by Timothy Zahn
"I'm sorry, sir," the droid said, sounding miserable. "I didn't mean to give anything away. He asked if we were searching for Exocron, and I confirmed it without thinking."
"Please don't blame the droid," Entoo Nee said. "Your goal isn't a secret. At least, not to me. You're looking for Jorj Car'das, aren't you?"
Shada shot Karrde a look across the table. "Threepio, why don't you go over to the bar and get us a couple glasses of the local brew," she suggested. "On your way, listen and see if you hear anyone talking in Rodian."
"Yes, Mistress Shada," the droid said, sounding relieved at the chance to get away. "Right away."
He shuffled off. "Very clever," Entoo Nee said, grinning at Shada. "You think any spotters Rei'Kas may have planted in the crowd will talk Rodian to each other, eh? Very clever, indeed."
"Thank you," Shada said, fixing him with a look that was just short of a glare. "You were telling us about Jorj Car'das."
"Yes." Entoo Nee shuffled himself even closer to the table. "You're right to look for him on Exocron. That's where he is." He lifted a finger warningly. "But Exocron isn't easy to find. Most people in the Kathol Republic have never even heard of it. Most of those who have believe it to be a myth."
"So I've heard," Karrde said, fighting against a sudden sense of dread. How could Entoo Nee know why he was here? Unless, of course, he was working for Car'das? "Tell me why it's so hard to find."
Entoo Nee smiled even more broadly. "You don't need me to tell you that. Ah, but perhaps your friend doesn't know," he added, shifting his grin to Shada. "It's all the mini-nebulae and gas offshoots, you see, coming off the Kathol Rift. All of that reflected light and radiation scrambles sensors and communicationsmakes it terribly difficult to find anything at all. Searching the whole region could take you decades."
"And you can save us all that trouble, I suppose?" Shada asked.
"I can indeed," he said. "I can take you to Exocron. Right to Car'das himself, if you like."
He looked back at Karrde. "But only if Captain Karrde wishes."
With a strong effort, Karrde kept his expression steady. So the little man knew his name, too. "And what would this guidance cost us?"
"No cost," Entoo Nee said. "But no 'us,' either. It would just be you and me."
"Excuse me?" Shada said, lifting a finger. "Just you and him? What about the rest of us?"
"You'd have to wait for us here," Entoo Nee told her. "No other way, I'm afraidmy ship can only carry two people."
"How about if you ride with us and guide our ship in?" Karrde asked.
"Oh, no," Entoo Nee said, looking shocked. "I couldn't possibly do that."
"Why not?" Shada demanded. "Because Car'das doesn't want to see all of us?"
Entoo Nee blinked. "Did I ever say Car'das wanted to see any of you? I said no such thing."
Which wasn't the same as saying Car'das hadn't asked him to make the offer. "If I accept," Karrde said slowly, "when would we need to leave?"
"Wait a second," Shada put in before Entoo Nee could answer. "What do you mean, if you accept? You don't want to go off alone with him."
Karrde grimaced. No, he most certainly didn't. But at some point he was going to have to face Car'das. And if this was the best way to protect his people while he did that...
"Let me put it another way," Shada said, glaring at Entoo Nee. "I'm his bodyguard, and I'm not letting him go off alone. Not with you or anyone else. Clear?"
Entoo Nee held out his hands, palm upward. "But"
He broke off as Threepio reappeared and set two heavy mugs of dark liquid onto the table. "Thank the Maker," he said breathlessly. "The clientele of this place are most unpleasant"
"Never mind the local color," Shada cut him off. "Did you hear any Rodian?"
"As a matter of fact, I did," the droid said, half turning and pointing toward one of the tables across near the bar. "Three human males at that tableyes; the ones now standing up"
"Uh-oh," Shada muttered, darting a glance at Entoo Nee. "Come ontime to get out of here."
"Don't bother," a softly vicious voice said from behind Karrde.
Slowly, he turned around. Two tables away, three men were sitting facing them.
And all three had their blasters drawn.
CHAPTER
14
"Oh, my," Threepio gasped, just audibly. "We're doomed."
