Come to think of it, the Wookiee reflected, the Tynnan wasn't a bad technical pilot. He had even a.s.sisted on the liftoff from Bonadan, once Chewbacca had judged that Han and Fiolla had won enough time to get offworld. Spray had copiloted and aided in hypers.p.a.ce transition with a fussy proficiency, though he'd been startled to learn that Han and Chewbacca habitually s.p.a.ced by themselves, Han reaching back to his left to carry out navigator's ch.o.r.es and the Wookiee leaning to his right to run the commo board when needed.

"The exterior is a deception," Spray was continuing. "Why, some of the equipment you've installed is restricted to military use; are you aware of that? And her armament rating's way too high, as is her lift/ma.s.s ratio. How did Captain Solo ever get a Waiver to operate within the Authority?"

The Wookiee, cupping his hirsute chin in both hands, leaned down even closer to the gameboard, ignoring the question. Even if he had been able to communicate eloquently with Spray, he wouldn't have explained about the Waiver, which had involved an amazing variety of lawbreaking and the total destruction of the covert Authority facility known as Stars' End.

Miniature holomonsters waited on the circular gameboard, throwing challenges to one another. Chewbacca's defenses had been penetrated by a lone combatant from Spray's forces. The question of external versus internal threat was a very subtle one, involving closely matched win/lose parameters. The Wookiee's nose scrunched in thought. He reached a hairy finger out very slowly and punched his next move up on the game's keyboard, then reclined on the curving acceleration couch, arm pillowing his head, his long legs crossed. With his free hand he scratched his other arm, which the somatigenerative effect of the flaking synth-flesh had made itchy.

"Uh-oh," blurted Blue Max, who was following the contest from his habitual place in Bollux's open thorax. The 'droid sat on a pressure keg among the other clutter to one side of the compartment, amid plastic pallets, hoisting toggles and a rebuilt fuel enricher that Han hadn't gotten around to installing yet. The computer probe's photoreceptor swiveled to track on Spray as the Tynnan returned to the board and made his next move without hesitation.

Spray's lone combatant had been a decoy. Now one of his supporting monsters slithered across the board and, after a brief battle, threw Chewbacca's defenses wide open.

"It's the Eighth Ilthmar gambit; he drew you out with that loner. He's got you," Blue Max observed helpfully.

Chewbacca was filling his lungs for a vituperative outpouring and levering himself up to the board again when the navi-computer clamored for attention. The starship's first mate forgot his ire and scrambled up from the acceleration couch, but not before he cleared the board of his humiliating defeat. He hastened off to prepare for the reversion to normal s.p.a.ce.

"And just look at this; some of these systems are fluidic!" Spray squeaked after him, whiskers aquiver, waving a tech readout screen. "What is this, a starship or a distillery?"

The Wookiee paid him no heed. "Good game, Spray," attested Max, who was himself a fair player.

"He held me for three extra moves," admitted the skip-tracer. "I wish things were going as well with this technical survey. Everything's so modified that I can't trace the basic specifications."

"Maybe we can help," Max piped brightly.

"Max is conversant with ship's systems," Bollux said. "He might be able to dig out the information you require."

"Just what I need! Please, step over to the tech station!" Spray was behind the 'droid, webbed feet scrabbling on the deckplates, pushing him to a seat at the station. As Bollux sat heavily into the acceleration chair, Max extended an adaptor, the one Chewbacca had repaired after the encounter with the slavers.

"I'm in," Max announced as technical readouts began marching across scopes and screens at high speed. "What d'you want to know, Spray?"

"All data on recent jumps; you can patch into the navi-computer. I want to see how the ship's been operating."

"You mean accuracy factors and power levels?" Max asked in his childish voice.

"I mean hypers.p.a.ce jumps, date-time coordinates, all relevant information. It'll give me the simplest evaluation of how the ship performs and what she's worth."

There was a momentary hesitation. "It's no use," Max told Spray. "Captain Solo's got all that stuff protected. He and Chewbacca are the only ones with access."

Exasperated, Spray pursued. "Can't you find a window to it? I thought you were a computer probe."

Max achieved a wounded tone. "I am. But I can't do something like this without the Captain's permission. Besides, if I make a mistake, the safeguards will wipe everything clean."

