Her foot came down on the large stone at the corridor’s junction point, and it fell away as if it had never been there. A yawning pit gaped below it, opening into darkness. Scarlet paused for one eternal heartbeat, arms pinwheeling as she tried to keep her balance, one leg still on the ledge while the other hung out over nothing, then she fell forward.
Han’s arm snapped out with a gunfighter’s speed, the tips of two fingers just barely managing to catch a loose fold of her shirt. But it stopped her fall long enough that Baasen and Leia could dart forward and catch her arms. They pulled her back, hard, and she fell on her rump with a grunt.
“Thank you,” she gasped as she fought to catch her breath.
“You’ll want to watch your step in here, miss,” Baasen said. “Traps and whatnot.”
Leia crouched by the spy’s side. “Are you all right?” She pulled the canteen off her belt and handed it to Scarlet, who nodded and took a sip.
When her breathing had slowed, the spy stood up and ran a hand through her dark hair. “So, let’s not do that again,” she said.
A few twists and turns later, they crouched in the darkness of the side passage looking out into the large room beyond. At the far side of the room, what had appeared to be a short corridor on Scarlet’s map actually turned out to be a steep ramp down. From their position, they couldn’t see what lay at the bottom. A dozen or more Imperial troops were stationed in the room. About half wore the armor of stormtroopers; the rest were in technician’s uniforms. They were looking at the main corridor as though expecting an attack from that direction. They were all armed.
“Only about four each,” Baasen whispered. “I’ve faced worse.”
Before Han could object, Scarlet said, “Let me give us some help.”
Han pulled his blaster and noted that Leia had done the same. She smiled at him, though it was a sad smile. Han tried out a carefree grin and a wink. It felt false and ridiculous, but he tried not to let it show.
Scarlet was doing something with her map. Han heard a faint buzzing, and one of her six bugs flew past his ear into the room. It joined with the other five already there, and each one landed on a different stormtrooper. A second later, they detonated, knocking the six troopers to the ground. The other six spun around, looking for the attackers, but with Han, Baasen, and Leia firing from cover, all six were down before they could fire a shot.
“That was loud,” Han said. “So we should go fast now.”
He jumped up and ran across the room, hoping the other three were following but not slowing to check. He ran down the ramp, nearly slipping on the slimy wet stone, and flew face-first into a massive metal door.
“Don’t touch it,” Leia snapped at him.
“Too late,” Han replied, probing his nose gingerly with one finger. It didn’t seem to be broken.
The hatch was made of gleaming alloy, almost seeming to glow with its own internal light. A complex-looking locking device was mounted in the center of the door, though it had been disassembled by the Imperial technicians. They’d hung a simple red button from it.
“Wait,” Leia said, but Baasen was already reaching out. He pressed the button and the shiny metal hatch slid open, revealing a corridor below, sinking down into the crust of the planet. Baasen bounced on his toes and looked back to Leia.
“Sorry, miss. You said something?”
Twenty-Eight
Past the glowing hatch, the corridors changed completely. It was like stepping from one world into another without traveling the space between them. After a steeply descending ramp covered with thin, toothlike silver projections that snagged their toes and seemed to shift as they moved, the passage opened to a tall but almost impossibly thin network of corridors. Han thought the walls seemed to shift whenever he wasn’t looking directly at them. The geometry of the corridors was wrong in a way he couldn’t quite understand, the floors seeming to tilt in opposite directions at once. He had the eerie and inexplicable sense that the air was tasting him.
Han had seen the products of hundreds, maybe thousands, of alien species. He understood that each one had quirks of body and mind that made their artifacts and architecture unique. Whatever the K’kybak had been physically, their minds were unlike anything Han had ever encountered. The walls were built in curves of shining steel and deep-blue alloy that seemed to shift as they passed. Sometimes strange, flickering lights and sounds came, and Han couldn’t say if they were the warnings of some ancient computer system, or art, or an accident of stress and pressure. Everywhere, the angles of the architecture seemed subtly off, the textures of the surfaces unpleasant, intimate, and threatening.
