Pellaeon frowned at the holo display. “What alternative could they possibly have?”
“Observe.” Thrawn touched his board, and a small white circle appeared on the holo in front of the Coral Vanda, extending backward like the path of a crazed worm. “There appears to be a path here beneath this section of the reef that would allow them to evade us, at least temporarily. I believe that’s where they’re heading.”
“They’ll never make it,” Pellaeon decided. “Not the way they’re bouncing around down there. Best to be sure, though. A shot right at the entrance to that maze should do it.”
“Yes,” Thrawn said, his voice meditative. “A pity, though, to have to damage any of these reefs. They’re genuine works of art. Unique, perhaps, in that they were created by living yet nonsentient beings. I should have liked to have studied them more closely.”
He turned to Pellaeon again, gave a short nod. “You may fire when ready.”
There was another clap of thunder as the Imperial ship overhead flash-boiled the water near them … and as the Coral Vanda lurched to the side Han made his move.
Letting the ship’s motion throw him sideways, he half staggered, half fell across the storeroom to slam into one of the stacks of crates, turning at the last instant so that his back was to them. His hands, flung up over his head as if for balance, found the bottom corners of the topmost crate; and as the force of his impact shook the stack, he brought the box tipping over on top of him. He let it roll a quarter rotation toward his head, then shifted his grip and shoved it as hard as he could toward the wraith.
The alien caught it square on the upper torso, lost his balance, and crashed backward to the floor.
Han was on him in a second, kicking his blaster out of the wraith’s hand and jumping after it. He caught up with the weapon, spun back up. The wraith had gotten clear of the box and was scrambling to get back to his feet on a floor now slippery with spilled Menkooro whiskey. “Hold it!” Han snapped, gesturing with the blaster.
He might as well have been talking to a hole in the air. The wraith continued on to his feet—
And with the only other option being to shoot him dead, Han lowered his aim and fired into the pool of whiskey. There was a gentle whoosh; and abruptly, the center of the room burst into blue-tinged flame.
The alien leaped backward out of the fire, screaming something in his own language which Han was just as glad he couldn’t understand. The wraith’s momentum slammed him up against a stack of crates, nearly bringing the whole pile down. Han fired twice into the crate above the alien, starting twin waterfalls of alcohol cascading down around his shoulders and head. The alien screamed again, got his balance back—
And with one final shot, Han set the waterfalls on fire.
The wraith’s scream turned into a high-pitched wail as it twisted away from the blaze, its head and shoulders sheathed in flame. More in anger than pain, though, Han knew—alcohol fires weren’t all that hot. Given time, the wraith would slap out the fire, and then very likely break Han’s neck.
He wasn’t given that time. Midway through the wail the storeroom’s automatic fire system finally sputtered into action, the sensors directing streams of fire foam straight into the wraith’s face.
Han didn’t wait to see the outcome. Ducking past the temporarily blinded alien, he slipped out the door.
The corridor, which had been crowded with panicking people when he’d first been grabbed, was now deserted, the passengers on their way to the escape pods or the imagined safety of their staterooms. Firing a shot into the storeroom lock to seal it, Han hurried forward toward the ship’s main hatchway. And hoped he’d get to Lando in time.
From far below him, almost lost among the shouts and screams of frightened passengers, Lando could hear the muffled hum of activated pumps. Sooner than he’d expected, the Coral Vanda was surrendering.
He swore under his breath, throwing another quick look over his shoulder. Where in blazes had Han gotten to, anyway? Probably hunting for Ferrier, wanting to see what the slippery ship thief was up to. Trust Han to run off and play a hunch when there was work to be done.
A dozen of the Coral Vanda’s crewers were busy taking up defensive positions inside the ship’s main hatchway as he arrived. “I need to talk to the captain or another officer right away,” he called to them.
“Get back to your room,” one of the men snapped without looking at him. “We’re about to be boarded.”
“I know,” Lando said. “And I know what the Imperials want.”
That one rated him a quick look. “Yeah? What?”
“One of your passengers,” Lando told him. “He has something the Empire—”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a description, though.”
“Wonderful,” the crewer grunted, checking the power level on his blaster. “Tell you what you do—you head aft and start going door to door. Let us know if you find him.”
Lando gritted his teeth. “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” the other retorted. “Go on, get out of here.”
“But—”
“I said move it.” He pointed his blaster at Lando. “If your passenger’s got any sense he’s probably already ejected in an escape pod, anyway.”
Lando backed away down the corridor, the whole thing belatedly falling together in his mind. No, the ship supplier wouldn’t be in any escape pod. He probably wouldn’t even be in his stateroom. Ferrier was here; and knowing Ferrier, he wouldn’t have deliberately shown himself like that unless he’d already won the race.
The deck rocked slightly beneath his feet: the Coral Vanda had reached the surface. Turning, Lando hurried aft again. There was a passenger-access computer terminal a couple of corridors back. If he could get a passenger list from it and find Ferrier’s room, he might be able to get to them before the Imperials took control of the ship. Breaking into a quick jog, he turned into a cross corridor—
They were striding purposefully toward him: four large men with blasters at the ready, with a thin, white-haired man almost hidden in the center of the group. The lead man spotted Lando, snapped his blaster up, and fired.
The first shot was a clean miss. The second sizzled into the wall as Lando ducked back behind the corner.
“So much for finding Ferrier’s room,” Lando muttered. Another handful of shots spit past his barricade; and then, surprisingly, the firing stopped. Blaster in hand, hugging the corridor wall, Lando eased back to the corner and threw a quick look around it.
They were gone.
“Great,” he muttered, taking a longer look. They were gone, all right, probably into one of the crew-only areas that ran down the central core of the ship. Chasing after someone through an unfamiliar area was usually not a good idea, but there weren’t a whole lot of other options available. Grimacing to himself, he started around the corner—
And yelped as a blaster bolt from his right scorched past his sleeve. He dived forward into the cross corridor, catching a glimpse as he fell of three more men coming toward him down the main corridor. He hit the thick carpet hard enough to see stars, rolled onto his side and yanked his legs out of the line of fire, fully aware that if any of the original group was watching from cover, he was dead. A barrage of blaster shots from the newcomers bit into the wall, with the kind of clustering that meant it was being used as cover fire while they advanced on him. Breathing hard—that crash dive had knocked the wind out of him—Lando got to his feet and started toward an arched doorway halfway down the cross corridor. It wouldn’t give him much cover, but it was the best he had. He had just made it to the doorway when there was a sudden curse from the direction of his attackers, a handful of shots from what sounded like a different model blaster—
And then, silence.
Lando frowned, wondering what they were pulling now. He could hear footsteps running toward him; flattening himself into the doorway as best he could, he leveled his blaster at the intersection.
The footsteps came to the intersection and paused. “Lando?”
Lando lowered his blaster with a silent sigh of relief. “Over here, Han,” he called. “Come on—Ferrier’s people have our man.”
Han rounded the corner and sprinted toward him. “That’s not all, buddy,” he panted. “Ferrier’s gunning for you, too.”
Lando grimaced. He hadn’t missed by much, either. “Never mind me,” he said. “I think they must have gone down the ship’s core. We’ve got to catch up with them before they reach the main hatchway.”
“We can try,” Han said grimly, looking around. “Over there—looks like a crewer access door.”
It was. And it was locked.
“Ferrier’s people got in,” Lando grunted, stooping down to examine the half-open release panel. “Yeah. Here —it’s been hot-wired. Let’s see …”