Star Wars_ The Han Solo Adventures - Brian Daley [73]
Instead, feigning his draw, he hurled himself out on the floor. As he fell, he felt Uul-Rha-Shan’s disrupter beam lash over him, striking the wall. It set off a belching explosion that caught the reptile full in the face, flinging him backward. His shot had blown apart the ancillary circuitry for Hirken’s belt unit, freeing swirls of energy. Secondary explosions told of the destruction of power-management routers.
Han had hit the floor rolling, surviving the blast with little more than singed hair. His blaster was in his hand now, the cautionary pulser in its grip tingling his palm in silent, invisible warning that the gun was nearly empty. As if he needed to be reminded. Uul-Rha-Shan, somewhere in the din and smoke, was shrilling, “Solo-ooo!” in furious challenge. Han couldn’t pick him out.
A far-off vibration reached him, the overload spiral he’d had Blue Max build into the secondary defense program. Now that the primaries had been damaged and Hirken’s belt unit circumvented, the power-rerouting had taken over. Won’t be long now, he told himself.
Everyone in Stars’ End suddenly felt as if he were being immersed in thick mud, as the weight of a planet seemed to be pressing down. The anticoncussion field—Han had forgotten about it, but it didn’t matter.
Then, with an explosion beyond words, the power plant blew.
X
ATUARRE restrained herself from running back through the maze of tunnel-tubes, conscious of the Espo guard at her heels. Han’s desperate plan left her so much room for doubt. What would happen if the bluff failed? But on that thought she corrected herself at once—Solo-Captain was not bluffing, and was more than capable of taking all his enemies with him in an act of awesome revenge.
But she approved of the gamble. This might be Stars’ End’s only vulnerable moment. Even so, she took her longest strides now, dragging a stumbling Pakka along breakneck-quick.
They passed into the final junction station, the one nearest the Falcon. A tech lounged on duty behind his console. The Espo’s com-link signaled for attention, and Atuarre heard the crackled order, relayed from Hirken through the Espo major, as clearly as did her escort himself. The two Trianii were to be brought back to the tower. She wondered if that meant Han had successfully intervened in Bollux’s combat.
But Atuarre had no intention of going back now; Solo-Captain specifically wanted her onboard the Millennium Falcon. She tried her most reasonable tone. “Officer, I have to pick up a very important item on my ship, then we can return. Please? It’s very vital; that’s why I was given clearance to go in the first place.”
The Espo wasn’t paying heed. He drew his side arm. “Orders say at once. Move it!”
The attention of the duty tech was aroused now, but the guard was the immediate danger. Atuarre held Pakka’s paw high, so that his toes barely touched the floor, showing him to the guard. “You see, I was also told to leave my cub onboard ship. His presence displeased the Viceprex.” She felt Pakka’s short, elastic muscles tighten.
The Espo opened his mouth to reply, and she whipped the cub up. Pakka took snapping momentum from the launch, and both of the Trianii split the air with predatory howls, astounding the Authority men.
Pakka’s dropkick caught the astonished Espo in the face and throat. Atuarre, coming in behind her cub, threw herself on the man’s arm, prying his hand loose from his blaster. The Trianii bore their antagonist over backward, the cub with arms and legs and tail wrapped around the Espo’s head and neck, Atuarre wrenching the blaster free.
She heard a scuffle of sound behind her. Whirling, she saw the duty tech half standing from his chair behind the console. His left forefinger was stabbing some button on his board, hard. She assumed it to be an alarm, but the tech’s right hand was bringing up a blaster, and that was first on the agenda. She fired with