"Relight the sublight engines and get us out of here," Han said. He swung the turret gun around and got a tracking lock on the first X-TIE fighter. He was about to fire when the Falcon suddenly pitched around, a hard ninety-degree rotation. Chewie was lining up the ship on a trajectory that would get them out from between these ships. Good. He'd settle for losing the shot if it got them out of here. He waited for the sublight engines to kick in and throw them clear of this mess.
But then nothing happened. Han, who had learned from bitter experience what nothing happening meant at such times, already knew what the story was before Chewie even roared his frustration. That unexpected thump when Chewie shut down the sublight engines had meant something after all. Han looked up the accessway panel just in time to see Chewie rushing past the base of the passage, headed for the sublight engine access panels.
Han muttered a silent and profane prayer to whatever powers might be looking in, asking that, for once, it would be a simple problem. Then he thrust the question from his mind and concentrated on the incoming Uglies. He checked his tactical display. They would be within range in another 2.5 seconds. The tactical display was preparing an automated firing run, but Han slapped it over to manual. He didn't trust a computer to do his fighting for him. Take the B-wing chop job with the laser canaon first. It posed the biggest threat.
After all, he was just guessing that the B-wing's laser was hard to aim. Line it up. Pray that Chewie had set all the shields on max before he dove at the engines.
The B-wing was getting closer. Han held his fire for just a fraction of a second longer than he wanted, letting the B-wing get fully into range. Then he pulled at the trigger, let it have a long volley of fire. He caught it with a nice series of hits amidships as it swept past, swinging the quadlaser turret around to pound another volley into its sublight engines. One of the ponside engines flared suddenly and then went dark. Good. That was not just a definite hit, but one that had done some damage. Han swung the turret back around to take a crack at the X-TIE fighters, and suddenly realized they had flown past with the B-wing, flying outboard to it.
Then it struck him. They had all flown right past him.
They had ignored him altogether. None of them had fired at all.
"Oh, no," Han muttered to himself. Had he just fired on three heavily anad ships that had no quarrel with him, that just happened to be flying on the same vector as his own ship? There had been an old saying in the Corellian Sector Fleet of the old Imperial Navy, back when Han was a junior officer there. "Never get an Ugly angry." As best he recalled, there were very good reasons for that advice.
Then, with a sudden lurch that made itself felt, artificial grav system or no, the sublight engines came back on-lineand then shut down again just as fast. At a guess, Chewie had gotten them working again by doing whatever he had done aft, and then was forced to shut them down again until he could get back forward to the cockpit and light them up from there. Han judged how much time it usually took Chewie to perform this sort of maneuver, figured in half a step's worth of delay to account for Chewie being out of practice, then took another quick peek down the accessway.
Sure enough, there was Chewie, hotfooting it hack to the cockpit.
Han allowed himself a half moment's regret that he hadn't put Lein on the quad lasers. That way he could have stayed in the cockpit while Chewie ran back and forth on repair duty. Too late for that idea now, and besides, someone had to watch the children. Poor kids must be in a full panic by now. Not that there was anything he could do about it but man the quad-laser turret.
A half moan, half growtcoming through the headset told Han that Chewbacca was back at the flight controls. There was another hard jerk as the Wookiee slammed the sublight engines back on at full power, and Han struggled to keep a track on the Uglies as they headed straight for the honor. guard ships. The Millennium Falcon took off at right angles to the line between the Uglies and the honor guard. But something was wrong. Very wrong. Neither the Uglies nor the honor guard was paying the Falcon the slightest attention. "Chewie!" Han shouted. "Full stop! Cut the engines, do a one-hundred-and eighty degree turn, reverse thrust, and hold us here." Chewbacca replied with a wholly predictable roar of protest, but Han shouted right back at him.
"Do it!" he said. "Something's not right. That cholob B-wing could have vaporized us on the first shot from its range, and it didn't even try."
Chewbacca's voice hooted again, a bit softer, in Han's ear. "So if they were pirates, they would have tried to disable us, not fry us. So what? They didn't try that either.
And they should have. They had us dead to rights. A blind shot to our rear as we were coming out of hyperspace, and we'd be lunch." Leia's voice came on from the ship's lounge. "Han, this is leia on a headset link." She was telling him the children couldn't hear. "What's going on?"
"Later, leia. Don't joggle my elbow just now." Han reached up and cut the lounge out of his com circuit. Not the most respectful way to treat his wife, but on the other hand, one distraction too many could be fatal just now. He could apologize later, if they lived. "Chewie," he said again. "Full stop, now. Reverse course and hold this position, then adjust ship attitude to give both of us a good field of view of whatever's going on out there." The ship lurched again as Chewie finally obeyed his orders, and the Falcon came about to its new heading. Han checked to make sure the tactical display was being recorded, then zoomed the view to get a good close look at the Uglies.
They were nearly on top of the honor guard now-but instead of engaging them, they came about, and"Chewie-all power to forward and starboard shields!
Now!"
