"You can't land us in a whiteout," said Josala. "If you set us down on
the edge of one of those ice boulders, we'll flip over before the strut
levelers can do anything."
"Ninety-five."
"I'll just hover at ten meters until the thrusters blow the site clear
of loose material," Stopa said confidently, "If I can't get definition
on the findercarriage holo, I won't try to land. All right?"
"All right," Josala said with a sigh.
"Sixty," the pilot said. "Ease off, or you're going to overrun the
site."
Stopa tapped the air brakes lightly and pulled back on the control
handle slightly. As the rover settled toward the glacier, it was once
again engulfed in a billow of jet-driven snow. But before long, the
swirling cloud began to thin, and the horizon returned.
"Twenty-five."
Josala peered forward. "I can't judge distances without a referent.
That big slab of ice--" He patted her arm. "It's bigger and farther
away than you think."
"Ten. Eight. Five. Easy--" "Take me to plus-sixteen. I want to put
the rover's tail right down on top of it."
"It's under you now. Plus-six. Plus-nine. Plus-fourteen--" Stopa
pushed the control handle sharply down, and the rover dropped hard and
shook from the impact, nose tilted down and sliding sideways. It came
to a stop with another small jolt, then slowly came to level.
"There," he said, switching quickly among the un-dercarriage scanners
and studying the display.
Those closest to the thrusters were frozen over with steam ice, but the
forward and aft scanners were clear.
The front landing strut seemed to be wedged in a small crevasse, though
no damage was evident. Aft, the body of the rover was sitting
comfortably above the ice.
"That wasn't half bad," he said with a grin, setting the systems to
STANDBY.
"Let's just get it done," Josala said crossly.
One behind the other, they made their way through the crawlspace over
the orbital engine compartment to the crowded gear bay. There they
helped each other into their improvised snow gear--the ferret's sole
emergency spacesuit for her, a standard digger's isolation suit for
him, augmented by the ferret pilot's spacesuit glove liners.
Neither of them was prepared for the blinding dazzle of the glacier
when the gear bay doors swung open.
The sky was clear, and the blue-white sun lit the landscape with cold
crystal fire as hard to look at as the sun itself. Josala's viewplate
adjusted for it, but Stopa had to avert his eyes and squint to keep
from being overwhelmed.
"Spectacular!" Stopa exulted.
"Sightsee when we're finished," Josala chided.
Everything took longer than it should have. The core drill base didn't
want to latch in the working position, giving Josala reason to worry
about whether the bay doors would seal properly when it was time to
leave.
The gloves made them both clumsy and turned the routine assembly of the
first sections of the coring tube into a test. Josala's sounding for
the body beneath them was marred by crazy echoes. The drill's gimbal
mount froze up until the drill was turned on, complicating the
alignment on Josala's sounding.
But at last the coring bit chewed its way into the surface of the
glacier and headed down into its depths.
"Seven sections!" Stopa shouted over the rumble of the drill. "At
this angle, we'll need seven sections."
Josala waved her hand in acknowledgment and turned away to pull the
next section from the rack. It danced under her touch, and she drew
her hand back.
She pressed her gauntlet against the wall of the bay and felt it
shivering. It was then that she realized that what she had thought was
her own body shivering was the deck of the rover vibrating under her
feet. The drill was roaring now, as though its bearing rings had
disintegrated, its lubricants turned to grit.
"Turn it off!" she cried, pulling her way along to where Stopa was
leaning out the back of the bay, looking down at the core drive and
measuring the drill's progress. "Turn it off!" He looked up at her
dumbly, and she reached behind him for the controls.
The core cylinder spun to a stop, but neither the vibration nor the
noise ceased. Just the opposite, in fact--the rumble was growing
louder and the shaking growing worse.
With a desperate fear already in their eyes, they looked out from the
gear bay at the mountain ridge behind them, the ridge they had flown
over just minutes before, the ridge that had been like cotton bathed in
sunlight. The middle of the ridge was now hidden behind an onrushing
wall of snow and ice, spreading and climbing the sky as it hurtled
closer.
There was no chance to escape into that sky. The avalanche was on them
before they could even quite remember the word. It tumbled the rover
before it like a toy, packing its every crevice with snow, engulfing
the ship in the furious turbulence of the icy maelstrom.
