She held out her hand and hauled him up when he took it. Han was uncomfortably aware of her body beside his; that he was a man and she was a woman, and that against all odds, they hadn’t just died together.
“Well,” she said, wiping the blood from her mouth. “So much for the easy part.”
Ten
The Falcon thumped with the sounds of blasterfire hitting her shields. The ship rocked as Chewbacca slammed down the throttle to get away from their pursuers. The Wookiee’s howl came from the cockpit as if it were a kilometer away. The metal creaked and groaned, the superstructure of the freighter warping under the strain.
“I’m so sorry, honey, I know this has been rough on you,” Han said.
“I’ve had worse,” Scarlet said, frowning at him. “And don’t call me ‘honey.’”
“The ship. I was talking to my ship,” Han said as he ran, limping, down the corridor to the cockpit. “This beating she’s taking? It’s because of you. Be nice to her.”
Chewbacca was strapped into the copilot’s chair, frantically pulling at the controls as the Falcon climbed over the city. Green bolts of plasma and turbolaser fire streaked past as the Imperial fliers gave pursuit. A red light flashed a shield overload warning on the panel behind him.
Han threw himself into the pilot’s seat and gestured at the third chair with his head. Scarlet took the hint and buckled in.
“Heya, pal, thanks for the save,” Han said.
Chewbacca growled back, waving at all the flashing damage indicators.
“Hey, believe me, Her Royalness will be paying for every scratch when we’re done here.”
“‘Her Royalness’?” Scarlet said.
“Still not talking about you,” Han said, then yanked at a control bar to spin the Falcon in a hard bank. A virtual wall of incoming fire flew past them as the ship spun out of its path. When they’d stopped their wild maneuvering, Han looked over his shoulder at Scarlet. “Not everything is about you, you know.”
“I don’t think everything is—” she started.
“Shush,” Han said, and she sputtered with indignation. He pointed out ahead of them as the sky went from dark blue to black. “Out of atmosphere now, the fliers can’t chase us.”
Chewie unbuckled from his seat and headed toward the back of the ship.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Han yelled.
Chewie rumbled back at him and kept walking.
“Ha!” Scarlet said. “I’m not the only one who thinks your plan was terrible.”
Han spun his chair to face her. “Hey, I got you off that planet in one piece. And got you your precious data from one of the most secure installations in the Empire. Now who’s the best?”
She rolled her eyes at him.Something else occurred to him. “Hey, you speak Wookiee?”
“No one speaks Wookiee but Wookiees,” she said. “I mean, I can order a drink or find the bathroom okay. . .”
Scarlet trailed off, her eyes wide and her face pale.
“What—” he began.
She shook her head and pointed behind him. He spun his chair around. Four Imperial Star Destroyers were bearing down on them.
“Huh,” Han said. “Probably should have seen that coming.”
“Hurry,” Scarlet said. “Get us out of here.”
“I am hurrying,” Han replied, spinning the ship around and throwing the throttle to full.
“Hurry faster,” she said.
“You keep saying that. It’s not as helpful as you think.” Han opened up the ship’s internal comm. “Hey, buddy, gonna need you to get those shields stabilized!”
A loud Wookiee yell reverberated through the ship.
“Well, how do I know you’re already working on things when you don’t tell me you’re already working on things!”
Scarlet unbuckled, moved to the copilot’s seat, and strapped in there. “Tell me what you need.”
“Keep those rear deflectors angled to bounce the incoming fire,” Han said. “We’ll need some time to calculate the jump to lightspeed.”
“How much time?”
The ship rocked with a lucky long-range shot from one of the Star Destroyers. “More,” Han said, and started punching keys on the computer.
“How old is this navicomputer? Are you still running the Minashi-Ryu jump protocols?” Scarlet asked, fingers working fast on the deflector controls. She had skills, Han had to admit. He wondered if it would be enough with four big Imperial Destroyers hammering them.
