by Martha Wells
Chewie barked a laugh. The Duros studied Luke’s face, then took a step back and looked toward the Falcon. The cannon fired once, the blast impact striking the floor plates a meter away from the man’s feet. Chewie twitched the bowcaster off his shoulder and fired into the control plate next to the shop’s blast door, shutting the door on whoever was inside. Luke drew his blaster, but a burst of fire from the lookout across the walkway sent him diving sideways. He hit the deck and rolled, pointing his blaster, but the Duros had ducked back and aimed his weapon straight at Luke.
Chewie had the Duros in his bowcaster’s sights, and Luke was fairly sure the lookout was aiming at Chewie. From what he could hear, the reinforcement in the shop was blasting a way out through the back door. But the station alarm wailed, and yells and pounding footsteps sounded from the gallery. To add to that, C-3PO was running awkwardly down the walkway, shouting, “Help! We’re being robbed! Help!”
Luke’s heart was thumping, but he said evenly, “You wanted to do this quietly, and you wanted to live through it. I don’t think those are options anymore.”
The Duros flicked a look at Chewbacca. “Later, then.”
He stepped back, then jogged away into the shadows under the gallery as a pack of station workers and security guards ran down the dock toward them, shouting. All of them were heavily armed. The pirates must keep everybody who frequented the station jumpy at best, and Luke bet the locals didn’t take kindly to dock robbers and shipjackers, either.
As the mob arrived, Luke rolled to his feet and pointed after their attackers. “They went that way! And some of them broke into this shop, too. They had a huge blaster cannon, look what it did to the deck!” The Ax-108 had already safely retreated into the Falcon’s hull.
Most of the mob went off after the fleeing Duros, while the rest spread out to search the shops along the gallery for damage. A security guard stopped beside the blasted section of deck, speaking urgently on her comlink.
As Chewbacca joined him, Luke said, “Shipjackers? Maybe working with pirates? Or bounty hunters?”
Chewbacca shrugged, but his grumble sounded dubious. Yeah, Luke wasn’t so sure, either. This might be just a coincidence, but somehow he didn’t think so. If these guys had been keeping an eye on the Gamble and had followed Luke and Chewie back here … They might very well be pirates, sent by whoever had captured Leia and Han. “Let’s get back to the ship. I’ll call General Willard and warn him that the pirates might be watching the Gamble.”
To get back to the bay corridor, Han had to avoid another band of hunting castaways and almost stumbled on a camp of beings who seemed to live by foraging near the docking ring and who had clearly been here way, way too long. By the time he got through it all, he felt tired, grungy, and like he had been in contact with a lot of substances that were either toxic or disgusting or both. He didn’t know what he wanted most, a shower or to get his vaccinations renewed.
When he reached the docking ring corridor, he used the grappling hook to get up to the droid track in the ceiling. It was quieter now—it seemed that the party around the dead-droid bar had died down—but he was still wary of anybody who might be out hunting drunks and stragglers.
He knew Sian and Terae must have already returned when he reached the ore-cart hatch into the bay; they had left the smaller droid hatch open for him. As he closed it behind him, he noted two Aegis crew members on guard at the bottom of the ship’s ramp. They spotted him immediately and one stepped forward to check the position of the pirates outside the bay doors, then waved for Han to come ahead. Han crossed the overhead rigging and used the grappler and line to drop down to the top of the ship’s hull. By the time he reached it, the topside hatch was opening for him.
He climbed down through the cylinder air lock to find Kelvan and Kifar Itran waiting. Kelvan said, “Terae and Sian got back a little while ago, and the Princess wants to see you.” He turned to lead the way down the corridor.
Itran was staring aggressively at him for no discernible reason, so Han kept the relief off his face. If Leia had still been with the pirates … But she isn’t, so stop thinking about it.
“Took you long enough,” Itran practically snarled. “She was worried.”
Just what Han needed right now. “I stopped to chat with the glit-biters who live in the sewage plant down the cross corridor.”
