I'm in too deep, Han. Way too deep, Jarril had said.
Seluss was confirming that, in his own panicked way.
"What did you say they're smuggling? Imperial equipment? That ruined junk that the Jawas gathered on Tatooine?" Han frowned. That made no sense, certainly not at the prices Seluss was quoting him. "I don't understand why you and Jarril are complaining when it's making you rich."
Seluss glanced at Chewie.
Chewie shrugged.
"Okay, I agree," Han said. "Not even that kind of money is worth dying for. But how do you know the deaths are connected?"
Seluss chittered fast, then chopped his arm in the air three times. And then he moaned.
"All three of the dead guys had spoken out about this? They didn't have anything else in common?"
Seluss half-growled, a puny sound when compared with Chewie's growl, but a threat nonetheless. Chewie moved in closer, but Han waved him back.
"I'd hope you'd be this worried about me if I didn't come back from that kind of mission, Chewie." Han righted his blaster, made sure his aim was still on Seluss. "I need to think about this."
Seluss had essentially confirmed Jarril's story, but he had added some details. Most of the folks on Smuggler's Run were selling junked-out Imperial equipment at outrageous prices. And, both Jarril and Seluss claimed, some were dying because of it. Han still didn't know how that tied into the bombing on Coruscant, but he knew it did. Somehow.
The fact that Jarril hadn't returned added some veracity too. As well as the stupid plan Seluss had made. Jarril was always doing things like that to mislead others. Seluss had attacked Han so that everyone would think they were enemies, and wouldn't realize they were talking together. It did make a curious kind of sense.
Han lowered his blaster.
Chewie moaned.
"It's okay, Chewie," Han said. "I think we can trust the little guy. For the moment."
Chewie lowered his bowcaster, but kept a tight grip on it all the same.
"What do you think I can do?" Han said.
Seluss chittered softly.
"I think you have a better chance of discovering who's paying for the equipment than I do."
Seluss shook his head, speaking all the time.
"Resources? You have all the resources here. You're the ones dealing with the buyers. Just take it a step further."
Seluss shook his head really hard now, speaking so fast that Han almost lost the thread. Almost.
"All three of them had tried to go beyond the buyers? And all three turned up dead?" He whistled between his teeth. "And Jarril tried to trace the source, too?"
Seluss bowed his head. His chitter was soft, almost hesitant.
"Jarril came to me." Han sighed and lowered the blaster all the way. Now Jarril was missing. Han didn't like the sound of this. If Jarril had died for coming to him, then whoever had killed Jarril would be gunning for Han next. "Wonderful."
Seluss chittered apologetically.
Chewie looked somber. Things were worse than they had known. A lot worse.
"All right," Han said to Seluss. "What's the plan?"
Seluss glanced at Chewie, then at Han. Finally, the Sullustan chittered.
"You don't have a plan?!" Han swung his blaster in disgust. Seluss ducked. Han didn't have his finger on the trigger. He didn't understand the Sullustan's overreaction. "You don't have a plan. No one ever has a plan. How come no one ever has a plan?"
Chewie roared.
Seluss, cowering near the mildewy cots, chittered.
"You thought / would have a plan? I just found out about this, pal. Chewie, you make the plan."
Chewie shook his head.
"Great," Han said. "Just great. I come here as a favor to a man who has disappeared and he doesn't even leave me with a plan."
Seluss chittered softly.
"Thanks a lot," Han said. "But somehow I believe this has. more to do with Jarril's poor management skills than his faith in my brilliance."
Or maybe it had to do with Jarril's very real fear on the day of the bombing. Maybe Jarril couldn't plan any further ahead.
Seluss was watching Han through gloved hands. Chewie was pretending to check his bowcaster.
"Of course I'll come up with a plan," Han said. "Don't I always?"
Chewie growled.
"I don't guarantee quality, fuzzball. I don't even guarantee it'll work. I just guarantee movement." Han glared at both of them. "And for now, that'll have to be good enough."
