by Alex Wheeler
"I don't know where everyone went," Han said. "So how about we figure out a way off the planet, before they come back?"
Shrugging his massive shoulders, Chewbacca lumbered alongside Han as they followed the tracking beacon in hopes it would lead them to Luke. Han choked back a laugh, knowing that it was never a good idea to laugh at a Wookiee, even when he was your copilot and best friend. Still, he couldn't help but chuckle over the fact that Chewbacca, who stood more than two meters tall and could crush a man's throat in his mighty fist, was afraid of a few empty buildings.
He had to admit, the quiet was kind of creepy. Commander Narra had told them that the research station was abandoned; he hadn't mentioned that an entire city had gone with it. What could have made all those people just drop everything and walk away?
Maybe they didn't walk, Han thought, staring at an overturned speeder lying in the middle of the road. Maybe they ran.
Han shook his head. Now he was thinking like Chewie. Han wasn't about to let this place spook him. He had better things to do.
He and Chewbacca had landed within half a kilometer of one another. Once they'd found each other, they'd tried raising Luke on the comlink. No luck. Similar silence from Wedge and Zev. He hoped they were still up in orbit, planning a rescue. But Han wasn't willing to count on it. For all he knew, they'd given the rest of Red Squadron up for dead and headed back to Yavin 4. Or another formation of enemy pilots had blown them out of the sky. No, he didn't plan on waiting around here for rescue. He and Chewbacca and Luke would find a way out of this place themselves.
Assuming Luke was still alive.
According to the beacon, they were approaching his location. "Luke!" Han shouted, his voice echoing through the empty streets. "Hello! Anyone there? Luke!"
Chewbacca tried to quiet him, but Han shook off the Wookiee. They should be practically on top of Luke, so where was he?
He heard a quiet rustling sound behind him. He whirled around. "Luke? Where have you—aaaaah!" A giant lizard, its gray-green wings stretching nearly ten meters across, swooped low over Han. His coat snagged on the creature's ragged harness, and before he knew it, his feet had left the ground. "Hey! Hey, let me go, you overgrown mynock."
The creature swooped into the air, wheeling in circles through the clouds. Han scrabbled for his blaster and aimed it at the beast's underbelly—but didn't pull the trigger. The ground was shrinking beneath him, and killing the creature now would lead to both of them plunging to their deaths.
See, Highness? he thought wryly. I don't always shoot before I think.
Han had heard about aiwhas, the giant winged cetaceans that ruled the seas and skies of Kamino. But hearing was different from seeing. The creature was enormous, covered with a thick, scaly hide. It was hard to believe that such a great beast could ever have been domesticated. But it surely had been—its riding harness was still in place, if a little worse for wear. The aiwha let loose a stream of ear-piercing screeches, and Han spotted several winged shadows emerging from the clouds, heeding its call.
Just fly a little closer to the ground, Han thought, and I've got a little surprise for you. As if obeying his silent command, the giant winged creature streaked toward the ground, chasing after two of its scaly friends. The aiwha in the lead let out a piercing shriek as Chewbacca sent a bolt of laserfire into its shoulder. It flapped furiously, its right wing smacking the other aiwha off course.
Startled, the aiwha holding Han ascended sharply, fleeing the blaster. "Wrong way, lizard breath!" Han shouted. But it was no use. The aiwha rose higher and higher.
Just then Luke stepped out of the shadows, his lightsaber extended over his head. "Come and get me!" he shouted at the aiwha. The blue blade slashed back and forth, a single spot of light in the dim, murky air.
That's it, Han thought as the aiwha streaked toward Luke. Just a little closer to the ground and—now! He aimed the blaster at the aiwha's underbelly.
"No!" Luke shouted. "Han, don't—"
Han squeezed the trigger as he tore at his jacket. A stream of laserfire sizzled into the aiwha, bouncing off its leathery skin. It howled in rage and pain, ascending steeply. But Han couldn't work himself loose. "Come on, birdbrain," he growled, pounding his blaster against the buckle. "Let me go!"
