THROUGH THE WINDOW OF THE TAXI, Zeerid saw Karson’s Park below. Benches surrounded a large pond in which greenbeaks swam. Walking paths zagged through a small wood. Picnic tables dotted the grass here and there. Public athletic courts, most of them cracked but still usable, formed the geometric meeting grounds where the neighborhood’s youth met and played.
Zeerid checked his chrono as the aircar set down. Right on time.
He paid the driver, threw on a billed hat, unloaded the hoverchair, and pushed it before him as he entered the park. The chair felt light in his hands, though he thought he might just have been excited. He headed straight for the walkway and benches around the pond.
Ahead, he saw Nat pushing Arra in her wheelchair. Arra was tossing to the greenbeaks the processed feed sold by the utility droids that cleaned the park. She laughed as the greenbeaks quacked and squabbled over the feed nuggets. To Zeerid, the sound of her joy was like music.
He spared a quick glance around, seeing many pedestrians and a few droids but nothing that gave him concern.
“Nat!” he called, and waved to them. “Arra!”
He thought his voice sounded different planetside than it did on Fatman, and he approved of the change. It wasn’t the voice of a spicerunner, not even the voice of a soldier. Instead, it was the gentle voice of a father who loved his daughter. Arra made him better. He knew that. And he needed to make sure he saw her more often.
Nat turned Arra’s chair and both of their eyes widened at the sight.
“Daddy!” Arra said.
Of all the words in the galaxy, that was the one he liked to hear most. She wheeled toward him, leaving Nat and the still-squabbling greenbeaks behind.
“What is that?” she asked as she came closer. Her eyes were wide, her smile bright.
He knelt down and scooped her out of her chair in a hug. She felt tiny.
“It is my surprise for you,” he said.
Arra’s face pinched in a question. “And what is that?” she asked, tapping the armor vest he wore under his clothes.
He felt his cheeks warm. “Something for work. That’s all.”
She seemed to accept that. “Look, Aunt Nat. A hoverchair!”
“So I see,” said Nat, walking up behind her.
“Is it for me?” Arra asked.
“Of course it is!” Zeerid answered.
Arra squealed and gave Zeerid another hug, dislodging his hat. “You are the best, Daddy. Can I try it out right now?”
“Sure,” Zeerid said, and set her down in it. “The controls are right here. They’re intuitive, so—”
She manipulated the controls and was off and flying before he could say another word. He just watched her go, smiling.
“Hello, Nat,” he said.
His sister-in-law looked worn, too young for the lines on her face, the circles under her eyes. She wore her brown hair in a style even Zeerid knew was five years out of date. Zeerid wondered how he must look to her. Probably just as worn.
“Zeerid. That was very nice. The chair, I mean.”
“Yeah,” Zeerid said. “She seems to be enjoying it.”
Arra flew the hoverchair after some greenbeaks and they fled into the water.
“Careful, Arra!” he called.
“I’m fine, Daddy,” she said.
He and Nat stood there, next to each other but with an abyss between them.
“Been a while,” Nat said. “She needs to see you more often.”
“I know. I’m trying.”
She seemed to want to say something but held off.
“How’s work?”
“I am a waitress in a casino, Zeerid,” she scoffed. “An old waitress. Work is hard. My feet hurt. My back hurts. I’m tired. And our apartment is the size of an aircar.”
He could not help but take all of it personally. “I will try to send more.”
“No, no.” She waved to punctuate the words. “If it wasn’t for the credits you do send, we’d go hungry. It’s not that. I just … feel like I’m on a treadmill, you know? Can’t stop running but I’m going nowhere.”
He nodded. “I hear you.”
Arra called to him. “Look, Daddy!”
She flew the hoverchair in a tight circle, laughing the whole way.
“Careful, Arra,” he said, but smiled.
“Wait until you’ve got the hang of that, Peashooter,” Nat said.
They stood together in silence for a time. Then Nat’s voice turned serious. “How did you afford the chair, Zeerid?”
He did not look at her, fearful that she’d see the ambivalence in his face.
“Work. What else?”
“What kind of work?”
