Han, setting Bollux aside, ran to join the milling prisoners. Overhead, more and more of the stasis booths were being shut down to power the overtaxed life-support systems, yielding inhabitants of many planets. Now that the immediate challenge of the guards had been eliminated, the recent escapees were at a loss. Many of them had been killed or wounded by the guards' fire, and many others were dead or dying, unwounded, because their physiologies weren't compatible with Stars' End's atmosphere and they hadn't entered stasis with their life-support equipment. Voices overbore one another: "Hey, where are-" "The gravity's funny! What's happ-" "What place is this?"

Han, yelling and waving, got their attention. "Grab those guns and take up positions in the stairwell! Espos will be finding their way here in a minute!" He spotted a man in the uniform of a planetary constabulary, probably a bothersome official the Authority had decided to put on ice. Han pointed to him. "Get them organized and set up defenses, or you'll all find yourself back in stasis!"

Han turned, heading for the corridor. As he pa.s.sed the 'droid, he told him, "Wait here, Bollux; I've got to find Doc and Chewie."

As the prisoners scrambled for the fallen Espos' weapons, Han dashed into the connecting corridor, swung right, and headed for the next tier block. But as he closed on the next door, it snapped open, unlocked from the inside. Three Espos crowded, elbows and hips, each trying to be the first to get out of the tier block, as a pandemonium of fighting and shooting echoed from the room behind them.

The guards made it only halfway through the door. There was a deafening roar, and a familiar pair of long hairy arms reached out to gather all three of them back into the fray.

"Yo, there you are now," Han called happily. "Chewie!"

The Wookiee had finished draping the guards' limp forms over a nearby handrail. He saw his friend and hooted ecstatically. Han, his protestations ignored, was caught up in a comradely embrace that made his ribs creak. Then the artificial gravity waffled for a second and Chewbacca nearly fell. He let Han down.

"If we ever get out of this, partner," Han panted, "let's go settle down on a nice, quiet, stellar delivery route, what d'you say?"

This tier block had been taken with less trouble than the other; apparently fewer guards had been here when its stasis fields began to go. There was the same confusion, though, in a mult.i.tude of tongues and sound levels. The Wookiee, jostled into Han, turned with a truly stentorian roar, holding his fists aloft. A s.p.a.ce cleared around him instantly. Into the interval of silence Han inserted the order that the prisoners take up what guns they had and join the other defenders.

Then he grabbed Chewbacca's shoulder. "C'mon, Doc's here somewhere, Chewie, and we haven't got long to find him. He's our only chance of coming out of this alive."

The two went on to the next tier block, of which there were five altogether, as Han recalled from the floor plan. They encountered a door already open. Han brought the riot gun up and peered cautiously into the chamber. Its stasis booths were empty, and a disturbing silence hung over all. Han wondered if, perhaps, the Authority hadn't gotten to use this portion of its prison yet. He stepped into the tier block; Chewbacca followed after.

"Stand where you are!" ordered a voice behind them. Men and other creatures jumped up from concealment on the catwalks and outerworks, and along the walls. More appeared from around the bend in the corridor.

But both Han and his first mate had identified the voice that had commanded them. "Doc!" Han cried, though he and the Wookiee prudently held their places. No use being fried.

The old man, his head wreathed by a white, frizzy cloud of hair, blinked at them in utter surprise. "Han Solo! What in the name of the Original Light brings you here, son? But I suppose that's obvious: two more inmates, eh?" He faced the others. "This pair's okay."

He trotted over to them. Han was shaking his head, "No, Doc. Chewie was here. A few of us came to see what we-"

Doc hushed him. "More important things to get to, youngster. All these tiers in the first three rooms went at once; that's how we took the blocks so quickly. The demands on the systems must've been extraordinary; and now I notice the gravity's unstable."

