Star Wars_ Rebel Force 06_ Uprising - Alex Wheeler [2]
"In that case, I suggest you hold on." Leia yanked the controls to the right, angling them on a collision course with a thirty-story tower. Luke clung to his seat as Leia pulled back hard. The, speeder lurched into a vertical climb, hugging the side of the building. Far below, Imperial speeder bikes skidded and smashed into duracrete, as they made clumsy attempts to follow. Leia ignored them. She hunched over the controls, eyes laser-focused on the narrow course ahead of her. There was little for Luke to do but admire her graceful flying as she steered them through the city-sized obstacle course. Their remaining pursuers quickly fell behind, lost in a forest of duracrete and transparisteel.
Soon they were alone in the sky, emerging from the dense city center into an empty stretch of land at the fringe of the capital. The Millennium Falcon was parked at a hangar only a few kilometers away.
"Now," Leia said to Han, relaxing her grip on the controls once the danger had passed,
"I'd like you to explain exactly how this was all my fault."
"You were the one who tripped the silent alarm."
"Only because you were the one who tripped over your own two feet and knocked me into it."
"Are you calling me clumsy?"
"Of course not! I'm calling you a clumsy, blaster-brained nerf herder."
Luke sighed and leaned back in his seat. It was going to be a long ride home.
Anem, the capital city of Nyemari, was home to the most modern, architecturally sophisticated spaceport in the Meridian Sector.
Han refused to take the Millennium Falcon within a hundred kilometers of it.
Instead, he'd docked the ship at the South Anem Spaceport. It was little more than a large warehouse, built in the no-man's-land where the city bled into the desert. Its equipment and fixtures hadn't been replaced or repaired in three decades. These days, no one bothered to use it but grizzled spacers, smugglers, and any other unsavory characters with shadowy business on Nyemari.
In other words, it was Han's kind of place.
Li Preni, a Nyemarian who'd been fixing up ships at South Anem Spaceport for years, owed Han a favor. And he'd sworn on his life that he'd take care of the Millennium Falcon. But Han didn't trust anyone to take care of his ship—especially not a Nyemarian who'd sell out his own mother for a bottle of lum. The Falcon might not look like much, with her crumbling shield projectors and wonky power generators, but treat her right and she'd be your best friend. She was the fastest ship in the galaxy, and Han never felt quite right when she was out of his sight.
But as they approached the main hangar, things felt less right than usual.
It wasn't anything specific. Just a certainty, in his gut, that something was wrong. And Han always trusted his gut—that was why he was still alive. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on their ends. Shadows flickered at the corners of his vision. He swore he heard footsteps behind them, but every time he spun around, the street was clear.
"Calm down," Leia said. "Your precious ship isn't going anywhere."
"What is it, Han?" Luke asked, sounding concerned.
Say what you wanted about the kid and his Jedi hokum, Luke understood gut feelings.
But Han shook his head. If he was right, and yet another bounty hunter was on his tail, that wasn't Luke's problem. Luke wasn't the one who'd double-crossed the biggest, ugliest, meanest Hutt this side of the galactic core. Han had been fending off Jabba's minions for months, and he wasn't about to let another one ruin his day.
"Didn't expect to see you back so soon," Li Preni said, as soon as he caught sight of Han. The Nyemarian scurried over, looking shifty and up to no good. But there was nothing unusual about that.
"Didn't expect to see me back at all, you mean," Han said. He knew Li Preni wanted the Falcon for himself. In fact, Han was half convinced that Preni had been