by Greg Rucka
Then the droid opened fire.
“PUT THEM AGAINST the wall,” Beck ordered. “If any one of them tries anything, kill them.”
“Ma’am,” the sergeant said, then jerked his arm. “You heard her. Move!”
The stormtroopers were in motion at once, tossing tables aside and grabbing the cantina patrons as they went, throwing them roughly toward the wall at the far side of the room. Protests, weakened by the threat of blaster rifles and Imperial impatience, were voiced, but none with conviction. Beck watched with contempt. It hadn’t been a nice cantina to begin with, and she doubted any of the criminal riffraff populating it were that nice, either.
When the squad had finished, there were fourteen patrons against the wall, plus the bartender, his one humanoid server, and a service droid. Beck looked the group over as two of the stormtroopers began patting each one down, her eye clicking softly as she viewed each of them through various spectrums. Three had holdout blasters tucked away. One, an old red-hued Twi’lek, was reaching for his. She drew her blaster and pointed it at his forehead.
“Don’t,” she said.
The Twi’lek didn’t.
Beck waited until the stormtroopers had disarmed the group. Not a one of them, including the droid, had been without a weapon. The pile on the only upright table was substantial, including two vibro-knives, as well as the standard assortment of heavy and light blasters, plus one thermal detonator.
“I’m looking for a man,” Beck said. From her pocket she pulled her small holoprojector, keyed it, and brought to life the file image of Ematt, three years out of date at the least. She held it out for all to see. “This man, a human. He is who I want. Not you. The sooner you tell me where to find him, the sooner you can go back to your drinking.”
Along the wall, the patrons shifted uneasily, some casting glances at one another, the rest staring at Beck. There was a satisfying fear in their expressions.
“If you do not tell me where I can find him,” Beck said, “I’ll have you all executed.”
The bartender spluttered, then found his voice. He was a Devaronian, one of the two horns rising from the top of his head cracked and missing its point. “You can’t do that! We haven’t done anything!”
“I’ll come up with something.”
“The Empire has no authority here!”
Beck sighed, stepping forward until she was scant centimeters from the bartender: he backed so hard against the wall she thought he might try to push his way through it. She smiled at him.
“I am the authority here,” she said.
“We haven’t seen him.” This was the Twi’lek. Beck looked at him, flicking her eye into thermal. Twi’leks normally ran hotter than other humanoids and this one was no exception, but his heat signature was even more elevated than normal for his kind. Fear could do that. Along with the thermal signature, her eye gave her pulse rate and respirations, and all these, used properly, could act as a makeshift lie detector.
“None of us have seen him,” the Twi’lek added.
“You’re lying.” Beck pocketed the projector, turning to head for the door. As she passed the sergeant, she said, “Bring him outside. The rest are free to go.”
She stepped out of the bar, into the Motok port, and wrinkled her nose at the assault of different scents. The place was filthy; the people were filthy, human and alien alike. Too many aliens, as far as she was concerned, and you could taste the corruption in the air. The whole planet was corrupt, like so many on the Outer Rim, like so many infected by the Hutts’ criminal taint. The Empire was occupied by matters elsewhere, Beck knew, but she sincerely hoped that one day the Emperor’s eye would turn toward these unlawful pockets of barely maintained civilization and chaos and bring much-needed order.
She would very much enjoy taking part in such an operation.
The sergeant emerged with four of the troopers, leading the Twi’lek, his hands now in binders behind his back.
“I don’t know anything,” the Twi’lek said.
“But you’re lying. I know you’re lying.” Beck gave him her sweetest smile. “And since I know you’re lying, I know you can tell me the truth. There are two ways for that to happen. The easy way is you will just tell me. The hard way involves an interrogation droid and a detention cell aboard my Star Destroyer.”
The Twi’lek blanched, his red skin fading to something closer to pink.
“So I think it’s an easy choice to make, but then again, I’m not you.”
