chapter twenty-four

The air lock had almost finished equalizing when a boom like a meteor strike resonated through the Falcon’s hull. The corridor dropped away, and Han hit the ceiling—or rather, it hit him. An instant later he found himself plastered to the deck with no memory of leaving the ceiling. His head was aching and his shoulder was throbbing, and his ears weren’t ringing—they were blaring.

Han rolled to his side and lay there suffering, trying to sort out what had happened—trying to sort out the whole last couple of months, as a matter of fact, how he and Leia had gotten themselves involved in another war and what made this one worse than the others, so much more painful and confusing.

Then a scrap of flimsiplast tumbled past, bouncing along the deck past Han’s nose, and suddenly it didn’t matter what had happened. The blaring was not in his ears at all. It was coming from the intercom speakers, and it was slowly—though steadily—rising in pitch.

The cabin pressure was dropping.

Han scrambled to his feet, then stepped over to the control panel next to the air lock and silenced the emergency alarm.

Leia’s voice came over the ship intercom instantly, backed by a chorus of chimes and buzzers that suggested the Falcon’s systems were sinking faster than a comet down a black hole.

“Han? You okay?”

“Yeah, so far.” Realizing he would need both hands to make repairs, Han tried to pull his arm out of the sling—and nearly collapsed with pain. He was going to need help. “But I can’t waste time talking about it. We’ve got a pressure leak somewhere.”

“A leak?” C-3PO asked, also speaking over the intercom from the cockpit. “Captain Solo, you have only one functional arm. You’ll never be able to—”

“I’ll handle it.” Han peeked through the hatch viewport and was relieved to see that Jaina and her companions were all on their feet and steady. “I’ve got help in the air lock.”

“Just watch yourselves,” Leia warned. The deck continued to tilt and buck as Leia put the Falcon through a serious of evasive maneuvers. “Some laserbrain in a Star Destroyer is taking potshots at us.”

“Is that all?” Han asked. Seeing that the air lock pressure was almost within normal safety margins, he hit the safety override. “I thought you’d hit an asteroid or something.”

A warning light flashed inside the air lock chamber, and the hatch hissed open a moment later. Jaina and the others—Zekk, Ben, and a Twi’lek stranger—emerged in the typical post-EV rush to free themselves of their claustrophobia-inducing emergency suits, pulling off gloves and opening closure rings. Han’s heart soared at seeing Jaina—and his gut clenched because now she was in just as much danger as he and Leia were.

Once Jaina’s visor was raised, she turned to Han and opened the bulky arms of her evac suit to embrace him. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but whatever it is—”

“I love you too, kid,” Han said, raising a hand to stop her. “But the hugs will have to wait. We’ve got a pressure leak.”

Jaina’s eyes dropped to the sling hanging in front of Han’s chest, and her expression switched from relief to understanding. “How bad have we been hit?”

“Don’t know yet,” Han said. He turned back to the control panel and tapped the keypad, calling up a ship-wide damage report. “But it can’t be that bad. We’ve still got—”

Han was interrupted when a hand appeared between him and the display panel. It took his eyes a second to focus, but when they did, he saw that the hand was holding a pair of Jedi wrist-restraints.

“What the frizz?” Han turned, running his gaze up an evac-suited arm to his nephew’s face.

“I’m really sorry, Uncle Han,” Ben said. “But you’re under arrest.”

“Arrest?” Han frowned at the boy, trying to decide whether he should explode in laughter or anger. “Kid, you’ve got one lousy sense of timing.”

“It goes with the company he keeps,” Jaina said. She turned on Ben with fire in her eyes. “Put those away before I—”

“It’s okay, Jaina.” Zekk reached over Ben’s shoulder and gently pushed the boy’s hand down. “I’ve got this.”

To Han’s amazement, Jaina merely nodded and turned back to the control panel, perfectly content to let Zekk take charge of Ben while she focused on the pressure leak. Clearly, something had changed between the two of them—she was acting like she actually respected him.

“But there’s a Search and Detain Warrant out on them,” Ben protested. “We’ve got to arrest them!”

“You’re training to become a Jedi, Ben,” Zekk said. “That means you’re supposed to use your own best judgment in these situations.”

