“Wait,” said Dash. “You said the Empire didn’t want Javul dead. Xizor wanted her dead.” More revenge.
“Yes, sir. That was my assessment based on my instruction set.”
“Then Edge was hired by Xizor?”
Oto tilted his ovoid head, his optics flashing. “I … am uncertain, Chief Rendar. There has been a great deal of … meddling with my software. But it does stand to reason.”
Dash and Mel exchanged glances.
Dash said, “I wonder if Xizor knows he failed.”
“Of course he knows, sir,” said Oto reasonably. “That was part of my instructions as well, from both Xizor and the ISB. And I am to transmit our location as soon as we drop out of hyperspace.”
Dash, Mel, and Leebo all moved at once. Leebo got there first and flipped Oto’s OFF switch, sending the droid back into dormancy.
Mel looked at Dash. “Bran knows we’re rendezvousing with the Nova’s Heart. Somehow we’ve got to get a message to Captain Marrak—let him know he’s got a spy on board—without tipping off Bran.”
“Excuse me,” said Leebo, “but isn’t Finnick also communications officer?”
“Yes. Yes he is.”
“Well, that complicates things a mite.”
Dash was thoughtful, his mind working swiftly through the connections, expectations, and agendas of all the parties involved. “Maybe. Or maybe it simplifies them … for us.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
WHEN DASH AND MEL GATHERED EVERYONE IN THE cargo hold and described the convoluted set of connections that all led back to the Otoga droid, Han laughed outright.
“So we’ve got a Black Sun underlord and a bunch of Imperials just waiting for Oto’s invitation to a party? Does that about sum it up?”
“I fail to see the humor in the situation,” said Spike. “If Leebo hadn’t been so observant …”
“What d’you mean you don’t see the humor? Can’t you just imagine what would happen if a Black Sun frigate and an Imperial Dreadnought popped out of hyperspace in the same spot? I’d pay to see that.”
“You may not have to,” said Dash.
Spike turned to stare at him. “You deactivated the droid, right? He can’t send the signal if he’s deactivated.”
“Yeah. But I think we should let him send it.”
Han met Dash’s gaze and grinned. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“We drop out of hyperspace with Oto deactivated and send Captain Marrak a message about his mole,” Dash said.
“Then we reactivate the droid and let him send his signal.”
Dash nodded. “Then we jump to lightspeed again and go—”
“To coordinates we’ll share only with Captain Marrak,” finished Javul.
Han frowned. “Why? I told you—I’ll take you all the way to Alderaan.”
“We may need someone to run interference for us. Draw the dogs off. Serdor’s good at that.”
“How’re you going to get a message to the captain without Finnick intercepting it?” asked Dash.
“All the cells of the Rebel Alliance have a shared code,” Mel answered. “We can use that to let him know about the spy in his crew.”
“Won’t Finnick know the code?”
“Bran Finnick isn’t part of our cell,” said Javul. “Not everyone on the crew is, even though I thought we’d vetted everyone pretty well. Finnick was Republic. No sign of any connection to Black Sun. Apparently, Hitch got to him somehow.”
Dash snorted. “I bet I can guess how.”
Javul shook her head, walking a slow circle around the dormant Oto. “I don’t get it. Oto’s been compromised since sometime last year. He’s been leaving our flank open to attack at every turn and hiding his activities. Yet he just opened up to you and told you everything. Why didn’t he tell us before?”
“If you knew anything about programming,” Leebo said, “you wouldn’t have to ask.”
Javul arched a perfect eyebrow and waited.
“It’s simple. Nobody asked him a direct question.”
Mel laughed mirthlessly. “And why would you? Who’d suspect a droid of playing three ends against the middle?”
They overshot Bacrana, holding to a course that swung them to Galactic East toward Cyrillia. Between Cyrillia and Rhommamool they dropped from hyperspace to send a coded message to the Nova’s Heart. The message was: We’re departing from our charted course under restrictive conditions. Material acquired. Will contact you.
