Galaxy's Edge Page 16

  “No,” she barked, expelling the poisoned air from her lungs.

  She held her breath and waved her metal staff ahead of her as she wound her way through the tunnel. These ancients—they must’ve been a thin folk, if this hallway had seemed like a good idea. She’d have to laser these stalactites and stalagmites out of the way when she took possession of the ruins for the Resistance.

  At least nothing tried to kill her in the hallway, except for the seeping gas, and she soon stood at the entrance to a sizable storage room. Niches and benches cut into the walls were filled with old pots and crusted mud, but Vi wasn’t thinking about the ancients and their strange ways—she could only think about how useful this room would be to the Resistance. Finally, a safe place, deep in the ruins, where no one could ever steal her cargo again without facing severe danger. This is where they would store their munitions. This would be their real treasure.

  “But I’m sure it’s not safe, either,” she murmured.

  She didn’t see any stone patterns on the floor, walls, or ceiling. In fact, the only odd thing about the room was the collection of pots sunk in dried clay.

  “Here we go.”

  Half hiding in the hall outside the doorway, Vi reached around the wall with her metal staff and poked at the nearest pot, half buried in hardened mud.

  Poke, poke.

  Nothing happened, so she jabbed harder.

  Still nothing.

  As hard as she could, Vi jammed the staff into the pot, and the pot exploded. She ducked back behind her wall as dust and smoke filled the room. Seconds later, there was another explosion. And then another and another. She crouched down, hands over her head—as if that would help if the ruins were going to fall down around her.

  And yet she was quite sure that wasn’t going to happen. These ancients—they’d known what they were doing. Whatever they’d rigged up was to hurt interlopers, thieves—not damage the existing structure. These dangers had been arranged to wound the greedy. Try to loot the pots, and you died—if you were dumb. As the string of vessels around the room exploded, Vi waited, hands crammed over her ears. When silence fell, she waited even longer as the dust dissipated. Finally, several moments later, she looked inside.

  Most of the pots were broken now, their shards littering the room, sharp as razors. Still she crouched and waved her metal staff before her, but the room’s damage was done. Anyone who’d been standing in here would’ve been dead. But the pots, at least, appeared to be a one-shot danger. She made it across the room safely, clay shards crunching under her boots as she carefully avoided the remaining pots.

  The next room had that same clammy moisture as the first room but was much larger. It had once been a bathing area, judging by an ancient bathtub, old water stains, and spigots carefully placed at intervals. Several pillars were arranged with what had once been grandeur but now just looked sad and crumbling.

  As Vi scouted around the space with her goggles, hunting for the traps she knew were hidden somewhere, she realized that something about this room was bothering her. Of course complex bathing rituals went along with everything else she’d seen of the ancients—they understood cleanliness, they were meticulous, they admired artistry. And yet…

  “Heat!” she said, loud enough to hear the echo bounce around the stone. “Can’t have baths or steam without heat. So how did they heat it?” There were faucets set in the stone walls, so it stood to reason that there must’ve been pipes behind them to bring in the hot water. And she was willing to bet that the bathing tub carved from the rock would have a drain in the bottom.

  Edging around the wall, she tapped here and there with her staff. When she’d made it safely to the ancient tub, she tapped around the inside and outside of the curving basin until she was satisfied that it was safe—at least from the sorts of dangers she’d faced so far. Much to her confusion, there was no drain.

  It made no sense.

  “Can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said, staying low as she stepped into the tub.

  “I can’t either,” said a new voice.

  Vi looked up, blaster already drawn and aimed.

  “I am Lieutenant Wulfgar Kath of the First Order, and you’re under arrest. Starling.”

  Against all odds, there stood a First Order officer in his dress blacks wearing night-vision goggles of his own. He had his blaster pointed, too, as did the two stormtroopers on either side of him. How had they gotten through that tunnel? And the closed-off shrine?

  Didn’t matter.

  Vi widened her stance and started shooting.

  So did they.

  A blaster bolt seared her forearm, but before she could really process the pain or even grasp what was going on, the floor fell out from underneath her, and she plummeted into the darkness.

  JUST LIKE THAT, THE RESISTANCE SPY had evaded his grasp.

  Again.

  Kath’s teeth ground. It had been so polite of her to spring every trap and kill every cave maggot. And then, right when he’d cornered her, the blasted fool had…escaped?

  No. She deserved no credit.

  She was simply falling into another trap.

  “Go. Check the mechanism,” he told his troopers.

  Without a word, they hurried across the room, blasters drawn, to investigate the basin in which Starling had been standing when she’d disappeared.

  It was her—he knew that now. Perhaps he couldn’t see all of her face with the goggles blocking it, but he recognized the shape of her, the petite stature, the wiry nature, the twitchy movements. This was the spy who’d slipped past him in trooper armor that didn’t fit. This was his prey.

  “She’s gone, sir,” one of the troopers said, fear in every syllable, as it should be.

  “Gone where?” he barked.

  “It must be a trapdoor,” the other trooper said. “But there is no visible trigger.”

