doing.'
'Come on,' Han seconded. He didn't know what Luke had in mind, but something about the kid's face suggested it wouldn't be a good idea to argue.
'We can backstop him from inside.'
A minute later they were set: Han and Lando just inside the bridge blast doors, Chewbacca a few meters farther in under cover of an engineering console, Luke standing alone in the archway with lightsaber humming. It took another minute for the Imperials to realize that they had the corridors to themselves; but once they did they moved swiftly. Cover fire began ricocheting around the monitor consoles, and as it did so the Imperials began diving one by one through the two corridor archways into the anteroom, taking cover behind the long consoles and adding their contribution to the laser fire storm.
Trying not to wince back from the attack, Han kept up his own fire, knowing full well that he wasn't doing much more than making noise. Luke's lightsaber flashed like something alive and hungry, deflecting the bolts that came too close. So far the kid didn't seem to have been hit ... but Han knew that it couldn't last. As soon as the Imperials stopped laying down random cover fire and started concentrating on their aim, there would be too many shots for even a Jedi to stay clear of. Gritting his teeth, wishing he knew what Luke had in mind, he kept shooting.
'Ready!' Luke shouted over the screaming of the bolts ... and even as Han wondered what he was supposed to be ready for, the kid took a step back and threw his lightsaber to the side. It spiraled across the anteroom, spun into the wall And with a crack like thunder, sliced the anteroom open to space. Luke leaped backwards, barely making it into the bridge before the blast doors slammed shut against the explosive decompression. Alarms whistled for a moment until Chewbacca shut them oft, and for another minute Han could hear the thudding of laser fire as the doomed Imperials fired uselessly at the blast doors.
And then the firing trailed off into silence ... and it was all over. Luke was already at the main viewport, gazing out at the battle taking place outside. 'Take it easy, Luke,' Han advised, holstering his blaster and coming up behind him. 'We're out of the fight.'
'We can't be,' Luke insisted, his artificial right hand opening and closing restlessly. Maybe remembering Myrkr, and that long trek with Mara across the forest. 'We've got to do something to help. The Imperials will kill everyone if we don't.'
'We can't fire, and we can't maneuver,' Han growled, fighting back his own feeling of helplessness. Leia was on that Escort Frigate out there ...
'What's left?'
Luke waved a hand helplessly. 'I don't know,' he conceded. 'You're supposed to be the clever one. You think of something.'
'Yeah,' Han muttered, looking around the bridge. 'Sure. I'm supposed to just wave my hands and-'
He stopped short...and felt a slow, lopsided smile spread across his face. 'Chewie, Lando-get over there to those sensor displays,' he ordered, looking down at the console in front of him. Not the right one. 'Luke, help me find-never mind; here it is.'
'Here what is?' Lando asked, stepping in front of the display Han had indicated.
'Think about it a minute,' Han said, glancing over the controls. Good; everything still seemed to be engaged. He just hoped it all still worked. 'Where are we, anyway?' he added, stepping over to the helm console and activating it.
'We're in the middle of nowhere,' Lando said with strained patience.
'And fiddling with that helm isn't going to get us anywhere.'
'You're right,' Han agreed, smiling tightly. 'It's not going to get us anywhere.'
Lando stared at him...and slowly, a smile of his own appeared.
'Right,' he said slyly. 'Right. This is the Katana fleet. And we're aboard the Katana.'
'You got it,' Han told him. Taking a deep breath, mentally crossing his fingers, he eased power to the drive.
The Katana didn't move, of course. But the whole reason the entire Katana fleet had disappeared together in the first place 'Got one,' Lando called out, hunching over his sensor display.
'Bearing forty-three mark twenty.'
'Just one?' Han asked.
