Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 01_ Jedi Search - Kevin J. Anderson [35]
“A few years ago we had the atmosphere factories running full tilt,” Skynxnex said, his words muffled behind the facemask. “Doole figured it was a frivolous waste of energy.”
The guard shut the wire mesh door, and Skynxnex operated the elevator controls. The cage descended at a rapid clip until the window of sky shrank to a small spot of blue light high above.
They saw openings into the rock wall sealed off with steel doors. At each level a ring of light encircled the pit, but many of the illuminators had either burned out or been broken.
Chewbacca hung on to the bars of the elevator with his long hairy arms, panting for air. His pink tongue protruded, turning purplish from lack of oxygen. Han, shivering and dizzy and starved for breath, slumped to the bottom of the elevator.
When the elevator abruptly stopped, the jolt slammed Han’s head into the mesh. As he looked down through the open cage floor, he saw the pit continuing immeasurably far below them.
“Get up!” Skynxnex said, kicking him. “No time to sleep. Come on, you’ll get a breath of fresh air inside.”
With some help from Skynxnex, Han managed to haul himself to his feet. The smaller guard had much more difficulty manhandling Chewbacca forward.
Opening the gate of the elevator, they had access to one of the sealed metal doors. Skynxnex cranked the hatch, and all four of them staggered into a small tiled chamber.
Han could barely see anymore. His ears buzzed. His eyesight was a mixture of black specks, roaring blood, and dim shadows of the objects around him. But as soon as Skynxnex sealed the door, glorious oxygen flooded the chamber.
Before the captives could recover, the guard shoved the barrel of his blaster rifle under Chewbacca’s chin, and Skynxnex held his own weapon against Han’s head. “Almost there,” Skynxnex said. “No funny stuff now.”
Han, happy just to be breathing again, couldn’t dream of doing anything. At least not yet.
On the other side of the airlock was a large muster room filled with lethargic-looking workers ready to begin their shift in the spice mines. The muster room had been blasted out of solid rock, and a tall bank of bunks ran along one side of the room. An empty eating section with long tables took up the central area.
Cameras stared down at the activity from perches on the walls. Guards in hodgepodge stormtrooper uniforms waited behind screens in the control rooms. Other guards kept an eye on the people moving about in the muster area. All the workers looked pale and haggard, as if they had been underground and underfed for years.
A burly man strode up to meet them, keeping his eyes fixed on Skynxnex. The man had a lumpy face, a lumpy chin covered with bristly black stubble, and lumpy arms as if his massive muscles had all been attached at the wrong places.
“You brought me two more?” the man said. “Only two? That’s not enough.” He reached out to grab Chewbacca’s hairy arm. Chewbacca roared and flinched away, but the lumpy man didn’t notice. “Well, the Wookiee’s worth three men, but I don’t know about the other one. This doesn’t take care of half the people I’ve lost.”
Skynxnex glowered at him. “So stop losing people,” he said with a voice of ice, then nudged Han. “This is Boss Roke. He’s in charge of breaking you. He gets extra points with Moruth Doole to make your life miserable.”
“He doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job of keeping track of his workers,” Han said.
Roke flashed him a withering glare. “Something’s taking my men down in the deep tunnels. I’ve had two more missing since yesterday. They vanish without a trace—no locators, nothing.”
Han shrugged. “It’s hard to get good help these days.”
Skynxnex pulled out his double-blaster and shoved it in Han’s face again, but he spoke to Boss Roke. “Get thermal suits for these two. We’ll watch them while they get into uniform.”
Roke snapped his fingers, and two guards went rummaging through some cubicles. “The human won