Star Wars - A Servant of the Empire - Unpublished Read Free Page B

Panatic looked down to open the drawer, Quil bolted for the door. It hissed open, revealing the two stormtroopers on guard outside. “Get him!” the little official yelled.
    Panatic got off one wild shot, which glanced off one trooper’s armor. Then they were on him, using their rifle butts to club him into submission.
    “What shall we do with him now?” asked Quil thoughtfully. “Now he dies,” said Yab, giving Panatic another kick in the ribs. “Put him in the furnace.”
    “How tidy,” said Quil approvingly.

    The stormtroopers dragged Panatic from the office. “Let me go! I order you to let me go! Quil is only a civilian; he has no authority. I am an officer of the Imperial Navy! What you’re doing is a court-martial offense! Can you hear me in there? A court-martial offense!” The troopers marched on in silence.
    Yab’s quarters occupied what had been built as a luxury hotel. His office was on top, and the rooms were used to house the slaver’s henchmen and bully-boys. The lower levels were kitchens, freezers, and services. For waste disposal the hotel had been equipped with a large plasma furnace. The stormtroopers shoved Panatic into the furnace and slammed the heavy door.
    The furnace was a gleaming steel cylinder, dimly lit by the glow of safety lights behind thick glass. The loading hatch was at one end, and the other end was the open maw of the fusion torch. The interior was filled with bits of scrap, piles of food waste and assorted junk too worthless to keep. All of it, Panatic included, would be reduced to a cloud of ionized plasma when the fusion torch switched on.

    Panatic didn’t waste time shouting or pounding on the door. He had a few seconds while the troopers unlocked the controls and started the warm-up cycle. What to do? The furnace was too solid to break out of, and there was nothing that could protect him from the heat of the fusion torch.
    But scrap metal and garbage doesn’t fight back. He snatched up a bent metal rod and scrambled over the junk to the mouth of the torch. Deep inside it he could hear the whine of fuel pumps and the hum of containment coils powering up. Panatic jammed his makeshift tool deep into the torch, and was rewarded with a powerful shock that threw him into a pile of scrap and left his fingers numb. Blue light flared around the metal rod as it shorted out the containment coils. The sound of pumps faded as the fusion torch shut down.
    Hampered by his useless arm, Panatic climbed back over the junk to the door, and grabbed the heaviest thing he could find—a big chunk of thick pipe. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it would have to do.
    The door opened, and the dim light outside was dazzling. Panatic swung his pipe club clumsily at his attackers, catching one a solid blow on the side of the head. But the second dodged aside and grabbed Panatic’s arms.
    “Sir! It’s us!” It was Sergeant Ivlik. The one he’d clubbed was Mace.
    “Ow. Remind me never to go up against any Imperials armed with scrap metal! Are you all right, Captain?”
    “Yes. Just a little sore. Where are the stormtroopers?” “Stunned, for the moment,” said Ivlik.
    “Good. We can stow them in this furnace; they’ll be safe there. How did you find me?”
    “I got chummy with one of Yab’s goons and asked him where the boss puts people he doesn’t like. To be honest, we were afraid of finding nothing but some greasy soot.”
    “I was lucky.”
    “Well, let’s hope your luck holds long enough for us to get off this miserable rock before they notice you haven’t been fried.”
    “Leave? We’re not going anywhere. What time is it? Has the auction started?”
    Mace glanced at his chrono. “It started about half an hour ago. You’re not serious about this, are you? This place is crawling with armed creeps, goons, slavers and pirates.”
    Panatic finished straightening his uniform, flexed the fingers of his right hand and adjusted his cap. “In the fleet we have a saying,