Dash, sitting next to Javul at the subspace communications console in the forward circuitry bay, watched her send the coded characters. “I don’t get it. Where’s the hidden message?”
“It’s called a URC,” said Javul, “which is a sort of an acronym for ‘you are compromised.’ Literally a three-word sequence that begins with U, R, and C.”
“So how do they know Finnick is the source of the compromise?”
“The first word after the URC.” Javul nodded at the screen.
“Uh … material.” He shrugged. Then, “Oh! Mate. Is that it? You want Marrak to see mate within material?”
“Exactly. Now the question is: what will he do about it? He may elect to leave Finnick in place and just alert the other operatives in the group or he may decide to stow him in the cargo hold.”
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“I’d almost be willing to bet that he’ll leave him in place. Finnick may have just been paid to perform a simple task—or he may be an active agent regardless of the fact that Oto wasn’t aware of him as such. Hitch might be expecting to hear from him.”
The message sent, they jumped back into hyperspace, heading even farther from their charted course toward the Circarpous system.
“Why there?” Dash asked Han as they prepared for the next stage of their plan.
“Because it’s a busy system. It gets a lot of traffic and it’ll set us up for a fast run through a pretty sparsely populated region that’s off the beaten path … plus it gives us a straight shot to Alderaan.”
Javul poked her head into the cockpit. “Leebo’s ready to bring Oto back online on your mark, Han.”
Dash rose from the copilot’s seat. “I’d better go back then, just in case the tin can’s got some more surprises in store for us.”
“Suit yourself,” Han said.
In the hold, Dash, Javul, Leebo, and Mel waited tensely for the Millennium Falcon to drop to sublight speed. They felt it before Han sent down the message from the cockpit, but they waited for his signal. Then, with Dash and Mel holding blasters on the Otoga unit, Leebo reactivated him, but not without the extra security of a direct connection to his dataport. It was Leebo’s opinion that they should make absolutely sure he didn’t send some sort of additional information or a distress call.
Oto booted up, looked around, and asked Leebo, “We have reentered realspace, have we not?”
“Reality is a matter of opinion,” said Leebo philosophically. “But we’re no longer in hyperspace, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That was my query,” replied Oto. He was still for a moment, his optic half orbs dimming then brightening. Then he asked, “May I be of assistance?”
“You’ve sent our coordinates?”
“Yes, Chief Rendar, I have.”
“Then you’ve done your job, Oto. Take a nap.” Dash nodded at Leebo.
“I do not need a n—” Oto went silent again, his optics going dark as Leebo withdrew his interfacing digit from the other droid’s dataport.
“Well? Was there any additional messaging going on there?”
Leebo shook his head, but he was tapping a metal finger against his faceplate. “No … he just sent the comm, but …”
“But what? He’s a ticking time bomb? He called Darth Vader directly? What?”
“Relax,” the droid said. “It was no big deal. Just a sort of odd background noise.”
Mel looked at the droid sharply. “Background noise? What sort of background noise?”
&nb
sp; As if in answer to the question, the Millennium Falcon’s emergency klaxon sounded, prompting a shriek from Javul. All three humans in the bay pressed their hands over their ears.
Adding to the cacophony, Han’s voice blasted from the intercom: “Dash! Up here! Now! We have a problem.”
Dash bolted for the cockpit, gritting his teeth against the grating blare of the horn and the ache of his wounded leg. He threw himself through the hatch and into the copilot’s seat just as Han shut off the klaxon.
“What’s going on? Why aren’t we—?”
His eye caught on Han’s “problem,” then. A huge, black-hulled yacht easily three times the size of the Millennium Falcon hung over them like the threat of imminent doom. It had no markings on it. Glancing at the communications board, Dash could see it had not identified itself.
He swallowed. “Where’d that come from?”
“It just appeared there. Or just about. Dropped out of hyperspace practically on top of us.”
Dash’s mouth was as dry as the Jundland Wastes. “Black Sun.”
Han glanced sideways at him. “Y’think?”
“Can we throw this thing in reverse and get out of here?”
