by Kevin Hearne
“I won’t,” I said, though I wondered if she would be able to accompany me on the mission to smuggle the Givin off Denon. She’d be fine eventually, but I doubted she would be 100 percent anytime soon. Admiral Ackbar had given us some slack time in our operation window, but not much.
Fayet Kelen turned to me, his mouth quirked upward in a fond grin. “She will not be long, pilot. You will see. If she is not bandaged and ready to leave in the morning, I will be very surprised.” His fingers massaged his datapad again as he spoke. “In the meantime, please stay the evening in Pasher’s finest hotel at my expense. I am summoning an escort to take you there. Have your droid search for the file Skywalker, encryption key Jewel Pilot, and you will find the funds I spoke of, which you may then transfer wherever you please. Thank you for your service to me and my daughter. May the stars keep you safe.”
Before I could reply, he turned and strode with impressive speed to the workers unloading the cargo bay of the Harvester, bawling out orders and leaving me with my mouth open.
R2-D2 spat out a stream of digital hoots that I imagined to be a wry comment.
“Looks like we get a night off from the war, Artoo. Don’t tell Threepio, okay? We’ll never hear the end of it.”
The hotel was indeed quite a luxurious affair, but once I tried out the bed I didn’t find much use for its other amenities. The mattress was so comfortable and I was so exhausted that I fell asleep in my clothes, and Artoo had to wake me in the morning. It didn’t bother me to miss out on the excess and splendor, though; a good night’s sleep at that point was the height of luxury to me.
A message from Nakari waited for me at the front desk: “Hurry up. I’m waiting at the ship.”
“Come on, Artoo, we have weapons to buy.” The money Fayet Kelen had paid us was quite an impressive sum. We’d need all of it for upgrades to the Desert Jewel, but the prospect of custom surprises was excitement enough for me: The Alliance rarely had the funds or the will to do anything unusual.
Nakari’s left hand, encased in a thin protective sheath full of bacta, waved at me from the ship’s loading ramp. “Those must have been some sweet dreams,” she said with a smile.
“Yeah, I feel rested. How about you?”
“High on meds and days away from getting back full use of my hand, but otherwise functional and happy to be here.”
“Can you still fire your rifle?”
“Maybe not so well on the run. But sniping from a fixed position where I can use my elbow for support should be fine.”
“Great. Any ideas where you want to go for upgrades?”
“I was going to ask you.”
I considered. It had been a few days since that Imperial alert on the Desert Jewel. I doubted anyone in the Chekkoo Enclave would be looking for it now, but just in case, we’d better take steps to throw off suspicion.
“Anyplace on Pasher we can get the Jewel painted? We’d have to do it anyway before going to Denon.”
Nakari shrugged. “Sure, we can find a place.”
“Then how do you feel about outfitting on Rodia? I just set up a contact there and they have everything we need.”
“Sounds fine to me.”
We found a man obscured in a cloud of cigarra smoke who had a team of friends willing to do a rush paint job on the Jewel, finishing it by that afternoon. Nakari had him change the red-and-silver scheme to blue and gold. Once we were on our way and traveling through hyperspace, I had Artoo display the catalog of Utheel Outfitters in the cockpit, and we picked out the weapons we thought would come in handy against Imperials. We checked the prices against the balance in our accounts and had to dial back our wish list somewhat, but I thought we’d still have a fearsome ship when the additions were complete.
The problem was that Taneetch Soonta was not expecting our arrival, and while we were allowed to land at the spaceport outside the Chekkoo Enclave, we were not exactly welcomed. Unlike my first visit, where I was politely greeted and escorted to Utheel Outfitters, I was accosted almost as soon as I took my first breath of reeky Rodian air. A belligerent male with blue skin and a teal jumpsuit demanded to know my business from the bottom of the ramp.
“We’re here to buy weapons from Utheel Outfitters,” I said.
“For a ship like this? No, you’re not.”
“Of course we are.”
