“Clean up your mess next time!” Han yelled, slipping and sliding his way down the hall. The droid’s dang hand still clutching his dang ankle certainly wasn’t helping. “I’m coming, Chew—” A huge form darkened the far end of the hall.
“Chewie?” Han gulped.
The Wookiee yelped and started making his way toward Han.
“Chewie! Whew! Am I glad to see you! Wait! Don’t come down here. There’s something…” Han hugged the wall, trying to ease his way past the slime spill. “Some slippery mess. We’ll be cleaning this stuff off your pelt for weeks. Just hold off any of those maniac droids if they attack, I’ll come to you!”
Farther off, the gun battle raged on as Han made his way down the corridor, finally got past the ick, and then ran to Chewie. “Sounds like it’s coming from that way,” Han said as they raced down a flight of dingy stairs.
Chewie roared his agreement and then blasted a droid limping toward them out of a hallway.
“I don’t think that was one of the evil kill-kill ones,” Han pointed out as they scurried past its charred smoking body.
Chewie shrugged and muttered something about if it really mattered at this point.
“Good point,” Han said. The smell of laser fire and overheating metal mixed with the general foulness of Freerago’s as shouts and urgent comm transmissions got louder, and then Han and Chewie rounded a corner into an open courtyard. A squad of stormtroopers clustered at one end, letting loose with all they had; their always abysmal aim sent a whirlwind of blaster shots slamming into plaster walls, grimey windows, fake ancient vases, and, occasionally, a stone fountain at the far end of the atrium where a towering figure in a dark green robe picked them off one by one with ruthless precision.
“YOUR WEAPONS, ORGANICS,” ONE OF the hooded men said as they stood panting at the top of the staircase. The forest had seemed to grow and encase them as they climbed, at times thickening to a density so opaque it felt like night had fallen. Here at this upper platform, though, the underbrush and dangling vines had given way to reveal the vast Gravan savanna stretching out toward where the sun slowly dipped behind another mountain range far in the distance.
“Not how this is gonna go,” Lando informed the hooded men.
“And who you callin’ organics?” Han said. “You don’t sound like droids.”
Lando and Han both took a step back as the two figures pulled away their cowls. One was a human man, his face pale and ratcheted with scars, an empty eye socket, and a corruption of stitches and filth where his nose should’ve been. The other was barely recognizable as a Quarren. Three of his facial tentacles had been torn off, and the remaining one was shredded to just a wisp of cartilage. Constellations of small, suppurating abrasions lined the skin around each of his pale-blue eyes.
“I am Nine-Seven Saquanz,” the Quarren said in halting Basic. “These is Braket Twelve-Twelve.” The human bowed, a slight smirk lingering on his face. “We are servants of the Brotherhood of Wire and Bone. Through service and sacrifice, we have attained a level beyond simply organic, although of course we will always have been born from a sinful womb of mortal and flawed flesh, aheh.”
“You, too, can one day attain a level beyond organic,” Braket 12-12 advised enthusiastically.
“With service and sacrifice, of course,” 9-7 Saquanz added.
“I think we’ll pass,” Han said. “Where’s Fastent?”
“Ahehehe,” the Quarren chuckled airily. “Your weapons, if you please.”
“We don’t please,” Lando said, drawing his blaster. “And we’re not interested in your creepy cult. Go get us Fastent and we’ll be out of your way.”
Both men squealed with delight. “A blaster!” Braket crowed. “Ahee!”
“I don’t like this,” Han muttered. The bushes around them rustled and a mechanical whir announced the presence of hooded forms, bright-red eyes glowing from beneath their cowls, blaster rifles pointed at Han and Lando.
“The brothers! They have deigned to visit the visitors!” Saquanz screeched. “Ahehehe!”
Han and Lando passed over their blasters and raised their hands. “Well, all right,” Han said. “Why didn’t you just ask for our blasters if that’s what you wanted?”
“Greetings, organics,” one of the droids said in a listless monotone. “I am Balthamus, also known as Number Ten, of the Original Dozen.” He pulled back the hood with two grayish, bloated, and very human hands to reveal the expressionless metal face of a class 1 medical droid. “We have been expecting you.”
