Honor Among Thieves: Star Wars (Empire and Rebellion) (15 page)

“This isn't good news, is it?”

Thirteen

“We have to leave,” Han said. “Right now.”

Leia stared at him as if he were gibbering. Her scorn almost had a physical weight to it.

“Fine. You tell her,” Han said to Scarlet, trying to get Leia to look at someone other than him. Scarlet took a step forward, nodding respectfully.

“Princess. We're trying to track down a criminal named Hunter Maas. He has information that the Empire badly wants to keep quiet.”

“No,” Han said, cutting her off. “No, that's not what we're doing at all.”

“I don't know the name,” Leia said, tapping her chin with one slim finger. “Haven't met him yet. Is he here at the conference?”

“There is an Imperial strike force looking for him, and they might be jumping in system any minute now,” Han told her.

“I think he will be,” Scarlet said. “Not as an invited delegate, though. He's got something to sell, so he'll probably be setting up private meetings and making the rounds at the bars and parties looking for a buyer.”

“Also,” Han said. “A bounty hunter put a tracking device on the
Falcon,
so he's probably on his way, too.”

“All right,” Leia said. “I'll put out inquiries. See if anyone I know has been contacted by him. What information does he have?”

“Or maybe the bounty hunter has sold our location to the Empire for amnesty,” Han said. “Or to Jabba. Really, he's in a pretty rough spot, and just about anything's possible, so we should really get our people out of here. Now.”

“He has an initial report from an expedition by Essio Galassian,” Scarlet said.

“I've heard about him,” Leia said. “He's an astrocartographer, isn't he?”

“And a murderous thug who likes beating people to death with his custom droids. I lived at his compound. He impressed me, but not in a good way.”

“All right,” Leia said. “And I take it we want to buy this stolen report.”

“No,” Han said. “We want to leave.”

“Buy it or steal it,” Scarlet said. “The threat of its leaking has mobilized more Imperial resources than anything I've seen.”

“Really?” Leia said. “That's interesting.”

“I don't know what it says,” Scarlet said. “But I know I want it.”

Leia nodded to herself, thinking. “Then I want it, too.”

“Chewie will have the ship ready to go in a few hours,” Han said. “So I think we should all head back to the docks now.”

“I've got a meeting I have to take,” Leia said. “Once it's done, I'll let you know what I've found.”

“No, because—” Han started.

“We'll be here,” Scarlet said and walked away, not waiting for Han.

Leia started to leave, but Han caught her arm and pulled her in close. “This is serious,” he said in a rough whisper. “When that Imperial fleet jumps in, they're going to kill this Maas and anyone who's on the same continent with him.”

Leia pulled her arm away. “Don't grab me.”

“Are you listening to me? Imperial strike force?”

“I heard you,” Leia said, crossing her arms. “But Scarlet Hark's reputation as an intelligence agent is beyond reproach. She's spent years on this. If she thinks this Hunter Maas and his information is worth the risk, then it is.”

“But once the Imperials jump in—”

“And,”
Leia went on, cutting him off, “this conference is filled with potential allies of the Rebellion, which means we owe it to them to warn them of the danger. In the right way.”

“But—”

“And,”
Leia said, “I'm not done here. I have a presentation and a number of important meetings.”

“Well, don't expect me to come worship at your feet. If giving a speech is more important than—”

“If I leave in the middle of it, I'd have been better off not coming at all. These groups fund the Alliance, Han. Where do you think we get our money? It's from places like this. Groups that want to end the Empire but don't have the will or the weapons or the numbers. They give us money so we can do it for them. If we look scared, that's not going to happen.”

“I didn't know that,” Han said. The truth was, he'd never much thought about where the rebels got their financing. He'd only ever worried about getting his hands on some of it.

“We'll figure out this Hunter Maas situation, I'll cement a few deals for alliances and financing, and we'll quietly warn the people who need to know about the Empire before their strike force arrives. I can handle this. It's what I do.”

