Jag fine-tuned his trim preparatory to coming in closer. The voice clearly did not belong to the Wookiee captain of the destroyed freighter. “Want to tell me what happened back there?”
“The drive failed in midjump and I didn’t know what to do to fix it. The navicomputer died in the energy surge following the engine failure. I was lucky that bucket of bolts made it as far as she did.”
“Are there any other survivors there with you?”
“Just me. The crew is dead—and good riddance to them, as far as I’m concerned. Murderous fiends, every one of them!”
Jag hesitated. “You killed them?”
“Only in self-defense.” The voice took on a more commanding tone. “Look, are you here to rescue me or ask questions?”
“I’m trying to ascertain whom I’m rescuing, that’s all.” And what kind of monster you are, he added to himself.
“You want to know who I am? I’m Prime Minister Cundertol, that’s who—and I’m ordering you to pull me up this instant! After all I’ve been through, I’m not going to let some rookie pilot fumble my rescue. You put me through to Orbital Control this instant or so help me I’ll have your license faster than you can—”
“I apologize, Prime Minister,” Jag cut in, biting down on the reply he would have preferred to give. “Bringing you up now.”
He pulled his clawcraft in closer to the pod. Magnetic clamps engaged, and he fired his thrusters only slightly more roughly than was necessary to bring the escape pod out of its headlong descent into the atmosphere. The roar of thrusters prevented further communication between Jag and his unlikely pillion rider, let alone Orbital Control. The Prime Minister was forced to ride out the long burn in silence, in whatever passed for acceleration straps among Corellian engineers. Although he probably had every reason to be impatient, if his use of words like escape and murderers was any indication of what he’d been through, Jag wasn’t going to let him off easily.
Rookie, indeed …
“… seven of them, four humans, two Rodians, and that wretched Wookiee captain of theirs. I resisted, of course, but they took me by surprise. Once they’d smuggled me out of the Bakuran Senate Complex, it was just a matter of getting me to the spaceport. No one stopped to question a group of traders carrying a crate of records—and not one person thought to scan the crate to make sure it contained what they said it did.” The Prime Minister shook his head gravely. “Someone’s head will roll for this, mark my words.”
Prime Minister Cundertol was a big, solid man with thinning blond hair and a pink hue to his skin. He held his age well, overpowering any hint of frailty with bluster and exaggerated gestures. Safely recovered from the escape pod, he was sitting on a bench outside Pride of Selonia’s medical bay.
Jag and Captain Mayn sat with him. Mayn, as tall as Cundertol but half the weight, sat opposite him, her narrow features frozen in concentration. Only Jag, standing to one side, could see the tic pulsing in the skin beneath her shaved scalp.
“Go on, Prime Minister,” he encouraged. “What happened next?”
“They took me aboard their ship and knocked me out, that’s what happened next!” Despite his outrage, it was obvious that Cundertol was enjoying relating the tale. “When I woke up, we were in hyperspace. I had no idea where they were taking me. They’d stuck me away in an aft hold. Every now and then I would hear them talking, and it quickly became apparent that I wasn’t in fact a hostage at all—as I had first suspected. From the little I could glean from the snatches of their conversations, I was to be taken somewhere and interrogated—then I was to be disposed of. Luckily, though, they hadn’t fastened my bindings properly, so with a bit of effort I managed to work my hands free.”
“Did your captors say whom they were working for?” Mayn asked.
“Not in so many words. Whenever they referred to him, it was only ever as ‘the boss.’ Or ‘her,’ of course,” he added darkly.
“Well,” Mayn said, “you should be pleased to know that your people made an arrest in your absence. Yesterday, Malinza Thanas was taken into custody and has been charged with conspiracy and disturbing the peace. It looks like your law enforcers could add attempted murder to those charges once we get you home and you can tell them your story.”
“Malinza?” For a moment, Cundertol was nonplussed. “Charged? No, I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true,” Jag said. “Deputy Harris announced it himself.”
