Star Wars_ The Adventures of Lando Calrissia - L. Neil Smith [211]
Perspiration beading his face, dampening his light brown hair, Han pounded Chewbacca. “What’d I tell you? Inspiration’s my specialty!”
The starship soared over the thick jungle that began beyond the mountains. Han leveled off, wiping a gloved hand across his brow. Chewbacca emitted a sustained growl. “I agree,” Han replied soberly in the wake of his elation. “That was a stupid place to put a mountain.” He took up scanning for the next landmark and spied it almost at once: a winding river. The Falcon skimmed in low over the watery coils as the Wookiee lowered the ship’s landing gear.
In seconds they’d reached the landing area near a spectacular waterfall that dropped two hundred meters to the river in a flume like a blue-white, ghostly scrim under stars and moonlight. Han, reading the TFS, found a clearing in the heavy cover of vegetation and settled the ship slowly. The broad disks of the landing gear sank a bit in soft humus; then the hydrolics sighed briefly as the Millennium Falcon made herself comfortable.
Han and Chewbacca sat at their controls for a moment, too drained to do more. Outside the cockpit canopy, the jungle was an irregular darkness, tangles of indefatigable growth topped by a roof of fernlike plants that stretched up twenty meters and more. Gauzy ground fog rolled through the undergrowth and clearing.
The Wookiee gave a long, gusty, bass-register exhalation. “I couldn’t have said it better,” Han concurred. “Let’s get at it.” Both removed headsets and left their seats. Chewbacca picked up his crossbow weapon and a bandolier of metal ammo containers, which also supported a floppy carryall pouch at his hip. Han already wore his side arm, a custom-model blaster with rear-fitted macroscope, its front sight blade filed off to facilitate the speed draw. His holster was worn low, tied down at the thigh, cut so that it exposed the weapon’s trigger and trigger guard.
According to directories, Duroon’s atmosphere would support humanoid life without respirators. The two smugglers moved directly to the ship’s ramp. The hatch rolled up and the ramp lowered silently, letting in smells of plant growth, of rotting vegetation, of hot, humid night and animal danger. The jungle was filled with sounds, calls, clacks, and cries of prey and predator, and, over all, with the monumental spillage of the waterfall.
“Now it’s up to them to find us,” Han said. Checking the jungle, he saw no sign of life. Not surprising. The freighter’s landing had probably frightened most wildlife out of the area. He turned to his shaggy first mate/copilot/partner. “I’ll wait for them. Turn off sensors, shut down the engines, the works; kill all systems so the Authority can’t spot us. Then see how much structural damage she suffered topside when she got her back scratched.”
Chewbacca barked acknowledgement and shambled off. Han stripped off his flying gloves, tucked them in his belt, and stepped down the ramp, which stretched down and out from the ship’s starboard side, astern the cockpit. He thumbed his gun’s sights to set it for night shooting, then glanced around. A lean young man dressed in spaceman’s high boots, dark uniform trousers with red piping, and civilian shirt and vest, Han had cast aside his uniform tunic, stripped of its rank and insignia, years ago.
He ran a quick check of the Falcon’s underside, assuring himself that she had taken no damage there and that the landing gear had come to rest properly. He also made certain that the interrupter-templates had automatically slid into place along the servo-guides for the belly turret, so that the quad-mounted guns wouldn’t accidentally blow away the landing gear or ramp if he had to fire them while the ship was grounded.
Satisfied, he went back to the foot of the ramp. He gazed up at the empty sky and the stars beyond, thinking: Let the Authority look for me; this whole part of Duroon’s spotted