art was intimately wrapped up with the concepts of nudity, excess and a
color scheme that relied heavily on pinks, purples and an irritatingly
vibrant shade of green. Some of the statuary--what little of it
actually could have found a home in the Museum of Fine Arts--had been
garishly corrected by application of this color scheme, with excess
paint having spilled down the walls.
The paintings showed Corran a view of models he
thought more appropriate for xenobiological textbooks and the holographs seemed the
visual equivalent of a high-pitched scream.
"How much were you going to offer me to kill him?"
Kast whispered.
"Not enough."
They followed their guides through the foyer and a huge set of double
doors into Thyne's office. Here the clash of artworks had a new
element added to it: a war between style of furnishings. Thyne's desk
had been carved from deep brown vweliu tree wood and was in itself a
work of art. Surrounding it were other pressed-form duraplast and
fiberplast chairs and tables--the sort of things that could be left out
in a glen because weather would not hurt them. A few stainless steel
tables topped with transparisteel sheets completed the decor and a riot
of lamps---no two matching--provided illumination for it all.
Corran looked over at Hal and caught a brave nod from him despite the
twin lines of blood dripping down from his nose. Haber Trell looked in
worse shape, with a rapidly swelling eye and an inert vibroblade stuck
into the seat of his chair between his thighs. The Tunroth's yellow
flesh had greyed up a bit, and a dollop of bluish blood trickled from
one nostril, but Rathe otherwise looked alert.
Zekka Thyne smiled at Kast and Corran found the expression nothing
short of obscene. "Ah, Jodo Kast, finally we meet. Normally I do not
retain an individual I have not met, but your reputation precedes
you.
I decided the credits were well spent." Thyne's scarlet gaze
sharpened.
"Don't disappoint me."
"I have no intention of doing so." With a swift, smooth motion, Kast
drew a blaster in his right hand and jammed the muzzle against Corran's
left temple. "Haber Trell and the Tunroth are assassins who were hired
by Borbor Crisk to eliminate you. Their partners are even now
arranging
for Crisk to fill a couple hundred sleight boxes with the price for your head."
"That's not true!" Haber Trell snarled angrily. "He's lying."
Thyne silenced him with a backhanded slap. "So who are these other
two?"
Kast grunted what almost seemed to be a laugh. "They hired these two
locals to help them get around and as camouflage. With these two in
tow, who would think they are galaxy-class assassins?"
Corran started to raise a hand to massage his head, but Kast kept the
gun pressed hard against his skull. Corran wasn't certain which hurt
more: his head or his pride at having been fooled by Kast. He played
me very well, just like he played the rest of us. Better I was in my
father's place because Kast never would have fooled him.
Corran glanced sidelong at Kast, then nodded toward Thyne. "You know,
you really can't trust the word of a bounty hunter."
"True, but I am more willing to trust him than some assassin's local
fetch-and-carry."
Kast reached over and relieved Corran of his blaster, then lowered his
own gun. "My story is fairly easy to check out. You should dispatch
some of your people to the Mynock's Haven. It is the cantina where
Trell's partners are meeting within the hour with Crisk to finalize the
payoff details. You'll find the sleight boxes at the Dewback storage
yard near the spaceport. You can send other of your people there and
wait for Crisk and his men to come and fill the boxes."
Corran rubbed at his temple. "You figured that out from my look at the
place? You're good."
"That's why people retain me." Kast looked over at Thyne. "I take it
you have detention cells here?"
"Wine cellar is empty. You can put them in alcoves down there."
"Good. I shall do that while you prepare the ambush
for Crisk."
Kast motioned with his blaster for Corran to head toward the door.
"Once your people report back, you'll know who you can trust."
"Yes." Thyne hissed the word. "And those who are lying will pay the
ultimate price for daring to deceive me."
Side Trip Part Three
by Michael A' Stackpole propelled by a poke in the kidneys with a
blaster carbine, Corran Horn stumbled into the makeshift cell.
He got control of himself fast enough to avoid bumping into his father
and turned back quickly, but Jodo Kast swung the wrought-iron gate
shut. That effectively sealed the two Horns in a small, dusty grotto
that had once been home to a fine collection of wines from throughout
the Empire. At least that's the impression I get from all the broken
bottle bits on the floor.
Corran skewered Kast with the nastiest stare he could muster.
"This isn't over between us Kast."