The jacket tore. Han plummeted through the air and crashed into something soft and scratchy. It smelled like moldy muja fruit. The aiwha, still screeching and flailing from its wound, swooped toward him again. Han held it off with the blaster, trying to figure out where he'd ended up. He was in a hollow dish-shaped space made of grass and seaweed. Three large gray spheres were tucked beneath some of the seaweed.
Uh-oh, Han thought, suddenly realizing where he was. Those weren't spheres. They were eggs.
He was in the aiwha's nest.
Luke peered up. Way up. The nest was wedged into the roof of one of the enormous domed buildings. The creatures seemed to be afraid of Han's blaster, so he was having no trouble holding them off. But there were no obvious footholds in the sloping roof, no way for Han to climb down safely. And even if there had been, it would have meant turning his back on the creatures. Luke was pretty sure that the moment that happened, they would strike.
If Han couldn't descend by himself, Luke was going to have to rescue him. "Cover me," he told Chewbacca. The Wookiee didn't need an invitation. He hoisted his bowcaster and sprayed the skies with energy bolts. R2-D2 wheeled in circles around him, beeping and whirring in distress.
"I'm coming, Han!" Luke shouted, carving two narrow crevices into the wall with his lightsaber. He figured he could continue carving handholds and footholds for himself as he scaled his way up to the roof.
"Don't bother," Han shouted down. "I'll figure something out."
"What?" Luke called.
There was a long pause. Luke continued carving and climbing, painfully dragging himself up along the slick durasteel.
"I'm working on it!" Han finally shouted, blasting at an aiwha who'd foolishly drawn too close.
Luke would have laughed, but he needed all his energy to hold his weight. Finally, he made it to the top and pulled himself into the nest.
"I told you I didn't need your help," Han said, scowling. "Now we're both stuck up here. What good does that do?"
"This, for one thing," Luke, said, pulling out his blaster and adding to Han's attack. The aiwhas shrieked and cawed, their wings beating furiously.
"They're never going to abandon the nest!" Han said. "We have to get down from here."
"That's the plan," Luke answered. "After you. I'll hold them off."
"After you, kid," Han insisted. The skies darkened as a thick cloud blew their way.
Far below, Chewbacca roared impatiently.
Luke's eyes widened. That was no cloud. It was a flock of aiwhas, at least twenty of them, coming straight for the nest. "How about we both go!" he said, pointing toward the flock. "Now."
They dived out of the nest and scrambled down the side of the building toward Chewbacca, clinging tightly to the niches carved out by the lightsaber. The aiwhas tore after them, their massive wings beating in a rhythmic thunder. Han, Luke, and Chewbacca ran through the empty streets, over permacrete gleaming in the rain, feet sloshing through puddles as they fled from the aiwhas. Soon they'd left the thunder of the wings far behind. The night was still again, silence broken only by the rumbling thunder and the distant waves.
"You're welcome," Han said once they'd all caught their breath.
"I'm welcome?" Luke asked incredulously. "For what?"
"We found you, didn't we?" Han said. "If we hadn't come looking for you, you'd be wandering around on your own. You would've made a nice, tasty dinner for some baby birds."
"Aiwhas are herbivores," Luke pointed out. "And I found you. If it weren't for me, you'd still be up in that nest, waiting to hatch."
Chewbacca growled his agreement.
"Aw, can it, furball," Han snapped. "At least I'm not afraid of the dark."
Luke was t
empted to keep arguing, but they had bigger problems to deal with. "Have you had any luck contacting Wedge or Zev?" Luke asked.
Han shook his head. "They must have been too far from the planet's surface. Weren't caught in the beam."
Unlike us, Luke thought, flushing. It was his fault they were trapped here. He had been in charge of the mission, and he was the one who'd ordered that final maneuver, bringing the three of them closer to the planet's surface. If one of them hadn't made it, there would have been no one to blame but himself.
"Hey, kid, don't beat yourself up about it," Han said, as if he knew what Luke was thinking. He clapped him on the shoulder. "None of us knew about that tractor beam. You couldn't have guessed—"
"But I knew something was off," Luke insisted. "I should have…" He shook his head. He didn't know what the right choice had been, only that he'd made the wrong one. "I should have been more careful."
