Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [102]
Chewbacca somehow managed to maintain his footing. Exerting to the fullest his astounding strength, he absorbed the force of the nashtah’s attack, locking his hairy hands around its throat, hunching his shoulders and working with legs and forearms to ward off its claws.
The nashtah screamed again, and the Wookiee screamed even louder. Chewbacca held the attack beast clear of the deck and slammed it against the bulkhead to his left, then to his right and to the left again, all in less than a second. The nashtah, its head dangling now at a very odd angle, slumped in his grasp. Chewbacca let it fall to the deck.
The beast’s handler gave an outraged shout, seeing his animal’s unmoving body. He brought his pistol up, but Han’s blaster reacted first. The man staggered, tried to bring his weapon up again, and Han fired a second time. The handler fell prone on the deck not far from the body of his nashtah.
Han grabbed Chewbacca’s elbow, pointed and started aft toward the main hold. They found Bollux’s inert bulk where Blue Max had caused it to fall, and it was apparent just what the two automata had done. Foam had crept in around the ’droid’s body and had begun seeping in through the open chest panel.
Chewbacca gave a grating snarl alluding to the ingenuity of the two. “I’ll second that; they’re pretty nervy,” Han concurred. He’d taken a grip on the ’droid’s shoulder. “Help me sit him up so the foam doesn’t get at them.”
There was no time to do anything else. They propped the ’droid’s body against the bulkhead in temporary safety and hurried on. They were going full-tilt when the giant humanoid appeared around the curve of the passageway from the opposite direction, a riot gun in his hand.
Han made an awkward attempt to dodge for cover, bringing his blaster up at the same time. With the deck slippery with foam, he lost his footing and took a spill. Chewbacca, on the other hand, adapted quickly to these unusual conditions. Without decreasing speed he hurled himself into a feet-first slide along the deck-plates, cutting a bow-wave through the drifting foam, his enthusiastic bellow rising above the hiss of gas projectors and the alarms.
The slaver’s aim wavered from Han to the Wookiee, but Chewbacca was moving too fast; one shot mewed, a miss that crackled on the deck, raising steam from the foam. The Wookiee rammed the humanoid with his outsized feet, and the humanoid bounced with astonishing abruptness into a mound of foam wherein he was joined directly by Chewbacca. The foam mound quivered and shook, strands and clumps of it flying loose, as there came from it the sounds of snarls and roars, and heavyweight collision.
Han was back on his feet, rushing on, feeling somewhat lightheaded from the anti-incendiary gas. He was still uncertain what to do when he encountered the last two slavers, the ones carrying the collar-boxes. If he hesitated they might just hit the kill switches, slaying every captive on the lines. He steeled himself to fire accurately and without an instant’s delay.
But the responsibility wasn’t his. The main hold was in pandemonium. Both remaining slavers were staggering under swarming, flailing captives. All the creatures moved with agonized, twitching motions, fighting both their captors and the pulses of excruciating pain being inflicted by their collars. Many were on the deck, unable to overcome the punishment and join the fight.
But those who had mastered their agony were carrying the battle well. As Han watched, they dragged the slavers to the deck, wrestling away weapons and director units and pounding the two into submission. Apparently the creatures knew enough about the director units to deactivate them. All the slaves slumped visibly as their torture ended.
Han stepped cautiously into the hold. He hoped his unwilling passengers understood the situation well enough to know that he wasn’t their enemy, but reminded himself he’d better be charming