There was a good scattering of aliens among the humans wandering around Ilic, but Breil’lya’s cream-colored fur stood out of the crowd enough to make him easy to follow. Which was just as well. If Han could recognize the Bothan, the Bothan could probably recognize him right back, and it would be risky to have to get too close.
Luckily, the alien didn’t seem to even consider the possibility that anyone might be following him. He kept up a steady pace, never turning around, as he headed past cross streets and shops and atria toward the outer city wall. Han stayed with him, wishing he hadn’t been so quick to give the city map to Lando. It might have been nice to have some idea where he was going.
They passed through one final atrium and reached a section of warehouse-type structures abutting a vast mural that seemed to have been painted directly on the inner city wall. Breil’lya went straight to one of the buildings near the mural and disappeared through the front door.
Han ducked into a convenient doorway about thirty meters down the street from the warehouse. The door Breil’lya had gone through, he could see, carried the faded sign Amethyst Shipping and Storage above it. “I just hope it’s on the map,” he muttered under his breath, pulling his comlink from his belt.
“It is,” a woman’s voice came softly from behind him.
Han froze. “Hello?” he asked tentatively.
“Hello,” she said back. “Turn around, please. Slowly, of course.”
Han did as ordered, the comlink still in hand. “If this is a robbery—”
“Don’t be silly.” The woman was short and slender, perhaps ten years older than him, with close-cut graying hair and a thin face which under other circumstances would look friendly enough. The blaster pointed his direction was some unfamiliar knockoff of a BlasTech DL-18—not nearly as powerful as his own DL-44, but under the circumstances the difference didn’t matter a whole lot. “Put the comlink on the ground,” she continued. “Your blaster, too, as long as you’re down there.”
Silently, Han crouched down, drawing his weapon out with exaggerated caution. Under cover of the motion, with most of her attention hopefully on the blaster, he flicked on the comlink. Laying both on the ground, he straightened and took a step back, just to prove that he knew the proper procedure for prisoners. “Now what?”
“You seem interested in the little get-together yonder,” she said, stooping to retrieve the blaster and comlink. “Perhaps you’d like a guided tour.”
“That would be great,” Han told her, raising his hands and hoping that she wouldn’t think to look at the comlink before putting it away in one of the pockets in her jumpsuit.
She didn’t look at it. She did, however, shut it off. “I think I’m insulted,” she said mildly. “That has to be the oldest trick on the list.”
Han shrugged, determined to maintain at least a little dignity here. “I didn’t have time to come up with any new ones.”
“Apology accepted. Come on, let’s go. And lower your hands—we don’t want any passersby wondering, now, do we?”
“Of course not,” Han said, dropping his hands to his sides.
They were halfway to the Amethyst when, off in the distance, a siren began wailing.
It was, Luke thought as he looked around the Mishra, almost like an inverted replaying of his first visit to the Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine all those years ago.
True, the Mishra was light-years more sophisticated than that dilapidated place had been, with a correspondingly more upscale clientele. But the bar and tables were crowded with the same wide assortment of humans and aliens, the smells and sounds were equally variegated, and the band off in the corner was playing similar music—a style, obviously, that had been carefully tailored to appeal to a multitude of different races.
There was one other difference, too. Crowded though the place might be, the patrons were leaving Luke a respectful amount of room at the bar.
He took a sip of his drink—a local variant of the hot chocolate Lando had introduced him to, this one with a touch of mint—and glanced over at the entrance. Han and Lando should have been only a couple of hours behind him, which meant they could be walking in at any minute. He hoped so, anyway. He’d understood Han’s reasons for wanting the two ships to come into Ilic separately, but with all the threats that seemed to be hanging over the New Republic, they couldn’t really afford to waste time. He took another sip—
And from behind him came an inhuman bellow.
He spun around, hand automatically yanking his lightsaber from his belt, as the sound of a chair crashing over backwards added an exclamation point to the bellow. Five meters away from him, in the middle of a circle of frozen patrons, a Barabel and a Rodian stood facing each other over a table, both with blasters drawn.