“I am,” Ben insisted.

“I hope you don’t really believe that.” Zekk pulled his hand back, then said, “Put those away. We’ll talk about this later.”

Finding himself in no position to argue, Ben obediently returned the restraints to a utility pocket inside his evac suit, then scowled up at Han. “Nothing personal, Uncle Han—but I’m still bringing you in.”

“Whatever you say, kid,” Han answered. “Let’s just get through this first.”

Han turned away from Ben.

“I don’t know, Dad,” Jaina said. “This leak might be more than we can handle.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Han said. “Back in the Corporate Sector, Chewbacca and I used to get banged up this bad every week.”

“Not this bad.”

Jaina pointed to the damage schematic she had brought up on the control panel display screen, and Han’s heart dropped into his gut. The upper cannon turret was gone—along with a substantial portion of the surrounding hull armor—and the lower turret was spread open like a flower blossom, clearly blown apart from the inside. The access tunnel that connected them was red, indicating a total pressure loss, and the surrounding compartments were quickly shading to pink.

Jaina must have sensed Han’s shock, because she asked, “Cakhmaim and Meewalh were in the turrets?”

“Yeah—firing the laser cannons.” Han’s insides were knotting with sorrow; given the damage he had seen in the schematic, the only thing left of the two Noghri were the places they would always hold in the Solos’ hearts. “I owe whoever’s commanding that Star Destroyer a detonite sandwich.”

“A Star Destroyer fired on you?” Ben asked. His light-saber was hanging from a utility loop on his evac suit, but Zekk was being careful to remain at his side anyway.

“What’d you do to deserve that?”

“Saved you,” Han said sourly. “We can always throw you back, if you think it was a bad idea.”

“We’ll take care of Ben later.” Jaina took Han’s arm and started forward. “Right now we need to get you and Mom into evac suits.”

“Evac suits? No way.” Han started aft. “By then, the Falcon won’t have any cabin pressure left.”

“Dad, you took a turbolaser strike straight down your access core.” Jaina waddled up beside him in her suit. “We might not be able to patch things up.”

“Sure we will,” Han replied. “This is a YT-Thirteen-hundred. The access core isn’t that important.”

He continued aft, bouncing off the walls as the corridor tipped and tilted around him. A deepening shudder in the deck hinted at a broken engine mount, while a steady serenade of muffled groans suggested how fiercely the Falcon’s damaged frame was straining under Leia’s evasive maneuvers—and made Han wonder how long they had before a metallic bang deep inside the ship somewhere brought that final ear pop of decompression.

He rounded the corner to find the bulkhead hatch sealed and a stream of air whistling out through a tiny hole in the wall. The edges of the hole were smooth and puffy, as though the durasteel had been melted instead of punctured.

“That’s bad news,” Ben commented from a couple of meters behind Han. “It’s a spatter breach.”

“No big deal,” Han said. Spatter breaches happened when a metal mass erupted in a molten spray, usually after being hit by a turbolaser strike. They were notoriously dangerous and difficult to repair because they caused so much damage in so many different places. “It didn’t hit anything important, or we’d be dead already.”

Han activated the control panel, then checked the pressure on the other side of the bulkhead and entered a safety override code. His ears popped painfully as the hatch retracted, and the whistle of escaping atmosphere became a scream. He stepped into the rear hold and turned toward the sound, and the first problem became instantly apparent.

The spatter had perforated a meter-wide circle of dura-steel with literally hundreds of tiny melt holes. The metal was so weak that the air pressure was bowing the wall outward, and Han knew it wouldn’t be long before the area simply tore free and sucked the atmosphere from the hold in a deadly whoosh.

“Okay, so it’s kind of a big deal,” he said. “Jaina, you and Zekk go to the repair locker and break out the patches and reinforcement strips. Ben, take your Twi’lek friend and—”

“We’re not really friends,” Ben interrupted, sounding as petulant as only young teenagers could at a time like this. “And his name is Spacer First Class Sorzo.”

“Fine.” Han looked over Ben to the Twi’lek. “Just take a look around the access core and see if there are any other spots this bad.”

