Джо Шрайбер - Star Wars - Death Troopers

His eyes flicked forward. The landing shuttle that Sartoris told him about was already airborne. Hardly thinking, Trig swung the lifter alongside it. He saw the emergency hatch pop open and Han looked around at him hesitantly.

"You sure about this? That's an Imperial shuttle."

Trig pointed. "Look."

A skeletal arm waved from the hatch, gesturing them inside, and Trig didn't wait around to argue. He brought the lifter up, flipped it into auto-hover, and climbed over the transom.

It was darker inside the shuttle's cabin but easier to breathe without the smoke. The Imperial soldier standing in front of them had a pale, starved expression that immediately made Trig ill at ease; when the soldier smiled it was like watching a skull stretching through a thinly knit web of yellow flesh.

"You're White?" Trig asked.

"Tanner." The skeleton shook its head. "White didn't make it. It's just me and Pauling, up in the cockpit."

"Yeah, well," Han said, and cleared his throat. "We planning on leaving now, or are we taking up permanent residence?"

"As soon as…"

The whole world started shaking.

"What's going on?" Trig asked.

Han shot a glance up to the shuttle's cockpit, where another cadaverous Imperial soldier-Pauling, he assumed-was fumbling with the controls, hands dangling from his emaciated, stick-like wrists, all of which seemed to be under the control of some ridiculously inept puppeteer.

"What is that?" Pauling croaked, head jerking from side to side. "What's happening down there?"

"Hangar bay's opening," Han said. "I figured you boys were doing it."

"Negative." Pauling jerked one crooked thumb out the canopy. "I think they are."

Down below, Han could see the bottom of the Star Destroyer sliding open to reveal the void of space. Off to the right he thought he glimpsed the bow of the Prison Barge Purge, appearing very small at the end of its docking shaft, a tiny footnote dangling from the bulk of the saga of Imperial dominance.

As the bay came wide open, the captured ships began flying out- a pair of TIE fighters, the freighter, an Imperial shuttle, and the X-wings-spewing outward in all directions, scattering into space like flies off a corpse. As one of the smaller craft flew past them on its way out, Han glimpsed the sallow faces of the dead peering out at him from the cockpits, crammed in so tightly that their rotted flesh was pressed against the glass. Were some of them actually licking it?

"Let's go," Han said. "What are we waiting for?"

Pauling punched in a series of commands and the shuttle started vibrating, then jolted hard to port and stopped moving.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Pauling stammered, "the thrusters.»

"Get up," Han said, practically jerking the Imperial soldier from his seat and shoving him back toward the cabin. "Chewie, we're gonna have to do this ourselves." He looked around. "Chewie?"

No answer came back, and Han didn't have time to go looking for him. He reset the navigational systems to manual and brought the throttle straight up, nosing the shuttle around and angling down until he saw the open bay below him. The galaxy was out there, wide open, just where he'd left it.

He punched it.

The shuttle shot downward from the Star Destroyer's hangar, rocketing past the prison barge and into space, and for that moment, Han Solo felt the surge of adrenaline he always got when whatever ship he was piloting began living up to her potential.

He didn't want to think about the lady doctor, what it must have been like for her in the end when those things had opened up on her with the X-wing's laser cannon.

But he knew he would eventually.

Couldn't be helped.

Concentrate on what you're doing. Don't get stupid now. We're not out of this yet.

He was starting to recalibrate the hyperspace navigation system when he first heard the screams.

"What's happening back there?"

There was a thump, and Pauling came staggering back into the cockpit. Deep red arterial spray was jetting from the stump where his arm had once been. His face had gone an even paler shade of gray, his mouth gawping open in amazement.

"Those things…"

Then his voice stopped. The screams back in the cabin were only getting louder, and Han stared as Pauling did a weird, wandering pirouette back around and flung his remaining arm in that direction, as if to tell Han about what was going on.

Then something grabbed him and jerked him away.

Han flicked the guidance systems on remote and groped instinctively for his blaster. What had he done with it? Laid it aside when he'd taken the throttle, but where had it gone?

Standing up slowly, he peered around the corner.

One of the things from the Destroyer's hangar was standing in the cabin. It had removed its broken stormtrooper helmet to eat. How it had managed to get inside the shuttle before takeoff, Han didn't know, and it didn't matter-its mouth was buried in Pauling's throat and it was busily slurping his blood, ripping off huge gobbets of his flesh. Han looked down and saw its white-booted foot planted on the chest of the other Imperial soldier, Tanner, or what was left of him- not much more than a heap of bloody refuse, a black uniform packed with seeping meat, one eye rolled completely backward.

Han's gaze swept the cabin. On the other side he saw Chewbacca and Trig crouched at the end of the row of seats, staring back at him. Han mimed the word blaster, and both of them shook their heads.

What am I supposed to do here? he wondered. I'm not the hero. How many more miracles do these people expect from me anyw-

He stopped.

The trooper-thing was looking up at him.

And grinning.

Strands of Pauling's flesh were dangling from its teeth. It lurched for him, arms outstretched, howling loud enough that, inside the confines of the cabin, it made Han's ears ring.

He tried to dodge backward into the cabin, but his foot caught on something-Pauling's severed arm. As his legs went out from under him and he fell, the last thing he saw was the thing in the stormtrooper uniform dropping on him with his frill weight.

And then only darkness.

Trig heard the blaster go off before he saw it. Hunched next to Chewie, he'd been looking around the cabin for anything he could use as a weapon when the air suddenly came alive with a now familiar jolt. When he swung his head up, the thing in the stormtrooper uniform was already flailing sideways, away from Han.

Chewbacca was on his feet, running toward the thing, picking it up-smoke still pouring from the hole blasted in its back-and smashing it down into the cabin floor.

Trig looked back in the direction where the shooting had come from. What he saw was enough of a shock to render him momentarily speechless.

"Dr. Cody?"

Zahara leaned in the rear of the cabin with Han's blaster in both hands, upraised and ready. Her voice was low, not much more than a whisper. "Careful, Chewbacca. I think I'd better hit him again. Just to be sure."

Han-still on his hands and knees-scrambled backward, searching himself frantically for signs of bites or infection. When he saw Zahara standing there he gaped at her. "Where did you come from?"

She didn't respond, just kept her attention fixed on the thing in the trooper armor. It was seizing now, arms and legs flailing, head flung backward as sluggish grayish fluid pulsed up from its lips to pool behind its head. As they stared at it, more of the fluid started leaking from its nose and ears and finally from the corners of its eyes like sticky infected tears running down either side of its face.

"They never did that before," Han said.