Part 37 (1/2)

Han heard his named called. Skynx and Hasti crouched at the edge of the field. Firing and scrambling, the others joined them.

”We can't retreat down that snowfield; it's too steep,” Hasti declared, ”and even Chewbacca couldn't carry that gong down. We'd make perfect targets out there.”

Han dealt out a few more shots, pondering her reasoning and their lack of alternatives. Then Chewbacca, surveying the situation, barked a quick scheme to him.

”Partner, you are crazy,” Han exclaimed, not without a certain respect. But he saw no nonfatal alternative. ”What's keeping us?” He pulled the others closer and explained the plan. They readied themselves, having no time for fear or doubts.

Then Han yelled. ”Chewie! Go!” The Wookiee backpedaled to the edge of the field, whirled, stooped, and laid the concave gong down, its curved surface indenting the hard, icy snowfield. Han fired furiously.

Badure dropped awkwardly onto the gong and grabbed a carrying handle. Bollux climbed onto the opposite side of the rim, locking servo-grips onto two more handles. Skynx swarmed aboard and clung tightly around the 'droid's neck, antennae flailing. Hasti braced herself next to Badure, and Chewbacca had to brace his broad feet in the snow at the tug of the gong's weight.

Han still stood, keeping up a heavy volume of fire. He shouted, ”I'll pile on last!”

Chewbacca didn't take time to argue; he swept out one long arm, gathered his friend in like a child, and threw himself onto the gong. Shots from the Survivor flankers crisscrossed overhead. The Wookiee's impetus and weight gave them a quick start.

The gong gathered speed, spinning and sliding as it cut along the icy slope. Chewbacca lifted his head and uttered a foghorn-like hoot of elation, to which Skynx added a ”Wee-ee hee-ee!”

The gong tilted and rotated to the left as it swished across the snow. Chewbacca threw his weight the other way; they bounced and slid on a fairly even keel for a few seconds, then hit a small rock outcropping in the snowfield.

They were airborne, all hands seeking a grip and flailing to stay aboard; to fall from the gong now and slide the rest of the way without protection would mean severe laceration by ice shards and shattered bones from the hardened patches and rocks.

They came down again with a breath-stealing jolt; everyone, miraculously, contrived to cling to the bucking, jarring gong. Han grabbed Hasti, who, in helping Badure, had nearly lost her own grip. The Falcon's master encircled her waist with his free arm while she clenched a handful of Badure's flight jacket. Badure, in turn, had locked legs with Chewbacca, helping the Wookiee steer by leaning and tugging at the handles. Chewbacca, like the others, could barely see; their headlong speed through the icy air had stung everyone's eyes to tears and was numbing their exposed skin.

In leaning abruptly to the side, the Wookiee succeeded in guiding their mad descent around a prow of stone that would have smashed them all, but in the process he lost his balance. Bollux quickly s.h.i.+fted his central torsional member and secured his legs around the Falcon's first officer's.

Badure held on to Chewbacca, too, reaching out with a free hand to help steady the Wookiee. But in doing so he saw he was about to lose Chewbacca's bowcaster and bandoleer. He cried out, his words stolen instantly by the wind, but Han was busy clinging to a handle and hanging onto Hasti and she to Badure, while Badure and Bollux were committed to keeping Chewbacca aboard. Meanwhile, the Wookiee devoted all his attention to what could only in the most ludicrous sense be termed ”steering.”

And so Skynx, facing the fact that only he was free to act, released his grip on the 'droid with all but his last set of limbs. He was dragged around at once, very nearly snapped like a whip, reaching with his free extremities. Just as Badure's scrabbling efforts to hang on to the bowcaster failed, Skynx got close enough to grasp the weapon and was abruptly thrown in the other direction as the gong changed course again.

