The rocks clack and Han jumps. He lands uncertainly and steadies himself against a boulder. The boulder shifts and grinds against another stone, trapping him between them. Han’s breath flees his body and a sharp pain lances his torso. He has landed during the grind phase. His body aches as though a Shadorian slime crab has snagged him in its pincers. He does not doubt that he has broken a rib – or two or three!
Han sinks to his knees and remains motionless for several moments. The time seems more like hours in the impenetrable darkness. As each second passes, the rumbling belt carries him further into the gloom, and the ache in his side grows worse. Again and again, man-sized boulders crack against each other, then roughly nudge him, sometimes smashing a finger or pinching an arm. He almost wishes the landing had battered him unconscious.
Only the thought of what lies at the end of the belt rouses Han. He guesses the belt’s final destination to be an immense furnace or a huge rock grinder. Either way it will do him no good. The pilod stands uncertainly. A hot breeze strikes his face. As the belt whisks him deeper into the formless dark, he grows vaguely aware of unseen protrusions whistling past his head. The temperature has grown uncomfortably warm.
A faint light silhouettes a huge boulder ten meters ahead. Even as he watches, the light fades.
“Don’t shut down!” Han hollers, but even a Droid would never hear his voice above the belt’s terrific rumble. He cautiously inches forward. Pain shoots through his torso each time he steadies himself against an unseen boulder.
Though his legs buckle with every step. Han eventually works his way past a dozen boulders and stands above the tiny Droid. He uses the Droid’s lumination appendage to inspect it. Wedged between two boulders, the Droid is terribly and irreparably battered. Six crooked and twisted appendages extend full length from its body. Each lies trapped beneath a boulder or bent back toward the body where no joint exists. The Droid looks like a crushed and long dead Sivorian wood spider.
It’s body trapped as it is between two immense rocks, has suffered a hundred pinches and punctures. Han leans closer to inspect it. The Droid has a monogram etched into its body: “For the esteemed C.L. May we do business soon, B.R.”
A croak escapes the Droid’s sonic propagation apparatus. It is barely audible above the rumble of the belt and the clatter of the boulders.
“It’s curtains… It’s curtains… It’s curtains…”
“Thanks,” Han mumbles.
A steady roar starts growling louder than the belt’s rumble. When Han peers over a boulder toward the sound, he cries out in surprise.
The belt ends fifty meters ahead and empties into a deep pit. The pit does not alarm Han as much as does the reason he sees it – great white and yellow flames flicker high above its edge.
Ignoring the protests in his torso, Han scramble to the top of a boulder and leaps away from the belt. He lands in the dark corridor and rolls over his injured side. His screams echo louder than the belt’s roar.
The belt dumps the Droid into the pit and the flames briefly flash blue.
“That’ll purge your circuits,” Han mutters.
Chewbacca roars somewhere in the distance and Han calls to the Wookiee as loudly as he can.
Four painful hours later, they limp into the light of Ord Mantell’s blue sun. The tunnel opens into an immense, robotic coal yard. “Fossil fuels!” Han comments. “No wonder Ord Mantell is such a desert.”
“Uuughh,” Chewbacca agrees, brushing a thick coat of black dust from his fur.
“Yeah,” Han says. “Let’s get back to the Falcon.”