Despite his frustration, Dayja had to smile. “You do play the pompous-jay role very well.”
“Thank you,” d’Ashewl said. “I’m glad my talents are still of some use to the department. And don’t be too annoyed that we missed him. It would have been nicely dramatic, snatching him out of the sky as we’d hoped. But such a triumph would have come with its own set of costs. For one thing, Captain Worhven would have had to be brought into your confidence, which would have cost you a perfectly good cover identity.”
“And possibly yours?”
“Very likely,” d’Ashewl agreed. “And while the director has plenty of scoundrel and server identities to pass out, he can slip someone into the Imperial court only so often before the other members catch on. They may be arrogant and pompous, but they’re not stupid. All things considered, it’s probably just as well things have worked out this way.”
“Perhaps,” Dayja said, not entirely ready to concede the point. “Still, he’s going to be harder to get out of Villachor’s mansion than he would have been if we’d caught him along the way.”
“Even so, it will be easier than digging him out of one of Black Sun’s complexes on Imperial Center,” d’Ashewl countered. “Assuming we could find him in that rathole in the first place.” He gestured toward the viewport. “And don’t think it would have been that easy to pluck him out of space. Think Xizor’s Virago, only scaled up fifty or a hundred times, and you’ll get an idea what kind of nut it would have been to crack.”
“All nuts can be cracked,” Dayja said with a shrug. “All it takes is the right application of pressure.”
“Provided the nutcracker itself doesn’t break in the process,” d’Ashewl said, his voice going suddenly dark. “You’ve never tangled with Black Sun at this level, Dayja. I have. Qazadi is one of the worst, with every bit of Xizor’s craftiness and manipulation.”
“But without the prince’s charm?”
“Joke if you wish,” d’Ashewl rumbled. “But be careful. If not for yourself, for me. I have the ghosts of far too many lost agents swirling through my memory as it is.”
“I understand,” Dayja said quietly. “I’ll be careful.”
“Good.” D’Ashewl huffed out a short puff of air, an affectation Dayja guessed he’d picked up from others of Imperial Center’s elite. “All right. We still don’t know why Qazadi is here, whether he’s on assignment, lying low, or in some kind of disfavor with Xizor and the rest of the upper echelon.”
“But we’re sure he’ll be staying at Villachor’s?”
“I can’t see him coming to Wukkar and staying anywhere but the sector chief’s mansion,” d’Ashewl said. “But there may be other possibilities, and it wouldn’t hurt for you to poke around a bit. I’ve downloaded everything we’ve got on Villachor, his people, and the Marblewood Estate for you. Unfortunately, there isn’t very much.”
“I guess I’ll have to get inside and see the place for myself,” Dayja said. “I’m thinking the upcoming Festival of Four Honorings will be my best bet.”
“If Villachor follows his usual pattern of hosting one of Iltarr City’s venues at Marblewood,” d’Ashewl warned. “It’s possible that with Qazadi visiting he’ll pass that role to someone else.”
“I don’t think so,” Dayja said. “High-level Black Sun operatives like to use social celebrations as cover for meetings with offworld contacts and to set up future blackmail or bribe opportunities. In fact, given the timing of Qazadi’s visit, it’s possible he’s here to observe or assist with some particularly troublesome problem.”
“You’ve done your homework,” d’Ashewl said. “Excellent. Do bear in mind, though, that the influx of people also means Marblewood’s security force will be on heightened alert.”
“Don’t worry,” Dayja said calmly. “You can get through any door if you know the proper way to knock. I’ll just have to keep knocking until I find that pattern.”
According to Wukkar’s largest and most influential fashion magazines, all of which were delighted to run extensive stories on Avrak Villachor whenever he paid them to do so, Villachor’s famed Marblewood Estate was one of the true showcases of the galaxy. It was essentially a country manor in the midst of Iltarr City: a walled-off expanse of landscaped grounds surrounding a former governor’s mansion built in classic High Empress Teta style.
