Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 09_ Edge of Victory 02_ Rebirth - J. Gregory Keyes [117]
The woman’s gaze shifted, then Roxi’s voice cried, “Go!”
The male impostors leaped into view and began to lay suppression fire. Han burned a hole through one man’s chest. Roxi pulled something long from beneath the gurney sheet, and when Han switched targets, she took cover behind tank three. He stopped firing. The woman in the bacta seemed to smile her thanks.
“On two, Dex,” Roxi called. “One—”
Roxi stepped into view, and “two” was lost to the shrieking cacophony of the repeating blaster in her hands. Han concentrated fire on her. A faint hiss sounded somewhere deep in the parlor, and Dex’s blaster fell quiet.
Roxi’s bolts stitched their way across the floor toward Han’s head. He drew back and popped up in the corner, blaster trained on the parlor entrance. She poured fire into the corridor, but stayed out of sight until she appeared at the door and began to chew through his flimsy cover.
Han fired back, but to little effect. There was no sign of Dex, and that worried him, too. Seeing that his angle was hopeless, he stopped firing and looked to the back of the parlor.
“Now!” he yelled.
Nothing happened, except that Roxi glanced away long enough for Han to hurl himself across the waiting room. She adjusted her aim and began to burn more holes through the half wall. Han returned fire. Now that his angle was better, at least he was making her cringe.
Then the repulsor gurney glided into view, moving sideways, no one pushing. Han’s jaw must have dropped. Roxi sneered, shook her head, and, not one to be fooled twice, nearly burned his head off.
The gurney caught her in the hip. Her weapon stitched craters across the ceiling, and she stumbled into the doorway. Han blasted her chest and shoulder, spinning her around so that she fell over the gurney. The repeating blaster clattered to the floor inside the bacta parlor, where Dex could get at it. Cursing his luck, Han poured fire through the door and charged.
Dex lay dead between tanks one and two, the last wisps of smoke rising from a round hole in his chest. It was too small and perfect to be a blaster wound, at least an ordinary one. Han glanced around the room, searching for the source of his mysterious help.
The woman in tank three was watching him.
“You?” he asked.
The gurney moved again—it might have been settling on its repulsor, but Han didn’t think so.
Out by the monitoring station, the decontamination lock hissed open, and the sound of booted feet began to rumble down the corridor. Han ignored the clamor and gestured at the impostor on the floor.
“Him, too?”
The woman’s eyes fluttered closed, opened again, then fell shut and remained that way.
“Okay—must have been a ricochet.” Han was not sure he believed that, but it was what he intended to tell the CorSec investigators. “I owe you—whoever you are.”
Then the security squad was rushing down the corridor, yelling at Han to drop his weapon and hit the floor. He placed his blaster on the gurney and turned to find a pair of ruddy-cheeked boys poking Imperial-era blaster rifles in his face.
“Hey, take it easy.” Han reluctantly raised his hands. “I can explain.”
TWO
Temples aching, world spinning, stomach … churning. Leia returned. Someone yelling. Han, of course.
Head pounding.
Quiet!
Han continued to yell, and someone snapped back. Leia opened her eyes and found herself staring into a sun. Which one, she did not know, but it was blinding and blue, and it moved from one eye to the other.
A gentle voice—a man’s—said she was coming to. To what?
There were silhouettes around her. A man standing at her side, the blue disk of a headlamp affixed to his brow. A woman behind a tray of medical instruments. Han and someone in a bulky jumpsuit still arguing over by the viewport. Another man by the closet in the