Under A Black Sun Trilogy

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Under A Black Sun Trilogy Page 26

by Kevin J. Anderson


  Lowie chuffed and nodded in agreement. "Oh, no! We're doomed!" Em

  Teedee wailed.

  They ducked under a half-open shipping bay door and entered an

  inventory sector where canisters of spin-sealed Tibanna gas stood

  behind guard fields. Since Tibanna gas was used for hyperdrive cores

  as well as blaster powerpacks, hazardous-material signs marked every

  door and each separate shipment.

  Still running, they dropped down two more levels. With each new room

  or corridor intersection, they hoped to encounter crowds again.

  That way they could disappear among other sentient beings and find

  protection ... but it appeared as if these hidden levels of Port Town

  had been entirely evacuated.

  "We are close to the bottom of Cloud City," Tenel Ka said after

  climbing down three more ladders. Jacen could see her arm beginning to

  shake from the effort. "Perhaps there is an express lift tube that

  would return us to the upper levels."

  "Not down here," Jacen said. "They try to keep these levels separate

  from the tourists and credit-paying customers."

  Tenel Ka flicked her red-gold braids away, and he saw a sheen of sweat

  on her face. He wondered if it was from exertion or from fear.

  He decided it must be from exertion.

  All around them the room became too quiet again. The three of them

  moved toward a heavy door that led out into the dim passageways of

  living quarters. Lowie sniffed. They could hear noises,

  conversations, sounds of the city's other inhabitants, and Jacen

  guessed these must be the warrens filled with Ugnaught families tucked

  into cramped tubes and small dwelling areas.

  Tenel Ka drew her lightsaber and switched it on. The turquoise blade

  hummed and flickered in the shadowy room. "Still quiet," she said.

  "But we are now close to other people."

  Jacen, trusting his friend's instincts, removed his own lightsaber.

  Lowie did the same. But before they could switch on their weapons, a

  side door whisked open and three of the deadly hunters charged out,

  bellowing and opening fire without even taking aim.

  Tenel Ka deflected one of the blaster bolts with her blade. The shot

  left a smoking hole in the metal wall mere centimeters from the head of

  the man who had fired it. More blaster fire erupted, ricocheting off

  walls and blasting equipment into ruined shreds.

  Jacen ducked to avoid the blizzard of powerful shots. "I don't think

  this is a good place either," he panted. They backed up.

  Lowie grabbed Tenel Ka and Jacen, hauling them after him as he charged

  back through the door, sprinted toward another access shaft, and jumped

  down to a final level. Tenel Ka held her glowin- lightsaber far away

  from her friends as they all scrambled backward onto a metal grid floor

  covered with strange circular markings, ribs, and hatches that led to

  other shafts. The corridor glowpanels pulsed, too bright and harsh for

  Jacen's eyes to adjust quickly. Twirling alarm signals overhead warned

  them of some impending hazard, but gave no indication as to what it

  might be.

  Jacen looked around, his tangled hair damp with sweat. His lungs

  burned from the long run. "Do you think we've gotten away from them?"

  he said.

  "Too easy," Tenel Ka answered with an emphatic shake of her head. Her

  lightsaber still hummed and vibrated in her hand.

  Up ahead they spotted a ladder that would lead to a higher level.

  "We must climb again," Tenel Ka said. She switched off her lightsaber

  and clipped it back to her belt so she could use her single hand for

  climbing.

  "It's a long way back up," Jacen gasped. He struggled to force air

  back into his lungs, then sighed. "So I guess we'd better get

  started."

  But as they rushed toward the beckoning escape ladder, a trio of their

  pursuers scrambled out of another side shaft and came to a halt,

  leering at the three young Jedi clustered together. A scaly-skinned,

  skullfaced bandit snarled, preparing to fire; the hairy man brought up

  his heavy blaster rifle. Beside them the little Ugnaught panted.

  Raising a gnarled, furry hand, the creature chittered and squealed in

  triumph.

  Em Teedee said, "Oh no! He says he's going to-" The Ugnaught slapped a

  button set into the wall, and suddenly the floor dropped out from under

  Jacen's feet. He, Tenel Ka, and the gingerfurred Wookiee all tumbled

  down into a bottomless shaft. They fell and rolled, slamming against

  the walls with bruising force-nothing at all like their enjoyable

  experience in the vortex tunnel at the SkyCenter Galleria.

  Dropping first, Lowie bounced and jolted down the curves of the steep

  tube, with Tenel Ka close behind. In the rear, Jacen tried to grab

  Tenel Ka's leg or foot, anything to slow them down, but the shaft walls

  were far too slick, and gravity did its work. They picked up speed.

  Twenty meters below them, a wide hatch opened up, a round circle that

  let in a breeze and raw daylight. Jacen realized with horror that this

  was a garbage chute or an exhaust tube-something that led out into

  Bespin's open sky.