The Twi’lek—Sorzo—acknowledged the order with a salute and started off with Ben in tow. Han spent the next twenty seconds searching the immediate area for less obvious punctures—and finding plenty. Even if they did manage to patch this cluster, they would still have to track down dozens of tiny melt holes concealed behind places like the engineering station and medbay. It was going to mean sealing off the cockpit and spending hours in evac suits, but what else could he do—abandon the Falcon?

A tremendous bang rumbled up from somewhere be-lowdecks, and an odd chugging sensation began to accompany the ship’s shuddering and bucking.

Leia’s voice came over the intercom, barely audible above the screech of escaping air. “Han, what was that?”

“How should I know?” Han was actually beginning to feel overwhelmed by the Falcon’s problems, and that never happened. “Can’t See-Threepio tell you?”

“There’s no indication of a new problem on the damage reports,” the droid reported. “But we do seem to be losing power in our sublight drives.”

“Blast!” Han started to bang a fist against the wall—then took another look at the circle of spatter perforations and decided not to risk it. “Something must be pinching a feed line.”

“Perhaps you could free it,” C-3PO suggested.

“I’m kind of busy patching pressure leaks back here,” Han responded.

“That won’t matter if we take another hit,” Leia said. “And if we can’t maneuver—”

“We’re going to take another hit,” Han finished. “I know. Okay—let me get a flow report and see if I can locate the problem.”

He stepped around the corner and found Ben already standing in front of the aft engineering station, eyes glued to the display and fingers on the keypad. Thinking the boy had done something to cause the power loss, Han rushed to his side.

The screen had nothing on it but a tactical display feed, which showed a confused-but-improving situation near the planet Hapes. Admiral Bwua’tu’s fleet was already starting to hammer the Corellian Dreadnaughts, and a task force of Royal Battle Dragons was tearing through the second usurper fleet from behind.

With the Royal Battle Dragons was an Imperial-class Star Destroyer with a designator symbol reading unknown. While the vessel was directing most of her fire toward the usurpers, she had dedicated a single long-range turbolaser battery to attacking the Falcon.

“I thought I told you to look for pressure leaks,” Han said, relieved he hadn’t caught Ben actually trying to sabotage the Falcon. “I’m still captain of this tub, and that means you do what I say.”

“I’m using my own best judgment,” Ben retorted. He put a finger on the display, indicating the mysterious Star Destroyer. “And it tells me we’re in big trouble. Our only chance of surviving is to make for that Star Destroyer.”

“Are you crazy?” Han asked. “She’s already firing on us!”

“Only because you’re trying to escape,” Ben countered. “She’ll stop firing if you surrender. That’s the Anakin Solo.”

Han’s jaw dropped. “The Anakin what?”

“The Anakin Solo,” Ben said proudly. “Jacen’s ship.”

“Jacen’s ship?” Han actually stumbled back, and not just because the deck had tipped again. He felt like a bantha had kicked him in the gut. “They named a GAG Star Destroyer for my dead boy?”

“Well, yeah,” Ben said, clearly confused. “Anakin was a really great Jedi.”

“I can’t believe it!” Afraid he would lash out at Ben in his fury, Han turned and kicked the wall so hard he felt his toes pop. “The kriffing rodders!”

Ben cringed and began to back away. “It’s an honor. Jacen said—”

“Forget what Jacen said,” Jaina interrupted, returning with Zekk and the patching supplies. “He’s living in his own galaxy these days.”

Ben frowned. “But Admiral Niathal thought it was a good idea, too.”

“Then Admiral Niathal is one dumb fish.” Han snatched the reinforcement strips from Zekk’s arms and nodded him toward the engineering station. “I think we’ve got a pinched fuel feed. See if you can clear it before the engines shut down and we turn into a target barge.”

Without waiting for a reply, Han stepped around the corner. The pressure had fallen far enough now that the air was beginning to cool as it expanded. They had less than three minutes until the atmosphere grew so thin that breathing would become difficult. He dropped the strips on the floor in front of the spatter perforations, then turned one over and tried in vain to scratch off the flimsi-plast backing. It was not something that could be done one-handed—at least not when your only working hand was shaking in fear.

