Corellian Trilogy_ Ambush At Corellia Part 20

"Q9, that is no way to talk to the leader of the New Republic,"

Ebrihim said.

"Why not?" the droid asked, in a tone of voice that made it clear that it was asking out of genuine curiosity.

"Because she could order you taken apart for spares, among other reasons."

"You would not permit her to do so," Q9 replied. "That particular empty threat no longer impresses me.

"One of these days you will be insulting to the wrong person, and I will not be able to prevent your being punished."

Leia could not help but smile. "While I would suggest you try to be more polite, I for one won't order you taken apart.

Q9 turned toward his owner. "You see?" he said.

"No, I don't," Ebrihim replied in mild tones. "Being forgiven is far from the same as being right."

"Perhaps so," Q9 replied. "But thus far I have found it is far easier to be forgiven than it is to be right."

"That is why people talk to you as if you aren't here," Ebrihim said. "They find out very quickly that you are not worth talking to." Q9 looked from Leia to Ebrihim, but plainly could not think of any sufficient rejoinder. Instead of speaking, he simply turned toward the door and rolled himself out.

"He must be tremendously useful if it's worth putting up with that much backtalk," Leia said.

"Sometimes it's a difficult call," Ebrihim replied. "But I must admit that I find him an interesting case. I have never encountered a droid with quite his viewpoint. I find it most stimulating. He has very definite ideas about droids, and tries to live up to them. I think that is part of why he tinkers with himself constantly."

"Then the voice upgrade isn't the only thing'?"

"Oh no, not at all. Whatever the latest and greatest commercially available upgrade is, he has to have it. I'd estimate that something less than half of him is original factory equipment at this point. Beyond that, of course, he designs his own improvements. He built those repulsors himself, for example. I keep hoping that the next addition will be a courtesy module, but no luck as yet." Either because we enjoyed talking about his droid, or because he had the job, Ebrihim was relaxing a bit.

"Come," Leia said. "I think it's time you met the children."

"I am looking forward to it"' Ebrihim said, making a slight bow, inviting Leia to lead the way.

* t Not far from Coronet City s.p.a.ceport, Han Solo turned off Meteor Way and talked into Treasure Ship Row, and could not believe it.

Not at first. Not when he remembered how it used to be. How had it come to this'? Was he even in the right place?

Treasure Ship Row had been the market, the bazaar, the entertainment center, the legend you had to pa.s.s throughor, if you had no imagination or spirit of adventure at all, go around-on your way from the s.p.a.ceport into the central city.

He remembered the hundreds of stalls that had crowded the center of the broad road, selling everything imaginable, from every corner of the galaxy. He remembered the vendors, the beings of every kind, from star systems Han had never even heard of, thronging here, in this place, to hawk their wares. Every day new ships landed, and every day the sales tables.

Once Treasure Ship Row had been packed with buyers and sellers from acrosS the galaxy. Once the very sound of the place had been overwhelming, all by itself. The songs of the street players, the banging and crashing and tootling and oompahing of the strolling musicians, the sound of a thousand languages being shouted at once as the vendors urged every person walking past to sample the finest, the most lovely, the rarest, all going for the most absurdly low pricesand any buyer who did not haggle the price down by at least half deserved whatever happened to him next.

Once the air had been full of the pungent odors of roast meats and strong drink and fresh breads, and of less pleasant scents as well. Your nose was enchanted in one moment by the most exquisite of perfumes, and a.s.saulted in the next by a whiff of what was either the offal from the bottom of a rotted-out animal cage or some other species' idea of a good meal.

Once Treasure Ship Row had been a riot of colorbrightly hued tents, and signboards that flashed and strobed and throbbed their messages. The shop fronts had been painted in every color of the rainbow, and a few were painted in colors that no human could see. But you knew that the storefront that looked slate gray or dingy white was probably shriekingly bright in the ultraviolet or infrared, and the stores with the strangely textured exteriors of intricately patterned soundreflective baffles were full of merchandise that would appeal to the species that navigated by echo location.

