THE BLACK FLEET CRISIS #3 - TYRANTS_TEST

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  "It does not matter what species they are; people trust what they

  see.

  Words alone will not make them believe they were fooled. Out there,

  they are turning to each other and saying, 'Well, what do you think we

  ought to do about this?" Not 'Do you think it's true?" I don't know

  what they will decide they feel. I only know that it is true, for them

  the Yevetha have allied with the Empire."

  Engh rocked back in his chair. "I think the President's image analysts

  should see this as soon as possible.

  And I hope you will finally make time to meet with them yourself,

  Leia.

  The days ahead will not be shaped by questions and answers, the lore of

  experts, the reasoned judgment of earnest beings gathered around

  tables.

  Cherished belief, powerful emotion, and the image that plays in the

  mind in the moment before sleep comes--they will write the story of the

  days ahead."

  Tholatin was uninhabited save for the smugglers' hideaway known as

  Esau's Ridge, nestled in a deep lateral erosion cut at the base of a

  towering rock face. The cut was a thousand meters long and up to a

  hundred meters deep, with a maximum of six meters' clearance in the

  berthing area under the cantilevered granite ceiling.

  A warren of smaller artificial tunnels and chambers extended the

  complex another two hundred meters into the mountain.

  It was one of the most private of all the smugglers' sanctuaries,

  invisible from orbit and well defended against intruders. Even the

  three landing clearings in the forest that covered the valley floor

  were concealed, hidden.

  by retractable military-grade camouflage nets with infrared screens.

  It was also one of the most exclusive sanctuaries, open only to the

  elite veterans of the trade, to the well-connected rather than the

  well-heeled. Or, at least, it once had been. When the Millennium

  Falcon arrived there, Esau's Ridge was more crowded than Chewbacca

  could remember ever seeing it. Parking clearances in the landing area

  were down to half a meter, and the floating berth fees were accordingly

  high.

  [Peace did not seem to have hurt the trade,] he growled to the berthing

  collector as he paid the first day's fee.

  "When they are not busy fighting wars, governments amuse themselves by

  forbidding things," said the collector. "There will always be work for

  us. Welcome back to the Ridge, Chewbacca. By the way, I threw two of

  the kids out of here to make room for this trash heap you call a

  ship."

  Chewbacca paid without complaint the expected bribe for that privilege

  of seniority. [Is Plothis still here?] "Shot four years ago in a

  squabble with a customer.

  Bracha e'Naso took over the business."

  [What about Formayj and the brokerage?] "Same old place," said the

  ollector. "Be sure and look up Armatin the Dread while you're here--he

  retired and bought the slava bar. He'll be glad to see you if you can

  catch him sober."

  For their own protection, Chewbacca instructed Lumpawarrump and Jowdrrl

  to stay inside the ship.

  With Shoran and Dryanta standing guard, the Falcon

  was as safe as it could be in a port of thieves--but Esau's Ridge

  could be as dangerous as the Shadow Forest for the inexperienced.

  Chewbacca had come there for information and for specialized

  supplies.

  The former proved more costly than the latter, and the latter came dear

  enough. e'Naso treated Chewbacca like a celebrity, then tried to

  overcharge him by half, as though he were some star-eyed pupling who'd

  never run a picket line.

  "It's almost impossible for me to keep these items in stock," e'Naso

  protested when Chewbacca growled threateningly. "You've seen the

  berthing line--demand is very high, and replacing my stock will cost me

  a premium.

  You want a better price, you get Maniid and the others who run my

  shipments to take less for their risk."

  Another customer, an old Kiffu male browsing through the catalog of

  bootleg holos, overheard the conversation and intervened. "Haggling

  with a Wookiee," the customer said, shaking his head. "That shows

  courage, e'Nasoeven Plothis wouldn't have dared it. Have you decided

  who will inherit the shop?"

  Chewbacca showed a toothy grimace, all the more ominous for the hint of

  a smile it contained.

  e'Naso quickly countered his own best offer, cutting the total by

  twenty percent. When that did not change Chewbacca's expression, he

  let the Wookiee name his price.

  [And you deliver it all to my ship,] he added.

  "Of course. Of course."

  Outside, Chewbacca paid the Kiffu his third of the savings.

  Dealing with Formayj was another matter altogether.

  The long-lived Yao had not only seen all the tricks, he had gotten in

  early enough to invent several of them. Besides that, Formayj did not

  haggle. His memories and his connections, both carefully built up over

  more than a century of brokering, were his stock in trade. He

  carefully appraised the worth of each before parting with it.

  "Koornacht Cluster," Formayj said, nodding.

