"I don't know why he doesn't answer." He tried again. "See Threepio, come in. Do you read?"

"See Threepio," the muted voice continued to call, "come in, See Threepio." It was Luke's voice and it issued softly in between buzzings from the small hand comlink resting on the deserted computer console. Save for the intermittent pleading, the gantry office was silent.

A tremendous explosion drowned out the m.u.f.fled pleadings. It blew the office door clean across the room, sending metal fragments flying in all directions. Several of them struck the comlink, sending it flying to the floor and cutting off Luke's voice in mid-transmission.

In the wake of the minor cataclysm four armed and ready troopers entered through the blown portal. Initial study indicated the office was deserted-until a dim, frightened voice was heard coming from one of the tall supply cabinets near the back of the room.

"Help, help! Let us out!"

Several of the troopers bent to inspect the immobile bodies of the gantry officer and his aide while others opened the noisy cabinet. Two robots, one tall and humanoid, the other purely mechanical and three-legged, stepped out into the office. The taller one gave the impression of being half unbalanced with fear.

"They're madmen, I tell you, madmen!" He gestured urgently toward the doorway. "I think they said something about heading for the prison level. They just left. If you hurry, you might catch them. That way, that way!"

Two of the troopers inside joined those waiting in the hallway in hustling off down the corridor. That left two guards to watch over the office. They totally ignored the robots as they discussed what might have taken place.

"All the excitement has overloaded the circuitry in my companion here," Threepio explained carefully. "If you don't mind, I'd like to take him down to Maintenance."

"Hmmm?" One of the guards looked up indifferently and nodded to the robot. Threepio and Artoo hurried out the door without looking back. As they departed it occurred to the guard that the taller of the two droids was of a type he had never seen before. He shrugged. That was not surprising on a station of this size.

"That was too close," Threepio muttered as they scurried down an empty corridor. "Now we'll have to find another information-control console and plug you back in, or everything is lost."

The garbage chamber grew remorselessly smaller, the smoothly fitting metal walls moving toward one another with stolid precision. Larger pieces of refuse performed a concerto of snapping and popping that was rising toward a final shuddering crescendo.

Chewbacca whined pitifully as he fought with all his incredible strength and weight to hold back one of the walls, looking like a hirsute Tantalus approaching his final summit.

"One thing's for sure," Solo noted unhappily. "We're all going to be much thinner. This could prove popular for slimming. The only trouble is its permanence."

Luke paused for breath, shaking the innocent comlink angrily. "What could have happened to Threepio?"

"Try the hatch again," advised Leia. "It's our only hope."

Solo shielded his eyes and did so. The ineffectual blast echoed mockingly through the narrowing chamber.

The service bay was unoccupied, everyone apparently having been drawn away by the commotion elsewhere. After a cautious survey of the room Threepio beckoned for Artoo to follow. Together they commenced a hurried search of the many service panels. Artoo let out a beep, and Threepio rushed to him. He waited impatiently as the smaller unit plugged the receptive arm carefully into the open socket.

A superfast flurry of electronics spewed in undisciplined fashion from the grid of the little droid. Threepio made cautioning motions.

"Wait a minute, slow down!" The sounds dropped to a crawl. "That's better. They're where? They what? Oh, no! They'll only come out of there as a liquid!"

Less than a meter of life was left to the trapped occupants of the garbage room. Leia and Solo had been forced to turn sideways, had ended up facing each other. For the first time the haughtiness was gone from the Princess's face. Reaching out, she took Solo's hand, clutching it convulsively as she felt the first touch of the closing walls.

Luke had fallen and was lying on his side, fighting to keep his head above the rising ooze. He nearly choked on a mouthful of compressed sludge when his comlink began buzzing for attention.

"Threepio!"

"Are you there, sir?" the droid replied. "We've had some minor problems. You would not believe-"

"Shut up, Threepio!" Luke screamed into the unit. "And shut down all the refuse units on the detention level or immediately below it. Do you copy? Shut down the refuse-"

Moments later Threepio grabbed at his head in pain as a terrific screeching and yelling sounded over the comlink.

"No, shut them all down!" he implored Artoo. "Hurry! Oh, listen to them-they're dying, Artoo! I curse this metal body of mine. I was not fast enough. It was my fault. My poor master-all of them... no, no, no!"

