Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 04_ Agents of Chaos 01_ Hero's Trial - James Luceno [69]
“Blasted thing’s as temperamental as a space slug!”
“Yeah, and we’re the mynock who riled it!” the Ryn said.
Han tightened his grip on the controls. Firing the braking thrusters, he shoved the etheric rudder hard to the right at the same time, then executed a nosedive that took the shuttle corkscrewing around the neck of the enraged creature and ultimately under the bow of the enemy warship.
“Who’s going to clean up the passenger cabin?” the Ryn asked when he’d swallowed his gorge.
“We’ll worry about that later.”
For the sake of the passengers, Han dialed up the gain on the inertial compensator and trimmed back their speed. The shuttle was just emerging on the far side of the bow when the instrument panel began to scream.
Han’s mouth fell open.
“What?” the Ryn asked nervously. “What?” He glanced at the indicators. “Why are you slowing down?”
Han fought with the controls. “A dovin basal has us! The ship’s drawing us back!”
The Ryn sat up in his seat and reached for the auxiliary controls. While Han struggled with the stick, the Ryn opened up the engines, rocketing the shuttle through a steep hull-hugging climb that carried them over the top of the warship and down along the opposite side into an inverted dive.
“Good thinking,” Han remarked as the shuttle shot for what looked to be clear space. “Glad to be away from that thing—”
Another outburst from the Ryn erased Han’s words. Four coralskippers had launched from the underside of the ship and were already opening fire with projectile launchers.
Han broke right, angling away from the skips and soaring through a series of evasive maneuvers.
“You had to go and scare their pet!” the Ryn hollered while fiery missiles streaked past the shuttle to both sides.
Dead ahead a veritable swarm of coralskippers were making for the warship, with New Republic starfighters in hot pursuit. Han throttled down and banked, only to see the pointed bow of a Star Destroyer edge into view from behind the closest of Ord Mantell’s moons. Angry blue hyphens of energy lanced from the fortresses’ forward gun turrets, assailing the fleeing skips and very nearly impaling the shuttle. Then the Yuuzhan Vong warship responded with plasma, as blinding and wrathful as stellar prominences.
All caution forgotten, Han engaged the thrusters and veered from the thick of the firefight. But the four skips they had encountered earlier were still glued to the shuttle’s tail.
“No doubt about it,” Han muttered, “my past is definitely catching up with me.”
The Ryn glanced at him. “Then you’re not running fast enough!”
Han tightened his lips. “We’ll see about that. Plot a course for the Wheel.”
“We’re going back?”
“You heard me.”
“Would it help any to deny it?”
“Stop your squawking,” Han barked. “Give me everything the thrusters have.”
The Ryn set himself to the task, grumbling all the while. “I don’t know why your past has to catch up with me.”
“I think it has something to do with your hat,” Han said. “Besides, who asked you to latch on to me?”
“You’re right. Next time I’ll pick someone else to hang with.”
Han took the shuttle straight for the outer rim of the Wheel, but at the last moment he climbed over the top, then dived sharply and shot between two of the station’s tubular spokes. The four skips followed, but only three succeeded in matching the precarious maneuvers. The pilot in the trailing craft failed to swerve at the right moment and flew head-on into one of the spokes, pulverizing himself.
Out from the Wheel, Han leveled the shuttle out, then made a dash for empty space.
“Projectiles coming in fast!” the Ryn warned.
Engaging the braking thrusters, Han slammed the control stick hard to one side, then punched the throttle and dived, spinning the ship 180 degrees and vectoring back toward the Wheel. The trio of coralskippers didn’t bother attempting to mimic the maneuver, and by the time they were coming out of their wide turns, the shuttle was closing