“You see that weapons port, there? The one that’s aimed right at me? Hi, fellas.” He raised his hand and waggled his fingers at it.
Dash took a deep breath. “It’s probably Xizor.”
“If it’s Xizor, why are we still alive? And how’d he find us so fast? Our little droid buddy just sent our position.”
“Oh, son-of-a-bantha.” Javul had slipped into the cockpit and into the jump seat without either man being aware. “Oh, you perverse, stubborn, boneheaded son-of-a-bantha! Where’s the comm?”
Han made a half gesture at the communications board in front of him. Javul reached between Dash and Han, shoving both aside, and activated it.
“Hailing Black Sun vessel. This is Javul Charn. What are you doing?”
Han’s eyes were wide as he met Dash’s over the curve of Javul’s back. What’s she doing? he mouthed.
There was a moment of dead silence, then a male voice said, “I might ask you the same thing.”
“Who, me? I’m just waiting around to get skewered by Prince Xizor and half a dozen Imperial vessels. You?”
“I’m tracking you—”
“Javul,” began Dash, “maybe you should—”
She bulled through both of them. “Hitch, listen to me: if we do not jump away from here in short order, a lot of really bad things are going to happen.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have time. Do you intend to fire on us?”
“I might.”
She cut the connection and sat back in the jump seat. “He’s bluffing. Get us out of here.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Han didn’t wait for her to repeat the order. He fired the thrusters, sending the ship back and down, then pivoted and shot away toward the Circarpous system.
“How did he know?” demanded Dash. “How did he know where we were going to be? Oto just sent coordinates and—” Dash broke off, remembering what Leebo had said about the funny background noise.
Han was watching him. “Bad feeling?”
“Very bad.” Dash took off for the forward cargo bay.
Mel was still there with Leebo and the dormant Otoga droid. Nik had joined them and sat on his makeshift bunk, looking scared.
“What’s happened?” Mel asked.
Dash held up a hand. “In a minute. Leebo, the background noise you were picking up from Oto—could it be some sort of homing beacon?”
The droid seemed almost to blink. “Uh-oh.”
“Can it be sending while it’s shut down? Please tell me it can’t be sending while it’s shut down.”
“It can’t be sending while it’s shut down … although …”
“I don’t wanna hear—aw … Although what?”
“You just said you didn’t want to hear—”
“Forget what I just said.”
“Although it’s theoretically possible that someone fitted Oto with an independent transponder.”
“How would you tell?”
In answer, Leebo moved to stand face-to-face with the other droid. He poked his data transfer digit into the dataport behind Oto’s left optical array. After a moment he swiveled his head to look at Dash. “It’s still transmitting.”
Dash drew his blaster.
Mel stood, waving him back. “Don’t. Not unless we absolutely have to. He’s worth a lot to us whole, if for no other reason than that we can study how he was compromised. He may also have intelligence on both Black Sun and Imperial operations.”
Dash hated complications. He re-holstered his blaster and pointed at the cargo droid. “Find it, Leebo. Take that mechanical traitor apart piece by piece if you have to, but find that transponder.”
“Will do, boss,” Leeo said. “What do you want me to do with it when I find it? Toss it out an air lock?”
“Not yet.”
“Where were you going to rendezvous with the Nova’s Heart?” Dash swung back into the cockpit to find Javul still sitting tensely in the jump seat.
Han called up a tactical display of the region on his console and poked a finger into the Circarpous system. “Somewhere in here—close to Mimban.”
Mimban was the local name for Circarpous V—a system ideal for their rendezvous because of its sheer size and complexity. Circarpous Major was an O sequence star, which meant that it had a large habitable zone. Traffic of all sorts—mining platforms, ore carriers, freighters, passenger vessels, and pleasure craft—buzzed through the system making “noise.” And noise, Han said, was exactly what they needed.
“But we can’t pop in there if we’ve got a tracking beacon on us,” he observed. “Has the tin man solved that little problem yet?”
