Sian bit her lip. “I think it's five.”
Chewbacca barked an agreement.
“Let's split the difference and call it four,” Han said. He hit the thrusters, and the pod shot forward.
Leia craned her neck to see. A metal wall rushed at them, a round docking port just off center. A blast somewhere above and forward blinded her for an instant, and she braced for an impact.
The pod jerked, threw them back in their seats. Then it slid forward with a screech of metal and slotted in to dock as if it had been built for this ship. Han let out a breath and said, “Automatic docking sequence. It activated when we got close enough.”
“That's good flying, Solo,” Sian said, a little breathless. “With nobody running a docking tractor beam for us, if we'd been too far offâ”
“Get ready,” Leia said. She already knew what would have happened if they'd been too far off. “We'll only have a few minutes before they realize we're here.”
The last lock rotated into place, and the pod's hatch warning light went green. It slid open as Sian pressed the control, but the ship's inner hatch didn't open in response. That wasn't a surprise: battle conditions should require all the ship's outer hatches to lock from the inside. Leia lifted the satchel and handed Sian one of the small explosives designed for just this purpose. She slapped it into place, and they all huddled back as she triggered it.
It made a faint thump, the small charge sending an energy bolt right through the hatch's lock controls. The hatch switched itself to manual, but the safeties kept it from sliding open. Chewbacca surged forward as Sian ducked back, gripped the hatch, and forced it to one side.
The Wookiee shoved through first, bowcaster ready, and Han, Sian, and Leia climbed out after him. The corridor was narrow and for the moment empty, lined on one side by outer hatches that led to more docking stations for pods and other small craft. “The shuttle should lock on at the main dock between the two stern modules,” Han said. “We're about thirty meters forward from it.”
Leia drew her blaster. “Let's go.” Her skin prickled as they ran down the corridor. They passed a couple of closed blast doors, but both would connect to the heavily occupied forward section of the ship, where the crew would be running battle stations in weapons, engineering, and the bridge. They needed a way to the aft section and the docking station where the shuttle would be taken aboard.
Han reached the open blast door at the end and flattened himself against the wall. He took a quick look around the corner beyond the door, and Chewbacca leaned around him to see. Leia got enough of a view past them to see it was a junction, one corridor leading away toward starboard, the other heading into the port module.
Leia heard a whisper of sound behind her. She spun and lifted her blaster even before she identified it as the sound of a blast door opening.
Two dark-uniformed Imperial techs stepped out of it. Surprise froze them for an instant. One clawed for his blaster and Leia's first stun bolt hit him in the chest and dropped him. The other ducked back and hit the control to close the door. But Sian threw herself down onto the deck and fired under the closing door. Leia saw a body hit the deck just as the metal panel slid shut.
“Got him,” Sian confirmed. “Should weâ” Blasterfire from behind them cut her words off, and Leia spun to see Han and Chewbacca returning fire at crew members running at them from the starboard corridor. Chewie took one last shot and pulled back as Han fired into the blast door's control mechanism, dropping and sealing the door.
That left them one option. Leia stepped to the side of the second sealed blast door, as Sian pushed to her feet and moved to cover her. Leia hit the control, and as it slid open, she ducked down into a firing position. The corridor beyond was empty for the moment. They would have to skirt the engineering section, but if they moved fast they might make it to the port module without the crew pinpointing their location. “This way.” And it would help to give the crew something else to think about. “Sian, you have more of those explosive patches? Blow one of the escape pod hatches, please.”
Chewie slipped past Leia and moved down the corridor to scout the way. Han waited with Leia, keeping a wary eye on the junction blast door. Someone on the other side was pounding on it and yelling for a fusioncutter. Sian moved a short distance down the corridor to attach the patch to the nearest escape pod hatch, then sprinted back toward Leia and Han at the blast door. Just as she she stepped through it, she triggered the explosive.
Han hit the release to seal the door and they pelted down the corridor as the decompression alarms sounded.
Luke watched Kifar start to sweat as the shuttle tried to match speed with the light corvette. The corvette was more worried about fighting off the
Aegis,
and the shuttle pilot was desperate to stay out of the line of fire and keep the corvette between it and the gunship. Luke was trying to decide if he would rather be blown up instantly or be an Imperial prisoner. On the whole, he was leaning toward the former.