“Not so old,” he said defensively. “I’ve been meaning to upgrade, but I’ve been busy.”
“Busy?”
“Fighting the Empire,” Han snapped, keying in the jump data as quickly as the deck would accept it. “You may have heard of it? Stormtroopers, Death Stars, Darth Vader?”
The ship rocked again as the Star Destroyers closed the distance and began landing more hits.
“You’re awfully testy,” Scarlet said.
“Raise your hand if you’ve fought all of those things in the last year,” Han said, raising his hand.
Scarlet grinned at him. “Maybe you should keep that on the controls.” As if to punctuate her point, the ship rocked with a barrage of incoming fire.
“They’ve got us in their range,” Han said. He twisted the controls, sending the Falcon spinning off in a hard starboard turn. The Star Destroyers were fast and bristling with firepower, but they turned like drunken banthas. He needed to buy a few more seconds for the navicomputer to do its work.
“Well. That’s disappointing,” Scarlet said, and the ship shuddered under a new wave of incoming fire.
“What is?”
“Those,” she said, as four TIE fighters streaked past in a diamond formation and banked hard to port for a second pass. “Can we out-turn them?”
“We can try.”
“Let’s do.”
The deflector alarm shouted an urgent warning at them as the rear shields started to fail.
“Chewie!” Han yelled into the comm. “We need those shields up!”
A long, loud series of growls echoed through the ship.
“Your friend has a real gift for profanity,” Scarlet said. “How’s the navicomputer doing?”
“It’s fine, almost done,” Han yelled. Then he leaned down to whisper, “Come on, baby, be almost done.”
The TIE fighters came about and streaked toward the Falcon, laser cannons blazing. Han sent the ship into a tight spin, trying to slip the wide but thin hull through the worst of the incoming fire. The view through the window became a series of blinding flashes as the shields took hit after hit. A second alarm started blaring out a warning that the front deflectors were failing, too.
“Chewie!” Han yelled into the comm.
“How about—” Scarlet started, punching something on the computer. She never finished, because the console went dark in a spray of sparks. She patted at her shirt, keeping it from catching on fire.
“What did you do?” Han asked incredulously. “What did you do!”
“I didn’t do anything,” Scarlet yelled back.
Han pounded a fist on the console. “Come on, baby, wake up! We’re in the middle of a gunfight here.”
The console flickered once, then went dark again. Outside, the TIE fighters rolled through another hard bank and lined up a new strafing run.
Chewbacca howled from the back, and the console lit back up at the same time the shield warnings stopped screeching at them.
“See?” Scarlet said. “I told you it wasn’t me!”
“Good job, pal,” Han said into the comm. “Now can you convince the navicomp to hurry up?”
Chewbacca whined his disappointment at the thin praise.
“Or we could blow up, would that be better?” Han asked.
Chewbacca grumbled.
“He’s your only friend, right?” Scarlet asked. “Wonder why.”
“Chewie is not my only—” Han started, but he stopped talking to send the Falcon into another serie
s of spins to avoid the TIE fighters. A new alarm sounded, warning of the approaching Star Destroyers and their much heavier banks of turbolasers. The Falcon could handle the TIE fighters for a while, but the big Imperial ships would chew through her shields in seconds if they got in range.
Han tapped on the navicomputer’s console, encouraging it to go faster. “Luke Skywalker, for instance,” he said.
“Who?” Scarlet asked as she shifted the deflectors to deal with the new and deadlier threat of the Star Destroyers.
“Another friend of mine,” Han said. “Good friend. Hero of the Rebellion, you know. Very close friend. Luke Skywalker.”
“I know who he is.”
“Then why did you ask who he was?”
“I wasn’t actually listening to you,” Scarlet said. “Can we jump now?”
The TIE fighters were no longer strafing them. They were maneuvering to force the Falcon into a turn. Just like they were supposed to. Drive the ship toward the heavies, and let the big guns of the Star Destroyers take them out. Classic Imperial tactics. Han admired their skill while trying to think of ways to kill them.