SEVENTEEN
Cole backed away from Skywalker's X-wing and hurried to the nearest completed upgrade. The R2 unit was beeping at him, as if it was chastising him for abandoning his post.
"Listen, R2," Cole said. "If we're going to work together, then you're going to have to trust me."
Had he just said that to a droid? He shook his head slightly and climbed the work platform to the reconditioned X-wing. Its computer was attached with bolts and he had forgotten his wrench.
R2 came up behind him, the wrench in his outstretched claw. A few of Cole's other tools hung from R2 as if he were part of an Artesian space collage.
"Thanks." Cole grinned at the little unit. "Guess I'll have to trust you too."
R2 beeped in agreement.
Cole removed part of the panel on the reconditioned X-wing, then leaned back on his heels, whistling softly under his breath. This X-wing had a detonator too.
And so did the next reconditioned X-wing, and the next.
R2 cheebled urgently and Cole nodded. They were thinking alike. If the reconditioned X-wings had this problem, did the new ones have it too?
That would be a bit more difficult to discover. Cole wasn't authorized to work on the new X-wings. It didn't matter. If he got caught, he would report his findings.
To whom? What if someone in the maintenance bay had authorized these systems? Maybe Skywalker hadn't been so far off when he claimed that his little droid had been imprisoned.
Cole looked at R2. R2 moaned softly.
"Yeah. This is a tough one," Cole said. But before he panicked too much, he would examine the new X-wings. Maybe the problem was only in the reconditioned models.
He stood on the platform and scoured the room, hoping to see a new X-wing. There was only the model in its pristine booth. And since he was working late, he was the only person in the area. The maintenance droids were in the main X-wing assembly area. He hadn't seen any Kloperians, and all the humans had gone off-shift.
Except him.
He hoped.
"Can you stand guard for me, R2?"
The little droid beeped twice in a rather offended tone, although how Cole knew the droid was offended was something he didn't want to examine. The beep code was something they had worked out that afternoon, almost unconsciously. Clearly the little droid was used to working with people.
"Okay. Let's go, then."
Cole got them both off the platform and headed toward the new X-wing. He turned back once to check on R2 and saw the little droid pick up a few more tools, ones that Cole had forgotten he would need. No wonder Skywalker had been upset about leaving the little creature behind. He was valuable.
"Hurry!" Cole hissed.
He went to the display area and punched in the code to open the door. The computer asked his reason for entry. He typed some gobbledygook about a uniform malfunction on all the new X-wings, and the computer let the door slide open. His hands were shaking. He didn't know how long it would take before the guards or some of the supervisors would show up.
If they did, he would just explain the nature of the problem, show them the devices, and hope beyond hope that no one on Coruscant was involved with the remains of the Empire.
Because chances were, that was who would respond to his computer notation first.
Cole slid into the cockpit of the new X-wing. These X-wings were configured a little differently from the older model, the T-65C-A2. In the new model, the T-65D-A1, the new computer system could be reached from the cockpit itself, gi
ving the pilot more maneuverability—and more options—while in space.
Still, it wasn't built for doing maintenance. In fact, the computer was difficult to work on in any position. Cole wedged himself into a corner of the cockpit and detached the light pins. His hands were shaking. He had never done anything he was forbidden to do before.
At least, not on Coruscant. On Tatooine he had occasionally worked on fighters he wasn't supposed to work on, trying to see how they operated. But on Tatooine, he had been learning, and his supervisors had known that. Here he was investigating the very people who had hired him.
The computer panel fell off into his hands. He peered behind it at circuitry more sophisticated than any he had ever seen in an X-wing. R2 leaned in as best his cylindrical body would allow. A light came on. Cole looked up. R2 was shining a light attached to his head into the opening behind the computer.
"Thanks," Cole said.
He squinted and looked through the circuitry, careful not to touch anything. For a moment, he thought he would find nothing.
The white and silvery Imperial insignia winked in the light. Cole leaned his head against the metal lip of the computer. These X-wings were designed to blow. Each and every one of them. He didn't want to think about all the ships he had reconditioned, all the X-wings already flying through space, floating bombs, waiting for the pilot to hit the wrong lever, push the wrong button.