He did not like the tone of the question. “Same as always.”
She turned on him, and the stern expression on her face channeled Val so well he almost crumbled.
“You’ve been sending us one hundred, two hundred credits a month for almost a year now. Today you show up with a hoverchair that I know costs more than the aircar I drive.”
“Nat—”
“What are you into, Zeerid? You have this ridiculous hat on, armor.”
“The same—”
“Do you think I’m blind? Stupid?”
“No, of course not.”
“I can guess at what you do, Zeerid. Arra has already lost her mother. She can’t lose her father, too. It will crush her.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
“You’re not hearing me. You think she’d rather have legs than have her father? That hoverchair more than you? She glows when she knows you are coming to see us. Listen to me, Zeerid. Whatever you’re doing, give it up. Sell that ship of yours, take a job planetside, and just be a father to your daughter.”
He wished he could. “I can’t, Nat. Not yet.” He turned to face her. “One more run and everything changes. One more.”
She stared back at him, her skin pale from too little sun and inadequate nutrition. “I told her not to marry a soldier, much less a pilot.”
“Val?”
“Yes, Val.”
“Nat—”
“You don’t know when to stop, Zeerid. You never have. All of you, you put on that armor, get in that cockpit, and you think you’re invulnerable, that a blaster can’t kill you, that your ship can’t get shot out of the sky. It can, Zeerid. And if yours does, it’ll hurt Arra more than the accident that took her legs.”
He could think of nothing to say because he knew she was right. “I’m going to buy her a sweet ice. You want one?”
She shook her head and he walked toward the concession stand. He felt Nat’s eyes on his back the whole way.
VRATH WATCHED ZEERID walk away from the woman, his sister-in-law, and head to the vendor stands to get a sweet ice for his daughter.
His daughter.
Small wonder that Zeerid operated with such concern for being followed. Vrath knew what an organization like The Exchange, or one like the Hutts, could do to a man with a family. A young child was a lever waiting to be pulled, the marionette strings to make a man dance.
A man living the life Zeerid and Vrath lived had to have either enough power—or a patron with enough power—to protect his family, or his family was at risk. Zeerid had neither power nor patron. Vrath respected the fact that Zeerid had managed to keep his daughter out of the game for so long. No mean feat.
But now she was in it, a piece on the board.
Vrath would not use her, of course. As a matter of professional pride, Vrath never resorted to threats or harm to a man’s family, much less a child. It lacked precision, something a bomber pilot would do, not a sniper.
And Vrath was still a sniper in his soul. One shot, one kill, no collaterals.
He turned away from Nat and Arra to locate Zeerid and found him standing directly behind him, a red sweet ice in one hand, a green in the other, and eyes like spears.
“Do I know you, friend?” Zeerid said. His eyes took in Vrath’s clothes, his bearing.
Vrath slouched some, adopted as harmless a look as he could. “I don’t think so. You from around here?”
Zeerid took a step closer, angling his body for a strike.
Vrath had to fight down the instinct to shift his own stance to eliminate the off-angle of Zeerid’s approach. Zeerid would recognize it. And Vrath could not afford to kill Zeerid now, not until he used Zeerid to locate the engspice.
“What were you looking at, friend?” Zeerid asked.
“Daddy!” Arra called, but Zeerid’s eyes never left Vrath’s face.
“I was just watching the greenbeaks. I like to feed ’em.” He reached into his pocket and grabbed a handful of the feed pellets he’d purchased from one of the park’s droids.
“Daddy, I want the green ’ice!” Arra said.
Seeing the feeding pellets, Zeerid visibly relaxed, though not entirely. “Of course,” he said. “Sorry, pal.”
“Is that your daughter?” Vrath asked, nodding at Arra.
“Yes,” Zeerid answered, and the hint of a smile curled his lips.
“She seems very happy,” Vrath said. “Have a great day, sir.”
Vrath walked past Zeerid and fell in with the runners, bikers, and other sentients using the park. As he did, he chided himself for taking his eyes off Zeerid. The man clearly had a nose for trouble.
