Honor Among Thieves: Star Wars (Empire and Rebellion) (6 page)

Overhead, the traffic of speeders and personal fliers cast fast-moving shadows across gray and glass buildings that reached up so high, they appeared to lean in over the walkways below. Massive structures in a flat institutional style designed to be both functional and oppressive. And everywhere, at every intersection and building corner, the omnipresent eyes of the Empire. Sensor arrays and guard posts dotted the walls of every building. Sleek Imperial speeders cruised overhead, while squads of stormtroopers in urban pacification armor roamed the walkways.

“We may be in a lot of trouble here, Chewie,” Han said. He took off his weapons belt and put it and his blaster into Chewbacca's satchel. He pointed at the Wookiee's bowcaster. “Might have to leave that behind, pal.”

The Wookiee growled menacingly and clutched the weapon tighter.

“All right, here.” Han took off his long coat and handed it to him. Chewbacca wrapped the bowcaster in it until it was just a long cloth parcel that only looked a little bit like a hidden weapon. “Guess that'll have to do.”

Chewbacca hefted the wrapped weapon over one shoulder and growled out a question.

“Japet. We'll start with him,” Han replied. “He's the one who rolled on her, so maybe he knows where she's hiding. Besides which, we haven't got anything else to go on.”

Chewbacca howled and waved his arms around, pointing out the scale of the city and the size of the Imperial presence.

“Well, we'll just be careful, won't we?” Han said, annoyed. “We'll hit the port bars first.”

Growling to himself, Chewbacca shrugged and started walking alongside Han.

“And if we keep a bright smile and a jaunty step, we're just two more loyal and happy subjects of the Empire, right? No reason for anyone to stop us.”

If Chewbacca was unconvinced, he kept it to himself.

Han walked back toward the dock district where they'd left the
Falcon,
using as a landmark a particularly tall building with a copper-colored top that angled up like a spear point. He hoped there weren't two of them. He kept an eye out for a map or an information kiosk, but this area of the city seemed to be primarily warehouse space; there were far more droids than people, and almost nothing in the way of services for humans. Heavy lifting droids moved massive crates from building to building, and smaller tech droids—R2 and R3 units, for the most part—zipped about on obscure tasks. Occasionally, a squad of stormtroopers moved past in the distance, making Han change course to avoid crossing paths.

A street-sweeping droid rolled by, beeping quietly to itself as it scrubbed a stretch of walkway covered by an oil spill from a malfunctioning lifter. An eye on a long stalk tracked Han and Chewbacca as they walked by it. Han nodded to it as they passed.

“See?” Han began. “You just have to look like you belong—”

“Halt,” the cleaning droid said in a deep mechanical voice. “Present valid identification for foot traffic in warehouse sector eleven-B, or wait for Imperial officers to detain you.”

“Sorry, but we're pretty busy,” Han said, giving the droid his best smile. “So we'll just—”

“Halt,” the droid said again. Pieces of its silver shell slid apart, and half a dozen weapons appeared. “Present valid identification for foot traffic in warehouse sector eleven-B, or wait for Imperial officers to detain you.”

A port irised open, and a smaller sensor device protruded from it. It waved at them for a moment, then the droid said, “Weapon detected. Drop all weapons and place your hands or manipulating appendages in the air.”

Chewbacca dropped the coat-wrapped bowcaster and put his arms in the air. One long, multi-jointed arm darted out from the droid and picked up the package. The stalk-mounted eye stayed locked on Han. “Place your hands or manipulating appendages in the air.”

“Yeah,” Han said with sigh. “Already been taken captive once today, so pretty much at my limit.”

“Raise your hands,” the droid insisted stubbornly.

Han took a step toward the droid, and it rolled back an equal distance, its eye never moving.

“I bet you street-sweeping droids aren't really allowed to kill the citizens for something like not having the right identification.”

“You'd be correct,” a voice said from behind. “But I am.”

Chewbacca growled out an angry rebuke.

“I only have eyes on the front,” Han said, raising his hands and turning around slowly. “
You're
supposed to be watching behind.”

Chewbacca shrugged.

