Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [228]
They had wound their way among the rocks for another half kilometer and gotten out of sight of the snowfield, and Han had just begun to let himself believe they were clear, when a yellow heatbeam flashed out of the night. It scored on a rock two meters to Bollux’s right, throwing up sparks and globs of molten mineral.
Chill, shivers, frozen feet, and caution were forgotten. Everybody scattered for cover. Hasti brought her disrupter pistol up for a return shot but Han whispered, “Don’t! He’ll pick up your position from the flash. Anybody see where the shot came from?” Nobody had. “Then, sit still. When he fires again, we’ll nail him. Aim for the point of origin.”
“Solo, we haven’t got time to sit here!” Hasti rasped fiercely.
“Then start tunneling,” he suggested.
But instead she groped, found a stone that fit her palm, and heaved it. It clattered among the loose rocks. Another heatbeam flashed yellow from the shadows at the side of the valley.
Han fired instantly and kept on firing. The others, slower than he, joined a moment later with a torrent of blaster, power pistol, disruptor, and bowcaster shots.
“Hold it, hold it,” Han ordered. “I think we got him.”
“Do we move on?” asked Badure.
Han didn’t think the light and reports of the shots would have been detectable back on the slopes. “Not yet. We have to be sure we won’t get backshot. Besides, I saw a gleam of metal where the heatbeams came from. Maybe there’s a vehicle there, or some supplies.” He shivered from the mountain air. “Anything’d be a help.”
“Then someone must investigate,” Skynx declared and was away before anybody could stop him, flowing between the rocks with his antennae held low, nearly impossible to see. I’ll have to warn him about those heroics, Han thought, he’s come a long way. To break the tense silence, he whispered to Badure, “See what happens? First you go off medal-chasing to get our weapons back and now Skynx figures he’s the valiant warrior.”
The old man chuckled softly. “The guns came in handy, didn’t they? Besides, it gave Chewbacca a chance to pay back his Life-Debt.”
Han blinked. “That’s right. Hey, what do you mean Chewbacca? We both came back for you!” Badure only laughed.
Just then Skynx called over excitedly, “Captain! Over here!” They went, slipping and stumbling with haste but still keeping low. They came to an overhang of rock, having to duck to pass under it. From the black regions within issued Skynx’s voice. “I found a glow-rod, Captain Solo. I’ll turn up the rheostat a bit.” A faint glimmer showed them the Ruurian’s face.
He had found a low, wide cave that reached in farther than they could see. The body of the single sentry was sprawled in death, hit by several of their blasts. But what excited Skynx was what had been under guard there.
“Look, a cargo lifter!” Han took the glow-rod. “Hover-raft of some kind.” He climbed into the open cockpit of the flatbed aircraft. “Looks like it was on down time; there’re a lot of burned-out components on the floorboards, and the control-panel covers are still off.”
He brightened the glow-rod. There were two more hover-rafts nearby, access panels open, gutted and cannibalized for the parts that had gone to repair the first. Han slid the notched hover bar down; the craft rose a bit.
He flicked controls; the board was clear. “Hop in; my meter’s running.”
They rushed to comply, ducking to keep from bumping heads on the cave ceiling. With one foot on a mounting step, Badure paused. “What was that?”
They all heard it—the sounds of running, voices, and the clatter of weapons. “Hot pursuit,” answered Han. “No time to punch tickets, folks: stay gripped!”
He rammed up the impeller control, red-zoning the engine. The hover-raft shot out of the cave, nearly losing Bollux, who had been in the process of boarding. Badure and Chewbacca dragged him aboard.
The Survivors were closer than Han had thought; they had assumed positions around the cave and