ZEERID TURNED TO WATCH the man walk away. Something about him felt off, but Zeerid could not quite put his finger on it. He’d seemed overly interested in Arra and Nat, and he’d had a coldness to his eyes, despite the stupid grin.
“Daddy! It’s melting!”
Arra steered the chair over to him and he handed over the sweet ice, wiping his hands clean on his jacket.
“Thank you,” she said and took a bite. “Mmm. Deeeeeeelicious!”
He smiled at her, and when he looked back, he could not spot the man anywhere.
“Who was that?” Nat asked when she walked over.
Zeerid absently offered Nat the other sweet ice, still looking in the direction the man had walked. “I don’t know. Nobody.”
Nat must have picked up on Zeerid’s concerns. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said, and forced a smile. “I’m sure.”
Only he wasn’t.
“I think I’ll walk you both home, okay?”
“Hooray!” Arra said.
“What is it?” Nat asked. She still had not taken the sweet ice.
“Nothing,” he said, not wanting to alarm her. “Can’t I walk my girls to their door?”
“I’m not walking,” Arra said, grinning. “I’m flying.”
ARYN’S RAVEN CAME OUT of hyperspace. She’d left her robes and her regrets back on Alderaan.
“Straight on to Vulta, Tee-six.”
The astromech took over the flying and the Raven knifed through space. Vulta appeared through the canopy, a lone planet circling its star. The sun’s light glinted off the many artificial satellites in orbit and the space traffic moving to and from the planet.
“Ping planetary control with our official Republic credentials,” she said to T6. “Request a pad at the Yinta Lake spaceport.”
The droid whistled an affirmative.
Aryn would soon know if her absence had been noted. If so, her credentials would probably be no good.
T6 gave a satisfied series of beeps as landing instructions scrolled across Aryn’s HUD.
“Take us down, Tee-six. And also link into the planetary directory and find me an address for Zeerid Korr.”
She had not seen Zeerid in years. He could be dead. Or he might be unwilling to help her. They’d been good friends: Aryn had been the only person Zeerid had told about his wife’s death before he’d mustered out. Aryn had helped him come through the initial shock. And she could still feel the intense grief, the despair he’d endured upon hearing the news. It was similar to what she’d felt when Master Zallow had died. Zeerid had been grateful for her sympathetic ear, she knew. But she was going to be asking him for a lot.
T6 beeped a negative. No Zeerid Korr in the directory.
Aryn clenched a fist as the planet grew larger.
“His wife had a sister. Natala … something. Natala … Yooms. Try her, Tee-six.”
In moments T6 had an address. She lived near the lakeshore in Yinta Lake and had legal guardianship over a nine-year-old girl named Arra Yooms.
“Arra?”
Aryn knew Arra was the name of Zeerid’s daughter. If Natala had custody of the girl, then Zeerid could very well be dead. Her plan began to crumble. She had no one else to whom she could turn. If Zeerid was dead, then so, too, was her opportunity to avenge Master Zallow.
She had no choice but to try. She did not know how she could get through the Imperial blockade at Coruscant without help.
The Raven descended through the atmosphere in a shroud of heat and flame. When she emerged into the blue sky of Vulta’s stratosphere, she could see below them the large blue oval of Lake Yinta and the ring of urbanism that surrounded it.
T6 put them into the flow of the sky traffic, and they headed for their landing pad in Yinta Lake. From there, she’d find Natala.
ZEERID FELT LIKE A FATHER as he walked Nat and Arra back to their apartment near the lake. He felt like a failure when he saw what a hole it was. They lived in one of the mansions converted to subsidized housing by the planetary authority. Rust, broken glass, chipped stone, addicts, and drunks seemed omnipresent.
“It looks worse than it is,” Nat said to him, softly enough that Arra could not hear.
Zeerid nodded.
“Did you hear what happened on Coruscant?” Nat said, apparently wanting to change the subject. “It’s all over the ’Net.”
“I heard.”
“How do you think it will turn out?”
He shrugged.
As they walked, he kept his eyes open for anyone suspicious but saw no one. Still, he could not shed the feeling that something had gone awry. The man in the park just smelled wrong.