The more breathless of the commentators always liked to remind their readers of Villachor’s many business and philanthropic achievements and awards, and predicted that there would be more such honors in the future. Other commentators, the unpaid ones, countered with more ominous suggestions that Villachor’s most likely achievement would be to suffer an early and violent death.
Both predictions were probably right; the thought flicked through Villachor’s mind as he stood at the main entrance to his mansion and watched the line of five ordinary-looking landspeeders float through the gate and into his courtyard. In fact, there was every chance that he was about to face one or the other of those events right now.
The only question was which one.
Proper etiquette on Wukkar dictated that a host be waiting beside the landspeeder door when a distinguished guest emerged. In this case, though, that would be impossible. All five landspeeders had dark-tint windows, and there was no way to know which one his mysterious visitor was riding in. If Villachor guessed wrong, not only would he have violated prescribed manners, but he would also look like a fool.
And so he paused on the bottom step until the landspeeders came to a well-practiced simultaneous halt. The doors of all but the second vehicle opened and began discharging the passengers, most of them hard-faced human men who would have fit in seamlessly with Villachor’s own cadre of guards and enforcers. They spread out into a loose and casual-looking circle around the vehicles, and one of them murmured something into the small comlink clipped to his collar. The final landspeeder’s doors opened—
Villachor felt his throat tighten as he caught his first glimpse of gray-green scales above a colorful beaded tunic. This was no human. This was a Falleen.
And not just one, but an entire landspeeder full of them. Even as Villachor started forward, two Falleen emerged from each side of the vehicle, their hands on their holstered blasters, their eyes flicking to and past Villachor to the mansion towering behind him. Special bodyguards, which could only be for an equally special guest. Villachor picked up his pace, trying to hurry without looking like it, his heart thudding with unpleasant anticipation. If it was Prince Xizor in that landspeeder, this day was likely to end very badly. Unannounced visits from Black Sun’s chief nearly always did.
It was indeed another Falleen who stepped out into the sunlight as Villachor reached his proper place at the vehicle’s side. But to his quiet relief, it wasn’t Xizor. It was merely Qazadi, one of Black Sun’s nine vigos.
It was only as Villachor dropped to one knee and bowed his head in reverence to his guest that the significance of that thought belatedly struck him. Only one of the nine most powerful beings in Black Sun?
Just because the Falleen standing in front of him wasn’t Xizor didn’t mean the day might not still end in death.
“I greet you, Your Excellency,” Villachor said, bowing still lower. If he were in trouble, an extra show of humility probably wouldn’t save him, but it might at least buy him a less painful death. “I’m Avrak Villachor, chief of this sector’s operations, and your humble servant.”
“I greet you in turn, Sector Chief Villachor,” Qazadi said. His voice was smooth and melodious, very much like Xizor’s, but with a darker edge of menace lurking beneath it. “You may rise.”
“Thank you, Your Excellency,” Villachor said, getting back to his feet. “How may I serve you?”
“You may take me to a guest suite,” Qazadi said. His eyes seemed to glitter with some kind of private amusement. “And then you may relax.”
Villachor frowned. “Excuse me, Your Excellency?” he asked carefully.
“You fear tha
t I’ve come to exact judgment upon you,” Qazadi said, his voice still dark, yet at the same time oddly conversational. The gray-green scales of his face were changing, too, Villachor noted, with a hint of pink touching his upper cheeks. “And such thoughts should never be simply dismissed,” the Falleen added, “for I do not leave Imperial Center without great cause.”
“Yes, Your Excellency,” Villachor said. The sense of dark uncertainty still hung over the group like an early-morning fog, but to his mild surprise he could feel his heartbeat slowing and an unexpected calm beginning to flow through him. Something about the Falleen’s voice was more soothing than he’d realized.
“But in this case, the cause has nothing to do with you,” Qazadi continued. “With Lord Vader’s absence from Imperial Center leaving his spies temporarily leaderless, Prince Xizor has decided it would be wise to shuffle the cards a bit.” He gave Villachor a thin smile. “In this case, a most appropriate metaphor.”