When the flow finally slowed and ceased, its leading edge reaching
nearly halfway across the valley, there were two more bodies buried on
the ice for Penga Rift to recover.
"The first thing we need is a way to find this spot again, and this
passage is notably lacking in landmarks," said Lando. Using the
cutting blaster, he sliced a small triangle off one corner of the
equipment grid. "Where was our doorway? Here?"
"Lower," said Lobot. "There."
"I'm glad you're sure," said Lando. "I'm all turned around." He cut a
slit in the bulkhead, inserted one edge of the triangle, and held it
there until the bulkhead closed around it. Then he placed one palm
flat against the bulkhead and tried to tug the metal grid out of the
wall. "That should do it."
Lobot drifted up with a short length of cord in one hand. "We might
want more than one marker before we're done," he said, looping the cord
through one of the diamond-shaped openings and tying the ends together
with an overhand knot. "One knot equals the first marker. We'll put
two knots on the next one."
"Okay," said Lando, turning away from the wall.
"There's one thing I overlooked when we took inventory.
I burned about sixty percent of my thruster propellant trying to get up
here."
"I have ninety-one percent remaining," said Lobot.
"Unfortunately, there is no way for me to share my supply with you."
"You might end up sharing it by carrying me around on your back," Lando
said. "Threepio, how are you doing for thrust mass?"
Artoo burbled, and Threepio offered the translation.
"Artoo says that his propellant supply is adequate, but he would like
to be informed when any of us locates a power coupling."
"With any luck, it'll be right next to an oxygen valve," Lando said
grimly. "All right--we are in a survival situation. This ship has now
jumped twice, and we have to assume that it lost any pursuit that was
mounted with that second jump. That means our first priority is to
locate and disable th
e hyperdrive, and stop this ship."
"But Master Lando, if we disable the hyperdrive, we would be stranded,"
Threepio protested.
"We don't know how long the vagabond stays in hyperspace--weeks,
months, years. The galaxy is one hundred twenty thousand light-years
across. I like our chances better stranded."
"Master Lando, would it not be more prudent to find the masters of this
vessel and petition them to take us back to Coruscant?"
"Threepio, I think we're the masters of this vessel now," Lando said.
"We have to be, if we're going to survive." He ticked off the
priorities on his fingers.
"First, we find some way to stop this ship. Second, we find out where
that leaves us. Third, we find out who our nearest friend is. Fourth,
we find some way to signal them. If we get that all done before Lobot
about who built the vagabond, and why."
"We may need to engage those questions in order to achieve those
objectives," said Lobot.
"Maybe," said Lando. "But in my experience, you really don't need to
know much about a precision machine in order to smash it." He pointed
a finger to the left, then to the right. "What's your best
guess--hyper-drive aft, or forward?"
"Center of mass is the most efficient placement," Lobot said.
"Forward."
Lando nodded. "Then let's get going."
Colonel Pakkpekatt hovered near the communications station as the
cruiser Glorious dropped out of hy perspace. The chase armada was
strung out along forty light-years, and Glorious was the second bead on
the string. "Give them to me as fast as they come," he said to the
tech at the station.
"Yes, sir. I'm seeing six dispatches--an emergency action directive
from the Fleet Office, copied to Captain Garch. A blue letter from the
NRI, copied to Captain Hammax. A dispatch marked 'Urgent' from the
Obroan Institute. Reports from Lightning, Pran, and Nagwa."
"The three ships behind us," said Pakkpekatt. "Very well. Make the
dispatches available at my station."
Crossing the bridge with long, light-footed strides, Pakkpekatt eased
himself into his flak couch and brought up the secure display. Neither
his face nor his carriage betrayed any emotion as he read through the
dispatches one after another. When he was finished, he tipped the
screen away and let out a long hiss.
"Major Legorburu."
Ixidro Legorburu, the M'haeli intelligence officer who was serving as
Pakkpekatt's tactical aide, hurried to his station in response to the
summons. "Colonel."
"We have just received a Fleet-wide level one alert," Pakkpekatt said,
tipping his display upward so that the major could read the emergency
action directive. "My request for additional ships for the search has
been denied.
I am under orders to release Marauder, Pran, and Nagwa from their
duties here so that they may return to their respective commands at
best possible speed."
"That's nearly half our remaining strength, sir," Legorburu said,
shaking his head. "What do they expect us to do?"