“He wasn’t…he wasn’t dressed like that,” the Twi’lek muttered. “Not like in the holo, but I saw him, this morning, inside. He wasn’t here for long.”
“What was he doing?”
“I don’t know. He was waiting for someone, I think.”
“To meet someone?”
The Twi’lek nodded quickly, making his lekku bounce. “That’s what I thought, yeah.”
“And did he?”
This time he shook his head with the same vigor, making his head-tails sway. “No, he…he kept watching the door, and then he just got up and left, he just left.”
“To go where?”
“I don’t know, I swear on the Maker I don’t know!”
Beck used her eye, checked his vitals again. If anything, the Twi’lek was now more frightened than before, but nothing she could see told her that he was lying. She made a face and turned away, gesturing to the sergeant to release him.
“You’re letting me go?” The Twi’lek twisted his head, watching as the sergeant unfastened the binders. He brought his freed hands up, rubbing his wrists. “Thank you! Thank you!”
Beck paused. “You know the man was a rebel?”
“I thought he might be, maybe.”
Beck sighed, suddenly tired.
“All rebels and rebel sympathizers are to be shot on sight,” she said.
She didn’t even have to look at the sergeant, didn’t bother to turn around. There was a fraction’s pause, then the sound of the sergeant’s blaster firing, and a moment later the heavy thump of the Twi’lek hitting the ground.
“Get the body out of the street,” Beck told the sergeant, again producing her holoprojector. She tabbed the comm button, and a moment later a miniature and shimmering projection of Captain Hove appeared.
“Commander, any progress?”
“I have a confirmed sighting as of this morning. I want a full detachment brought down immediately. We’ll begin a grid search of the city, working out from the port.”
Hove’s image turned away from the camera, and Beck watched as he relayed her orders to some unseen officer on the Vehement’s bridge. He turned back to face her.
“You’re certain he’s still on planet?”
“You’re better equipped to answer that than I, Captain.”
“We’ve had no ships take off from Motok since we arrived.”
Beck started to form the word good, but something in the way he’d said it made her hold back.
“You sound uncertain, Captain Hove.”
“No, Commander. No takeoffs, I assure you.”
“But…?”
Hove shifted in the image, pulled at the high collar of his uniform. “There’ve been a handful of landings, nothing really out of the ordinary. One of them gave us pause, but we let it through.”
“Tell me.”
“Light freighter, the Lost and Found. We cleared it for landing about half an hour ago. Its registration checked out, but it was out of date. I checked after we’d cleared it, and it matches the markings of a ship that was put on the watch list a couple days ago. Some unpleasantness leaving Tatooine, I gather.”
“Why didn’t you inform me of this earlier?”
“Cyrkon is notorious as a hub for pirates and smugglers, Commander. It’s not uncommon for a vessel to use an alias. It wasn’t until I checked that I saw it was a known vessel.”
“Which bay?”
“I hardly think this matters, Commander. I just wanted to inform—”
“I didn’t ask what you think and I certainly don’t care, Captain. Which bay?”
Hove, in her palm, looked away, checking something out of sight. “Bay seven thirty-two. But I really don’t see—”
Beck jabbed the emitter in her hand, making Hove vanish midsentence. They were in the eighteen hundreds, with bay seven thirty-two more than a kilometer away.
“They’re here to rescue him,” she told the sergeant.
She began to run, the clatter of the stormtroopers close at her back.
“LOOK,” SOLO SAID. “Can we talk about this?”
The answer came in the form of another salvo of blaster fire ripping overhead, narrowly skimming the top of the overturned zeezfuruit cart that Solo had taken cover behind. Shards of masonry showered down, pieces of it vaporized into a fine dust that made him sneeze. He glanced to his right, checking on Chewie. The Wookiee had taken cover behind what had once been a shiny and brand-new landspeeder. It was big enough to shield Chewie from the bounty hunters’ collective fire, but unfortunately for the vehicle, it had now been hit in a dozen places and its windshield reduced to shards.
That landspeeder’s owner was not going to be happy when he or she got back, Solo thought.
