by Timothy Zahn
“We’ll do what we can,” Wedge promised. “You want us to take one of the Peregrine’s unmarked shuttles?”
Bel Iblis nodded. “X-wings would be a little conspicuous. Leave your uniforms, too, but take your military IDs in case you have to pull rank on some bureaucrat. I’ll let you know when I want you at Ord Trasi.”
“Understood,” Wedge said.
“Good,” Bel Iblis said. “I’m going to stay up here for a few minutes—I can transmit to the other commanders from here as well as I can from the bridge or my office. Ackbar said immediately, though, so as soon as the other ships are ready, we go. You’ll need to be off the Peregrine before that.”
“We will, sir,” Wedge said, moving toward the door. “Good luck with your battle plan, General.”
Bel Iblis smiled faintly. “Good luck with yours.”
They were just hitting Bothawui’s atmosphere when Corran, who’d been leaning against the side viewport looking back toward the shuttle’s stern, turned around and settled himself back into his seat. “They’re gone,” he announced.
Wedge glanced at his displays. The ships of the Peregrine task force were indeed no longer registering. “That they are,” he agreed. “We’re on our own now.”
Corran shook his head. “This is crazy, Wedge. And you say he specifically told you to take me?”
“Yes, but it didn’t have anything to do with your hidden talents,” Wedge assured him. “He thinks you’ll be able to access Booster’s smuggling network.”
Corran snorted. “That might work, if Booster was speaking to me these days.”
Wedge glanced sideways at him. “What, he’s not still mad about that trick we pulled with the Hoopster’s Prank off Sif’kric, is he? I thought we decided they weren’t carrying any contraband and let them go.”
“No, they weren’t; and yes, he is,” Corran said. “Clean or not, the Sif’kries decided they didn’t want smugglers carrying cargoes for them and banned the Hoopster’s Prank forthwith from future pommwomm shipments.”
Wedge winced. “Ouch.”
“Doesn’t mean they won’t get in anyway,” Corran continued with a shrug. “It just means they’ll have to come up with different ships or new ID camouflage or something. But it’s a nuisance, and Booster hates nuisances. Especially official nuisances.”
“Mm,” Wedge said. “Sorry about that. Maybe Mirax will be able to calm him down.”
“Oh, I’m sure she will,” Corran said. “Come to think of it, though, I’m not sure Booster even has any interests on Bothawui. The planet’s got so many other smuggling groups crawling all over it that he may have decided to leave it alone.”
“Oh, that’s handy,” Wedge grumbled.
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to get back to the exciting life of an X-wing pilot, remember,” Corran reminded him. “You could have been safely flying a computer somewhere on Coruscant if you’d wanted.”
Wedge made a face. “No, thanks. Tried it, didn’t like it. So you’re not expecting us to find any help down there at all?”
There was a brief silence. “That’s an interesting question,” Corran murmured at last, his voice sounding odd. “Actually … I think I am.”
Wedge threw him a frown. “You are what? Expecting to find help?”
“I think so, yes,” Corran said, that same strange tone in his voice. “Don’t ask how or where. I just … I think so.”
“Let me guess,” Wedge said. “Jedi hunch?”
Corran nodded. “Jedi hunch.”
Wedge smiled. “Good,” he said, already feeling better about this whole mission. “In that case, we don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Well, no,” Corran said slowly. “I don’t think I’d go so far as to say that.”
CHAPTER
4
[Beware to the starboard,] the Togorian female at the Wild Karrde’s sensor station called, her normally fluid mewling speech now clipped and harsh. [At the two-five by fourteen angle.]
“I’m on it,” another tight voice came over the bridge comm unit. The edges of a hundred asteroids rolling sedately past the viewport flickered with reflected light as one of the Wild Karrde’s turbolasers flashed, then blazed even more brightly as the target asteroid shattered into dust and fire.
