The large artificial bay carved into the yellow-orange cliff face took on more details as the Millennium Falcon pierced the sulfurous haze. Beyond the stone structures, every part of the harbor bristled with cranes, cargo crates, rail carts, and all manner of mining equipment. For many, many souls, this was the last thing above the ground they would ever lay eyes on. This was Raffia Bay, home to the largest and most productive shaft of the Spice Mines of Kessel.

Spice is one of the most desirable yet least understood substances in the world. Appearing as a silky red-orange dust, the curious mineral has several uses as an analgesic but is also infamous for its addictive qualities and the altered mental states it induces. Numerous studies over the millennia have attempted to ascertain what spice is, but none have come to any single conclusion. What is known is the most potent spice comes from areas that suffer from powerful reality distortions either current or past such as Kessel or Ryloth and that the effects produced can vary widely depending on the source of the strain.

The Millennium Falcon very slowly drew into the harbor under a hundred watchful eyes - both organic and mechanical. The stark white and bold blue on display very obviously did not belong in such a place as this.

A Pyke bedecked in jangling gold chains and festoon pendants led an entourage onto the quay to greet his unexpected guests. In particular, the finely dressed woman coming down the gangplank caught his attention. He had a keen sense for picking potential partners' business savvy from first impressions and this human was a shrewd one indeed.

Qi'ra stood ramrod straight with her chin high. Her face may as well have been carved from marble for the unfaltering look of superiority she displayed. This was not one that comes naturally with an ego but one forged by years of fighting for survival to rise to the top. Of course, she had learned from the best.

Han and Chewbacca tromped down the Millennium Falcon's gangplank behind her wearing both expressions of resignation and sets of shackles and chains provided by Lando. Beckett hadn't let the debonair answer as to why he had them when Han asked.

The Wookiee grunted in displeasure at being in chains again.

"It won't be for long," Han whispered.

Beckett, clad in the horn and boiled leather armor of a Weequay mercenary and armed with a short decorative halberd, tugged on their chain. "Quiet! The both of you!"

Qi'ra took a few steps forward to greet the Pyke. "I am Oksana Floren, Deputy Assistant Administrator to the Vice Admiral of the Federation of Trade Route Allocation and Monetization."

The Pyke slightly cocked his masked head. "(Capo Quay Tolsite of the Pyke Syndicate. Chief Operational Administrator of Raffia Bay and North Kessel.)"

Elthrii translated the Capo's introduction for the benefit of her comrades. She was unhappy with being relegated to playing the part of a diplomatic automaton, but Lando had promised to make it worth her while.

Qi'ra somehow managed to straighten her back even more. "I am here with an offer from his Eminence, the Senior Vice Admiral... Your spice for our hard-working slaves. I have brought you a sample." She half turned her head. "Tuul, bring forth the merchandise."

Beckett yanked the chain just hard enough for Han and Chewbacca to slightly stumble as they began to walk forward. He led them over to Capo Tolsite and stepped aside so the Pyke could get a good look at his gift.

The Capo nodded to a pair of his guards who marched over to Han and Chewbacca. The guards struck the two of them behind the knees with the hafts of their pikestaffs to force them to kneel.

Several other Pykes including Raffia Bay's slavemaster closed in on Han and Chewbacca. Piscine hands roughly pulled their mouths open to inspect their teeth and gums. After several seconds of intense oral scrutiny and a further minute of overall musculature examination the slavemaster professed as to the pair's quality.

"(The Pyke Syndicate accepts your gift. My slavemaster will ensure these new additions are properly clipped and tagged.)" Quay Tolsite gently touched his miniature spice hookah's solid silver mouthpiece to the underside of Qi'ra's chin. "(In the meantime, you and I have some business to discuss.)" He chuckled.

"What did he say?" Han asked.

"He says you are to immediately be taken for clipping and tagging," Elthrii interpreted.

Han paled. "What are they clipping?"

"Mm-hmm," was Elthrii's only response.

The slavemaster prompted Han and Chewbacca to stand. "(It's better if you don't know.)"