They took a rickety lift up several floors. Zeerid did not enter the apartment and Nat did not invite him in. Arra turned her hoverchair, maneuvering in the small space like a pro.
“You are a pilot’s daughter,” he said.
She beamed. “I love you, Daddy.”
“And I love you.”
He lifted her out of the chair and squeezed her so hard she squealed. He felt the absence of her legs like a hole in his heart. He didn’t want to let her go but knew he must.
He could see a bit of the tiny two-room flat over Nat’s shoulder. One window, a galley kitchen.
“Will you come back soon, Daddy?” Arra asked as he lowered her back into the chair.
“Yes,” he said, as unequivocal as a blaster shot. “Soon.” He stole her nose and she giggled. “I’ll give this back to you when I return.”
Nat, standing beside her, stroked her hair. “Time for homework, Arra. Then bedtime.”
“All right, Aunt Nat. Bye, Daddy,” she said, her eyes watering. She was trying to be strong.
Zeerid knelt. “I will be back soon. Within days. All right?”
She nodded and he mussed her hair. She turned the hoverchair and headed for her room.
He filed the image of her face in the file cabinet of his memory.
“She loves that chair,” Nat said. “You did good, Zeerid.”
“I’m going to get you both out of here,” he said, determined to make it so. “After this next job—”
Nat held up a hand and shook her head. “I don’t want to hear about the job. I just want you to promise that you won’t take unnecessary chances.”
“I promise,” he said.
“We’ll see you when you come back. We’re fine here, Zeerid. It doesn’t look like much, but we’re fine.”
He reached into his jacket and took out the bearer card. “There are over thirteen thousand credits on this. Take it. Buy something nice for you and Arra.”
She eyed the card as if it might bite her. “Thirteen thousand …” She looked him in the face. “How’d you come by this amount of money?”
He ignored the question and held up the card until she took it.
“Thank you, Nat. For everything.” He hugged her, the gesture as awkward as always. She felt too thin, as threadbare as an old sweater. He vowed to himself then and there that he was getting both of them out of the slum. He’d do whatever he had to do.
“Take care of yourself, Z-man,” Nat said.
“I will. And I’ll be back soon.”
To that, she said nothing.
The moment the door closed and the locks clicked into place, he flipped the switch in his brain. Zeerid the father fled before Z-man the soldier and smuggler.
The man at the park had been all wrong, from his hair, to his clothes, to the coldness in his eyes. He could have been nobody. Or he could have been somebody.
Zeerid decided that he would linger in the apartment building for a while, out of sight, just to be sure Nat and Arra were safe.
He took station on their floor and settled in. He hadn’t done sentry duty since he was a new recruit. Felt good, though.
VRATH SAT in the aircar taxi on the street outside the decrepit apartment building. The smell of rotten fish and dirty lake filled the air. He watched for a long time, monitoring Zeerid’s movements with the tracker. Zeerid had stopped moving. Perhaps he shared an apartment there with Nat and Arra.
He gave it a while longer, then decided to take a look. He paid the droid driver, hopped out of the aircar, dodged the few ramshackle speeders and the public speeder bus that flew low through the street, and headed across to the apartment building.
ZEERID’S EYES ADJUSTED to the dim lights that flickered intermittently in the hallway. The door to Nat and Arra’s flat was about halfway down the corridor. There was no other way in or out of the apartment. All he needed to do was take a boresighting down the hall.
The far end of the hallway ended in a cracked glass window. The near side ended in the lift and a door to the stairs. Other than scaling the building from the outside, the lift and the stairs were the only way onto the fourth floor. He could cover both.
He thought about just lingering in the hallway and putting the muzzle of his blaster into the belly of anyone who looked at him sideways. But that wouldn’t do. He did not want to draw too much attention to himself and he did not want to cause a scene unnecessarily. He finally decided to take station on the emergency stairwell to the side of the lift. He propped the door open so he could see the lift, the hall, and the stairs.
A good field of fire, he decided.
He took the E-9 blaster pistol—small, compact, but with decent power—held it in his front jacket pocket, and waited.
