Star Wars - Han Solo at Star's End

by Brian Daley

  Port control, having noticed that the barge was preparing to lift, began transmitting to what it still presumed to be a robotized ship orders to abort liftoff. Han hit the overrides and had the barge’s computer answer by acknowledging clearance as if it had received permission to go. Port control repeated the command to hold, convinced it was dealing with a computer malfunction along with all its other problems.

  Han brought the engines up. The barge wallowed up from its pit, bending aside the boarding gantry, ignoring all directions to do otherwise. As his radius of vision increased with altitude, Han spied the abandoned harvester. It was halfway to the other end of the giant port, surrounded by Espo hover-vans, skimmers, and self-propelled artillery. The harvester had been partially disabled, but still obeyed its present programming mindlessly, trying to grind forward.

  As Han watched, a cannonade from all sides stopped the huge machine for good, gouging large chunks from it, turning most of the harvester’s lower chassis into wreckage. Someone no longer cared whether prisoners were taken or not. The harvester’s power plant went up in a fireball, and the harvester split in half with a force that rocked the Espo field pieces back.

  As the barge rose higher, responding sluggishly under its burden of cargo, ignoring chatter from the port control, Han saw the place where Chewbacca had been captured. Other Espo vehicles were gathered near the wreck of the hovervan. Han couldn’t tell whether his partner was there or had already been taken away, but the fields were crawling with Security Police, like a pestilence among the golden-red grain, searching for possible stragglers. Rekkon had been right; going back would’ve spelled certain disaster.

  The barge gave a sudden, convulsive shudder, and the Falcon’s passengers felt as if someone had caught them by the collar and given a yank. With an ominous feeling, Han punched up the rear screens. Bollux, having nearly fallen, lowered himself into the navigator’s chair, inquiring what was wrong. Han ignored him.

  It had been a picket ship, in transpolar orbit, that he and Chewbacca had picked up just prior to landing. Even Rekkon hadn’t realized how security-minded the Authority was about Orron III. Moving up hard astern the barge was a dread-naught, one of the military’s old Invincible Class capital ships—over two kilometers long, bristling with gun turrets, missile tubes, tractor-beam projectors, and deflector shields, armored like a protosteel mountain. The dreadnought hailed them with the demand that the barge halt, and at the same time identified herself: the Shannador’s Revenge. She’d locked her tractors onto the barge, and compared with her raw power, the lighter’s beam back on Duroon had been a mere beckoning finger.

  “Church is out,” Han observed, bringing his ordnance up to charge and preparing to angle deflector shields, for all the good it would do. The dreadnought had enough weaponry to hold and vaporize a score of ships like the Falcon. Han opened the intercom. “That shake-up was a tractor. Everybody stay cool—things could get rough.” As if we have a prayer, he finished to himself. But he had no intention of being caught alive. Better to shorten a few Espo careers, and go out in style.

  There were sounds of banging, tearing metal from the barge shell, of parting supports and struts. Some of the superstructural features, weakened or loosened by alterations to the hull, had been pulled free by the tractor beam and gone flying back toward the Shannador’s Revenge.

  Han took inspiration from it. He had at his side breadboarded computer overrides for the barge’s every function. His fingers stabbed at them as he shouted, “Everybody brace! We’re gonna—” and was slammed back in his seat. He’d hit the cargo release, opening the barge’s rear dump-doors. Hundreds of thousands of tons of grain were poured into the dreadnaught’s tractors, pulled toward the Shannador’s Revenge by her own brute power, fanning out in a blinding contrail, as the barge surged ahead with a lightening load.

  The dreadnought was engulfed, her sensors muffled by the tidal wave of grain. Han, with one eye on his own sensors, saw that the warship was driving straight on through the hail of grain, closing quickly on the barge even though she was blinded. Her tractor beams were still clamped onto the barge’s stern, and Han wondered how long it would be before her skipper gave the command to open fire.

  There was only one other possibility. He hit the controls, cutting in the barge’s retrothrusters, and with virtually the same motion, slapped the emergency releases. His other hand hovered over the main drive control of the Millennium Falcon.

