Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [240]
Han tried to jack the bowcaster’s foregrip and found, as had the man in the city, that his human strength was insufficient. He stopped himself from dodging out of the way; Chewbacca lay trapped, directly behind him. Badure, some distance away, couldn’t hear Han’s shouts for aid. Hasti fired at the machine with the only weapon she had left, the dart-shooter, but emptying the whole clip at it served no purpose.
Han avoided Chewbacca’s efforts to swipe him out of the way and shifted his grip on the bowcaster, preparing for a last, hopeless defense.
XV
THE war-robot seemed to block out the sky, a machine out of a nightmare. But abruptly its cranial turret flew apart in a blast of charred circuitry and ruptured power routing as a thread-thin, precisely aimed beam found its most vulnerable point. Han scarcely had the presence of mind to take a step back, nearly treading on Chewbacca, as the automaton crashed at his feet like an old tree.
He leaped up onto its back and scanned the battlefield. Far across it, a form in gray waved once.
“Gallandro!” The gunman gave him a bare, stark smile that held nothing Han could read. Han drew without thinking, then remembered his blaster was empty. Just then a robot appeared behind Gallandro, closing in on him, arms wide. Han never made a conscious decision, but pointed and shouted a warning.
The gunman was too far away to have heard, but he saw Han’s expression and understood. He spun and ducked instinctively. The robot just missed with a blow of enormous power. With an incredible display of agility and reflexes, Gallandro seized the arm and rode the robot’s recovery-backswing, at the same time putting two quick shots into its head. Letting go, he was flung clear to land lightly and put a last bolt into the robot as it fell.
Han watched the incident with awe. By far the most dangerous machine there was Gallandro. The gunman gave Han a sardonic bow and a mocking grin, then, like a ghost, was gone again in the swirl of battle.
The air was hot with the unleashed energies of the battle. With Skynx’s and Badure’s help, Chewbacca had squirmed free of the fallen robot, while Hasti stood nervous guard. Taking back his bowcaster, the Wookiee made a quick motion toward the robot that had so narrowly missed nailing Han and barked a question.
“It was him, Gallandro,” Han told his partner. “A fifty-, maybe sixty-meter tight-beam shot.” The Wookiee shook his head in bewilderment, mane flying.
There was nowhere to go except the camp living area, across the bridge. “Will you two stop chatting and get going?” Hasti called. “They’ll have us surrounded if we don’t hurry.”
They started for the bridge at the best pace they could manage, a half-trot, each of them bearing a number of minor injuries and wounds. They moved in a defensive ring, Badure at the leading edge with his power pistols, Hasti to his right and Skynx to his left, with Chewbacca and Han bringing up the rear, back-pedaling and sideskipping. A metallic voice called Han’s name.
Bollux somehow injected a note of immense relief into his vocoder drawl. “We’re so glad you’re all safe. The Millennium Falcon’s unharmed, at least for the time being, but I don’t know how long that will last. Unfortunately, it’s inaccessible just now.”
Han wanted to know exactly what that meant, but Bollux interrupted. “No time for that now. I have the means to remedy our situation, sir,” he told the pilot, resettling the signalry equipment he had taken from the robots’ command podium. “But you’ll have to get to the far side of the bridge before I can use it.”
“You’re on, Bollux! All right, everybody, scratch gravel!” They hastened away. The attack hadn’t gotten as far as the bridge yet, but resistance was crumbling rapidly.
At the bridgehead Bollux paused. “I’ll be staying here, sir. The rest of you must proceed across.”
Han looked around.