[Black Fleet Crisis(100)

“Today we will remove them, as the steward of a granary must remove the vermin to keep the stocks pure. And when next you stand on N’zoth and look to the sky, you will know that none but the children of N’zoth stand above you. “

Then Nil Spaar stepped away from the hypercomm and looked back to Dar Bille. “You may give the order, ” he said generously.

Dar Bille’s crests swelled with pride and gratitude.

“All vessels of the

Black Fleet-this is

the primate of

the flagshipPride of Yevetha , ” he said in a strong clear voice. “On the word of the viceroy, I direct you to commence your attacks. May each of us honor the name of the Yevetha today. “

Wearing an approving look on his dirty, deep-lined face, Negus Nigekus slammed the check hatch shut and threw the locking bolt home. The ore sheds were more than two-thirds full, and there was still a month to go before the gypsy freighter returned to New Brigia. Perhaps this time there would finally be enough profit over the cost of their supplies to clear the last of their passage debt.

Nigekus would never have dreamed that after eighteen years working the chromite digs in the hills above the village, the little colony would still owe a debt to the captain of the freighter that had brought them there. In the beginning the land had been generous.

And with the Cluster under the Empire’s protection and their claim to New Brigia accepted by Coruscant, there had been more than enough buyers for the blue-white metal to ensure good prices.

War-so long as it stayed at a safe distance-was good for business.

In the first four years there wasn’t a quarter when the community failed to pare its debt. Even with the extra costs as families left the longhouses for cottage shelters, even feeding new mouths too young to contribute, and the mothers who gave their labor share in the nursery rather than the mines, even the summer when the crops withered and the winter when the processing dome burned, there was always something offered against their obligations.

But then the land had grown stingy, and, not long after, the Empire was gone. With the spacelanes from Koornacht to Galantos and Wehttam no longer secure, the colony’s best buyers lowered their offers or stopped bidding at all, pointing to the risk of piracy.

In time only Captain Stanz and theFreebirdcame calling, and his price was the lowest of all-an insult to the sweat and labor of the two hundred who each morning hiked up from the village to the diggings and each evening returned bowed by their labors. But Stanz was a pirate in heart if not in fact, and had no sympathy for them.

“This is droid work yer doing, ” he said, “picking rocks from the ground. You can’t expect a living wage for droid work. Even at these prices, it’s hardly worth my trouble to come here. “

Nigekus doubted the truth of that, but there was no point in arguing.

He had no choice but to stand there and listen to Stanz’s poor-mouthing as he figured the load and calculated the overage, using whatever prices the old Bothan’s whim dictated. And for years the overage had hovered around the figure for a quarter’s interest, sometimes a little more, more often a little less, with the shortfall added to THEIR debt.

If the community had had its own hauler, even a worn-out Corellian freighter or a battered space barge—but that was a dream beyond reason.

Still, the land had suddenly turned kind again, with two new diggings bringing up rich ore that reminded the surviving elders of the promise that had coaxed them there from Brigia. If they earned no more for this load than the price Stanz had paid on his last visit, the overage should cover not only the interest but the balance.

To guarantee that, Nigekus had decided that this time he would hold back a third of the ore until Stanz set the price. It was a tactic not without risk, or it might have been tried long before. If the Bothan took offense, the community could lose its lifeline-and the offender might lose his life.

But Nigekus was determined to see New Brigia escape Captain Stanz’s thrall before the dust-cough that now plagued him at night rendered him fit only to sweeten the dirt of the gardens. If Stanz snapped his neck in a fury at being caught as a cheat, Nigekus would lose little.

“He will only spare me the last weeks of the coughing death, ” he had said to the other elders in winning their approval. “And you can then kill him without shame, and claim his ship as honor payment to my family. “

Negus Nigekus walked slowly but proudly across the common toward the processing dome, his thin body warmed by the knowledge that a turning was coming.

It had been hard for him to admit that he could no longer make the climb to the diggings and do more than take up space in the pit. The aches of hard labor were easier to bear than the deep ache of feeling useless, of standing with the children and feeling that he had become one of them, a mouth that could not earn its table share. He was grateful to have found a way of escaping that feeling.