Under A Black Sun Trilogy

by Kevin J. Anderson

distribution, Nien Nunb had taken years to crack down on the edge-of

  the-law traders. His kindheartedness had paid off. Happy workers had

  rewarded the Chief Administrator by finding a rich new strike of andris

  spice on the far side of Kessel. Nien Nunb was exceedingly pleased.

  Andris, a rare form of the drug, was as valuable as glitterstim or

  ryll. Its properties were further enhanced by exposure to extreme

  cold.

  Much andris had already been excavated here on Kessel, bringing

  excellent financial returns on the new mine. Seeing the opportunity to

  increase the potency of the andris (and their profits as well), Nien

  Nunb and his workers had recently completed installing a

  carbon-freezing facility in the main processing center.

  Today was just another day at work, as the Sullustan accompanied his

  Second Administrator, Torvon, on their weekly inspection tour.

  Together, the tall administrator and the short, mousy manager entered a

  main work chamber.

  In the enormous hollowed-out room below the surface, holding pits and

  carbonite generators bubbled and steamed under a rocky ceiling.

  Cold white mist oozed out of exhaust valves on a rattling conveyor.

  Blind beetlelike creatures worked with multiple claws, packaging and

  sealing the purified andris before it was sent into the hissing vat of

  pure carbonite that had been freshly delivered from the rings of the

  Empress Tera system.

  Torvon's high shiny forehead was split into hemispheres that implied an

  increased cranial capacity. The tall secondary administrator had solid

  pale green eyes with no pupils Nien Nunb could see. Torvon had come

  highly recommended after serving as a high-ranking administrator in no

  less than six other financially successful industrial facilities. The

  man was so tall that the Sullustan's shoulders barely came up to his

  knobby knees.

  As he walked beside his secondary administrator, Nien Nunb studied the

  details with his huge black eyes, which glinted as he flicked his gaze

  along the assembly line. The blind beetles seemed perfectly happy with

  their work. They were well fed, well paid, and lived in a community in

  abandoned glitterstim tunnels on the far side of Kessel. They asked

  for little else.

  Lift platforms carried sealed, code-numbered crates of processed andris

  up to the surface, where a domed spaceport received the cargo for

  shipping. Armed vessels flew off to deliver the treasure. Each cargo

  ship received a percentage, and the remaining credits were transmitted

  back to Kessel.

  Ventilation ducts and piping thrummed around the generators and

  cold-storage receptacles. Machinery protruded above and below, fitting

  together in a jigsaw puzzle of controlled chaos that offered a variety

  of small crannies and hollows to be used for equipment storage. Nien

  Nunb noted ways to make more efficient use of space. Perhaps employees

  from other areas could bring their storage items in here.

  He studied the monitor panels and controls as the brooding Torvon

  stepped close beside him, towering like a tree. The Sullustan manager

  glanced at the pressure gauges of flowing raw carbonite and noticed

  that many of the needles had edged up into the red zones. He muttered

  in alarm and tapped one of the dials, double-checking the reading.

  Torvon reached up out of sight and fiddled with one of the controls.

  Nien Nunb assumed he had seen the same problem and was working to

  correct it.

  Suddenly the gauges jumped. The readings went much highermuch too

  fast. What had Torvon done?

  Nien Nunb gave a loud squawk of alarm. He heard a faint creaking

  groan, saw that one of the coolant pipes close to him was bulging,

  buckling with the strain. He cried out and instinctively dove

  headfirst into a protected cranny between two huge pieces of

  equipment.

  Torvon's knobby legs appeared, striding closer to where Nien Nunb had

  taken shelter. The Sullustan yelled for the secondary administrator to

  get out of the way, but instead Torvon bent over, his unreadable pale

  green eyes flashing. He reached into the cranny, trying to grab Nien

  Nunb. Couldn't Torvon see the danger? What was he doing? The

  Sullustan couldn't understand why he didn't get out of the way. A

  moment later, Torvon's hands clutched Nien Nunb's vest and began to

  drag him out.

  Torvon was going to haul him into the line of the accident!

  Just then, though, the groaning pipe burst. Too soon.

  Gushing, infinitely cold vapors blasted Torvon's legs, right where he'd

  been trying to pull Nien Nunb. The carbonite instantly froze the tall

  administrator's joints, turning his lower legs into poles of solid

  ice.

  Torvon howled in shock and tried to move out of the way, but his feet

  were stuck to the floor. The tall man bent over, tugging at his feet,

  but his legs, like sticks of brittle kindling, shattered. Torvon fell

  face-first into the blast of ultrafrigid gas.

