Star Wars - Han Solo at Star's End Page 2

  I could always hit the beach, he thought. Find a nice planet somewhere, go native. It’s a big galaxy.

  But he shook his head. No use fooling himself. If he were grounded, he might as well be dead. What could one planet, any planet, offer someone who had knocked around among the stars? The need for the boundless provinces of space was now a part of him.

  And so when, broke and in debt, he and Chewbacca had been approached for a run deep into Authority steer-clear territory, they’d jumped at the job. In spite of all the perils and uncertainties, the run still let them raise ship again and experience the freedom of star-travel. Risk of death or capture had been, in their eyes, the lesser of two evils.

  But that brought up another point. The Authority ship had somehow picked up the Millennium Falcon before her own sensors had detected the other. No doubt the Security Police had something new in the way of detection equipment, thereby making Han’s and Chewbacca’s lives more complicated by an order of ten. This situation would require immediate future attention.

  Han kept a close watch on the jungle around him, wishing he could have left the ship’s floodlights on. So, when a voice at his side announced, “We are here,” he twisted around with a yelp, his blaster appearing in his fist as if conjured there.

  A creature, barely out of arm’s reach, was calmly standing next to the ramp. It was almost Han’s height, a biped, with a downy, globular torso and short arms and legs boasting more joints than a human’s. Its head was small, but equipped with large, unblinking eyes. Its mouth and throat were a loose, pouchy affair; its scent was the scent of the jungle.

  “That,” Han grumbled, recovering his composure and putting his blaster away, “is a good way to get yourself roasted.”

  The creature ignored the sarcasm. “You have brought what we need?”

  “I’ve got cargo for you. Beyond that, I know zero, which is the way I want it. If you came alone, you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

  The creature turned and made an eerie, piping noise. Figures seemed to grow up out of the ground, dozens of them, motionless, regarding the pilot and his ship with silent gazes. They held short objects of some sort, which he assumed to be weapons.

  Then he heard a growl from above. Stepping forward, Han looked up and saw Chewbacca standing out on one of the ship’s bow mandibles, covering the newcomers with his bowcaster. Han gave a signal. His hairy first mate put up the bowcaster and headed back inboard.

  “Time’s wasting,” Han told the creature. It moved toward the Falcon, taking its companions with it. Han stopped them with upheld hands. “Not the whole choir, friend. Just you, for starters.” The first one burbled to its fellows and came on alone.

  Inside the ship, Chewbacca had turned up the blackout lights to a minimal glow in strategic parts of the interior. The towering Wookiee was already drawing cover plates off the hidden compartments, concealed and shielded to be undetectable, under the deck near the ramp. Into this space, where he and Han usually hid whatever contraband they were carrying, Chewbacca lowered himself to stand with his waist at deck level. Releasing clamps and strapping, the Wookiee began lifting out heavy oblong cases, the huge muscles beneath his fur bulging with effort.

  Han pulled the end of a case around and broke its seals. Within the crate weapons lay stacked. They had been so treated that no part of them reflected any of the scant light. Han took one up, checked its charge, made sure the safety was on, then handed it to the creature.

  The firearm was a carbine—short, lightweight, uncomplicated. Like all the others in the shipment, this one was fitted with a simple optical scope, shoulder sling, bipod, and folding bayonet. Though the creature obviously wasn’t used to handling an energy weapon, its ready acceptance, grip, and posture showed that it had seen them often enough. It shifted the carbine in its hands, peered down the barrel, and examined the trigger carefully.

  “Ten cases, two hundred rifles,” Han told it, taking up another carbine. He flipped up its butt plate, pointing out the adapters through which the weapon’s power pack could be recharged. These were obsolete weapons by current standards, but they had no internal moving parts and were extremely durable, so much so that they could safely be shipped or stored without Gel-Coat or other preservative. Any one of these carbines, left leaning against a fern in the jungle, would be fully operable ten years from now. Those advantages would be important on this world, where the carbines’ new owners would be able to provide little maintenance.

