Then Han felt a faint vibration in the stone underfoot. He stopped and listened. From far up the tunnel came a faint clank.
Just another maintenance droid,
he thought.
But suddenly all the little cleaning droids within reach of his light scuttled into the vents at the bottom of the rock walls, one last straggler limping belatedly after the others.
That's not good.
Taking it as a sign he should get out of there a little faster, Han started to jog. He would take that second access he had found, the one with the ladder. It was much closer than the one where Sian and Terae waited.
Then the clanking turned into the low-frequency rumble of a large repulsor engine.
Han ran faster, but the sound grew louder and louder, echoing off the walls. He risked a look back, and his light framed a big round dark metal wall shooting toward him.
Han swore and almost stumbled.
Yeah, that's a problem.
The brief glimpse told him the thing took up the whole width of the corridor and there was no way he could outrun it. He shoved the light into his satchel to leave his hands free and thought,
You better get this right the first time, Solo.
He spun around, had time to take a breath, then lunged forward and jumped as the metal wall rushed toward him. He grabbed for the top and caught the metal rim. Gritting his teeth, he scrabbled to keep his grip on metal that was slick with dust and moisture. A fall would be the end. A squashed, bloody, painful end.
Then his hands found a slot he could actually wrap his fingers around, and his boots found purchase on an uneven projection at the bottom. Breathing hard, his heart pounding almost loud enough to drown out the rumble of the engine, he had time to realize that the thing he was gripping was the front of an automated haulerâfor sewage, if the smell of new and ancient decay was any indication. At least, he hoped the blasted thing was automated.
Han crouched down and craned his neck, trying to examine the front of the hauler to see if there was some way to take control of it, or at least an access panel. If there was, he would have to pry it off with his teeth, because it was hard enough to hold on with two hands, let alone one. But there was nothing he could spot.
He turned his head to look over his shoulder, just in time to watch the dimly lit access up into the second traverse fly past. He thought he heard Sian yell, but wasn't sure over the noise of the hauler. If she had seen him, at least they would know where he wasâor at least where he had been a moment ago. Not that they would be able to do anything about it. The tunnel ahead was dark, and he had no idea where he was going.
Then suddenly the world rushed down into darkness, and Han's precarious grip on the hauler was his only anchor with reality. He stifled a yell and clung for all he was worth. Belatedly, he realized that there must have been an opening to a vertical tunnel and the hauler had dropped down it, was dropping down it, moving even faster than it had in the tunnel.
Yeah, Solo, this was not one of your better ideas,
Han told himself, shaking with the effort of holding on. He just hoped he survived it.
Leia watched Viest climb the steps to the balcony spectators' area and join the other members of her entourage already seated there. As if that had been a signal, a technician approached Leia and Metara to hand them repulsor pads for their hands and feet, and stood by while they carefully checked to make sure each pad was working. Once they had, he nodded grimly and went to the next pair of players.
Matara glanced up at Viest, lounging on a couch on the balcony with her hangers-on. “Hopefully she'll keep her word when we win.”
Leia wished it was that simple, and that she had any belief whatsoever that Viest would keep her word about anything. “The game is not going to be that easy to win. There has to be another factor.”
“Another factor?” Metara frowned, and looked over the arena again. “You mean something to interfere with us while we're after the remote? Besides the other players?”
“Like more remotes, or something else,” Leia said. “It's mainly the something else I'm worried about.” There was nothing they could do about it now but be aware that the rules might change drastically at any moment. “I'll go for the remote; you try to keep the others off me. And please don't get pulverized.”
Metara just looked worriedly at Leia. “Please don't take any chances.”
Leia didn't reply, because this was yet another argument that she was bone-weary of having. She knew Metara didn't want to be the Alderaanian who got Princess Leia Organa killed, but Leia had been taking responsibility for herself for a long time.
The equipment below started to hum and crackle as the power increased. “Players get ready,” the technician shouted.
Following the example of the others, Leia and Metara took off their boots and put on the pads, then spent a few moments getting used to the pressure controls for toes and fingers. Leia saw that the Ishori had to take off their prosthetics to get the pads to fit over their hands, and wondered if that would put them at a disadvantage. She didn't want anyone to be sucked into a crusher, but it would be nice if the lack of prosthetics made it difficult for them to manipulate the pads.
The technician waved the teams forward to the edge of the arena. Leia could feel the fringe of the gravity field, right at the point where it started to dissipate; it lifted her braided hair and made her steps lighter. She wondered how well regulated the gravity field was; if it varied throughout the space, that could affect the performance of the repulsor pads.
