by Claudia Gray
Greer sighed. “We’ve got that going for us, then.”
A group of Ottegans swaggered past, smelling faintly of spice. Humans with their red hair plaited in ropes bickered with a droid shopkeeper about the cost of a new welding torch. A Hassk woman kept her furred hand on her blaster, eyes darting toward every passage and corner, never relaxing her guard for a moment.
“Hey,” Joph murmured, nudging Greer’s shoulder. “Check that out.”
She followed his gaze toward a stall near the far curve of this corridor. Amid the booths hawking flasks of counterfeit Corellian brandy and scan-proof shipping containers was one that sold decorative trinkets—flags, holocubes, good-luck charms, decals, and such.
And hanging amid the flags, front and center, was the banner of the Empire.
Other Imperial emblems showed up as well: a holo of a benevolently smiling Palpatine, taken from some old propaganda message, and decals in the shape of the Imperial insignia. But they were only a handful of the items on display, crowded in among popular characters from holocomedies or galactic folklore, colorful abstract patterns, and even the insignias of the New Republic and the old Rebel Alliance. Greer tried to put things in perspective. “They’re kitsch. The stuff our parents and grandparents owned, so people buy them ironically. More a joke than anything else.”
“I dunno.” Joph shook his head. “It makes the Empire look like—like something out of a story. Something that wasn’t real. If you ask me, buying stuff like that and showing it off like it’s no big deal—it disrespects the old rebel pilots, you know? They went up against the Death Stars in X-wings. And we’re repaying them by treating Palpatine like he was only a bogeyman out of a kids’ story?”
On most worlds, the seediest cantina was where the most lucrative, least legal jobs were to be found. On the Chrome Citadel, the cantina was nearly the one place people didn’t seek work. It was only for drinking, dancing, and checking the room for any member of the genders and species you found attractive. Work was instead traded openly at the station’s highest point, the tip of the cone, via an open message market.
“Look sharp,” Greer murmured as she and Joph walked into the room, where various electronic display boards shone with rapidly scrolling messages, rows and rows of them, each promising work at a certain level of pay. Pilots crowded around, standing near small, waist-height consoles with quick key-in controls; Greer remembered these from some of the less upright areas of Pamarthe, where people sought her homeworld’s famously daring fliers. “These jobs go to whoever punches in fastest.”
Joph frowned. “Who’d post work here instead of vetting the pilots themselves? This is supposed to be sensitive stuff, right? The kind of things you don’t want to get caught doing?”
“Exactly.” She kept her eyes focused on the board, scanning as many messages simultaneously as possible. “The kind of thing you don’t want to get caught hiring people for, much more likely to be illegal than anything they’d advertise for on Pamarthe. Message rooms like this transfer the risk to the pilots, which pretty much guarantees the work here is the most dangerous of all.”
In other words, precisely where they were likely to find work connected to Arliz Hadrassian, Rinnrivin Di, or the Amaxine warriors.
LIVE CARGO TO NAL HUTTA NO QUESTIONS ASKED—that would be a call for a slaver. Greer’s lip curled in disgust.
200 KILOS GS FROM KEREV DOI TO TATOOINE—no doubt GS stood for “glitterstim.”
BOUNTY ANNOUNCED FOR LIVE CAPTURE OF SMUGGLER IN ARREARS, IDENTITY AND IMAGES OF QUARRY ON ACCEPTANCE ONLY—bounty hunters, too? Greer shuddered.
Joph’s hand shot past her to hit the console, tagging one of the jobs. Only as the message faded from the scrolling screens and appeared on the console in front of them did she see its words: TRANSPORT MATÉRIEL FROM DAXAM IV TO SIBENSKO, DISCRETION VALUED.
“Quick eye,” she said to Joph.
“Thanks.” He was trying hard not to sound too proud of himself, and failing.
The console’s glow shifted to red as another message appeared at the bottom of their screen. ACCEPT OR DECLINE TO RE-RELEASE JOB. Swiftly Greer hit the button that said ACCEPT.
