Scoundrels

by Timothy Zahn

  “And you’ll need it before he moves the files,” d’Ashewl warned. “Because wherever he gets us to take them, he’ll be ready to spirit them away to some other location where we’ll never find them.”

  “Unless we can take them en route, like Eanjer was obviously hoping to,” Dayja pointed out. “But he’ll have thought of that, too.”

  “Absolutely.” D’Ashewl eyed him. “So?”

  “So I guess I’ll be attending the Honoring of Moving Fire at Marblewood tomorrow,” Dayja said, heaving himself out of his chair. “Better go put together another sample package to wave under Villachor’s nose.”

  “You’ve got a day to think about how you want to tailor your approach,” d’Ashewl reminded him. “And don’t forget, the Dominator will be here by then. If you need backup, it’ll be available.”

  “Only if we want to blow the entire operation.”

  D’Ashewl shrugged. “If it comes to that point, the operation will already be blown,” he said. “Better a dead operation and a live operative than the alternative.”

  “You have such a soothing way of putting things,” Dayja said dryly. “You’ll be wanting me to attend you during lunch, I assume?”

  “If you have time,” d’Ashewl said. “If not, I can explain your absence.”

  “No, we need to keep up appearances,” Dayja said. “I’ll see you for lunch.”

  “What was that all about?” Bink called across the conversation room.

  Standing framed by the window and the cityscape beyond, Eanjer turned to face her. “Sorry?”

  “That call,” Bink said. She started to point at the comlink he was putting away, apparently remembered in time that she’d already pulled out stitches from two of the seams Winter was laboriously trying to finish, and nodded instead toward the comlink.

  “It was my contact,” Eanjer said. “He wanted to warn me that—”

  “You’re telling your contact about our plans?” Bink interrupted.

  “He already knows,” Eanjer said patiently. “He’s the one who told us about Qazadi and the blackmail files in the first place, remember? Anyway, he wanted to warn me that Villachor may be getting in some more Zed police droids.”

  Bink looked down at Winter, and Winter could see the uneasiness in her eyes. “How many?” Bink asked.

  “And how soon?” Winter added.

  “He didn’t know,” Eanjer said. “He’s not even sure Villachor’s actually getting them, or whether he’s just thinking about getting them. He’ll let me know if he hears anything more.” He gestured down the hall. “I’m going to the kitchen. Either of you want anything?”

  “No, thanks,” Bink said.

  “Me neither,” Winter said.

  “Okay.” Eanjer hesitated. “Let me know if there’s anything I can help with.” He left the room.

  “A few extra Zeds aren’t going to hurt the plan, are they?” Winter asked.

  “They shouldn’t,” Bink said. But she didn’t sound 100 percent convinced. “One Zed or fifty, they all work off the same master control system.”

  Winter nodded. She’d assumed that was the case and was pretty sure Han had it covered. But he’d been keeping his cards pretty close to his vest, especially since the kidnapping, and she wasn’t absolutely sure how or where he might be tweaking his plans. Eanjer, from what she’d been able to glean, was even more in the dark than she was.

  On the other hand, if Eanjer was blabbing freely about their plans to this unknown contact, it was probably just as well Han wasn’t telling him much.

  “I haven’t had a chance to talk to Tavia lately,” Winter said as she studied the seam she was working on. She had no idea what kind of eye for detail Sheqoa had, but better to be safe than sorry. “Is she doing all right?”

  “She’s fine,” Bink said.

  “You sure?” Winter pressed, moving on to the next seam. This one, she knew, had to be a little crooked if it was going to match the one on the other dress. “She seemed pretty tired when I saw her at dinner last night.”

  “Tired, but happy,” Bink assured her. “Sitting around putting electronics together is what she lives for. Even when it’s the very same electronics, like now, being put together the same way over and over. Boring, if you ask me. But, hey—differences are what makes the galaxy spin, right?”

  “So I’ve heard,” Winter agreed. “It does sound like she prefers the quiet life, though.”

