III IIISEVERAL minutes later, the robo-hack deposited Han and Chewbacca around the corner from their docking bay, Number 45. They’d decided it would be wise to scout the landscape to determine whether the forces of law, order, and corporate dividends had gotten there first. Peering cautiously around the corner, they saw a lone portmaster’s deputy dutifully locking an impoundment-fastener on their bay’s blast doors. Han pulled his first mate back into concealment for a conference. “No time to wait until the coast is clear, Chewie; they’ll be sorting things out back at the Free-Flight any time now. Besides, that geek is about to lock up the bay, and Espo patrols would get kind of curious if they saw us burning our way through the blast doors.”
He peeked out again. The deputy had nearly finished making connections between alarms and the blast-door solenoids. No doubt the bay’s other door was fastened as well. Han looked around and noticed an Authority liquor and drugs outlet to his rear. He took his partner’s elbow.
“Here’s the plan …”
A minute later, the portmaster’s deputy had wrestled the massive lock halves into place and finished securing the impoundment-fastener. The blast doors slid shut with a shrinking of diamond-shaped opening that disappeared with a clang. The deputy pulled a molecularly coded key from its slot in the fastener, and the device was activated. Now if it were disturbed or damaged, it would instantly inform Espo monitors.
The deputy tucked the key into his belt pouch and prepared to report his errand completed. Just then a Wookiee, a big, leering brute, came wandering past in a drunken stagger, with a sloshing ten-liter crock of some vile-smelling brew cradled in his thick, hairy arm. Just as the Wookiee drew even with the deputy, a man coming from the other direction failed to avoid the shambling creature’s dipsomaniacal lurches. There was a rapid, complicated three-way collision, resulting in the Wookiee’s stumbling into, and spilling his liquor all over, the luckless deputy.
The instant pandemonium included accusation and counteraccusation, all in raised voices. The Wookiee gobbled horribly at both men, shaking knotted fists and gesturing to the spilled crock. The portmaster’s deputy was brushing uselessly at his soaked tunic. The other participant in the accident did his best to be of help. “Oh, say, that’s really a shame,” Han tsked with a sad, solicitous tone. “Hey, that stuff’s really in there, huh,” he said as he tried to wring some of the brew out of the tunic fabric. The deputy and the Wookiee were swapping inprecations and contradictory claims about whose fault the accident had been. The occasional passerby kept right on moving, not wishing to become involved.
“Fella, you better get that tunic washed right away,” Han advised, “or that smell’ll never come out.”
The deputy, with a last threat of legal action against the Wookiee, stalked off. His pace quickened as he realized with apprehension that a supervisor might happen by at any time and catch sight—or even worse, a whiff—of him. He hurried on, leaving the other two to argue liabilities and culpabilities.
The argument stopped as soon as the deputy was gone. Han held up the key he’d lifted from the deputy’s belt pouch during the confusion. He handed it to Chewbacca. “Go warm up the ship, but don’t call for clearance. The portmaster’s most likely got us posted for grounding. If there’s a patrol ship, it’d be on our necks in no time.” He estimated that eight minutes had passed since they’d fled the Free-Flight; their luck couldn’t hold much longer.
Chewbacca ran a hasty preflight while Han dashed off along the row of docking bays. He passed three before he came to the one he wanted. In it was a stock freighter, not unlike what the Millennium Falcon had once been, but this one was clean, freshly painted, and shipshape. Her name and ID symbols were proudly displayed on her bow, and labor ’droids were busily loading general cargo under the supervision of her crew, who looked nauseatingly honest. Han leaned through the open blast doors, waving a friendly hand. “Hi there. You guys still raising ship tomorrow?”
One of them waved back, but looked confused. “Not tomorrow, bud; tonight, twenty-one hundred planetary time.”
Han feigned surprise. “Oh? Well, clear skies.” The crewman returned the traditional spacer’s farewell as Han strolled away casually. As soon as he was out of their sight, he took off at a run.
When he got back to Bay 45, he found Chewbacca finishing locking the impoundment-fastener on the inner sides of the blast doors, reconnecting them. Han nodded approvingly. “Bright lad. Are we revved up?”
The Wookiee yipped an affirmative and slid the blast doors shut. Locking them again, this time from the inside, he threw the molecularly coded key away.
