Star Wars - Han Solo and the Lost Legacy by Brian Daley

he could hear J’uoch railing at her followers and calling for a comlink.
    “She’s posting a guard on the ship and calling for reinforcements,” Badure announced. “We’d best lose ourselves in town for a while.”
    The group descended through the city in an informal race, past shuttered shops and locked doors. No lights could be seen; the Dellaltians who had seemed so curious earlier wanted no part of this lethal dispute among offworlders. Leading the others, Han plunged into an alley, followed it to a market plaza, and hurried down a trellised side street that smelled of strange foods and fuels.
    They came to a factory district. Pausing in the shadows, the humans and the Wookiee leaned against a wall and fought for breath while Bollux waited impassively and Skynx, with a superior respiratory system, checked his carrier cinches to make sure that none of his precious instruments had been damaged.
    “You should’ve snagged a gun,” Han puffed, “instead of worrying about that one-man band of yours.”
    “These have been making music in my family for a dozen generations,” Skynx replied indignantly. “And I’m sure I don’t know how I could’ve wrested a weapon away from some malodorous ruffian four times my size.”
    Han gave up the argument and checked the nearby rooftops. “Can anybody spot a ladder or staircase? We have to see if they’re trailing us.”
    “Now I can be of help there, I believe,” Skynx announced.A nearby pole supported fiber-optic cables for intown communications; wrapping himself around it, Skynx spiraled up the pole, protecting his instruments carefully. Since all the buildings were one-story affairs, he had a good view of the surrounding area.
    Having reconnoitered, Skynx corkscrewed his way down the pole again. “There are search parties working their way down through town,” he told them. “They have hand-held spotlights; I assume them to be using comlinks.” He tried to hide his fearful quaking.
    “Did you see their ship?” Han asked eagerly. “It must be around here somewhere. Perhaps we could pick up some fire power there.”
    But Skynx hadn’t spotted it. They decided to try to skirt the search parties’ pattern and see if they couldn’t get back to the
Millennium Falcon
. Skynx’s feathery antennae wavered in the air, attentive to vibrations. “Captain, I hear something.”
    They all held their breath and listened. A rumbling swelled until it shook the ground. “Looks like J’uoch got through on the comlink,” observed Badure over the tumult. An enormous vessel mounted with heavy guns was hovering above the landing area, its floodlights playing over the city. The fugitives pressed backs into the shadows.
    The ponderous lighter couldn’t hover and search for long; instead she descended. “There’ll be more manpower onboard her,” Badure warned. “Skynx, shinny up and take a look. Be careful.”
    The Ruurian went up a nearby line-pole and was down again almost at once. “The big ship must have dropped off parties down in the lakeside area,” he told them urgently. “I saw them spreading out, coming up the hill. And there’s a group of three coming down this way from above. One of them is carrying Chewbacca’s bowcaster.”
    The Wookiee growled ominously. Han agreed, “Let’s take care of them, but
good
.” No one mentioned surrender; it was plain J’uoch would do anything to get what she wanted.
    The search party flashed hand-held spots into alleys and doorways. Teams were being organized to scour the rooftops; virtually every trustworthy being who could be spared from the mining camp had been armed and brought to the scene.
    The man leading this particular party, the man whose carbine Han had appropriated, carried Chewbacca’s bowcaster and had tucked Han’s blaster into his belt. He had seen a Wookiee bowcaster used in the holo-thrillers and was determined to get even with the two by downing them with their own weapons. He was delighted,