tell me. Fen.” she said. “What is going on here?”
“Should be obvious,” Fen said, craning her neck to see over Shada’s shoulder. “With that wind shear slamming the ship down stern first and the rough ride out. I figured the shield had probably gone weak back there.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?” Fen asked, trying to sound innocent and sly at the same time.
Shada glanced up at her. “I meant what are you doing with…” She seemed to struggle to find a suitable word, finally gave up. “Her.”
“Ghitsa?” Fen laughed. “She’s not bad with a datapad, and she can cook.”
“And she’s got Coruscantan Imperial stamped all over her,” Shada said bluntly. “What do you really know about her?”
“Probably no more than you do,” Fen countered. “Come on, Shada. I know the Mistryl have her mapped out. Her entry is probably right next to mine in the ‘useful but untrustworthy’ category.”
“She’s not Jett, though, is she?” Shada observed quietly, the question really a statement.
A thick, tense silence hung in the air. “That’s the whole point,” Fen finally replied, her voice dead.
Shada’s next words were careful, like a sculptor gently carving a piece of limestone. “Jett Nabon was a man of great compassion.”
“And look where that got him,” Fen spat. “Dead on the floor of an Ord Mantell cantina, with a bunch of drunks stepping over his carcass for last call at the bar. He might have lived if someone had bothered to pull the vibroblade out of his throat, but nobody showed him any compassion.”
“His compassion also brought trade to the Mistryl when almost no one else would,” Shada continued, ignoring the outburst. “I think that’s why the Eleven agreed to this contract with you, despite their misgivings about your partner. Because we honor his memory.”
“And look where it got you.” Fen pointed over Shada’s shoulder at one of the flux rods. “Make sure you tighten that one,” she said. “It can jar loose sometimes.”
“Already did.” Shada picked up the panel and snapped it back in place before speaking again. “That same compassion compelled Jett to pull a young, abandoned pickpocket off the streets of Coronet and adopt her as his own.”
“Guess you could say that was another one of his mistakes, huh?”
Silently, Shada returned the tools to their wall case. Still silently, she headed forward, leaving Fen alone with her memories.
Since Leb’Reen, Fen could but marvel at how Ghitsa managed to sneak the word “mercenary” or “Imperial” into every exchange with Dunc lasting more than two sentences. It kept the conversation entertaining and far more dangerous than Fen normally preferred.
She and Ghitsa were now waiting in the cabin. Dunc and Shada were forward for their first course correction. The itch to be in the cockpit became an ache as Fen felt the ship drop into normal space. Just when she thought the whole process was taking a bit too long, Shada’s voice called over the comm. “Fen, get up here.”
She was out of her seat and half-way up the passage before Ghitsa caught up.
As they ducked into the cockpit, Shada swiveled around in the pilot’s chair. “I want your opinion on something the sensor sweep turned up.”
A few degrees off the bow a metal cylinder turned lazily on a spindle. An antenna protruded from its top. Stang, Fen swore silently. The trip had just gotten a whole lot more interesting.
Shada was watching them closely. “It looks like a relay buoy,” she said. “Apparently, it’s picking up ship signatures as they drop in here.”
“Blast it,” Fen uttered curtly.
Shada was already bringing The Fury’s laser battery to bear on the buoy. “Yes. I intend to.”
“It’s probably too late, though,” Ghitsa opined as she eased into the cockpit’s rear seat. “Whoever put it there will know soon enough we were here and where we’re headed.”
“Who would care?” Dunc challenged.
For once, Ghitsa favored her with a straight answer. “Anyone interested in what travels on the smugglers’ hyperspace lanes between Ryloth and Nal Hutta.”
“Ryll pirates,” Shada said, making the name a curse.
“Or worse,” Fen said.
Shada deftly moved the targeter on her board. A sure punch and the buoy exploded, for an instant a brilliant orange glowing flower on the canvas of space. “Any particular ‘worse’ you had in mind, Fen?” Shada asked.
“The Karazak Slavers Cooperative springs to mind,” Ghitsa put in grimly. “The KSC used to ambush ships along this line looking for Twi’leks to sell.”
