“Ah,” Han said. “Thank goodness we, um, got you guys. Did you know there’s been a security breach?”
“Halt in the name of the Empire!” one of the stormtroopers shouted, and Scarlet pulled the wires free. The lift doors closed on a barrage of blasterfire. Scarlet cursed under her breath and popped open a second access panel.
“We don’t have time,” Han said. “They’re going to get those doors open.”
“I can do this,” Scarlet Hark said between clenched teeth. The lift doors boomed as something struck them from within. Han shifted his weight from one foot to the other. At the edge of the bank of lifts, a door was marked with the sign for manual access. A stairway. Every muscle in his body was tensed with the need to run. Scarlet spat out an obscenity. The lift doors opened a centimeter, and a blaster barrel stuck out.
“All right. Enough being clever,” Han said, taking Scarlet by the shoulder. “Run now.”
The stairway dropped down a hundred or more floors below them and rose another twenty above, all lit by the angry red of the security alarms. Han and Scarlet hurried down them three steps at a time. The sound of confused and angry voices echoed behind them. Han’s breath was short, his legs burning from effort. The distance beneath them didn’t seem to be getting any smaller.
He stopped before he was quite sure why he’d done it. Scarlet went down another half flight, paused, and looked back over her shoulder at him. Her black eyes were confused for a moment, and then she heard it, too: the tramping of booted feet. Han leaned over the railing and looked down. Maybe ten floors below them, the alarm lights threw shadows across the handrails. Soldiers. Coming up.
“Come on,” Scarlet said, heading for the closest door, but Han stopped her, his hand on her arm.
“Up,” he said. “What about up?”
“Nothing’s up there. No flier stations. No walkways. Just transmission towers and air.”
The sound of boots grew louder. Han turned and started back up.
“Solo?”
“Come on,” he shouted. “I’ve got an idea.”
Running down the stairs had been bad. Running up was a thousand times worse. Every flight felt longer than the one before. They passed the door of the intelligence center, back where they’d come from, and then up past it. Below them, they heard doors being kicked open and the whine of scanning droids. Han forced himself on. His muscles were burning with the effort. Someone below them shouted, and a bright red blaster bolt burned the air in the shaft.
“We should hurry,” Scarlet said.
“Am hurrying.”
“You should do it faster.”
At the foot of the next flight of stairs, she paused, fixing something to the handrail. Han leaned against the wall.
“I didn’t get any rest last night,” he said.
“All right.”
“Just saying, I can usually run better than this.”
Scarlet pulled a hair-thin strand of monofilament across the steps, just below waist-high. In the red light, it was practically invisible. The drum of footsteps grew louder.
“What’s—” Han said, then swallowed. “What’s that?”
“That’s a few more seconds,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Han turned back up, pushing himself. They’d made it up another two full flights, both of them running with their shoulders touching the wall, when an electrical discharge crackled through the air. A man’s voice rose in panic, and another one shouted it down.
“That was us, right?” Han said. “We did that?”
“Makes them take it a little slower,” Scarlet said. “Hope whatever you’ve got in mind is a really good idea.”
“Me, too.”
It felt like an hour or a day or a few seconds before they reached the access panel at the top of the stairway. A polished steel grate covered it, but just beyond Han could see the brightness of daylight. Scarlet pulled an electronic lock pick from her belt at the same time Han shot the lock. Smoking and shattered, the grate swung open.
“That works, too,” Scarlet said, putting the lock pick back.
The rooftop spread out around them, a landscape of ducts and conduits, grating walkways and massive transmission towers. The largest tower rose a hundred meters over the rooftop, reaching toward the clouds. Scaffolds and ladders rose up its center. Han pointed to it.
“There,” he said. “Go!”
They sprinted over the rough ground, reaching the tower’s ladder at the same time the first stormtrooper spilled onto the roof and took aim. Han boosted Scarlet up, then followed her, climbing with one hand and tapping his comlink with the other. Blaster bolts hissed through the air and blackened the steel.
“Was there anything more to this plan?” Scarlet asked as they climbed.
“I’m working on it,” he said, and the call went through. “Chewie! It’s me. Tell me the Falcon is warmed up and ready to go.”
The comlink groaned with the Wookiee’s voice.
“Almost is not a good word,” Han said. “I need you up here now. I’m on a transmission tower on top of the Imperial Intelligence Service Center, and there are a lot of people shooting at me.”
Chewbacca’s howl maxed out the comlink’s speaker. Twenty more stormtroopers had come onto the roof. The sharpness of their commander’s gestures made him look as if he were very awkwardly waving. Scarlet reached the gantry at the ladder’s top and paused, rummaging through her tool belt.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Han said. “Why don’t you get in the air and come get me first, and then I’ll explain how it happened when no one’s shooting at me?”
Scarlet held a black cylinder between her finger and thumb with a pleased smile. Han nodded at it in query, and she shook her head. She mouthed Keep going and hunched at the top of the ladder they’d just come up. Chewbacca grumbled. On the rooftop, the stormtroopers were beginning a systematic advance on the tower.
“No, it’s all right,” Han shouted. “She’s here with me. We’re both on the tower. But we need you to get us out of here.”
He reached the bottom of another ladder and looked back. Scarlet was hunched over and moving toward him quickly. Behind her, a bright orange flare marked the first ladder’s top. Chewbacca grumbled again.
“Well, you may have to go without clearance. You can take the fine out of my cut.”
A volley of blasterfire cut through the gantryway, striking sparks. Han fired half a dozen times, not bothering to aim. Chewbacca howled from the comlink, but Han couldn’t hear what he’d said. The connection dropped as Scarlet reached him.