Part 6 (1/2)

The leader of the small band sat down. For a moment Han saw the strength and determination leave Rekkon's features. Then it was back, that special vitality. ”I suspected that was the case,” he admitted. ”Engret would not forgo contact for days, no matter what. I trust your instincts in this completely, Atuarre. We must presume him to have been eliminated.”

He had said this with absolute finality. This wasn't the first time he had come up against an unexplained disappearance. Han shook his head; on one side was the near-absolute power of the Authority, and on the other, nothing more substantial than friends.h.i.+p, than family ties. Han Solo, loner and realist, considered it a gross mismatch.

”How do we know he's what he says he is?” Atuarre was demanding, pointing to Han.

Rekkon looked up. ”Captain Solo and his first mate, Chewbacca, come to us by way of Jessa. I presume we all trust her aid and counsel? Good. We leave as soon as possible; I'm afraid there'll be no time for luggage or arrangements. Or com-calls, for any of us.”

Atuarre took her cub's paw-hand as Pakka studied Han and Chewbacca silently. ”When do we go?”

Rekkon went back to Max, to find out just that. Just then the computer module's photoreceptor came back on. ”Got it!” he chirped. A translucent data plaque emerged from the slot at the terminal's side.

Rekkon seized it eagerly. ”Fine. Now we must match it against the Authority's installations charts-”

”But that's not all,” Max blurted.

Rekkon's dense brows knit. ”What more, Blue Max?”

”While I was in the system, I monitored it, you know, to get the feel. This intrusion is fun! Anyway, there's a Security alert on in the building. I think it's directed at this level. The Espos are moving into position.”

Atuarre hissed and pulled her cub closer. Torm's face seemed impa.s.sive at first, but Han noticed a tic of anxiety along his jaw. Rekkon tucked the data plaque into his robes, and from them drew a big disrupter pistol. Han was already buckling on his gunbelt, as Chewbacca settled his ammo bandolier over his shoulder and threw the empty tool bag aside.

”Next time I fall for one of these tempting offers,” Han instructed his partner, ”sit on me till the urge pa.s.ses.”

Chewbacca growled that he definitely would.

Torm had taken a handgun from his tight pocket, and Atuarre had produced another from one of her belt pouches. Even the cub, Pakka, was armed; he pulled a toylike pistol from his belt.

”Max,” Rekkon said, ”are you still in the network?” Max indicated he was. ”Good. Now, look at deployment plans for alerts in this Center. At what corridors, junctions, and levels will the Espos be stationed?”

”I can't tell you that,” Max answered, ”but I could clear a way through them, if that's what you want.”

That grabbed Han's attention. ”What'd that little fusebox say?”

The computer-probe elaborated. ”The Security Policemen are all supposed to respond to alarms, it says here, and redeploy to cover any new trouble spots. I could just make enough alarms in other places and draw them away in different directions.”

”That may not get them all out of the way,” Han pointed out, ”but it could sure thin out the opposition. Do it, Maxie.” Another thought struck him. ”Wait a second. Can you fake alarms anywhere else?”

Max's voice burst with pride. ”Anywhere on Orron III, Captain. This network's got so much capacity that they've hooked just about everything into it. Good cost reduction, but bad security, right, Captain?”

”No foolin'. Yeah, give it everything you've got: fires in the power plants, riots in the barracks, indecent exposure in the cafeteria, whatever appeals to you, all over the planet.” He was thinking that if there were a picket s.h.i.+p in orbit, she might also be kept busy by a rash of false alarms.

Bollux, who had remained silent during all this commotion, now came to the terminal and prepared to take Max back the moment the computer's work was done. Rekkon stood with him.

”There're two ways out of here that might be open,” Max announced, and flashed the positions on the screen. The two paths, picked out on the level's layout, both led back to the gallery where the lift and drop chute banks were located. One route was on their floor, the other on the floor above.

Security alarms began clanging and warbling in the corridors. The room's equipment blazed with ripples of light as every circuit reacted to Max's prompting. Then, suddenly, the room became dim, except for light from the window-wall. The Center's automatics had shut down main power sources in response to the supposed emergency. Alarms continued to sound, running on reserves.