The Wookiee was reloading his bowcaster, palming one of the clips from his bandolier and slapping it into place on the weapon. He grunted at Solo.
“I am trying to think of something,” Solo said.
There was another salvo, and Solo shifted in his crouch. Chewie was watching him—Solo nodded, and both moved at once to return fire. The bounty hunters had similarly gone for cover. The droid was positioned behind one of the heavy support columns along one side of the promenade, but the Gran was, for the moment, exposed. Solo snapped off two shots in quick succession, the first catching the Gran high on the left shoulder, the second missing. The Gran cursed in Huttese.
Chewie roared and Solo heard the bowcaster’s distinctive snap, catching in his periphery the flight of the long, slower-moving bolt launched from the weapon. The pillar the droid was hiding behind took the hit, but a significant chunk of the permacrete vaporized.
Solo ducked back down, exhaling and adjusting the DL-44 in his hand. This was not going well. They were wasting time, and with all this shooting, it wouldn’t be long before an Imperial parade of bucketheads showed up to investigate the commotion.
Something ominously heavy clattered onto the ground nearby and rolled into view, whining as it approached steadily and rapidly. Without thinking, Solo lashed out a foot, the toe of his boot catching the metal ball and sending it bouncing off one of the sidewalls of the now nearly deserted promenade. An instant later the ball exploded, and Solo felt a moment’s gratitude that this part of the port had cleared almost instantly when the shooting had begun. Bounty hunters came in all shapes and sizes, all of them with their own axes to grind. Some, he knew, were very careful on the job, precise and professional. You could respect people like that, even if you didn’t agree with the way they made a living. Others, though, cared about nothing but obtaining their target. If innocents got in the way, well, that was just too bad for those innocents. They were collateral damage, just the cost of doing business. With the firepower these guys were carrying, Solo was certain they fell into the latter category and not the former.
But there was one thing that his experience had taught him was universal to all bounty hunters.
“I’ve got the money,” Solo said. “Listen to me. I have Jabba’s money!”
The firing stopped, and Solo snuck one eye clear of the cart, tightening his grip on his blaster pistol. All four of the bounty hunters were still behind cover, but they had heard him and he knew he had their attention.
“I’ll give it to you. All of it.”
Chewbacca looked at him in amazement. Solo ignored him.
“All of it, it’s yours—just let us go.”
“Where?” The droid’s voice, metallic and ill-modulated.
“It’s on my ship. You let me go and get it, I’ll bring it to you.”
“Solo.” The droid sounded disappointed. “If I let you go to the ship, you will not come back. We will come with you.”
“You come with us, there’s nothing to stop you shooting us in the back once you have the money.”
“Correct.”
“So you can see why I’d think that’s kind of a rotten deal.”
“We can offer you another deal,” the droid said. “We can kill you here, then take your ship and your money.”
“I don’t like either deal,” Solo said.
Chewie snorted in agreement.
Solo sighed and looked down the promenade in the direction he was facing, away from the bounty hunters.
There was a squad of Imperial stormtroopers approaching, led by an officer with a blaster in her hand. Solo quickly holstered his pistol and looked to Chewie.
“Put it down!” he hissed.
The Wookiee looked at him like he was mad, then in the direction Solo was pointing—and then he got it and promptly put the bowcaster aside.
“Rebels!” Solo shouted, pointing roughly in the direction of the droid.
The bounty hunters chose that moment to resume firing, and the officer and stormtroopers immediately scattered, splitting into two groups and pressing themselves against either side of the promenade. Blaster bolts sailed over Solo’s head, smashing into the walls and ground farther down the wide hallway. Solo pushed off from the cart and began running low toward where the officer had taken cover behind another of the pillars. More shots peppered the wall behind him; he felt the heat of one of the bolts singe his hair as he slid in next to her, breathless and not needing to work very hard at pretending to be scared.
“They’re crazy!” Solo said to the Imperial officer. “They were going for one of the ships and then something happened—they just started shooting! I think they’re trying to escape!”
