Scoundrels

by Timothy Zahn

  But sometimes the perception of guilt was more important even than the guilt itself.

  She set her jaw. It was her sister. If they couldn’t see that or didn’t care, then to chaos with all of them.

  And especially to chaos with anyone who objected on the grounds that she’d just walk up to the door of Qazadi’s suite and get herself killed. That one was not only a misunderstanding but also a professional insult.

  Directly ahead, the between-floors gap narrowed into another of the tightly framed doorways she’d already passed twice. Releasing the climbing grip clamps from the ceiling above her, she worked her head and shoulders through the gap, reconnected the clamps on the other side, and kept moving. Han at least shouldn’t have been worried on that score—from what she’d heard of his story while they were waiting in the electrical closet, it was clear he’d already looked up here and seen that there was plenty of room for her to make her way invisibly across the mansion.

  Though in all fairness, maybe what he’d been worried about was how she was going to handle the vertical distance between the second and fourth floors. The elevator shafts were the obvious routes, which of course meant that Villachor’s people would have them covered.

  Luckily for her, there was a route that would probably never occur to any of them.

  It always amazed her how many buildings more than a hundred years old included hidden rooms or corridors somewhere. Maybe the rich and powerful in those eras had been more paranoid than their modern-day descendants, or maybe they’d just liked the old-fashioned romance and glamour of it all. Given that Villachor’s mansion had once housed a sector governor, she would bet heavily that there was a whole set of emergency passages tucked away coyly somewhere between the walls.

  Unfortunately, Rachele’s schematics hadn’t included any hidden boltholes, and she didn’t have time to search them out.

  Fortunately, those same schematics had showed the dumbwaiter.

  She broke her way through the wall with little effort and even less noise. The shaft was just as narrow as she’d expected. It was also as easily passable for someone her size who knew what she was doing.

  Climbing into the narrow space, she headed up.

  The Zeds were heavy, bulky things, and even with the armored suits’ power assistance it took Uzior and his men nearly ten minutes to move the first row of five out of the way. Villachor watched in silence from beside Sheqoa, listening to the seconds tick away, furiously anxious to know what was happening behind that door but equally determined to keep his fears and frustration invisible to Qazadi’s men.

  Uzior had started on the second row when Villachor suddenly noticed that a sixth armored guard had slipped unseen into the anteroom and was watching silently from the wall across from the vault door. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Who is he?” he repeated, glaring at Sheqoa.

  “I assumed that you called him in,” Sheqoa said, sounding confused. “Earlier, when I was giving the others their instructions.”

  “If I’d called him in, he’d be helping,” Villachor snarled, glaring at the newcomer. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Dygrig,” the other’s filtered voice came. “His Excellency Master Qazadi ordered me to come and observe.”

  Villachor threw a look at Barbas and Narkan. The whole anteroom was starting to stink of Black Sun vigo. “Did he tell you to suit up in my armor for the occasion?”

  “You already said there might be trouble inside the vault,” Dygrig reminded him. “His Excellency thought it would be a good idea if someone else came prepared.”

  Villachor took a deep breath, his entire blood system feeling as if it were about to explode. For Qazadi to send one of his guards, fitted out in one of Villachor’s armored suits … “Very thoughtful of His Excellency,” he replied, fighting viciously for self-control. Going berserk in front of witnesses would be all the excuse Qazadi would need to throw him out and put someone else in his place. “As long as you’re here, you can give my men a hand.”

  “I was told to stand ready for whatever we found inside,” Dygrig demurred calmly. “My orders didn’t say anything about helping with the preliminaries.”

  No, of course Qazadi wouldn’t want his men to get their hands dirty. “Uzior?”

  “We’ll have the area clear in eight minutes,” Uzior promised.

  “I could call more men,” Sheqoa offered.

  “Have the search teams found the intruder?”

  Sheqoa winced. “No, sir.”

  “Then we’ll make do,” Villachor said. He shot a glare at Dygrig, who was now watching with the same condescending detachment as Barbas and Narkan. If he survived this challenge, Villachor promised himself darkly, he would find a way to make Qazadi pay for his heavy-handedness, vigo or not. “Have the nearest search team go to the ready room,” he ordered Sheqoa. “If Qazadi has more of his people up there helping themselves to our equipment, I want to know about it.”