Minutes passed, turned to half an hour, to an hour, and he began to think his paranoia had ill served him. The building did not see a lot of foot traffic. A near-obsolete utility droid came up the creaky lift and vacuumed the floor, ignoring Zeerid altogether. When it completed its sweep, it retired to a utility closet next to the lift.
Zeerid sat alone with only uncomfortable thoughts for company in a stairwell that smelled of urine and vomit. He had let his daughter down. To try and give her a better life, he had turned himself into the kind of man he once would have regarded with contempt. And what did she have to show for it? A decrepit apartment and an absentee father who could die on his next run.
And a hoverchair, he reminded himself. But still …
He had to get out of the life. But there was no walking away until he’d cleared his debt with The Exchange. So he’d make a last run to Coruscant—
The door to the stairwell on the ground floor opened with an angry squeal. At almost the same moment, he heard the rumble of the lift coming up the shaft.
Alert and tense, he went to the railing at the edge of the stairwell and peered down. Light from the fluorescent fixture attached to the ceiling two floors above him did little to illuminate the stairwell. Shadows coated the lower floors but Zeerid thought he saw a form there, humanoid, and watched it start up the stairs.
Meanwhile, the chime of the lift announced its arrival on the fourth floor.
Cupping his blaster in his hand, Zeerid flattened himself against the wall near the doorway of the stairwell. The footsteps coming from below continued their slow ascent. They stopped from time to time, as if the person was unsure of his or her destination, or was stopping to listen.
The lift doors opened and Zeerid heard the soft susurrus of quiet movement. The lift doors closed.
The footsteps on the steps started again, stopped.
Zeerid waited a three-count and poked his head around the doorway to give him a view of the hallway.
A cloaked figure stole down the corridor, about the size of the man he’d met in the park. He was checking the doors for apartment numbers. Zeerid could not see the figure’s hands. He shot a look back at the stairwell, heard nothing, and stole out into the hallway.
The figure stopped before Nat’s apartment and consulted a palm-sized portcomp, as if confirming an address.
Zeerid had seen all he needed to see. He brandished the E-9.
“You! Move away from that door.”
The figure turned toward him, reached for something at waist level. Zeerid did not hesitate. He pulled the trigger, and the muffled whump of the E-9 sounded like a polite cough.
In near-perfect time with Zeerid pulling the trigger, the motion so fast that it was blurry, the figure whipped free a silver cylinder that grew a glowing green line and deflected the E-9’s bolt into the floor.
Before Zeerid squeezed off another shot, the figured cocked its head and deactivated the lightsaber.
“Zeerid?”
A woman.
Zeerid did not lower his weapon or his temperature. He could not make sense of the lightsaber. A Jedi?
“Who are you?” he asked.
The figure threw back her hood to reveal long sandy hair and the warm green eyes that Zeerid had never forgotten. The heat and tension went out of him in a rush.
“Aryn? Aryn Leneer? What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” she said. She motioned at the door to Nat’s apartment. “I thought I would try your sister-in-law’s—”
“Are you alone? Did someone follow you?”
She looked taken aback by the rapid-fire questions. “I … yes. No.”
“How did you find me?”
“Luck. I remembered your sister-in-law’s name. I hoped she could help me find you.”
“Stay there,” he said, and hurried back down the hall to the stairwell. He looked down and saw nothing and no one. Whoever had been on the stairs was gone.
He told himself that it was probably just a resident coming home.
He turned to find himself staring into Aryn’s concerned face. She looked much as she had when she’d held him while he cried over Val’s death.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
No doubt she could feel his apprehension.
“Probably nothing. I’m overreacting, I think.”
She smiled her smile but he saw something new in her eyes—a hardness. He did not need to be a Force-user to know that something was different.
“What happened to you?” he asked. “I just saw you on the ’Net. I thought you were on Alderaan.”
A veil fell over her eyes and closed her off. He’d never seen it before, not from her, though he imagined his own expression looked much the same when he was working.
“I was. That’s part of what I want to talk about. I need your help. Can we go somewhere and talk?”
“This really is not a good time, Aryn.”
“It’s important.”