  "Maps, inhabitants, hyperspace routes, ship designs, planetary

  defenses, sensor grids--very rare. Expensive."

  [I will pay your price.] "Come back two days. Will know more then."

  So Chewbacca and the others waited, staying close to the Falcon and

  watching the neighboring ships in the berth line come and go. The

  arrival of e'Naso's delivery .sled brought a welcome interruption to

  the waiting, and several hours' work studying, testing, and stowing the

  gear took the edge off their impatience. But by the next morning,

  Lumpawarrump was bouncing off the bulkheads as though the Falcon were a

  cage.

  [How much longer, Father?] [Long enough for you to take five falls with

  Jowdrrl in the forward cargo hold.] [She is busy with the dorsal gun

  turret again.] [She is making herself busy--she will make the time if

  you ask.] [Could I take some falls with you instead?] [You already know

  how to lose--and I must go see other brokers and old friends,]

  Chewbacca said, ruffling his son's fur roughly. [Stay here. Study the

  ship, practice your skills of defense and attack--you will need them

  soon enough.] A day of drinking in the slava bar, listening to

  smugglers' bragging and tall tales, ground Chewbacca's own patience

  thin. When the third fight of the afternoon broke out, he roared to

  his feet, seized both adversaries, and flung them into opposite

  corners--for no reason other than that he needed to release the

  restless tension building up inside.

  He returned to Formayj's brokerage the next morning, but the visit

  claimed little of his day.

  "Difficult," said Formayj. "Come back two days."

  Two days later, he said the same thing.

  On their fifth day in Esau's Ridge, Chewbacca yielded to Lumpawarrump's

  endless pleading looks and took his son into the sanctuary.

  The excursion almost ended as quickly as it began,

  when Lumpawarrump

  took too close
an interest in a parked slaver for the liking of its

  Trandoshan owner.

  "Mind your own business!" the owner shouted from atop the ship. An

  instant later, a blaster bolt singed the flowing fur on Lumpawarrump's

  right shoulder.

  "Move along!"

  Chewbacca seized his son by the scruff and dragged him away toward the

  tunnels, waving his bowcaster and exchanging threat-growls and insults

  with the owner as he did so.

  [Did you not listen to me? Curiosity is not rewarded on Esau's Ridge,]

  he chided Lumpawarrump when they were alone inside. [Watch, but do not

  be caught looking; listen, but do not be caught overhearing; ask no

  questions, and question no lies--that is the code honored here.] Seven

  days after their arrival, Formayj called Chewbacca to his brokerage.

  "I show you price first, you decide," he said.

  [You would not cheat me,] Chewbacca said. [Show me what you have.] The

  price was almost unspeakably high, but the value was there. A

  smuggler's annotated copy of a Yevethan navigational map--six years

  old, but priceless even so. An even older Imperial autopsy report on

  three Yevethan corpses. A recording of Nil Spaar's address to the

  Senate. A still of a spherical starship with the entryways and gun

  emplacements overmarked. And the capper: the data and holo files of a

  New Republic recon pass over Wakiza, complete with an NRI seal.

  "So new you can still smell Imperial City on it," said the broker,

  pointing. "You like?"

  [You are the best, Formayj.] "Of course. That is why they come

  here."

  Smiling, he took Chewbacca's payment, then disarmed the erase-bot and

  other daemons that would otherwise have been unleashed by a trigger in

  the brokerage door. "Now, the other matter."

  Chewbacca was already rising to leave at that point, and rumbled

  questioningly.

  "You asked all around the Ridge about Han Solo.

  Did not ask me, as if I did not know he is a prisoner in Koornacht,"

  said Formayj. "I know where everyone has come from and where everyone

  is going when they leave. I know why customer wants the information

  before I sell it to them. At times must even disappoint them because

  of what I know. You plan a rescue, yes?"

  Chewbacca growled his assent.

  "You ask where he must be held. Even though you do not come to me, I

  inquire on my own." Formayj shook his head. "Discouraging. No one

  knows. There is no prison. His name is not spoken by any who would

  know, on Coruscant or N'zoth." He reached up and handed Chewbacca

  another holo card. "Perhaps this helps you. Free--my cost nothing."

  He gestured toward the viewer. "Go on--see."

  It was a recording of Nil Spaar speaking to the members of the New

  Republic via Channel 81. Time-stamped forty hours ago, it began, "I

  address the strong, proud leaders of the vassal worlds--" Formayj

  pressed another object on Chewbacca, this one a datacard. "Old

  Imperial Star Destroyer shield codes, sensor jam frequencies, defensive

  fire patterns--these are readily at hand. No demand. Historical value

  only," he said. "My service charge will cover." Standing, Formayj

  offered his hand. "Still like Han, old trickster.

