Star Wars: The New Rebellion (36 page)

No one had come to help him.

His readings had been right, then. Pydyr was nearly empty.

He opened his eyes, and assessed the damage. His left ankle was broken and swollen to twice its size. Ever since his experience on the
Eye of Palpatine
, his left leg had been weak, vulnerable to too much pressure. His knee ached also, but that felt like a sympathetic injury.

He had a lot of bruises. Too many to count, too many even to allow himself to feel. He didn’t want to think about the possibilities of internal injuries. His left hand was slightly burned—he must have touched the flames with his real hand—and his back felt raw. He was thirsty, a bad sign.

But while Pydyr’s population was gone, its buildings weren’t. He would probably be able to find water.

Maybe he would find some burn cream, too, something to ease the pain in his back and his hand.

Still no one had arrived. The flames burned on in the odd light, the sparks swarming like tiny bugs. He had to get away from here. The flames were spreading, had already spread to the building he had landed against.

The emptiness bothered him. He patted his side for his lightsaber, and found it, slightly scorched, but fine.

The artificial skin had burned off his right hand, revealing the mechanical workings. He balled his hand into a fist and braced himself on his knuckles as he rose. The strength in his arm would help him for the moment. He would need a crutch of some kind, but for now, he could limp.

He braced himself on the nearest building and hobbled away from the flames. His thirst was growing. He made himself ignore it, as best he could.

The emptiness appalled him more than the crash did. He assumed some of that was shock. Yet, there was an eerieness here that he had only felt a few times before. This street was meant to have life in it. These buildings were meant to house families, to hold laughter and conversation and warmth. The street should be full of voices, of vendors, of people going about their business. He should smell alien cuisine, unusual perfume, even unfamiliar garbage.

Instead, the only smell was smoke from his destroyed X-wing, the only sound the snap of flames, and his own ragged breathing.

He ducked into an archway, and leaned against the column. It too was made of mudbrick and decorated with tiny stones. He leaned his forehead on them. Spots danced in front of his eyes. He didn’t know the proper burn treatments. He’d always had Artoo for information, the medical pak for emergencies, and a whole battery of medical personnel on the inhabited planets.

Here he had no one.

Except himself.

Even on the
Eye of Palpatine
, he had had Callista.

He pushed thoughts of her from his mind. He couldn’t afford to think of her, especially not now.

He caught his breath and went inside the building. The smoke hadn’t gotten here yet, and the only acrid scent came from his own clothing.

He was in an entry, filled with brown carved tile. The walls were covered with frescoes, mostly of a humanoid people with oval faces and almond eyes; long, flowing arms; and small mouths that didn’t seem to smile. Yet their entire demeanor radiated joy. Wooden chairs stood in the hall. They were covered with dust.

A stand near the door held walking sticks and canes. He pulled one out and leaned on it, thankful that it could take some of his weight.

He had to find a source of water. He was getting dizzy. His back throbbed. He rounded a corner, walking carefully on the long red rugs that covered the flooring. If it weren’t for the dust, the house would be spotless. Yet it looked lived-in and cared-for.

What had happened to these people?

He went through two more archways and carefully decorated rooms before discovering a kitchen. It resembled the kitchens he had seen among the wealthy on Coruscant. Modern appliances gleamed from the walls. Knobs, dials, and keyboards substituted for the crude cooking facilities he used on Yavin 4. All the pots and pans here were for decoration. But there was a water recycler and a purifying pot near the cooking pad. He staggered over to it, grabbed a porcelain mug, and turned on the recycler.

It groaned, then hummed to life. In a moment, he had clear, fresh water.

He drank it down quickly. One glass, then two, then
three. He had never tasted anything so good. The dizziness was fading, and his mind was clearing. He studied the keypad. If it was like the ones on Coruscant, it wouldn’t have just kitchen information. It would also tell him what supplies were in the house, a family history, and a history of Pydyr. It would also carry news feeds and anything else he needed to know.

He leaned his hips against the counter, and used his right hand to activate the keyboard. His finger was all metal now, except for the charred pieces of synthetic skin hanging off it. He hoped the keypad wasn’t activated by fingerprint or retinal scan.

The screen sprang to life.

STRANGER.YOU ARE NOT IN OUR RECORDS
.

Luke typed:
I AM NEW HERE. YOUR OWNERS ARE GONE
.

WE KNOW. IT HAS BEEN SILENT HERE. BUT WE ARE INSTRUCTED NOT TO GIVE INFORMATION TO STRANGERS EXCEPT IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
.

IT IS AN EMERGENCY
, Luke typed.
I AM INJURED, MAYBE DYING. I NEED MEDICAL ATTENTION. HAVE YOU A MED KIT?

WE HAVE A MEDICAL DROID
.

Luke started. He had seen no droids.

THE DROIDS APPEAR TO BE MISSING AS WELL
, he typed.
HAVE YOU MEDICAL INFORMATION IN YOUR STORES?

CERTAINLY, STRANGER. AND A MEDICAL KIT IN THE CABINET ABOVE THE KEYPAD YOU ARE USING
.

Luke sought out the medical kit, found it, and removed the burn cream. He longed for a droid, but knew that he had to tend himself. He cleaned off his burns, wincing as he did so, then applied cream and a bandage. When he finished that, he devised a splint for his ankle.

