Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [54]
She gave him a sullen look, telling him, “Solo-Captain, you’re a fool.” She left, with Pakka trailing behind.
Torm rose, but Han stopped him with an arm across the hatchway. The redhead retreated back into the hold and waited. “You’re the only one I can trust,” Han told him. “Bollux isn’t really much good, and I just figured out who killed Rekkon.”
“Which of them did it?”
“The cub, Pakka. He was in Authority custody, and they messed with him. That’s why he doesn’t talk. I think they brain-set him, then let Atuarre recover him. Rekkon wouldn’t have let any of you others near.”
Torm nodded grimly. Han produced the man’s pistol from the back of his gunbelt and handed it to him. Its charge indicator read full. “Keep this on you. I’m not sure Atuarre’s figured it out yet, but I’m willing to play them along and find out if either of them know anything that’ll help.”
Torm stashed the gun in his coverall pocket. “What will we do next?”
“Rekkon left a message as he was dying, scrawled it on the gameboard. The Authority’s keeping its special prisoners at something called Stars’ End, on Mytus VI. After we’ve checked the ship over, we’ll gather in the forward compartment and run down everything we’ve got in files and computers on it. Maybe Pakka or Atuarre will let something slip then.”
When the light damage suffered by the Millennium Falcon in her breakout from Orron III had been repaired insofar as was possible, the ship’s complement gathered in the forward compartment. Han had brought four portable readouts. He gave one to each of the others and took one himself. Bollux watched, seated to one side, with Max back in his usual place, gazing out from the ’droid’s chest.
“I patched these readouts into the ship’s computers,” Han explained. “Each of them’s keyed to one kind of information. I’ll pull navigational, Atuarre’s got planetological; Pakka can retrieve the Authority’s unclassified stuff, and Torm’s got operational files from the outlaw-techs. Okay, punch up Stars’ End and let’s get at it.”
Each of the other three complied. Torm’s screen, except for the retrieval request, remained blank. Atuarre’s too. She looked up, as they all did, to see Han scan his own readout.
“Your portables aren’t hooked up to anything,” he told them, “only mine. Atuarre, show Torm your screen.”
Dubious, she still did as he asked, turning her readout so that the redhead could see it. On her screen was the simple retrieval request, MYTUS VIII. “Yours too, Pakka,” Han bade the cub. That readout showed MYTUS V.
“Catch his face,” Han told the others, meaning Torm, who had become pallid. “You know what you’ve done, don’t you, Torm? Show everybody your readout. It says MYTUS VII, but I told you that Stars’ End was on MYTUS VI, just as I told the others the wrong planet. But you already knew the right one, because you read it over Rekkon’s shoulder before you killed him, right?” His voice lost its false lightness. “I said right, traitor?”
Torm jumped to his feet with impressive speed, gun drawn. Atuarre pulled hers out too, and pointed it at him. But neither Torm’s shot at Han nor Atuarre’s at him worked.
“Two malfunctions?” Han inquired innocently, unlimbering the blaster at his side. “I betcha mine works, Torm.”
Torm heaved his pistol wildly. Han reacted with a star pilot’s reflexes, slapping the gun out of midair with his left hand. But Torm had already whirled and seized the surprised Atuarre in a savage infighting hold, prepared to break her neck with a slight twist. When she started to resist, he forced her neck to the brink of fracture, making her subside.
“Put down the blaster, Solo,” he grated, “and get your hands on the gameboard, or I’ll—”
He was interrupted as Pakka, in a spectacular leap, landed on Torm’s shoulders, sinking fangs into his neck, clawing at his eyes, wrapping a supple tail around the traitor’s throat. Torm was forced to release his hold to keep from being blinded. Atuarre sought to turn and fight, and even Bollux had risen