The morning sunlight was bouncing off the duracrete wall, aggravating an already splitting headache and making it even more difficult to see through fogged goggles. Somewhere ahead—more than four hundred meters above the nearest pedway and two full kilometers of traffic-choked skylane above the actual planetary surface—was an expansion joint in need of inspection. To Han, it was just a dusky line running through a blurry gray radiance, a convenient excuse to be floating next to Detention Center 81. He shuffled along the repulsorlift-equipped scaffold—a hoverscaf—to the seam, then ran his gloved fingers up its length. When he felt a ribbon of sticky slime, he selected an electric slug-paddle from his tool belt and ran it up the trail until he hit something soft.
Instantly the silica slug flattened itself across the expansion joint. Han hit the trigger, electrifying the paddle blade. The slug curled into a ball, and half a second later it was killed and simultaneously captured by a barbed skewer that shot from the handle. Han quickly turned and thrust the body into the incineration vat in the middle of the hoverscaf, but he was not quick enough to prevent its spiracles from releasing a noxious yellow fume that seeped past the respirator mask’s imperfect seal. The stuff smelled like boiling tar poured into a nexu’s litterbox. His eyes watered, making it even more difficult to see, and his stomach threatened to empty its contents into his respirator mask.
Han stumbled to the back of the hoverscaf and pulled down his goggles and respirator, then braced his hands on the safety rail and stared down into the traffic-choked lane below. Why he had ever let Taryn Zel talk him into impersonating an exterminator, he had no idea.
Except, of course, that it had been the only way to get a rescue team close to the building. Given the short timetable and the facility’s stepped-up security, it had quickly grown apparent that trying to sneak a squad of impostors inside was out of the question. Then R2-D2 had discovered that the schematics on record with the Coruscant Building Authority—and the Planetary Fire Suppression Office—were inconsistent with modern engineering practices, and Zekk had quickly realized that someone in GAS had taken the precaution of filing false plans for the facility. In the end, with no reliable intelligence except the precise spatial coordinates at which the tracking bugs had gone silent, the Solos had settled for the most basic of all plans: blast their way inside, find the Horn kids, and get out.
A respirator-muffled voice sounded from the other end of the hoverscaf. “Who said it was break time?”
Han looked over at his scaffold partner. With his identity hidden behind his exterminator’s uniform—yellow hard hat, goggles, respirator, and white jumpsuit bearing the logo RUNKIL REMEDIATION—only the fellow’s two-meter height and the wisps of black hair brushing his collar identified him as Jaina’s old mission partner and ex-sort-of-boyfriend, Zekk.
“Hey, I’m only human,” Han complained. Unlike Zekk and the rest of the Jedi on the “extermination” team, Han could not call on the Force to keep his goggles clear and his gorge from rising. He had only his stubbornness and a lifetime of hard living to get him through the next few minutes of pretending—and for the first time in a long time, he was worried it might not be enough. “If Runkil doesn’t want us taking breaks, they should spring for droids.”
“Droids won’t do this work,” Zekk joked. He glanced past Han’s shoulder, then added, “Now you’ve done it. The boss lady is headed our way.”
Han glanced up to see Taryn Zel zipping toward them on her little boss-floater. Like everyone else on the rescue team, she was dressed in a white jumpsuit bearing the logo RUNKIL REMEDIATION on the breast pocket. Instead of the hard hat and other protective gear, she wore a white supervisor’s cap with a bright red bill that clashed badly with her auburn hair.
“Sick again, old man?” she called. “Maybe you should stop going out on work nights.”
Han shot her a watery-eyed glower that was only half acting. Taryn was the only member of the rescue team whose face was unlikely to be in the GAS recognition files, so she had been the natural choice to enter the reception area and present a forged work order to the desk guards. Of course, that also meant she got to play the extermination crew’s boss and take the easy job flitting around barking orders while everyone else scraped silica-eating parasites off the exterior of Detention Center 81.
“Going out the night before isn’t my problem, boss,” Han replied loudly. “It’s listening to you harp all day that turns my stomach.”
It was impossible to say whether the flash that came to Taryn’s eyes was one of anger or amusement. But as she swung her boss-floater around next to Han and Zekk’s hoverscaf, she was careful to position it so that her body was between them and the nearest cam bubble.
“I don’t know why corporate makes me keep you on, you old foghead,” Taryn said loudly. “The foam crew is about to catch you.”
She pointed ten meters up the wall, where Leia and Jaina were also disguised as Runkil exterminators. They were moving their hoverscaf across the building, coating the duracrete in a thin blanket of foam that, when it evaporated, would leave behind a residual layer of parasite-killing poison. In the meantime, however, the foam was obscuring the cam bubbles that dotted the building and making it impossible for the guards inside to keep tabs on the extermination crew on the exterior.
“It’s not my fault they’re skipping windowsills,” Han groused.
He glanced down and saw that Natua Wan and Seff Hellin were already hovering in front of their go-point on level 1910. Their foam crew, consisting of Yaqeel Saav’etu and Kunor Bann, was just coating the last cam bubble between the two levels where the rescue team would enter the building. All four were formerly psychotic Jedi Knights whom Daala had wanted to freeze in carbonite along with the Horn kids, and Han delighted in knowing that Daala would recognize that the Council had chosen the rescue team to send a message: the Jedi were through being pushed around.
“Your foam crew isn’t skipping anything, old man,” Taryn said. As she spoke, Leia and Jaina descended behind her and coated the last cam bubble in foam. For the next hour, the guards in the detention center control room would be blind to what the extermination crew was doing. Whether the cam bubbles also had audio capabilities was anybody’s guess, so the rescue team had to stay in character—at least until they started blowing things up. “If you can’t keep up—”
“I can keep up.” Han pointed at the cam bubble behind Taryn and nodded. Once the bubbles were obscured, the plan called for the rescue team to enter in two squads, Squad Saav’etu on level 1910 where Jysella’s tracking bug had gone silent, and Squad Solo on level 1913 where Valin’s had gone silent. “Don’t you worry about that.”
