THE PARADISE SNARE(85)

Talisman lurched slightly. Han laughed again.

Mrrov was staring at him, obviously wondering if his mind had snapped from the strain. Han grinned at her cheerfully. “You don’t understand,” he said.

“No,” agreed Mrrov. “Would you care to explain it to me?”

“Sure. Jalus Nebl and I are friends. He wouldn’t shoot me down any more than I’d shoot him. So he’s firing his laser cannon, just missing us by a hair each time, making it look good. We’re gaining speed every minute, and soon, we’re gonna be out of the atmosphere, and five minutes after that, we’ll be out of the planet’s gravity well. We’re fine, Mrrov. Trust me.”

Mrrov’s whiskers twitched. “I believe I am beginning to understand.

Your friend Jalus Nebl is putting on a show of attempting to shoot us down? So we have nothing to worry about?”

“Right,” Han said cheerfully. “We’re almost clear of the atmosphere, and if Nebl’s got a grain of sense, he’ll take the Ylesian Dream and get his droopy-jowled little carcass off Ylesia, too. Or maybe he’s decided to hang in with the priests and ask for a raise. They’ll be desperate, with only one pilot left.”

Another near-hit caused the Talisman to shiver. “That was close,” Han muttered, checking his ship’s hull and systems. “The little so-and-so’s showing off.”

He continued to track the Ylesian Dream as it followed them up through the last of the stratosphere, into the thin layer of ionosphere. Ahead lay the thinnest whisper of upper atmosphere—the exosphere.

As they burst upward, Han turned his attention to the navicomputer, checking on the programming for their jump to hyperspace. They wouldn’t be clear of Ylesia’s gravity well for several minutes yet, but he wanted to be ready.

“I see a vehicle on our sensors,” Mrrov said. “Above us, in our path.”

“That’s just the space station. It orbits in a synchronous orbit with Colony One,” Han said, not looking up. “That’s where they off-load the pilgrims when the ships bring them in. You must’ve been there.”

“No, Han.” Mrrov’s voice was suddenly urgent. “I remember it very well, but that’s not it. That’s no space station—it’s a spaceship! A big one!”

Finally alarmed, Han looked up and abruptly swore in six languages.

“That’s a Corellian corvette! What’s it doing here?”

His hands flew over the controls as he began evasive maneuvers, increasing speed and sheering away from the huge vessel. With one part of his mind, Han noted the blip that was the Dream streaking off in the opposite direction.

Suddenly the Talisman jerked hard and bucked. The engine began to strain.

“What’s wrong?” Mrrov demanded, just as Bria burst into the cabin.

“Han… what happened?” she asked.

Han cut in the auxiliary power, felt the Ylesian yacht strain, but . .

.

it . wasn’t … going … to … be … enough-“No!” he yelled, frustrated, on the verge of panic. “No, we can’t go back!”

His passengers stared at him, wide-eyed with fear, as Han began shutting down his engines to avoid burning them out.

As he did so, a voice erupted from the comm unit. “Attention, Talisman.

This is Captain Ngyn Reeos in command of the Corellian corvette Helot’s Shackle out of Kessel. We advise you to shut down your engines. You are caught in our tractor beam.”

“I know!” Han yelled, not bothering to activate his comm unit.

“Thanks for telling me!”

Captain Reeos went on, inexorably. “We have detained you because I have been advised by planetary authorities that you have taken the Talisman without authorization. These same planetary authorities have asked that we deliver you back to Ylesia to face charges there.

Prepare to be boarded.

Any attempt at resistance will be met with summary force.”

Han stared at the narrow-waisted vessel with its eleven huge reactor tubes. The corvette was easily twenty times the size of his ship. He noted that the corvette had been modified so it had a docking bay.

“That’s a huge ship,” Bria whispered. “We’re being pulled toward it, Han.”

“There’s nothing I can do, sweetheart,” Han said dully. “They’ve got us caught—we can’t break free.”

“How many crew aboard that ship?” Mrrov asked, staring as if mesmerized at the slave ship—the ship that had come to fetch her and the other pilgrims to a grim fate in the mines.

“With a Navy crew aboard, the complement is 165. But this is a modified corvette. It’s been altered to dock in space—probably to make it easier to take on cargo—or slaves. Crew size is probably forty or fifty.”