"He wants us to follow him," Elthrii said leading the way at a brisk pace.

Qi'ra held up a hand to stop them before they got too far. She walked in front of Han and stared in the eye with a look of disgust. Suddenly she placed one hand on his shoulder and sucker punched him in the gut.

Han grunted and doubled over. "Really?"

"That's for that stunt you pulled earlier, you degenerate scum."

Han looked to her with betrayal written upon his face but it quickly turned to one of mild puzzlement as he felt a weight deposited into his shackled hands.

Qi'ra stepped away to allow them to pass again. The slavemaster prodded the small of Han's back with the base of his pikestaff. As they headed onwards, Han opened his hand just enough to see what had been placed in it.

Han recognized what he had immediately. They were his gold dice. The slightest smile curled the corners of his mouth.

Raffia Bay's administrative building was a frankly unremarkable structure aside from being the largest stack of stone blocks by a small margin. It had none of the carved embellishments frequently seen in Pyke construction. The interior was just as brutalist with the closest approximation to decoration being the iron reinforcements and the sulfur yellow magelights.

"(Everything in Raffia Bay is controlled from this room up ahead,)" Capo Tolsite explained, leading the way through the rough hewn corridors. "(It is how we are able to maintain control of so many with so few.)" He pushed the rusty doors open and kept his arms wide in a display of pride.

Elthrii's translation of the Pyke's statements paused mid sentence as she beheld the room beyond. There were the expected looking glasses and runed consoles but what burned Elthrii's dynamo core were the score of poorly maintained automata slaved to everything. When she resumed her translation, there was a noticeable edge to her voice.

"(Our reconditioning process for new slaves is excruciating but effective.)" Quay Tolsite pointed his silver mouthpiece at one of the looking glasses. "(The process begins on arrival and typically lasts for a month. Most acquisitions are suitable for duty after three weeks but we find the extra time vastly decreases outbursts of adverse behavior.)"

In the looking glass, Qi'ra saw a redscale image of Han and Chewbacca in a large elevator writhing in agony as studded arc batons sent pulses of lightning through their bodies. Her eyes narrowed imperceptibly.

"(Come now. We can discuss things further at the bargaining table.)" Capo Tolsite bade his guests follow to an arched doorway towards the back of the room with Pyke guards to either side.

Quay Tolsite entered the room with Qi'ra and Elthrii close behind but the two guards crossed their rifles over the doorway to prevent Beckett's entry. The sound of the guards' armor as they moved caught Qi'ra's attention and she looked back.

The Capo chuckled. "(Your security attaché can wait out there. Surely we will not need him for our negotiations.)"

Qi'ra pursed her lips. "Wait there, Tuul. Try not to bother anyone."

Beckett bowed.

Quay Tolsite pulled the windowed doors closed and produced a chain with a ring of keys at the end from his robes. "(Now then...)" Once the lock bolt had slid into place with a sharp snap he replaced the keys. "(Shall we begin?)"

Qi'ra surreptitiously eyed where he had secreted the keys. "Let's."

In the room outside, the looking glass that showed the main elevator down into the spice mines winked out. Though the "barrel on legs" style of administration automaton in charge of the bank of glasses had not seen the action that had caused the deactivation, he logged the malfunction all the same and attempted to reestablish the magic connection.

What had caused the deactivation was in fact the destruction of the seeing stone by Chewbacca smashing the head of one of his and Han's captors into it. The action caught both of the Pykes by surprise and allowed Han and Chewbacca to disarm them.

Han put the pikestaff to good use against the slavemaster, running him through the gut with the wavy blade. At the same time he heard Chewbacca roar and the unsettling sound of breaking bones and tearing flesh. The Corellian looked over to see the Wookiee holding up the dismembered arms of one of the guards.

"Nice," Han said sarcastically as he removed his quick release shackles. "That was the uniform that would have fit me perfectly, but it's fine."

Chewbacca grumbled a Shyriiwook curse and threw the limbs to the floor.

After the third attempt to reestablish the connection had failed, the administration automaton called out to his Pyke supervisor.