The small Ruurian now clung to his only mainstay, Bollux, by the digits of his lowermost limbs, which clenched precariously on the 'droid's shoulder pauldron. But he determinedly hung on to the weapon and ammunition, knowing they might be needed badly and that there was no one to catch them if he failed. With each b.u.mp and rotation of the gong, Skynx felt his grip loosening, but he hugged his burden resolutely. One by one, he began to find purchase for his other limbs. Chewbacca felt him fumbling, s.h.i.+fted his leg as much as he was able, and Skynx managed to fasten two sets of limbs to the Wookiee's thick knee.

They were at the steepest part of the insane plunge, shearing through the snowfield, rocking in furrows, and smas.h.i.+ng out of depressions in the surface. Several times Han saw energy beams of various hues register hits in the snow, but always far wide of their mark. As targets go, we must be pretty fast and furious.

He clung doggedly, fingers, ears, and face numbed by the cold, eyes streaming a constant flow of tears. ”My fingers are slipping!” cried Hasti with unmasked fear. ”I can't feel them.”

Han knew with a sense of utter futility that he could do little to help her. He griped her as tightly as he could, hoping that his frozen fingers would hold.

Badure yelled, ”We're slowing down!” Chewbacca bellowed pure joy. Hasti began to half-laugh, half-sob.

The gong had reached a gentler portion of the slope close to the foot of the snowfield and was losing speed moment by moment. The b.u.mps and jolts became less dramatic, the spinning less p.r.o.nounced. In seconds they were coasting.

”An excellent job, First Mate Chewbacca,” Bollux was saying, when suddenly the gong's rim hit a slab of rock that lifted it into the air like a jump ramp. Frozen hands, servo-grips, Ruurian digits, and Wookiee toes, all lost their final struggle. The gong threw them free. Human bodies, the tubular Skynx, a yeowling Chewbacca, and gleaming Bollux sailed through the air on a.s.sorted trajectories, cartwheeling, tumbling, spinning-and falling.

XIII.

HAN heard the whine of servo-motors over the moan of wind. From where he lay, mostly buried by the mound of snow he had sc.r.a.ped up on his landing approach, he could see Bollux draped belly-up over a low s...o...b..nk. The halves of the 'droid's chest plastron opened up and outward.

Blue Max's vocoder bl.u.s.tered. ”Hey! Let's get moving; we're not out of it yet!”

A drift to Han's right sloughed and erupted. Chewbacca appeared, spitting out snow and rumbling an acid remark to the diminutive computer module.

”No, he's right,” Han groaned to his partner. He raised himself on unsteady arms and gazed up the slope, foggily curious about whether his head was actually going to fall off or if it simply felt that way. A bobbing column of lights was wending its way down the snowfield from the Survivors' base. Their former captors were in hot pursuit.

”The short circuit's right on the money, folks; everybody up!” Han thrashed and floundered in the snow for a moment, then pulled himself to his feet and began beating his hands together to bring some sensation back.

Hasti was also struggling up. Han caught her hand and pulled her to her feet. She ran over to see to Badure. Chewbacca had just reclaimed his bowcaster and bandoleer from Skynx, whom he had dug free. The Wookiee growled his grat.i.tude, patting and stroking the Ruurian's woolly back in a gruff gesture of thanks.

Hasti was chafing Badure's hand's and wrists, trying to get him upright. Han moved to help and saw that the tip of the old man's nose and patches on his cheeks were whitened.

”He's getting frostbite. On deck, Trooper; time to depart the area.” They pulled him up. Meanwhile, with Chewbacca's help, Bollux was once more upright.

Counting heads before striking off, Han spied Skynx bent over the gong, which had fallen face up, a flattened dome in the snow. The Ruurian was making minute examination of the whorls and patterns on the ancient metal, laboring to see in the light of moons and stars. When Han called him, the academician yelled back. ”I think you'd better see this first, Captain.”

They all gathered around him. His small digits traced the raised characters. ”I thought I recognized these when I first saw this object, but I was too hurried to study them. All these,” a splay of digits indicated groups of characters, ”are technical notations and operating instructions. They have to do with pressure equalization and fastening procedures.”

