Free Apocalypse by Troy Denning Page B

already on standby, so he slowly began to feed it more fuel, trying to preheat the inner housing to minimize temperature stress when the big laser cannons began to suck power. At the same time, he brought the targeting computers online and engaged his active sensors. The Sith would be using the Force to find their targets anyway, so he had nothing to lose by pinging electromagnetic signals off their hulls. Finally, he activated the ion drive and brought the throttles up until the
Falcon
dropped her nose and began to rock and shudder on her struts.
    Beyond the viewport, the blocky gray shape of a departing transport began to move through the fog on the invisible cushion of its repulsor drives. A few hundred meters ahead, a trio of blue circles flared to life and began to glow more brightly as a second vessel activated its ion engines, preparing, like Han, for an emergency launch that would turn a wide swath of Jedi academy grounds into a kilometer-long furrow of charred dirt. Given the tons of Jedi equipment that the convoy would be leaving behind on the parade ground to be captured, Han wished he’d thought to instruct all of the transports to make emergency launches—but it was already too late. The gray rectangles of two more transports began to rise through the fog, and another set of ion engines flared to life off to port.
    An alert buzzer chimed from the
Falcon
’s control panel, and Han glanced over at the tactical display to see a line of jamming static rolling out of the nearby rift valley. He hit the general-quartersalarm—and that was when he saw Taryn Zel’s reflection in the viewport.
    “Captain Solo.” She bustled onto the flight deck, with R2-D2 close behind. “We’re doing the best we can back there. If you think you can—”
    She was interrupted by the distant thunder of accelerating ion engines. Han activated both sets of upper shields—forward and aft—and was still pushing the control glides to FULL when the fog grew crimson with shrieking cannon bolts. The
Falcon
reverberated with the crackle of shields taking hits, and the lights dimmed as power was diverted to the shield generators.
    “Stang!” Taryn gasped. She spun and started back down the access corridor, already yelling back toward the main cabin. “Zekk, get those ramps up and take the belly turret. I’ll take top.”
    “No, stay here and take the copilot’s chair.” Han had to yell loudly to make himself heard above the battle noise. “Have Leia take top turret. Artoo, hook yourself into the tactical net.”
    Taryn paused two steps down the corridor and turned to meet his gaze in the viewport reflection. “But the Princess is—”
    “A Jedi. And the Force is going to work a lot better than a targeting computer when our sensors are being jammed.” Han pointed at the copilot’s seat. “So sit.”
    Taryn’s reply was lost to the deafening crackle of half a dozen simultaneous hits, and the entire flight deck strobed gold and white with dissipation static.
    Taryn merely nodded and yelled something into the main cabin that Han could not hear, then hurried into the copilot’s seat and strapped in. Han checked the tactical display and found that the wall of jamming static had advanced to the edge of the academy grounds.
    “Do we have everyone aboard?” he asked, still yelling to make himself heard.
    Taryn shot him a tense look. “I hope so.” She fixed her attention on the ramp indicator lights, then finally nodded. “We must. The ramps are up, and I can’t imagine Zekk or Princess Leia leaving any Woodoos behind.”
    Han activated the intercom again and was relieved to hear the voice of a young Jedi issuing orders in the cargo hold. There was still toomuch noise to make out exactly what he was saying, but he seemed to be giving orders rather than shouting in alarm, and that was good enough for Han.
    He opened the shipwide channel and said, “Grab something and hold on back there. This is gonna be a
very
rough