by Timothy Zahn
Only now, instead of coming in from the direction of the Quartzedge Port like a reasonable man might expect, he and Chewie were coming up on the complex from the direction of one of the other abandoned mining caverns. A direction no one would ever expect company to come from.
He hoped.
Five kilometers from the edge of the complex he shut down the landspeeder’s headlights and slowed to a speed where they could navigate more or less safely by the faint illumination of the widely spaced permlights. A kilometer from the edge, he let the landspeeder coast to a stop.
For a minute they just sat quietly, letting their ears adjust to the absence of the repulsorlifts’ hum. Then, in the distance, Han heard the faint murmur of voices.
A lot of voices.
He looked at Chewie. The Wookiee gave a low rumble of agreement.
“Right,” Han said, drawing his blaster as he climbed out of the landspeeder. “Let’s see what kind of trouble we’re looking at.”
According to Axlon’s data, the Anyat-en complex consisted of eight irregularly shaped caverns that had been hollowed out of the rock as the veins and clumps of ore had been removed. Han and Chewie headed down the tunnel, passing a few small side caves along the way that had probably been designated as equipment or fuel storage. They walked carefully, watching their footing, trying not to make too much noise on the rock chips that littered the ground.
They were within fifty meters of the nearest of the big caverns, and Han could see the flickering light of glow rods against the tunnel wall, when there was a sudden crunch of gravel directly behind them. “That’s far enough,” a quiet voice warned.
Han stopped, swallowing a curse. He’d checked the first few side caves as he and Chewie had passed, but since all of them had been empty he’d stopped bothering, instead focusing all his attention on the voices and lights ahead. Now that carelessness was going to cost him.
Or rather, it was going to cost the man behind them. From the sound of his voice, he was probably within Chewie’s reach, and Han doubted anyone on Poln Minor had ever seen how fast a Wookiee could move. “Take it easy,” he said soothingly, raising his blaster high above his head. If the guard was foolish enough to watch the weapon or, even better, stepped closer to take it from Han’s hand …
“Chewbacca?” the guard asked. “That you?”
Blinking, Han turned to look behind him.
It wasn’t a smuggler, or a pirate, or one of Governor Ferrouz’s men. It was, in fact—
“Colonel Cracken?” Wedge Antilles called. “Colonel? Got a surprise for you.”
The murmur of voices ahead abruptly stopped. A moment later the reflected light from all the glow rods grew brighter as a whole crowd headed toward the cavern entrance.
Grimacing, Han dropped his blaster into its holster. Wedge here; Colonel Airen Cracken here. The only thing that could possibly make it worse would be—
“Han!” Leia said, her voice and expression halfway between astonished and furious, in a way that only she could pull off. “What are you doing here?”
“Yes, I know we aren’t supposed to move in until Axlon formally makes the deal,” Leia said, keeping her voice low as she and Han walked into the cavern she and the others had just started examining. “And we haven’t. We just thought it would be a good idea to have an advance team come in and look things over.”
“Yeah,” Han grunted. “Nice.”
Leia took a deep breath, trying very hard not to be irritated. Han had been ordered to stay with Axlon on Poln Major. He shouldn’t be here at all, let alone poking around and demanding explanations. Or acting like she and Cracken were doing anything wrong.
Especially since this unofficial sortie had been Axlon’s idea in the first place. If their chief negotiator thought it was legitimate, Han of all people shouldn’t be second-guessing him.
“At least now we know who those guys were at Quartzedge,” Han said sourly. “They could have said something when we first came in.”
Leia frowned. Quartzedge? Who had Cracken put at Quartzedge? She opened her mouth to ask—
“Hey!” someone called from across the cavern, his glow rod playing over a section of broken wall. “Colonel? Princess? You’re going to want to see this.”
Leia started across the chamber, wondering briefly if she should order Han to stay here.
But it was too late. With his longer stride, he was already ahead of her. Scowling, Leia hurried to catch up.