Leia’s foam nozzle began to sputter, and Jaina brought their hoverscaf down behind Taryn.
“Hey, boss,” Leia said. “I’m out of foam.”
Taryn smiled and winked at Zekk, then turned to face Leia. “Already? What are you doing with that stuff? Drinking it?”
“Oh yeah, boss—by the liter,” Leia retorted. “You want it done fast or do you want it done without overspray? I don’t do both.”
“All right, don’t get snappy,” Taryn replied. “I’ll call the supply van.”
It was the ready signal. Taryn activated her comlink and ordered Turi Altamik to bring the “supply van” around. As she spoke, Han and the rest of the rescue team were tearing off their goggles and respirators and removing weapons and equipment vests from the hoverscaf tool bins. By the time the Turi arrived, Han was outfitted with his blaster belt, a vestful of assorted grenades, a handsfree comlink, and a T-21 repeating blaster set to STUN. Zekk and the rest of the Jedi were traveling a little lighter, with only their lightsabers, a couple of grenades apiece, handsfree comlinks, blaster pistols—also set to STUN—and the standard assortment of Jedi equipment that always seemed useless until the instant it was needed.
Taryn waved the “supply van” alongside Han’s hoverscaf. Actually a Cygnus-7 armored transport vehicle, it had been disguised by overlaying a set of artificial body panels bearing the colors and logo of Runkil exterminators. The panels, of course, could be jettisoned at the push of a button, and the power train had been augmented with enough quadfeeds and thrust-boosters to give an Aratech BeamStreak a good race.
A side panel swished open to reveal C-3PO and R2-D2 standing in the doorway. “Oh, there you are, Cap—”
R2-D2 interrupted with a sharp tweet.
“Who are you calling a crossed circuit?” C-3PO retorted. “Of course I know we’re undercover.”
R2-D2 whistled an angry reply.
“Come on, you two.” Holding the repeating blaster in one hand, Han lifted the access gate in the rear safety rail. A narrow boarding ramp shot out from the Cygnus-7, bridging the half-meter distance between its side door and the hoverscaf. “We don’t have all day!”
R2-D2 rolled onto the ramp and was across in a second, but C-3PO took one look at the traffic-choked chasm below and activated his self-preservation routines.
“Are you quite sure that my presence is required?” he asked. “My gyroservers have been sticking—”
“Quit stalling,” Han ordered. He pointed at the foam-covered cam bubble, then held a finger to his lips. “You’ve got vibration detectors to calibrate.”
“Very well.” C-3PO put a tentative foot onto the ramp, wobbled, and raised both arms for balance. “But if I should happen to slip, please tell Princess—”
“No one’s slipping.”
Han leaned over the safety rail and grabbed the droid’s arm, guiding him forward—until the simultaneous crackle of two thermal detonators roared behind him. C-3PO raised his arms to shield his photoreceptors from the flash and nearly pulled Han halfway over the rail. Han raised a knee and managed to catch the rail between his thigh and waist, leaving them both hanging over a kilometer and a half of whirring nothingness. C-3PO’s arms began to wag wildly, threatening to rip free of Han’s grasp or break his hold on the safety rail and send them both plummeting down into the skylane.
“Threepio, stop that!” Han ordered. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
“Of course not, sir,” C-3PO replied. He lowered his arms at exactly the wrong moment, and Han found himself struggling to keep the droid from falling toward him. “Droids can’t be killed—only destroyed.”
Han dropped the blaster onto the hoverscaf and grabbed for the safety rail, but he was already starting to fall backward.
“Oh, dear!” C-3PO cried, now leaning away. “You seem to be pulling me off the rraaaggh!”
A fierce pang of agony shot up Han’s arm as the droid’s weight banged it down on the safety rail. The joint started to hyperextend, then Han felt himself rising and starting to flip over the rail after C-3PO.
“Hold on!” Zekk yelled.
“Hold on?” Han cried, trying not to think about all the things that were going to tear as soon as the droid’s weight snapped his elbow straight. “Are you crazy?”
But Han’s arm never reached full extension. Instead he felt himself sinking into the velvet hand of the Force. He looked over to find Zekk gesturing in his direction, floating him and C-3PO over the safety rail back onto the hoverscaf. Their feet had barely touched the deck before C-3PO was in front of Han, arms spread wide.
“Captain Solo, you just risked your life to prevent my untimely destruction,” he said. “Could you be suffering some manner of cognitive malfunction?”
“Obviously,” Han growled. “And—”
“Can we get on with the rescue?” Zekk interrupted. He retrieved the repeating blaster from the deck and passed it to Han, then glanced up the detention center wall. “After those detonators, they know we’re here.”
Han nodded, glared at C-3PO, then slipped the blaster’s strap over his shoulder and looked up in time to see Jaina and Leia disappearing through a still-smoking breach in the detention center wall. The fivemeter hole was perfectly round and clean, with sharp edges and a total lack of rubble—which was why thermal detonators were the favorite tool of demolition crews and urban assault squads alike. Han glanced down to check on Squad Saav’etu and saw an identical breach on the 1910 level, with Seff Hellin and Kunor Bann already inside the building and Natua Wan and Yaqeel Saav’etu just leaping off their hoverscaf into the hole. Like Jaina and Leia, their lightsabers remained unactivated—a sign that the detention center guards had not yet arrived to mount a defense.
By the time Han looked away, Zekk was already moving their own hoverscaf up toward the breach. As they rose, Han saw that the bowlshaped hole had actually exposed part of the level below their target level. Through the narrow gap, he could see down into a long corridor lined by sealed transparisteel doors. Standing behind most of the doors were beings dressed in fluorescent orange detainee uniforms. They appeared to be of many different species—there were a lot of Arcona, Askajians, and humans. Some looked shocked, others menacing. None appeared friendly.
