The Han Solo Adventures (24 page)

While Max fought his lonely battle, Han was staring at his controls. He was perspiring and had the front of his thermosuit open, wondering if he should let things go any further or try to jump Zlarb now.

Zlarb was scanning the control console. “I told you to get going, Solo. Raise ship.”

He was still waving Han’s blaster around to emphasize his command when he took a gush of thick, white foam full in the face.

Nozzles in the cockpit and throughout the
Millennium Falcon
had begun to spew anti-incendiary gas and suppression foam when Max’s single command cut in the ship’s auto-firefighting apparatus. Under the computer probe’s override, the system behaved as if the entire ship were aflame.

Han and Chewbacca, unsure of what was happening, didn’t stop to think, but seized instead upon whatever freak opportunity this was. The Wookiee struck out with a huge paw, backhanding Zlarb against the navigator’s seat, located just behind Han’s. Zlarb, blinded, let off a shot at random. The blaster blew a jagged hole in the canopy, its edges dripping with molten transparisteel.

Just then Han flung himself on the slaver, followed closely thereafter by his first mate. Zlarb was punched, shaken, kneed, bitten, and slammed head-first into the navi-computer before he could get off a second shot.

The cockpit was already ankle-deep in foam, and blasts of anti-incendiary gas made it nearly impossible to see. The racket of sirens and warning hooters was deafening. Nevertheless, both partners’ spirits had risen appreciably. Picking up his blaster, Han cupped his hand to his mouth and hollered into Chewbacca’s ear.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but we’ve got to hit them before they can recover. I counted six of them, right?”

The Wookiee confirmed the number. Han led the way from the cockpit as quickly as he could, both of them slipping and sliding in the deepening foam.

Han dashed out into the main passageway. Fortunately he looked to his right first, toward the forward compartment. There one of the slavers stood open-mouthed, staring at the belching auto-firefighting gear. He caught sight of Han and started to bring his disruptor rifle around. But Han’s blaster bolt took him high in the chest, knocking him backward through the air, his weapon dropping from his hands.

Han heard a horrible growl and whirled. The handler appeared from the other direction and released the nashtah, which sprang at Han with such speed that it was no more than a blur. Before he could even get off a shot the beast hit him, sending him sprawling against the squares of safety cushioning that rimmed the cockpit hatchway, his shoulder and one forearm slashed with parallel furrows from the creature’s claws.

But the nashtah never completed its pounce. Instead it was grabbed and held in midair and sent hurtling against a bulkhead. Chewbacca, having lost his footing in the act of throwing the nashtah aside, scrambled to his feet once more. Han brought his gun up but hesitated to shoot because the fall had shaken him. In that moment the nashtah, with an angry flick of its tail and a hideous cry, sprang at the Wookiee, driving him back into the cockpit passageway.

Chewbacca somehow managed to maintain his footing. Exerting to the fullest his astounding strength, he absorbed the force of the nashtah’s attack, locking his hairy hands around its throat, hunching his shoulders and working with legs and forearms to ward off its claws.

The nashtah screamed again, and the Wookiee screamed even louder. Chewbacca held the attack beast clear of the deck and slammed it against the bulkhead to his left, then to his right and to the left again, all in less than a second. The nashtah, its head dangling now at a very odd angle, slumped in his grasp. Chewbacca let it fall to the deck.

The beast’s handler gave an outraged shout, seeing his animal’s unmoving body. He brought his pistol up, but Han’s blaster reacted first. The man staggered, tried to bring his weapon up again, and Han fired a second time. The handler fell prone on the deck not far from the body of his nashtah.

Han grabbed Chewbacca’s elbow, pointed and started aft toward the main hold. They found Bollux’s inert bulk where Blue Max had caused it to fall, and it was apparent just what the two automata had done. Foam had crept in around the ’droid’s body and had begun seeping in through the open chest panel.

Chewbacca gave a grating snarl alluding to the ingenuity of the two. “I’ll second that; they’re pretty nervy,” Han concurred. He’d taken a grip on the ’droid’s shoulder. “Help me sit him up so the foam doesn’t get at them.”

There was no time to do anything else. They propped the ’droid’s body against the bulkhead in temporary safety and hurried on. They were going full-tilt when the giant humanoid appeared around the curve of the passageway from the opposite direction, a riot gun in his hand.

