Han ignored them and held up the computer. "Max, tell him!" Blue Max sent burst-signals at top volume, concentrated pulses of information. Bollux turned his red photoreceptors to home in on the probe. He listened for a moment, then returned his attention to the onrushing Mark X. Han, knowing it was crazy, still found himself holding his breath.

As the Executioner bore down on him, Bollux made no move to avoid it or raise his shield. The Executioner recognized that as only logical. The 'droid had no hope. Questing catch-cables spread wide to seize Bollux; circular saws swung close.

Bollux hefted his shield and threw it at the Mark X. Cables and cutters changed course; the shield was easily intercepted, caught, and sliced to pieces. But in the moment's reprieve, Bollux had thrown himself, stiffly-with a huge metallic bong-down between the crushing treads of the Executioner.

The combat-automaton ground to a halt, but not in time. Bollux, lying beneath it, fastened one hand to its undercarriage and locked his servo-grip there. The other hand reached in among the components of the Mark X, ripping at its cooling circuitry.

The Executioner emitted an electronic scream. If it had sat there and pondered for an age, the killing machine would still never have considered the possibility that a general-labor 'droid could have learned how to do the irrational.

The Mark X broke into motion, rolling this way and that, randomly. It had no way to get at Bollux, who clung beneath it. No one had ever programmed the Executioner to shoot at itself, or cut at itself, or to crush something it couldn't reach. Bollux was in the single safe place in the entire arena.

The Mark X's internal temperature began rising at once; the killing machine produced enormous amounts of heat.

Hirken was on his feet now, screaming: "Cancel! Cancel! Executioner, I order you to cancel!" Techs began running around, b.u.mping into one another, but the Mark X was no longer receiving orders. Its complicated voice-keyed command circuitry had been among the first things to go out of whack. Now it charged aimlessly around the arena, discharging blasters, flame guns, and missile pods at random, threatening to overload the noise-suppression system.

The arena's transparisteel walls became a window into an inferno as the Executioner roamed, its trunk rotating, its weapons blazing, its malfunctioning guidance system seeking an enemy that it could confront. It was. .h.i.t by shrapnel from its own missiles. Smoke and fire could be seen pouring from its ventilators. Bollux hung on to the Mark X's undercarriage with both hands now, being dragged back and forth, wondering calmly if his grip would fail.

The Executioner rebounded from one of the arena's walls. Surviving targeting circuits thought the killing machine had found its enemy at last. It backed up, preparing for another charge, its engine revving.

Bollux decided correctly that it was time to part company. He simply let go. The Executioner howled off again, all its remaining attention focused on the unoffending wall. The 'droid began to drag himself, squeaking laboriously, toward the exit.

The Executioner crashed head-on into the arena wall, bouncing back with a mighty concussion. Frustrated, it fired all weapons at close range and was engulfed in the backwash of blaster beams, flechette fragments, and acid spray. Then, as Hirken cried a last "No-ooo!", the Mark X's internal heat reached critical, compounded by external damage.

The Mark-X Executioner, latest word in combat automata, was ruptured open by a spectacular explosion just as Bollux, semiobsolete general-labor 'droid, got his tired cha.s.sis out of the arena.

Han knelt by him, pounding the old 'droid on the back while Blue Max somehow produced a cheer from his vocoder. The pilot threw his head back and laughed, forgetting everything else in the absurdity of the moment.

"Give me a minute, please," Bollux begged, his drawl even slower now. "I must try to bring my mechanisms into some sort of order."

"I can help!" Max squeaked. "Link me through to your brain circuits, Bollux, and I'll handle all the bypa.s.ses. That'll leave you free to deal with the cybero-stasis problems."

Bollux opened his plastron. "Captain, if you'd be so kind?" Han put the little computer back into place.

"Touching, whoever you are," said a smooth, dry voice behind Han, "but pointless. We'll pick them both apart for the information we want. What happened to all your pretty braid and medals, by the way?"

Han turned and stood fast. Uul-Rha-Shan was waiting there, gun in hand. Han's holstered blaster hung over the reptilian gunman's shoulder.

