Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [116]
That would take years, but they’d make it. Leia cleared her throat and added, “Scatter the fire of Rebellion. It will flare up everywhere the tinder is dry.”
“Poetic,” muttered Han.
“Inspiration is three tenths of courage.” Somebody protested over the intersquad frequency. Leia didn’t stay to listen. She unstrapped and climbed up/sideways out of the gunwell’s artificial gravity to the main level.
“Have we nearly finished?” Threepio asked brightly as she passed the gaming table.
Leia didn’t want to hear the odds of surviving this maneuver. “Yes. Nearly finished.”
“Oh, good. My servomotors won’t stand much more of this bashing about … Princess Leia …!”
She swung into the cockpit. Han glanced at her, frowned, then waved one soot-streaked hand gallantly at the copilot’s seat.
Little gestures like that—not pillows or berry wine—made her love him. “Thank you.”
“Chewie wants to ride it out in the turret,” he explained.
“I understand.”
“Only takes one to execute a ram anyway,” Han muttered. “Sorry, old girl.”
Leia opened her mouth to complain.
“Not you. The Falcon.” He started shunting power away from all systems except a few: thrusters, she guessed, fore shields, and the upper gun turret. Again she tried to touch Luke. Again, the harried flicker.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s programmed. Now we get you to the escape pod.”
“Oh-ho, no,” she retorted. “Not unless there’s room for two. Or three.”
“You can’t ram on autopilot, and we need a gunner. Kiss me for luck and get clear. The Alliance needs you.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“Go on, move,” he said. “You’re valuable.”
“Valuable, schmaluable. I’m not running away. I’m a Skywalker, too. Maybe this is my destiny.”
“All right, you’re valuable to me. Chewie,” Han shouted. “Get down here and get the princess into—”
Chewbacca’s answer roared through her head. “He means ‘no,’ ” Leia said primly, but she laid a hand on Han’s shoulder and squeezed, thanking him without words. Wouldn’t this be perfect justice—Vader’s daughter, ramming an Imperial ship for the sake of the Alliance? Even if the maneuver failed, she’d achieved a victorious kind of symmetry. Finally, she could think about Darth Vader without flinching. Watch this, Father!
Two TIE fighters broke formation and swooped up at them. Possibly their scanners showed no power to the lower turret.
But their scanners had no way of detennining this was no stock freighter. Han flipped the Falcon one hundred eighty degrees. Chewie snarled gleefully and picked them off.
Leia adjusted her hand on Han’s shoulder. He squeezed her fingers before lunging again for the controls. As the Falcon approached the patrol craft from behind, the patrol craft almost doubled its rate of fire. Either it had brought another bank of laser cannon online or Commander Thanas had figured out what Han had in mind. Han added a twisting maneuver to the ram program. A display indicated seventeen seconds to impact. They had to survive that long. A massive energy bolt breezed past the Falcon’s belly.
Chewbacca growled. “Tickles,” Han translated. He switched off fore shields, so that impact would transfer more energy to the patrol craft’s mass. “Look out, Thanas.”
While Dev examined one freestanding bridge station, Luke finished a deep, rasping cough. If he weren’t so busy, he’d try to heal himself. He glanced at the deck and twitched his right leg, still unable to shake a sense of impending disaster. Maybe the unseen future was closing in. Ever since he’d glimpsed Han and Leia’s future sufferings at Bespin, he’d wondered if he would foresee his own death.
He reached out to check on Leia.
Her determination to face certain destruction caught him off guard. Hurriedly he searched her consciousness and found …
Ramming? In the Falcon? Luke tumbled down to a sitting position on the deck and ignored Dev’s questions. Ignored his body, the Ssi-ruuk still on board, and