Han had already reached his seat in the cockpit. Taking his headset, he called port control. Using the name and ID code of the freighter down in Docking Bay 41, he requested that liftoff time be moved up from twenty-one hundred planetary time to immediately, not an unusual request for a tramp freighter, whose schedule might change abruptly. Since there wasn’t much traffic and clearance for that ship had already been granted, immediate liftoff was approved at once.
Chewbacca was still buckling in when Han raised ship. Her thrusters flared, and the Falcon made, for her, a moderate and restrained departure from Etti IV. When the Espos showed up at Docking Bay 45 and cut their way in, Han reflected, they’d have one interesting time trying to figure out how somebody had sneaked a starship out from under the portmaster’s nose.
The starship parted company with Etti IV’s gravitational field. Chewbacca, elated over what had been a fairly nifty escape, was in high spirits. The Wookiee’s leathery muzzle was peeled back in a nice-hideous smirk, and he was singing—or what passed among his people as singing—at the top of his capacious lungs. The volume of it, in the confines of the cockpit, was incredible.
“C’mon, Chewie,” Han implored, rapping a gauge with his knuckle, “you’re making all the instruments jump.” With a behemothish sort of yodel, the Wookiee ceased. “Besides,” Han continued, “we’re not out of the heavy weather yet.”
Chewbacca lost his placid look and lowed an interrogative. Han shook his head. “Naw, Ploovo’s got his money; no matter how torqued off he is, his backers’ll never un-pocket for a contract on us now. No, what I meant was, the long-range dish we patched together won’t last forever. We need another, a top-of-the-line model. Besides, the Espos and, I guess, most other folks who like to arrest people have some kind of new sensor that evades detection on old equipment. We need one of those, too, to get back over with the smart money. One more thing—we need one of those Waivers if we’re going to operate around here; we have to wrangle ourselves onto that list somehow. Dammit, the Corporate Sector Authority’s wrung out thousands of solar systems; I can almost smell that money! We ain’t passing up on fat pickin’s just because somebody around here doesn’t like our lift/mass ratio.”
He finished plotting his hyperdrive jump and turned to his partner with a sly grin. “Now, since the Authority doesn’t owe you and me any personal favors, what’s that leave?”
The long-pelted first mate growled once. Han spread a hand on his chest and pretended to be shocked. “Outside the law, did you say? Us?” He chuckled. “Right you are, pal. We’ll take so much money off the Authority we’ll need a knuckle-boom to haul it all away.”
The hyperdrive began to cut in. “But first, it’s time to meet and greet old friends. After that, everybody’d best hang on to their cash with both hands!” Han finished.
They had to do it in steps, of course. A hyperspace jump took them to an all-but-deserted, played-out mining world where the Authority didn’t even bother to maintain offices. A lead there, from an old man who had once seen better days, put them in touch with the captain of a long-orbit ore barge. After some finagling, during which their bona fides were checked, with their lives forfeited if that check had turned up the wrong answers, they were given a redezvous.
At that rendezvous they were met, in a deep space, by a small ship’s gig. When an inboard search by armed, wary men revealed that the Falcon carried no one but her pilot and copilot, the two were led to the second planet of a nearby star system. The gig parted company with them, and they came in for a landing, tracked by the upraised snouts of turbo-laser cannons. The site was a huddle of quickly assembled hanger domes and habitation bubbles. Parked here and there was a wide assortment of ships and other equipment, much of it gutted and decaying, cannibalized for spare parts.
When Han stepped down the starship’s ramp, his face lit with that intense smile that had been known to make men check up and see what their wives were doing. “Hello, Jessa. It’s been too long, doll.”
The woman waiting at the foot of the ramp looked back at him scornfully. She was tall, her hair a mass of heavy blond ringlets, and her shape did extremely pleasant things to the tech’s coveralls she wore. Her upturned nose held a collection of freckles acquired under a variety of suns; Jessa had been on almost as many planets as Han. Just now, her large brown eyes showed him nothing but derision.
“Too long, Solo? No doubt you’ve been busy with religious retreats? Mercantile conferences? Milk deliveries for the Interstellar Childrens’ Aid Fund? Well, it’s no wonder I haven’t heard from you. After all, what’s a Standard Year, more or less, hey?”
