Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 03_ Tyrant's Test - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [127]
Despite the shadow of concern for both Han and Chewbacca’s son, Luke could not contain a chuckle at the droid’s obvious paraphrase. The sound led Chewbacca to look up and in Luke’s direction—the first time their eyes had met since the Falcon had docked. The Wookiee gestured angrily toward Han, and voiced a sharp-edged rebuke. No translation was necessary. The look said, Where were you?
“I didn’t know, Chewie,” Luke said. “It wasn’t even in the TBM. The General says there was a complete blackout on the news. I was away, and no one told me. Not even Leia.” He looked across the room at Han, who was at that moment being transferred from the prep table to the bacta tank. “I just didn’t know.”
Technically, the camp on Pa’aal, the primary moon of the fifth planet of the N’zoth system, was not a prison. Slaves are not housed in prisons.
The camp was the permanent residence of the surviving members of the former Black Sword Command occupation force under Governor Crollick. At its peak, it had housed nearly three hundred thousand—mostly human, and mostly from the crews of the Star Destroyers Intimidator and Valorous, captured intact by Yevethan raiders on what was to have been the final day of the Imperial occupation.
The captives had purchased their lives with service to the viceroy, and in the beginning, that service had been essential. They had taught the Yevetha both the operation of a capital warship and the final secrets of their construction. They had served aboard their renamed vessels under new, alien captains and labored in the shipyards under new, alien overseers. The knowledge in their heads and the experience in their hands made them valuable enough to keep alive—at least until the Yevetha had wrung every last secret from them.
In the first and second year, only the uncooperative were removed from the population on Pa’aal. But in the third year, their keepers began to thin their holdings in earnest. By that time, the overseers had a clearer idea of who had specialized technical skills and who did not. The latter could be replaced in their duties by Yevetha, and were—many trained their replacements before being executed. The former were kept without regard to need, as spare parts for the war machine the Yevetha were building.
Half the population of Pa’aal disappeared during the third year—most at the hands of the Yevetha, but no small number through suicide. Conditions on Pa’aal were desperate and miserable, and hope of rescue had collapsed as the coldly calculated winnowing wore on.
Those who survived to see the fourth year were in many ways a select group—smart, tough-minded, inured to the privations of their existence, astute in the politics of their status. And they had found a replacement for hope, in the form of a leader and a plan.
In the long years since, every slave taken from Pa’aal for a day’s, a week’s, a month’s service to the Yevetha had gone willingly, with a purpose and a mission beyond mere survival. The more useful they were, the more opportunities there would be to advance the plan. They needed access to the ships, to materials and tools, to unsupervised time—all of which could only be obtained through guiltless and systematic collaboration with the enemy.
Despite their efforts, there had come a time when the Yevetha seemed to no longer need them, and Pa’aal had become not a storehouse but a dumping ground. An entire year would pass with no measurable progress and no promise of change. Suicide and the carelessness that went with profound depression once more began to thin the numbers.
But seven months ago, the slavemasters had started coming to Pa’aal again. For the first time since the end of the winnowing, there were Yevetha in camp for more than a few hours, observing, questioning. The additional scrutiny was more than balanced by the additional opportunity, as more and more of the population was called to service and