“That’s never good,” Han said.
“We will escort you to the servant you seek.”
“Ah, see,” Lando said. “Everything’s gonna be fine.”
Han just shook his head and sighed.
“BEHIND YOU,” HAN YELLED. CHEWIE dived out of the way and Han blasted where he’d just been standing once, twice, three times and a droid flew backward with a scream, smashing into a wall and lying still. Chewie stood and growled his thanks, and they kept moving along the corridor as smoke and more blasterfire erupted from the courtyard. A whole wall had been shredded away, probably by a poorly tossed thermal detonator, and Han could just make out the shape of the tall robed man letting loose with his blaster from behind the tinkling fountain.
He couldn’t get a clean shot, though. “Keep going, Chewie. Let’s see if we can—watch out!” Another droid came stomping out from an adjacent corridor, one of those walking-box-type models, blue sparks of electricity fizzling off its extended armatures. Chewie spun around, bashing the droid with one arm and then scooping it up with both and hurling it out into the courtyard, where it was immediately fried by blasterfire.
“Nice toss,” Han said. “Let’s see if this corridor wraps us around behind the fountain.”
Chewie nodded and they ducked past the open wall and then looped around to a smaller secondary courtyard behind the main one. The empty night sky and a million stars could be glimpsed beyond the row of stone pillars at the far end. They’d reached the very edge of Freerago’s. No wonder Gor had holed up here: He had nowhere else to run. An ancient stone wall with two open doorways separated this courtyard from where the Pau’an was making his last stand behind the fountain.
“Come on,” Han whispered, signaling Chewie to come in behind Gor from the opposite side. Chewie soft-footed across the courtyard and raised his bowcaster, ready.
Han nodded and they both swung around through the empty doorways, weapons pointed directly at Gor’s back. The tall Pau’an was crouched over something, his hands fidgeting frantically.
“It’s over,” Han said. “Give up the Phylanx.”
He rose and turned slowly around, arms raised. He had a blaster in one hand and something wrapped in fabric in the other. Lines reached down his long, grayish face, and deep red splotches surrounded those black shining eyes. His upper lip curled into a cocky sneer that revealed all those messed-up teeth pointing in every possible direction. “Over?” Gor hissed. “It’s only just begun.”
“That’s cute,” Han said. “Now give us the—”
“Move! Move! Move!” came the telltale Imperial yell from the other side of the fountain. The squad of stormtroopers had taken their opening and were about to burst out, blasters drawn.
“Gor,” Han said.
That twisted sneer grew into a full-blown smile. Gor hurled the package into the air just as a whole squad of stormtroopers came rumbling around the fountain, blasters out. All eyes were glued to the package as it reached the height of its trajectory and then, instead of careening back down, shed its wrappings and with a tiny burst of ignition flame launched farther up toward the sky. And it would’ve kept going up and up and up and out past the open walls of the courtyard and into space if space itself hadn’t been fully eclipsed by the gray metallic underside of a YT-1300 Corellian freighter.
A tiny com
partment opened on the underside of the Falcon, and Gor let out a howl so stark and wretched that Han peeled his gaze away from his own unfolding triumph just in time to see the Pau’an fall to his knees, blaster pointed toward the sky. The Phylanx disappeared into the Falcon. Gor hurled shot after shot skyward but then three stormtroopers piled on top of him as the rest took potshots at the retreating Falcon.
“Come on, Chewie,” Han called, backing away from the carnage. They hurried into the rear courtyard as Han raised Sana on the comm. “We’re at the far end of the atrium behind that courtyard you just…oh.” The open sky was once again blotted out by the Falcon, this time the opening right in front of them between the gaudy pillars. Inside the cockpit, Sana waved enthusiastically.
“Toldya she’s into me,” Han snorted as they took off at a run and blaster shots screeched out behind them.
Chewie just shook his head and roared.