”Illumination in the corridors will be very low, on standby power,” Rekkon told the others as they gathered by the door. ”We may be able to slip by.” He carefully set Blue Max back into his emplacement. As his plastron swung shut, Bollux, followed by Rekkon, joined the rest of them at the door.

”If I may suggest,” said the 'droid, ”I would, perhaps, attract less suspicion than any other individual here. I could walk well in advance of you others, in case there are Security Policemen present.”

”That makes sense,” Atuarre said. ”Espos won't waste time and power shooting a 'droid. They'll halt him, though, and that will warn us off from any traps.”

The door slid up, and Bollux started off down the corridor, preceded by the noise of his stiff suspension. The others followed after-Rekkon and Han in the lead, with Torm behind. Atuarre and Pakka came next, and Chewbacca brought up the rear, his bowcaster c.o.c.ked and ready. The Wookiee was watching the conspirators as well as rear-guarding. With the possibility of a traitor in the group, he and Han trusted no one, not even Rekkon. The first wrong move on the part of any of them would be the Wookiee's signal to shoot.

They came to a turn. Bollux went around first, but as the others approached it, they heard: ”Halt! You, 'droid, get over here!”

Han, peeking cautiously around the corner, spied a contingent of heavily armed Espos cl.u.s.tered around Bollux. He picked up bits of the conversation, mostly questions about whether the 'droid had seen anyone else. Bollux put up a front of supreme ignorance and lethargic circuitry. Beyond the gathered Espos, the corridor opened onto the chute gallery, but it might just as well have been on the other side of the Corporate Sector.

”It's no good this way,” Han said.

”Then it's the more desperate route for us,” Rekkon replied. ”Follow me.” They went back the way they had come, at a trot. As they rounded the next corridor, the footfalls of the Espo detachment drifted to them. They hadn't gone far when they heard another squad approaching from the opposite direction.

”Nearest stairwell,” Han instructed Rekkon, who led them a few meters more, then ducked through a door. ”Keep it as quiet as you can,” Han whispered in the semidarkness of the emergency-lighted stairwell. ”Up one floor, and we'll make our way to the balcony overlooking the chutes.” Of course, Chewbacca, for all his bulk, moved quietly, as did the sinuous Atuarre and her cub. Rekkon, too, seemed used to running with stealthy efficiency. That left only Han and Torm to guard their steps, both laboring to keep the noise of their movements to a minimum.

When they reached the second floor of that level, they found it empty. Blue Max's flurry of crazy alerts had drawn the security forces away from their contingency posts. The fugitives raced along the corridors as through a hall of mirrors, keeping close to the walls.

They came to the balcony overlooking the gallery. Crouching low, they edged up to its railing. Han risked a quick peek over the top, then drew his head down again. ”They're setting up a crew-served blaster down by the chutes,” he told them. ”There're three Espos working it. Chewie and I will fix that up; the rest of you get set to jump. Chewie?”

The Wookiee rumbled softly, his finger tightening on the bowcaster. He moved off, staying low, along the railing. Han leaned close to Rekkon's ear and whispered, ”Do us a favor and watch things here; we can only look one way at a time.” He scuttled off in the opposite direction from his partner. With Rekkon armed and watchful, Han doubted that any turncoat would show his hand now.

He paralleled the railing, rounding its corner, down to the far wall. Peering over the rail, he saw the Wookiee's big blue eyes edging up over the opposite railing. Halfway between them and several meters below, the gun crew was making final adjustments on the heavy blaster and its tripod mount. In a moment they would be ready to activate the weapon's deflector s.h.i.+eld; going after them would then become an almost hopeless venture, and the drop chutes would be inaccessible. Apprehension would be a matter of time. One of the Espos was bending even now to throw on the s.h.i.+eld.

Han stood, drew, fired. The man who had been about to activate the s.h.i.+eld slumped, clasping a burned leg. But one of the others, with no regard for niceties like fire-discipline, spun and sprayed a steady stream of destructive energy from a short riot gun. The riot gun's fire blasted material from the walls and railing; the Espo slewed the weapon around carelessly, searching for his target.