  Bink was silent long enough for Winter to finish with that seam and go on to the next one. “I gather she’s been talking to you,” she said at last. “Interesting. She must like you—she doesn’t open up to just anyone. I suppose she’s been telling you how much I enjoy the whole ghost-thief lifestyle and how I’m never content to stick to anything else for long?”

  Winter hesitated. “She said you’re very good at what you do,” she said, deciding on the diplomatic approach. “We discussed a little about how people usually enjoy the things they’re good at.”

  “And I suppose she told you how good she is at electronics?”

  “None of us needs to be told that,” Winter said, hoping to deflect the conversation with a little humor. “We’ve all seen what she can do.”

  “Oh, she’s good at her work, all right,” Bink said. “What she’s not so good at is realizing just how nasty the universe around her really is.”

  Winter frowned up at her. There was a deadly serious expression on the young woman’s face, one that Winter hadn’t seen there before. “I don’t follow.”

  “Let me give you an example,” Bink said, an edge of bitterness in her voice. “I assume she told you about the Rivordak Electronics Company?”

  “Not by name.”

  “It’s the one she usually trots out as an example of me scuttling every decent thing that comes into her life,” Bink said. “The pay was good, the boss was happy with her performance, and she really enjoyed the work. On the surface, it seemed perfect.”

  “So what was wrong with it?” Winter asked. “Did they drink their soup too loudly?”

  “What was wrong was that the place didn’t exist,” Bink said heavily. “Or at least the place she thought she was working at didn’t exist. The whole operation was nothing but a front for one of the Hutt syndicates. They were funneling spice, smuggled weapons, even slaves through the business, the whole thing prettified by innocents like Tavia.”

  Winter winced. She’d seen plenty of operations like that while scoping out likely places for the Alliance to hit. “You could have told her.”

  “I could have,” Bink agreed with a sigh. “Maybe I should have. But she’s so innocent that—look, I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that I have enough cynicism for both of us. Probably would have enough if we’d been triplets. I just don’t want her to become like me.”

  “I understand,” Winter said.

  And, oddly enough, she realized that she genuinely did. She and Princess Leia had both had that same youthful innocence wrenched from their souls by the struggle against the Empire.

  “I want her to be happy, Winter,” Bink went on earnestly. “I really do. But I also want her to eat regularly, and I don’t mean in a Kessel prison cafeteria. Until we have enough to set her up someplace safe—” She shrugged. “I have to keep doing this.”

  She seemed to suddenly come to herself. “Sorry. Did I pull out any of the seams just then?”

  “No, you’re fine,” Winter assured her. “But don’t do it again.”

  “Right,” Bink said. The darker mood had vanished, and she was back to her old cheerful self. “Sorry.”

  The room once again fell silent. Winter settled back to work, pondering how the universe could look so different to two so similar sets of eyes.

  Wondering, too, if this would be the score Bink and Tavia were both hoping for. The score that would finally give them freedom.

  Or whether tomorrow would be the last day they would ever have together.

  The morning had dawned in full, cloudless sunshin
e, with all indications of a glorious day ahead. A few white clouds had made an appearance around noon, but they’d cleared out by early afternoon. Now, with the sun nearly to the horizon and the sky to the east already starting to darken, there was every indication that the fireworks that would bring the Festival of Four Honorings to an end would play out against a full starry background.

  It was, Han thought, a good day to make 163 million credits.

  It would not be such a good day to walk away empty-handed.

  It would be a really bad day to get shot.

  He scowled as he strode along with the cheerfully jabbering crowds, listening to them ooh and aah at the flame spurts and fire tornadoes whipping across the air above the Marblewood grounds. His mood had been all over the charts today, ranging from the insanely optimistic right down to the frozen fear that they were heading into catastrophic failure. Right now, as he walked toward the mansion framed by the taller city buildings beyond it, his mood was hovering near the really-bad-feeling end of the scale.

  Which didn’t make any sense. He’d done everything he could. The equipment was ready, he’d been through every detail of the plan, and through skill or plain dumb luck he’d managed to assemble the perfect team to pull this off.

