Honor Among Thieves: Star Wars (Empire and Rebellion) (11 page)

“Me, too.”

It felt like an hour or a day or a few seconds before they reached the access panel at the top of the stairway. A polished steel grate covered it, but just beyond Han could see the brightness of daylight. Scarlet pulled an electronic lock pick from her belt at the same time Han shot the lock. Smoking and shattered, the grate swung open.

“That works, too,” Scarlet said, putting the lock pick back.

The rooftop spread out around them, a landscape of ducts and conduits, grating walkways and massive transmission towers. The largest tower rose a hundred meters over the rooftop, reaching toward the clouds. Scaffolds and ladders rose up its center. Han pointed to it.

“There,” he said. “Go!”

They sprinted over the rough ground, reaching the tower's ladder at the same time the first stormtrooper spilled onto the roof and took aim. Han boosted Scarlet up, then followed her, climbing with one hand and tapping his comlink with the other. Blaster bolts hissed through the air and blackened the steel.

“Was there anything more to this plan?” Scarlet asked as they climbed.

“I'm working on it,” he said, and the call went through. “Chewie! It's me. Tell me the
Falcon
is warmed up and ready to go.”

The comlink groaned with the Wookiee's voice.

“
Almost
is not a good word,” Han said. “I need you up here now. I'm on a transmission tower on top of the Imperial Intelligence Service Center, and there are a lot people shooting at me.”

Chewbacca's howl maxed out the comlink's speaker. Twenty more stormtroopers had come onto the roof. The sharpness of their commander's gestures made him look as if he were very awkwardly waving. Scarlet reached the gantry at the ladder's top and paused, rummaging through her tool belt.

“I've got a better idea,” Han said. “Why don't you get in the air and come get me first, and then I'll explain how it happened when no one's shooting at me?”

Scarlet held a black cylinder between her finger and thumb with a pleased smile. Han nodded at it in query, and she shook her head. She mouthed
Keep going
and hunched at the top of the ladder they'd just come up. Chewbacca grumbled. On the rooftop, the stormtroopers were beginning a systematic advance on the tower.

“No, it's all right,” Han shouted. “She's here with me. We're both on the tower. But we need you to get us out of here.”

He reached the bottom of another ladder and looked back. Scarlet was hunched over and moving toward him quickly. Behind her, a bright orange flare marked the first ladder's top. Chewbacca grumbled again.

“Well, you may have to go
without
clearance. You can take the fine out of my cut.”

A volley of blasterfire cut through the gantryway, striking sparks. Han fired half a dozen times, not bothering to aim. Chewbacca howled from the comlink, but Han couldn't hear what he'd said. The connection dropped as Scarlet reached him.

“What did you do?” he asked, nodding back behind her.

“The decking tape I had for getting into the shaft? It's melting down that ladder. We didn't need it, did we?”

“Nope,” he said, and they started up again.

Level after level, they climbed, the legs of the transmission tower narrowing around them. The stormtroopers surrounded the tower's base, firing up at them, but the steel girders and webwork of ladders and conduits took the damage. Scarlet kept sabotaging the path behind them. The only direction was up, until they reached the tiny platform where all four legs of the tower met. They were seventy meters above the rooftop. The last thirty meters to the top were reachable only by steel handholds welded into the tower's side. That high up, even steel swayed in the wind. Han's legs felt as if they were made of string, and his back ached. Scarlet's hair was plastered to her forehead and neck, and she was shivering. The decking tape had run out, and she had a blaster in either hand. Below them, the stormtroopers looked like white dolls. The tower shifted, the metal groaning.

“Hmm,” Scarlet Hark said.

“What?”

“Down there.”

Han leaned to the side, peeking down. Four stormtroopers were struggling with a small plasma cannon, their commanding officer screaming at them, his voice made inaudible by distance.

“They can't do that. They'll take down the tower.”

Scarlet grinned. For a moment she seemed less like a rational, calculating master of espionage than a force of nature taking joy in the chaos. Not a soldier, but a criminal. “We may have made them feel a little inadequate. I wonder why they aren't bringing in fliers.”

