Razor's Edge: Star Wars (Empire and Rebellion) (11 page)

“Yeah.” Han nodded. He leaned down to pick up his satchel. “That's what happens when a pirate ship maroons crew here and they can't find another berth.” He tried not to care about the way they had dragged their wounded friend off. He doubted things were bad enough that they meant to eat the guy, so they had probably been together long enough to bond. He shook off the uncomfortable thought. It just meant that they would be all the more desperate. It was a pointed little reminder of the times he and Chewie had come close to losing the
Falcon
in a port where their options would have been just as limited.

Sian nodded grimly, carefully watching the grids overhead. Terae started to speak, her face set as if she wanted to argue, then she shook her head.

Han hoped Terae was enjoying the tour she was getting here of the less thrilling aspects of pirate life. But all he said was, “We need to keep moving.”

Viest savored her drink, and Leia worked on calming thoughts to keep her face and her body language under control. From Viest's lack of reaction, she must not have betrayed herself too badly. But something in her face or voice must have indicated too high a degree of interest in the merchant captives. Finally Viest asked, “So do you want stock from us? Or you want to buy into our operation?”

She calls them “stock,” as if they were bales of plant fiber.
Leia hoped the involuntary curl of her upper lip would be interpreted as a superior smile. “Just testing the waters.”

“But we aren't talking about the proposition on the table, are we?” Viest said. She focused on Metara. “So why do you want to work with her and not me?”

Metara shrugged and took a sip of her drink. Leia clearly read that as stalling for time to formulate an answer and had no doubt Viest did, too. Finally Metara said, “Leia and I have a connection, that's all.” She hadn't stumbled over Leia's first name, as far as Leia could tell. Viest would sense any hesitation. Metara added, “I pay my debts, and I'm sure we can come to an arrangement. With the augmentations you purchased for my ship, I can easily make enough to pay you back with whatever interest you ask for.”

Watching Viest's expression, Leia didn't think that was going to go over well. This was why she had asked Metara to let her handle the negotiation. At least she had the consolation of knowing her annoyance would be correctly interpreted by Viest.

“So it's just that simple, is it?” Viest said. “I invite you into my business, trust you with my personal funds to repair and upgrade your ship, and you want to cut me off without a second thought when an old friend comes along.”

Metara stared. “I'm sorry. But our arrangement is just business. It's not a matter of personal loyalty.”

Viest lifted a brow. “It is to me.”

Leia let go of her last hope of still pulling off her original plan. Viest was clearly exaggerating her pique but also clearly had no intention of letting Metara out of her agreement, at least not in this conversation.

“If a buyout isn't to your liking,” Leia said, “we can still all three do business together. I'm open to suggestions.” And she really was open to suggestions, because unless she thought of something else, they were going to lose the merchant crew to slavers and be stuck on this rock for a long time.

Viest considered them both for a long moment, then set her glass aside. “If we're going to do business, then we'll need to get to know you better.”

Leia didn't like the sound of that. There was just a little too much anticipation in Viest's voice. “I thought that's what we've been doing here.”

“That we have,” Viest said, and smiled in a predatory way that she made no attempt to conceal. “But I like to have my new partners show all of us their mettle.”

Mettle, really?
Yes, this wasn't going to be good. Leia kept her voice only mildly interested. “And how do you do that?”

“We play a game,” Viest said. “Or, they—you—play a game.”

On the surface, a game didn't sound nearly as bad as the other array of horrible things that had paraded through Leia's imagination in the past moment. But something in Viest's expression told Leia that it might just be worse. “What sort of game?”

“A test of skill and reflexes.” Viest nodded toward the port that overlooked the dark space beyond the control center. “The playing field is in the center of the mine. The grav generators are turned off there, so it makes a good zero-g playing field.” Her eyes narrowed. “Makes a good way to tell the serious players from the ones who just like to talk.”

Leia decided there was no reason for her persona to go along with this, especially since it had trap written all over it. Viest knew they were lying, but she wasn't quite sure just what they were lying about. If they were lucky, Viest thought this was only an attempt to cheat her out of her investment in the
Aegis.
Not that the consequences of that would be any less dangerous, but at least Viest wouldn't suspect Alliance involvement. Leia said, “We don't go in for the frivolous much, where I'm from.” Also a strictly true statement.

“Let me sweeten the deal for you,” Viest said. She looked as if she had no intention of being talked out of this but would find it amusing if they tried. “If both of you play and win, I'll give you my interest in Metara and her ship, free and clear.”