Seated in the back of the bridge out of the way, Shada D’ukal mentally shook her head. Negotiating an asteroid field was never an easy task, but it seemed to her the Togorian and at least one of the turbolaser gunners were getting themselves far too worked up over the whole operation. Either they were naturally excitable, or else young and inexperienced. Neither possibility exactly filled her with confidence; both made her wonder about their captain’s wisdom in bringing the two of them along in the first place.
Perhaps the captain was feeling the same way. “Calm down, H’sishi,” Talon Karrde cautioned the Togorian from his seat behind the helm and copilot stations. “You, too, Chal. Just because this asteroid field is larger than others you’ve encountered doesn’t mean it has to be treated any differently. A light touch, blast only the rocks that are of immediate danger to us, and let Dankin maneuver the ship around the others.”
The Togorian’s ears twitched. [I obey, Chieftain,] she said.
“Yes, sir,” the gunner’s voice added.
Not that the admonition made any appreciable difference, at least not that Shada could see. H’sishi still continued to snap out her targeting locks, and Chal still fired full-power turbolaser blasts whether the target warranted that much of a kick or not.
But then, maybe it wasn’t just them. Maybe they were merely sensing and reacting to the nervousness Karrde himself was feeling.
Shada shifted her gaze to focus on his profile. He was hiding it well, actually, with only cheek and jaw muscles betraying the tension there. But Mistryl training included the reading of faces and body language, and to her eyes Karrde’s steadily growing apprehension was as obvious as a navigational beacon.
And the upcoming stopover at Pembric 2 was only the first leg of their trip. What would he be like, she wondered uneasily, by the time they actually reached Exocron?
There was a particularly bright flash outside as a particularly large asteroid was blown to dust. “Oh, my,” a gloomy, metallic voice murmured from Shada’s right.
She turned to look at the C-3PO protocol droid strapped into the seat next to her. He was staring at the viewport, wincing with every turbolaser blast. “Trouble?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, Mistress Shada,” he said, managing to sound prim and miserable at the same time. “I’ve never entirely enjoyed space travel. And this in particular reminds me of a rather unpleasant incident in the past.”
“It should be over soon,” she soothed him. “Just try to relax.” The Mistryl shadow guard had never used droids all that much, but one of Shada’s uncles had had one when she was growing up and she’d always had something of a soft spot for them.
And in Threepio’s case, she felt a particularly personal sympathy for his position. Leia Organa Solo’s personal translator droid, he had been suddenly and summarily offered to Karrde for this voyage—no notice, no questions, no apologies. In many ways, it echoed Shada’s own long and unquestioning service to the Mistryl.
A service that had come to a sudden and permanent end a month ago on the windswept roof of the Resinem Entertainment Complex, where Shada had dared to put her personal honor above direct orders from the Eleven, the rulers of her shattered world of Emberlene.
Would the rest of the Mistryl be hunting her now? Her old friend Karoly D’ulin had hinted that that would be the case. But with the New Republic simmering toward self-destruction in a flurry of petty wars and revived grudges, surely the Mistryl had more important things to do than hunt down even a perceived traitor.
On the other hand, if Karoly had reported Shada’s reasons for her defiance—had repeated the words of scorn for leaders who had now forgotten the proud and honorable tradition the Mistryl had once held to—then the E
leven might indeed consider her worth the effort to track down. Of all motivations to action, she had long since learned that injured pride was one of the most powerful.
And one of the most destructive, as well. To both the victim and the hunter.
A motion caught her eye: Karrde half turning in his seat to look at her. “Enjoying the ride?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s great fun,” she told him. “Nothing I like better than doing tight maneuvers with a cold crew.”
The Togorian’s fur expanded, just a little. But she didn’t comment, and she kept her eyes on her displays. “New experiences are what give zest to life,” Karrde said mildly.
“In my line of work, new experiences usually mean trouble,” Shada countered. “I hope you weren’t planning on sneaking in, by the way. The way your people are lighting up the field, all of Pembric 2 knows we’re coming by now.”
As if to underline her words, the asteroids outside flickered with a multiple sputter of turbolaser fire. “Actually, according to Mara, most ships have to do some blasting on the way in,” Karrde said. His fingers, Shada noted, were tapping gently but restlessly on his armrest. “Even the locals who supposedly know the routes in and out.”
