Grunting with the physical effort, Suhailya held onto the edge of the stony ridge and lowered herself over the edge. Drake caught the Twi'lek by her waist and helped her down to the stone floor beside him. Exhausted and wheezing in Kessel's thin mountain air, she struggled to catch her breath. The steep trail leading into the gorge and the underground caverns was grueling enough, but were crippling with a Wookiee in the lead.

"Nikaede," Drake complained. "Slow down a bit. No use getting through these tunnels to the end if we collapse on the way." He shook his head as the Wookiee bawled an explicit insult and proceeded ahead of them into the tunnel.

"What's wrong with her?" Suhailya asked, igniting a glowrod.

"Claustrophobic, and she hates being underground."

Stumbling into the shadows, the Twi'lek stretched her neck from side to side to relieve a pinched nerve. "Can't say I blame her. Even my lekku hurt. I won't be able to move by morning."

"Not to worry," Drake snorted. "Wookiees give excellent body massages, but only if you catch them in the right mood." He rolled his eyes as a caustic reply came from the darkness ahead of them. "I'm not making fun of you, Nik. It's the truth."

"You seemed very keen on this location," Suhailya said. "Why? You've been leading us through these tunnels as if you've been here before."

Drake tapped his failing glowrod against the heel of his hand. "Taiske is an Old Corellian word that means treasure."

"You're expecting to find treasure down here? Drake, seriously, we're not little kids anymore."

"In Socorran, the word means loot. This gorge is a hideout where smugglers store their caches. My dad took me to one on Dantooine when I was little and taught me how to navigate the tunnels. If you're not fluent in Old Corellian, getting around in one of these ancient cave systems is nearly impossible."

Joining Nikaede at an intersection where the tunnels diverged into three narrow corridors, Drake pointed to an archaic script carved into the stone. "See that? It's a verse from a popular drinking song. If you know Old Corellian and you know the song, you can find your way."

"That's how you've been doing it? What's this one say?"

He squinted into the darkness, holding up the glowrod to examine the lyrics. "Who fears the bitter breath of winter? The answer is the middle passage: A man who's never known the cold."

"How does the rest of it go?"

"Beyond Death there's nothing colder. Than the heart of a smuggling man grown old."

She frowned. "These are drinking songs? That's just depressing."

"Maybe you need to hang out more in the back of the cantina with the right kind of people, instead of fighting slavers in the front room."

Without waiting for them, Nikaede hurried into the tunnel, hunched over to avoid hitting her head on the rock ceiling.

"Nikaede!" Drake yelled into the passage after her. He stumbled over a broken, wooden slat in the darkness, catching himself on a stack of crates in the center of the connecting passage. Casting a light over the dust-covered tarp, he shook the dust from it and partially uncovered the stash beneath. "No one's been here for a decade at least."

His eyes lit up as he removed the lid and retrieved a unique crystalline bottle of vintage Socorran Raava. "Based on the imprint, this Raava has to be 75 years old." Opening the crate lid beside the first one, the smuggler removed a bottle of vintage Corellian brandy. Drake shrugged out of his excavation pack and shoved the bag into her hands. "Hold this."

"Drake, seriously?" Suhailya said, holding the bag as he stuffed the dusty bottles inside it.

"Do you know what just one bottle of this is worth? A thousand credits minimum! Call it a consolation prize for surviving the Kessel. Grab that last bottle."

As Suhailya took the last bottle from the crate, Drake heard a metallic click from beneath the pallet. There was no time to shout in warning. Rolling away from the crates, he grabbed her by the waist in a half tackle and threw himself into the adjoining passage as the blast shook the entire tunnel system. Tons of rock fell on top of the crates and sealed the tunnel from which they had come.

Coughing violently as he tried to clear the dust from his throat, Drake managed to crawl from beneath the rubble, and was grateful when Nikaede's massive hands pulled him clear of the debris. Nikaede lifted a slab of rock, muscles trembling to hold it up as Drake grabbed Suhailya and dragged her to safety.

"Booby traps!" she cried, gasping or air. She accepted a rebreather when he offered it. "Is this how smugglers protect their loot? "

"No," Drake said, visibly shaken. "It's an honor code among the Bha'lir. Someone else has been in these passages." Waving away dust and smoke from the blast area, he trained his glowrod on a piece of metal that had narrowly missed them, embedding itself in the rock wall. "Pressure plate. Sophisticated, too." He looked up at his partner as the Wookiee shook stone dust from her fur and gave a panicked bark of impatience.

"Language!" Drake shouted, flushing red. "I didn't know it was rigged to blow."

"No use arguing about it now," Suhailya said, as Drake helped her up from the floor. She pointed to the caved-in rocks blocking the previous passage. "We're definitely not getting out the way we came."

Softly at first, an echo came to Drake's ears. As stone and dust dispersed, and the shifting rock settled, he heard a voice, reverberating from a nearby passage. "Do you hear that, partner?"

"Suhailya."

The Twi'lek abruptly straightened, eyes alert in the dimness. "Papa?"

"Suhailya," the voice called.

"Papa!" She darted into the darkness with the glowrod pointed out in front of her.

"Suhailya!" Drake cried. "Nikaede, get her. This could be a trap." The Socorran chased her into the passage, then into a recessed cave, sliding to an abrupt halt behind the Twi'lek. She stood, frozen in place, staring at a ghost.

Drake recognized the tall, lanky Twi'lek from his childhood: Paands Blatothe, the spice merchant who spend long hours sipping Socorran Raava and planning spice runs with his father and other prominent members of the Black Bha'lir."

"Suhailya," the ghost said urgently.

Drake retrieved a rock and threw it, which caused the hologram to momentarily sputter. The transmission was coming from a receiver on the cavern floor beside the partially mummified remains of a Twi'lek.

"Suhailya," the hologram beseeched, "I am sorry. Tell your mother, your sister and brother, I am so sorry." The hologram phased out and then back in, repeating the message in Ryl.

"Papa?" Suhailya fell to her knees, her voice lost in stifling sobs. She clutched ata her chest as she stared down at the desiccated body. "Papa, no!"