That deal was a little too sweet, Leia thought. Best to decline and try to offer a payment again. But before she could reply, Metara said, “If you throw in the merchant ship we captured for you and its crew, you have a deal.” She glanced at Leia. “And I'll play alone, or with one of my crew.”

Leia found herself meeting Viest's complacent gaze. She let herself smile faintly, though she was thinking,
I hate working with amateurs.
Viest knew everything that Metara really wanted now, and would make her pay dearly for it. And she knew, too, that Metara had a stake in protecting Leia. That Leia was not just another prospective business partner or former acquaintance willing to help fund Metara's piracy; that Metara cared about her safety.

Viest's smile was now considerably more satisfied. “It's a deal—if Leia here plays our game, too.”

There was no choice. Leia lifted her glass in salute, then downed its contents. The drink burned her throat and sat heavily in her stomach. Her voice grated as she said, “I'm happy to oblige.”

Viest raised her glass to Leia. “Good.”

Han had been hearing voices and movement ahead for a while; then the tunnel opened into a huge docking and cargo area. “This is just dandy,” he muttered under his breath.

The ramp they were on branched off into a gallery along a row of bay doors, and the main branch led down to a loading area where there were several openings to huge tunnels. Several of the derelict repulsor guide tracks stretched across the loading area, and the floor held stacks of pressure crates and barrels of all sizes. A number of aging, slow-moving droids wandered among them, sorting them and rearranging the piles. A group of pirates stood in the middle of all the activity, arguing and emphasizing their disagreement by pointing at piles and shouting.

Some of this cargo might have come from the merchant the
Wastrel
had brought in, but there was clearly too much here for a freighter that size. This looked like either one large cargo transport or maybe the combined spoils of several smaller ships.

Watching the scene uneasily, Terae said, “The Letaki didn't say which tunnel to take, just that it was down here.”

Everyone in the loading area looked angry and suspicious, and as far as Han could see they were all armed. “We can't just wander down there like tourists,” he said. “We need to find a map.”

Sian asked, “You think they're using the old mine's detention center? That would be marked on a map.”

“Maybe.” A mine this big must have had some kind of facility to deal with the miners who stole or got drunk or did spice or got into fights about stealing and drinking and doing spice. “If it's big enough.”

“I saw a small tunnel marked for engineering admin back there,” Terae said. “Some of the lumas were still lit, so it might be worth a try. But to get to it, we're going to have to go back through that dark area where the castaways were.”

“The dark area doesn't have anything to do with it,” Han told her. “Those castaways will be all over this place. Come on.”

After searching two of the side corridors, Han, Sian, and Terae found a rock-carved chamber marked
TECH SERVICES
112. It looked like it had been trashed in a drunken party, which probably meant there wasn't anything left here that was useful. They split up to search, and after a moment Sian found some general access terminals back against the far wall, tucked under a small rock outcropping.

One still had working power cells and Han managed to get it turned on, but the holoimage was too obscured by static to see. He had to pry open the console and clean a few contacts, but finally an old mining company's logo swam into focus. Han was guessing that anything important the system could access, like codes for the mining equipment or docking rings or storage, would be access-protected, but an internal map should be readily available.

After a little poking around in the admin screens and arguing with Terae about the most likely sections to try, they found it. The map blossomed above the vid plate, and the asteroid's interior glowed in green and red in the rotating image. Han squinted at it, trying to read the tiny print. The damn thing wouldn't enlarge.

The mine was a maze of odd-sized chambers and shafts, some straight and some in long spirals. Corridors were marked as traverses and haulage tunnels, many of the chambers had names instead of designations, and levels seemed to be called floors and were divided into upper, lower, and middle in some system Han couldn't easily decipher. Gravity was marked as fluctuating throughout, with lighter levels in the bigger shafts and spirals and many of the haulage tunnels. The middle of the place was a giant cavern, curving up through the whole center of the asteroid for hundreds of meters.

Terae held up her comlink to record it, and angled her head, trying to see the labels. “I think that's a brig, but it's way over on the other side.”

“Yes, but look here.” Sian pointed to an area not far from their current location. “That's all marked as living quarters, and it's in the right place, where the Letaki told you.”

“I bet they converted it into a slave pen,” Han said, ignoring Terae's wince at the blunt terminology. He traced the corridor layout around it and saw there was only one way in: the center tunnel that led from the loading area where the pirates had been fighting over their cargoes. Getting near that wasn't going to be easy.

But the map showed a very narrow tunnel running directly beneath the living quarters all the way to the center of the asteroid. It was crossed by quite a few other tunnels, including one traverse that they should be able to get to from here. There were no chambers off the tunnel, and it was weirdly straight, where everything else curved or spiraled through the rock. “Think that's a maintenance access?” Han said.