The hoverscaf stopped in front of level 1913. Zekk quickly leapt across the two-and-a-half-meter gap into the building, landing in a corridor similar to the one below. Beyond him, Leia and Jaina were already racing toward a sealed security door, lightsabers in hand but not yet activated. Zekk spun around and used the Force to lift the droids into the passage, then turned to Han.
“You want a lift?”
Han eyed the distance to the edge of the corridor floor and silently thanked Zekk for making it sound like the offer was optional. He nodded. “You’d have made a great son-in-law, kid.”
“Too late,” Taryn called up. She was inside the Cygnus-7 now, preparing to take her new position as the escape-vehicle gunner. “Finders keepers.”
Zekk rolled his eyes, but smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Taryn,” he said. “After Relephon, I’m not changing anything.”
“What happened on Relephon?” Han asked.
Zekk’s swarthy complexion brightened to brilliant crimson. “Sorry.” He let the sentence trail off and looked away for a moment, then extended a hand toward Han. “State secret.”
Han’s stomach grew heavy as he suddenly floated into the air and started across the gap. He glanced back at Taryn, who was standing in the doorway of the Cygnus-7 strapping on a pair of big DL-51 blaster pistols, and thought better of pressing for details.
Zekk set him down, then pointed toward the end of the corridor, where Leia and Jaina were already using their lightsabers to cut through the durasteel security door. “The data socket is up there, Artoo. Let’s go.”
Zekk took the lead, ignoring the muted clamor of hammering fists and yelling prisoners that followed them down the corridor. Han brought up the rear, keeping watch as C-3PO and R2-D2 advanced ahead of him. As they moved, he set his blaster to FULL and started blasting cam bubbles. Each time he destroyed one, a muffled cheer rose from the inmates in nearby cells.
The prisoners seemed to be males of many different species. Their cells were more or less uniform, though there was often a roost or a nest instead of a bed. Occasionally, the air was tinged brown or green, suggesting a nonstandard atmosphere.
Han and the droids had almost reached the security door when a faint hissing sounded from the ventilation ducts. He pulled the breath mask off his equipment harness and slipped the elastic keeper straps over his head.
“Gas!” He pulled the mask down and opened the air feed, then activated his throat mike. “Squad Saav’etu, watch yourselves. We’ve got gas up here.”
“Down here, too,” Yaqeel replied. “They’re reacting quicker than we expected.”
“Affirmative,” Turi confirmed from Cygnus-7. “We’ve got three pursuit speeders coming our way.”
“Stang, that was fast,” Han said. “Can you outrun—”
“No need,” Taryn replied. The screech of a discharging ion cannon sounded from outside. “There are only three. I can hold them off!”
“For how long?” Han asked.
“Don’t worry,” Taryn said. “We’ll be here when you need a ride.”
The rumble of a distant explosion sounded outside.
“That’s fine, Taryn,” Leia broke in. “Just remember, we’re trying to keep deaths to a minimum.”
“It wasn’t me,” Taryn retorted, speaking over the squeal of her ion cannon. “One of those speeders fired a concussion missile.”
Leia cringed behind her breath mask, and Han knew what she was thinking. They were trying to avoid unnecessary casualties—and not only because they wanted to minimize bad press. The conflict between Daala and the Jedi was already out of hand; if it started to cause civilian casualties, it would be a stain on the honor of both sides.
“And?” Leia asked. She was stooped over, dragging her lightsaber blade through the last section of security door to meet Jaina’s. “Did they kill anyone?”
“Hard to say,” Taryn replied. “They took out a pedbridge.” The next screech was followed almost instantly by the roar of a nearby explosion. “And … that time they got a news sled.”
“A news sled?” Han’s chest tightened. “Not Doran and Bandy?”
“No, a real news sled.” It was Turi Altamik’s voice that said this. “Sort of real, anyway. It was ROKS.”
Han caught Leia’s eye and shrugged. “At least we’re not the ones killing people.”
Leia merely glanced up. “So?”
“Yeah.”
After all their years fighting side by side, Han knew by that one word what Leia meant—it didn’t matter who was doing the killing. The Jedi had started this fight, so they bore the ultimate responsibility if civilian lives were lost.
“Turi, you and Taryn better make a run for it,” Han said. “Maybe you can draw them off to someplace a little less populated.”
“And leave you guys behind?” Taryn objected. “Think again—”
“Taryn!” Zekk interrupted. “This is what backup plans are for.”
Even as Zekk spoke, the Cygnus-7 was roaring away, its nose dropping as it dived for the sheltering confines of the undercity. With any luck, Turi would be able to lose her pursuers in the murky labyrinth, then swing back around to pick them up when they had Valin and Jysella in hand. If not, there was always the HoloNews van that Doran Tainer and Bandy Geffer were operating.
A trio of armored wedges streaked past the breach in hot pursuit of the Cygnus-7, sirens shrieking and emergency strobes flashing, then vanished from sight. With the screeching of the ion cannon gone, the din in the corridor faded to the muted roar of prisoners thumping on their cell doors and bellowing for freedom. Given all of the threats and foul language Han heard, he wasn’t even half tempted to help them out.
The droning of the lightsabers finally snapped to an end, and Han turned to see Jaina using the Force to hold the security door upright. R2-D2 was already plugged into the data socket below the control panel on the wall, blinking and chirping merrily as he sliced into the facility’s main computer.
Han turned to C-3PO. “How long before Artoo finds a schematic for us?”
“Any moment, Captain. I believe—”
R2-D2 cut him off with a sharp whistle.
“That’s impossible, Artoo,” C-3PO retorted. “Your processor is no match for a supercooled Xyn Tachyon Twelve. Stop that at once!”
“Threepio!” Han interrupted. “How long until we have that schematic?”
“It should be on your datapads now,” C-3PO replied, turning to Han. “And Artoo is attempting to outwit Xyn and override the storage bunker’s security program. He’s going to give himself a circuit melt.”
R2-D2 tweedled sharply.
C-3PO looked back toward R2-D2. “Well, why didn’t you tell us?” he demanded. “Don’t you think they would want to know you already have the bunker open?”
“Open?”
