Showdown At Centerpoint Read online

  right past us and zero in on the eoneship. My guess is that whoever is on

  those LAFs is targeting the Hunchuzuc, not us." "But Han is- "Safer this

  way," Mara said, watching her displays. "We can handle seven or eight of

  them at once, but not twelve. Not in a direct engagement. But if the LAFs

  don't engage us, we'll have nice, clear forward view shots right up their

  stern plates while they're focused on the coneship. We can pick off three or

  four of them before the rest bring fire to bear on us. Set up the targeting

  system for tracking follow-fire. If they engage us directly, we return fire.

  If they go past us, commence fire when they are three kilometers past us.

  Understood?" "Yes, but- "No buts," Mara said. "This ship fights my way, or

  not at ali." Leia gave in again. Mara had far more experience at this sort

  of fight than she did. "Very well," she said. "Stand by. Here they come."

  Leia watched the stern detector displays as the LAFs came in, directly

  behind the Fire's stern, trying to hide in the detection shadow produced by

  the sublight engines. They were trying to sneak up. From that bearing they

  wouldn't even show up on most ships' detectors. The LAFs swept in, their

  images in the detection screen breaking up just a bit due to interference

  from the sublight engines. Leia tensed up as they swept through the optimum

  firing range, and felt herself relax just a trifle as they swept on, past

  the Fire. But she didn't relax too far-not when they were passing her by to

  take a crack at her husband's ship. The LAFs flashed past the Fire, zeroing

  in on the coneship. "The coneship!" she cried out. "It's spinning up. They

  must have got our warning." "Let's hope Han's idea works better than it

  ought to," Mara said. It wasn't the most tactful thing to say, even if Leia

  had been thinking the same thing herself. But there was no time. "Coming up

  on three kilometers distance," she said. "Commence fire," Mara ordered. "Not

  unless they fire first!" Leia said. "Maybe they're just here to throw a

  scare into us, or they might be on escort duty. No way to tell with

  communications jammed." "All right," Mara said, the doubt plain in her

  voice. "You can make that- But the first flash of turbolaser fire from the

  lead LAF shut down the argument. Leia released the safeties on the Fire's

  follow-fire circuits and started selecting targets, aiming first for the LAF

  that had opened fire. "Here they come!" Han .shouted in Basic, forgetting

  for a moment to speak in Selonian. Salculd got the message all the same. She

  looked up through the viewport at the tiny spots of light in the sky, and

  understood precisely what was going on. She let out a most undignified

  squawk. The whole slowly spinning cone-ship lurched to one side and came

  close to heeling over into a disastrous tumble. "Calmness!" Han shouted. "Be

  calm, alert. Throttle down all engines. End all thrust. Stand by to open

  outer airlock doors on my command." "Throu-throttling down ali engines,"

  Salculd said. "Ready on the airlock doors." "Wait for it," Han said,

  watching the LAFs come closer. Weight faded away as Salculd powered down the

  engines. With the inertia] dampers off-line, and the engine thrust gone, Han

  found himself in zero gee for the first time in a long time. Han knew people

  who had spent half their lives in space without experiencing zero

  gravity-and with the flip-flops his stomach was doing all of a sudden, he

  could understand why. But there was no time for that now. Not with a sky

  full of Light Attack Fighters heading in. "Be ready, ready." he told

  Salculd. The lead LAF fired and caught them with a glancing blow to the

  starboard side, slamming into the hull like a giant fist. "It's all right!"

  Han shouted, having not the least idea if it was or not. "It's all right.

  Stand by on the airlock doors. Wait for it. Be ready-" The Jade's Fire's

  forward quad turbolaser blazed away, tracking the lead LAP across the sky.

  The LAP broke off its attack run, trying to fly an evasive pattern and

  escape. For a moment it managed to break out of the tracking pattern, but

  the Jade's Fire regained a positive lock and poured in fire again. The LAF's

  shields flared and blazed for a moment before giving way altogether. The

  fighter exploded, a blossom of fire that flared up and was gone. Leia fed

  two new targets to the follow-fire system, and got busy herself with the

  manual guns, reading the detection screens for herself. But the rest of the

  LAFs were not going to be such easy pickings. They had their rear shields

  powered up to maximum, and did a better job of evasive maneuvers, good

  enough to completely bamboozle the follow-fire systems. But not good enough

  to fooi Leia. She settled in with the manual controls and began looking for

  targets. She concentrated her fire on the toughest shots, the LAFs closest

  to the coneship. She got a lock on one and fired, holding the guns on target

  long enough to burn through the shields and blow the fighter to bits. Just

  then the coneship cut its engines, allowing it to drop straight for the

  planet's surface. It threw the LAFs off, if only for a moment or two. Leia

  shook her head and sighed. Not much of an evasive maneuver, but probably the

  best Han could manage with that clunky piece of junk. But suddenly her

  detector displays showed a cloud of debris blooming out from the coneship in

  all directions. Fear stabbed at her heart. That one hit on the cone-ship's

  hull couldn't have done that much damage, could it? Could the craft be

  breaking up before her eyes, with Han aboard? She had no desire to watch the

  death of her husband-but then something happened to one of the LAFs, and

  then another, and another. As they swooped in close to the coneship, they

  bounced and skittered and wobbled off course. Two of them lost power, and

  the third was rocked by a small explosion amidships. Leia got a target lock

  on one of the survivors and fired, catching a piece of him before he managed

  to get his shields up. Leia tried to track to a new target, but the LAFs had

  plainly decided lo take the hint and accept the fact they weren't welcome.