Hirken came up behind Uul-Rha-Shan, followed by the major and the other Espos, his execs, and his wife, all the trappings of his corporate importance. The air was filled with the smell of charred circuitry and molten metal, all that remained of the precious Mark X. Hirken's face held inexpressible rage.

He pointed a quivering finger at Han. "I should've known you're part of the conspiracy! Trianii, 'droids, the Entertainers' Guild-they're all in on it. No one on the Board will be able to deny it now; this conspiracy against the Authority and against me personally involves everyone!"

Han shook his head, amazed. Hirken was sweating, bellowing, with a maniacal look on his face. "I don't know your real name, Marksman, but you've come to the end of this plot. What I need to know, I'll dig out of your 'droid, and the Trianii. But since you've spoiled my entertainment, you'll make up for it."

He went with the rest of his entourage and stood just inside the arena, safe behind the transparisteel slabs. Uul-Rha-Shan took Han's gunbelt from his shoulder and held it out to him. "Come, trick shooter. Let's see if you have any tricks left."

Han moved warily and collected the belt. He checked his holstered blaster by eye, and saw that it had been drained of all but a microcharge, not enough to damage the primary-control circuitry. His gaze went to Hirken, who stood gloating behind invulnerable transparisteel. The belt control unit was out of the question. Han climbed the amphitheater stairs slowly, buckling the gunbelt around his hips, tying down the holster.

Uul-Rha-Shan came after, returning his disrupter to its forearm holster. The two stepped out onto the open area overlooking the arena; the gathered Authority officials looked up at them.

It had been a good try, Han told himself, just a touch shy of success. But now Hirken meant to see him dead, and Chewbacca and Atuarre and Pakka in his interrogation chambers. The Viceprex held all the cards but one. Han made up his mind on the spot that if he was going to die anyway, he'd take all these warped minds of Corporate Security with him.

He went, carefully, and stood by the wall, unsnapping the retaining strap of his holster. His opponent, squared off a few paces away, wasn't through taunting.

"Uul-Rha-Shan likes to know whom he kills. Who are you, imposter?"

Drawing himself up, Han let his hands dangle loosely at his sides, fingers working. "Solo. Han Solo."

The reptile registered surprise. "I have heard your name, Solo. You are, at least, worthy of the killing."

Han's mouth tugged, in amus.e.m.e.nt. "Think you can bring it off, lizard?"

Uul-Rha-Shan hissed anger. Han cleared his mind of everything but what lay before him.

"Farewell, Solo," Uul-Rha-Shan bade him, tensing.

Han moved with a dipping motion of the right shoulder, a half turn, all done with the blinding abruptness of the gunfighter. But his hand never closed on the grip of his blaster.

Instead, feigning his draw, he hurled himself out on the floor. As he fell, he felt Uul-Rha-Shan's disrupter beam lash over him, striking the wall. It set off a belching explosion that caught the reptile full in the face, flinging him backward. His shot had blown apart the ancillary circuitry for Hirken's belt unit, freeing swirls of energy. Secondary explosions told of the destruction of power-management routers.

Han had hit the floor rolling, surviving the blast with little more than singed hair. His blaster was in his hand now, the cautionary pulser in its grip tingling his palm in silent, invisible warning that the gun was nearly empty. As if he needed to be reminded. Uul-Rha-Shan, somewhere in the din and smoke, was shrilling, "Solo-ooo!" in furious challenge. Han couldn't pick him out.

A far-off vibration reached him, the overload spiral he'd had Blue Max build into the secondary defense program. Now that the primaries had been damaged and Hirken's belt unit circ.u.mvented, the power-rerouting had taken over. Won't be long now, he told himself.

Everyone in Stars' End suddenly felt as if he were being immersed in thick mud, as the weight of a planet seemed to be pressing down. The anticoncussion field-Han had forgotten about it, but it didn't matter.

Then, with an explosion beyond words, the power plant blew.

X.

ATUARRE restrained herself from running back through the maze of tunnel-tubes, conscious of the Espo guard at her heels. Han's desperate plan left her so much room for doubt. What would happen if the bluff failed? But on that thought she corrected herself at once-Solo-Captain was not bluffing, and was more than capable of taking all his enemies with him in an act of awesome revenge.

