Scoundrels

by Timothy Zahn

  He took a moment to examine the Iltarr City police uniform he was now wearing, brushed off a piece of silk debris that somehow had come loose during the ripping process, and pulled out the flattened cap tucked into the tunic. He settled the cap on his head, making sure the bill was pulled down low over his eyes, and sent one final hope skyward that the gadget Bink and Tavia had planted to mess up the cam droids had done its job. It wouldn’t do to have the guard over there recognize him as the same man who’d brought in a contraband cryodex for his boss to look at.

  Taking a deep breath, stiffening into the arrogant official posture he’d seen way too many times on police and security officers, he rounded the corner of the refresher station and strode toward the garage door.

  The guard’s first reaction as he spotted the approaching figure was to slip his hand beneath the edge of his tunic toward his concealed blaster. His second reaction, as a flame jet across the grounds briefly lit up the scene and Lando’s uniform, was to not budge a single centimeter from that pose. “What do you want?” he called.

  “Sergeant Emil Talbot, Iltarr City police,” Lando said curtly. “I need to check out an emergency call we’ve received from someone inside.”

  Another flame jet went off somewhere behind him, this one a whistling spiral, and in the light Lando saw the guard’s eyes narrow. “I’m sorry, Officer, but I have orders not to admit anyone without authorization from—”

  “It’s sergeant, not officer,” Lando snapped. “And I don’t need your permission to investigate an emergency situation. Someone in your droid control room called in that he was under attack. I was already on the scene, so—”

  “The droid room?” the guard asked, stiffening.

  “Yes, the droid room.” Lando jabbed a finger at the door behind him. “Now, you get that door open right now, or I swear to you—”

  “Yes, of course,” the guard said, taking a step back and reaching up to his shoulder comlink clip. “I just need to call it in … Sir, this is Pickwin. I’ve got an Iltarr City police sergeant here who says they’ve had an emergency call from the droid control room … Yes, sir, right away.”

  He reached behind and opened the door. “Master Villachor’s sending some of our men to check it out,” he said.

  “I still need to take a look for myself,” Lando insisted.

  “Understood, sir,” Pickwin said. “As always, Master Villachor is more than happy to cooperate with the police. If you’ll come this way, I’ve been ordered to escort you to the scene.”

  “Thank you,” Lando said. He brushed past the guard and strode through the doorway, pausing just inside to wait for Pickwin. The other man followed, closing the door behind him.

  And just before it shut, Lando caught a glimpse of a pair of figures moving across the grounds toward the door: one of them the size of a normal human, the other the towering bulk of a Wookiee.

  “This way, sir,” Pickwin said, heading down the hallway.

  Lando followed, resisting the urge to throw a furtive look behind him. If Bink had followed the plan and left her stolen key pendant where Chewbacca could find it, he and Eanjer should be right behind him.

  If she hadn’t, Lando was on his own.

  “Confirmed, sir,” Kastoni said grimly. “The droid control room was definitely broken into. Probably a plasma torch, though the cut looks a little strange. Three techs are down, including Purvis. The good news is that they were just stunned.”

  “Yes, that’s wonderful,” Villachor snarled as he glared out across the darkened grounds at the pockets of chaos still rippling through the crowds. Purvis was the droid chief, with more working knowledge of the cursed machines than any five of Villachor’s other men. With him out of commission, the servers and maintenance droids running amok outside would probably have to be taken down one by one. “Why in hell didn’t they call for help? Even a plasma jet would take time to get through that door.”

  “They probably tried,” Kastoni said. “There’s something on the wall on top of the intercom and alarm lines. Signal damper of some sort, probably.”

  “And they didn’t think to use their comlinks instead?”

  “Sure—that’s how the cops got wind of it,” Kastoni said sourly. “I’m guessing they couldn’t get through to anyone here until it was too late.”