Han was nearly to the man with the glow rod—it was one of the techs, Leia saw now, a short, earnest type named Anselm—when Cracken caught up to Han, deftly slipped a shoulder in front of him, and got to the opening first.
Even in the faint light reflecting off the dark rock, Leia saw Cracken’s eyes widen. “Well, well,” he murmured. “What have we here?”
Han and Chewie were already at his side, peering in along the glow rod beam. Putting on a burst of fast-walk speed, Leia moved up beside them.
The hole, as she’d expected, opened into another dome-ceilinged cavern, its floor about a meter and a half higher than the one they were currently standing in. But unlike all the rest of the abandoned mines they’d explored, this one wasn’t empty. It was, in fact, stocked with orderly rows of equipment.
And not just any equipment. Military equipment. She could see a rack of E-Web repeating blasters, another rack holding grenades plus a pair of Merr-Sonn grenade mortars, and, at the very edge of the light, what looked like a pair of outpost-style sensor beacons.
“Anselm?” Cracken prompted. “Analysis, please.”
“Uh—” Anselm floundered, and Leia felt a flicker of sympathy for the man. He was mainly a ship tech who spent most of his time up to his elbows in partially disassembled starfighter engines. Cracken had brought him along to check on the suitability of their new caverns for ship repair bays, as well as to ride herd on the old, battered freighter Rieekan had picked to slip them into the Poln system.
Now, with a single stroke, Anselm’s whole job description for this trip had abruptly been expanded. “Uh—” he tried again.
“I’ll take a look,” Han said, starting to step past Cracken.
“I’ll take a look,” Leia countered, grabbing his arm and yanking him to a halt. “For starters, you’ll never get through that opening.”
“No problem,” Han said, drawing his blaster. “I’ll just make it bigger.”
“As you were, Solo,” Cracken said coolly. “All right, Princess, you’re on. Ten minutes, no more, and don’t touch anything. Toksi, give her a boost.”
Leia stepped to the hole and set her foot gingerly onto the cupped hands of one of Cracken’s burliest men. Up close, she could see that the hole was smaller than it had looked from farther away, and was jagged-edged besides.
But there was no way she wasn’t going to get through it. Not with Cracken and the rest of them watching. Especially not with Han watching. Wincing as the edges scraped across her jumpsuit and dug into the skin beneath, she eased her way up and through into the other chamber. Pulling out her glow rod, she switched it on.
The cavern wasn’t very big, only about twenty meters across. But its limited floor space was astonishingly well stocked. Along with the equipment she’d already seen were more racks of weapons, Tibanna gas canisters, and enough gear to set up a small encampment or listening post.
There was another cavern opening off the far end, with the glint of metal showing faintly in the light of her glow rod. Giving the encampment gear a quick look as she passed, she headed across to the other cavern. This one was also loaded, having been turned into a fully equipped armorers’ machine shop, complete with two portable fusion generators to run all the gear.
And in the next room …
She made it back to the broken wall five minutes after Cracken’s ten-minute time limit was up, arriving to find one of the smaller Rebellion men—small, but not small enough—struggling mightily to slip through the opening to come look for her. She helped him back down,
then followed him through.
“Well?” Cracken said, lowering his datapad as Toksi helped her to the floor.
“It’s the sabacc pot,” Leia told him. “We’ve got blasters, Tibanna gas, and an armorers’ workshop. And beyond that, there’s a whole cavern full of combat-modified T-47 airspeeders.”
“You’re kidding,” Cracken said, his eyes widening. “How many?”
“Twelve,” Leia said. “There’s also a tunnel off one side wide enough to get them out, and one of the big conveyance tunnels down the way is big enough for one of our transports. And that’s not the last of the caverns, either.”
“You’re right on that one,” Cracken agreed, offering her his datapad. “Near as I can figure from these maps of Axlon’s, that’s the Lisath-re mining system through there.”
Leia grimaced as she studied the tangled cavern layout. “Unfortunately, Lisath-re isn’t part of our agreement with Ferrouz.”