“Utheel Outfitters doesn’t outfit interstellar ships. They supply hunters and their small speeders, maybe some atmospheric craft. You’ve got the wrong company. Try the Chattza clan on the other continent—they can take care of you.”
“No, look, I need to see Taneetch Soonta. She knows me and what I’m looking for.”
“I don’t know anybody by that name.”
“Well, somebody does.”
He held up a datapad. “See this? It contains a roster of everyone in the Chekkoo clan, and there’s no Taneetch Soonta here. You’re mistaken. You’d best find your weapons somewhere else, because we don’t have them.”
Nakari stepped behind me and her voice floated over my back. “What’s the trouble, Luke?”
“I’m not sure of anything except that this fellow wants us to leave. Says my contact doesn’t exist and the company I’m to deal with doesn’t have the weapons we saw in the catalog.”
“Is there any possibility he could be right and you were duped before?”
“I suppose it’s possible.” That whole business could have been an extremely elaborate Imperial sting with a huge number of agents in on the operation. But it wasn’t likely. It was more likely that this particular Rodian had a different agenda. There had to be a way around him without escalating to something unpleasant—and I suddenly remembered that perhaps there was. Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, I reached out to the Force, and then opened my eyes again, focusing on the Rodian and willing him to accept what I said. “We’re here to do business with Utheel Outfitters.”
The Rodian’s antennae dipped and he chopped the air with his hand. “And I already told you they can’t handle interstellar outfitting. You’ll have to go visit the Chattza.”
That clearly hadn’t worked, but I had forgotten something that perhaps would make a difference. When Ben had told the stormtroopers in Mos Eisley that Artoo and Threepio weren’t the droids they were looking for, he had used a small hand gesture with it, as if to wave away the trooper’s concerns.
“You don’t need to worry about us,” I said, moving my hand in a tiny arc and rippling my fingers in a wave as I concentrated on exerting my will.
“Poodoo if I don’t,” the Rodian replied, “I have ships on my list coming in here with legitimate business and I can use the berth. Get going, would you? You’re wasting my time.”
I had to try again. “You don’t need to worry about us,” I said, and repeated the hand gesture.
“Look, I know humans are slow sometimes, but I’m starting to think you’re exceptional,” the Rodian said.
Behind me, Nakari whispered, “Luke, what are you doing?”
“Wasting everyone’s time, apparently,” I whispered back.
The Rodian’s comm squawked a harsh alert at him and he thumbed it, receiving a throaty stream of language that I didn’t understand. He replied with a curt acknowledgment and said to me as he put the comm away, “That changes things. Welcome back to Rodia, Master Skywalker. If you would please follow me, I’ll take you to Taneetch Soonta.”
“What? You said there was no such person.”
“And now I’m saying I’ll take you to her. Try to keep up.”
“Who are you?”
The Rodian didn’t answer but turned and walked away, waving at us to follow. Nakari gave me a gentle nudge and I descended the ramp, calling to Artoo to join us. Trailing the rude Rodian in teal, I thought perhaps I would forever associate the color with poor manners. But I realized after I’d had time to cool down that I was more frustrated with my failure than truly annoyed with our guide. I knew Ben had done something to the minds of those stormtrooper
s, but I didn’t know what it was or even what he called it. He said the Force could influence the weak-willed or something like that, but I was so poorly trained that I didn’t know if I’d done it correctly and the Rodian was simply too strong, or if I’d done it incorrectly. It only reinforced how badly I needed someone to train me.
The path we took through the Rodian bazaar was different but the result was the same: We wound up in a dimly lit hidden passage with Taneetch Soonta willing to speak frankly.
“Apologies for the misunderstanding at the spaceport,” she said. “For security reasons we keep our illicit commerce on a need-to-know basis, and until your arrival that worker had no need to know who you were.”
“It’s all right,” I said, and introduced her to Nakari.
Soonta greeted her and said, “How may I be of service today?”
