Lowie chuffed and nodded in agreement. "Oh, no! We're doomed!" Em
Teedee wailed.
They ducked under a half-open shipping bay door and entered an
inventory sector where canisters of spin-sealed Tibanna gas stood
behind guard fields. Since Tibanna gas was used for hyperdrive cores
as well as blaster powerpacks, hazardous-material signs marked every
door and each separate shipment.
Still running, they dropped down two more levels. With each new room
or corridor intersection, they hoped to encounter crowds again.
That way they could disappear among other sentient beings and find
protection ... but it appeared as if these hidden levels of Port Town
had been entirely evacuated.
"We are close to the bottom of Cloud City," Tenel Ka said after
climbing down three more ladders. Jacen could see her arm beginning to
shake from the effort. "Perhaps there is an express lift tube that
would return us to the upper levels."
"Not down here," Jacen said. "They try to keep these levels separate
from the tourists and credit-paying customers."
Tenel Ka flicked her red-gold braids away, and he saw a sheen of sweat
on her face. He wondered if it was from exertion or from fear.
He decided it must be from exertion.
All around them the room became too quiet again. The three of them
moved toward a heavy door that led out into the dim passageways of
living quarters. Lowie sniffed. They could hear noises,
conversations, sounds of the city's other inhabitants, and Jacen
guessed these must be the warrens filled with Ugnaught families tucked
into cramped tubes and small dwelling areas.
Tenel Ka drew her lightsaber and switched it on. The turquoise blade
hummed and flickered in the shadowy room. "Still quiet," she said.
"But we are now close to other people."
Jacen, trusting his friend's instincts, removed his own lightsaber.
Lowie did the same. But before they could switch on their weapons, a
side door whisked open and three of the deadly hunters charged out,
bellowing and opening fire without even taking aim.
Tenel Ka deflected one of the blaster bolts with her blade. The shot
left a smoking hole in the metal wall mere centimeters from the head of
the man who had fired it. More blaster fire erupted, ricocheting off
walls and blasting equipment into ruined shreds.
Jacen ducked to avoid the blizzard of powerful shots. "I don't think
this is a good place either," he panted. They backed up.
Lowie grabbed Tenel Ka and Jacen, hauling them after him as he charged
back through the door, sprinted toward another access shaft, and jumped
down to a final level. Tenel Ka held her glowin- lightsaber far away
from her friends as they all scrambled backward onto a metal grid floor
covered with strange circular markings, ribs, and hatches that led to
other shafts. The corridor glowpanels pulsed, too bright and harsh for
Jacen's eyes to adjust quickly. Twirling alarm signals overhead warned
them of some impending hazard, but gave no indication as to what it
might be.
Jacen looked around, his tangled hair damp with sweat. His lungs
burned from the long run. "Do you think we've gotten away from them?"
he said.
"Too easy," Tenel Ka answered with an emphatic shake of her head. Her
lightsaber still hummed and vibrated in her hand.
Up ahead they spotted a ladder that would lead to a higher level.
"We must climb again," Tenel Ka said. She switched off her lightsaber
and clipped it back to her belt so she could use her single hand for
climbing.
"It's a long way back up," Jacen gasped. He struggled to force air
back into his lungs, then sighed. "So I guess we'd better get
started."
But as they rushed toward the beckoning escape ladder, a trio of their
pursuers scrambled out of another side shaft and came to a halt,
leering at the three young Jedi clustered together. A scaly-skinned,
his heavy blaster rifle. Beside them the little Ugnaught panted.
Raising a gnarled, furry hand, the creature chittered and squealed in
triumph.
Em Teedee said, "Oh no! He says he's going to-" The Ugnaught slapped a
button set into the wall, and suddenly the floor dropped out from under
Jacen's feet. He, Tenel Ka, and the gingerfurred Wookiee all tumbled
down into a bottomless shaft. They fell and rolled, slamming against
the walls with bruising force-nothing at all like their enjoyable
experience in the vortex tunnel at the SkyCenter Galleria.
Dropping first, Lowie bounced and jolted down the curves of the steep
tube, with Tenel Ka close behind. In the rear, Jacen tried to grab
Tenel Ka's leg or foot, anything to slow them down, but the shaft walls
were far too slick, and gravity did its work. They picked up speed.
Twenty meters below them, a wide hatch opened up, a round circle that
let in a breeze and raw daylight. Jacen realized with horror that this
was a garbage chute or an exhaust tube-something that led out into
Bespin's open sky.
With a yowl of dismay, Lowbacca shot down through the hatch, falling,
tumbling, dropping into empty space.