Han snatched the datapad off Leia’s equipment belt. The display contained a three-dimensional schematic labeled DETENTION CENTER 81 LEVELS 1910–1915. The rescue team’s locations were not depicted, but with two red dots indicating the breaches in the outer wall, their position was pretty easy to estimate. It appeared that Squad Solo, at least, had reached a bulkhead about a quarter of the way across the building. On the other side of the wall was a huge, multi-level atrium ringed with access balconies serving the detention corridors on each level. In the center of the atrium stood the storage bunker to which C-3PO had referred, a large freestanding vault with hatches high on its walls. From the schematic, at least, there appeared to be no easy way of accessing the hatches.
Han showed the display to his companions, then activated his throat mike. “Squad Saav’etu, do you guys have the schematic on your datapad yet?”
“Affirmative,” came Yaqeel’s raspy-voiced reply. “We’re just inside the security door, waiting for the signal.”
“Artoo has the hatches on that vault open,” Han reported. “He thinks that’s where Valin and Jysella are being held.”
R2-D2 gave an affirmative chirp, then added a tweedle.
“Artoo notes that both Horns are indeed listed on the bunker inventory,” C-3PO reported. As he spoke, R2-D2 continued to tweedle. “He’s trying to deactivate the neutralizer field so he can use the tracking bugs to confirm their exact location. Unfortunately, Xyn is arguing about the proper protocols.”
“Keep trying,” Han said to R2-D2. “And while you’re at it, maybe Xyn can tell us if there are any guards on—”
“There are,” Jaina said. “About fifty, coming in from all sides.”
“Fifty … is that all? They must be trying to make this easy.” Han had been living with Jedi too long to bother asking how Jaina knew the number of guards or whether she was sure. He simply raised three fingers, then asked Yaqeel, “Ready, Squad Saav’etu?”
When Yaqeel responded with a comm click, Han lowered all three fingers.
“Go!”
Jaina waved her hand to the side, and the human-sized rectangle she and Leia had cut from the security door popped free and went tumbling down the length of the balcony. A chorus of startled voices cried out in alarm, then the dull thung of durasteel on plastoid rang out from around the corner. In the next instant, the open doorway erupted into a storm of flashing bolts, and the lightsabers of both Solo women snapped to life.
“Going right, Mom!” Jaina called.
“Going left!” Leia confirmed.
They stepped through the door together, their blades weaving baskets of color as they batted blaster bolts back toward their sources. Zekk went next, moving forward to deflect fire from two squads of guards positioned high above in the corners on the opposite side of the atrium.
“Han, grenades!” Zekk called back through the door. “Three-second fuses.”
Han let his repeating blaster dangle by its sling and pulled a stun grenade off his equipment vest. He quickly set the timer, then tried not to shake as he moved into throwing position on the other side of the door. Surrounded as he was by three very experienced Jedi Knights, he knew there wasn’t much chance of a bolt getting through—but there were dozens of bolts coming their way every second, and not even Leia was perfect. Seeing that Zekk was taking fire from two different directions, Han positioned himself a little to the side and tossed the first grenade over the rail.
“Zekk, yours!”
Zekk switched to a single-handed grip and pivoted sideways, allowing half a dozen bolts to slip past his twirling blade as he pointed at the grenade. He flicked his finger toward the opposite side of the atrium, and the grenade flew into the corner on the right and exploded with a detonation as blinding as it was deafening. The guards went down at once, most of them completely unconscious, but a few covering their ears or eyes and rolling around in agony.
Han already had the next grenade ready. Since he was facing Jaina’s side of the balcony, he called her name and tossed it over her shoulder. She did not even need to switch to a single-handed grip. She simply fixed her gaze on the wall of guards lined up across the balcony in front of her, and the stun grenade flew toward them as though launched by a rocket. The sergeant saw it coming and managed to raise a hand to point before it detonated in the midst of his squad, leaving them motionless and piled atop one another.
Han turned and tossed the third grenade past Leia’s flank. She allowed it to hit the deck grating, then sent it bouncing down the balcony toward a squad of guards who—having the benefit of seeing what had become of their fellows—wisely gave up the fight and simply turned to flee. The detonation caught half of them anyway. Some continued to flee, stumbling down the balcony with their hands pressed to their ears, and some dropped in their tracks and began to writhe about on the deck grating. Those who had been lucky enough to escape unscathed simply continued to run.
Han started to reach for another stun grenade, but Zekk said, “Save it. We’ve convinced them.”
Han looked up to see the last group of guards withdrawing from view. He was about to check the status of Squad Saav’etu when he heard a sporadic clatter in the atrium. Being careful not to invite sniper fire by leaning over the rail, he peered out and saw a steady shower of blaster rifles dropping to the atrium floor. Jaina and Leia quickly began to add to the rain of weaponry, using the Force to hurl every GAS weapon in sight over the safety rail.
“Looks like we’re good to go,” Han observed. He glanced at the hatches hanging open on the side of the storage bunker. They were a good twenty meters away, and between ten and twenty meters above the atrium floor. “Question is, how do we get there? That’s a big jump—even for a Jedi.”
No sooner had Han asked the question than a happy tweedle sounded in the corridor behind them. A moment later, a panel beneath one of the hatches slid open. It was followed by another one on Squad Saav’etu’s level, and a pair of long catwalk bridges began to extend toward each access balcony.
“Artoo wonders if the bridges might help?” C-3PO translated.
“Yeah, good thinking,” Han said. He poked his head back into the cell corridor and looked down at R2-D2. “Think you can lock down access to the atrium around the bunker?”
R2-D2 replied with a long series of tweets and chirps.
“Artoo has convinced Xyn that you are rioting inmates attempting to take control of the detention center,” C-3PO translated. “The entire cellblock has been isolated. And the signal neutralizer has been deactivated to prevent you from using the storage bunker to evade surveillance. But I must say, I don’t think isolating the cellblock is a very good idea, Captain Solo. Now we’re locked inside with dozens of angry guards—and I’m quite certain that a few of them remain conscious.”