  Rachele’s comlink twittered “Report,” she said.

  “Trouble,” Han said, his voice so low she could hardly hear it. “Zerba, how hard did you lock the ready room after I left?”

  “As hard as the lock that was there,” Zerba said. “We didn’t weld it or anything, if that’s what you’re asking. Why?”

  “Villachor’s sending someone up there,” Han said. “The minute they see the hole, it’ll be all over. They’ll have ten guys down in the vault before Villachor stops screaming.”

  “And that’ll be it for Zerba and Kell,” Rachele said grimly. “So we blow it now?”

  “We can’t,” Han said. “Villachor hasn’t got the vault door open yet.”

  “You sure we need it open?” Kell asked. “The magseal didn’t stop the lightsaber.”

  “You’re not using a lightsaber this time,” Rachele reminded him. “I don’t know what the magseal will do, but I’d really rather not risk it.”

  “If you don’t, we sure don’t,” Zerba agreed. “I vote we go ahead and turn Chewie and Lando loose.”

  “Hold on,” Bink cut in. “They can’t go yet—I’m not in position.”

  “You’ve got two minutes to get in position,” Han told her tartly. “Uzior says the vault will be open in eight. We need something to distract the guards from this part of the mansion, and Chewie and Lando are it.”

  “Can you do it, Bink?” Kell asked.

  “Do I have a choice?” Bink bit out. “Fine—go ahead. But if anything happens to Tavia, it’ll be on your head. And I mean that literally.”

  “I know,” Han said. “Two minutes, Rachele.”

  “Got it.” Rachele braced herself as she switched over to Chewbacca’s more secure comlink frequency. “Chewie, Eanjer: two minutes.”

  Over the years, Bink had accumulated an extensive collection of words that were appropriate to this kind of situation. On her way to the top of the dumbwaiter shaft, she ran through the entire list of them.

  Two minutes. She was still half a mansion away from where Tavia was being held, and Han was giving her two measly kriffing minutes to get there.

  There was no way she could make it there via the between-floors gap. Her grip-clamp techniques were perfect for this kind of surreptitious travel, but the very nature of their operation put a cap on speed. And that top speed wouldn’t be enough.

  Which left her only one option. An option that, like the dumbwaiter itself, the mansion’s original designers had given her.

  The horizontal conduits were right at the top of the shaft, heading off in opposite directions: one each to the southeast wing and the northeast wing. With a fully enclosed conduit, even one as cozy as this, there would be no need for grip clamps. Her standard nonslip friction gloves were the only tools she needed, and she could easily cover the distance in half the time the between-floors route would take. Maybe even within the two-minute window Han had allotted her.

  The problem was that the between-floors route allowed her to choose where she came out at the other end. With the food delivery
conduit, unfortunately, there was exactly one exit. If Qazadi or his guards happened to be looking the wrong way at the wrong time, she’d never even see the shot coming.

  But she had to try. It was Tavia. It was her sister.

  She twisted her body around the bend at the top of the dumbwaiter shaft and worked her way into the conduit, angling her shoulders along the diagonal to take best advantage of the limited space. Pulling at the metal sides with her gloves, starting again at the top of her list of curses, she headed into the darkness.

  Kastoni was starting to get dangerously impatient, and Lando was down to his second-to-last stalling technique, when the whole wing seemed to explode in a cacophony of shattered ceramic, wood, and stone.

  And as he and Kastoni spun toward the door, an airspeeder roared past down the corridor, bouncing back and forth into the walls on either side. Kastoni had just enough time to bark a startled curse before a second vehicle went shooting past behind it.

  And right behind the vehicles, running for all they were worth, were Chewbacca and Eanjer.

  Lando puffed out a sigh of relief. Finally. “What in the name of—” he began. He broke off as the racket of the bouncing airspeeders was replaced by the bellowing of alarms.