—
After hours of debate at the Populist meeting that night, most of which had been spent blaming the Centrist ministers for the Napkin Bombing with much invective and little proof, Leia had a headache, a prickly temper, and a strong desire to do nothing more strenuous than laying her head on her pillow. But just after she’d changed into her nightgown, the very moment she reached for her bedcovers to pull them back, her comm unit blinked with a new message.
She thought maybe it would be from Han, but instead found the message was encoded. After C-3PO had been roused from his recharging station and translated it for her, whatever disappointment Leia felt at not hearing from her husband had evaporated in a blaze of excitement.
“We couldn’t have asked for anything better,” she said as she paced the floor of her main room, the long hem of her nightgown swirling around her feet. “This gives us a direct link between Daxam Four and Sibensko.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” C-3PO, ever eager to please, had to serve as sounding board. “Do you think Mistress Sonnel and Lieutenant Seastriker will be taking on cargo that is, shall we say, incriminating?”
“The job specified matériel. That almost always means armaments, explosives, items necessary for military action.” Leia paused, thumping her hand against the back of her long sofa. “It’s possible the work may be entirely legal. The Amaxine warriors might be hiring like this only because they hope to keep this secret. Still, it doesn’t matter. We don’t need to catch them committing a crime…at least, not yet. We only need to get ourselves into Sibensko, and this job should do that.”
“I beg your pardon, Your Highness, but it sounds as if—” C-3PO’s pause was broken only by the sound of his internal gears whirring as he turned toward her. “—why, rather as if you intended to accompany Mistress Sonnel and Lieutenant Seastriker on their mission.”
Leia hadn’t realized that. Hadn’t consciously made a decision one way or the other, and had hardly even acknowledged there was a decision to be made. Yet the droid’s programming analyzed human conversation so thoroughly that he sometimes pointed out subtleties she’d missed.
“I guess it does sound like that,” she said slowly. “I guess I do.”
“But, Princess Leia!” C-3PO’s voice rose in alarm. “You can’t! The mission sounds terribly dangerous.”
“Threepio, in the quarter century you’ve served me, have you ever known me to run away from danger?”
“Well. No.” The droid considered this a moment before adding hopefully, “Yet you might eventually develop a stronger instinct for survival.”
Leia couldn’t help laughing. “Don’t count on it.”
C-3PO never thought faster than when he was trying to keep himself out of the latest round of trouble. “Captain Solo would no doubt be highly concerned.”
“Captain Solo once piloted us into an asteroid field, remember? He doesn’t get to lecture anyone on taking risks. Anyway, I outrank him.”
“But you cannot leave Hosnian Prime at this point in the political process! Your candidacy will be officially announced within a few weeks. Then your presence within the Galactic Senate will be crucial. Surely there will be appearances to coordinate on other worlds as well.”
He had a point. Once she became an official candidate, the demands on Leia’s time would increase exponentially. She would be expected to give speeches on planets from the Galactic Core to the Expansion Region. Broadcasters would clamor for interviews; Greer would have to schedule studio time for holos to be distributed galaxy-wide, showing Leia speaking about her policy proposals. Above all, she’d need to be active in the Senate, demonstrating that she was engaged, dynamic, and committed.
In other words, as soon as she became a candidate, Leia would have time for nothing else—especially not secret missions that might take down what looked
likely to be the biggest spice cartel in the galaxy.
She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re right. As soon as my nomination as First Senator becomes official, I won’t have time for this.”
C-3PO practically preened. “I am glad to have been of service—”
“Which is why we have to get to Sibensko before the announcement.”
“Oh, no,” the droid said. “If you’ll pardon me for saying so, Your Highness, won’t any absence from the Senate be seen as a potential lack of commitment? Appearances are so important.”
She shook her head. “I’ve given my life to duty since I was fourteen years old. Anyone who doubts my ‘commitment’ at this point is a fool whose opinion I can safely ignore.”
“Of course, Your Highness.”
“So my trip to Sibensko is on.”
C-3PO paused again. “This means danger, doesn’t it?”
“You’d better believe it.” Leia flopped down on her sofa, smiling. “Bring up my calendars, will you? I want to start thinking about the best time to do this.”