As the Tynnan sat and stewed, Bollux drawled, "As I understand it, a general examination would begin with things like power systems, maintenance records, and so forth. Would you like Blue Max to run a thorough check of current status?"

Spray seemed distracted. "Eh? Oh, yes, yes, that would be fine." Then he sat, bucktoothed chin poised on a stubby paw, stroking his whiskers in concentration.

"Whoops," chirped Max, "what d'you suppose that is? Whatever it is wasn't there when we did the preflight warmup."

The skip-tracer suddenly became attentive. "What are you-oh, that power drop? Hm, that's a minor conduit on the outer hull, isn't it? Now what could be draining power there?"

"Nothing in design schematics or mod-specs," Max a.s.sured him. "I think we should tell Chewbacca."

Spray, never one to trust the unexplained, was inclined to agree. Yielding to the skip-tracer's nervous exhortations, the Wookiee left the c.o.c.kpit only under protest, and seated himself at the tech station. But when he saw evidence of the highly improbable power drain, his thick red-gold brows beetled and his leathery nostrils dilated reflexively, trying to catch a whiff of what was wrong.

He turned and brayed an interrogative at Spray, who had been around the Wookiee long enough to understand that much.

"I haven't a clue," the skip-tracer answered stridently. "Nothing in this slapdash ship makes any sense to me. She looks like a used loadlifter, but she's got higher boost than an Imperial cruiser. I don't even care to think about how jury-rigged some of those reroutings must be."

At Chewbacca's order Blue Max showed him, on a computer model, exactly which length of the conduit was experiencing drainage. The Wookiee marched to the tool locker, withdrew a worklight, a scanner and a huge spanner, and continued on aft with Spray and Bollux bringing up the rear.

Near the engine shielding, the Falcon's first mate removed a wide inspection plate and wormed himself down into the crawls.p.a.ce there. He had even less room than normal-a good deal of the fluidic systems had been installed here.

He barely managed to turn his wide shoulders and squeeze the scanner in by the hull. He played its invisible tracer beam over the metal, watching the monitor carefully. At last he found the spot where, on the other side of the hull, the power conduit was showing droppage. It didn't look like any malfunction he had ever seen; there should be no reason for the conduit simply to lose power. Something must be drawing it from the conduit, but Chewbacca could think of nothing that would do so. Unless, of course, something had been added.

In a moment he was wriggling his way back out of the crawls.p.a.ce like an enormous red-gold-brown larva, honking his distress. Bollux's vocoder and Max's vied with Spray's high-strung squeak, demanding to know what was wrong. Sweeping them out of his way with one wide swing of his arm, Chewbacca headed for the storage compartment where his oversized s.p.a.cesuit was stored.

The Wookiee detested the confinement of a suit and loathed even more the idea of clambering along the hull and undertaking delicate and dangerous work while protected from the annihilation of hypers.p.a.ce only by the thin envelope of the Falcon's drive field. But more than that he dreaded what he believed he would find on the other side of the hull.

The decision was taken out of his hands. There was a loud ploow! Out of the still-open inspection port came a burst of flame and explosive force along with ga.s.ses and vaporized liquids from the fluidic components. There followed a sustained whistle of air that let them know the vessel had been holed, confirming the Wookiee's worst fears. During the ground-time on Bonadan, someone, most probably the enemies waiting for Han and Fiolla, had taken precautionary measures to ensure that the Millennium Falcon wouldn't escape. They had fastened a sleeper-bomb to the starship's hull where it would do the worst damage. It had been applied inert, unpowered, undetectable except by the most minute inspection. Once in flight it had become active, draining power from the ship's systems to build its explosion. Then it had released in a shaped charge and blown out control systems in flight. The device was meant to produce the cleanest possible kind of murder, one that would leave no evidence, blasting the ship and all it contained into meaningless energy anomalies in hypers.p.a.ce.

Chewbacca and Spray were driven back by the multicolored reek belching from the ruptured fluidics. Unprotected, they could be killed as easily by breathing those concentrated gases as by a miscalculated transition.

But Bollux could get along quite well where they couldn't. They saw the 'droid clank through the billowing smoke, lugging a heavy extinguisher he had pulled from a wall niche. Chewbacca had occasion now to curse the same auto-firefighting gear that had saved them all on Lur; the system's inability to operate now might spell their deaths.

