IT WAS DARK throughout the bunker, and Dec and Sari walked with their hands out in front of them, feeling their way along the wall, hoping they’d find another door and that door would lead to freedom. Groping their way through shadows wasn’t Dec’s idea of a fast or clean getaway, but he’d take it. Anything to get out of there.

They made turn after turn, but they seemed stuck in the black box of the bunker. Dec’s outstretched fingers pressed against something damp and spongy.

“Is that you?” he asked Sari.

“Is what me?”

He squeezed the clammy, porous meat a couple of times. “That,” he said. “Is that you?”

“Dec, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A laugh came from the dark; Dec felt the flesh jiggle with the shallow chuckle. He snatched his hand away. “Who’s there?”

An immense shape moved in front of them. It laughed again. Then, in a voice that was like hundreds of pebbles rolling downhill, it said, “You aren’t droids. I don’t think you’re droids. Who are you?”

“Don’t worry about us. We were just leaving.” Dec recognized the shape of the creature in front of him. It was a Hutt. Dec did not want to spend more time than was necessary with a Hutt.

“No,” said the Hutt. “I don’t think you—hey!”

Suddenly, they were surrounded. The droids emerged from the shadows, their lenses and sensors lighting the area so that Dec could make out the purplish hue of the sweaty Hutt’s skin and the way she stuck out her warty tongue in surprise.

Knowing the reputation of Hutts, Dec expected anger at the interruption. He expected violence of some sort, or at least a scolding. What he didn’t expect was what happened. The Hutt backed away as the droids approached, lowering her sluggish mass as well as she could, supplicating herself with a series of head-bobbing motions. Her thick tail swept the floor as if it were searching for something.

“You’re out of your chamber,” J-9A announced.

“We didn’t—” Dec began to formulate an explanation that would be an elaborate if believable lie. But the nav droid had turned to the Hutt.

“Harra the Hutt,” she said, “we’ve told you. It’s dangerous outside of your chamber.”

“I’m sorry, Jay-Nine-Ay,” the Hutt responded. “You told me, and I’m sorry.”

“You get lonely,” J-9A said. Some of the droids surrounding them beeped and booped in sympathy.

Harra the Hutt nodded sadly.

“But you recall the dangers, don’t you?” J-9A asked the Hutt, as if speaking to a child.

The Hutt looked away dolefully, remembering. “The First Order came. They took my pets away.”

“But they let you live, Harra the Hutt,” J-9A said. “They sent you away with us, your loyal droids, programmed to serve you, to minister to all of your needs, and above all else, to protect.”

All the droids, through their vocalizers and punctuated by dings and bleeps, repeated: “To protect.”

“My faithful droids,” Harra the Hutt said.

“And you.” J-9A turned to Dec and Sari. “Was there somewhere you wished to visit?” She had a bossy attitude usually reserved for protocol droids and it irked Dec.

“Bein’ honest?” he said. “There’s a possibility our friends are down on Vodran, and we’d like to go and bring ’em home. So if you wouldn’t mind lending us a ship…” Dec had an unpretentious way of saying things that made a person want to do what he asked. Unfortunately, he wasn’t dealing with people at the moment.

“Vodran!” J-9A exclaimed. The other droids tittered and fretted. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. Too dangerous, much too dangerous.”

“Vodran…” Harra the Hutt heaved out a huge sob. “They took them away.”

Sari cut in. “The First Order took your palace, right?”

J-9A spun to face Sari. “Mistress Harra gave those First Order persecutors her wonderful palace. It was a gift, so generous is Mistress Harra. So honorable. So large-hearted—”

“They took it, yes.” Harra the Hutt heaved a sad sigh.

“You collected those creatures,” Sari said. She wasn’t angry, even though much of Harra the Hutt’s menagerie had tried to eat, crush, or kill her.

“My pets,” Harra affirmed wistfully.

“Mistress, we’ve spoken of this,” J-9A scolded. “Thinking of your pets upsets you. We live on Kufs now, the ghost moon. Be here. Be only here.”

“You knew about this moon? When the First Order evacuated you from the palace, you knew to come here?” Sari asked, as if she were doing an academic study. She wasn’t afraid anymore, only curious.

“I am a navigation droid,” J-9A said condescendingly. “I was a part of Mistress Harra the Hutt’s initial coterie when she was merely a junior Hutt with exceptional potential. She chose me above all others to be her attendant. Such honor. Naturally, I was excused from my navigational duties to aid Harra the Hutt. When the Hutt families decided to push into this section near the Outer Rim, I advised Mistress Harra to claim Vodran as her own. I knew of its ghost moon and always considered Kufs to be a suitable fallback position should her majesty’s primary palace be threatened. Which it was.”

“More than threatened,” Dec pointed out. Both J-9A and Harra the Hutt ruffled.

Sari shot him a warning look. “Why doesn’t the moon appear on scans?” she asked. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s fascinating.”

“Isn’t it, though?” J-9A was pleased someone had shown an interest in anything vaguely navigation related. Plus, J-9A liked to talk. “It’s really quite extraordinary. Beneath the surface of the moon of Kufs is a slowly churning estuary of liquefied nykkalt.”

Nykkalt was a rare, highly vibrative precious metal that reflected any light, air, or even hyper-spectrum frequency; Sari hadn’t realized it existed in a liquid form, but now this moon’s properties made sense. “So if the nykkalt flows beneath the moon’s surface, it reflects back a ship’s scans,” she said, excited. It was the stuff of fiction and theories she’d only ever passingly considered. “Ultra-high-frequency scans, light, anything. The moon is essentially invisible to anything but the naked eye.”

“It’s really rather remarkable,” J-9A agreed.

“Yeah, remarkable. You should write a book about it,” Dec chimed in. “Can we get a ship?”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” J-9A told him. “You’re here to stay.”