We had Artoo play back the catalog entries of the weapons we wanted and flashed a running total of the prices, explaining that we’d like all of them installed on the Desert Jewel as soon as possible. “There will be labor charges, of course,” Soonta reminded us. She got busy with her datapad and showed me a figure.
I nodded at her and said, “We allowed for that.”
“Excellent. And how will you be paying?” We offered to pay half of the total on deposit immediately, the balance to be paid upon completion and inspection of systems.
“Consider it a demonstration of Utheel Outfitters’ capabilities to the Alliance,” I said.
I authorized Artoo to make the initial payment, and Soonta made a pleased gurgle when her datapad confirmed the transfer of funds.
“Excellent, Master Skywalker. We shall have you armed and airborne before sundown tomorrow.”
WE DID NOT TRUST THE CHEKKOO completely, of course, and took the Desert Jewel to a neutral planet to have the ship scanned for tracking devices and the computers swept for worms and other malignant code. I was as relieved as I was happy when the scans returned clean and we could return to the Alliance without worrying about an Imperial spy lodged among our new allies—for the moment.
The fleet still hid in Orto Plutonia’s system, the ships looking like tiny pieces of lint on a black blanket as we approached. Leia was happy to hear of our safe return, and while Admiral Ackbar was somewhat disappointed to learn that Fex was wholly unsuited for a base, he was definitely encouraged to hear that we had upgraded the Desert Jewel and tested our new contacts on Rodia at the same time.
He and Leia joined Nakari and me in a briefing room on the Promise, along with R2-D2 and C-3PO.
“We now have a contact for you on Denon,” Ackbar said. “A Kupohan who occasionally does contract work for the Bothan spynet and others runs a small noodle hut as a front for her intelligence services. It gives her a reliable location for meetings and the opportunity to conduct operations in an important section of Denon under cover of food delivery. She was the one that the cryptographer used to smuggle out a message to us. You will visit her when you arrive and order something strange. C-3PO, what was it they were supposed to order?”
“It was the Corellian buckwheat noodles with rancor sauce, sir,” the droid said.
“Rancor sauce.” Ackbar shuddered and the folds of flesh around his mouth flapped audibly. “So glad I don’t have to eat that.”
Nakari blanched. “I didn’t even know that was a thing anybody ever thought of making. We don’t have to eat it, do we?”
“No, just order it,” Leia said with a smile. “That will let your contact know we sent you.”
“Her name is Sakhet,” Ackbar continued. “She’ll have files for you and scouting reports on the target. It’ll be up to you to formulate an extraction strategy from there.”
“Where do we take her once we get offplanet?” Nakari asked. She’d missed that part of the previous briefing on the mission.
“She wants to be taken to Omereth,” Ackbar said. He clicked a button on a remote and a holo hummed to life, a full-color, high-resolution display of a blue world dotted with small beaded strings of land. “It’s a water planet and sparsely populated. Archipelagos of forested islands and an eccentric destination for those who wish to escape the bustle of the galaxy.”
“He means it’s popular among suicidal anglers,” Leia explained. “There are huge hungry things in the oceans there.”
Nakari flicked a finger at the holo. “Why that planet? It’s nothing like the Givin homeworld.”
“That might be the basis of its appeal,” Leia said. “We are arranging to have her family meet her there. She will work for the Alliance where the Empire won’t be looking.”
“Do we have a name for the target yet?” I asked.
“Yes. Drusil Bephorin. She’ll be heavily guarded.” Ackbar paused and swung his giant eyes back and forth between my face and Nakari’s. “You might have to take care of those guards.”
Euphemisms for murder make me uncomfortable, but I have always found that one especially disturbing, since killing someone is the opposite of caring for them.
Nakari, however, had no such qualms. She nodded and said, “I’m okay with that.”