The screaming and yelling, however, continued far beyond what seemed like a reasonable interval. In fact, they were shouts of relief.

The chamber walls had reversed direction automatically with Artoo's shutdown and were moving apart again.

"Artoo, Threepio," Luke hollered into the comlink, "it's all right, we're all right! Do you read me? We're okay-you did just fine."

Brushing distastefully at the clinging slime, he made his way as rapidly as possible toward the hatchcover. Bending, he sc.r.a.ped acc.u.mulated detritus away, noting the number thus revealed.

"Open the pressure-maintenance hatch on unit 366-117891."

"Yes, sir," came Threepio's acknowledgment.

They may have been the happiest words Luke had ever heard.

= X =.

LINED with power cables and circuitry conduits that rose from the depths and vanished into the heavens, the service trench appeared to be hundreds of kilometers deep. The narrow catwalk running around one side looked like a starched thread glued on a glowing ocean. It was barely wide enough for one man to traverse.

One man edged his way along that treacherous walkway now, his gaze intent on something ahead of him instead of the awesome metal abyss below. The clacking sounds of enormous switching devices resounded like captive leviathans in the vast open s.p.a.ce, tireless and never sleeping.

Two thick cables joined beneath an overlay panel. It was locked, but after careful inspection of sides, top and bottom, Ben Ken.o.bi pressed the panel cover in a particular fashion causing it to spring aside. A blinking computer terminal was revealed beneath.

With equal care he performed several adjustments to the terminal. His actions were rewarded when several indicator lights on the board changed from red to blue.

Without warning, a secondary door close behind him opened. Hurriedly reclosing the panel cover, the old man slipped deeper into the shadows. A detachment of troopers had appeared in the portal, and the officer in charge moved to within a couple of meters of the motionless, hidden figure.

"Secure this area until the alert has been cancelled."

As they began to disperse, Ken.o.bi became one with the dark.

Chewbacca grunted and wheezed, and barely succeeded in forcing his thick torso through the hatchway opening with Luke's and Solo's help. That accomplished, Luke turned to take stock of their surroundings.

The hallway they had emerged into showed dust on the floor. It gave the impression of not having been used since the station had been built. Probably it was only a repair access corridor. He had no idea where they were.

Something hit the wall behind them with a ma.s.sive thunk, and Luke yelled for everyone to watch out as a long, gelatinous limb worked its way through the hatch and flailed hopefully about in the open corridor. Solo aimed his pistol at it as Leia tried to slip past the half-paralyzed Chewbacca.

"Somebody get this big hairy walking carpet out of my way." Suddenly she noticed what Solo was preparing to do. "No, wait! It'll be heard!"

Solo ignored her and fired at the hatchway. The burst of energy was rewarded with a distant roar as an avalanche of weakened wall and beaming all but buried the creature in the chamber beyond.

Magnified by the narrow corridor, the sounds continued to roll and echo for long minutes afterward. Luke shook his head in disgust, realizing that someone like Solo who spoke with the mouth of a gun might not always act sensibly. Until now he had sort of looked up to the Corellian. But the senseless gesture of firing at the hatchway brought them, for the first time in Luke's mind, to the same level.

The Princess's actions were more surprising than Solo's, however. "Listen," she began, staring up at him, "I don't know where you came from, but I'm grateful." Almost as an afterthought she glanced back at Luke, adding, "To the both of you." Her attention turned back to Solo. "But from now on you do as I tell you."

Solo gaped at her. This time the smug smile wouldn't come. "Look, Your Holiness," he was finally able to stammer, "let's get something straight. I take orders only from one person-me."

"It's a wonder you're still alive," she shot back smoothly. A quick look down the corridor and she had started determinedly off in the other direction.

Solo looked at Luke, started to say something, then hesitated and simply shook his head slowly. "No reward is worth this. I don't know if there's enough credit in the universe to pay for putting up with her... Hey, slow down!"

Leia had started around a bend in the corridor, and they ran swiftly to catch up with her.

