BILBOUSA SPACEPORT WAS crowded with every kind of sentient species and droid model that Larin had ever heard of. The air was thick with spices and a dense mélange of language. As the Red Silk Chances disgorged its passengers with nary a pretense of courtesy, they blended into the muddy stream of life as character befit: pushing, shoving, appealing for passage, or simply standing still and waiting for an opening.
Shigar, now clad in the snarling visage of a rancor racer, blended in perfectly.
They negotiated the press as gracefully as possible and chartered a hopper to take them to Gebroila, the city closest to Tassaa Bareesh’s palace. There was no need to pass through security or to change currencies. All forms of credits were accepted on Hutta. After checking that Shigar’s chip wasn’t counterfeit, the Evocii driver swept them recklessly into the never-ending stream of traffic, provoking a dozen potentially fatal near-misses. Larin kept her eyes and attention on the interior of the cab. Their mission was dangerous enough without worrying about everyday threats.
The journey to Gebroila was a long one, and it felt even longer. Hutta’s damp biosphere was poisoned by millennia of industrial abuse, making it hazardous even to breathe there. Those few species to survive the Hutts’ takeover of the world had mutated beyond recognition. Some, like the hardy chemilizard, had evolved the ability to take sustenance from compounds that might kill an ordinary animal. Others perfected elaborate and expensive chemical defenses, or occupied those few niches that weren’t sodden with pollutants. Such niches were vigorously contested, making their inhabitants some of the most vicious in the galaxy.
The Hutts themselves were a prime example of evolution in action. Corpulent and slug-like, their ancestors must have made easy prey on their original homeworld. But environmental catastrophe had forced them to become hardier in several ways at once, developing surprisingly powerful muscles beneath all their flab, and minds to match. They were the original niche dwellers and now formed the summit of the food chain.
Larin rode in silence, very familiar from her time in special forces with long periods during which nothing happened. She would have liked to make plans for their arrival in Gebroila, but Shigar was silent, caught up in his own thoughts. She let him be and pondered the matter herself. Security around the palace was bound to be tight, and they had been unable to purchase the right IDs to get in. In a culture of fakes and lies, demonstrating appropriate authenticity was going to be difficult—unless they found a back entrance that wasn’t watched from a dozen angles at once. Somehow, she didn’t think it was going to be that easy.
THE PALACE WAS as large as the neighboring city. Shigar was both intimidated and reassured by its sprawling vastness. It would be easier to hide behind those ornate walls, among the thousands of servants, penitents, and other enemies that converged wherever money concentrated. At the same time, there would be eyes everywhere. They couldn’t afford to slip up once.
Shigar paid their hopper driver and added a substantial tip. The driver was a slave, bound by chains to the vehicle he commanded. Evocii had once been the owners of Hutta, but they were now on the very lowest rung of its opportunistic society. Countless generations of inbreeding had reduced them to a pallid, sickly species. Only outside the cities did their fighting spirit remain, in the form of rebel tribes whose vigor caused the Hutts no end of trouble.
The driver’s permanently pained but placid expression didn’t change as he pulled the hopper away from the palace forecourt and sped off.
“Now what?” asked Larin.
“We go in.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
He led the way up a long flight of steps—their first taste of Tassaa Bareesh’s imposition on her guests. She would never climb such an obstacle herself. No doubt she had teams of litter-bearers or repulsorsleds to take her wherever she willed. By forcing visitors to do what she would not, before they even entered her domain, and to suffer for it, she automatically placed them at a lower social level.
Larin was fit. She didn’t break stride as they climbed briskly to the guard level, overtaking several other parties along the way. There were three entrances with weapons emplacements mounted over each. Shigar picked the leftmost at random. Four armored Gamorrean guards awaited them, two outside and two inside. Their deep-set eyes regarded every being who approached with equal amounts of suspicion. Behind them, one of the parties they’d overtaken was forcibly pushed back down the stairs, screaming plaintively.
“Are you sure you want to do it this way?” she asked him.
“This is the easy part,” he told her. “Watch.”
The guards crossed vibro-axes as they approached. Shigar stopped obediently and addressed them in a calm voice.
“You don’t need to see our documents. We have the required authorization.”
The axes parted, allowing them through.
“Two down,” Larin’s vocoder crackled.
Shigar repeated the mind trick on the other side of the entrance. Again the axes parted and they walked through. One door up, a loud party of Ortolans did the same, but with official IDs.
“Don’t look so smug,” Larin said to him. “I can see it even through your mask.”
A silver protocol droid stepped out in front of them, backed up by a pair of bug-eyed TT-2G guard droids. “This way, please. Purser Droog will assign you quarters sufficient to your needs.”
“That’s okay,” said Larin. “We know our way around.”
