Ambush at Corellia

by Roger MacBride Allen

  “A fair question. Because the job intrigues me. I know the history of this sector. Because I have experience in the field of tutelage to well-to-do humans. If I may make an educated guess or two, judging from your background, you wish your children to have a nonhuman tutor in order to expose them to an alien viewpoint. You want that nonhuman to be one of the species native to this system, and thus provide insights that no outsider could. I am about the same height as your children, and they will not be intimidated by me—unless I wish to intimidate them. Are those reasons sufficient, or do you wish more?”

  “That list of reasons is quite adequate,” Leia said with a smile.

  “Good. You have my qualifications listed on that data pad in front of you, I imagine. Do you know enough to make a decision, or do you wish to examine with those ridiculous Force powers of yours and probe the depths of my soul?”

  “You do not believe in the Force?” Leia asked.

  “I believe in it, the way that I believe in gravity or sunshine. I have observed it, and therefore know it to be. But I do not take it seriously. There is not a confidence artist or sabacc shark on this planet—or, I would expect, any other—who does not claim to have vast skill in the Force.”

  “There is something in what you say. But how can the lies of a confidence artist have any bearing on the importance of the Force?”

  “Because, in everyday life for the vast majority of beings, the Force has no real meaning. You live in a world of Jedi powers, where wondrous things are commonplace. I live in a world where I cannot leap five times my height no matter how much I try. I must get a ladder, or have Q9-X2 lift me up. The galaxy that you lead, that your children may well help to lead, has far more of my sort of folk than yours. Your children are strong in the Force, yes?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Then don’t let them rely on it too much,” Ebrihim said. “It can become a crutch, a shortcut, an easy way out. Let them learn the everyday way of doing things. Let them do as ordinary folk do. Let them build from there toward the Force, rather than letting them trust to the Force to start with.”

  “I see,” said Leia. It dawned on her that she should have been mortally offended by a number of the things Ebrihim had said. But maybe she had been around the courtiers and flatterers too much. She found his bluntness refreshing. And it was distinctly pleasant to deal with someone who was not falling all over himself, treating her like some sort of mythical being. He sounded more like a schoolteacher giving advice from a lifetime of experience, telling a parent who was trying too hard how to back off just a bit.

  And, she realized, that was exactly the sort of person she wanted schooling her children. He had a point about the Force. It might well be good for her children to be exposed to a viewpoint that did not see the Force as the be-all and end-all, the starting point and ending point of all things. After all, her children were going to live their lives in a universe where the vast majority of sentient beings never have the least thing to do with the Force. “You have the job,” she said. “Will the advertised salary be adequate?”

  “I would be a fool to turn down more if you should offer it, but yes, it is ‘adequate.’ And if you have no objection, I will set to work at once.”

  “No objection at all,” Leia said.

  Ebrihim got down from his chair, and turned toward his droid. “Come along, Q9,” he said. “We have work to do.”

  Now that Ebrihim had brought attention to his droid, Leia could remark upon it. “Might I say that is a most unusual model,” she said. “I don’t believe I have seen one like it. Might I ask what use a tutor has for an astromech droid?”

  “A great deal of use indeed,” Ebrihim replied. “His skills at data access alone are beyond value. But his abilities extend far beyond that. He has—”

  “I am capable of speaking for myself, Master Ebrihim,” the droid announced. “You needn’t talk about me as if I were not here.”

  Leia raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. “I don’t think I have ever seen an astromech droid capable of speaking Basic before,” she said, addressing Ebrihim. “Did you modify him or does this model come that way?”

  But the droid turned toward Leia. “Your pardon, ma’am, but as I said, I can speak for myself. And I might add that I modified myself for speech as well.”

  “Q9, that is no way to talk to the leader of the New Republic,” Ebrihim said.

  “Why not?” the droid asked, in a tone of voice that made it clear that it was asking out of genuine curiosity.

