[Thrawn Trilogy] - 02(144)

The deck rocked slightly beneath his feet: the Coral Vanda had reached the surface. Turning, Lando hurried aft again. There was a passenger-access computer terminal a couple of corridors back. If he could get a passenger list from it and find Ferrier’s room, he might be able to get to them before the Imperials took control of the ship. Breaking into a quick jog, he turned into a cross corridor-They were striding purposefully toward him: four large men with blasters at the ready, with a thin, whitehaired man almost hidden in the center of the group. The lead man spotted Lando, snapped his blaster up, and fired.

The first shot was a clean miss. The second sizzled into the wall as Lando ducked back behind the corner.

“So much for finding Ferrier’s room,” Lando muttered. Another handful of shots spit past his barricade; and then, surprisingly, the firing stopped. Blaster in hand, hugging the corridor wall, Lando eased back to the corner and threw a quick look around it.

They were gone.

“Great,” he muttered, taking a longer look. They were gone, all right, probably into one of the crew-only areas that ran down the central core of the ship. Chasing after someone through an unfamiliar area was usually not a good idea, but there weren’t a whole lot of other options available. Grimacing to himself, he started around the corner-And yelped as a blaster bolt from his right scorched past his sleeve. He dived forward into the cross corridor, catching a glimpse as he fell of three more men coming toward him down the main corridor. He hit the thick carpet hard enough to see stars, rolled onto his side and yanked his legs out of the line of fire, fully aware that if any of the original group was watching from cover, he was dead. A barrage of blaster shots from the newcomers bit into the wall, with the kind of clustering that meant it was being used as cover fire while they advanced on him. Breathing hard-that crash dive had knocked the wind out of him-Lando got to his feet and started toward an arched doorway halfway down the cross corridor. It wouldn’t give him much cover, but it was the best he had.

He had just made it to the doorway when there was a sudden curse from the direction of his attackers, a handful of shots from what sounded like a different model blaster—

And then, silence.

Lando frowned, wondering what they were pulling now. He could hear footsteps running toward him; flattening himself into the doorway as best he could, he leveled his blaster at the intersection.

The footsteps came to the intersection and paused. “Lando?”

Lando lowered his blaster with a silent sigh of relief. “Over here, Han,” he called. “Come on-Ferrier’s people have our man.”

Han rounded the corner and sprinted toward him. “That’s not all, buddy,” he panted. “Ferrier’s gunning for you, too.”

Lando grimaced. He hadn’t missed by much, either. “Never mind me,” he said. “I think they must have gone down the ship’s core. We’ve got to catch up with them before they reach the main hatchway.”

“We can try,” Han said grimly, looking around. “Over there-looks like a crewer access door.”

It was. And it was locked.

“Ferrier’s people got in,” Lando grunted, stooping down to examine the halfopen release panel. “Yeah. Here-it’s been hot-wired Let’s see:”

He probed carefully into the mechanism with the tip of his little finger; and with a satisfying click, the panel unlocked and slid open. “There we go,” he said. He got to his feet again—

And jumped back from the opening as a stuttering of blaster fire flashed through.

“Yeah, there we go all right,” Han said. He was against the wall on the other side of the opening, blaster ready but with no chance of getting a shot in through the rear guard’s fire. “How many people has Ferrier got on this ship, anyway?”

“A lot,” Lando growled. The door, apparently deciding that no one was going through after all, slid shut again. “I guess we do this the hard way. Let’s get back to the main hatchway and try to catch them there.”

Han grabbed his shoulder. “Too late,” he said. “Listen.”

Lando frowned, straining his ears. Over the quiet hum of ship’s noises, he could make out the rapid-fire spitting of stormtrooper laser rifles in the distance. “They’re aboard,” he murmured.

“Yeah,” Han nodded. The deck vibrated briefly beneath their feet, and abruptly the laser fire slackened off. “Subsonic grenade,” he identified it. “That’s it. Come on.”

“Come on where?” Lando asked as Han set off down the cross corridor.

“Aft to the escape pod racks, the other said. “We’re getting out of here.”