by Martha Wells
One still had working power cells and Han managed to get it turned on, but the holoimage was too obscured by static to see. He had to pry open the console and clean a few contacts, but finally an old mining company’s logo swam into focus. Han was guessing that anything important the system could access, like codes for the mining equipment or docking rings or storage, would be access-protected, but an internal map should be readily available.
After a little poking around in the admin screens and arguing with Terae about the most likely sections to try, they found it. The map blossomed above the vid plate, and the asteroid’s interior glowed in green and red in the rotating image. Han squinted at it, trying to read the tiny print. The thing wouldn’t enlarge.
The mine was a maze of odd-sized chambers and shafts, some straight and some in long spirals. Corridors were marked as traverses and haulage tunnels, many of the chambers had names instead of designations, and levels seemed to be called floors and were divided into upper, lower, and middle in some system Han couldn’t easily decipher. Gravity was marked as fluctuating throughout, with lighter levels in the bigger shafts and spirals and many of the haulage tunnels. The middle of the place was a giant cavern, curving up through the whole center of the asteroid for hundreds of meters.
Terae held up her comlink to record it, and angled her head, trying to see the labels. “I think that’s a brig, but it’s way over on the other side.”
“Yes, but look here.” Sian pointed to an area not far from their current location. “That’s all marked as living quarters, and it’s in the right place, where the Letaki told you.”
“I bet they converted it into a slave pen,” Han said, ignoring Terae’s wince at the blunt terminology. He traced the corridor layout around it and saw there was only one way in: the center tunnel that led from the loading area where the pirates had been fighting over their cargoes. Getting near that wasn’t going to be easy.
But the map showed a very narrow tunnel running directly beneath the living quarters all the way to the center of the asteroid. It was crossed by quite a few other tunnels, including one traverse that they should be able to get to from here. There were no chambers off the tunnel, and it was weirdly straight, where everything else curved or spiraled through the rock. “Think that’s a maintenance access?” Han said.
“It looks like one.” Sian tried to adjust the size again, but the touch pad didn’t respond. She leaned close and squinted. “It says WASTE DISPOSAL.”
Han nodded to himself. “If we can get into it, then work our way back up to where we think the slave pen is—” He cut himself off sharply as a clanking sounded from outside the chamber.
“Get down,” he whispered, hitting the main power on the console. The map dissolved as they crouched down to take cover behind the trashed equipment. Carefully lifting his head just enough, Han saw an old maintenance droid rattle slowly past the doorway. It had multiple arms and seemed to be trying unsuccessfully to clean the floor of the corridor. He waited, but nothing followed it. “Okay, we’re clear.”
“You really think those half-dead droids are reporting to the pirates?” Terae asked. She got to her feet, pointedly dusting off her pants. Han thought she was mostly mad that she had obeyed a command from him without thinking twice.
“Maybe,” he told her. “I don’t want to bet my life on it. You can run out and shoot at that one if you want. Just give us time to get out of here before you do it.”
Terae glared at him, and Sian said, “The ones down in the loading area were sure reporting to the pirates.” She reached the console first and tried to turn it back on. It just beeped weakly at her. “That’s it for this console. Want to try another?”
What Han wanted was not to waste any more time. He asked Terae, “Did you get a good copy of the map?” At her nod, he continued, “Then let’s go.”
After Viest finished her drink, she called the Aqualish and some more guards to take Leia and Metara down to the game arena. She said, “I’ll join you shortly,” and then added, “Oh, leave your weapons here. We don’t let any of the players go armed. We wouldn’t want any accidents.”
Metara and Leia handed over their blasters, and grimly, Leia relinquished her hold-out pistol when the pirates’ surprisingly state-of-the-art weapons scanner found it in the holster concealed just above her right boot.
The Aqualish and the other guards led them to a lift tube at the far side of the control center. The other pirates in the room watched them with a worrying combination of anticipation and unease. Leia found herself wondering just what allegiance they owed to Viest, if their loyalty was bought with threats or gifts or both.