"A firefight's no place for careful," Han said. "And it's no place for what-ifs. You made the call you had to make, in that moment. It was a good maneuver: I would have done the same. And you might have saved all our lives."
"How do you figure that?" Luke asked, a little sourly.
"What if we'd won that fight, blasted all those ships out of the sky?" Han said. "We'd have come in for a landing, and we'd all have been caught in the beam. At least this way Wedge and Zev are still out there somewhere—hopefully coming up with a plan."
"We can't count on that," Luke said.
"You're right. And even if they are out there, they can't do anything until we shut down that tractor beam."
"It must be an old security system, left behind by the Empire," Luke said. "We've have to find it. Then, if we can disable it—"
R2-D2 beeped indignantly.
"Okay, okay," Luke patted R2-D2's dome. "When we disable it, maybe we'll be able to find a ship,"
"And it'd be handy if we arrived before the others," Han added. "So let's go."
"Others?" Luke asked. "You think those pilots survived the crash?"
"We did," Han pointed out.
Luke glanced over his shoulder, suddenly feeling like someone was watching them. The city was absolutely still. Nothing was out there but the rain—for now.
They decided to start by finding the research station. If there was an Imperial security system, or even a fleet of Imperial ships, that seemed the best place to find it.
The base was a low complex of black windowless domes nearly three times the size of the other buildings they'd passed. Luke had expected that they'd have to break in, but the central doors were wide open. Chewbacca growled.
"Yeah," Han agreed. "It is strange. But they want company? I'm not arguing." He pulled out his blaster and stepped inside. Luke followed close behind, lightsaber in hand. The blade cast an eerie blue glow over the station. Despite its size, the low ceilings gave it a claustrophobic feel, as if the curved walls were closing in on them. The entry corridor opened into a wide atrium space dotted with personal lab stations. Cages lined its perimeter, all of them empty. One quadrant of the room was given over to a large pool of water. As Luke approached, he realized that the scientists had merely opened a hole in the floor; he was peering down into the Kaminoan sea.
Turning his back on the water, Luke hesitated. He didn't like this. The wide space was completely open. And he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching.
"Come on," Han whispered harshly. "What are you waiting for?"
"I'm not sure," Luke said, raking his gaze across the empty station.
"There's no one here."
"Then why are you whispering?" Luke asked.
"I said, there's no one here," Han repeated loudly.
"Then who are we?" a voice behind them asked. Luke pivoted, blaster raised, and found himself face to face with a blaster muzzle. The man pointing the weapon was tall and thin, with an angular face covered in brown scruff. He was flanked by a sharp-toothed Chistori in full body armor and an angry-looking woman with tattoos inked across her face. Their blasters were trained on Luke, Han, and Chewbacca.
Han's blaster was armed and aimed at the Chistori's head. Chewbacca issued a low warning growl. The woman took a step back, but her blaster never wavered.
"So what now?" Luke murmured, catching Han's eye.
The woman heard him. Her lips widened into an ice-cold smile. "Now? Now you die."
CHAPTER SIX
"Clea, stand down!" Div snapped. "You, too, Grish."
The Chistori gave him a surly look. He drew back his lips to reveal a mouthful of jagged teeth. "I don't think so."
Div had seen pictures of Luke Skywalker. The Rebel had looked the same in all of them—wide-eyed, slightly dazed, clueless, and young. The man standing before him, blaster aimed, wore the same face. But he was older, angrier. That open, trusting look in his eyes was gone.
"Do me a favor, keep your blasters up," said the one called Han Solo. "It'll make the target practice more fun."
The Wookiee just growled.
Div sighed. "Don't be an idiot," he said, speaking to both Grish and Solo. Hotheads, both of them. If the situation wasn't under control soon, they'd probably blow each other away—and everyone else along with them. He and Clea had stumbled upon Grish shortly after teaming up—but Div couldn't help wondering if they would have been better off without the Chistori's so-called help. "We're no threat to you," he assured the Rebels.