Han followed Kelvan to the ship’s ready room, where Leia paced up and down, clearly more angry than worried. Metara was there, with Sian and Terae, and they looked worried enough for everybody. “I’m sorry,” Sian said immediately. “We tried to go after you, and we got to the part of the tunnel where it turned and dropped straight down. Then we heard another one of those haulers coming and had to get out through the nearest hole in the roof. It took us a while to find our way back.”
Terae didn’t look or sound nearly as sorry. “We almost ran into another group of castaways.”
Han ignored her. He told Sian, “Don’t worry about it.”
Leia rounded on Han and glared. “Have a nice stroll around the pirate den?”
“I’ve had better,” Han told her, looking her over without being obvious that he was looking her over. The sleeve of her jacket was torn and there was a perfectly round bruise on her cheek, but other than that she looked all right. She sounded furious, but he knew that very little of it was actually aimed at him. She had been genuinely furious at him so many times it was easy to tell when he was the cause and when she was just furious in general. “What were you doing with that mining droid?”
Leia’s jaw hardened. “Trying to establish diplomatic relations with the pirates. We failed. The so-called flightmaster is called Viest, and she’s a Lorrdian reader. She knew immediately we were hiding something from her.”
“Great.” Han had dealt with Lorrdians before. “How much did she get off you?”
“She didn’t identify me as Alliance, but she identified us as something.” Leia glanced at Metara. “I’m not sure why she didn’t just order us killed. My guess is that she still wants control over this ship and she knew the crew would resist any attempt to take it over. And that I annoyed her enough that she wants to find out why I’m really here, and what my real interest in Metara is.”
Metara sounded bitter. “She promised to release the Aegis from our agreement and turn over the merchant crew to us if we won that stupid game. She was just toying with us.”
Han met Leia’s gaze and they shared a moment of silent ironic understanding. Yes, Metara wants to be a pirate and have her cake, too. Hopefully this would teach her that pirates didn’t keep agreements unless they couldn’t find a way to just kill you or sell you and take your stuff.
Whatever they did, they were going to have to move fast. Han asked Sian, “When you were in the tunnel, do you remember how long it took for that second hauler to come along?”
She nodded, not sure what he was getting at. “Approximately, sure.” Her expression cleared. “You found the slave pen?”
“Yeah. We’d have to cut through a couple of grids with a fusioncutter before we could hand them up any weapons or get them out of there, but it’s doable.” He was going to have to tell Leia in private about the fact that Davit had been on the merchant ship and had given him intel that pretty much proved there was an Imperial informant somewhere in the Alliance’s comm chain, but for now he just said, “I talked to one of our merchants.”
Leia’s brow was still furrowed. “You think we can get them out through this tunnel without alerting the guards on the slave pen?”
“We can break them out,” Itran said confidently. “I volunteer to go down the tunnel.”
“Yeah, you’re a big hero, we get it,” Han told him. To Leia he said, “Probably, if we time it right. There’s too many to sneak them in here through the droid hatch in the ore-cart grid. We’ll have to take out the guards on the bay doors.”
Kelvan said to Metara, “But we still can’t take off without getting shot to pieces. We’ve been watching t
he sensors, and there’s just too many ships out there.” He seemed torn between hope and despair. It wasn’t clear whether he had ever been on board with the idea of joining the clearinghouse in the first place, but it was obvious that Terae’s report on what she had seen here had convinced him it was a terrible idea.
Watching Metara, Han still wasn’t so sure what she thought. The woman let her breath out and said, “We have to do something. Viest is never going to let us go, with or without the merchant crew.” She looked at Han. “The prisoners were unharmed, then?”
“Three died on the way here,” Han told her, “and the pirates shot the captain and copilot when they took them off the ship.”
Metara looked stricken, Kelvan shocked, and Terae bit her lip and stared at the deck. Han found himself meeting Leia’s gaze again. Her mouth was a thin, straight line, and she was pale with anger. Problem was, he thought she was angrier at herself than at Metara and the others. As if she could have prevented this.
