Star Wars 2016 Del Rey Sampler by Alan Dean Foster Alexander Freed Claudia Gray Chuck Wendig

Author:Alan Dean Foster, Alexander Freed, Claudia Gray, Chuck Wendig
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2016-04-11T04:00:00+00:00

PLANET SULLUST

DAY EIGHTY-FIVE OF THE MID RIM RETREAT

As evening approached in Pinyumb, the obsidian of the cavern roof slowly lost its refracted iridescence. The great towers of the city, rising from the cave floor like stalagmites, dimmed their upper lights until the dome was lost to blackness. The yellow sulfur that clung to the cavern walls seemed to turn sickly pale. The rustling of ash angel wings came and went as the creatures returned from foraging to nest.

With the ash angels came the people of Pinyumb, arriving in lifts and shuttles from the factories of the surface or departing their housing blocks for the night shifts. There were dark and pale humans, gray-skinned Sullustans, and rarer species, too. Pinyumb was cosmopolitan in its way—those willing to toil were welcome, and all others were outcasts.

Thara Nyende didn’t linger in the streets or stroll along the turquoise streams that flowed by Pinyumb’s walkways. She didn’t stop to pick out familiar faces from the commuter crowds. Like everyone else, she had errands to run before curfew. She did, however, take the time to nod firmly in the direction of the stormtroopers posted at every shuttle and intersection. Only twice did the men or women inside the armor nod back.

Thara passed squat, steel-gray buildings that bore no signs but that she knew well—a public bathhouse, a hospice, a café—and then descended a short flight of steps hewn from the cavern rock to an unmarked door. She hoisted the leather bag slung over her shoulder and pushed inside, where her eyes slowly adjusted to the dim cantina lighting. No more than a dozen customers were present—nearly all men and nearly all old, no matter the species. They were broad-shouldered and wrinkled, sturdy and scarred from years of work in the Inyusu Tor mineral processing facility. Most were gathered about a holotable displaying an offworld sporting event, but they spoke to one another loud enough to drown out the soft holocast.

“Uncle!” Thara called in the direction of the bar. “I’m here to spoil you.”

The man who looked up from the array of nozzles behind the bar and started Thara’s way looked old enough to be her grandfather rather than her uncle, and if his hair had ever matched her bright-blond locks, the color had faded long ago. He clapped her on the shoulders as other heads turned and aged lips smiled at the young woman.

The voices around the holotable lowered.

“The only person getting spoiled is you,” Thara’s uncle said before accepting the leather bag from her hands. “Working half as long as the rest of us, and paid twice as much! But let’s see what you’ve got anyway.”

He placed the bag on an empty table and began to rummage through its contents. First out was a tube of ocher gel. Thara’s uncle turned it in his hands, then shouted over his shoulder, “Myan! Got another tube of burn salve. Boys in dorm four still hurting?”

Thara remembered the accident with the dorm four workers. They’d been scalded badly when the steam pipes in the magma extractors had broken.

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