Every few hundred meters the Imperial survey team had left pale survey marks on the walls, and they crept along, following the path their enemy had established. Everything about the buried K’kybak civilization was beautiful and disturbing and left Han wanting to wash his hands. And apparently, the others were all thinking something very much the same.
“Creepy,” Scarlet said as they entered a great, round room, perhaps half a kilometer wide, with long strands of chainlike metallic growths handing from its ceiling. A clear, watery liquid dripped down the strands, leaving the wide floor slick and shining.
A drop landed on Baasen’s shoulder with a splat. He wiped it off with mild, companionable disgust. “I can’t say my sorrow these K’kybak aren’t still among us runs all that deep.”
“Speaking of which,” Leia said, “do we have any idea of how far down this is supposed to go? It feels like we’ve been heading down forever.”
“This way,” Han said, gesturing with his blaster. At the far end of the dripping chamber, the path was marked by a backpack-sized box with a small red light at the top. Seeing something of recognizably human design in the unsettling place was a comfort, even if the make was Imperial. Tinny, compressed voices echoed down the chamber beyond. Stormtroopers. And they sounded frightened. At a bend in the hallway, Han held up an arm, stopping the others. He ducked his head around the corner, and pulled back. A solid sheet of blasterfire passed close enough that his cheek tingled with it.
“How many?” Scarlet shouted over the sound of the blasts.
“A dozen, maybe? Something like that,” Han answered. “They’re in front of some kind of machine. I think they’re guarding it.”
“The device?”
“How would I know? There were a bunch of stormtroopers shooting at me.”
Scarlet’s attention was already shifting to the walls and passages around them. Her narrowed eyes glittered with excitement and pleasure. Leia’s gaze was fixed on the corner, ready to return fire if the enemy appeared. The barrage of energy bolts began to slow. A smoke haze filled the corridor with the smell of battle. Scarlet pulled out her datapad, but the holographic image on it was fuzzy and indistinct. She closed it again.
“I think there’s a way to get around their side,” she called.
“Good. You two, keep them occupied,” Leia said. “Scarlet! With me. Let’s find that flank.”
Han and Baasen lifted their blasters as the women headed back toward the dripping chamber. Baasen fired casually toward the bend in the corridor and the barrage came again, louder than a landslide.
“Those boys seem a mite anxious,” Baasen said.
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“Oh, I am, old friend,” Baasen said, firing his blaster again. “I very much am.”
The minutes stretched as Han and Baasen baited the Imperial forces. Han kept expecting them to charge, but the assault didn’t come. Whatever they were guarding, they weren’t being drawn away from it.
Something loud happened around the corner, and a chorus of shouts and screams echoed down the chamber. Han and Baasen exchanged a glance, and then Han poked his head around the corner. Ten white-armored bodies lay on a wide grating in front of a vast, black archway. Scarlet and Leia stood over them, blasters in their hands.
“Good to see you ladies again,” Baasen said. “We were just about to go looki
ng after you.”
“This isn’t it,” Scarlet said. On the far side of the archway stood a wide chamber. Its side was open like a window, and a massive shaft, wide as the whole room and the archway besides, slanted down into the darkness. A stormtrooper lay beside a complicated panel in the wall where a series of glowing switches showed patterns of red, green, yellow, and blue. Someone had taken a sheet of foil and etched the words green green blue red—down. red blue green yellow—up. don’t touch anything else.
“I take it we’re at ‘up’?” Leia said.
“One way to find out,” Scarlet answered.
“Should we perhaps talk about this a bit first? Come to a meeting of the minds?” Baasen asked, but Scarlet was already flipping the top row of switches, the indicator lights shifting under her fingertips. A deep boom came, like the shooting of a vast metal bolt, and the chamber lurched, sliding down into the slanted shaft. The black archway fell away quickly, leaving behind the bodies of the stormtroopers. They descended deep into the darkness. The chamber picked up speed as it went, the breeze growing stronger. A new smell came to the dark air: something hot and sharp that reminded Han of a ship he’d been on as a boy when its engines failed and melted down. It wasn’t comforting.
