by Martha Wells
Han jerked his chin toward the screen that was tracking the Wastrel and the captured merchant ship. “They’re going to another berth on this side. I bet it’s that big one right there.”
Leia watched, noting the position carefully. “That’s good to know.”
Han eyed her and she eyed him back. She said, “We’re not leaving without them.”
Keeping his voice low, though still managing to convey just how exasperated he was, he said, “It’s not your fault they’re here.”
Glaring at Metara’s back, Leia whispered, “Believe me, I know exactly whose fault this is.”
The pilot carefully took the Aegis through the opening into the berth. It was a big space, suited to a much larger ship, with a metal superstructure built onto the arch of the rock ceiling that might be meant for transporting ore containers. Leia felt the shudder through the deck as the Aegis touched down on the scarred stone landing surface. The young pilot had positioned it right in the middle of the bay, ignoring the faded lines and circles meant to tell the long-ago droid transports where to land.
“The bay is repressurizing,” Kelvan reported, checking his console.
Metara put down her headset and crossed the bridge to the observation area. “Their leader wants to see me,” she told Leia. “Or at least I assume it’s their leader. The title is ‘flightmaster,’ and I’m not sure if he actually controls the ships docked here or just their right to use the station itself.”
“Is he the one who paid for your repairs and new systems?” Leia asked.
Metara nodded. “Yes. Though we only spoke through intermediaries. I was never even told his name.”
“Let me go with you,” Leia said. She purposely did not look at Han, but felt him stiffen next to her.
Metara shook her head. “I’ll report to you what we say, and you can advise me—”
Leia interrupted, “That won’t work. I can’t help you if I don’t know exactly what you’re up against.”
Metara sighed. “Your Highness, I have a great deal on my conscience already. I have no intention of adding to that. If anything happens to you—”
“If this flightmaster gets the idea that there’s someone on this ship you’re reporting to and consulting with, it’s going to do nothing but make him suspicious. We can tell him that I represent another pirate ship, another group of pirate ships, that has made you an offer. Working with my group, you’ll be able to pay your debt quickly with interest. If he’s a businessman, that should be all he cares about.” Leia bit her lip, thinking about the merchant crew. “I’m not sure how we’re going to get your prisoners back.”
“Our deal was for the cargo, not the ship itself or the crew,” Metara reminded her. “But obviously the flightmaster changed his mind.”
“We might be able to work with that, argue that the crew still belongs to you because they weren’t specifically mentioned.” But Leia doubted she could get the pirates to simply hand over the prisoners. “We might have to offer to buy them.” The thought of giving money to slavers grated on her, but she just didn’t think it would be possible to take the prisoners by force. “If I can get the pirates to agree to that, and we can return to the station, I can get the funds from my ship. If they ask for more than we have, I can send for it.” Hopefully, the Millennium Falcon would reach Arnot Station before they returned. “I don’t know if this will work,” she told Metara. “But we have to try.”
Metara watched her a moment, her expression unreadable. “I won’t go to the Alliance, no matter what you do for us.”
Leia was willing to give up on that point, or pretend to give up on it, at least for now. “I understand. Do you want to use this ship for piracy and slavery?”
Metara’s answer was reassuringly immediate. “No. Not slavery. I won’t promise never to attack another ship, but it was never my intention to capture this crew.”
“Then we have the same goal.” For now, Leia thought. Later, we’ll see.
Han stopped Leia in the corridor outside the bridge, where they had a moment of temporary privacy. It had been hard enough keeping his mouth shut in front of Metara and the others. He said, “If you’re going to ask me if I think this is a good idea—”
“I’m not asking you.” Leia appeared amused by the idea that she might. “I need you to look out for Sian and Kifar while I’m gone. Make sure they don’t get into any trouble, with the Aegis’s crew or the pirates.”