The shuttle jerked and bucked; then he caught a glimpse of the hull of a ship through the forward ports. Trehar shifted and swore in Durese. “He almost took us right up the starboard engine.”
Kifar grimaced. Luke's nerves itched. Much as being vaporized would probably be a preferable fate, the bad piloting made him twitchy.
The shuttle stopped vibrating, and Luke knew they must have finally been caught in a tractor beam. It pulled them in slowly toward a docking port between the corvette's two long stern modules. From what Luke could see, it wasn't a docking bay, just a large hatch structure designed to fit many different sizes of small craft. The shuttle was gradually drawn inside it and secured, and there was a loud
thunk
on the outside of the hull as the docking clamps locked on.
Luke heard the pilot doing final checks and talking to someone on the comm. An older man stepped out of the cockpit and came toward Luke. Kifar, Trehar, and the others unstrapped and stood, not quite at attention.
The man had dark hair, very pale skin, and hard square features. Like the others, he was dressed as a spacer, though his clothes looked more expensive. “The Princess didn't seem inclined to negotiate for your release,” he said.
Luke was guessing this was Commander Degoren. He shrugged. “Why should she?” His instincts told him Leia and Han were up to something. He just didn't have a clue what that something would be.
Degoren smiled, a cold and skeptical expression. “Itran tells me that she's very attached to you. That you're a great confidant of hers, and perhaps something more ⦔
Luke thought,
Good old Kifar.
He made his smile bitterly amused. “Yeah, I just found out that Itran's not very reliable.”
Kifar glared at him. Degoren's disgruntled sideways glance at Kifar suggested that he agreed with Luke. It wasn't a surprise; Kifar had failed to find an opportunity to warn Degoren that his ship was about to be boarded by Alderaanian pirates. That had to be a black mark on an Imperial agent's record.
And maybe Luke could convince Degoren that Kifar had done an even worse job than that.
“It doesn't matter,” Degoren said. “Itran's told me who you are. You're the one who blew up the Death Star. And he's heard enough about your other exploits to know that we can have some very interesting conversations with you about rebel activities.”
Luke gave Kifar a disgusted glance. “Is that what you've told them?” He looked up at Degoren and made himself radiate earnest sincerity. Han had told him it was as effective as it was annoying. “The Death Star â¦Â “ He shook his head helplessly. “That was just an accident. One of the older pilots talked me through it. Ever since then, I've been mostly working on X-wing maintenance. They haven't even sent me out on any other missions.”
Degoren put on an expression of polite skepticism, but Luke thought he detected a trace of doubt. Kifar could have reacted in a lot of different ways, with amusement or exasperation, but instead he stiffened, his face darkening with anger. “You think this is going to work, Skywalker? You don't think we can break you?”
Luke let himself look scared and desperate. It wasn't hard; if he didn't pull something off and get out of here before the corvette jumped to lightspeed, he was in a lot of trouble. He said to Degoren, “Look, you've got me. I don't have any reason to lie to you.” He glared at Kifar in angry reproach. “I know you're jealous about me and â¦Â and the Princess, I know how you feel about her, but you can't lie to them about me, they'll find outâ”
Kifar snarled and swung at Luke. Luke ducked but still caught most of the blow on his left cheekbone. He awkwardly lifted his arms to block the next punch. Degoren snapped, “Enough.”
Kifar reluctantly lowered his arm. His jaw worked and he and said, “He's lying. He's in Red Squadron. And there's rumors that he was trained by a Jedi Knight.” He turned to reach into the next seat compartment and held up Luke's lightsaber. “You saw he had this!”
Past the throbbing in his face, Luke gasped, baffled and incredulous. “You believe that? I bought it from a junk shop on Commenor.”
Degoren pressed his lips together, aimed a death glare at Kifar, and said, “We'll settle this soon. Command has a cruiser en route. We wanted Organa, but if we can't get her, the pilot who destroyed the Death Star would be just enough of an acceptable substitute to keep us all alive. But you better hope he knows as much as you've said he does.”