Sian broke the tense moment. She had been watching the Aegis officers with increasing exasperation. Now she said, “What did you think was going to happen? They’re pirates.”
Terae glared at her but didn’t respond.
Leia took a deep breath, restoring that icy calm that masked so much. “We need a diversion.”
“Explosions are always good,” Han said.
Sian added, “Just from what little we saw of this place, there’re so many failing systems, bad power cells. If we set off something on the far side of the asteroid, it might take them a while to realize it was sabotage.”
Kelvan leapt on that suggestion. “That could work. But we’d have to make it into hyperspace before they realized what we were trying to do.”
Han sorted through various ideas. Instead of causing an explosion on the opposite side of the asteroid, they could blow up this bay, and hope the debris field obscured the ship’s departure. He could rig the ID to broadcast another ship’s specs to help confuse the issue just long enough for them to jump to lightspeed. It would work if he could figure out a way to blow the bay up without also blowing up the Aegis. A timed explosion would be hard to manage, since it would have to go off just as the Aegis was exiting the bay.
Terae wasn’t nearly as eager as Kelvan. “If one of the ships in orbit reports our departure to Viest, she would still have time to order them to fire on us. And she told the captain she would put a bounty on us.”
“She can’t if she’s dead,” Leia said.
Everyone stared at her. Han knew moments like this were why he found Leia Organa so attractive, and tried not to show it. He said, “I’m good with that.”
Terae’s lip curled. “I didn’t realize rebels were so cold-blooded.”
Leia regarded her with cool contempt. “I’ve never considered a career of destroying civilian ships and selling their crews into slavery, so don’t call me cold-blooded, Lieutenant.”
A slow flush crept up Terae’s pale skin. Before she could reply, Metara said, “Terae, that’s enough,” then turned to Leia. “You want to plant an explosive in that control center?”
Leia nodded. “I would like to, yes. It doesn’t have to kill Viest, though I certainly wouldn’t be sorry if it did. But if she thinks she’s the target of an assassination attempt, she’s not going to be worried about what ships are leaving dock without permission. I got the distinct impression that we aren’t the only enemies she has here, so we may be fairly low on a long list of possible culprits.”
Sian folded her arms, thinking it over. “These bays aren’t exactly secure. An explosion in the mine interior could make some of the ships docked here cut loose and run. I sure would, if I were them.”
Kelvan looked like he was running calculations in his head. “We have seismic charges on board. We could rig one with a timing device, maybe combine it with a fragmentation grenade that would set the charge off …”
Han wasn’t surprised Kelvan was thinking along those lines. A seismic charge could be dumped out an air lock and left to float behind a ship until a pursuer collided with it and set it off. Cargo transports used them against pirates, and pirates used them against picket and security ships. “Where’s the control center?” Han said. “Is it near that arena?”
Leia lifted a brow. “It’s some distance above it, in the low-gravity area. I thought we could find a route there that came out in the dark section of the cavern, then lift the device up and attach it to the outside of the control center’s structure.”
Han nodded. “Nice, Your Worship.”
“Thank you,” Leia said drily, but he thought she appreciated the compliment.
A crew member stepped through the hatch. “Captain? There’s a disturbance at the bay doors. Looks like someone might be out there.”
Metara frowned. She glanced at Leia. “Hopefully this isn’t a visit from Viest.”
Metara followed the crew member out, Kelvan and Terae going with her.
“I doubt Viest would come to us,” Leia said, starting after the others.
Han stopped her at the hatch. “I need to talk to you—alone.”
Leia took in his expression. “Now?”
“Yeah.”
“I can watch the door,” Itran offered, “keep the Aegis crew out.”
Leia glanced around, taking in the ready room and obviously finding it wanting. Han wasn’t keen on it, either. There was a hatch into another corridor at the other end of the room, and with most of the crew having nothing to do but wait, someone might walk past at any moment. Itran policing the place would just make any private conversation look all the more suspicious.
