Kelvan was right, but he clearly wasn't averse to hearing more suggestions. Han decided to take a chance on him. “Yeah, we're going to have to do it without anybody noticing.”
Terae gave him an impatient glare. “That's the point: we can't.”
Han jerked his chin up. “There's another way out of this place.”
Everybody looked up. The superstructure overhead formed a track for guiding large repulsor carts of ore through the loading bays so they could be lowered to droid-controlled transports. High in the carved rock of the inside bay wall, the track curved, then stopped at a large hatchway that probably hadn't been opened since the last mining company had left. Next to it was a smaller maintenance hatch that Han thought should be easier to open. “They've been using these bays so long, they've forgotten those hatches are up there.”
Han saw Kelvan's expression go from reluctant and skeptical to intrigued, and knew he had him. Kelvan said, “That might work.”
“I'll go,” Han said. “We know they took the merchant ship to a dock down that way; we find it, we might be able to figure out where they took the crew.”
“I'll go with you,” Sian said.
Itran nodded. “Me, too.”
“No,” Terae said, before Han could. She nodded to Han and Sian. “You two, and me. More than three and it will be too difficult to move around quietly.”
“Two can move around more quietly than three,” Han said. He didn't want Terae at his back any more than he wanted Itran.
Terae didn't like that. “If you two leave here alone, we have no guarantee you'll come back.”
Sian laughed. “Really? And then what would we do?”
Han folded his arms. “Well, there goes my plan to live forever in the droid-access tunnels of a half-dead asteroid mine.”
“He was really looking forward to that,” Itran added, surprising Han. He hadn't thought the guy had a sense of humor.
Terae bristled, and Kelvan said, “Lieutenant Terae goes with you, or no one goes. And it's a scouting mission, only. Don't do anything until we can report to Captain Metara.”
Itran drew breath for what was clearly going to be an objection, but Han had a lot of experience in pushing people over lines, and knew Kelvan had been pushed as far as he was willing to go. He said, “It's a deal.”
The
Aegis
carried standard survival gear, which included a fibercord grappling hook. Han also picked up a small satchel of tools, since it looked like they would be dealing with access hatches and other equipment that had been old when the Republic fell.
Once they had climbed out the ship's topside access hatch, Han threw the grappling hook up to catch on the lowest girder of the ore track. He climbed up quickly, Sian and Terae after him. They managed to do it quietly, and the crew member Kelvan had stationed near the ship's ramp didn't signal a warning that the guards stationed by the bay doors had been alerted by any noise or movement above.
The ore track was an open tube made of metal girders, with relays embedded in it to send instructions to the repulsor ore carts. Judging by the width of the track, the carts must have been at least ten meters across; the girders were wide enough to stand on, but the gap between each pair was about two metersâmore than enough to fall through and plummet all the way to the stone floor of the docking bay. But running along one girder was a half-meter-wide ledge that had probably been designed for small maintenance droids to perch on while they repaired relays and dislodged the occasionally wonky cart. And there must have been a lot of wonky carts, Han decided, because as he made his way carefully along the ledge he found giant dents in the girder he was using to steady himself.
They reached the side of the bay, a wall of deeply scarred rock. The small maintenance hatch was to one side of the giant ore-cart hatch, and only about a meter high. The rock around the seals of both was crumbling, which didn't give Han warm fuzzy feelings about this place's pressure integrity.
“Does it have power?” Sian asked from behind him.
Han tapped the control panel and heard the click as the hatch responded, but nothing happened. “Yeah, but it's stuck.” He worked his fingers in around the panel and popped it off the wall. A little flurry of crystalline insects scurried out and away across the rock, and Han managed not to yelp in surprise or jerk back and knock Sian or himself off the ledge.
From the back, Terae said, “Hurry it up.”
Oh, she's going to be fun,
Han thought, and hit the manual release for the smaller hatch. Although heavy, it slid upward easily enough once he got his hands under it.
Han had expected a dark maintenance tunnel, but this was only a short passageway, the width of the inner bay wall. The recycled air released wasn't any staler than the air in the bay, and at the end of the tube there was a dim glow of light from below. He motioned for Sian and Terae to stay quiet, and crouched down to step through.
The meter-high passage had been meant for meter-high droids, and moving along it was awkward. At the end, it opened back onto the ore-cart track, which crossed above a wide corridor and terminated in another set of hatches on the far side. Han held on to a girder to steady himself and leaned out to look down. He could see the floor of the corridor and, several meters along it, the bay doors and the guards waiting there. A few of them sat on the floor, talking and playing what looked like death dice.