Villachor felt his mouth go suddenly dry. Was Qazadi actually talking about—
“My vault is at your complete disposal, Your Excellency,” he managed.
“Thank you,” Qazadi said, as if Villachor actually had a choice in the matter. “While my guards bring in my belongings and arrange my suite, we will go investigate the security of your vault.”
The breeze that had been drifting across Villachor’s face shifted direction, and suddenly the calmness that had settled comfortably across his mind vanished. It hadn’t been Qazadi’s voice at all, Villachor realized acidly, but just another of those cursed body-chemical tricks Falleen liked to pull on people. “As you wish, Your Excellency,” he said, bowing again and gesturing to the mansion door. “Please, follow me.”
The hotel that d’Ashewl had arranged for was in the very center of Iltarr City’s most exclusive district, and the Imperial Suite was the finest accommodations the hotel had to offer. More important, from Dayja’s point of view, the humble servants’ quarters tacked onto one edge of the suite had a private door that opened right beside one of the hotel’s back stairwells.
An hour after d’Ashewl finished his grand mid-afternoon dinner and retired to his suite, Dayja had changed from servant’s livery to more nondescript clothing and was on the streets. A few minutes’ walk, and he was out of the enclave of the rich and powerful and into a poorer, nastier section of the city.
Modern Intelligence operations usually began at a field officer’s desk, with a complete rundown of the target’s communications, finances, and social webs. But in this case, Dayja knew, such an approach would be less than useless. Black Sun’s top chiefs were exceptionally good at covering their tracks and burying all the connections and pings that could be used to ensnare lesser criminals. In addition, many of those hidden connections had built-in flags to alert the crime lord to the presence of an investigation. The last thing Dayja could afford would be to drive Qazadi deeper underground or, worse, send him scurrying back to Imperial Center where he would once again be under the direct protection of Xizor and the vast Black Sun resources there.
And so Dayja would do this the old-fashioned way: poking and prodding at the edges of Black Sun’s operations in Iltarr City, making a nuisance of himself until he drew the right person’s attention.
He spent the rest of the evening just walking around, observing the people and absorbing the feel and rhythms of the city. As the sky darkened toward evening he went back to one of the three clandestine dealers he’d spotted earlier and bought two decagrams of Nyriaan spice, commenting casually about the higher quality of the drug that he was used to.
By the time he was ready to head back to the hotel he had bought samples from two more dealers, making similar disparaging observations each time. Black Sun dealt heavily in Nyriaan spice, and there was a good chance that all three dealers were connected at least peripherally to Villachor. With any luck, news of this contemptuous stranger would begin filtering up the command chain.
He was within sight of the enclave’s private security force station when he was jumped by three young toughs.
For the first hopeful moment he thought that perhaps Black Sun’s local intel web was better than he’d expected. But it was quickly clear that the thugs weren’t working for Villachor or anyone else, but merely wanted to steal the decagrams of spice he was carrying. All three of the youths carried knives, and one of them had a small blaster, and there was a burning fire in their eyes that said they would have the spice no matter what the cost.
Unfortunately for them, Dayja had a knife, too, one which he’d taken off the body of a criminal who’d once had similar plans for him. Thirty seconds later, he was once again walking toward home, leaving the three bodies dribbling their blood away into the drainage gutter alongside the walkway.
Tomorrow, he decided, he would suggest that d’Ashewl make a show of visiting some of the local cultural centers, where Dayja would have a chance to better size up the city’s ruling class. Then it would be another solo excursion into the fringes, and more of this same kind of subtle troublemaking. Between the high classes and the low, sooner or later Villachor or his people were bound to take notice.
He was well past the security station, with visions of a soft bed dancing before his eyes, before the police finally arrived to collect the bodies he’d left behind.
Han Solo had never been in Reggilio’s Cantina before. But he’d been in hundreds just like it, and he knew the type well. It was reasonably quiet, though from wariness rather than good manners; slightly boisterous, though with the restraint that came of the need to keep a low profile; and decorated in dilapidated scruffiness, with no apologies offered or expected.
