If Skip 5 was as big as Skip 1, the Jawas could drive through the caverns for days without seeing one another. They could almost imagine they were on a small, isolated section of Tatooine. And as long as they had equipment to find and repair, they would be happy.
As long as they had a place to trade it.
Or some way of getting paid.
Jawas loved to barter, but they never took many credits. Credits meant little to them. It was the act of scavenging and reselling that made their lives worthwhile. What a great, easy way to get equipment cleaned and repaired at almost no cost. Whoever was behind the setup of this part of the operation was brilliant.
A fishy stench swept over him, and he pulled his hand out of the sand.
Between the Jawas and the ooze, his experience on the Run had been one of awful smells. Who could guess what was in this sand? He wasn"t sure he wanted to know.
He wiped his hands on his pants, and turned. Chewbacca was standing behind him, back to Han, bowcaster aimed up the corridor.
"I thought I told you to stay at the Falcon." Chewie waved a paw for silence. Han gripped his blaster tighter. Seluss was nowhere to be seen.
If Chewie had left that little mouse on the Falcon, he would never live it down. Ever.
Finally Chewie put his paw down. He spoke softly in Wookiee, in a series of growls and low moans, his paws moving eloquently as he did. All the while, he kept his gaze on the corridor, as if he expected someone to come through it.
Han listened, his frown growing deeper. Chewie had watched Han disappear, then had seen three men follow him down the corridor. When Chewie had come in, Han was alone.
And that wasn"t all. Most of the ships on the loading bay weren"t loading. They were unloading.
No one unloaded on the Run. It was an unwritten rule. It was also unwise.
"I"m missing something here, Chewie," Han said. "Where"s Seluss?" Chewie nodded toward the corridor.
"He"s up there? You gave him a blaster?" Chewie shrugged, then growled softly.
"You have a point. I would have been very unhappy if you"d left him alone on the Falcon," Han said.
Chewie moaned and wiped a paw over his nose.
"You"re going to have to stop complaining about the stench, fuzzball,"
Han said. "Between the heat and the Jawas-"
"Between the heat and the Jawas what, General Solo?" The voice came from behind him.
Han whirled, blaster out. Six Glottalphibs stood behind him, their big feet buried in the sand. They all stood taller than Chewie. Five of them held swamp stunners on him, the stub-nosed weapons covered with mud and dried algae. Han had been hit with a swamp stunner once, and the pain had been so intense, he never wanted it to happen again.
"You should lower your blaster, General Solo," said the unarmed Glottalphib. Smoke curled out of his snout as he spoke. He was as tall as the others, but his scales were a motley gray-black color instead of the normal yellow-green. His tiny green hands were clasped over his elongated chest. "Else someone might think you were threatening us. You wouldn"t threaten us, now, would you, General Solo?" Han didn"t glance over his shoulder, but he knew from experience that Chewie had his bowcaster down and was facing them. Han had never fought six Glottalphibs before. Even with a Wookiee on his side, the odds were poor.
"You have me at a disadvantage," he said. "You seem to know who I am, and I have no idea who you are."
"Nonsense, General Solo. How many Glottalphibs have you encountered in your career?"
"Enough to know that you all look different, pal. And I"ve never met you." He was stalling; they both knew it. The only Glottalphib of any repute was Nandreeson, who had a stranglehold on Skip 6.
"I rarely make such a serious oversight, General Solo." The Glottalphib smiled, and as it did, a tiny lick of flame emerged from its nostril. "My name is lisner. I work for Nandreeson. He"s heard that the concubine of the great Princess Leia is on the Run, and he would like to meet you."
Han"s finger edged toward the trigger. The comment was supposed to make him angry. He knew that. And he was even angrier that it had. "I"m no one"s concubine," he said, unable to stop himself.
Chewie growled a warning.
"I"m her husband."
"Ah, yes," the Glottalphib said. "Human customs are so perverse. I have never understood the proprietary needs of your people. Better for the gene pool to leave eggs where any wandering male can fertilize them."
"You didn"t pull swamp stunners on me to discuss mating habits." Out of the corner of his eye, Han glanced at the cavern beyond. The sand crawler"s door had closed. It would be coming toward him at any moment.
"No, I came to invite you to Skip 6."
"An invitation made with five swamp stunners isn"t an invitation," Han said. "It"s an order." The Glottalphib"s smile grew. Another lick of flame, longer this time, extended from its right nostril. "I suppose you would see it that way. Our customs differ so much. But we do ask out of kindness and polite interest. We get so little news of the New Republic.
It would be nice to hear some directly from the husband of one of the great leaders." Chewie"s growled warning grew louder. This time, Han bit back the angry response. Leia was a great leader.
"Put down the swamp stunners, call off your goons, and maybe I"ll come with you."
"Ah, General Solo, I can"t make such drastic changes on the strength of a maybe." Flame arced out of the Glottalphib"s left nostril. Each fire blast added to the heat in the cavern.
The sand crawler was nearly to the cavern door. The floor was shaking.
The Glottalphibs didn"t seem to notice.
"Okay," Han said. "Put down the swamp stunners, call off your goons, and Chewie and I will follow you to Skip 6."
"We have no landing pads for conventional ships, General Solo."
"Then maybe Nandreeson should come to me. I have rooms in Skip 1." Han backed up slowly. "Now, if you"ll excuse me, I have business to finish."
"Not so quickly, General Solo," the Glottalphib said. "No business is as important as ours." The sand crawler entered the cavern. The Glottalphib turned toward it, as if it surprised him.