As C-3PO spoke, a flurry of blasterfire erupted from below, down in the atrium. Han spun around in time to see Yaqeel Saav’etu’s furryheaded form somersaulting through the air toward the still-extending catwalk, her amber lightsaber tracing a yellow cocoon around her as she deflected incoming blaster bolts. The sniper fire was answered by a volley of stun bolts from her companions, and by the time she landed the GAS guards had fallen silent. Jaina went next, her feet barely touching the safety rail as she bounded off it and Force-jumped onto the upper catwalk.
“You might have that backward, Threepio,” Han said, turning back to the droid. “It’s those poor noobs who are stuck in here …”
Han let the sentence trail off as the squeal of scraping metal rang out from the far end of corridor, sixty meters distant. He looked up and, through the hole by which the team had entered the building, saw one end of the hoverscaf tipping upward. A second later the blunt round nose of a GAS troopsled slid into view.
Han activated his throat mike. “Trouble!” He pulled a thermal detonator off his vest. “We’ve got armor out—”
The muted shriek-crack of cannon bolts began to reverberate up from below, and the air grew acrid with the fumes of molten metal. Han set the detonator fuse to three seconds and, with his free hand, reached into the corridor.
“Out of the way!” He grabbed C-3PO by the wrist and pulled him out of the corridor. “Run for it!”
“Run? I’m afraid my servomotors aren’t made for—”
C-3PO’s foot caught on the bottom edge of the doorway, and his objection came to a crashing end. At the other end of the corridor, the troopsled had shoved the hoverscaf completely out of the way, bringing the forward canopy and the driver’s hatch into view. A couple of meters above the hatch hung the tip of a blaster cannon, already turning toward the corridor. Han planted a foot in the middle of C-3PO’s back and squared off in front of the doorway.
“You, too, Artoo!” Han used a full-windup underhand pitch to sling the detonator down the corridor and, with his free hand, waved the little astromech toward him. “Let’s go!”
R2-D2 retracted his interface arm and whirred toward Han. In the corridor behind the droid, the detonator dropped twenty meters short—and continued to bounce toward the troopsled.
The front edge of the cannon turret came into view, and the barrel continued to swing toward Han. Unsure whether he was actually strong enough to lift an astromech droid over the lip in the doorway, Han stooped down to grab R2-D2.
“Hey!” he called over his shoulder. “How about a little—”
The corridor erupted into a screaming flash of heat.
An instant later Han found himself rolling off C-3PO onto the balcony’s deck grating. His ears were ringing and his eyes were filled with dancing spots, and his arms were empty.
A white glow flared inside the corridor, and Han heard a distant crackle that had to be the thermal detonator going off. He rolled to his knees and spun around to see Zekk pressed to the wall on the opposite side of the doorway. C-3PO was between them, pushing himself to his hands and knees, and R2-D2 was nowhere to be seen.
Expecting another volley of cannon bolts at any instant, Han grabbed C-3PO with both hands and spun away from the doorway, dragging the droid down beside him.
“Stay down!”
C-3PO clattered to the grating beside Han. “Very well,” he said. “May I inquire why?”
“No,” Han said, realizing by the lack of cannon bolts that he had overreacted. He glanced back toward the door and found Zekk cautiously peering around the corner into the corridor. “Is he … is he gone?”
Zekk nodded and stepped fully in front of the doorway. “You got him. Nice throw.”
“I meant Artoo,” Han said, standing. “Is he … you know?”
“Artoo is gone?” C-3PO scrambled to his feet with surprising grace and clanged past Han into the doorway. “They melted Artoo?”
A sharp whistle sounded from the atrium behind him. Han turned and was relieved to see R2-D2 racing across the catwalk bridge toward the storage bunker. The rear half the droid’s outer shell was scorched and pocked with melt-circles, but any damage he had suffered had certainly not affected his mobility functions.
At the other end of the catwalk, Leia and Jaina were kneeling in the bunker’s open hatch, ready to provide covering fire. Fifteen meters below them, Kunor Bann was standing guard for Squad Saav’etu—which meant Yaqeel and Natua were already inside the storage bunker looking for the Horn kids. Seff, he knew, would be on the balcony three levels below, protecting the route through which Squad Saav’etu had entered the facility. Judging by the lack of cannon fire down there, he had also been successful in taking out the vehicle attacking them.
“Artoo, what are you doing out there?” C-3PO inquired. “You were stationed at the data interface.”
R2-D2 replied with an irate tweedle, then extended a third tread and bumped over the hatch threshold, entering the bunker.
“There’s no need to take that tone with me,” C-3PO called after the astromech. “Of course I’m happy to see you in one piece!”
Han turned to Zekk, then hitched a thumb at the corridor. “Maybe it would be better if we had a Jedi keeping an eye on things outside. My throwing arm is good, but—”
“It’s not the Force,” Zekk finished. He flipped his palm up and turned his fingers toward Han. Two of Han’s last three thermal detonators rose off the equipment vest and floated into the Jedi’s grasp. “Be fast.”
“Will do.” Han waved C-3PO toward the bridge, then activated his throat mike. “How’s it going in the bunker? Have you found those carbonite pods?”
“You could say that,” Yaqeel replied. “I guess.”
“You guess?” Han replied. “You do know what a carbonite pod looks like, right? Big black rectangle with a face in it? Mouth frozen midscream?”
“Han, just get over here,” Leia said. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“Okay,” Han said. When he turned to the catwalk, he saw that he’d have to open the gate for C-3PO—apparently, everyone else had just gone over. “On our way. Cover us.”
“Copy that,” Jaina said. “But run.”
“Run?” C-3PO said. “As I tried to explain to Captain Solo, my servomotors are not equipped to noooooo!”
C-3PO’s objection ended in the droid equivalent of a scream when Natua Wan appeared next to Jaina and used the Force to bring him flying toward the bunker. Han pulled the repeating blaster off his shoulder and raced after the droid in a crouching sprint. Even before the snipers opened fire, Jaina began to pick them off, silencing two with a series of quick shots.
