The Unseen Queen (11 page)

Han cautiously moved the landspeeder out of its hiding place, then, when they saw no visible sign of their quarry, hurried after the hoversled. In mountainous terrain like this, a scratchy signal could quickly turn into no signal at all, so they needed to close the distance fast. He dodged past a crew trimming the sprigs off a log as big around as a bantha, then decelerated hard as something big and bark-covered
fell across their path. A tremendous boom shook the landspeeder, rocking it back on its rear floater pads, and the route ahead was suddenly blocked by a wall of hamogoni log twelve meters high.

Han sat there, waiting for his heart to stop hammering, until a shower of boughs and sticks, knocked loose by the falling tree, began to hit the ground around them.

“Perhaps Master Luke should drive,” C-3PO suggested from the backseat. “He has taken better care of himself over the years, and his reaction time is point-four-two second faster.”

“Oh, yeah? If we’d been point-four-two seconds farther ahead, you’d be a foil smear right now.” Han jammed the landspeeder into reverse and hit the power, then said to Luke, “Okay, I give up. How are these guys leading us to the Dark Nest?”

Luke shrugged. “I don’t know yet.” His eyes remained fixed on the datapad, as though he had not noticed how close they had just come to being crushed. “But the barrels they’re carrying are filled with reactor fuel and hyperdrive coolant. Do you see anything out here that needs so much power?”

“I haven’t seen anything on this whole planet that needs that much power.” Han started the landspeeder forward again and began a hundred-meter detour around the fallen tree. “That doesn’t mean our smugglers are headed for the Dark Nest.”

“It’s the best explanation I can think of,” Luke said.

“Yeah? What would the Dark Nest do with hyperdrive coolant? And that much reactor fuel?”

“I don’t know yet,” Luke repeated. “That’s what scares me.”

Han rounded the crown of the fallen tree, drawing a cacophony of alarmed drumming as he nearly ran into a line
of Saras loggers scurrying toward the tree from the opposite side. A few of the insects carried modern laser cutters, but most were equipped with primitive chain saws—or even long, double-ended logging saws powered by hand. C-3PO thrummed a polite apology; then the Killiks opened a hole in their line, and Han took the landspeeder over to where the hoversled had disappeared.

“Blast!” Luke said, still staring at his datapad. “We lost the signal.”

“Don’t need it,” Han said. He swung the landspeeder onto a deep-cut track—it was not quite a road—that led in the same direction the smugglers had gone. “I’ll follow my nose.”

“Your nose?” Luke looked up, then said, “Oh.”

They followed the track over a knoll, then found themselves looking into a valley of mud and giant tree stumps. The smugglers, four Aqualish and a flat-faced Neimoidian, were about three hundred meters down the slope, parked outside the collapsed stone foundation of what had once been a very large building. The Aqualish had hoisted one of their fuel barrels onto a hamogoni stump that was two meters high and as big around as a Star Destroyer’s thrust nozzle. The Neimoidian—presumably the leader—was standing next to the barrel, talking to half a dozen Killiks. With bristly antennae, barbed, hugely curved mandibles, and dark blue chitin, they were clearly Gorog—the Dark Nest.

The Neimoidian held something up to the light, examining it between his thumb and forefinger, then nodded and slipped the object into a pouch hanging beneath his robes. The closest insect handed him something else, and he began to examine that.

Han ducked behind a giant stump and brought the landspeeder to a halt. “Sometimes I hate it when you’re right,”
he said to Luke. “But I’m not crawling down any bug holes with you. I’m through with that.”

Luke grinned a little. “Sure you are.”

“I’m serious,” Han warned. “If you go there, you’re on your own.”

“Whatever you say, Han.”

Luke pulled a pair of electrobinoculars from the landspeeder console, then slipped out of the passenger’s seat and disappeared around the side of the tree stump. Han shut the vehicle down and told C-3PO to keep an eye on things, then joined Luke behind a lateral root so high that he had to stand on his toes to peer over the top.

“Interesting,” Luke said. He passed the electrobinoculars to Han. “Have a look.”

Han adjusted the lenses. The Neimoidian was examining a reddish brown mass about the size of a human thumb, shaped roughly like a tear and so transparent that Han could see a tiny silver light glimmering in its core. After studying the lump a moment, the Neimoidian placed it in his pouch and held out his hand. The closest Gorog placed in it another globule, this one so cloudy that the Neimoidian did not even bother raising it to his eye before he tossed it aside.