  They scattered, hightailing out of there in all directions. But how in the

  blazes had- Suddenly she understood. Of course. Of course. "Mara! His trick

  worked! Get us out from behind Han, fast! New course, five or six kilometers

  to one side of him, and try to overtake him if you can. It's not going to be

  so safe to be behind him for a while." She smiled, relief flooding over her.

  She should have known Han wouldn't give up without a fight. Han listened

  closely as the last of the junk went lumbering out of the airlocks, banging

  and clattering and thudding and reverberating through the ship. There was no

  air in the locks left to transmit noise, of course, but there was on the

  other side of the interior bulkheads-a fact that had made itself known with

  every bit of broken-down hardware that had slammed around the locks. Han had

  spent half a day policing the ship, looking for every bit of surplus or

  broken hardware he could. Buckets of bolts, worn-out spare parts, garbage

  from the galley, unidentifiable bits of machinery that had been sitting in

  the hold for w
ho knew how long-he had thrown all of it into the locks. And

  all of it had tumbled out into space when the locks were opened, thrown

  clear by centrifugal force. Result-a cloud of slow-moving space junk left

  right in the path of the attacking LAFs. And the LAFs had quite sensibly

  configured their shields for maximum power aft, to defend against laser

  blasts from the Jade's Fire-leaving them with minimum power forward. But

  plowing through a cloud of hits and pieces of broken meta! and plastic at a

  closing speed of something like a thousand kilometers an hour was very far

  from a good idea. However, piling a ship into a planet was an even worse

  one. "Good!" Han said. "They're gone! But we are not out of this yet.

  Reestablish inertial dampers and cut ship spin." "At once, Honored Solo,"

  Salculd replied. There was an odd shimmering sort of vibration as the

  inertial field came back on and weight returned. The ship's ungainly spin

  slowed, and stopped-and then started up again in the opposite direction-and

  started lo get faster. "Salculd!" Han called out. "This is no time for the

  playing of games!" "I am not doing so, Honored Solo. Failure in lateral

  attilude control system. I cannot shut it off!" "Oh, for-" Han scrambled up

  out of his seat and dove for the main circuit breaker box. He yanked it open

  and tripped the lateral attitude control breaker by hand. That killed the

  thrusters that were producing the spin-but also killed the ones that fired

  in the opposite direction, and could bring it to it halt. He slapped the

  access door shut and returned to his seat. "Hope everyone is liking lo

  spin," Han announced in Selonian. "We are to do it for a while. Saiculd!

  Restart to main sublight engines-and nice, slow throttle-up, please!" "At

  once, Honored Solo," Salculd replied. She reached for the throttle controls

  and began adjusting them. Nothing seemed to happen. "Not that slow, Salculd.

  We need to do some braking!" Salculd looked a! Han, and the panicked !ook

  that had seemed on the verge of fading away was there in full force, and no

  doubt. "No activation!" she announced. "Engine initiator not responding!"

  "Horror!" cried Dracmus. "We incinerate for certain." "Quiet, Dracmus, or I

  send you out the airlock. Salculd, try again!" Han said. "Firstly confirm

  you have power to all engine systems." "Board shows all power systems fine

  and lovely," Salculd said. "Board says is working, but it not." "Not

  helpful," Han said, jumping up. "Off I go again. Keep trying, and listen to

  the comm!" Han rushed for the ladder to the lower decks and clambered down

  as fast as he could. As soon as he reached the lower deck, he smelled smoke.

  There was trouble, big trouble. That one hit from the LAF must have hit

  something in the transverse power coupling. Han jogged around the

  circumferentia! corridor until he reached the proper access hatch. It was

  sealed, praise be. The bad news was the smoke was coming off the painted

  metal on the hatch. Han checked the readouts. They showed there was still

  pressure in there, if the numbers were to be believed. The temperature gauge

  was pegged at the high end. He worked the hatch controls to pop the

  compartment's spill valves. They should have operated automatically once

  fire broke out. Obviously they hadn't. But even if the automatics were out,

  at least the manual controls were still working. There was a sort of clank

  and a thud from behind the hatch, and then a roaring hiss that faded off

  into nothing as the air in the compartment vented into space. The ship

  lurched slightly to one side before the inertial dampers corrected for the

  off-center thrust. Han resealed the spiil valves. The hatch had a manual

  spill valve of its own that allowed pressure between the two sides of the

  hatch to equalize without opening it up. Han burned his fingers getting the

  safeties off, and then popped the hatch valve. The corridor was suddenly

  filled with a roaring, thundering rush of air that almost knocked Han over.