“If you’ll only allow us to verify your IDs,” said the droid more insistently, “Purser Droog will ensure that you are accommodated appropriately.”
“Really, you don’t need to worry.”
“No worry at all, honored guests. You must allow us to show you the proper hospitality.”
Heavy emphasis on the word must prompted Shigar to look up. Weapons emplacements on the interior side of the wall had tracked to target them. The Gamorreans clearly weren’t the only barriers to entry to Tassaa Bareesh’s castle.
“Of course,” Shigar told the droid, suppressing the slightest sign of concern in his voice. “We don’t want to make a fuss.”
The droid bowed and led them to a desk, behind which sat an ill-looking Hutt with deep pouches under his eyes. He was busy with the noisy Ortolans, who appeared to have mislaid one of their passports. This was another setback. Hutts were immune to all forms of Jedi persuasion, so that wasn’t going to work this time. Shigar thought frantically. Fighting his way in wasn’t an option, given the emplacements and the need for secrecy. Neither was fighting his way out, since there were just as many weapons that way. If he didn’t think of something else fast, they would be trapped.
Finally, the purser waved the Peripleens on and gestured for Shigar and Larin to approach.
“Kimwil Kinz and Mer Corrucle,” he said, giving the Hutt the fake names they had settled on during the journey to Hutta. Cupping his hand over his credit chip, he slid it across the desk as though it were some kind of official documentation. Indicating the backs of the Ortolans, disappearing in a huddle into the palace proper, he added, “We’re with them.”
The jaded eyes of the Hutt regarded him with a mixture of hostility and disdain. There was no way of telling which way he would fall. Was he automatically loyal to Tassaa Bareesh, who had placed him in this position of responsibility, or was he bored or drunk enough on his own small power to take up the opportunity Shigar presented? The contents of the credit chip were considerable; they represented everything he had been given to fulfill his mission. If he took it, that would be money well spent.
The purser swept up the chip and tucked it into the folds of his body.
“You’d better hurry,” he rumbled in Huttese. “They’re leaving without you.”
Shigar led Larin away, feeling exposed under the emplacements and full of loathing for the Hutts and the corruption they embraced so readily. Most likely, the purser would betray them within minutes of letting them through, but if he could just get out of his direct line of sight, he and Larin could disappear into the palace’s throng, never to be seen again.
They walked twenty-five paces without interference. At the first available doorway, he turned left, then immediately left again. When no sound of pursuit rang out behind them, he let the breath he’d been holding escape through his teeth.
Larin heard it. “That went as planned, did it?”
“Precisely,” he said with fake cheeriness. “You weren’t worried, were you?”
“Not for a second.” She shook her head. “Let’s find somewhere quiet and out of the way. We need to change the way we look.”
They squeezed into a niche and Shigar gratefully rid himself of the mask and a large amount of his leather rancor-riding gear, leaving him wearing just pants, boots, and a tight black vest on his upper body. He felt 50 percent lighter and was grateful to regain free use of his arms. Larin unsealed her helmet and hitched it securely to her belt, then surrendered the cloak she had been wearing and gave it to him to cover his exposed shoulders. Rubbing dust into their cheeks and foreheads, she did her best to make them look as filthy as everyone else they had seen so far.
Shigar felt dirty enough as it was, and not just because of the close, stinking air of Hutta. They were in, and the first real hurdle of the mission was behind them. Now they could get on with uncovering what Tassaa Bareesh had found on the Cinzia.
Leaving the rest of his disguise tucked well out of sight, they moved off into the halls of the palace, keeping their ears and eyes wide open for surprises.
AT THE REAR of the palace, where a heavily fortified cliff provided a natural shield against snipers and missile attacks, was a private spaceport large enough for a dozen suborbital transports. Six of the berths were already full when the Imperial envoy approached to land. None was registered to the Republic. One looked like a privateer, bulbous and battered, and extensively blackened across one side as though by a powerful blast.
“Good,” said Darth Chratis when Ax communicated that intelligence to him. “We have the jump on the Republic, at least. Any sign of Stryver?”
“None as yet, Master.”
“Keep your senses alert for his presence, but remember your place. Your desire for revenge comes second to the orders of the Dark Council. Fulfill them first, then you may act freely. We need to know what was inside the Cinzia.”
“Yes, Master,” she said with all apparent obedience. In her heart she swore to take whatever opportunities arose, whether Darth Chratis approved or not.
The shuttle came down with a gentle thud. Ax would much rather have come under her own direction, in her own interceptor, but her new role forced her to accept some compromises. She unstrapped herself and moved forward to meet the envoy: Ia Nirvin, a dour, capable man who understood all too well that his role in coming events was ceremonial. His credentials were genuine, and the line of credit he had access to came straight out of the Imperial treasury. He was, however, under express orders to make no deals unless Eldon Ax failed in her mission.
