Star Wars_ X-Wing 03_ The Krytos Trap - Michael A. Stackpole [66]
“Thank you. I’ll have Urlor organize a party to help you decant it.” Jan nodded at Urlor and the large man stooped to force Derricote from the doorway, then followed him out. The older man smiled. “The general is a recent addition to our population, but he has proved himself useful in that he’s good with biotics. He’s managed to ferment a relatively mild ale here, providing us with a forbidden pleasure that many of us had forgotten.”
“You trust him and drink it?”
Jan shrugged. “He drinks enough of it that if it were lethal, he’d have long since been dead. Despite being proud of his Imperial service, he seems somewhat perplexed by his imprisonment here. He thought he had fulfilled the parameters of a project for Iceheart, but she disagreed and he’s here.”
Corran nodded. “I can understand his confusion. I don’t know why I’m here either.”
“It may be temporary. We get a lot of transients who are transferred out in bulk. Traffic into and out of Lusankya seems to be relatively rare.”
“That’s not good news. If this place is truly a backwater planet, the chances of our being found by the Alliance are tiny.”
Jan fingered the knots in the braided canvas cord that gathered his hair into a ponytail. “I’ve been here for, as nearly as I can determine, seven years, and no one has found me yet.” His laugh came warm and natural, not tinged with the sort of madness Corran had heard in Derricote’s laugh. “There’s always tomorrow.”
“Right.” Corran sighed and looked around the small chamber. “Urlor’s acquainted me with one rule. Are there others?”
“We do what we’re told when we’re told to do it. Rations are not great but are not starvation fare, either. Produce is seasonal but not so peculiar as to let us pinpoint where we are. I think there’s an agrocombine maintained to supply us, though none of us down here ever see it. We assume there are lower grade prisoners who are used to maintain it, but we’re in the deepest level, which has the highest security. At least that’s where we think we are. Could be there’s something more stringent, but I’ve not seen it.”
“What do they have us do?”
“Hard labor make-work.” The old man sighed. “Big rocks are made into little rocks, little rocks are made into gravel, and gravel is moved from one point to another. It is painfully and mind-numbingly boring, designed to crush hope and make the days meld one into another. It drives some of the men insane.”
Corran lowered his voice. “Anyone ever escape?”
“Not quite that insane, son.”
“No one has tried?”
“Few have tried, no one has made it.”
“To your knowledge.”
Jan’s mouth opened, then he shut it and nodded. “To my knowledge—you are correct. At any rate, no one has made it since I’ve been here.”
Corran frowned. “Those who have tried, they get brought back here?”
“Parts of them, anyway.” The old man pointed vaguely off deeper into the caverns. “The Imps have a chamber where they keep the skulls and other relics of their dead. We smuggle ours into the mines where we work and bury them.”
“So escape is impossible?”
Jan winked at him as he dropped his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “I never said impossible, I just said it hadn’t been done successfully.”
Corran laughed quietly. “I’m with Rogue Squadron. Impossible is our stock in trade, and success is what we deliver.”
Jan slapped him on the shoulder. “Now I’m thinking it’s a pity I didn’t know your grandfather. With a grandson like you, I’m sure we would have gotten along famously.”
“I have a feeling you’re right, sir.” Corran nodded solemnly. “And being his grandson, I’m going to do everything I can to get out of and off of this rock.”
The old man smiled. “From the moment I saw you, Corran Horn, I somehow expected nothing less.”
18
Wedge felt more trapped by wearing a dress uniform and being in the witness box than he ever had in action against the Empire. He didn’t see