“It looks like one.” Sian tried to adjust the size again, but the touch pad didn't respond. She leaned close and squinted. “It says
WASTE DISPOSAL
.”

Han nodded to himself. “If we can get into it, then work our way back up to where we think the slave pen is—” He cut himself off sharply as a clanking sounded from outside the chamber.

“Get down,” he whispered, hitting the main power on the console. The map dissolved as they crouched down to take cover behind the trashed equipment. Carefully lifting his head just enough, Han saw an old maintenance droid rattle slowly past the doorway. It had multiple arms and seemed to be trying unsuccessfully to clean the floor of the corridor. He waited, but nothing followed it. “Okay, we're clear.”

“You really think those half-dead droids are reporting to the pirates?” Terae asked. She got to her feet, pointedly dusting off her pants. Han thought she was mostly mad that she had obeyed a command from him without thinking twice.

“Maybe,” he told her. “I don't want to bet my life on it. You can run out and shoot at that one if you want. Just give us time to get out of here before you do it.”

Terae glared at him, and Sian said, “The ones down in the loading area were sure reporting to the pirates.” She reached the console first and tried to turn it back on. It just beeped weakly at her. “That's it for this console. Want to try another?”

What Han wanted was not to waste any more time. He asked Terae, “Did you get a good copy of the map?” At her nod, he continued, “Then let's go.”

After Viest finished her drink, she called the Quara and some more guards to take Leia and Metara down to the game arena. She said, “I'll join you shortly,” and then added, “Oh, leave your weapons here. We don't let any of the players go armed. We wouldn't want any accidents.”

Metara and Leia handed over their blasters, and grimly, Leia relinquished her hold-out pistol when the pirates' surprisingly state-of-the-art weapons scanner found it in the holster concealed just above her right boot.

The Quara and the other guards led them to a lift tube at the far side of the control center. The other pirates in the room watched them with a worrying combination of anticipation and unease. Leia found herself wondering just what allegiance they owed to Viest, if their loyalty was bought with threats or gifts or both.

When they were inside the lift tube, Leia asked, “What exactly is this game?”

“That's for Viest to tell you,” the Quara said, but added, “Anybody else says anything about it, they end up playing it with you.”

That wasn't encouraging. And judging from the uneasy way the other guards were reacting, it was true. Leia made her voice dry. “So is it really a game, or just an exciting way for Viest to execute people she doesn't care for?”

The Quara made a coughing noise that Leia realized was bitter laughter. “It's both. If she wants to take you on as personal crew, or if you ask to do business with her and she isn't sure about you, she makes you play. That part is true.”

He didn't seem to approve. “You sound like you speak from experience,” Leia said. “Bad experience.”

One of the other guards shifted uneasily, as if even enforced association with people who were speaking about it was dangerous. The Quara looked down at her, his eyes going half lidded to conceal any emotion. “My captain played. Now I'm stuck here.”

That was what Leia had thought it might be. Metara glanced at her, brow furrowed with concern.

They stopped at a level some distance below the control center and followed the Quara out onto a long gallery. It looked down into the bottom of the giant cavern that formed the center of the asteroid.

The huge space was cooler than the tunnels had been, and the air was even more damp; rivulets ran down the slabs of cut stone, leaving white and red mineral streaks. The whole place smelled of wet dirt, burned metal, and ozone. Leia blinked and found herself staring upward. The giant mining machinery hung overhead, just shadowy shapes in the dimness. There were diggers with drills as large as the
Gamble,
and extractors with scoops that could have carried the
Aegis.

“Wait here,” the Quara told them, and headed back toward the lift tube.

Above the gallery, linked to it by a set of curving metal stairs, was a smaller balcony, with couches and chairs arranged on it. It was empty at the moment, but Leia guessed it was where the spectators would sit. A few guards stood around on the gallery, some human and others of different species, all holding blast rifles. The only other unarmed people in the chamber were two pairs of pirates, standing at opposite ends of the gallery. They had to be the other players.

Two of them were members of an amphibious species that Leia recognized as Ishori, from a world on the edge of the Mid Rim. They were tall and slim, with green-gray skin, long narrow skulls, no noses, and the marks of gills on their cheeks and throats. Feathery fins ran down their arms and legs. Both wore metal devices on their hands, and Leia at first thought they were weapons, but then she realized they had only three fingers on each hand; the devices were prosthetics, giving them three more fingers to make it easier to use standardized equipment.

The other two were the tough-looking Twi'lek woman Leia had seen in the docking ring and a somewhat grungy young human man. The Twi'lek had her arms folded and was glaring angrily at the playing field.

