Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [160]
Still not sure she credited any of what he had said, she told him, “You know I’m going to tell Han, don’t you?”
Bollux turned red photoreceptors from one to the other, wondering if he dared leave them alone long enough to inform Han of what he’d heard.
Then the Falcon jolted again in response to a barrage. “I doubt if that would make any difference now,” Spray stated calmly. “And it’s in your own best interests, Fiolla, to cooperate with me; your life has reached a critical juncture.”
Han and Chewbacca had run out of options. The slaver had fastened her tractor on them again. This time there would be no survival value in a sudden reversal; the next volley would almost certainly penetrate shields and convert the Millennium Falcon into an explosive nimbus.
Han was busily training batteries for a last futile salvo in an attempt to avert death. But the volley didn’t come. Chewbacca began pointing at the sensors and hooted excitedly. Han gaped, wanting to rub his eyes, at the size of the ship moving up hard astern the slaver.
She was an Espo destroyer of the old Victory class, close to a kilometer long, an armored space-going fortress. Where she’d come from wasn’t as important to Han as what she would do.
The tractor beam pulling at the Falcon dissipated; the slaver had seen the destroyer, too, and wanted no part of her. But the Security Police battlewagon had tractors of her own, mightier than the slaver’s. Suddenly the Millennium Falcon and her pursuer were both held in an inflexible, invisible grip.
Somebody aboard the slaver had the bad judgment to try a volley at the destroyer. Cannonade splashed harmlessly off the Espo’s immense shields and a turbolaser turret in the warship’s side answered, opening a huge hole in the slaver’s hull and evaporating most of her power plant.
The slaver offered no further resistance. She was drawn up, uncontesting, into the gaping boarding lock in the destroyer’s underbelly. The Falcon’s commo board sounded with a general override broadcast: “All personnel in both captive ships remain where you are. Follow all instructions and offer no opposition.” There was something familiar about the voice. “Shut down your engines and lock all systems except commo.”
Since the slaver was already occupying the destroyer’s boarding lock, the Falcon was eased down toward the ground, the vast bulk of the battlewagon settling in over her, blocking out the sky. Relaxing to the inevitable, Han extended his ship’s landing gear; the Falcon could never break from this tractor beam, and he had just seen the stupidity of trying to slug it out. He shut off his engines and cut power to weapons, shields, tractors, sensor suite.
He nudged his partner. “Keep your bowcaster ready; maybe we can make a break for it when we’re outside.” If they could get away, perhaps the Mor Glayyd could use a couple of good pilots. If not, there was nothing to worry about anyway, except which periodicals to subscribe to while in prison. But Han was determined to go out kicking.
The Espo craft descended until it was no more than fifty meters above the grounded Falcon. By leaning forward in the cockpit, Han could see the captive slaver ship. A boarding tube, no doubt packed with combat-armored Espo assault troops, was extending itself and fastening to the slaver’s main lock.
Now, Magg, see how you like it, thought Han. It was only a knot of satisfaction in his long string of bad luck, but it was something. He savored it while he could.
From another lock in the destroyer a safety cage appeared, lowered by a utility tractor beam, coming down slowly and silently. The safety cage was a circular, basketlike affair with high guardrails and an overhead sling for hoist work. Within the cage, where Han would have expected a flock of triggerhappy Espos, there was only the man who had given the instructions over the commo a few moments