But she approved of the gamble. This might be Stars' End's only vulnerable moment. Even so, she took her longest strides now, dragging a stumbling Pakka along breakneck-quick.

They pa.s.sed into the final junction station, the one nearest the Falcon. A tech lounged on duty behind his console. The Espo's com-link signaled for attention, and Atuarre heard the crackled order, relayed from Hirken through the Espo major, as clearly as did her escort himself. The two Trianii were to be brought back to the tower. She wondered if that meant Han had successfully intervened in Bollux's combat.

But Atuarre had no intention of going back now; Solo-Captain specifically wanted her onboard the Millennium Falcon. She tried her most reasonable tone. "Officer, I have to pick up a very important item on my ship, then we can return. Please? It's very vital; that's why I was given clearance to go in the first place."

The Espo wasn't paying heed. He drew his side arm. "Orders say at once. Move it!"

The attention of the duty tech was aroused now, but the guard was the immediate danger. Atuarre held Pakka's paw high, so that his toes barely touched the floor, showing him to the guard. "You see, I was also told to leave my cub onboard ship. His presence displeased the Viceprex." She felt Pakka's short, elastic muscles tighten.

The Espo opened his mouth to reply, and she whipped the cub up. Pakka took snapping momentum from the launch, and both of the Trianii split the air with predatory howls, astounding the Authority men.

Pakka's dropkick caught the astonished Espo in the face and throat. Atuarre, coming in behind her cub, threw herself on the man's arm, prying his hand loose from his blaster. The Trianii bore their antagonist over backward, the cub with arms and legs and tail wrapped around the Espo's head and neck, Atuarre wrenching the blaster free.

She heard a scuffle of sound behind her. Whirling, she saw the duty tech half standing from his chair behind the console. His left forefinger was stabbing some b.u.t.ton on his board, hard. She a.s.sumed it to be an alarm, but the tech's right hand was bringing up a blaster, and that was first on the agenda. She fired with the dispatch of a Trianii Ranger. The brief red flash of the blaster knocked the tech off his feet backward, overturning his chair.

The Espo, bleeding from his wounds, threw Pakka off and charged at Atuarre, hands clutching for her. She fired again, the red bolt lighting the junction station. The Es...o...b..ckled and lay still. She could hear alarms jangling through the tunnel-tube layout.

Atuarre was about to go to the junction station console, to disconnect the tunnel-tubes and cut off pursuit, when the station jolted on its treads, as if the surface of Mytus VII had surged up under it. She and Pakka were bounced in the air like toys by the tremors of an explosion of incredible force.

Atuarre picked herself up dazedly and staggered to one of the thick exterior observation ports. She couldn't see the tower. Instead, a column of incandescent fire had sprung up where Stars' End had stood. It seemed impossibly thin and high, reaching far up into the vacuous sky of Mytus VII.

Then she realized that the force of the explosion had been contained by deflector-shield generators around the tower. The pillar of destruction began to dissipate, but she could see nothing of Stars' End, not a fragment. She couldn't believe that even an exploding power plant could utterly vaporize the nearly impregnable tower.

Then, on some impulse, she looked up, beyond the tip of the explosion's flare. High above Mytus VII she saw the wink of the small distant sun off enhanced-bonding armor plate.

"Oh, Solo-Captain," she breathed, understanding what had happened, "you madman!"

She pushed herself away from the port unsteadily and a.s.sessed her situation. She must move without hesitation. She raced to the console, found separator switches, and matching them with indicators over the junction station's tunnel-tubes, worked the three not connected to the Falcon. The tubes disengaged, their lengths contracting back toward the junction, pleating in on themselves.

Then she brought the junction station's self-propulsion unit to life, setting its treads in motion, steering it toward the Millennium Falcon, gathering in the intervening tube length as she went.

She chilled the discord in her mind with the discipline expected of a Trianii Ranger, and a plan began to form. One minute later, the Millennium Falcon raised from Mytus VII.

Atuarre, at the controls with Pakka perched in the copilot's chair, scanned the base. She knew the personnel must be coping desperately with pressure droppages and air leaks through their ruptured systems. But the armed Espo a.s.sault ship had already boosted clear of the base; she could see its engine glowing as it climbed rapidly in the distance. That someone had comprehended what had happened and responded so quickly gave her one more worry. No more Authority ships must be allowed to lift off.