They were distracted, but not so distracted that they wouldn't hear three humans climbing across the girders overhead and prying open the hatch on the far wall. Fortunately, Han wasn't sure they wanted to go that wayâit was likely to just lead into the droid and ore-cart access tunnels. Leaning out a little farther, he could see another, wider ledge running under the girders, parallel to the wall, following the wall of the corridor about five meters above the floor.
That's more like it,
Han thought. The walkway ran the other way, too, passing above the bay doors and continuing in the direction the Quara had led Leia and Metara. Han struggled with temptation for a moment, but trying to walk directly over the guards' heads would be stupid. He had to trust the Princess not to get herself killed.
Motioning to Sian and Terae to follow, he held on to the girder and, keeping one eye on the guards, put one foot down on the parallel ledge then carefully shifted his weight onto it. It creaked, but softly, and the guards didn't notice. He took a step along it to make room and steadied Sian as she stepped down. She, in turn, steadied Terae, and then Han led the way slowly down the ledge and away from the guards.
The Quara led Leia and Metara through the wide bay blast doors and past the other guards, who stared at them with wary curiosity. The fact that the bay was being guarded at all was worrisome; Leia wondered if it was a standard precaution, or if the
Aegis
was already under suspicion for some reason.
The docking ring corridor was carved out of the raw rock, long and curving with a high uneven ceiling mostly lost in the shadows, with only floating lumas providing wan light. As they left the bay behind, they passed a round doorway into the asteroid's interior that was big enough to fly a small landspeeder through, but it was dark, and the draft coming up from it smelled of mold and rot. Something about it made Leia's skin creep.
“So what's your business here?” the Quara asked.
Leia drew breath to answer, but Metara beat her to it. “Our business is none of yours.”
The Quara snorted. “Your business is the flightmaster's. You think any different, you're a fool.”
Metara didn't reply, but her expression grew even stonier.
Leia sighed mentally. Alienating the Quara, a potential source of information, was just shortsighted. “Oh, I know you're right about the flightmaster,” she said. “I'm just wondering why there are guards on our bay, and why we're getting a personal escort. Is it like that for every new ship here?”
The Quara glanced back at her, assessing her before he spoke. “The escort's because otherwise you'd never find your way around. The guards on the bay are just for the ships the flightmaster has a special interest in.”
Special interest
âthat wasn't encouraging. Leia hoped it further impressed on Metara that she had gotten herself and her crew in over their heads.
They passed more sets of bay doors in the docking ring, all sealed, and a few large, interior tunnel entrances. Ahead of them, the next set of bay doors slid open and a group tumbled out, mostly human and near human, dressed in flashy clothing and with very well-cared-for blasters in evidence. All were intoxicated. The one in the lead was a dark-blue-skinned Twi'lek woman. She leaned casually against the wall, waiting for her drunken companions to sort themselves out. This was the toughest and meanest-looking Twiâlek Leia had ever seen. One of her head-tails was badly scarred, as if someone had tried to cut it off. Leia suspected whoever it was had paid dearly for the attempt.
She found herself meeting the Twi'lek's gaze, and gave her a nod. The Twi'lek nodded back, then hissed appreciatively at Metara as she passed by.
They took the next interior corridor. Leia breathed more easily: either the air was better down here, or she was getting used to the stench. Heading down a ramp that spiraled through the roughly cut rock, Leia almost stumbled and had to catch herself; the gravity had just lightened. The bottom of the ramp led into another corridor, where the gravity abruptly shifted back to standard. Dusty power panels and conduits were mounted on the rock walls, and the floors were littered with scraps and broken components clearly left by scavengers.
At last they reached a room filled with old couches and what looked like a dead holodisplay. The far end was lost in shadows. The Quara stopped and gestured toward a walkway that led into the darkness. “Go on,” he said. “She's waiting for you.”
As the human guards draped themselves over the couches, clearly settling in for a boring wait, Leia and Metara exchanged a wary glance and started across the room to the walkway.
They found themselves in a shadowy cavern where there was just enough light to see that the walkway was above a shaft that dropped a couple of levels down, with scaffolds that must have once supported platforms and stairways. Leia stopped Metara with a hand on her arm. Keeping her voice low, she said, “You brought me here to do the talking, so when we begin the negotiation, let me do my job.” They had had this conversation back on the ship, but Leia wanted to emphasize it.