A smiling Imperial soldier held a blaster pointed casually at Han. He wore the black uniform of a junior officer, and carried himself with the smug certainty common to his rank.

“You may carry on with your duties,” the officer said, and for a moment Han thought he was being let go. Then he heard the whine of the retreating droid.

“Officer, we're—”

“Involved in that disturbance at the docks, like as not,” the officer finished for him.

Han took a step back and to the side, trying to get Chewbacca into the trooper's blind spot. The officer shook his head and stepped back to keep them both in view.

“Please stop,” the trooper said. “I have men on their way, and it really does look better on the reports if I take you alive.”

Chewbacca roared and the officer spun toward him. He was just starting to turn back when Han hit him with a hard, straight kick in the midsection. The officer stumbled back, but he grabbed Han's boot on the way down, pulling Han with him. The struggle was brief, and afterward Chewbacca helped him drag the dazed trooper into an alley. A few minutes later, Han emerged wearing an Imperial uniform.

Chewbacca eyed him critically and growled.

“Yeah, laugh it up,” Han said, straightening his sleeves and pulling on the officer's black cap. “At least this way I can wear a blaster. You're heading back to the ship.”

Chewbacca growled.

“Yeah, but we're not going to find one of these Imperial outfits in your size, and they're on the lookout for
us
right now. Not
me
. So head back to the ship and get it warmed up. I'll find Hark and we'll get the hell out of here.”

Chewbacca gave a questioning whine

“I got a better idea,” Han said holding up the officer's datapad. “I'd be willing to bet our boy Japet is on the Imperial watch lists. Known associates and hangouts. I'm an Imperial now. So I'll just look him up.”

Chewbacca barked out another long laugh.

“Come on,” Han said. “I can't
always
be wrong.”

Six

Kinnel Persi, data technician fourth class, sighed, pulled up another entry on his monitor and shook his head. Around him, the data-control center was busy as a hive. At the next desk, Miki shook her head in sympathy and tried not to grin. Secretly, Kinnel was enjoying her attention.

“How about Japet
Saun,
sir?” he said.

“Maybe,” Lieutenant Hannu Sololo said, in the earpiece. “What's his background?”

“His NS-profile, sir?”

“Sure. That.”

Kinnel tapped through the screens. “Larceny. Served two years in the work camp on Mangan Three. No present known address.”

“Any known . . . um . . .
rebel
associations?”

Kinnel closed his eyes. “Would you like me to check the PF-profile, too, sir?” Miki giggled, pressing the back of her hand to her lips.

“Yes. Do that,” Sololo said.

Kinnel clicked through. “You know, you have access to all these files on your datapad, sir.”

“Mine's malfunctioning. The encryption protocol, um, needs upgrading.”

“Maybe I can help you with that?”

“Just read me his PF-profile.”

“
Read
it to you, yes, sir,” he said for Miki's benefit. “Just a moment. Here we are. Yes, sir. He was associated peripherally with the resistance cell they caught last year in Port Chait. Questioned but not prosecuted. No records since then.”

“Close enough,” Sololo said. “Do we have any known associates that we do have addresses for?”

Kinnel hunched forward, his palms over his eyes. He kept his voice bright and pleasant. “Let me check his RQ history for you, sir.” Miki was slapping her thigh now, her face dark with repressed hilarity. Kinnel hummed to himself as he worked. “His closest known associate is a Trandoshan dockworker named Cyr Hassk with a berth address of 113-624-e45.”

“Hold on. Hold on. Six . . . two . . . four . . . What was the rest?”

“E four five, sir.”

“Got it. Thank you. Good work.”

The connection dropped. Kinnel pulled off his earpiece and looked over at Miki. She was still shaking with laughter. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Where do they
get
these people?” Kinnel asked before the next connection request came through.

Cyr Hassk considered himself in the mirror. The cut on his right head ridge had almost healed, but the scales there were the bright green of an adolescent. He rubbed at the spot with his thumb pad, hoping to scuff the scales to something a little nearer a mature man's gray. He didn't want to get cosmetic abrasives, but maybe if no one saw him—

A knock came at the door of his berth, three strong blows. Cyr lurched back from the mirror, falling into his warning hiss automatically. The berth was tiny. It wasn't more than four steps from his privacy corner to the door.

