light specific gravity and lack of atmos-pheric friction must give it an escape velocity that was only middlin. Still, if the towers anticoncussion fie
lds hadnt been on when the large charge had gone off, everybody in Stars End wouldve been colloidal slime by now.
Besides, Max added testily, isnt this better than being dead? So far?
Han brightened; there was no arguing with that logic. He shouldered part of Bolluxs weight again. Okay, men; I have a new plan. Forward! They reeled off again, away from the elevators. All the elevators will be out; life-support and whatnot will have preempted all the reserve power. I saw a utility stairwell in the floor plans, but Hirken and Company will be remembering it pretty soon, too. Shag it.
They rounded the curve of the utility core as Han took his bearings. They were almost to a yellow-painted emergency door when the door snapped open and an Espo jumped out, riot gun in hand. Cupping his hand to his mouth, the man called, Viceprex Hirken! This way, sir!
Then he noticed Hah and Bollux and swung his weapon to bear. With only a microcharge in the blaster, Han had to make a quick head shot. The Espo dropped.
Brown nose, Hah grunted, still hanging on to the droid, stooping to grab the riot gun. He manhandled himself and his burden through the emergency door. A furor of shouting reached him; the others had found the elevators useless, and someone had remembered the stairwell. Han secured the door behind him and fired several sustained bursts at its latching mecha-nism. The metal began to glow and fuse. It was a durable alloy that would shed its heat again in mo-ments, leaving the latch welded shut. Those remaining on the other side would be able to blast their way through with hand weapons, but it would take pre-cious time.
As he and Hah half fell, half ran, down the stairs, Bollux asked, Where to now, sir?
The stasis-booth tiers. They careened around a landing, nearly falling. Feel that? The artificial grav-itys fluctuating. In time the power-management rout-ers will cut off everything but life-support.
Oh, I see, sir. Bollux said. The stasis booths you