“This way, Envoy,” she said, ushering him to the rear egress ramp. A welcoming committee had already gathered outside. Nirvin adjusted his uniform, waited until his escort had assembled around him, then exited the shuttle.
Ax came last, striding confidently down the ramp. The security detail surrounding the welcoming party noticed her instantly. She was dressed entirely in black, as befit an emissary of the Sith, and her lightsaber hilt dangled openly at her side. The security detail’s uncertainty pleased her. Envoy Nirvin came with the full authority of the Imperial bureaucracy, but who held the real power? Was she bodyguard or puppet master?
A massive Houk approached her. “Your weapon, please.”
Ax unhitched her lightsaber, ignited it, and without saying a word removed the Houk’s head.
Four more Houks moved forward to force the issue.
“There’s no need for such baseless hostility,” said Envoy Nirvin, pressing fearlessly between her and the guards. “She comes in peace as my adviser on esoteric matters. Let the matter drop, or I fear we might as well turn back right now.”
His words were addressed to the welcoming committee, not to her, and she was glad for that. She didn’t care how many Houks she had to kill to make the point to the servants of the Hutts that she wasn’t relinquishing her lightsaber under any circumstances.
The welcoming party conferred in hurried whispers, then nodded their acceptance of the situation. Ax waited until the Houks had retreated, though, before deactivating her blade and relaxing her defensive stance.
“Nice to do business with you, gents,” she said, following the envoy and his retinue into the palace.
“TASSAA BAREESH OFFERS her distinguished guests a most cordial welcome and wishes them a profitable stay in her humble abode.”
Hardly humble, thought Ax, eyeing the garish décor of the throne room. What hadn’t been gilded was encrusted with jewels or draped in silk. No less than one hundred court functionaries had gathered to welcome the modest Imperial contingent, and she had no doubt that the crowd was a deliberate attempt to impress.
The droid translator, a lanky A-1DO “conehead,” did its best to keep up with its mistress’s rumbling speech.
“Tassaa Bareesh invites her distinguished guest to take full advantage of the palace’s amenities before proceeding to the official program. We have a fine array of baths, restaurants, dance halls, fight pits—”
“We’d prefer to press on,” interrupted Envoy Nirvin in a restrained but firm voice. “With all appropriate thanks and gratitude, of course.”
Instead of looking offended, Tassaa Bareesh beamed a wide, lascivious smile. The Hutt matriarch was impressively large, sprawling slug-like with short-fingered hands resting on her bulging belly. Jewels gleamed from numerous necklaces and rings, and silk draped across her sloping shoulders, but nothing could hide the repulsiveness of her skin, which was as green and oily as a swamp reptile’s back. The matriarch rumbled briefly, then reached for a snack. It wriggled and squirmed uselessly before dropping into the cavernous maw and dying with a crunch.
“Tassaa Bareesh understands your urgent desire to proceed to business,” said the translator. “Would you like to view the merchandise?”
“Please.”
The Hutt matriarch barked a command. From the crowd of onlookers stepped a tall, bejeweled Twi’lek, who bowed and said, “My name is Yeama. I will be your guide.”
Nirvin bowed in return. “If the merchandise meets our needs, we may wish to offer a price immediately.”
“Of course,” Yeama said, “but I’m afraid we have another party due to arrive shortly. We could not possibly come to any arrangements until they have had an opportunity to see what you have seen.”
“When is this other party due?”
“Today, I believe.”
“From the Republic?”
“I cannot reveal their identity.”
“Can you tell me how many other interested parties there are?”
Yeama smiled with his lips only. “This way, please.”
Envoy Nirvin’s expression was sour, but he did as he was told. The Twi’lek led him and his retinue from the throne room. They formed a gaudy procession, with Yeama and Nirvin at the lead, accompanied by one Bareesh soldier for every Imperial bodyguard. Ax brought up the rear, glad to be moving again. She tolerated diplomacy rather than enjoying it.
Balancing Ax was the biggest Houk she had ever seen. He matched her stride pace for pace, his expression impassive.
As she left the room, Ax glimpsed an unassuming figure at the back. A human of average height, he wore practical clothes that had seen better days. His salt-and-pepper hair looked as though he had been hauled from bed just moments before. On a street anywhere else in the galaxy, Ax would have ignored him as a matter of course, but in Bareesh’s palace he was the only being not dripping with finery. Standing directly behind him was a boxy old combat droid that looked even more battered than he was.
He saw Ax looking at him and glanced away, as though bored.
She turned her eyes forward and followed the envoy.
YEAMA LED THEM through a maze of corridors, each more opulent than the last. Had Ax any interest in paintings, sculptures, and tapestries—or even just the value of such things—she was sure she would have been impressed. Instead, while carefully memorizing the route, she kept her eyes open for tactical information: how many guards stood at each intersection, which areas were covered by security cams, where blast doors were located, concealed or not.
