[Han Solo] - 03(130)

Nothin’!”

“I don’t believe you,” Lando said, coldly. “But if I did, I’d say, ‘good!”

You two deserve each other!”

“Lando,” Han said, “I lost a load of spice I was carryin’ for Jabba.

I’m desperate, buddy. I need to borrow—” “What?” Lando grabbed Han’s jacket in both hands and yanked the pilot to his feet. He slammed the Corellian against the wall. The gambler’s dark face was barely a handsbreadth from Han’s. “You came here to ask me for a loan?”

Han managed to nod. “I’m good for it … honest …. ” “Get this through your head, Solo,” Lando snarled. “We’ve been friends in the past, so I’m not going to do what you so richly deserve and blow your head off. But don’t ever come near me again!”

Slamming Han against the wall one more time, Lando let the Corellian go.

Han slid down the wall again, as Lando stormed back into his flat. The door banged shut, and Han heard the lock click.

Slowly, painfully, Han got to his feet. His jaw was throbbing, and he tasted blood.

Well, that’s that, he thought, staring at the closed door. Now what?

“We’re not going to get out of here, are we?”

Commander Bria Tharen ignored the barely audible question as she ducked down behind the pile of rubble and ejected the spent power pak from her blaster. Or tried to. The pak was jammed. Looking at her weapon, she saw that the constant firing from the past few minutes of battle had fused the power connectors together, making it impossible to remove the empty pak.

She swore under her breath, and crawled over to the body next to her.

Jace Paol’s features were frozen into an expression of tight, concentrated anger. He’d died fighting, the way he would have wanted to go. Grabbing his weapon, she eased it out from beneath his body, but before she had it all the way out, she saw the barrel was fused.

It was as useless as her own.

Glancing over at the pitiful remains of Red Hand Squadron, Bria said, “Anyone who can, give me cover. I’ve got to scrounge me up something to shoot with.”

Joaa’n nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. “Ready, Commander. I don’t see anything moving out there at the moment.”

“Okay,” Bria said. Tossing the useless weapon aside, the Rebel commander peered carefully over the rubble, then stealthily slid around to the side, out from behind her cover. She didn’t bother getting to her feet, not sure that her wounded leg would support her. Instead, she scuttled forward on hands and knees, keeping low, through the ragged hole in the outside wall of the half-destroyed Imperial comm center where they were making their last stand.

A few meters away, an Imperial trooper lay, a hole still smoldering in his breastplate.

Quickly, Bria crawled over and stripped the dead man of his weapon and spare power paks, noting wryly that the trooper must have used all his grenades before he’d been shot. Too bad … I could have made good use of a couple of grenades ….

Bria thought about taking the man’s body armor, but it hadn’t done him any good, had it?

Here, outside the remains of the Imperial comm center on the restricted world of Toprawa, she could hear better. And breathe better, too. The stench of battle was replaced by a cool night breeze. Bria crouched behind a fallen block of permacrete, daring to pull off her helmet for a second, then wipe her grimy face. She sighed with pleasure as the gentle breeze cooled her sweaty hair. The last time she’d felt a cool, pleasant breeze like that had been on Togoria ….

Where are you, Han? she wondered, as she often did. What are you doing right now?

She wondered if Han would ever know what had become of her. Would he care if he did? Did he hate her now? She hoped not, but she would never know ….

Bria thought about that day on Ylesia, and wished things could have been different. Yet … if she’d had it to do over again, would she have done things any differently?

She smiled sadly. Probably not ….

The credits she’d raised had come in handy, and had led directly to this assignment. Torbul and the other Rebel leaders had sent intelligence units to infiltrate Ralltiir, and they’d discovered that the Empire was shipping vital plans for its new secret weapon to its records center on Toprawa.

Torbul had been straight with her when he’d discussed the mission, using terms like, “recovery iffy,” and “expendable.”

Bria had known what she was getting into, but she’d volunteered Red Hand Squadron anyway. She knew they needed the best for this job, and she was confident her people could deliver.

And they had ….