The Last Jedi

Fifteen


Mandalore was a culture divided. The wartime activities of a consortium of criminal elements known as the Shadow Collective had proved too much for the New Mandalorians to handle. Satine’s government had fallen and a violently dissenting group calling itself Death Watch had arisen to give the members of the Shadow Collective—largely Black Sun and Hutt organizations—a titanic headache. After the initial paroxysm of hostilities had passed, a puppet Prime Minister had been installed, and things had quieted down.

Still, the atmosphere on Mandalore was one of simmering uncertainty. It was peaceful enough on the surface—even with the strong Death Watch presence—but the dissolution of the Shadow Collective had left a power vacuum. Into this vacuum, Black Sun—personified by the Falleen Vigo, Prince Xizor—had oozed like malevolent slime.

Tuden Sal’s contact, Tyno Fabris, was the new Vigo’s lieutenant, living a discreet existence in the old Mandalorian capital of Keldabe. So that was where Jax set the ship down—at a small landing facility in the considerable shadow of the MandalMotors tower. She was still the Corsair but now carried a Tatooine registry.

The discretion of Tyno Fabris’s existence was a bit unusual. Arkanians were not the most humble of beings; they tended to think of themselves as the apex of evolution. To find an Arkanian in Black Sun was unusual enough, but to find one who kept a low profile was even more surprising.

Once on the ground, Jax slipped into a disguise calculated to make him fit into Keldabe’s hardscrabble, chaotic environment. He wore a blaster at his hip, covered his back and chest with lightweight body armor, and had bound his lengthening hair back in a metal clasp. He’d even gone so far as to fit himself with a contact lens that made his right eye look as if it had been replaced with a cybernetic implant. An artful scar ran down his right cheek, bisecting the eyelid.

He looked hard, like a mercenary … and like he could have been Sacha Swiftbird’s male twin.

The disguise didn’t end with his clothing. It was also a persona that he slipped into. Corran Vigil was a dealer in precious contraband, a man who lived on the fringes in a completely different way than Jax Pavan had done. He’d had I-Five give him a record as both a smuggler and a ruthless procurer of hard-to-find items. The record of his disreputable existence was buried in obscure places because those were what I-Five could access without raising alarms, but if anyone looked for Corran Vigil, they would assume his obscurity was due to attempts to hide.

Jax had not told either I-Five or Den whose counsel he was going to seek, and so sent them off to glean information about a possible Imperial presence on Mandalore or Concordia, and to further aid I-Five’s rebuilding. He, meanwhile, headed for the Oyu’baat tapcaf, arguably the oldest cantina in continuous service in Keldabe. If there were Black Sun operatives on Mandalore, that was a likely place for them to do business.

The Oyu’baat was a large establishment that took up several floors of a building that looked like a museum piece. It was constructed entirely of wood and stone with swaths of plaster from which chunks had fallen, leaving artful gaps that displayed the history of the building’s various façades—brown, pale gray, even an amazing shade of orange that Jax was certain had never existed in nature on any world. The wooden ridgepole that anchored the tiled roof was as big around as three men and jutted from beneath the eaves like the prow of a sailing ship. It reminded Jax forcibly that Keldabe had originally been a fortress.

He entered beneath the shadow of the cantina’s massive portico, eyeing patrons who passed him on their way out even as they gave him calculating once-overs. The main room of the tavern was a noisy, smoky cavern of dark wood and vivid tapestries depicting various legendary figures and events from Mandalorian history. Red was a dominant color. There was a lot of bloodshed in Mandalorian history.

At the top of the broad, shallow staircase that led down into the main room, Jax paused to look around. The center of the immense chamber was dominated by two curving bars. One apparently served food, the other beverages—including the spiced caf that the Oyu’baat was famous for. Both bars were lined with customers, jostling one another for service.

Around the raised perimeter of the room, tables were scattered at intervals while booths ringed the walls; each booth had a sliding wooden screen that could be slipped across the opening for privacy. Behind the bars, at the far end of the room, was a fireplace he could have parked a small shuttle in. It was from a period in which it—along with a scattering of braziers—had provided heat for the frontier gathering place. At least a dozen people could have sat in the alcove around the main fire pit. It was a chilly day—flames leapt in the huge grate, and a number of patrons gathered around it.

Jax had to admit its light and implied warmth beckoned, but he had business to transact and no time for creature comforts.

He looked up. Overhead—far overhead—sunlight filtered in through skylights in the sloped roof, falling in dusty splendor onto the age-rich wood of the bars. Broad galleries marked the third and second floors. Tyno Fabris was far more likely to be up there in one of the more private areas than down here in the noisy main room.

