by Kevin Hearne
Out of necessity the Kupohans had built tall baffles to help pilots land on the surface rather than crash. They had dozens of recommended atmospheric entry points where the wind patterns were merely annoying rather than terrifying, and you had to ride them out until you could drop down behind a mountain range or one of their baffles and settle down. Even then you’d have to worry about rogue gusts and eddies, but they had the approach routes to most places worked out to at least a modicum of safety.
Nakari returned, datapad in hand. “There’s a contact here listed in the city of Tonekh on the eastern continent. Name is Azzur Nessin. Hold on a second, let me see if we can bring up some more information.” Switching from her datapad to the ship’s computer, which could access Kupoh’s infonet maintained by satellites and orbital platforms, she typed in a query and growled at a mistake that forced her to delete it and redo, punching the keys and showing that word who was boss.
There was a lag in processing due to the distances involved, but the net worked well and an information dump appeared soon enough. Nakari summarized: “Azzur Nessin is founder and head of Nessin Courier and Cargo. He has facilities scattered about the planet, but its headquarters matches the location that Sakhet provided in her files.”
“All right, we’ll head there. Good business to be in for a spy, eh?”
“Yeah. Gives him a legitimate reason to go anywhere.”
“And if he has his own fleet, that means he could have his own repair facility.” I changed course in accordance with the recommended atmospheric entry point for Tonekh and asked Artoo to attempt to reach Nessin via comm using the number Sakhet had provided. Meanwhile, several different ships in orbit and entities on the ground were trying to reach us, all of them asking for our names and business.
“Inquisitive lot, aren’t they?” Nakari remarked after the third time she told someone we were “tourists, here to enjoy Kupoh’s windsurfing.”
Though the Empire strictly controlled the interstellar HoloNet, the Kupohans had a local system infonet set up almost of necessity to exchange weather information and help ships land safely. We received a call from Azzur Nessin within minutes of Artoo’s comm request. He popped up on our holodisplay, a stocky individual wearing a vest, his arms folded across his chest. At some point he’d lost a bite-sized chunk of his left basal ear and had never had it surgically improved. The fur hanging down underneath his jaw was long, braided, and beaded, which struck me as unusual for a Kupohan because it would make distracting noises when he moved. I didn’t know if it meant he belonged to a secret society, or if it was a fashion he had chosen to offend society as a whole.
“Yes? What news?” he asked.
“Hello, Azzur,” I replied, perhaps taking liberties by using his first name when we were strangers, but strangers were almost certainly listening in, so we couldn’t tell him we were Alliance operatives desperate for help.
“We just came from Denon and tried Sakhet’s noodles like you suggested. But you didn’t tell me how good her nerf nuggets were! I’d say they’re the best in the galaxy.”
Azzur Nessin cocked his head to the side; the movement made his mutilated ear more noticeable, and I wondered if he did that on purpose. “Nerf nuggets, eh? I don’t suppose you brought me any?”
Sakhet hadn’t told us how to respond to additional questions; if it was a test or a code of some kind I didn’t know the answer. Maybe it was a roundabout way of asking if our mission had been successful. Deciding to go with that, I said, “Of course! Sakhet made a batch especially for you.”
The Kupohan righted his head and showed his teeth in a broad grin. The movement made the braids of his beard sway like vines in a gentle breeze. “Cannot wait. My place of residence has changed since we saw each other last. New coordinates at the end of transmission. See you soon.”
His image winked out, replaced by a series of numbers that I asked Artoo to input and execute into the autopilot. They were only slightly different from the course I had already set.
“Oh, and Artoo, since we’re going to be limping in there with only one engine, can you give me an estimate of our arrival time?”
Drusil Bephorin replied instantly over the intercom. “Three hours and forty-three minutes, twelve seconds, give or take a few minutes depending on the point that you take manual control and other variables.”
“Thanks, Drusil,” I said, then added, “We’re going to try to resupply while we’re here. Is there anything you want or need to add to the list?”
“My basic needs are being met. I would not want to request anything else that might delay our eventual departure. My primary desire is to be reunited with my family.”
“Okay, we’ll do our best.”
Almost four hours to planetfall would give the Empire time to catch up to us if they knew where to look. It would also give all the spies in the system a nice long look at us, and maybe they’d pause to wonder why we were currently diving toward the planet more like a dead bird than the rich windsurfing tourists in a custom yacht we were pretending to be.
“I’ll tell you what I want,” I said to Nakari.
“You mean besides another engine?”
“Yeah, besides that. Before the Empire interrupted, I was back in the galley trying to make caf. I could really use it now.”
Her eyes flicked down to my tunic. “That first cup looks great on you, Luke. That’s some seriously forward-thinking fashion you’re wearing.”
“Oh, come on—”
“Not everyone can make their spills look like art. Did you use the Force to get that pattern right there?”
“Guess I’ll go change while I’m at it.”
As I stood, Nakari dropped her teasing manner and said, “Luke? We used up almost all our money getting those upgrades.”
“Good thing, too. They did the job for us.”