When they were inside the lift tube, Leia asked, “What exactly is this game?”
“That’s for Viest to tell you,” the Aqualish said, but added, “Anybody else says anything about it, they end up playing it with you.”
That wasn’t encouraging. And judging from the uneasy way the other guards were reacting, it was true. Leia made her voice dry. “So is it really a game, or just an exciting way for Viest to execute people she doesn’t care for?”
The Aqualish made a coughing noise that Leia realized was bitter laughter. “It’s both. If she wants to take you on as personal crew, or if you ask to do business with her and she isn’t sure about you, she makes you play. That part is true.”
He didn’t seem to approve. “You sound like you speak from experience,” Leia said. “Bad experience.”
One of the other guards shifted uneasily, as if even enforced association with people who were speaking about it was dangerous. The Aqualish looked down at her, his eyes going half lidded to conceal any emotion. “My captain played. Now I’m stuck here.”
That was what Leia had thought it might be. Metara glanced at her, brow furrowed with concern.
They stopped at a level some distance below the control center and followed the Aqualish out onto a long gallery. It looked down into the bottom of the giant cavern that formed the center of the asteroid.
The huge space was cooler than the tunnels had been, and the air was even more damp; rivulets ran down the slabs of cut stone, leaving white and red mineral streaks. The whole place smelled of wet dirt, burned metal, and ozone. Leia blinked and found herself staring upward. The giant mining machinery hung overhead, just shadowy shapes in the dimness. There were diggers with drills as large as the Gamble, and extractors with scoops that could have carried the Aegis.
“Wait here,” the Aqualish told them, and headed back toward the lift tube.
Above the gallery, linked to it by a set of curving metal stairs, was a smaller balcony, with couches and chairs arranged on it. It was empty at the moment, but Leia guessed it was where the spectators would sit. A few guards stood around on the gallery, some human and others of different species, all holding blast rifles. The only other unarmed people in the chamber were two pairs of pirates, standing at opposite ends of the gallery. They had to be the other players.
Two of them were members of an amphibious species that Leia recognized as Ishori, from a world in the Core. They were tall and slim, with green-gray skin, long narrow skulls, no noses, and the marks of gills on their cheeks and throats. Feathery fins ran down their arms and legs. Both wore metal devices on their hands, and Leia at first thought they were weapons, but then she realized they had only three fingers on each hand; the devices were prosthetics, giving them three more fingers to make it easier to use standardized equipment.
The other two were the tough-looking Twi’lek woman Leia had seen in the docking ring and a somewhat grungy young human man. The Twi’lek had her arms folded and was glaring angrily at the playing field.
The amphibians didn’t seem happy to be here, either, talking to each other in soft worried voices and seeming agitated. So the Aqualish had been telling the truth, Leia thought. Either the other players were being punished, or they were new to the clearinghouse and were being forced to do this before they could join Viest’s crew or conduct business here. Sh
e would bet they were all small-time operators, with modest ships and little in the way of resources or status. She doubted Viest could force the captains of the large powerful ships like the Wastrel to dance to her tune this way.
Metara touched Leia’s arm to get her attention. “I think that must be their game arena.”
Looking down, Leia realized that a few pieces of the seemingly random equipment were containment-field generators, kept in place by repulsor anchors. Once activated, they would probably form a sphere around the central area. Suspended inside it, also on repulsor anchors, were some sort of heavy mining devices, all shaped like big rings about three meters wide.
“I don’t like the look of that,” Leia said. There was something else floating inside the field area, something small; squinting, Leia saw that it was a sensor remote. She would bet that the object of the game was going to be to capture or destroy that remote, probably while it was shooting at them. But there had to be another complication. “Those rings—do you have any idea what they are?”
