Then the deafening bang of a concussion grenade echoed down the corridor. Han was momentarily blinded by a brilliant flash of yellow. Leia cried out in surprise, and the air resonated with the piercing shriek of blasterfire. Hapan voices began to scream and abruptly fall silent, and blaster bolts flew down the corridor so furiously it took a moment for Han to realize his vision had cleared.
Leia was Force-tumbling back toward him, somersaulting and twisting through the air, arcing from one side of the corridor to the other, batting blaster bolts aside and taking momentary shelter behind the display pedestals. Behind her, the surviving assassins-if there were any-were nowhere to be seen, and a wall of royal guards was charging into the far end of the corridor, power blasters blazing.
Han rose just high enough to show his shoulders and head above the pedestal he was using for cover. “Knock it off, you rodders!” he yelled. “We’re on…”
A volley of blaster bolts brought his protest to an end, blowing the armor display off its stand and sending him to the floor beneath a crashing avalanche of durasteel.
“Han!” Leia’s voice was barely audible over the screech of blasterfire, and the burned-meat stink of blaster combat had grown so thick in the hail that Han felt like retching. “Keep down!”
“Like I have a choice,” Han grumbled-or would have grumbled, had there been enough air in his chest to do so.
He pushed a twenty-kilo breastplate off his shoulders and head, then rolled to his knees. His breath still would not come, but the ache in his chest was dull and general, suggesting he’d simply had the air knocked out of him. Leia was on the opposite side of the corridor and a little ahead of him, trapped behind a display pedestal by a torrent of blasterfire so bright and constant it resembled an ion drive’s efflux.
Han looked back to the royal guards, who had already advanced halfway down the corridor. “Okay,” he growled. “I’ve had it with you guys shooting at my wife.”
He dropped back behind the display pedestal, pointed his blaster at the ceiling, and fired into the heart of the giant chandelier. It took only a handful of shots to bring the huge fixture down in a chiming crash of wind crystals and metal, and the torrent of blasterfire coming down the corridor immediately faded to a fraction of what it had been. He raised his head again and saw that the chandelier had landed squarely in the midst of the charging guards, leaving the largest part of the company sprawled on the floor-injured, trapped, or just too dazed to move.
But nearly a dozen guards had been far enough down the corridor to escape the chandelier. They were concentrating their fire on Leia, driving her back behind the pedestal every time she tried to make a break for Han’s side of the corridor. And Leia was not helping matters much, simply deflecting their bolts instead of batting them back into her attackers. Clearly, she was trying to avoid hurting Hapans still loyal to Tenel Ka.
Han cursed her scruples, then took aim at the guards’ feet and began to bounce blaster bolts off the floor. More than half of them immediately turned their attention to Han, but one-an angry-browed man with the weathered face of a veteran-repaid the Solos’ courtesy by pulling a concussion grenade off his equipment belt.
“No!” Han cried, more to himself than anyone else “Don’t…”
The guard thumbed the activation switch, and Han had no choice but to take aim at the man’s chest.
Before he opened fire, a string of bolts flew up the corridor from behind him, catching the guard full-on and knocking him off his feet. The grenade tumbled from the Hapan’s hand and rolled free. Han swung around in shock-or maybe it was fear-and had just enough time to glimpse the pale-skinned assassin standing in the archway, firing a cumbersome Hapan power blaster with each hand.
Then the concussion grenade detonated behind him, filling the corridor with light and thunder and fire. The assassin barely blinked. She simply continued firing with one of her weapons and used the other to wave the Solos toward her.
“Come on!”
Too astonished to do anything else, Han looked across the corridor at Leia-who merely looked back and shrugged.
A few of the guards trapped beneath the fallen chandelier began to recover and fired down the corridor again, at the assassin as well as the Solos. She dropped into an evasive roll, then came up firing and suppressed their attacks to almost nothing. She gestured to the Solos again, this time leaving the power blaster pointed in Han’s direction when she finished.
“Come on,” she repeated. Her voice was high but cold. “If you want to live.”
Han glanced over at Leia.
She nodded vigorously. “Who doesn’t?”