  The barge shell shook, losing much of its velocity, while the reports of exploding bolts sounded through both the freighter and the larger ship around it. Superstructural elements, added to secure the Falcon and disguise her lines, were blown clear. A split second later, the Falcon’s engines howled to life, their blue fire tearing the smaller ship free of the breakaway supports holding her and severing her external control hookups.

  Han took the Falcon on the same course he’d been holding, keeping the barge shell between himself and the Authority warship. The Shannador’s Revenge, her sensors impaired, had failed to note the barge shell’s drastic drop in speed. The dreadnought’s captain was calling for a vector change just as the warship rammed the decelerating barge. The Shannador’s Revenge’s forward screens flared with impact, and her anticoncussion fields cut in instantly on collision, as she cut the floating hulk of the barge shell in half in a terrific impact and suffered structural damage of her own. The warship’s forward sensor suite was disabled; she resounded with alarms and damage reports. Airtight doors began booming shut automatically, triggered by decompressive hull ruptures.

  The Millennium Falcon was clawing for the upper atmosphere. The thought that he’d bloodied the nose of a battle-wagon, escaping against all odds, didn’t lighten Han’s mood, nor did the thought that hyperspace and safety were only moments away. Occupying his mind was one simple, intolerable fact: his friend and partner was now in the merciless hands of the Corporate Sector Authority.

  When the stars had parted before him and the ship was safely in hyperspace, Han sat for long minutes thinking that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d spaced without the Wookiee beside him. Rekkon had been right in arguing for escape, but that didn’t change Han’s feeling that he’d let Chewbacca down.

  But regrets were a waste of time. Han stripped off his headset and shoved himself out of his seat. Rekkon was his only hope now. He headed for the forward compartment, the ship’s combination lounge-mess-rec area, and realized something was wrong while he was still in the passageway. There was the pungent smell of ozone, the smell of blaster fire.

  “Rekkon!”

  Han ran to where the scholar slumped over the gameboard. He’d been shot from behind, by a blaster set on needle-beam at low power. The sound of it probably hadn’t even carried across the compartment. On the gameboard, under Rekkon’s body, was a portable readout. Next to it a clear puddle of molten liquid bubbled, the remains of the data plaque. Rekkon was dead, of course; he’d been shot at close range.

  Han leaned on a bulkhead pad, rubbing his eyes and wondering what to do next. Rekkon had been his sole hope for rescuing Chewbacca and for getting himself out of this insane jam. With Rekkon dead, the hard-won information gone, and at least one traitor-murderer onboard, Han felt alone for one of the few times in his life. His blaster was in his hand, but there was no one else in the compartment or in the passageway.

  A clattering on the rungs of the main ladderwell. Han ran to it just as Torm came climbing up from the Falcon’s belly turret. As he came up, Torm found himself staring into the muzzle of Han’s gun.

  “Just give over your pistol, Torm. Keep your right hand on the rung, and do it with your left, easy. Don’t make a mistake; it’d be your one and only.”

  When he had the other man’s weapon, Han let him ascend, then made him shuck his tool belt. Patting him down and finding no other weapons, Han motioned for him to move into the lounge, then called up the ladderwell for Atuarre to come down from the ship’s top quad-mount.

  He kept one e
ye on Torm, who was staring in shock at Rekkon’s body. “Where’s her cub?” he asked the man quietly.

  The redhead shrugged. “Rekkon told Pakka to look around for a medi-pack. You weren’t the only one who was injured along the way. The cub went off to rummage around. I guess when you yelled for everyone to stay put and hang on, he did.” He looked back to Rekkon, as if he couldn’t fathom the fact of the man’s death. “Who did it, Solo? You?”

  “No. And the list of possibilities is awfully short.” He heard Atuarre’s light tread on the rungs and covered her as she came down the ladderwell.

  The Trianni’s features became a mask of feline hatred. “You dare point a weapon at me?”

  “Gag it. Toss your gun out here, careful, then step out and drop the tool belt. Somebody’s killed Rekkon, and it could be you as easy as anyone. So don’t push me. I’m not telling you twice.”