“Anyone who does this run will know that a ship from Ryloth will normally change course here,” Fen added. “Usually for a jump to the Naps Fral cluster—”
“—And then a set-up there for the final jump to Nal Hutta,” Shada finished for her. “Which means that a relay buoy here implies a trap waiting at Naps Fral.”
Ghitsa nodded. “The KSC was once very active on this route. Jabba stopped it because he thought too many valuable slaves were dying in the ambushes.”
Shada gazed at both of them, her dark eyes thoughtful. Dunc could learn much from that knowing, quiet surety, Fen thought. It was probably why the younger Mistryl had been paired with Shada in the first place.
“Jabba died four years ago,” Shada pointed out. “Were you expecting the KSC to have moved back in here since then?”
“There were reasons we wanted Mistryl,” Fen responded truthfully. “The possibility of the KSC returning was one of them.”
Turning back to her board, Shada nosed The Fury in the direction of the Naps Fral cluster. “Well, there’s no going back now,” she said simply. “Looks like you may get your money’s worth after all.”
“No!” Ghitsa protested with stamp of her shiny boot. “I am going to ride up front. I’m a perfectly capable co-pilot—”
“Forgot to take your anti-delusional medication today?” Fen cooed, pushing past her and into a cockpit seat.
Since the last course change, Ghitsa had harped endlessly on about wanting to be in the cockpit when they dropped into the Naps Fral cluster. She now curled her hands into tiny fists, reminding Fen of an extremely petulant toddler.
“She can stay,” Shada said calmly, as she slid into the pilot’s chair. Ghitsa smiled like a child just presented with a space pop. “However,” Shada added in the same tone, “if she says or does anything to annoy me or distract us, I’ll cripple her.”
“Unless I beat her to it,” Dunc added, her eyes on the monitor readouts.
“Give you a cool thousand if you let me do it,” Fen offered.
“I can too fly,” Ghitsa stated for the official record, dropping into her hard-earned seat.
“Sure you can, Ghits,” Fen mocked. “Just like the time your nav coordinates would have put us into Corellia’s sun?”
“We would have just grazed the corona,” Ghitsa said defensively.
“How about the time you were shooting at dust because you thought it was draining the shields?”
“It was draining the shields.”
“It was dust!. Blasting dust will just make more dust.”
“Put a cleaning rag in it, both of you,” Shada cut off the growing argument. “We’ve got work to do.”
Ghitsa bridled, but fell silent. “Sorry,” Fen said.
“As I see it, our worst case scenario is that we’ll find an armada waiting for us when we drop in,” Shada went on. “They may try to hit the engines with surgical turbolaser blasts: more likely, they’ll have a heavy ion cannon ready for a saturation disabling.”
“After which they’ll board us, take the Twi’leks, and kill us,” Fen nodded. “Which means they’ll try to be right in front of us or else aligned on our probable exit vector.”
“That was my reading, too,” Shada answered. “So our obvious countermove is to simply come in two or three seconds early.”
Fen swallowed as she
pulled up a chart of the Naps Fral system. Most hyperspace entry coordinates had a built-in “safety zone” of a second or two. In-system pilots knew to stay out of the zones to keep from having a ship pop into real space on top of them. Studying the chart, Fen realized Shada had, once again, done her homework. Three seconds would put the ship just outside the zone, probably not too close to anything lethal. Probably. Hopefully.
Ghitsa was clearly thinking along the same lines. “Isn’t altering your hyperspace entry point… dangerous?” she asked in a small voice.
“Very,” Dunc said absently.
“It’s definitely a maneuver with a warning on the box that says, ‘Don’t try this at home,’” Fen forced a quip.
“Stay sharp, everyone,” Shada said. “At my mark. Fifteen, fourteen…” At five seconds, she squeezed her hand over the levers, and star lines melted to the milky cluster of Naps Fral.