“Get into one of the turrets,” he said.
Scarlet barked out a laugh. “We’re not shooting our way out of this.”
“Can it hurt to try?”
“We need a miracle.”
As if in answer to her statement, the four TIE fighters peeled off at high speed. The Star Destroyers also began a lumbering turn back toward the planet. One by one, all the various alarms on the Falcon stopped squawking.
Han held his breath for a moment, but nothing changed. The Imperial ships kept angling away.
“They’re . . . leaving?” Scarlet said in disbelief.
Han leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “Did I mention that I’m the best?”
“You’re taking credit for this?” she asked.
“I admit,” Han continued, unbuckling to stand up and check on the main navigation computer, “it’s not my absolute best work. Five is, I think, my personal record.”
“Five,” Scarlet echoed.
“Star Destroyers. I once evaded five while doing a spice-smuggling run off Tatooine. That was my best, as far I recall. But four is not bad. Four is more than your normal space pilot could possibly hope to deal with.”
“You are,” Scarlet said, nodding to herself. “You’re taking credit for it. You didn’t evade them. They left. There’s clearly something else going on here. Hold on.”
She put Chewbacca’s headset to her ear, the loop of it reaching almost the full length of her forearm, and tapped through the signal relays. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of chatter on the military frequencies, but it’s all encrypted. Something’s got them spooked. Aren’t you worried about that?”
“Not even a little,” Han said, banging on the navicomputer with the side of one fist, then dropping back into his chair. “Computer had to reset when the power dropped for a second, but she’ll be back in a minute, and then we can finish our jump to lightspeed. Have you back with your Rebellion pals in no time.”
“You,” Scarlet said, “are a crazy person. I’m starting to question how much my ‘Rebellion pals’ actually like me if they sent you to get me.”
Han leaned back, grinning and putting his hands over his heart dramatically. “You wound me. And after I saved you from the vast might of an Evil Empire.”
Chewbacca stomped back into the cockpit, growling.
“Yes, that was good work,” Han said. “But don’t expect any thanks from our friend here. Seems she pays in insults.”
Chewbacca growled out a complicated explanation.
“Well,” Han said, “then we better fix it fast before our Imperial friends decide to come back.”
“What was that?” Scarlet asked as Chewbacca left. “I didn’t catch him. I’m behind with technical terms in Wookiee.”
“Chewie says the power reboot blew a few circuits in the navicomputer. Not a big deal. He’ll have it back up in no time. But we took a beating otherwise. This trip is going to be expensive. I hope whatever you’ve got is worth it to the rebels.”
Scarlet laughed in disbelief. “Please remember that you didn’t do anything but get us shot until the Empire got distracted and left.”
“You see, that’s an ungenerous view—”
“And you’re calling into question my value after I spent months working on one of the most dangerous worlds in the Empire?”
“Hey, sister, I didn’t realize it was so important to you to impress me,” Han said with a grin.
Scarlet’s eyes narrowed, but whatever her retort was going to be was lost when the proximity alarm started screeching again.
“Did they come back?” she said.
“No,” Han said, looking at the approaching ship. “This is something else.”
Scarlet leaned forward, her hands flying over the copilot’s console. “It’s a Sienar Fleet Systems design,” she said. “It’s been modified a lot. It looks like an NM-six-hundred series.”
“Wait, I know that ship . . .”
The comm crackled and came to life.
“Han Solo, my old friend.”
Han shook his head in shock. “Baasen? Didn’t I shoot you?”
Baasen Ray laughed. “Surely you did, my boy. I’m trying to take it philosophical. Difficult, though. You said some hurtful things about me back there. Cruel’s a terrible thing to be.”
Scarlet stared a question at Han. He turned off the comm. “Baasen Ray. Bounty hunter. He’s the reason I had a hard time finding you. He screwed up your drop in order to catch me.”
“You’re being chased by bounty hunters?”
