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No one knew much about what lay beyond the grate. They knew air was blowing out of it because they could see a fair amount of dust blown back into the air around the conveyor belt. Most of the prisoners assumed the belt led to a blast furnace where the gravel was melted down, or a mixing container where it was being made into ferrocrete. Corran argued that it was just as likely that the gravel was being dumped into hovertrucks and taken out to pave walkways in some Moff’s garden, and if that was true, the grate was all that stood between them and freedom.

All of the prisoners knew what they were doing was simply make-work, but the Imps had taken the precautions necessary to prevent work stoppages. The conveyor belt’s workings had been sunk into the ground so the prisoners couldn’t get access to the motor and sabotage it. Steel fibers had been woven into the length of the belt to keep it strong and had been tightened so virtually no slack appeared in the belt on its return trip to the depths of the mine’s floor. A railing had even been set up to prevent prisoners from accidentally falling onto the belt or getting caught in the mechanism.

Corran dumped his bucket of gravel into the maw of the container bolted on the conveyor belt. Humming away loudly, the belt started the gravel on its twenty-meter journey to the grate. Corran watched it go for a second, then allowed the next man in line to bump him out of the way.

Heading back to where Urlor was shoveling gravel into buckets, Corran took a quick inventory of the guards watching over them. A full squad of men in stormtrooper armor guarded them, providing one trooper for every ten of the eighty prisoners in the work detail. Six of the troopers carried blaster carbines. The other two crewed an E-Web set up just inside the hatchway, making any attempt to rush out of the mine suicidal. The sharp slope up which the prisoners would have to charge would slow them enough that the two-man heavy blaster would cut them all down. Though none of the guards were as big as stormtroopers, nor seemed as well disciplined as the Empire’s shock troops, even they would have been enough to quell a prisoner revolt.

Urlor tossed a shovelful of gravel toward Corran’s bucket but missed with half of it. “Don’t do this, Corran.” He kept his voice low enough that the rattling chuff of gravel pouring through a screen hid it from outsiders. “Wait. Learn more.”

“This is learning.” He winked at the bigger man. “Guards have their blasters selected for stun.”

Jan looked over from the end of the screen he was holding. “You’ll risk your life on the flick of a thumb?”

Corran tapped himself on the chest. “Rogue Squadron, remember.”

“Corellian, more like.” Jan shook his head. “None of you have any respect for odds.”

“Why respect what you have to beat?” Corran gave each of them a nod. “Trust me, I have to make this run.”

Urlor dumped a final shovel’s-worth in the bucket. “May the Force be with you.”

“Thanks.” Corran, letting the bucket dangle down between his legs, started the awkward, hunched-over Rybet-walk back toward the conveyor belt. His plan was simple: he’d dump his bucket, then hop over the railing and ride the belt up to the grate. Up there, at least as viewed from the work floor, there appeared to be enough shadowed space to conceal him. If he could then get down through the grate, or find a hidden passageway out, he’d be free.

“You there.”

Corran looked over at the guard pointing at him. “Me?”

“Come here.”

Why me? Corran shuffled over toward the man. “Sir?”

“Don’t question me, prisoner.” The guard, clad in the lighter weight scout version of the armor, loomed over him. “As for the reason I picked you, you’re new and need a lesson.”

Without warning the guard brought the blaster carbine up and around in a one-handed backhand stroke that caught Corran over the right ear. Stars exploded before his eyes and the clank of metal on skull started a fierce ringing in his ears. A flange on the barrel cut his ear and split his scalp, while the force of the blow spun