  With a yowl of dismay, Lowbacca shot down through the hatch, falling,

  tumbling, dropping into empty space.

  He reached out with his long Wookiee arms and managed to grab on to a

  dangling transmission antenna. With a sudden severe jerk, he hung

  still, holding on with his powerful grip, his legs dangling over the

  sea of infinite clouds.

  He roared and extended his other arm as Tenel Ka dropped beside him.

  With lightning reflexes he snatched at her. Just in time the warrior

  girl reacted, flailed backward with her single arm-and grasped his

  powerful furred grip like a Karduran acrobat.

  A split second later, Jacen came tumbling down, yelling at the top of

  his lungs, flailing his arms and legs, trying to grab on to

  something.

  Lowie hung in the notch of the antenna with one arm and grasped the

  dangling Tenel Ka with the other. He roared, but he had no free arm.

  Tenel Ka had only one hand, and that was grasped tightly in

  Lowbacca's.

  Thinking fast, she swung her body, arched her back, and reached out

  with her legs.

  Jacen managed to grab her calf but then slid down, clutching at her

  lizard-hide boot for just a moment. His sweat-slick fingers gripped

  her ankle; then slipped....

  "Jacen!" Tenel Ka cried.

  Jacen looked up at her for one last fleeting instant as she tried to

  reach out to him. Lowie yowled in despair.

  Jacen's fingers slid from Tenel Ka's boot, and he dropped....

  Dropped far away from Cloud City. . . plummeting into the bottomless

  sea of sky, where he vanished like a speck of dust.

  Surrounded by the bayou sounds of hoots and hums and squawks that

  seeped from the dense marsh through the ragged walls of the shack,

  Jaina sat back to listen to the band's tale.

  The fame of Figrin D'an and his crew had risen and fallen over the

  years, and "Fiery Figrin" himself never understood what they were doing

  right or wrong. All through old Imperial days, the time
of Rebellion,

  and then the formation of the New Republic, the Modal Nodes had played

  their own music, sometimes to great fanfare, sometimes to few-if

  any-appreciative ears.

  But they played and they traveled. That's what the Bith &d. They were

  members in good standing of the Intergalactic Musicians' Guild and

  generally made a good living, although Figrin had a long-standing

  tradition of losing their earnings at the sabace table. He never could

  resist a good high-stakes game, and more than once had lost his own

  instruments and those of his fellow band members, only to win them back

  again in his next all-too-brief streak of luck.

  For a time they had been Jabba the Hutt's favorite band. Then they had

  reluctantly agreed to play at the disastrous wedding of the Lady

  Valarian in Mos Eisley, at which point they had been stuck performing

  as a mere bar band in the cantina, lucky to emerge with their lives.

  Since then, they had moved on from planet to planet, playing in any

  paying venue, from prestigious resorts to drained-dry fanning

  communities. They had gone to Borgo Prime, where they'd been the hit

  of Shanko's Hive for five months running before a bad gambling debt had

  forced Figrin and his band members to leave discreetly in the night on

  the first cargo ship they could stow away on.

  They'd also done a stint in the floating casinos on Mon Calamari, but

  the gambling tables proved too tempting for Figrin, and his own

  musicians had finally dragged him away and taken a booking on Cloud

  City. Lando's business partner, Cojahn, had promised them that their

  new gig to publicize SkyCenter Galleria would be a renaissance for

  them, a real comeback tour.

  Now, though, that had fallen to pieces as well.

  "But that doesn't explain it, Figrin," Lando said. "Cojahn was my

  friend. You've got to tell me what really went down."

  Behind him, the band members continued their accompaniment on the

  Fizzz, the fanfar, and the ommni box. The eerie music added depth to

  the story, making Figrin's words richer, more ominous.

  "It's all about Black Sun," Figrin said. "They've gone underground for

  many years, but they've got a cover story now. Black Sun lieutenants

  act respectable, but when nobody's looking, they set up their old

  criminal connections, just like Prince Xizor used to do, and Durga the

  Hutt, and all the other deposed kingpins. Black Sun has its clutches

  on weapons runners, illegal spice trade, and now the gambling and

  entertainment industries."

  Figrin swiped a hand across his high, smooth cranium, knocking away

  tiny droplets of sweat that had collected there. "That's why they were

  trying to get their toehold on Cloud City-especially your new

  establishment, Lando. Black Sun wanted a cut of SkyCenter

  Galleria....

  In fact, they wanted to run the place. In absentia, of course."

  Lando just shook his head. "Cojahn would never have allowed that to

  happen to our entertainment center-which is a perfectly legitimate

  place, I might add. A real family amusement center with no shady

  dealings whatsoever, despite what you may have heard about me in the

  past."

  "Believe me, Lando, compared to Black Sun, you're just an Ewok that got

  happy on juri juice."