  Han looked around, and, for a miracle, spotted a fire extinguisher within

  reach right where it was supposed to be. He peeled off his shirt and wrapped

  it around his left hand, then look the extinguisher in his right. He grabbed

  the manual hatch control with his left hand, and the shirt instantly began

  to smolder. He pulled the lever and swung the hatch open. A blast of heat

  struck him in the face; he ehecked his grip on the extinguisher. If the

  renewed supply of oxygen started something burning, he wanted to be ready

  for it. But he did not want to try doing emergency repairs on equipment that

  was covered with spray foam if he could possibly avoid it. Not that spray

  foam could have made things much worse. Han stood in the hatchway, stared at

  the compartment, and felt sick. The initiator was just not there anymore.

  There was no need for the extinguisher. Anything that could have burned

  already had. Han looked down at the blackened deck plates. The compartment

  was just under the outer hull, ft looked as if the LAF's turbolaser hadn't

  quite burned through the hull, but it had clearly come close. The entire

  compartment was still hot, but was cooling rapidly now, the metal pinging

  and clinging as it gave up its heat to space. But Han wasn't here to see

  what happened after an equipment bay fire. Think, Han told himself. Think as

  fas! as you ever have. The coneship had a very awkward engine-start system,

  and one that had caused plenty of trouble already on this trip. More modern

  systems worked differently, but on this bucket, the initiators served as

  massive capacitors, storing up huge amounts of energy and slamming it all

  out at once to get the sublight engines over the power threshold where their

  energy reaction was self-sustaining. With the initiators out, the sublight

  engines could not restart. And without those engines the coneship was going

  to drop like a slone, a shooting star aimed straight for the planet. They

  had to restart those engines. They had to. But there was no other system in

  the ship with anything like enough power to let the sublights reach their

  minimum start-up energy. Even if they overloaded every single- Wait a

  second. Thai was it. It was unlikely it would work. But it definitely

  wouldn't work if he didn't give it a try. And give it a iTy fast. They were

  in free fall, heading straight for a spot that was going to have a new

  crater in a few minutes. Han stepped back out of the initiator compartment

  and rcsealed the hatch. Where would the repulsor feedback dispersal system

  be on this tub? Useless to ask Salculd. She was so close to the edge she

  probably wouldn't remember where the pilot's station was. She had given him

  a tour of the ship when he had first come aboard-that was it! Just on the

  other side of the main power room. Perfect. Han rushed back down the

  circumferential corridor the way he had come and found the right access

  panel on the wall. He pulled it open and traced the connections. Good. Good.

  For a wonder, they were all standard hookups. He tripped the breaker by

  hand. Cable. He needed power cable. Stores room. They had all but cleaned it

  out to fill the airlocks with junk, but there had to be something left. He
/>   charged down the corridor and threw open the hatch to the stores room.

  Nothing. Down to the bare walls. Utterly empty. Han started to swear to

  himself and at himself with impressive fluency, but there was no time for

  such indulgences. Think, Think. Life support. Main power to life support. No

  sense keeping it on. They were all going to be dead in about five minutes

  anyway if he didn't get some power cable. Life support. Where could he kill

  power to life support? Right! Cut it right at main power and yank the cable

  from there. Han rushed back to the main power room, threw the hatch open,

  and went inside. Not everything was labeled, and what was labeled was in

  Selonian, of course. He struggled to sort out what was what. There! If he

  was reading the labels right, that junction was main device for rue blowing

  of air MEANT FOR BREATHING, and thilt One was CLEANSING OF AIR FROM

  POLLUTANTS FOR PLEASANT BREATHING. A little verbose, perhaps, but clear

  enough. He found the circuit breakers on the junctions and slammed them off.

  Han could hear the fans and blowers dying all over the ship. He yanked the

  power cables out of their sockets and pulled them down off their cable

  guides. He pulled the other ends of the cables, and then found a label

  reading power input herk from the powerful INITIATORS WHICH ARE IN ANOTHER

  COMPARTMENT. He pulled the cables running from the destroyed initiators and

  plugged in his borrowed life-support cables. He snaked the cables out into

  the corridor, praying they would reach, and gave thanks when they did. He

  made sure the repulsors were off-line, then yanked the lines running to the

  rcpulsor feedback dispersal unit and plugged in his borrowed cables. He

  stepped back and double-checked his work. "Okay," he said to no one at all.

  "That ought to work. I thi nk." He turned and ran for the ladder up to the

  command deck. "Something's wrong," Leia said, watching her detector screens.

  "The spin has reversed instead of stopping, and they haven't restarted their

  main engines." "Maybe they took some bad damage from that hit," Mara said.

  "Can we dock with the ship and get them off?" Leia asked. "Not before they

  hit atmosphere," Mara said. "There's nowhere near enough time. Besides, that

  cloud of debris they threw out is stil! traveling with them. We'd get hit