Star Wars - Planet Of Twilight (13 page)

“He the only crew?” Bortrek paused in the doorway of the tiny lab, where Yeoman Marcopius lay cramped into the stasis box.

“Of course. Had there been anyone else to navigate us into the Durren roads, we could have . . .”

“What'd he die of? Anything catching?”

“I believe so, yes, sir, but the stasis box is certified for full-spectrum biological security.” Though scrupulously programmed to have no personal opinions about humans whatsoever, Threepio could not help comparing this young man to Captain Solo as he had been when Threepio and Artoo had first encountered him in company with Master Luke. This man seemed to have a far more casual attitude about things, however, and to walk with more of a swagger, aside from dressing in a fashion that Threepio recognized as both flashy and not in the best of taste. “Eighty percent of the crew had perished by the time we were able to .... Here, sir, what are you doing?”

“What's it look like I'm doing?” demanded Captain Bortrek irritably, pausing in the midst of ripping the stasis box's connectors free of the walls. “Gimme a hand getting this to the other airlock, Goldie--over there, you stupid hunk of junk! Antigray lifters!”

Threepio automatically filled in--as he was programmed to do--the context and gesture to mean, Bring me those antigrav hikers under the cabinet. He could not but compare the man's tone to Master Luke's--and Her Excellency's--invariable use of polite nonessential grammatical elements such as Please and Thank you--not that any protocol droid worthy of his battery packs would take offense at being referred to as a hunk of junk or even by the patently untrue epithet stupid. Threepio knew quite well that he was not stupid.

But it was contrary to his programming to correct the man's deeply inaccurate estimate of his mental capacity, as it would have been for him to object to Bortrek's manhandling of the stasis box onto the antigrav lifters and shoving it out into the corridor with the patent intention of dispatching Yeoman Marcopius's mortal remains into the outer vacuum, box and all. Captain Bortrek was a human.

Thus Threepio kept his reflections to himself, as he assisted the captain in maneuvering the detached box into the smaller, secondary airlock. Marcopius had been a loyal retainer of Her Excellency's, a good pilot, and, as far as Threepio was capable of judging, an admirable young man. Though Threepio personally saw no reason why human remains should not simply be jettisoned, burned, or for that matter stewed and eaten by other humans in an emergency (provided they were certified free of harmful bacteria first and, if possible, aesthetically prepared), he was acutely aware that neither Her Excellency, the young man's family, nor the deceased himself would have considered this send-off at all respectful. Respect and custom being the foundation stone of protocol, Threepio was deeply offended.

Not nearly as offended as he later became, however.

“Nice ship,” remarked Bortrek again, turning from the airlock door before the cycle had even cleared.

“My counterpart informs me that it is a top-of-the-line scouting vessel designed for short-range deep-space travel and limited hyper-drive,” replied Threepio helpfully. “It has ten-point-two engines and a hull capacity of thirty-five hundred cubic meters.”

“What,” grunted Bortrek, “you trying to sell it to me?” He passed a hand close to an auxiliary door on the way down the passage, nodded with approval of the opening speed without going in. “Sure beats hell out of the old Sabacc. Pity it's not bigger.”

Having seen the Pure Sabacc as the large, ramshackled vessel which had been maneuvered into docking position on the scout, Threepio was inclined to agree, though he knew his own judgment on such matters was limited.

Artoo had checked the Sabacc by scanner and had confirmed the opinion The other vessel's power output ratios were all far lower, and though clearly a long-distance hyperdrive vessel, she appeared to be less maneuverable as well.

“The engines of this vessel were seriously damaged by collision with debris during the recent battle,” Threepio went on, still trailing Bartrek as the man made his way around the little ship, flicking readouts to life, tapping walls, bending to look into access hatches.

“It is imperative that my counterpart and I obtain passage to the fleet installation on Cybloc XII. Although I have no official clearance, I can assure you of a high probability of reward, to be forwarded to you after our arrival on Coruscant at whatever address you wish to give.”