  “Because she could order you taken apart for spares, among other reasons.”

  “You would not permit her to do so,” Q9 replied. “That particular empty threat no longer impresses me.”

  “One of these days you will be insulting to the wrong person, and I will not be able to prevent your being punished.”

  Leia could not help but smile. “While I would suggest you try to be more polite, I for one won’t order you taken apart.”

  Q9 turned toward his owner. “You see?” he said.

  “No, I don’t,” Ebrihim replied in mild tones. “Being forgiven is far from the same as being right.”

  “Perhaps so,” Q9 replied. “But thus far I have found it is far easier to be forgiven than it is to be right.”

  “That is why people talk to you as if you aren’t here,” Ebrihim said. “They find out very quickly that you are not worth talking to.”

  Q9 looked from Leia to Ebrihim, but plainly could not think of any sufficient rejoinder. Instead of speaking, he simply turned toward the door and rolled himself out.

  “He must be tremendously useful if it’s worth putting up with that much backtalk,” Leia said.

  “Sometimes it’s a difficult call,” Ebrihim replied. “But I must admit that I find him an interesting case. I have never encountered a droid with quite his viewpoint. I find it most stimulating. He has very definite ideas about droids, and tries to live up to them. I think that is part of why he tinkers with himself constantly.”

  “Then the voice upgrade isn’t the only thing?”

  “Oh no, not at all. Whatever the latest and greatest commercially available upgrade is, he has to have it. I’d estimate that something less than half of him is original factory equipment at this point. Beyond that, of course, he designs his own improvements. He built those repulsors himself, for example. I keep hoping that the next addition will be a courtesy module, but no luck as yet.” Either because he enjoyed talking about his droid, or because he had the job, Ebrihim was relaxing a bit.

  “Come,” Leia said. “I think it’s time you met the children.”

  “I am looking forward to it,” Ebrihim said, making a slight bow, inviting Leia to lead the way.

  * * *

  Not far from Coronet City Spaceport, Han Solo turned off Meteor Way and walked into Treasure Ship Row, and could not believe it. Not at first. Not when he remembered how it used to be. How had it come to this? Was he even in the right place?

  Treasure Ship Row had been the market, the bazaar, the entertainment center, the legend you had to pass through—or, if you had no imagination or spirit of adventure at all. go around—on your way from the spaceport into the central city.

  He remembered the hundreds of stalls that had crowded the center of the broad road, selling everything imaginable, from every corner of the galaxy. He remembered the vendors, the beings of every kind, from star systems Han had never even heard of, thronging here, in this place, to hawk their wares. Every day new ships landed, and every day something new, something unexpected, would appear on the sales tables.

  Once Treasure Ship Row had been packed with buyers and sellers from across the galaxy. Once the very sound of the place had been overwhelming, all by itself. The songs of the street players, the banging and crashing and tootling and oompahing of the strolling musicians, the sound of a thousand languages being shouted at once as the vendors urged every person walking past to sample the finest, the most lovely, the rarest, all going fo
r the most absurdly low prices—and any buyer who did not haggle the price down by at least half deserved whatever happened to him next.

  Once the air had been full of the pungent odors of roast meats and strong drink and fresh breads, and of less pleasant scents as well. Your nose was enchanted in one moment by the most exquisite of perfumes, and assaulted in the next by a whiff of what was either the offal from the bottom of a rotted-out animal cage or some other species’ idea of a good meal.

  Once Treasure Ship Row had been a riot of color—brightly hued tents, and signboards that flashed and strobed and throbbed their messages. The shop fronts had been painted in every color of the rainbow, and a few were painted in colors that no human could see. But you knew that the storefront that looked slate gray or dingy white was probably shriekingly bright in the ultraviolet or infrared, and the stores with the strangely textured exteriors of intricately patterned sound-reflective baffles were full of merchandise that would appeal to the species that navigated by echo-location.