He had a flash of fear, thinking the Jedi had caught wind of the engspice delivery, had learned that he was to deliver it, and were intent on stopping him. But she said nothing about engspice.
“It’s a personal issue, Z-man. Not something for the Order.”
He breathed easier, even smiled at how silly his name sounded when she said it. Maybe it sounded that silly all the time. He shot a glance back down the hall at Nat’s apartment.
Closed and secure, like all the other doors in the hall. A blaster shot and an activated lightsaber had not even merited an open door.
He had to get them both out of there. It was no place for a child.
Aryn touched his arm. “Are you all right?”
He let out a long breath and tried to shed some stress. He was overreacting. Since arriving on planet, he had taken all of the precautions he usually took. No one he didn’t want to know knew of his relationship to Arra or Nat, much less where they lived. Aryn had stumbled on him only because they were friends from way back and she knew Nat’s name. The man in the park had probably been nobody, just a random passerby.
“No, I’m all right. I do know a place we can talk. For old times’ sake. But I may have to cut it short. I’m expecting a call.”
Zeerid could get the ping from Oren at any time.
They walked out to the street and waited with a small crowd for a public speeder bus to arrive. They boarded and it pulled away. Zeerid watched Nat and Arra’s building vanish below them. He tried to fill the pit in his stomach by telling himself that they would be fine.
VRATH LINGERED OUTSIDE the stairwell entrance to Zeerid’s apartment. His tracker had shown him Zeerid’s location before he’d gotten halfway up the stairs.
An ambush or just extreme cautiousness?
Leaning against the crumbling brick wall, he eyed the tracker. It showed Zeerid moving away on the speeder bus. Vrath had seen the woman who had accompanied him. It wasn’t Nat.
He activated his comlink and raised the rest of his team, all of whom were stationed at or near the Yinta Lake spaceport.
“He’s mobile, on a speeder bus, heading in your direction. I’m en route.”
ZEERID AND ARYN RODE THE AIRBUS in silence to a stop near the hulking, rusty geometry of the spaceport. From there, they walked the busy street to a casino Zeerid knew, the Spiral Galaxy, where Nat worked. An overpowering sea of smoke, shouts, flashing lights, and music greeted them. No one would overhear them there.
Zeerid led Aryn to the bar area, found a corner table that allowed him a view of the rest of the room, and sat. He waved off the server before the young man ever reached their table. Aryn glanced around the casino, tiny furrows lining her brow. She looked to have aged ten years since he’d last seen her. He imagined he looked much the same to her, if not worse. He was surprised she had recognized him. But then, maybe she hadn’t recognized him by sight so much as by feel.
He leaned back in the chair and spoke loud enough to be heard over the ambient sound. “You said you needed my help?”
She nodded, leaned forward to put her elbows on the table. She looked past him as she spoke, and he had the impression she was reciting something she had rehearsed. “I need to get to Coruscant as soon as possible.”
He chuckled. “That makes two of us.”
His response threw her off. “How do you mean?”
“Never mind. Coruscant isn’t exactly Jedi-friendly at the moment.”
“No. And this … isn’t sanctioned by the Order.”
Her response threw him off. He’d never known Aryn to buck orders.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You’ll want to wait until the negotiations on Alderaan are completed, right? See how things shake out? In a week—”
“I can’t wait.”
“No? Why?”
She sat back in her chair as if to open some distance between them, room for a lie maybe. “I need to get something from the Temple.”
“What?”
“Something personal.”
He leaned forward, closing the gap between them, reducing the room for falsehoods. “Aryn, we haven’t seen each other in years. You show up out of a nebula and tell me you want my help to get to a world just conquered by the Empire and that getting you there isn’t sanctioned by the Jedi Order.”
He let her stew in that for a moment before continuing. “Maybe I want to help you. Maybe I can.”
She looked up at that, hope in her eyes.
“You were there for me when I went through a tough time. But I need to understand what’s really happening here.”
She smiled and shook her head. “I missed you and didn’t know it.”
He felt his cheeks warm and tried to hide his discomfiture. Of course, he could hide nothing from her. She would feel the warmth her words put in him.