“There’s a ’fresher across the corridor,” Sian said. “It’s big enough for two people, I think.”
“Perfect,” Leia said. “Thank you.”
Han followed Leia across into the refresher. “Big enough for two people” was a bit of a stretch. But the way the appliances were built into the bulkhead left just enough room for both of them to stand. They were so close they were almost breathing each other’s breath.
“If anybody saw us come in here, we can just say we wanted to be alone,” Han said, lifting his eyebrows. But as soon as the words were out, he felt sweat prickle on the back of his neck and wished he hadn’t articulated the thought. To say this wasn’t the time or place for fooling around was a vast understatement. He didn’t want to be the idiot who got Leia Organa killed because he was busy trying to make time with her while they should have been planning a way out of this mess.
“Right.” Leia was not amused. She leaned back against the door, clearly trying to get as far away from him as possible. “What is it?”
“Kearn-sa’Davit was in the slave pen,” he told her. “That merchant ship? Belonged to some members of the consortium that he called you here to meet with, to buy the supplies for Echo Base.”
Leia gritted her teeth and swore under her breath. That was nothing Han hadn’t seen her do before, but at the moment it seemed hugely alluring. Her braids were unraveling along one side of her head, the left one lying down along her neck in a very distracting way. He wedged himself between the tiny hand-cleaner unit and the bulkhead to put more space between them, and Leia pretended not to notice the awkward contortion.
“Then someone told Viest about our meeting.” Leia reached over and tapped the air control, directing it to drop the temperature in the compartment. Han tapped it, too, lowering it another couple of degrees.
“Yeah, the consortium had its own traitor.” He told her what Davit had said about Janlan, the traitor on the consortium side, and what he was and wasn’t likely to know. The flow of cool air and the need to concentrate on getting all the necessary facts out succinctly made the situation a little more bearable. “But it doesn’t sound like this Janlan told the Imperials, so that means you’re right that there was someone on the Alliance end who told them where the Gamble was coming out of hyperspace for the transmission.”
Leia considered that, then shook her head. “Yes, but
this is still a problem. Viest might suspect Davit’s ship was there to meet with the Alliance—”
Han doubted this Viest would be able to put it together. “Nobody in the consortium knew who they were meeting with. But Viest knows the merchants wanted to use the payment they were going to get from us to buy weapons. If she has informants on Arnot Station—and she probably does—they may be watching the Gamble, looking for a chance to take it. Though they were probably expecting something more impressive than a shot-up freighter.”
“That’s why General Willard and I brought a freighter, though the shot-up part was unintentional.” Leia tapped her lip, considering. That just drew Han’s attention to her lips, which made his neck feel hot again. “You think Viest won’t suspect that I’m Alliance, because if her informants realize what the Gamble is, she’ll believe all the Alliance representatives are still on the ship?”
“Basically, yeah.” Han had to shift position, since the hand cleaner was in danger of permanently deforming his right hip.
Leia snapped, “Han, stop that!”
He stared at her. “What?”
Leia grimaced and rubbed her eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, making her bruise look worse. A trickle of sweat ran down her brow. “Nothing. Never mind. I just hope Viest doesn’t send these hypothetical informants after the Gamble.”
“She’d have to send more than one ship to take anything on the station. It looked pretty well armed.” That was another complication. Han just hoped the Falcon had arrived at the station by now. If it had, General Willard and the rest of the crew would have a fast way out if they had to abandon the damaged Gamble.
“True, and I wonder how many ships Viest personally controls. She obviously has complete authority over this place, but I got the impression she would have to pay or bargain with the other captains to get them to take on a mission for her. She isn’t a military commander and this isn’t a fleet; she can’t just give orders. I think her power is limited to the ships that she has a personal investment in, like the Aegis.” She added, “Did Davit seem likely to try to trade information about us for his freedom?”
