Part 18 (1/2)

”Well,” Han said, ”we blew our anticoncussion field generators, cracked the sensory array window, fried the brains out of my astrogation computer, and leaked about two thousand liters of coolant from the main reactor.”

”I brought Artoo,” Luke offered lamely. ”He can navigate the s.h.i.+p.” Luke looked back at Isolder, as if asking him to speak. Isolder could see that now was not the time for reprimands or fisticuffs. Right now, they needed to work together. But it was all he could do to keep from bas.h.i.+ng Han Solo in the mouth.

”I've got my fighter here,” Isolder said, and Teneniel took his hand.

Isolder didn't want to speak about it too loudly, and he glanced behind him. None of the other witches had followed them into the s.h.i.+p.

”You've got a working s.h.i.+p on this planet?” Han asked. ”How many people can it hold?”

Isolder considered his answer. If he told him two, would Han try to steal the s.h.i.+p and take Leia with him? ”Two.”

Luke looked at Isolder curiously, and Han drew a breath in relief. ”I want you to get Leia and fly her out of here, right now!” Han said.

”There's a bunch of people here who would kill for that fighter, and believe me, you don't want to meet them!”

”He's testing you,” Luke casually said to Han. ”His fighter holds only one, and we've already met the Nightsisters.” Han's face got dark with anger, and his eyes looked hollow, haunted.

”You pa.s.sed the test, General Solo,” Isolder said.

”We're in serious trouble here,” Han warned Isolder. ”Don't play so rough with me.”

Isolder didn't like Han's tone of voice. ”You're lucky I don't play rougher,” Isolder said. ”I'd gladly beat your face in for what you've done here. You'll be lucky if I don't.”

Luke watched Isolder calculatingly.

”Go ahead and try it,” Han said, ”if you think you can handle me.”

Isolder glanced at Chewbacca. Wookiees specialized in their own form of hand-to-hand combat, and when a Wookiee disarmed an opponent, the opponent was literally disarmed. And if that didn't subdue you, the Wookiee would go ahead and rip off your legs, too. Isolder wanted to make sure the Wookiee didn't join in the fray. Chewbacca shrugged, whined something in his own language.

”Hold on, now,” Leia said. ”We've got enough problems here without fighting among ourselves. Isolder, I came here with Han willingly . . .

sort of. He asked me to accompany him as a friend, and I agreed.”

Isolder glanced at her, disbelieving, not sure what was going on. He'd seen the holo vid clips of the alleged abduction, but he couldn't call Leia a liar. ”Uh,” he said, embarra.s.sed. ”General Solo, I think I owe you an apology.”

”Great,” Han said. ”So, let's get back to work. Why don't you start by coming up with a way to get us out of here?”

”I've got a fleet on its way,” Isolder said. ”They should be here in another seven or eight days.”

Han asked, ”When you say fleet, how big a fleet are you talking?”

”About eighty destroyers,” Isolder said.

Han's jaw dropped, but Leia said, ”Seven days isn't quick enough. If Augwynne is correct, the Nightsisters will attack in three.”

Isolder put his arm around Leia. ”My astrogation droid can pilot the s.h.i.+p for a jump. We could send Leia home.”

”I don't think so,” Leia said. ”I'm not going without the rest of you.

Han?if you had all of your spare parts, how soon could you get this s.h.i.+p fixed?”

Han calculated. Plugging the rupture to stop the coolant leak would take only a few minutes. You might even be able to pour the coolant in while in flight. The R2 unit could patch in on a moment's notice to navigate.

Installing new anticoncussion field generators might take two hours. The easiest thing would be to put on a new sensory array window. Two hours, if everyone helped and they hurried.

”Two hours,” Han answered.

”I suggest we cannibalize Isolder's s.h.i.+p,” Leia said, ”fix the Falcon, and get out of here.”

Isolder looked at the Falcon skeptically. It was a big s.h.i.+p compared with his fighter?four times the length. With all the extra s.h.i.+elding and cargo s.p.a.ce, it had to be forty times the ma.s.s. ”What kind of anticoncussion field generators are you using?” Isolder asked.

”I've got four banks of Nordoxicon thirty-eights. All of them are down.

What are you running on?”

”Three Taibolt twelves.”

Chewbacca roared something.

”Yeah, that's a bust,” Han admitted. ”What about your sensory array window?”

”Point six meters across,” Isolder said.

”That's a little small for us,” Han grimaced, ”but if we had to, we could weld some plate over my current array, make the window narrower. It would cut our sensor capabilities a little.”

”Yeah, that would work,” Isolder agreed. ”But where are we going to get a big enough field generator?”

”Could we fly without it, sir?” Threepio asked.

”Too dangerous,” Han said. ”We're not just worried about missile attacks, we've got to deflect micrometeorites. If one tore through the sensor array, it could take out a lot of sensitive instrumentation.”

”Maybe there's some kind of field generators near the prison,” Han said, throwing his hands up. ”An armored gun emplacement, a wrecked s.h.i.+p, something. I'll just have to go there and see.”

”If we can find some generators to steal, it will be a four-man job just to pull them, and we might need a sentry to watch for trouble,” Isolder said. ”Then there's the problem of transporting the stuff. We're talking nearly two metric tons of equipment here.”

”We can worry about moving the stuff once we get it,” Han said. ”The prison's got to have some antigrav sleds at least.”

”You can count me in,” Luke said.

”I'm already in,” Leia added.

Isolder considered a moment. They wouldn't be able to take the Wookiee into the city. Chances were that no one on this planet outside of the soldiers had ever seen one. The same was true of Threepio. That left them short-handed. He didn't like the idea of having Leia endanger herself, but they were running short of options. He looked back at Teneniel, pleading. The witch appeared to be frightened but determined.

”I'll guide you to the prison,” Teneniel said. ”But I've never been inside. I don't know what you are looking for, and I don't know where to find it.”

”Have any of your clan sisters been inside the prison?” Leia asked.

Teneniel shrugged. ”Augwynne would know such things better than I. I'll get her.” Teneniel took off, returned a few minutes later with the older woman.