Han pushed against Chewie. "Run!" he said.
They both started up the slope. Blue light from the swamp stunners. .h.i.t the sunstone walls and radiated heat. Chewie roared. Han pushed Chewie"s furry back. Suddenly they were in darkness. Then flames burned the sunstone where they had been standing a moment before.
Han fired back. The blaster fire went wildly, through the opening to the corridor, but hitting wide. Chewie"s padded feet were slipping on the sand covering. Han had to keep pushing. The Glottalphibs were getting way too close. Another roar of flame seared the wall next to him, burning off the coolant covers. The air was searing hot.
"This way!" Han glanced up. One of the coolant covers had been pulled back. The long-haired blond man from the entry was peering out of it.
"Hurry up!" the man said. "We only have a moment." Chewie roared in protest.
More flames. .h.i.t the wall beside them. The coolant covers stayed on this time, but radiated red with the intense heat. They would never make it up the corridor, not quickly enough to stay ahead of the flames and the swamp stunners. Han didn"t know who this guy was, but anything was better than being Glottalphib frica.s.see.
"Go, Chewie, go!" Chewie protested again, and Han shoved him into the open coolant cover. The man pulled Chewie in, and Han crawled in after him, landing in a pile of fragrant Wookiee fur. They were in a narrow crevice, lined with sunstone and extremely bright. The man reached around Han and pulled on the coolant cover.
"Let"s get out of here before we get fried alive," the man said.
"You"ll get no argument from us, pal," Han said. Together they helped Chewie up. He couldn"t stand upright in the crevice. The man hurried through a nearby opening, and Han followed. Chewie crouched and slid in.
Then roared.
He was stuck.
The coolant cover suddenly glowed red. A blast of flame must have hit it.
The heat magnified. Han"s throat was raw, and his shirt was soaking. He should have gone back for that water.
At least the coolant cover didn"t come off.
He put a hand out and pulled on Chewie"s furry arm.
"Let him go," the man said. "We"ve got to get out of here."
"All three of us go or none of us goes," Han said, although he wasn"t sure how to make good on the threat. "Crouch lower, Chewie." Chewie roared again.
"Then tell him to shut up."
"You shut up," Han said to the blond man.
Chewie crouched, but his knees banged the crevice wall.
"Okay," Han said. "I got it. Slide one leg out either side, crouch, and lever yourself out." Chewie muttered some select Wookiee curses, the graphic ones that Han always pretended to misunderstand, and then did as Han told him. His bowcaster hit the wall, and the sound of ripping fur filled the crevice. But he crouched and slid toward Han, and was suddenly free.
A mat of Wookiee hair stuck to the sunstone crevice walls. Chewie moaned again. A patch of fur was missing from his back.
"Your friend sure whines a lot," the man said. He hadn"t moved from his post farther in the crevice.
Chewie growled.
"He"s a Wookiee, pal," Han said, "and I wouldn"t make him mad."
"I can handle Wookiees." Han grinned. "Anyone who"s said that has never met a Wookiee."
"You want my help or not?" the man said.
"I don"t know," Han said. "What do you get out of helping me?"
"Satisfaction, General. Now come on." He slipped through another narrow opening and then ran down a wider hall before Han had a chance to answer.
The man knew who Han was.
Had known it all along.
That made Han decidedly uneasy.
Han peered through the crevice. The hall looked nature-made, just like the crevice did. The sunstone was bright.
And hot.
"Think you can make it, Chewie?" Chewbacca nodded.
"Think we should trust him?" Chewie shook his head, then moaned.
"You"re right. It might take forever for those covers to cool. Then we"re here, in the heat. Nothing can be worse than that, right?" Chewie shook his head, as if he couldn"t believe Han had said that. Han couldn"t believe it either.
"You go first, furball. That way I can shove you if you get stuck." And fight off anyone who tried to enter from the coolant side. Han didn"t know why Nandreeson was after him, but he wasn"t going to wait around to find out.
Chewie maneuvered his way through the second crevice without leaving much fur behind. Han followed. The hall that the man had run down was wide and tall. Chewie could stand upright.
The heat had lessened in the wider s.p.a.ce. Han wiped off his face. He was a mess. The man was gone, but his footsteps led down the hall.
As if they had a choice. There were no other openings.
They followed the footsteps, weapons out. Cool air was flowing in from another pa.s.sage. The man was waiting for them. He was sitting on a pile of unused coolant covers, his blaster on his knee.
"Thought you weren"t going to make it," he said.
"Sometimes the enemy we know is less dangerous than the one we don"t,"
Han said.
"So you think you know me." The man smiled.
Han shook his head. "We almost stayed back there to wait until the coolant cover cooled."
"You"d face Nandreeson"s boys over me?"
"I don"t know what you want," Han said. "Or who you are." The man held out his hand. "My name"s Davis."
"Names mean nothing," Han said. "I don"t know you."
"I don"t know you either, General. Not really. But I know of you."
"That gives you a distinct advantage."
"You don"t trust people, do you? I"m trying to help you."
"That remains to be seen. Where"re we going?"
"These pa.s.sages will take us to a side entrance on the landing pad where your ship is."
"And where Nandreeson"s men wait," Han said. "They know I"ll be back for the Falcon."
"You propose to leave it?"
"I just don"t plan on being predictable." Han let his blaster drop to his side. "Tell me what the Jawas are doing here."