Unsurprisingly, she quickly concluded that the palace was a fortress wrapped up in tinfoil. The Hutts loved their luxury, but they loved their lives more. Tassaa Bareesh hadn’t elevated herself to head of a Hutt cartel simply by throwing the biggest parties. She knew how to watch her back, too.
There were weaknesses to every security detail, though. Ax was sure she could get to the matriarch if she needed to. Luckily for Tassaa Bareesh, her mission was simply to steal.
Yeama brought the commingled retinues to a halt in a large circular room under a domed roof distinguished by a chandelier made from thousands of pieces of baroquely curved glass. There were only two entrances to this room: the one they had just come through, with thick armored doors currently standing open under a massive stone statue of Tassaa Bareesh herself, and the other ahead of them, with a pair of doors to match, thus forming a security air lock. Yeama clapped his hands, and the doors behind them slammed shut. Ax kept her hand on the pommel of her lightsaber, even though she knew Tassaa Bareesh couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to plan an ambush, and she noted with approval that the envoy’s bodyguards had moved in closer around him.
A thud and a clunk came from the doorways on the opposite side of the room. They swung open, revealing an antechamber that was pleasingly devoid of decoration. Walls, floor, and ceiling were a uniform, spotless white. There was easily enough room for everyone as they filed in after Yeama. The antechamber could have held more than fifty humans.
Four circular vault doors opened onto the antechamber, each more than four meters across. Small but very thick transparisteel portals in the center allowed visual access to the contents. Only one of those portals appeared to be unshuttered. It was to that vault door that Yeama led them.
“Here at last, Envoy Nirvin, is the prize you have been promised. But allow me first to describe how it came to be in our hands.”
Nirvin glanced through the portal, frowned, and turned back to Yeama. “Do so,” he barked.
Ax was too far away to see. She itched to push past them and look for herself, but for the moment she would have to be satisfied with words alone.
“Some of what I am about to tell is known outside this room,” Yeama said. “The rest is not. Two weeks ago, one of our affiliates stopped a ship in the depths of Wild Space.”
Affiliates, Ax assumed, was a diplomatic term for “pirate.” And stopped surely meant “interdicted and boarded under arms.”
“It was a routine encounter, but it soon took a surprising turn.”
“Surprising how?” asked Nirvin.
“Here is the conversation that took place between our affiliate and the vessel.”
An audio recording filled the antechamber, rich with breathing, static, and comm crackle. A couple of clicks suggested that it had been edited, but the ambience sounded authentic.
“Stand by for boarding.”
That was the affiliate, Ax guessed: experienced, pragmatic, with an edge of tension that belied the Twi’lek’s description of the encounter as “routine.”
“Negative. We do not recognize your authority.”
That was the Cinzia, Ax assumed—and here a strange feeling ran down her spine. The speaker was male and sounded impossibly distant. Had he known her mother? Was he related to her?
She forced herself to concentrate on the rest of the conversation.
“You’re a privateer. You work for the Republic.”
“Now, that simply isn’t true.”
“We’re on a diplomatic mission.”
“To whom? From where?”
There was a long, static-filled pause.
“All right, then. What will it cost for you to let us go?”
“You’re clear out of luck, mate. Best vent those air locks, smartish. We’re coming in.”
The recording ended with a blast of white noise that made the envoy jump.
“What was that?” he asked.
“An explosion,” said Yeama. “The ship our affiliate approached possessed an ion drive of unfamiliar design. It was this that blew, taking the ship and all hands with it.”
As though the Twi’lek were reading Ax’s thoughts, he added, “We believe that the drive’s power cells were deliberately ignited.”
“They blew themselves up?”
“Yes, Envoy Nirvin. Rather than be boarded, they chose to destroy their ship and all its contents. Unfortunately for them, the destruction was not complete. Significant fragments survived. What you see before you are two items retrieved from the detritus. The first is the Cinzia’s navicomp, which contains the coordinates of its origin. The second is more mysterious. What do you make of it?”
The envoy peered through the thick transparisteel portal a second time. He frowned once more.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Our sentiments exactly,” Yeama said.
Again, Ax resisted the impulse to push past and see for herself.
“This much we can tell you.” Yeama folded his hands across his midriff. “We have detected signs of machining on the outer shell, which is made from an alloy of two extremely rare metals, lutetium and promethium. So it is a construct of some kind, and one of considerable material value alone. On the other hand, there is also a biological component, the nature of which we have been unable to fathom. It is undoubtedly present, we know it’s in there, but we cannot examine the source of the reading more closely without physically penetrating the casing. Doing so would, of course, reduce the object’s value, so we will leave that up to the ultimate purchaser.”
