Within half an hour of docking on Tatooine, Dash was in Kerlew’s facility promising him payment in full for Outrider’s retrofit. Kerlew was pleased. Dash was pleased. Everyone was pleased … until Kerlew gave his estimate of how long it would take to complete repairs on the hyperdrives.
“A week?” Dash gasped.
“More or less.”
“I need less, Ker. A lot less. As much less as you can manage. My client needs to be on Christophsis in four days.”
Kerlew gave him a wry look. “It takes a day and a half to get from Tatooine to Christophsis. That would leave me two days to do the repairs. I’m good, but I’m not that good. Besides, I’ve got other jobs—”
“Put them on hold. She’ll pay more if you give Outrider priority.”
Kerlew was skeptical. “She’s got that kind of money?”
“You have no idea. This is big, Ker. And important.”
The mechanic looked up at the Outrider. She sat in the middle of the bay, her engines completely disassembled. He sighed. “Okay, I’ll give it my best shot. But I’ll need the credits up front. I’m going to have to buy new power couplings for the starboard and central drives, and you know how Watto is about being paid up front.”
“No problem,” Dash said.
“Problem,” Dash said. “Kerlew wants payment up front.”
Javul cocked her head to one side and wrinkled her nose. She was sitting on the edge of a chair dressed for Mos Eisley in formfitting bush pants, a smuggler’s jacket with a multitude of pockets, and a pair of tall black boots all but identical to his own. “I’d pretty much expect that, under the circumstances.”
“Really? I mean, you’re willing to do that?” Dash frowned. “Wait—what do you mean, under the circumstances? What circumstances?”
“I mean, he doesn’t know who I am. I’m sure he’s used to people stiffing him for repairs.”
“Not me—I’ve never stiffed Kerlew. I never would. And he knows it.”
She held up her hands. “I didn’t mean to imply that you would. Anyway, it’s no problem to pay him up front. I’ll do it right now, in fact.” She jumped to her feet.
“Actually, it’s not that simple. You see, it’s like this. Ker’s not sure he can have the repairs done in the time frame we need.”
She frowned. “How long did he say he needed?”
“About a week.”
She sat back down. “That’s too long, Dash. We have to keep to our schedule. That means we have to be on Christophsis in four days.” She thought for a moment, then said, “Offer him more money. Maybe if he’s able to hire more men, afford more resources … In the meantime, I’ll try to come up with a contingency plan.”
Staring at the ceiling of the docking bay, Kerlew ran a hand over his lined face and considered Javul’s offer: more money to commit greater resources.
“You know how many months it takes a bantha to foal?”
Dash, leaning against one of the Outrider’s landing struts, looked at the older man. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’ll tell you—roughly eleven.”
“So?”
“So, if I have eleven banthas, d’you think I could have a baby bantha in one month?”
Dash gritted his teeth. “No, of course not. But Outrider isn’t a bantha.”
Kerlew sighed. “Look, Dash. It’s all about dependencies. Having more credits will get me the power couplings. In fact, I can have them within the hour. But it takes the same amount of time to install those new power couplings whether I’ve got two mechanics per coupling or four. And when it comes to wiring them into the main bus, only one mech will fit into the conduit tunnel at a time—well, unless they’re Sullustan, but a Sullustan’s arms aren’t long enough to reach the bus panel. Then there are flight tests. You can’t hurry those, either. With more money and more resources, I might be able to shave a day off the repair time, but no more.”
Dash rubbed his temples. He had the makings of a supernova headache. “Okay. All right. Just do your best.”
Kerlew gave him an offended look. “I always do my best.”
Dash made his way back to the Heart’s docking bay, where he found the scaffolding already going up for repairs to the exterior hatch. He took a moment to climb the ramp and take a look at the damage from the outside. It was weird. The scorch marks from the attack ran along the flank of the ship’s elegant fuselage and had clearly intersected the missing hatch. But it wasn’t deep damage. Not deep enough, he would have said, to have blown the hatch … without help from within. Someone had wanted that hatch blown out awfully badly. Someone with inside help.
