by Kevin Hearne
“Where is my family?” she called. Her voice sounded muffled and sticky, as if she were speaking around a mouthful of nut butter. Maybe she was—she had been relaxing at a café, after all.
“On the way to Omereth as you wished! We have to move quickly, please jump down!”
She placed her toes at one edge, squatted, leaned forward until her hands gripped the opposite edge, then dropped down, hanging in the air for a moment before letting go to drop down the last half meter. Her knees bent, absorbing the impact, and then she stood and turned to regard me with those pitlike eyes, adjusting around her right shoulder the strap of a carry-sack that had shaken loose during her swing down. It looked like she had a datapad in there at least, and perhaps some other things.
“I do not normally follow strange humans into dark places,” she informed me, “but considering the quick disposal of my security detail, the probability that you are who you claim to be is quite high.”
“Greetings from the Alliance. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am Luke Skywalker.” It was time to regurgitate the equation I’d memorized this morning. “While we escape the remainder of your guards, would you mind giving me the eigenvalues and eigenvectors for the three by three matrix one, negative three, three, then three, negative five, three, and six, negative six, four?”
“I am charmed, Luke Skywalker. Well met!” I led her around the corner of the first turn, which would get us out of immediate sight of the street’s drainage tunnel and into the sewer proper, but had only gone a few steps before her voice said behind me, “To answer your question, the eigenvalues for that matrix would be four, negative two, and negative two, with the associated vectors square root of six over six times the vector one, one, two, square root of two over two times the vector negative one, zero, one, and square root of two over two times the vector one, one, zero—that would be normalized and rationalized, of course.”
“Of course,” I replied, though I had only a vague idea what she was talking about. It gave me a glimpse at the staggering mathematical intellect behind that blank face, however. Hard to believe she had calculated that in her head so quickly. Leia had offered to walk me through the problem, but I knew it would have taken a quadratic formula and a set of ground teeth to get an answer in five minutes. Drusil had solved it in a few seconds. Hoping to distract her from presenting me with a similar question—I wasn’t sure I remembered what an eigenvalue was, even after my crash course—I added, “We need to move quickly through this sewer system to an exit where I have a speeder waiting. We’ll take that to a docking platform in the next district where we have a ship ready to take you offplanet. The faster we move, the better chance we have to escape before the Empire tries to shut down outgoing traffic.”
The filth grew steadily worse the deeper we traveled into the sewer, as assorted small tributaries of goo gurgled to join our larger sluice. We sloshed our way through the muck at a respectable trot, using a pocket lamp to light our way. I was following the same path out that I had taken to get in, turning at each junction in reverse order. Shouts and echoes of pursuit bounced off the walls somewhere behind us, but Drusil Bephorin ignored that. She was determined instead to greet me properly.
“I will certainly move at my best speed, Luke Skywalker. While we move, can you math something math math for me with something math?”
Drusil used proper terms, of course, and precise numbers, but I don’t recall exactly what she asked me or even if I knew all the terms to begin with. It sounded, however, like she asked me a question with a single answer, instead of a set of values and vectors. “Uh, let me see. That would be … three?”
The Givin made a phlegmy noise in her throat that might have been laughter. “Excellent.”
Yes, it was excellent. Thank the stars for Threepio’s and Leia’s experience with Givin. A pause in conversation allowed me to hear more clearly. It may have been my imagination, but it sounded as though our pursuers were growing closer. I knew Nakari had taken out at least the two guards closest to Drusil and Artoo had neutralized the security droid—otherwise the Givin wouldn’t be here with me—but that still left up to six ISB agents able to pursue and call for backup to capture us. Or, what was more likely, recapture Drusil and execute me.
Before I could ask Drusil anything about her remaining security, she asked a question of her own. “Did I hear you use a firstperson plural regarding our transport offplanet? I believe you said ‘we’ have a ship ready? Might that mean you have confederates?”
“Yes, a droid and a sniper. They’ll be meeting us.”