  Smuggler made good. Deliver greetings to him, if you see him."

  Chewbacca hurried back to the ship and played the recording for the

  others. [My honor brother is Nil Spaar's prize,] he said, and pointed

  at the blue-black hull of the great starship visible behind the

  viceroy.

  [Wherever this enemy is, Han will be.] Then Chewbacca pointed at the

  planet beyond. [They are there now.] Twenty minutes later, the

  Millennium Falcon lifted off from Esau's Ridge. Immediately on making

  orbit, it turned toward Koornacht Cluster and jumped into hyperspace,

  continuing its solitary journey to N'zoth.

  Derelict

  With Artoo guiding him, Lobot had penetrated deep into a realm the

  structure and purpose of which he was still struggling to understand.

  The vagabond's core passages were more akin to the great accumulator

  conduit in which they had spent their first hours aboard the vessel

  than they were like the network of chambers in which they had spent the

  last many days. But the core passages were much narrower than the

  accumulator conduit. Their cross section was never greater than

  Lobot's armspan, and often less--especially at the junctions.

  And there were many junctions. The passages were cross-connected in a

  complex web that had not yet revealed its pattern. This web promised

  to link all parts of the vagabond as a transport or communications

  system might, but nothing was moving through or along the passages save

  for Lobot and the droids. None of the ready biological

  metaphors--vascular tubules, alimentary canals, respiratory ducts,

  neurological pathways--seemed appropriate.

  Lobot wondered if the lack of activity was a symptom Of the damage the

  vagabond had sustained or a sign that he still did not understand the

  nature of the vessel.

  He had to keep reminding himself that though the ship was the product

  of bioengineering, it was not an organism.

  It was a biological machine, which was still an unfamiliar paradigm.

  Three hundred meters in from chamber 228, the passage had narrowed to

  the point where Lobot found it necessary to shed his contact suit in

  order to continue.

  "Master Lobot, are you certain that you wish to do this?" Threepio

  asked in a familiarly anxious tone. "Are you confident that the risk

  is justified? Given our present circumstances, and the alarming

  frequency with which warships seem to attack this vessel--" "I'm

  certain," Lobot said. "The deeper we go into the core, the more it

  feels like an obstacle standing between me and the ship. When my

  shoulders brushed both sides at the same time, it felt like the ship

  was inviting me to shed the suit. I can't explain this in acceptable

  terms, but I think I must do this to find what I am looking for."

  "I see, sir," said Threepio. "Artoo, are you still monitoring the air

  in this passage?"

  "The air is fine, Threepio," Lobot said, patting the droid on the top

  of his head. "I am fine. I am simply following a hunch."

  "Oh, dear," Threepio fretted.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Very well, Master Lobot--since you asked, I shall tell you," said

  Threepio. "If you'll pardon my saying so, sir, Master Lando's

  influence on your habits of thought is becoming manifest at the worst

  possible time."

  "What influence would that be?"

  "Why, his unhealthy psychological dependence on the teleological

  self-deceptions of a gambler, sir--hunches, lucky streaks, wish

  fulfillment, feelings of entitlement, and the other trappings of

  magical thinking," Threepio said. "I have come to regard you as an

  unusually practical and rational individual--for a human being."

  "Thank you," Lobot said. "But what makes you think that Lando ever

  really gambles?"

  "Sir, I have heard Master Han speak of it many times. I believe that

  Master Lando even considered himself a professional ga
mbler during one

  period of his life."

  "That's true," said Lobot. "And no one hates trusting to chance and

  fate more than a professional gambler. You've misread Lando all along,

  Threepio."

  "Sir, I do not understand."

  "Think about this, then--maybe it'will help," said Lobot, discarding

  the last piece of his contact suit.

  "When a human being--a sentient being--faces a question for which there

  is no known right answer, a decision for which there's no obvious right

  choice, he will almost always end up following what feels right. The

  logician will construct one kind of justification, the magician

  another, but at the moment of choosing, the two are more alike than

  they are different."

  "I see, sir. Thank you. But I do not believe a droid is capable of

  truly understanding a process that' is so fundamentally subjective."

  "No?" asked Lobot, raising an eyebrow. "Then tell me, what was going

  through your circuits when you grabbed that beckon call away from Lando

  and signaled Lady Luck? Were you doing the logical thing, or what you

  felt was the right thing?"

  "I am not entirely certain, sir."

  "Good," said Lobot approvingly. "I suggest you think on that a while,

  too. You may find it has something to do with the questions you asked