The Prime Minister retreated into his thoughts, clearly stunned by the news.
“So you freed yourself,” Jag prompted after a moment. “What then?”
“Huh?” Cundertol snapped out of his musings with a questioning look in his eyes. Then he said, “Oh, my escape. Well, eventually one of them came back to check on me. I overpowered him and took his blaster. I left him trussed up in the binders they’d failed to secure on me, then I crept forward to confront the others. There were three in the main cabin. They were surprised to see me up and about, as you can imagine. I confined them to a corner as two others arrived from the cockpit, leaving just the pilot in control of the vessel. It was five against one—not good odds, even for someone who trained with the Special Bakuran Troops.” Cundertol’s chest puffed up in pride at this. “I demanded to be returned, but was told that nothing could be done until the freighter had come out of its jump. I argued that they could cancel the jump and turn back immediately, but they continued to prevaricate with ridiculous excuses. It was obvious they were playing for time, though there was little I could do about it short of shooting one of them to let them know I was serious. But then that would have made me just as bad as them, right?”
He faced both Jag and Captain Mayn in turn, looking for approval. They nodded in response, but neither said anything.
“Anyway,” Cundertol continued, “we argued for a few minutes until the Wookiee tried to jump me, and I was forced to fire upon them. I had no choice! If I let them take me, then I was as good as dead. It was either kill or be killed. So I killed them.”
The Prime Minister looked down at his big hands as if disbelieving what they’d done.
“You did what you had to do, sir,” Jag said after a moment. “No one can blame you for that.”
Jag’s reassuring words received a vague nod in reply, but it wasn’t convincing. “I didn’t kill all of them, of course,” Cundertol said. “Just the five who attacked me. The one I’d trussed up, he was still in the hold, and the pilot had stayed in the cockpit until the fighting was over. I tied him up, too, when he refused to do as I told him. From there it was just a matter of turning the ship around and coming home. All would have gone well had the wreck not developed a raging case of system rot and fallen apart on me. When it came time to ditch it, the life support had failed in the aft holds, killing the two I’d tied up—otherwise I would’ve brought them with me to stand trial. They got off lightly, in the end. Death was too good for them—far too good.”
Cundertol ground his teeth as if in frustration. He was clearly bitter, and rightfully so as far as Jag was concerned.
From the entrance to the bay, Selonia’s chief meditech was listening closely to the tale. When it became apparent that the Prime Minister had finished, she stepped forward and said, “Are you sure you’re not hurt, sir? We really should examine you to see—”
“I’m fine,” he interrupted, irritably waving her off. “It takes more than a scuffle to put me down.”
The meditech backed away with a bony shrug.
“Have you found any evidence in the wreckage?” Cundertol asked Mayn.
“None, I’m afraid. There was very little left of the craft.”
“That’s a shame,” he muttered. “Because I want whoever was behind this to pay dearly. If the Keeramak has been deterred by my kidnapping—or, worse, the consecration is canceled entirely—then I don’t know where that will leave us. We can’t afford tension with the P’w’eck. Not with the Yuuzhan Vong approaching us from the other side. Our defense fleet is stretch
ed as it is without adding to our enemies.”
“Do you know where your kidnappers were taking you?” Jag asked. “Because if we knew that then we might—”
“I’m sorry, young man,” the Prime Minister said brusquely, “but you must appreciate that I had more important things to worry about at the time—such as staying alive. I didn’t have the luxury of sitting them down and interrogating them, as you seem to be doing to me right now!”
Jag felt himself flush at the accusation. “Sir, I never meant in any way to—”
Cundertol cut off the apology with a grunt. “When’s that shuttle coming?” he demanded, glancing at his chronometer.
“Soon, Prime Minister,” Mayn said pleasantly. “General Panib is giving you a full military escort to avoid any further attempts on your life. In the meantime, you’re safest here, with us.”
“Better safe than sorry, eh?” The Prime Minister sniffed as he looked around at the cramped corridors of the frigate. “I’m just glad to be alive.”
