Star Wars_ Millennium Falcon - James Luceno [76]
“Have you commed for help?” I asked, fully expecting the answer I received.
“They're jamming us,” the captain said.
Sari and I hurried into the cockpit and strapped into the chairs in time to see warning bolts whizz across the bows of the big double-winged lander and the passenger ship. The fire had come from a light cruiser that was every bit as old as the Haor Chall C-9979, emblazoned with the pirate emblem of the Blazing Claw, and escorted by a dozen modified fighter craft.
“Who are they?” I asked the captain.
“Black Hole,” was his answer.
I swore under my breath. Perhaps the least creative in terms of naming themselves, Black Hole was one of the most feared bands along the spaceways that side of the Core.
“Have they issued any demands?” I asked.
He said: “Only that they want us to put down on Regosh.”
The primary moon of Delphon IV, Regosh was a low-g orb lacking population centers and as heavily forested as my homeworld. There was oxygen enough for the humans and humanoids among us, but I suspected that some of the sideshow performers would be forced to wear breathers—assuming the pirates weren't planning to kill us outright.
I considered bringing the Falcon's turbolaser to bear on the cruiser, but rejected the idea almost immediately. As dexterous as the ship was, I wasn't talented enough to engage simultaneously in combat and evasive flying. Sari seemed to have read my thoughts, in any case.
“Let's wait and see what they want,” she said.
“They could be slavers,” I posited.
She nodded. “Then we'll just have to deal with that.”
Changing course, I followed the lander and the other ships into Regosh's thin atmosphere. The Black Hole vessels led us to a large clearing in the northern hemisphere, where a group of their cohorts was waiting, some armed with repeating blasters. A miscellany of some of the most cutthroat species the Outer Rim had to offer, the pirates didn't look like the type that could be reasoned with. I doubted that even my finest pratfalls would elicit so much as a grin. When all of Molpol's ships had set down, the leader of the pirate band, speaking butchered Basic, ordered the crew of the C-9979 to deboard. The rest of us were to remain aboard our separate ships.
Black Hole's intentions were suddenly clear, and were at once a relief and a worst-case scenario: They were hijacking the lander.
For three standard hours we watched as the animals were herded from the big ship and left to mill about in the clearing, as well behaved as they would have been prior to a performance. Unaccustomed to being unrestrained, many of them meandered to the edges of the clearing, where they began to nibble at Regosh's abundant foliage. Some of the felines and gundarks skulked away and disappeared into the forest. Confused, the smaller animals—the snow lizards, eopies, nerfs, and others—clustered together in the center of the landing zone as if awaiting instructions.
No sooner was the off-loading completed than several pirates hurried into the lander and lifted off. The rest of the Black Hole ships launched, and in the blink of an eye the pirates were gone.
Sari and I raced out of the Falcon to join Molpol's crew and performers, who were also hurrying out of their ships. A few steps from the foot of the boarding ramp, I stopped to have a look around. Regosh's pale sky was darkening, and the surrounding forest was now raucous with the calls of indigenous animals. I had a bad feeling about the situation, which worsened as I saw hundreds of pairs of eyes begin to glow in the tree line.
With astounding speed something emerged from the trees and raced across the clearing, disappearing into the forest with one of the small animals clamped in its mouth. Seconds later, another creature emerged, carrying off another of the animals. Then a third, and a fourth …
Molpol's armaments consisted mostly of ceremonial weapons used by our sharpshooters during their portion of the show. Some of the crew members had actual blasters, but too few to fend off attacks that were likely to continue