“How long do you think this has all been here?” Leia asked, and Han was ready to make a guess when Scarlet answered.
“Galassian’s best guess was a few million years.”
“Still works pretty well, all things considered,” Leia said.
Five times they passed huge, arching chambers, flying by so quickly that Han got nothing more than a fleeting impression of vast metal lattices filled with shadows and flashes of light, and then the shaft swallowed them again, sloping even farther down into the darkness. The air grew warmer and thick without being heavy. Baasen stood at the leading edge of the chamber, arms folded, looking into the depths. Han stepped up beside him. It was easy to imagine that they were standing still, the passage flowing past them.
“A lot like being swallowed, ain’t it?” Baasen commented.
“Now that you say it,” Han said. “How deep do you think we’ve gone?”
“Fifteen, twenty kilometers,” Baasen said. “Not much if you’re flying a ship.”
“A lot if you’re climbing stairs.”
“There’s a truth.”
The floor beneath them shifted. Han grunted.
“What is it?” Leia asked.
“We’ve started braking,” Han said. “Wherever we’re going, we’re almost there.”
Far down the slanting shaft, a glimmer of light appeared, fainter than a star. It grew slowly brighter, stronger. The chamber slowed as it came nearer. Han crouched down, wishing there were more cover. If there were another dozen stormtroopers at the bottom of the shaft, the arrival could be uncomfortable. The others all had the same thought, and as the room slid slowly to a halt they’d all taken what little cover there was.
The chamber butted gently up to a black archway the twin of the one at the top. The deep metallic booming came again as they stopped. Han stepped into the corridor beyond. The sound of tapping footsteps came down the hall. He readied his blaster. Baasen, Scarlet, and Leia all took positions along the wall. The echoes made it hard to tell who was coming or how many, but the sound was sharp and percussive. Not the tramping of combat boots. Han hoped it wasn’t combat boots.
The protocol droid that came around the corner had a deep blue patina on his plating and a permanently surprised expression in his photoreceptors that seemed to suit the occasion. As soon as he saw the four of them, he paused. For a moment, no one spoke.
“Oh!” the droid said, then turned and started to totter off. Han and Baasen were after him in a flash, Scarlet and Leia guarding the rear. At the end of a corridor, a bank of three-meter-wide circles showed where doors would iris open. The droid was hurrying toward the one farthest on the left. Han skidded in front of him, hands up, palms out, the gesture of goodwill spoiled only by the blaster still hanging from his index finger.
“It’s all right,” Han said. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
“You’re not,” Baasen said.
“Master Essio will not have this! You must not disturb him! I will fight you to the death rather than let you through!”
“All respect,” Baasen growled, stepping forward, “You’re a protocol droid.”
The droid squeaked in alarm, and a thin, sparking wire shot from his chest and struck Baasen’s arm. The bounty hunter convulsed once, staggering, then pulled the tiny dart out, a little knot of blood and skin still on it.
“You see now,” Baasen said, all hint of gentleness gone from him, “you just made my point for me.”
“No! Don’t hurt me!” shouted the droid. “Master Essio! Help! Help! The intruders have—”
“Ellthree?”
The droid spun, his head clicking side-to-side, searching for the source of the voice. Scarlet and Leia stepped forward, silhouetted by the light from beyond the dark arch.
“Who’s there?” the droid cried. “Who is it?”
“Forgot me already?” Scarlet said.
“The . . . the artistic tutor? But you’re dead!”
“Not dead,” Scarlet said. “And not an artistic tutor. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce L-3PO, protocol droid and research assistant to Essio Galassian.”
“You!” the droid squeaked. “It was you all along!”
“Actually, it was the gardener,” Scarlet said. “Long story. Why don’t you tell us what we want to know before my friend here reduces you to a thin, uniform layer of foil?”