Bartrek halted in the middle of the bridge, looking from Threepio to Artoo-Detoo, who was still linked into the main navicomputer, absorbing readings and information whose echoes flashed across the screens all around him. Though, as Threepio had said, the guidance systems of the scout vessel had been damaged by collision with debris--rendering drift into interplanetary space almost inevitable had not Bar-trek picked up their distress signal--the camm lines were still open.

Artoo tweeped a string of information that made Threepio exclaim, “Good heavens!”

"What's he say? Bortrek was tallying up the burned-out consoles with a knowing eye.

"There are reports of revolt from Ampliquen and King's Galquek, and according to Artoo, plague has broken out on the Durren base as well .

This is terrible!"

“Terrible enough for me to get my tail out of here, anyway, Goldie.”

Bortrek crossed to where Artoo stood and rapped with speculative knuckles on the little droid's domed cap. “What model R2 is he, Goldie. Dee?”

“A dee, yes. They're quite good models, and extremely versatile, though sometimes a little erratic. For any type of sheerly astromechanical or stellar navigation, one cannot better the records of the R2 series in general, and the dee models in particular--or so I'm told.”

Bortrek knelt and flipped open Artoo's back panel, reaching in with an extractor he'd produced from the pocket of his reptile-leather vest.

“So you are told that, are you.” Artoo emitted a little squeak, then withdrew his data jack from the port. “Well, Goldie, I been told that, too. So I'll tell you what. You and him just head on back to the primary lock and wait for me on the bridge of the Sabacc. I'll be over in a while.”

“We really are very fortunate, you know,” Threepio said, as he and Artoo crossed through the narrow neck of the port-to-port tunnel that linked the two ships. "With trade being turned away and rebellion on the planet, and now plague as well, no ships of hyperspace capability are going to be leaving the Durren system for quite some time. The Meridian sector is very thinly inhabited and well out of most trade routes. We could have drifted for years--centuries, perhaps before we were discovered.

By that time, goodness knows what might have befallen Her Excellency."

Artoo vouchsafed no reply. Threepio guessed that Captain Bortrek had disabled a portion of the little astromech's motivator, a wise precaution, perhaps. Artoo was unaccountable sometimes and might have refused to abandon the patently useless scout.

"Once we reach Cybloc XII, we can notify the proper authorities of Her Excellency's whereabouts. I doubt it would be safe to do so from this ship or in fact to let Captain Bortrek know' of the matter at all.

Grateful as I am for the rescue, one cannot be sure of such a man's loyalties. But I'm sure that we can put in a voucher to the Central Council to make ample remuneration to him for his trouble . . ."

He broke off; leaving his speculation unfinished, as they emerged from the Pure Sabacc's lock into her main holding bay. Strongboxes were stacked casually against the walls--one of them, open, showed bundles of bearer bonds and a considerable quantity of gold coins. Another was filled beyond closing point with platinum and electrum cast into shapes that Threepio immediately identified as sacred to four of the six main faiths currently fashionable on the planet Durren Reliquaries, mon-strances, jeweled prayer-wheels tumbled at random and bent to accommodate the confines of the chest. Items too large for easy storage--statues and pieces of furniture clearly valuable for their workmanship and materials--were tumbled and shoved in corners, along with roughly tied masses of embroidered velvets and precious stohl fur, and more sacks that had the unmistakable shape of coinage.

“Good heavens!” Threepio exclaimed in surprise. “Judging from the latest market valuation statistics of gold and platinum, there must be several million credits in this hold alone! Whatever is a man like Captain Bortrek--who does not appear to be of the more prosperous classes, nor is he even a native of the planet Durren--doing with all this wealth?”

“Taking it on commission, my friend.”

Threepio turned, and Artoo swiveled his cap to align his visual receptors with the scar-lipped captain as he emerged from the airlock at their heels. He carried a huge square of plastic casing that had been a console housing, filled to overflowing with components and wire, and had a thick black remote unit in one hand.

“Commission, sir?”

He grinned a slow grin, reminding Threepio, who was not fanciful, of some semisentient species less developed from its hunting ancestors than standard humankind. "For absent owners and their--uh--heirs.

There's a lot of unrest back there in Durren. Partisans coming in out of the countryside, riots in the streets. Lots of houses being burned, lots of people getting the hell away before things get worse. Some of 'em decide now's a good time to clean out their closets, get rid of all that excess gold and platinum they got lyin' around. You."