Han laughed. "Tell me something I don't know."
"We have no wish to harm you," Div clarified. "So you can drop the weapons."
"You tried to blow us out of the sky!" Luke exclaimed.
"Kid's got a point," Han said. "Sounds like harm to me."
Without taking his eyes off the Rebels, Div surveyed the room, weighing the possibilities. There were only two exit points—the way they'd come in, and another corridor feeding off the opposite side of the room, leading deeper into the station. The odd pool of water lay between them, a narrow bridge offering a way across. The bridge would be a less-than-defensible position should things go bad. The lab stations would provide minimal cover, although several of them featured low durasteel cabinets that looked large enough to hold a human. But hiding wasn't really his style.
A flicker of movement along the water caught his attention. But nothing was there. Trick of the light, he told himself. Must have been. But he wasn't convinced. "We all want off this planet," Div said, feeling a sudden urgency. "Let's make that a priority, and deal with this—"
"This?" Luke said angrily. "That's what you call it? You attack us for no reason, you make us crash—"
"Hey, slime-suckers like that couldn't 'make' me do anything," Han protested.
"Riiiight," Clea drawled. "You wanted to crash-land on this moldy rock."
"No more or less than you, sweetheart," Han said.
She narrowed her eyes, and her grip tightened around the blaster.
"Clea," Div said quietly. She didn't acknowledge him. But she didn't shoot, either.
"What the shunfa are we waiting for?" Grish growled. "I say we blast this scum. There's a reward waiting for us. Just because we're stuck here, no reason not to get the job done."
"Enough!" Div snapped.
But it was too late. "Reward?" Luke said. "So someone hired you to come after us?"
"Jabba," Solo muttered in disgust. "I told him he'd have his money soon. Why can't that fat slug just trust me?"
But Div could see that Luke wasn't convinced. "Who was it?" Luke asked Div. "Who wants us dead?"
"That's not your concern," Div told him.
"Then let's start with an easier question," Han said. "Who are you?"
Div shrugged. "What's the difference? All that matters is that we have a job to do. A job that requires us to be in the air," he reminded his allies. "We're pilots, not bounty hunters. Not assassins. We don't stalk our prey on foot and shoot them in the back. We're better than that. I say we work together. Once we're back in space, we do what we were hired to do—best t
hem in a firefight. Up there, where we belong."
"You think we're some kind of laserbrained nerf-herders?" Han asked. "I put this blaster down, what's to stop you from shooting the minute I turn my back?"
"I don't know if you're a laserbrained nerf-herder," Div said, although he had his suspicions. "But I give you my word that we won't harm you, not until we're all back in the air."
"Your word?" Han's mouth puckered. "What good does that do any of us?"
Not much, Div was about to admit, realizing that this was a losing battle. He had nothing to bargain with but his words, and they'd never been worth much. But before he could speak, he spotted Luke's glance flicker toward something on the other side of the room—the same place Div had imagined he'd spotted a shadow in motion. Div followed Luke's gaze and saw nothing. But Luke's face was draining of color. He leaned toward Solo and whispered something, but the older man shrugged him off. Div searched in frustration for some sign of what had made the Rebel turn gray with fear, but there was nothing. It was as if Luke were in a different room, a different world than the rest of them. What does he know that I don't? Div thought.
Something was naggingly familiar about the way the young Rebel stood, visibly extending the reach of his senses as far as he could, opening himself up to the room. His eyes narrowed and turned toward the pool of black water.
What? Div thought, his stomach twisting with sudden anxiety. What is it about you? What do you see?
The cold pressure of alloy against his temple snapped his attention back to matters at hand, but it was too late.
"The nerf-herder's right," Clea snarled, her blaster muzzle digging into his forehead. "They have no reason to trust you. And neither do we."
Div cursed under his breath. It wasn't like him, letting an enemy sneak up on him like that. What good were his lightning reflexes and impeccable instincts if he was going to let himself be so easily distracted? "There's no need for this," he told Clea.
"Either you join us, or you die with them," Clea said. "And you die first."
Div turned to the Chistori, without much hope. "Grish—"