“I will.” Metara gave her a sharp nod.
Right,
Leia thought, and hoped that the grim atmosphere of this place would have a dampening effect on Metara's ego.
A short set of steps led down into a large chamber that must have once been the control center for the mine. It was full of pirates, male and female, some human and many of other species. As they stepped down into the room, most of the sentients inside turned to stare with various degrees of curiosity and hostility. Fortunately, Leia was used to being stared at, usually with less curiosity and more hostility.
A big, curved viewport, almost covering the far wall, looked out on a huge, dark space hollowed out of the center of the asteroid. From where she stood, all Leia could see through it were lights, reflecting off pitted metal beams, and the enormous, half-hidden shapes of what must be old mining apparatus, like giants hiding in the shadows.
The other walls were lined with old consoles, all of them cannibalized for parts in some distant past; a few powered-down droids lay in heaps in the corners. Couches and chairs were scattered around, all uniformly lush and comfortable, draped with rich fabrics, but the styles differed widely, making clear they had been looted from other places. The main seating area was on a raised platform in the center of the room, with big half circle chairs and a low, chased-metal table supporting a decanter and glasses. A human woman stood near it, facing out toward the dark space beyond the viewport; she was clearly the leader.
Slender and tall, she wore her dark hair slicked back into a compact style of waves that was both elaborate and practical, designed not to get in her way. A scar marred the pale skin of her face, starting at her right cheek, stretching across her nose, just missing her eye, and arrowing up her forehead to her hairline. Small metal disks etched with elaborate patterns studded her temples and cheekbones, placed to call attention to the scar rather than to hide it. Over dark clothes, she wore a very fine, brown leather coat that fell to her knees, the inside lined with red fabric with the gleam of shimmersilk.
Turning to face Leia and Metara, she gave them the polite, bland smile of a good hostess and gestured for them to come up. “I am Captain Aral tukor Viest. Welcome.”
Metara walked up onto the dais. “I'm Captain Caline Metara, and this is Leia Durane.” Durane was the false name they had agreed on earlier.
Leia nodded to Viest. Metara continued, “I understand I have you to thank for the funds to augment my ship.”
Viest lifted a brow. “Did you want to thank me? That's not the impression I have.” She regarded Leia. “And you? You aren't one of Captain Metara's crew, and you certainly aren't subordinate to her. Who are you, exactly?”
And then Leia put together the name, the faint accent in Viest's voice, and her highly accurate evaluation of both of them, and thought,
Oh, no, she's Lorrdian.
Leia's simple plan for how Metara would introduce her as a new partner in her ship and how Leia would offer to take on the
Aegis
's debt was suddenly much trickier. Perhaps too tricky.
Lorrdians had been enslaved for several centuries back in the time of the Republic. Forbidden by their captors to speak, they had managed to develop an extremely subtle sign language of facial expressions and slight gestures. Over time it had evolved into a sophisticated kinetic language, but it had also allowed many Lorrdians to interpret the body language of other species and human cultures, to read their intentions and to tell if what they said was the truth, or not.
Metara looked at Leia in confusion. Leia knew Viest wouldn't have missed the captain's involuntary start of surprise and dismay. She was going to have to make her cover story skirt a lot closer to the truth to convince Viest and make their plan work. She smiled tightly.
“You're right. I have my own ship. Metara and I met recently and discussed an alternative arrangement.”
Viest tilted her head. Her expression was difficult to read, but Leia doubted she was pleased. “Alternative to my arrangement with Metara?”
“Yes. We wanted to discuss our options with you.” Leia had learned the hard way in the Senate that the key to fooling a Lorrdian reader was not to let the conversation turn toward anything you didn't want to discuss. Of course, the problem was that a good Lorrdian reader would be well aware of that tactic.
After a moment, Viest sank into one of the wide chairs and gestured to the couch across from her. “Have a seat, and we'll discuss these options.” She was as elegant as a high-caste Viridian matron inviting Leia to tea, except for the gleaming, pointed ring-sheaths on her fingers meant to resemble claws. Leia sat down with Metara, reminding herself to move like a spacer, to keep her posture loose and easy. Viest was the real thing and could act however she wanted; Leia had a façade to maintain. She said to Viest, “I like your setup here.” “Like” wasn't anywhere close to the truth, but she thought Viest would accept it as the polite fiction that it was.
