Scourge

by Jeff Grubb

  “Whatever you want.” Hachat took another sip of his drink. “You have access to Imperial Intelligence resources, the best slicers and intrusion experts in the galaxy. They could get past those defenses … and make us both rich.”

  “In your original message and tonight, you mentioned an artifact.”

  “I have it with me. A show of faith, just as you proposed.”

  “Show me.”

  “Tell your bruiser not to panic; I’m only reaching for a comlink.”

  Teradoc glanced at his guard, gave a slight nod.

  Hachat pulled free a small device clipped to his shirt collar and pressed a button on the side. “All right. It’s coming.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. A meter-tall Sullustan male in the blue-and-cream livery of the club’s servers approached, awkwardly carrying a gray flimsiplast box nearly as tall as himself and half as wide and deep. He set it on the table beside Hachat’s empty glasses. Hachat tipped him with a credcoin and the Sullustan withdrew.

  Teradoc glanced at his guard. The man stood, pulled open the box’s top flaps, and reached in. He lifted out a glittering, gleaming, translucent statuette, nearly the full height of the box, and set it down in the center of the table. Hachat took the empty box and set it on the floor behind his chair.

  The statuette was in the form of a human male standing atop a short pedestal. He was young, with aristocratic features, wearing a knee-length robe of classical design. And it was all made of gemstones cunningly fitted together like jigsaw puzzle pieces, the joins so artful that Teradoc could barely detect them.

  All the color in the piece came from the stones used to make it. Cloudy diamond-like gems provided the white skin of the face, neck, arms, and legs. Ruby-like stones gave the eyes a red gleam. The robe was sapphire-blue, and the man’s golden-yellow hair, unless Teradoc guessed incorrectly, was inlaid rows of multicolored crystals. The pedestal was the only portion not translucent; it was made up of glossy black stones.

  The piece was exquisite. Teradoc felt his heart begin to race.

  There were oohs and aahs from surrounding tables. Teradoc noted belatedly that he and Hachat were now the object of much attention from patrons around them.

  Hachat grinned at the onlookers and raised his voice to be heard over the music. “I have a cargo bay full of these. They go on sale tomorrow in Statz Market. Twelve Imperial credits for a little one, thirty for a big one like this. Stop by tomorrow.” Then he turned his attention back to Teradoc.

  The admiral gave him a little smile, a real one. “Thus you convince them that this piece is valueless, so no one will attack us outside in an attempt to steal it.”

  “Thus I do. Now, are you convinced?”

  “Almost.” Teradoc reached up for his own comlink, activated it, and spoke into it. “Send Cheems.”

  Hachat frowned at him. “Who’s Cheems?”

  “Someone who can make this arrangement come true. Without him, there is no deal.”

  A moment later, two men approached. One was another of Teradoc’s artificially scruffy guards. The other was human, his skin fair, his hair and beard dark with some signs of graying. He was lean, well-dressed in a suit. Despite the formality of his garments, the man seemed far more comfortable in this environment than Teradoc or the guards.

  His duty done, the escort turned and moved to a distant table. At Teradoc’s gesture, the man in the suit seated himself between the admiral and Hachat.

  A server arrived. She was a dark-skinned human woman, dressed, like the Sullustan man had been, in a loose-fitting pantsuit of blue and cream. Her fitness and her broad smile were very much to Teradoc’s taste.

  She played that smile across each of them in turn. “Drinks, gentlemen?”

  Hachat shook his head. The man in the suit and the guard did likewise. But Teradoc gave the server a smile in return. “A salty gaffer, please.”

  “You want a real bug in that or a candy bug?”

  “Candy, please.”

  Once the server was gone, Hachat gave the new arrival a look. “Who is this?”

  The man spoke, his voice dry and thin. “I am Mulus Cheems. I am a scientist specializing in crystalline materials … and a historian in the field of jewelry.”

  Teradoc cleared his throat. “Less talk, more action.”

  Cheems sighed. Then from a coat pocket, he retrieved a small device. It was a gray square, six centimeters on a side, one centimeter thick. He pressed a small button on one side.

  A square lens popped out from within the device. A bright light shone from the base of the lens. Words began scrolling in red across a small black screen inset just above the button.