He reached out with his long Wookiee arms and managed to grab on to a
dangling transmission antenna. With a sudden severe jerk, he hung
still, holding on with his powerful grip, his legs dangling over the
sea of infinite clouds.
He roared and extended his other arm as Tenel Ka dropped beside him.
With lightning reflexes he snatched at her. Just in time the warrior
girl reacted, flailed backward with her single arm-and grasped his
powerful furred grip like a Karduran acrobat.
A split second later, Jacen came tumbling down, yelling at the top of
his lungs, flailing his arms and legs, trying to grab on to
something.
Lowie hung in the notch of the antenna with one arm and grasped the
dangling Tenel Ka with the other. He roared, but he had no free arm.
Tenel Ka had only one hand, and that was grasped tightly in
Lowbacca's.
Thinking fast, she swung her body, arched her back, and reached out
with her legs.
Jacen managed to grab her calf but then slid down, clutching at her
lizard-hide boot for just a moment. His sweat-slick fingers gripped
her ankle; then slipped....
"Jacen!" Tenel Ka cried.
Jacen looked up at her for one last fleeting instant as she tried to
reach out to him. Lowie yowled in despair.
Jacen's fingers slid from Tenel Ka's boot, and he dropped....
Dropped far away from Cloud City. . . plummeting into the bottomless
sea of sky, where he vanished like a speck of dust.
Surrounded by the bayou sounds of hoots and hums and squawks that
seeped from the dense marsh through the ragged walls of the shack,
Jaina sat back to listen to the band's tale.
The fame of Figrin D'an and his crew had risen and fallen over the
years, and "Fiery Figrin" himself never understood what they were doing
right or wrong. All through old Imperial days, the time
of Rebellion,
and then the formation of the New Republic, the Modal Nodes had played
their own music, sometimes to great fanfare, sometimes to few-if
any-appreciative ears.
But they played and they traveled. That's what the Bith &d. They were
members in good standing of the Intergalactic Musicians' Guild and
generally made a good living, although Figrin had a long-standing
tradition of losing their earnings at the sabace table. He never could
resist a good high-stakes game, and more than once had lost his own
instruments and those of his fellow band members, only to win them back
again in his next all-too-brief streak of luck.
For a time they had been Jabba the Hutt's favorite band. Then they had
reluctantly agreed to play at the disastrous wedding of the Lady
Valarian in Mos Eisley, at which point they had been stuck performing
as a mere bar band in the cantina, lucky to emerge with their lives.
Since then, they had moved on from planet to planet, playing in any
paying venue, from prestigious resorts to drained-dry fanning
communities. They had gone to Borgo Prime, where they'd been the hit
of Shanko's Hive for five months running before a bad gambling debt had
forced Figrin and his band members to leave discreetly in the night on
the first cargo ship they could stow away on.
They'd also done a stint in the floating casinos on Mon Calamari, but
the gambling tables proved too tempting for Figrin, and his own
musicians had finally dragged him away and taken a booking on Cloud
City. Lando's business partner, Cojahn, had promised them that their
new gig to publicize SkyCenter Galleria would be a renaissance for
them, a real comeback tour.
Now, though, that had fallen to pieces as well.
"But that doesn't explain it, Figrin," Lando said. "Cojahn was my
friend. You've got to tell me what really went down."
Behind him, the band members continued their accompaniment on the
Fizzz, the fanfar, and the ommni box. The eerie music added depth to
the story, making Figrin's words richer, more ominous.
"It's all about Black Sun," Figrin said. "They've gone underground for
many years, but they've got a cover story now. Black Sun lieutenants
act respectable, but when nobody's looking, they set up their old
criminal connections, just like Prince Xizor used to do, and Durga the
Hutt, and all the other deposed kingpins. Black Sun has its clutches
on weapons runners, illegal spice trade, and now the gambling and
entertainment industries."
Figrin swiped a hand across his high, smooth cranium, knocking away
tiny droplets of sweat that had collected there. "That's why they were
trying to get their toehold on Cloud City-especially your new
establishment, Lando. Black Sun wanted a cut of SkyCenter
Galleria....
In fact, they wanted to run the place. In absentia, of course."
Lando just shook his head. "Cojahn would never have allowed that to
happen to our entertainment center-which is a perfectly legitimate
place, I might add. A real family amusement center with no shady
dealings whatsoever, despite what you may have heard about me in the
past."
"Believe me, Lando, compared to Black Sun, you're just an Ewok that got
happy on juri juice."