“Not yet,” Cracken said. “But maybe we can change that. I want you to take one of the speeders back to Yellowstrike where you can get a clear comm signal and see if Axlon can throw an addendum onto the deal to get us those extra caverns.”
Leia frowned. “You don’t really think he’d give all this up, do you?”
“Depends on whether this stuff is actually his,” he said. “Solo thinks it isn’t, and I tend to agree with him.”
Leia looked around. That was what she’d been missing, she realized suddenly, since her return from the other caverns: Han’s loud voice and smirking face. “Where is he?”
“He and Chewbacca headed back to Quartzedge,” Cracken told her, nodding back over his shoulder. “He said three men were hanging around the port on his way in. If they aren’t Ferrouz’s men, they may be sentries for whoever owns this equipment. Either way, we should probably have a good talk with them.”
“Yes,” Leia said mechanically, still looking around. Chewie had gone with him, of course. But that still left the odds three against two.
“Don’t worry, I sent Erick and Flind with them,” Cracken added. “They’ll be okay.”
“Of course they will,” Leia said, feeling a small flush of embarrassment. Han was a big boy, and he could take care of himself. Not that she really cared that much one way or the other. “We need to find another way into those caverns,” she said, taking Cracken’s datapad from him. “Let’s see what else our future benefactor may have left us.”
They checked the Falcon’s landing bay, all the other bays they could get into, and the deserted customs office.
In the end, they found no one, and nothing.
“You sure you didn’t just dream up these guys, Solo?” Flind asked as they headed back into the Falcon’s bay.
“Funny,” Han said, scowling across the open space at his ship. She looked all right. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean a whole lot. “I guess you two might as well start on the outside.”
“Start what?” Flind asked suspiciously.
“Checking for trackers,” Han said. “Me and Chewie’ll take the inside.”
“Solo—”
“Hang on and I’ll get you a scanner,” Han cut him off, keying the ramp.
“Forget it,” Erick growled. “We’ve got work to do.”
“Hey, no problem,” Han said calmly. “I’ll just give Cracken a call and tell him you don’t want to be bothered sweeping Axlon’s ambassadorial ship.”
Erick snorted. “Ambassadorial ship?”
“You can’t call him anyway,” Flind said as Han headed up the ramp. “There’s no baseline comm service between here and there, and the comlink relay isn’t working.”
“That’s okay,” Han said, opening the equipment locker beside the hatch and pulling out two EnhanceScan portable scanners. “I can call Rieekan instead. Or Mon Mothma. Here—catch.”
He tossed the sensors down the ramp to the two glowering men. “Might as well start at the bow and stern,” he told them as Chewie walked up the ramp and joined him. “Call me if you find anything—I’ll want to see it before you take it off.”
The two men looked at each other. Then, without a word, they stomped off in their assigned directions. “Here,” Han said, pulling out the last EnhanceScan and handing it to Chewie. “Start with the engines. I’d better see if Axlon’s missed us yet.”
Sure enough, the comm was signaling no fewer than six waiting messages. All were from Axlon, with steadily increasing levels of irritation and anger. Han listened to all six, mostly for amusement, then keyed for Axlon’s comlink.
“About time,” the other growled after Han had identified himself. “Where have you been?”
“Working,” Han said. “How about you?”
“We’ve got the preliminary agreement,” Axlon said. “We’ll be meeting again in a few days to hammer out any last-minute details. Skywalker says you left the spaceport?”
“I had some errands,” Han said, eyeing the comm speaker thoughtfully. So Luke had had to tell Axlon that the Falcon was missing? Axlon hadn’t spotted that himself? “Where’s Luke now?”
“I don’t know,” Axlon said. “Back at his ship, I assume. I’ve taken a room at a hotel near the palace. No point in making a crosstown trip every time I want to talk to our friend.”
“Makes sense,” Han said. Especially when the Alliance was paying the bills. “You get one for Luke, too?”
“No,” Axlon said, sounding puzzled. “I assumed he’d be making his own arrangements.”