  The creature nodded, understanding how the recharging worked. “We have already stolen small generators,” it told Han, “from the Authority compounds. We came here because they promised us jobs, and a good life, and we celebrated our good fortune, for our world is poor. But they worked us like slaves and would not let us leave. Many of us escaped to live in the wilds; this world is not unlike our own. Now, with these weapons, we will be able to fight back—”

  “Stop!” Han snarled with a slashing gesture of his hand, and a violence that made the creature recoil. Reining in his temper, he went on, “I don’t want to hear it, get me? I don’t know you, you don’t know me. It’s none of my business, so don’t tell me!”

  The large eyes were fixed on him. He looked away. “I got half my pay on account when I lifted off. The other half comes when I get out of here, so why don’t you just take your stuff and scratch gravel? And don’t forget: no firing those things until I’ve left. An Authority ship just might register the noise.”

  He recalled that advance, paid in glow-pearls, fire nodes, diamonds, nova-crystals, and other precious gems smuggled off this mining planet at terrible risk by whatever sympathizers the contract-slaves had found. Rather than buy their own freedom in a quick dash aboard the Falcon, these fugitives were about to throw themselves into a doomed rebellion against the power of the Corporate Sector Authority. Morons.

  He stepped out of the creature’s way. It watched him for a moment, then went and piped at the open hatch. Others of its kind came scampering up, crowding around the hatch. Their weapons could be seen now, primitive spear-throwers and blowguns. Some carried daggers of volcanic glass. They had clever hands, all three fingers of which were mutually opposable. They filed inboard, surrounding the rifle cases and straining to lift them in teams of sixes and sevens. Chewbacca looked at them in amusement. The cases, being borne away down the ramp and into the jungle, reminded Han of some bizarre funeral procession.

  Remembering something, he took the solemn leader aside, “Does the Authority have a warship stationed here? Big-big ship, with lots of guns?”

  The creature thought for a moment. “One big ship, which carries cargo, carries passengers. It has big guns on it, and meets other ships up in the sky, to load and unload them, sometimes.”

  Just as Han had thought. He hadn’t encountered a true combat vessel, but rather a heavily armed lighter. Bad, but not as bad as he’d thought. But the creature wasn’t finished. “We will need more,” it said; “more weapons, more help.”

  “Consult your clergyman,” Han suggested dryly, helping Chewie replace the deckplates. “Or fix up a deal through your own channels, like this run. I’m out; you won’t see me again. I’m just doing business.”

  The creature cocked its head at him, as if trying to understand. Han thrust aside the thought of what life must be like in a forced-labor camp, a driven, joyless existence if ever there was one. That was a common pattern in the Corporate Sector, naive outworlders lured by false promises, signing on only to become prisoners once they reached the compounds. And what could these few fugitives hope to accomplish?

  The luck of the draw, he reminded himself. Hits off the Cosmic Deck didn’t always make things Right, but Right wouldn’t fill an egg timer on Tatooine. You played the cards you got, and Han Solo liked to be on that end of things with the largest profit margin.

  But Chewie was staring down at him. Han sighed; the big lug was a good first mate, but a soft touch. Well, the tip about the Authority ship was worth something—a hint
, maybe, a useful lesson. Han snatched the carbine from the leader irritably.

  “Just remember this, you’re prey. Got me? You’ve got to think like prey, and use your brains.”

  The creature understood and moved closer, standing on tiptoe to see what Han was doing with the carbine.

  “It’s got three settings, see? Safety, single shot, and constant fire. Now, the Security Police here use those riot guns, right? Sawed-off, two-handers? They’re real fond of using constant fire, because they can afford to waste power, just hosing it around. You can’t. What you do is, lock all your carbines on single shot. And if you get into a firefight at night or in the deep jungle where visibility’s poor, shoot at the constant-fire sources. You’ll know it’s none of your people, so it must be Security Police. You’ve got to start using your brain.”

  The creature looked from the man to the carbine and back again. “Yes,” it assured him, retrieving the weapon, “we will remember. Thank you.”

  Han sniffed, knowing how much they still had to learn. And they’d have to learn it on their own, or the Authority would grind them under its vast heel. And on how many worlds, he asked himself, was the Authority doing just that?