He turned away. The pilot had been waiting just outside the cockpit and now hit the opening sequence for the hatch. Trehar stepped forward and dragged Luke to his feet.
The shuttle's ramp lowered and Degoren stepped out, then the pilot and the other Imperials followed him. Kifar was next, and then Luke, then Trehar. As Kifar reached the hatch, a security alarm sounded out in the bay. And Luke thought,
Now.
With his bound hands he shoved Kifar in the back. Kifar stumbled forward into the man in front of him and then whipped around, furious. In that moment, with all his strength, Luke jerked his head back at Trehar behind him, and slammed the back of his skull into the Duros' face.
Luke was pretty certain he felt a crackâhopefully Trehar's facial bone and not Luke's skullâbut Kifar was already throwing a punch. Luke fell backward and it caught him a glancing blow. He went down on top of Trehar, grabbed the blaster out of his hand, and shot Kifar in the leg, the first available target.
Kifar dropped in front of the hatchway. Luke fired over him, out the hatchway, hitting the first man to try to lunge back inside and scattering the two men past him. Luke saw a stormtrooper helmet pop into view as he kept firing. Wedged between two injured but still moving bodies, another body half blocking the hatchway, his hands cuffed, Luke thought,
I don't think I'm getting out of this alive.
But it was better than ending up an Imperial prisoner.
That was when he heard the other shooting start.
They moved fast, and managed to bypass the passages to the engineering section that would surely be fully staffed with crew. So far the corvette conformed to the schematics Leia had seen, and it must have for Han, too, since he led the way unerringly so far.
Over the shipwide comm, a voice said, “Security to the main docking station.”
“Is that for us?” Sian whispered.
“Maybe. Or Luke might be dragging his feet,” Han said.
Ahead was another set of blast doors leading into a junction that should connect to the port docking module. Leia breathed, “It should be right up here.”
Han and Chewbacca reached it first, and Han slid to an abrupt halt. Leia almost plowed into him. The junction was extended with a large slanted port looking down on the docking station. The far wall was open to space, the chamber protected and pressurized by containment fields, meant to accommodate ships of many shapes and sizes. Degoren's shuttle was in the center, locked into docking clamps, its ramp extended and hatch open. And a gun battle raged around the hatch, with someone inside the shuttle firing out and several men in spacer's garb and a couple of stormtroopers firing in, trying to angle for better positions.
Chewie hooted with delight and Leia exchanged a look with Han. Grimly, Han said, “Yeah, that's the kid in there.”
Leia looked around for a way down into the docking station. To the right a blast door opened into a large lift platform that dropped the short distance to the lower floor. Leia said, “Sianâ”
“Stun grenades?” Sian said, and pulled one out of her satchel.
That was the moment when the blast door behind them slid open. Leia spun with the others to see four surprised stormtroopers. Han and Chewbacca fired blaster and bowcaster as the first stormtrooper jerked his blaster up to fire. Sian whipped back her arm to throw the grenade. A blaster bolt struck her in the shoulder and she staggered and fell. The stun grenade spun across the floor and Leia lunged, grabbed it, pressed the trigger, and flung it through the blast door.
The concussion knocked her back, slammed her into the metal floor. Her ears ringing, she shoved herself up to see the four troopers strewn across the deck and down the corridor. Han staggered to the blast door, hit the release, and as it slid closed he stepped back and fired a bolt into the panel to slag the controls. “That wasn't a stun grenade, Your Worship!”
“I think that was a concussion grenade,” Leia agreed. She rolled to her feet and stumbled to Sian, who sat up, clutching her arm and grimacing in pain.
Guilty, Sian gasped, “I just pulled the first one out of the bag, I didn't lookâ”
“But it worked.” Leia squinted at the burn in Sian's shoulder. The skin was blistered and raw around the open wound, the cloth of her jacket and shirt burned away. There was nothing they could do about it now. Leia dug in the satchel and held up a stun grenade. There were only three left. Chewbacca scooped it out of her hand and stepped to the blast door that looked down on the dock. Han grabbed another grenade and moved to his side. “Ready?” he said.