“I know. But how are we going to pay for a new sublight engine? We have some credits to take care of food and such but not nearly enough to finance these repairs. I can’t imagine the Alliance is suddenly flush now, even if we could get hold of Admiral Ackbar from here.”
“Maybe we could trade a future favor or do a job of some kind for this Azzur Nessin. Not all transactions need to be in cash.”
“I don’t know. He looked like he was a cash-money kind of operator.”
“What makes you say that? The beads in his beard?”
“I thought they might be a clue, yeah. I know you can’t see colors well on my cheap holoprojector, but they seemed to me like they might be gold.”
“I bet they clack together when he’s chewing food. Probably makes all kinds of racket.”
She gave a short courtesy laugh and then said, “Be serious.”
“All right,” I said, leaning against the cockpit hatch and folding my arms in a futile attempt to cover my stained tunic. Nakari turned in her chair to look at me as I spoke. “I think we’re in trouble. We can’t trust this Azzur Nessin not to sell us out the moment someone from the Empire offers to buy him some more beard beads. And it’s not just him we can’t trust: It’s this whole system. Information is currency, and right now the Empire is offering plenty of credits for information on our whereabouts. You can bet all those people asking us questions have noted that we have three life-forms aboard, and that labels us as an interesting contact already. They’ll pry closer for sure. And we can’t be a hundred percent sure whose side anybody’s on, regardless of what they say”—here I jerked a thumb at the living quarters and rolled my eyes to indicate Drusil, who could still hear me through the open intercom—“but we have no choice but to attempt to complete the mission. Can’t go back to the fleet until we do.”
“Do you have any ideas about how to convince him to help us?”
“I’m hoping to come up with something before then.”
I couldn’t think of anything, though. I knew plenty of Alliance secrets, but those weren’t for sale. The Desert Jewel herself might make us a fair bit of money, enough to trade for anothe
r ship, but I couldn’t imagine breaking even on any kind of deal like that, much less coming out ahead. We’d never get a ship that could manage the same speed, and I wouldn’t dream of suggesting it out loud to Nakari.
After I’d cleaned up and changed, I visited Drusil and Artoo in the living quarters. The Givin was sitting up straight in a meditative position on the top bunk, her long tunic flowing down from her shoulders like draperies. Her datapad lay on top of her crossed legs, but she wasn’t using it when I entered. She was staring at the ceiling for some reason—or maybe her eyes were closed, I don’t know. Her chin was tilted up, and I got the idea that she was praying or meditating rather than searching for defects in the ship’s construction.
“Drusil? Mind if I speak with you?”
Her head dropped and turned, and those black eye sockets regarded me with an unreadable expression.
“If it’s convenient,” I amended. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“You are no bother. After our earlier conversation regarding the Force, I have been entertaining myself with cascading probability ladders. I can always return to them later.”
“Great,” I said, having no idea what she meant. I edged into the room and passed Artoo, patting him on the dome and telling him that I appreciated his work before taking a seat on the lower bunk opposite Drusil. I explained that we needed a new engine and fuel at minimum to leave the planet once we landed on it, and whoever sold them to us would need money or valuable information in exchange for that. Drusil volunteered to share what little she knew of Imperial operations in the sectors surrounding Hutt Space, and I said we’d certainly make the offer, but the Kupohans probably knew much of that already and wouldn’t place much value on it.
“I could, perhaps, avail myself of some information in this system,” the Givin mused, gesturing at her custom-built hardware. “If our host wishes to raid a particular data cache and rifle through its contents in exchange for an engine, I am confident that I can slice our way to an accommodation.”
“You’d be willing to do that?”
“Of course.” For once, her voice rang clearly, free of the thickness it usually contained. “I will do whatever needs to be done.”
I believed her and felt unnerved, for it had occurred to me that she might have made the same promise to someone else—someone in the Empire. Her long tenure under the “protection” of the Imperial Security Bureau could very well mean she was working for them even now. Leia and Admiral Ackbar hadn’t shared with me any details on Drusil’s background. How did they know she was legitimately an enemy of the New Order? The ISB could be using her to infiltrate the Alliance.
Our escape from Daalang had me suspicious, as well. How hard had the Empire really been trying? They had certainly seemed intent on killing us at the time, but strategically that cruiser shouldn’t have been there by itself. The Empire knew of the Interdictors’ vulnerabilities or else they wouldn’t habitually surround them with escorts. So why send one in alone this time to pull everything out of hyperspace in the hope of catching us? They might have caught something a whole lot meaner than a single fugitive ship. It reeked of desperation—or a sacrifice.
But a sacrifice to what end? Would the Emperor sacrifice an entire cruiser and all its crew to bolster the credibility of one operative? I didn’t know if he was heartless enough to throw away lives like that. Vader probably was, but we hadn’t had a whiff of his involvement yet.
I shook my head to clear it. Maybe it was all an elaborate plot and someone had planned their holo-chess moves far ahead of time, but if so, I couldn’t see the shape of their attack yet. It was far more likely that the Empire never thought a single ship would have the ordnance or guts to successfully attack an Interdictor solo, and that was it. Then again, Drusil could be playing both sides for some other agenda of her own—she was certainly intelligent enough to do so.