Now the Uglies were opening fire on the Falcon, from a much poorer firing angle, with twenty times the distance of their closest approach, with the element of surprise gone and with the honor-guard ships-if they were an honor guard-just about to jump on them. But why? Why? A volley of near misses from the B-wing's ground laser blazed past the Falcon, bouncing off the shields and rattling the ship. It was close, but it should have been much closer.
Chewie's voice growled again in the headphones, but Han cut him off. "No! Do not maneuver!" he said.
"They're shooting to miss. Even a bunch of Uglies couldn't miss that completely from that range unless they were trying. If you move the ship, we might fly into a shot that was intended as a near miss. Hold position. I'm not sure, but I think I know what's going on."
Han watched as the honor-guard ships jumped the three Uglies, none of which did a very credible job of responding to the threat. The B-wing ignored their attack altogether, and concentrated on firing near misses and the occasional glancing hit at the Falcon. The X-TIE fighters turned on the interlopers and blasted away, to very little effect. To Han's experienced eye, it was clear that either the X-TIEs' weapons were extremely underpowered, or the PPBs of the honor guard were packing some implausibly powerful shielding-far better shielding than Han could credit in a vehicle that size. And if they did have shields that good, they certainly couldn't have laser cannon of any size. And yet it took only five or six desultory shots from the lead PPB to disable one of the X-TIEs. Its engines and weapons died and it drifted off, derelict. Three of the PPBs took off on a needlessly complex synchronized maneuver and came up under the other X-TlE, blasting away. The X-TIE came about, managed to land a few shots on the lead PPB, and then its left wing blew off.
Its fighter cover gone, the B-wing Ugly finally broke its ineffectual attack on the Falcon and came about in rather lumbering fashion. It leveled its cannon at the one PPB that hadn't managed to do much besides fly straight, and the little fighter exploded on the first shot. The five remaining PPBs converged on the B-wing from all sides and concentrated their fire on it. The B-wing took several hard hits from multiple directions and a small explosion amidships sent it into a hard tumble. The PPBs poured the fire on from every point of the compass. Another explosion in the B-wing's aft section sent it tumbling even harder. Then a whole series of blasts ripped through the
ship's interior, merging into one huge firestorm that lit up the sky, blinding Han for a moment or two before it guflered down to nothing.
The cho job B-wing Ugly wasn't there anymore.
Han watched as the surviving PPBs did a graceful joint victory roll. "Very nice," he said. "Very nice. Almost makes me want to believe it. But will they have the nerve to Play it out to the end?"
Millennium Falcon, this is Captain Talpron, leading Squadron Two, Corellian Space Defense Forces Space Service. Are you all right?"
"Ah, yes," Han said, trying to sound convincingly grateful. "Just fine, thanks. Thanks for the rescue."
"Our pleasure, Millennium Falcon." It had been agreed long before that all Corellian craft would address the ship, and not mention the name of anyone onboard, to provide at least a mote of security for the chief of state's private visit. Apparently, Talpron was determined to honor that arrangement, even if it was spectacularly obvious that security was shot full of holes.
Well, if Talpron wanted to pretend everything was fine, Han had his own reasons for playing along. "Whose ships were those?" he asked in a conversational tone of voice, as if he didn't already know.
"Unknown group, Millennium Falcon," Talpron replied. "Could be any of the Corellian pirate groups out to score big. They might be from one of the Outlier systems," he said.
"That'll make `em hard to trace," Han said sympathetically.
"So it will, Millennium Falcon," Talpron said, in a world-weary sort of voice. "So it will."
"Well, even if you can't track them down, we can't tell you how grateful we are for your assistance," Han went on. "We're very sorry that you lost one of your craft. We would like to express our condolences to you and to the family of the crew you lost."
"What?" Talpron asked. "Oh, yes. Of course. We'll make the arrangements."
"Yeah, I bet you will," Han said under his breath, low enough so the mike wouldn't catch it. He spoke again, louder, into the microphone. "Captain Talpron, thanks once again for assistance. However, I've got to get my ship secured from general quarters and run some systems checks.
Will you excuse me?"
"Of course, sir. We'll stand by until you are ready to proceed. Signal us when you are ready to start the flight to Corellia."
"That we will do, Captain. Millennium Falcon out."
Han shut off the com system, hung up his headset, unstrapped himself from the gunner's chair-and then just sat there for a moment, thinking.
In the game of sabacc, the rules could change in the middle of a hand, and all the cards that were going to do you good could suddenly be the worst kind of bad news.
But the opposite was also true. A disaster of a hand could turn around just as quickly, and win you the pot. The trick was in knowing exactly when, and exactly how fast, and exactly by what means the change could come. Then you could be ready for it; know exactly how to deal with the new situation.
Every now and again your opponent made a mistake, showed a card he should not, and you knew more than you were supposed to. The most honest sabacc players were good enough sports to tell their opponents when it happened.
But sabacc players who wanted to win were never that honest.
The opposition, whoever that was, had just showed Han some of their cards. Han was not about to let them know he had seen anything at all.
