Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [236]
Han heard the boat begin its second pass. J’uoch’s brother, R’all, dove at the exposed, fleeing man. Han threw himself into a troughlike depression in the rock, the Mark II clattering down next to him. The boat flashed past, so close that Han was in the dead area between the guns’ fields of fire. Flechettes burst in long lines to either side of him. R’all flashed off, adjusting his weapons for a final pass.
Han got up, braced the Mark II’s buttplate against the rock, and fired. Still the heavy-assault rifle’s recoil made it jump and turn; the boat was out of range before he had come anywhere near it, and now was banking for a pass that was sure to find its target.
Han hitched himself around the stone trough and pulled the Mark II’s bipod legs down. He had only one more trick left, and if that didn’t work, he’d have no more worries about treasure, Gallandro, or the Falcon. Resettling so that his knees and the small of his back were higher than his shoulders, he wrestled the Mark II around and rested it on the incline of his legs. He set his feet against the bipod legs, holding the weapon tightly to steady it.
He squinted upward through the heavy-assault rifle’s open sights. The boat came at him again. He bracketed it in the sights and waited until he heard the first concussion of R’all’s fire.
Then he opened up, bracing the bucking Mark II with hands and feet, holding it fairly steady for the first time. The boat’s pilot recognized his danger too late; an evasive maneuver failed and the heavy-assault rifle’s full force caught the light boat, tearing a long gash in the fuselage. Control circuitry and power panels erupted and a gaping hole appeared in the cockpit canopy. The boat wallowed and shook, out of control, and disappeared in a steep dive, trailing smoke and flame. A moment later the ground shook with impact.
“R’all!” J’uoch screamed to her dead brother as she clawed her way out of the bunker. The boat had exploded on impact, scattering burning debris over a long, wide swath of ground.
Gallandro caught her arm. “R’all is gone,” said the gunman with no particular sympathy. “Now, we will do this thing as we originally agreed. Your ground forces will encompass Solo’s position, and we’ll force him out into the open and capture him alive.”
She wrenched her arm away, seething with rage. “He killed my brother! I’ll get Solo if I have to blow these mountains apart!” She turned and called out to her enforcer, the hulking Egome Fass, who stolidly awaited orders. “Get the crew to the loadlifter and warm up main batteries.” She was about to turn from him when an unfamiliar sound, rising over the fury of the boat’s destruction, made her pause. “What’s that?”
Gallandro heard it, too, as did Egome Fass and all the others in the camp. It was a steady beat, shaking the ground, the pounding of metal feet. The column of Xim’s war-robots appeared at a spot farther along the mining camp’s perimeter, having finished their roundabout march from their mustering place.
They came in glittering ranks, arms swinging, unstoppable. When their Corps Commander gave the signal that freed them from lockstep, they spread out across the site to begin their devastation. J’uoch stared in astonishment, not quite believing what she saw. Gallandro, fingering one of the gold beads that held his mustache, tried to remain calm. “So, Solo was telling the truth after all.”
Up on the ridge, Chewbacca hooted to the exhausted Han, indicating the camp. Han wearily moved to the ridge and joined his companions in looking down on a scene of utter chaos. Their own presence had been forgotten by the response squads, fire teams, and other camp defenders.
The war-robots, faithful to their instructions, moved to obliterate everything in their path. First to feel the battle machines’ power was a domed building that housed repair shops. Han saw a robot smash through the dome’s personnel door while a half-dozen