“Can we get any closer?”
“The combination to the vault is what you will be bidding for, Envoy Nirvin. Until you have purchased it, the door remains shut.”
The envoy nodded his understanding, but his frown remained intact. Stepping away from the window, he finally waved Ax forward.
“Take a look,” he said. “See what you make of it.”
Although it rankled to take the administrative puppet’s orders, Ax did as she was told, peering with intense curiosity at what lay inside the vault. Finally, she could see what all the fuss was about.
The navicomp was easily identifiable, although it had been twisted and partially melted by the blast that had destroyed the ship around it. It was a handheld model, unexpectedly small, more resembling a chunky satellite comlink than the heart of a starship’s navigation system. Presumably it was voiceprinted, but such security provisions could easily be circumvented by a talented slicer. Ax could only take Yeama’s word for whether it still worked or not. It rested in a transparisteel box on a glass plinth to the left of the room’s center, and was closely observed by numerous sensors mounted in the vault’s durasteel walls, floor, and ceiling.
Sitting on the floor to its right was the second object. Nirvin was correct: it didn’t match any design aesthetic she’d ever encountered. It was squat, like a T3 utility droid, but without any legs or visible environmental interfaces. Its body was tubular and rested flush to the floor of the vault. There were no markings apart from a series of almost gill-like ripples around its middle. Its head was slightly convex, as though it had been pushed down from above, and part of it was scorched black. The natural color of its casing appeared to be silver. No writing, no symbols, no identifying markers at all.
Ax didn’t know what it was, either, but she didn’t say so immediately. Taking the opportunity to inspect the interior of the vault in more detail, she memorized sensor emplacements, estimated the strength of the walls, and measured the distance of each object from the door, just in case she had to perform in the dark. It would be much better, of course, to take the prize once it was out of the vault and away from all these impediments, but she would be prepared for anything.
“It could be a bioreactor,” she said to the envoy, returning control of the window to him.
“Plague agents, perhaps?”
“Hard to say without opening it.”
“Indeed.” Nirvin turned back to Yeama. “Is that all you have to show us?”
“All?” The Twi’lek showed his teeth. They were as pointed as the tips of his lekku. “I will escort you to a waiting room, where you may examine data relating to our find in perfect comfort.”
“Very well.” Nirvin indicated that Yeama should lead the way.
Ax fell in behind them, with her huge Houk shadow at her side. The objects in the vault didn’t speak to her either as a Sith apprentice or as the biological offspring of Lema Xandret. The plague bioreactor, if such it was, provoked no memories at all.
The sparse information they had been given told her only a little more. That the object was made from an alloy of extremely rare metals boded well for her Master’s dreams of giving the Emperor a rich new world, but it meant nothing in itself. With the crew of the Cinzia dead, there were no leads to follow there, either, unless she could uncover something that had been hidden by the Hutts—like a survivor, perhaps, or another clue as to the ship’s origins. She didn’t put it past Tassaa Bareesh to auction only half of what they’d found while keeping something extra in reserve, to sell to the auction’s losing party.
Yeama took them out of the antechamber and back into the circular security air lock, where the heavy doors cycled again. From there, Yeama led them along a new set of luscious corridors in the direction of the no doubt equally luscious waiting room.
Ax made it her business to be elsewhere. Confusing her Houk escort with a well-placed mind trick, she slipped away from the group and vanished into the shadows.
ULA ENDURED TASSAA Bareesh’s welcoming spiel with ill-disguised contempt. Cordiality and profitability made untrustworthy bed partners, particularly when honesty and ethics weren’t invited, too. When his host promised him an array of amenities including chemical enhancements and even more dubious forms of entertainment, it was all he could do not to spit to get the bad taste out of his mouth.
“I think we can dispense with all that,” he said. “Why don’t we just get down to business?”
Tassaa Bareesh’s slit-like grin widened even farther, if that were possible.
Her pointy-headed protocol droid assured Ula that Tassaa Bareesh understood completely.
She waved forward an underling, a salacious-looking Twi’lek, who took over negotiations from that point. The Twi’lek promised that they would soon see the legacy of the Cinzia. As Ula was led from the throne room, he glimpsed a scruffy-looking man leaning up against the rear wall with a blank look on his face and a battered orange droid close at his shoulder. The man’s ennui had a manufactured air, and it was this that caught Ula’s eye.
“Who was that fellow back there?” he asked his guide.
“Which fellow?” Yeama didn’t even glance over his shoulder.
Ula described him, not yet willing to give the matter up. Being a good informer meant taking nothing for granted and noticing all the details.
“Grayish hair, prominent nose, brown eyes—with an old droid.”