The human man in the doorway had the uniform of an Imperial officer and the demeanor of a salesperson. Hassk disliked him immediately.

“You're Cyr Hassk?” the man asked.

“Maybe.”

“Japet said I'd find you here. That you could maybe help me out.”

“He was wrong,” Cyr hissed. He tried to close the door, but the officer had already stepped into the berth.

“He seemed pretty certain,” the Imperial said, sweeping off his hat. His hair was a shaggy mop of brown, unlike the razor-cut Imperial style. Cyr's pupils narrowed and he flexed his hands. “Maybe we should go talk to him.”

“Maybe you should step back out of here,” Cyr snarled. “This is my berth.”

The man gestured at his uniform. “Do you think I care about whether this is your berth or not?”

Cyr flexed his pectoral muscles and bared his teeth. The man's uniform didn't fit right, either. Too tight at the shoulders and loose at the gut. The lopsided smile was rich with threat, but it was the kind of threat that got settled in the street outside a bar, not in an interrogation chamber.

“Cut the crap,” Cyr said. “Who are you, what do you want, and what makes you think I can or will give it to you?”

“I need to find Japet,” the man said, dropping the ruse without a hint of chagrin. “You're his friend; you can tell me where to find him.”

“If I'm his friend, I'm sure as hell not telling you where to find him. Get out.”

“Under other circumstances, I would,” the man said. “But he made a decision, and that decision affected me and my job, and now I'm going to need him to make it right.”

Cyr weighed a few possible responses.
Japet's a small-time creep who will never make anything right in his whole blasted life,
or
I don't care about you and your problems, so get out,
or
How about we call security and see if they can help you
. In the end, he opted for punching the man in the gut. The fake officer's breath whooshed out, and he doubled over as Cyr brought a knee up to break his descending nose. Only the blow didn't connect. The man wrapped an arm around Cyr's leg and lifted. Cyr windmilled his arms, trying to keep his balance. His claws raked the walls, throwing sparks from the metal, but he went down with a clang. The world went a little quieter for a few seconds, and the universe contracted to the interior of Cyr's body and maybe a few inches past it. The man rolled onto him, putting a forearm lock across Cyr's throat.

“Okay,” the man said. “I tried being nice and asking.”

“Didn't,” Cyr croaked past the choking arm.

“What?”

“Didn't ask. Weren't being nice.”

“Oh. Okay. Will you please tell me where I can find Japet?”

“No.”

“All right then,” the man said, and punched him in the face. The blow was surprisingly strong. Cyr tasted the metallic flavor of his own blood. “Please?”

Cyr twisted, bringing his claws up toward the man's sides. A few more inches and he'd peel back the fake Imperial's skin until the ribs all showed. The man broke off the hold, pushing back just far enough to drop an elbow across Cyr's neck.

“
Pretty
please?”

The lights seemed dimmer than they'd been, and Cyr's breath sounded close and wet in his own ears. He rolled onto his belly, got to hands and knees. The man kicked again, trying to push him off balance, but Cyr pushed up. His punch went wide, skinning by the other's head and leaving a dent in the metal of the berth's wall. He pulled his arm back for an open-handed rake that would spill the man's guts on the floor.

The muzzle of a blaster dug into Cyr's neck.

“Sugar on top?”

“You pull that trigger,” Cyr said, “and the real security force will be—”

“Yeah, I know. But we could avoid the whole thing if you'd just tell me where to find Japet.”

Cyr licked his bloody lips. He could feel the swelling under his scales. When he went to the docks, the one thing no one would be paying attention to was the bright scales on his right head ridge. Cyr grinned.

Japet was an idiot, anyway.

“He's staying with Aminni. That's his girlfriend.”

“Great,” the man said. “And how do I find
her
?”

When he'd first come in, Aminni had thought the Imperial officer looked like trouble. Two drinks after that, he was actually starting to seem a little cute. Another drink, and she was wondering if maybe it was going to be an interesting night, after all.