"Brian Daley "Han Solo at Stars' End"" - читать интересную книгу автора

But that brought up another point. The Authority ship had somehow picked up the Millennium Falcon before her own sensors had detected the other. No doubt the Security Police had something new in the way of detection equipment, thereby making Han's and Chewbacca's lives more complicated by an order of ten. This situation would require immediate future attention.
Han kept a close watch on the jungle around him's wishing he could have left the ship's floodlights on. So, when a voice at his side announced, "We are here," he twisted around with a yelp, his blaster ap-pearing in his fist as if conjured there.
A creature, barely out of ann's reach, was calmly standing next to the ramp. It was almost Han's height, a biped, with a downy, globular torso and short arms and legs boasting more joints than a human's. Its head was small, but equipped with large, unblinking eyes. Its mouth and throat were a loose, pouchy affair; its scent was the scent of the jungle.
"That," Han grumbled, recovering his composure and putting his blaster away, "is a good way to get yourself roasted."
The creature ignored the sarcasm. "You have brought what we need?"
"I've got cargo for you. Beyond that, I know zero, which is the way I want it. If you came alone, you've got your work cut out for you."
The creature turned and made an eerie, piping noise. Figures seemed to grow up out of the ground, dozens of them, motionless, regarding the pilot and his ship with silent gazes. They held short objects of some sort, which he assumed to be weapons.
Then he heard a growl from above. Stepping for-ward, Han looked up and saw Chewbacca standing out on one of the ship's bow mandibles, covering the newcomers with his bowcaster. Han gave a signal. His hairy first mate put up the bowcaster and headed back inboard.
"Time's wasting," Han told the creature. It moved toward the Falcon, taking its companions with it. Han stopped them with upheld hands. "Not the whole choir, friend. Just you, for starters." The first one bur-bled to its fellows and came on alone.
Inside the ship, Chewbacca had turned up the blackout lights to a minimal glow in strategic parts of the interior. The towering Wooldee was already draw-ing cover plates off the hidden compartments, con-cealed and shielded to be undetectable, under the deck near the ramp. Into this space, where he and Han usually hid whatever contraband they were car-rying, Chewbacca lowered himself to stand with his waist at deck level. Releasing clamps and strapping, the Wooldee began lifting out heavy oblong cases, the huge muscles beneath his fur bulging with effort.
Han pulled the end of a case around and broke its seals. Within the crate weapons lay stacked. They had been so treated that no part of them reflected any of the scant light. Han took one up, checked its charge, made sure the safety was on, then handed it to the creature.
The firearm was a carbine-short, lightweight, un-complicated. Like all the others in the shipment, this one was fitted with a simple optical scope, shoulder sling, bipod, and folding bayonet. Though the creature obviously wasn't used to handling an energy weapon, its ready acceptance, grip, and posture showed that it had seen them often enough. It shifted the carbine in its hands, peered down the barrel, and examined the trigger carefully.
"Ten cases, a thousand rifles," Han told it, taking up another carbine. He flipped up its butt plate, point-ing out the adapters through which the weapon's power pack could be recharged. These were obsolete weapons by current standards, but they had no inter-hal moving parts and were extremely durable, so much so that they could safely be shipped or stored without Gel-Coat or other preservative. Any one of these carbines, left leaning against a fern in the jungle, would be fully operable ten years from now. Those advantages would be important on this world, where the carbines' new owners would be able to provide lit-fie maintenance.
The creature nodded, understanding how the re-charging worked. "We have already stolen small gen-eratom," it told Hah, "from the Authority compounds.
We came here because they promised us jobs and a
good life, and we celebrated our good fortune, for our
world is poor. But they worked us like slaves and
would not let us leave. Many of us escaped to live in
the wilds; this world is not unlike our own. Now, with
these weapons, we will be able to fight back-"
"Stop!" Han snarled with a slashing gesture of his hand, and a violence that made the creature recoil. Reining in his temper, he went on, "I don't want to hear it, get me? I don't know you, you don't know me.
It's none of my business, so don't tell me/"
The large eyes were fixed on him. He looked away. "I got half my pay on account when I lifted off. The other half comes when I get out of here, so why don't you just take your stuff and scratch gravel? And don't forget: no firing those things until I've left. An Au-thority ship just might register the noise."
He recalled that advance, paid in glow-pearls, fire nodes, diamonds, nova-crystals, and other precious gems smuggled off this mining planet at terrible risk by whatever sympathizers the contract-slaves had found. Rather than buy their own freedom in a quick dash aboard the Falcon, these fugitives were about to throw themselves into a doomed rebellion against the power of the Corporate Sector Authority. Morons.
He stepped out of the creature's way. It watched him for a moment, then went and piped at the open hatch. Others of its kind came scampering up, crowd-ing around the hatch. Their weapons could be seen now, primitive spear-throwers and blowguns. Some carried daggers of volcanic glass. They had clever hands, all three fingers of which were mutually op-posable. They filed inboard, surrounding the rifle cases and straining to lift them in teams of sixes and sevens. Chewbacca looked at them in amusement. The cases, being borne away down the ramp and into the jungle, reminded Han of some bizarre funeral procession.
