“Great,” Han said, looking past her shoulder. “Okay. I’ll go first and cover you from the bottom of the ramp. Leia, you’re next; Wedge, you bring up the rear. Stay sharp—they may try to flank us.”
“Got it.” Wedge nodded. “Ready when you are.”
“Okay.” Han got his feet under him—
“Wait a minute,” Leia said suddenly, gripping his arm. “There’s something wrong.”
“Right—we’re getting shot at,” Wedge put in.
“I’m serious,” Leia snapped. “Something here’s not right.”
“Like what?” Han asked, frowning at her. “Come on, Leia, we can’t sit here all day.”
Leia gritted her teeth, trying to chase down the feeling tingling through her. It was still so nebulous … and then suddenly she had it. “It’s Chewie,” she told them. “I can’t feel his presence on the ship.”
“He’s probably just too far away,” Wedge said, a distinct note of impatience in his voice. “Come on—he’s going to get the ship shot out from under him if we don’t get going.”
“Hang on a minute,” Han growled, still frowning at Leia. “He’s okay for now—all they’re using is hand blasters. Anyway, if things get too hot, he can always use the—”
He broke off, a strange look on his face. A second later, Leia got it, too. “The underside swivel blaster,”4 she said. “Why isn’t he using it?”
“Good question,” Han said grimly. He leaned out again, taking a hard look this time … and when he ducked back under cover there was a sardonic half-grin on his face. “Simple answer: that’s not the Falcon.”
“What?” Wedge asked, his jaw dropping a couple of centimeters.
“It’s a fake,” Han told him. “I can’t believe it—these guys actually dug up another working YT-1300 freighter somewhere.”5
Wedge whistled softly. “Boy, they must really want you bad.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to get that impression myself,” Han said. “Got any good ideas?”
Wedge glanced around the edge of the barrier. “I don’t suppose running for it qualifies.”
“Not with them sitting out there at the edge of the crater waiting to pick us off,” Leia told him.
“Yeah,” Han agreed. “And as soon as they realize we’re not going to just walk into their decoy, it’ll probably get worse.”
“Is there any way we can at least disable that ship?” Leia asked him. “Keep it from taking off and attacking us from above?”
“There are lots of ways,” he grunted. “The problem is you have to be inside for most of them. The outside shielding isn’t great, but it blocks hand blasters just fine.”
“Will it block a lightsaber?”
He threw a suspicious frown at her. “You’re not suggesting …?”
“I don’t think we’ve got any choice,” she told him. “Do we?”
“I suppose not,” he grimaced. “All right—but I’ll go.”
Leia shook her head. “We all go,” she said. “We know they want at least one of us alive—otherwise, they’d just have flown by overhead and blasted us. If we all go together, they won’t be able to fire. We’ll head straight in as if we’re going aboard, then split off to the sides at the last second and take cover behind the ramp. Wedge and I can fire up and inside to keep them busy while you take the lightsaber and disable them.”
“I don’t know,” Han muttered. “I think just Wedge and me should go.”
“No, it has to be all of us,” Leia insisted. “That’s the only way to guarantee they won’t shoot.”
Han looked at Wedge. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s the best chance we’re going to get,” the other said. “But if we do it, we’d better do it fast.”
“Yeah.” Han took a deep breath and handed Leia his blaster. “All right. Give me the lightsaber. Okay; ready … go.”
He ducked out from cover and charged for the ship, crouching down as he ran to avoid the blaster fire crisscrossing the crater—the other Republic reps, Leia noted as she and Wedge followed, doing a good job of keeping the rim attackers busy. Inside the ship she could see a hint of movement, and she gripped Han’s blaster a little tighter. A half second in the lead, Han reached the ramp; and swerving suddenly to the side ducked under the hull.
The aliens must have realized instantly that their trap had failed. Even as Leia and Wedge skidded to a halt at opposite sides of the ramp, they were greeted by a burst of blaster fire from the open hatch. Dropping to the ground, Leia squirmed as far back as she could under the ramp, firing blindly into the hatch to discourage those inside from coming down after them. Across the ramp, Wedge was also firing; somewhere behind her, she could hear a faint scrabbling across the ground as Han got into position for whatever sabotage he was planning. A shot blazed past from above, narrowly missing her left shoulder, and she tried to back a little farther into the ramp’s shadow. Behind her, clearly audible through the blaster fire, she heard a snap-hiss as Han ignited her lightsaber. Gritting her teeth, she braced herself, not knowing quite why—
And with a blast and shock wave that knocked her flat against the ground, the whole ship bounced a meter in the air and then slammed back down again.
Through the ringing in her ears, she heard someone give a war whoop. The firing from the hatch had abruptly stopped, and in the silence she could hear a strange hissing roar coming from above her. Cautiously, she eased away from the ramp and crawled a little ways out of concealment.
She’d been prepared to see the freighter leaking something as a result of Han’s sabotage. She wasn’t prepared for the huge white gaseous plume that was shooting skyward like the venting of a ruptured volcano.
“You like it?” Han asked, easing over beside her and glancing up to admire his handiwork.
“That probably depends on whether the ship’s about to blow up,” Leia countered. “What did you do?”
“Cut through the coolant lines to the main drive,” he told her, retrieving his blaster and handing back her lightsaber. “That’s all their pressurized korfaise gas floating away.”
“I thought coolant gases were dangerous to breathe,” Leia said, looking warily at the billowing cloud.
“They are,” Han agreed. “But korfaise is lighter than air, so we won’t have any trouble down here. Inside the ship is another matter. I hope.”
Abruptly, Leia became aware of the silence around them. “They’ve stopped shooting,” she said.
Han listened. “You’re right. Not just the ones inside the ship, either.”
“I wonder what they’re up to,” Leia murmured, tightening her grip on the lightsaber.
A second later she got her answer. A violent thunderclap came from above them, flattening her to the ground with the shock wave. For a horrifying second she thought the aliens had set the ship to self-destruct; but the sound faded away, and the ramp beside her was still intact. “What was that?”
“That, sweetheart,” Han said, pulling himself to his feet, “was the sound of an escape pod being jettisoned.” He eased cautiously away from the relative protection of the ramp, scanning the sky. “Probably modified for atmospheric maneuvering. Never realized before how loud those things were.”
“They usually take off in vacuum,” Leia reminded him, standing up herself. “So. Now what?”
“Now”—Han pointed—“we collect our escort and get out of here.”
“Our escort?” Leia frowned. “What esc—?”
Her question was cut off by the roar of engines as three X-wings shot overhead, wings in attack position and clearly primed for trouble. She looked up at the white tower of korfaise gas … and suddenly understood. “You did that deliberately, didn’t you?”