  Her eyes were wide now, the news of Rekkon’s death appearing to shock her out of her fury. But how can I tell if it’s real or an act? Han asked himself.

  When he had them both in the forward compartment, he still found he couldn’t pick up anything but shock and dismay. Theirs, at least, served to prod him out of his own.

  A clanking on the deckplates marked Bollux’s arrival from the cockpit. Han didn’t look around until he heard the urgency in the ’droid’s voice.

  “Captain!”

  Han whirled, dropping to one knee, blaster up. Beyond the cockpit offshoot from the passageway crouched the cub, Pakka, his small pistol held in one paw-hand, a medi-pack swinging from the other. He seemed to be wavering indecisively.

  “He thinks you’re threatening me!” Atuarre rasped, moving toward her cub. Han swung his blaster to cover her and looked back to the cub. “Tell the kid to drop it and come to you, Atuarre. Do it!”

  She did, and the cub, shifting his wide eyes between Han and his mother, obeyed.

  Torm took the medi-pack from the cub and handed it to Han. Still covering his passengers, Han moved to an acceleration chair and opened the pack with his free hand. He held the nozzle of an irrigation bulb against his forehead injury, then wiped at it with a disinfectant pad.

  Putting the medi-pack down, he took up the three confiscated weapons, put them aside, and confronted Torm, Atuarre, and Pakka. His mind ran in circles. How to tell who had done it? They’d each had a weapon, and time. Either Pakka had doubled back from his search, or one of the others had left his turret long enough to murder. Han almost regretted not having exchanged fire with the Shannador’s Revenge; at least he’d have known if either of the quad-mounts was untended.

  Atuarre and Torm were trading suspicious looks now.

  “Rekkon told me,” Torm was saying, “that he took you and the cub on against his better judgment.”

  “Me?” she shrilled. “What about you?” She turned to Han. “Or, for that matter, you?”

  That shook him. “Sister, I’m the one who got you out of there, remember? Besides, how could I lift off and shoot Rekkon at the same time? And anyway, Bollux was with me.” Han rummaged again in the medi-pack, dug out a patch of synth-flesh, and pressed it over his injury, his mind in a turmoil.

  “That all could’ve been done by computer, Solo, or you could have killed him just before I came down,” Torm said. “And what good’s a ’droid for a witness? You’re the one pointing the blaster around, hotshot.”

  Han, pushing the medi-pack aside, replied, “I’ll tell you what: you’re all, all three of you, going to keep an eye on one another, and I’m going to be the only one with a gun. If anybody has the wrong look on his face, it’s going to be all over for him. You’re all fair game, understand?”

  Atuarre moved to the gameboard. “I’ll help you with Rekkon.”

  “Keep your hands off him,” Torm shouted. “It was either you or that cub who killed him, maybe both.” The big redhead’s fists were balled. Both Atuarre and Pakka were showing their fangs.

  Han cut them off with a wave of the blaster. “Everybody relax. I’ll take care of Rekkon; Bollux can help. The three of you move down to that cargo hold off the main passageway.” He stifled their objections with a motion of the gun’s muzzle. First Torm, then the two Trianii, began to move.

  Han stood to one side as they filed into the empty hold. “If anybody sticks his face out of here without my say-so, I’ll figure he’s out to get me, and I’ll fry him. And if anybody’s hurt in here, I’ll space whoever is left, no questions asked.” He closed the hatch and left them.

  In the forward compartment, Bollux waited silently, with Blue Max on a console nearby. Han regarded the corpse. “Well, Rekkon, you did your best, but it didn’t get you far, did it? And you dumped it into my lap. Now my partner’s captured and your murderer’s onboard with me. You weren’t a bad old man, but I somehow wish I’d never heard of you.”

  Han picked up one heavy arm, dragging at the corpse. “Bollux, you get ready to take the other side; he was no lightweight.”

