Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 01_ Jedi Search - Kevin J. Anderson [130]
Han pursed his lips, scanning the controls. “Everything here looks pretty standard,” he said. “I won’t have much time for practice.”
Chewbacca gave an ear-splitting Wookiee bellow of challenge. Below, Han heard the heavy armored door grind open and then clattering footsteps as a squad of stormtroopers charged into the chamber.
Standing at the door, Kyp stuck his head out of the narrow hatch. “Here they come!”
“Seal that hatch, kid,” Han shouted. “We’re in here for the duration now! Chewie, have you found the weapons controls yet?”
In the copilot’s chair, Chewbacca ran his huge hands over the buttons and dials. Finally finding what he wanted, he let out a yowl. Defensive laser cannons mounted at different targeting angles swiveled as he tested the aiming mechanisms.
Small thuds banged against the Sun Crusher’s hull as the stormtroopers fired their blaster rifles, causing no damage. Han looked at Qwi. “We don’t even have the shields on!”
“This armor will hold against anything they can throw against us,” she said with a smug smile. “It was designed to.”
Han grinned and cracked his knuckles. “Well, in that case let’s take an extra few seconds and do this right!” He worked the controls, activating the repulsorlift engines. The interior of the Sun Crusher wobbled as the entire craft rose into the air, floating on its repulsor cushion. Outside they could hear the faint screeching of an alarm.
“Chewie, point those laser cannons straight up. Let’s give ourselves a twenty-one-gun salute—right through the roof!”
The Wookiee roared to himself; then, without waiting for Han to give the order, he fired all of the Sun Crusher’s weaponry at once. Kyp scrambled for his seat, strapping himself in. Qwi stared at the roof of the cockpit with wide eyes.
The ceiling of the hangar chamber blasted outward under the barrage of laser energy. Some of the larger chunks of rubble fell downward, clanging against the Sun Crusher’s hull, but most of the skylights burst into space with the outrushing of contained air that spewed into the Maw.
Stormtroopers, flailing their arms and legs, were sucked out through the breach, flotsam among the rock and transparisteel debris in low orbit around the clustered rocks. Their armor might protect them against massive decompression for a few minutes, but every one of them was doomed.
Han raised the Sun Crusher up, accelerating through the escape hole they had blown through the top of the chamber. They shot into open space, and Han felt an exhilaration he had not felt since they had first arrived at Kessel.
“Here goes nothing!” he said. “Now for the fun part.”
Staring down at the Installation from the Gorgon’s bridge, Admiral Daala felt her stomach knot. For years her entire duty had been to protect that small clump of planetoids, to pamper the scientists. Grand Moff Tarkin had said these people held the future security of the Empire, and she had believed him.
Daala had been stepped on, abused, taken advantage of at the Caridan military academy. Tarkin had rescued her from that. He had given her the responsibility and the power she had earned through her own abilities. She owed Tarkin everything.
She would avenge him by destroying the New Republic as she caused their star systems to go supernova one by one. They could hide nowhere. At the same time, she would make her mark on the history of the galaxy, a warlord who had succeeded where an entire Empire had failed. The thought made Daala’s pale lips curl upward in a grim smile.
As she watched, Daala saw the puff of an explosion on one of the rocks of Maw Installation. Then the tiny form of the Sun Crusher streaked by, a characteristically angular speck fleeing the confines of the planetoid containing it.
“Red alert!” she shouted. “Mobilize all forces. They have the Sun Crusher, and we can’t let them take it away. That is our most valuable weapon!”
“But … Admiral,” Commander Kratas said, “if the technical reports are