Han made a face. Or, more likely, now that Luke’s cover was blown Axlon was expecting him to bunk aboard the Falcon with Han and Chewie. “You talked to Cracken yet?” he asked.
There was a short pause. “Cracken?” Axlon said cautiously.
“Colonel Airen Cracken,” Han said, striving for patience. He was getting really tired of these games. “Him and Her Worshipfulness. You know: your former—”
“Yes, yes, I know who you mean,” Axlon said stiffly. “The question is, why do you know?”
“Probably because I’m smarter than you think,” Han told him. “Like I was saying, you need to talk to Cracken. There’s another cave system you’ll want to put on the bargaining list.”
“Another—oh,” Axlon interrupted himself. “Fine. I’ll talk to him as soon as I can. Anyway, I need to tell him he can bring in the official survey team. Where are you now?”
“Busy,” Han said. “You need something, let me know. Otherwise, don’t.”
“Solo—”
With a flick of his finger, Han cut off the comm.
For a few minutes he stared out the cockpit canopy at the dull rock of the landing bay, listening to the indistinct voices of Flind and Erick wafting faintly up the boarding ramp and into the cockpit.
And tried to think. Because something about this whole thing didn’t make sense.
He was still trying to figure it out when the comm beeped again. Scowling, he punched the activation key. If this was Axlon again … “Solo,” he growled.
“It’s Leia. Are you all right?”
“Sure,” Han said. “Why?”
“Because you told us there were mysterious men hanging around the Falcon,” she said, sounding a little miffed. “Remember?”
“Oh—right,” Han said. “Well, they aren’t now. They were gone by the time we got here.”
“Really,” Leia said. “That’s strange.”
“Yeah, I was thinking that, too,” Han said. “If they were watching to see who’s snooping around, why leave now? Especially since we said we were going to the Anyat-en mines, which was right next to that handy little weapons stash.”
“Unless they didn’t realize the cave wall had been broken through,” Leia said, sounding doubtful.
“We were still going to that area,” Han pointed out. “They should at least have waited for us to come back to see if we’d seen anything.”
“They probably weren’t expecting you back so soon,” Leia pointed out. “Maybe they figured they had time to leave and come b
ack later.” She paused. “Or maybe they just wanted to get a look at your ship while you weren’t there.”
“Or maybe more than a look,” Han said. “I’ve got Chewie and the other two looking for trackers.”
“Good idea,” Leia said. “Some of the techs might be better at that, though. You want me to send you a couple of them?”
“No, we can handle it,” Han assured her. “Could also be that they were Ferrouz’s people, and he pulled them off once he and Axlon had their deal.”
“Not according to Axlon,” Leia said. “I asked him that, and he told me Ferrouz said all his people were already out of the area.”
“Unless he was lying,” Han said sourly. “Speaking of Axlon, he said something about calling in a survey team. I thought you were the survey team.”
“He means the real, official team waiting outside the system,” Leia said. “Our job was just to take a quick look around. They’re supposed to do a full examination and analysis of the caverns and figure out what we can do with them. Under the circumstances, though, we’re going to need a slightly bigger party.”
“To look over the stuff we found?”
“The stuff we found, yes,” Leia corrected pointedly. “General Rieekan’s putting together a full quartermaster’s squad, along with a logistics support group to triage the equipment, plus a few transports for when we’re ready to start taking stuff out.”
“Hold it,” Han said, frowning. “We’re taking stuff out already? We don’t even know who it belongs to yet.”
“Hence, the triage,” Leia said. “We’ll want to grab the most vital equipment before whoever owns it notices.”
“Yeah, well, that probably won’t take too long,” Han warned. “And if it’s Ferrouz’s stash, he’s going be unhappy in a really loud way.”
“Which is why Axlon will be broaching the subject of the Lisath-re mines with him as soon as he can,” Leia said. “If there’s no reaction, we can assume the equipment belongs to smugglers or pirates instead. I don’t think there’s any moral issue with stealing stolen property.”