Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 01_ Jedi Search - Kevin J. Anderson [62]
Doole sounded doubtful. “Well, of course I can check.” He punched at a data terminal unseen beyond the fringe of the transmission field. Almost immediately—too fast, Leia thought—Doole straightened. “No, I am sorry, Minister. We have no record of a ship called the Millennium Falcon ever arriving in Kessel space. Who was piloting the ship?”
“His name is Han Solo. He is my husband.”
Doole straightened in shock. “I’m terribly sorry to hear that. Is he a good pilot? As you may know, the black hole cluster near Kessel makes for extremely hazardous flying conditions, even in hyperspace. The Maw is one of the wonders of the galaxy, but if he was to take a wrong path through the cluster … I hope nothing happened to him!”
Leia leaned deeper into the transmission field. “Han is a very good pilot, Commissioner Doole.”
“I’ll muster a search team at once, Minister. Believe me, Kessel will offer whatever assistance we can in this matter. We’ll scour the surface of the planet and the moon, and we’ll search space for any disabled ship. I will inform you immediately of any progress we make.”
Doole reached forward to the controls of his holotransmitter, then paused. “And of course we look forward to formally receiving any other ambassador you choose to send. I hope the next time we speak will be under happier circumstances, Minister Organa Solo.”
As Moruth Doole’s image fizzled into static, Leia let her stony expression fall into a scowl of confusion and suspicion.
Winter looked up from her controls. “I detected no outright contradictions of fact, but I am not convinced of the total truth of what he was saying.”
Leia’s gaze focused on something far away. Anxiety twisted her insides, and she felt very foolish for being angry with Han. “Something is definitely wrong here.”
11
When Han Solo’s temper finally snapped, he hauled off with a roundhouse punch that knocked the guard backward. Han leaped on the man, punching him again and again in the chest and stomach, cracking his knuckles on the scuffed stormtrooper armor.
The other guards in the muster room scrambled toward him, knocking Han to the floor. Behind the transparisteel observation cubicles, shift monitors sounded the alarm and summoned assistance. The door slid open from the communal areas, and four more guards charged in, drawing their weapons.
Chewbacca let out a thunderous Wookiee roar and waded through the other guards, yanking them off Han’s back. His life debt to his partner took precedence over common sense.
Han continued to swing, yelling incoherently at his captors. Chewbacca smashed two of the guards’ heads together and dropped their limp bodies. The reinforcements looked up at the Wookiee, and they goggled as they saw the wall of fur and muscle in front of them. They drew their weapons.
Young Kyp Durron bent low and dove into the knees of the closest armed guard, knocking him to the floor. Kyp scrambled out of the way, yanking at boots and legs, tripping two more men.
With nothing to lose, other prisoners joined in the brawl, indiscriminately punching anything nearby, guards or other prisoners. Many of the captive spice miners were themselves former prison guards who had been on the wrong side during Moruth Doole’s rebellion—and the other prisoners hated them.
With a whoop of energy, blue arcs of a blaster set on stun lanced out and knocked Chewbacca flat on his back, where he coughed and groaned and tried to raise himself on his elbows.
The alarms kept ringing, a throbbing sound that increased the chaos in the muster room. More guards rushed out of the communal area. Blue stun bolts rippled through the air, mowing down the rioting prisoners and taking out other guards at the same time.
“Enough!” Boss Roke shouted into a microphone on his collar. The voice exploded through the muster-room speakers. “Stop it, or we’ll stun you all and then dissect you to learn what’s wrong with your brains!”
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