putting its gears and lenses back together; it no
longer worked quite properly, though, and his vision winked
out from time to time.
Doole paced the cold stone floor of his
cell. Everything had fallen apart. The planet
Kessel had been abandoned, leaving only smoking
rubble on the surface and destroyed hulks of
ships strewn across the system all the way to the
black hole cluster. Doole couldn't even get
a ship of his own to escape. He didn't want
to stay here — but what choice did he have?
Even the blind larvae — the large — eyed creatures
whom Doole had locked inside pitch — black
rooms to process the mind — enhancing
spice, glitterstim — were growing restless. He
had cared for them, given them food (a meager
amount, to keep their growth down, but enough for
survival), but now they had begun to struggle.
Doole snorted, making a squeaking sound with his
bloated lips. The larvae were his own ungrateful
children, immature Rybets who had not yet undergone
their final metamorphosis. Blind and wormlike,
almost as large as Doole himself, the larvae were
perfect workers to wrap the spice fibers in
opaque sheaths, since even brief exposure
to light would spoil the product. His children could work
in the blackness, and be happy. And what sort of
gratitude did they show him?
A few larvae had gotten loose, fleeing
blindly through the winding prison passages, hiding in
shadowy cells, waiting in darkened wings to ambush
Doole if he came looking for them. But he was
not going to look. He had more important things
to do.
To make things worse, one of the largest male
larvae had freed all of Doole's specially
picked females! The females had fled into the
labyrinth of the prison, so that during this time of
greatest terror, Doole couldn't even relieve
his tension with an occasional visit to the harem.
He had no choice but to remain locked inside
his office cell, pace the floor, and be
alternately bored out of his mind and scared out of his
wits. When he did make his way to the
storerooms, he emerged heavily armed, waddled
quickly down the corridors, and came back with as
much food as he could carry.
He had an escape tunnel, of course.
He had blasted a channel into the spice mines
directly under the prison. Doole could lose
himself for a long time in that network, but he still couldn't
get off — planet. And lately the tunnels had
become a far more dangerous place.
After Daala's attack most of the spice
miners had fled. Without guards and construction and
loud machinery, the spiders had surged upward
to lay down their glitterstim webs along the
walls. Looking with specially adapted kinetic
energy detectors, Doole had spotted swarms
of the monsters in the deepest shafts, migrating
closer to the surface.
In despair Doole sat on his bunk and
smelled the dank air of the dungeon. At
another time he might have found it comforting and
cool, but now he just rested his sucker — tipped
fingers against damp jowls and stared at the
monitors.
He was astonished to see a ship land outside.
And even though all humans generally looked
alike to him, Doole was certain he recognized
one of the three intruders pummeling his armored
door: Han Solo, the man he hated most in
the entire universe, the man who had caused all
this misery!
At the ominous prison gates Han watched
as Ghent the slicer worked diligently on the
problem. He jacked in all manner of
equipment, components stolen out of other systems,
barely functional combinations that somehow found
loopholes around defense systems.
Ghent raised a triumphant fist into the
grainy sunlight. The reinforced latticework of the
defensive portcullis rode up on invisible
tracks. With a hollow clunking sound the shipping and
receiving gates split apart, squealing and creaking as
they lumbered into the thick walls. A gust of
higher — pressure air bled out of the prison.
The four large smugglers shouldered their weapons
The two Mistryl guards took the lead, sliding
along the walls. The burly Whiphid and scaly
Trandoshan strode brashly down the middle of the
hall.
No attack came from the dark passageway.
"Let's go find Moruth Doole," Han said.
None of his options looked good, but Doole had
to make choices. He had watched Han Solo
and his group of commandos force their way in — and
Kessel was supposed to be the toughest prison in
the galaxy. Hah!
Doole didn't know how to use the built — in
defense systems, the external laser cannons,
the disintegrator fields. He was helpless without
his right — hand man, Skynxnex, but the scarecrowish
fool had gotten himself killed chasing Solo through
the spice tunnels, devoured by one of those energy
spiders.
As a desperate measure Doole had come to the
conclusion that he must trust his own children, the blind
larvae he kept in blackness since the moment they
writhed out of the gelatinous egg mass in the harem
wing's breeding pools.
Doole rushed down the corridors, gathering
weapons from the prison's armory. He carried
two satchels of blaster pistols over his shoulder
as he opened the protective vaults. Suddenly
exposed to the light, the larvae reared back like
caterpillars, blind eyes bulging as they
attempted to sense the identity of the intruder.
