We start with Atuarre's viewpoint. She's walking to the
Falcon via a connecting tunnel-tube with her Espo escorts when the order comes in over the intercom to bring her back to the tower. She knows Han's plan requires her to be in the
Falcon so she tries to talk the guards into letting her on for just a moment.
PERSUADE CHECK: Fail.
The guards won't have it, and draw their blaster. Atuarre is a Ranger among her people, however; with a little aid from Pakka she takes them by surprise and kills them both -- but not before one presses the alarm button.
This turns out to be the least of her problems, however, as a sudden massive tremor throws her and Pakka around like dice in a cup. When they get up, they look back at the connecting junction.
There's no tower.
There's just a trail of light streaming off into the sky. Did Han trigger his trump card? Did it annihilate the tower completely?
She looks up ... and up ... and up. Way, way up there, far up in the sky, she sees a little glint of molecularly bonded armor off the weak sun.
...
Great Scott. Is the tower in orbit?
She wastes no more time, boarding the
Falcon. The rest of the base is too busy to worry about her -- remember this is an airless world and a big section of the base has just vanished. They're too busy sealing off airtubes and hunkering down to survival to worry about her. But not everyone is thinking about survival. As she preps for takeoff the Assault Transport undocks and boosts for the tower, now high in the sky.
ETA: On second readthrough, in addition to the paragraph below, she also drives the junction station connecting the tubes to the
Falcon and secures it in place with a tractor beam. She also manipulates the controls to disconnect the far end of the three tunnel tubes , but seals them so they are still pressurized.
Realizing she can't have any more Authority reinforcements reaching the tower, she takes control of the
Falcon guns from the cockpit, then makes several passes over the base, disabling the other six or so light craft docked there. Now the only ships in the entire system are the
Falcon, the Authority armed transport, and the tower itself. The
Falcon flies up towards the tower, carrying an Authority junction station and several tunnel tubes.
HAN's viewpoint:
The anti concussion field, which has acted as a form of seat belt for everyone in the building, finally lifts. The power's out everywhere. Most of the Authority people run for the elevator, but Han knows it will be out in these conditions; with the power plant out, more and more power will be diverted to life support. That's probably why the anti-concussion field died.
He reaches Bollox, and helps him to stand. Blue Max fills him in: There was a
lot of power in the power plant, but the deflectors and anti concussion field restrained the force of the blast. The top shield, however, had been compromised by the overload spiral and gave quickly. So all the force of the blast went that way - and with it, the tower itself. They are a on a suborbital trajectory remniscient of
Alan Shepard's first Flight . This is a much smaller planet than earth so the flight will last longer, but the tower's flight is measured in minutes, maybe hours at the outside.
Han, every bit the master of improvisation that he claimed, hits on a new plan: The reason they weren't smashed to jelly by the acceleration was the anticoncussion field. Therefore, the anticoncussion field should save them from the landing impact as well IF it has enough power. So the thing to do is find Doc -- Jessa's father, wizard mechanic -- and get him down to the engineering deck in order to juice the field right before they land, so the impact in this very tough tower will be survivable.
He and Bollux (with Blue Max inside) head for the nearest stairwell. Unfortunately, the Authority people have just figured out the elevators aren't working and are heading there too. Han shoots the first Espo scouting in their direction with the remaining microcharge in his blaster; it is now dry. He now takes the Espo's riot gun, which is also an energy weapon, heads through the stairwell and use the riot guns beam to weld the door shut. The Authority will be able to cut through with their own hand weapons but that will take time. Han hustles down the stairwell with Bollux.
Soon, they come to the prisoner level and it is a mess. There are a
lot of prisoners dead or dying on the floor -- seems a significant number of these prisoners don't breathe oxygen, or only live in low gravity. The Authority will provide them with a micro environment when interrogating them but the sudden jailbreak has exposed them all to human-standard conditions. Quite a few of them have just flat died on the spot, horribly contorted.
Y'know, I'm wondering about Han's idea here. We're going to succeed in rescuing people, but he's going to get a lot of people killed. The ideal of rescue ops is: All hostages alive, all bad guys dead. This isn't even close to that.
If it were me, I'd rather go for the forged-orders-to-release-the-prisoners route rather than set off a disaster like this. But there's no choice now but to roll with it.
The remaining prisoners on this deck are in a milling mob facing off with three armed espos, who are reluctant to shoot because they know the mob will be on top of them if they do.