He gestured with the remote unit at Artoo. “I burned out my main navicomputer after a little difference of opinion with the Port Authorities, pox eat their lying hearts. I'm gonna need you.”

Artoo hesitated and let out another protesting wail that caused Bortrek to point the remote in his direction and Threepio to admonish, “Artoo, behave yourself! If Captain Bortrek is being so good as to transport us to Cybloc XII, it's only right that we assist him with his ship by any means in our power.”

The astromech wavered, rocking on his wheels, but Captain Bortrek had quite clearly disabled the upper level of motivators. After a despairing little beep, Artoo followed Bortrek through the door.

Threepio started after them, saying, “Now, Captain Bortrek, once we reach Cybloc XII it is imperative that we get in touch with Admiral Ackbar of the Republic fleet . . .”

The door shut in his face. After a considerable period of time, during which he amused himself by pricing the contents of the hold at somewhere between twenty-three and twenty-eight million credits (allowing for an inflation index as a result of the unrest in the sector and fluctuations in the average price of Durren artwork), Threepio's auditory sensors picked up the scraping and rocking of the port-to-port tunnel being retracted. Calling up a readout on the pad near the storage hold's door--the binary language was a very simple one--Threepio ascertained that the Pure Sabacc was being put into pretravel mode.

“How- very curious,” the droid remarked to himself. “I quite distinctly heard Captain Bortrek say that his navigational computer was non functional.”

He addressed a few further remarks to the computer core, which when phrased in quite standard codes caused the mechanism to blurt everything it knew' on any number of subjects in a succession of high-speed bursts. It took Threepio a few seconds to download the bursts from his temporary holding memory and process the information into existing systemic memory, but when he did, he felt as close to outrage as a well-programmed protocol droid is capable of being.

“Why, that course that's being laid in is nowhere near Cybloc XII!”

he exclaimed. “The man is a thief! We're being stolen!”

“The entire mission has disappeared.” Mon Mothma, guiding spirit of the Rebellion and former Chief of State of the Provisional Government, held her wasted hands close to the semicircular iron fender of the hearth, and the flame outlined her fingers in threads of amber light.

Han Solo, though he'd come to know the tall, beautiful woman well over the past several years, still felt in awe of her. Her picture was everywhere, in histories of the Rebellion and of the last days of the Empire. It was like sitting across the fire from a god of ancient legend, or finding oneself in the same room with smashball center guard Rip “Iron One” Calkin who'd made seven hundred last season.

“Disappeared?” Something within the cage of his ribs went still and cold.

Winter had taken the children to the nursery, a vine-hung tower room at the top of a long flight of steps. The small parlor was dim, the lamps cached in discreet niches casting warm patterns of light on the painted ceilings with a wavery gleam indistinguishable from that of combustible fuel. The fire that played over the lumps of coal and wood on the hearth's white sand was genuine, though it issued from a buried gas pipe, and Han remembered with a sudden pang making love to Leia on the rug of milk-white stohl fur, the night before her departure.

“We're keeping the news quiet for as long as we can.” Mon Mothma straightened up a little, luminous dark eyes catching the firelight.

She looked a million times better than she had the last time Han had seen her, lying in the hospital after yet another round of bacta-tank therapy to combat the wasting effects of an attempted poisoning, and a million times worse than the woman he had first met in the ragged chaos of some temporary headquarters of the Rebel fleet. She had never lost the gaunt look of death, and the skin hung loose under jawbone and wrists.

Her hair, dark through the horrors and vicissitudes of the fight against Palpatine, had begun to gray with the poisoning and was white now, and she still walked with two canes when she was not on public view.

She was still beautiful.

“The matter is complicated by the fact that Minister of State Rieekan has fallen gravely ill. At first we were afraid it might be related to the plague that has been reported in the Meridian sector, but . . .”

“Plague?” demanded Han, and cold touched him again. Not Leia . .

“Reports are too fragmentary to be sure,” she said, in a tone that told Han that she was darn sure. "When it broke out on the Durren orbital base it was suspected to be poison, but there's no evidence of that.