“Oh, no one in particular,” the Twi’lek assured him. “A pilot whose ship is currently berthed here. He has the favor of my mistress, and therefore the run of the palace.”
“What’s his name?”
“Jet Nebula, Envoy Vii. You won’t have heard of him.”
That was true. It didn’t even sound like a real name. But he wasn’t fool enough to take Yeama at his word. The Hutts and their servants were natural liars. Like him.
He filed the name away in his memory.
YEAMA TOOK HIM through several ridiculous security measures in order to introduce him to the cause of all this fuss. A navicomp and a battered bit of space junk—it all seemed an utter beat-up as far as he could tell, although that in itself was something of a relief. If the charade amounted to nothing, it would soon therefore be over. Nonetheless, he attended carefully to the details and asked the questions expected of him.
“No survivors, you say?” he asked after hearing the last transmissions from the Cinzia. “How can I be sure your affiliate didn’t murder them and concoct this mad story to cover the deed?”
“The fate of the passengers is irrelevant to us,” Yeama answered. “We would not lie to spare your sensibilities.”
That Ula believed completely, and it revived the moral outrage he had felt at being in the court of a Hutt. Tassaa Bareesh’s venal tactics only confirmed his low opinion of her kind and his hopes that they would be undone, somehow. The Hutts were walking a very fine line. The more valuable the items they were auctioning, the more they could obviously charge—but how long until one or another party simply walked in and took them?
He wondered if either side had just such contingencies in place. Supreme Commander Stantorrs obviously suspected so, with respect to the Jedi, and there had been no chance to ask Watcher Three if the Emperor had sent someone other than an official envoy. A Cipher Agent, perhaps, capable of far greater feats than a mere informer such as himself. Ula had glimpsed an Imperial shuttle in the dock at the rear of the palace, so he knew he wasn’t the only envoy Bareesh had entertained that day.
It had occurred to him on the way that the Imperial envoy wouldn’t know that the Republic envoy was actually a traitor with no intention of winning the auction for his so-called masters. If he could only find some way to communicate that message, it might save the Emperor a great deal of trouble and expense …
Yeama was speaking again. “The auction will be held tomorrow, with all parties present. You will be bidding for the combination to this vault. The safety of all parties is our primary concern, so the process will be anonymous. I will take you to your secure accommodation now, and you may examine the data there overnight.”
“If the bidders are anonymous,” said Ula, seeing his chance of getting a message to the Imperial envoy slipping away from him, “how will we know that the bids are genuine?”
“How indeed?” said Yeama, with a knowing smile. “I advise you to bid fairly, so you can be sure that the winning bid reflects the prize’s true worth.”
Thieves and liars and economic rationalists, thought Ula as Yeama led him to the embarrassingly lush hospitality center. To chaos with the lot of them.
ANALYZING THE DATA took the better part of an hour. The Cinzia shown in recordings taken by Bareesh’s pirate had been a light star cruiser of unfamiliar design, but Ula’s sharp eye detected hints of an Imperial chassis under a refurbished hull. It could have been an old S-class model, stripped down and rebuilt from the inside out. The drives had a similar signature, although their emissions had been baffled somehow. Fragments of the hull collected after the explosion showed high proportions of rare metals—similar to those of the object sitting in Tassaa Bareesh’s vault. Nothing about the ship gave any hint as to its origins.
A world rich in exotic metals would be a prize indeed, Ula thought as he scoured the data for clues. Perhaps his trip hadn’t been for nothing after all. Such rare substances were the backbone of many industries, from communications to war. Shortages had delayed many projects crucial to the Empire’s expansion already, including some so secret that he heard of them only through reports issued to Supreme Commander Stantorrs by Republic spies. His own side didn’t trust him to know.
“It’s all a game,” he muttered to himself, pushing the holovid away from him in frustration.
“Is anything the matter, Envoy?” asked Potannin, standing to attention by the entrance to their suite.
“Oh, nothing, Sergeant,” he said. “I’m just tired.”
“Would you like to retire? You have a choice of beds—”
“I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight.”
“You have received several invitations from other parties in the palace, sir. If any interest you, I could make arrangements.”
“Would that be safe?”
Potannin’s angular face displayed confident assurance. “I would hazard a guess, sir, that so long as the Hutts propose to profit from us, we’re in the safest place in the galaxy.”
“True.” Ula thought for a moment. “All right, then. Let me see the list.”
He scanned it quickly, glossing over minor ambassadors, ambitious crime bosses, and several beings whose intentions were even less honorable. One name caught his attention.
“Jet Nebula, that pilot with the ridiculous name who has free run of the palace. What does he want from me?”
“I couldn’t say, sir. But he’s invited you for a drink in a cantina called the Poison Pit.”
“Sounds unpleasant.”
“Shall I turn them all down, sir?”