The half dozen troops milling around the entrance to the power trench were more interested in discussing the peculiar disturbance in the detention block than in paying attention to their present boring duty. So engrossed were they in speculation as to the cause of the trouble that they failed to notice the fey wraith behind them. It moved from shadow to shadow like a night-stalking ferret, freezing when one of the troopers seemed to turn slightly in its direction, moving on again as if walking on air.

Several minutes later one of the troopers frowned inside his armor, turning to where he thought he had sensed a movement near the opening to the main pa.s.sageway. There was nothing but an indefinable something which the ghost-like Ken.o.bi had left behind. Acutely uncomfortable yet understandably unwilling to confess to hallucinations, the trooper turned back to the more prosaic conversation of his fellows.

Someone finally discovered the two unconscious guards tied in the service lockers on board the captured freighter. Both men remained comatose despite all efforts to revive them.

Under the direction of several bickering officers, troopers carried their two armorless comrades down the ramp and toward the nearest hospital bay. On the way they pa.s.sed two forms hidden by a small open service panel. Threepio and Artoo went unnoticed, despite their proximity to the hangar.

As soon as the troops had pa.s.sed. Artoo finished removing a socket cover and hurriedly shoved his sensor arm into the opening. Lights commenced a wild flashing on his face and smoke started issuing from several seams in the small droid before a frantic Threepio could pull the arm free.

Immediately the smoke vanished, the undisciplined blinking faded to normalcy. Artoo emitted a few wilted beeps, successfully giving the impression of a human who had expected a gla.s.s of mild wine and instead unwittingly downed several gulps of something 180 proof.

"Well, next time watch where you stick your sensors," Threepio chastised his companion. "You could have fried your insides." He eyed the socket. "That's a power outlet, stupid, not an information terminal."

Artoo whistled a mournful apology. Together they hunted for the proper outlet.

Luke, Solo, Chewbacca, and the Princess reached the end of an empty hallway. It dead-ended before a large window which overlooked a hangar, giving them a sweeping, tantalizing view of the freighter just below.

Pulling out his comlink and looking around them with increasing nervousness, Luke spoke into the pickup. "See Threepio... do you copy?"

There was a threatening pause, then, "I read you, sir. We had to abandon the region around the office."

"Are you both safe?"

"For the moment, though I'm not sanguine about my old age. We're in the main hangar, across from the ship."

Luke looked toward the bay window in surprise. "I can't see you across the bay-we must be right above you. Stand by. We'll join you as soon as we can." He clicked off, smiling suddenly at Threepio's reference to his "old age." Sometimes the tall droid was more human than people.

"Wonder if the old man was able to knock out the tractor," Solo was muttering as he surveyed the scene below. A dozen or so troopers were moving in and out of the freighter.

"Getting back to the ship's going to be like flying through the five Fire Rings of Fornax."

Leia Organa turned long enough to glance in surprise from the ship to Solo. "You came here in that wreck? You're braver than I thought."

At once praised and insulted, Solo wasn't sure how to react. He settled for giving her a dirty look as they started back down the hallway, Chewbacca bringing up the rear.

Rounding a corner, the three humans came to an abrupt halt. So did the twenty Imperial troopers marching toward them. Reacting naturally-which is to say, without thinking-Solo drew his pistol and charged the platoon, yelling and howling in several languages at the top of his lungs.

Startled by the totally unexpected a.s.sault and wrongly a.s.suming their attacker knew what he was doing, the troopers started to back away. Several wild shots from the Corellian's pistol initiated complete panic. Ranks and composure shattered, the troopers broke and fled down the pa.s.sage.

Drunk with his own prowess, Solo continued the chase, turning to shout back at Luke, "Get to the ship. I'll take care of these!"

"Are you out of your mind?" Luke yelled at him. "Where do you think you're going?"

But Solo had already rounded a far bend in the corridor and didn't hear. Not that it would have made any difference.

Upset at his partner's disappearance, Chewbacca let out a thunderous if unsettled howl and rushed down the hallway after him. That left Luke and Leia standing alone in the empty corridor.

"Maybe I was too hard on your friend," she confessed reluctantly. "He certainly is courageous."

"He certainly is an idiot!" a furious Luke countered tightly. "I don't know what good it'll do us if he gets himself killed." Muted alarms suddenly sounded from the bay below and behind them.

