Skywalker's Legacy, page 31
Chapter Six
Space was just a boring place to be, Poul decided. He'd played with his toys and computer games until he didn't want to play with them any more. For a while, he watched the stars shift past in hyperspace, but after a time they all looked the same. So he hunted for more interesting occupations.
He amused himself briefly by adjusting the atmospheric controls to make Rupert's quarters uncomfortably hot, and Lucy's quarters uncomfortably cold. Then he went in search of something else to do.
What he found was the main airlock, and pushed the button to extend the gangplank. But the safety controls wouldn't let him do that while the Falcon was still in hyperspace. Poul uttered an oath for which his mother would have punished him if she'd heard, and went to see what else he could find.
Then Rupert's voice came over the intercom, announcing that they were coming out of hyperspace, and Poul and Lucy should strap themselves in as soon as they got landing clearance.
Poul watched the stars shift back to normal as the ship switched from hyperdrive to sublight engines, and thought about the airlock once again. He knew from previous trips with his father and family that landing clearance sometimes took as long as an hour or more to obtain. He went back to the airlock.
Rupert watched Tatooine grow larger in the portal. He was disappointed. It looked so...dull. Chewbacca had spent much of the trip telling him about Ben Owens or Luke Skywalker as he had been named back then. He learned how Chewie and his father had met Owens, how they'd rescued his mother from the Death Star space station, how "Walker-of-the sky" in Chewie's language had then rescued his father from Jabba the Hutt. If his uncle really was a Jedi Knight, he expected their destination to be...something more.
Chewbacca growled. He'd found it hot, especially for a fur-bearing sentient.
"Well," Rupert said, "all we have to do is find this fellow, drop off Lucy and Poul, and then I'm going back home. You can come with me, or stay with them."
"Rrrwwggrrr rrmmmf," Chewbacca said.
Rupert smiled. "Thanks. I was hoping you would. If this guy was really once a Jedi Knight, what's he doing on this hunk of sand and rock?"
"Raaawwwl," Chewbacca agreed.
What sounded like a loud thunderclap rocked the ship and interrupted the conversation. The mortu, which had been sleeping in the navigator's chair, suddenly woke and began barking. The Falcon began to shimmy and rock. "What the " Rupert grabbed the Falcon's controls and tried to steady her. "We're under attack, or something."
Chewbacca woofed and quickly switched on the shields, and the whistling noise reduced. The shimmying continued.
Rupert looked at the damage control read-outs of his ship. "Hull breach. Starboard stabilizers are gone. We're losing pressure. I'll try to compensate." Rupert flipped the switches that would open the valves on the backup tanks, then switched on the intercom. "Lucy?"
"I'm here!" she replied. "What the Hell was that? Are we under attack?"
"Tell you in a minute. Poul?" He waited a second. "Poul? Poul? Lucy, go find Poul!" Rupert searched the scope frantically, but there were no other ships in the area. "Chewie, check out the damage! See if you can find out what hit us!"
Chewbacca unstrapped from the co-pilot chair and rushed out of the cockpit. He returned a moment later and barked.
Rupert quickly switched the intercom back on. "Lucy? Poul's in the main cabin. He's hurt!" He pulled the headset off and nodded at the Wookiee. "Belay what I said before. Stay at the controls." He slid past the huge Wookiee bulk out of the cockpit, and Chewbacca slid back into the co-pilot's seat.
Rupert and Lucy reached the main cabin at the same time but from opposite directions. The whistling was loudest there, and was coming from the hatch leading to the gangplank. Poul was unconscious on the floor.
Rupert could see the leak. Precious air was being lost. The backup tanks would only keep the pressure up for so long. Rupert ran to one of the containment lockers and tried to rip the door off the hinges. "Help me!" he yelled to Lucy, who was bending over her brother.
"What about Poul? He needs medical attention!"
"A lot of good we'll do him if we're dead!"
Lucy abandoned Poul and added her strength to Rupert's to tear the door off. Once it was free, she helped Rupert position it over the gash in the bulkhead. The suction from outside the ship helped hold it in place, and Rupert grabbed a blanket from the waiting area to stuff in the empty spaces between the door and the bulkhead. It wouldn't hold the air in completely, but would at least delay its escape. Rupert looked at the airlock switch and frowned. Poul had probably thrown it, but that shouldn't have caused this kind of damage. He looked out the portal, and was stunned to see that half the gangplank was missing.
Lucy, kneeling at Poul's side, looked up. "He's got a concussion, or something. We've got to get him to a medical center. Could he have done that?" She pointed to the hull breach.
"No," Rupert said.
"Asteroid?"
"No. Some sort of explosion. Can he be moved?"
"I don't know."
"We'll have to risk it. I can't maintain pressure in here forever." He glanced once more at Poul, then ran back up to the cockpit.
Lucy wasn't sure whether to stay with Poul or follow Rupert, but finally decided on following Rupert since she didn't have a clue how to help Poul.
He was squeezing his way back to his seat when she stuck her head in the doorway. "Don't you even care about your brother?" she asked.
Rupert ignored her and slid into the pilot's seat. "Starboard stabilizers are completely off-line. There's no way to get them back, and I don't know if the Falcon will survive a landing. Time to abandon ship, Chewie. Transfer coordinate data to the life pods. Take Poul with you in pod one. Get him to a hospital. I'm going to seal off the cockpit."
Chewbacca grunted and moved aft. He paused at the doorway, then growled a question.
Rupert looked at his map. "Uh, go to Mos Eisley. There's got to be medical facilities there. After you take care of Poul, check the spaceport and see if this Skywalker or Owens person is there. After that, I think it would be better if we avoided the spaceport. I'll meet you...uh, where? You've been here before."
Chewbacca growled the name of the Cantina where he and Han had frequented in former days. Rupert nodded. "Okay."
With another grunt, Chewbacca was gone. Lucy looked back and saw the Wookiee gently pick up Poul's body and move towards the life pods.
"Lucy," Rupert was saying, "take pod two. Ben Owens lives near a little town called Anchorhead. If he's not at the spaceport in Mos Eisley, he'll be there. Find him and tell him what's going on."
"Mom and Dad told us to stay together," Lucy argued.
"Well, I'm in charge, and we're changing the plan. I'm riding the Falcon down. It's gonna be a rough ride, and she may not make it. If she does, I want to be near enough to a space port that I can get the parts to fix her, 'cause she ain't going to take off again like this. The explosion took out the starboard stabilizers."
"Can you land her like that?"
"I'm gonna try."
"What caused the explosion?"
"I think it was a bomb."
"A bomb?" she gasped.
"You better get going. Auxiliary tanks are running dry, and I can't keep pressure up in the main cabin without them. Tell Owens I'll meet him...at the same cantina where he met Dad. Go!"
"Wait how will you know him? How are you going to recognize each other? You've never met."
"Uh..." Rupert thought a second, then undid one of the pilot's insignia's that adorned his collar and put it in Lucy's hand. "Give this to him. When I see it, I'll know it's him. When he sees its mate, he'll know it's me."
"Oh, great," Lucy muttered. "Mom and Dad told us to stick together."
"Just go!" Rupert ordered. "The Falcon's my ship now, and I don't intend to lose her!"