“Star amber?” Han asked, lowering the electrobinoculars.

Luke nodded. “At least now we know where it’s …” He spun toward their landspeeder, his hand dropping toward his lightsaber, then finished his sentence in a whisper. “… been coming from.”

“Why are you whispering?” Han whispered. He pulled his blaster from its holster. “I
hate
it when you whisper.”

Luke raised his finger to his lips, then slipped over the root they had been hiding behind and started around the stump, moving
away
from their landspeeder. Han followed,
holding the electrobinoculars in one hand and his blaster in the other. The route took them into full view of the smugglers and the insects down the slope. Luke flicked his fingers, and the entire group turned to look in the opposite direction. Han would have accused him of cheating, except that just then C-3PO’s voice came over their comlinks.

“Be careful, Master Luke! They’re trying to come—”

The warning ended in string of metallic thunks. A loud boom echoed across the valley, and black smoke billowed up behind the stump. Han scrambled over another lateral root and raced the rest of the way around the stump behind Luke.

They came up behind the fuming wreckage of their landspeeder, which sat on the ground surrounded by a pool of fuel and cooling fluid that had spread halfway up the tree stump. C-3PO was standing two meters in front of the vehicle, looking scorched and soot-covered and leaning forward at the waist to peer around the tree stump. R2-D2 had jetted himself onto the top of the stump and was wheeling along the edge, using his arm extension to hold out a mirror and spy on something moving along around the base.

Luke signaled Han to continue around the stump, then Force-jumped up with R2-D2. Han crept up behind C-3PO.

“Back here, Threepio,” he whispered. “What have we got—”

C-3PO straightened and turned to face him. “What a relief!” he exclaimed. “I was afraid they were going to come on you from behind.”

A familiar scurrying sound rose from down the slope, just out of sight around the stump, and Han suddenly felt sick to his stomach.

“Thanks for the warning,” Han growled. He thrust the electrobinoculars at C-3PO and raced for cover next to the stump. “Get back,
now
.”

Han barely managed to kneel partway inside a small hollow before six Gorog Killiks scuttled into view. It was about what he had been expecting, but being right only made him more queasy. He just couldn’t handle bugs, not since those crazy Kamarians had tracked him down on Regulgo … but he couldn’t think about that now, not if he wanted to keep control of himself.

“Okay, fellas, stop right there. Drop those …” Han hesitated when he realized that it was not blaster pistols the insects were holding. “… shatter guns and tell me why you shot up my landspeeder.”

The Gorog began to thrum, raising their weapons as they turned.

“You
know
why,” C-3PO translated. “The Night Herald told you to stay out of Gorog’s business.”

“Too bad.” Han leveled his DL-44 at the closest bug’s head. “Now hold it right there.”

They did not, of course, and Han put a blaster bolt through the first one’s head the instant its shatter gun swung toward him. He burned another hole through the thorax of the second bug as it extended its weapon arm, then Luke dropped down behind the group with his lightsaber blazing. The blade droned a couple of times and two more Gorog fell, then the stump around Han erupted into acrid-smelling bark shards as the surviving insects squeezed off their first shots. Han fired back, Luke’s blade whined again, and the last two insects collapsed.

Han stood, holding his blaster in both hands, and Luke lowered his blade and spun in a slow circle, examining each of the corpses. He had almost finished when he suddenly staggered, then abruptly shut down his lightsaber.

“Blast!”

“What’s wrong?” Han started forward. “I didn’t hit you with a stray, did I?”

Luke turned with a scowl. “I’m a little better than that, Han.” He lifted his gore-slimed boot and scraped the sole across a Gorog mandible, then said, “They’re all dead. I was hoping to get some answers out of them.”

R2-D2 chirped something from the tree stump, then began to rock back and forth on his treads.

“What is it, Artoo?” Luke asked.

“He says you might be able to ask one of the six who were talking to the smugglers,” C-3PO translated helpfully. “They’re on the way up now.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think they’re coming to talk to
us
,” Han said.