“Ah! The two who disrupted my security detail. I see. They will probably be fine if they are vectoring to some point ahead of us on the surface, but I am obliged to tell you that my calculations suggest a high probability of us being accosted before our arrival at your rendezvous point.”
“How can you know that? You don’t even know where we’re going.”
“I do not know for certain—I did say probability, not certainty. But I can make educated guesses as to our destination based on extant variables, and predict that our pursuit shall catch up to us prior to our exit unless they behave stupidly.”
“Isn’t that one of your extant variables?”
“The worst possible kind. As you may well know, unlike kinetics or time or distance, human stupidity is incalculable.”
“Hey, I—well, yeah. I guess there’s no arguing that. Let’s see if we can increase our rate and reduce the probability of this confrontation you see.”
“That would be wise.”
Stepping up our pace increased the noise of our passage and made us more likely to trip and get a face full of something unspeakable, but I’d far rather risk that than getting shot in the back.
Thinking of the ISB agents, however, caused me to forget that the sewers were otherwise inhabited. As we arrived at a junction where we were supposed to take a left, a growl and a flash of teeth warned me in time to keep all my digits, but only just. A squat, four-legged creature cruised past me in the air as I jerked backward, its jaws open for the lamp and crunching down on it, probably taking the tips of my fingers off as well judging by the sharp stab of pain I felt. The light winked out in the guts of the thing, plunging us into darkness. We were deep in the tunnels now, and there were no street-level drainage grates above us.
“Stay back!” I warned Drusil as I heard the creature choke and spit up the lamp. It wasn’t working anymore—maybe it was simply in the off position rather than broken, but I wasn’t about to search in the dark for it in the bottom of a sewer with something hungry nearby. We needed to see, so I pulled my lightsaber from my belt and hoped it would give off enough ambient light to spot the creature before it attacked again. Holding it in front of me in a defensive stance, I turned it on as I heard the creature snarl and thrash in the filth. The blue plasma blade bloomed up and my eyes, dilated in the darkness, saw the thing open its mouth and bunch its powerful back legs for a spring at my throat. The teeth appeared as slimy, greenish icicles—though perhaps that was an illusion of the poor light—and the beast had large nostrils and ears of pale skin, but only two tiny eye-spots. Its lack of fur was doubtless a mercy down here. The nostrils flared and the ears cocked in my direction, and then it leapt at me, jaws agape, certain now that I would be far more edible than a pocket lamp. There was little time or space to do much more than dodge to one side and slash down reflexively at a clear threat; I’m sure my swipe at it would score me no approval from anyone trained in martial arts. But in that confined space it was effective enough. The blade sheared off a slice of its cheek and perhaps a few teeth; its momentum slammed the creature into my shoulder in a passing broadside, but all that earned me was a greasy smear of burnt flesh rather than any injury. Howling in pain and fear, the creature turned upon landing and scuttled directly away from us. Accustomed to ambushing its meals, it had no taste for the kind that fought back.
Unfortunately, its attack and subsequent retreat allowed the ISB agents not onl
y to get a fix on us via the noise it made but also to close some of the distance between us.
“They’re down there!” I heard one shout as Drusil said, “Remarkable! Is that a real lightsaber? The odds of encountering a being with a lightsaber in this galaxy now are fantastically low. Why, the probability is so small as to—”
“Come on!” I said, “Follow the lightsaber. We’re turning left here.”
Instead of following immediately, Drusil shook her head, which I barely perceived by the pale blades of her cheekbones dancing from side to side. “There is no need to worry, Luke Skywalker. My vision is somewhat better than that of a human. I can see well enough to avoid obstacles.”
A blaster bolt zipped by us, and the sound of its firing echoed and amplified in the tunnel. Pinpoints of light down the tunnel indicated pocket lamps like the one I’d recently lost.
“I assume you saw that, then? Let’s go.”