  Because all the security men had also been on their comlinks, chasing malfunctioning droids and searching for missing prisoners. Villachor glared at a set of flame fountains in the distance, twisting to the rhythms of a song too distant for him to hear. “What about this cop? You check him out?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kastoni said. “Sergeant Emil Talbot. Don’t know him personally, but his ID looks good and he’s in the system. Seems to know how to handle a crime scene, too.”

  “Keep an eye on him anyway,” Villachor ordered, his mind flicking back to the incident at the Lulina Crown Hotel and how Qazadi had manipulated Villachor’s contacts in the police department to bury that investigation. “Is Pickwin back on the door?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kastoni confirmed. “I sent him back out as soon as he’d passed Talbot over to us.”

  “Good,” Villachor said, though there wasn’t a single thing that was good about this situation. “I’m sending Sheqoa to take over. As soon as he arrives, you and Bromley rejoin your search team.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Villachor keyed off, scowling again at the fire-filled darkness, and keyed for Sheqoa. “Have you heard anything from Qazadi about Aziel and his cryodex?” he asked when the other answered.

  “Not from him, sir, no,” Sheqoa said. “But our men at the hotel just reported that Lord Aziel and his guards have left the suite and are heading to the airspeeder garage. I was just about to call you.”

  “Have them follow him,” Villachor ordered. If this was some game Qazadi and Aziel had cooked up between themselves, he wanted to at least have eyes on the situation. “Then get over to the droid control room. We’ve had a break-in, and I want you to supervise the cop who’s come to investigate.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Villachor keyed off and sent another glare at the grounds. It would be time soon for the fireworks to begin. Normally that was the most festive and eagerly anticipated part of the Festival.

  But Villachor wasn’t looking forward to it. Not at all.

  Because a proper fireworks display required him to shut down his umbrella shield.

  He peered up at the sky. Cancelling the display would be a tremendous loss of face in the community.

  But if Qazadi or Aziel had some kind of aerial attack planned …

  Fortunately, there was no need to make that decision. Not yet. He could wait until they’d either caught the prisoners or confirmed they’d left Marblewood, and until Sheqoa’s men found out what Aziel was up to at the Lulina Crown.

  And he would definitely not make any decisions until Sheqoa and Sergeant Talbot found out what the intruders had been doing in the droid control room.

  “We about set?” Dozer asked.

  “I think so,” Winter said, lowering her electrobinoculars and giving her eyes a quick rub with her fingertips. Four airspeeders had gone into the Lulina Crown Hotel parking garage, three others had come out, and between them she had the procedure and the timing down cold. “We’ll want to start moving as soon as an airspeeder passes the fourth opening from the entryway,” she continued, pointing toward one of the wide vents that lined the garage wall. “That should let us ram into him without giving him enough time to get out of the way, while still making it look like an accident.”

  “And our angle’s okay?”

  Winter frowned at him. He’d been staring intently at the garage ever since they arrived, intently enough that she could practically hear the gears turning in his brain. “The angle’s fine,” she said. “We’ll hit them from their blind spot, and with the attendant facing the other way for the checkout procedure, he won’t see us coming, either. You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he assure
d her. “I’m thinking that after we ram them and block this entrance, maybe you should stick around and keep the attendant busy while I go across and block the one on the other side.”

  “I thought you wanted me to come help you.”

  “I don’t think I’ll need you,” he said. “You might as well stay at this end, where you’re out of the way.”

  “Where I’m out of the way?” Winter echoed. “What’s that supposed to—”

  “Here’s one,” Dozer cut her off, resettling his grip on the wheel and turning on his lights. “Hang on.” The airspeeder passed the vent Winter had pointed out—

  She grabbed for her restraints as their vehicle leapt forward, accelerating toward the garage entrance. She tensed reflexively, then forced her muscles to relax. Better chance of escaping injury that way. The target vehicle moved into view past the attendant station and started its leisurely turn into the opening. Dozer accelerated a half second longer, then hit the brakes as if he’d suddenly noticed the obstacle.

  With a stomach-churning crash, Winter’s whole world seemed to ram itself into her chest, flip itself up over her head, and drop like a sack of vegetables onto her shoulders. There was a horrendous screeching of metal and plastic and ceramic that ground across her ears like a rasp file.