“Hello?” Baasen said. “Tell me we’re still on speaking terms, boyo. I’d hate to start shooting you needless.”
Han turned the comm back on. “Yeah, uh, hi. So, Baasen, old pal, we’re on our way out, but you be sure to let Jabba know when you see him that I’m on my way with the money real soon.”
“Boy,” Baasen growled at him, all pretense of good humor gone. “I think I explained that. I can’t go back without you, or it’s my head on Jabba’s spike. So be a good lad and prepare to be boarded.”
“Yeah,” Han said, “I’m going to go with ‘no’ on that one. What now?”
“I could blow you into vapor and bring you back to Jabba in a bottle,” Baasen said, his voice deceptively reasonable.
Han killed the comm again. “Chewie? How’s that computer reset going?”
“So just do what I say,” Baasen continued, “and maybe I let the Wookiee and the woman go free. That’s a deal you won’t be offered twice.”
“He’d never let you go. He’d sell you to the Empire,” Han said to Scarlet.
“I believe you,” she replied.
Han turned the comm back on. “So, yeah, Baasen? We’re all not very excited about that deal. Here’s another scenario. Why don’t you go wait for me on Tatooine, and I’ll have the money sent directly to you. You can give Jabba his share, explain the misunderstanding, and everyone wins.”
Behind him, the navigation computer gave a series of clicks and restarted. Scarlet moved over to it, then whispered to Han, “Where to?”
Anywhere fast, he mouthed back at her.
“Solo, my boy,” Baasen said, “it hurts me that you think I’m so dim about the wits. Even the pain of my severed hand is nothing compared with how your contempt makes me feel. If you ever wondered why you’re so unpopular, that might be it. You just think you’re so much better than everyone else.”
“I have lots of friends,” Han said.
“No, my dear boy, you don’t. What you’ve got are accomplices.”
Scarlet was busily programming the jump computer. Chewbacca seemed to have everything running well. Han leaned back in his chair with a grin Baasen couldn’t see and said, “You’ve got me there. As always, you see right through me.”
“I bet you were congratulating yourself on escaping those Star Destroyers, eh???
?
Scarlet gave him a narrow I-told-you-so look.
“Well,” Han said. “I wouldn’t go so far as—”
“That was me, boy. Might have sent a panicky message on the Imperial channel that a rebel fleet was inbound. Bigger threat, needing all the resources available to meet in glorious battle or some such. Bounced it off one of their out-system watch posts. Take them the better part of an hour to be sure you weren’t a distraction.”
“That worked?” Han asked, wondering why he’d never thought to do it.
“So, are you going to make me kill you, or are you going to shut down your drive and we can handle this in person like gentlemen? You never know, my good word in Jabba’s ear might save you a world of pain.”
Chewbacca looked into the cockpit and growled out a question. Han pointed up at the top turret. The Wookiee chuffed and shambled off.
“Your concern for my well-being does you credit after I shot your hand off,” Han said.
“Are you trying to provoke me?” Baasen asked. “Or are you just stalling for time?”
“No, not at all,” Han said. “Just want to make sure I have your attention when I give you my answer.”
“Well, you’ve got it—” Baasen was saying, but Han killed the comm channel to him.
“Let him have it,” Han said to Chewbacca on the internal comm.
The upper turret let loose with a barrage of fire that hammered Baasen’s ship, and Han threw the throttle to maximum.
“Almost done?” he asked Scarlet.
“Nearly,” she said. “I think that guy really hates you.”
“I’m not too fond of him. It won’t matter in a minute. Chewie! Keep hitting him in the face until we jump!”
The Wookiee growled back, but the fire from the upper turret never let up.
“Okay,” Scarlet said. “Just about ready.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing. Here. We.” Han’s “Go” was drowned out by the squawking of a proximity alarm. The ship rocked as Baasen unloaded a barrage of laser cannon fire. The blasts struck across the top of the ship, one of them even hitting the cockpit. The shield alarms began blaring again.