Then, the standoff breaks; one of the prisoners charges. He goes down in a bloody heap but that galvanizes the others. Han manages to shoot one and the prisoners settle the other. Han takes control of the chaos; looking at the prisoners he spots a police uniform; some honest local constable who ran afoul of the Authority. He puts the officer in charge and tells him to organize a defense, as the Authority will be coming down here soon as well and we'll all be back in stasis. The officer agrees.
Han sets off to find Chewie and Doc. While this is happening, the gravity starts going wonky -- as the power drains, more and more of it is needed for life support, and the artificial gravity is suffering.
Han finds Chewie amusing himself in a fight with three Espos, quickly settled. On down to the next deck where they are ambushed by prisoners already organized for defense. Fortunately, the prisoners call them to halt rather than simply shooting, and Han is relieved to meet their commander: Doc.
Han fills in Doc on the issue, upon which Doc calls him an imbecile. Han explains his plan to revive the concussion field before impact, at which Doc stares at him open-mouthed. This is a DC 30 task and not something easily pulled off spur of the moment.
Han responds: "Fine; let's just sit and wait to smash ourselves flat. Jess can always adopt a new father."
Seeing the sense of this, Doc agrees to help; one way or another, at least there's an end to interrogation.
Just at this moment, there's a burst of fire from up above; the Authority is assaulting down to the prisoner decks as well.
Chewie finds a discarded pistol and tosses it to Han, it is damaged and useless, but the power pack is compatible with Han's own blaster. Han gives Chewie his riot gun, and uses the pistol power pack to recharge his own blaster, which is now at the 50% mark.
They join the fight, notice that all the fire is on the right side with almost nothing in a lane on the left. Thinking fast, Han and Chewie reach a conclusion as to why this would be, wait to the count of three, then pour saturation fire down this lane as a heroic Espo is making his charge down it. Sure enough, the Espos were providing cover fire for just such a gambit, but it has failed. As the body comes to rest, Han notes it is the Espo major who first escorted them into Star's End. A brave man in a bad cause, Han stops for a second to honor his courage before resuming the fight, which is now stalemated.
The battle in the corridor is a stalemate, as both sides possess more than enough firepower to saturate the chokepoint.
Then, the shooting stops. Uul-Rha-Shan demands Parley.
Han agrees, and Hirken hails down from the top of the corridor: He knows what Han has done, and they can see through the dome the tower is now at apogee. Maybe it's time to stop shooting and work together, or they'll all die?
That... that doesn't sound like a bad idea at all.
Han tells them to put down their weapons and come down one at a time, hands on head, and they've got a deal. Hirken rejects this. He asks for a bargain but makes no firm counteroffer. Han tells him "no way".
The next time Uul-Rha-Shan shows his face, Han shoots at it. Uul-Rha-Shan comments: "Is that the way it is to be, Solo? Must I hunt you from level to level? Come , strike a bargain with us; we only desire to live."
"No," replies Han, "it's just everyone ELSE you don't want to live". No deal.
I'm not exactly sure why Han is being so stubborn; if they don't work together they're all dead!
As far as I can figure it, I guess what Han is thinking is that he doesn't trust Hirken at all ; that Hirken will not keep any bargain made, and will kill them all once he's safe. In the best case, he'll put them all back in stasis, but there's no way Hirken will just let them leave Star's End free. Han -- and most of the remaining prisoners -- prefer to die now rather than go back to their stasis booths, from which they will be awakened only for torture.
While they are at this impasse, there is the sound of more fighting below. Doc reports: The Espos have docked their assault transport at the lower level and have unloaded a strike force. They are wearing spacesuits and also have support weapons -- in particular, a heavy repeating blaster + deflector shield like the one that gave them trouble back on Orran III. With these weapons, they have driven the prisoners off of the engineering decks and are steadily advancing up the tower. Han and the other prisoners are caught between Hirken's group at the top, with which they were already at parity, and the new assault group from beneath. Han can hear the oscillation of the heavy blaster below.
At this moment, Hirken hails down; he also has got word of this new development. The previous offer of cooperation is now rescinded, and Hirken demands their surrender, on pain of being left in the tower when the Authority people leave.
Han makes his last play: They can't fight through the Espos below them. Their only chance is to rush the top of the tower and take Hirken hostage, which they can then use as a bargaining chip to force Espo cooperation to fix the concussion field; there's no way they can evacuate all the prisoners on the assault transport.
Han looks up at the chokepoint, covered by Espo weapons, and prepares to charge. He orders the people around him: "Don't stop for anything. IF someone falls, someone else grabs his machinery, but
nobody stops".
It is at this point, with Han about to lead a desperation charge which is all but certain to result in his death, that the chapter closes.
Re: Let's Read: The Han Solo Adventures (1979)
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