Star Wars: Scourge (41 page)

“It’s got three settings, see? Safety, single shot, and constant fire. Now, the Security Police here use those riot guns, right? Sawed-off, two-handers? They’re real fond of using constant fire, because they can afford to waste power, just hosing it around. You can’t. What you do is, lock all your carbines on single shot. And if you get into a firefight at night or in the deep jungle where visibility’s poor, shoot at the constant-fire sources. You’ll know it’s none of your people, so it must be Security Police. You’ve got to start using your brain.”

The creature looked from the man to the carbine and back again. “Yes,” it assured him, retrieving the weapon, “we will remember. Thank you.”

Han sniffed, knowing how much they still had to learn. And they’d have to learn it on their own, or the Authority would grind them under its vast heel. And on how many worlds, he asked himself, was the Authority doing just that?

His thoughts were interrupted by distant sounds of blaster fire off in the jungle. The creature had moved to the hatch, with its carbine leveled at them. “I am sorry,” it told them, “but we had to test some of the weapons here, now, to make certain they work.”

It lowered the carbine and fled down the ramp, heading
for the jungle. So much for world-saving. “I take it all back,” Han said to Chewie as they leaned on the open hatch. “They might do all right at that.”

Their long-range sensors had been knocked out by the destruction of the
Falcon
’s dish antenna on the approach run. The ship would have to make a blind lift-off, taking her chances on running into trouble.

Han and Chewbacca stood atop the
Falcon
for nearly an hour, straining to patch the damaged antenna mount. Han didn’t begrudge the time; it had been a worthwhile effort and, if nothing else, had given the fugitives time to leave the rendezvous area. Because, sure as stink in a spacesuit, the
Falcon
’s lift-off would be plotted and its point of origin thoroughly searched.

They could wait no longer. The first lightening of the sky would bring every flitter, skimmer, and armed gig the local Authority officials could lay hands on, in a tight visual search grid. Chewbacca, sensing Han’s mood, made a snarling comment in his own language.

Han lowered his macrobinoculars. “Correct. Let’s raise ship.”

They adjourned below, buckled in, and ran through a preflight—warming up engines, guns, shields. Han declared, “I’m betting that lighter will be holding low, where his sensors will do him the most good. If we come up any distance away from him, we can outrun him and dive for hyperspace.”

Chewbacca yelped. Han poked him in the ribs. “What’s eating you? We just have to play this hand out.” He realized he was talking to hear himself. He shut up. The
Millennium Falcon
lifted, hovering for just a moment as her landing gear retracted. Then Han tenderly guided her up through the opening in the jungle’s leafy ceiling.

“Sorry,” he apologized to his ship, knowing what abuse she was about to take. He fired her up, stood her on her tail, and opened main thrusters wide. The starship screeched away
into the sky, leaving the river steaming and the jungle smoldering. Duroon fell away quickly, and Han began to think they had the problem licked.

Then the tractor beam hit.

The freighter shook as the powerful, pulling beam fixed on her. High above, the Authority captain had played it smart, knowing he was looking for a faster, more maneuverable foe. Having outwitted the smuggler, he now brought his ship plummeting down the planet’s gravity well, picking up enough speed to compensate for any dodge the
Falcon
might try in her steep climb. The tractor pulled the two ships inexorably into alignment.

“Shields-forward, all. Angle ’em, and get set to fire!” Han and Chewbacca were throwing switches, fighting their controls, struggling desperately to free their ship. In moments it became clear their actions were futile.

“Ready to shift all deflectors astern,” Han ordered, bringing his helm over. “It’ll have to be a staring match, Chewie.”

The Wookiee’s defiant roars shook the cockpit as his partner swung the freighter onto a new course, straight at the enemy vessel. All the
Falcon
’s defensive power was channeled to redouble her forward shields. The Authority ship was coming at them at a frightening rate; the distance between ships evaporated in seconds. The Authority lighter, making hits at extreme range, jounced the two around their cockpit but did no major damage.

“Hold fire, hold fire,” Han chanted under his breath. “We’ll train all batteries aft and kick him going away.” The controls vibrated and fought in their hands as the
Falcon
’s engines gave every erg of effort. Deflector shields struggled under a salvo of long-range blaster-cannon fire, lances of yellow-green annihilation. The
Falcon
ascended on a column of blue energy as if she lusted for a fiery double death in collision with her antagonist. Rather than fight the tractor beam, she threw herself toward its source. The Authority ship came into visual range and, a moment later, filled the
Falcon
’s canopy.