  The carbonite did its work, even as the murderous administrator's

  broken body fell, freezing his head and body core absolutely solid in

  the fraction of a second it took for him to tumble the remaining

  distance to the hard stone floor. When he struck the unyielding

  surface, Torvon smashed into a million glittering pieces. His hand

  still clutched Nien Nunb's vest-not frozen, but no longer alive.

  The Sullustan manager backed up to huddle in the cranny again,

  terrified but unhurt.

  Alarms sounded. Lights flashed. Automatic systems sealed off the

  breached carbonite tube, preventing further loss of the precious

  freezing substance.

  Within moments the air would clear, though Nien Nunb didn't know if he

  would ever be able to drive away the chill in his heart. He had

  trusted Torvon-and Torvon had tried to kill him. Hadn't he? Nien Nunb

  shook his head to clear it. He didn't know what exactly had gone on

  here, and he doubted anyone else would give him the answers-but the

  Chief Administrator knew for certain that this was no mere accident.

  Torvon had died, but the actual target must have been Nien Nunb

  himself.

  When Anja headed for Kessel in the stolen Lightning Rod, it felt just

  like old times. She was flying in a ship as an independent pilot-just

  like the smuggler and expediter she had been for Czethros. She could

  take care of hersell She always had. Anja had her wits about her, and

  she had the antique lightsaber she had bought from a scavenger merchant

  in an illicit market on Ord Mantell. She didn't need the Solo twins or

  their friends to solve her problems for her.

  She could handle this.

  As she came in to the Kessel system, she steered clear of the

  treacherous conglomeration of black holes known as the Maw Cluster,

  which had given rise to the classic challenge of the "Kessel Run."

  Kessel itself, a small world not much bigger than a planetoid, was

  surrounded by a wispy white mane of atmosphere that leaked away into

  space like a comet's tail.

  The shattered moon, blasted apart by the prototype Death Star, had

/>   turned into countless obstacles in the sky, but Anja was confident in

  her piloting abilities. She locked onto the spaceport beacon, and the

  Lightning Rod cruised down through the atmosphere, banging and bouncing

  as it struck meteors too tiny to be marked on any hazard charts.

  "Spaceport Control, this is an unlicensed trader," she said into the

  comm system. "I wish to land for maintenance and services. I'm out of

  Ord Mantell and ran into some damage flying too close to the black

  holes out there."

  "You're far from home, unlicensed trader," said the attendant.

  "Yeah, right. And I'm trying to get back there," Anja replied. "Do

  you have a maintenance dock I could hire?"

  "Follow this vector," ewne the answer. Coordinates scrolled up on her

  screen. Anja smiled, followed the beacon to a contained cargo area at

  those coordinates, and approached the.opening dome to land.

  Anja felt the hunger screaming inside her more stridently than ever.

  Down beneath the white alkaline surface of Kessel, hidden in the rocks

  of this planet, was spice ... spice for the taking. All she needed for

  now was one more dose just to help her get by. She only had to track

  down a sample, just a tiny amount. That would buy her more time in

  which to battle her addiction.

  She hadn't been lying to Jacen and Jaina Solo when she'd said she only

  took andris because she liked to. Just for kicks. She had believed

  that. Sometimes she did need spice, though. And the twins had made

  her realize, reluctantly, that she needed andris more than she had let

  herself believe.

  Anja Gallandro did not like to depend on anyone or anything. She had

  to kick this habit, break her addiction ... and she would start as soon

  s she formed a plan. After she got herself another dose to tide her

  over, she would be able to think more clearly.

  But now that she was on Kessel, with the Lightning Rod settled into an

  unmarked berth inside the enclosed cargo bay, she didn't know how to go

  about obtaining a new supply. Security would be tight. Although

  smugglers sometimes made a living from selling andris and glitterstim

  and ryll offworld, she couldn't just step into the local mercantile and

  order a container for herself But she hoped there might be some people

  in the docking bays who had a tiny bit of skim they could sell from

  their cargo ... under the table, of course.

  She stepped out of the cooling Lightning Rod, looked around, and tossed

  her long hair behind her back. She still wore her skintight outfit

  from her smuggling days. The sleeveless shirt showed off her taut

  muscles and the piranha beetle tattoo on her arm. But Kessel was a

  cold world, and even here in the docking bay she felt a bite to the

  air.

  Shivering, she considered going back into the Lightning Rod to rummage

  through the supply compartments and find warmer clothes.

  But then her eyes fixed on a familiar craft at the other side of the

  docking bay. She was puzzled for a moment. She'd seen the ship not

  long before. When a little grayish-skinned man with winglike eyebrows

  and a ridged scalp emerged, she put the pieces together instantly. She

  remembered this man and his ship.

  Lilmit.