UP SOME MORE WINDING STONE stairwells and down a few crumbling walking paths shrouded in batiki tree fronds, an open plaza had been cleared amid the ancient forest fortress. Dark-green-robed droids rolled, clunked, and clambered about the premises, chatting with one another or nodding their heads in meditative dazes. In the center, a middle-aged man with no shirt on and no arms sat cross-legged, eyes closed.
“I present to you the humble servant Seven-Seven Dirgeos,” the droid called Balthamus stated blandly. “Formerly known as Admiral Ruas Fastent. Be advised, through service and sacrifice, Seven-Seven Dirgeos has attained the highest rank of the servants of the Brotherhood and is considered only partially organic. You will treat him accordingly, that is, as a higher form of life than yourself, when addressing him.”
“The hell we will,” Han growled.
“Or you will be destroyed,” Balthamus amended.
“Well, I guess that settles that,” Lando said. They walked across the plaza, their boots clacking heavily on the ornate stone façades, and stood before the armless ex-Imperial. “Greetings,” Lando said, “honorable Seven-Seven Dirgeos.”
Han snorted. Lando elbowed him. Seven-Seven Dirgeos opened his eyes and to Han’s relief, they were both there.
“Ah, the organics, of course.”
Han squinted at him. “Wait. Didn’t I break your nose at Freerago’s once?”
Dirgeos blinked, tensed, then seemed to force his face back to its serene gaze. “Perhaps. But that was another lifetime, aheh. Today you are welcome to our kingdom fortress, but of course, you won’t be staying long.”
“Damn right,” Han said.
“Can you tell us where to find the Phylanx?” Lando asked.
“Aheh,” Dirgeos scoffed. Lando narrowed his eyes and clenched both fists, the body language Han had come to recognize as his old friend doing everything in his power not to whup an ass.
“You came, no doubt, expecting to find an asylum,” Dirgeos said. “And yes, these hallowed grounds did indeed once house a refuge for the dreary and defeated and discarded. Those who did not possess the adequate constitution to withstand the rigors and traumas of life amid the Imperial machinations, hm?”
Han looked at Lando with a this-guy-can’t-be-serious scowl, but Lando kept his eyes on Dirgeos. Probably for the best.
“You didn’t end up here because you couldn’t find the Phylanx?” Lando asked.
“Aheh, quite the contrary,” Dirgeos said. “I ended up here because I found Gor, and thus myself, and a purpose to this menial, desperate thread of life that I was leading. A forward thrust, you could say, away from fetid, useless roots and onward toward infinity: a higher state of being.”
“You guys really think you’re droids now, huh?” Han said. “That’s what this is all about?”
Dirgeos just smiled and shook his head. “Just like an organic to be so binary in their logic. A thing can be a thing and also not a thing, you know.”
Han rubbed his eyes. “And to think I used to say the Force was wacky.”
“Regardless of why you’re here,” Lando said, his voice radiating infinite patience even if his body language spoke of vast, barely restrained acts of violence, “we need to find the Phylanx. We followed your starmaps from the time of Gor’s imprisonment at Grimdock. We saw how you kept showing up too late or in the wrong sector, how the transmissions never gave away the Phylanx’s actual locations.”
“Ah, it is all quite as the great master had said it would be,” Dirgeos mused. “So very precise, our teacher is, hm. I do have answers that you seek, but in order to attain them, I’m afraid you must join me in a test to determine if you are worthy. The power of the Original Dozen flows through all that we touch and are, you know.” He spun around with surprising agility and reached one leg out, grasping something between his toes, then turned back to Han and Lando.
“Vazaveer,” Dirgeos said, plopping a small cloth sack in front of them. “The Path of Metal and Bone will determine if you are worthy. Go ahead.” He motioned with his chin for Lando to empty the bag. Three fichas tumbled out amid an array of rusty bolts and screws. Dirgeos looked up. “Are you a gambling man, Lando Calrissian?”
Lando frowned, shaking his head, and scratched his goatee. “Can’t say that I am,” he said, sighing. “It never made much sense to me, I’m afraid.”
Han did everything he could not to roll his eyes.