Han turned his T-21 in the direction Jaina wasn’t shooting and, forgetting he had not switched the power level back to STUN, began to lay his own suppression fire. By the time he reached the storage bunker, the steady stream of high-power bolts had triggered the automatic fire-suppression systems. The ceiling nozzles began to pour retardant foam into the atrium.
“Nice trick,” Jaina said, speaking from behind her breath mask. She and Natua stepped aside to let Han race through the hatch. “Is that supposed to be camouflage or something?”
“Hey, if the Balmorran infantry can use smoke curtains,” Han said, flipping the T-21’s power level to STUN, “I can use a foam screen.”
Jaina rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, Dad.”
Han shot her a smug wink, then turned to survey the interior of the storage bunker … and felt his jaw drop.
He was standing inside a huge refrigerated cylinder, on one of more than a dozen circular balconies. Hanging along the walls on each level were several hundred carbonite pods, each connected to a power supply and a monitoring station by a shielded cable.
“Bloah!” Han cursed. “We’re gonna need more transport!”
“Captain Solo, there’s no way we can take everyone in here,” Natua said. The Falleen was probably exuding calming pheromones, but if so, they had no effect through Han’s face mask. “And even if we could, there’s no way to know whether we should.”
Han frowned at her. “Of course we should!” He could not help thinking of his own experiences in carbonite, of the frozen eternity of fear and the terrible anguish of awakening. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be frozen in carbonite?”
“Han, all Natua is saying is that we can’t help them all now,” Leia said, stepping to his side. “We came to get Valin and Jysella. And it’s going to take more time than we hoped just to find them. This place is huge.”
“No kidding,” Han said. “Who are all these guys?”
Natua shrugged. “Political prisoners? Troublemaker inmates?”
“Daala’s old buddies?” Han offered.
“That’s as good a guess as any,” Leia replied. “All we know for sure is that psychotic Jedi aren’t the only ones Daala has been storing in carbonite.”
“Assuming it is Daala,” Jaina said. “This could be something Colonel Retk is doing on his own. It has a certain Yaka sensibility.”
“Yeah,” Han said. “It’s sure sick.”
He began to count, first the number of pods hanging along a ten-meter length of wall, then the number of balconies inside the storage bunker. By the time he finished and came up with an estimated number of pods, he felt nauseated.
“Over four thousand,” he said. “Even if we only spend a second looking at each one, it could take us …”
Han started the calculations, and for once he was grateful when C-3PO jumped in with an answer.
“Eighteen point three minutes,” the droid supplied. “That figure assumes that there are four people searching, and that they spend no more than five seconds with each level change.”
Natua turned toward the nearest set of stairs. “I’ll start at the top.”
Han caught her shoulder and shook his head. “Hold on,” he said. “We don’t have eighteen minutes. We don’t even have a quarter of that.”
Natua’s face scales darkened. “We aren’t going to give up.” Her tone made it clear that she was issuing a proclamation, not asking a question. “Not after we’ve come this far.”
“Of course not,” Han said. He turned to R2-D2. “You, start recording. We want the layout, the interfaces, and as many pod faces as you can capture. When we get back to the Temple, the Council is going to want to know who all these people are, and anything you can give them will help.”
R2-D2 gave an obedient chirp and spun toward the nearest pod.
“Pardon me, Captain Solo,” C-3PO said. “But wouldn’t it be better to find a dataport and have Artoo simply ask Xyn for the Jedi Horns’ location?”
“No time for that,” Han said. “If it were that easy, Artoo would have done it already.”
“Then how are we going to find the Horns?” C-3PO asked.
“We’re not,” Han replied. “You are.”
“Me?”
“Sure,” Han said. “The signal neutralizer is off, and we know those transmitters Mirax planted are in here somewhere.”
“Of course!” Leia shot Han one of those admiring smiles that always made his day. “See-Threepio has a full-spectrum receiver.”
“That’s true,” C-3PO said. “But I fail to see how that’s going to help me find the Horns. They won’t be calling us on their comlinks.”
“No, but those tracking bugs are,” Jaina said. “Taryn said they disguise their microbursts as background radiation, remember?”
“Right,” Han said, turning back to C-3PO. “So do a full-spectrum scan and—”
“There!” C-3PO extended an arm and nearly swept Natua off her feet as he lurched to the safety rail. “Just one level below us. I recognize the signal from our planning session.”
“Good job!” Han slapped C-3PO on the back and—ignoring the droid’s protest—turned to Natua and Leia. “Why don’t you two help Yaqeel and Seff bring up the pods. Jaina and I will get started on the extraction strategy.”
Instead of running for the stairs, Leia and Natua simply leapt off the balcony, grabbing the safety rail with one hand and using it swing themselves onto the level below. Han returned to the hatch and knelt beside Jaina, then removed the last of the stun grenades from his vest and arrayed them on the floor. He still had the single thermal detonator that Zekk had left him.
“Now comes the fun part.” He peered out into atrium, which looked like it had been hit with a blizzard of flame retardant. “Do you know where the snipers are?”
“Sure.” Jaina waved her hand in an arc, indicating the upper balconies lining the atrium wall opposite them. “Pretty much everywhere.”
“So we’re not going to have trouble hitting them, huh?”
“I doubt it.” She looked over and said, “You know, Dad, this wouldn’t worry me so much if you were a Jedi Master.”
Han smiled. “Don’t worry, kid,” he said. “I’ve got my luck—and it’s gotten me this far, hasn’t it?”
Jaina smiled back. “I suppose it has.” She kissed him on the cheek, then reached over and flipped his repeating blaster’s power setting back to FULL. “Just in case, though, let’s give them a reason to keep their heads down.”
Han barely heard this last part because his attention was fixed on her hand. Actually, it was fixed on her ring finger, where he had just noticed that a very familiar, very expensive engagement band had reappeared.
“Hey, where’d that come from?” he asked. “I thought you told Jag to toss that in the lake?”
