“THE HUTTS HAVE created quite a stir,” said Supreme Commander Stantorrs, leaning back in his chair and tapping one finger on his desk. “I’ve received four Senatorial inquiries overnight, and I expect more during the day. Whether this auction is a scam or not, we’ll have to do something about it now.”
Ula said, “We can’t be seen to be sitting on our hands, sir.” Obedience and assurance: that was all the Supreme Commander wanted from his aides. A true meritocracy, however, would have demanded much more from its citizens.
“Indeed not!” Stantorrs exclaimed. “When every world in the Republic, from the outlying settlements to the Core itself, is crying poverty, to let a possible source of resources slip through our fingers would be a public relations disaster, not to mention a setback for galactic security.”
“When the Mandalorians are involved,” said another aide, “it’s often a security issue.”
“Indeed. And that’s why I’ve decided to pursue this, publicly and politically, to ensure that it can’t come back on us later.”
The martial rhythm of the Supreme Commander’s tapping put Ula on edge. Give it a rest, he wanted to yell at them. It’s a smokescreen, a distraction from the real issue—the cold war you’re losing! The Hutts are exploiting and feeding your paranoia at the very same time. Don’t you see how gullible this makes you all look?
So wound up was he in his internal dialogue that he almost didn’t hear the Supreme Commander’s next words.
“That’s why I’ve decided to send you, Ula, to Hutta as an official envoy of the Republic.”
Ula’s thoughts hit the roadblock of that pronouncement and formed a five-skylane pileup.
“You—what, sir?”
“I need someone to investigate and, if necessary, negotiate on our behalf. Not someone senior—we don’t want the Hutts thinking we’re too interested—and not someone from the military, either, since this is a political matter. We need someone informed and dedicated, and the reports you filed last night indicate that you are nothing if not both. Ula, I want you on the first available shuttle.”
The other aides stared at him with undisguised envy as Ula tried to find a way out of the situation.
“I’m flattered, sir, but—”
“Your portfolios are already full, I know, but there’s nothing you can’t delegate. And if it’s security you’re worried about, I’ve requisitioned a full detail. We can’t afford to lose someone of your abilities, Ula.”
Ula swallowed. Stantorrs had shot down his two major objections in little more than one breath. While it was indeed pleasing that the Supreme Commander afforded him such trust, what use was he as an informer in the wrong sector of the galaxy? He needed to be here, in the office, not mucking around with filthy Hutts and potentially coming under fire.
The gang war that had led to Stantorrs hearing about the Cinzia would be just a minor skirmish if the ship’s home was as valuable as the Hutts said it was. Of that Ula was certain, and he was an informer, not a soldier, for a reason. He liked fighting as little as he liked being in the spotlight. He simply wasn’t trained for that kind of thing.
There seemed no way to escape it, though, so he accepted with all the grace he could muster.
“Excellent. I know I can rely on you, Ula. Off the record, I’ll expect you to keep a sharp eye out for Jedi, of course. Satele Shan says she’ll take no official action, but I don’t trust her. You know the major players, don’t you? You see one of them, you let me know.”
Ula nodded. “I will, sir.”
“And if there’s any substance to the Hutts’ claims, report immediately. I’ll have a fleet on standing orders to offer the world protection from the Empire.”
“Yes, sir.” Like anyone with any political savvy, Ula knew that “protection” was something many worlds simply did not want, for fear of the so-called protectors pillaging natural resources and talent. Also, the mere presence of a Republic cruiser, let alone a Jedi, was likely to draw the wrath of the Sith, who could be even worse. “What if it’s nothing?”
“Then we’ve lost nothing, and you get to keep your promotion.” Stantorrs stood and held out his hand. “I’m elevating you to senior aide, effective immediately, and appointing you as acting envoy to the Bareesh Cartel. Congratulations, Ula.”
Ula shook the Supreme Commander’s hand but barely registered the soldierly crush of the strong Duros fingers. Numb from head to foot, he could barely accept what had just happened. The best he could manage was to find ways to profit from it.