“That’s really a shame,” Dirgeos said earnestly. “We of the Brotherhood allow the subtle motions of the galaxy to determine our every move, recognizing we exist amid a vast, unintelligible sprawl of life and mechanics, and that while there is a secret direction to the ways of the world, and it does flow endlessly toward the end of organics and rise of the droids, we cannot always detect that movement, aheh.”
“So.” Lando’s voice grew trembly, uncertain. “You want me to make a wager?”
“Aheh, of course, friend. But not money, no.”
“Then what?”
“Your limbs, of course. Sacrifice and service, you know, is not a metaphor. And while you may think if you lose both arms it will be a tragedy, the truth is, of course, it is a gift. You attain a level of servanthood much closer to the sacred state of mechanics, mm.”
“I think I’ll pass. How ’bout some credits instead?”
“Aheh, aheheh!” Dirgeos’s crude chuckle erupted into a sputtering cough. Lando and Han both leaned away from the splatter. “Excuse. It is knowledge you seek, hm? Information? That is why you have come to the moon of Grava, second origin station of the Brotherhood.”
“Yes,” Lando said.
“Information does not come cheap. Your silly organic currency means nothing to us in the Brotherhood, friend. But limbs…ah, yes. Limbs we can use. And it will be useful to you as well, of course. And imagine what four new limbs will do for our humble colony of—”
“Four?” Lando narrowed his eyes. “I thought you said just my arms!”
Dirgeos closed his eyes and grinned. “Both of you come seeking knowledge, no?”
“Now, hold on a minute,” Han seethed.
“If it is both of you who come seeking knowledge, it is both of you who must put your limbs on the line to pay the price.”
Han shook his head. “I don’t like this.” Sure, Lando was bluffing about not being a gambling man, but that didn’t make Han like the odds any more.
“Don’t worry, old buddy!” Lando chided unconvincingly. “I got this!”
“You hate gambling,” Han said. “We should go.”
“Let us begin,” Dirgeos said, placing his foot over the screw bolts and moving them in circles on the ground.
Lando picked up the fichas and scooched forward, leaning over with a nervous grin. “Ah, I think I remember how this is done…saw it a few years ago at a pilot’s dock off Chandrila.”
“Mmm,” Dirgeos hummed. “Allow yourself to give over to the sway of the galaxy, the endless circuitry and slow decline
of flesh amid it. Give over.”
Behind Han and Lando, two spinning razor saws screeched to life. “Oh, that’s good,” Han said. “Not distracting at all.”
“Pay no mind,” Dirgeos muttered, still shoving around the screw bolts under his foot. “No mind. Give over to the sway. The galaxy calls. Your destiny calls!”
Lando’s eyebrows were arched, his jaw set. Beads of sweat appeared on his temple. Han began to wonder if he was really running a con on Dirgeos after all.
“Release!” Dirgeos cried, pulling his leg away.
Lando opened his hand. The three fichas clattered down amid the rusted metal parts. Han glared at the board. The Octopent, the ficha that meant Lando takes all, lay closest to Lando amid a pile of screws. In fact, all the screws were over near him. The Neuronaught and Malcontent lay in an empty spot midboard.
Han exhaled.
The razor saws stopped whirring.
Lando smiled.
Dirgeos narrowed his eyes.
“Beginner’s luck, I guess,” Lando shrugged. “Now…”
“Best. Of. Three,” Dirgeos said slowly.
“What?” Lando growled. “That wasn’t the—”
“The house didn’t make a designation about how many games we would play, did it?”
Han stood. “Why, you low-life Imperial scu—”
“The good news,” Dirgeos said graciously, “is if you land the Neuronaught twice, we only take one of each of your arms! Mm?”
Lando put a finger in Dirgeos’s smiling face. “You know damn well this isn’t how it’s done. We played your little game. Now tell us what we need to know.”
“Mmm, I will, I will, rebel. Once the Path of Metal and Bone has determined that you are worthy. It is a fact that the house did not determine the number of games. Please, be seated, Mr. Solo.”
Han sat, the festering unease within him threatening to unravel into all-out panic. He fought it back. If they had to make a run for it, they would, that’s all there was to it. The razor saws screeched back into a frenzied spin, and the droids wielding them took one step closer.
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