Jaina blushed and looked away. “I never told him that.”
“Something like that,” Han said. “So what gives?”
“Nothing, Dad,” she said. “Don’t read too much into it, okay? We’re not sure what it means ourselves yet. I’ll tell you later.”
“But it means something?” Han pressed. “This is the real reason he tracked us down before he went back to the Pellaeon, right?”
“Dad!” Jaina said. “Don’t you have an escape to organize?”
“Piece of cake.” Han activated his throat mike. “Zekk, how’s it looking outside?”
“We’re definitely going to be on the holo tonight,” Zekk said. “There are about a dozen newsvans filming me as we speak. I see BAU, HNE, HoloNews, and … a lot more, Captain.”
Translation: Zekk was worried about eavesdroppers, but Doran and Bandy—in the MSHoloNews van—were in pickup position.
“Okay,” Han said. “What about our ride?”
“The Cygnus-7 is having trouble getting back to us,” he said. “Their communications have been compromised, and every time they try to circle back to the detention center, they run into more GAS sleds. They think they’ve got twenty or thirty trying to box them in already.”
Translation: Turi and Taryn were deliberately allowing their communications to be monitored, trying to draw off as many GAS pursuit vehicles as possible.
“Stang!” Han said, pretending to be dismayed. He knew better than to think their comlinks’ Jedi encryption had been broken, but Zekk’s caution made it sound as though he were relaying their transmissions directly to the Cygnus-7—for the sole purpose of misleading GAS, of course. “We can’t get out of here without that Cygnus-Seven. Tell them to report in …”
Han glanced back and saw Leia leading Yaqeel and the other two Jedi toward him at a sprint. Between them, floating on tiny repulsorlift engines, were two carbonite pods bearing the terror-stricken faces of Valin and Jysella Horn.
“Two minutes,” Han said into his throat mike. “If the Cygni can’t shake free by then, we’ll head for the undercity and try to escape on foot.”
Translation: We’ll be at the pickup point in two minutes. Make sure Doran and Bandy are waiting.
“The undercity?” Zekk replied. “On foot?”
“In two minutes, that may be our only way out,” Han said. “It’s better than rotting in a GAS prison cell … right, Kunor?”
Kunor’s surprised voice sounded over Han’s earpiece. “Uh, sure, Captain Solo.” Across the atrium, Kunor’s white-clothed figure began to race along the access balcony toward a stairway that would take him up to Zekk’s level. “If you want to make a run for it, I’m with you.”
Translation: I’m on my way up to the extraction point.
“Okay, then I’ll start a count.” Zekk sounded truly terrified—which was how Han knew he was acting. The only thing Zekk feared was the dark side, and he had even faced that down a couple of times. “We’ll talk in two minutes.”
Translation: Get yourself over here. The ride leaves on time.
As Leia and the others approached, Han stood and laid out his plan in less than ten seconds.
When he was finished, Jaina asked, “Dad, are you sure you should be one of the ones pulling the pods? Without the Force, you’ll be vulnerable enough.”
“That’s why I’m going last. By the time I start across, there won’t be anyone left shooting.” Han checked his chrono. “Enough talk. Just remember, don’t stop for anything. Get to the extraction point, get aboard, and get going.”
He nodded to Natua and Seff, who immediately ignited their lightsabers and charged onto the catwalk. A storm of colored bolts rained down on them from the balconies. Instead of leaping into an acrobatic routine, the two Jedi remained on foot, intentionally drawing fire, their blades weaving glowing spheres of color about their heads as they batted bolts aside.
Han and the two Solo women made good use of the tactic. Han armed stun grenades and tossed them out into the atrium, and Leia or Jaina immediately sent them flying at the guards who had revealed their positions by attacking. By the time the two Jedi Knights were halfway across the bridge, the blasterfire had faded to a drizzle.
Han tapped Jaina on the shoulder. “You and Yaqeel are next. Go.”
Jaina tossed her blaster aside and launched herself from the hatch, snatching her lightsaber off her belt and activating it in mid-stride. Unlike Natua and Seff, she merely held the blade at a high guard, flicking it back and forth almost leisurely whenever one of the remaining snipers gathered enough courage to take a shot—and risk the flurry of bolts that Han and Leia sent flying back at him.
As soon as Jaina had advanced four meters onto the bridge, Yaqeel ushered R2-D2 and C-3PO through the hatch and started to herd them across. Despite C-3PO’s predictions of doom and certain destruction, the sniper fire dwindled to nothing after Yaqeel batted aside a single bolt.
When the droids reached the halfway point on the bridge, Han let his repeating blaster dangle from its shoulder strap and rose. He shot a smirk across at Leia, then turned toward the carbonite pods hovering on their repulsorlifts.
“See? Nothing to it.”
A deafening chorus of clangs reverberated through the storage bunker as all of its hatches slammed shut simultaneously. Han spun back around to find Leia sitting on the deck grating, her hands braced behind her and her mouth hanging agape. She was staring dead ahead, where an oily durasteel panel now blocked their only escape route.
Leia slowly turned a pair of angry brown eyes in his direction. “You just had to say it.”
“It’s not my fault!” Han said, stabbing a finger against a button on the control panel. When the hatch remained closed, he added, “Artoo didn’t say anything about Xyn changing her mind!”
“My guess is someone helped her,” Leia said. She rose and stepped over to examine the hatch. “That’s a turadium shield alloy. It’s going take forever to cut through it.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t have forever.” Han checked his chrono. “We’ve got sixty seconds.”
Leia’s brow furrowed. “You don’t think they would leave without …” She let the sentence trail off, then shook her head. “Forget it. They don’t have a choice.”
Han nodded. “That newsvan doesn’t have armor or weaponry,” he said. “They have to take off without us—or get shot down.”
“I’ll let them know.” Leia activated her throat mike, then frowned. “But not with this thing. The signal neutralizer is back on. We’ve lost the comlink.”