WE TOOK A BIT MORE TIME preparing for the trip to Denon since it was almost guaranteed that we’d have to deal with Imperial forces at some point. We packed some changes of clothing that might serve as simple disguises, along with some putty and makeup for more sophisticated cover, and gave the Desert Jewel new transponder codes to go with her new paint job. The weapons installed on Rodia had interrupted the sleek profile she’d boasted before and that helped alter the appearance, too. Any Imperials on the lookout for the rogue that destroyed two TIE fighters in the Llanic system would have trouble identifying this as the same ship.
We were almost ready to leave when Leia hailed us, rushing onto the hangar deck with 3PO whirring behind her as fast as he could manage. “Luke! Wait! You need to know this.” She took a couple of breaths once she reached me. “Glad I caught you.”
“What’s up?”
“Threepio reminded me of a Givin greeting custom that I’d almost forgotten. You need to know some greeting maths.”
“Greeting maths?”
“Yes, it’s customary among the Givin to say hello with math. If you can’t at least speak the language of math a Givin will have a difficult time trusting you, so you have to demonstrate your ability right away. Almost anything’s okay, but I advise you to keep it somewhat simple,” she said. “And whatever you do, don’t ask them to do linear approximations of nonlinear partial differential equations, because they take it as an insult, like you’re mocking them.”
This was already turning into the strangest conversation I’d ever had with Leia, but I went with it. “Mocking them how?”
“They object to approximations, basically. Asking for approximations instead of precision indicates a lack of faith in their abilities at best, and at worst could be construed as you calling them stupid.”
“Oh. I’m very glad you told me that. But like you said, I think keeping it simple would be best.” I was hoping she would define simple as addition or subtraction.
A tiny smile of amusement played at the corners of Leia’s mouth and she nodded. “Good.”
“It seems like the list of your talents never ends. Are you a mathematician, too? How do you know this?”
“I had to deal with Givin when I served in the Senate. I have a few equations memorized that you can use.”
“Okay, but after I use whatever you teach me, then Drusil is going to reply with an equation for me to solve, right? What do I do then?”
“Well, I suggest you solve it.”
“Come on, I can do some easy algebra in my head, maybe, but not differential equations!”
“That’s quite all right, Master Luke,” Threepio interjected. “The most likely answer will be three.”
“What? How can you know that?”
Threepio, already ramrod-straight, seemed to grow taller and more proud at the opportunity to be pedantic. “Over the years Givin have grown a
ccustomed to the inability of other beings to greet them properly, so to be polite she will use an equation with the answer of three to follow her traditional greeting customs but spare both of you the embarrassment of your not knowing the answer. But if you want to impress her, you can ask for a real greeting and she will give you something random and much more difficult.”
“No, no, three’s good, I can deal with three.”
“Great. Let’s get started,” Leia said, and she painstakingly taught me and Nakari two different equations and their answers to use when we eventually met Drusil Bephorin. It was definitely not simple addition, and it took us several attempts to commit it all to memory.
When we were finished and finally ready to leave, Leia looked around the hangar, vaguely disappointed at what she saw. If I had to guess, she was searching for the Millennium Falcon and unhappy that Han and Chewie hadn’t snuck in somehow while she wasn’t looking. She was probably worried, as I was, that we’d never see them again. But she always kept fighting for the people she could see, the people she could save: Hers was the example we all followed. Her farewell was a brief hug and an enjoinder to remain safe, and as usual on such occasions, when we parted I managed a nod and nothing more, turning to board the ship before I said or did anything awkward.
We navigated a sneaky path out of Orto Plutonia to avoid the Imperial division I’d skirmished with earlier, and relaxed once we had a course plotted along well-traveled hyperspace lanes.
Nothing but numbing hours of blurred stars stretched before us, so I said, “Mind if I ask you something? I hope it’s not rude.”
Nakari didn’t turn her head, but she cocked an eyebrow, her eyes sliding my way. “Well, if it is rude, you can be sure I’ll let you know.”
“Hope you’ll forgive me if so. But here’s the thing: People who are fairly well-to-do—as you and your father are—rarely get so upset with the current state of affairs that they decide things need to change. Because usually it’s the current state of affairs that made them rich, so, you know …”
