That left the last two, who had been told that the Millennium Falcon had first slowed, then accelerated. If they appeared where Han thought they would, they were dead meat.
“Fighters crossing starboard to port: lay down interdicting fire dead ahead,” Han ordered, sawing the Falcon around again, toward the singularity. It was easier to aim his ship at the enemy than to describe to his gunners where he thought the bad guys would appear.
His heart gave a leap as the two coralskippers arced into sight right where he thought they’d be, between the Falcon and the dovin basal, the two fighters flying wingtip to wingtip and preceded by a volley of molten projectiles that curved in the mine’s hypergravity. The lasers laid down a blistering fire right in their path and caught both ships broadside. One flamed and broke up, and the other soared off into the night, trailing fire.
Seven down, two damaged! A nice total, and the day had hardly begun.
Adrenaline drew a grin across Han’s face. He dived for the singularity again, not because he knew what he was going to do next but because he wanted to hide: the three remaining fighters were curving around and about to drop onto his tail. But this time he didn’t use the dovin basal to slingshot himself around onto a new trajectory: instead he worked the controls to go into orbit around the singularity, the Falcon’s spars moaning from gravitational stress as she crabbed sideways through the dovin basal’s gravity well.
Ahead, through space warped by gravity, he saw what might be an enemy fighter. “Open fire dead ahead!” he called again, and he saw laserfire streak outward, the bolts curving in the singularity’s gravity like a fiery rainbow.
“Keep firing!” he urged, and brought the Falcon’s nose up just a touch. The curving laser blasts climbed up the fighter’s tail and blew it to shreds.
There was wild cheering from the gun turrets: even the restrained Commander Dorja was yelling her head off. “Fire dead aft!” Han shouted over the noise as he fed power to the sublight engines: with the gravity well’s distortion affecting his perceptions, he had no idea where the remaining enemy were, and he was afraid they were behind him, ready to wax his tail just as he’d waxed the single enemy fighter.
Relief poured through him as scans showed his precautions were unnecessary: they’d pulled away from the dovin basal on a completely different trajectory and were well out of range. Han held his course to see if the enemy had had enough—but no, they were coming around again, ready for more punishment.
And two more fighters were heading for him, the two he’d wounded, each coming in on its own trajectory.
Han rolled the Millennium Falcon around, heading for one of the two single fighters, figuring he could knock out one of the damaged craft before taking on the pair of uninjured craft.
And then proximity alarms blared, and Han’s display lit up with twenty-four fighters coming out of hyperspace right on his tail.
Thwarted rage boiled through him. “We’ve got company!” he shouted, and pounded the instrument panel with a fist. “I’ve gotta say this is really unfair—!” Then he recognized the new ships’ configuration, and he punched on the intership comm unit.
“Unknown freighter,” came a voice on one of the New Republic channels, “alter course forty degrees to port!”
Han obeyed, and a section of four craft came roaring in right past his cockpit. His nerves gave a leap as he recognized the jagged silhouettes of Chiss clawcraft, Sienar TIE ball cockpits and engines matched to forward-jutting Chiss weapons pylons, the design the result of their fruitful collaboration with the Empire under the Chiss Grand Admiral Thrawn.
Once upon a time, Han thought, TIE fighters on his tail would have been a bad thing.
“Commander Dorja,” Han said, “we’ve got some of your friends here.” Another two sections of clawcraft came roaring past, followed by three sections of New Republic E-wings. Directly in front of the Millennium Falcon the formation came apart in a starburst, one section of four heading for each of the remaining coralskippers while two others remained in reserve.
Han hit the TRANSMIT button. “Thanks, you guys,” he said, “but I was doing fine on my own.”
“Unknown freighter, stand clear.” The voice had a slightly pompous ring, and Han thought he recognized it. “We’ll handle it from here.”
“Whatever you say, sport,” Han replied, and then watched as four fighters ganged up on each of the coralskippers. The enemy craft couldn’t jump to hyperspace, and they couldn’t flee the fighters because they had been chasing the Millennium Falcon at near lightspeed and couldn’t alter course in time.
The newly arrived fighters took no chances, just professionally hunted down each of the coralskippers and blew it to smithereens, taking no casualties in return. Then the allied squadron turned on the dovin basal mine and very carefully destroyed it with a calculated barrage of torpedoes and laser bursts.
“Nice work, people,” Han congratulated them.
“Please stay off this channel, sir,” the fighter commander said, “unless you have an urgent message.”
Han grinned. “Not so urgent, Colonel Fel,” he said. “I’d just like to invite you to a meeting here aboard the Millennium Falcon, with Captain Solo, Princess Leia Organa Solo of the New Republic, and Commander Vana Dorja of the Imperial Navy.”
There was a long, lonely silence on the comm.
“Yes, Captain Solo,” Jagged Fel said. “We would be honored, I’m sure.”
“Come right aboard,” Han said. “We’ll extend the docking arm.”
And then, over the