Which meant she was entertaining the idea that she and Metara wouldn’t be back soon, that this might not be just a quick chat with the flightmaster. “We’re supposed to be looking out for you. That’s why we came. Remember, I’m your ‘bodyguard.’” With hooked fingers, Han supplied the air quotes to make the double meaning obvious.
“I thought you said you were my ‘pilot,’” Leia air-quoted back at him. “Han, I don’t have time for this.” She looked at him with steely determination. “I have to help these people and I need you to … not try to stop me.”
Yeah, yeah, he knew she needed to help these people. She needed to help all the people. “Then let me go help them with you.”
“They only asked for Metara. It’s going to be awkward enough when she brings me along. More people would just make it worse.”
“Awkward?” Han lifted his brows at the choice of word. She was right, but he hated to send her out with no backup except Metara. The captain was a fanatic, and he would sooner trust a Hutt gang lord than a fanatic. “It’ll be awkward if they shoot you.”
“It’ll be just as awkward if they shoot all of us.” Leia folded her arms and gave him the I’m-the-Princess-and-you’re-not look. “I’m not going to argue about this.”
Han still wanted to argue, just out of principle, but it wasn’t like he had a better idea. It was a little late to try seizing control of the bridge and taking over the ship by holding Metara hostage, which was his favorite of the bad ideas he had come up with while they were in hyperspace. He hadn’t brought it up at the time, because even then he could see that Leia was making subtle inroads to accomplish exactly the same end without needing to draw a blaster. She had somehow managed to make herself Metara’s partner in this whole disaster, and by going along to negotiate with the flightmaster, she was moving to become Metara’s boss. Watching her operate like this would have been daunting if he weren’t finding it quite so attractive.
He threw his hands in the air, making up for giving in by doing it with as little grace as possible. “All right, fine!”
“Good.” Leia handed him the comlink she had brought from the Gamble. “Hold on to this for me. If we’re searched or have to give up our weapons, I don’t want to have to answer questions about it. Metara is going to have one secured to the ship’s comm; the pirates should expect that. Please go update Sian and Kifar on the situation. And don’t sulk about it.”
Han put the comlink in his pocket. “You’re the boss, Your Holiness.” He knew she really hated it when he called her that. Leia gave him her death glare in return and stomped away, heading back to the bridge. Han wondered again what strange turn his life had taken that he had ended up as friend and verbal sparring partner for the last Princess of Alderaan. He just didn’t want to be the guy who got her killed.
On her own, Leia was pretty good at not getting herself killed, no matter how hard the Empire had tried. At least he was here with her this time to keep her out of trouble.. What worried him more was how far she might have to go to save these idiot Alderaanians from themselves. The kids who thought they could play pirate without getting their hands dirty were bad enough; Metara, who had talked them into this and ran the ship like a cult leader in a religious colony, worried the hell out of him.
Han told Sian and Itran what the situation was, and predictably, Itran said, as if this were somehow all Han’s doing, “Are you out of your mind? The Princess shouldn’t be here in the first place!”
“You think?” Han said, pretending to be genuinely interested in the answer, just to see what I
tran would do.
Itran railed about it and Han continued to prod him while thinking—just a little—about shooting him, until Sian finally said, “Will you two calm down and be quiet? The only thing we can do right now to help the Princess is present a united front, so let’s just do that, all right?”
Han thought Sian didn’t care so much about presenting a united front as long as he and Itran both shut up. Which they did. The silence gave Han time to worry more about Leia’s plans. The fact that everyone from the Aegis and the Gamble who accompanied Metara and Leia down to the bay floor was armed didn’t reassure him all that much.
The bay was big, carved out of the rock by the same massive digging tools that had chopped up the rest of the asteroid. The air had just been pumped in, so it wasn’t stale, but it was cool and too damp and had a metallic taint, probably from faulty recycling units somewhere in the system. The moisture had combined with the rock dust in the air to coat the metal panels and stone surfaces with a dirty muck. Stretching across the rocky ceiling was a heavy metal superstructure, a loading mechanism for the ore transports that had once docked here.