“Fliers?”

“That's what I'd do. Get a few two-person fliers. Maybe a combat droid. Shoot us out of this thing without bothering with the ground game.”

Han nodded, then rested his head against the metal. Thirty meters was a hell of a long climb, and he wasn't sure his body was up for it. He closed his eyes, listening for the faint but familiar scream of engines. Yes. There it was. “Maybe something's keeping those guys busy.”

“Something like?”

“Come on,” he said. “We need to hurry.”

The city spread out around them in all directions, gray and hazy and bright with the sun. Flocks of birds swirled below them, passing between the massive buildings. The clouds glowed with sunlight. Han felt the first impact of the plasma cannon in his feet and fingers before he heard the explosion. He kept pushing himself up. Scarlet was just below him, grabbing the handholds as he lifted his feet from them. The wind was cold, the air thin. A second explosion made the transmission tower shudder. The glowing yellow navigation light at the tower's top grew brighter with every moment.

“We're almost out of up, Solo,” Scarlet Hark said. Her voice was thin and ragged.

“You're never out of up,” he said. “Look.”

On the horizon, just above the level of the highest buildings, something like an electrical storm was going on. Dark shapes churned and shifted, flashes of brightness too straight to be lightning. And at the front, flying before the storm of fliers and droids, Imperial police and port authority enforcers, the beautiful gray smudge of the
Millennium Falcon
. The tower shuddered again and began to list. Han fired his blaster into the air three times. Four. The
Falcon
shifted, correcting course toward them.

“Get ready,” he said. “We don't get to try this twice.”

The
Falcon
dipped a fraction when the ramp extended, then corrected. She was coming in fast, but Chewie wouldn't be able to slow down much with half of Cioran getting scorched by their exhaust plume. Han pulled himself up to the top of the tower, ignoring the abyss before him. Scarlet clambered up at his side. Her eyes were bright. She was grinning.

“Not a good plan,” she said. “But it's got style.”

Bolts of energy rained down from the belly of the
Falcon,
scattering the tiny stormtroopers far below them. The entry ramp was extended, the speed ripping contrails from the moisture in the air. Han breathed deeply, watched his ship grow larger, closer.

“Now!” he shouted, and jumped.

For a terrible moment, he thought his timing was off. A night without sleep. A hundred-meter climb while being shot at the whole way. And the day before hadn't been much better. Being off by a few hundredths of a second could only be expected. He seemed to hang in the void, his death visible between his feet. Scarlet was a blur to his right, her arms thrown high as if in victory.

The ramp hit him in the side, bouncing him up its length. The world went small and quiet for a few seconds, and when he came fully back to consciousness, the only sounds were the shriek of the engines, the hum of the actuators pulling the ramp closed, and Scarlet laughing. He rolled onto his back and looked at her. Her hair was a wild tumble, her mouth a manic grin, and her teeth were bloody where the impact had split her lip. She shook her head as if trying to clear it.

She held out her hand and hauled him up when he took it. Han was uncomfortably aware of her body beside his; that he was a man and she was a woman, and that against all odds, they hadn't just died together.

“Well,” she said, wiping the blood from her mouth. “So much for the easy part.”

Ten

The
Falcon
thumped with the sounds of blasterfire hitting her shields. The ship rocked as Chewbacca slammed down the throttle to get away from their pursuers. The Wookiee's howl came from the cockpit as if it were a kilometer away. The metal creaked and groaned, the superstructure of the freighter warping under the strain.

“I'm so sorry, honey, I know this has been rough on you,” Han said.

“I've had worse,” Scarlet said, frowning at him. “And don't call me ‘honey.
'”

“The ship. I was talking to my ship,” Han said as he ran, limping, down the corridor to the cockpit. “This beating she's taking? It's because of you. Be nice to her.”

Chewbacca was strapped into the copilot's chair, frantically pulling at the controls as the
Falcon
climbed over the city. Green bolts of plasma and turbolaser fire streaked past as the Imperial fliers gave pursuit. A red light flashed a shield overload warning on the panel behind him.