Karrde looked back around. Behind Shada, the three thugs Threepio had just identified were striding between the tables toward them, blasters now in their hands as well. Across the rest of the tapcafe, the casual drinkers and loungers were either staring in surprise or morbid anticipation or else trying to beat a surreptitious retreat before the shooting started. "I suppose it would be a waste of breath to say you have the wrong people," he said, turning back to face the men behind him.
"No, go right ahead," the thugs' spokesman said sarcastically as the three of them got to their feet and fanned out slightly to cover their targets. "I always enjoy a good laugh in the morning. Hands on the table, please. Sodid I catch the name right? Talon Karrde?"
"Yes, indeed," Entoo Nee spoke up brightly before Karrde could answer. "And this is Shada, and their protocol droid See-Threepio."
The spokesman impaled the little man with a glare. "You with them?"
Entoo Nee's eyes widened innocently. "Me? Not really, sir"
"Then get out of here."
Entoo Nee blinked, threw a quick look around at Shada and Karrde, and scrambled up from his seat. "Do let me know, Captain Karrde, if you change your mind," he said.
He shot a quick smile at Karrde, another at the spokesman, then bounced his way toward the door. The spokesman watched him go, frowning; and as the little man pulled open the door, he turned back to face Karrde. "Change your mind about what?" he demanded as the thud of the closing door echoed across the tapcafe.
"He'd just made me an interesting offer," Karrde said, lifting his arms with conspicuous slowness and folding them across his chest. The thugs, their full attention on him and Shada, had completely missed the fact that someone had come into the tapcafe at the same moment Entoo Nee left. If he could manage to keep all of their attention on him for just a few more seconds...
And then someone across the room swore in astonishment. One of the thugs glanced around"ShriXern!" he barked.
The spokesman spun around... and froze, his mouth dropping open with shock.
Silently, determinedly, H'sishi was striding toward them.
It took Xern another second to find his voice. "What in the name of the Rift is that?" he breathed.
"She's a Togorian," Karrde supplied, throwing a surreptitious glance at Shada. Her eyes were darting back and forth between the suddenly inattentive thugs, clearly measuring distances and assessing possibilities. That could be trouble. "Oh, and she's with me," he added.
H'sishi was still coming toward the semicircle of thugs, her mouth open far enough to show her fangs. "Tell it to stop," Xern snapped, his voice hitting a higher pitch as his blaster jerked around to point at the Togorian. "You hear me? Tell it to stop or we'll shoot."
"I wouldn't advise shooting a Togorian," Karrde admonished him mildly. "It only makes them angry."
Xern shot a look of disbelief toward him
And in that instant Shada moved.
Her left hand, resting casually near her mug, snatched it up and with a quick flick of her forearm she hurled the contents across the table squarely into Xern's face. He bellowed, throwing up his forearm, too late, to try to block the wave of liquid. A convulsive jerk the other direction, and Shada had hurled the mug itself with crushing force into the throat of one of the other thugs. She started to leap up, yelping under her breath as Karrde grabbed her arm and held her firmly in her seat. There was the sputter of blaster fire and the sounds of bodies hitting the floor
"Lower your weapon, Xern," Karrde said quietly. Even to his own ears his voice seemed a startling intrusion into the sudden taut silence filling the tapcafe. "Very slowly; very
carefully."
Xern gave his eyes one last swipe with his sleeve and blinked them open... and for the second time in half a minute he appeared to be struck speechless as he stared at the scene around him in stunned disbelief. Disbelief at Karrde and Shada sitting unhurt at the table; disbelief at the crumpled bodies of his men lying around him on the floor, wisps of noxious smoke rising from the blaster wounds riddling their bodies.
And disbelief at the four crosh-hide-clad men at various tables scattered around the tapcafe pointing blasters at him.
"Your blaster, Xern," Karrde prompted again as the thug continued to gape, drops of Shada's drink dripping rhythmically off his chin. Shada stirred; but before she could move H'sishi had stepped to Xern's side and engulfed the barrel of his blaster in one massive hand. He started, almost as if seeing the Togorian for the first time, as she twisted the weapon to point harmlessly at the ceiling. She raised her other hand and dug a claw delicately into the back of his wrist, and this time he finally let go.
