Vision of the future

'Nice,' he growled.

Silence descended on the cockpit. Leia watched Pakrik Minor as it came steadily closer, trying to recover the mood she'd had before the topic of Karrde and Shada had come up. But for some reason the peace refused to come. She stretched out with the Force, trying to calm her thoughts and emotions...

On the control panel, the proximity warning began beeping. 'Crazy hotshots,' Han muttered, frowning at the displays. 'What in space do they think they're doing?' And with the shock of a slap to the face Leia suddenly understood. 'Han, look out!' she blurted. He reacted instantly, old smuggler's reflexes combining with unquestioning faith in his wife's Jedi abilities to send the Falcon into a sharp sideways drop—

Just as a pair of brilliant red laser bolts sliced through space above them.

'Deflectors!' Han snapped, straightening out of his drop and throwing the ship into another turn. Leia had already hit the switch. 'On,' she confirmed, keying the weapons panel and taking a quick look at the aft display. There were three small ships back there, starfighter size, firing again as they scrambled to match the Falcon's maneuvers. No IDs on any of them. 'Is this part of the entertainment?'

'Not on my ticket,' Han gritted. 'Thanks for the warning.'

'You almost didn't get one,' Leia confessed, squeezing off a salvo of shots from the Falcon's upper quad laser battery. All four shots missed. 'I thought the sense nagging at me was just me worrying about Karrde and Shada.'

'Well, you can start worrying about us if you'd rather,' Han said, throwing the ship into a spiraling loop. 'Whoever these guys are, they're good.'

'I didn't want to hear that,' Leia said, keying the comm. Time to call for help from Pakrik Defense.

But their attackers were way ahead of her. 'They're jamming our transmissions,' she told Han grimly. 'Even the private New Republic frequencies.'

'Like I said, they're good,' Han grunted, leaning the Falcon into another evasive turn. 'You notice they waited until we were too close in to the planet to jump to lightspeed, too.' More laser bolts flashed past, closer this time. Leia fired another burst in response, again missing.

'They're too maneuverable for the targeting linkage down here to handle,' she said.

'Yeah, I know,' Han said. 'I'm heading up to the upper quad. Get ready to take over.' Leia winced. Up there at the top of the ship, with nothing between him and the attackers' lasers except the Falcon's shields and a few centimeters of transparisteel... But he was right: one of them had to do it. And even with her Jedi skills to draw on, she wasn't nearly as good a gunner as he was. 'I'm ready,' she said, gripping the copilot's helm yoke. The only way to protect him now was to make sure none of those lasers connected. 'Any suggestions on strategy?'

'Just try to keep us out of their sights,' Han said, leaning some more on his yoke. Almost reluctantly, the Falcon pulled out of its loop— 'Okay; go,' he said, keying control over to Leia's side and in the same motion sliding out of his seat. 'Got it?'

'Got it,' Leia acknowledged. 'Be careful.'

'Yeah,' Han said, and sprinted out of the cockpit.

Leia gave him five seconds to get to the ladder, then spun the ship into a dip-and-turn maneuver designed to confuse an attacker into overshooting his target. But their pursuers were too smart to be taken in quite so easily. A glance at the aft display showed they were still there, sticking to the Falcon like starving mynocks. Another salvo shot past, this time a few of the bolts spattering off the Falcon's deflector shield.

'Okay, I'm here,' Han's voice announced over the comm unit. 'How you doing?'

'Not as well as I'd like,' Leia told him. 'I think they've found the range.'

'Yeah, I noticed,' he said dryly. 'It's okay—she'll hold together. Just keep 'em off a few more seconds.'

'I'll try,' Leia said, throwing the ship into another wrenching evasive pattern and trying desperately to come up with something more concrete than just trying to stay out of their way. But there was just so little here to work with. There was Han and her and the Falcon, with the attackers crowding them from behind and the sky-filling disk of Pakrik Minor starting to crowd them from in front. Pakrik Minor... 'Han, I'm going to take us in toward the planet,' she called into the comlink.

'Even with them jamming us, if we can get in close enough someone ought to notice what's happening and call in an alert.'