Three tier blocks going all at once figured, Han thought, what with that first giant demand placed on the anticoncussion fields when the power plant went. "Uh, yeah, Doc. I meant to mention that. You know you're in a tower, right? Well, I, I sort of blew it into s.p.a.ce; overloaded the power plant and cut the overhead deflector shield so that-"

Doc clapped a hand over his eyes. "Han, you imbecile!"

Han became defensive. "You don't like it? Climb back into your shipping crate!" He saw he'd made his point. "No time to argue; there's no way Stars' End can make it all the way out of Mytus VII's gravity. We're due for a crash, and I'm not sure how soon. The only thing that'll save us is that anticoncussion field, and it's faded. It's up to you to make sure it's juiced up when we hit."

Doc was staring at Han with his mouth open. "Sonny, energizing an anticoncussion field is not like hot-wiring somebody's skyhopper and going for a joy-ride!"

Han threw his hands up. "Fine; let's just sit and wait to smash ourselves flat. Jessa can always adopt a new father."

That struck home. Doc sighed. "You're right; if it's our one shot, we shall take it. But I don't think much of your taste in jailbreaks." He turned to the others, who had been kept from intruding in the conversation only because of Chewbacca's looming presence. "Pay attention! No time for chatting! Come with me, and do as I say, and we may make it yet; at least I can promise you an end to interrogation."

He elbowed Han. "Blaze of glory, and all that, eh?" Then he started off at the head of a shuffling, loping, hoof-clacking horde, each individual moving on whatever extremities or in whatever fashion was his.

As they went, Han rapidly told Doc the bare bones of the story. The old man interrupted: "This Trianii is...o...b..ard the Millennium Falcon?"

"Should be, but it won't do us much good; the Falcon's tractors could never hold back this tower from re-entry."

Doc stopped. "I say, did you hear something, boy?"

They all had, the mew and crackle of blaster fire. They broke into a run. For all his apparent age, Doc kept up with the pilot and the Wookiee. They reached the emergency door just as the limp body of a prisoner was pa.s.sed into the corridor from the stairwell. It was a gangling, saurian creature with a blaster burn in its midsection. From the stairwell came the irregular sounds of a firefight.

"What's going on?" Han shouted, trying to elbow his way through. Chewbacca got in front, shoving and yelping, and opened a way. The prisoner who Han had arbitrarily put in charge appeared on the stairs. "We're holding an upper landing. There are a number of Authority people up there, trying to fight their way down. I put some lookouts on the lower stairs, but nothing's happened down there yet."

"Hirken and his bunch are trying to make their way down because the air locks are located here and on the lowest level. He's hoping for a rescue," Han told them.

Doc and the others looked at him in surprise. He remembered that Stars' End must be largely unknown territory to them. The constabulary officer asked, "Just what's happened?"

"Our time's running out, is what," Han answered. "We have to hold up here and give Doc there a chance to get down to the engineering levels. Take whoever's armed on point; there'll be some resistance down there, but it ought to be light. The rest can follow at a distance."

The expedition down the stairwell began, with Doc hurrying because none of them knew when the tower would hit its apogee and begin its plummeting descent.

Meanwhile, Han and Chewbacca dashed upstairs. Han felt himself breathing hard and understood that life-support systems were beginning to fail. If the oxygen pressure in the tower fell too low, all their efforts would mean nothing.

They joined the defenders holding the second landing above the tier blocks. Blaster beams from above sizzled and crashed against the opposite wall as the remaining armed prisoners here fired quick, unaimed shots around the corner when they could, with little chance of hitting anyone up on the next landing. Several defenders lay dead or injured. As Han topped the stairs, one man edged his weapon around the corner, quickly squeezed off a few shots, and drew back hastily. He spied Han. "What's going on down there?"

Han crouched beside him and was about to ease around the corner for a squint upstairs when a volley of red bolts burned and bit at the floor and walls out in the field of fire. He shrank back.

"Get your d.a.m.n bulb down, man," the defender cautioned. "We ran into their point men right here at the turn. We drove them back, but the rest came down. It's a standoff, but they have more weapons." Then he repeated, "What's going on below?"