  "Thanks ... I think," Lando said.

  "But you're right," Figrin said. "Cojahn wasn't easily pushed

  around."

  The musicians kept playing from the corners of the hut as if they had

  practiced this number over and over again and knew exactly what to

  do.

  Jaina wondered if they had considered writing a song about their ordeal

  on Bespin. Maybe it would even be a hit.

  Zekk nodded and rested his chin in his hands. "If you're running a

  business like Cojahn was, you'd have to be ready to stand up to

  hoodlums and all sorts of people trying to push you around."

  "Yeah, you get that a lot," Lando said. "But most of them are cowards

  anyway."

  "Cojahn did his best, man, but Black Sun infiltrators popped up

  everywhere. You never knew who they were, or when they might come

  after you in a dark corridor down in Port Town. Got so you had to have

  a Wing Guard escort to take you to the gambling tables and back

  again.

  Those bullies could stick your head in a carbon-freezing tube, or drop

  you out an exhaust shaft. They meant business."

  Lando nodded grimly. "But Cojahn didn't give in to them?"

  "He should have," Figrin said. "He reported Black Sun's threats to a

  couple high-level Exex on Cloud City, but they lost the complaint or it

  was misfiled. He tried again, but nothing was ever done. Finally,

  Cojahn fired his Ugnaught crew boss when he figured out the guy was in

  thick with Black Sun."

  Figrin shook his domed head. "Not long after that, Cojahn took his

  little dive off a high balcony. Man, that guy's probably still

  falling."

  One of the musicians made a high, thin, squawking note on his

  instrument. "You know, there's no end to the clouds on Bespin."

  "So why'd you run, Figrin?" Lando asked. "Were they after you,

  too?"

  "Black Sun's trying to get its hands into the Intergalactic Musicians'

  Guild. They wanted us to pay triple membership dues just so they could

  take their cut-and man, Cojahn hadn't paid us much. We'd only done a

  few gigs for him. I mean, SkyCenter Galleria isn't even open yet! We

  got a few tips when we played the bars in the Yerith Bespin, but not

  enough for that kind of extortion." He shook his huge smooth head. "I

  hate gangsters that don't have budget payment plans!"

  He continued. "Once Cojahn died, we knew Black Sun would tighten its

  hold on us, apply more pressure. One time they put stinger eels inside

  the mouthpieces of all our instruments."

  Zekk made a grimace of distaste.

  "Oh, we caught the critters soon enough. Fed 'em to one of the bar's

  customers, and even got a big tip-but we didn't dare stick around Cloud

  City. Too dangerous there."

  "Yeah," Zekk said, rolling his eyes. "You needed to come back to a

  nice safe, pleasant place like this war-ravaged wasteland of Clak'dor

  "Hey, home is home," Figrin said with a shrug.

  Jaina felt sickened. "So Cojahn stood up for his morals and ethics

  ...

  and paid for it with his life."

  "That about sums it up, young lady," Figrin agreed.

  "At least now we know what happened," Zekk said. Sweat stained his

  clothing beneath the transparalon suit.

  Lando stared grimly across the dim hut, gazing through the proppedopen

  window. "Yeah, but we don't know who killed him or who ordered his

  death." He swallowed hard. "And believe me, someone's going to pay

  for my friend's death. Someone in Black Sun will have to answer for

  it."

  "Guess it's time to get back to Cloud City, then," Jaina said.

  Perspiration trickled down her neck and her back.

  The band members stood up, bustled around the hut, and propped the rest

  of the windows, letting a heavy sluggish breeze drift in. The hazy

  light on Clak'dor VII grew richer in color
as the sun set toward the

  swamp trees in the west. Outside they could hear the burning sounds of

  millions of insects stirring in the twilight.

  "At least sit outside with us for a few minutes before you go," Figrin

  said. "This is our nightly jam session. It'd be, nice to have people

  listening for a change."

  The band members dropped through trapdoors to emerge outside the

  stilted hut. They tuned up on ramshackle stoops, ladders, and

  balconies, tossing off riffs and snatches of melody.

  Outside, sitting on a rock, a violet puffer turtle swelled its

  bladders, straining the limits of its shell's flexibility, and then

  exhaled on a low bassoon note. Heavy beetles crawled up trees and

  clicked their rear legs together in a rattling rhythm.

  "It's the music of the swamp," Figrin said. "The symphony of Clak'dor

  VII. The Bith evolved with music like this! Since my people hide

  under their domes all the time, they don't get to hear the natural

  music. Come on, join in." He picked up his battered old long-reed

  jazz, thrust it into his mouth folds, and began to play.

  The other band members added their own inspirations and embellishments,

  joining in with the mood synthesizer and humming clak beepbox. As they

  slid into tune with the natural sounds and music, a hoot-bat flapped

 

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