Showdown At Centerpoint Read online

  the same way the LAFs were." "A tractor beam, then," Leia said. "We could

  set that up and- "And what? That ship isn't all that much smaller than this

  one. The tractor on this ship doesn't have a tenth the power to hold that

  ship. If we tried it, more than likely they'd pull us down instead. I'm

  sorry, Leia. There's nothing at all we can do." Deep in her heart, Leia knew

  Mara was right. But it felt wrong to give up without a fight. They had to do

  somtgt;ihing, "Stay close," Leia said. "Get as close as you can without

  getting into the debris cloud and take up station keeping." "Leia, there is

  nothing we can- "Suppose they get temporary control, or slow just enough

  thai they can abandon ship?" Leia asked. "We need to be close enough to get

  in and help." Mara hesitated a moment. "All right. But we won't be able to

  hold station keeping long. We're about five minutes from atmosphere right

  now, and once we hit it-well, that will be the end of things." Leia knew

  that. Without shielding, without braking from the engines, the coneship

  would turn into a meteorite, a streak of fire that burned across the sky

  before crashing in the planet. "I'll stay close as long as I can," Mara

  said. "But it won't be long." "Do it," Leia said. But even as she urged Mara

  onward, she wondered why. What good would it do to watch from closer in as

  her husband was incinerated? "Out!" Han shouted at Salculd as he came up out

  the hatch to the command deck. "Out of pilot chair now! I take over." "But

  what are you- "No time!" he snapped. He sealed the hatch, just in case they

  lived long enough to worry about air leaks. "I must take over. No time to

  explain what to do. Out! Move!" Salculd moved, undoing her seal restraints

  and bailing out of the pilot's station. Han dove into the vacated seat and

  checked the status board. Good. Good. Repulsors showing full power in

  reserve. "Switching on rcpulsors!" he announced. He adjusted them for their

  tightest beam and maximum range. "Honored Solo! The repulsors cannot work at

  this range!" Dracmus said in Basic. "They arc only effective within two

  kilometers of surface!" "I know that," Han said. "They need something to

  work against before they can set up a repulsion effect. But at these speeds,

  they'll encounter a fair amount of resistance from the top of the

  atmosphere. I know, I know, not enough to slow us down-but enough to start

  large power transfers through the feedback dispersal loop." "But what good

  does that do?" "I've taken the disperser out of the loop and run the cables

  through the initiator, power intake on the engine power system. The feedback

  energy is just accumulating in the repulsor system. When the power level is

  high enough, I'll reset the feedback power breaker and dump the energy right

  into the initiator intake on the engine power systems." "What?!" "Jump-start

  it," Han said. "I'm going to jump-start it." There was a moment of dead

  silence in the control cabin before Dracmus let out a strangled moan and

  covered her face with her hands. "What is going on?" Salculd demanded in

  Selonian. "I go to start engines by accumulating repulsor feedback power and

  dumping through initiator manifold," Han replied. "But feedback buildup will

  destroy repulsors!" "Get even more destroyed by crashing into Selonia," Han

  said in his awkward Selonian. "This not work and you have idea, you try

  yours. Hang on." The idea was crazy. Han knew that. But not doing anything

  at all would be crazier still. Even a million-to-one shot was better than no

  chance at all. He watched the feedback charge accumulator display as the

  excess energy built up in the repulsor system. The more power, the better

  the chance of restarting the engines-unless he accumulated so much power the

  repulsors simply blew out. The closer they got to the planet, the more

  resistance the repulsors encountered, and the faster the feedback

  accumulated. But of course, the farther they fell, the less time they would

  have to put on the brakes, if and when the engines did light. Han knew that

  even the maximum power output he could hope for would be borderline minimum

  to get the sublight engines going-and he was going to gel exactly one

  chance. Whether or not this stunt worked, it was going to blow out the

  repulsors and the feedback accumulator and half the other systems on the

  ship. Han checked his estimated flight path meters. Twenty seconds from the

  average top of the sensible atmosphere-though the tops of atmospheres had a

  nasty habit of not being where they were supposed to be, raising and

  lowering depending on storms and tides and solar heating. But twenty seconds

  was the outside, the longest he could possibly wait. The repulsors were not

  likely to provide much more charging of the accumulator if they were being

  melted off. It was going to be a tough call, a threading of the needle

  between competing disasters. Han checked the altitude and acceleration

  displays. The coneship was gathering speed, terrifying speed, with every

  second. Even if he got the engines lit, there might not be time to slow the

  ship before piling it in. "Honored Solo! Hull temperature suddenly

  increasing!" Salculd cried. "Atmosphere's here a little early!" Han said.

  "Hang on! We're going to jump this thing and see what happens." One chance,

  Han told himself. Exactly one chance. For a fleeting moment he thought of

  Leia, watching from the Jade's Fire and unable to do anything. He thought of

  his three children, off somewhere in the care of Chewbacca and Ebrihim the

  Drall. No. No. He could not die. Not when they ali needed him. One chance.

