Apocalypse (45 page)

With the Sith coming any moment, he could not risk trying to comfort her with words. Instead, Han just wrapped an arm around her, wishing that he could use the Force to reassure her that it would get better—that in time she would start to focus more on the good times with Barv than how he died. And maybe Han
did
have the Force, at least with her—because the sniffles stopped, and Allana leaned into him for a moment, just long enough to acknowledge the hug and let him know she was doing better.

Then a glow panel flickered to life out in the main corridor, and Han felt Allana tense for battle. Normally, he would have slipped over to one side of the hall to avoid becoming a target cluster for the enemy, but he wanted to stay within arm’s reach of his granddaughter. She had done pretty well in the ambush back at the
Falcon
—great, in fact—but that had happened with no warning. This time, there had been a chance to think, and in situations like these, too much thinking was usually a bad thing.

A dozen heartbeats later, a pair of Sith scouts reached the intersection and cautiously poked their heads around the corner. When the leader narrowed her eyes and leaned close to whisper something in her partner’s ear, Han knew they had sensed the trap. He wasn’t surprised. Even if the Lost Tribe wasn’t quite up to Jedi combat standards, most of them used the Force a lot more naturally than their light-side counterparts—and that was their weakness, to Han’s way of thinking. Members of the Lost Tribe had a habit of relying on the Force instead
of themselves in a fight, so when they ran into someone who could
really
fight, they usually found themselves in trouble.

Han felt Allana tense as she prepared to open fire, and he quickly placed a restraining hand on her arm. Had he been able to speak to her through the Force, he would have told her to be patient and wait for her grandmother to do her thing—because Leia Solo always had one more trick up her Jedi sleeve.

And sure enough, a gentle
clang
came down the main corridor. The gazes of both Sith swung toward the sound and rose toward the ceiling, and they quickly backed out of sight and vanished down the corridor.

“They got away!” Allana complained.

“Never shoot the scouts,” Han explained. “They’re expecting it.”

“So?”

“They’ll deflect your shot,” Leia said. Judging by the sound of her voice, she had already slipped into the room on her side of the hallway. “You’ll just reveal your position,”

“But they have the Force,” Allana said. “They can already
feel
our positions.”

“Yeah—
that
’s what we’re counting on.” Han took Allana by the arm and pulled her through the dark doorway on their side of the hallway, where he had already stowed R2-D2.

“Hand me your blaster.”

Allana’s voice grew suspicious. “What for?”

“Because you’re going to need both hands.” He pulled her into the far corner, where R2-D2 stood faintly illuminated by his status lights. “Now hand me your blaster, call Anji over and lie down over her head, then cover your ears and close your eyes.”

“What?”
Allana demanded. “Grandpa, I’m not a Jedi yet. I can’t sense anyone in the Force
that
well.”

“Trust me. You won’t need to.” Han thought about telling her what he expected to happen next, but decided against it. In his experience, it was better not to know some things were coming. He nudged her shoulder, then said, “Blaster … 
now
.”

With a heavy sigh, Allana handed over her weapon—a petite Q2 that they had lifted from a dead Sith woman a little smaller than Leia—then did as she was instructed. Han tucked the pistol into his belt, holstered
his own weapon, then did as he had instructed his granddaughter and pressed his own torso down over Allana and Anji.

Han had barely gotten his hands over his ears before he saw an orange flash through his eyelids and heard the crackling bang of an incendiary grenade. He peeked down and saw Allana staring up with a gaping jaw and eyes wide open. Anji was pressed flat to the floor, squeezed as tight to the wall as possible for a nexu her size.

“Keep your eyes closed!” he said.

She obeyed immediately, and a second later came the deafening crack and blinding white flash of a thermal detonator. Han counted to two, then opened his eyes to see a four-meter circle of corroded durasteel missing from the chamber’s front wall. Flashing up the corridor outside was a steady stream of blaster bolts.

Han pulled Allana’s blaster pistol from his belt and passed it back to her. “
Don’t
leave my side.”

“Not if a rancor tries to drag me off!” she assured him. “Grandpa, how did you know—”

“Experience.” Han pulled his own blaster. “Lots and lots of experience.”