The technician explained the rules again, which were as Viest had said: knock the remote, which would be set to fire at them on maximum pain level, through one of the crushers. It still sounded deceptively simple. Leia didn't know enough about the Ishori to interpret anything from their expressions or demeanor, but the Twi'lek looked far grimmer and her human companion far more worried than the bare description of the game seemed to warrant.
They know something, or suspect something.
She wished again that they had been allowed the chance to talk before the game started.
Then Viest stood, and the technician told them, “Into the arena.”
Leia, Metara, and the others stepped off into the zero-g field, and Leia felt her stomach give a tiny lurch at the abrupt transition from near-normal weight to almost none. She curled her toes and the foot pads responded; the repulsors pushed her into a gentle glide into the arena. The propulsion was much faster and more erratic here in the light-grav area than it had been up on the rock shelf, and the pad on her left foot was a bit slow to respond. One of the Ishori and the human man seemed to be having a little trouble getting both foot pads to respond at the same time, but the others looked to be getting the hang of it easily.
Along with everyone else, Leia used her hand pads to stop once they were in the center of the arena. As all the players hovered in place, the containment field sprang into life with a sizzle in the damp air and a strong smell of ozone. The faint glow of it formed a sphere around the whole arena.
Leia saw Viest draw her blaster and experienced an adrenaline spike of fear that this all might just have been an insane buildup for a summary execution. Then Viest fired toward the top of the chamber and shouted, “Go!”
Leia swore at herself, and the others dived for the remote. Leia used her foot pads to circle the outside, Metara following her. One of the Ishori reached the remote first, grabbed it despite the volley of stinging blasts it released, and headed straight for the nearest crusher.
Leia swooped to intercept him, and his teammate dived for her. Metara knocked the teammate aside by turning her hand pads on him, and used the repulsors to propel him halfway across the arena. Then she kicked out with a foot, using the repulsor pad to deflect an assault from the male human on the Twi'lek's team. Leia grabbed the Ishori by the legs and swung him around. He lost his grip on the struggling remote and she released him and lunged for it.
She stretched to grab it and it shot her in the right shoulder. Leia had thought she would be able to ignore the sting and just grab the thing, but the impact was like being stabbed by a very thin, heated blade. She jerked back, her right arm went numb, and the remote whizzed away.
“Are you all right?” Metara shouted.
“Yes!” Leia snapped. Furious, blinking back tears of pain, she circled after the remote. She flexed her shoulder to get the feeling back. Apparently they had been serious about “maximum pain level.” That might be the extra difficulty Viest had wanted to conceal until the last moment, but somehow Leia didn't think so.
Everyone had seen Metara's maneuver, and now they knew how to use the pads for offense and defense. The game became considerably more than just a wrestling match for the remote, with the players swooping around, sending one another spinning across the arena, and propelling the increasingly active remote out of reach. Leia almost managed to push it into a crusher three times, only to have it shoved out of its trajectory or to find herself knocked off course. Sweat was streaming down her back, plastering her hair to her forehead, and her body was covered with stinging bruises from the blasted remote. She was still wary, but so far no one had tried to shove another player into a crusher, and they all seemed to be working under an implied agreement not to try.
Without the threat of the crushers, and with the remote on a less violent setting, she could actually see how this could be an exciting game. For other people, not her.
Leia ducked under the Twi'lek's attempt to send her careening off and came up with a clear path to the remote. Metara flew past overhead to cover her. Leia shot toward the remote, ready to swing her foot pads up to push it into the nearest crusher.
She heard a
whump
as the containment field dissolved and re-formed.
Just a glitch,
she thought, distracted. A shadow fell over her, and she realized something large loomed directly overhead. Then Metara slammed into her and knocked them both away.
They spun together for an instant, and Leia ended up on top with a good view of the thing that had just dropped out of the darkness at the top of the cavern and into the arena. It was an enormous, barrel-shaped droid, at least three meters tall and maybe four meters wide, and it bristled with appendages, each with a drilling or cutting tool or claw at the end.
The other players had scattered. Metara gasped, “It's a mining droid.”
The droid's head rotated, revealing a set of glass ocular devices for taking in visual data and a large round orifice for testing samples. The orifice opened, bared a set of blades for grinding and cutting, and emitted a high-pitched shriek of pure rage.
The Twi'lek woman hovered nearby, and Leia heard her spit an astonished curse. “It's an
insane
mining droid,” Leia said.
A glance up at Viest, now standing at the edge of the arena to watch, told Leia that this was no accident. “I'll draw it off, you try to destroy the remote.”
“Butâ” Metara began. Leia ignored her and shot away to the other side of the droid.
The hauler dropped into darkness for what felt like forever, long enough for Han to entertain some nightmarish scenarios, mostly about dropping suddenly into vacuum. Then it made another abrupt turn that nearly threw him off and suddenly moved forward again. Han adjusted his grip and took a deep breath.
