Part 10 (2/2)

”What happened to the bodies?” Han asked. ”The dead guards?”

Zahara blinked down at the floor where the corpses of the prison guards had been sprawled out. They'd all seen them.

But now they were gone.

”Maybe they weren't dead,” Han said doubtfully.

”I examined them.”

”So somebody came and moved them. I dunno, maintenance droids or something.” He looked at her. ”Is there a reason we're still standing here discussing this?”

Zahara thought about it. She wondered if maybe the 2-1B had come down to meet her and moved the corpses. But that just didn't make sense. The blasters were gone, too, she realized-including the one she'd just kicked out of the room.

Somewhere in the semidarkness she thought she heard something creak, some random self-activating servo coming to life inside the walls, and she jumped, startled. Suddenly she realized that Han was right. They had to get out of here, not soon but now.

”The turbolift's over this way,” she said.

Han and Chewie followed her in, the doors closing as they glided upward. ”Where are we going?”

”Medbay. I've got to talk to Waste.”

”Who's Waste?”

”My surgical droid.”

”And you call him Waste? Like waste of s.p.a.ce?”

”Waste of s.p.a.ce, waste of programming . . .” She shrugged, relaxing a little now that they were out of that damp, shadow-crawling lower corridor. ”I started it as a joke and it just kind of stuck.”

”He doesn't mind?”

”He thinks it's a term of endearment,” she said, and upon saying so, realized it was true.

Han grunted as the lift reached the infirmary level and stopped. Zahara remembered the corridor vividly, how it had been littered with bloated corpses of guards and stormtroopers who had died waiting to get into medbay-dozens of them, sometimes stuck to one another with the fluid they'd been heaving up when they finally collapsed. The smell would have intensified, too, she knew. She expected Han would say something, maybe cover his mouth and stand there a moment taking it all in, the way that she had when she'd first laid eyes on it.

The turbolift stopped and the doors slid open on the hallway. Zahara braced herself for the shock-and looking out, felt a different kind of shock go through her, quick and jolting, making her legs feel heavy and weak at the same time.

All the bodies were gone.

Chapter 21.

They Woke Up Han and Chewie followed Zahara down the corridor without talking. Han in particular didn't like it, nor was he crazy about the way the doctor kept glancing back over her shoulder. She was easy on the eyes, he had to admit, but fear didn't do much for her face. And she was keeping something from him. In his experience women and secrets mixed together to form something only slightly less volatile than an unstable fusion reactor.

”How much farther is it?” he asked.

She didn't answer or even look at him, just held up her hand, meaning either shut up, stop walking, or both. Han turned to glance at Chewie, wondering aloud how much longer they were supposed to put up with this.

It had been a while since they'd been free-weeks, he guessed, since the Imperials had boarded the Millennium Falcon and impounded the s.h.i.+p and her cargo. The shuttle had ferried them here to this barge, just another pair of anonymous smugglers whom the galaxy couldn't care less about.

And that would've been the end of it, if Han hadn't gotten impatient and tried to escape a number of days earlier during a well-ch.o.r.eographed mess hall riot. He'd clocked a prison guard, Chewie had thrown a stormtrooper across the table, and the next thing they knew everything went dark.

Very dark.

Down in the hole, he'd spent most of his time speculating about what was going to happen next-who, if anyone, he and Chewie could rely on for a rescue. A smuggler's friends were few, and those who would actually stick their necks out for the likes of Han were effectively nonexistent. For the first time he had begun to wonder if he and Chewie were destined to spend whatever remained of their lives in some cramped and poorly lit Corrections dungeon.

In front of him, the doctor stopped walking again, turned, and looked through an open hatchway. Though he'd never been up here before, Han figured it was the medbay. He came up alongside her and peered inside, then back at the doctor. From the expression on Zahara's face, Han guessed this wasn't how it had looked when she'd left it.

Every bed was empty.

All the medical equipment, monitors, and medication pumps were active, blinking and twittering to themselves, but the IV lines, tubes, and cords dangled loose, some of them dripping liquid medication in puddles the size of small lakes. Bedsheets and blankets hung in twisted disarray, stained with sweat and blood, dragged across the floor and left there. Han realized the silence was making his shoulders tighten up and his right hand feel particularly lonely where his blaster ought to have been. He made a quick but conscious decision to calm down.

”Busy place,” he remarked.

She shook her head. ”It was full when I left.”

”No offense, Doc, but maybe this sickness is affecting you, too.”

”You don't understand,” she said, ”they were all dead-twenty or thirty of them, guards, inmates, plus the ones lying on the floor, I wouldn't have left them here if there was something I could still do to help.”

”Where's your droid?”

”I don't know.” She raised her voice. ”Waste?”

The 2-1B didn't answer. Han and Chewie walked around her on either side, looking at the rows of empty beds. Chewie growled, and Han murmured, ”Yeah, me either.” He stepped over a b.l.o.o.d.y hospital gown that looked as though it had been ripped in half, then looked back up at Zahara. ”Say you're right and there's n.o.body else left alive. How are we going to get out of here?”

”There's the Star Destroyer.”

Han was sure that he'd misheard her. ”Excuse me?”

”Up above us. Apparently it's a derelict. The barge docked on it to scavenge for parts for the thrusters-that's when everything really started going wrong. I have no idea whether the engines were repaired before the maintenance team died. Otherwise . . .”

”So this contagious disease came from the Destroyer?”

She nodded.

”Sounds like a good place to keep clear of.”

Zahara didn't answer him. She had bent down to study a patchy streak of bloodstains from under one of the beds. Reaching under, she touched something-Han couldn't tell what it was-and dragged it slowly into view.

”What is that?” Han asked, and then he saw.

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