“For lifting something large, or processing ore …” Metara trailed off, and she and Leia exchanged a look. Leia wasn’t sure what sort of processing the rings would do, but she was certain it wouldn’t have a pleasant effect on a sentient body.
“The others might know,” Leia said, and started over to the Twi’lek’s team. But a human guard stepped in front of her, barring her way.
“No talking to the others.”
It made sense to keep the players from speaking with one another beforehand. If Leia had had a chance to pay them off or bargain with them to throw the game, she would certainly have taken it. “Are they proving their mettle for Viest, too?” she asked.
His expression twisted with amusement. “She is.” With his blast rifle still casually pointed in Leia’s direction, he nodded toward the Twi’lek, then jerked his head toward the Ishori. “Those two got their ship and crew indentured by another captain, and they’re trying to get the flightmaster to buy them out of it.” He jerked the gun at her. “Get back to your place.”
“Lovely,” she muttered, and returned to Metara’s side.
Leia waited until the nearest guards had started talking among themselves, then lowered her voice to say carefully, “Metara, I appreciate the thought, but you should not have volunteered for this.”
Metara wore the calm, solemn expression of someone who had absolutely no idea she had made a terrible tactical error. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to be included. I’ll do my best to protect you, I swear it.”
Leia decided to ignore that in the interest of keeping her carefully cultivated patience. “Did you notice that Viest is a Lorrdian? Have you ever heard of Lorrdian readers?”
Metara shook her head slightly, confused. “I know Lorrdians are supposed to be good at reading body language—”
“Some of them are more than good at it; some of them make a living at it. And they’re excellent at distinguishing truth from lies.” Leia wondered what Viest’s history was, how she had ended up here. If Viest had been hired—or bought—to be some pirate leader’s reader and had eventually managed to use her skills to rise to this position, she would be even more dangerous.
Metara took that in but didn’t appear to entirely believe it. “She knew we were lying? Why didn’t she have us killed immediately?”
“Because she didn’t know what we were lying about, and she wants to find out before she kills us.” Leia saw that Metara at least seemed to be taking her warning seriously. “She picked up on the fact that you wanted to protect me, so … you need to stop that.” It wasn’t a very effective or specific request, but Leia felt compelled to make it.
Her expression turning stubborn, Metara shook her head. “I can’t let anything happen to you. It’s my fault that you’re here at all.”
Leia agreed that it was Metara’s fault, but there was no point in dwelling on it. “If we’re going to salvage this situation, you have to let me take care of myself.”
Metara drew breath for what was clearly going to be an argument. Leia fixed her with the steely expression that was usually effective on everyone but Han Solo, and Metara let the breath out. “I’ll try, Your Hi—Leia.”
The lift tube opened again and Viest stepped out, followed by about a dozen assorted pirates. Most of the others wandered up to the spectator area, but Viest strolled over to Leia and Metara. “The object is to defeat the remote,” she explained. “It will be firing high-energy training pulses—not strong enough to wound, but they certainly hurt.”
Leia felt some relief that the object was not to slaughter the opposing players. “And those rings?” she asked. “I’m assuming they’re some sort of ore processor. What are they for?”
Viest smiled. “They’re called crushers. Just to add a little extra tension.”
Oh, we’re calling it tension, are we? “You really force new business associates to do this?” Leia asked. “Why?”
Viest’s expression did something complicated and then went blank. It probably would have been crystal clear to another Lorrdian, but it was completely opaque to Leia. She did, however, think it had been a very long time since anyone had asked Viest to explain her actions. “As I said, we like to test their mettle.”
Leia inclined her head in acknowledgment. So Viest did it for fun, then. Because she enjoyed seeing desperate people struggle. Leia had thought of Viest as ruthless, but now she wondered just how twisted the woman was. “So if we lose, we can still discuss an arrangement?”
Viest shrugged. “That will depend.”
Leia prodded a little harder. “On whether we survive.”
Viest abruptly decided to stop playing with her. “Exactly.”