[We have cleared the asteroid field, Chieftain Karrde,] the Togorian mewled.
Shada looked back at the viewport. There were still some asteroids floating past, but for the most part the sky was indeed clear.
[The planetary landing beacons are in sight,] H’sishi added, turning her head and fixing her yellow eyes on Shada. [Your junior crew drone may now cease her nervousness.]
Shada held that gaze for another two heartbeats. Then, deliberately, she turned away. Most of the Wild Karrde’s crew had been verbally poking at her, in one way or another, ever since their departure from Coruscant. Mazzic’s people had done the same back when she first joined his smuggling group—the usual reaction, she had long ago realized, of a tight-knit crew who have just had a stranger thrust into their midst.
One of Mazzic’s techs had unwisely crossed the line from verbal to physical jabs, and as a result had spent a month in a neural reconstruction facility. Out here, at the edge of civilization, she hoped the Wild Karrde’s crew wouldn’t have to learn the lesson the same way.
The pilot half turned around. “What now, Chief?”
“Take us into orbit,” Karrde told him. “There’s only one place on the planet that can handle a ship this size, the Erwithat Spaceport. They should be calling with landing instructions anytime now.”
Right on cue, the comm crackled. “Bss’dum’shun,” a sharp voice snapped. “Sg’hur hur Erwithat roz’bd bun’s’unk. Rs’zud huc’dms’hus u burfu.”
Shada frowned. “I thought you said they spoke Basic here,” she said.
“They do,” Karrde said. “They must be trying to throw us.” He cocked an eyebrow at the droid beside Shada. “Threepio? Do you recognize it?”
“Oh, yes, Captain Karrde,” the droid said with the first sign of enthusiasm Shada had. seen in him since the trip started. “I am fluent in over six million forms of communication. This is the dominant Jarellian dialect, a language whose antecedents date back to—”
“What did he say?” Shada interrupted gently. Protocol droids, in her limited experience, would go running on side trails all day if you let them, and Karrde didn’t look like he was in the mood for a linguistics lesson.
Threepio turned around to face her. “He has identified himself as Erwithat Space Control, Mistress Shada, and asks our identity and cargo.”
“Tell him we’re the freighter Hab Camber,” Karrde said. “We’re here to buy some supplies and power.”
Threepio turned back to him, his posture indicating uncertainty. “But, sir, this ship is named the Wild Karrde,” he objected. “Its engine transponder code—”
“Has been carefully altered,” the pilot interrupted sharply. “Come on, they’re waiting.”
“Patience, Dankin,” Karrde said. “We’re in no particular hurry, and I doubt Erwithat Control has anything better to do right now. Just deliver the message as stated, Threepio. No, wait,” he interrupted himself, a sly smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “You said this was the dominant Jarellian dialect. Are there any others?”
“Several, sir,” Threepio said. “Unfortunately, I am versed in only two.”
“Good enough,” Karrde said. “Deliver our answer in one of them.” He settled himself back in his chair. “Let’s see how far they’re prepared to go with this game.”
Threepio delivered the message, and for a long moment the comm was silent. “Attention, unidentified freighter,” a voice growled reluctantly in Basic. “This is Erwithat Space Control. State your identity and cargo.”
Karrde smiled. “Apparently, not very far,” he commented, keying his transmit key. “Erwithat Control, this is the freighter Hab Camber,” he said. “No cargo; we’re just passing through and hoped we could buy some supplies and power.”
“Yeah?” the controller said. “What sort of supplies?”
“Do you handle merchandising duties as well as space control?” Karrde countered.
“No, I just do the traffic,” the other growled, sounding more annoyed than ever. “Let’s hear your bid for landing rights.”
Shada blinked. “Landing rights?” she muttered.
The controller had sharp ears. “Yes, landing rights,” he snapped. “And that little crack is going to cost you an extra three hundred.”