  “It’s obviously weight,” Kath said tiredly. “So one of you anchor yourself with a grappling gun and then stand where she stood and see what happens.”

  The troopers looked at each other, shared some understanding, and the lower-ranking one reluctantly shot his grappling gun at the stone ceiling over the basin, hooked the gun to his utility belt, and stepped into the carved tub. He stood there, holding his blaster, for about ten seconds before disappearing. The other trooper watched and nodded.

  “Yes, sir. A trapdoor. Must be rigged for weight and timing.”

  Kath hurried across the room and inspected the grappling wire caught tight in an invisible seam before deploying his own grappling gun, and climbed into the tub, his blaster likewise at the ready.

  “I expect you to follow in precisely thirty seconds,” he told the remaining trooper.

  Standing on what felt like solid stone, he gently bent his knees and steeled himself for the fall, one index finger ready on the grappling gun’s brake and the other on his blaster’s trigger.

  Below him, somewhere, Starling waited.

  And she would leave these caves in his custody.

  THE MOMENT VI BEGAN FALLING, SHE bent her knees and prepared to hit stone.

  Instead, she hit water, dropping her metal staff.

  The pool was cold, but not freezing, and just deep enough to cushion her fall without causing her to lose her blaster or scramble to swim. She cast around for her staff, but it had sunk to the bottom, and even though she felt around with her boot, she didn’t find it.

  The shallow basin of water was in a room clearly created by a cunning people. There were forges, bellows, pipes in and out, everything necessary to provide water to the rest of the ruins, for washing vegetables and powering the baths and steam rooms overhead. No ladder up, though. Only a door to a new room on this level. She was thigh-deep in the water and already slogging toward the lip of the pool to crawl out.

  And that’s when something
tightened around her leg.

  Vi’s pulse shot through the roof as her leg was tugged from down below, and she looked up at the seemingly solid ceiling, knowing that she wouldn’t be alone much longer. If she lived through whatever creature was trying to kill her down here, she’d still have to deal with Kath and his soldiers.

  She looked down, but the water was black, completely opaque. Her metal staff was lost, but she still had her blaster, so she shot and shot and shot at the water, just beyond her leg, aiming for whatever creature was trying to pull her close. It let go, and her calf burned as she slogged away from it and toward the basin’s edge. Something began to swirl and churn in the water, but she ignored it and ran with all her might, and it was like running in a dream, like fighting through syrupy ink, until finally she dragged herself up and out of the pool.

  At least the creature hadn’t gnawed on her or left lesions—her leg wasn’t even harmed. And that was the first good news she’d had down here.

  “Batuu is cursed,” she grumbled.

  She adjusted her night-vision goggles as she approached the grandly arched doorway to the next chamber. This room was…different somehow. It pulsed, as if it had a heartbeat. As if there was something alive within, something powerful. She didn’t have much time before the First Order soldiers figured out how to make the trapdoor work, and she didn’t have her staff, so she extended her tactical baton and felt around as best she could, tapping the stones before her as she gazed into the chamber’s depths.

  The room was empty—almost. It was another shrine, similar to the humble chamber up above, but somehow more…alive.

  Vi pushed up her goggles to see it with her own eyes. The curving walls were decorated with glowing stars, and Vi couldn’t tell if they were gems set into the dark stone or perhaps images painted with glowing lichen. Unfamiliar constellations swirled, galaxies and suns glowing gently and tiny planets and moons seeming to dance in orbit.

  She felt it before she saw it—the artifact.

  The same glowing blue as the stars on the wall, it lay in a perfect circle on a stone altar in the center of the room.

  A necklace, crafted of ethereal gems that burned with blue fire.

  It called to her and yet also repelled her.

  This thing, this ancient artifact that pulsed with power—Savi probably would’ve traded her an entire ship for it.

  But it belonged to Oga.

  She paused a moment to savor the experience, knowing that she was the first being to view this hidden room, to witness this wonder since the ancients had passed from time. And then, in the room behind her: a heavy splash.

  A stormtrooper.

  She had to hurry.

  “Screw it,” she murmured, and she darted into the room, snatched the necklace off its pedestal, and went into a controlled roll toward the next arched doorway.

  She felt air move overhead and flattened herself against the ground.

  Thunk thunk thunk.

  Behind her, armor fell to the ground with a clatter and a soft, robotic gasp.

  When she pulled up her goggles and looked back, she couldn’t see the mechanism or weapon at play, only the stormtrooper on the ground, sliced into pieces inside their armor as if the betaplast was as soft as nerf butter.

  In the room with the basin, another splash.

  She looked ahead, but this new chamber was a dead end. Not only that, but it was empty. No niches, no tables, no altars. Just a peculiar grouping of ropes, vines, cords, and chains dangling from a circular hole in the ceiling.

  Thanks, ancients.

  Vi slipped the necklace over her head and tucked it under her top. The jewels were uncomfortably warm, like eggs snatched from under a sleeping hen. She could only hope it wasn’t dangerous, but there was no time to test it. She groped around with her tactical baton and hunted for trigger-sensitive stones before running for the ropes. There were dozens of them, a thick and interwoven tangle, each one different in weight and feel. Looking up past the ropes, she saw the faintest glimmer of light.