  Cheems leaned over to peer at the statuette, holding the lens before his right eye. He spoke as if to an apprentice. “The jewels used to fabricate this piece are valuable but not unusual. These could have been acquired on a variety of worlds at any time in the last several centuries. But the technique … definitely Vilivian. His workshop, maybe his own hand.”

  Teradoc frowned. “Who?”

  “Vilivian. A Hapan gemwright whose intricately fitted gems enjoyed a brief but influential vogue a few centuries back. His financial records indicated several sales to Piethet Brighteyes.” Cheems moved the lens up from the statuette’s chest to his face. “Interesting. Adegan crystals for the red eyes. And the coating that maintains the piece’s structural integrity … not a polymer. Microfused diamond dust. No longer employed because of costs compared to polymers. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.” He sat back and, with a press of the button, snapped the lens back into its casing.

  Teradoc felt a flash of impatience. “Well?”

  “Well? Oh—is it authentic? Yes. Absolutely. I believe it’s the piece titled Light and Dark. Worth a Moff’s ransom.”

  Teradoc sat back and stared at the statuette. The Palace of Piethet Brighteyes—with that fortune in hand, he could resign his commission, buy an entire planetary system, and settle into a life of luxury, far away from the struggles between the Empire and the New Republic. A warmth began to suffuse his body, a realization that his future had just become very, very pleasant.

  The dark-skinned server returned and set Teradoc’s drink before him. He smiled at her and paid with a credcoin worth twenty times the cost of the drink. He could afford to be generous. “Keep it.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She swept the coin away to some unknown pocket and withdrew—but not too far. It was clear to Teradoc that she was hovering in case he needed special attention.

  Teradoc glanced back at Hachat. “I’m convinced.”

  “Excellent.” Hachat extended a hand. “Partners.”

  “Well … we need to negotiate our percentages. I was thinking that I’d take a hundred percent.”

  Hachat withdrew his hand. Far from looking surprised or offended, he smiled. “Do you Imperial officer types study the same ‘How to Backstab’ manual? You are definitely doing it by the book.”

  “Captain, you’re going to experience quite a lot of enhanced interrogation in the near future. You’ll endure a lot of pain before cracking and telling me where the palace is. If you choose to antagonize me, I might just double that pain.”

  “What I don’t get …” Hatchat said, shaking his head wonderingly, “… is this whole Grand Admiral Thrawn thing. Every hopped-up junior naval officer tries to be like him. Elegant, inscrutable … and an art lover. Being an art lover doesn’t make you a genius, you know.”

  “That’s an extra week of torture right there.”

  “Plus, unlike Thrawn, you’re about as impressive as a Gungan with his underwear full of stinging insects.”

  “Three weeks. And at this moment, my guard has a blaster leveled at your gut under the table.”

  “Oh, my.” Hachat glanced at the guard. He raised his hands to either side of his face, indicating surrender. “Pleeeeease don’t shoot me, foul-smelling man. Please, oh please, oh pleasepleaseplease.”

  Teradoc stared at him, perplexed.

/>   On stage, the porcine Gamorrean dancers moved through a new rotation, which brought the slenderest of them up to the forward position. He was slender only by Gamorrean standards, weighing in at a touch under 150 kilos, but he moved well and there were good muscles to be glimpsed under his body fat.

  With the rest of the troupe, he executed a half-turn, which left them facing the rear of the stage, and followed up with a series of fanny shakes, each accompanied by a lateral hop. Then they began a slow turn back toward the crowd, the movement accentuated by a series of belly rolls that had the Gamorrean women in the crowd yelling.

  As, with a final belly roll, he once again faced forward, the slenderest dancer could see Hachat’s table … and Hachat with his hands up.

  He felt a touch of lightheadedness as adrenaline hit his system. Things were a go.

  Near Hachat’s table, the dark-skinned server moved unobtrusively toward Teradoc.

  The Gamorrean dancer, whose name was Piggy, stopped his dance, threw back his head, and shrilled a few words in the Gamorrean tongue: “It’s a raid! Run!”