  The ship bucked and shuddered as the atmospheric buffering shook it hard

  enough to get past the inertial dampers. One chance. Han waited as long as

  he dared, then one moment longer, then one more. And then- He slammed down

  the relay reset switch as hard as he could, dumping all of the feedback

  energy directly into the engine start manifold. He stabbed down on the

  engine start button-and felt a horrifying lurch, just as a low, rumbling

  explosion shook the ship from base to apex. That would have to be the

  repulsors blowing. For a long, sickening moment, nothing else happened. But

  then the engines now certainly arc initiated kuij.y indicator came on, and

  Han had three good engines. Three? Not four? One of them must have been

  blown out by that LAF fighter. Han had been afraid of that. But even if he

  had one less engine than he had hoped for, that was three more than he had

  expected. Ignoring all his own advice on the subject, he brought the

  throttle up fast. There wasn't time to nurse the engines. There was a

  distant bang and sudden flurry of violent vibrations that faded almost

  before they started, but the engines were holding. At least for now. At

  least for now. Han watched the acceleration meter, the velocity gauge, and

  the none-too-reliable altitude meter. For a wonder, the displays were all in

  standard units, and not some obscure Selonian format he had never seen

  before. But what he was seeing was by no means reassuring. He had flown

  enough reentries to know at a glance that they were far from out of trouble.

  The best they were going to manage was a controlled c
rash. Han risked a

  glance out the viewport and saw that the Jade's Fire was still staying

  close, somehow. Mara was some kind of pilot. Now if only he had a view that

  would show him the direction he was going. Unfortunately, the ship was

  flying stern-first, and the stern holocam, which might have shown him at

  least a vague idea of where he was heading, had given up altogether at some

  point in the proceedings. On the bright side, air friction was slowing down

  the ship's axial spin. Finally it stopped altogether, which at least made

  piloting the coneship that much easier. It was about time something got

  easier. Han watched his velocity and altitude gauges, and knew just how much

  trouble he was still in. He had to shed some more speed. He had no choice in

  the matter. There was a way to do it, but it had its own drawbacks. And

  making it work without maneuvering thrustcrs was not going to be easier. He

  would have to do all his steering by playing with the thrust of the main

  engines-not simple when he was already juggling their thrust vectors to

  compensate for the missing engine. Still, it was doable. Maybe. He eased

  back just a trifle on the thrust to number three engine, and the coneship

  slowly pitched back, until it was flying at about a forty-five-degree angle

  of attack. It was still falling straight down, but now its nose was pointed

  an eighth of a turn away from the vertical. If Han had it figured right,

  that ought to start the coneship developing a bit of aerodynamic lift, in

  effect causing it to work like an airfoil. The coneship began to move

  sideways as well as down, and every millimeter of lateral movement came

  straight from the energy of their f all. The ship began to bang and shudder

  violently, but every crash and rattle was that much more excess energy

  expended. "Honored Solo!" Dracmus protested above the racket, "You have put

  us in lateral flight! Where are you taking us?" "I haven't the faintest

  idea," Han said. "But we have to go lateral to shed some speed." "But

  suppose we land outside the zone controlled by my Den?!" "Then we have a

  problem," Han shouted back. Dracmus did not reply to that, but she had a

  point. Landing completely at random on a planet in the midst of civil war

  was not exactly prudent. Han pushed it from his mind. The job of the moment

  was getting this thing down in one piece. Down where, they could sort out

  later. He checked his gauges. They were still falling like a rock-but like a

  slower rock, a gliding rock. And hull temperatures were actually falling,

  just a trifle. Maybe, maybe, they were going to make it. Of course, landing

  on the sublight engines, rather than on the now-dead repulsors, and landing

  blind would be challenges in their own right. It would be at least another

  ninety seconds before he had to worry about such things. He checked the

  gauges and shook his head. The lateral flight trick was slowing them down,

  but nowhere near enough. At this rate, they'd be lucky to drop below the

  speed of sound before they hit. There was no way around it. He was going to

  have to get something more out of the engines. What about that fourth

  engine, the one that had refused to light? Maybe it was just its initiator

  link that had been blown off. Maybe the engine itself was still there, if he

  could just get it to come on. Maybe if he tried a parallel backfeed start.

  With the other engines up and running, he could borrow part of their energy

  output and back-flush it through the unlit engine. It might work. Han reset

  the power flow from the number two engine, routing five percent of it

  through the initiator lines to engine three. He stabbed down the button

  marked

  PRESSING HERE WILL CAUSE ENGINE NUMBER FOUR TO START.

