They ignited their lightsabers, then pressed themselves against the tunnel wall and slashed a large X across the center of the hatch. The membrane blew apart, and their would-be ambushers went tumbling past on a tide of explosive decompression, crashing into the pilot swarm and bringing its advance to a tumbling, confused halt.
Once the torrent slowed, Mara floated through the tattered membrane into a corridor filled with flash-frozen Killiks. Luke followed a few meters behind, using the Force to pull himself along, shouldering aside Gorog warriors with heads painted in the dark
spray
pattern
of decompression death.
“How’s that hisser?” Mara asked.
Luke checked the heads-up display inside his faceplate. He was down to just fifteen minutes of air, and the loss rate was increasing.
“Fine for now.”
He turned his helmet lamp back through the burst hatch and was relieved to illuminate only a small portion of the throng that had been pursuing them so far. About fifty of the insects were still coming, pushing their way up the body-choked passage toward him and Mara. The last dozen or so were scurrying in the opposite direction, vanishing into the darkness behind the hundreds of pilots that had already started back toward their dartships.
“But the next time we come to a pressure hatch, let’s try to leave it intact,” Luke said. “I think our rescue party is about to be delayed.”
The navigation lock finally reached the center of the display. Relieved to note their Chiss escorts were still behind them-the cruiser was less likely to blast the Falcon to atoms that way - Han began a slow, spiraling descent into Kr’s thickening fog. He would have liked to drop into a power dive and go screaming down to find Luke and Mara, but that would have looked suspicious. And when Chiss grew suspicious, they killed things.
“Let’s see what it looks like inside that fog,” Han said. “Activate the terrain scanners.”
Leia brought the scanners online. Unlike ethmane ice, ethmane fog was almost as transparent to sensors as air, and a moment later the mouth of a broad funnel-like pit appeared on Han’s display. The hole appeared to be a deep one, descending more than two kilometers before finally curving out of sight.
“Any sign of rescue beacons?” Han asked.
Leia shook her head. “None.” She closed her eyes. “They’re too deep.”
“Deep?”
“Inside Kr,” she said. “I think they’re in the nest.”
‘In the nest?” Han felt like he was going to choke on his heart. “That’s not funny, Leia.”
“It gets less funny,” she said. “Luke seems to think we’ll meet a reception committee.”
“You don’t say.” Han smiled. “Good.”
“Good?” C-3PO demanded. “I don’t see anything good about this situation at all. There’s every chance that both Master Skywalkers will be killed by our baradium missiles!”
“Not really.” Han pushed the Falcon’s nose down and dropped into a steepening dive. “For that to happen, we’d have to actually fire the baradium missiles.”
“You don’t intend to fire them?” C-3PO asked, growing even more alarmed. “Not even one?”
“No.” Leia’s tone was relieved. It had been her idea to bring the baradium missiles along, but she had spent most of the trip worried about how they were going to keep Alema clear when they fired the weapons at the nest. Han had not been quite so worried. “Not with Luke and Mara inside.”
“But you won’t be able to clear the nest!” C-3PO objected. “Without those missiles, the odds will be-“
“Easy, Threepio.” The last thing Han wanted to hear was how bad the odds were. He was already having to hold the yoke tight to prevent his hands from shaking. “I wasn’t counting on the missiles anyway.”
“You weren’t?”
“Of course not,” he said. “They’re baradium. You never get to shoot the baradium missiles.”
“Oh.” C-3PO grew calmer. “That’s true. I have no record of one ever actually being launched.”
They descended a thousand meters into the fog, then a Chiss voice crackled over the comm.
“Millennium Falcon, be advised that if you attempt to evade us, we will open fire.”
“We’re not evading,” Han answered. “We’re going in… and you’re welcome to follow.”
“Going in?” The ethmane ice was already beginning to make the comm signal scratchy. “Clarify.”
“We have two Jedi pilots down inside the nest,” Leia explained. “We’re going to extract them.”