  The same sort of rule applied to the small lamps that hung discreetly outside certain otherwise unmarked doors. It took little guessing to know what sort of business was transacted behind those doors, and the lamps that appeared to be burned out were bright in infrared or ultraviolet, signaling the same sort of services to those species who quite literally saw the world a little differently than humans. A famous bit of schoolboy folklore had it that there was an intricate and subtle color-coding system at work even among the lamps visible to human eyes, though no one Han ever met could actually explain how it worked, or what a given color meant. But it was a good story.

  Once the nights of Treasure Ship Row had been just the same as the days, only more so. At dusk, half the vendors would pack up their stalls and then reopen them again as carnival games, sabacc salons, tattoo parlors, betting shops. The others would never close at all. The singers and dancers and street players would come out in greater force, and crowds from the bars and restaurants would overflow out into the balmy evening air. You never wanted to stop in one place for long, for fear of missing what was going on behind the next line of stalls.

  Once all that had been. Now the sounds, the smells, the colors were vanished, the exciting days and magical, mysterious nights were gone. The vendors’ stalls were no more, leaving a broad and empty boulevard behind. The stores were boarded up as well, all except those with their windows smashed, and those that showed the scars of fire damage. All was silent, except for the blowing of the wind, and the scuttlings of small scavenging creatures that hurried into deeper hiding as Han walked down the abandoned street. The only scents on the air were the faint hints of mildew and dry rot, of moldering wood and stagnant, dirty water.

  Sickly-looking trees and tall weeds sprouted here and there in the street—and from the broken windows of several of the shops. Some scraps of ancient, weather-beaten canvas, and a few heaps of abandoned poles and broken-up folding tables scattered about were all that were left, besides Han’s memories of halcyon days and nights.

  All gone. All gone and lost forever. Back in another life that seemed so distant that it might have happened to someone else, Treasure Ship Row had been a place of mystery, of magic and excitement, of promise and danger for a much younger Han. But now the magic was over, and Treasure Ship Row was empty and forlorn.

  Han remembered a famous actor he had met once. He had first seen the man from the fourth row of the theater. The actor had portrayed a dashing young lieutenant, and Han had never seen a man as vital, as alive, as energetic as that imaginary officer. Later he had talked his way backstage, and walked boldly into the actor’s dressing room. He saw the costume on its rack, the wig and the sword and even the nose of the character, each neatly taken off and put away. And sitting in their midst was a tired, gray-faced old man with nothing in his eyes.

  It had taken a conscious act of will on Han’s part before he could even believe that the old man had been the dashing young officer moments before, that the old man fretting that it was closing night, and he had no other part to play, had just moments before been onstage defying the universe.

  Everything special and exciting and thrilling, all the illusions, had been stripped away from Treasure Ship Row, until now there was nothing left at all but the harsh reality of a grimy street.

  Han walked the length of the place, and then turned down Starline Avenue and headed for the center of town. He had to see more, even if he did not want to.

  * * *

  It was not all ruined, Han told himself. Just nearly all. Here and there, as he walked along, there were still well-kept houses, businesses that were still open, and even one or two that looked prosperous. But Han knew he was grasping at straws. Coronet City was Treasure Ship Row writ large.

  The only difference was that Treasure Ship Row was completely dead—and the city was not. The streets were only half-empty, not wholly so. There were vehicles on the road, even if a fair number of them were broken-down, still sitting where they had been abandoned months or years before. Idlers and loiterers gathered on nearly every street corner.

  And nearly everyone he saw was human. Scarcely a Drall or a Selonian in sight. Each of the species had always had its own enclave in the city of Coronet, but in the old days, it had never seemed to matter that much. Selonians would buy groceries in the Drall shops, humans would go visit Selonian friends at home, Dralls would come and see a show in one of the human neighborhoods.

  Not now. Not when there was no money, and no work, and everybody had to look out for themselves—and look over their shoulders as well.