"Well done, everyone," Karrde said, getting to his feet as H'sishi stepped back, the blaster now reversed ready in her hand. "Dankin?"
"Here," the familiar voice came from a distinctly unfamiliar face as the other stood up at his table.
"Go give the bartender something to compensate for the mess," Karrde instructed him. "It's somewhat traditional in these cases," he added to Xern as Dankin crossed toward the bar, digging into his pocket. "Griv, stand by the door; Chal, Balig, go frontguard the way back to the ship."
"Right."
The other three headed for the door. "You're cute," Xern spat viciously. "Real cute. But if you think this is gonna get you out from under Rei'Kas's hammer, you're crazy."
"If I were you, I'd worry more about what Rei'Kas will do to you for losing your mob this way," Karrde countered. "I'd also worry about getting out of here before H'sishi decides you're too dangerous to leave alive."
"Oh, I'll leave," Xern said darkly. "But you'll see me again, Karrde. Just before you die." With one final glare, he turned and stomped out of the tapcafe.
"Well," Karrde said, turning back to Shada and holding out a hand to her.
She didn't move. "So you had backups in place all along," she said, looking up at him.
There was something distinctly discomfiting in her voice and face. "I thought you said you wouldn't take that as an insult," Karrde reminded her carefully.
"They're in disguise," she said.
Slowly, Karrde lowered his hand to his side. "They were all seen by the local inspectors who searched the ship earlier," he explained. "I had to assume some of the group were spies for the pirates, and would be able to recognize them."
"And the crosh-hide outfits?"
"Mara brought them back from her trip here," Karrde said, starting to feel sweat breaking out on his forehead.
Shada rose to her feet. "And you didn't think," she said quietly, "that I could be trusted with it."
For a second Karrde couldn't find his voice. The deep ache that had been in Shada's voice was so completely unexpected. "No, that's not it," he said. "I didn't"
But it was too late. She had already turned her back on him, and was striding toward the door where Griv stood guard. "Are the repairs finished yet?" she asked.
Griv shot a quick look over her shoulder at Karrde. "Close enough," he said cautiously.
"Good," she said, stepping past him and pulling the door open. "Looks clear," she announced. "Let's get back to the ship."
Griv looked questioningly at Karrde again. "Yes," he murmured, heading toward the door.
The walk back to the Wild Karrde was very quiet.
* * * Shada had stripped off her jumpsuit and had just gotten into her robe when the cabin door call chimed. "Who is it?" she called.
"It's Karrde," the other's voice came distantly through the panel. "May I come in?"
Shada sighed, wrapping her robe securely around her and knotting the waist sash. She had no particular desire to see him, especially right now. But she had committed herself to this trip, and she couldn't very well avoid the captain and still fulfill that commitment.
Besides, the pain of his casual betrayal of her trust had mostly subsided. Enough, anyway. "Come in," she called, tapping the release.
The door slid open, and Karrde stepped inside. "We've just made the jump to lightspeed," he told her, taking in her state of dress and dismissing it in a single glance. "Odonnl estimates seven days to Exocron."
"Good," Shada said briskly. "I should be back to full combat capability by then. Speaking of which, if you'll excuse me, I'm on my way to the bacta tank."
"The bacta can wait," Karrde said politely but firmly, gesturing her to a chair. "I'd like to talk to you."
She thought about refusing. But she was still committed to him and to this trip. "About what?" she said, sitting down, wondering if he was really insensitive enough to try concocting some feeble excuse about that tapcafe thing at this late date.
But he surprised her. "Jorj Car'das, of course," he said, pulling another chair over to face her and sitting down. "It's time you heard the whole story."
"Really," she said, keeping her voice neutral. He'd only promised to tell her this story on the way into the Exocron system; which, according to him, was still a week away. Was this his way of trying to make amends for his earlier thoughtlessness?