  Maybe that was the problem. Maybe the team was too good. Aside from the overall planning, there wasn’t really much for Han himself to do. Once he delivered the specially prepared data card to Villachor, in fact, his part was going to be over. He would go back to the suite, sit down in a comfy chair by the window, and watch it all unfold below him through electrobinoculars. He would have all the waiting, all the stress and worry, and none of the action.

  He scowled a little harder. He’d been the one at the helm when he and Chewie did the Kessel run. He was the one in the gun turret when there were pirates or mercenaries that needed to be shot off the Falcon’s back.

  And even though he’d spent most of that Yavin thing sitting quietly with the sun at his back, he’d known that if and when the time came, he would be the one who came blazing in to shoot those determined TIE fighters off Luke’s tail.

  Sitting around and waiting while someone else had all the fun wasn’t what he was used to. But for once in his life, he would have to settle for that.

  As usual, Villachor wasn’t hard to find. All Han had to do was look for the spot with the most elaborate fire displays and figure out which way people were going when they weren’t looking at the fire or heading toward the food and drink pavilions. Like most of the big shots Han had known, and pretty much all of the crime bosses, Villachor liked to be fawned over.

  Sure enough, the man and his two bodyguards were hanging out at the edge of a crowd that was mostly staring in openmouthed fascination at a fire fountain that seemed to be matching precisely the flow and movements of the water fountain that had been there two days earlier. A nice trick, Han had to admit as he waited for the line of well-wishers surrounding Villachor to thin out.

  Finally there was a lull. “Ah,” Villachor said as Han walked up to him, his voice sounding a little odd. “I wondered if you’d show up.”

  “I said I would,” Han reminded him. “I brought you—”

  He broke off as one of the guards stepped around behind him and something hard pressed suddenly against his side. A second later, the other guard had joined his buddy, and both of Han’s arms were being tightly held.

  Han looked at the men, then at Villachor. “You’re kidding.”

  Villachor’s lip twitched. “Quietly, if you please,” he said. Turning, he headed toward one of the service doors of the mansion, the bodyguards and Han following.

  Han didn’t spot any of the other security men along the way. Apparently Villachor wanted this kept quiet even from his own people.

  The reason for that quickly became clear. Waiting a few meters inside the door were three Falleen. The one in the middle was dressed in an elaborate layered robe with a long, tooled sash. Probably the Qazadi character Eanjer had mentioned, especially since the two Falleen flanking him had the hard-edged looks of bodyguards. For the first half second Han thought about trying to get in the first word, decided calm silence would be the better way to play this one.

  Probably just as well, since Qazadi clearly wanted that first word for himself. “There he is,” he said before the door had even closed behind the little group. “The human who in arrogance and pride thinks he can subvert a Black Sun official from his sworn loyalties.”

  Han looked at Villachor. The other’s expression was steady enough, but there was sweat on his forehead. “I’m just an employee, Master Qazadi,” Han said, turning back to the Falleen. “I’m not allowed to have arrogance and pride. I just deliver messages.”

  “Perhaps I should deliver a message of my own,” Qazadi suggested calmly. “Your body, for example, shredded into small bits of flesh and bone. Would such a communication be a clear enough message of the cost of challenging us?”

  Han swallowed. He could feel his heart racing as the fear flowing through him edged rapidly toward panic.

  It was the Falleen’s pheromones, he knew, that were driving that emotion. But knowing that didn’t do a bit of good. “I’m sure there are better ways to get what you want,” he said, keeping his voice as calm as he could.

  “What I want?” Qazadi asked, raising his eyebrows in feigned surprise. “What makes you think I want anything except your death and the death of everyone in your organization?”

  “The fact that you’re talking and not shooting.” Han lifted his hands, about all the gesturing he could do with Villachor’s bodyguards still holding his arms. “So?”

  Qazadi smiled thinly. “He is indeed a clever one, Master Villachor,” he commented. “Very well. I want the cryodex.”