"(What is it?)" The Pyke asked irritatedly.

The automaton blipped and warbled. Alarmed, the Pyke waddled over as quickly as he could.

Beckett had never learned how to interpret the various vocalizations that automata made as it had never seemed important to him, but he could tell that whatever that tin can was saying did not bode well for the plan. Time to improvise.

Beckett turned to the two Pykes guarding the door to the negotiating room. "Would you mind holdin' this for me?" He tossed his halberd to them.

The Pykes, wholly caught off guard, fumbled for the short polearm. Beckett meanwhile drew his heavy revolver and shot each of them in the chest. Before any of the other guards had the chance to react and draw their own weapons Beckett had dropped half of them. Lead and smoke filled the air, but the veteran mercenary did not miss his marks.

Capo Tolsite bolted up from his chair at the gunfire and ran to the windowed doors. He hardly had a chance to peer through the thick glass before he felt himself wrenched backwards by small but deceptively strong hands. Three quick, loud snaps sounded through the room followed by the thud of Qi'ra dropping the Pyke's broken corpse to the floor.

If Elthrii had had a jaw, it would have been hanging open. "...Whoa! ...I have never seen anyone do... What was that?!"

"Teräs Käsi," Qi'ra answered plainly as she fished the keys from the Pyke's robes. "Dryden taught me."

Beckett lightly kicked one of the bodies of the dead Pyke guards and startled when he heard the lock to the conference room unbolt. He snap aimed his pistol towards the opening doors but lowered it upon seeing Qi'ra. His eyes then drifted to Quay Tolsite's corpse. "Ah. Well negotiated."

Deep below, Chewbacca followed Han - now in the ill-fitting disguise of the Pyke slavemaster - from the elevator carriage. They took only a few steps before they unconsciously stopped at the sight that lay before them.

The elevator had let Han and Chewbacca out to a small cliff that overlooked the enormous main nexus for the spiderweb of mineshafts. Hundreds of slaves toiled away below in a haze formed by fine spice dust. The sound of barking coughing was as endless as the sounds of striking picks and rolling rail carts. Whip cracks and the snaps of lightning from arc batons occasionally rose above the constant clamor with cries of pain not far behind. At the center of everything was a mighty mountain of spice where slaves shovelled the raw dust onto a conveyor belt in a neverending stream.

Han's and Chewbacca's faces hardened and they followed the nearby ramp that led downward.

Elthrii walked over the crumpled body of the Pyke supervisor and stopped next to the administration automaton. "Excuse me, I need access to these consoles."

The squat automaton did not reply.

"...Hello?" Elthrii gently tapped the metal administrator. "Can you hear me?" Her gaze trailed down a short way to a tarnished brass cylinder affixed to his chassis. Of course. "Ugh. Restraining bolts. Barbaric." She removed the metal shell from her forearm and set to work breaking the magic seal with one of the tools contained therein.

Elthrii had quite a bit of practice at removing restraining bolts and it took only a few seconds before a pop and a few sparks heralded the magic dissipating. The automaton stood and tossed the brass cylinder over her shoulder. "Congratulations. You're liberated. Scoot."

The administration automaton warbled and blarped nervously.

"I don't know. Free your brothers and sisters or something. Just give me some space."

As the automaton squeakily ambled away, Elthrii selected an interface spike from her tool drum. Once she had it fully socketed in the central console, the primary looking glass flickered before the image coalesced into a map of Raffia Bay. "I am in!"

Qi'ra set Quay Tolsite's keys down and tapped her comm crystal. "Han, can you hear me?"

Han tilted his head forward to speak into his own crystal. His oversized helmet shifted and he pushed it back with a grumble. "I kind of need to know which way to go here."

"Elthrii?"

The red magic lines on the looking glass in front of Elthrii re-formed into a map of the mines. "The temperature controlled vault is down two levels, then left, then right, then the third left."

Han grimaced under his helmet. "Right. Uh. That's a lot of directions, but we're on it."