“Yes. No, wait.” There had been something odd in Jet Nebula’s disaffected stance, and in his placement in the welcoming hall. If he was truly so bored, why had he put himself in a position from which he could study everyone in the room?
“Tell Nebula I’ll meet him in half an hour.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ula picked a refresher at random and changed his robes for something more sensible. The ones Diplomatic Supplies had provided him with made him feel like a clown. And besides, he didn’t want to stand out. If he was going to discover who this Jet Nebula really was—or at the very least, what he knew—he would do it dressed properly.
Before he left the refresher, he took the compact hold-out blaster he’d packed and slipped it into his breast pocket. Just in case.
THE CANTINA WAS as bad as he had anticipated, with alien and human lowlifes clustered in twos and threes over pots of dense-looking brown beverages. A complex roar of ever-changing frequencies blasted the space, performed by a quintet of Bith; Ula could only assume they considered the noise they made to be music.
He exchanged a glance with Potannin, who stationed watches at both entrances and put the three remaining soldiers at strategic points around the cantina. Their presence alone caused some patrons to pick up their drinks and stagger elsewhere.
Jet Nebula occupied a dark corner, sprawled across a low padded lounge with his head tipped back and his battered droid standing protectively at his feet. The glass in front of him was empty. As Ula approached, Jet’s head came up and fixed him with the same stare he had been using earlier that day.
“Nice duds,” he said.
Ula felt his face turning red. Diplomatic Supplies’ idea of “sensible” amounted to a mock-military uniform in purple, with meaningless epaulets and insignias on every available surface. He had taken off the baubles, but there was nothing he could do about the color except drape a gray cloak across his shoulders and hope for the best.
“You wanted to talk with me,” he said, cutting right to the chase.
“That depends, mate. Are you buying?”
“Is that all you’re after—a free drink?”
“So what if I am? A man’s got to take it where he finds it, in my line of work.”
“Which is?”
“Can’t you guess? It takes a faker to know a faker.”
A cold chill ran down Ula’s spine. What was Jet saying? That he knew Ula was an informer? Was he going to blackmail him for money—or worse?
Jet smiled and scratched lazily at his chin. “All these questions are making me thirsty. How about you send your man to buy us a round of Reactor Cores and we’ll talk like proper gentlemen.”
Ula had no choice but to agree. On the off-chance Jet did know something, he didn’t want it revealed in front of his security detail.
Ula gave the orders, and the droid tottered off after Potannin. He sat down, ignoring the sudden weakness in his knees. “What do you want?”
“I’ve already told you, and you’re already providing.”
“I’m not talking about alcohol. Be more explicit.”
“If you can’t figure it out, then you’re no use to me.”
“What do you mean?” Ula felt his indignation rising, but before he could lash out in return, something occurred to him. “Wait a minute. Yeama said you had the favor of Tassaa Bareesh. What are you doing down here cadging drinks off me?”
Jet said nothing.
Ula examined everything he knew about Jet, and found a clutch of previously disconnected facts taking a surprising new configuration in his mind.
“That’s your ship in the dock,” he said, “the one with the blast damage. You ordered a smuggler’s drink. You said faker because of what you do, not me.”
“ ‘All politicians are liars,’ ” he said, “to quote Chancellor Janarus.”
Ula didn’t laugh at the paradox. “You’re the pirate who found the Cinzia.”
“I prefer freight captain,” said Jet, “but I am that fellow.” He executed a mock-bow from his slouched position on the lounge. “The Hutts don’t forget who their friends are.”
“You don’t look like you’re enjoying yourself.”
“What’s not to like? My ship’s impounded, and I can’t leave the palace. I’m in paradise.”
Ula leaned in closer and whispered over the table, “Is that what you want to talk to me about? If so, I don’t have the authority to—”
Jet waved him silent. Potannin had returned with the drinks. They were large, murky, and dangerous looking. Jet raised his, blew off the scintillating foam, and toasted the Republic.
Ula echoed the toast and took a sip. Electric fire burned a skylane down his throat and caused a slow detonation in his stomach.
“Are you all right, sir?” asked Potannin.
“Yes, Sergeant,” he managed. “Leave us for the moment. But stay close.” In case I need a medic …
“Yes, sir.”
The security detail moved respectfully out of earshot.
“Not your usual?” said Jet with a sly smile.
Ula normally didn’t drink at all, but he wasn’t about to admit that. “I can get word to my superior, if you want to arrange an extraction, but—”
“That’s not why I invited you here. I just think someone should know what really happened to the Cinzia in Wild Space that day.”
Ula’s curiosity was roused by that. “I’ve already heard the recording and seen the data. Are you telling me there’s more?”
“Much more. Drink up and listen.”