After a quick scan of the area to make sure there were no other Killik surprise parties, Han and Luke returned to their original hiding place. The six Gorog were clambering up the slope with their weapons drawn. The four Aqualish smugglers had broken out G-9 power blasters and were kneeling on their hoversled, hiding behind the barrels of reactor fuel and aiming up the slope to cover the insects. The Neimoidian was fleeing toward the far side of the old building foundation.

“I’ve got the smugglers.” Luke started toward the low end of the root. “Take the Gorog—and remember, we need one alive. I want to find out what that reactor fuel is for.”

Han caught him by the arm. “Those bugs have shatter guns,” he said. “Maybe we should just run for it. You know how the Dark Nest is. Once we’re back over the hill with the loggers, they won’t want to show themselves.”

“I’m not worried, Han,” Luke said. “You’re covering me.”

“Look, kid, I don’t have their range,” Han said. “And your lightsaber isn’t that good against those pellets.”

“It’s okay. You’ll do fine.”

Luke moved along the root’s length until it covered him only from the chest down. The hillside erupted into a river of blaster bolts and magnetically accelerated projectiles.

Han cursed Luke’s misplaced optimism and began to fire back. His bolts either flew wide or crackled into nothingness before they reached their targets, but they gave the bugs something to think about. Most of the shatter gun pellets thumped harmlessly into the mud below them, and the few that didn’t crackled past far overhead.

The power blasters were another matter. Their bolts sizzled into the other side of the root with unnerving accuracy, filling the air with smoke and wood chips. Han sent a couple of bolts their way just to see if he could startle the Aqualish into putting their heads down. They didn’t even flinch, and smoke began to drift through holes on Han and Luke’s side of the root.

Then Luke extended a hand toward the stump behind the smugglers, and the barrel they had already off-loaded rose into the air and came crashing down into the middle of the hoversled. Several of the containers broke, spilling hundreds of gallons of coolant and dozens of meter-long gray rods. The Aqualish stopped firing and jumped off the sled, fleeing after the Neimoidian.

The Gorog glanced over their shoulders, then began to drum their thoraxes in anger. Han thought for a moment that they would charge, but four of them simply fanned out across the slope to take up holding positions. The other two rushed back toward the hoversled.

“Are they crazy?” Han gasped. “Ten minutes with those rods in the open like that, and they’ll start glowing.”

“Gorog doesn’t care. It
wants
that fuel.” Luke stepped
back into full cover behind the root. “If our tracking equipment still works—”

“Run for your lives!” C-3PO came around the tree stump at a full clank, waving the electrobinoculars Han had passed him earlier. “We’re doomed!”

“Doomed?” Han stepped out to intercept the droid—then nearly lost his head as a shatter gun pellet came hissing past his ear. He stepped back into the shelter of the root, pulling C-3PO after him. “What are you talking about?”

C-3PO turned and pointed back toward the landspeeder. “The Fizz! It has the landspeeder!”

“The Fizz?” Han asked. “Out here?”

“Perhaps we brought it with us,” C-3PO suggested.

An alarmed whistle sounded from above, then R2-D2 rolled off the edge of the stump and began to drop. He would have crashed on their heads had Luke not reached out with the Force and caught him.

Luke lowered R2-D2 to the ground, then leaned down. “What’s wrong with you, Artoo? You could have hurt someone.”

R2-D2 whistled a long reply.

“Artoo says it probably doesn’t matter,” C-3PO translated. “There’s a seventy-three percent chance that we’re disintegrating already.”

“Come on.” Though R2-D2 was not normally given to doomsaying, Han tried not to be shaken by his evaluation of the situation. Despite the temporary repairs Luke had done on the little droid’s personality, he was still acting as strangely as a Defel in a tanning booth. “It can’t be that bad. I was just up there, and I didn’t see any froth.”

R2-D2 chirped curtly.

“Artoo suggests you go see for yourself,” C-3PO translated. “Though I don’t think that’s a very good idea. It’s all over the ground.”

“All over the ground?” Han frowned, thinking. “Under the landspeeder? Where all that fuel spilled?”

“Precisely,” C-3PO said. “And spreading rapidly. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire landspeeder was engulfed by now.”

“Great.” Luke turned and started back toward the landspeeder. “I left the tracking set in the front seat.”

“Hold on.” Han caught him by the back of his robe. “I don’t think it’s going to matter.”