  “Emergency!” Kastoni shouted into his comlink clip as he snatched out his blaster. “Garage has been breached. Two airspeeders are running loose in the north wing heading for central—I say again, two airspeeders are moving through the north wing headed for central.”

  He got an acknowledgment and headed for the door.

  “What can I do?” Lando asked, coming up behind him.

  “You can get your rear back outside,” Kastoni snarled. “You’re done here.” He stopped at the doorway, eased his head out for a quick look—

  And crumpled to the floor as Lando rammed his fist directly behind Kastoni’s left ear.

  Shaking the sudden throbbing out of his hand, Lando dropped to one knee beside the unconscious man and scooped up his blaster. For a moment he considered checking in with Rachele, decided he didn’t have the time, and headed off after Chewbacca.

  He’d assumed earlier that the interior of the mansion was essentially deserted except for the kitchen staff crafting the refreshments for the Festival visitors outside. Certainly most of the security force had been outside, riding herd on the crowd and trying to chase down the last of the out-of-control droids. But as he followed in the wake of Chewbacca, Eanjer, and the airspeeders, he found a surprising number of people peering fearfully, cautiously, or disbelievingly through the various doorways. Most of them seemed to be techs of some sort, which wasn’t surprising this close to the garage and droid repair facilities.

  A couple of them helpfully pointed the way to the uniformed police sergeant charging after the intruders. None of them made any move to stop or challenge him.

  He’d left the north wing and was heading up the wide staircase leading to the central section and the northeast wing beyond when he heard the first sounds of blasterfire.

  The comlink built into Han’s armor was locked into the Marblewood security channel, which meant he got the news about the rampaging airspeeders at the same time as Sheqoa, and a few seconds before Villachor.

  He’d expected Villachor to go ballistic with the report of something else going wrong. But instead of dissolving into fire, the crime lord’s attitude turned into ice. “Inform His Excellency that he may have intruders on the way,” he told Sheqoa evenly. He gestured to Barbas and Narkan. “You might want to go assist in your master’s defense,” he added.

  The two men exchanged looks. Barbas nodded silently, and they headed at a fast jog across the anteroom and out the north door.

  Han grimaced. Hopefully, Chewbacca and Lando would know to watch for trouble coming up from behind.

  “You can go with them,” Villachor added.

  Han blinked away his tactical visualizations. Villachor was gazing at him, the same deadly ice in his eyes. “I was ordered here,” Han said. “I’ll leave if and when I receive new orders.”

  “You’ll leave when I order you to leave,” Villachor said calmly. “This is still my territory. My word is the law here, not Master Qazadi’s.”

  “I understand, Master Villachor,” Han said, trying for the right mix of respect and arrogance that so many midlevel Fleet officers had mastered. “And I have no intention of violating that command. But—”

  “Alert!” a taut voice came suddenly over the suit’s comlink. “The vault has been breached from above. Repeat, the vault has been breached.”

  “Sir, the vault’s been breached,” Sheqoa relayed urgently to Villachor. “Sounds like they got in through the ready room.”

  For a heartbeat Villachor just stared at him. Then he spun around to the men straining at the frozen Zeds. “Get that door open now!” he snarled.

  He jabbed a finger at Han. “And put that man under arrest.”

  The blasterfire was getting louder and more intense, Lando noted uneasily as he charged up the stairs three at a time. So far he hadn’t spotted any of Villachor’s guards coming up from behind. But that was bound to change soon.

  Ideally, the blasterfire should have been over by the time he reached the fourth floor of the northeast wing. Halfway down the hallway was the reason it hadn’t. One of the two airspeeders had ground to a halt in the center of the floor, blocking the one behind it. Chewbacca and Eanjer were crouched behind the rear vehicle, Chewbacca working the remote as he tried to get it past the damaged one. At the far end of the hall, a Falleen and a pair of human guards were crouched behind an F-Web repeating blaster that was sending a continual spray of fire at the airspeeders, while a second Falleen lay prone beside them sniping with what looked like a knockoff version of a BlasTech T-21.

  Lando skidded to a halt beside Eanjer. “What’s the holdup?” he shouted over the scream of the blasterfire.