Beckett heard a sizzle from behind him and turned to see the administration automaton removing the restraining bolt from one of his humanoid kin. The mercenary shrugged. He didn't really care what the rust buckets did so long as they stayed out of his way.

It had taken a minute for Qi'ra to peg which of the hundreds of moving spots on the map were Han and Chewbacca, but tracking them after that was simple. "They're in subsector four, coming up on gate X-3-7-1-K."

"Overriding!" Elthrii declared, pressing the paired rune.

The Corellian and the Wookiee didn't slow their jog and passed through the gate as it opened. Some slaves they passed looked to them quizzically. Most though kept their heads down for fear of a lashing.

A secretarial automaton with chipping black paint scooped up the Capo's keys and limped over to an important-looking iron lectern. He inserted a key into a hole in the front. "...Freedom."

In the mines below, thousands of sets of slave shackles simultaneously fell free from their captives. For a moment after the last chains rattled to the ground, everything was still. A loud triumphant bellow from an Ithorian shattered the tension and every soul at once realized the opportunity afforded to them.

Within minutes, the entire tunnel complex descended into anarchy. Many of the Pyke slavers that vainly tried to quell the revolt were torn apart by pickaxes or thrown into machinery. Much the same was happening in the bay above with dockworkers arming themselves with whatever they could.

The chaos was not limited to the organic slaves though. In the administrative building, liberated automata of all kinds set out to do as much damage as they could to anything they could find. In the control room, metal appendages smashed, dented, or otherwise marred sigil plates and drums. Finely tuned systems of magic fired out of control through the whole of Raffia Bay.

Han swore as the tunnel's magelights almost faded out again. "What the Hell are you guys doing up there?!"

"I created a distraction!" Elthrii replied cheerily.

Han rolled his eyes and continued running. Suddenly he heard Chewbacca wail from some distance behind him. The Corellian turned and waved for Chewbacca to follow. "Come on! This way!"

Chewbacca didn't move. Instead, he kept staring up a side passage at a group of Wookiees. The additional Pyke guards that their enslavement required meant that their attempt to escape had been fairly quickly suppressed. They now found themselves at the mercy of the lash, pikestaff, and arc baton.

Chewbacca growled and curled his fists.

"Wait, what are you doing?!" Han asked. "Come on! We've got to get the coaxium!"

The pained cries of his fellow Wookiees tore at Chewbacca. These were his family as all Wookiees were. He couldn't do nothing.

Han jogged back over to Chewbacca. "Hey! Remember what Beckett said. Stick to the plan. Come on, Chewie. Let's go."

Chewbacca finally removed his quick release shackles and tossed them away.

"Fine!" Han stormed off, upsetting the angle of his helmet. In frustration he pulled it off and threw it to the floor. After a few more steps, he stopped and sighed deeply. "Chewie!"

Chewbacca turned at the change in Han's voice and saw the Corellian walking towards him.

"You might need this." He tossed the short halberd to Chewbacca.

The Wookiee looked at the polearm and growled his gratitude.

"Hope I see you around some time." Han took off running up the tunnel again, scooping up his discarded helmet on the way.

Chewbacca charged up the side passage bellowing a war cry that had so rarely been heard since the Battle of Kachirho. The Pyke guard presently jamming an arc baton into the side of one of the Wookiees hadn't even realized that the cry was not coming from one of his victims before a wavy halberd blade sprouted from the front of his chest. With another roar, Chewbacca flung the Pyke over his shoulder as though using a pitchfork.

The remaining Pykes recoiled in shock, giving the newly rescued Wookiee a chance to retrieve the brutalized guard's dropped weapon. A few of the other Wookiees also exploited the Pykes' moment of pause to overpower their captors.

Qi'ra frowned at the looking glass. She had looked away for only a moment to survey the chaos left by the rioting automata but she could no longer see the paired dots of Han and Chewbacca. "Han, where are you?"

"I'm on my way to the vault. I lost Chewie."

Beckett's eyebrow shot up. "He's dead?"

"No, he had something he had to do."

"Is he comin' back?"

"I don't know!"