  Then he noticed the scrawl. Han pushed Rekkon’s body back clumsily and bent to examine a stylus’s scribble on the gameboard that the dead man’s arm had hidden. The writing was difficult to read, dashed off in a pained, distorted hand, hastily and weakly. Han turned his head this way and that, puzzling the message out aloud: “Stars’ End, Mytus VII.” He knelt and quickly found Rekkon’s bloodstained stylus on the floor by the gameboard base. With his last strength, after he’d been left for dead, Rekkon had managed to leave word of what the computer plaque had told him. Dying, he hadn’t abandoned his campaign.

  “Foolish,” Han told himself. “Who was he trying to tell?”

  “You, Captain Solo,” Bollux answered automatically. Han turned on him in surprise.

  “What?”

  “Rekkon left the message for you, sir. The wound indicates that he was shot from behind, and therefore quite probably never saw his assailant. The only living entity he could trust would be you, Captain, and it would be logical to assume you would be present when his body was moved. He made sure in this manner that the information would reach you.”

  Han stared down at the body for a long moment. “All right, you stubborn old man; you win.” He reached over, smearing and eradicating the words with his hand. “Bollux, you never saw this, understand? Play dumb.”

  “Shall I erase that portion of my memory, sir?”

  Han’s answer was slow as if he was catching the habit from the ’droid. “No. You may be the one who’ll have to pass it along if I don’t hack it. Make sure Blue Max keeps zipped, too.”

  “Yes, Captain.” Bollux moved to take Rekkon’s other arm as Han prepared to hoist again. His joints creaked, and his servos whined. “This was a great man, was he not, Captain?”

  Han strained under the corpse’s weight. “What d’you mean?”

  “Just, sir, that he had a function, a purpose he cared about above and beyond his life. Doesn’t that indicate a greatness to the purpose?”

  “You’ll have to read the obituaries, Bollux; all I can tell you is, he’s dead. And we’re going to have to eject him through the emergency lock; we might get boarded yet, and we can’t have him around.”

  Without further conversation, the two dragged at Rekkon, who had reached out from beyond death and given Han the answers he needed.

  Han opened the hatch. Atuarre, Pakka, and Torm looked up in unison. They’d taken seats on the bare deck, the man at the opposite side of the empty hold from the two Trianii.

  “We had to ditch Rekkon,” Han told them. “Atuarre, I want you and Pakka to go square away the forward compartment. You can throw some eats into the warming unit, too. Torm, come with me; I need a hand repairing the damage we did on liftoff.”

  Atuarre objected. “I am a Trianii Ranger, and a rated pilot, not a drudge. Besides, Solo-Captain, that man is a traitor.”

  “Save it,” Han cut her off. “I’ve locked up all the other weapons in the ship, including Chewie’s other bowcaster. I’m the only one armed, and things stay that way
until I figure out what to do with you all.”

  She gave him a sullen look, telling him, “Solo-Captain, you’re a fool.” She left, with Pakka trailing behind.

  Torm rose, but Han stopped him with an arm across the hatchway. The redhead retreated back into the hold and waited. “You’re the only one I can trust,” Han told him. “Bollux isn’t really much good, and I just figured out who killed Rekkon.”

  “Which of them did it?”

  “The cub, Pakka. He was in Authority custody, and they messed with him. That’s why he doesn’t talk. I think they brain-set him, then let Atuarre recover him. Rekkon wouldn’t have let any of you others near.”

  Torm nodded grimly. Han produced the man’s pistol from the back of his gunbelt and handed it to him. Its charge indicator read full. “Keep this on you. I’m not sure Atuarre’s figured it out yet, but I’m willing to play them along and find out if either of them know anything that’ll help.”

  Torm stashed the gun in his coverall pocket. “What will we do next?”

  “Rekkon left a message as he was dying, scrawled it on the gameboard. The Authority’s keeping its special prisoners at something called Stars’ End, on Mytus VI. After we’ve checked the ship over, we’ll gather in the forward compartment and run down everything we’ve got in files and computers on it. Maybe Pakka or Atuarre will let something slip then.”

  When the light damage suffered by the Millennium Falcon in her breakout from Orron III had been repaired insofar as was possible, the ship’s complement gathered in the forward compartment. Han had brought four portable readouts. He gave one to each of the others and took one himself. Bollux watched, seated to one side, with Max back in his usual place, gazing out from the ’droid’s chest.