  He should not have been surprised. He knew that now. Nearly all of Corellia’s chief industries had revolved around trade in one way or another. Entertainment for the ship crews, financial services for the shipping companies, droid manufacture and repair, shipbuilding and repair. Even the criminal offshoots of those industries had been based on trade. Con games, money laundering, smuggling, droid hacking, and illegal ship upgrades all required customers from out-system.

  In the good old days, beings had come to this world to have a good time, to sell their cargoes, to get their droids and their ships looked after. All too often people had gotten more than they bargained for—but that, too, had been part of Corellia. Now, thanks to the war, thanks to a paranoid fear of foreigners, thanks to government antialien policies that amounted to financial suicide, no one came to Corellia anymore. There was no one to sell to, and nothing to buy, and no credits to buy and sell with anyway.

  As Han walked toward the center of the city, it seemed as if things improved, at least a little. More shops were open, and those standing in line outside them seemed bored and resigned, not brimming with anger.

  Han passed through a still-prosperous neighborhood he had known in the old days, full of grand old houses, and was pleased to see that it, at least, was much as it had been—until he noticed all the guard droids on patrol, the discreetly placed static force-field generators, the surveillance cameras, the guard posts. A guard droid hovered down out of the sky to float beside him as he walked along. Han took the hint and left the area. Some folks still had money, but they were plainly afraid of those who did not.

  It was getting on toward the middle of the day as Han’s wandering took him toward the business district. He was just on the verge of looking for a place to grab a bite to eat when he heard shouting and chanting coming toward him. He realized that he had been hearing the sound for a few minutes, growing louder in the distance.

  Han looked around, and it suddenly dawned on him that the street was emptying out. People were moving quickly, quietly, off the street as the sound of the march got close. Han heard the slamming of doors, the rattle of window guards dropping into place. The manager burst out of the store Han was in front of, looked down the street, then reached for a hand crank set into the front wall. He turned the crank and a plasteel shutter started rolling down into place.

  Across the street, a woman scooped up her child, turned back, and ra
n inside. A man ducked into a small tavern just before the manager slammed the door and started rolling down the shutter.

  The street was suddenly empty except for Han and the sounds of doors being slammed and locks being set, and the sound of marching feet and harsh singing. The tinkle of glass breaking floated up, followed by heavy laughter.

  Han started to run in what he judged was the opposite direction from the shouting, but the sound echoed off the buildings and the vacant streets, making direction hard to judge. He decided to turn at the next corner—

  And ran headlong into them, blundering into the front ranks of the march before he could stop himself. But the press of bodies was so tight, and the crowd so boisterous, that for the first few moments at least, he was merely caught up in the crowd, swept along by the tidal wave of bodies.

  They were singing at the top of their lungs, so loud it was impossible to understand the words. They wore cheaply made dark brown uniforms of severe cut. Their feet were shod in metal-toed black boots. They wore black armbands, and on the armbands was the stylized image of a grinning human skull with a dagger clenched in its teeth, and the words HUMAN LEAGUE below.

  The marchers were all men, and they were making a halfhearted effort to march in rhythm with their song, but they were not well organized—or sober—enough for that. The smell of cheap liquor was on every man’s breath, mingled with the hot odor of sweaty flesh.

  Han untangled himself from the front ranks of marchers, and found himself more or less in step with the third or fourth rank. He tried to work himself toward the end of the rank, trying to escape the march—and the marchers.

  He had almost made it when a meaty paw wrapped itself around his collar. It yanked him off his feet, and another paw pulled him on the shoulder and spun him around. Han stumbled and recovered and found himself face-to-face with a huge, greasy-looking man with bloodshot eyes, a flabby, grimy face, bad teeth, and worse breath. The man had simply stopped dead in the middle of the street. He let the march flow around him, ignoring the buffeting he was taking as the marchers squeezed past. He regarded Han closely, then looked up again at the marchers. He reached and grabbed another marcher. “Hey! Flautis!”