Bollux's chest panels closed protectively over Blue Max even as he set the extinguisher down and lowered himself stiffly into the crawls.p.a.ce, his gleaming body poorly suited to an area designed for limber living creatures. Once he had entered the s.p.a.ce, his lengthy arm reached back out to drag the extinguisher after him. There was still the shriek of escaping air and the whoop of warning sirens to tell them the Falcon was depressurizing.

Chewbacca had run for the c.o.c.kpit with Spray crowding behind. At the control console he kicked in filtration systems full-all, to carry away toxic fumes, and checked damage indicators.

The bomb must have been relatively small, placed in a precise location by someone who knew stock freighters like the Falcon well. The Wookiee realized it before Spray-whoever had planted the sleeper-bomb hadn't been aware of the starship's tread-boarded fluidics setup. With the control design radically altered, the bomb had failed to do a complete job of rendering the starship derelict.

Transition to normal s.p.a.ce was imminent. Without taking time to seat himself, Chewbacca reached over his seat and worked at the console. At least some of the fluidics were functioning; hypers.p.a.ce parted around the freighter like an infinite curtain.

The Falcon's first mate bellowed an angry imprecation at the Universe's sense of timing, picked Spray up bodily and deposited him in the pilot's seat, bayed a string of uninterpreted instructions while pointing at the planet Ammuud, which had just appeared before them, and tore off in the direction of the explosion.

He paused long enough to pick up a hull-patch kit and a respirator. Hunkering down over the inspection plate, he saw Bollux sitting in the midst of shards and fragments of fluidic tubing and microfilament. The fire had been quelled. The shriek of escaping air had stopped: Bollux had firmly planted his durable back against the breach, an adequate sort of temporary seal.

The labor 'droid looked up and was relieved to see Chewbacca. "The hole is rather large, sir; I'm not sure how long my thorax will withstand the pressure. Also, the armor surrounding the breach is cracked. I suggest using the largest patch you have."

Chewbacca a.n.a.lyzed the th.o.r.n.y problem of getting Bollux out of the crawls.p.a.ce and simultaneously plugging the hole. He settled on the plan of preparing two patches, one smaller and lighter that could be set in place quickly, and the other a st.u.r.dy plate that would hold up even against the ma.s.sive force exerted by the Falcon's air pressure toward the utter vacuum outside. He handed the smaller patch down to Bollux and yipped instructions, gesturing to make himself understood, frustrated that he'd never mastered Basic.

But the 'droid grasped what he meant and gathered himself for the effort. Using the agility of his special suspension system and his simian arms, Bollux managed to push himself free, swing around, and slap the patch into place in rapid sequence. He swarmed for the inspection opening, having seen that the temporary patch was trembling before the strain placed upon it.

Chewbacca had seen it, too, and worried; the hole was bigger than he had thought. He reached down with both arms and hauled the 'droid up through the inspection opening. Just as he did the patch gave way, sucked into nothingness so quickly that it seemed to vanish With it went several jagged pieces, enlarging the hole.

It was suddenly as if Chewbacca was standing in the middle of a wild river-rapids, fighting raging currents of air that, in escaping the ship, were dragging him inexorably toward the hole. Sc.r.a.ps and loose debris swirled around and past him and zipped down the inspection opening.

Bracing the muscular columns of his legs on either side of the opening, the Wookiee fought to retain his hug on Bollux and resist that flood. The giant sinew of his back and legs felt as if it were about to come apart. He clutched the 'droid to him with one arm, bracing the other on the deck, sustaining himself on a tripod of arm and legs, head thrown back with effort.

Bollux recovered somewhat, only to find that in the position in which the Wookiee was holding him, he could do little to exert any force of his own. What he could and did do was grasp the corner of the inspection plate and swing it over on its pivot, something Chewbacca hadn't a free limb to accomplish. It almost jammed halfway, but with a final tug the 'droid cleared it. Once it was past that point the airflow caught it and hauled it shut with a ringing alarm. Fortunately none of the Wookiee's fingers or toes were poised on the lip of the opening.

The depressurization was confined to one small compartment for the time being. How serious that was remained to be seen. Chewbacca wanted to lie on the deck and catch his breath for a moment but knew he didn't have the time. He squirted thick, gluey sealant all around the inspection plate, then paused long enough to pat Bollux's cranium with a gruff compliment.