The same sort of rule applied to the small lamps that hung discreetly outside certain otherwise unmarked doors.

it took little guessing to know what sort of business was transacted behind those doors, and the lamps that appeared to be burned out were bright in infrared or ultraviolet, signaling the same sort of services to those species who quite literally saw the world a little differently than humans. A famous bit of schoolboy folklore had it that there was an intricate and subtle color-coding system at work even among the lamps visible to human eyes, though no one Han ever met could actually explain how it worked, or what a given color meant But it was a good story.

th~~~ht5J)yT~~~~Sh~~ R:sw hiaaldfb~ ~~5tth~ same, and then reo n them again as would pack up their stalls pe carnival games sabacc salons tattoo parlors, betting shops.

The others would never close at all. The singers and dancers and street players would come out in greater force, and crowds from the bars and restaurants would overflow out into You never wanted to stop in one place of missing what was going on behind the next line of stalls.

Once all that had been. Now the sounds, the smells, the colors were vanished, the exciting days and magic, mysten0ei~inight5~~~ ~0~~Th~y dl:rsvard5t5hii.Th0e mstoorree; were boarded up as well, all except those with their windows smashed and those that showed the scars of fire All was silent except for the blowing of the wind, and scuttlings of mall scavenging creatures that hurried in 0 deeper hiding as Han walked down the abandoned street.

The only scents on the air were the fait~h~tj0rfy~lfo~ and dry rot of moldenng wood and g , d e54c~~l(k)~~~tree~S fomd taIthel tkedn5 s~rted oireveai of the shops Some sc.r.a.ps of ancient, weather-beaten canvas, and a lew heaps of abandoned poles and broken-up folding tables scattered about were all that were left, besides Ha~5 g~~fl~5 ~f~~~~0~~did~~~htS~i another life that seemed so distant that it might have happened to some O0fl~alg~J TUft~~~~R,0~p~bee~~ danI~erora%ch younger Han. But now the magic was over, an Ship Row was empty and forlorn. He Han remembered a famous actor he had met once.

had first seen the man from the fourth row of the theater.

The actor had portrayed a dashing young lieutenant, and Han had never seen a man as vital, as alive, as energetic as that imaginary officer. Later he had talked his way backstage, and walked boldly into the actor's dressing room. He saw the costume on its rack, the wig and the sword and even the nose of the character, each neatly taken off and put away. And sitting in their midst was a tired, gray-faced old man with nothing in his eyes.

It had taken a conscious act of will on Han's part before he could even believe that the old man had been the dashing young officer moments before, that the old man fretting that it was closing night, and he had no other part to play, had just moments before been on stage defying the universe.

Everything special and exciting and thrilling, all the illusions, had been stripped away from Treasure Ship Row, until now there was nothing left at all but the harsh reality of a grimy street.

Han walked the length of the place, and then turned down Starline Avenue and headed for the center of town. He had to see more, even if he did not want to.

* * * It was not all ruined, Han told himself. Just nearly all.

Here and there, as he walked along, there were still well-kept houses, businesses that were still open, and even one or two that looked prosperous. But Han knew he was grasping at straws. Coronet City was Treasure Ship Row writ large.

The only difference was that Treasure Ship Row was completely dead-and the city was not. The streets were only half-empty, not wholly so.

There were vehicles on the road, even if a fair number of them were broken-down, still sitting where they had been abandoned months or years before. Idlers and loiterers gathered on nearly every street corner.

And nearly everyone he saw was human. Scarcely a Drall or a Selonian in sight. Each of the species had always had its own enclave in the city of Corona, but in the old days, it had never seemed to matter that much. Selonians would buy groceries in the Drall shops, humans would go visit Selonian friends at home, Dralls would come and see a show in one of the human neighborhoods.

Not now. Not when there was no money, and no work, and everybody had to look out for themselves-and look over their shoulders as well.

He should not have been surprised. He knew that now.

Nearly all of Corellia's chief industries had revolved around trade in one way or another. Entertainment for the ship crews, financial services for the shipping companies, droid manufacture and repair, shipbuilding and repair. Even the criminal offshoots of those industries had been based on trade. Con games, money laundering, smuggling, droid hacking, and illegal ship upgrades all required customers from out-system.

