“Maybe,” Solo said. “Doesn’t have the advantage of shooting you. I’d really like to shoot you.”
Wirrit opened the door a fraction of an inch. He was in his underwear, his hair still wild from the pillow and all thought of sleep gone. The Imperial guard had a black jersey, a black-and-gray cap, and an annoyed expression. Wirrit’s hand shook as he very carefully, quietly, pressed his blaster against the door. He’d only have one shot. He had to kill the Imperial on the first try.
“I’m with the Rebel Alliance,” the Imperial said. “Hark’s drop was compromised, and I need to know where she’s staying.”
Wirrit narrowed his eyes. His finger didn’t leave the trigger.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
The Imperial shrugged. “One, I didn’t come in with fifty stormtroopers behind me. Two, we’re talking here instead of a holding cell. Three, an interrogator droid didn’t take off half your fingernails before I asked.”
Wirrit frowned.
“Oh,” he said. “Right.”
The air shaft went down below Han for what looked like half a kilometer. He hung in the window frame, his fingers aching until they felt as if they were on fire. If he had pulled the window open another few centimeters, the grenade would have triggered.
Windows from the other berths and apartments lined the walls, looking out into one another or else at the bare drop. Five levels up, a catwalk stretched across the void. Han’s grapnel line was like a thread of spiderweb between Hark’s window and the high, empty walkway above.
He’d tried the door for almost an hour, plagued by visions of Hark inside either dead or held in silence by stormtroopers or Baasen. Or just sleeping deep enough that she didn’t hear him. Going around to the back had seemed like a good idea at the time …
He shifted his grip on the window. He couldn’t hold on much longer. Just inside, the black monofilament thread had pulled at the proton grenade’s switch, tugging the little kettle-shaped device to the edge of the cheap breakfast table. He couldn’t tell if it was armed, but if so, the drop to the floor would set off an explosion strong enough to breach a ship’s hull. Unless it was on a timer, in which case he’d probably have been dead by now.
He pulled himself as close to the window as he could, pressing his mouth to the opening. The air inside smelled like roasted peppers.
“Hello?” he whispered urgently into the apartment. “Could use a little hand here. Hello?”
There was no reply. His knuckles hurt.
Hark was gone, then. She’d left her old place and trapped it against intrusion from the Imperials. The safe play was to go back up the line to the catwalk, but if there were any clues to where Hark had gone, they were going to be on the other side of the window. And he didn’t have any other leads to follow.
“All right,” Han said to himself. “It’s not that hard. I can do this.”
He couldn’t keep his grip and also work, so he held on with his right hand and stretched his left through the thin gap in the window until it was all the way into the apartment. He made a fist and let his right hand go. His balled left hand was too big to fit back through the space, and the grapnel line was strong enough to support him. It still hurt like blazes, but it freed his right hand. He pulled his blaster and ejected the power cell, catching it between his little finger and the heel of his palm before it dropped into the abyss below him. Shorting out the contacts would have been a lot easier with two hands, but a few seconds later he had the case cracked and the power leads were starting to heat up past the point of comfort.
Pulling from the shoulder, he hauled himself closer to the window. The proton grenade teetered on the edge of the table as he slipped his fingers in through the open window, holding the shorting power cell against the frame just where the monofilament attached. A trickle of blood ran down his left wrist. Voices echoed above him. Someone was approaching the catwalk. He tried to push the power cell a little closer to the line. The hot smell of melting filament began to overpower the scent of peppers.
The voices came closer and clearer. The tinny voices of stormtroopers.
“Come on,” Han said. “Come on …”
Inside the apartment, the monofilament broke, floating down like a wisp of smoke. Han shoved the window open enough to slide through, cut the grapnel line, and haul himself over the sill. He lay on the apartment floor, curled around his protesting hand. The troopers’ voices didn’t rise in alarm. He sat up, trembling. The proton grenade showed ARMED. Gently, he pushed the switch back, and a second later the readout shifted to INACTIVE.
Across the air shaft, a small figure looked out the opposite window, long dark hair silhouetted against the light. Han waved and gestured. The child went to open her window, paused, and then followed through. Her eyes were wide.
“Lost my keycard,” he shouted across the shaft.
“Oh,” she said.
He grinned, nodded, and closed the blinds.
All the rooms were trapped in the same way. Simple, fast, efficient. Not foolproof by any means, but effective enough. There were still clothes in the bedroom. The food in the storage unit hadn’t gone bad. Scarlet Hark had been there, but she was gone, and there was no note saying where she’d gone.
He examined the bedroom, the bath, the dining area. All the small signs of occupancy, but nothing that helped. Scarlet Hark drank Surian tea. She solved math puzzles before she went to sleep. She ordered breakfast meals of eggs and roasted peppers from a nearby restaurant. Apart from the death traps on the windows and doors, she could have been anyone.
He’d been working all night. Somewhere high above where the city reached the sky, the sun would be coming up soon. Chewbacca was probably pacing the Falcon right now, wondering what had happened to him. Han sat at the table. His eyes felt as if someone had rubbed grit into them, and his wrists ached. The Imperial guard’s uniform was cheap and uncomfortable. Start to finish, it just hadn’t been his best day ever.
When he stretched his neck, the joints cracked. There had to be a way. There had to be something that would point him toward Hark. Or give her a way to find him. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands until blobs of false color danced before him. There had to be a way.
His stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten since before the failed drop. The scent of yesterday’s roasted peppers started smelling almost good.
He frowned, sat forward. The recycling bin was half full of old tea and the wire remains of a robotic project. Greasy wrapping paper had an order—#29 PEPPERS & EGGS—printed on it with a comm code, the address of Hark’s apartment, and the minimalist logo of a Twi’lek female holding a plate of food. KAYI’S GRILL: BEST SANNOS PLATE IN THE EMPIRE! There was another wrapper underneath it from the day before. And another. She had a habit, then. It didn’t seem like it could matter, but something tugged at his mind.