Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 21_ The Unifying Force - James Luceno [68]
A weapons system all his own, the leader wore a combination jet pack and antipersonnel missile launcher, and his belt was red. Catching sight of Han, the trooper tendered a distinctive fingertip salute before hurrying off.
Leia was suddenly alongside Han and helping him to his feet, but her gaze was directed down the corridor. When she finally turned to Han, her eyes were wide, her mouth a rictus of astonishment.
“Fett?” Han managed. “Fett?”
Leia shook her head in refusal. “It can’t be him. Anyone could be inside that armor!”
Han nodded his head in agreement. “That’s gotta be it. Besides, I mean, even if it is him, he was probably trying to kill me, not save me.”
The galaxy’s most notorious bounty hunter, Boba Fett had nearly been the death of Han, Leia, and even C-3PO following the Battle of Hoth, during the Galactic Civil War. But the then-Rebels had evened the score on Tatooine by dropping Fett into the hungry maw of a Sarlacc that resided in the desert world’s Great Pit of Carkoon. Many believed that Fett had ended his days there, but Han and Leia knew better, having encountered Fett on several occasions since his escape from the Sarlacc. However, there had been no accounts of the man since the start of the Yuuzhan Vong war, and Han was inclined to agree with Leia that the trooper who had saluted him could have been anyone. And yet there was the familiar voice of the man who had called himself “Hurn.”
Han, Leia, C-3PO, and the surviving Caluula soldiers stepped over the bodies of the Yuuzhan Vong and raced after the troops in Mandalorian armor, who had already moved off.
Dozens of Yuuzhan Vong lay dead or dying in the corridor, and fierce fighting was under way in the high-ceilinged hold into which the corridor debouched. Han watched a warrior battle vainly against a whipcord that had lashed around his neck, and was just then dragging him into an area of the hold Han couldn’t see. He saw two more warriors nearly halved by rocket darts. The sibilant reports of blasters were momentarily overwhelmed by the ear-shattering explosion of a concussion missile. Six warriors, lanced by shrapnel, flew backward into the hold. But still others attacked. A strapping warrior with a coufee in each hand charged screaming around the corner, only to reappear moments later, black with blood.
Leia clamped her left hand on Han’s upper arm. “Didn’t that one have hair when he went in?”
Han nodded in shock. “I think they’re taking scalps.”
A knot of Yuuzhan Vong warriors had formed in the hold, many of them gesticulating wildly and all of them talking at once.
“Princess Leia, Captain Solo,” C-3PO said from behind them. “The Yuuzhan Vong are very excited. They have sent runners to other parts of Caluula Station to report that they have found warriors who are exceptionally worthy of captivity.”
“I’d say that’s pretty optimistic of them,” Leia said.
She and Han fought their way into the hold. The armored soldiers had been backed into a corner. Two of them were certainly dead, and several others were in danger of being overpowered by groups of bloodied Yuuzhan Vong. The Caluula forces gathered what weapons they could find and dashed forward to help.
Han was searching for the leader when he heard a loud whoosh! and saw the trooper who might have been Boba Fett streaking toward the ceiling. Blades of fire shot from the jet pack’s hornlike gimbaling servos, and bolts rained down on the warriors from his twin hand blasters, which he twirled expertly before slipping them back into their holsters. Amphistaffs flew at him from all quarters, one of them catching him in the chest and sending him off course into a bulkhead.
Fighting broke out among the Yuuzhan Vong for the privilege of being