The bounty hunter regarded Corran placidly, but the trio of Zekka
Thyne's henchmen forcing the other man and the Tunroth into a second
grotto across the cellar laughed out loud. Their leader, the beefy;
red-haired man who had given Corran the shove, sneered at the
undercover Corellian Security Force officer. "You're strictly small
time, pal. The boss isn't going to give you a crack at this guy. I'll
be the one to take care of you."
"Oh?" Corran gave the man a fetal grin. "I didn't realize Thyne was
into doing favors for the hired help. You're welcome to try me any
time."
"He won't get the chance." Kast's voice came low and cold. "I've put
up with your prattling and bragging and threats, Corran, and I am not
of a mind to let someone else eliminate annoyances from my life."
The armored mercenary pointed a finger at the redheaded man.
"Touch him and I will consider it a matter of honor to turn you inside
out."
The redhead paled. "Yes, sir."
Another of Thyne's Black Sun underlings closed the other gate and
secured it. "They're in. Wanna threaten any of them, Nidder?"
The redhead frowned. "Suck vacuum, Somms. You think you're so funny,
you can think up jokes while you stand guard on these clowns."
Somms' blond brows arrowed down toward his nose.
"They're in here secure, they don't need guarding."
Kast shook his head. "No, not in here, of course not, but outside the
room, on the first stair landing. There you can hear commotion from in
here or the main floor and be able to respond."
Nidder shoved his blaster carbine into Somms' hands.
"You heard him."
Corran smiled. "Just what I expected, Kast. You want someone
stationed between you and me."
Kast grabbed the grate's iron bars and shook it once,
hard. The metal rattled loudly and, startled, Corran involuntarily took a step back.
Nidder, Somms and the third Black Sunner started laughing, but their
mirth didn't stop corran from hearing Kast's r
eply to his remark.
"I've no fear of you, Corran. I look forward to you getting out of
here because with Thyne sending. his blaster-boys off to ambush
Maranne and Riij, I'm pretty much assured that I'm all that stands
between you and your freedom. You may be good--you may even be better
than I give you credit for being---but I'm still better."
Corran's left temple throbbed from where Kast had jammed his blaster
pistol against it. "Keep thinking that, Kast, and don't be surprised
when I prove you wrong."
"Come see me, Corran, when your boasts are not idle."
Kast turned and herded the rest of the men from the small room.
An old wooden door closed behind him and clicked shut.
Corran stared after him for a moment then spun on his heel and swore.
"Sithspawn! That son of a rancor played me for an idiot." He looked
up at his father. "I'm sorry, Dad. I really made a mess of things."
The elder Horn's hazel eyes narrowed. "How do you plot our predicament
being your fault?"
"I should have known there was something wrong."
Corran scrubbed his hands over his face. "Their ship, the Hopskip, is
a piece of trash that Crisk wouldn't use to haul dead bodies, much less
valuable merchandise. The others had no idea what was in their cargo
hold and it turned out to be full of sleight boxes."
Hal frowned. "Sleight boxes are hardly state of the art for smugglers
these days. It's almost as if they wanted to be caught."
"Right, exactly." Corran leaned against a fiberplast wine rack built
into the grotto's wall. "Kast told Thyne the boxes are empty, but I
found some with junked holo-seals and popped them. One box had
spice--strictly joy-dust grade, but spice nonetheless--and the other
had a fortune in uncut Durindfire gems. Even if we figure that
one box of gems is it and the other 199 are spice, Crisk can use the gems
to buy an army and use the spice to flood the market and kill Black
Sun's profits."
Hal Horn turned a wooden wine-box over and sat. "So what you're
telling me is that we have non-smugglers bringing in two hundred
sleight boxes and they have no idea what's in them. You find gems and
spice in two and the shipment is headed for Crisk. Crisk himself can't
put together that sort of shipment, so he has a backer. Who?"
Corran frowned. "The gems come from Tatooine. Isn't there a Hutt out
there working the spice trade?"
"Jappa or Jadda or something like that, yes. He's powerful there, but
expanding into CoreIlia? That's too bold a move." Hal's mouth opened,
then he shook his head.
He motioned his son aside and looked past Corran toward the other
cell.
"Haber Trell, how long have you known Jodo Kast?"
The Hopskip's pilot stood and grasped the bars of his prison. "I don't
know him. He's along for the ride."