"It's only me, only me," Doole said.
Bright light stabbed at them, illuminating their
pale skin. Damp vestigial hands reached up,
small fingers and arms short and weak, not
completely formed. Wormlike tendrils quivered
below their mouths as the larvae made soft burbling
noises.
Doole herded the oldest and strongest of the
larvae along ramps to the lower levels. He would
station them as guardians inside his cell. Being
blind, they probably couldn't hit anything with the
blasters, but he hoped they would at least fire with
enthusiasm once he gave them the orders.
Given enough cross fire, Doole could hide behind
a blast — proof screen and hope the firefight would
kill Solo's team.
As Doole ushered them toward his cell, he
smelled the musky wetness of their fear and
uncertainty. The immature Rybets did not like
change, preferring a rigid daily routine
until eventually they molted and became adults,
gaining intelligence and self — awareness.
Distracted by trying to think of what other
defenses he might bring to bear, he was startl
ed
by a high — pitched scream echoing from three of the
nearby chambers. Several of the freed female
Rybets sprang out, wailing and throwing sharp
objects at them.
Doole ducked as broken shards of
transparisteel, sharpened knives, and heavy
paperweights flew at him. Doole tried
to grab a blaster from one of the two satchels on his
back, but a drinking mug struck him on the soft
side of his head. He dropped one of the satchels
and ran wildly down the corridor, waving his
sucker — tipped hands.
Most of the larvae followed him, but a few
split off to stay with their mothers. Doole ran,
wanting only to get back to the safety of his
cell. Finally slamming the thick door behind him,
he emptied his remaining satchel and placed
fully charged blasters in the hands of six
potential defenders.
"Just point it toward whatever noise you hear,"
he said. "When they break in, it's up to you
to shoot. This is the firing button."
The smooth — skinned creatures shivered and ran
their sensitive mouth tendrils over the barrels
of the weapons.
"You point it, and it makes a blast."
Doole repositioned the pistols in their
vestigial hands, pointing them toward the door.
Without warning the vision in his mechanical eye
flickered again, and Doole couldn't see a thing.
He moaned in terror. The escape tunnel was
sounding better and better.
Han Solo hurried down the prison
corridors. The entire place was full of
cold shadows, echoing with emptiness.
Over the comm link Mara Jade said, "We've
found him, Solo. He's barricaded in one of the
dungeons. We tapped into the surveillance
cameras. He's got some creatures standing with
him, and they appear to be armed."
"On my way," Han said.
When he reached the lower corridors, Han
saw heavy barricades thrown in place across a
sealed door. Mara watched the operation as the two
female Mistryl guards placed concussion
detonators around the door seal.
Lando paced nervously. "Don't do any more
damage than you have to," he said. "I've got
enough repairs to make here on Kessel as it is."
The two women ignored him as they sprinted out
of the way. They ducked their heads and covered their
ears as a rapid thud thud thud echoed from the
concussion detonators.
They heard a volley of sudden blaster fire
from inside the sealed chamber, a high — pitched
shriek of energetic beams striking and ricocheting
off the walls.
"No, no! Not yet!" came a howling voice
that Han recognized as Moruth Doole's.
With a final thump the last concussion
detonator blew the bottom off the door. The
hairy Whiphid rushed forward to elbow the heavy
plates aside.
"Look out," Mara called.
The Whiphid ducked and rolled as the soft
larvae flailed, pointing their blasters and firing in
every direction. Their huge glassy eyes
spun around without seeing anything.
"Get them!" Doole yelled. The larvae
whirled at the sound of his voice and fired their
blasters toward Doole himself. But he had already
ducked behind a thick piece of wall plating.
"Not at me!"
Hissing, the reptilian Trandoshan shot
inside, cutting down two of the blind larvae. He
lumbered into the chamber, but before the other smugglers
could rush in, another explosion came from the
ceiling. Han, Mara, and the Mistryl guards
used the distraction to muscle their way forward,
ducking down and firing again. Han took out another
of the larvae just as the ceiling collapsed in flaming
chunks.
Wailing for revenge, swarms of female
Rybets dropped through the ceiling into Doole's
private cell. Each bore a blaster of her
own and fired repeatedly at the metal shield
Doole hid behind until its center glowed a
cherry — red.
