Artoo twittered, and the Lady Luck again halted in midair, this time dropping smoothly to the ground. There was a shout that sounded like triumph from the Imperials … but if so, it was the shortest triumph on record. The Lady Luck touched down—
And without warning, the X-wing leaped into the air. Pulling a tight curve around the Lady Luck, Luke swooped back down, wingtip lasers spitting a corridor of destruction across the startled soldiers’ line of approach.
Given time, the Imperials would regroup. Han had no intention of giving them that time. “Come on,” he snapped to Irenez, leaping to his feet and making a mad dash for the Lady Luck. He was probably on the ramp before the soldiers even noticed him, and was up and through the hatch before anyone was able to get off a shot. “Stay here and guard the hatch,” he shouted back as Irenez charged in behind him. “I’m going to go pick up Lando.”
Luke was still roaring around creating havoc as Han scrambled into the cockpit and dived into the pilot’s seat, throwing a quick look at the instruments as he did so. All the systems seemed to be ready; and anything that wasn’t was going to have to do so on the way up. “Grab onto something!” he shouted back to Irenez and lifted.
The stormtrooper Lando had mentioned as being near his position was nowhere in sight as Han brought the Lady Luck swinging over to the pile of shipping boxes. Luke was right with him, the X-wing’s lasers making a mess of the landing area floor as he kept the Imperials pinned down. Han dropped the ship to within a half meter of the floor, entrance ramp swiveled toward the boxes. There was a flicker of motion, visible for just a second through the cockpit’s side viewport—
“We’ve got him,” Irenez shouted from the hatch. “Go!”
Han swiveled the ship around, throwing full power to the repulsorlifts and heading upward into one of the huge exit ducts overhead. There was a slight jolt as he cleared the magnetic seal on the end, and then they were out in clear air, screaming hard for space.
Four TIE fighters were skulking around just above the city, waiting for trouble. But they apparently weren’t waiting for it to come this quickly. Luke got three of them on the fly, and Han took out the fourth.
“Nothing like cutting it close to the wire,” Lando panted as he slid into the copilot’s seat and got busy with his board. “What have we got?”
“Looks like a couple more drop ships coming in,” Han told him, frowning. “What are you doing?”
“Running a multisensor airflow analysis,” Lando said. “It’ll show up any large irregularities on the hull. Like if someone’s attached a homing beacon to us.”
Han thought back to that escape from the first Death Star, and their near-disastrous flight to Yavin with just such a gadget snugged aboard. “I wish I had a system like that for the Falcon.”
“It’d never work,” Lando commented dryly. “Your hull’s so irregular already the system would go nuts just trying to map it.” He keyed off the display. “Okay; we’re clear.”
“Great.” Han threw a glance out to the left. “We’re clear of those drop ships, too. They don’t have a hope of catching us now.”
“Yes, but that might,” Irenez said, pointing at the midrange scope.
Which showed an Imperial Star Destroyer behind them, already leaving orbit and moving into pursuit. “Great,” Han growled, kicking in the main drive. Using it this close to the ground wasn’t going to do New Cov’s plant life any good, but that was the least of his worries at the moment. “Luke?”
“I see it,” Luke’s voice came back through the comm speaker. “Any ideas besides running for it?”
“I think running for it sounds like a great idea,” Han said. “Lando?”
“Calculating the jump now,” the other said, busy with the nav computer. “It ought to be ready by the time we’re far enough out.”
“There’s another ship coming up from below,” Luke said. “Right out of the jungle.”
“That’s ours,” Irenez said, peering over Han’s shoulder. “You can parallel them by changing course to one twenty-six mark thirty.”
The Star Destroyer was picking up speed, the scope now showing a wedge of TIE fighters sweeping along ahead of it. “We’d do better to split up,” Han said.
“No—stay with our ship,” Irenez said. “Sena said we’ve got help coming.”
Han took another look at the ship climbing for deep space. A small transport, with a fair amount of speed but not much else going for it. Another look at die approaching TIE fighters—
“They’re going to be in range before we can make the jump,” Lando murmured, echoing Han’s thought.
“Yeah. Luke, you still there?”
“Yes. I think Lando’s right.”
“I know. Any way you can pull that Nkllon stunt again? You know—scramble the pilots’ minds a little?”
There was a noticeable hesitation from the comm. “I don’t think so,” Luke said at last. “I—don’t think it’s good for me to do that sort of thing. You understand?”
Han didn’t, really, but it probably didn’t matter. For a moment he’d forgotten that he wasn’t in the Falcon, with a pair of quad lasers and shields and heavy armor. The Lady Luck, for all Lando’s modifications, wasn’t anything to take on even confused TIE fighter pilots with. “All right, skip it,” he told Luke. “Sena just better be right about this help of hers.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a flash of brilliant green light shot past the Lady Luck’s cockpit canopy. “TIE fighters coming in from portside,” Lando snapped.
“They’re trying to cut us off,” Luke said. “I’ll get rid of them.”
Without waiting for comment, he dropped his X-wing below the Lady Luck’s vector and with a roar of main drive swung off to the left toward the incoming TIE fighters. “Watch yourself,” Han muttered after him, giving the rear scope another look. The pursuing batch of fighters was still closing fast. “Your ship got any weapons?” he asked Irenez.
“No, but it’s got good armor and plenty of deflector power,” she told him. “Maybe you should get ahead of them, let them take the brunt of the attack.”
“Yeah, I’ll think about it,” Han said, wincing at the woman’s ignorance of this land of fight. TIE pilots didn’t much care which ship was first in line when they attacked; and sitting close enough to another ship to hide in its deflector shield was to give up your maneuverability.
Off to portside, the incoming group of TIE fighters scattered out of the way as Luke drove through their formation, wingtip lasers blazing away madly. A second wave of Imperials behind the first closed to intercept as Luke pulled a hard one-eighty and swung back on the tails of the first wave. Han held his breath; but even as he watched, the X-wing managed somehow to thread its way unscathed through the melee and take off at full throttle at an angle from the Lady Luck’s vector, the whole squadron hot on his tail.
“Well, so much for that group,” Irenez commented.
“And maybe for Luke, too,” Lando countered harshly as he jabbed at the comm. “Luke, you all right?”
“I got a little singed, but everything’s still running,” Luke’s voice came back. “I don’t think I can get back to you.”
“Don’t try,” Han told him. “As soon as you’re clear, jump to lightspeed and get out of here.”
“What about you?”
Luke’s last word was partially drowned out by a sudden twitter from the comm. “That’s the signal,” Irenez said. “Here they come.”
Han frowned, searching the sky outside the front viewport. As far as he could see, there was nothing out there but stars—
And then, in perfect unison, three large ships suddenly dropped out of hyperspace into triangular formation directly ahead of them.
Lando inhaled sharply. “Those are old Dreadnaught cruisers.”
“That’s our help,” Irenez said. “Straight down the middle of the triangle—they’ll cover for us.”
“Right,” Han gritted, shifting the Lady Luck’s vector a few degrees, and trying to coax a little more speed out of its engines. The New Republic had a fair number of Dreadnaughts, and at six hundred meters long each they were impressive enough warships. But even three of them working together would be hard pressed to take out an Imperial Star Destroyer.
Apparently, the Dreadnaughts’ commander agreed. Even as the Star Destroyer behind the Lady Luck opened up with its huge turbolaser batteries, the Dreadnaughts began pelting the larger ship with a furious barrage of ion cannon blasts, trying to temporarily knock out enough of its systems for them to get away.
“That answer your question?” Han asked Luke.
“I think so,” Luke said dryly. “Okay, I’m gone. Where do I meet you?”