Jax settled on an approach and strode up to the beverage bar. “Spiced caf,” he told the bartender when he’d finally gotten his attention. “Hot. A tankard.”

“You’re new here,” said a female voice practically in his ear. It somehow managed to be sharp enough to cut through the ambient noise in the room and yet give the impression of velvet.

He turned. The source of the sultry voice was a Balosar woman who was nearly as tall as he was. That, in itself, was remarkable—natives of the planet Balosar were often small and frail. This woman was sapling-slender but hardly frail. Her long hair was artistically braided and fell in a twilight cascade over one pale shoulder. She wore a hair ornament that almost, but not quite, disguised her antennaepalps—both of which were homed in on Jax.

A frisson of wariness tingled at the back of his neck. Those antennaepalps, he knew, gave the Balosar a form of empathy that would make her a most observant spy for some corporate, underworld, or Imperial entity.

“New to Mandalore, no,” he said. “To Keldabe, yes. I usually make planetfall on Concordia. But things are a bit … unsettled there of late.”

She smiled. There was a gem embedded in one of her upper front teeth—a pale lavender crystal that echoed the color of her hair and eyes. “What brings you into the Oyu? Not that I’m complaining.”

“Business.”

“Of course. Look, why don’t you go find yourself a seat and I’ll bring you your caf.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“That’s my job.” She picked up a tray from the bar. “The bar guys get snippy when patrons clog up the serving area.”

Jax acquiesced with a curt nod and moved to a table from which he could see the entire room, except for a small section behind the food bar. He watched the female server collect his spiced caf, pop it onto a tray, and begin her walk toward his table. She was flirting with him during the entire passage, exaggerating the sway in her steps and clearly desiring his attention and admiration.

He wondered why she found him of particular interest. Though he suspected that she flirted with all her customers in the hope of a large gratuity, he sensed something beyond that in the way she looked at him. He muzzled his wariness, channeled it into impatience.

She set the tankard of caf down on the table and he snatched it up.

She tilted her head to one side, eyebrow raised, and rested the tray on the curve of one hip. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked. “Food … some other stimulant, perhaps?”

No subtext there. “I’m not hungry. And I don’t care to be stimulated. I need to keep a clear head for business.”

She made a face. “Business. Good-looking man like you is going to waste your time on business?”

“Better than wasting my time flirting with you. There’s no profit in that.”

Ignoring the spark of anger that leapt to her eye, Jax reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a couple of small cabochons of aurodium. He held them out on his palm where the ambient light caught them, sparking a rainbow shimmer of color.

“Unless you can help me do business.”

She eyed the gleaming nuggets, then glanced back at the bar. “What do you need?”

“I’m looking for a man named Tyno Fabris. An Arkanian.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You know him? Or you’d only like to know him?”

“I’d like to do business with him. I hear he’s … a force in this sector.”

She smiled wryly. “He is that. Why Tyno?”

“Why not Tyno?”

She regarded him a moment longer, her antennaepalps at attention—assessing him. She frowned and shook her head. “No reason. In fact, I suspect maybe instead of warning you about him, I should warn him about you.”

“Why don’t you?” He set the aurodium on the table in front of her and met her gaze. “Tell him we have a mutual acquaintance who recommended him to me.”

She nodded, scooped up the aurodium, and pocketed it before returning to the bar. When Jax looked up a moment later, she’d disappeared. He took a deep breath and a long sip of the hot spiced liquid.

Would she or wouldn’t she? He leaned back in his chair to wait.



Den stared up at the address on the building—displayed in meter-tall numerals above the entrance—then glanced down at his datapad.

“I think this is the place.”

I-Five made an impatient scraping sound. “A physical address—how quaint. I often forget exactly how backward these Outer Rim worlds can be. I suppose I should despair of finding any parts worth purchasing.”

“The advertisement said they had a plethora of parts to meet special needs.”

“Hm. Probably special if one is planning an act of piracy.”

Den pocketed the datapad. “Isn’t that what we’re planning, more or less?”

I-Five’s head swiveled on its gimbal. “You have a point.”

Den looked back at the droid uneasily, wondering if he should divulge what had been burning a hole in his head since before they’d landed. He wanted to give Jax time to make it right, though, he told himself. Wanted to be disabused of the idea that their Jedi friend was keeping secrets from his two closest companions.

