The Joiner King by Troy Denning Read Free Book Online Page A

challenge of nap-of-terrain flying down a dark, twisting shaft filled with flotsam would help snap Han out of his touchy mood.
    Han weaved past a dozen obstacles, working their way across the abyss toward the second array of lights … and that was when C-3PO, returning from a postjump hyperdrive check, arrived on the flight deck.
    “We’re crashing!”
    “Not yet,” Han growled.
    “Everything’s under control, Threepio.” Leia’s attention was focused on the asteroid ahead, where the lights had begun a slow flashing as the
Falcon
approached. “Why don’t you go back and continue supervising the maintenance checks?”
    “I couldn’t possibly, Princess Leia!” C-3PO placed himself in the navigator’s chair behind Han. “You need me in the cockpit.”
    Han started to reply, but stopped when a ball of frozen gas came floating across the
Falcon
’s path.
    “You see?” C-3PO demanded. “Captain Solo nearly missed that object!”
    “I
did
miss it,” Han snapped. “Otherwise you’d be plastered across the canopy right now.”
    “What I meant was that you failed to see it until the last moment,” C-3PO explained. “Do be careful—there’s a rather large one coming toward us from forty-seven point six-six-eight—”
    “Quiet!” Han swung around an oblong megalith the size of a heavy cruiser, then added, “You’re distracting me.”
    “Then perhaps you should have your synapses checked,” C-3PO suggested. “Slow processing time is indicative of aging circuits. There’s another object at thirty-two point eight-seven-eight degrees, inclination five point—”
    “Threepio!” Leia spun around to glare at him. “We don’t need help. Go to the main cabin and shut down.”
    C-3PO’s chin dropped. “As you wish, Princess Leia.” He stood and half turned toward the exit. “I was only trying to help. Captain Solo’s last medical evaluation showed a reaction time decrease of eight milliseconds, and I myself have noticed—”
    Leia unbuckled her crash webbing.
    “—that he seems to be growing—”
    She rose and hit the droid’s circuit breaker.
    “—rather hesiii t a a a.”
    The sentence trailed off into a bass rumble as C-3PO lost power.
    “I think it’s time to get his compliance routines debugged.” She pushed the droid into the seat in front of the navigation station and strapped him in. “He seems to be developing a persistence glitch.”
    “No need.” The
Falcon
shot to the right, then shuddered as a dustberg burst against its shields. “Nobody listens to droids anyway.”
    “Right—what does Threepio know?” Leia kissed Han on the neck, then returned to her own seat.
    “Yeah.” Han smiled the same hungry grin that had been making Leia’s stomach flutter since Palpatine was Emperor.
    Han swung the
Falcon
in behind the lights and began a steep approach toward the surface. The array began to flash more brightly, illuminating the rough, silvery surface of a metallic asteroid. On the ground behind the first beacon, Leia saw theswirling lines of a closed iris hatch, made from some tough membrane that bulged slightly outward under the pressure of the asteroid’s internal atmosphere. The light itself was held aloft on the end of a conical, meter-long stand that seemed to be crawling across the surface of the asteroid on six stick-like legs. At the forward end of the apparatus, the lenses of a large ovoid helmet reflected the glow of the next beacon in line.
    “Bugs!” Han groaned and shook his head. “Why did it have to be bugs?”
    “Sorry,” Leia said. Han normally avoided insect nests—something to do with a water religion he had once started on the desert world of Kamar. Apparently, a mob of angry Kamarian insects had tracked him down months after his hasty departure, taking him captive and demanding that he turn Kamar into the water paradise he had shown them. That was all Leia knew about the incident. He refused to talk about how he had escaped. “It’ll be okay.