As his former colleagues pressed in to offer their congratulations, he realized that this put him in an ideal position to make sure that the Republic didn’t gain from the Hutts’ offer. He could downplay the importance of any information he discovered—even actively interfere with the auction, if it came to that. Whatever the Hutts had, the Republic wouldn’t get access to it.
And then there was the Republic fleet that awaited the outcome of his investigation. If he could send them on a fruitless quest to an empty sector of the galaxy, that could help the Empire in a dozen tangible ways. That the Supreme Commander of the Republic’s military forces and parts of the Senate were absorbed in this unfolding drama was also useful. What had started as a minor curiosity could end up playing a deciding role in the conflict, if he was careful.
“When do you want me to leave, sir?”
“Immediately. Your security detail is waiting.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Ula swallowed his nervousness, made his farewells, and exited the room.
HE DIDN’T GET very far. In the hallway outside the Supreme Commander’s suite of offices, a squad of six soldiers awaited him. They wore smart service dress uniforms and saluted on sight of him.
“Sergeant Robann Potannin,” the lead soldier introduced himself. “We are your escort, Envoy Vii.”
Potannin was swarthy and muscular, and though he was as tall as Ula, he loomed as though from a great height.
“Thank you, Sergeant Potannin. I’ll be grateful for your protection on Hutta. What’s the arrangement? Shall we rendezvous at the appropriate spaceport when the shuttle is ready?”
“Shuttle departs in one hour, sir.”
“Then I’d better get moving, hadn’t I?”
He moved off along the corridor, and the squad fell into formation around him. He stopped, and they stopped, too.
“Where are you going?” he asked Potannin.
“Escorting you to Diplomatic Supplies, sir.”
“That’s not where I’m going. I need to swing by my apartment to pack my bag, and I’m sure I can manage that on my own.”
“Negative, sir. All offworld necessities are provided by Diplomatic Supplies.”
“But my clothes—”
“Not required, sir. Ceremonial attire is being tailored to your measurements as we speak.”
Ula had never seen this side of the Republic administration at work. It was surprisingly, and irritatingly, efficient.
“I have a pet voorpak,” he said, improvising wildly. “If I leave it alone, it’ll die.”
“Not to worry, sir. Provide us with your key and I’ll have it cared for.”
“No, no. That’s not necessary.” Ula ran a hand through his hair. Both packing a bag and his imaginary pet were covers for his real intention. He wanted to send a message from his apartment to his Imperial masters, informing them of this sudden development. Otherwise they might worry at his silence.
Luckily, he had prepared for every contingency.
Pulling his comlink out of his pocket, he said, “I’ll call a neighbor. She’ll look after it. Give me a moment.”
He walked a short distance from Potannin and placed a quick call. The neighbor was imaginary, too, but the number was real. It led to an automated message service that was regularly checked by Watcher Three’s network of agents on Coruscant. After the tone, he recorded his name and ordered two innocuous dishes from a nonexistent menu. The name of the first dish contained nine syllables, the second thirteen, and those numbers allowed Ula’s real message to be decoded from stock phrases every Imperial operative knew by heart: he had experienced an unplanned interruption and would reestablish contact as soon as possible.
At least via the voice-drop his abbreviated message would get through. Who knew when he would find an opportunity to send another?
That thought triggered a whole new wave of trepidation. Bad enough to be in the spotlight, but to be completely cut off from his chain of command was even worse. He could feel his hands beginning to tremble, and to hide that he stuffed them with his comlink into his pockets.
“All right,” he said, turning back to the attentive Sergeant Potannin and beaming the brightest smile he could manage. “I’m all yours.”
Smoothly falling into formation around him, they marched him off to be outfitted for his new role.
THE GLORIOUS JEWEL of the Y’Toub system rose like a bloated corpse from the bottomless sea of space. Shigar squinted out at it, glad for the first time that they hadn’t found more opulent transport. The passenger lounge of the Red Silk Chances was filthy, and its viewports barely counted as translucent, but the squalor matched the view. Hutta looked every bit as foul as its reputation suggested, moldy green and brown like a fruit left to ripen too long, bursting with rot from within.