Shuffling toward the nearest information bank, C-3PO wistfully said, “It’s enough to make one wish to go back to programming binary loadlifters.”
—
The duel on Daxam IV had gone well, but it had also reminded Ransolm Casterfo that he had to keep his skills sharp. Since it appeared he had a use for this sort of thing even now that he was a senator, he didn’t intend to let himself get rusty.
In the stark-white training chamber, he remained stock-still, poised with the quarterstaff in his hand. His formfitting gray workout gear had been drenched with sweat for a long time now, but Ransolm remained determined to press on. Most people neglected training with non-powered weapons; these were the same people who got themselves killed because their blasters ran out of charge. He intended to be able to fight with whatever was at hand, whether as sophisticated as the latest model of vibroblade or as brutish as a long stick.
The projectors in the corners of the training chamber shimmered, creating the illusion of a Mandalorian warrior with a blaster in his hand. Instantly Ransolm swung upward, striking the blaster’s muzzle with his quarterstaff. The holographic bolts shot uselessly over Ransolm’s head. Although the pre-programmed Mandalorian attempted to compensate, skidding back into a crouch, Ransolm was ready for him. With one savage thrust, he plunged the end of the quarterstaff through the Mandalorian’s head—even faster than the man would’ve been able to fire. The holo shimmered into nothingness.
Ransolm smiled. He’d won again.
After another few rounds, once his muscles were quivering and his empty belly demanded food, Ransolm finally headed back to his quarters. A swift ride on the border monorail took him to his apartment, which was a fairly humble one by senatorial standards. But what was the point in spending a lot of money on a place where he lived alone, and that he used only to sleep? His was a bachelor apartment, with utilitarian furnishings that had come with the place, in a combination of the gray and orange colors so in vogue at the moment as to be completely generic. Stashing his quarterstaff in his equipment closet, Ransolm began settling in for the evening. He rubbed his sweat-damp hair with a towel, slung that around his neck, and began searching through the kitchen to see whether anything edible remained.
His comm unit blinked; someone was calling. Ransolm quickly went to the unit to answer. As he hit the panel, a holo of Princess Leia took shape within his living room.
“Leia?” He smiled as he sat heavily on his sofa, spreading his weary arms across the back. “To what do I owe the honor? It’s rather late for a social call.”
Her lips quirked, evidence of the excitement she was trying to hold back. “Would you consider an invitation to Sibensko ‘social’?”
“You’re joking,” he breathed. “However did Greer and Joph manage it?”
“They went to the right place, snagged the right job. They’ll be transporting matériel. Schedule is somewhat flexible, it seems, but they’ll need to act soon.”
“Outstanding.”
“I intend to go with them.”
She grinned at Ransolm then in unconcealed anticipation. In that moment, it occurred to him that, in her zeal, she’d contacted him wearing only a housecoat tossed over her nightgown. How the gossips would talk if they knew he and Leia spoke like this late in the evening. But gossips were fools, and Ransolm valued her lack of artifice. Leia hadn’t held the truth back from him for a moment.
After his first flush of enthusiasm, however, came doubt. “I hesitate to point this out, Leia, but our first mission to Bastatha was fully endorsed by the Senate. Our work on Ryloth, Harloff Minor, and Daxam Four was either authorized or, technically, unofficial and entirely legal.”
“True,” Leia said with an eloquent shrug. “Anyone can have a dinner guest on Harloff Minor. Anyone can buy a Royal Guard helmet if he wants.”
Ransolm gave her a look. “But using New Republic pilots and ships to take on potentially illegal work—traveling to a world known for criminal activity, under what I assume will be false identification—you may well be overstepping your authority as a senator.”
She remained unfazed. “That’s also true.”
“I feel the need to point out that such a mission will no doubt be extremely dangerous.”
“I can’t deny it.”
Ransolm leaned closer to his comm unit. “I want in.”
Leia’s smile would have turned the night to day. “You know, I had a funny feeling you were going to say that.”
“You know me so well.”