"Fail, apparently," Pakkpekatt said curtly. "I have also been placed
on notice that Glorious may be recalled as well. We are to remain on
one-hour alert status, which means no jumps greater than one half
light-year."
"At least that allows us to proceed with the search," said Legorburu.
"But we should call Kettemoor forward to fill the gap in the line when
Marauder pulls out. She should be finished with recovery work by now,
anyway."
"Kettemoor has already jumped to Nichen with the dead and injured from
the Kauri," said Pakkpekatt. "We will not have her back for another
day at least--if they allow her to rejoin us at all."
Legorburu peered intently at the display. "I don't get it, Colonel.
Why the sudden change of priorities?
What's happening back there? It must be something big if they can't
spare a thirty-year-old gunship and a couple of interdiction
pickets."
"That information was not made available to me," said Pakkpekatt. His
mouth curled in an unhappy threat-snarl.
"Maybe I can get something out-of-channel," said Legorburu. "Would you
like me to try?"
Pakkpekatt nodded. " Please do," he said. "I would like to have a
better idea just who I must wrestle to keep this mission alive."
CChapter 3
The procession through the passageway of the Teljkon vagabond was led
by Lando Calrissian, combat blaster in hand. Following close behind
was Artoo, towing the equipment grid protectively behind him. Last in
like a child perched on the back of his father.
"This is my fault," Lando said, peering over his shoulder at them. "I
should have gone ahead and gotten a thrust belt for Threepio, maybe
even a complete thrust harness and powerpack. Consumable refills for
the contact suits, too."
"We have them--had them--on Lady Luck," said Lobot. "Everything could
not fit on one sled."
"I'd trade most everything on that grid for a couple of refill packs.
I never thought we'd be in zero-G as long as it looks like we will
be."
Forever, maybe, Lando thought grimly.
"It is an interesting design choice," Lobot said.
"The Qella appear to have done everything they could to make it hard
for us to move about in here. There is no artificial gravity, no
spin.
The bulkheads are nonmag netic and have no friction tracks, handholds,
or zip lines."
"What's so interesting about that?"
"The Qella were planet-dwellers," Lobot said, surprised by the
question. "How did they expect to get around in this ship?"
Lando grunted. "Maybe the Qella are giant slugs as wide as this
tunnel."
"Perhaps," said Lobot. "But even giant slugs are probably more
comfortable in a gravity field. I can't help thinking that somewhere
in this vessel there must be a switch that would make all of this much
easier."
The passage seemed to have no end. It curved away in front of Lando
like an ever-receding horizon, teasing him with a promise it never
fulfilled. "How long has it been now?"
"Artoo's event recorders say we entered the vagabond three hours, eight
minutes ago. We left our entry point forty-seven minutes ago," Lobot
answered.
"Seems even longer than that," said Lando. "Am I the only one who's
noticed? Shouldn't we have run out of ship by now?"
"Obviously we haven't."
"Nothing's obvious here," Lando said. "We're cruising at a meter per
second, minus overhead for a couple of stops. Forty-five minutes is
twenty-seven hundred seconds. And this ship is only fifteen hundred
meters long. We should be a kilometer out in front of the bow by
now."
"The conduits we saw on the surface of the vagabond wind around it in
complex patterns," Lobot said.
"If we are inside one of those, as I believe we are
, that could account
for the length of this passage."
"No, it couldn't, because we're still heading forward.
Aren't we? If this passage had turned back, we'd have noticed."
"Would we?" asked Lobot. "Without landmarks and referents, I find it
difficult to be sure."
"You're right about that. No matter how I try, I can't keep a picture
of this place in my head," Lando complained, turning to face the
others. "Artoo, let me see your map again."
Artoo's holoprojector flickered into life. The map superimposed the
data from Artoo's inertial movement sensors over the scans of the
vagabond performed by Pakkpekatt's technicians, showing their path
through it as a bright red line. The line wiggled back and forth like
a low-frequency sine wave across the hull of the ship and extended out
beyond it.
"See?" Lando said. "We are out in front of the ship."
"Artoo, are your gyros operating normally?" Lobot asked.
The droid's affirmation was indignant.
"Then how do you explain this data?"
Artoo chirped a curt reply. "The ship is longer now?" Threepio