He peered up at the little droid. R2 shut off his light. "Can you find out quickly how many X-wing accidents have happened after ships left Coruscant?" Cole asked.
R2 beeped an affirmative.
"Let's do it, then," Cole said. He grabbed the edge of the computer, about to replace it, when he heard something crunch.
R2 eased down onto his wheels. The droid beeped softly, and the sound felt like a warning.
The hair on the back of Cole's neck rose.
"So the notification was right," a deep male voice said. "We have a saboteur. Show yourself."
R2 moaned. Cole set the edge of the computer down carefully, leaning it against the pilot's seat, making sure the internal workings touched nothing.
"Show yourself!"
He rose slowly, hands up. Half a dozen security guards surrounded him, their blasters pointed at his head.
Nandreeson leaned back in his baquor-lined couch. The top half had not been properly slimed. It felt damp and cold against his skin. His legs were warm, though. They were underwater. There the couch was covered in algae. That part, at least, had been tempered right.
He had left Skip 6 for three days to investigate the loss of one of his men in the Outer Rim. When he returned to Smuggler's Run, someone had replaced his old couch with a new one, and had failed to condition it properly. When he was rested, he would check the rest of his quarters to see what other mistakes had been made.
So far things seemed fine. The air was so humid that it was almost visible. Tiny gnats gathered in a cluster, and Eilnian sweet flies swarmed on the far wall. The sweet flies were nearly ripe enough to eat. His mouth burned, just thinking about it.
The lilies had bloomed on top of the pond, and someone had scraped the algae to one side, probably for later conditioning. Bubbles rose in the middle, exploding into the air with the stench of sulfur.
Home. It felt good to be here. In a little while, he would go for a swim through the caverns and see if anyone had disturbed both his egg clusters and his treasure hordes.
First, though, he had business to take care of. He had sent all of his people to their pod beds, except for lisner. Like Nandreeson, lisner was a Glottalphib, only his snout was six inches shorter, and his teeth had worn to small nubs. His eyes rested over his snout like small beetles. His small hands floated on top of the water, and his tail was wrapped around the base of the couch. A strand of algae hung from his right nostril, remains of his underwater trip through the pond, making certain no one had poisoned it, bugged it, or rigged it harmfully in any way. His gills were still opening and closing, as if he couldn't get enough air.
Nandreeson would have to replace him someday soon. lisner was getting old. His scales were already falling after two or three days without water. He had built a slime pond into his quarters on the Silver Egg so that he wouldn't lose too many scales during a long space voyage.
"Word is," Nandreeson said, "Han Solo is on Skip 1." A tiny flame emerged from the left side of his snout. He was hungrier than he had thought.
"Yes," lisner said. "He has quarters there. Jarril sent him."
"Jarril." Nandreeson dipped his snout into the warm, slick water. That cooled some of the burning. He didn't feel like going to the sweet-fly wall and looking for the ripe ones yet. Maybe, when he swam, he would take a caver egg and eat it raw. "Jarril paid his debt to me last week. Thirty thousand credits. I was not pleased."
"He has come into money, then."
Nandreeson shook the water off his snout. "Everyone has come into money. I have not made a substantial loan in months. Jarril is one of many who have paid me off. I will have to go into another business if this doesn't change."
"Perhaps we should get off the Run," lisner said. "It's changed too much for my tastes. I don't like rich smugglers. They are no fun."
Nandreeson smiled. "The challenge is gone, I'll admit. And if I knew of a better place to go than the Run, I would. But this place still serves us, for now."
"What about Glottal?" lisner said.
Nandreeson frowned. His home planet, with its ponds and pads, its fronds and sweet bugs, its dark forests and its sticky, humid air, held a great attraction for him. But on Glottal, he would be one of a thousand rich 'Phibs. Here, he was the only rich Thib, and one of the most powerful crime lords in the galaxy. The second title would mean nothing on Glottal.