Regardless of the true situation, our best bet was to get the Jewel refitted and out of the system as fast as possible. And a tiny twinge of paranoia probably wouldn’t go amiss here; the Kupohans weren’t quite as renowned for spying as the Bothans were, but for my money they were a close second—or in a way, even better precisely because they weren’t renowned for something that should be conducted secretly. Their extraordinary hearing made them excellent eavesdroppers, able to catch snippets of whispered conversation across a busy cantina by using their sonic filters to isolate the voices they wanted. Rumor had it that Kupohans who trained in law enforcement could isolate your heartbeat and detect stressors in your voice that betrayed when you were lying. And because it was almost impossible to sneak up on them, they made a game of it, becoming naturally stealthy as they grew up; they would make excellent assassins. Maybe they were—so good no one ever caught them at it—but in any case, we would have to assume that anything we said on the planet could be overheard. I reminded Drusil of that because we could easily reveal in an unguarded moment who we were and what we were doing—and that would be valuable information to sell.
I told Artoo to stick close to me while we were on the surface. “Don’t ever be alone. Someone could try to mess with you to get at your memory.” The droid rocked back and forth on his support arms and chirped and whistled in outrage at the very idea.
“Thanks for your time, Drusil. I’ll let you get back to your probable ladders or, uh. Yeah.”
The Givin nodded once in reply and tilted her chin at the ceiling before I left the quarters, but her voice called me back.
“Yes?”
“One of the probabilities may interest you. It is almost certain that this ship’s system has been remotely sliced since we arrived in this sector.”
“What? How?” Artoo added several indignant beeps to that. “Don’t you think my droid would have noticed?”
“I imagine he will find something if he looks now.” Artoo’s socket jack whirred in the computer and his dome light began to wink as he worked. Drusil continued, “It will not be an invasive burst of code. It will behave more like a mynock, attaching itself inconspicuously and going along for the ride. But it will see what you see, know where you go and who you talk to. Were we tourists this would be of little consequence and the information unworthy of trade. However, we are not tourists, are we?”
“No, we’re definitely not.”
Artoo spat out a long warbling stream of annoyed chirps and the top of his dome rotated in extreme agitation. I’d have to go back to the cockpit to get a translation of the noise; Nakari was already reading it and her loud reaction sounded unhappy.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
Nakari scowled as I ducked my head into the cockpit. “Luke, who could be slicing into the Jewel?”
“Hold on, let me see what Artoo said.” The message read, MALICIOUS CODE FOUND AND NEUTRALIZED. SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM, ORIGIN UNKNOWN. INSERTED RECENTLY.
“It would have been almost as soon as we entered the system and accessed their net,” she said. “When I did that search for Azzur Nessin. I can’t believe we’d get tagged so fast or so easily.”
“Well, we already know that some of them do contract work for the spynet. This is probably their way of saying hello.”
“It’s rude.”
“To them it’s business as usual. They probably figure if we can’t protect ourselves, then we deserve to be spied on.”
“I obviously need to upgrade my firewalls. Lots more fire, I think,” she said. “Could it have been Nessin himself who did it? Or one of his employees?”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “It could have been almost anyone in the system, though.” I jerked my head to indicate the living quarters. “I need to get back. Keep an eye on the scanners, and yell if anything develops.”
“Yeah, all right.”
I was trying not to fall into the trap of conspiracy theories. Once you start looking for them you see them everywhere, but they’re usually just mirages, nothing more. And yet this was quite a coincidence. I returned to the quarters, thrust my hands i
n my pockets, and looked up at the Givin.
“You know, Drusil, I think we should talk.”
“You say that as if we had not been talking in the very recent past, or as if we are not in fact already talking.”
“Sorry, that was sort of a human idiom. I said that to suggest we should talk about matters underneath the surface.”
“The surface of what? Oh!” She nodded to herself. “I understand. We have arrived at the time when you search for the politest possible way to accuse me of being an Imperial spy.”
“How do you—Do you have equations that predict human behavior?”
“I would be the Emperor if I did. But there is no need. Human faces are expressive, and yours is not a difficult one to interpret. And I can hardly fault you for being suspicious. You do not know me well—or any Givin, I would wager—and I was most recently in the employ of the Empire for an extended period, however unwilling. A certain amount of suspicion is warranted. I take no offense.”
“Well, I suppose that’s good. I’m glad you’re not offended and that you’re willing to discuss it so frankly. But I’m not reassured. The invasive code you predicted would be there—and was there—could have been placed in the ship’s system by you far more easily than by someone else in the system who barely had time to realize we were here.”
“You are assuming that someone is manually inserting the code rather than the code existing on the net and executing on an automatic trigger, but as you are speaking of mere possibilities rather than likelihoods, you are correct, Luke Skywalker. I also could have taken over the entire ship whenever I wished, for your security is laughably easy to circumvent. Do you see the flaw in your reasoning? If I had wanted to ensure that we were captured by the Empire, why did I not move more slowly in the sewers on Denon? Or shut down the ship in the Nanth’ri system so that we would be captured by pirates, or disable us in Daalang, and then simply wait for the Empire to pick us up?”