Two big blast doors in the far wall opened to a corridor, where a few armed pirates waited, probably assigned to keep an eye on the newly recruited ship. Taking a quick look around, Han immediately noticed the second, unguarded way out of the bay. A moment later Sian nudged his arm and pointed up at the superstructure overhead. He gave her a quick nod.
Three of the guards came forward into the bay, two humans and one Quara. The Quara was short, with green-gray skin, bulbous dark eyes, and two short tusks covering the lower part of his face. The two humans were both male, both big, dressed in dirty leather and carrying blasters. The Quara said, “The flightmaster wants to see the captain. Who’s the captain?”
Metara stepped forward. “I am.” She indicated Leia with a jerk of her head. “She’s coming with me.”
The Quara grunted but didn’t object. “The rest of your crew stays here, till the flightmaster says otherwise. We don’t want strangers wandering around.”
Metara glanced at Kelvan and got a reluctant nod from him. She told the Quara, “We understand.”
He turned away. “Then follow me.”
Han watched Metara and Leia follow the Quara away, his misgivings growing. Leia didn’t even look back. The Quara hadn’t told them to hand over their weapons, but maybe that would come later, when they were away from the ship and any help. Most of the guards had been left behind, loitering just outside the blast doors.
One of the Alderaanians said to Kelvan, “I don’t like this, sir.”
Kelvan looked like he hated it. “No one does.”
The Princess wasn’t going to budge from this place until she could take that captured merchant crew with her, and Han wasn’t exactly keen on leaving them here, either. He had seen too many slave pens for that. To test Kelvan’s resolve, he said, “We need to find out where they’re keeping their prisoners.”
Kelvan’s reaction was to look toward the bay door, clearly considering how difficult it might be to get through it. “The Quara said we’re not to leave the bay, and trying to come up with some excuse might make them suspicious. I don’t want to risk that while the captain and Her Highness are away from the ship.”
Unexpectedly, Terae said, “Maybe we could ask to see the merchants, pretend we consider them our property.”
Han hadn’t thought Terae was on board with the idea of rescuing the merchants and escaping the pirates, but maybe he’d been wrong.
“Maybe.” Kelvan’s expression was doubtful. “Our deal was for the cargo of the ship, there was never anything said about the crew, which was why we didn’t think these pirates were slavers. But Captain Metara is not going to want us to act without her here. For one thing, it might contradict something she’s about to tell them.”
Kelvan was right, but he clearly wasn’t averse to hearing more suggestions. Han decided to take a chance on him. “Yeah, we’re going to have to do it without anybody noticing.”
Terae gave him an impatient glare. “That’s the point: we can’t.”
Han jerked his chin up. “There’s another way out of this place.”
Everybody looked up. The superstructure overhead formed a track for guiding large repulsor carts of ore through the loading bays so they could be lowered to droid-controlled transports. High in the carved rock of the inside bay wall, the track curved, then stopped at a large hatchway that probably hadn’t been opened since the last mining company had left. Next to it was a smaller maintenance hatch that Han thought should be easier to open. “They’ve been using these bays so long, they’ve forgotten those hatches are up there.”
Han saw Kelvan’s expression go from reluctant and skeptical to intrigued, and knew he had him. Kelvan said, “That might work.”
“I’ll go,” Han said. “We know they took the merchant ship to a dock down that way; we find it, we might be able to figure out where they took the crew.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sian said.
Itran nodded. “Me, too.”
“No,” Terae said, before Han could. She nodded to Han and Sian. “You two, and me. More than three and it will be too difficult to move around quietly.”
“Two can move around more quietly than three,” Han said. He didn’t want Terae at his back any more than he wanted Itran.
Terae didn’t like that. “If you two leave here alone, we have no guarantee you’ll come back.”