"It was Max who brought the inspection plate to my attention," said the 'droid modestly. Then he hauled himself to his feet and trailed off after Chewbacca, who had already dashed off toward the c.o.c.kpit.

There, Spray was engaged in an uncertain contest with the controls. "We retain considerable guidance function," he reported, "and I've put us on an approach path to the planet's only s.p.a.ceport. I was about to alert them for an emergency landing under crash conditions."

The Wookiee loudly countermanded that plan, dropping into his outsized copilot seat. He, like Han, shunned involvement, and the consequent fuss or furor, that could possibly be avoided. He found that the controls responded adequately and thought he stood a good chance of landing the freighter without sirens, crash wagons, stop-netting, firefighting robos, and ten thousand official questions.

Already in Ammuud's upper atmosphere, he brought the ship onto a steady approach path. Her hypers.p.a.ce drive seemed to have suffered damage, but the rest of her guidance system responded within tolerance.

Bollux, who had just caught up, came up next to Chewbacca, his panels open. "I think there's something you should know, sir. Blue Max just ran a quick check at the tech station. The damage has stabilized, but some of the filament tubing for the guidance systems has been exposed; its housing was cracked."

"Will it blow?" Spray asked. Below them, they could make out features of the terrain quite clearly. Ammuud was a world of immense forests and oceans with rather large polar ice caps.

Max answered. "It's not a question of blowing out, Spray; they're secure, but they're delicate low-pressure filaments. Going too deep into the planet's atmosphere will implode them."

"You mean we can't land?" Spray blinked.

"No," Bollux replied calmly. "He merely means that we can't land too deep in Ammuud's-"

The starship gave a convulsive shudder.

"Be careful!" squawked the skip-tracer to Chewbacca. "This vessel is still in lien to Interstellar Collections Limited!"

Chewbacca gave out a vociferous growl. One of the control filaments had imploded, the planet's atmosphere having overcome the lesser pressure within it. The Wookiee snarled. Working to bypa.s.s the line, he had one bit of luck in that he could cut the ship's speed back to a very gentle descent.

"-atmosphere," Bollux finished.

"How deep is that?" Spray asked urgently. The Terrain Following Sensors had already shown them the planet's s.p.a.ceport at the foot of a high mountain range.

"Not very much lower at all, sir," commented Bollux in neutral tones.

The Wookiee pulled the Falcon's bow higher and reset the Terrain Following Sensors to display the features of the mountain range beyond Ammuud's s.p.a.ceport. His plan was clear; since he couldn't set down in the lower atmosphere, he would find as suitable a site as he could in the higher mountains and hope that the lower air pressure there wouldn't collapse the rest of the guidance system before he could set the ship down. He waved a s.h.a.ggy paw at Bollux and Spray, indicating the pa.s.sageway.

"I believe he wants us to stow all loose gear and prepare for a rough landing," Bollux told Spray. The two turned and began working their way along the pa.s.sageway together, frantically cramming loose items into storage lockers and securing their lids.

They had reached the escape pods when Spray thought of something important. "What about Captain Solo? How will he know what's happened?"

"I'm afraid I can't say, sir," Bollux confessed. "I see no way in which we can safely leave word for him without compromising ourselves to port officials."

The skip-tracer accepted that. "By the way, I think there's some welding equipment in that second pod there; you'd better bring it out so that we can secure it."

Bollux obligingly leaned into the open pod. "I don't see any-" He felt an abrupt push from behind. Spray had worked up just enough momentum, with a running start, so that shoving with all his might he toppled Bollux into the pod.

"Find Solo!" Spray yelled, and hit the release. Inner and outer hatches rolled down before the confused 'droid could get out another word. The pod was blown free by its separator charges.

And as the Falcon nosed up, driving for the high mountains of Ammuud, the dumpy escape pod began its fall toward the s.p.a.ceport.

VIII.

GENERAL Quarters or any call to stations can be disorderly in even a well-run military s.p.a.cecraft. On a pa.s.senger liner like the Lady of Mindor, where runthroughs and practices were all but ignored, it was total confusion. Therefore, Han Solo paid scant attention to the garbled and frequently contradictory instructions blared by the public-address annunciators. With Fiolla in tow he plunged down the pa.s.sageway as panicky pa.s.sengers, frightened crew members, and indecisive officers immobilized one another with conflicting aims and actions.