She guided the starship in a low pa.s.s at the line of smaller Authority vessels. The Falcon's guns spoke again and again in a close strafing run. The parked, pilotless ships burst and flared one after another, yielding secondary explosions. Of the half-dozen craft there, none escaped damage. She swooped past the deep crater where Stars' End had once stood.

She opened the main drive, screaming off after the departed Espo a.s.sault craft. She kept all shields angled aft, but there was only sporadic, inaccurate turbo-laser cannon fire. The personnel at the base were too busy trying to keep the breath of life from bleeding off into the vacuum. That was one advantage, a small help to her in what seemed like a hopeless task.

Stars' End's anticoncussion field must very nearly have overloaded, Han thought; for the first seconds after the power plant blew, stupendous forces had been exerted on the tower and everything in it. But the immobilizing effect began to recede as the systems adjusted.

Smoke and heat from both the ruined Executioner and the now-defunct primary-control ancillaries rolled and drifted through the dome, choking and blinding. There was a universal rush of indistinct bodies for the elevators. Han could hear Hirken yelling for order as the Espo major bellowed commands and the Viceprex's wife and others shrilled in panic.

Han skirted the mob headed for the elevators, wading through the anticoncussion field and the drifting smoke. Like all standbys, the anticoncussion field fed off emergency power inside Stars' End. The tower's reserves would be limited. Han grinned in the murk and confusion; the Espos were in for a surprise.

He made his way down the steps of the amphitheater, groping along, coughing and hoping he wasn't being poisoned by burned insulation and molten circuitry. His toe hit something. He recognized Viceprex Hirken's discarded belt unit, kicked it aside, and went on. He located Bollux when he stumbled over the 'droid's foot.

"Captain sir!" Bollux hailed. "We'd thought you'd quite left, sir."

"We're bowing out now; can you make it?"

"I'm stabilized. Max improvised a direct linkup between himself and me."

Blue Max's voice drifted up from Bollux's chest. "Captain, I tried to tell you when I rechecked the figures that this might happen."

Han had gotten a hand under the 'droid's arm, helping him to rise to his wobbly legs. "What did happen, Max? Not enough power in the plant?" He started moving Bollux off unsteadily through the drifting reek.

"No, there was plenty of power in the plant, but the enhanced-bonding armor plate is a lot stronger than I thought at first. The exterior deflector shields contained the force of the explosion, all except the overhead one, the one that dissolved in the overload. All the force went that way. Us too."

Han stopped. He wished he could see the little computer, not that it would have helped. "Max, are you telling me we blew Stars' End into orbit?"

"No, Captain," Max answered darkly. "A high-arc trajectory, maybe, but never an orbit."

Han found himself leaning on Bollux as much as the 'droid was leaning on him. "Oh my! Why didn't you warn me?"

"I tried," Max reminded him sulkily.

Han was in mental overdrive. It made sense: Mytus VII's relatively light specific gravity and lack of atmospheric friction must give it an escape velocity that was only middlin'. Still, if the tower's anticoncussion fields hadn't been on when the large charge had gone off, everybody in Stars' End would've been colloidal slime by now.

"Besides," Max added testily, "Isn't this better than being dead? So far?"

Han brightened; there was no arguing with that logic. He shouldered part of Bollux's weight again. "Okay, men; I have a new plan. Forward!" They reeled off again, away from the elevators. "All the elevators will be out; life-support and whatnot will have pre-empted all the reserve power. I saw a utility stairwell in the floor plans, but Hirken and Company will be remembering it pretty soon, too. s.h.a.g it."

They rounded the curve of the utility core as Han took his bearings. They were almost to a yellow-painted emergency door when the door snapped open and an Espo jumped out, riot gun in hand. Cupping his hand to his mouth, the man called, "Viceprex Hirken! This way, sir!"

Then he noticed Han and Bollux and swung his weapon to bear. With only a microcharge in the blaster, Han had to make a quick head shot. The Espo dropped.