"That's done it," Luke growled disgustedly. "Let's go." Together they started off in search of a way down to a hangar-deck level.

Solo continued his rout of all opposition, running at top speed down the long hallway, yelling and brandishing his pistol. Occasionally he got off a shot whose effect was more valuable psychologically than tactically.

Half the troops had already scattered down various subpa.s.sages and corridors. The ten troopers he continued to harry still raced headlong away from him, returning his fire only indifferently. Then they came up against a dead end, which forced them to turn and confront their opponents.

Seeing that the ten had halted, Solo likewise slowed. Gradually he came to a complete stop. Corellian and Imperials regarded one another silently. Several of the troopers were staring, not at Han but past him.

It suddenly occurred to Solo that he was very much alone, and the same thought was beginning to seep into the minds of the guards he was confronting. Embarra.s.sment gave way rapidly to anger. Rifles and pistols started to come up. Solo took a step backward, fired one shot, then turned and ran like h.e.l.l.

Chewbacca heard the whistle and crump of energy weapons firing as he lumbered lightly down the corridor. There was something odd about them, though: they sounded as if they were coming closer instead of moving away.

He was debating what to do when Solo came tearing around a corner and nearly ran him down. Seeing ten troopers in pursuit, the Wookiee decided to reserve his questions for a less confused moment. He turned and followed Solo back up the hallway.

Luke grabbed the Princess and pulled her back into a recess. She was about to retort angrily at his brusqueness when the sound of marching feet caused her to shrink back into the darkness with him.

A squad of soldiers hurried past, responding to the alarms that continued to ring steadily. Luke looked out at the retreating backs and tried to catch his breath. "Our only hope of reaching the ship is from the other side of the hangar. They already know someone's here." He started back down the corridor, motioning for her to follow.

Two guards appeared at the far end of the pa.s.sageway, paused, and pointed directly at them. Turning, Luke and Leia began running back the way they had come. A larger squad of troopers rounded the far bend and came racing toward them.

Blocked ahead and behind, they hunted frantically for another way out. Then Leia spotted the cramped subhallway and gestured to it.

Luke fired at the nearest of their pursuers and joined her in running down the narrow pa.s.sage. It looked like a minor service corridor. Behind them, pursuit sounded deafeningly loud in the confining s.p.a.ce. But at least it minimized the amount of fire the troops could concentrate on them.

A thick hatchway appeared ahead. The lighting beyond turned dimmer, raising Luke's hopes. If they could lock the hatch even for a few moments and lose themselves somewhere beyond, they might have a chance of shaking their immediate tormentors.

But the hatch stayed open, showing no inclination to close automatically. Luke was about to let out a shout of triumph when the ground suddenly vanished ahead of him. His toes hanging over nothingness, he flailed to regain his balance, succeeding just in time to nearly go over the edge of the retracted catwalk anyway as the Princess plowed into him from behind.

The catwalk had been reduced to a stub protruding into empty air. A cool draft caressed Luke's face as he studied walls that soared to unseen heights overhead and plunged to fathomless depths below. The service shaft was employed in circulating and recycling the atmosphere of the station.

At the moment Luke was too frightened and concerned to be angry with the Princess for nearly sending them over the edge. Besides, other dangers competed for his attention. A burst of energy exploded above their heads, sending metal slivers flying.

"I think we made a wrong turn," he murmured, firing back at the advancing troops and illuminating the narrow corridor behind them with destruction.

An open hatchway showed on the other side of the chasm. It might as well have been a light-year away. Hunting along the rim of the doorway, Leia located a switch and hit it quickly. The hatch door behind them slid shut with a resounding boom. At least that cut off fire from the rapidly nearing soldiers. It also left the two fugitives balanced precariously on a small section of catwalk barely a meter square. If the remaining section were to unexpectedly withdraw into the wall, they would see more of the battle station's interior than either wished.

Gesturing for the Princess to move aside as much as possible. Luke shielded his eyes and aimed the pistol at the hatch controls. A brief burst of energy melted them flush with the wall, insuring that no one could open it easily from the other side. Then he turned his attention to the vast cavity blocking their path to the opposite portal. It beckoned invitingly-a small yellow rectangle of freedom.