She slid her chair forward and crossed her hands on the table. He was very conscious of how close her hands were to his. It seemed he had missed her, too.
“The attack killed someone I cared about.”
The sinking feeling he felt surprised him.
“A husband?” Could Jedi even marry? He didn’t know.
She shook her head. “My master. Ven Zallow.”
“I’m sorry.” He touched her hand in sympathy and it put such a charge through him that he pulled away. Surprisingly, he did not see pain in her expression, but anger.
“The Temple will have vids of the attack. I need to see how he died.”
“It could’ve been bombs, Aryn. Anything.”
She shook her head before he finished his sentence. “No. It was a Sith.”
“You know this?”
“I know it. And I want to see that Sith, know his name.”
Insight dawned. “You want to kill him.”
She did not gainsay it.
He blew out a whistle. “Blast, Aryn, I thought you’d come here to arrest me.”
“Arrest you? Why?”
“Never mind,” he said. “No wonder the Order didn’t sanction your going to Coruscant. What would this do to the peace negotiations? You’re talking about assassinating someone.”
The coldness in her eyes was new to him. “I’m talking about avenging my master. They murdered him, Zeerid. I will not let it stand. Do you think I don’t know exactly what I am doing? What it will cost?”
“No, I don’t think you know.”
“You’re wrong. I want help from you, Zeerid, not a lecture. Now, I need to get to Coruscant. Will you help?”
He’d been working alone since he’d mustered out. Preferred it that way. But working with Aryn had always felt … right. If he was going to fly with anyone, it would be her.
His comm buzzed. He checked it, saw an encrypted message from Oren, decrypted it.
Goods are aboard Fatman. Leave immediately. Cargo is hot.
He looked across the table at Aryn. “Your timing is good.”
Her eyes formed a question.
“I’m flying to Coruscant, too. Right now.”
“What?” She looked dumbfounded.
He pushed back his chair and stood. “Coming?”
She stayed in her chair. “You’re flying to Coruscant? Now?”
“Right now.”
She stood. “Then yes, I’m coming.”
“Whatever you flew here, you need to leave it. We’re taking only my ship.”
Aryn tapped on her comlink and spoke over the sound of the casino.
“Tee-six, put the Raven in lockdown. I am going offplanet. Monitor our usual subspace channel, and I will contact you when I can.”
The droid’s answering beeps were lost to the cacophony.
They started picking their way through the crowd.
Aryn took him by the bicep and pulled his ear to her mouth. “It can’t be coincidence, you know. Consider the timing. The Force brought us here at this moment so that we can help each other. You see that, don’t you?”
At a table near them, bells rang and a Zabrak raised his arms high, shouting with joy.
“Jackpot!” the Zabrak said. “Jackpot!”
Zeerid decided that he had to tell her. He shouted over the noise. “If the Force brought us together, then the Force has an odd sense of humor.”
Her eyes narrowed in a question. “What are you talking about?”
He dived in. “Listen, what I’m doing makes what you’re doing look like charity work.”
Her expression fell and her body leaned backward slightly. “What do you mean?”
“I’m going to give you another chance to ask that question before I answer it. Before you do, realize that I would make this run whether you came or not, Aryn. I am not proud of it, but I have to do it. Now, do you want to know?”
“Yes,” she said, and blinked. “But later. Right now—and do not look around—there are people watching us.”
An effort of will kept his eyes on her. Oren had told him the cargo was hot, but he didn’t realize it was that hot. He feigned a smile. “Where? How many?”
“Two that I can see. A human male at the bar, brown jacket, long black hair. To my right, a human male in a long black coat and gloves.”
“You sure?” He nodded as if he was agreeing with something she said.
“Mostly.”
“How do we play it?” he asked her.
Funny how they so easily fell back into old roles. She giving the orders and he obeying them.
“We play dumb and make for the spaceport. We’ll evaluate as we go. Then …”
“Then?”
Her hand went under her cloak, to the hilt of her lightsaber. “Then we improvise.”
He took mental stock of all the weapons he bore and their location on his person.
“Good enough,” he said, and they headed for the exit.