He opened his mouth to say something, but words wouldn’t come. If he told I-Five what he’d overheard of Jax’s conversation with Sal, he knew what that would mean. It would mean he didn’t believe Jax would come clean. That he didn’t trust him.

He’d wait, he decided. Tonight when they rendezvoused aboard the ship, Jax would tell them he’d asked Tuden Sal for his Black Sun contacts. He’d tell them he hadn’t found any. Or that he had, but that he couldn’t work with them.

I’ll give it today, Den told himself. Just today.

He and Five had little to report with regard to recent Imperial activity on Mandalore. If anything, Den’s journalistic credentials had caused people to be less forthcoming than ever. He hoped they’d have better luck filling their parts manifest than they had squeezing intel out of the closemouthed citizens of Keldabe.

They entered the building and found themselves in a sparsely furnished lobby. A protocol droid of many recognizable parts—none of them from the same type—sat behind a counter next to the door. It looked up and regarded them with optics that glowed a rather sinister red-orange.

“You need?” it asked curtly.

“Parts,” said Den, “for an I-5YQ protocol droid if you’ve got ’em. Though we are interested in other … uh … peripherals.”

“We?” repeated the droid with a look at the DUM unit.

“I … mean me and my captain. I’m mech-tech aboard the freighter Corsair.”

“Your captain being?”

“Corran Vigil.”

“I am unfamiliar with your captain. Which means nothing. What sort of peripherals were you seeking?”

“Armaments,” Den said. “Shielding. That sort of thing.”

The droid seemed to blink—its optics going dark for a split second. “You wish to arm an I-5YQ protocol unit? That is unusual.”

Den saw an opportunity to bolster Jax’s reputation as a menacing individual. “My captain’s idea of protocol is sometimes … dangerous.”

There was a soft hiss as an old-fashioned hydraulic blast door opened at the rear of the lobby and a tall, dark-skinned human woman, dressed from head to toe in black synthskin, stepped into the room.

“Then I’d say you’ve come to the right place,” she said. “We can weaponize just about anything here. Even that.” She gestured at I-Five with her head. A lock of shockingly red hair fell over one eye.

The droid responded by turning his head toward her and uttering a shrill chirrup that could have taken the paint off the walls. Den cringed and the woman covered her ears with both hands.

“I already have weaponized him,” Den said. His voice sounded muffled and wobbly even from inside. “Down, boy,” he told I-Five.

The droid made a muted rattling sound, causing the proprietress to eye him warily.

“I’m actually hoping to build the protocol droid from hell,” Den told her. “Something that seems benign and inoffensive … but isn’t.”

The woman rubbed at her ears. “I’d say your little buddy there is plenty offensive. Come on through. I’ll show you what we’ve got.”

What they had was a warehouse full of machine parts that were nowhere near as well organized as Geri’s store of droid mechanisms back at Mountain Home. The inside of the building had been all but gutted, and bits and pieces of robotic gear hung from racks and netting or sat on shelves that went up several floors. A quartet of powered staircases—one for each wall—gave access to the collection.

The woman waved toward a rear corner of the warehouse. “Protocol droids,” she announced. “Or what’s left of ’em. The ones on the lowest levels are the closest to complete. Some of them actually still work … after a fashion. Armaments and other specialized enhancements are on the eastern wall.” She gestured in that direction. “And in a private area through the door to your left. That area has rather a heightened security presence, as you might imagine. I’m sure we have what you want.”

“I dunno,” Den said, frowning. “Looks like a lot of junk from where I’m standing. You actually sell much of this?”

If she was offended, she didn’t show it. “We have the biggest collection of droid parts between here and the desert rim. In fact, I just sold a bunch of this junk to the Empire.”

Score. “The Empire. Really. What the heck would they want with this stuff?”

“I don’t know, exactly. Stormtroopers aren’t known for being chatty.”

“But they found what they needed here?” Den gestured at the room.

She shifted. Glanced away at the walls with their clutter of metallic debris. “Sure. Why not? I mean, most of it … Some of it. But, I mean, who stocks blast cages, really?” She frowned at her collection of droid bits, then turned to glare at Den. “You don’t need a blast cage, do you? ’Cause I don’t have ’em.”

“We don’t need a blast cage. I would be interested in knowing what the Imperials bought, though. Captain Vigil likes to keep the ship up to standard.” He gave the proprietress a meaningful look.

“Yeah? He willing to pay to know what the standard is?”

“He’ll pay. Especially if we find what we need.”

The woman smiled. Her teeth, Den realized, had been filed to points.

Charming.

He smiled back and followed I-Five to the wall of droids.