Pulling Allana along, he stepped to within a couple of meters of the hole. On the opposite side of the hallway, he saw Leia looking through an identical hole, her face flashing green in the light of passing blaster bolts. She gave them a smile, then slid out of view behind the remnants of the wall.

It was a smile that said volumes to Han. He quickly had Allana command Anji to stay with R2-D2. He wouldn’t normally have given the command much chance of sticking when things got wild, but Allana and the nexu seemed to have some sort of Force connection that might help. After Anji was in place, he positioned Allana in one of the room’s front corners and told her what he was planning. He explained what he needed her to do—including hiding her presence in the Force, like her grandmother had taught her—then crawled on his hands and knees past the hole in the room’s front wall to the corner opposite Allana.

Over the din of screeching blasters, Han began to hear Sith boots pounding up the hallway toward him. He kept his head down, hiding the whites of his eyes and listening to the footfalls grow louder, until
they reached the other side of the hole. By then, the steps were beginning to slow, and Han raised his gaze to find a straight-nosed Sith male leaping toward him through the hole in the front wall.

Han ignored this one and opened fire on the
next
Sith in line, who was spinning around to cover Allana’s side of the room. The attack took the woman so completely by surprise that she did not even have time to activate her lightsaber. A smoking hole simply appeared in one side of her head, and she went down like a holograph losing power.

In the same instant a trio of blaster bolts sounded from where Allana was hiding, and the first Sith pitched forward, his still-ignited lightsaber falling so close to Han that he nearly lost an arm.

Paying the close call no attention, he continued to fire down the hallway into the line of charging Sith. Having the benefit of the second and a half it had taken their fellows to die, the first three in line ignited their lightsabers and quickly began to bat Han’s bolts back toward him. He kept his head down and continued to fire, and a couple of heartbeats later they were coming through the hole into the room.

Which is when Leia leapt out of hiding. Han continued to pour fire down the hallway behind her, occupying the rest of the Sith just long enough for her to cross the hallway. Her lightsaber droned twice, and two Sith heads went flying.

Allana’s blaster screeched again—then
Allana
screeched as the third Sith spun on her, batting her bolts aside and lunging for her.

Before Han could switch targets, Anji slammed into the woman’s flank, knocking her back toward the corridor—and her head straight into Leia’s blade. The woman’s knees buckled immediately, and Han shot her through the spine on the way down.

Allana made a retching sound and rolled away from the woman’s still-descending lightsaber.

Han switched back to firing down the hallway, and Leia stepped into the hole beside him, using her lightsaber to deflect the steady stream of bolts the Sith sent back at him. When the enemy realized they had lost nearly half their number, the leader—a brown-bearded Keshiri with pale eyes—yelled something in their own language, and the band began to fall back toward the intersection.

And
that
was when Zekk and Taryn arrived, rounding the corner behind a wall of blasterfire so intense that all Han could see was flashing
light. Several Sith voices cried out in agony and surprise, then the brown-bearded Keshiri and three other Sith came racing up the hallway. As they drew near, Han saw the brown-bearded one thrust his hand into his pocket, no doubt reaching for a grenade or thermal detonator. The Sith behind him was doing the same.

Han yelled for Leia at the top of his lungs, but he could not make himself heard over the din of screeching blasters. He pointed at the leader and opened fire on the other one. With Zekk and Taryn firing from behind and Han from the front, the Sith never had a chance. He fell with his hand still in his pocket.

Brown-beard fared better. He managed to pull a grenade from his pocket—and even get it armed—before Leia hit him with a Force blast that sent him tumbling back down the hallway.

The grenade, however, remained in the air—and came sailing straight through the hole into the room where the Solos were hiding.

“Grenade!”

Diving past Leia, Han hurled himself on Allana and wrapped her tight in his arms—then felt himself reverse course and go soaring back at an angle. His shoulder banged against the edge of the wall so hard that his arms nearly opened, and then he found himself spinning across the hallway upside down, with Allana on top of him screaming in surprise and fear.