“A lifetime, kid,” he answered smoothly. “I missed you.” Coming down to her, he reached for her hand.
Jessa eluded him, and men with drawn guns came into view. They wore coveralls, fusion-welders’ masks, tool belts, and greasy headbands, but they were plainly comfortable with their weapons.
Han shook his head mournfully. “Jess, you’ve really got me wrong, you’ll see.” But he knew he had just received an explicit warning, and decided he’d better turn the conversation to the matter at hand. “Where’s Doc?”
The scorn left Jessa’s features, but she ignored his question. “Come with me, Solo.”
Leaving Chewbacca to watch the Falcon, Han accompanied her across the temporary base. The landing field was a flat expanse of fusion-formed soil (almost any sort of solid material would do for fusion-forming, Han knew; minerals, vegetable matter, or any old enemies for whom you had no further use). Male, female, human, and nonhuman techs scrambled over vehicles and machinery of every category, aided by a wild assortment of ’droids and other automata, engaged in repair, salvage, and modification.
Han admired the operation as he walked. A tech who’d do illegal work could be found almost anywhere, but Doc, Jessa’s father, had an operation that was famous among lawbreakers everywhere. If you wanted your ship repaired without questions as to why you’d been through a firefight, if you needed a vessel’s ID profile and appearance changed for reasons best left unmentioned, or if you had a hot piece of major hardware to buy or sell—the person to contact, if you met his rigorous background check, was Doc. If something could be done with machinery, he and his outlaw-techs could do it.
Several of the modifications done on the Millennium Falcon had been performed through the outlaw-tech’s good offices; he and Han had dealt with each other on a number of occasions. Han admired the shifty old man because held been sought by Authority and other official forces for years but never apprehended. Doc had kept himself well buffered, and piped into as many crooked bureaucrats and scuttlebutt sources as anyone Han knew. More than one strike unit had moved against the outlaw-techs only to capture a target area empty of everything but abandoned buildings and useless junk. Doc had joked that he was the only felon in the galaxy who’d have to set up an employee pension plan.
Threading among disassembled hulks and humming repair docks, Jessa led Han through the largest hangar on the base. At one end, slabs of Permex had been joined into a stark cube of an office. But when its door slid up at her command, Han could see that Doc’s taste hadn’t coarsened. The office featured carpets of Wrodian weave, glittering in rich colors, each one representing generations’ work. There were shelves of rare books, lavish hangings, and paintings and sculpture, some by history’s greatest artists and others by unknowns who’d simply struck Doc’s fancy. There was a monolithic, hand-carved scentwood desk with only one item on it, a holocube of Jessa. In it she was wearing a stylish evening gown, smiling, much more like a pretty girl at her first formal reception than a top-flight outlaw-tech genius.
“Where’s the old man?” Han asked, seeing the room was empty. Jessa slid into the conform-lounger behind the desk. She clenched her hands on the lounger’s thick, luxurious arms until her fingers made deep indentations.
“He’s not here, Solo. Doc’s gone.”
“How informative; I’d never have guessed it just from seeing the room’s empty. Look, Jess, I have no time for games, no matter how much you’d like to play. I want—”
“I know what you want!” Her face was bitter; it took him by surprise. “No one comes to us unless we know what they want from us. But my father’s not here. He’s disappeared, and nothing I’ve tried has turned up a hint. Believe me, Solo, I’ve tried it all.”
Han eased down into a seat across the desk from her. Jessa explained, “Doc went off on one of his buying trips—you know, shopping for stuff that would fit the market, or for some customer’s special order. He made three stops and never arrived at the fourth. Just like that. He, three crewmen, and a star yacht just dropped out of sight.”
Han thought for a moment about the old man with work-hardened hands, a quick, crusty grin, and a halo of frizzy white hair. Han had liked him, but if Doc was gone, that was that. Few people who vanished under circumstances like that ever showed up again. Luck of the draw. Han had always traveled light, with emotional baggage the first thing he jettisoned, and grief was far too heavy to lug around among the stars.
So that only left thinking, Goodbye, Doc, and dealing with Jessa, the old man’s only surviving kin. But when his brief distraction broke, he saw that she’d studied the entire play of his thoughts on his face. “You got through that eulogy pretty fast, didn’t you, Solo?” she asked softly. “Nobody gets too far under that precious skin of yours, isn’t that so?”
