[Legacy Of The Force] - 03(96)

“That’s hardly necessary.” C-3PO retreated toward the far side of the flight deck. “If you want me to keep quiet, all you have to do is say so.”

Morwan turned around in her seat. “Keep you quiet about what, Threepio?”

C-3PO glanced briefly in Han’s direction. “I’m really not at liberty to say, Lady Morwan.”

“Threepio isn’t allowed to divulge anything concerning the Falcon’s operation,” Leia lied. She kept her gaze fixed on the control panel chrono, counting down the seconds until they reverted to realspace. “It’s a standard security protocol.”

“But there’s no big secret,” Han added quickly. “The comm antenna retracts when the sensor dish reverses for the jump. And since the dish was stuck…”

“… you had to lower it manually,” Morwan finished. She glanced at C-3PO, as though she could read the truth in the droid’s expressionless face, then nodded. “Of course.”

Morwan turned back to the sensor glides, leaving Han to wonder how high her suspicions had been raised. Even had she not believed before that he and Leia were spies, C-3PO’s gaffe had clearly planted the seed.

The reversion alarm chimed, and an instant later the gray veil of hyperspace erupted into a wall of crimson energy. The cockpit speakers began to crackle with alarmed voices and shipboard explosions, then the invisible fist of a turbolaser strike glanced off the Falcon’s top shields, pounding her so hard that C-3PO clanged to the deck on his back.

“We’ve been hit!” the droid cried. “Shall I activate the abandon-ship siren?”

“No!” Han said. “That was just a graze. We’re fine.” He peered over Leia’s shoulder at the damage-control board and saw that he was only partially right. The forward cargo hold had sealed itself off because of a pressure leak, and a coolant line had burst somewhere in the aft engineering tunnel, but Han thought they would probably last out the battle-as long as they didn’t take another big hit.

“Let’s not do that again,” he said, speaking into Leia’s ear. “We don’t want to scare the droid.”

A turbolaser strike blossomed a hundred meters beneath the Falcon’s belly, bucking Han against his crash webbing and setting off a new round of alarms.

C-3PO emitted a surprised squeal and wrapped his arms around the comm officer’s chair, then Leia flipped them into a tight spiral and even Han gasped in alarm. He ached to take the pilot’s yoke-but with only one hand to hold it, that would have been foolish even for him. The crimson fury of a rolling barrage erupted ahead and began to advance toward the Falcon.

“Dive!” Han was straining against his crash webbing, yelling over Leia’s shoulder. “Go belooooooowww!”

Leia had pushed the yoke as far forward as it would go. “Trying!”

The barrage passed over their stern, bucking the ship hard enough to bang C-3PO against the floor-and to send a bolt of pain shooting through Han’s wounded shoulder.

A glowing red disk appeared ahead, then quickly expanded into a sheet of half-molten metal that had once been the upper saucer of a Hapan Battle Dragon. Escape pods were spraying from the vessel like shooting stars, and momentary fists of flame kept punching out through breaches in the hull.

“Pull up!” Han cried.

Leia was already bringing their nose up, and the Battle Dragon began to swing out from beneath the Falcon. “Trying!”

They leveled off just above the Battle Dragon, so close to the half-melted hull that the temperature inside the Falcon began to climb.

“Give her some throttle!” Han ordered. “Get us out of this!”

Leia already had the throttles pushed past the overload stops. The Falcon leapt away from the Battle Dragon-only to find a slender Nova cruiser dead ahead, breaking apart midway down her long spine, pouring dark clouds of vapor and flotsam into space.

“Go left!” Han yelled half a second before the Nova’s bridge exploded into a spray of superheated shrapnel. “Wait, go down!”

The Nova’s stern weapons arrays began to fire at random, lacing space below with stabbing shafts of color and flame.

“No, go…”

“Captain Solo!” Morwan cried. She was clenching the arms of her chair with both hands. “Will you please shut up and let her fly? You’re going to get us killed!”

Han bristled at Morwan’s tone-then realized how right she was and began to feel a little ashamed. “With Leia holding the yoke?” he said. “No way! I’m a better teacher than that.”

“Don’t… brag!” Leia spoke through clenched teeth. “You’ll jinx us.”