At the last instant, the warship’s captain’s nerve gave. The tractor faded as the lighter began a desperate evasion maneuver. With reflexes that were more like precognition, Han threw everything he had into an equally frantic bank. The two ships’ shields couldn’t have left more than a meter or two between them in that blindingly fast near miss.

Chewbacca was already shifting all shields aft. The
Falcon
’s main batteries, trained astern, hammered at the Authority vessel at close range. Han scored two hits on the lighter, perhaps no more than superficial damage, but a moral victory after a long, bad night. The Authority ship rocked. Chewbacca howled, and Han exulted, “Last licks!”

The lighter plunged downward, unable to halt her steep dive quickly. The freighter bolted out of Duroon’s atmospheric envelope, out into the void where she belonged. Far below her, the Authority vessel was just beginning to pull out of her dive, all chance of pursuit lost.

Han fed jump data into the navicomputer as Chewbacca ran damage checks. Nothing irreparable, the Wookiee decided, but everything would have to have a thorough going-over. But Han Solo and Chewbacca the Wookiee had their money, their freedom, and, for a wonder, their lives. And that, Han thought, should be enough for anyone, shouldn’t it?

The starship’s raving engines carved a line of blue fire across infinity. Han engaged the hyperdrive. Stars seemed to fall away in all directions as the ship outraced sluggard Light. The
Millennium Falcon
’s main drive boomed, and she disappeared as if she’d never been there.

This is the period of the classic
Star Wars
movie trilogy—
A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back
, and
Return of the Jedi
—in which a ragtag band of Rebels battles the Empire, and Luke Skywalker learns the ways of the Force and must avoid his father’s fate.

During this time, the Empire controls nearly the entire settled galaxy. Out in the Rim worlds, Imperial stormtroopers suppress uprisings with brutal efficiency, many alien species have been enslaved, and entire star systems are brutally exploited by the Empire’s war machine. In the central systems, however, most citizens support the Empire, weighing misgivings about its harsh methods against the memories of the horror and chaos of the Clone Wars. Few dare to openly oppose Emperor Palpatine’s rule.

But the Rebel Alliance is growing. Rebel cells strike in secret from hidden bases scattered among the stars, encouraging some of the braver Senators to speak out against the Empire. When the Rebels learn that the Empire is building the Death Star, a space station with enough firepower to destroy entire planets, Princess Leia Organa, who represents her homeworld, Alderaan, in the Senate and is secretly a high-ranking member of the Rebel Alliance, receives the plans for the battle station and flees in search of the exiled Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Thus begin the events that lead her to meet the smuggler and soon-to-be hero Han Solo, to discover her long-lost brother, Luke Skywalker, and to help the Rebellion take down the Emperor and restore democracy to the galaxy: the events of the three films
A
New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back
, and
Return of the Jedi
.

If you’re a reader looking for places to jump in and explore the Rebellion-era novels, here are five great places to start:

Read on for an excerpt from a
Star Wars
novel set in the Rebellion era.

Special Cargo

T
he unidentified ship tore through the brittle atmosphere of Tatooine with a finger of fire, trailing greasy black smoke. Waves of sound, sonic booms from the crashing ship, made an avalanche through the air.

Below, the Jawa sandcrawler continued its endless
path across the Dune Sea looking for forgotten scraps of abandoned metal, delicious salvage. By sheer luck the crawler stood only two dunes away when the plummeting ship struck the ocean of blind sand and spewed a funnel of dust that glittered like mica chips under the blazing twin suns.

The pilot of the corroded sandcrawler, Tteel Kkak, stared out the narrow window high up on the bridge deck, unable to believe the incredible fortune the luck of his ancestors had dropped in his lap. His crawler’s year-long trek across the wastelands had been practically fruitless, and he would have been ashamed to return to his clan’s hidden fortress bearing so little—but now a virgin ship lay within reach, unclaimed by other scavenging clans and unsullied by time.

The ancient reactor engines shoved the immense sandcrawler into motion. It ground over the shifting sands seeking purchase with wide treads in a straight line for the smoldering wreckage.

The ship lay in a crater of loose, blasted sands that might have cushioned the impact; some of the cargo should still be intact. The armored chambers and parts of the computer core might be salvageable. Or so Tteel Kkak hoped.

Jawas swarmed out of the sandcrawler toward the wreckage: the entire scavenging arm of the Kkak clan, little hooded creatures surrounded by a rank musty scent, chattering as they claimed their prize.

The front group of Jawas carried chemical fire-suppressant packs, which they sprayed on the hissing hot metal to minimize further damage. They did not look to see if anyone had survived the crash, because that was not their primary concern. In fact, living passengers or crew would only complicate the Kkak salvage claim. Those injured in such wrecks rarely survived Jawa first aid.