“No blasters! No blasters!” an SE4 servant droid called, waving his arms for emphasis as he scuttled toward the confrontation. In the flick of an eye, the Barabel shifted aim and blew the droid apart, bringing his blaster back to bear on the Rodian before the other could react.
“Hey!” the bartender said indignantly. “That’s going to cost you—”
“Shut up,” the Barabel cut him off with a snarl. “Rodian will pay you. After he pay me.”
The Rodian drew himself up to his full height—which still left him a good half meter shorter than his opponent—and spat something in a language Luke didn’t understand. “You lie,” the Barabel spat back. “You cheat. I know.”
The Rodian said something else. “You no like?” the Barabel countered, his voice haughty. “You do anyway. I call on Jedi for judgment.”
Every eye in the tapcafe had been riveted to the confrontation. Now, in almost perfect unison, the gazes turned to Luke. “What?” he asked cautiously.
“He wants you to settle the dispute,” the bartender said, relief evident in his voice.
A relief that Luke himself was far from feeling. “Me?”
The bartender gave him a strange look. “You’re the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, aren’t you?” he asked, gesturing at the lightsaber in Luke’s hand.
“Yes,” Luke admitted.
“Well, then,” the bartender concluded, waving a hand toward the disputants.
Except that, Jedi or no Jedi, Luke didn’t have a drop of legal authority here. He opened his mouth to tell the bartender that—
And then took another look into the other’s eyes.
Slowly, he turned back around, the excuses sticking unsaid in his throat. It wasn’t just the bartender, he saw. Everyone in the tapcafe, it seemed, was looking at him with pretty much the same expression. An expression of expectation and trust. Trust in the judgment of a Jedi.
Taking a quiet breath, sternly ordering his pounding heart to calm down, he started through the crowd toward the confrontation. Ben Kenobi had introduced him to the Force; Yoda had taught him how to use the Force for self-control and self-defense. Neither had ever taught him anything about mediating arguments.
“All right,” he said as he reached the table. “The first thing you’re going to do—both of you—is put away your weapons.”
“Who first?” the Barabel demanded. “Rodians collect bounty—he shoot if I disarm.”
This was certainly getting off to a great start. Suppressing a sigh, Luke ignited his lightsaber, holding it out so that the brilliant green blade was directly between the opposing blasters. “No one is going to shoot anyone,” he said flatly. “Put them away.”
Silently, the Barabel complied. The Rodian hesitated a second longer, then followed suit. “Now tell me the problem,” Luke said, shutting down the lightsaber but keeping it ready in his hand.
“He hire me for tracking job,” the Barabel said, jabbing a keratin-plated finger at the Rodian. “I do what he say. But he no pay me.”
The Rodian said something indignant sounding. “Just a minute—we’ll get to you,” Luke told him, wondering how he was going to handle that part of the cross-examination. “What sort of job was it?”
“He ask me hunt animal nest for him,” the Barabel said. “Animals bothering little ships—eating at sides. I do what he say. He burn animal nest, get money. But then he pay me in no-good money.” He gestured down at a now scattered pile of gold-colored metal chips.
Luke picked one up. It was small and triangular, with an intricate pattern of lines in the center, and inscribed with a small “100” in each corner. “Anyone ever see this currency before?” he called, holding it up.
“It’s new Imperial scrip,” someone dressed in an expensive business coat said with thinly veiled contempt. “You can only spend it on Imperial-held worlds and stations.”
Luke grimaced. Another reminder, if he’d needed one, that the war for control of the galaxy was far from over. “Did you tell him beforehand that you’d be paying in this?” he asked the Rodian.
The other said something in his own language. Luke glanced around the circle, wondering if asking for a translator would diminish his perceived status here. “He says that that was how he was paid,” a familiar voice said; and Luke turned to see Lando ease his way to the front of the crowd. “Says he argued about it, but that he didn’t have any choice in the matter.”