Star Wars_ Rebel Force 04_ Firefight - Alex Wheeler [38]
Han heard the explosion as the ship crashed to the ground, but he couldn't spare a look back.
The remaining Imperial was still matching him turn for turn, move for move. Han knew he could climb to a higher altitude and try to get the jump on the TIE fighter in open sky—but churning with storm clouds and crowded with enemy craft, the skies were hardly open. At least down here he knew what he was dealing with.
He swept through the city, searching for just the right spot. Finally, he veered around a building to find exactly what he'd been looking for: a long, narrow straightaway ending in a monolithic slab of duracrete. Han gunned the engine and headed straight for it.
I know what I'm doing, he reminded himself, ignoring Chewbacca's increasingly loud protests.
The TIE fighter stayed on his tail, as he knew it would. "Just a little farther," he murmured. "A little closer."
The building loomed before them, too massive and too close in the cockpit window.
Now! Han yanked the controls, forcing the ship into a ninety-degree climb. The ship roared up the side of the building. Han allowed himself a single glance back.
The TIE fighter was almost as fast, but not nearly so lucky. Instead of pulling up, it veered around the building, avoiding it by less than a meter. It cleared the structure—but not the thick, tall levee holding back the sea behind it.
As Han had flown to the sea on the aiwhas, he'd passed this way and been taken by surprise by the levee that appeared out of nowhere, marking the edge of the city. The aiwhas had known enough to avoid it; the TIE fighter crashed right into it. The ship exploded, ripping a huge gash in the seawall. A flood of water gushed into the abandoned streets.
Han adjusted the angle of his climb and accelerated toward the edge of the atmosphere, noting out of the corner of his eye that Div and Luke had taken down the last of the enemy ships and were doing the same. Soon the air thinned out, the clouds faded away, and the cool, crisp glimmer of stars shimmered in the distance, glowing brightly in the vacuum. Han grinned as Kamino fell away behind him. Space was waiting.
And so were four more TIE fighters, holding a low orbit over the planet.
They opened fire.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Luke increased power to the thrusters and accelerated through the atmosphere. The planet shrank beneath him, but he couldn't jump to hyperspace until he was safely out of range.
And there were four TIE fighters blocking his path.
"Enemy fighter on your tail," Han reported through the comm.
"I see it!" Luke dropped into a corkscrew spiral. The TIE stayed close, hugging the same tight curves.
"Incoming!" Han shouted, too busy with two fighters of his own to lend a hand. Div was holding his own, pursuing a fighter with scorch marks lining its solar array wings. A trail of smoke streamed from its command pod.
Laserfire streaked toward Luke's ship. He deployed countermeasures and pulled a reverse-S maneuver, flipping his craft upside down and backtracking over the TIE fighter's head. He slipped into the Imperial's blind spot for just a moment, but it was all the time he needed. He locked in the target, squeezed the trigger. A blast of white-hot laserfire shot toward the TIE fighter.
It exploded. The solar array wings blew off and drifted into space.
One down, Luke thought, swooping around to join Han's fight. Three to go.
"Blast it!" Han slammed a fist on the control panel. He'd never be used to flying this piece of junk. It might have been more maneuverable than the Falcon, and its parts might have been in better working order, but it wasn't his ship. The Falcon felt like a part of his body; it responded almost before he made a move. The ARC-170 was just a machine.
And, as far as Han was concerned, not a very good one.
Chewbacca growled a warning.
"I see it, I see it," Han muttered, peeling off from his trajectory as a fireball whizzed past. A TIE