He looked down into her eyes. He'd forgotten how dark they were.
What you do is get in trouble,
he wanted to say, but he could already hear half a dozen of her replies. She lifted her eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Han said. “All right, Princess. You talked me into it.”

“Oh,” Leia said with a sweet smile. “I wasn't asking.”

Han sat in a small, parklike courtyard. Large trees deepened the shadows around cool stone benches and fountains. Patches of grass and carefully tended flowers filled the spaces between gently curving walkways. The space was unoccupied, so Han took a seat on one bench, leaned back against a tree, and stretched out. Above, the thin strip of sky was a pale cerulean blue dotted with puffy white clouds. Kiamurr was a beautiful planet. Han pictured Imperial concussion bombs and plasma bolts tearing down through that serene sky like the thunder of an angry god, the carefully tended landscape turned into a nightmare of smoking craters. The Death Star might be gone, the Empire no longer able to destroy an entire world outright, but they could still turn the surface charred and uninhabitable.

Han watched the blue skies, waiting for the ships to appear, the bombardment to begin.

When it didn't, he called Chewbacca.

“Hey, pal, how's it looking?”

The Wookiee growled through a lengthy description of the damaged systems on the
Falcon,
then ended with an angry description of his feelings at being stuck with all the repair work.

“Yeah, sorry about that. We've checked in with Leia, but she doesn't want to leave until she gives another speech, and Scarlet finds this Maas character.”

Chewbacca growled and snorted.

“Yes, I did tell her. She apparently doesn't find that as urgent as I do. It's Leia. You can't tell that woman anything.”

Chewbacca barked out a Wookiee laugh.

“Speaking of which, you got that torpedo pulled out of the
Falcon
?”

Chewbacca growled at him.

“Yes, I know it would go faster if I was there. I'll be there, but I'm going to poke around here a little bit first. See if I can find out what we're getting ourselves into.”

After a final barrage of accusatory barks, Chewbacca closed the connection. Han looked back up at the sky. No Imperial fleet in orbit throwing fire and death. Strolling citizens chatted quietly, not running and screaming. The buildings gleamed in the sun instead of burning. Death had not come to Kiamurr.

Not yet.

The first bar he found was a structure made entirely of blue crystal and soft, velvety moss. He sat with a crew of gray-faced Neimoidians in elaborate hats who were happy to complain about the strictures of Imperial customs officials and how expensive they were to bribe. When Han angled the conversation around to Essio Galassian and Hunter Maas, he got blank stares and shrugs.

The next place was a dive cantina just outside the conclave itself on a thin side street where the bouncer, a green-scaled reptilian Barabel who looked like he'd have been as happy to start a fight as stop one, let him through with a scowl. Han sat at the bar, with alpif music shrieking out from the stage like a cross between a landslide and the galaxy's longest-running catfight. He struck up conversations with the barkeep and a Sullustan with ornate tattoos on his dewflaps and ears who claimed to have known Essio Galassian personally. It took Han buying three rounds for the diminutive Sullustan to be certain he was a blowhard making up stories to keep the liquor flowing.

The third bar was a temporary structure in a ballroom that was being rearranged. Droids were setting up tables and chairs, enough to seat several hundred. At one end of the room a small stage had been erected with a podium. The room was so large that even with dozens of tables and hundreds of chairs scattered through it, it looked empty. The murals of the jagged mountains surrounding the conference center that adorned the walls struck Han as silly. Why put up a bunch of walls to block the view, and then paint the view on the walls?

At the base of a painted mountain, a droid behind a long bar served drinks to half a dozen people, including two brown-robed delegates. Han ordered a Seikoshan whiskey. The sharp liquor burned his throat going down, but did help clear his head a bit. Knowing he'd have to meet up with Leia again in just a few hours, Han nursed the drink.

“I agree,” someone said to his left. A man in plain gray clothes with no badges or sashes designating rank. He was holding up a glass of brandy in salute. When Han nodded to him, the man tipped his glass and tossed of the rest. “The only way to survive these things is with a touch of the liquid excitement.”

Han smiled noncommittally and sipped at his drink.