Dash headed for the forward cargo hold, but didn’t make it that far. He found Leebo in the forward engineering bay just off the main hold, practically bumping heads with Mel and Nik as they examined something sitting between them on the circuitry console. Dara Farlion sat on the padded bench that ran around the holodisplay, trying—and failing—to concentrate on the three-dimensional schematic puzzle.
Dash had scarcely entered the area when Leebo turned and put a small, irregularly shaped object into his hand. “Here y’go, boss.”
The transponder. He blinked at it. “Deactivated?”
“Oh, no, I thought I’d just crank up the gain and let all of Black Sun and the entire Imperial Navy know where we are.”
“You know, I’d cheerfully punch you in the nose if you had a nose and I could do it without breaking my hand. You didn’t destroy it, though, right? We can turn it back on?”
“Yeah, but why you’d want to is beyond me.”
“That,” Dash said, “is why I’m the captain and you’re the funny tin sidekick.”
TWENTY-NINE
THEY DROPPED OUT OF HYPERSPACE WELL BELOW THE plane of the system’s ecliptic, and emerged in Mimban’s gravity shadow on the dark side of her largest moon, just a tiny blip among hundreds of other tiny blips. Han locked the ship in selenocentric orbit and ordered everybody to battle stations.
“I’m tired of getting caught with my pants undone—at least by nasty-tempered, oversized Anomids with attitude problems,” he told them. “So I want Dash in the—”
“I’m in the cockpit with you. I’ll take the forward lasers.”
“Just what I was gonna say. Leebo, handle countermeasures.”
The droid saluted smartly. “Handling countermeasures. Copy, sir.”
“Good. Dara, can you take care of the main weapons battery?”
“You bet. Cut my teeth on laser cannons.”
“I can believe that.” Leebo said aloud what Dash was only thinking. Spike ignored the droid and headed for the gunnery tower amidships.
“Mel, keel battery.”
Mel glanced at Javul, then nodded assent. “Nik, why don’t you come with me
? Probably time you learn something besides shifting cargo.”
The young Sullustan was on his feet in a flash, his huge, dark eyes sparkling. “Yessir!”
“What about me?” asked Javul.
“I need someone here in engineering … just in case we sustain damage. And to keep an eye on that.” He nodded toward the dormant Oto, who stood in a corner of the hold where Leebo and Mel had stowed him after his hasty reassembly.
They’d been at their various stations for perhaps an hour when the communications panel beeped. Han sent a shipwide heads-up, then answered the hail. It was Nova’s Heart. Javul connected with the bridge of her ship from engineering. “I’ve got this,” she said, and the cockpit communications feed went silent.
Han stared at the console, his mouth open in disbelief. “She just overrode the bridge. She’s got my control codes. How did she get my control codes?”
Dash wasn’t all that surprised. “She’s clever that way,” he said.
“Well, what do I do?”
That deserved—and got—a full-throated laugh. “You’re asking me? Let’s review,” Dash said, counting points on his fingers: “I’m the guy who thought he was providing token protection from an overzealous, stalking fanboy. Only it’s not a fanboy, it’s a Black Sun Vigo, after my client due to a case of mistaken identity. Oh, wait, no—not so mistaken after all. I’m really protecting her from an extremely mad jilted Vigo fiancé. But no, it’s not an extremely mad Vigo ex-fiancé, it’s the Black Sun Underlord himself I’m protecting her from, and he doesn’t just want her back, he wants her dead. Except that it’s not Prince Xizor who’s got her in his crosshairs, it’s the Empire, which means Palpatine, Vader, and who knows who else? But wait—there’s more! Because it’s not just an obsessed fanboy, or a jilted Vigo, or a pissed-off underlord, or the Imperial high muck-a-mucks who’re after her, it’s—wait for it—all of the above.”
Han was staring at him. “Was it really … I mean, did she really …”
“Yeah. She really.”
“All that and you haven’t bailed on her?”
Dash glowered at him. “I suppose you would’ve.”
“Blasted straight, I would’ve.”
Star Wars: Shadow Games Page 26