"The others are headed for the lower levels, to rig a, a way out of this. We're here to keep the riffraff out." He began to sweat, thinking that the tower must surely be succ.u.mbing to the pull of Mytus VII by now.

The steady salvos from the next landing lit the stairwell. Chewbacca, checking it out with narrowed eyes, gobbled something to Han.

"My pal's right," Han told the other defenders. "See all the incoming bolts? They're hitting the far wall and the other side of the floor, and that's all, nothing on this side."

He slid around on the seat of his pants, cradling the riot gun high across his chest. Chewbacca braced Han's knees solidly to the floor. Han squirmed back on his b.u.t.tocks, centimeter by centimeter, until his back was almost into the line of fire.

He and Chewbacca traded looks. The man's was rueful, the Wookiee's concerned. "Hang it out."

Han let himself fall backward. The riot gun, clamped across his chest, pointed straight upstairs. Still dropping, he saw what he'd expected. A man in Es...o...b..own was stealing down the stairs, hugging the near wall to avoid his covering fire. The scene burned into Han's mind with an abrupt, almost painful clarity as he cut loose with a flurry of shots. Without waiting to see their effect, he leaned up again, long before his back could touch the floor. Chewbacca felt the move, pulled hard. Han came sliding to safety; his pop-up appearance had begun and ended so suddenly that n.o.body upstairs had managed to redirect his aim.

There was a rapid clattering on the stairs, and an Espoissue side arm spun to a stop on the landing. A moment later, with a weighty bouncing, the pistol's owner rolled to a halt next to it, more than adequately dead. It was the Espo major.

Han nodded in tribute to the major's devotion to duty.

The barrage from the next landing became more intense. The defenders answered with what weapons they had. Chewbacca picked up a pistol dropped by one of the fallen defenders, a feathered creature lying in a pool of translucent blood. The corpse's beaked face had been partly obliterated by a blaster shot. The Wookiee found that the barrel of the pistol had been hit, and was twisted and useless.

Chewbacca, pointing at Han's empty, holstered blaster, threw him the unusable gun. Han threw back the riot gun in exchange and drew his own side arm, to charge it from the ruined pistol. Chewbacca, whose thick fingers didn't fit the human-sized weapon well, tore off the trigger guard, then began firing around the corner without looking-high, low, and in between, at every angle.

Han mated the adapters in the pistol's grip to those in his own blaster's power pack, just forward of the trigger guard. He wound up with only half-charge capacity, but it would have to do. Finished, he tossed the useless Espo pistol aside and joined the Wookiee. To frustrate counterfire, the two fired unpredictably, and they could be very unpredictable indeed. None of the Authority people seemed to want to emulate the major's heroism.

Suddenly the firing from above stopped. The defenders also stopped, watching for a trick. It occurred to Han that if Hirken had even one shock-grenade-but no; he'd have used it already.

A flat, hissing voice called down, "Solo! Viceprex Hirken would speak with you!"

Han leaned back against the wall nonchalantly. Without showing himself, he answered, "Send him down, Uul-Rha-Shan. What the h.e.l.l, come on down yourself, old snake! Happy to oblige."

Then came Hirken's strong-sales-experience voice. "We'll talk from here, thanks. I know now just what it was you did."

Han wished to himself he'd known, too, beforehand. "I want to strike a bargain," Hirken went on. "However you're planning on getting away, I want you to take me with you. And the others with me, of course."

Of course. Han didn't even hesitate. "You got it. Throw your guns down here and come down one at a time, hands on your-"

"Be serious, Solo!" Hirken interrupted, depriving Han of the chance to tell him where to put his hands. "We can keep you occupied here so that you won't be able to get out yourself! And Stars' End is at the top of its arc; we've seen that much through the dome. It'll be too late soon for any of us. What do you say to that?"