Something about the way Cundertol spoke those words told Jag that, perhaps for the first time since he’d been rescued, he was telling the whole truth.
The Millennium Falcon, with Jaina flying as escort, had left orbit barely an hour before the appearance of Jaunty Cavalier, heading planetside for a formal meeting with the Senate. The news of Cundertol’s rescue and the destruction of the freighter came as they landed safely at Salis D’aar spaceport. Tahiri watched over Han’s and Leia’s shoulders as Jaina climbed out of her starfighter to inspect security before anyone else disembarked.
Leia frowned. “You’re saying he single-handedly overpowered a crew of seven? That’s certainly not the Senator Cundertol I remember.”
“I’m skeptical, too,” Jag said from orbit. “But I suppose it’s not completely impossible. He’s fit, and he had the element of surprise. One thing that really bothers me is that he did it without taking any cuts or bruises.”
“You’re sure about that?” Leia asked.
“I’m telling you, I stood right beside him as he told his story, and there wasn’t a scratch on the man. Ever known anyone to come out of a fistfight without so much as a fat lip or a grazed knuckle?”
“He’s got a point,” Han said. His posture indicated that he was devoting at least as much attention to Jaina’s gesticulating at local security forces outside as he was to Jag. “But have you got anything else? Anything substantial?”
“Nothing. He refused a medical exam.”
“Todra’s chief medico is a Duros, though, right? And if I recall, Cundertol is pro-human through and through, right, Leia?”
“Definitely more than just a hint of Empire, Jag,” Leia confirmed. “He could have simply wanted to avoid contact with an alien.”
“Yet he signs an alliance with the P’w’eck?”
“He’d sign an alliance with an arachnor if he thought it politically expedient,” Leia said.
Jag was silent for a second, then added, “This might not mean anything either, then, but Cundertol was as surprised about Malinza Thanas’s arrest as you were.”
“That it was her, or that they’d caught her?”
“I can’t be positive, but I think the former.”
“Well, Harris certainly seemed convinced of her guilt.”
“It’s possible my paranoia and suspicions are just getting the better of me,” Jag conceded. “But one thing I am sure of: Cundertol certainly isn’t someone I’d want to spend any more time with than I have to. I was quite happy to leave him with Captain Mayn until the Bakuran escort arrived. They’ve just left, so I’m happy to report he’ll be all yours real soon.”
Outside the ship, Jaina made a great show of exasperation, then turned and headed to the Falcon, signing a surreptitious all clear as she came. Keeping the locals on their toes, Tahiri imagined.
“Okay, then,” Han said as he brought the ship’s systems one by one off-line. “Apart from the fact that you’re suspicious of the Prime Minister, do you have anything more substantial to add?”
“I guess not.”
“And everything’s under control up there now?”
“The wreckage has been cleared and our orbit corridor is clear.”
“Good. Call us if anything else comes up. I think there’s a meet-and-greet finally calling our name.”
Han killed the comlink and turned to face his wife, who was shaking her head.
“What?” he asked, brow furrowed.
“I just find it amusing that someone who has navigated through his entire life on hunches could be so critical of someone else’s.”
Han pulled an indignant face. “Hey, I listened to what he had to say. It’s just that I didn’t think he gave us anything solid to go on, that’s all.”
“Is that the only reason?” Tahiri couldn’t see Leia’s expression, but she imagined the Princess to be smiling. “Or could it be that you’re feeling a little put out at the idea of Jaina having a boyfriend whose instincts are as sharp as yours?”
Han performed a double take that would have been amusing to watch had not Tahiri been acutely aware that she was listening in on a personal conversation.
“I’m going to leave the two of you to talk,” Tahiri said, climbing from her seat. As she stepped from the cockpit, she heard the two start up again. As usual, there was no real malice in their argument. Beneath the words Tahiri could always detect the affection that the two obviously held for each other.
