Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [56]
“Ask Rekkon,” Han answered, and hit the lock release.
The outer latch snapped open. With an explosion of air into vacuum, Torm was hurled out into the chaotic pseudo-reality of hyperspace. Once outside the Millennium Falcon’s mantle of energy, the units of matter and patterns of form that had been Torm ceased to have any coherent meaning.
VIII
“SOLO-CAPTAIN,” Atuarre interrupted his thoughts, leaning into the cockpit, “isn’t it time we spoke? We’ve been here for nearly ten Standard Time-Parts, and our course of action is no clearer than when we arrived. We must reach some decision, don’t you agree?”
Han broke off gazing out the canopy at the distant speck, barely visible, of Mytus VII. All around the Millennium Falcon rose the peaks and hills of the tiny asteroid on which she was concealed. “Atuarre, I don’t know how Trianii feel about waiting, but me, I hate it worse than anything. But there’s nothing else we can do; we have to sit tight and play out our hand.”
She wouldn’t accept that. “There are other courses of action, Captain. We could attempt to contact Jessa again.” Her slit-irises dwelled on him.
Han shifted around in the pilot seat to face her directly, so quickly that she drew back reflexively. Seeing this, he reined in his temper, “We could waste all kinds of time looking for Jessa. When her operation ran, after we got hit by the IRDs, she probably dug a hole and pulled it in after her. The Falcon can cook along at point-five factors over Big L, but we still might waste a month looking for the outlaw-techs and not find them. Maybe word will find its way to Jessa, or one of the prearranged blind transmissions, but we can’t bank on her. I don’t count on anybody but me; if I have to bust Chewie out of there alone, I’ll do it.”
Some of the tension left her. “You aren’t alone, Solo-Captain. My mate is there at Stars’ End, too. Your fight is Atuarre’s.” She extended a slim, sharp-clawed hand. “But come, now, take some food. Staring at Mytus VII cannot help and may be distracting us from solutions.”
He pushed himself up out of the seat, taking one more look at the distant planet. Mytus VII was a worthless rock, as worlds went, revolving around a small, unexceptional sun at the end of the wisp of stars that was the Corporate Sector. Stars’ End, indeed. There’d be scant danger of anyone’s happening on the Authority’s secret prison facility here, unless he came looking for it specifically.
Since Mytus VII had been listed in the charts as being at the outermost edge of its solar system, Han had broken into normal space nearly ten Standard Time-Parts before, deep in interstellar space, far out of sensor range. He’d come in from the opposite side of the system, entering a thick asteroid belt halfway between Mytus VII and its sun, and hunted up what he’d wanted, this jagged hunk of stone. Using his star-ship’s engines and tractors, he’d brought the asteroid onto a new course, one that would allow him to take a long-range peek at Stars’ End, sure that no one there would notice the slightly unusual behavior of one tiny mote in the uncharted asteroid belt.
He’d spent most of his time monitoring the planet’s communications, studying it by sensors, and watching the occasional ship come and go. Monitored commo traffic had told him nothing; most of it had been encrypted in codes that had resisted his computers’ analyses. Plaintext messages had been either mundane or meaningless, and Han suspected that at least some of them had been sent strictly for appearances’ sake, to make Stars’ End look like an ordinary, if remote, Authority installation.
Now he trailed Atuarre into the forward compartment, Bollux was seated near the gameboard, his plastron open. Pakka was stalking a jetting remote back and forth. The remote, a small globe powered by magnetic fields and repulsor power, turned, dove, climbed, and dodged unpredictably.