Larin sat next to him, and their shoulders jostled together every time the freighter rattled beneath them. Her face was hidden by the helmet of her increasingly nonregulation armor, but he could tell from the straightness of her spine that she was paying close attention to everyone around them. The droids and lowlifes taking the trip with them warranted it. Thus far there had been two knife fights, several games of rigged dejarik, numerous arguments over the outcome of the latest Great Hunt, and a vigorous sing-along—in a dialect Shigar had never heard before—that had felt as though it might last forever.
Seeking to calm his nerves, he closed his eyes and concentrated on an oddly shaped shard of plastoid in his right hand that he had picked up in the streets of Coruscant as they had waited to board their shuttle. Nothing about it was familiar, so there was no way his conscious mind could guess its origins or purpose. Determining either or both of those was where his psychometric ability was supposed to come in.
About one in a hundred Kiffar were born with this particular Force talent, deciphering the origin and history of objects by touch alone. Shigar’s came and went despite his every effort, and it was this lack of control that had at least partly put off the Jedi Council when it came to allowing his trials. Plenty of Jedi Knights had no psychometric ability whatsoever, but all were supposed to intimately know their own strengths and weaknesses. A wild talent of any kind was not acceptable.
Shigar focused on his breathing and let the Force flow strongly through him. The shaking of the freighter and the chattering of its passengers receded. He felt only the complex shape of the object in his palm, and examined the way it sat in the universe without recourse to his usual senses. Was it old or new? Did it come from nearby or far away? Was it precious or disposable? Had it been dropped deliberately or without care? Was it manufactured or handmade? Were there thousands of such things in the galaxy, or was this the only one that had ever existed?
Half-felt impressions came and went. He saw a woman’s face—a human woman, with wide-set brown eyes and a distinctive scar across her chin. He pursued that mental scent as far as it went, but nothing more came to him. He let it go, and realized then that he had seen this woman in the old districts, while walking off his anger at the Council’s decision. She had been selling roasted spider-roaches to an Abyssin with one eye. His mind had thrown up her face in desperation. She had nothing at all to do with the scrap of plastoid.
A Jedi Knight is a Jedi Knight in all respects, Master Nobil had said. Until he controlled this talent, he could hardly be said to have control over himself. On that point he had no defense.
Frustrated, he opened his eyes and put the scrap back into his pocket. He had a few pockets now, mainly down his chest and the front of his thighs. They added several kilograms to his body mass and jingled when he walked. The unfamiliar textures and cut of his disguise came courtesy of a market on Klatooine, where he and Larin had boarded the Red Silk Chances for Hutta. He was still getting used to it.
Through the grimy viewport, the foul world’s fifth moon, Nar Shaddaa, was slinking by.
Almost there, Shigar told himself.
“You’re a little small for a bounty hunter, aren’t you?” a six-fingered smuggler asked Larin.
She turned her head the tiniest fraction. “So what? You’re a little too ugly to be human.” Her voice was artificially harshened by the vocoder added to enhance her disguise.
The smuggler only laughed. “You don’t intimidate me, girl. I lost my ship playing pazaak in a den owned by Fa’athra. I’m going to ask him for it back, out of the goodness of his heart. What do you think of that?”
The Hutt called Fa’athra was widely known as the cruelest, most sadistic of all.
“I think that makes you stupid as well as ugly.”
The smuggler laughed again, his face opening like a wound to expose a bewildering variety of snaggled teeth. Shigar was ready to intervene if the exchange became violent, but the smuggler seemed satisfied by Larin’s response.
“Tell your friend here,” the smuggler said, leaning close, “that if he really wants to pass himself off as a rancor racer, he’ll have to roughen his hide up some. Those guys have a life expectancy of less than five minutes. You don’t last longer than that without some kind of damage.”
He turned away to butt heads with someone else, leaving Shigar and Larin to exchange a quick glance.
“I’ll put on the mask when we land,” Shigar whispered to her. He hadn’t wanted to on Klatooine, disliking the grotesque appearance it lent him and the stench of poorly cured leather. “You can say I told you so then.”
She just nodded. He was glad he couldn’t see her expression.