He went aboard to find things in a general uproar. He found Mel in his office, going over the manifest.
“You get a close look at the damage to the external hatch?” he asked.
The cargo master nodded. “You’re right. It exploded outward. The emergency evac system kicked in and blew the cover.”
Dash frowned. “Was it triggered by the attack?”
Mel shrugged, his expression wary. “It shouldn’t have been.” He hesitated, then added, “There are four explosive clamps in the evac system—one at each corner of the portal. They’re supposed to fire off simultaneously to blow the hatch in case there’s a need to jettison the cargo. One of them was already damaged—someone set a small charge on it. That was the damage you saw to the top left clamp. I suspect that’s what triggered the other clamps.”
“You told Javul yet?”
“Not yet.”
“She needs to know.”
But Javul was nowhere to be found and no one had any idea where she’d gone—including Spike, which Dash thought was awfully peculiar.
By the time he’d scoured the ship from stem to stern, he was getting a really bad feeling about the whole situation. Finding that Mel had conscripted Leebo to help evacuate the cargo hold in advance of repairs, Dash went in search of Eaden. He found the Nautolan meditating in their quarters—meditation being a rather inexact term, Dash thought, for the surreal position his partner was in when he entered the suite.
Eaden was seated cross-legged … fifteen centimeters from the floor. His only support was the arm that extended down within the confines of his crossed legs so that he balanced on the palm of one hand. Dash stopped just inside the door and stared. Then he fidgeted. Then he cleared his throat.
Eaden half opened one maroon eye, then closed it again. While Dash watched, the teräs käsi master uncoiled from his cross-legged position—still supported by that single hand—until his body was stretched out horizontal to the floor. Then he moved sinuously into a full handstand from which he flipped himself upright with the grace of a predator hunting prey.
“What was that?” Dash asked.
“What was what?”
Dash gestured at the spot Eaden had occupied moments before. “That … what you did just then. Is that teräs käsi stuff?”
“Teräs käsi … stuff?”
“Okay, moves. Were those teräs käsi moves? I mean, I’ve seen you practice forms before, but—”
“I was meditating in a posture known as Sleeping Krayt, so named for the krayt dragon that is native to this world. I then performed the Leaping Veermok.”
“Whoa. Doesn’t your arm hurt? I mean, my arm hurts just from watching you.”
“My arm does not hurt,” Eaden said. “You wanted something?”
“Huh? Oh—yeah.” Dash shook himself. “She’s disappeared again. Javul. I want to find her before she does something stupid.”
“More so than she has already?”
Remembering Javul’s excursion on Rodia, Dash had to admit that was a tough act to follow.
“I figure we’ll check Chalmun’s first,” Dash said as they strode along the dusty avenue toward Kerner Plaza. “Since that’s where we met her originally, she might’ve gone there to see if she could come up with a backup plan. If not, someone there might’ve seen her.” Eaden didn’t reply, but his head-tentacles, to Das
h at least, seemed on high alert. Dash kept looking about as they walked, but he didn’t see any sign of Javul on the way to the cantina. Once inside the crowded main room, Dash blinked to banish the lingering glare of the twin suns. Eaden, who wore his moisture suit with its protective goggles, was not similarly affected. He made his way immediately to the bar and engaged the bartender in a brief conversation. Dash reached him as he turned from the counter.
“She is here,” Eaden said. He tilted his head toward the rearmost booth.
Dash let out a whoosh of air. “Thank … whatever deity is in charge of protection from lame-brain moves. Let’s go.”
He led the way to the booth where, not that long ago, they had first met Javul Charn and her spiky sidekick. He was prepping himself for what he would say to her—something about having a death wish maybe, or asking if her contingency plan included getting herself killed. Should he glare at her, or appear nonchalant?
He stepped into the booth’s narrow entrance, swiftly deciding on wry condescension. “Is this your idea of coming up with a contingency plan?” he said, then nearly choked. “You!”