“Uncle Han, surrendering is our best chance of surviving,” Ben said, following. “All I have to do is comm Jacen and tell him I’m bringing you in.”

“So he can torture his parents like his other Corellian prisoners?” Jaina demanded. She knelt at Han’s side and took the metal strip from his hand. “They’re better off taking their chances in the Falcon.”

“But we’re not,” Ben countered. “We’re not traitors to the Alliance—at least I’m not.”

“I’ll forget you said that—because if I don’t, we’re both going to regret it.” Jaina removed the strip’s backing in one smooth pull. “Be careful how you apply this, or you’ll just create more suction. Dad will show you.”

She held the strip up for Ben and reached for another, but he was shaking his head and ignoring her. “No, not until Uncle Han promises to—”

The strip fluttered past Ben and plastered itself into the middle of the spatter perforations. The scream of escaping atmosphere grew shrill and urgent, and a crease shot across the damaged area.

Han’s heart climbed into his throat. “Uh, Jaina—”

“Oh, kriff!” She jumped up, already peeling the backing off another reinforcement strip. “Ben, what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing—I’m just doing my duty.” Ben snapped his lightsaber off his evac suit’s utility loop. “If we help make repairs, they’re just going to escape.”

“And if we don’t, we’re all going to be sucking a vacuum in about thirty seconds.” Holding the reinforcement strip in two hands, Jaina stepped toward the wall—then suddenly stopped when Ben ignited his lightsaber. Her jaw dropped, and she looked up and said, “Please tell me you didn’t just pull your lightsaber on me.”

“I’m sorry, Jaina,” Ben said. “But you don’t have any discipline—like Jacen says, you’re always making up your own orders instead of following the ones you’re given.”

Jaina glared at Ben for an instant, then thrust the reinforcement strip at Han. “Hold this.”

Ben retreated a step, bringing his blade up behind his rear shoulder. “Jaina, don’t make me—whaaaargggh!”

Ben’s threat came to a surprised end as Zekk slipped around the corner and caught hold of his hands from behind, twisting his wrists forward and forcing the lightsaber blade down toward the deck.

And that was when the shock wave of a nearby turbolaser strike slammed the Falcon. The deck jumped so hard that Han’s knees buckled, and he came down on his wounded shoulder again. Cries of astonishment rang out all around, and his body exploded into pain.

“How’s that feed line repair coming?” Leia asked over the intercom. The air was so thin now that her voice was starting to sound tinny and faint. “If I can’t accelerate, the flight is only going to get bumpier.”

“Just keep us pointed out of here.” As Han spoke, he realized that someone nearby was groaning in terrible pain. “We’ll pass out of range sometime.”

He rolled to his knees and saw Zekk curled on the deck, his hands clutched to a blackened slash in the side of his evac suit. Ben was kneeling next to him with a look of horror on his face, still holding an ignited lightsaber and shaking his head in despair.

“You shouldn’t have grabbed me,” he said. “Why’d you have to grab me, Zekk?”

“Because you were acting like a Jedi wannabe,” Jaina said, coming up behind him. “Give me that.”

She snatched the lightsaber from Ben’s hand.

He looked up at her. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Then whose fault was it, laserbrain?” She switched the lightsaber off. “I just hope you haven’t killed us all. Now grow up, go help your uncle, and I’ll—”

“No, Jaina.” Han stuck a handful of reinforcement strips into his sling and turned to the damaged area. “You’ve got to get Zekk and Ben out of here.”

“Out of here?” Jaina asked.

“Get into the escape pods.” Without removing the strip’s backing, he held it up to the edge of the perforation circle and allowed the vacuum to suck it into place. “Zekk needs medical help, and I really don’t want you sticking us with the brat.”

“But what about—”

“The Falcon’s only carrying a four-person pod capacity right now,” Han interrupted. “And even if we had more, Leia and I are not surrendering.” He shot a look at Ben that could have melted frasium, then added, “Not to Jacen—or anyone else.”

He held another strip to the edge of the circle and let the vacuum suck it into place. It would be a temporary patch at best, but it might hold long enough to save them. He placed another strip, then looked back to find Jaina kneeling beside Zekk. She had the fingers of one hand pressed to his throat, taking his pulse. But her eyes were fixed on Han, and there were tears running down her cheeks.