In the good old days, beings had come to this world to have a good time, to sell their cargoes, to get their droids and their ships looked after. All too often people had gotten more than they bargained for-but that, too, had been part of Corellia Now, thanks to the war, thanks to a paranoid fear of foreigners, thanks to government antialien policies that amounted to financial suicide, no one came to Corellia anymore. There was no one to sell to, and nothing to buy, and no credits to buy and sell with anyway.

As Han walked toward the center of the city, it seemed as if things improved, at least a little. More shops were open, and those standing in line outside them seemed bored and resigned, not br.i.m.m.i.n.g with anger.

Han pa.s.sed through a still.prosperous neighborhood he had known in the old days, full of grand old houses, and was pleased to see that it, at least, was much as it had been-until he noticed all the guard droids on patrol, the discreetly placed static force-field generators, the surveillance cameras, the guard posts. A guard droid hovered down out of the sky to float beside him as he walked along. Han took the hint and left the area. Some folks still had money, but they were plainly afraid of those who did not.

It was getting on toward the middle of the day asHan's wandering took him toward the business district. He was just on the verge of looking for a place to grab a bite to eat when he heard shouting and chanting coming toward him.

He realized that he had been hearing the sound for a few minutes, growing louder in the distance.

Han looked around, and it suddenly dawned on him that the street was emptying out. People were moving quickly, quietly, off the street as the sound of the march got close.

Han heard the slamming of doors, the rattle of window guards dropping into place. The manager burst out of the store Han was in front of, looked down the street, then reached for a hand crank set into the front wall. He turned the crank and a plasteel shutter started rolling down into place.

Across the street, a woman scooped up her child, turned back, and ran inside. A man ducked into a small tavern just before the manager slammed the door and started rolling down the shutter.

The street was suddenly empty except for Han and the sounds of doors being slammed and locks being set, and the sound of marching feet and harsh singing. The tinkle of glas breaking floated up, followed by heavy laughter.

Han started to run in what he judged was the opposite direction from the shouting, but the sound echoed off the buildings and the vacant streets, making direction hard to judge. He decided to turn at the next comerAnd ran headlong into them, blundering into the front ranks of the march before he could stop himself. But the press of bodies was so tight, and the crowd so boisterous, that for the first few moments at least, he was merely caught up in the crowd, swept along by the tidal wave of bodies.

They were singing at the top of their lungs, so loud it was impossible to understand the words. They wore cheaply made dark brown uniforms of severe cut. Their feet were shod in metal-toed black boots.

They wore black armbands, and on the armbands was the stylized image of a grinning human skull with a dagger clenched in its teach, and the words HUMAN LEAGUE below.

The marchers were all men, and they were making a halfhearted effort to march in rhythm with their song, but they were not well organized-or sober-enough for that.

The smell of cheap liquor was on every man's breath, mingled with the hot odor of sweaty flesh.

Han untangled himself from the front ranks of marchers, and found himself more or less in step with the third or fourth rank. He tried to work himself toward the end of the rank, trying to escape the march-and the marchers.

He had almost made it when a meaty paw wrapped itself around his collar. It yanked him off his feet, and another paw pulled him on the shoulder and spun him around. Han stumbled and recovered and found himself face-to-face with a huge, greasy-looking man with bloodshot eyes, a flabby, grimy face, bad teeth, and worse breath. The man had simply stopped dead in the middle of the street. He let the march flow around him, ignoring the buffeting he was taking as the marchers squeezed past.

He regarded Han closely, then looked up again at the marchers. He reached and grabbed another marcher. "Hey! Flautis!"

"Bamley! Watch out the way you grab me."

"Flautis, get a took at this guy," Bamley said, ignoring his friend's protest.

Flautis was a somewhat smaller and greasier version of Bamley. He looked at Han and his eyes widened in surprise.

"What do ya think of that?" he asked of no one in particular.

Han was used to people recognizing him, even this long after the adventures that had made him famous, but these guys didn't seem to recognize him, exactly. "Ah, fellows, is there a problem?" he asked, shouting in his friendliest voice over the din of the march.

Flautis and Bamley exchanged looks, and then each of them grabbed an arm. They dragged him to the side of the street, shoving the marchers out of the way. They got to the sidewalk and Barnley threw Han up against the side of the wall. "Okay, buddy, what's the game? Who are you?"

