• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The dreadnought was engulfed, her sensors muffled by the tidal wave of grain. Han, with one eye on his own sensors, saw that the warship was driving straight on through the hail of grain, closing quickly on the barge even though she was blinded. Her tractor beams were still clamped onto the barge’s stern, and Han wondered how long it would be before her skipper gave the command to open fire.

There was only one other possibility. He hit the controls, cutting in the barge’s retrothrusters, and with virtually the same motion, slapped the emergency releases. His other hand hovered over the main drive control of the Millennium Falcon.

The barge shell shook, losing much of its velocity, while the reports of exploding bolts sounded through both the freighter and the larger ship around it. Superstructural elements, added to secure the Falcon and disguise her lines, were blown clear. A split second later, the Falcon’s engines howled to life, their blue fire tearing the smaller ship free of the breakaway supports holding her and severing her external control hookups.

Han took the Falcon on the same course he’d been holding, keeping the barge shell between himself and the Authority warship. The Shannador’s Revenge, her sensors impaired, had failed to note the barge shell’s drastic drop in speed. The dreadnought’s captain was calling for a vector change just as the warship rammed the decelerating barge. The Shannador’s Revenge’s forward screens flared with impact, and her anticoncussion fields cut in instantly on collision, as she cut the floating hulk of the barge shell in half in a terrific impact and suffered structural damage of her own. The warship’s forward sensor suite was disabled; she resounded with alarms and damage reports. Airtight doors began booming shut automatically, triggered by decompressive hull ruptures.

The Millennium Falcon was clawing for the upper atmosphere. The thought that he’d bloodied the nose of a battle-wagon, escaping against all odds, didn’t lighten Han’s mood, nor did the thought that hyperspace and safety were only moments away. Occupying his mind was one simple, intolerable fact: his friend and partner was now in the merciless hands of the Corporate Sector Authority.

When the stars had parted before him and the ship was safely in hyperspace, Han sat for long minutes thinking that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d spaced without the Wookiee beside him. Rekkon had been right in arguing for escape, but that didn’t change Han’s feeling that he’d let Chewbacca down.

But regrets were a waste of time. Han stripped off his headset and shoved himself out of his seat. Rekkon was his only hope now. He headed for the forward compartment, the ship’s combination lounge-mess-rec area, and realized something was wrong while he was still in the passageway. There was the pungent smell of ozone, the smell of blaster fire.

“Rekkon!”

Han ran to where the scholar slumped over the gameboard. He’d been shot from behind, by a blaster set on needle-beam at low power. The sound of it probably hadn’t even carried across the compartment. On the gameboard, under Rekkon’s body, was a portable readout. Next to it a clear puddle of molten liquid bubbled, the remains of the data plaque. Rekkon was dead, of course; he’d been shot at close range.

Han leaned on a bulkhead pad, rubbing his eyes and wondering what to do next. Rekkon had been his sole hope for rescuing Chewbacca and for getting himself out of this insane jam. With Rekkon dead, the hard-won information gone, and at least one traitor-murderer onboard, Han felt alone for one of the few times in his life. His blaster was in his hand, but there was no one else in the compartment or in the passageway.

A clattering on the rungs of the main ladderwell. Han ran to it just as Torm came climbing up from the Falcon’s belly turret. As he came up, Torm found himself staring into the muzzle of Han’s gun.

“Just give over your pistol, Torm. Keep your right hand on the rung, and do it with your left, easy. Don’t make a mistake;