A flash of blue ion fire cut across their bow, the proximity alarm pealed, and Shada pulled The Fury around in the direction of the threat. In the span it took for the sensors to tell her what had just tried to paste them, Fen reached over and switched off the alarms, wondering why anyone even bothered with the prijgin things. If you needed them, you were already dead in space anyway. “Kuat Firespray-class ship,” she announced through clenched teeth.
“Switching over,” Dunc said, her voice unreasonably calm. The Fury shook as a pair of concussion missiles blazed off in the direction of their welcoming committee.
“Fen, find out what the computer knows about Firesprays,” Shada ordered.
“Right.”
The Fury jerked to port, then rolled starboard as Shada bounced between bursts of ion energy.
At Fen’s elbow, the computer display began spewing technical information. “’Puter says this model’s got a ticklish spot in the port shield,” Fen called. “Right below the stabilizer fin.”
“Stang,” Dunc muttered. “Wouldn’t you know we’d come in on their starboard.”
Shada pushed on the throttle. Still dodging between bursts of ion fire, she lunged straight for the attacking ship. At the last moment, she hauled on the rudder, bringing The Fury under the belly of the Firespray. There was a sickening crackle of ion discharge and a lurch—
“What does that red light mean?” Ghitsa asked, pointing over Fen’s shoulder.
Fen shoved the other’s rigid arm out of her face. “It means bad,” she spat. “We took a hit to that weak aft shield,” she added for the benefit of the others. “Another hit and we’re in trouble.”
“They won’t get the chance,” Shada gritted as they burst clear of the Firespray. Yanking on the throttle, she reversed the forward thrust hard, and flipped The Fury back over. The Firespray’s left fin and vulnerable. “Dunc?”
“Got it,” Dunc said, fingers flying across the console as she tracked the quivering Firespray and, from the sound of it, emptied an entire magazine into the left fin. The Firespray’s shield rippled with the force of the blasts, plasma ebbing and flowing across the ship’s hull like a flooded river. Dunc let fly another barrage, and this time the missiles pierced the other vessel’s weakening shield. Fire exploded on the ship, scorching its armor. Plates began peeling off the hull like a reptile shedding its skin.
Dunc switched over to the heavy turbolasers. The hot lasers carved through the Firespray’s collapsing shield, strafing the ship along its diagonal. Two explosions, one at the cannon and the other near the reactor, and the Firespray, true to her class, erupted in a brief and blazing shower of white, yellow and red.
For a moment they all sat in silence. “Well,” Shada said at last, her voice calm as ever. “That seems to be that. Well done, both of you.”
“Not a bad piece of flying, Shada,” Fen conceded, trying to get her breath back and wondering why she was so winded. “Though of course I would have done it without losing that aft shield.”
To Fen’s surprise, Shada laughed. “Fen, you have to be the most arrogant pilot in the galaxy. You want to see if the computer was able to pull an ID before we blew it into the next sector?”
“Let me check,” Fen said, keying the computer. A name came up. “Surprise, surprise,” she muttered in disgust. “It was the lndenture.”
“Well, well.” Ghitsa murmured.
Shada and Dunc exchanged glances. “Explain.” Shada said.
“You need to get out more,” Fen said bitterly, “if you haven’t heard about the Indenture.”
“Mistryl don’t move in the same exalted circles we do, Fen,” Ghitsa scolded, her customary tinge of superiority returning.
“And you can’t imagine how pleased we are about that,” Shada countered. “Fen?”
“That ship’s had more names and ID codes than a Gamorrean has morts,” Fen said. “Last I heard, it was traveling as Salvation, doing hit and runs for the Karazaks out on the Rim.”
“Firesprays are mostly used in law enforcement,” Ghitsa added. “I understand Krassis Trelix really appreciates the irony of using that kind of ship for slaving.”
“And Krassis Trelix is?” Shada waved out at the still glowing dust cloud. “I’m sorry: Krassis Trelix was?”
“Karazak logistics coordinator,” Ghitsa amplified. “A very nasty person, even for a smuggler.”
“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Fen added. Shada nodded with comprehension, and maybe satisfaction, too. Fen thought.
“Dunc, let’s get those coordinates,” Shada said. “Next stop, Nal Hutta.”