She became more serious then. “If by some chance you hadn’t offered, I would have asked you along. If a Populist senator on her own went out of bounds and came back with proof of a conspiracy based on Centrist worlds? At best I’d be laughed off the Senate floor. At worst, I’d be censured. In either case, no one would believe me. But your presence on the mission gives us credibility. If we’re able to prove the connections I think this trip to Sibensko will prove, and you and I present our evidence to the Senate together—we might just have a chance to make them listen.”
“We will,” Ransolm said. “I’m sure of it.”
Leia raised an eyebrow. “You have more confidence in the Galactic Senate than I do.”
Sometimes she sounded so jaded, so cynical, even though she had been an idealistic revolutionary in her youth. Maybe a quarter century of politics did that to a person—at least, politics the way it had always been played in the New Republic.
Ransolm Casterfo intended to change the game.
The mission to Sibensko had to be kept secret, which meant that their meetings to plan this next adventure had to be disguised in some way. Ransolm thought the most effective thing to do would be to hide in plain sight. So he reserved a pavilion along the riverside for the Equinox Day sunsail races, one of the traditional amusements on Hosnian Prime.
In ancient times, it seemed, the equinox had been marked with boat races, and to this day racers traversed a course that followed the river’s winding path. People had gathered along the banks of the river, whether in verdigris-tinted pavilions or on blankets spread upon the grass; the massive capital city skyline seemed more distant than it was, contrasted with the simpler pleasures on offer here. Picnics were brought out by droids that rolled unevenly across the soft ground, or on hovertrays owned by the wealthier or wiser. A few floating pods bobbed in the air only a meter or so above the water, each holding aloft a dozen or more spectators eager for the race. Autumn had officially begun, but on this day the sun still shone warmly. In every sense the day felt like a celebration, and soon the preliminary air show would get started.
“How did you get out of the show?” Ransolm asked Joph Seastriker, the first of his guests to arrive. “Aren’t you one of their star pilots?”
“You’d better believe it.” Joph’s blue eyes scanned the sky wistfully. “I told the truth—said Senator Organa wanted to discuss some of my work for her. You know, I don’t t
hink my commander even checked. You say her name, and people straighten up.”
“Woe betide anyone who doesn’t,” Ransolm said, but fondly. “When will Ms. Sonnel and young Korr Sella be joining us?”
With a shake of his head, Joph said, “Korrie’s not coming. The mission’s too dangerous for her to take part in, and Greer and Princess Leia figured they shouldn’t stick Korrie in a position where she could be accused of hiding information from the Senate.”
“Sensible.” Then his gaze caught a familiar figure approaching in a coral-colored dress. Greer was almost unrecognizable—because of both her unexpectedly festive clothing and the wide smile on her face. It had not occurred to Ransolm before this moment that even when Greer Sonnel was satisfied or enthusiastic, she rarely seemed happy…
“Hey there.” Greer came up the pavilion steps, her shining black hair swaying behind her. In her hands she held a small bag containing something that seemed to be cylindrical and heavy. “Are we talking strategy right away, or do we first pretend to have a party?”
“I imagine we’ll mix the two.” In the distance, Ransolm could now see C-3PO toddling toward them; Leia couldn’t be far off. “Is this your offering for the celebration?”
Greer’s smile had turned positively sly. “A little something Joph was curious about on Pamarthe.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a heavy glass bottle filled with reddish-amber liquid. “Here you go, fellas. Genuine, high-octane, Pamarthen Port in a Storm.”
Smugly, Joph said, “You finally realize I can handle it, huh?”
She arched one thick, wing-shaped eyebrow. “Let’s say I want to watch you try.”
Ransolm took the bottle into his hands, surprised at its heft. He’d heard of Port in a Storm—the famous fortified wine of Pamarthe that had a reputation for taking even the strong to their knees. But many worlds had such stories; people from every single planet in the galaxy bragged about having the most powerful intoxicants, the spiciest food, or the worst weather. Everyone needed to stand out as the toughest of all. In reality, however, it was a big galaxy, which meant true extremes were hard to come by. “If Lieutenant Seastriker is bold enough to sample it, I’ll have a glass myself.”
