Tales From The Empire
Page 8
electronic c-boards, controls, conduits--then the carapace--insulation,
plus the projector itself.
Overhead movement snagged her peripheral vision. A silent
repulsorcraft sped over the warehouse row.
Tinian shrank into the nearest building's shadow. She stuffed
everything small into her pocket along with her vibro-knife. Then she
bundled the rest of the vital parts together. Dashing barefoot around
the next corner, she stepped on something sharp and almost fell into a
rubbish heap ready for droid pickup.
That gave her another idea. Limping, she hurried back to the debris
she'd left. She scooped shell fragments into the body glove and flung
them behind the rubbish, safer from detection. Then she limped deeper
into IL Avali's bad quarter.
Happy's Landing must be nearby. She and Daye had visited the ale house
several times, thinly disguised in working-class coverails, looking for
good music and flamingly spicy food. Luck and adrenaline got her there
after only one wrong turn. She paused in the doorway, then plunged
into its dark interior without giving her eyes time to adjust. It
sounded nearly vacant. Late afternoon had never been Happy's busy
hour.
She tripped over a bench. Nobody protested, so it must be vacant.
She sank down, exhausted and ashamed. She had to get off Druckenwell,
the only world she'd ever known.
But how? And . . . alone? Daye would meet her here, if he could.
She swallowed on a parched throat. Mustn't use her credit account.
She dug into a third jumpsuit pocket and found a few credit tokens
worth a cold glass of Elba water.
She dropped them onto the table.
Then she pillowed her sweaty forehead on her arms and tried to think.
She couldn't've gotten this far unless Kerioth had sent most of his
troopers chasing Daye.
Therefore, Daye must be a prisoner. (Her mind writhed again: Daye!
Wrrl, oh, Wrrl!) On second thought, she'd worn the invaluable armor.
They'd've all chased her.
No, he'd co-developed the anti-energy field. They needed Daye alive.
Kerioth was undoubtedly tracking them both-Daye Azur-Jamin flattened on
the floor of a narrow service tunnel, scarcely breathing.
During his first moments of flight, he'd been clipped by blaster fire
halfway down his left thigh. It'd stopped throbbing several minutes
ago.
Now it simply felt dead.
Three pairs of white boots scurried past, outside the shaft's access
panel.
They'd find him sooner or later.
Daye dragged himself past the panel, deeper toward the center of I'att
Armament.
Using his tiny comlink, he'd monitored Eisen Kerioth's command
frequency. Poor Wrrl had paid off his life debt in full, and enabled
Tinian to elude pursuit, but Keri-oth--who'd escaped his transparisteel
cage by talking a trooper through code permutations--had ordered
repulsorcraft.
They'd catch Tinian quickly unless he could divert them.
Daye's comlink also let him follow stormtrooper teams as they hunted
him. Kerioth had ordered all personnel
off factory grounds---he meant to use IR scanning, and fewer warm footprints inside the factory would
help.
It would be a race, then. I'att Armament's power grid lay under a
force shield, open to the sky; the plant was built around it like a
vast open square. In half an hour, Daye could crawl to the main power
station. In two minutes more, he could backfeed the force shield into
the power grid. That would take out the whole factory. Daye had
hesitated to endanger innocent bystanders, but Keri-' oth was clearing
bystanders away.
He probably wouldn't escape. But at least Eisen Kerioth wouldn't steal
I'att Armament's anti-energy field--Daye and Strephan's own
brainchild--and get away with it.
No one would ever know what Daye had done, either, except Tinian.
She knew him too well.
The thought made him smile. He crawled on.
"Why, hello, Princess Tinian."
Momentarily terrified, Tinian flung herself upright.
She breathed again when she saw two familiar people standing over
her.
Happy's Landing's current torch singer, Twilit Hearth, wore a
scandalous, shimmering sap-phire-blue gown. Twilit's mate, Sprig
Cheever, sported a short, neat goatee and nondescript clothing. He set
a glass of Elba water in front of her.
Tinian dashed tears away from her eyes and guzzled it.
Twilit touched her shoulder. "Hey. Hey, what's wrong?"
"I" Tinian gulped. She needed allies, and Daye--deft reader of
strangers' intentions had liked these two.
(Where was he?) "I've got to hide. I'm in big trouble."
"Hey, it couldn't be that ba--" "Stormtroopers. They've shut down the
factory."
"No," whispered Twilit. "Where's . . . you know, your prince?"
"I don't know," Tinian groaned.
Twilit seized Tinian's elbow. "Come with me. There's no time to
lose."