The amphibians didn't seem happy to be here, either, talking to each other in soft worried voices and seeming agitated. So the Quara had been telling the truth, Leia thought. Either the other players were being punished, or they were new to the clearinghouse and were being forced to do this before they could join Viest's crew or conduct business here. She would bet they were all small-time operators, with modest ships and little in the way of resources or status. She doubted Viest could force the captains of the large powerful ships like the
Wastrel
to dance to her tune this way.

Metara touched Leia's arm to get her attention. “I think that must be their game arena.”

Looking down, Leia realized that a few pieces of the seemingly random equipment were containment-field generators, kept in place by repulsor anchors. Once activated, they would probably form a sphere around the central area. Suspended inside it, also on repulsor anchors, were some sort of heavy mining devices, all shaped like big rings about three meters wide.

“I don't like the look of that,” Leia said. There was something else floating inside the field area, something small; squinting, Leia saw that it was a sensor remote. She would bet that the object of the game was going to be to capture or destroy that remote, probably while it was shooting at them. But there had to be another complication. “Those rings—do you have any idea what they are?”

“For lifting something large, or processing ore …” Metara trailed off, and she and Leia exchanged a look. Leia wasn't sure what sort of processing the rings would do, but she was certain it wouldn't have a pleasant effect on a sentient body.

“The others might know,” Leia said, and started over to the Twi'lek's team. But a human guard stepped in front of her, barring her way.

“No talking to the others.”

It made sense to keep the players from speaking with one another beforehand. If Leia had had a chance to pay them off or bargain with them to throw the game, she would certainly have taken it. “Are they proving their mettle for Viest, too?” she asked.

His expression twisted with amusement. “She is.” With his blast rifle still casually pointed in Leia's direction, he nodded toward the Twi'lek, then jerked his head toward the Ishori. “Those two got their ship and crew indentured by another captain, and they're trying to get the flightmaster to buy them out of it.” He jerked the gun at her. “Get back to your place.”

“Lovely,” she muttered, and returned to Metara's side.

Leia waited until the nearest guards had started talking among themselves, then lowered her voice to say carefully, “Metara, I appreciate the thought, but you should not have volunteered for this.”

Metara wore the calm, solemn expression of someone who had absolutely no idea she had made a terrible tactical error. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to be included. I'll do my best to protect you, I swear it.”

Leia decided to ignore that in the interest of keeping her carefully cultivated patience. “Did you notice that Viest is a Lorrdian? Have you ever heard of Lorrdian readers?”

Metara shook her head slightly, confused. “I know Lorrdians are supposed to be good at reading body language—”

“Some of them are more than good at it; some of them make a living at it. And they're excellent at distinguishing truth from lies.” Leia wondered what Viest's history was, how she had ended up here. If Viest had been hired—or bought—to be some pirate leader's reader and had eventually managed to use her skills to rise to this position, she would be even more dangerous.

Metara took that in but didn't appear to entirely believe it. “She knew we were lying? Why didn't she have us killed immediately?”

“Because she didn't know what we were lying about, and she wants to find out before she kills us.” Leia saw that Metara at least seemed to be taking her warning seriously. “She picked up on the fact that you wanted to protect me, so … you need to stop that.” It wasn't a very effective or specific request, but Leia felt compelled to make it.

Her expression turning stubborn, Metara shook her head. “I can't let anything happen to you. It's my fault that you're here at all.”

Leia agreed that it was Metara's fault, but there was no point in dwelling on it. “If we're going to salvage this situation, you have to let me take care of myself.”

Metara drew breath for what was clearly going to be an argument. Leia fixed her with the steely expression that was usually effective on everyone but Han Solo, and Metara let the breath out. “I'll try, Your Hi—Leia.”

The lift tube opened again and Viest stepped out, followed by about a dozen assorted pirates. Most of the others wandered up to the spectator area, but Viest strolled over to Leia and Metara. “The object is to defeat the remote,” she explained. “It will be firing high-energy training pulses—not strong enough to wound, but they certainly hurt.”

Leia felt some relief that the object was not to slaughter the opposing players. “And those rings?” she asked. “I'm assuming they're some sort of ore processor. What are they for?”

Viest smiled. “They're called crushers. Just to add a little extra tension.”

Oh, we're calling it
tension,
are we?
“You really force new business associates to do this?” Leia asked. “Why?”

Viest's expression did something complicated and then went blank. It probably would have been crystal clear to another Lorrdian, but it was completely opaque to Leia. She did, however, think it had been a very long time since anyone had asked Viest to explain her actions. “As I said, we like to test their mettle.”