”Then it comes from a hatch,” Badure concluded, his m.u.f.fled voice coming through hands cupped to thaw out his cheeks and nose. ”Some kind of decorative facing off an airlock hatch, a big one.”

Skynx agreed. ”A peculiar and rather ostentatious appointment, but that is the case. Those several larger characters there in the center give the vessel's name.” He turned bulbous red eyes to them. ”It's the Queen of Ranroon!”

In the middle of a tumult of voices-human, non-human, and electronic-Han stood imagining the treasure of entire worlds. Though cold, near exhaustion, pursued, and starved, he suddenly found himself charged with limitless energy and a dramatic determination to live and to claim the Queen's wealth.

They were interrupted. Han's thoughts and the confused conversations springing from Skynx's revelation were cut short by a long note sounding in the night, a wail from a hunting horn or other signaling device.

That brought them all up short. The bobbing lights of the pursuing Survivors' column were now well down the slope. Now and then one would drop from the line and disappear as its bearer lost footing on the treacherous snowfield and fell tumbling.

Led by Han, the escapees set out in a staggering string, helping one another as well as they could; fortunately, the snow wasn't very deep. They reached down to scoop up handfuls of the stuff to melt in their mouths, trying to relieve the dehydration of their captivity. Beating his gloved hands together, Han considered what the hatch cover might mean. Were the Survivors guarding Xim's treasure in their mountain warren? What had become of the Queen of Ranroon?

Hasti caught up to him in the struggling line of march. ”Solo, I've been doing some thinking. The congregation back there isn't just tooting their horns to hear the echoes and let us know they're coming. I think they have patrols out and are calling the forces out on us.”

He stopped, deriding himself for having been preoccupied with the treasure. Hasti repeated her reasoning to the others. ”We're not too far from the snow line,” Badure observed. ”Perhaps that's the limit to their territory.”

Han shook his head. ”We messed up church for them and left quite a few of them in some pain. They're coming for blood and they won't stop just because the snow does. We'd better take up a better formation. Chewie, walk the point.”

The Wookiee padded off quietly; cold and snow didn't bother him. Protected by his thick pelt, he slipped off, keeping to the cover of the increasingly frequent rocks and boulders. The others followed more slowly in his wake, slowed because they were bereft of his giant, supportive strength.

But within minutes the Wookiee was back to draw them down into the cover of a particularly large boulder and tell Han, in quick gutterals, what he had encountered.

”There're more of them, coming up this way,” Han translated. ”Chewie thinks we can hide here and wait them out. When they're past, we go on. Still and quiet, everybody.”

They waited for oppressive minutes, straining to make no noise, no s.h.i.+ft of position or other movement that might betray them. Han slowly turned his head to check the progress of the Survivors from their base. The lights had made their way to the gentler part of the slope and fanned out for a ground search.

There was a slight sound, the smallest movement of rock and crunch of ice. Everyone tensed. A shape moved stealthily into view, keeping to available cover. The approaching Survivor was uncostumed but wore a hood and heavy clothing. The scout's head turned slowly, searching the area carefully as he went. Moments later another sentinel appeared, farther across the valley on a parallel course.

Han thought he understood. The valley widened abruptly from here, and a few sentries, farther along, might not be able to stop the escapees from getting past. The sentries kept moving warily. When they were well past the escapees' position, Han-using hand-touches to alert his companions and dictate the order of march-slipped out from behind the boulder. The servo-motors of Bollux's body were smooth and quiet, but sounded unbearably loud to Han. He could only hope the sound didn't carry over the wind and other noises in the night.

They had wound their way among the rocks for another half kilometer and gotten out of sight of the snowfield, and Han had just begun to let himself believe they were clear, when a yellow heatbeam flashed out of the night. It scored on a rock two meters to Bollux's right, throwing up sparks and globs of molten mineral.