Before the Storm - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [113]
But then the land had grown stingy, and, not long after, the Empire was gone. With the spacelanes from Koornacht to Galantos and Wehttam no longer secure, the colony’s best buyers lowered their offers or stopped bidding at all, pointing to the risk of piracy.
In time only Captain Stanz and the Freebird came calling, and his price was the lowest of all—an insult to the sweat and labor of the two hundred who each morning hiked up from the village to the diggings and each evening returned bowed by their labors. But Stanz was a pirate in heart if not in fact, and had no sympathy for them.
“This is droid work yer doing,” he said, “picking rocks from the ground. You can’t expect a living wage for droid work. Even at these prices, it’s hardly worth my trouble to come here.”
Nigekus doubted the truth of that, but there was no point in arguing. He had no choice but to stand there and listen to Stanz’s poor-mouthing as he figured the load and calculated the overage, using whatever prices the old Bothan’s whim dictated. And for years the overage had hovered around the figure for a quarter’s interest, sometimes a little more, more often a little less, with the shortfall added to their debt.
If the community had had its own hauler, even a worn-out Corellian freighter or a battered space barge—but that was a dream beyond reason.
Still, the land had suddenly turned kind again, with two new diggings bringing up rich ore that reminded the surviving elders of the promise that had coaxed them there from Brigia. If they earned no more for this load than the price Stanz had paid on his last visit, the overage should cover not only the interest but the balance.
To guarantee that, Nigekus had decided that this time he would hold back a third of the ore until Stanz set the price. It was a tactic not without risk, or it might have been tried long before. If the Bothan took offense, the community could lose its lifeline—and the offender might lose his life.
But Nigekus was determined to see New Brigia escape Captain Stanz’s thrall before the dust-cough that now plagued him at night rendered him fit only to sweeten the dirt of the gardens. If Stanz snapped his neck in a fury at being caught as a cheat, Nigekus would lose little.
“He will only spare me the last weeks of the coughing death,” he had said to the other elders in winning their approval. “And you can then kill him without shame, and claim his ship as honor payment to my family.”
Negus Nigekus walked slowly but proudly across the common toward the processing dome, his thin body warmed by the knowledge that a turning was coming.
It had been hard for him to admit that he could no longer make the climb to the diggings and do more than take up space in the pit. The aches of hard labor were easier to bear than the deep ache of feeling useless, of standing with the children and feeling that he had become one of them, a mouth that could not earn its table share. He was grateful to have found a way of escaping that feeling.
Before Nigekus reached the dome, a shadow flashed across the common. But by the time he looked skyward, there was nothing to be seen. The whine and clatter of the machinery had covered the sound of the approaching dropships until very near the end, and the landing sites were downriver around the bend, safely out of view. Shaking his head, Nigekus entered the dome, ignorant of the threat already moving up the valley toward the village.
When he left the dome just a few minutes later, his inspection complete, everything had changed. Tall creatures in green and brown body armor were advancing through the village in a wide line, their weapons turning the cottages into burned and broken shells. A child’s screaming pierced the din of the machinery behind him, then ended with ominous abruptness.
Nigekus was ignored