That pricked him. “If it was me who’d checked out, would Doc have gone on a crying jag, Jess? Would you? I’m sorry, but life goes on, and if you lose sight of that, sweetheart, you’re asking to be dealt out.”
Her mouth opened to reply, but she thought better of it and changed tack. Her voice became as sharp as a vibro-blade. “Very well. Let’s do business. I know what you’re looking for, the sensor suite, the dish, the Waiver. I can take care of all of it. We got our hands on a sensor suite, powerful, compact, a military package built for long-range scoutships. It found its way to us from a supply depot; got misrouted by a happy coincidence I arranged. I can handle the Waiver, too. That only leaves”—she gazed at him coldly—“the question of price.”
Han wasn’t crazy about the way she’d said it. “The money’s got to be right, Jess. I’ve only got—”
She cut him off again. “Who said money? I know just how much you have, high roller, and where you got it, and how much you gave Ploovo. Don’t you think we hear everything sooner or late? Would I assume an imbecile who’s been gunrunning would be flush?” She leaned back, interlacing her fingers.
He was confused. He’d planned to arrange long terms with Doc, but doubted if he could with Jessa. If she knew he couldn’t meet a decent price, why was she talking to him? “Are you going to explain, Jess, or am I supposed to do my famous mind-reading act?”
“Give your jaws a rest, Solo, and pay attention. I’m offering you a deal, a handwash.”
He was suspicious, knowing there’d be no generosity from her. But what were his alternatives? He needed his ship repaired, and the rest of it, or he might as well go somewhere out on the galactic rim and bid on a contract to haul garbage. With exaggerated sweetness, he answered, “I’m hanging on your every word. By what, I won’t mention.”
“It’s a pickup, Solo, an extraction. There are details, but that’s basically it; you make contact with some people and take them where they want to go, within reason. They won’t be expecting you to drop them anywhere risky. Even your stunted attention span ought to suffice for that.”
“Where’s the pickup?”
“Orron III. That’s mostly an agricultural world, except that the Authority has a data center there. That’s where your passengers are.”
“An Authority Data Center?” Han exploded. “And how do I get into a place like that? It’ll look like the Espos’ Annual Picnic and Grand Reunion. Listen, toots, I want that stuff from you, but I want to live to a ripe old age, too; I plan to sit in a rocker at the Old Spacemen’s Home, and what you’re suggesting will definitely exclude that option.”
“It’s not so terrible,” she replied levelly. “Internal security’s not especially bad, because only two types of vessels are cleared to land on Orron III—drone barges for the crops and Authority fleet ships.”
“Yeah, but in case you haven’t noticed, the Falcon’s neither.”
“Not yet, Solo, but I’ll change that. We have a barge shell, hijacked it in transit. That wasn’t much of a trick; they’re robot hulks, and they’re pretty dumb. I’ll fit the Millennium Falcon with external control couplings and set her in where the command/control module usually goes, and partition into the hold space. My people can mock up the hull structure so it’ll con the Espos, port officials, or anybody else. You land, contact the parties in question, and off you go. Average ground time for a barge is about thirty hours, so you’ll have plenty of leeway to get things done. Once you’re in transit, you ditch the barge shell and you’re home free.”
He thought hard about that one. He didn’t like anyone messing with his ship. “Why pick me for this thrilling honor? And why the Falcon?”
“Because you need something from me, for one thing, so you’ll do it. Because, for another, even though you’re an amoral mercenary, you’re the hottest pilot I know; you’ve flown everything from a jetpack to a capital ship. As for the Falcon, she’s just the right size, and has computer capacity to spare, to run the barge. It’s a fair deal.”
One thing had him puzzled. “Who’s the pickup? It sounds like you’re going to an awful lot of trouble for them.”
“No one you’d know. They’re strictly amateurs, and they pay well. What they’re doing’s no concern of yours, but if they feel like telling you, that’s their decision.”
He gazed up at the ceiling, which was patterned with glow-pearls. Jessa was offering everything he needed to make the Authority ripe for the plucking. He could give up gunrunning, petty-cash trips to backwater worlds, all that low-ante stuff.