“I'm here with a trade alliance,” the man said. “Non-guild.”

Smugglers,
Han thought. “Me, too.”

“I'll drink to that!” the man said.

I'd bet you'd drink to anything
. Han smiled and took another tiny sip. “Say, you know a guy named Hunter Maas? Runs with the Sendavé Collective?”

“Weapons,” the man replied, showing that he, at least, knew what the collective was. “Don't deal much in weapons.”

“I've got some personal business with Maas, so trying to track him down. Heard he'd be here.”

“Blood, money, or love?”

“Would you believe none of those?” Han asked.

“No!” The man guffawed at him. “No, I would not. But it's not my business anyway. Only know the collective by reputation, and that's all bad. Sorry I can't help.”

“It was a long shot,” Han said. “What about Essio Galassian?”

“Name rings a bell. Heard of a human went by something like that. Antiquities dealer. Explorer. But not for his main line. Doing it for love, not money. Hooked up with the Empire somehow.”

“That's the one.”

“I've heard he's a sadistic animal,” the man said with a shrug.

“Well, that'll make him stand out from the Imperial crowd,” Han said drily, and his companion laughed. “Let me get you the next one.” He waved at the bartender droid and pointed at the smuggler's empty glass.

“Thank you, friend,” the man said. “A generous soul is its own reward. You have business with this Galassian, too?”

“Might. It's a little hard to say right now. Sort of depends on how the rest of this conference plays out,” Han replied.

The man shrugged, thick shoulders rolling under his loose gray shirt. “It's good for picking up new contracts with like-minded folks. That's why my group comes. But do I think this ends with everyone holding hands and pledging to end the Empire? No. And only a fool thinks otherwise. The Empire isn't going anywhere, no matter how many battle stations the rebels manage to blow up. If that even happened.”

“Pretty confident it did.”

“That's as it may be, but I haven't seen any rebel fleets winning victories in my stretch of space. We're still sneaking past Star Destroyers to make our runs and dodging Imperial tax collectors at the ports. If the rebels are winning, I can't tell.”

It was like talking to an older version of himself. The man sitting next to him was who he would have been in a few years if he'd never dumped that cargo of Jabba's and gotten himself in enough trouble to take Luke and Ben Kenobi on their suicide mission. He'd be sitting in bars, talking about the fact of Imperial rule and the fantasy of a rebellion actually winning. It gave Han a strange sense of disconnection. Like he was watching the conversation from outside.

“That Alderaan princess, though,” the man continued after a few moments. “She's something else, isn't she?”

“Leia Organa?”

“That's the one. Makes me wish I was ten years younger or a billion credits richer.”

Han gave the man a false smile through gritted teeth. The server droid offered him another drink, and he waved it off with a quick shake of his head. The two brown-robed delegates he'd noticed in the ballroom had been replaced by a knot of whispering Lannik, who kept their heads together and spoke in urgent tones too low for Han to hear the words. A few people were starting to take places at the tables scattered around the room, and Han suspected the speeches were soon going to begin.

“Everyone loves the Rebellion, though,” the smuggler said. “We pine for the glorious freedom of the Republic of old. And she can give a fine speech. I'm sure she's gotten many offers of support and friendship. How many of them are going to hold up in an Imperial interrogation room? Not many. But we got six new contracts, and the Princess was a fine thing to look at while she speechified. And the dinners weren't bad.”

“Yeah,” Han said. “That's what I would have guessed. The glorious freedom of the Republic: meet the new tax collector, same as the old tax collector.”

“Ain't that the truth,” the smuggler said and tapped his glass against Han's.

Fourteen

The hall stretched out as long as a flight hangar. The high, arching ceiling had been shaped from the same pale stone as the mountains and carved by alien hands into complex designs that made Han think of bird bones. A dirty yellow light filtered down through it. Tables of food and liquor for a dozen different species squatted along one side, filling the air with a dizzying rich stink guaranteed to have something to offend any nose. At the other side, a raised stage waited for a speaker. For Leia. All he could think was how little cover there was up there against blasterfire.