Remembering something, he took the solemn leader aside. "Does the Authority have a warship stationed here? Big-big ship, with lots of guns?"
The creature thought for a moment. "One big ship, which carries cargo, carries passengers. It has big guns on it, and meets other ships up in the sky, to load and unload them, sometimes."
Just as Han had thought. He hadn't encountered a true combat vessel, but rather a heavily armed lighter. Bad, but not as bad as he'd thought. But the creature wasn't finished. "We will need more," it said; "more weapons, more help."
"Consult your clergyman," Han suggested dryly, helping Chewie replace the deckplates. "Or fix up a deal through your own channels, like this run. I'm out; you won't see me again. I'm just doing business."
The creature cocked its head at him's as if trying to understand. Han thrust aside the thought of what life must be like in a forced-labor camp, a driven, joyless existence if ever there was one. That was a common pattern in the Corporate Sector, naive outworlders lured by false promises, signing on only to become prisoners once they reached the compounds. And what could these few fugitives hope to accomplish?
The luck of the draw, he reminded him.uelf. Hits off the Cosmic Deck didn't always make things Right, but Right wouldn't fill an egg timer on Tatooine. You played the cards you got, and Han Solo liked to be on that end of things with the largest profit margin.
But Chewie was staring down at him. Hah sighed; the big lug was a good first mate, but a soft touch.
Well, the tip about the Authority ship was worth some-thing-a hint, maybe, a useful lesson. Han snatched the carbine from the leader irritably.
"Just remember this, you're prey. Got me? You've got to think like prey, and use your brains."
The creature understood and moved closer, standing on tiptoe to see what Han was doing with the carbine.
"It's got three settings, see? Safety, single shot, and constant fire. Now, the Security Police here use those riot guns, right? Sawed-off, two-handers? They're real fond of using constant fire, because they can afford to waste power, just hosing it around. You can't. What you do is, lock all your carbines on single shot. And if you get into a firefight at night or in the deep jungle where visibility's poor, shoot at the constant-fire sources. You'll know it's none of your people, so it must be Security Police. You've got to start using your brain."
The creature looked from the man to the carbine and back again. "Yes," it assured him, retrieving the weapon, "we will remember. Thank you."
Han sniffed, knowing how much they still had to learn. And they'd have to learn it on theft own, or the Authority would grind them under its vast heel And on how many worlds, he asked himself, was the Au-thority doing just that?
His thoughts were interrupted by distant sounds of blaster fire off in the jungle. The creature had moved to the hatch, with its carbine leveled at them. "I am sorry," it told them, "but we had to test some of the weapons here, now, to make certain they work."
It lowered the carbine and fled down the ramp, heading for the jungle. So much for world-saving. "I take it all back," Han said to Chewie as they leaned on the open hatch. "They might do all right at that."
Their long-range sensors had been knocked out by the destruction of the Falcon's dish antenna on the ap-proach run. The ship would have to make a blind lift-off, taking her chances on running into trouble. Han and Chewbacca stood atop the Falcon for nearly an hour, straining to patch the damaged an-tenna mount. Han didn't begrudge the time; it had been a worthwhile effort and, if nothing else, had given the fugitives time to leave the rendezvous area. Because, sure as stink in a spacesuit, the Falcon's lift-off would be plotted and its point of origin thoroughly searched.
They could wait no longer. The first lightening of the sky would bring every flitter, skimmer, and armed gig the local Authority officials could lay hands on, in a tight visual search grid. Chewbacca, sensing Hafts mood, made a snarling comment in his own language.
Hah lowered his maerob'moculars. "Correct. Let's raise ship."
They adjourned below, buckled in, and ran through a prefiight-warming up engines, guns, shields. Han declared, "I'm betting that lighter will be holding low, where his sensors will do him the most good. If we come up any distance away from him, we can outrun him and dive for hyperspace."
Chewbacca yelped. Hail poked him in the ribs. "What's eating you? We just have to play this hand out." He realized he was talking to hear himself. He shut up. The Millennium Falcon lifted, hovering for just a moment as her landing gear retracted. Then Hah tenderly guided her up through the opening in the jungle's leafy ceiling.
"Sorry," he apologized to his ship, knowing what abuse she was about to take. He fired her up, stood her on her tail, and opened main thrusters wide. The starship screeched away into the sky, leaving the river steaming and the jungle smoldering. Duroon fell away quickly, and Han began to thlnlc they had the problem licked.
Then the tractor beam hit.
The freighter shook as the powerful, pulling beam fixed on her. High above, the Authority captain had played it smart, knowing he was looking for a faster, more maneuverable foe. Having outwitted the smug-gler, he now brought his ship plummeting down the planet's gravity well, picking up enough speed to corn-pensate for any dodge the Falcon might try in her steep climb. The tractor pulled the two ships inexora-bly into alignment.
"Shields-forward, all. Angle 'era, and get set to firel" Han and Chewbacca were throwing switches, fighting their controls, struggling desperately to free their ship. In moments it became clear their actions were futile.
"Ready to shift all deflectors astern," Hah ordered, bringing his helm over. "It'll have to be a staring match, Chewie."