Chewie was howling aloud with terror at the chances his partner was taking. “Shut up, fuzz-face!” Han yelled. “I gotta concentrate!”
Chewie’s howls dropped to moans … possibly prayers. Han was too busy to listen.
They were nearing the end of the Pit, heading straight for the Maw.
“Chewie, I’m gonna have to shave the belly armor right off the Falcon, and hope those Imps won’t want to mess with these black holes,” Han said, tightly. “Those slugs are not givin’ up!”
Chewbacca arrrrhhhhhnnnnned in despair. “I can’t help it! They’re not getting the Falcon!”
The two Imperial ships stuck to the smuggler vessel as though they were hooked by tractor beams. Han and Chewie worked frantically over the Falcon’s control board, adjusting their course, speed, direction, shielding ….
In desperation, Han sent the Falcon closer to the black hole clusters than any sane person would ever go. Only the ship’s breakneck speed might save them.
The Millennium Falcon skimmed so close to the black holes in the Maw that only her terrible velocity kept her from being captured and sucked in. The watching eyes of the accretion disks seemed to widen and narrow as the Falcon soared and swooped in and around the treacherous gravity wells. The Imperial ships hurtled after him at top velocity.
Han did an impossible spin, flip and swoop as he came around toward the last of the Maw. Studying his instruments, Han saw that one of the pursuing Imperial ships, the smaller of the two, hadn’t been able to duplicate his maneuver—the ship vanished into the embrace of the black hole’s accretion disk with a tiny, ignoble flare.
“Yes!” he said, fiercely. “You’re not gettin’ me! Not today, not ever!”
Now the last Imperial ship was falling behind … and the Falcon was nearly out of the Maw. “Yes, Chewie! We did it!”
“Arrrrrrhhhhhhhhnnn!”
Han sent the Falcon hurtling past Kessel, and then, suddenly they were free of the gravity wells. Han hastily bent over the navicomputer, then a moment later, shouted, “Course laid in! Punch it, Chewie!”
Moments later they were safe in hyperspace. Han slumped back in his seat. “That was too close,” he muttered, hoarsely.
Chewie agreed.
As he sagged in his seat, Han noticed something. “Hey, Chewie. Look!”
He pointed at the instruments. “We set a record!”
Chewie commented bitterly that their speed record had come at the expense of his nerves. Han’s eyes narrowed. “Hey, this is weird,” he said. “It says we actually shortened the distance we traveled, not just the time.
Less than twelve parsecs!”
Chewie growled skeptically and rapped on the distance gauge with hairy knuckles, commenting that Han’s wild piloting must have caused a short and the gauge was off.
Han argued, but when Chewbacca, short-tempered, snarled at him, he gave up. “Okay, okay, I’m too tired to argue,” he said, throwing up his hands.
But I did do it in under twelve parsecs …. he thought stubbornly.
But now he had more pressing problems to consider than speed or distance records. What in the universe was he going to tell Jabba?
16
Toprawa … and Mos Eisley
Han faced the craggy, scarred holo-image of Bidlo Kwerve, Jabba the Hutt’s Corellian majordomo. Behind Kwerve he could see the sandcolored walls of the Hutt Lord’s desert palace on Tatooine. “Hey, Kwerve,” Han said, “let me speak to the boss, please.”
The ugly Corellian thug had jet-black hair with a vivid white stripe running through it, and vivid green eyes. Kwerve smiled, a small and nasty smile. “Hey, it’s Solo,” he said. “Jabba’s been callin’ you.
Where you been, Solo?”
“Here and there,” Han said, shortly. He didn’t like being played with.
“Ran into a bit of trouble with the Imps.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” Kwerve said. “Let me see if I can get Jabba to talk to you. Last time I knew, he was pretty ticked ‘cause you’re overdue with that cargo. He’s got some plans for that spice.”
Han stared stonily into the comm. “Just patch me through, Kwerve, and stuff the jokes.”
“Oho, who said I was jokin’, Solo?”
The Corellian majordomo’s scarred visage disappeared in a wash of static, and for a moment Han thought he’d cut the transmission. He reached out to break the connection himself, when the static was suddenly gone, replaced by Jabba’s massive holo-image. “Jabba!” Han blurted, in mingled relief and trepidation. “Hey, listen … I got a little problem.”
Jabba did not look happy. He was smoking some brown substance that roiled around in the combination hookah and snackquarium he’d inherited from the dead Jiliac, and his huge pupils were dilated from the drug.