Not that it mattered. Too little, too late; but at least she'd get some useful information out of it. "Go on," she said.
His gaze drifted outward, as if to a time or place far away. "The story of Jorj Car'das goes back about sixty years," he said. "To the Clone Wars era and the chaos that it brought on the galaxy. There was a great need for smuggling during the conflict and afterward, of necessities as well as contraband, and a large number of organizations were hastily and rather haphazardly thrown together."
"That was when the Hutts really hit their stride, wasn't it?" Shada asked, interest stirring in spite of herself. There was very little she knew about that period, and she'd always wanted to know more.
"Many of them did, yes," Karrde said. "Car'das was one of those who jumped into the business, and whether through skill or simple blind luck wound up with one of the better organizations. Not one of the larger ones, but definitely one of the better ones.
"They'd been operating for about fifteen years when he was accidentally caught up in the middle of a big battle between some Bpfasshi Dark Jedi andwell, basically everyone else in that sector. According to Car'das's later story, one of the Dark Jedi commandeered his private ship and forced them to take off."
Shada shivered. That one she did know something about; a group of Mistryl had been involved on the defensive side of that conflict. Some of the stories she'd heard as a child from the survivors had given her nightmares. "I'm surprised he came back able to tell any stories at all," she said.
"So was everyone else," Karrde said. "The other four members of his crew never did return, in fact. But Car'das did. He suddenly reappeared two months later, settled back into control of his organization, and to all appearances life went back to normal."
"But the appearances were wrong?"
"Very wrong," Karrde agreed soberly. "It was quickly apparent to his inner circle that something serious had happened to him during those two months. He still had one of the best smuggling groups around, but suddenly he began pushing to make it one of the biggest, as well. He would move systematically into the territories of smaller groups and either buy them, absorb them, or destroy them, taking over their routes and clientele. Unlike the Hutts and other groups, he went for overall coverage rather than concentrated brute-force control, spreading himself thinly out all over rather than trying to dominate any specific systems or sectors. In a few years, he was already on his way to having something that could someday rival even Jabba's organization."
"Didn't anyone try to stop him?" Shada asked. "I can't see the Hutts sitting by and letting him outflank them that way."
"My dear Shada, eve
ryone tried to stop him," Karrde said darkly. "But he was almost literally unstoppable. Somewhere, somehow, he had developed a knack for guessing precisely what his opponents were planning against him, and he was often able to counter their attacks almost literally before they were launched."
Shada thought back to the dozens of missions she'd gone on for the Mistryl, and the hours of painstaking research she'd had to put into learning her opponents' strengths and weaknesses, weapons and strategies, allies and opponents. "A handy talent," she murmured.
"Extremely handy," Karrde agreed. "But even as his organization grew, Car'das himself began to change. He becameI don't know. Moody, perhaps, inclined to flashes of screaming rage over little things that shouldn't have bothered him at all, or brooding alone for hours on end over charts of the Empire. More significantly, perhaps, after years of vigorous youth, he seemed to be aging rapidly. Much faster than one would have thought normal or likely.
"And then, one day, he got into his private ship, took off... and vanished."
Shada frowned. "Vanished. You mean... vanished?"
"I mean disappeared from the known galaxy," Karrde said. "He didn't go near any of his people; didn't contact any of his chief lieutenants; and if he was ever seen again by any of his enemies, they never announced the fact."
"When was this?" Shada asked.
"Twenty years ago," Karrde said. "At first there wasn't too much concernhe'd gone off on occasional secret trips before. But after three months had gone by and he still hadn't surfaced, his lieutenants began to talk about what they should do if he didn't come back."
"Let me guess," Shada said. "They wanted to hold a vote and see which of them would take over."
"I don't think voting was the procedure any of them had in mind," Karrde said ruefully. "In fact, the threat of violence was so thick that the suggestion was made that we simply split up the organization and each take a chunk."
"The trick being how you divide it to everyone's satisfaction," Shada said, noting the telltale word with interest. It was the first time in his recitation that Karrde had used the word "we." "So you wound up with a power struggle anyway."