Fen rinsed the anxiety of the battle from her body. The water was flat and recycled, washing over her like a ritual cleansing that was really nothing more than a tepid sponge bath. She let her head fall forward and rest against the wall, taking a deep breath.
The KSC encounter had not been entirely unexpected. It had been a lucky break in some respects, and disastrous in others. She had done her part. Now it was up to Ghitsa to get them out of this developing jam.
Stepping into another battered flight suit, she ran a comb through her wet hair, slicking it back in what Jett had called her drowned womp rat look. Having already been to Mos Eisley numerous times by age fifteen, she had long before ascertained how rare a commodity water was there. Her adoptive father had laughed until tears ran down his red face when she had explained that, in the Tatooine desert, water was too precious to be wasted on drowning rodents. Only belatedly had she understood that that had been his point. She quickly checked the small grin threatening to pull at her lips.
At the cabin entrance, she paused, taking in the sight. Dunc was straddling a chair, watching Ghitsa seated near the back primly apply a new coat of nail polish. The omnipresent holo viewer hummed lightly in the background.
Fen eased back over to the computer terminal. With Dunc distracted and Shada tending to the shields, now was a good time to complete a certain task still on her checklist.
The first eighteen times Shada had caught her, Fen had appeared to be doing nothing more than playing battle simulations. Shada had her suspicions, but, as every female on that ship knew, there was a galaxy’s difference between doing something and actually getting caught doing it.
Ghitsa delicately applied a streak of vibrant red to replace the pink adorning her fingertips. Dunc watched with suspicious fascination. “Why are you using such an obvious color?” she asked.
“Ohta su marvalic plesodoro,” Ghitsa responded.
“Which means?” Dune countered.
“Huttese,” Fen said. “Let them marvel at our splendor.”
“It was a favorite phrase of Jabba’s.” Holding out her hand, Ghitsa admired the gaudy red shade. “Jabba understood the importance of flaunting prosperity to demonstrate power. Since Mistryl have nothing, this is something you cannot understand.”
Ghitsa sure wasn’t wasting any time. Fen subtly shifted for easier access to her blaster, wondering if a stun setting would stop a truly enraged Mistryl.
But Dunc merely cocked an eyebrow, the same gesture Fen had noticed Shada
using on occasion. “You seem to know a lot about Hutts,” she said. “One might wonder how that happened.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’re wondering at all,” Ghitsa said with a smug, evil smile. “Surely you’ve read the Mistryl backgrounder on me.”
“What backgrounder?” Dunc asked. Score one for Ghitsa, Fen thought. Although Dunc’s light skin would probably always betray the slightest stress, the young Mistryl was going to have to learn to lie better. She would have to remember to mention that to Shada… from a couple of light years away.
Ghitsa had obviously noticed the reaction, too. “Oh, come now, Dunc. Fen’s dear-departed, noble partner dealt with the Mistryl for years. As has Fen.” Her forefinger joined her thumbnail, both colored red. “So what does it say?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” Dunc suggested, her voice dark.
“If you insist,” Ghitsa sighed irritably. “Among other things, it says that I am a Hutt counselor. Do you understand what that means?”
Dunc’s mouth twisted in contempt. “It means you’re authorized by one or more Hutts to conduct business on their behalf,” she said. “Like this dancers’ contract between Durga and Brin’shak.”
“A nicely standard textdoc answer, shadow guard,” Ghitsa said approvingly. “But it doesn’t even scratch the surface. Shall I tell you what it really means to be a Hutt counselor?”
Dunc nodded her head slightly to the side. “I’m all ears.”
“Hutt clans appoint counselors to conduct their business,” Ghitsa said. “The skill and loyalty required to manage their complex schemes, plus a Hutt’s own longevity, dictate that counselors remain within a single unit, preferably a family. Dogders have orchestrated Hutt infiltration of Core World businesses for over one hundred and fifty years.”
Fen lifted an eye from the screen. This was news to her, too, if it were true.
“I see,” Dunc said in a cold voice. “What a splendid and honorable family history you have.”
Star Wars - Hutt & Seek - Unpublished Page 2