  “Got in a lucky shot,” Eanjer shouted back. “Chewie thinks he can fix it, but it’ll take some time, and we need to get the other one past it if we want to keep pressure on the gunners down the hall.”

  “Why can’t you—” Lando strangled off the question. Of course Eanjer couldn’t do that for him. The remote pad took two hands, and Eanjer’s medsealed right hand was useless. “Chewie, give it to me,” he told the Wookiee. “I’ll get it around. You get the other one fixed.”

  Chewbacca rumbled and thrust the controller into Lando’s hands, then dropped to the floor and crawled toward the downed airspeeder.

  With a normal airspeeder, Lando could have simply rammed the second one over the top of the first, crushing or shattering the first vehicle’s canopy and creating whatever room he needed. But Villachor’s airspeeders were too heavily reinforced and armored for that, which not coincidentally was also the reason they hadn’t already been cut to ribbons by the blasterfire from the other end of the hall. Chewie’s efforts had already smashed away part of the ceiling; unfortunately, the between-floors gap hadn’t given him quite enough extra space to get the airspeeder past.

  But he hadn’t yet tried ramming the walls. If they were thin enough, and if there was enough room along the hallway’s sides, that might do the trick.

  Backing up the hovering airspeeder a few meters, Lando angled it toward the wall and prepared to ram.

  The end of the dumbwaiter conduit was no more than twenty meters ahead when the hallway to Bink’s left erupted in the sound of muffled blasterfire.

  She swore again, trying to get a little more speed out of her sideways crawl. Lando and Chewie had started their assault, and Tavia’s time was rapidly running out. Even a Black Sun vigo could put two and two together, and an assault on Qazadi’s suite while he was hosting a prisoner was too obvious a connection to miss.

  The war outside had settled down into a steady rhythm, with at least one heavy repeating blaster in operation, by the time she reached the end of the conduit. Stripping off the friction gloves, she drew her hold-out blaster. Setting her teeth, she put her other hand
on the conduit door and pushed.

  She’d worried that it would be locked and that she would have to waste precious seconds working a probe around the rubber seals to trip the catch. But there was no lock and no catch. She eased the door the rest of the way open, listening as best she could over the noise for any indication that the amazing self-opening door had been spotted.

  Nothing. Getting a grip on the edge, she pulled herself the rest of the way through.

  She found herself in probably the most gorgeous dining room she’d ever seen. There were two doors leading out of it, one of which was ajar. Moving silently across to the half-open door, she peeked through the gap.

  And felt her stomach tighten. Tavia was there all right, seated on a low-backed couch with her back to Bink’s door. Bink couldn’t see her face, but she could see the tension in her sister’s shoulders. Seated in a high-backed chair across from her was a Falleen in full intimidating royal-type garb. Qazadi, without a doubt. His eyes were on the hallway door to his right, his expression cool and calculating, a hint of a macabre smile about his lips.

  Between him and the door, facing the muffled blasterfire with their own weapons drawn and ready, were two Falleen bodyguards.

  Bink was a ghost burglar, not a soldier, assassin, or even a smuggler. She normally carried a blaster on the job, but only because it was an occasionally useful tool. She’d fired at another living being exactly twice in her life, and in both instances her full intent had been to keep the person pinned down so she could make her getaway. As far as she knew, none of those shots had even connected, let alone caused any actual damage.

  Now she was going to have to shoot two Falleen. In the back.

  To kill.

  But there was no other way. Not if she was going to get herself and Tavia out of this alive. With her throat so tight it felt like she was strangling, she got a two-handed grip on her blaster, lined up the muzzle on the first guard, and squeezed the trigger.

  He jerked as if he’d been slapped across the face, his legs collapsing and dropping him without a sound to the floor. The second guard was starting into a sort of spinning sideways leap when her second shot blew a small cloud of vaporized cloth and skin from his torso. He landed full-length on the floor, hitting hard enough to make Bink wince in sympathetic pain. Shoving the door the rest of the way open with her foot, she swiveled the blaster to point at Qazadi. “Don’t move,” she warned.