"What are you going to do?" Fiolla asked as they side-stepped a mob of pa.s.sengers hammering at the purser's door.

"Get the rest of your cash from your stateroom, then find the nearest lifeboat bay." He heard airtight doors booming shut and tried to remember the layout of these old M-cla.s.s ships. It would be disastrous to be trapped by the automatic seal-up.

"Solo, tractor in!" Fiolla bawled, dragged her slippered feet, and finally halted him. Catching her breath, she continued. "I have my money with me. Unless you want to tip the robo-valet, we can get going."

He was once again impressed. "Very good. We keep going aft; there should be a boat just forward of the power section." He recalled that his macrobinoculars were back in his cabin, then wrote them off. Ahead of them an airtight door had just begun grinding shut. They made it in a sprint, though the hem of Fiolla's shimmersilk caught in the hatchway and she had to tear a ragged edge off it to free herself.

"A month's pay, this thing cost me," she complained ruefully. "What's it going to be now, fight or run?"

"A little of both. The fool captain of this can must've tripped every door in the ship. How does he think his crew'll get to battle stations?" He started on.

"Maybe he doesn't intend to fight," she puffed, staying right at his heels. "I hardly think a liner's crew could make a fight of it against a pirate, do you?"

"They'd better; pirates aren't famous for their restraint with captives." They came to a long, cylindrical lifeboat tucked into its bay. Han broke the seal on the release lever and threw it back, but the lifeboat's hatch failed to roll open. He threw the lever forward and back again, condemning the liner's maintenance officer for not looking after his safety equipment.

"Listen," Fiolla stopped him.

The ship's captain seemed to have rea.s.serted a certain amount of self-control. "For the safety of all pa.s.sengers," his voice came from the PA, "and crew members alike, I've decided to accept terms of surrender offered by the vessel that disabled us. I have been a.s.sured that no one will be harmed so long as we put up no resistance and no attempt is made to launch lifeboats. With this in mind I have overridden boat and pod releases to keep them onboard. Though the ship is damaged, we are in no immediate danger. I hereby order all pa.s.sengers and crew members to cooperate with the boarding parties when the pirate craft docks with ours."

"What makes him think they'll keep their word?" Han muttered. "He's been larding it on pa.s.senger runs too long." A small part of him chased after that thought. When was the last time a pirate raid had been made near the well-patrolled inner environs of the Authority? An attack of this sort was nearly unheard of in this part of s.p.a.ce.

"Solo, look!" Fiolla pointed to an open hatch, this one set into the liner's outer hull. He ran to it and found that it gave access to a gun turret. The hatch had obviously opened at the first alarm. The twin-barreled blaster cannon was unattended; either its a.s.signed crew hadn't made it to their station or the captain had recalled them.

Hiking himself through the hatch, Han settled into the gunner's saddle as Fiolla lowered herself into the gunner's mate's place. Through the blister of transparisteel enclosing the turret they could see the pirate craft, a slender predator painted in light-absorbing black, warping in adroitly on the pa.s.senger liner. The pirate was apparently going to match up against an airlock in the Lady's midsection somewhat forward of the gun turret.

The emplacement was fully charged. Setting his shoulders against the rests, Han leaned against the padded hood of the targeting scope, closing his hands on the firing grips.

"What've you got in mind, Solo?" Fiolla queried sharply.

"If we start maneuvering the turret, they'll pick the movement up," he explained. "But if we wait, they will drift right across our sights. We can get off one volley, maybe even disable them."

"Maybe even get ourselves killed," she suggested tartly. "And everybody else into the bargain. Solo, you can't!"

"Wrong; it's the one thing I can do. Do you think they'll keep their word about not hurting anyone? I don't. We can't escape, but we sure can take a swipe at them."

Ignoring her protests, he put his shoulders to the rests and sighted through the targeting scope again. The pirate's menacing shape came into the edge of his field of fire. He held his breath, waiting for a shot at the raider's vitals, knowing he would get off only one salvo.

The control section didn't quite come into his line of fire and he let the crew quarters pa.s.s; they were probably empty, with most of the crew mustered at the airlock for boarding. The pirate wouldn't even have to put out her boats, thanks to the liner captain's meek surrender.