Shada felt her mouth drop open. Crack? What crack? She filled her lungs for a nasty retort of her own—
“We’ll bid a thousand,” Karrde said, warning her with a glance.
The controller snorted audibly. “For a freighter that size? You’re either joking or a fool.”
H’sishi hissed something under her breath. “Or perhaps merely a poor independent trader,” Karrde suggested. “What if I make it eleven hundred?”
“What if you make it fifteen?” the controller countered. “That’s New Republic currency, too.”
“Of course,” Karrde said. “Fifteen hundred; agreed.”
“Landing Pad 28,” the controller said, his grudging annoyance replaced now by open gloating. Briefly, Shada wondered how much of that fifteen hundred would be going directly into his pocket. “Beacon’ll guide you in. The money’s due on arrival.”
“Thank you,” Karrde said. “Hab Camber out.” He keyed off the comm. “Chin?”
“Beacon come on, Cap’t,” the older man at the comm station reported, squinting at his displays. “They guiding us in.”
“Key the vector over to the helm,” Karrde instructed. “Dankin, take us in. Watch out for fighters—Mara said they sometimes send escorts for unfamiliar ships.”
“Right,” the pilot acknowledged.
Karrde looked at Shada. “You game for a little walk around once we’re down?”
Shada shrugged. “We junior crew drones are only here to serve. Where are we going?”
“A tapcafe called the ThrusterBurn,” Karrde told her. “Assuming my map is correct, it’s only a couple of blocks from the landing pad we’ve been assigned. The man I’m hoping to meet should be there.”
“I didn’t think we needed any supplies this soon,” Shada said. “Who are we meeting, and why?”
“A vicious yet cultured Corellian crime lord named Crev Bombaasa,” Karrde said. “He runs most of the illegal operations in this part of Kathol sector.”
“And we need his help?”
“Not particularly,” Karrde said. “But getting his permission to travel through the area would make things easier.”
“Ah,” Shada said, frowning at his profile. This didn’t sound like the casually fearless Talon Karrde she’d heard so many stories about from Mazzic and other smugglers. “We’re worried about things being easy, are we?”
He smiled. “Always,” he said. His tone was light, but Shada could hear an odd hollowness behind it.
“Ah—Captain Karrde?” Threepio spoke
up hesitantly. “Will you be needing my services on this visit?”
Karrde smiled. “No, Threepio, thank you,” he assured the droid. “As I said, Basic is the official language down there. You can stay on the ship with the others.”
The droid seemed to wilt with relief. “Thank you, sir.”
Karrde shifted his attention back to Shada. “We’ll go lightly armed—sidearm blasters only.”
“Understood,” Shada said. “But I’ll let you carry the blaster.”
“Worried about things getting violent?” Dankin put in.
“Not at all,” Shada said coolly, getting up from her seat and heading for the bridge door. “I just prefer that my opponents not know what direction the violence is going to come from. I’ll be in my cabin, Karrde—let me know when you’re ready.”
· · ·
Twenty minutes later, they were down. Fifteen minutes after that, upon payment of their landing fee and a brief negotiation regarding additional “protection” costs with a trio of white-uniformed Pembric Security Legionnaires, Karrde and Shada were walking down the streets of the Erwithat Spaceport.
It was not, to Karrde’s mind, what one would exactly call an inspiring place. Even at midday a haze seemed to shroud the whole city, diffusing the sunlight and adding a dankness to the occasional breezes that stirred the hot air without any perceptible cooling effect. The ground was composed of wet sand, molecular-compressed where walkways were needed, a far cry from the permacrete that was the modern construction standard. The buildings lining the walkways were made from some kind of plain but solid-looking white stone, its onetime cleanliness now marred by the brown and green mottlings of dirt and mold. A sprinkling of pedestrians roamed the streets, most showing the same general deterioration as the spaceport itself, and here and there a hurrying swoop or landspeeder could be glimpsed between the buildings.
It was, in short, very much the way Mara’s report from seven years ago had painted it. Except probably a little shabbier.
“Terrific place,” Shada commented from beside him. “I get the feeling I’m a little overdressed.”
