Honor Among Thieves

“Are you sure we’re in the right approach?” Han asked. “Because I’m not seeing anything.”

Chewbacca bared his teeth and howled.

“I know I’m the pilot,” Han said. “But you’re the one who—”

“There,” Scarlet said, leaning over Han’s shoulder to point at an off-colored smear on a cliff face. The gray of metal, with a blocky shape at one side. Laser cannons. The first line of defense of Talastin City, if he didn’t count the birds, the wind, or the stone. They sped past it, the fortification swiveling its weapons to track them. The radio squawked to life.

“Hey, unidentified freighter. We expecting you?”

“No,” Han said. “We didn’t have time to file a flight plan.”

“That’s gonna be rough, then.”

“We’re here with the … ah … Alderaan refugee relief cooperative,” Han said. “Part of the delegation.”

“Oh, hey. You Rebel Alliance? I can respect that, but it doesn’t mean we got anywhere to put you.”

Chewbacca whined as the valley narrowed, mountain ranges on either side coming perceptibly closer.

“Think you could check on that for us?” Han asked into the radio. “Because if I need to pull up out of here, I should probably do it soon.”

“Sure. Hold on.”

Along the cliff face to their left, a massive snakelike creature longer than the Falcon clung to the stone, its sides glistening with golden scales. Han tapped the console impatiently. Chewbacca grunted, slowing the airspeed. The snake-thing turned placid black eyes toward them and opened its gigantic mouth.

“How’s our fuel?” Han asked.

Chewbacca yowled an answer.

“That’s too bad.”

“Well,” Scarlet said, “you can tell it’s not the Empire.”

“Yeah,” Han agreed. “I’ll take inefficiency and corruption over wellregulated malice every time.”

A guidance signal clicked on, and the radio squealed back to life. “All right, unidentified freighter. You’re in dock four, slip number three. Gonna be a fine for not putting in a flight plan, though.”

“A what?” Han said.

“I don’t make the rules, Papa. You don’t like it, you can pull up now.”

“How much of a fine?”

“Supposed to be eight hundred credits, but you seem like a nice guy. Four hundred, we’ll call it good.”

“Inefficiency and corruption every time?” Scarlet asked with a sharp smile.

“We’re coming in,” Han snarled.

“Welcome to Kiamurr,” the voice on the radio said. “Enjoy your stay, right?”

Talastin City squatted in the depths of a narrow valley, its buildings pressed close together on the few precious kilometers of nearly flat ground. At the densest part of the city, structures also climbed up the cliff faces to either side. The vast mountains towering above left the streets in near-permanent shadow except for a few hours in the middle of the day when the sun shone straight down into it. It was like a city at the bottom of a well.

Han followed the guide signals into a slip dug into the mountain’s side. Across the valley, dozens more like it glowed: arched caves in the pale rock crowded with transports and freighters and low-powered fighters peeking out of them. The air of Kiamurr smelled of moisture and wood, like being in a rain forest. An early-model LOM protocol droid made its way toward them. Its breastplate was mottled by old damage that had been pounded back into shape and covered with a cheap patina. Han let Chewbacca discuss exactly how much they were going to pay in docking fees and taxes while he made his way slowly around the Falcon, surveying the damage from the outside. The Imperial fighters and fliers had done a pretty good job. Scorch marks blackened the ship’s side, and the smell of burned-out circuit boards and blown actuators was sadly familiar.

The missile—if it really was a missile—was solidly in the skin of the ship. The ropy things around it weren’t just frozen coolant. There were visible structures coming from the gray-green oblong and anchoring themselves to the metal hide of the Falcon. Scarlet stepped to his side, her arms crossed like a reflection of his own stance.

“Tracking beacon?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“So your friend Baasen knows where we are.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a pity.”

“Well,” Han said, “maybe we’ll get lucky, and he’ll jump in during a massive Imperial assault.”

They stood together silently for a long moment.

“Seriously, though, I’ll get Chewie to pull that out first thing,” Han said.

“Good plan,” Scarlet said.

Once the accounts were settled and the old droid limped its way back toward the business offices, Chewbacca hauled out the repair kit. Han and Scarlet headed through the carved stone tunnels, down into the city. Thin, awkward rickshaws haunted the streets, hauled by nervous-looking lizards and their handlers. A walrus-faced Aqualish woman paced back and forth along the shadowed pavement, offering ship parts at a discount. The security patrol droids hummed through the air, ignoring everything. High above, the thin strip of actual sky was shifting from the hazy blue of late afternoon toward the gold of evening.

Han had been in a thousand places like it, all across the galaxy. The details were different everywhere, but the sense was the same. Some had been as large as star systems, others as small as a back room in a cantina. They were the niches of the universe where authority meant a little less, where freedom was a little more available and the scope of negotiation might include hiding the bodies of the people who got too aggressive about their pricing. Justice could mean going before some sort of local magistrate, or it could mean doing the obvious thing and tipping the bartender for the trouble of cleaning up the mess. They were violent places, and they were joyful, and they didn’t last. The food tended to be worse and the music better. It was the only kind of place where the representatives of a dozen illegal groups and religions and political movements could come to negotiate. Anyplace more controlled—whether the control came from the Empire, or a Hutt, or the Black Sun crime syndicate—would keep away exactly the people who were needed for that conversation. Han breathed deeply and felt a tension he’d barely known was there let go.

“It’s good to be home,” he said.

“You’re from Kiamurr?” Scarlet asked, raising her hand to flag down a lizard rickshaw.