“With alacrity, yes.” We turned the corner as our pursuers fired again, but this time the sound was different—the warped electric flutter of a stun blast. In the small diameter of the tunnel it would spread out to fill the entire area, making it impossible to avoid. Except that we had already turned the corner and it passed behind us, weakened and close to dissipation after traveling such a long distance. The flare of it briefly illuminated my path, for which I was grateful.
Drusil asked, “Are we growing closer to your planned point of egress? The probability of your death increases with every second we remain subterranean.”
“Yeah, we just need to take one more right turn and then we should start seeing some drainage lights. Finding the turn itself might be tricky, though, with only a lightsaber to see by. Don’t know how I’m going to find it in the dark.”
“Is it the first right turn down this passage?”
“Yeah, why?”
“You just passed it.”
I tried to stop too quickly, slid in the slime, and prepared myself for a graceless landing while trying to make sure I didn’t slay myself with the lightsaber. The impact was much softer and squishier than I anticipated. I didn’t want to think about what kinds of substances might be providing the cushion. Getting up involved squelching noises that would haunt my dreams later, and the odor was nearly enough to make me retch. I probably would have let it happen had we not been in such a rush.
“Hurry. They are coming,” Drusil said. “Shall I lead you? I can’t see fine detail but I can see more than well enough to navigate.”
“Yeah, go ahead,” I said, stretching out with my left hand. It was covered in muck and was also the one that had been scraped and bitten by that creature, but the Givin grabbed it and pulled me along into a passage that I had completely missed in the dark. Just before we left the tunnel in which I fell, I saw the beams of ISB pocket lamps off to my right and heard their urgent footsteps. They were very close.
“We should see some light from above soon,” I said, “and a ladder on the left leading up to the surface. There’s a service access door set in the street between two buildings. We climb that and there should be a speeder there waiting for us.”
“Yes. I see the light. That should help us both. Can you run faster?”
“Yes, I can manage.” This particular passage wasn’t cursed with the muck and buildup of the others; it was used for rain drainage and access to the deeper tunnels, so the floor was only slick with the remaining dribble of the previous night’s light showers. Up ahead, I saw shafts of sunlight spearing down into the gloom from the street; that oriented me, gave me more confidence in lengthening my stride. Behind us, voices and splashes grew quite loud and I looked back to see the eyes of two pocket lamps pass by our position, then a third in the rear paused, swung our way, and the person holding it shouted to the others to come back. I probably should have turned off my lightsaber as soon as I saw the sunlight; that might have fooled them a few more seconds before they realized their mistake and doubled back. But since we’d been spotted, I was glad I had it ready. I switched it from my right hand to my left, because that would allow me to wield it defensively as I climbed the ladder. My fingertips still stung and my hand was covered in slime, but it functioned well enough.
“You go first, fast as you can,” I told Drusil. “There should be a human woman with dark curly hair and an astromech droid waiting. Go with them.”
She obeyed and began to climb but called down, “What about you?”
“I’m following right behind you.”
The agent who’d spotted us had waited for his backup to join him before plowing forward together. The beams of three pocket lamps approached, no doubt held by agents whom Nakari and I had seen circling in the park two days before. I wondered if they had ever met Darth Vader and seen what he could do with a lightsaber. If so, they might know more about lightsabers than I did. If they shot blaster bolts at me, I might be able to catch one or two of them on the blade as I had with that training remote back on the Millennium Falcon, but I doubted my weak skills in the Force would allow me to deflect repeated fire from three blasters at once. But if they shot stun blasts—well, I didn’t know exactly what would happen, but following a hunch, I activated the stud to lock it into the on position.
Drusil was three-quarters of the way up. I began to climb behind her in an awkward three-limbed process, holding my lightsaber out behind me in an attempt at misdirection. In the dark, the agents’ eyes would naturally focus on the light source, and since they would probably be firing at me in seconds it would be wise to make sure my body wasn’t behind where they would be aiming. I figured I would gain only seconds or fractions of seconds by it, but that might be enough to get me out of there.