Twilit pulled her through a dark, cluttered hallway behind the kitchen,
then up one flight of stairs to a cramped little dressing-sleeping
room.
"Twilit, thanks," Tinian objected, "but they'll search up here."
She laid her valuables under an old boot rack, then startled. She'd
sliced three c-boards off the control panel. Now she had only two.
"We'll hide you in plain sight." Twilit grabbed a shimmering red
gown.
"But we've got to move fast. Put this on."
She'd dropped one c-board! Concentrate, Tinian. First you've got to
survive. Tinian eyed Twilit's curves, then glanced down her size-one
jumpsuit. "Twilit, it won't--" "You've only got minutes," said the
singer. "Are you going to walk into their gunsights wearing that
uniform?"
Tinian skinned out of her jumpsuit and yanked up the extravagant
gown.
To her shock, padding slid into position over all the right places.
The singer was no more voluptuous than Tinian, not in the flesh. She
glanced into the room's only mirror. Her face and someone else's body
looked out.
"Not bad," said the singer, "but we can do better."
She spun a pair of shoes across the floor toward Tinian and rummaged in
a tattered duffel. "I assume you can sing."
"Not like you." Tinian gratefully pulled on one shoe.
Too big, but it would protect her throbbing foot.
"Most Imperials wouldn't know a song sparrow from a cloud crupa.
You know all my songs, I've watched your lips move." Twilit opened a
jar and smeared something onto Tinian's face. Tinian submitted to
several layers of paint and a rapid, hair-pulling fluff job before
Twilit announced, "Break's over, Princess. Get down there and show
your stuff."
Tinian eyed the mirror again. Only the stranger looked
out at her now. "Why are you doing this?" she asked. The stranger's lips moved
when she spoke.
Twilit's face appeared beside the stranger's. Fire blazed in Twilit's
blue eyes---the same shade as her own, Tinian realized. "The Empire
and I had a disagr
eement four or five systems ago," Twilit answered.
"Now get down there."
"But you--" "I'm deathly ill. Couldn't sing another note for at least
an hour. Go. Cheeve and Yccakic'll help."
Tinian tottered down the steps. Now that her eyes had adjusted, she
could make out the ale house's interior.
Two Human customers sat at one table, a lone Devaronian at the bar. On
a clear, triangular stage raised above table level, Sprig Cheever
crouched cracking his knuckles over the black, white, and green keys of
a KeyBed that almost enclosed him. The other sentient band member, a
Bith named Yccakic, plucked his Bottom Viol's five strings as he
adjusted buttons along its tall upright neck. Redd Metalflake, the
group's self-contained droid sound system, sat behind them audibly
tweaking his circuitry.
"I'm... singing?" Tinian croaked. "Twilit feels poorly."
Cheever grinned down through the stage at her.
"That'll work."
Tinian climbed up to stand beside him. He played two chords she
recognized, and she launched into "All I Can Ever Do" with all the guts
she could muster. Now that she'd slowed down, she could only think of
Daye. How could she sing, with Daye in terrible danger . . . if he
was alive?
Without warning, two stormtroopers sprang through Happy's front door.
Tinian gulped. She covered the beat she'd missed by ad-libbing a
lyric. One trooper glanced at her. Immediately he swiveled away.
She felt relieved . . .
and hurt, too. Was she that unattractive in real life?
The troopers bustled from table to table. Just as they
vanished intO
the kitchens, a seismic rumble rocked the ale house. Patrons slid
under tables. Tinian flailed, trying to grab something, and connected
with Yccakic's arm.
"Off the stage!" Cheever commanded. Yccakic laid down his Viol and
towed her down clear, narrow stairs, then out into the dusk-darkening
street.
Three gargantuan fireballs lit the northern sky, rising under low
clouds precisely where I'att Armament had stood.
Both stormtroopers dashed out of Happy's Landing.
Passing without a backward glance, they sprinted up the street. A
customer who'd followed Yccakic outdoors saluted the fireballs with a
raised fist. "Down the rich!" he hooted. "Down the Empire! Up
anarchy!"
"Hey," burbled Yccakic. "You okay, kid?"
Tinian's ears sang. Her vision blacked out from the edges inward.
She collapsed in a heap.
A beefy stranger stumbled into Happy's Landing near dawn. Tinian,
still masquerading as Twilit, drooped on a bench close to Cheever. The
stranger demanded a TrooperBreath, downed the chartreuse glassful, then
looked around for company. Spotting Tinian and Chee-ver, he wobbled
over. "That oughta help. I've been hunting and lifting all night," he
declared.