Han made an awkward attempt to dodge for cover, bringing his blaster up at the same time. With the deck slippery with foam, he lost his footing and took a spill. Chewbacca, on the other hand, adapted quickly to these unusual conditions. Without decreasing speed he hurled himself into a feet-first slide along the deck-plates, cutting a bow-wave through the drifting foam, his enthusiastic bellow rising above the hiss of gas projectors and the alarms.

The slaver’s aim wavered from Han to the Wookiee, but Chewbacca was moving too fast; one shot mewed, a miss that crackled on the deck, raising steam from the foam. The Wookiee rammed the humanoid with his outsized feet, and the humanoid bounced with astonishing abruptness into a mound of foam wherein he was joined directly by Chewbacca. The foam mound quivered and shook, strands and clumps of it flying loose, as there came from it the sounds of snarls and roars, and heavyweight collision.

Han was back on his feet, rushing on, feeling somewhat lightheaded from the anti-incendiary gas. He was still uncertain what to do when he encountered the last two slavers, the ones carrying the collar-boxes. If he hesitated they might just hit the kill switches, slaying every captive on the lines. He steeled himself to fire accurately and without an instant’s delay.

But the responsibility wasn’t his. The main hold was in pandemonium. Both remaining slavers were staggering under swarming, flailing captives. All the creatures moved with agonized, twitching motions, fighting both their captors and the pulses of excruciating pain being inflicted by their collars. Many were on the deck, unable to overcome the punishment and join the fight.

But those who had mastered their agony were carrying the battle well. As Han watched, they dragged the slavers to the deck, wrestling away weapons and director units and pounding the two into submission. Apparently the creatures knew enough about the director units to deactivate them. All the slaves slumped visibly as their torture ended.

Han stepped cautiously into the hold. He hoped his unwilling passengers understood the situation well enough to know that he wasn’t their enemy, but reminded himself he’d better be charming until they were sure.

One of the creatures, its thick white fur ruffled and tufted from its struggle, was studying the collar-box. It made a decisive stab at a switch and all the collars along that particular cable sprang open. The creature tossed the director unit aside contemptuously, and one of its companions passed it a captured disruptor. The sidearm looked big and clumsy in its small, nimble hands.

Han holstered his blaster slowly, holding empty palms up for them all to see. “I didn’t want this either,” he told them in an even tone, though he doubted that they spoke a shared language. “I had no more to do with it than you.”

The disruptor was moving slowly. Han argued with himself the wisdom of reaching for his pistol but doubted his own ability to shoot the creature down. It had no fault in this matter either. He decided to reason on, but the skin on his neck was trying to crawl up into his scalp.

“Listen: you’re free to go. I’m not going to stop—”

He sprang sideways as the disruptor swung up at him. It took an iron, conscious effort to keep from drawing. He heard the disrupter’s blaring report. And unexpectedly, he heard a small clatter and a gasp from behind him.

Framed in the hatchway, looking down without comprehension at the broad wound in his chest, was Zlarb. At his feet lay the little palmgun. He sank against the hatchway and slid slowly to the deck. The creature had lowered its disruptor once more. Han went and knelt by Zlarb.

The slaver was breathing very unevenly between clenched teeth, his eyes screwed shut. He opened them then, focusing on Han, who had been about to tell him to save his strength, but saw that it made no difference. Perhaps, in a full-facility medicenter, the slaver could have been saved, but with the limited resources of the
Falcon
’s medi-packs Zlarb was as good as gone.

He didn’t avoid the slaver’s gaze. “They weren’t quite as meek as you thought, were they Zlarb?” he asked quietly. “Just real, real patient,”

Zlarb’s eyes began to flutter shut again. He only managed “Solo…” He put more hatred into the name than Han would have thought possible.

“And how did Zlarb get past you? He almost scored me, you big slug!”

Chewbacca gobbled angrily in response to Han’s indignant question and pointed to where the burly humanoid slaver, the one with whom the Wookiee had collided, lay battered and bound by the main ramp.