  From elsewhere in the room, the cry was repeated in Basic and other languages. Piggy noted approvingly that the fidelity of those shouts was so good that few people, if any, would realize they were recordings.

  Alarm rippled in an instant through the crowd, through the dancers.

  Suddenly all the Gamorreans in the place were heaving themselves to their feet, sometimes knocking their table over in panicky haste, and the non-Gamorrean patrons followed suit. Confused, Teradoc took his attention from Hachat for a moment and turned to look across the sea of tables.

  There were booms from the room’s two side exits. Both doors blew in, blasted off their rails by what had to have been shaped charges. Tall men in Imperial Navy special forces armor charged in through those doors.

  A flash of motion to Teradoc’s right drew his attention. He saw the dark-skinned server approach and lash out in a perfectly executed side kick. Her sandaled foot snaked in just beneath the tabletop. Even over the tumult in the room, Teradoc heard the crack that had to be his guard’s hand or wrist breaking. The guard’s blaster pistol flew from his hand, thumped into Teradoc’s side, and fell to the floor.

  The server stayed balanced on her planted foot, cocked her kicking leg again, and lashed out once more, this time connecting with the guard’s jaw as he turned to look at her. The guard wobbled and slid from his chair.

  Then the server dived in the opposite direction, rolling as she hit the floor, vanishing out of Teradoc’s sight under the next table.

  Teradoc grabbed for the blaster on the floor. He got it in his hand.

  Hachat hadn’t lost his smile. He turned to face the glasses on the table and shouted directly at them: “Boom boy!”

  One of the drink glasses, mostly empty, erupted in thick yellow smoke. Teradoc, as he straightened and brought the blaster up, found himself engulfed in a haze that smelled of alcohol and more bitter chemicals. It stung his eyes. Now he could not see as far as the other side of the table.

  He stood and warily circled the table … and, by touch, found only empty chairs. Hachat was gone. Cheems was gone.

  The statuette was still there. Teradoc grabbed it, then stumbled away from the table, out from within the choking smoke.

  While the dancers and patrons ran, Piggy stood motionless on stage and narrated. He subvocalized into his throat implant, which rendered his squealy, grunty Gamorrean pronunciation into comprehensible Basic. The implant also transmitted his words over a specific comm frequency. “Guards at tables twelve and forty maintaining discipline and scanning for targets. But they’ve got none. Shalla, stay low, table forty’s looking in your direction.”

  Small voices buzzed in the tiny comm receiver in his ear. “Heard that, Piggy.” “Got twelve, twelve is down.” “Forty’s in my sights.”

  Now the guard who had brought Cheems to Teradoc approached that table once more. This time he had a blaster pistol in one hand. With his free hand, he shoved patrons out of his way. He reached the verge of the yellow smoke, then began circling around it, looking for targets.

  He found some. His head snapped over to the right. Piggy glanced in that direction and saw Hachat and Cheems almost at the ruined doorway in the wall. The guard raised his pistol, waiting for a clear shot.

  Well, it was time to go anyway. Piggy ran the three steps to the stage’s edge and hurled himself forward. He cleared the nearest table and came down on Teradoc’s guard, smashing him to the floor, breaking the man’s bones. The guard’s blaster skidded across the floor and was lost, masked by yellow smoke and patrons’ fast-moving legs.

  Piggy stood. He’d felt the impact, too, but had been prepared for it; and he was well padded by muscle and fat. Nothing in him had broken. He looked at the guard and was satisfied that the unconscious man posed no more danger.

  Now he heard Hachat’s voice across the comm. “We have the package. Extract. Call in when you get to the exit.”

  Most of the bar patrons, those who weren’t running in blind panic, were surging toward and through the bar’s main entrance, which inexplicably had no Imperial Navy troopers near it. Piggy turned toward the exit Hachat and Cheems had used. That doorway did have a forbidding-looking Imperial trooper standing beside it. Heedless of the danger posed by the soldier, Piggy shoved his way through toppled furniture and scrambling patrons. He made it to the door.

  The armored trooper merely nodded at him. “Nice moves, Dancer Boy.”

  Piggy growled at him, then passed through the door, which still smoked from the charge that had breached it.