  His thoughts were interrupted by distant sounds of blaster fire off in the jungle. The creature had moved to the hatch, with its carbine leveled at them. “I am sorry,” it told them, “but we had to test some of the weapons here, now, to make certain they work.”

  It lowered the carbine and fled down the ramp, heading for the jungle. So much for world-saving. “I take it all back,” Han said to Chewie as they leaned on the open hatch. “They might do all right at that.”

  Their long-range sensors had been knocked out by the destruction of the Falcon’s dish antenna on the approach run. The ship would have to make a blind lift-off, taking her chances on running into trouble.

  Han and Chewbacca stood atop the Falcon for nearly an hour, straining to patch the damaged antenna mount. Han didn’t begrudge the time; it had been a worthwhile effort and, if nothing else, had given the fugitives time to leave the rendezvous area. Because, sure as stink in a spacesuit, the Falcon’s lift-off would be plotted and its point of origin thoroughly searched.

  They could wait no longer. The first lightening of the sky would bring every flitter, skimmer, and armed gig the local Authority officials could lay hands on, in a tight visual search grid. Chewbacca, sensing Han’s mood, made a snarling comment in his own language.

  Han lowered his macrobinoculars. “Correct. Let’s raise ship.”

  They adjourned below, buckled in, and ran through a preflight—warming up engines, guns, shields. Han declared, “I’m betting that lighter will be holding low, where his sensors will do him the most good. If we come up any distance away from him, we can outrun him and dive for hyperspace.”

  Chewbacca yelped. Han poked him in the ribs. “What’s eating you? We just have to play this hand out.” He realized he was talking to hear himself. He shut up. The Millennium Falcon lifted, hovering for just a moment as her landing gear retracted. Then Han tenderly guided her up through the opening in the jungle’s leafy ceiling.

  “Sorry,” he apologized to his ship, knowing what abuse she was about to take. He fired her up, stood her on her tail, and opened main thrusters wide. The starship screeched away into the sky, leaving the river steaming and the jungle smoldering. Duroon fell away quickly, and Han began to think they had the problem licked.

  Then the tractor beam hit.

  The freighter shook as the powerful, pulling beam fixed on her. High above, the Authority captain had played it smart, knowing he was looking for a faster, more maneuverable foe. Having outwitted the smuggler, he now brought his ship plummeting down the planet’s gravity well, picking up enough speed to compensate for any dodge the Falcon might try in her steep climb. The tractor pulled the two ships inexorably into alignment.

  “Shields-forward, all. Angle ’em, and get set to fire!” Han and Chewbacca were throwing switches, fighting their controls, struggling desperately to free their ship. In moments it became clear their actions were futile.

  “Ready to shift all deflectors astern,” Han ordered, bringing his helm over. “It’ll have to be a staring match, Chewie.”

  The Wookiee’s defiant roars shook the cockpit as his partner swung the freighter onto a new course, straight at the enemy vessel. All the Falcon’s defensive power was channeled to redouble her forward shields. The Authority ship was coming at them at a frightening rate; the distance between ships evaporated in seconds. The Authority lighter, making hits at extreme range, jounced the two around their cockpit but did no major damage.

  “Hold fire, hold fire,” Han chanted under his breath. “We’ll train all batteries aft and kick him going away.” The controls vibrated and fought in their hands as the Falcon’s engines gave every erg of effort. Deflector shields struggled under a salvo of long-range blaster-cannon fire, lances of yellow-green annihilation. The Falcon ascended on a column of blue energy as if she lusted for a fiery double death in collision with her antagonist. Rather than fight the tractor beam, she threw herself toward its source. The Authority ship came into visual range and, a moment later, filled the Falcon’s canopy.

  At the last instant, the warship’s captain’s nerve gave. The tractor faded as the lighter began a desperate evasion maneuver. With reflexes that were more like precognition, Han threw everything he had into an equally frantic bank. The two ships’ shields couldn’t have left more than a meter or two between them in that blindingly fast near miss.

  Chewbacca was already shifting all shields aft. The Falcon’s main batteries, trained astern, hammered at the Authority vessel at close range. Han scored two hits on the lighter, perhaps no more than superficial damage, but a moral victory after a long, bad night. The Authority ship rocked. Chewbacca howled, and Han exulted, “Last licks!”