The blind larvae targeted on the new noise — but
then as if suddenly they understood, as if they could
communicate with their own mothers, the larvae turned and
directed their fire toward Doole as well.
"Stop, stop!" Doole cried.
Han crept in beside Lando, not wanting to draw
fire in the midst of this civil war. Doole
yelped and dropped the superheated protective
shield. His mechanical eye popped off and
broke into a thousand bouncing and rattling components
on the floor. His long squishy fingers punched a
hidden control button, and a trapdoor opened beneath
him. With a mindless squeal Doole leaped through an
access hatch into an escape tunnel, down into the
cold black mines.
"Hurry, before he gets away!" Lando said.
"I don't want him running around in my spice
mines."
The surviving larvae flowed forward as if they
wanted to plunge into the tunnels after Moruth
Doole, either to follow him or to chase him. But the
amphibious females grasped the larvae and
held them back with gentle cooing sounds. Their
wide eyes looked on the invading smugglers with
apprehension.
Han rushed toward the trapdoor and dropped
to his knees, pushing his face into the darkness. He
heard Doole's splatting footsteps diminishing
as he ran on webbed feet deeper into the
catacombs.
The larvae shot several blaster bolts into the
passages after him. Long spears of heat bounced
along the tunnel walls, knocking boulders
loose. The light sparked a scintillating glare
of activated glitterstim.
Then Han heard a new sound that turned his
blood cold. A faint but chilling noise,
hundreds of sharp legs like ice picks
scrambling down the tunnel. Han could still hear
Doole's footsteps getting fainter and fainter
as he fled. Han heard the tik tik tik of
multilegged creatures, attracted by the heat of a
living body ... and Doole's gasping, ragged
breath as the Rybet searched blindly for a way out.
Han heard many more sets of pointed legs
scrabbling, like a stampede from converging tunnels as
the energy spiders found nourishment after the long
silence in the spice mines. Han's skin
crawled.
At the tail end of a high — pitched and
gut — wrenching scream, Doole's footsteps
suddenly stopped. The scream cut off
abruptly, as did the sound of running ice — pick
feet. The instant silence seemed even more
horrible than the scream, and Han quickly pulled
up the trapdoor and secured it before the energy
spiders could seek other prey.
He sat back, heart pounding. The smugglers
looked grimly satisfied at the battle they
had won. The Whiphid leaned against a wall with
arms crossed. "A good hunt," he growled.
The Trandoshan glanced from side to side, as if
seeking something to eat.
The female Rybets hauled away the blasted
larvae, tending the injured, mourning over the dead.
Han sighed as Lando sank down next to him.
"Well, Lando," he said, "now you can start
remodeling."
Han, Lando, and Mara rode back up to the
garrison moon in the Falcon. Mara and Lando
spoke more easily to each other, now that Lando
wasn't pushing so hard to get the slightest word or
smile from her. Mara had even stopped avoiding
Lando's gaze or raising her chin whenever he
spoke. She spent most of her time reassuring
him that the Lady Luck would be just fine behind the
security fields of the reoccupied prison.
Lando didn't seem to believe her
entirely, but he did not want to disagree with
Mara Jade.
"We've got a lot of paperwork to do," Mara
said. "I have all the standard contracts and
agreements up at the moonbase. We can take
care of the formalities between us, but there are still a lot
of forms to digitize and sign, a lot of
records to cross — reference."
"Whatever you say," Lando said. "I want this
to be a long and happy partnership. You and I need
to figure out how we can best implement production
on Kessel. It's in the best interests of both
of us to get the glitterstim flowing soon,
especially since I'm going to have to sink so much of
an investment into the mining work again."
Han listened to them talk but devoted most of his
thoughts to his family. "I just want to go home.
No more side trips."
The Falcon sped away from the wispy
corona of escaping air toward the large moon.
Once leaving the turbulent atmosphere of
Kessel, they coasted smoothly in the vacuum of
space as if on glass.
Suddenly an alert flashed on their
communications panel from the moonbase. "Warning!
We've detected a large vessel approaching
Kessel — and I mean large."
Han reacted instantly. "Lando, check the
scanners."
Lando stared at the copilot station and sat up
quickly, his eyes as big as viewports. "Not just
large," he said.
Han could see the globe — shaped object through the
viewport. Spherical, but skeletal,
crossbraced and arched with giant girders. The
size of a miniature moon.
"It's the Death Star."