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The hangar door began to grind open as the stormtroopers opened fire. Laser blasts hit the door and bunker wall above and around him. Janson grimaced. With that caliber of marksmanship, there was little chance any of the attackers could hit him deliberately, but there was always the possibility that someone firing blind or a ricochet could hit him.

Janson scrambled sideways toward the opening in the door. He fired three more times, scored two hits that he was sure of.

Then someone grabbed his ankles and hauled. He was suddenly inside the hangar, looking at metal floor.

He turned to look up. “Thanks, Twelve.”

“You’re welcome.”

He wriggled back up so that he could see through the partially open doorway. The troopers had not yet begun to advance again. He continued firing steadily, scoring hits against several targets; the others began to withdraw toward the comparative safety of the vehicles on the landing pad.

Grinder, looking over his datapad, plugged by standard interface into a communications interlock on the wall, said, “They’re in the building. Through the east doors.”

Janson asked, “Is the corridor with the freight turbolift the only approach to us?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s there?”

“Six and Ten.”

Janson frowned. Neither Runt nor Tyria was a true marksman. Then again, the approach to the freight corridor, from what he’d seen of Face’s tape, was open and the corridor was short. It would become a killing ground if the enemy charged.

Kell and Wedge emerged from the turbolift shaft a full minute under Kell’s margin.

To their left was one set of doors out of the corridor. A cargo hauler was parked before them; on either side of it were Runt and Tyria, firing through fresh laser blast holes in the doors.

To their right, the doors into the hangar were locked open; on the far wall, the big door leading outside showed a gap and a little night sky. Janson and Piggy were there, firing at intervals. The door shuddered and moaned as return fire from outside hit it.

Grinder and Jesmin were both plugged into communications interlocks on the wall. “Are you all right?” Jesmin shouted.

“We can hear again,” Kell said, “no need to shout. Is everyone accounted for?”

“Yes. But there are troops and TIE fighters on the ground outside.”

Wedge and Kell moved into the hangar. Falynn was at the aft end of the cargo skiff; the bubble top was up and she was lounging on the control couch, fiddling with the controls. Kell said, “Three, can you reenable any of these other vehicles? In seconds, I mean, not minutes?”

She said, “Yes. Which ones do you want?”

“Any landspeeder that can be flown off autopilot or remote. Or even off a datacard plug-in.”

She pulled her datapad from a pocket and pointed it at a flat-bodied XP-38 Landspeeder, so new its paint still gleamed. She hit a button and the skimmer’s console lit up; it rose a meter in the air and hovered, waiting. “Consider it reenabled.”

“Brilliant. Twelve, move that over near the door. Program it to move straight out ten meters, turn ninety degrees to starboard, and run as fast as it can.”

Piggy nodded. He jumped into the skimmer’s passenger seat.

“What’s the plan?” asked Wedge.

“Send out the skimmer as a lure. I expect the troopers and TIE fighters to fire on it. That’ll draw their aim off the doors for a few seconds. We shoot out in the skiff and we can overrun one of the TIE fighters. That reduces the effective odds against us by nearly half. Then we only have to worry about the other TIE fighter.”

Wedge smiled. “If we’re fast enough that’s not a worry. We’re in a cargo skiff, remember?”

“Uh-huh?”

“With a cargo skiff’s load lifters?”

Kell laughed.

“Six, Ten, fall back!” Kell waved them toward him.

Everyone but Runt. Tyria, and Piggy were already in the floating skiff. Runt and Tyria abandoned the riddled door they were guarding. When they reached the skiff, the others hauled them over the rails.

“Hit it, Twelve.”

The Gamorrean pilot slapped the control against the wall. The hangar door began to grind farther open,