  And then, abruptly, all was silence.

  Winter blinked twice, and with the second blink her confused world abruptly resolved itself. The airspeeder was canted to the right at a thirty-degree angle and pointed upward with its nose nearly touching the garage ceiling. Something nearby was hissing; beneath the hiss, she could hear the faint sounds of people shouting. There were plumes of white smoke everywhere, probably a mixture of coolant from a ruptured turbojet and spray from the airspeeders’ fire suppression systems.

  And Dozer was gone.

  Winter shook her head, the movement helping clear it, and popped her restraints. If he thought she was going to just sit here looking helpless, he had some serious rethinking to do.

  The commotion was even louder and more frantic-sounding with the door open, and the air reeked of coolant and fire mist. Winter listened carefully as she rolled out through the opening and eased herself to the floor, but the shouts were more along the line of dismay and fury than of actual pain or injury. At least Dozer had followed that part of the plan correctly. She took a second to confirm that the two airspeeders were indeed completely blocking this entrance, then slipped away through the smoke. Staying low behind the neat rows of parked vehicles, she headed for the entrance at the hotel’s opposite side.

  The attendant at the booth there was gazing anxiously across the floor at the smoking wreck but was making no move to head over to help. He probably had strict instructions to stay at his post no matter what, Winter guessed.

  Though that would probably change when the biggest vehicle in the garage came roaring at him, did a half flip, and wedged itself solidly across his entrance. There were, Winter saw, three perfect candidates for the job, all of them within four rows of the entrance.

  Dozer wasn’t at any of them.

  For a moment she leaned back against the last of the big airspeeders, breathing in the faint fumes drifting across the garage from the fire mist, her pulse thudding loudly in her ears. What the hell was he up to? All Lando had asked them to do was keep Aziel from bringing the real cryodex to Qazadi.

  Unless Dozer had decided to get creative.

  Sure enough, she found him at the rear of the garage, lying on his back beneath one of Aziel’s four black landspeeders. “What are you doing?” she demanded as she knelt down beside him.

  “About time you showed up,” he said with a grunt. “You’re the one with the insane eye for detail. Is there a particular one of these that Aziel usually rides in?”

  “Dozer—”

  “I know, I know,” he cut her off. “Yell at me later. Right now, just tell me which one is his.”

  Swallowing a word that had once gotten both her and Leia in trouble, Winter looked at the landspeeders. The small, minor marks … “That one,” she said, pointing to the one to Dozer’s right. “They line them up in random order when they travel, but he always rides in that one.”

  “I knew it,” Dozer said, grunting again as he pulled himself out from under the landspeeder and slid under the one Winter had identified. “These guys are always so predictable.”

  “Sure,” Winter said. “Speaking of insane eyes, are you completely out of your insane mind? Aziel could be here any minute, and you’re trying to hotwire his landspeeder?”

  “Not trying,” Dozer corrected, his voice punctuated by the clink of tools. “Anyway, we all agreed the blackmail files are worth a whole lot more if we have a cryodex to go with them, right?”

  Winter felt her mouth drop open. “Are you insane?”

  “You already asked me that,” Dozer reminded her. “Here—peel the insulation off the ends, will you?”

  A small finger-sized cylinder rolled out from under the airspeeder.

  “Dozer, you’re not thinking this through,” Winter persisted, crouching down and starting to pull the insulation off the ends of the wires sticking out from one end of the cylinder. “Do you even have a blaster? Because I don’t.”

  “Don’t need a blaster,” Dozer said. There was a double clink as he tapped one of his tools against the edge of the vehicle’s frame. “I’ve got this. You finish that yet? Great—thanks.”

  Winter rose into a low crouch and peered across the landspeeder’s hood at the bank of turbolift doors along the wall. “How long is this going to take?”

  “Not long,” Dozer said, the last word coming out as a grunt. “I just have to bypass the security system—which is absurdly easy; Black Sun really needs to invest some credits in a real system—and then hook up the remote. I’ll be finished in no time.”

