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Abruptly he rolled the Falcon onto its back while Droma was still firing the belly gun. In an effort to keep up, the lead coralskipper drew deeply on the capabilities of its dovin basal and accelerated.

Again, Han brought the reticle over his target, but the coralskipper sped out of his sights in a flash.

He left the firing to Droma momentarily and peeled the ship away in a sweeping descending bank. Projectiles slammed against the rear shields, and plasma streaked between the ship’s mandibles. Han rerouted power to the forward deflector and again increased the angle of their descent.

They ripped through a filmy blanket of high-altitude clouds and went spiraling downward. Far below them ocean and desert lay side by side. Storm systems shrouded Sriluur’s western horizon, and to the north an expansive brown haze smudged the terrain.

Droma glanced at the meteorological sensors. “That’s a sandstorm!”

“How about that,” Han said. “Some wishes do come true.”

The words had barely left his mouth when the lead coralskipper dropped with mind-boggling velocity and was suddenly beneath the Falcon and firing up at her, plasma geysering from its gun emplacements.

Han pulled out of the spiral, yanked the throttle, and threw the ship up and over the coralskipper directly on his tail. A molten bolt from the craft below caught its squadron mate full on. The coralskipper shuddered as hunks of yorik coral flew in all directions. Then an interior explosion burst from the crystalline cockpit, and the crippled ship went into a helpless free fall, condemned to death by gravity.

The destroyed coralskipper’s wingmate veered and glued himself to the Falcon’s tail, battering it with projectiles and refusing to be unseated, despite a slew of daring turns and evasions Han took them through.

Han went for a pushover, but not in time. Something hit the Falcon like a hard clap on the back. Fighting with the controls, he succeeded in righting her, only to emerge from an end-over-end roll to find three more coralskippers attached to the ship as she entered the sandstorm.

The bristles on Droma’s back stood up. “Another hit like that and you may as well plow us into the sand and let the Falcon be our gravestone!”

Projectiles raced past the outrigger cockpit. With the Falcon’s Quadex power core roaring, Han pushed the ship to its limits, jinking and juking as the coralskippers continued to rake fire at them. He dropped the Falcon away in a power dive, leaving Droma struggling to adjust thrust bias and avert disaster as enemy missiles ranged closer.

All at once a mountain loomed before them. Han torqued the ship to starboard so forcefully that both he and Droma nearly sailed from their seats. The lead coralskipper pilot pursued them ferociously, obviously unable to hold the Falcon in his sights but firing anyway, perhaps in the hope of shaking Han’s concentration.

Without warning, a plasma bolt sizzled through the overtaxed rear shields. A muffled explosion sounded from aft, followed by the sibilant hiss of the ship’s fire-suppression system. An acrid smell drifted forward on exhaust fan currents.

Han sniffed and shot Droma a wide-eyed glance. “What was that?”

Droma’s eyes roamed over the console telltales. “Power converter.”

Han winced. “Of all the rotten luck!”

He utilized more of the ship’s amazing speed to improve their lead and leapt deeper into the swirling haze. The three coralskippers decreased velocity, waiting for the Falcon to come across their vector, but instead Han poured on all power, climbed, looped, and came around behind the trio.

Droma fired instinctively with the belly gun. With the dovin basal of the trailing ship too stressed to handle defense as well as guidance, the laser bolts sneaked through. The widespread burst caught the craft right on the nose, blowing it to nuggets.

Han hooted triumphantly as he sheered off and settled calmly into kill position behind the second craft. The coralskipper pilot, realizing the position he was suddenly in, climbed slightly, unintentionally placing himself in the overlapping field of