“So what?’ Han demanded with elaborate sarcasm, enjoying himself. He was kneeling by Bollux’s side, setting the cap of an extractor over the restraining bolt. “You used to handle three of his kind before breakfast. What I
don’t
need is a first mate who’s turning into a geriatric case.”

Chewbacca barked so loudly that Han ducked involuntarily. A Wookiee’s lifespan is longer than a human’s—age was a standing joke between the two.

“That’s what
you
say.” Han thumbed the extractor’s switch. There was a pop and a tiny burst of blue discharge around the bolt’s base.

Bollux’s red photoreceptors came on. “Why, Captain Solo! Thank you, sir. Does this mean the crisis has passed?”

“All but the housework. I got the firefighting outlets shut down, but the ship looks like an explosion in a dessert shop. You can skate from here to the cockpit if you want. That was a good move you and Maxie—”

“Blue Max!” Bollux interrupted, a rarity for him. “Sir, he’s not in linkage; I think he’s been damaged.”

“We know. His adaptor arm was bent and he took some burnout creepage. Chewie says he can fix him up, though, with components we have onboard. Just leave Max be for now. Can you get up?”

The labor ’droid answered by rising and swinging his chest panel shut over the computer module protectively. “Blue Max is remarkably resourceful, wouldn’t you say, Captain?”

“Bet your anodes. If he had fingers we’d have to start locking up the tableware. You can tell him that for me later, but for now just take it easy.” Han stood and beckoned Chewbacca and the two went aft to the hold again.

The former captives had laid out the bodies of their several dead, those who hadn’t survived the terrible ordeal of the slave collars. They were assembling litters from materials in the hold, which Han had offered them, with which to bear their fellows home.

Han stopped by the corpse of Zlarb. In searching the man a few minutes earlier, he had noticed the hard, rectangular lump of a breast-pocket security case under his thermosuit. Han had seen a few such cases before and knew he had to be careful with it.

Settling down with one of the
Falcon
’s medi-packs, he dug out a flexclamp and a vibroscalpel and began cutting away the tough material of the thermosuit. In the meantime, Chewbacca began cleaning his own wounds with an irrigation bulb and a synth-flesh dispenser. More by fortune than design, neither of the two had received deep wounds from the nashtah’s claws.

Han quickly had the security case exposed. It was anchored to the pocket by a slim clip to which it was attached by a fine wire. Han carefully felt for and found the safety, a small button concealed at the case’s lower edge. Pressing it, he disengaged the security circuit. Then he began working the clip loose from the pocket lining with his other hand. To try to remove the case in any other fashion would invite a neuroparalysis charge from the case. A numb arm would be the best he could hope for, depending on the case’s setting. Some security cases were capable of giving lethal shocks.

He reprimed the clip, and the case was rendered harmless. Humming a half-remembered tune, he got busy with some fine-work instruments he had fetched from the ship’s small but complete tool locker. The lock itself was a fairly common model; the neuroshock was the case’s main line of defense. He had it open in fairly short order.

And spat some sizzling Corellian oaths. There was no money.

All the case contained were a data plaque, a message tape, and a smaller case that turned out to be a Malkite poisoner’s kit. That Zlarb was a practitioner of the Malkite poisoner’s arts reaffirmed Han’s conviction that the universe wouldn’t mourn the man’s passing, but it did little to alleviate his frustration or his financial situation.

He threw aside the security case and glowered at the two surviving human slavers. They both began to quake visibly. “You have one chance,” he said quietly. “Somebody owes me money; I have ten thousand credits coming for this run and I want it. Not telling me where I can get it would be the dumbest thing you’ll ever do in your lives, and one of the very last.”

“We don’t know anything, Solo, we swear,” one of them protested. “Zlarb hired us on and he arranged everything; he handled the contacts and all the money himself. We never saw anybody else, that’s the truth.” His comrade confirmed it energetically.

The ex-slaves had finished their preparations and were ready to depart. Han walked over to where the empty collars and director units lay. “That’s really rotten luck for you two,” he told the slavers and fastened a collar around the neck of each, ignoring their protests. He handed the collar-box to the leader of the ex-slaves and pointed to the bodies of the dead.

The creature understood, patting the case. The slavers would pay for the deaths with their own servitude. How long a sentence they’d have to serve would be entirely up to their one-time captives. Han couldn’t have cared less.