Han Solo spread his hands in an expressive gesture of bemusement. “Yeah, me.” He put a hand to his ear. “What’s that you say? ‘Thanks, Han, for getting my lousy cargo to Nal Hutta’? No problem, old buddy. I mean, there’s a palace insurrection going on there or something—I sure wouldn’t know—and I don’t think Jabba was even onworld. Which meant I had to dump the whole load on the open market on Nar Shaddaa. ‘How’d you do, Han?’ I did pretty well, thanks. Got more for the load than I expected, given the circumstances. But here I am, all in one piece—thanks for caring—and your share of the credits is already in your account. It’s not much, but it’s better than what you had when you rolled in.”
Dash sputtered for a moment, then looked at Javul. She was attempting, with little success, to hide a grin.
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes what?”
“This is my idea of coming up with a contingency plan. In fact, you’re looking at my contingency plan: Captain Solo is going to take us to Christophsis—and beyond, if necessary.”
FIFTEEN
“I QUIT.”
Javul and Han stared at Dash. Her expression was incredulous; Han rolled his eyes. Actually rolled his eyes.
“You’re kidding,” said Javul. “Dash, I need you more now than ever.”
“Oh, really? And why is that? You’ve got Old Hotshot here. What do you need with me?”
“Old Hotshot here is going to be piloting the ship. I still need a security chief.”
“Yeah,” said Solo, with that annoying slow grin. “And I need a copilot and navigator. And Chewie’s still on Kashyyyk—won’t be back on Tatooine for at least two weeks.”
Dash’s face suffused with heat. “Me? You want me to be your navigator? When Mustafar freezes over.”
“Actually, I was thinking of Eaden. I hear he’s a pretty good second in command.”
“You lame-brained, arrogant son-of-a-spavined-nerf—”
Javul reached up and caught Dash’s wrist. “Dash, please. I really do need you. I’m scared, okay? Really and truly scared.”
He shook her hand from his arm. “I’ll see you back at the ship. We can discuss this later.” He glared at Han. “When do you leave?”
“As soon as your crew can get the cargo moved over to the Falcon. I’ll go to the bay now and open up the passenger quarters. Air ’em out. It’s been a while since the old girl had guests.”
“Fine,” Dash said and left. Behind him he heard Han ask Eaden, “So, you ever pilot a YT-1300? Of course the Falcon’s nothing like a stock model.”
“I doubt there will be a problem.”
Dash had cleared his belongings from his quarters on the Nova’s Heart by the time Javul returned to the ship. He was going to move them back to the Outrider, he told himself. Figure out some way to have Kerlew finish the repairs. Maybe there was enough credit in his account to at least make her spaceworthy. Then some weird little voice in his head started nattering that he really ought to just stuff his ego and haul his body over to the Falcon’s berth in Docking Bay 94. Javul was in danger—he knew that more now than ever. There was no way that air lock blew out without inside help. She had to know that, at least, before he left …
If he left.
“Don’t quit on me, please, Dash,” she said when she found him glaring out of his window into the docking bay.
He didn’t respond. Just kept glaring out the window.
She sighed heavily. “What’ll it take for you to stay?”
He turned to face her, took a step forward—and nearly tripped over the MSE droid that Leebo had claimed as a pet. It was busily vacuuming the carpet.
That was the straw that broke the bantha’s back, as far as Dash was concerned. He kicked the tiny cleaning unit across the length of his quarters. Mousie landed on its side, righted itself, and fled a short distance before it cowered between Leebo’s legs, the droid having entered just in time to see what had happened. “Hey!” he said indignantly. “Pick on someone your own size!”
“Suits me,” said Dash, who had crossed the small chamber by the time Leebo finished his challenge. Before the droid could react, Dash reached out and flicked Leebo’s master control switch to OFF. The droid drooped like a marionette whose strings had been lasered.
Dash, anger momentarily quelled, looked at Javul, who raised an eyebrow at him.
“Leebo’s right, you know. You really ought to pick on someone closer to your own size.”