“Well,” coaxed Jessa, “do I tell my techs to get busy, or do you and the Wookiee plan to teach the galaxy the folly of crime by starving in poverty?”
He brought his chair upright. “You better let me break the news to Chewie first, or your wrench jockies will be nothing but a mound of spare parts for the organ banks.”
Doc’s organization—now Jessa’s—was nothing if not thorough. They had the factory specs for the Millennium Falcon, plus complete design holos on every piece of augmentative gear in her. With Chewbacca’s help and a small horde of outlaw-techs, Han had the Falcon’s engine shielding removed and her control systems exposed in a matter of hours.
Service ’droids trundled back and forth while energy cutters flared, and techs of many races crawled over, under, and into the freighter. It made Han jittery to see so many tools, hands, tentacles, servogrips, and lift-locks near his beloved ship, but he gritted his teeth and simply did his best to be everywhere at once—and came close to succeeding. Chewbacca covered the things his partner missed, startling any erring tech or ’droid with a high-decibel snarl. No one doubted for a moment what the Wookiee would do to the being or mechanical who damaged the starship.
Han was interrupted by Jessa, who had come up to inspect his progress. With her was an odd-looking ’droid, built along human lines. The machine was rather stocky, shorter than the woman, covered with dents, scrapes, smudges, and spot-welds. Its chest region was unusually broad, and its arms, hanging nearly to its knees, gave it a somewhat simian aspect. Its finish was a flat brown primer job peeling in places, and it had a stiff, snapping way of moving. The ’droid’s red, unblinking photoreceptors trained on Han.
“Meet your passenger,” Jessa invited.
Han’s features clouded. “You never said anything about taking a ’droid.” He looked at the aged mechanical. “What’s he run on, peat?”
“No. And I warned you there’d be details. Bollux here is one of them.” She turned to the ’droid. “Okay, Bollux, open up the fruit stand.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Bollux replied in a leisurely drawl. There was a servomotor hum, and the ’droid’s chest plastron split down the center, the halves swinging away to either side. Nestled in among the goodies that were the ’droid’s innards was a special emplacement; secured in the emplacement was another unit, a separate machine entity of some kind that was approximately cubical, with several protrusions and folded appendages. Atop it was a phtoreceptor mount, monocular lensed. The unit was painted in deep, protective, multilayered blue. The monocular came on, lighting red.
“Say hello to Captain Solo, Max,” Jessa instructed it.
The machine-within-a-machine studied Han up and down, photoreceptor angling and swiveling. “Why?” it demanded. The pitch of its vocal mechanism was like that of a child.
Jessa countered frankly, “Because if you don’t, Max, the nice man is liable to chuck your teensy iron behind out into deep space—that’s why.”
“Hello!” chirped Max, with what Han suspected to be forced cheer. “A great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain!”
“The parties you’re picking up need to collect and withdraw data from the computer system on Orron III,” Jessa explained. “Of course, they couldn’t just ask the Authority there for probe equipment without raising suspicions, and your walking in with Max under your arm might cause a few problems, too. But nobody’s going to bother much about an old labor ’droid. We named him Bollux because we had so many headaches restructuring his gut. We never did get his vocal pattern up to speed.
“Anyway, that cutie in Bollux’s chest cavity is Blue Max; Max because we crammed as much computer capacity into him as we could, and blue for reasons that even you, Solo, can see, I’m sure. Blue Max was a piece of work, even for us. He’s puny, but he cost plenty, even though he’s immobile and we had to leave out a lot of the usual accessories. But he’s all they’ll need to tap that data system.”
Han was studying the two machines, hoping Jessa would admit she’d been joking. He’d seen weirder gizmos in his time, but never on a passenger roster. He didn’t like ’droids very much, but decided he could live with these.
He bent down for a better squint at Blue Max. “You stay in there all the time?”
“I can function autonomously or in linkage,” Max squeaked.
“Fabulous,” Han said dryly. He tapped Bollux’s head. “Button up.” As the brown segments of plastron swung shut on Max, Han called up to Chewbacca, “Yo, partner, find a place and stow this mollusk, will you? He’s with us.” He turned back to Jessa. “Anything else? A marching band, maybe?”