“I will not betray the master!”
“Sure you will,” Baasen said, and took a step forward.
The droid danced awkwardly back.
“No! Stop! Harming me will gain you nothing! The device has been activated. Master Essio is in the process of decoding its control schema, but the calculating controller is very odd. He . . . hasn’t made a great deal of progress as yet. And the device hasn’t been used in eons. It is not perfectly stable. I will not allow you to interrupt him. His work is too delicate and important.”
“Where is he, Ellthree?”
The droid looked back over his shoulder at the array of doors, his servomotors whining. His hand fluttered and clanked. Scarlet nodded.
“Ellthree?” she said. “Do you remember what I said at the garden party?” The droid turned to her again, his eyes glowing suddenly brighter in surprise or alarm. “This is that day.”
Scarlet’s blaster bolt took the droid in the neck, neatly cleaving the headpiece from the blued shoulders. The droid’s body froze and tipped backward, clanking against the floor. The head dropped to the decking, the eyes dimming, but not yet dark.
“You were a terrible artist,” L-3PO said, and then turned off.
“Garden party?” Han said.
“Long story,” Scarlet replied. “Let’s go.”
Han and Leia took position on one side of the leftmost door, while Baasen pressed himself against the other. It took Scarlet a moment to find the controls, but a second later the door shuddered and the dozen blades slid apart.
Beyond it, a grate of steel mesh stood out over a cavern too vast to comprehend. A hot wind swirled and pressed, stinking of overheated iron. A dark-cloaked man stood at what looked like a long, glass table, his fingers shifting across its surface. Two spherical droids floated, one over each shoulder, dull red lights tracking slowly along their smooth surfaces. Han stepped out. The grating below his feet seemed too fragile to support his weight, yet it didn’t flex at all when he stood on it. Far below, a massive sphere glowed a dull and sullen red. Han’s mind struggled to make sense of the scale he was looking at. The wind moving past him murmured like something enormous and old, talking very softly. They were a hundred meters over the glowing orb. They were a thousand meters over it. Something in his mind struggled, and his sense of scale reset. He saw the room as if he were flying the Falcon, and then it made sense.
br /> Still, it took his breath away.
“The planet. It’s hollow. That down there,” he said, pointing with his blaster, “I think that’s the core.”
“I thought I gave orders to be left alone!” the man at the desk shouted. “Do you have any idea of the energies in involved in this? How delicate this work is? Your constant interruptions could destroy us all.”
“I know,” Scarlet said. “But that’s not going to happen.”
The man straightened and turned. Essio Galassian was even younger than Han had expected, his face rugged and almost handsome. The shoulder-length hair that shifted in the wind was the same honey-blond that it had been in the R3’s hologram, and his smile was bright and sharp as a blade’s edge. His gaze flickered over them, spending the greatest time on Leia and Scarlet.
“Princess Leia, I presume,” Galassian said. “And my former artistic tutor. I have to assume she was working for you.”
“Essio Galassian,” Leia said. “Toady to the Emperor and professional grave robber.”
“Your service,” Galassian said sourly.
“We’ve come for the hyperspace nullifier,” Scarlet said. “Hand it over, and we might take you into custody.”
“Rather than kill me?”
“Rather than leave you to your disappointed patron,” Scarlet said, and Han saw the man flinch. The door irised closed behind them, and Baasen spun, blaster at the ready. The grate they stood on was one of a network that clung to the inner surface of the hollow world. Now that Han understood the scale, he could see platforms hanging from the stone roof that stretched all along the globe. Galassian leaned against the glass table and crossed his arms. The molten core of the planet spun below them like a sun, radiating heat and light, casting shadows up along the man’s face.
Galassian looked at Leia for a long time. The two droids shifted, rising and falling, curving up through the air above him and swooping down behind his back in a sideways figure eight. His shoulders began to shake, and a stream of rich laughter poured out. He spread his arms.