"No way, Hirken!" Han wasn't sure whether Hirken was bluffing about the tower's having reached apogee, but there was no way to check it short of leaning out one of the locks-a poor idea in view of the scarcity of s.p.a.cesuits. "Hirken's dead center about one thing," he whispered. "They could pin us here if we let them make the rules."

The others followed him quickly down to the next landing, the last one before the tier-block level. They slipped around the corner and took up positions, waiting. Now it'd be the Viceprex's turn to sweat. From what Han could hear, it sounded like the majority of the prisoners were still in the tier blocks, unsure of what they should do. Han just hoped they wouldn't panic and come his way.

He had his blaster raised, knowing a questing head must come around the corner they'd abandoned, but it was impossible to antic.i.p.ate exactly when it would come.

A head did flick around the corner, Uul-Rha-Shan's, high up; he'd stood on someone else's back or shoulders. He flashed out, saw the disposition of the defenders, and pulled back with astounding speed. Han's tardy shot merely chipped a little more wall away; the pilot marveled at how quickly the reptilian gunman had moved.

"Is that how it is to be, Solo," came Uul-Rha-Shan's hypnotic voice. "Must I hunt you from level to level? Strike a bargain with us; we only desire to live."

Han laughed. "Sure, it's just everybody else that you don't want to live."

There was a noise from below, boots on the stairs. Doc reappeared, puffing. He threw himself down next to Han, his face composed in alarm. Han hand-signaled him to speak quietly so that those above wouldn't hear.

"Han, the Espos have come! Their a.s.sault craft is at the lower lock, unloading a strike force. They've linked up with the Authority people who were hiding from us down there. They drove us off the engineering levels; many were shot, and we were forced back. More died on the stairs before a rear guard was organized, but the Espos are pushing a heavy blaster up, step by step. We're in it where it's deep, this time!"

A stream of prisoners was already pouring frantically up the stairwell, bound for the only shelter left, the tier blocks. "The Espos down there have s.p.a.cesuits on," Doc said. "What if they bleed off our air?"

Han abruptly saw that the men around him were looking to him for an answer, and thought, Who, me? I'm just the getaway driver, remember?

He shook his head. "I'm tapped out, Doc. Get yourself some machinery; we'll play them one last chorus."

Hirken's voice boomed down triumphantly. "Solo! My men just contacted me by com-link! Surrender now, or I'll leave you here!" As if to emphasize that, they heard the oscillation of a heavy blaster somewhere in Stars' End.

"Well, they'll still have to come through to us," Han muttered. He grabbed Doc's shirt, but recalling Hirken, spoke in a low, hard tone. "Don't sweat the air; the Espos can't bleed it off or they'll kill their Viceprex. That's why they hit the lower lock instead of the one at prisoner level; they knew they'd have a much better chance of getting in without having to burn and rupture the tower. Send up everyone you can, anyone who'll come. We'll rush Hirken, whatever it costs, and use him as a hostage."

Remembering the barrage the Authority people could lay down in the narrow stairwell, he knew that the price would be terrible. Doc did, too, and pushed himself off looking, for the first time, like the very tired old man he finally felt himself to be.

"Don't stop for anything," Han was telling the others. "If somebody falls, somebody else grabs his machinery, but n.o.body stops."

He caught Chewbacca's eye. The Wookiee peeled back his lips from his curved fangs, scrunching his black nose, and sounded a savage, appalling howl, shaking his s.h.a.ggy head-a Wookiee's way of defying death. Then he grinned and rumbled at Han, who smiled lopsidedly. They were close enough friends not to have to make any more of it than that.

XI.

MORE inmates had come up to the landing, but they were unarmed. Han repeated instructions about weapons and not stopping. His heart pounded when he thought how concentrated the energy beams would be in that stairwell. Goodbye, Old s.p.a.cemen's Home.

He rose to a half crouch, and the others emulated him. "Chewie and me first, to lay down a cover. On three; one, two"-he edged to the corner-"th-"

A small, furry form, vaulting over those behind Han, landed on his shoulders, tugging at his neck. Its limber tail looped out to encircle the surprised Chewbacca's wrist.

