[Black Fleet Crisis] - 02(10)

the viewscreen of Lando’s contact suit, and the vaporized material from two and a half square meters of bulkhead filled the air as a gray cloud.

Before Lando could even see clearly, the hole began to close.

“Let’s go, let’s go—get it lined up!” Lando shouted.

The two men maneuvered the frame into position, and the bulkhead closed around it as though it were a tailored fit.

But as they did, they heard a deep, rumbling groan from the ship, a sound that had no direction. Though the surroundings were alien, the sound was familiar—the signature of a form of stress that aged large vessels’ hulls and led to the spectacular form of self-destruction known as an exit breach. It was the exit growl, the characteristic sound caused by portions of the ship emerging from hyperspace nanoseconds before the rest as the jump field collapsed.

“I hate it when I’m right,” Lando said, gesturing with his free hand.

“Move it, Artoo. Now!”

The little droid jetted quickly toward the opening, towing the heavily loaded grid behind it. For a moment Lando thought the frame looked too small for Artoo to pass through it. But the droid retracted his treads as far as they would go, turned his body, and cleared the opening by bare centimeters. The equipment grid smoothly passed through behind him.

“Wait for me, Artoo!” Threepio called, flailing his arms and legs in midair.

“Go ahead,” Lando said to Lobot, passing him the cutting blaster and waving him on. “I’ll get Threepio.”

Lobot didn’t wait to be told twice, swinging himself feetfirst through the improvised doorway as neatly as a gymnast taking a turn on the parallel bar. Meanwhile, Lando clipped the safety line from the contact suit’s belt to the handhold of the frame and launched himself toward the droid, his gloved hand extended to him.

“Oh, thank you, Master Lando,” the droid said relievedly as he grabbed hold of Lando’s arm. Then Threepio saw Lando’s eyes suddenly widen in alarm.

“What is it, sir?”

Watching from the inner passage, Lobot saw the same thing Lando had seen when he looked past Threepio toward the outer bulkhead: a small opening appearing and quickly irising into an airlock that revealed a stark, starry blackness beyond. Moments later the external mics on the suits picked up the hiss of out-rushing air.

Lando did not take the time to answer Threepio’s concerned inquiry.

“Heads up—incoming!” he bellowed, and swung Threepio by the arms toward the inner doorway. Bracing himself against the frame, Lobot reached through, caught Threepio’s right foot, and dragged him into the inner passage.

But the rush of air through the inner passage and out through the wound kept building, and it was all Lobot could do to keep himself from being sucked through.

Nor was he the only one in trouble. Artoo’s thrusters could not hold against the screaming wind, and he squawked loudly as he was dragged inexorably back down the inner passage toward the

opening,

clinging determinedly to the equipment grid.

Meanwhile, Lando dangled helplessly at the end of his safety line, his feet banging against the edge of the outer airlock as the air grabbed at him on its way into the vacuum beyond.

Only Threepio was relatively secure, his metal body braced across one end of the sled frame, blocking part of the opening. But he was waving his arms wildly like a shell-spined mud crawler that’d been flipped on its back.

“Oh, Artoo, we’re doomed!” he cried. “I never did like space travel.

Look where your adventuring has led us—” “You have to cut the frame,” Lando was shouting into the comlink. “Cut the frame and it’ll pull out—the rest of the hole will close. Do it!”

“Not with you on that side,” Lobot said, climbing across Threepio to where the safety line was attached.

“There’s a take-up crank on that belt line. See if you can pull yourself up that way.”

“No good,” said Lando. “Too much load. Just cut the frame, will you?”

Lobot glanced sideways down the corridor to see if he and Threepio were in danger of being knocked through the hole by an out-of-control Artoo and his cargo. But to Lobot’s relief, he saw that Artoo had made his way to the edge of the passage, burned a small hole with his arc welder, and let the hole close around a repair arm. So far, the anchor was holding against the current- -which seemed to Lobot to be weakening.

“Forget it,” Lobot directed, reaching down between his braced legs and catching hold of the thin safety line.

He began hauling on the line hand over hand, reeling Lando in like a great white fish. The cyborg’s wiry body concealed surprising strength, and soon he had hold of the tow ring on Lando’s suit, at the back of the neck.