Han was forced to duck back out of the way as the rain of energy lashed through the air, striking walls, ceiling, and most things in between. That innocent bystanders might've been hurt didn't seem to have entered into the Espo's calculations.

But the Espo gave a cry and fell, his finger easing off the trigger, accompanied by the metallic tw.a.n.g of Chewbacca's bowcaster. Han looked over the rail again and saw the second man slumped over the first, brought down by one of the short quarrels from the Wookiee's weapon. Now Chewbacca stood, jacking the foregrip of his bowcaster down to rec.o.c.k it and strip another round off its magazine.

The third gun crewman kicked the bodies of his fellows out of the way while firing wildly with his pistol and yelling for help. Han shot him just as the Espo's hands were closing on the heavy blaster's grips. Chewbacca was already over the balcony railing. Han, straddling the railing on his side, called, ”Rekkon, get 'em moving!” He pushed himself off.

He missed his footing and fell to all fours, then raced to help his partner throw a.s.sorted Espos off the blaster cannon. Torm leaped down, landing lightly for all his weight, and Atuarre came after him, all grace and form. Her cub launched himself off the rail, gathered his limbs and tail in for a somersault, and landed next to her. Atuarre slapped him on his way, as if to say this was no place to show off, even for an acrobatic Trianii.

Last to come was Rekkon, moving skillfully, as if this were something he did all the time. Han wondered for a half-second about this versatile university don who never seemed to lose track of the problems at hand. In sending all the others ahead, Rekkon made sure no potential spy remained behind, to be tempted by an unguarded back.

Torm stopped short of the drop chutes, luckily for him. ”The fields have been shut off!” he shouted. Rekkon and Atuarre were with him in a moment, fumbling at the emergency panel beside the chute opening. Rekkon's st.u.r.dy fingers closed around the panel's grille, and he yanked it away without apparent effort.

Calls and a general hubbub could be heard in the upper corridors. Han squirmed himself down behind the blaster cannon, setting his feet on the pegs of its tripod, and switched on the deflector s.h.i.+eld. ”Heads up!” he warned his companions. ”The party's starting!”

A squad of Espos, wearing combat armor and carrying rifles and riot guns, burst out onto the balcony above, fanning out along the rail, and started firing down. Their bolts splashed in polychrome waves from the cannon's s.h.i.+eld. Torm, Rekkon, and the others, directly behind Han as they worked on the drop-chute panel, were protected, too, for now. Chewbacca stood behind his partner, firing his bowcaster whenever he had an opening. Soon his weapon was empty, and he pulled another magazine from his bandolier. He chose explosive quarrels and started firing again. The detonations filled the gallery with smoke and thunder.

Han had raised the cannon's snout to extreme elevation, and now he swept it across the railing. Heavy blaster charges flashed and crackled; parts of the railing and the balcony's edge exploded, melted, or burst into flames. Several Espos were hit, falling to the floor below, and the rest backed hastily out of the line of fire, darting out to snap off a volley when they could, in a constant, determined exchange of shots. The firefight and its echoes, heat, and smoke enveloped the gallery.

Han kept the Espos' heads down with long traverses of the cannon, letting go at the floor of the balcony, scoring the walls. The gallery heated up like a furnace from the energies unleashed. Red beams of annihilation bickered back and forth, and Han knew that the cannon's s.h.i.+eld wouldn't hold out forever against constant fire from the riot guns and rifles.

A squad of armored figures appeared in the low corridor, the one leading directly onto the gallery. Han depressed the cannon's mouth and filled the lower hallway with raging destruction. These Espos drew back, too, like the others, stayed just out of range to risk firing whenever they could. Atuarre, Pakka, and Torm, drawing their guns, joined Han and Chewbacca in returning fire, while Rekkon kept working at the chute.

”Rekkon, if you can't get that drop field working, that'll be all for us,” Han hollered over his shoulder. A Security man leaned out from the balcony above and snapped off a shot. It rebounded from the gun's s.h.i.+eld, but Han could tell from the residual heat the deflector let through that it was beginning to fail.

”It's no use,” Rekkon decided as his strong, sensitive fingers probed the mechanisms. ”We'll have to find another way out.”