Han staggered, valor forgotten. "What the flying-" He identified his a.s.sailant. "Pakka!"

The cub swung down from Hans's neck, bouncing up and down urgently, tugging at his leg. For a moment no fact seemed reliable. "Pakka, didn't you, I mean where's Atuarre? Dammit, kid, how'd you get here?" He remembered then that the cub couldn't answer.

Doc was shouting from below. "Solo, get down here!"

"Sit on things here; don't charge and don't fall back unless you have to," Han told Chewbacca. He pressed through his troops and raced down the stairs, trailing the fleet Pakka. Inside the emergency door leading to the tier blocks, he slid to a halt. "Atuarre!"

She was surrounded by Doc and the other prisoners. "Solo-Captain!" She seized his hands, her words tumbling out on top of one another. She'd brought in the Millennium Falcon and clamped onto the cargo lock here at the tier-block level, on the opposite side of the tower from the Espo a.s.sault ship.

"I don't think they noticed me; energy fluxes in Stars' End are distorting sensors completely. I had to link up purely by visual tracking."

Han drew Doc and Atuarre aside. "We could never, never fit all these people into the Falcon, not if we use every cubic centimeter of s.p.a.ce. How do we tell them?"

The Trianii broke in. "Solo-Captain, shut up! Please. And listen: I have a tunnel-tube junction station secured to the Falcon. I drove it right up against the ship and made it fast with a tractor beam."

"We can certainly fit inmates in the tunnel-tubes if we extend them," Doc began.

Hans's excited voice overbore him. "We'll do better than that. Atuarre, you're a genius! But will the tunnel-tube reach?"

"It should."

Doc was looking from one to the other. "What are you two-Oh! I see!" He rubbed his hands together, eyes bright. "This will be novel, for a fact."

One of the defenders from the upper landing poked his head through the emergency door. "Solo, the Viceprex is calling for you again."

"If I don't answer, he'll know something's doing. I'll send Chewie down to help you. Work fast!"

"Solo-Captain, we have only minutes remaining!"

He bounded up the stairs, though it left him huffing and heaving, and threatened to black him out. Air's going, he thought. In hushed tones he explained everything quickly and dispatched the Wookiee and most of the others down to join Atuarre and Doc.

Then he answered Hirken. The Viceprex shouted, "Time's short, Solo. Will you yield?"

"Yield?" Han sputtered, unbelieving. "What d'you have in mind, defloration?" He pegged a shot around the corner, beginning a steady hara.s.sing fire, and hoped that those below could hold the Espo a.s.sault team for the required time.

Ninety seconds later a cycling light came on over one of the unused stern air locks of the Authority a.s.sault craft. No one was there to notice, because, except for a skeleton watch, the entire ship's complement had been turned out to rescue the Viceprex, at his order.

The lock opened. Through it stepped a very incensed Wookiee, hefting a captured wide-bore blaster. He was pleased, however, that he hadn't been compelled to waste time and power burning through the lock doors. He'd secured the outer hatch open. Behind him, floating in the weightlessness of the extended tunnel-tube, were more prisoners, waiting with weapons and with claws and stingers and pincers and bare, eager hands. Even farther back, at the junction station, other prisoners were being crowded aboard the Falcon, while more waited to leave the tower. Since the freighter could never hold them all, this ship had to be captured.

Chewbacca gave a hand motion and set off. The others drew themselves in after, touching down as they entered the a.s.sault craft's artificial gravity.

The lock's opening had been noted on the bridge. An Espo crewman, coming to check out what he thought would be a malfunction in the air-lock apparatus, rounded a corner and almost fetched up against the Wookiee's enormous, furry-haired torso. A stroke of the blaster's b.u.t.t sent the Espo flying back through the air. He landed in a brown-clad heap, his helmet skittering along the deck.