  A weird high-pitched squeal cut through the clamoring roar that filled the

  command deck, and the cone-ship began to oscillate wildly as the engine lit

  and died and lit and died. A display indicator came on, announcing ENGINE

  FOUR NOW OPERATING NICELY, but It went out again, then popped on and faded

  one more time before coming back on and staying that way. Four engines. He

  had four good engines. He might come out of this alive-after all. But then

  he checked his altitude, and found good reason to doubt it. They were only

  three kilometers up. Han realized that he would have to shed all of his

  lateral speed immediately if he was going to set this thing down. He pitched

  the ship around until it was flying flat on its side, the thrust axis

  parallel to the ground. The planetary horizon swooped into view and kept

  going right past, until Han was flying exactly upside down, his feet pointed

  at the sky and his head pointed at the ground. He throttled all the engines

  up to maximum, and just a bit beyond, and held it there, until the ground

  stopped rushing past from side to side and was simply coming straight at

  him. Zero forward velocity, or close enough. But plenty of velocity in the

  direction of down. Han pitched the concship over again, until he was flat on

  his back, looking at the sky, and made sure the engines were cranked up to

  maximum power. There was nothing else he could do. "Hanging on!" he shouted

  in Selonian. "Be strapped in and braced. We are going to be hitting hard!"

  Green lights started to flash all over the propulsion status display. In

  most ships that would have been a good thing, but not on this crate. To a

  Selonian. green was the color of danger, disaster. The engines were running

  full out. at or beyond the point of catastrophe. Han wanted desperately to

  see if he could bully or tempt just a little bit more out of them, but did

  not dare. No point in coming this far just to have the ship detonate a half

  kilometer off the ground. Maybe, maybe, they had slowed down enough to make

  this a survivabie crash. Han cut power to all systems and diverted it all

  into the inertial dampers. There was no way the dampers could absorb all the

  energy of impact, but they would soak up some of it. Maybe if they were

  running at max power, it would be just enough. And that was it. That was

  all. There were no tricks left. Nothing left to do but hold on and watch the

  numbers in the altimeter evaporate. Han had not the faintest idea where they

  were about to land. There had not been time, in his one quick glance at the

  ground, to do anything more than see that it was there. He had seen water,

  flat land, and some good-sized hills, but which of them he was about to hit,

  he had no idea. One kilometer up. Eight hundred meters. Seven hundred. Five

  hundred. Four hundred. Three fifty. If only the repulsors were still

  working. Too bad he had been forced to fry them to a crisp starting the

  engines. Three hundred. How accurate was that altimeter, anyway? Two

  hundred. One fifty. One hundred meters up. Seventy-five. Fifty. Han braced

  for the impact and resisted the impulse to shut his eyes. Zero. Negative ten

  meters. Not all that accurate. But every extra meter was another fraction of

  a second for the coneship's engines to slow them down. Neg twenty. Neg

  fifty- SLAM!! A hundred crazed banthas jumped onto Han's chest all at once,

  driving him down into the padding of the pilot's flight station. Dracmus

  s
creamed, a startling, high-pitched ululation. A metal bulkhead tore itself

  apart somewhere in the ship with a terrible metallic shriek, and a dozen

  alarms started hooting at once. The overhead viewport held together,

  somehow, and Han could see the sky was filled with smoke and steam-and mud.

  Huge gobs of sodden earth splattered down on the viewport, covering it all

  but completely. Han hit the alarm cutoff, and was astonished by the sudden

  near-silence. But for Dracmus moaning in fright, and the plopping sounds of

  the last of the mud raining down on the ship's hull, all was quiet. They

  were down, and alive. A sudden flurry of water, falling in a single thin

  sheet of droplets, fell on the ship, washing some-but far from all-of the

  mud off the viewport. Han got to his, feel, feeling more than a little

  wobbly. "That one was close," he said in Basic, to himself as much as

  anything. "Come," he said in Selonian. "We must leave ship. Might be-" He

  stopped dead. Half his Selonian seemed to have faded away, at least for the

  moment. After that close a call, it was a wonder he was calm enough to

  remember his own name. But he couldn't think of the words for "chemical

  leak," or "fire." or "short circuits." "Bad things," he said at last. "Might

  be bad things on ship. Must leave now." The two Selonians, both of them

  clearly shaken up, got to their feet and followed Han down the ladder to the

  lower deck and over to the main hatch. Han punched at the open button, and

  was not the least bit surprised when nothing at all happened. The ship they

  had risked their lives to land, the ship that the Hunchuzuc needed so badly,

  was a write-off. A complete loss. Han knelt down, fumbled with the access

  panel for the manual controls, got the cover off, and turned the hand crank.

  The hatch swung reluctantly open, and jammed up twice before it swung wide

  enough for them to get out. Han stuck his head out first and looked around.

  It looked like they had landed square in the middle of a shallow pond-and

  splashed it dry on impact. The bottom of the pond was completely exposed,

  but for one or two puddles here and there. The mud was steaming here and

  there, letting off the heat produced by the ship's impact. It was a

  beautiful, perfect spring day. Somehow, the picturesque meadows and