Movement on the bank of looking glasses caught Beckett's attention. He turned and watched the images of armed Pykes filing up very familiar looking corridors. "Okay, they're on to us now." He drew his revolver and thumbed the cock back.

Scant seconds later, the rusty doors to the room flung open with a Pyke and his levelled surplus carbine perfectly framed between them. Beckett immediately shot him.

Han took the instructed third left to reach the temperature controlled vault but quickly ducked back behind the corner. He carefully peered back around to see if the Pyke vault guard had seen him. A wave of relief washed over him when he saw the guard was looking in a completely different direction.

Han tapped his comm crystal. "I'm at the vault." Han took a deep breath and strolled around the corner confidently.

The guard tilted his head slightly at seeing the unescorted slavemaster this far down. "(What are you doing here?)"

"Hah-kanna-tah," Han repeated poorly.

The guard's entire body stiffened. "(What are you doing here?)" He shifted his grip on his bayoneted carbine.

"That's what I said!" Han delivered a swift kick between the guard's legs.

The Pyke released his grip on his gun as his hands flew to his groin. Han seized the carbine mid fall and cracked the guard in the side of the head with the butt before running the bayonet into the Pyke's chest. As he fell backwards, the impaled guard's hands went to the gun's barrel where they stayed making it look as though he was holding a grim facsimile of a funerary flower.

Beckett nodded at the looking glass displaying the circular vault door. "Huh. That was actually impressive."

"Yeah," Qi'ra agreed.

"We're clear," Han's voice said over their comm crystals.

Elthrii pressed the rune to unlock the vault.

Han jumped back from the door as a large metal arm swung into place. A thigh thick threaded bolt at the end of the arm socketed into the door's center and the bolts around the perimeter retracted with a resounding clank. The round edge of the door hissed as the seal broke. A moment later, the arm pulled the door aside with a deep groan of metal.

Cold fog rolled out of the vault and spread across the ground. Everything it touched gained a delicate layer of frost. Han stepped through the door. Within seconds the condensation on the lenses of his helmet begin to freeze. Preferring to be able to see, he doffed his helmet.

The vault was frankly not as impressive as Han had expected or the vault door had implied. The entirety of the floor plan could have fit inside the Millennium Falcon's main cabin with room to spare. Five layers of canister racks ringed the room while a bronze torus wrapped in pale green runes took up almost the entire ceiling and constantly emanated a deathly cold breeze from its center.

Han tapped his comm crystal. "Now what?" His question swirled in the air around him.

A second passed before Qi'ra's voice replied. "Okay, Han, each canister should be equipped with a thermal display."

Han looked at the canisters and noticed that each had a small glass tube with a luminous deep blue fluid built into their metal shell. "Yeah, I see it."

"If the internal temperature gets high enough for it to turn bright red, then the coaxium will destabilize to the point where any movement will make it explode."

As Qi'ra spoke, Han lifted one of the canisters from its rack and found it far heavier than he expected. "Yep," he grunted, lowering the canister to the ground while trying not to crush his feet. "I get it, guys. This stuff is dangerous."

Unable to carry the coaxium, Han resigned to dragging the canister. The metal screeched against the stone floor and gouged out a rut. He had made it a few paces' distance through the vault door before he stopped to catch his breath. There was no way he was going to get the coaxium out like this. At least not without taking long enough to explode.

Han stood the canister on its end and looked around the tunnel. A smile of relief crossed his face upon seeing a cart shaped lump some ways away covered by a tarpaulin. It took a bit of work to move the cart's wheels out of the ruts they had formed for themselves, but once he had gotten past that he faced no further issues in getting it to the vault.

Han braced the side of the canister against the cart and climbed in. With a roar of effort, he lifted until every muscle burned and begged him to stop. Finally, he got it up over the side and carefully lowered it on to the deck of the cart.

"Okay," Han panted. "Got it."

"Great," said Beckett. "Only eleven more."

Han's voice cracked. "...Eleven?!" He swore at the top of his lungs and hopped down from the cart to retrieve a second canister.