"No game. No game," Han said. "I was just walking along and got tangled up in your march by accident. I was trying to get back out when I b.u.mped into you," he said, trying to put the best possible face on things. "Sorry I did that, really. Honest. And thanks for rescuing me, he said.

Bamley grabbed Han by the front of his shirt and pulled Han so close he could feel Barnley's hot breath on his face.

"Your name, buddy. Your name right now."

"Han," he said in as friendly a voice he could manage.

"Han Solo." Barnley looked at Han in greasy astonishment. "Solo?

Yeah, sure," he said. He turned to his companion. "We gotta pull him in."

"Absolutely," Flautis agreed. "We have got to check this out."

"But-wait a second!" Han protested. "I didn't-" But then he felt a blow on the back of his skull, and the universe went black.

"Now then, children. We shall begin at the beginning," Ebrihim said. The three children-Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin-were sitting on one side of the low table in the playroom. Ebrihim was seated on the other side, in the same sort of children's chair as his three charges, and more or less at eye level with them. Q9 stood was next to him, taller than his seated master.

"What beginning?" the boy, Jacen, demanded, a scowl on his face.

His sister Jaina's expression was no less unpleasant, and the little one, Anakin, seemed to be trying to take his cue from his elders. At least he tried to sulk, but somehow it was not a very convincing performance. He seemed to be distracted by Q9.

Ebrihii sighed. It was plain to see that his charges were not very happy to be dragged in from the beach on a beautiful day and plopped down in front of a tutor. "The beginning of your education concerning the Corellian Sector," he said.

He paused long enough for the groans to subside before going on.

"After all," he said, "I can scarcely take you exploring if you don't know where we are going."

"Exploring?" Jaina asked.

That got their interest, as he intended that it would. "Of course," Ebrihim said. "There are five worlds to get a look at. Drall, Selonia, Tralus and Talus, Corellia-and Centerpoint Station, for that matter. I am to be the guide for you and your families as you tour those places."' "Well, all right, then," Jacen said. "Where are we going first?" he asked.

"If we are to learn about the history of this system, I thought it best if you got a look at its past. There is a large archaeological dig not far from the city of Coronet. Your mother has agreed that we should all go and take a look at it tomorrow."

"What kind of archaeology?" Jaina asked.

"The site in question is actually underground. It appears to be some sort of large industrial site from long ago. We still don't know exactly what sort of place it is-but humans and Drall and Selonians were clearly using it for something-and something big-at least two thousand standard years ago, and possibly long before that."

"Wow," said Jacen. "Will we see skeletons?"

Ebrihim nodded. "In all probability," he said. "Quite a number have been excavated."

"Is he like Artoo?" Anakin suddenly demanded, pointing a pudgy finger at Q9-X2.

Q9 rolled back a few centimeters and swiveled his camera eye around to look at Anakin. "I beg your pardon?" he said, clearly a bit startled.

"R2-D2," Jacen explained. "It's the droid our uncle Luke has back home. I think he wants to know if you're the same kind of droid. "I am not," Q9 said, rolling back toward the table. "I will thank you not to make such a suggestion again."

"But you look like Artoo," Anakin insisted. "Kinda.

But he's shorter, and you can talk regular."

"I am a Q9, a highly modified and experimental type based on the R7 version, itself a far more advanced version of the R2 series. I might add that I am highly self-modified above and beyond my initial specifications. I have nothing to do with the R2 series."

"What's wrong with Artoo?" Anakin insisted.

Ebrihim chuckled to himself. "I'm afraid Q9-X2 has a rather low opinion of the R2 series."

"Artoo is a good droid!" Anakin protested.

"That is as may be," said Q9. "But the designers of the R2 made them effectively voiceless and equipped them only with wheels."

"So what?" Jacen demanded.

"The result is that the R2s cannot do their work as well as they should. I find the very idea of an android that cannot do its work properly most upsetting. It is not just your R2 unit, and not just a question of design. Here on Corellia, for example, many, many androids are in a state of disrepair, and no one can afford to repair them. It is a ma.s.sive waste of potential. I find it shocking."