Outside the Falcon, the air was heavy with moisture and pollen. It was about midmorning, local time, and the temperature was rising. Within a minute, Tahiri could feel herself beginning to sweat, so she called on her Jedi training to regulate her temperature. The last thing she wanted to present to any officials she met was a sweaty palm—either metaphorically or literally.
A few minutes later, Han and Leia also emerged from the Falcon. Judging by the way the Princess was walking ahead of her husband and shaking her head, Tahiri guessed their friendly squabble was still taking place.
“At least he’s got good taste,” she heard Han say to Leia as they reached the base of the freighter’s landing ramp. Any response Leia might have had to this went unheard, however, because at that moment Jaina stepped over to greet her mother and father.
They exchanged a few words together, but the combination of the distance and their hushed voices made it impossible for Tahiri to hear what was being said—although she presumed it to be about the current situation as Jaina saw it. Whatever, it was clearly something they didn’t feel concerned her, so Tahiri decided not to intrude upon the discussion.
Instead, she checked out the docking bay they’d been assigned. Apart from the Falcon and Jaina’s X-wing, it was completely empty—as requested by the Princess—and had only the one exit in the far corner. Through the transparisteel door of this exit, Tahiri could make out a small collection of dignitaries and guards. For some reason, the sight of their drab green uniforms all in a row made her feel uncomfortable, and one of the three scars on her temple began to itch. When she caught herself scratching at it, she quickly stopped, self-consciously lowering her hand and placing it behind her back. She still didn’t know why this happened, but it bothered her that it did. It brought back memories; brought back dreams …
She turned away from the sight of the dignitaries beyond the transparisteel doors, and as she did so caught sight of a technician approaching the Millennium Falcon, a long black cable clutched in one hand. He was moving furtively, coming up behind where Jaina and her parents stood. At least Tahiri assumed it was a “he.” The oversuit that the tech wore was designed to protect its wearer from hostile environments, and as such was too heavy and bulky to reveal the being’s gender or even species.
She knew that Han hadn’t authorized any maintenance on his ship while they were docked, though, so she stepped forward to intercept the tech before he could get any closer.
“Hey!” she called. “You’re not supposed to be here!”
The suit
ed figure hesitated, then changed direction to head toward Tahiri. She stopped in her tracks, the grip on her lightsaber instinctively tightening.
“Hold it right there,” she warned.
“I bring a message,” the figure said. The voice issuing from inside his helmet was distorted like a stormtrooper’s.
Tahiri’s brow creased with suspicion. “What kind of message? And who’s it for?”
“Han Solo,” the technician said. “I need to tell him to be careful. Things here are not as they seem.”
“Things rarely are these days,” she returned. Her grip on the lightsaber eased slightly. The precise form of the person inside the suit was hidden, but her instincts were clear.
“You’re a Ryn, aren’t you?”
The figure seemed slightly taken aback. “How did you—?”
“I met one of you on Galantos,” she explained. More confident now, she took another two steps forward. “He was the one who suggested we come here, actually. He told us that—” She stopped in midsentence when the helmet shook.
“Now is not the time,” the Ryn said, glancing around. “I shall contact you again later. For now, though, please pass on my message to Captain Solo.”
Tahiri nodded. “Okay, but you’re not really telling him anything new. He’s always careful, and I think he’s already guessed that something strange is going on here.”
The Ryn didn’t seem to be listening. He glanced around as though fearful he might be seen talking to her out in the open.
“I must go,” he said. “You’ve been allocated quarters should you wish to stay longer than today. I urge you to take them. You’ll find what you need there.”
Without another word, the Ryn turned and made his way back the way he’d come. Tahiri stood watching him. She was finding herself becoming increasingly intrigued by the Ryn and their guarded hints.
“Trouble, Tahiri?”
She jumped at Han’s voice so close to her shoulder. She shook her head, conscious of the security guards watching them closely from the edge of the landing field.
Refugee: Force Heretic II Page 9