It was, in short, the perfect place for a trap.
A meter away on the other half of the booth’s wraparound seat, Chewbacca growled unhappily.
“No kidding,” Han growled back, tapping his fingertips restlessly against the mug of Corellian spiced ale that he still hadn’t touched. “But if there’s even a chance this is legit, we have to take it.”
Chewbacca rumbled a suggestion.
“No,” Han said flatly. “They’re running a rebellion, remember? They haven’t got anything extra to spare.”
Chewbacca growled again.
“Sure we’re worth it,” Han agreed. “Shooting those TIEs off Luke alone should have doubled the reward. But you saw the look on Dodonna’s face—he wasn’t all that happy about giving us the first batch. If Her Royal Highness hadn’t been standing right there saying good-bye, I’m pretty sure he would have tried to talk us down.”
He glared into his mug. Besides, he didn’t add, asking Princess Leia for a replacement reward would mean he’d have to tell her how he’d lost the first stack. Not in gambling or bad investments or even drinking, but to a kriffing pirate.
And then she would give him one of those looks.
There were, he decided, worse things than being on Jabba’s hit list.
On the other hand, if this offer of a job he’d picked up at the Ord Mantell drop was for real, there was a good chance Leia would never have to know.
“Hello there, Solo.” The raspy voice came from Han’s right. “Eyes front, hands flat on the table. You, too, Wookiee.”
Han set his teeth firmly together as he let go of his mug and laid his hands palms-down on the table. So much for the job offer being legit. “That you Falsta?”
“Hey—good memory,” Falsta said approvingly as he sidled around into Han’s view and sat down on the chair across the table. He was just as Han remembered him: short and scrawny, wearing a four-day stubble and his usual wraparound leather jacket over yet another from his collection of flame-bird shirts. His blaster was even uglier than his shirt: a heavily modified Clone Wars–era DT-57.
Falsta liked to claim the weapon had once been owned by General Grievous himself. Han didn’t believe that any more than anyone else did.
“I hear Jabba’s mad at you,” Falsta continued, resting his elbow on the table and leveling the barrel of his
blaster squarely at Han’s face. “Again.”
“I hear you’ve branched out into assassinations,” Han countered, eyeing the blaster and carefully repositioning his leg underneath the table. He would have just one shot at this.
Falsta shrugged. “Hey, if that’s what the customer wants, that’s what the customer gets. I can tell you this much: Black Sun pays a whole lot better for a kill than Jabba does for a grab.” He wiggled the barrel of his blaster a little. “Not that I don’t mind picking up a little free money. As long as I just happen to be here anyway.”
“Sure, why not?” Han agreed, frowning. That was a strange comment. Was Falsta saying that he wasn’t the one who’d sent Han that message?
No—ridiculous. The galaxy was a huge place. There was no possible way that a bounty hunter could have just happened to drop in on a random cantina in a random city on a random world at the same time Han was there. No, Falsta was just being cute.
That was fine. Han could be cute, too. “So you’re saying that if I gave you double what Jabba’s offering, you’d get up and walk away?” he asked.
Falsta smiled evilly. “You got it on you?”
Han inclined his head toward Chewbacca. “Third power pack down from the shoulder.”
Falsta’s eyes flicked to Chewbacca’s bandoleer—
And in a single contorted motion Han banged his knee up, slamming the table into Falsta’s elbow and knocking his blaster out of line, as he grabbed his mug and hurled the Corellian spiced ale into Falsta’s eyes. There was a brief flash of heat as the bounty hunter’s reflexive shot sizzled past Han’s left ear.
One shot was all Falsta got. An instant later his blaster was pointed harmlessly at the ceiling, frozen in place by Chewbacca’s iron grip around both the weapon and the hand holding it.
That should have been the end of it. Falsta should have conceded defeat, surrendered his blaster, and walked out of the cantina, a little humiliated but still alive.