Her eyes grew distant and unfocused as she reached out in the Force—most likely to Jaina, with whom she had the strongest connection. Han took the chance to glance around the bunker, searching for any means of escape Xyn might have overlooked. It was eerily silent inside the bunker, and only dimly lit. The blinking status lights on all those thousands of carbonite pods made him think of a Coruscant skylane at dusk. The temperature was not uncomfortable yet, but he knew it was cold enough to cause hypothermia within a few hours.
Failing to see any obvious means of escape, Han pulled the datapad from his vest pocket and rechecked the schematic R2-D2 had provided earlier. It took only a moment to find what he needed. He looked up into the top of the bunker, which curved into a vaguely conical dome about thirty meters overhead.
Han turned the schematic toward Leia and pointed toward the bullet-shaped peak. “This thing sticks up through the roof. I remember seeing that when we set up the hoverscafs.”
“Me, too,” Leia said. “So?”
He tapped a small globe hanging from his equipment vest. “So I’ve still got a thermal detonator.”
“Okay …” Leia’s eyes began to brighten, but she did not seem quite on board yet. “And then?”
“Then we’re out on the roof,” Han said. He grabbed Valin’s pod and started to float it toward the nearest stairway. “Where the GAS boys don’t expect to see us.”
Leia cocked her head. “Well, it’s better than staying trapped in here. I’ll keep reaching out to Jaina and see if I can get across the idea that we’re going up.”
She grabbed Jysella’s pod and floated it after Han, and together they began to climb as fast as possible. They spotted a cargo lift almost immediately, but didn’t use it for fear of betraying their plan. Besides, with Leia using the Force to pull the pods up the stairwells, the ascent wasn’t too strenuous. After a couple of minutes, they were standing on the uppermost balcony looking up into the pointed dome.
Han pulled the thermal detonator off his vest, then tried to gauge the distance between them and the apex. “That ought to be far enough above us that we’re clear of the blast, right?”
Leia studied the dome for a moment, then nodded. “I think so, and if we’re wrong …”
The sound of hatches opening rang out below. GAS guards in full riot gear began flooding into the bunker, and a moment later blaster bolts began to scream upward.
“That was fast,” Han observed. He and Leia pressed themselves against the wall, then he set the detonator fuse for three seconds and asked, “Ready?”
When Leia nodded, he tossed the detonator toward the dome and started to count seconds aloud.
Leia extended a hand, catching it in the Force—and several guards cried out, “Detonator!”
The blaster fire stopped as the guards dived for the nearest exits. Leia flicked her hand upward, and the thermal detonator flew into the apex of the dome.
“Three!” Han warned.
Both Solos closed their eyes and turned toward the wall. Even so, the flash was so bright that it made Han’s head pound. He felt a wave of heat so searing that he feared they had misjudged the distance to the apex.
A tremendous crackle rang through the bunker, then the heat and the light faded as quickly as they had come. Han stood frozen for several heartbeats, just to make sure he was actually alive, then finally let his breath out.
“Hey, we made it!” He opened his eyes and turned to hug Leia … and nearly stepped off a half-disintegrated balcony. “Leia?”
She wasn’t there. And neither were the Horns.
More than half of the balcony had been caught in the blast radius and was simply gone. But that still left a good half a meter of durasteel upon which Leia could have been standing—and should have.
“Leia!”
Han dropped to his knees and peered over the white-hot edge of the balcony, expecting—hoping—to see her hanging from a balcony below.
There was no one there. No one but about four thousand very quiet carbonite prisoners.
“Leiaaaagghh?” The call was half question and half wail, a scream unlike any Han had unleashed before. “Leiaaaaa!”
Han?
Leia’s voice came to him as much within his mind as in his ears, and he imagined she was reaching out to him through the Force, trying to touch him one last time before she was gone … forever. The tears welled in his eyes.
Then she called out to him again. “Han!”
He looked up, his eyes so watery that he could see nothing but a blue smear where the detonator had disintegrated the roof. “Leia?”
“Han!” she called. “Will you get moving, already? They’re waiting for us!”
“Waiting?”
Han stood and turned toward the voice, growing more confused. There was no way Zekk and Jaina and the others in the newsvan were on the roof—even if they had disobeyed orders, GAS would have shot them down. And he could not imagine who else might be waiting with Leia, except all of their beloved ones who had gone before … so, was he dead, too?
Han looked up again. He could barely make out a female form kneeling at the edge of the detonator hole—Leia’s form. Behind her loomed the bulky shape of a Cygnus-7 armored transport.
“Leia! You’re …” He caught himself, not wanting to act like a total fool in front of the woman he loved. “You’re out already?”
“Han, I’ve been out for five seconds—and the Horns have been out for a couple!” When the sound of running boots began to rumble up from the depths of the bunker, Leia frowned and asked, “What’s wrong? Did you hit your head or something?”
“Uh, yeah.” Han wiped his eyes on a sleeve. “Sorry, I must have.”
“What’s the holdup?” demanded a familiar Hapan voice. A moment later Taryn Zel appeared next to Leia and began to pour blasterfire down through the hole. Behind her, the screech of the Cygnus-7’s ion cannon began to shred the air. “Let’s get moving, Solo!”
A steady stream of blasterfire began to fly up from below, ricocheting around the upper ring of the bunker and vanishing into the sky above. Han pulled his blaster off his shoulder, glanced up to see Leia already extending a hand in his direction, and began to return fire as she rocketed him out of the bunker straight into the open cargo bay of the Cygnus-7.
Leia and Taryn dived in on top of him, and an instant later Turi had the supercharged transport slipping over the edge of the detention center and streaking downward. Han and the two women tumbled down against the forward bulkhead of the cargo bay and lay there in a tangle atop the cargo pods, trying to catch their breath and still their pounding hearts. Finally, the Cygnus-7 entered the concealing gloom of the undercity and leveled out.
“There.” Han snaked an arm around Leia’s shoulder and planted a big kiss on her lips, then pulled back and gave her one of his crooked smiles. “Didn’t I say this was going to be easy?”