She never did get to answer. Just then klaxons went off, sirens began to warble at deafening levels, and the public-address horns started paging her to the base’s command post. Everywhere in the hangar, outlaw-techs dropped their tools in a ringing barrage and dashed off frantically for emergency stations. Jessa sprinted away instantly. Han took off after her, yelling back for Chewbacca to stay with their ship.
The two crossed the complex. Humans, nonhumans, and machines charged in every direction, necessitating a good deal of dodging and swerving. The command post was a simple bunker, but at the bottom of the steps leading to it, Jessa and Han entered a well-equipped, fully manned operations room. A giant holo-tank dominated the room with its phantom light, an analogue of the solar system around them. Sun, planets, and other major astronomical bodies were picked out in keyed colors.
“Sensors have painted an unidentified blip, Jessa,” said one of the duty officers, pointing out a yellow speck at the edge of the system. “We’re awaiting positive ID.”
She bit her lip, eyes fastened to the tank along with those of all the others in the bunker. Han moved up next to her. The speck was moving toward the center of the holotank, which would be, Han knew, the planet on which he was standing, represented by a bead of white light. The bogie’s speed decreased, and sensors painted a cluster of smaller blips breaking away from it. Then the original object accelerated, kept on accelerating, and faded from the tank a moment later.
“It was an Authority fleet ship, a corvette,” the officer said. “It launched a flight of fighters, four of them, then ducked back into hyperspace. It must’ve detected us and gone for help, leaving the fighters to harass and keep us busy until it can return. I don’t see how they happened to be searching this system.”
Han realized the officer was looking directly at him. In fact, everybody in the command post was, and hands had gone to side arms. “Whoa, Jess,” he protested, meeting her eyes, “when did I ever stooge for the Espos?”
For a moment an expression of uncertainty crossed her face, but only for a moment. “I guess if you’d tipped them you wouldn’t have stuck around while they dropped in,” she admitted. “Besides, they would have shown up in full strength if they’d known we were here. You’ve got to concede, though, Solo, it’s some coincidence.”
He changed the subject. “Why didn’t the corvette just put through a hyperspace transmission? They must be close enough to a base to call for support.”
“This area’s full of stellar anomalies,” she said absently, focusing back on those ominous blips. “It fouls up hyperspace commo; that’s why we picked it, partly. What’s the fighters’ estimated time of arrival?” she asked the officer.
“ETA less than twenty minutes,” was the reply.
She blew her breath out. “And we haven’t got anything combatworthy except fighters ourselves. No use ducking it; get ready to scramble. Order evacuation to start in the meantime.”
She looked to Han. “Those are probably IRDs’; they’ll eat up anything I can send up right now except for some old snubs I have here. I need to buy time, and I have almost nobody who’s done any combat flying. Will you help?”
He saw all the grave faces still staring at him. He led Jessa to one side, caressed her cheek, but spoke in a low tone. “My darling Jess, this definitely was not in our deal. I’m for the Old Spacemen’s Home, remember? I have no intention of ever plunking my rear into one of those suicide sleds again.”
Her voice was eloquent. “There are lives at stake! We can’t evacuate in time, even if we leave everything behind. I’ll send up inexperienced pilots if it comes to that, but they’ll be cold meat for those Espo flyers. You’ve got more experience than all the rest of us put together!”
“All of which cries out to me that there’s no percentage fighting the good fight,” he parried, but he burned from the look she gave him. He nearly spoke again but held his tongue, unable to untangle his own nagging ambiguities.
“Then go hide,” she said so low he could barely hear, “but you can forget your precious Millennium Falcon, Solo, because there’s no power in the universe that can make her spaceworthy before those raiders hit us and pin us down. And once their reinforcements arrive, they’ll carve this base and everything in it to atoms!”
His ship, of course; that’s what must have been biting at the back of my mind, Han told himself. Must have been. The turbo-laser cannon would never stop fast, evasive fighters, and the raiders would indeed take the base apart. He and Chewbacca might possibly escape with their lives, but without their ship they’d be just two nameless, homeless pieces of interstellar flotsam.
In the confusion of the command post, with the giving and receiving of frantic messages, she still heard his voice among all the others.
“Jess?” She stared, confused, at his lopsided smirk. “Got a flight helmet for me?” He pretended not to see the sudden softening of her expression. “Something sporty, in my size, Jess, with a hole in it to match the one in my head.”