"Brown nose," Han grunted, still hanging on to the 'droid, stooping to grab the riot gun. He manhandled himself and his burden through the emergency door. A furor of shouting reached him; the others had found the elevators useless, and someone had remembered the stairwell. Han secured the door behind him and fired several sustained bursts at its latching mechanism. The metal began to glow and fuse. It was a durable alloy that would shed its heat again in moments, leaving the latch welded shut. Those remaining on the other side would be able to blast their way through with hand weapons, but it would take precious time.

As he and Han half fell, half ran, down the stairs, Bollux asked, "Where to now, sir?"

"The stasis-booth tiers." They careened around a landing, nearly falling. "Feel that? The artificial gravity's fluctuating. In time the power-management routers will cut off everything but life-support."

"Oh, I see, sir." Bollux said. "The stasis booths you and Max mentioned!"

"Give the 'droid a prize. When those booths start conking out, there're gonna be some pretty cranky prisoners on the loose. The guy who might be able to pull our choobies out of the conflagration is one of them-Doc, Jessa's father."

They made their way down, past Hirken's living quarters and the interrogation levels, encountering no one else in the stairwell. The gravity fluctuations lessened, but footing remained unpredictable. They arrived at another emergency door, and Han opened it manually.

Across a corridor was another door, which had been left open. Through it Han saw a long, wide aisle between high tiers of stasis booths like stacked, upright coffins. The lowest rows of booths were already darkened, empty, the highest still in operation. Booths in the middle two rows flickered.

But down in the aisles a line of six guards wavered before a ma.s.s of humans and nonhumans. The released prisoners, members of dozens of species, growled and roared their hostility. Fists, tentacles, claws, and paws shook angrily in the air. The Espos, waving their riot guns and advancing, tried to contain the break without firing, afraid they might be overwhelmed if they opened up.

A tall, demonish-looking being broke from the mob and launched himself at the Espos, his face splitting with mad laughter, hands grasping. A burst from a riot gun brought him down in a groaning heap. The prisoners' hesitation disappeared; they advanced on the Espos in unison. What did they have to fear from death, compared with life in the interrogation chambers?

Han pushed Bollux aside, knelt behind the emergency-door frame, and cut loose at the guards. Two of them fell before they realized they were taking fire from their rear. One turned, then another, to exchange shots, while their fellows tried to hold back the seething prisoners.

Red darts of light crisscrossed. Smoke from charred metal rose from the doorframe with the ozone of blaster fire. The smell of burned flesh was in the air. The unnerved guards' bolts zipped through the open emergency door or hit the wall, but failed to find their target. Han, kneeling to make himself as small a mark as possible, winced and flinched from the intense counterfire and cursed his own riot gun's poor sighting characteristics.

He finally nailed one of the two Espos shooting at him. The other dropped to the floor to avoid being hit. Han, seeing that, used an old trick. Reaching through the door frame, he placed his weapon flat on its side on the floor, triggering frantically. The shots, aligned directly along the plane of the floor, found the p.r.o.ne Espo and silenced him in seconds.

The remaining guards broke. One let his piece fall and raised his hands, but it did him no good; the mob poured over and around him like an avalanche, burying him in murderous human and alien forms. The other Espo, trapped between Han's sniping and the prisoners, started scaling one of the ladders connecting the catwalks along the tiers of stasis booths.

Partway up, the guard paused and shot those who had tried to follow him. Han's shots, at the wrong angle, missed. Han gathered up Bollux, headed for the tier room.

The last Espo's gunfire had made the prisoners draw back as he climbed for the third catwalk. From out of the pack of prisoners, three s.h.a.ggy, simian creatures swarmed up after him, disdaining ladders, swinging up arm over long arm along the tiers' outerworks. They overtook the Espo in moments.

He hung from the rungs long enough to shoot one of the simians. It fell with an eerie caw. The other ape-things drew even with the Espo, one on either side. As he tried to fire again, his weapon was s.n.a.t.c.hed from his hand and dropped to those below. The yowling guard was then caught up by both his arms, swung, and hurled with incredible strength straight upward. He slammed against the ceiling above the highest row of booths and fell to the floor in a windmilling of arms and legs, with an ugly sound of impact.