“Like you, maybe? Level with me, Javul. What’s really going on with your ex?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“This is not just good love gone bad, is it? And it’s not just that you kept some of his toys—at least, I assume the Heart was his property at one time.”
“Actually, no. The Heart belonged to someone else with reasons for escape routes and secret hiding places.”
“But—?”
She bit her lip. “Okay. All right. I’ll … it’s like this. When I left Hitch he was angry, sure, and threatened and pleaded—mostly threatened—to try to get me back. When I refused, he made a show of cutting off contact with me, but then I discovered he was still hiding his illicit goods in my gear. Like I said: drugs, weapons, illegal tech … and people.”
“Wait … this kept happening after you parted company? You told me he tried to use your tour but—”
“He succeeded. I told you before: the dead ambassador wasn’t the last supposed stowaway we had, nor was he the only sort of cargo Kris snuck onto the Heart. We found all sorts of ‘items’ among our gear. When we found them in time, we left them in the loading bay or ‘liberated’ them. We didn’t always find them in time. He actually managed to get a few people through alive—mostly.”
“What sort of people?”
“Some of them were the victims of turf wars between Hitch and his fellow Vigos; some of them were criminals on the run; some of them were political abductees. And honestly, I’m pretty sure Kris wasn’t the only one with access to my ship and cargo.”
Chilled, Dash asked, “What makes you say that?”
“The ones that didn’t make it. Like that ambassador. I don’t think his death was accidental.”
The ones that didn’t make it? “How many bodies are we talking about?” Dash asked.
“Three … that we found. All supposedly suffocated.” She crossed her arms over her chest as if she were cold.
“So what did you do?”
“What I told you before. I went to the Imperial Security Bureau. They raided my ship, confiscated things and people, and …” She hesitated, took a deep breath. “They made some arrests within Black Sun that netted several lieutenants in the central organization and came oh-so-close to Kris himself. My tours have gone off without a hitch ever since.”
“Until now,” Dash noted. “And I admire how you were able to use that pun with a straight face. So yo
u didn’t just embarrass old Hitch and lose him a courier vessel; you almost got him fried.”
“I did.”
“And you put a hole in Black Sun’s operations.”
“I did that, too.”
“So this is revenge for Kris.”
“Of the worst kind, Dash. He’s basically giving me two choices: come back into the fold and be a good little soldier—or die. He doesn’t just want my ship. He wants me.”
“And it’s payback for messing with Black Sun, too, isn’t it?”
She looked so lost for a moment, he almost put his arms around her. Instead he put his hands on his hips, hoping he looked intimidating. “Admit it, Javul. It’s not just Hitch Kris who’s after you, is it? It’s Black Sun itself. It’s Prince Xizor.”
She lowered her eyes, folded her arms across her breasts, and nodded.
“Okay. So you’ve told me what I wanted to know. Now I’ll tell you what I know. I know that the cargo hold air lock blew out from the inside.”
Her face paled and she sat down on the edge of a table. “The—the emergency jettison system?”
“Mel thinks it was triggered.”
She swallowed, peering up at him through her lashes. “By what?”
“The attack may have damaged it, but someone wanted to make sure it blew. Someone aboard the Nova’s Heart. Looks like someone may have planted a small charge in one of the four outer hatch fail-safe mechanisms. Whether it was blown from inside or triggered by the laserfire doesn’t really matter. Either way—”
“Either way someone has access to my ship—either a stowaway or a mole among my crew.” She glanced up at him, eyes glittering. “The cargo. If we move it to Han’s ship—”
Han already, was it? “I’m one step ahead of you. Mel and Oto are checking every crate as it leaves the hold. And you said it yourself—it’s not just Hitch who’s had access to the Nova’s Heart.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I get that.”
After a beat, he asked, “Have you thought about who’s coming with us on the Falcon?”
She hit him with a dazzling smile that was so unexpected, his pulse kicked up a notch. “Us? Does that mean you’re still my security chief?”
Star Wars: Shadow Games Page 13