Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 01_ Outcast - Aaron Allston [117]
“Yeah.” Han put on a bit more speed.
His sensor board alerted him to a new contact. He glanced at it and saw a distant blip behind, rapidly overtaking them. For a moment he had the sudden fear that energy spiders could now outrun the Falcon, but the sensor board presented the pursuer's transceiver code as Rogue.
“Wedge, this is Han. You're probably already past it, but there's an energy spider back your way somewhere. Stay alert.”
“Haven't seen it. Saw a crashed hauler and a mangled lifter droid. I think it was the same one Drathan Forge was with.”
Han glanced back and saw the name FORGE on the breast of the boy's jumpsuit. “It was, but the kid's all right. Just keep your eyes open.”
“Will do.”
Leia finished buckling herself into the copilot's seat. “You any relation to Inyri Forge?”
“She's my great-aunt.”
The Falcon roared through the ruined cavern and into the tunnel beyond. As they exited the cavern, in his rear holocam display Han could see Wedge's borrowed Eta-5 entering the cavern at the far end and following.
“Han, this is Wedge. I see your spider.”
“Where?”
“On your—”
An insectile leg, like hollow transparisteel filled with a sparkling dark blue beverage, came down onto the cockpit viewport from above and behind.
“—top hull.”
Han jumped. The reflex action might have carried him clear out of his seat but for his restraint straps. Allana screamed, a high-pitched peal that went on and on. Drathan said a word that, had Han's entire universe not been focused on the blue leg, he would have wished Allana hadn't heard.
The spider had to have come up on the Falcon along the tunnel ceiling. The creatures absorbed energy; they soaked up anything active sensors had to throw at them and could not be detected by such devices. They were nature's perfect predators … and now one of them was in reach of his family.
Almost numb with shock but operating on years of training, Han flipped on his energy deflectors and scanned his weapons board. Concussion missiles all gone. Lasers at full power—no, the power flow wavered just for a moment, then spiked back to normal. Ground buzzer antipersonnel blaster operational. But nothing could be brought to bear against the spider; the top quad-linked lasers could not depress far enough to hit something clinging to the top hull.
Allana continued screaming, despite Leia's efforts to hush her. Leia's eyes were on the viewport above, and her hand was on her lightsaber. Han wanted to shout, That won't work, the thing will absorb it and then all of us, but he was too busy. The deflectors were not coming up, despite the fact that their generators all indicated they were in the green.
Of course they weren't coming up. The energy spider was drinking in every bit of energy in its vicinity. And now the thruster engines skipped, a miss of less than half a second's duration, but long enough for Han to feel that his heart had stopped for the same amount of time.
The deflector shields weren't doing a bit of good—
Not true. They were still running: if they hadn't been, the spider would have been draining energy right out of the occupants of the cockpit, or straight from the engines, or both. Han glanced at Leia. “Increase power to the shields. Give them everything you can.”
She leaned over her controls. “Tell me you have some plan in addition to ‘more power to the shields.’”
“When I do, I'll tell you.”
Allana continued to scream.
The spider leg raised, then hammered down again. It was joined by another, this one featuring a ferocious-looking backspike with a serrated edge.
Even over the sounds of Allana's wail, C-3PO's voice carried from the transport's aft sections. “I say, sir, I'm not quite strapped in yet—”
They reached a tunnel intersection. Han vectored to port, a hard turn.