“I'm happy with it.” Viest leaned forward, picked up the decanter that had been sitting on the small table, and poured two more glasses of liquor. Most of the other pirates had moved away from the dais, with only a few lounging on cushions near the central seating area. They could be anything from bodyguards to Viest's harem; it was hard to tell from their dress and demeanor. The recycled air smelled of ryll and other spices, and a tart, almost caustic scent that Leia assumed came from the liquor. Despite the casual atmosphere, everyone was armed to the teeth.
Hallucinogens, intoxicants, and energy weapons,
Leia thought grimly.
Who doesn't like that combination?
It probably said something positive about the pirates' self-control that the place wasn't littered with dead bodies.
As Viest passed them the glasses, she said, “And what sort of ship do you have, Captain Leia Durane?”
Accepting the drink, Leia answered, “It's a converted freighter, with a crew of twenty. But I work with a large group of ships. We find it safer, and more profitable, that way.” That wasn't a lie; it was just a very vague description of the Alliance fleet. She obscured her face by raising her glass and downing the liquor. From the smell, she had known it was a strong spice liquor; she hoped it would slow her involuntary facial movements and her body language, both of which Viest was using to read her. “We kept hearing rumors about this place, and I came to see if any of it was true. There's nothing like it in the Tingel Arm.” Her voice came out a little raw from the liquor.
Viest considered her thoughtfully. “You don't have a clearinghouse? Seems inefficient.”
They had chosen the Tingel Arm because Han's knowledge of the pirate activity there was suspiciously extensive, and he had filled Leia in while the
Aegis
was in hyperspace. Leia was able to reply confidently, “Nothing on this scale. The clearinghouses there don't have a permanent siteâthey have to keep moving around. There was a station platform that operated for a while, but it was raided by the CorpSec. Very inconvenient.” She added, “Do you have much trouble with the Empire?”
Viest's eyes hooded, just a touch. Leia wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't been looking for it. Viest said, “Not out here, that's why we picked this spot. But many of the ships that bring their cargoes here travel the Corellian Run and the Hydian Way, and they've had a number of close calls. We're careful, if that's what you're asking.” Leia bet there were plenty of ships here that would flee at the first hint of an Imperial presence, but she wondered just what Viest's personal relationship with the Empire was. The woman was too opaque for her to tell if that minute reaction to her question had been fear or hate or something else.
Viest changed the subject smoothly. “How did you meet up with Captain Metara, here?”
She kept directing her questions toward Leia, ignoring Metara, and Leia knew that wasn't a good sign. Metara was supposed to be Viest's new business associate, yet Viest was treating her almost like an underling.
“Our families were acquainted, back on Alderaan,” Leia replied. “When I came to this area, we ran into each other by accident.”
Viest's gaze went from Leia to Metara and back, and her smooth brow furrowed ever so slightly. Viest asked Metara, “So you want to work with her people instead of mine?”
As Leia had expected, Viest hadn't pried any further into the connection between them. She had read the truth off the faint movements of their eyes and expressions and didn't know enough about Alderaan to ask any revealing questions. That was a moment of relief, though Leia tried not to show it.
The relief was short-lived. Metara hesitated for a bare instant and then said, “Yes,” and glanced at Leia.
You didn't need to be a Lorrdian to read that one. But all Viest would get out of it was that Metara was conflicted about working with Leia, which wouldn't hurt their story.
“And how do you plan to get out of your arrangement with me?” Viest asked.
It was a deceptively easygoing question, and Leia tensed. Metara said, “We thought you could tell us what payment, or arrangement, you would be willing to accept, to release my ship from its debt.”
Viest sipped her liquor. Then she turned back to Leia. “You looking to bring your cargoes through here?”
“I hadn't thought about it,” Leia told her, again truthfully. “Are you offering a deal?”
Viest gave her an edged smile. “Well, we're awfully particular.”
Leia matched her smile. “So am I.” She decided to take a chance, turn the conversation back toward Viest. “There was a crew and passengers on that merchant ship that Metara captured. Do you run sentients through here, then?” This could be a difficult moment, if Leia hadn't accurately judged the situation. Lorrdians as a culture had a history of being virulently opposed to slavery, but that didn't mean the flightmaster shared that belief.
Viest frowned, but it was in thought rather than disgust. “When we can. Not much market around here, so we have to rely on the slaving guilds as subcontractors. You?”