  The lighter plunged downward, unable to halt her steep dive quickly. The freighter bolted out of Duroon’s atmospheric envelope, out into the void where she belonged. Far below her, the Authority vessel was just beginning to pull out of her dive, all chance of pursuit lost.

  Han fed jump data into the navicomputer as Chewbacca ran damage checks. Nothing irreparable, the Wookiee decided, but everything would have to have a thorough going-over. But Han Solo and Chewbacca the Wookiee had their money, their freedom, and, for a wonder, their lives. And that, Han thought, should be enough for anyone, shouldn’t it?

  The starship’s raving engines carved a line of blue fire across infinity. Han engaged the hyperdrive. Stars seemed to fall away in all directions as the ship outraced sluggard Light. The Millennium Falcon’s main drive boomed, and she disappeared as if she’d never been there.

  II

  THEY knew they’d be watched, of course, from the moment they docked their battered freighter.

  Etti IV was a planet open to general trade, a world where dry winds swept amber, moss-covered plains and shallow, saline seas beneath vermilion skies. It had no remarkable resources in and of itself, but was hospitable to humans and humanoids and occupied a strategic spot on star-routes.

  On Etti IV, great wealth had been gathered by lords of the Corporate Sector, and with this wealth had come its universal corollary, a thriving criminal element. Now, Han and Chewbacca made their way down a street of fusion-formed soil, between low buildings of press-bonded minerals and tall ones of permacite and shaped formex. They wove through the spaceport toward the Authority Currency Exchange, with the Wookiee guiding a rented repulsor-lift handtruck. On the handtruck were cases resembling strongboxes, and it was for that reason that the two assumed they’d be watched. The boxes were just the sort of thing to pique the curiosities of assorted criminal types.

  But the duo also knew that any watchers would weigh risk against revenue. In the risk column would be Han’s gunman’s rig and his loose, confident gait, plus Chewbacca’s looming presence and ready bowcaster, not to mention the strength and ferocity to twist any attacker’s body
into new and different shapes.

  So they went their way in confidence, knowing that, as targets, they would appeal to neither the good business sense nor the survival instincts of any would-be stickup artist.

  The Authority Currency Exchange had no idea it was abetting a transaction involving gunrunning and insurrection. Han and Chewbacca had already managed to unload the gems with which they’d been paid, exchanging them for precious metals and rare crystalline vertexes. In a Corporate Sector encompassing tens of thousands of star systems, the kind of record-keeping that could keep track of every debt and payment was beyond even the most sophisticated data system. So, without a hitch, Han Solo, tramp freighter captain, smuggler, and freelance law-bender, had converted most of his payment into a nice neat Authority Cash Voucher. If he’d had a hat, he’d have tipped it to the chirping disbursements auto-clerk that spat the voucher at him. He tucked the little plastic chit into a vest pocket.

  When they’d left the Exchange, the Wookiee let out one of his long, hooting barks. Han answered, “Yeah, yeah, we’ll pay Ploovo Two-For-One, but first we’ve got one stop to make.”

  His sidekick growled loudly, startling bystanders with his displeasure and inviting a dangerous sort of attention. A detachment of Security Police appeared out of the swirl of humans, ’droids, and nonhumans moving along the street.

  “Hey, lighten up, pal!” Han murmured out of the side of his mouth. The brown-uniformed Security Police, their suspicious eyes darting beneath battle helmets, sauntered along four abreast, their weapons held ready, as pedestrians moved quickly out of their way. Han saw two of the black battle helmets bob, and knew they’d heard the Wookiee’s outburst. But the disturbance apparently didn’t merit their attention, and the detachment went its way.

  Han stared after them, shaking his head. There were all kinds of cops in the galaxy, some of them good, some not. But the Authority’s private Security Police—“Espos,” in slangtalk—were among the worst. Their enforcements had nothing to do with law or justice, but only with the edicts of the Corporate Sector Authority. Han had never been able to figure out what turned a man into an unquestioning Espo bully-boy; he merely tried to ensure that he didn’t cross trails with any of them.