She nodded, then chinned a toggle switch in her collar, and spoke into the microphone of her suit’s comm unit. “Sorzo, get back here. We’re abandoning ship again.”

“Good.” Han had never been more proud of his daughter. He could see in Jaina’s face how much she wanted to stay aboard the Falcon with him and Leia, but she was a seasoned spacer who knew better than to question a captain’s orders aboard his own ship. “Don’t worry about your mother and me. Until we get the Falcon patched up, it’ll be good not to have so many noses breathing the air—but we’ll be okay. We’ve been in a lot of fixes tougher than this one.”

Jaina managed a smile, though her fear for her parents remained obvious. “I know, Dad—I’ve seen the holovids.” She motioned Ben toward the rear hatch and used the Force to lift Zekk off the deck, then stepped to Han’s side and gave him a little kiss on the cheek. “Let me know how it goes … and may the Force be with you.”

“Yeah.” Not wanting her to see the tears welling in his eyes—and to realize that he was afraid this might be their final good-bye—Han didn’t look as she started after Ben. “You too, kid.”

He turned back to the damaged area and started to lay the rest of the reinforcing strips in place. By the time he had finished, Jaina had everyone loaded into the escape pods and was sounding the departure alarm. The turbolaser strikes just kept coming. The Falcon was bucking and leaping like a wild ronto, and the cabin pressure had fallen to the point that Han was shivering and starting to lose his breath.

He didn’t feel the escape pods go. The launch alarm simply fell silent, and he had a feeling like something had torn loose inside him.

“Han?” Even over the intercom, Leia’s voice sounded as though it was cracking. “You still there?”

“ ’Course I am.” He started forward, sealing the bulkhead behind him. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

“Nothing’s easy with you, flyboy.” Leia’s tone was joking, but a little forced and frightened. “I just wanted to let you know we’re ready to jump.”

Another shock wave slammed into the Falcon, bouncing Han off the wall and eliciting a metallic screech of pain from the old ship. He gulped down a deep breath thinking it might be his last, then was amazed to still be in once piece when he reached the corridor’s forward bulkhead.

“What are you waiting for?” He punched a safety override code into the control panel, then felt a blast of pressure as the hatch irised open. “The sooner we jump, the better.”

“What about poor Lady Morwan?” C-3PO asked. “She’s still locked in the forward hold!”

“And safer than we are,” Han replied, stepping through the bulkhead.

He closed the hatch behind him and hurried across the main cabin into the flight deck access corridor. The jump alarm chimed—sounding higher-pitched than usual in the thin air—then the lights dimmed and an alarming purr rose from the engine compartments in the back of the ship. The Falcon began to chug and slow, and Leia’s voice rolled down the corridor, cursing and yelling like an Aqualish spice smuggler on a bad day.

Han leaned close to the wall. “Come on, old girl,” he whispered. “You’re not ready for the scrap heap yet, are you?”

The purring intensified into a high-pitched whine, then the lights came back up, and Han was nearly knocked off his feet again as the Falcon leapt into a hard acceleration.

He smiled and gave the bulkhead an affectionate pat. “Me, neither.”

He sealed the bulkhead, then made his way to the flight deck, where the engine whine had grown so high that it was no longer audible to human ears. The Falcon’s shuddering had settled into a teeth-tickling vibration, and C-3PO was at the navigator’s station checking their jump coordinates. Leia was in the pilot’s seat, with nothing ahead but dark, empty freedom.

Han went to her side and saw by her glassy eyes that there was no need to tell her about events in back. She had probably sensed Meewalh and Cakhmaim’s deaths through the Force, and Jaina would have commed her to clear the escape pod launches. As for Ben and Jacen and the Anakin Solo, there would be time enough to tell her about that later … and if there wasn’t, it would be just as well if she never knew.

Han leaned down. “It’ll be okay.” He kissed her cheek, then slipped into the copilot’s seat. “You’ve still got me.”

Leia let out a shocked snort, then smiled and looked over. “I guess so.” She reached across and squeezed his arm. “You’ll do.”

The hyperdrive finally kicked in, and the stars stretched to lines one more time.