Home>>read THE PARADISE SNARE free online

THE PARADISE SNARE(22)

By:A C Crispin


He’d have been doing the inhabitants of Trader’s Luck a favor. Why hadn’t he? He’d had the blaster in his hand …

Han shook his head. He’d never shot anyone before yesterday, and killing an unconscious man just wasn’t his style.

But Han knew, without being told, that if Garris Shrike ever caught up with him in the future, he was a dead man. The captain never forgot and he never forgave. He specialized in carrying grudges against anyone who had ever wronged him.

Han got up again to check their course, and his air pak. Only a few hours worth of air left, now. He did some mental calculations, while staring at the display. Close. It’s going to be close. I’d better be ready to pop the cargo door on this crate as soon as we land …

It’s going to be very, very close …





3


Crash Landing


Although he’d flown hundreds of hours in swoops and speeders, Han’s experience with piloting larger vessels was confined to the times Garris Shrike had permitted him to pilot the Luck’s shuttle on easy runs. He’d taken off and landed, but he’d never before tried to land anything as large as the robot freighter. Han hoped he’d be able to handle it. He had confidence in his ability as a pilot—after all, hadn’t he been the junior speeder champion of all Corellia three years running? And, last year, hadn’t he won the swoop racing championship of the entire Corellian system?

Still, compared to the Luck’s shuttle, this freighter was huge …

Han dozed again, then when he awoke, roved restlessly around the cabin, knowing he should be conserving his energy and his air, but unable to stop himself.

“Sir?” The R2 unit that had been so quiet for so many hours suddenly came back to life. “I must advise you that we have reached the orbit of Ylesia.

You must stand ready to make your descent and landing.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Han said. Going over to the control banks, he scanned the instruments, mentally calculating their descent. This wasn’t going to be easy. He had no way to interface with the navicomputer, except via the R2 unit. A pilot had to make split-second decisions, at times, and in cases like that, Han wouldn’t be able to wait for the R2 unit to reply.

The ship suddenly shivered, then rocked slightly.

They were hitting atmosphere, Han realized.

He took a deep breath and glanced at his air pak reading, realizing it was going to be close … very, very close.

Here we go, he thought, switching to manual control of the Ylesian Dream. “Hey, R2,” he said tightly, adjusting his course slightly.

“Yes, sir?” “Wish me luck.”

“I-beg-your-pardon, sir, this unit is not—” Han swore, and the Ylesian Dream headed down, for the surface of a planet he couldn’t even see.

He could see the sensor readouts and the infrared scanners, though, and he realized that Ylesia was a world of tempestuous air currents, even in the upper layers of the atmosphere. Mapping sensors created a global portrait of the planet: Shallow seas studded with islands, and three small continents. One lay nearly at the north pole, but the other two, the eastern and western continents, lay nearer the equator, in what must be temperate zones.

“Great,” he muttered to himself, locating the ship’s home-in beacon.

He could use it as a guide to plan his landing. The landing field was on the eastern continent. That must be where the Ylesian colony of priests and religious pilgrims was located.

The Dream rocked wildly, swooping through the swirling air currents like a child on a rope swing. Han’s suit gloves were clumsy on the undersized diagnostic controls as he used his stabilizers to steady their descent.

Trying to get the feel of the controls, Han yawed them to port, then overcompensated, sending them skittering to starboard.

On the infrared image, a huge blob of red suddenly loomed up. That’s a huge storm—Han thought, using his laterals to even out their descent.

He allowed the Dream to drift a few degrees north, figuring that he’d miss the storm, then swing back south later, when he was beneath the maelstrom.

The ionized particles left in the wake of all that lightning were playing havoc with his instruments, Han realized. He gulped air, felt his chest tighten, and had to fight back panic. Good pilots couldn’t afford to let their emotions get in the way, or they’d wind up dead and that would end their trip real quick, wouldn’t it?

“R2,” Han said tightly, “see if you can chart me those storm areas so I can avoid the ion trails that lightning is leaving. Concentrate on the direct flight path between our present location and the landing field on that eastern continent.”