They were airborne the better part of a second before the small of his back struck something that felt like a table and sent him tumbling. Allana flew from his arms, then someone else—someone big and furry—landed on his chest.

Only
then
did the orange flash of an incendiary grenade fill the darkness—and it seemed to be coming from across the hall.

Han rolled Anji free and sat up, at once trying to blink the blast-dazzle from his eyes and see in the dark. “Allana?”

“Over here.”

He was too dazed to even recognize the voice, so he turned toward it and put out his hands.

He found a small, trembling form and pulled her close. “Allana!”

“Grandpa.” She hugged him close. “Where’s Grandma?”

“I’m not sure.” Han began to feel around in the darkness, but found only dust. “She’s got to be here somewhere.”

“Grandma?” When no answer came, Allana’s voice grew frightened.
“Grandma?”

The only answer was the sound of running boots. Realizing he had no idea how much time had passed, Han clamped a hand over Allana’s mouth and squeezed it close.

She fell instantly motionless, and together they listened as the sound of the footfalls receded up the hallway.

Finally, Han whispered, “Keep it quiet until we know what’s what.”

“No kidding,” Allana said. “But where’s Grandma?”

“Over here,” a voice whispered. “With Anji.”

The words came clear and distinct from near the hole in the front wall of the room, so loud that Han thought for a moment that Leia’s ears must still be ringing from the grenade explosion. But then the beam of a glow rod swept through the hole, illuminating her face, and Zekk’s deep voice sounded from a few meters down the hallway.

“Princess Leia, it’s good to see you alive.”

“Almost as good as it will be to see the Chume’da alive,” Taryn added. “Where is she?”

“There’s no need to concern yourselves with me,” Allana said, sounding as regal as her mother sometimes did. She gently freed herself from Han’s grasp and rose. “I’ve been well guarded. But see to my grandparents at once. They’ve had quite a fight.”

A second glow rod beam appeared in the hole and swung around to illuminate Allana’s face.

“You’re well, Highness?” Taryn asked. “You’re quite sure?”

“Yes—as you must be able to
see
,” Allana said, allowing her irritation to show in her voice. “Now shine that thing somewhere else and see to my grandparents as I …”

Allana allowed her order to trail off when a trio of anguished screams sounded from down the hallway. Both Taryn and Zekk turned to shine their glow rods toward the sound, and the unmistakable clatter of a squad of armored soldiers shouldering their blaster rifles sounded behind them.

Even before Han realized the cause of the anguished screams, Allana was rushing toward the doorway. “Stand down!
Stand down
!”

Han rose to his feet and—experiencing a whole body of new aches—limped after her. “It’s okay,” he called. “They’re friends.”

Taryn looked over at him with wide, wild eyes. “You’re sure?”

It was Zekk who answered. “He’s sure.” He turned and signaled the soldiers behind him to lower their weapons, then looked back up the hallway and said, “It’s good to see you again, Tesar.”

“This one cannot say the same,” a raspy Barabel voice replied. “What are you doing here?”

Han reached the door and, taking Leia’s hand, peered up the hallway to find Tesar and two more Barabels—Dordi and Wilyem, he thought—standing about three meters away, under the last active glow panel. Their scaly shoulders filled the hallway from wall to wall, a not-so-subtle hint that no one would be getting past them. With their talons still dripping Sith gore and their heads only a few centimeters beneath the ceiling, it was easy to see why the Hapans had shouldered their weapons.

Zekk smiled and motioned at Allana. “We were following Amelia Solo.”

“Amelia?”
Dordi rasped. “She brought you?
Here
?”

Allana seemed to recognize that it was up to her to defuse the situation, and she was already stepping into the center of the hallway.

“Not on purpose.”

Allana walked up to the Barabels, then stopped in front of Tesar, a little figure that barely rose higher than her knees. Taryn quickly moved to follow, but the Chume’da waved her off. Even then, Zekk had to take Taryn by the arm to make her obey.

Allana craned her neck to look up into the Barabel’s slit-pupiled eyes. “But I
did
risk my life—and lost Bazel’s—to warn you.”

A soft hiss filled the hallway as the Barabels ruffled their scales, and Tesar asked, “Bazel is dead?”