  Across the garage, one of the turbolift doors slid open.

  “I hope you’re right,” Winter murmured urgently. “Because here they come.”

  “I don’t know,” Kastoni said, looking back and forth across the monitors and keypads. “I’m sure they changed some settings somewhere. Why else would they come in here? But I haven’t got a clue which ones.”

  “We’re going to need a tech,” Lando agreed, pretending to look around. He’d spotted Zerba’s sliced console almost as soon as he’d walked into the room. But, of course, he’d known what to look for. He also knew better than to point it out too quickly. “I’ve put in a call, but all our techs are scattered across town at the various Festival venues. It’ll take a while to get anyone back in.”

  “That’s okay,” the other guard, Bromley, said from across the room. “I don’t think Master Villachor would want your people poking around here anyway. Our droid master can fix it when he wakes up.”

  “I hope so,” Lando said, glancing casually out the door.

  And froze. At the far end of the hallway, talking intently toward his comlink clip as he strode toward the control room, was Sheqoa.

  One of the handful of people in Marblewood who knew Lando by sight.

  And Lando had suddenly run out of time. “Wait a second,” he said, jabbing a finger at the damaged console. “That console—see the cut?”

  “Yeah,” Kastoni said as he crossed toward it. “Looks like the same whatever they used to slice open the door.”

  “Sure does,” Lando said, joining him and looking over the console itself. There was nothing identifying it as a 501-Z control panel, at least nothing he could see. But obviously Bink had figured it out, and if she could, Police Sergeant Talbot certainly could. “Looks like a 501-Z control console,” he commented. “You have Zeds patrolling the grounds somewhere?”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kastoni’s head jerk toward him. “This controls the Zeds?” he breathed. “Oh, hell.” He tapped his comlink clip. Lando held his breath … “Kastoni, sir,” Kastoni said quickly. “It looks like they hit the Zed control panel … Yes, sir.”

  He took a step back and cra
ned his neck to look out into the hallway. “Yes, I see him … Master Sheqoa?” he called. “Master Villachor wants you.”

  Kastoni stepped into the doorway. Lando turned his back, leaning over the Zed console, pretending to examine the jagged cut Zerba’s light-saber had made. Behind him, the two men conversed in low tones, and though Lando couldn’t make out the words, he could hear the shift in Sheqoa’s tone as he stopped talking to Kastoni and started talking to Villachor. The conversation ended, and Lando heard footsteps heading rapidly away.

  “Gone to check on your Zeds?” Lando asked over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, if they’re still there,” Kastoni growled, coming up beside him.

  “You cops know any fast ways to bring someone out of a stun blast?” Bromley asked. “Some drug or something we can use?”

  “Nothing that would be legal,” Lando said. “Sorry. Here, help me move this other console out of the way, will you? We need to see if they got into the wall conduits, too.”

  The echo of the hard service corridor gave way to the silence and softer cushioning of the main mansion hallways.

  Sheqoa hardly noticed.

  So it was the Zeds they’d been after. Kriffing obvious in retrospect, especially after Villachor replaced all the armored human guards in the vault with more of the kriffing droids.

  All of which had been Qazadi’s idea. Curse the stupid green-scaled Falleen idiot, anyway.

  Unless it hadn’t been stupidity. Unless it was part of whatever insane plan Qazadi and Aziel and Kwerve and maybe Prince kriffing Xizor himself had worked up to bring down Villachor and put someone else in his place.

  Well, they could just dream on. Whatever success the mysterious intruder had managed with the serving and maintenance droids outside, he’d find the Zeds a much harder nut to crack. They were horribly difficult to reprogram or disable, especially without the general access codes that only Villachor and Purvis, the droid chief, had. Once Purvis recovered from the stun blast, he could check on the Zeds and fix any damage the intruder had managed to inflict. In the meantime, Sheqoa and Villachor would go into the vault—alone if necessary—and guard the safe and Xizor’s precious blackmail files.