"What's up?" Cheever set a hand casually on Tinian's shoulder.
"I just spent four hours slaving for the Empire. The head trooper
rounded up all the muscle he could find out on the streets."
"What for?"
"He had us searching I'att Armament... or the crater that used ta be
I'att Armament . . . for survivors."
The ale house spun around Tinian.
"Find any?" Cheever squeezed her shoulder.
The bulky newcomer shook his head. "The Big Moff's
speeder was the smallest wreckage we could identify.
Other than that, nothing. Totality. Looked like an inside job to
me."
He burped, then grinned toothily. "Some brave, suicidal lunatic musta
wanted to take it away from the Empire pretty badly." He raised a
glass in wordless tribute.
Tinian stared. Daye, gone? All that promise . . . broken?
Not only Daye, but Grandfather, Grandmother, and Wrrl.
All her life.
She lost track of time after that. Some hours later, the band held
council upstairs over the kitchens. "Time to leave Druckenwell."
Cheever draped his long legs over a packing crate. "This place is too
hot for me."
"Me, too," put in Twilit.
"We'll never get away," lamented a metallic monotone.
Cheever had lugged Redd Metalflake upstairs and set the boxy sound
droid on a stretch of floor. "Everyone picks on musicians."
Twilit folded her arms. "We'll go," she said firmly.
"The last time we ignored Cheever, we nearly lost our instruments in an
apartment fire. Is somebody onto us, Cheeve?"
"Not yet."
Tinian barely listened. She was in shock. Nothing will ever touch me
again. Nothing. No one. Ever.
Yccakic flicked a series of folds around his tiny mouth.
"Has anyone looked up outside? We've got a blanket of repulsorcraft
sitting over IL Avali. Security will be double; at customs, triple.
And we promised Tinian--" "We'll make it," Cheever predicted.
Twilit cleared her throat. "Fix my ID for her. I'll lie low here for
a few days."
Cheever raised an eyebrow.
Twilit shrugged. "If Comus can make my ID cover Tinian, he can run me
a dupe, easy. I'll be okay."
Cheever stroked his short beard. "That'll work. But
Princess, about
that . . . luggage of yours. I don't think we can risk taking it out
through Imperial Customs."
That cracked Tinian's introspection. Even with a c-board missing,
those pieces might help someone recreate the anti-energy field.
"Wait," she begged. "The customs people will have no idea what your
instruments are supposed to look like . . . right?"
Twilit shrugged. "They're musical morons," she agreed. "What are you
driving at?"
"It's already in pieces," Tinian answered. "Attach them to your
instruments."
Cheever stroked his goatee. "Yeses," he drawled. "I can fit most of
it to look like it's part of the KeyBed's insides."
"I'm good for a c-board or two," proclaimed Redd. A touch of reverb
added confidence to his voice.
Tinian wondered if she were going crazy. She didn't care if she lived
or died, but she must get that field transmitter out through customs.
"Couldn't you get it off Druckenwell safer without me? If they catch
me trying to pass Twilit's ID, it's the spice mines for all of us."
Affectionately, Twilit mussed Tinian's hair. "We know good people
offworld," she said. "People who can use that stuff against the
Empire. They'll want to talk to the I'att Princess. Guaranteed."
A door slammed. "She was there, all right," declared Woyiq.
Daye shuddered. The huge, beefy man's voice jabbed daggers through his
injured head.
The other Human--or was he a Gotal? Daye's eyes wouldn't
focus---turned to shush Woyiq. "Hey, keep it down!"
"Sorry." Woyiq slunk toward Daye's bedside. "Sorry."
The huge Human had dragged Daye out from between jagged duracrete
slabs, laboring in near-total darkness at the bottom of IL Avali's deep
new crater. "Really, I'm sorry-
Daye squeezed his attendant's hand.
"Did you--" "Wait," said the . . . yes, with horns like those it had
to be a Gotal. "Get over here, you
big battlewagon."
Woyiq shuffled even closer.
"You found her?" Daye whispered. "She's all right?"
The beefy man laid a hand on Daye's synthflesh-bandaged shoulder.
Both of his legs had been crushed, too, and one hand . . . and they
didn't dare carry him out to a medic. "She was at Happy's Landing,
hanging out with the band. You guessed it right."
Daye swallowed. Even that small movement hurt. "Did you" "I told her
we found no survivors. She--" "Thanks. Thanks, both of you."
Daye shut his eyes. He couldn't bear to hear how Tinian had taken the
news of his alleged death, not yet. He half wished he could dissolve
his body into nothingness and turn Woyiq's fatal pronouncement into