Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [225]
“Think of it this way, Chewie. If we land this thing in one piece, our skill as pilots will be legendary from one end of the galaxy to the other!” Han said with a humor he did not feel. I knew I shouldn’t have come back to Kessel.
The Falcon was going down. Both Han and Chewbacca fought to keep a steady downward course that would not burn them up in the insubstantial atmosphere.
Kessel’s main defensive fleet swept into orbit and prepared for an orderly descent. One sleek, insectile ship, which Han recognized as a black-market-built Hornet Interceptor, peeled off, streaking downward in the Falcon’s backdraft.
Chewbacca saw it first. The ship, aerodynamically perfect, slid through the atmosphere like a vibroblade, ignoring the heat generated on its hull. The ship fired surgical strikes of turbolasers at the Falcon’s maneuvering jets, disabling them further.
“We’re already crashing!” Han bellowed. “What more do they want?” But he knew: they wanted the Falcon to be destroyed on impact, all occupants erased. Han suspected he didn’t need any help from the Hornet Interceptor.
As they plunged downward, the Falcon approached one of the giant atmosphere factories, a huge smokestack mounted on the surface of Kessel, where immense engines catalyzed the rock and cooked out gases into a cyclone of breathable air.
The Hornet Interceptor fired again. The Falcon lurched from a near miss. Chewbacca’s face was grim. His fangs showed as he concentrated on keeping them alive.
“Chewie, pull as close to the plume as you can. I’ve got an idea.” Chewbacca yowled, but Han cut him off. “Just do it, buddy!”
When the Hornet tried to outflank them, Han swept the ship aside as the towering plume of atmosphere boiled into the sky. The Hornet Interceptor tried to second-guess his move, but Han lurched sideways again, driving the Hornet into the roaring upward flow of wind.
An aileron strut in the delicate insectile wing snapped off, and the Hornet spun into the cyclone. Other parts of its hull broke apart as the ship tried to escape but lurched deeper into the danger zone. Han gave a cry of triumph as the ship exploded into flames that were pulled to tatters by the atmosphere factory’s vortex.
Then the surface of Kessel rushed up at them like a gigantic hammer.
Han fought with the controls. “At least we’ll have a soft landing with the new repulsorlifts we installed,” he said.
He grabbed at the panel, priming the controls. Chewbacca barked at him to hurry. Han activated the repulsorlifts as he simultaneously heaved a sigh of relief.
Nothing.
“What?” He slammed his fingers on the switch again and again, but the repulsorlifts refused to operate. “I just had those fixed!”
Han yelled above the noise of screaming wind as he fought to bring the Falcon under some semblance of control. “Okay, Chewie, I am definitely open for suggestions!”
But Chewbacca had no time to answer before the ship crashed into the rugged surface of Kessel.
THE OLD REPUBLIC
(5,000–33 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A NEW
HOPE)
Long—long—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights. Originally a reclusive order