Showdown at Centerpoint Read Online Free PDF Page B

get his shields up. Leia tried to track to a new target, but the LAFs had plainly decided to take the hint and accept the fact they weren’t welcome. They scattered, hightailing out of there in all directions.
    But how in the blazes had—Suddenly she understood. Of course. Of course. “Mara! His trick worked! Get us out from behind Han, fast! New course, five or six kilometers to one side of him, and try to overtake him if you can. It’s not going to be so safe to be behind him for a while.”
    She smiled, relief flooding over her. She should have known Han wouldn’t give up without a fight.
    *   *   *
    Han listened closely as the last of the junk went lumbering out of the airlocks, banging and clattering and thudding and reverberating through the ship. There was no air in the locks left to transmit noise, of course, but there was on the other side of the interior bulkheads—a fact that had made itself known with every bit of broken-down hardware that had slammed around the locks.
    Han had spent half a day policing the ship, looking for every bit of surplus or broken hardware he could. Buckets of bolts, worn-out spare parts, garbage from the galley, unidentifiable bits of machinery that had been sitting in the hold for who knew how long—he had thrown all of it into the locks.
    And all of it had tumbled out into space when the locks were opened, thrown clear by centrifugal force. Result—a cloud of slow-moving space junk left right in the path of the attacking LAFs. And the LAFs had quite sensibly configured their shields for maximumpower aft, to defend against laser blasts from the
Jade’s Fire
—leaving them with minimum power forward.
    But plowing through a cloud of bits and pieces of broken metal and plastic at a closing speed of something like a thousand kilometers an hour was very far from a good idea.
    However, piling a ship into a planet was an even worse one. “Good!” Han said. “They’re gone! But we are not out of this yet. Reestablish inertial dampers and cut ship spin.”
    “At once, Honored Solo,” Salculd replied. There was an odd shimmering sort of vibration as the inertial field came back on and weight returned.
    The ship’s ungainly spin slowed, and stopped—and then started up again in the opposite direction—and started to get faster.
    “Salculd!” Han called out. “This is no time for the playing of games!”
    “I am not doing so, Honored Solo. Failure in lateral attitude control system. I cannot shut it off!”
    “Oh, for—” Han scrambled up out of his seat and dove for the main circuit breaker box. He yanked it open and tripped the lateral attitude control breaker by hand. That killed the thrusters that were producing the spin—but also killed the ones that fired in the opposite direction, and could bring it to a halt. He slapped the access door shut and returned to his seat.
    “Hope everyone is liking to spin,” Han announced in Selonian. “We are to do it for a while. Salculd! Restart to main sublight engines—and nice, slow throttle-up, please!”
    “At once, Honored Solo,” Salculd replied. She reached for the throttle controls and began adjusting them.
    Nothing seemed to happen. “Not that slow, Salculd. We need to do some braking!”
    Salculd looked at Han, and the panicked look that had seemed on the verge of fading away was there infull force, and no doubt. “No activation!” she announced. “Engine initiator not responding!”
    “Horror!” cried Dracmus. “We incinerate for certain.”
    “Quiet, Dracmus, or I send you out the airlock. Salculd, try again!” Han said. “Firstly confirm you have power to all engine systems.”
    “Board shows all power systems fine and lovely,” Salculd said. “Board says is working, but it not.”
    “Not helpful,” Han said, jumping up. “Off I go again. Keep trying, and listen to the comm!”
    Han rushed for the ladder to the lower decks and clambered down as fast as he could. As soon as he reached the lower