  Once in the dimly lit service corridor beyond, Piggy headed toward the building’s rear service exit. “Piggy exiting.” He reached the door at the end of the corridor. It slid open for him and he stepped outside into cooler night air.

  “Freeze or I’ll shoot!” The bellow came from just beside his right ear. It was deep, male, ferocious.

  Piggy winced, held up his hands. Unarmed and nearly naked, his eyes not yet adjusted to the nighttime darkness, he didn’t stand a chance.

  Then his assailant chuckled. “Got you again.”

  Piggy turned, glaring.

  Situated by the door, armed not with a blaster but with a bandolier of grenades, stood a humanoid, tall as but not nearly as hairy as a Wookiee. The individual was lean for his two-meters-plus height, brown-furred, his face long, his big square teeth bared in a triumphant smile. He wore a black traveler’s robe; it gapped to show the brown jumpsuit and bandolier beneath.

  Piggy reached up to grab and tug at the speaker’s whiskers. “Not funny, Runt.”

  “Plenty funny.”

  “I’ll get you for that.”

  “You keep saying that. It never happens.”

  Piggy sighed and released his friend. His eyes were now more adjusted. In the gloom, decorated with distant lights like a continuation of the starfield above, he could make out the start of the marina’s dock, the glow-rods outlining old-fashioned watercraft in their berths, not far away.

  Much nearer was the team’s extraction vehicle, an old airspeeder—a flat-bed model with oversized repulsors and motivators. It was active, floating a meter above the ground on motivator thrust. Signs on the sides of its cab proclaimed it to be a tug, the sort sent out to rescue the watercraft of the rich and hapless when their own motivators conked out. There were sturdy winches affixed in the bed.

  In the cab, a Devaronian man sat at the pilot’s controls. He turned his horned head and flashed Piggy a sharp-toothed smile through the rear viewport. Cheems and Hachat were already situated in the cab beside him.

  Piggy moved up to the speeder and clambered into the cargo bed. The vehicle rocked a little under his weight. He looked around for the bundle that should have been waiting for him, but it was nowhere to be seen. He sighed and sat facing the rear, his back to the cab. Then he stared at the club’s back door, at Runt situated beside it. “Come on, come on.”

  The door slid
open long enough to admit the dark-skinned server. Unmolested by Runt, she ran to the airspeeder, vaulted into the bed, and settled down beside Piggy. “Shalla exited.” She glanced at Piggy. “Weren’t you supposed to have a robe here?”

  He knew his reply sounded long-suffering. “Yes. And who took it? Who decided to leave me almost naked here as I wait? I’m betting I’ll never know.”

  Shalla nodded, clearly used to the ways of her comrades. “You made yourself a lot of fans tonight. Those Gamorrean ladies were screaming their brains out. And not just the Gamorreans. You could have had so much action this evening.”

  Piggy rolled his eyes. As far as he was concerned, those Gamorrean women had no brains to scream out. Augmented by biological experiments when he was a child, Piggy was the only genius of his kind. And unlike some, he could not bear the thought of pairing up with someone whose intelligence was far, far below his.

  So he was alone.

  Hachat turned to glare back through the cab’s rear viewport. “Kell …”

  Piggy heard the man’s response in his ear. “Busy, Boss.”

  “Kell, do I have to come in there after you?”

  “Busy.” Then the door slid open for Kell, the armored trooper who had let Piggy pass. He fell through the doorway, slamming to the ground on his back, one of Teradoc’s guards on top of him.

  Runt reached down, grabbed the guard by the shoulder and neck, and pulled, peeling the man off as though he were the unresisting rind of a fruit. Hent shook the guard, and kept shaking him as Kell rose and trotted to the speeder.

  By the time Kell was settling in beside Shalla, the guard was completely limp. Runt dropped him and regarded him quizzically for a second. Then he pulled two grenades free from his bandolier. He twisted a dial on each, then stepped over to stand in front of the door. When it slid open for him, he lobbed them through the doorway. He waited there as they detonated, making little noise but filling the corridor entirely with thick black smoke. Then he joined the others, settling in at the rear of the speeder bed, facing Piggy. “Runt exited. Team One complete.”