Leia met her gaze. “Then I look forward to discussing an arrangement with you when we win.”
They found the maintenance tunnel or, as Han now thought of it, the dark, dank hole in the floor.
The traverse corridor they had followed here had bridged a couple of low-gravity shafts, and the tunnel entrance could almost be mistaken for another one. The access to it was just a ragged hole in the rock. They had figured out that a traverse was meant for people and droids to travel from one part of the mine to another, and that a haulage tunnel was meant for automated ore carts. The difference was that haulage tunnels had either a grid or sensors to guide the carts, rough uneven floors, and no lumas. Han thought that someone smart enough to set up camp here and sell handlights and glow rods would make a hell of a lot more credits than the average pirate.
Now he sat on his heels and flashed his light down into the hole. He could make out metal support panels fastened onto the rock, with vents beneath them. The tunnel was about three meters wide and looked like it was meant for droids to move refuse loads. He said, “I’ll go. You two wait up here.”
Terae frowned but didn’t argue. Sian lifted a brow at him. “You sure?”
Han wanted somebody up here to take the word back if he got caught. “I’m just gonna take a look, see if we can actually use it to get near the slave pen. I don’t need help for that.” He dropped down into the tunnel.
He started back in the direction of the docking ring, toward where they thought the slave pen was located. After a short distance, the dim light that fell from the access hole started to fade. It was dead quiet, and the back of his neck prickled with unease.
Han caught movement low to the ground, just at the edge of the light’s beam. He froze and flashed the light down. A small, square shape scuttled by. He snorted in relief, feeling his skin itch with the unused burst of adrenaline.
It was a little cleaning droid, limping along, scraping mold off the stone floor. It didn’t show any interest in him, and small cleaners like that usually didn’t have any higher reasoning functions. Han kept walking.
After a short distance it became apparent that there were dozens of cleaning droids, some of them creeping around slowly, barely functioning, but not much else. Playing his light over the tunnel roof, he could see an
occasional sealed hatch, with no controls and no way to open them. He suspected they were meant for droids who would open them with coded signals from below, for waste collection. Then a draft of recycled air told him there was another hole somewhere.
After a moment of flashing his light around, he found a meter-square opening in the ceiling near the wall. It couldn’t lead to the slave pen or a guard station; the space above it was silent and almost completely dark. But it did have a ladder below it, built into the tunnel wall, as if it was meant for an actual living being and not just hauler droids.
Han climbed the ladder and cautiously poked his head and his light out, but saw only another traverse corridor. Two dying lumas floating aimlessly around, providing only dim light. It didn’t look any more inhabited than the other traverse corridor. They were probably lucky the place was so badly sealed off that it was impossible to depressurize the unused areas, or it would have been far more difficult to move through here. Han filed the access away for future reference if needed and dropped back down to continue up the tunnel.
Right at the point where he was beginning to think this idea was a bust, he saw a faint glow ahead.
As he drew closer, he saw that the light fell through a doorway in the side of the passage. It was about a head shorter than he was, and he had to duck to step through. The new corridor looked like another maintenance passage for mechanicals, with panels hanging off the walls and slots where components had been removed; a heavy smell of mold hung in the stale air. The light grew brighter as he continued, coming from an overhead source somewhere ahead.
He found it at the end: a half-meter-square grid at the top of a short shaft. The sides bore signs that something here had been removed, leaving behind gouges, clamps, and broken fastenings. He wasn’t sure what the original purpose had been, but if he was right that the space above was living quarters, this shaft might have been another kind of waste-disposal arrangement. He could hear quiet voices.
He switched his light off and tucked it away in the satchel. Then he jumped, caught hold of a bar at the bottom of the shaft, and climbed the rough projections in the wall to just below the grid. From this angle he could see there was another grid above it, this one of fine mesh, and it had been inexpertly but solidly welded into place. The voices were a little louder, and he could hear people moving around.