But neither was he the least bit sure what rules he was now playing by.
,* * * Han stepped into the cockpit, and was not overly surprised to see Leia in the pilot's seat, watching the main viewport.
He hadn't really expected her to sit by quietly while the ship was under attack. He was glad she hadn't. Assuming she had the kids squared away, getting a second pilot into the cockpit was the best thing she could have done. She turned to face Han. "Did you have a nice chat with our new friends?" she asked. She clearly wasn't too happy about being cut out of the comlink.
"Oh, yeah," he said. "Great bunch of folks. Are the kids still okay?"
Ieia nodded toward a small repeater screen that was showing a view of the lounge. Han could see three small figures, their expressions very serious, very solemn. "I told them that if they moved out of view, there would be no dinner for a week," she said. "For once it seems like they knew when I needed them to obey. But what the burning skies is going on, Han?"
"Sorry I cut you off from the com back there," he said, answering the hurt in her voice rather than the words of her question. "I just needed to concentrate. If things had gone the wrong way, we could have been in trouble." Han wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying. His mind was on the problem at hand, not on being polite to his wife.
"Look, lemme into the pilot's station, will ya? I've got to try something." Leia got out of the seat, but she clearly was not yet placated. "Could have been in trouble?" she repeated.
"Could have been? What do you call pirates shooting at us?"
"There weren't any pirates, and no one was shooting at us," Han said, his voice flat and tired. "That's why I ordered Chewie not to maneuver. I was worried we might fly into one of the intentional near misses." Han settled into the pilot's chair. "Chewie, punch up the tactical playback and run it, will you? Main screen."
Chewie gave Han a strange look, but obeyed. The tactical display popped up on the screen, and showed a schematic diagram of the encounter just past. "Watch the Uglies come in," he said. "Remember we came in out of hyperspace, well short of where we were supposed to be, but on a straight-line course for our intended arrival point. The Uglies were coming in on that same course in normal spacebut they were expecting us to show up twenty seconds later and a million kilometers away. Then they throw away perfect firing position and fly right past us. They don't even shoot back when I take a shot at them. For a second there, I thought I had just gotten us all killed by opening fire on a nonhostile ship, but then I figured out what was going on. Instead, they flew past us, then waited until they were almost on top of the honor-guard ships before they turned and opened fire on us. And they kept missing. Threepio couldn't miss us at that range."
Chewbacca growled and burbled.
"Exactly," Han said. "The Uglies were robot ships, and not very well-programmed ones. No one was onboard those ships. They were programmed to fly to a designated point in space, then open fire with near misses at a ship meeting the Falcon's description. They were expecting the Falcon to arrive roughly in the center of the honor guard's spherical formation," he said. "If we had shown up there, it would have worked great. It would have made perfect sense to open fire where they did. Perfectly sound tactics.
Except we came in from a million kilometers away, and they flew past us at point-blank range, took up an absolutely lousy firing position, and started blasting. As I said, somebody didn't program their robots so well.
"Chewie, modify the display to show the encounter if we had arrived as per the flight plan." The screen cleared and then displayed the image of a miniature Falcon popping out of subspace in the center of the honor-guard sphere. "If we had arrived there, in the middle of the PPB's spherical formation, and had gotten there twenty seconds later, the act would have worked. The bad guys would have shown up coming straight for us, gotten off a shot or two, and then been blasted by the heroic pilots of the ho n,or guard, firing their popgun lasers at the attacking ships.
"But the PPBs lost one of their own ships," Leia oh objected.
"Another robot-drone ship," Han said. "The one that ended up getting shot was the one that was at the back of the formation and flew the simplest maneuvers.
"That doesn't prove it's a robot," Leia objected.
"Maybe it was just that the least skilled and experienced pilot was the one who got hit."
"Except that the squad leader didn't seem to care about his own pilot getting killed. He didn't seem to know what I was talking about when I offer my condolences. He'll never win any awards for acting.
"But if they were running a deception, they ,would have thought about that sort of detail ahead of
time.
"If you were running the deception, you would have thought of it,', Han replied. "Maybe these guys aren't so good at this sort of thing. Or maybe they didn't have time to set things up just the way they wanted. Maybe they're improvising." He looked at the display for a moment longer and then spoke again. "That might explain the B-wing. I can't see how we were supposed to believe that those little PPBs could take on that chop-job B-wing. Maybe they didn't have time to put together a more plausible matchup."
"All right. Assume you're right. The next question iswho are `they'? This was a pretty big operation. You can't just order some PPBs to go out and play shoot-'em-up.
There would have to be a huge conspiracy with a cover-up all set and ready to go. Greasing a few palms I can see, but how can you bribe the whole armed forces?"
"With a larger bag of money," Han said. "This is Corellia. Everything is for sale here. And cover-ups aren't that hard when everything is a secret. It could be that the highest level of command ordered this, or that they know nothing about it."
Star Wars - Ambush At Corellia Page 18