  Even knowing that would be Qazadi’s demand, Han still felt a fresh ripple of fear run through him. “And in return?” he asked, knowing what the Falleen’s answer would be to that one, too.

  He was right. “A quick death,” Qazadi said. “Or, depending on what you can tell me about your people and your assets, there is a very slim chance that you may in fact walk out of Marblewood with your life intact.”

  “Sounds like a reasonable deal,” Han said. “I’ll need to call my contact.”

  Qazadi made a small gesture, and the guards released Han’s arms. Pulling out his comlink, he punched in Lando’s number.

  Lando wasn’t going to like this. Not one bit.

  “But why take him inside?” Rachele asked worriedly, her electrobinoculars pressed to her face as she stood by the conversation room window. “All he had to do was deliver a data card. Why couldn’t they do that outside?”

  “Maybe Villachor wanted privacy,” Lando said, wondering if it sounded as lame to the others as it did to him.

  It did. “Since when?” Winter countered. Her voice was under better control than Rachele’s, but Lando could hear the same concern. “Up to now he’s always preferred keeping us outside whenever possible. Changing that pattern is a bad sign.”

  Chewbacca warbled ominously.

  “Easy,” Lando cautioned. “Han’s a big boy. Whatever Villachor’s got in mind, I’m sure he can talk his way out of it.”

  At his side, his comlink signaled. Lando pulled it out and clicked it on. “Yes?”

  “Hey, Kwerve.” Han’s voice was just a little too casual. “Got a situation here.”

  “What kind of situation?” Lando asked, beckoning to the others as he keyed the comlink’s speaker to wide focus.

  “I’m at a meeting with Master Qazadi,” Han said. “He’d like to see our cryodex.”

  Uh-oh. “You mean he wants to see it work?” Lando asked carefully.

  “Yeah, something like that,” Han said. “I think it would be in our best interests to show it to him.”

  Lando glanced at the others gathered around him. Rachele and Tavia looked stricken. Winter looked controlled and calculating. Dozer looked jumpy. Chewbacca looked ready to go on a rampage. And Eanjer—
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  Lando frowned. Eanjer looked oddly guilty.

  What exactly could Eanjer have to look guilty about?

  “I can ask the boss,” Lando said into the comlink. “He’d have to be shown there would be a decent payoff for it.”

  “Let’s just say there’ll be some pretty nasty payoff if he doesn’t,” Han said grimly.

  For an instant Lando flashed back to that awkward scene on Nar Shaddaa, back after the Ylesian fiasco, when he’d been so mad at Han that he’d threatened to put a blaster bolt in his friend’s head. Han tended to spark that kind of reaction in people.

  But Lando had spoken in the heat of rage and frustration and betrayal. Qazadi’s threat was cold and calculated and very, very serious.

  “I’ll tell him,” Lando promised. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I have his answer.”

  “Make it quick,” Han said. “Master Qazadi doesn’t strike me as the patient type.”

  “Got it,” Lando said. “I’ll get back to you soon.”

  He clicked off. “Well, that’s made the day more interesting,” he commented. “Any thoughts?”

  Chewbacca warbled threateningly.

  “Of course we get him out,” Rachele agreed tightly. “I think the question is how.”

  “Actually, the first question is why, as in why the bottom is suddenly falling out of this thing,” Lando said. “Eanjer? You got something to say?”

  Eanjer started. “What do you mean?”

  “You got a call from your contact yesterday,” Winter said. “Did he say anything about this?”

  Eanjer swallowed hard. “I—” He stopped. “I mean—”

  Chewbacca took a step toward him. Eanjer twitched back, then seemed to shrink in on himself. “I’m sorry,” he said, almost too low for Lando to hear. “I didn’t think … he mentioned that Villachor had been making overtures to the Imperials.”

  “And you didn’t think this was worth telling us about?” Tavia bit out. “Blast it, Eanjer—if he makes a deal with the Imps, we’ve got no hold over him. He can play us without ever having to put any chips in the pot, knowing he’s got a pass if his hand doesn’t pan out.”