[Legacy Of The Force] - 03(121)

“Evac suits? No way,” Han started aft. “By then, the Falcon won’t have any cabin pressure left.”

“Dad, you took a turbolaser strike straight down your access core.” Jaina waddled up beside him in her suit. “We might not be able to patch things up.”

“Sure we will,” Han replied. “This is a YT-Thirteen-hundred. The access core isn’t that important.”

He continued aft, bouncing off the walls as the corridor tipped and tilted around him. A deepening shudder in the deck hinted at a broken engine mount, while a steady serenade of muffled groans suggested how fiercely the Falcon’s damaged frame was straining under Leia’s evasive maneuvers-and made Han wonder how long they had before a metallic bang deep inside the ship somewhere brought that final ear pop of decompression.

He rounded the corner to find the bulkhead hatch sealed and a stream of air whistling out through a tiny hole in the wall. The edges of the hole were smooth and puffy, as though the durasteel had been melted instead of punctured.

“That’s bad news,” Ben commented from a couple of meters behind Han. “It’s a spatter breach.”

“No big deal,” Han said. Spatter breaches happened when a metal mass erupted in a molten spray, usually after being hit by a turbolaser strike. They were notoriously dangerous and difficult to repair because they caused so much damage in so many different places. “It didn’t hit anything important, or we’d be dead already.” Han activated the control panel, then checked the pressure on the other side of the bulkhead and entered a safety override code. His ears popped painfully as the hatch retracted, and the whistle of escaping atmosphere became a scream. He stepped into the rear hold and turned toward the sound, and the first problem became instantly apparent.

The spatter had perforated a meter-wide circle of durasteel with literally hundreds of tiny melt holes. The metal was so weak that the air pressure was bowing the wall outward, and Han knew it wouldn’t be long before the area simply tore free and sucked the atmosphere from the hold in a deadly whoosh.

“Okay, so it’s kind of a big deal,” he said. “Jaina, you and Zekk go to the repair locker and break out the patches and reinforcement strips. Ben, take your Twi’lek friend and…”

“We’re not really friends,” Ben interrupted, sounding as petulant as only young teenagers could at a time like this. “And his name is Spacer First Class Sorzo.”

“Fine.” Han looked over Ben to the Twi’lek. “Just take a look around the access core and see if there are any other spots this bad.”

The Twi’lek-Sorzo-acknowledged the order with a salute and started off with Ben in tow. Han spent the next twenty seconds searching the immediate area for less obvious punctures-and finding plenty. Even if they did manage to patch this cluster, they would still have to track down dozens of tiny melt holes concealed behind places like the engineering station and medbay. It was going to mean sealing off the cockpit and spending hours in evac suits, but what else could he do-abandon the Falcon?

A tremendous bang rumbled up from somewhere be-lowdecks, and an odd chugging sensation began to accompany the ship’s shuddering and bucking.

Leia’s voice came over the intercom, barely audible above the screech of escaping air. “Han, what was that?”

“How should I know?” Han was actually beginning to feel overwhelmed by the Falcon’s problems, and that never happened. “Can’t See-Threepio tell you?”

“There’s no indication of a new problem on the damage reports,” the droid reported. “But we do seem to be losing power in our sublight drives.”

“Blast!” Han started to bang a fist against the wall-then took another look at the circle of spatter perforations and decided not to risk it. “Something must be pinching a feed line.”

“Perhaps you could free it,” C-3PO suggested.

“I’m kind of busy patching pressure leaks back here,” Han responded.

“That won’t matter if we take another hit,” Leta said. “And if we can’t maneuver…”

“We’re going to take another hit,” Han finished. “I know. Okay-let me get a flow report and see if I can locate the problem.”

He stepped around the corner and found Ben already standing in front of the aft engineering station, eyes glued to the display and fingers on the keypad. Thinking the boy had done something to cause the power loss, Han rushed to his side.

The screen had nothing on it but a tactical display feed, which showed a confused-but-improving situation near the planet Hapes. Admiral Bwua’tu’s fleet was already starting to hammer the Corellian Dreadnaughts, and a task force of Royal Battle Dragons was tearing through the second usurper fleet from behind.