"Thanks ... I think," Lando said.
"But you're right," Figrin said. "Cojahn wasn't easily pushed
around."
The musicians kept playing from the corners of the hut as if they had
practiced this number over and over again and knew exactly what to
do.
Jaina wondered if they had considered writing a song about their ordeal
on Bespin. Maybe it would even be a hit.
Zekk nodded and rested his chin in his hands. "If you're running a
business like Cojahn was, you'd have to be ready to stand up to
hoodlums and all sorts of people trying to push you around."
"Yeah, you get that a lot," Lando said. "But most of them are cowards
anyway."
"Cojahn did his best, man, but Black Sun infiltrators popped up
everywhere. You never knew who they were, or when they might come
after you in a dark corridor down in Port Town. Got so you had to have
a Wing Guard escort to take you to the gambling tables and back
again.
Those bullies could stick your head in a carbon-freezing tube, or drop
you out an exhaust shaft. They meant business."
Lando nodded grimly. "But Cojahn didn't give in to them?"
"He should have," Figrin said. "He reported Black Sun's threats to a
couple high-level Exex on Cloud City, but they lost the complaint or it
was misfiled. He tried again, but nothing was ever done. Finally,
Cojahn fired his Ugnaught crew boss when he figured out the guy was in
thick with Black Sun."
Figrin shook his domed head. "Not long after that, Cojahn took his
little dive off a high balcony. Man, that guy's probably still
falling."
One of the musicians made a high, thin, squawking note on his
instrument. "You know, there's no end to the clouds on Bespin."
"So why'd you run, Figrin?" Lando asked. "Were they after you,
too?"
"Black Sun's trying to get its hands into the Intergalactic Musicians'
Guild. They wanted us to pay triple membership dues just so they could
take their cut-and man, Cojahn hadn't paid us much. We'd only done a
few gigs for him. I mean, SkyCenter Galleria isn't even open yet! We
got a few tips when we played the bars in the Yerith Bespin, but not
enough for that kind of extortion." He shook his huge smooth head. "I
hate gangsters that don't have budget payment plans!"
He continued. "Once Cojahn died, we knew Black Sun would tighten its
hold on us, apply more pressure. One time they put stinger eels inside
the mouthpieces of all our instruments."
Zekk made a grimace of distaste.
"Oh, we caught the critters soon enough. Fed 'em to one of the bar's
customers, and even got a big tip-but we didn't dare stick around Cloud
City. Too dangerous there."
"Yeah," Zekk said, rolling his eyes. "You needed to come back to a
nice safe, pleasant place like this war-ravaged wasteland of Clak'dor
"Hey, home is home," Figrin said with a shrug.
Jaina felt sickened. "So Cojahn stood up for his morals and ethics
...
and paid for it with his life."
"That about sums it up, young lady," Figrin agreed.
"At least now we know what happened," Zekk said. Sweat stained his
clothing beneath the transparalon suit.
Lando stared grimly across the dim hut, gazing through the proppedopen
window. "Yeah, but we don't know who killed him or who ordered his
death." He swallowed hard. "And believe me, someone's going to pay
for my friend's death. Someone in Black Sun will have to answer for
it."
"Guess it's time to get back to Cloud City, then," Jaina said.
Perspiration trickled down her neck and her back.
The band members stood up, bustled around the hut, and propped the rest
of the windows, letting a heavy sluggish breeze drift in. The hazy
light on Clak'dor VII grew richer in color
as the sun set toward the
swamp trees in the west. Outside they could hear the burning sounds of
millions of insects stirring in the twilight.
"At least sit outside with us for a few minutes before you go," Figrin
said. "This is our nightly jam session. It'd be, nice to have people
listening for a change."
The band members dropped through trapdoors to emerge outside the
stilted hut. They tuned up on ramshackle stoops, ladders, and
balconies, tossing off riffs and snatches of melody.
Outside, sitting on a rock, a violet puffer turtle swelled its
bladders, straining the limits of its shell's flexibility, and then
exhaled on a low bassoon note. Heavy beetles crawled up trees and
clicked their rear legs together in a rattling rhythm.
"It's the music of the swamp," Figrin said. "The symphony of Clak'dor
VII. The Bith evolved with music like this! Since my people hide
under their domes all the time, they don't get to hear the natural
music. Come on, join in." He picked up his battered old long-reed
jazz, thrust it into his mouth folds, and began to play.
The other band members added their own inspirations and embellishments,
joining in with the mood synthesizer and humming clak beepbox. As they
slid into tune with the natural sounds and music, a hoot-bat flapped