Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [248]
Han sank to his knees, too startled to cry out. Skynx retreated with a terrified chitter. Swaying, clasping his wounded arm to him, Han heard Gallandro say, “That was very good, Solo; you came closer than anyone’s come in a long time. But now I’ll take you back to the Corporate Sector—not that I care about the Authority’s justice, but there are those who have to be shown what it means to stand in my way.”
Han gasped through locked teeth, “I’m not doing time in any Authority horror factory.”
Gallandro ignored that. “Your friends are more expendable, however. If you’ll pardon me, I’ll have to see to your Ruurian comrade before he gets into any mischief.”
He slapped a pair of binders he’d found onboard the Falcon around Han’s ankles and ground the pilot’s com-link under his heel. “You were never the amoralist you feigned to be, Solo, but I am. In a way, it’s too bad we didn’t meet later, when you were salted and wiser. You’re pretty good in a fight; you might’ve made a useful lieutenant.” He removed the charge from Han’s blaster, tucked it into his belt, and sauntered off after Skynx, who, unable to get past the gunman, had fled back down the corridors toward the treasure vaults.
Gallandro moved cautiously, knowing the Ruurian was unarmed but counting no being harmless when it was fighting for its life. He rounded a corner to see Skynx cowering against the wall some distance along, gazing at him with huge, terrified eyes, paralyzed with fear. Around the far turn of the corridor he could see the reflected warning lights of a no-weapons zone.
Gripping his blaster, Gallandro smirked. “It’s a pity, my little friend, but there’s too much at stake here: Solo’s the only one I can afford to take alive. I shall make this as easy as I can. Hold still.”
Drawing a bead on Skynx’s head, he stepped forward. Energy discharges flashed from hidden emplacements; even Gallandro’s fabulous reflexes gave him no edge against the speed of light.
Caught in a flaring crossfire of defensive weapons, the gunman was hit by a dozen lethal blasts before he could so much as move. He was the center of an abrupt inferno, then his scorched remains fell to the corridor floor and the smell of incinerated flesh clogged the air.
Skynx uncoiled from his spot at the corridor wall bit by bit. He threw aside the warning flashers he had removed from their sockets along the corridor’s wall. He gave silent thanks Gallandro hadn’t noticed the empty sockets; a prudent Ruurian probably would have.
“Humans,” remarked Skynx, then went off to rescue Han Solo.
“Not much left of him, is there?” Han asked rhetorically an hour later as he stood over Gallandro’s blackened remains. Like the others, he had left his gun outside the no-weapons zone. Badure and Hasti had made temporary repairs to his shoulder and forearm with one of the ship’s medi-packs. If Han received competent medical attention soon, there would be no lasting effect from Gallandro’s blaster bolts.
Chewbacca was just finishing a careful examination of that corridor and the one beyond, running a thorough check along the walls to search out each weapons emplacement. He had opened each one with hand tools and deactivated it. Satisfied that there would be no danger in bringing power equipment and tools inside, the Wookiee barked to Han.
“Let’s get busy; I don’t like the idea of the Falcon being unmanned.” When Skynx had returned with news of the gun duel, Chewbacca had moved the starship so that she blocked the main door, her ramp extended down through it. He had warped the ship’s defensive mantle around and set her guns to fire automatically on sensor-lock should anyone come too close, one warning volley and then the real item. The Dellaltians trapped inside on the starship’s arrival had already surrendered and