  His craft was the Rude Awakening, a cargo hauler licensed out of Ord

  Mantell. Lilmit had been on his way from Ord Mantell to Anja's

  homeworld of Anobis, hauling a load of black-market weapons. Those

  contraband tools of destruction were for sale to one of the sides

  fighting in the ongoing civil war that had devastated Anobis for

  decades. Worst of all, Lilmit was no mere gunrunner: he was an

  opportunist without a conscience. He had sold weapons to both sides in

  the conflict, making his profit by perpetuating the destruction, the

  misery, the bloodshed.

  Han Solo had stopped Lilmit's ship, using the Millennium Falcon to

  intimidate him. Together, Anja and the young Jedi Knights had boarded

  the Rude Awakening, discovered the weapons cache, and destroyed all the

  deadly items in an explosion in space. It was one of the few good

  things Han Solo had ever done, as far as Anja was concerned.

  And now she had caught Lilmit here on Kessel, no doubt causing more

  problems.

  Before she could stop herself, Anja sprinted across the enclosed cargo

  bay, her long legs carrying her rapidly in the low gravity. Lilmit

  looked up from tinkering in his open engine compartments. He saw her

  coming and either recognized her or instinctively drew back from the

  blazing fire in her large eyes. He raised his webbed hands and backed

  against the hull of his ship in surrender.

  Anja was there, glaring down at him. "What are you doing here, little

  man? Procuring more weapons?"

  "No, no!" the diminutive smuggler said, flapping his fingers.

  "There's nothing in my cargo that would interest you. It has nothing

  to do with you-and Czethros would be very angry if you sabotaged me

  again."

  Czethros? Anja drew back. "What are you talking about?"

  Lilmit misinterpreted her question. "Don't think I've forgotten you.

  Your name is Anja Gallandro, and I found out that you work for

  Czethros, too. You were with Han Solo, and you helped him destroy my

  entire cargo on its way to Anobis. Czethros really didn't seem

  surprised when I told him. Oh, he was displeased to hear that you cost

  him most of his business on Anobis, but he was most displeased with

  me.

  He said your assignment was your business, and my assignment was my

  responsibility. I had to pay Czethros back for that loss out of my

  personal accounts. I barely kept my family from being sold into

  slavery. Now that I'm almost back on my feet, I won't let you destroy

  my work again.

  I can't afford it."

  "Czethros ... you're sure you work for him?" Anja said, thinking of

  how Czethros had pretended to be her friend, taken her under his wing,

  trained her on Ord Mantell. How could he be involved in such terrible

  things? Of course, he had ordered his henchmen to kill the young Jedi

  Knights....

  "Yes!" Lilmit insisted. "Just as you do! But after that disaster of

  losing all the weapons, Czethros assigned somebody else to those duties

  and transferred me to the spice run instead. Please-don't ruin this

  for me." His voice carried a whining tone.

  "I wouldn't do that to you," she said masking her confusion with a

  smooth reply. "We're colleagues, right?" She fell silent, hoping he

  would blunder through more of an explanation. But already Lilmit's

  words echoed like thunder through her head. Czethros himself had been

  involved in the gunrunning to Anobis!

  She couldn't believe it. He had lied to her! And not just about the

  addictive properties of spice. He'd known all along how much she

  despised the endless conflict on her war-torn world. He had pretended

  to understand what Anja had been through. Czethros had consoled her,

  offered her a new chance at life, given her a job working for him. And

  all the while he had secretly been selling weapons so that the people

  on her world could d
estroy themselves!

  He was a liar and a traitor.

  Czethros had played her for a fool. He'd kept his true activities

  secret. He'd used her. In fact, Anja suddenly found it easy to accept

  that, in all likelihood, the man had purposely addicted her to spice

  just to keep her under his thumb.

  It made complete sense now. Czethros was not a generous or benevolent

  man. He had managed to trap Anja in a prison of her own anger and

  need, and now that she needed the andris more than anything else ... he

  had run. He'd disappeared, gone into hiding to protect his own skin.

  He didn't care about her at all.

  Her face hardened into a grim scowl. "And just where were you

  intending to go, Lilmit? You have a shipment of spice, you say?"

  "I'm picking one up today. Just a small shipment," the smuggler

  said.

  "Taking it to Mon Calamari. Czethros probably told you all about the

  Black Sun activities there. We've been building up quite a spice stash

  close to Crystal Reef, their largest resort city, near the Arctic. We

  hide the andris in the water beneath the polar ice caps to keep it

  potent.

  From there, we plan to sell it to select clientele in the floating

  casinos.

  The profits from this operation alone could make Czethros a wealthy man

  for the rest of his life. There's a thriving black market. Only the

  wealthiest people from all over the New Republic can afford to stay on

  one of those oceangoing resorts. Especially Crystal Reef" Anja nodded