Star Wars_ Rebel Force 03_ Renegade - Alex Wheeler [5]
The cart was on wheels.
Chewbacca had seen the facilities workers wheeling these carts to the kitchen—it took three humans to inch them slowly to the repulsorlift conveyor belts that would distribute the food. The Wookiee pressed one hairy shoulder against the cart and pushed it forward with ease. He heaved it down the hallway.
The guards scattered, but not quickly enough. Humans and blasters went flying, as the metal beast mowed them down in their path. In the confusion, Chewbacca snatched their blasters out of the air, tucking two into his bandolier and shattering the other two with a single sharp crack against the wall.
Even the most foolish human wouldn't face down a Wookiee without weapons. The four men cowered against the wall, hands in the air. Chewbacca pointed at one of their comlinks and growled.
No one moved.
Humans could be so dense sometimes. Chewbacca pulled out his own comlink, miming talking into it, then pointed at the door on the far side of the hall.
One of the guards nodded quickly "I think he wants us to call off the reinforcements," he told the others in a squeaky voice. "Done." He raised his comlink. "Uh, false alarm over here at the brig," he said, shakily. "All's well with the prisoner. Facility is secure." Then he gave Chewbacca a hopeful grin. "That okay, boy?" he asked, speaking slowly and enunciating clearly, as if Chewbacca was a rather large and rather stupid pet.
Don't hurt anyone you don't have to, Han had said.
Chewbacca sighed. And instead of whacking the human over the head, he knotted the four guards together with their own binders. Then he hurried to the end of the hall to retrieve his best friend.
The door was locked. But when Chewbacca pounded a massive fist against it, the thin plastoid crumbled like flimsiplast. Han was already on his feet.
Chewbacca tossed his friend a blaster. "Took you long enough!" Han complained, heading for the open door.
Chewbacca growled.
"Yeah, yeah, you did fine, Chewie," Han admitted. "Now—you want a medal, or you want to get out of here?"
Apparently, the Alliance had kept its suspicions of Han under wraps.
Because when he and Chewie swept into the main hangar deck, the deck officers on duty just waved him a sleepy hello. They were used to seeing Han and Chewbacca tinkering with the Falcon at all hours of the night, and blasting into orbit for the occasional emergency mission. The Alliance had instituted a strict departure protocol, but Han wasn't much for protocols, and everyone knew it.
"Requesting permission for departure!" he shouted, winking as he ran past the senior deck officer. The officer, barely more than a kid, flushed with pleasure at the friendly gesture. No one but the newest, greenest recruits got stuck with the overnight shift. And all of the newest, greenest recruits craved attention from Han Solo.
"Permission granted," the kid shouted back, grinning. Han and Chewbacca hurtled toward the ship, strapped themselves in, and threw themselves into the takeoff protocol. With a thunder of engines and a cloud of black steam from a broken exhaust port, the Millennium Falcon was in the air.
The Corellian freighter might not have looked too pretty, but she could take off in a hurry when she had to.
As she often did.
" Millennium Falcon, this is base. Return to surface immediately."
Han ignored the request.
"Repeat, Millennium Falcon, return to base. You are not cleared to leave the system."
"Ready to fire up the hyperdrive, Chewie?" Han asked, as the comlink blared with increasingly hysterical commands. He just needed to get a little farther from the moon, and then he could engage the hyperdrive and never look back.
"Captain Solo, this is General Leia Organa. Return to base immediately. This is an order."
"You didn't say pretty please, General," Han growled at the console.
"Land the ship immediately, Han, or we'll be forced to take extreme measures—"
Han flicked off the