Then he looked up. The screen held a single message.

PLEASE, STRANGER. TELL US WHERE OUR MASTERS HAVE GONE
.

Luke shook his head and typed,
THE PLANET IS EMPTY
.

The screen shut itself off with a slight moan. He felt
for a moment as if he were with Artoo. Artoo would have had a similar reaction. Artoo would feel loss if Luke died.

How curious. The change had happened so fast that this family hadn’t had time to inform its house computer. He remembered the chill and the voices. The Death Star had destroyed the planet. This new weapon left the planet, and destroyed all life.

Or at least all humanoid life.

He felt a flash of a presence again, the same presence he had felt when he had entered the Almanian system. It was watching him.

“Show yourself,” he said.

But no one did.

Han landed the
Falcon
on the far side of Skip 1’s landing strip. He had Chewbacca bundle Seluss off to the infirmary, such as it was, without promising to pay for Seluss’s care. Han hoped that Chewie would pay for a bit of care himself. That singed fur worried Han.

He was hanging upside down under the
Falcon
’s power core. The scarred metal looked as if it hadn’t been touched, but he wanted to be certain. On the way back to Skip 1, he had run a scan of the
Falcon
to make sure Seluss, the Glottalphib, or Davis hadn’t tampered with it. He could see no obvious sabotage, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

He hated being on the Run. It made him even more paranoid than usual.

He needed to get some information about Davis and about the Jawas, but he would do that after Chewie came back. Han wasn’t about to leave the
Falcon
again. He suspected he would need to make a quick getaway. Nandreeson wasn’t the type to give up.

The hatch hissed. Han grabbed his blaster, and pulled
himself out of the well near the power core. Then he heard Chewie bark his name.

“Back here, Chewie!”

Chewie roared and Han sighed. Once, just once, he’d like to do what he wanted, when he wanted.

“I’ll go into the Skip when I’m done here,” he said.

Chewie roared again.

“Impatient sack of bones,” Han muttered. He climbed across the well and onto the floor grid. “I’m coming!”

He rounded the corner to find that Chewie had already left the
Falcon
. The hatch was still open. Han ducked out.

Chewie stood at the bottom of the ramp.

“You could have waited,” Han said.

Chewie put a long, hairy finger to his mouth and then pointed. Han followed the direction. On the far side of the bay, smugglers were working, much as they had on Skip 5. Han frowned at Chewie, then got off the ramp and edged past a few other vehicles parked on the bay.

Han hid under the wing of a modified Gizer freighter. The metal was rusted and pockmarked and provided perfect viewing without allowing him to be seen.

Zeen Afit was carrying computer parts. Blue followed, gingerly carrying screens. Wynni was a few yards behind, her furry arms wrapped around four chairs that had bolts in their bases. Two more smugglers, both Sullustan, were carrying the cushions on top of their heads.

They were stripping a ship. In Han’s day, smugglers never did that unless they had been betrayed by the ship’s owner or unless the owner was dead.

Something about this stripping had bothered Chewie, though, and Han couldn’t see the ship from his hiding place. After the procession passed, he slipped out from under the wing, and moved closer.

The ship looked familiar. She was a space yacht that
had seen better days. Her sides were battered and her hull damaged from what appeared to be a difficult landing. Her name had been scratched off the side, but Han could still read it.

The
Lady Luck
.

Lando had been here.

On the Run.

And there was only one reason he would have come. Han.

Only Han was free.

Lando would never betray his smuggling friends, at least not intentionally. And for all their bluster, the smugglers on the Run were Lando’s friends, as much as smugglers like that could be friends.

Which only left one option.

Lando had arrived alone—

—and Nandreeson had been waiting for him.

F
emon would have laughed at him, and told him he was afraid of his own imaginings. Sometimes Kueller missed her. She had been with him a very long time. He could still hear her voice in his head, admonishing him.

He missed her, but he didn’t regret killing her. Some things just had to be done.

He was standing on the very spot where she had died, in the control center on Almania. He had replaced the death masks she loved on the walls, and added a few of his own. His guards stood behind him, silently watching. His employees believed in him, but a few fanatics were all it took. He didn’t want to be vigilant all the time. So he had his guards. They would protect him, and they would make no mistakes.

He frightened them.

But he didn’t frighten Luke Skywalker.

Kueller pulled his chair out and sat down, extending his long legs under the console. The screen before him showed the wreckage of Skywalker’s X-wing. It had landed near some of the most valuable houses on Pydyr, houses whose wealth had not yet been plucked. For a
few moments, Kueller had been afraid that he would lose that wealth, but he thought it a small price to pay for Skywalker.

Skywalker, injured, on Pydyr.

Perfect.

He punched a button and said to one of his undersecretaries in communications, “I want an interstellar link to Coruscant. I want you to get President Leia Organa Solo. Tell her it’s about her brother, and then have her hold for me.”

“Yes, sir,” the undersecretary said. The image winked away.

Kueller returned his gaze to the house that Skywalker had crawled into. Femon would have chided him:
What are you so afraid of, Kueller?
not realizing that the limping man with the burned back had survived the crash.