  “Stop right there!”

  She gave Kath only the briefest of glances as she pondered this new puzzle.

  One of the ropes would allow her to climb out of the lower caves and back toward ground level. The rest, she was sure, would attempt to kill her in a variety of fun ways.

  Splash.

  One more trooper, fallen into the pool.

  At least this one screamed, splashed, thrashed, and went silent the moment after he landed in the dark water.

  Thanks, water monster, Vi thought.

  She looked up again, but there was no way to tell which rope meant salvation and which ones promised doom.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Kath said.

  It was almost funny—there were so many dangers in the ruins that he didn’t even seem like the worst one, just now.

  “You don’t even care that both of your soldiers are dead?” she asked him to buy some time.

  “That’s their purpose.” She could hear his sneer.

  She didn’t like him.

  Of course, she didn’t like anyone in the First Order, but this guy was a special kind of scum. And he also needed her alive or he would’ve already shot her.

  She looked up again as she felt around on her belt.

  “Put your hands behind your head—”

  Without really looking at him, she thumbed the thermal detonator and tossed it at Kath, interrupting him as she pulled her grappling gun and shot it through the ropes and into the ceiling of the higher cavern up above. The hook stuck, and she swiftly attached the gun to her belt.

  The heavy thump of fabric on stone told her Kath had chosen to save himself over pursuing her, and she let the grappling line zip her upward, brushing the ropes and chains out of the way as she hurtled up through the ceiling and, hopefully, toward safety.

  Behind her, below her: an explosion.

  Thanks, thermal detonator. Good riddance to bad First Order rubbish.

  And thanks to the ancients for building caves that could withstand explosions—and proving it to her in the storage room with all those pots.

  As soon as she was through the hole and in the higher level of the cave, Vi swung to the ground and finally stood again on the floor. When she pressed a button, the grappling hook disengaged from the ceiling and retracted into her gun, which she hung on her belt again. Looking around the chamber, she wasn’t sure where she was compared to where she’d come into the ruins, but she was up here and Kath was down below and possibly in many small chunks.

  Not that it mattered all that much.

  Even if Kath was dead, there were still stormtroopers on the planet, and the First Order knew she was here. Her entire mission was compromised.

  She’d taken it hard, crash-landing on Batuu and losing all their cargo. But now, knowing her enemy had cornered her, she felt true hopelessness. Someone had turned her in. And if there was one thing she knew about the First Order, it was that they were unrelenting. They would burn the planet to the ground just to keep the Resistance from planting a flag on it.

  Sure, she had Oga’s artifact, but she couldn’t build anything on Batuu as long as the First Order was here. Even if she’d managed to end Kath and both his men down there, more stormtroopers would be waiting somewhere nearby, and she had to get rid of them, too. And then the First Order would come looking for them.

  “We’re screwed,” she murmured to the darkness.

  And yet…she couldn’t quite believe it.

  She was Vi Moradi, and Vi Moradi didn’t give up.

  She hadn’t given up on Chaaktil, and she hadn’t given up on the Absolution, and she wasn’t about to give up now.

  There was no way she would just lie down and let the First Order take over.

  Not only because her general had given her
an order, and not only because the Resistance was depending on her, but also because the people of Batuu had been kind and generous, and she wasn’t going to let them suffer. Lin had been right—Vi had brought the enemy to their doorstep. And that meant it was her job to kick them right back out again.

  But first she had to get out of the ruins.

  Without her staff, she couldn’t feel around for traps, but at least she still had her night goggles and tactical baton. She was in a massive chamber filled with neatly carved niches just the right size for large, thin people to sleep in. She’d remember this room when she came back to clear out all the traps and armor-clad remains, because she’d decided that she would continue her mission despite every setback that had been thrown her way. From here on out, she would move forward with the ironclad belief that she was going to succeed. She would get rid of the First Order and build a Resistance refuge, and that was that.

  There was light up ahead beyond a set of massive open doors. The floor looked like solid rock, but she lightly ran her fingers over it just to be sure. Before she crawled toward the light, she waved her blaster in front of her, making sure there were no more hidden triggers. With painful slowness, knowing there was a slim possibility that Kath or more stormtroopers were still on her trail or waiting somewhere nearby, she felt her way along the cave floor until finally she could pull down her goggles and wait for her eyes to adjust to the natural sunlight. The blurry green came into focus, showing her the forest beyond. After her descent into the caves, the tall trees and jagged spires felt like coming home.

  She cocked her head and looked more carefully. Just outside the ruins, there was a large clearing free of trees, spires, and rocks, a field big enough to accommodate several ships while shielding them from prying eyes beyond. The more Vi looked around, the more she realized that she’d been wise to include this land in her deal with Oga; it was perfect for what the Resistance needed. They could park ships outside and bring their equipment inside, shielding it from scouts and enemies. All she had to do was live through this mission, get back to town, and then find a way to eliminate every trap left behind so her people didn’t get decapitated or eaten by screaming maggots. Oh! And get rid of the First Order.