One thing I didn’t consider was how difficult it would be for them to judge distance in those conditions. I could hear them arguing about how close I was because they didn’t want to shoot too soon, and that gave us another couple of seconds. When Drusil opened the access door, however, and a square of natural light fell down and illuminated us both, they realized we were much closer than they thought—and we were about to escape.
“There they are!”
“I see them!”
“Stun ’em now!”
This might be it—I hoped Drusil would get away and give the Alliance an edge in the war, regardless of what happened to me. She was pulled bodily through the opening by Nakari, giving me a clear path up and out. I wouldn’t make it before the ISB had taken their shots, though. They raised their blasters at me and fired, expanding blue halos of energy that would disrupt my neural system and drop me unconscious—or maybe even kill me, considering I would be getting three blasts at almost the same instant. Choosing to stun instead of shoot plasma bolts at me, however, indicated that they would like an interrogation before my execution.
I held my lightsaber in front of me, blade aligned horizontally but pointing slightly toward the agents so that the tip would meet the oncoming wave first. There was no dodging to be done and no great skill with the Force required—either the lightsaber would save me or it wouldn’t. And it did, sort of. There was a crackle as the blasts hit the blade, and a blue spiderweb of energy that shimmered outward as the blasts dissipated, leaving me conscious and the ISB agents flabbergasted. But before it dissipated, some of the energy kissed the fingers I was using to hold the hilt of the lightsaber; they went numb, and I dropped the weapon. Perhaps against a single stun blast that wouldn’t have happened, but against three, something got through. Now the agents could simply fire again and I’d be knocked out.
“Nakari! Help!” I yelled as I leapt down from the ladder, grabbed my blaster, and fired at the agents, who were slow to recognize that the tactical situation had abruptly changed. They recovered quickly after the first one cried out with a charred hole in his chest; whatever armor he was wearing wasn’t up to deflecting the heat from my blaster turned up to maximum. The second one standing in the middle fired a stun blast a split second after my shot rocked him and the charge sailed harmlessly into the
ceiling. The third one, however, had a clear shot at me, and he took it, his blaster pointed down so that the center of the blast would slam into me.
One of the features of stunning someone is that you don’t have to be a very good sharpshooter thanks to the spreading footprint of the blast. But in this case that worked in my favor: The lower edge skimming the wet floor ran into the blade of my lightsaber, still glowing and lying prone on the floor, and as soon as it did, the blade dissipated the blast with the same crackle of electricity as before.
Nakari shot the last agent before I could, her bolt coming from above. I looked up and saw her head and right arm dangling down the access hatch; she’d fired accurately upside down.
“Thanks,” I said.
“No problem. Hold on.” She calmly fired again into the body of each agent.
“Why’d you do that?”
“Need to make sure. You’ll be vulnerable for a few seconds while you climb up here, and if one of them is still alive we can’t have him taking a free shot at you.”
It was a valid point but not one I had considered. Even if I had thought of it, I’m not sure I would have followed through and shot them again. Something about it struck me as bloodthirsty—or simply not quite right. I’d have to think about it some more. I kept all such thoughts to myself as I holstered my blaster, retrieved my lightsaber, and returned it to my belt after turning it off. It was my first opportunity to get a good look at my left hand; there was skin missing around the knuckles and a bit off the tips, and it was still bleeding. It was also completely soiled and horrific and I needed to get it scoured and dipped in an entire vat of sanitizing solution.
But we weren’t out of trouble yet; I imagined we wouldn’t be for quite some time. I longed for time enough to make myself presentable before ascending into public, but we had to get to the ship as fast as possible. I climbed up quickly and immediately began to strip off my (formerly) white outer tunic. We had planned to change later anyway, but I couldn’t wait. The dark tunic underneath was wet and probably smelled awful, but at least it wasn’t encrusted with waste. Nakari wrinkled her nose.
