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“One thousand kilometers and closing, Master. That central object is a ship’s pinnace. I believe they used it for tow. Shields up at eight-fifty kilometers. They’re beginning to cast off the pinnace.”

“Hold her steady, little friend, let them make the first pass.”

On his screen, Lando could see that the fighters had erected their deflection, too. Fighter shields were notoriously porous, there just wasn’t enough ship—or engine—to support them. That’s one thing that made a vessel the size of the Falcon so handy.

“Five hundred kilometers, Master.”

Now the fighters were visible as tiny dots of light, pseudostars against the starry background of the ThonBoka mouth. Lando brought his guns to bear, swinging to meet the enemies’ maneuvers, getting a feel for them. Felt like Klyn Shanga’s bunch, all right. Apparently they’d teamed up with the sorcerer and the Navy.

Two fighters streaked over the Falcon. Lando poured destructive energy at them, but the pass was too fast for either side to do any damage. They were probably confirming that this was, indeed, the Millennium Falcon, Vuffi Raa, a.k.a. the Butcher of Renatasia, first mate.

The robot heeled the ship steeply. “Two coming up from below!”

“Let ’em come!” The ship’s beefed-up shields would be a surprise. Lando held his fire until the last moment, then pounded into the larger ship of the two. Its shielding lasted all of a millisecond, then there was an explosion and the vessel corkscrewed off, badly damaged.

He swung the guns around, but the second fighter had passed overhead and was gone. One down, he thought, and by Vuffi Raa’s estimate, twenty-four to go. “Damage report!”

“Nothing to report, Master. Our shields held fine.”

“You do great work. Where’d they go?”

The question was answered as six fighters bored directly for the freighter. Lando sprayed the space in front of them with energy, the ship’s lights dimming briefly as he did. They veered sharply, unable to match his fire at that range.

“Master! Bandits straight ahead! Eleven of them!”

“Well, slew the ship! I can’t reach them from here! No! Cancel that! I’ve got trouble enough!”

Four of the original six were back, shooting hard. Lando matched them shot for shot, smoked another, then caught a figher with a direct hit. It blossomed into an enormous ball of tiny sparks and disappeared. But the others didn’t give up yet. Even the wounded ship executed a wide, clumsy circle and came back. Lando centered the lead fighter in his crosshairs, thumbed the ignition, and growled.

Another fireball. Another hit on the crippled ship, which wobbled, skidded off, then suddenly exploded. The remaining fighter fought its way around a corner and lunged out of range. It’d be back.

“Clear, now! Turn the ship!”

“Too late, Master, I destroyed two fighters and the other nine broke off.”

There was a long, startled pause that nearly cost the two their lives. A single fighter came in at top speed, fired all its retros, dumped its load of lethal energy directly onto the stern tubes, the weakest portion of the shielding. Lando started, more frightened at his inattention than by the fighter. He swung the quad-guns aft, fired and fired until the single fighter vanished in a cloud of smoke.

The pilot of that vessel couldn’t have been more surprised than Lando was. “You say you shot down two fighters, old pacifist?” This much was true: there was a pair of small guns, usually ineffective against anything bigger than a rowboat, located on the upper surface of the ship and controllable from the cockpit. Lando had wanted them synchronized, which would effectively quadruple their power, and Vuffi Raa had gotten around to it in the last few days.

Still, there was no reply from the control deck.

“Vuffi Raa, are you all right?”

No answer.

The fighter group had broken off momentarily, licking their wounds, no doubt, and sizing up the Falcon. If it was Shanga’s people, they were probably surprised to meet two columns of fire coming in.

Or were they? Tactically, they’d known Vuffi Raa couldn