"Yes." Hal leaned back against the wall and laughed lightly.
"That's it."
Corran shook his head. "You're saying Kast is behind the shipment
going to Crisk? But that makes no sense since he's told Thyne's people
where to find the boxes with the spice and gems."
"No, Corran, Kast isn't the mastermind, he's what's being smuggled into
CoreIlia."
Corran's jaw shot open. "It doesn't make any sense."
"No?" Hal gave Corran an appraising glance--of the sort that in the
past had warned Corran that his father thought he was being lazy in his
thinking. "What do you make of Kast's last remark?"
Corran thought back. "He was taunting me."
"Agreed, but what did he tell us by taunting you?"
The sigh came up all the way from Corran's toes. "He told us that he
was all that stood between us and freedom--that Thyne's guys are all
gone. He told me to come
find him when we got free." Corran slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. "I should have seen that."
"You did."
"Yeah, but it took you to point it out to me." Corran shook his head
and toed the neck of a broken bottle.
"There are times when my brain just doesn't work."
"No, Corran, your brain works fine." Hal kept his tone even, but
pointed a finger at his son. "You just need to focus your thinking.
You're angry because of how Kast tricked you, and I think you were a
bit afraid for how I was doing."
"Right on both counts."
"It's understandable, son, and appreciated in the case of your concern
for me, but you can't let your emotions and incidental things deflect
you."
"I know that, Dad. I really do." He smiled at his father.
"I try to follow your example, but you're better at it than I am."
"I have a few years on you, Corran."
"It's more than just the years, Dad." Corran winced. "I never would
have read Kast's message right the way you did."
The elder Horn's eyes twinkled. "I have to admit to you, Corran, I
cheated this time out."
"What?"
Hal pointed past him. "Up there, on the bars Kast shook, see what that
little thing is, will you?"
Corran turned and looked closely at the bars. Where Kast had grasped
one in his right hand, Corran saw a small black cylinder about a
hand-span in length and about the diameter of a blaster-bolt. He freed
it from the bar with a tug, leaving an adhesive residue on the
wrought-iron, and felt a small button beneath his thumb, near the
cylinder's tip.
"Be careful with that, Corran."
The younger man nodded and hit the button. All but invisible in the
half-light, a delicate monomolecular blade slid from the cylinder.
"I know what it is, and I remember
what happened to Lefty Dindo."
Corran cut carefully down with the blade and through the lock's bolt.
He retracted the stiletto's fragile blade and swung the door open.
"Freeing us from this cell is a bit easier than Lefty trying to use one
of these to free himself from binders."
Hal Horn paused in the door cell's doorway. "You might want to cut us
a couple of the bars to use as weapons.
Somms might not be the brightest of Black Sunners, but I think he's
going to take some convincing before he lets us out of here."
"Agreed." Extending the blade again, Corran cut a pair of
50-centimeter-long bars from the bottom of the grate and handed one to
his father.
Hal swung the club against his left hand with a meaty thwack.
"This will work. Now how do we lure Somms in?"
Corran squinted at the room's closed door. "You figure Somms as
someone who will raise an alarm immediately, or will wait to report
success?"
"After Nidder's giving him the duty? He'll act, then report."
"That's my read, too. The landing was ten steps up and we're far
enough away from the office that if we make some noise, no one will
notice, I think." Corran smiled.
"I'll do the hard work if you want to do the yelling."
"Yelling works for me." Hal Horn smiled. "Be careful."
"Right." Corran walked over to the wooden door and set the length of
the blade to a half-centimeter shy of the door's depth, then cut very
cautiously. He sco
red a circle in the center of it. Once he had the
circle taken care of, he cut lines heading out from it as if a child
drawing a sunburst. Lastly he carved little semicircles around the
hinges and the lock.
He closed the blade and handed it to his father in exchange for one of
the clubs. "Okay, here goes nothing."
"Wait!"
Corran looked over at Haber Trell. "What do you want?"
"Don't leave us in here. If you're busting out, we want to go,
too."
"I don't think so, Trell." The flesh tightened around Corran's eyes.
"Even if you're twice the fighter that you are a smuggler, you'll still
be in the way."
Hal nodded in agreement, but tossed them the molecular stiletto
anyway.
"Corran's right, you won't want to come with us. We'll head out and
Tales From The Empire Page 36