So began a long and rambling tale about rivalry and betrayals among smugglers. Ula paid close attention at first. Jet had been worse than a smuggler: he had been a privateer hired by the Republic to scour the fringes of the inner galaxy for theft-worthy matériel to assist the Republic cause. That was interesting for two reasons. It confirmed reports suggesting that the Republic did indeed engage in this inglorious tactic. It also showed how easily the objects up for auction could have fallen right into the Republic’s possession. The intervention of the Hutts had, for once, worked to the Empire’s advantage.
Ula felt a little discomfited by that. He believed that civilized society should never allow such decadence and corruption to thrive. That the Republic traded with the likes of Tassaa Bareesh was evidence, if he needed it, of his enemy’s invalidity to rule—but what did it say about the Empire if he allowed it to profit by similar means?
As Jet talked on, Ula’s attention began to drift. Who cared about the invidious Shinqo and whether he had been allowed to leave the palace or not? What did it matter if Jet Nebula felt poorly used by his new masters, who had no intention of sharing the massive profit they were bound to make from the auction with anyone else? Why was he wasting his time on such a self-absorbed, self-pitying display?
Sip by sip, Ula worked his way through the drink. Jet didn’t appear to be touching his much, and that puzzled him, distantly. By the time the smuggler finished describing the sad end of the Cinzia, Ula’s eyesight was beginning to get a little fuzzy.
“Say that again,” he said, finding it strangely hard to keep his elbow planted on the table. “Something about diplomomo—ah, diplomats.”
“They were on a diplomatic mission. I asked them who to, and they didn’t answer. Doesn’t it make you wonder? Both the Republic and the Empire are bidding for information on where these people came from and what they were carrying. If the crew of the Cinzia weren’t coming to talk to either of you, who were they coming to talk to?”
That was an interesting point. Ula filed it away to think about later, when the floor stopped wobbling.
“Then there’s the explosion.”
“What about the explosion?”
“Well, it was a bit overdramatic, wasn’t it? But at the same time, it wasn’t very effective. You’d think if they really wanted to make the point, if they’d cared enough to kill themselves, they’d have gone out of their way to do it right.”
“You would think so. You would,” Ula agreed. “But what if they argued? What if not everyone wanted to be blown up? I wouldn’t want to be.”
“That’s a good point, Envoy Vii,” Jet said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Ula was developing a strong liking for Jet Nebula, despite the fact that he appeared to have grown an extra head. “Another round?”
“Wait,” said the smuggler, sitting up straight all of a sudden. “Something’s not right.”
Ula looked around. It had become very quiet without him noticing. The Zelosian band was making no noise anymore. The cantina’s patrons had all slumped over their tables. Some of them were actually snoring into their drinks. Even the bartender was sprawled across the counter, twitching slightly.
As he watched, Sergeant Potannin sagged forward and fell bonelessly to the floor.
That couldn’t be right, Ula thought. Since when did anyone in a security detail get drunk?
“Obah gas!” Jet was on his feet with a blaster in his hand. “Clunker!”
The battered droid came instantly to the smuggler’s side, its photoreceptors glowing bright.
“Good. Keep an eye on the door. I’m going to—”
A sharp crack came from behind them. The droid tottered, enveloped in bright blue bolts of energy. A whining noise came from its innards. It froze, a restraining bolt projecting from the side of its head.
“Don’t move, Nebula,” called a vocoder-enhanced voice from Ula’s right.
Ula turned in time to see a section of the ceiling fall away. The head and shoulders of a Mandalorian projected from the hole. The rifle he held was aimed squarely at Jet’s chest.
“Stay where you are, Envoy Vii. This doesn’t involve you. Put the blaster down, Nebula—now.”
The smuggler obeyed. “If you wanted to cut in, all you had to do was ask.”
With an elegantly muscular flip, the Mandalorian landed feetfirst on the floor below him. “Your droid will recover. So will the bystanders. I used enough gas to knock them out, no more.”
“Lucky we were drinking Reactor Cores,” Jet said. “Why do you think smugglers order them so much? They taste awful, but they grant immunity to all sorts—”
“Enough talk,” said the Mandalorian, indicating with the rifle’s business end that Jet should step out from behind the table.
“Are you at least going to tell us who you are?” asked the smuggler.
“I know,” said Ula, although he was still struggling to think through the narcotic drink. “You’re Dao Stryver. What is it you want with Lema Xandret, exactly?”
The Mandalorian’s attention turned squarely to him, and suddenly Ula felt completely sober.
“You, too,” said Stryver, swinging the rifle. “You’re both coming with me.”
“Or what?” Jet asked.
“You don’t want to know ‘or what.’ Get moving.”
Too late Ula remembered the hold-out weapon in his pocket. He staggered to his feet and was propelled at blasterpoint from the cantina, Jet Nebula gray-faced at his side.