Read Online The Han Solo Adventures by Brian Daley - Free Book Online Page B

don’t want to engage them out in space, because all the advantages out there are theirs, but we don’t want to let them get too close to the surface, either. Our ground defenses couldn’t cope with a fighter spread. So somewhere in the middle we’ll have to draw the line, depending on how they play it when they come at us. If we can buy time, the ground personnel will have a chance to complete evacuation.”
    She turned to Han. “Including the Falcon . I gave orders to finish her and close her up as soon as possible. I had to divert men to do it, but a deal’s a deal. And I sent word to Chewie what’s happened.”
    She pulled her helmet on. “Han’s flight leader. I’ll assign wing men. Let’s move.”
    With high screeches the six Z-95 Headhunters, like so many mottled arrowheads, sped off into the sky. Han pulled down and adjusted his tinted visor. He checked his weapons again, three blaster cannons in each wing. Satisfied, he maneuvered so that his wing man was above and behind him, relative to the plane of ascent. Seated in his sloped-back easy chair, situated high in the canopy bubble, he had something near 360-degrees’ visibility, one of the things he liked most about these old Z-95s.
    His wing man was a lanky, soft-spoken young man. Han hoped the guy wouldn’t forget to stick close when The Show started.
    He thought, The Show—fighter-pilot jargon . He’d never thought he’d be using it again, with his blood up and a million things to keep track of, including allies, enemies, and his own ship. And anything that went wrong could blow him out of The Show for good.
    Besides, The Show was the province of youth. A fighter could hold only so much gee-compensation equipment, enough to lessen simple linear stress and get to a target or scrap in a hurry, but not enough to offset the punishment of tight maneuvering and sudden acceleration. Dogfighting remained the testing ground of young reflexes, resilience, and coordination.
    Once, Han had lived, eaten, and slept high-speed flying. He’d trained under men who thought of little else. Even off-duty life had revolved around hand-eye skills, control, balance. Drunk, he’d stood on his head and played ring-toss, and been flung aloft from a blanket with a handful of darts to twist in midair and throw bull’s-eyes time and again. He’d flown ships like this one, and ships a good deal faster, through every conceivable maneuver.
    Once. Han was by no means old, but he hadn’t been in this particular type of contest for a long time. The flight of Headhunters was pulling itself into two-ship elements, and he found his hands had steadied.
    They drew their ships’ wings back to minimize drag, wing camber adjusting automatically, and rose at high boost. They would meet their opposition at the edge of space.
    “Headhunter leader,” he announced over the commo net, “to Headhunter flight. Commo check.”
    “Headhunter two to leader, in.” That was Han’s wing man.
    “Headhunter three, check,” sang Jessa’s clear alto.
    “Headhunter four, all correct.” That had been Jessa’s wing man, the gray-skinned humanoid from Lafra who, Han had noticed, had vestiges of soaring membranes, suggesting that he had superior flying instincts and a fine grasp of spacial relationships. The Lafrarian, it had turned out, had over four minutes’ actual combat time, which was a good sign. A good many fighter pilots were weeded out in the first minute or so of combat.
    Headhunters five and six chimed in, two of Jessa’s grease slingers who were brothers to boot. It had been inevitable that they’d be wing men; they’d tend to stick together, and if paired with anyone else, would have been distracted anyway.
    Ground control came up. “Headhunter flight, you should have a visual on your opposition within two minutes.”
    Han had his flight tighten up their ragged formation. “Stay in pairs. If the bandits offer a head-on pass, take them up on it; you can pitch just as hard as