“Stay back!” the woman said, pushing him against the wall. She was tall, almost his height, a blond with one blue eye and one cybernetic eye, glowing an infernal red and set in a black metal housing fused to her skin. It was frightening to look at. The scar that ran vertically from her hairline to her jaw along that side was deep, and the wound that had made it must’ve hurt terribly. “How many?”
“Four, I think,” Solo said, making his eyes wide. “Two aliens and a droid. They’re being led by a human.”
The officer’s jaw clenched and she pivoted, motioning to the troopers in position across the way.
“Set for stun. I want them all alive. We’ll need an ion blaster.”
“I can help you,” Solo said.
“You’ve done enough, citizen. Stay here where you’re safe. I’ll want to speak with you once these traitors are in custody.”
“My fr—my servant, he’s trapped up there.” Solo pointed to where Chewbacca was still hunched down behind the damaged landspeeder. “I need him. He’s very expensive to replace.”
“We’ll clear the route,” the officer said. She motioned again to the troopers opposite her, giving them the go signal. They moved the way stormtroopers always moved: quickly and precisely and as a unit, advancing in groups, giving one another support fire, making their way quickly up the promenade. The bounty hunters were shooting back, either unwilling to surrender their bounty to the Empire or, more likely, not yet realizing that the battle they were fighting had changed, that they were no longer exchanging shots with Solo and Chewbacca.
The group reached the landspeeder, and Chewbacca scooped up his bowcaster and ran in long-legged strides to where Solo was waiting for him. They each spared a glance back up the promenade.
“This is Commander Beck of the Imperial Security Bureau,” Solo heard the woman shouting. “Throw down your weapons and surrender and your lives will be spared!”
Chewie huffed.
“Definitely time for us to go,” Solo agreed.
The cantina was in a cargo hold, and the cargo hold was in the 1550-LEX they’d seen on ap
proach. It had taken only a moment to double-check that the ship was the one Solo and Chewie thought it was, Miss Fortune. They slipped into the docking bay without difficulty and without anyone paying them any attention. They approached from the back of the vessel, where the cargo ramp was down and a very taciturn Shistavanen was leaning against one of the hydraulic struts. They could hear music and voices coming from within. The Shistavanen held up a clawed paw, stopping them.
“Cover is fifteen credits,” he growled. He raised his lupine head, muzzle canted up to look Chewbacca in the eyes. “Twenty for the Wook.”
“I’m a friend of Delia’s,” Solo said.
“Everyone’s a friend of Delia’s,” the Shistavanen said. “Thirty-five credits, buddy.”
“Robbery,” Solo told Chewbacca, fishing the chits out of one of his pockets. He dropped them into the Shistavanen’s hand. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
They climbed the ramp into what had once been the substantial and reasonably spacious cargo hold of the ship. Technically, Solo supposed it still was the cargo hold of the ship, but that was no longer the purpose of the space, nor had it been for a very long time. Instead, there was a long bar top against the fore-end bulkhead, with transparent cases behind it displaying bottles and bottles of the finest liquors the galaxy had to offer. A half dozen small round-top tables filled the rest of the space, with two or sometimes three seats at each—and most were occupied.
The freight that got moved aboard Miss Fortune was primarily liquid in form, frequently intoxicating, and generally overpriced, but it came with the benefit of being served in just about the most discreet location possible. Miss Fortune needed no permits, paid no taxes, and, when the local authorities got wind of those two facts, could quite literally pick up and fly away at a moment’s notice to set down on some other world and repeat the process all over again. For people who made their living on the go, traveling from world to world—smugglers, scouts, mercenaries—it was the perfect place to have a safe and quiet drink and maybe catch up on the latest news.
Solo led the way to the bar, threading between the tables and bellying up between two empty stools. The bartender, facing away from him, was a human woman with short red hair. When she turned and saw him, a grin broke across her pale, lightly freckled face. Then Solo realized she wasn’t looking at him, but at Chewbacca.