Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [142]
He left the Luck, calling for Chewbacca and Lando. He had no idea where they’d gone. They were going after the parts, but they hadn’t said who they were chasing, although Han had said he had seen stuff in Kid’s and Zeen’s possessions. They probably had gone to their rooms first, and then deeper into the Skip.
Han hoped they hadn’t gone too deep. Some of those corridors were narrow, and made of rock. That rock would be very fragile in explosions like this.
As he stepped onto the ground, hands groped at his legs. People he didn’t know called out to him. He stopped several times to move debris off trapped smugglers, then helped them to a place away from the fires. The smoke was getting so thick, it was impossible to see. If he wanted to save the Falcon and the Luck, he would have to work in the bay.
But that meant leaving Chewie and Lando to their own devices. He could mentally picture Chewie, trapped beneath a rock, Lando crushed beside him. Yet Han knew that the odds of finding them at all were small.
He had to try.
He stepped over debris and flaming metal. This devastation looked similar to the devastation on Coruscant. Only there, he had heard one explosion. Here he had heard several.
The cries were growing more and more pitiful. He seemed to be one of the few uninjured people in the entire area. He couldn’t pass these people by. He had to Start helping, and hope that Chewie and Lando were getting equal consideration from someone else.
He wound his way around several flaming piles to the Falcon. Then he went inside, grabbed the fire extinguishers, and came out blasting. The foam put out the fires nearby, leaving charred bits of metal, and several charred bodies.
Han gagged, but kept going. Fires first, because if he didn’t do that, the oxygen would disappear, the smoke would get worse, and people would die. Or at least that was what he told himself, what he had to tell himself, as he heard more and more cries for help.
Tentacles, hands, fingers, all manner of beings were reaching for him. He almost felt ashamed for being so healthy. He was working faster and faster, trying to put out more and more fires. The smoke was clearing, at least in the area he was working in, and as he looked up, he saw Blue doing the same work near him, using extinguishers from her Skipper.
She was covered in soot and ash, just as he was, but unlike him, she also had bruises, and her arms were bleeding. The back of her tunic had torn, and he saw burns running along her skin. Her lips were moving as she worked, and tears were streaming down her face.
He had never seen Blue so upset.
He left her to her fires, and started on another set. More smugglers hurried out of ships. One Sullustan vessel poured extinguisher out of its nozzle, and slowly, slowly, the fires died.
Leaving only smoking remains, and bodies.
And the wounded, staggering through the mess like the walking dead.
Han wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his arm. He was already exhausted, overwhelmed by the magnitude of cleaning the Run.
Of saving all the lives.
He grabbed a Ssty that was digging through a pile of smoking rubble. Except for a few small burned patches on the Ssty’s fur, it looked all right, as stunned as Han was, but all right.
“Get the medical droids. All of them,” he said. “We’ll make an aid station on the Lady Luck.”
“Droids?” The Ssty swiveled its small head. Its eyes were red-rimmed. “That’s a sick joke, mister.” It wrenched itself out of his grip and kept digging.
Han frowned. “Come on. We need to help these folks.”
“Not with droids,” the Ssty said.
“I don’t understand.”
The Ssty stopped digging again, sighed, and wiped its claws on its fur. “Where were you when this happened?”
“In my ship.”
The Ssty nodded. Its little face was somber, its red-rimmed eyes filling with a blue gooey substance. “The droids did