"I am not ready to go to Glottal," he said. He would go there when he was going to die. He would spawn, and leave his fortune to the surviving offspring. "No. I need a new business. And a new diversion."
"You could start dealing in Imperial equipment."
Nandreeson swiveled one eye and used it to stare at lisner. "I prefer credits and glittering treasure. The equipment is a limited market. As soon as the buyer finds what he is searching for, or gets his own factories up and running, this sudden wealth will cease. And a whole group of overextended smugglers will need money again." He smiled. "Perhaps we are jumping too soon at the vagaries of the market. Patience, my boy. Patience is the watchword of the wise."
lisner slipped deeper in the water and swam to the far side of the pond. The hump of his spine rose above the surface, and scales flaked off into the algae. "You've never struck me as particularly patient," he said from the safety of his new position.
Nandreeson's tongue shot out and scooped a mouthful of gnats. He roasted them with his breath and swallowed, a small, appetizing bite. He would need a large dinner.
"I'm patient," he said. "I'm very patient. And the patience often pays off. Witness Calrissian."
"Calrissian hasn't been near the Run in seventeen years."
Nandreeson swallowed the last gnat. His stomach rumbled. "But he will be here soon."
"You don't know that," lisner said.
Nandreeson swiveled his other eye. lisner slipped into the water until only his eyes and the top of his head showed. "I do know that, and although I appreciate your counsel, I do not appreciate your doubts. Calrissian will be here because Solo is here."
lisner blew water through his nostrils. The piece of algae soared through the air and landed on the moss-covered rocks beside the pond. Then he rose enough to speak. "Solo and Calrissian are not partners. They have never traveled together. Before he married, Solo only traveled with the Wookiee."
"You do not pay attention." Nandreeson sank deeper into the warm water. The back of the poorly conditioned couch gave him a chill. "Since Calrissian lost Cloud City, he and Solo have joined forces during each Imperial threat."
"So?"
"So?" Nandreeson popped a sulfur bubble under the water. It fo
rmed several other smaller bubbles that rose to the surface. "So, my dear lisner, what has changed on the Run?"
lisner's mouth opened wide enough to swallow a whole shore of lily pads. "The Imperial equipment."
"Precisely," Nandreeson said. "And who in the New Republic knows how to find the Run, besides Solo and his Wookiee?"
"Calrissian." lisner breathed the word as if it were sacred. "You have a plan, don't you?"
"Of course," Nandreeson said. He smiled, and tongues of flame licked out of the corner of his mouth. "Although, in this case, I may not need one."
EIGHTEEN
Lando slowed the Lady Luck at the edge of the asteroid belt that housed Smuggler's Run. If he went any farther, he would be within scanning range. They would know he was nearby. His burst of heroism suddenly seemed like an exercise in stupidity. He had avoided the Run for more than a decade. What made him think he could stroll in there now?
Alone.
All the good intentions in the galaxy wouldn't save him from Nandreeson. And neither would an apology, or a promise to pay the Glottalphib back. What had seemed a point of pride years ago now seemed like pointless posturing. So he had managed to steal a cache from Nandreeson's private storeroom. So he had braved the humid, stinky air, the slimy water, the treacherous lily pads. So he had held his breath for nearly four minutes, and pulled out, in the pocket of his wet suit, enough riches to fill his own stash for years.
The last of the money had disappeared when Vader forced him from Cloud City. Lando's own definition of derring-do had changed since then, as well. It had meant more to him to succeed at the Battle of Endor than it had to best Nandreeson.
Since Lando had made a home among the Rebels, he had learned that his acts of pirate courage meant nothing when compared with Leia, for example, who had lost her home and her family and still managed to go on, without taking a breath. Or when compared with Luke facing evil in himself over and over again.
Or Han, thrusting himself into situations greater than he was, and always emerging victorious.
He might not emerge this time.
Lando stood, and paced through the cockpit. He had brought droids with him, half a dozen, all of various uses. Leia had forced credits on him as well so that he could buy information in the Run.
Star Wars - The New Rebellion Page 14