Han threw himself into the pilot's seat and gestured at the third chair with his head. Scarlet took the hint and buckled in.

“Heya, pal, thanks for the save,” Han said.

Chewbacca growled back, waving at all the flashing damage indicators.

“Hey, believe me, Her Royalness will be paying for every scratch when we're done here.”

“‘
Her Royalness'?” Scarlet said.

“Still not talking about you,” Han said, then yanked at a control bar to spin the
Falcon
in a hard bank. A virtual wall of incoming fire flew past them as the ship spun out of its path. When they'd stopped their wild maneuvering, Han looked over his shoulder at Scarlet. “Not everything is about you, you know.”

“I
don't
think everything is—” she started.

“Shush,” Han said, and she sputtered with indignation. He pointed out ahead of them as the sky went from dark blue to black. “Out of atmosphere now, the fliers can't chase us.”

Chewie unbuckled from his seat and headed toward the back of the ship.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Han yelled.

Chewie rumbled back at him and kept walking.

“Ha!” Scarlet said. “I'm not the only one who thinks your plan was terrible.”

Han spun his chair to face her. “Hey, I got you off that planet in one piece.
And
got you your precious data from one of the most secure installations in the Empire. Now who's the best?”

She rolled her eyes at him.Something else occurred to him. “Hey, you speak Wookiee?”

“No one speaks Wookiee but Wookiees,” she said. “I mean, I can order a drink or find the bathroom okay. . .”

Scarlet trailed off, her eyes wide and her face pale.

“What—” he began.

She shook her head and pointed behind him. He spun his chair around. Four Imperial Star Destroyers were bearing down on them.

“Huh,” Han said. “Probably should have seen that coming.”

“Hurry,” Scarlet said. “Get us out of here.”

“I
am
hurrying,” Han replied, spinning the ship around and throwing the throttle to full.

“Hurry faster,” she said.

“You keep saying that. It's not as helpful as you think.” Han opened up the ship's internal comm. “Hey, buddy, gonna need you to get those shields stabilized!”

A loud Wookiee yell reverberated through the ship.

“Well, how do I know you're already working on things when you don't tell me you're already working on things!”

Scarlet unbuckled, moved to the copilot's seat, and strapped in there. “Tell me what you need.”

“Keep those rear deflectors angled to bounce the incoming fire,” Han said. “We'll need some time to calculate the jump to lightspeed.”

“How much time?”

The ship rocked with a lucky long-range shot from one of the Star Destroyers. “More,” Han said, and started punching keys on the computer.

“How old
is
this navicomputer? Are you still running the Minashi-Ryu jump protocols?” Scarlet asked, fingers working fast on the deflector controls. She had skills, Han had to admit. He wondered if it would be enough with four big Imperial Destroyers hammering them.

“Not so old,” he said defensively. “I've been meaning to upgrade, but I've been busy.”

“Busy?”

“Fighting the Empire,” Han snapped, keying in the jump data as quickly as the deck would accept it. “You may have heard of it? Stormtroopers, Death Stars, Darth Vader?”

The ship rocked again as the Star Destroyers closed the distance and began landing more hits.

“You're awfully testy,” Scarlet said.

“Raise your hand if you've fought all of those things in the last year,” Han said, raising his hand.

Scarlet grinned at him. “Maybe you should keep that on the controls.” As if to punctuate her point, the ship rocked with a barrage of incoming fire.

“They've got us in their range,” Han said. He twisted the controls, sending the
Falcon
spinning off in a hard starboard turn. The Star Destroyers were fast and bristling with firepower, but they turned like drunken banthas. He needed to buy a few more seconds for the navicomputer to do its work.

“Well. That's disappointing,” Scarlet said, and the ship shuddered under a new wave of incoming fire.

“What is?”

“Those,” she said, as four TIE fighters streaked past in a diamond formation and banked hard to port for a second pass. “Can we out-turn them?”

“We can try.”

“Let's do.”

The deflector alarm shouted an urgent warning at them as the rear shields started to fail.