Sian laughed. “Really? And then what would we do?”
Han folded his arms. “Well, there goes my plan to live forever in the droid-access tunnels of a half-dead asteroid mine.”
“He was really looking forward to that,” Itran added, surprising Han. He hadn’t thought the guy had a sense of humor.
Terae bristled, and Kelvan said, “Lieutenant Terae goes with you, or no one goes. And it’s a scouting mission, only. Don’t do anything until we can report to Captain Metara.”
Itran drew breath for what was clearly going to be an objection, but Han had a lot of experience in pushing people over lines, and knew Kelvan had been pushed as far as he was willing to go. He said, “It’s a deal.”
The Aegis carried standard survival gear, which included a fibercord grappling hook. Han also picked up a small satchel of tools, since it looked like they would be dealing with access hatches and other equipment that had been old when the Republic fell.
Once they had climbed out the ship’s topside access hatch, Han threw the grappling hook up to catch on the lowest girder of the ore track. He climbed up quickly, Sian and Terae after him. They managed to do it quietly, and the crew member Kelvan had stationed near the ship’s ramp didn’t signal a warning that the guards stationed by the bay doors had been alerted by any noise or movement above.
The ore track was an open tube made of metal girders, with relays embedded in it to send instructions to the repulsor ore carts. Judging by the width of the track, the carts must have been at least ten meters across; the girders were wide enough to stand on, but the gap between each pair was about two meters—more than enough to fall through and plummet all the way to the stone floor of the docking bay. But running along one girder was a half-meter-wide ledge that had probably been designed for small maintenance droids to perch on while they repaired relays and dislodged the occasionally wonky cart. And there must have been a lot of wonky carts, Han decided, because as he made his way carefully along the ledge he found giant dents in the girder he was using to steady himself.
They reached the side of the bay, a wall of deeply scarred rock. The small maintenance hatch was to one side of the giant ore-cart hatch, and only about a meter high. The rock around the seals of both was crumbling, which didn’t give Han warm fuzzy feelings about this place’s pressure integrity.
“Does it have power?” Sian asked from behind him.
Han tapped the control panel and heard the click as the hatch responded, but nothing happened. “Yeah, but it’s stuck.�
�� He worked his fingers in around the panel and popped it off the wall. A little flurry of crystalline insects scurried out and away across the rock, and Han managed not to yelp in surprise or jerk back and knock Sian or himself off the ledge.
From the back, Terae said, “Hurry it up.”
Oh, she’s going to be fun, Han thought, and hit the manual release for the smaller hatch. Although heavy, it slid upward easily enough once he got his hands under it.
Han had expected a dark maintenance tunnel, but this was only a short passageway, the width of the inner bay wall. The recycled air released wasn’t any staler than the air in the bay, and at the end of the tube there was a dim glow of light from below. He motioned for Sian and Terae to stay quiet, and crouched down to step through.
The meter-high passage had been meant for meter-high droids, and moving along it was awkward. At the end, it opened back onto the ore-cart track, which crossed above a wide corridor and terminated in another set of hatches on the far side. Han held on to a girder to steady himself and leaned out to look down. He could see the floor of the corridor and, several meters along it, the bay doors and the guards waiting there. A few of them sat on the floor, talking and playing what looked like death dice.
They were distracted, but not so distracted that they wouldn’t hear three humans climbing across the girders overhead and prying open the hatch on the far wall. Fortunately, Han wasn’t sure they wanted to go that way—it was likely to just lead into the droid and ore-cart access tunnels. Leaning out a little farther, he could see another, wider ledge running under the girders, parallel to the wall, following the wall of the corridor about five meters above the floor.
That’s more like it, Han thought. The walkway ran the other way, too, passing above the bay doors and continuing in the direction the Quara had led Leia and Metara. Han struggled with temptation for a moment, but trying to walk directly over the guards’ heads would be stupid. He had to trust the Princess not to get herself killed.