That was bad.
Shooting forward again wasn't exactly a picnic, but it was better than waiting for the hauler to jerk and scrape him off on the shaft wall. His fingers were going numb, his hands were starting to cramp from holding on so tightly, and sweat made his skin itch.
But after a few moments he realized the darkness wasn't nearly as impenetrable as it had been at first. He twisted to look over his shoulder. Ahead the tunnel brightened a little, a blue-gray light gradually appearing at the far end, as the hauler rapidly approached a round exit into a lighted chamber.
At least it isn't a blast furnace,
Han told himself. He hoped.
The hauler shot out of the tunnel into a big shadowy space, then slammed to a halt so abruptly that Han almost lost his grip and his legs were flung straight out. He strangled back a yell, but then his weight eased off his strained arms; the gravity was much lighter here. He swore in weary relief and pulled himself atop the hauler.
Flexing his sore hands, he looked around. He was in a huge cavern, mostly shadowed except for luma-light falling down from a source a couple of hundred meters above him. More haulers like the one he was on and some huge repulsor ore carts drifted aimlessly, though some were moored to projections in the walls.
The hauler creaked and jerked, and started to move againâdownward. Han decided it was time to get off the tour. He braced his feet against the top, then pushed up and off. He had just enough momentum to reach a drifting ore cart; he grabbed onto the wide rim and clung to it. Watching the hauler vanish into shadow below, he took a moment to enjoy the sensation of not plunging into darkness. Then he looked around for his next perch.
The grappling hook in his satchel wasn't going to do him any good, since he couldn't throw it in low g. He could hook it onto something and play out the fibercord to give himself a safety line, though. But he had to have something to push off from as he moved around the chamber; without a source of propulsion he could get stuck down here, floating around with no way to reach the walls of the cavern, until the pirates found him or he starved to death. He still had a comlink in his pocket, but it was the one locked into the secure frequency for the
Gamble.
He could change the settings and try to get hold of the
Aegis
if he did get stuck. But he preferred not to get stuck.
He couldn't spot any likely place from here, so he climbed around the edge of the hauler, trying to get a better view of the nearer wall.
Hah, there we go.
Some distance along the wall, six flatbed lifters were moored to a metal dock standing out from the rock. Han mapped out his route, then he pushed off and made the long jump to a drifting hauler, scrambled across it and down the side, and then shoved off to drift just within reach of the last lifter.
The lifters were flat slabs of metal about a meter and a half wide and three meters long, with a low rail around the outside, a small repulsor propulsion system, and a limited control panel. They had probably been used to transport miners, droids, and small equipment around this giant space, or up and down the larger traverses. Judging by the coating of wet dust and muck on the metal, they hadn't been used in years.
First Han had to find one with a little power still left; then he had to pry up the panel and tinker with it to get it started. He had forgotten how big a pain working in low g was, especially when he had to hold his handlight in his mouth to keep it from drifting away.
Finally the lifter's control console lit up and the repulsors started to hum. Feeling vindicated, Han pulled himself back to the control panel and slid his boots under the safety clips that kept the lifter's driver from floating away.
All right, Solo, where to now?
He looked around, getting his bearings. He needed another way out. He could go back up the tunnel, but he didn't want to run into another automated hauler and end up repeating this whole adventure. He decided to go up and try to find a passage back into the asteroid's corridors that would be closer to the level he had started on. Gripping the safety rail, he steered the lifter slowly upward, toward the brighter glow of light from the upper part of the cavern.
The Twi'lek woman had the same idea as Leia, and they shot toward the far side of the arena together, drawing the droid's attention. They dodged back and forth as the droid flailed at them. It should have worked, with one of the other players taking the opportunity to knock the remote through a crusher and end the game.
But the remote was clearly programmed to make things as difficult as possible. It darted around close to the droid's barrel-shaped body, swung around its drill-tipped limbs, and lured the other players into danger.
Leia watched hopefully as the remote wheeled away from Metara and one of Ishori dived down almost within reach of it. At the moment she didn't care who won the game, as long as somebody did. Though, she reminded herself with grim resolve, they had no guarantee that Viest would stop the game as she had promised. When the remote was destroyed, the flightmaster might change the rules again.
Then the droid swung its drilling arm and struck the Ishori across the back. He flew across the arena and bounced off the containment field with a fizzle of energy. He drifted, his body limp. The other Ishori cried out and shot over to him.
Leia set her jaw. This had to end before that happened to all the players. As the droid turned, she dived in close to circle it and followed the gleam of the remote. The droid roared and turned toward her, but then it swung away, distracted by someone around the other side.