Honor Among Thieves: Star Wars (Empire and Rebellion) (7 page)

“I don't believe you,” he said. His smile was sly and warm, and it made her feel like he was laughing at a joke that she was in on, even though he wasn't. “
You
don't have a boyfriend?”

Aminni drew her fingertip around the lip of her glass.

“We-ell,” she said and stuck her tongue out at him a little. Across the bar, her roommate, Khyys, made a mildly obscene gesture of encouragement. Aminni ignored her. “I used to. But he was a jerk. I broke up with him a while ago.”

“Does he know that?” the officer asked, putting his hand on her knee.

“You bet he does. I put him and all his crap in the hall outside my berth.”

“Of course you did,” he said as if he was talking to himself.

“He'd been stealing my stuff. I told him one more time, and he was out. And then it was one more time. And then he was out. I kind of miss him, though. Not
him
him. I just kind of . . . y'know.” She locked her gaze on his.
“Miss.”

The smile came again, long, and slow, and Aminni felt herself blush a little. She tried to count back how many drinks she'd had. It might have been more than three. Well, what the hell. Only live once. She moved forward in the seat, lost her balance a little, caught herself, and kissed his cheek. His arm curled around her, his hand against her waist as if it belonged there. She bit her lips a little and lifted an eyebrow.

“Probably I shouldn't have kicked him out,” she said, her voice a little lower than usual. “Probably I should have called you. You deal with things like that, don't you?”

“Missing, you mean?”

“Thieves.”

“That, too,” he agreed.

“How long have you been in security?” she asked.

He chuckled. “Depends on how you count it.”

She excused herself to the women's room to check her makeup, and when she came back out he was gone. She spent the rest of the night sitting with Khyys and her friends from resource management, feeling cranky and let down. Her night didn't hit bottom until it was almost time to go home.

“What's the matter?” Khyys asked.

“My datapad,” Aminni said, pressing a hand to her belt. “I thought I brought it, but it must be back at . . .”

Even drunk, she had the physical memory of a man's hand around her waist, his fingers against her body.

“Son of a
bantha,
” she said.

“Baby?” Japet said, stepping into the corridor. He had a fistful of flowers he'd bought for half a credit from a vending machine on the fourth level and a splash of cologne. “Minni-baby? I got your message. You here?”

In the shadows, something moved, and Japet smiled a little.

“I see you back there,” he said. “I knew you were gonna call me. I told you, you remember? I told you you'd call me. You can't go without your big Japet man, can you? No, you can't.”

“You might be surprised,” a man's voice said behind him.

Japet whirled. The man in the shadows wore an Imperial officer's uniform, but the face was wrong. Not deformed or anything; it just belonged someplace else.

“Who are you?” Japet demanded. “Where's Aminni?”

The man smiled. “Wait for it. It'll come.”

Japet narrowed his eyes. He knew the guy. He'd seen him before, and recently. And then with a rush of ice in his veins, he knew. He spun around, half expecting the Wookiee to be standing behind him. Fear lit his nerves and he stumbled back.

“Please, Captain Solo, don't kill me,” Japet said. “I'm sorry. It was Baasen. He made me.”

Solo spread his hands, smiling without the expression ever reaching his eyes. “You know
nobody
ever believes that line, right? No offense taken. I've used it a couple of times myself. I'm just telling you it never works.”

“I'm sorry. Please don't shoot me,” Japet said. He tripped over his own feet, falling backward. The flowers scattered on the pristine corridor floor. The rebel pilot knelt beside him, blaster in hand.

“So here's the thing. I know why you did it. Baasen promised to pay you. I'm a businessman. I understand that math. But because of you, I missed my cargo. And I have to find it now. You're going to help me.”

“I can't,” Japet said, tears welling in his eyes. Baasen had sworn that Solo would be offplanet almost as soon as they nabbed him. He didn't want to guess what had happened to the others.

“You should reconsider that,” Solo said, his voice getting rough.

“I want to! It's not that I don't want to! I
can't
. I don't know where she is. It's not like she told me anything.”

“She told you enough to set a trap for me.”

“She didn't tell
me
anything,” Japet said. “I found out about the drop because two of the guys from the rebels were talking about it. I did some work for her a few times because the pay was good. Little stuff. Working lookout when the guys were carrying a couple of data disks one place to another. Getting some dirt on some Imperial somebody.”

“Enough she started thinking you were on her side,” Solo said.

“I've only ever seen Hark a few times. But there's this place down on level eight where these guys hang out sometimes, and I was there and everyone was a little drunk, and someone was talking about how they weren't going to have to deal with any more of Hark's errands because she was pulling out.”

“That's the kind of talent she's got to work with?” Solo said, shaking his head. “No wonder it went south.”

“I guess. Yeah. They said she was using the fountain drop. I took it to Baasen because he can use things like that sometimes.”

“So you didn't mean anything against me, you were just trying to get Hark's operation blown.”

“Baasen pays really well,” Japet said sorrowfully.

“Don't ask where that money came from. All right. How do I find Hark now?”

“I don't know,” Japet said.

“There has to be some way to signal her,” Solo said, looking down the corridor as if he were a hunter on a trail. “Does she know you on sight?”

“Don't know. Like I said, I only met her a few times. But she's got a reputation for remembering stuff you wouldn't think. So maybe. I don't know.”

“If I shot you, would it make the local news?”

“You know what you could do?” Japet said, snapping his fingers. “You could talk to the guy who said she was setting up the fountain drop. His name's Wirrit, and his place isn't far from here.”

“Maybe,” Solo said. “Doesn't have the advantage of shooting you. I'd
really
like to shoot you.”

Wirrit opened the door a fraction of an inch. He was in his underwear, his hair still wild from the pillow and all thought of sleep gone. The Imperial guard had a black jersey, a black-and-gray cap, and an annoyed expression. Wirrit's hand shook as he very carefully, quietly, pressed his blaster against the door. He'd only have one shot. He had to kill the Imperial on the first try.

“I'm with the Rebel Alliance,” the Imperial said. “Hark's drop was compromised, and I need to know where she's staying.”

Wirrit narrowed his eyes. His finger didn't leave the trigger.

“How do I know you're telling the truth?”

The Imperial shrugged. “One, I didn't come in with fifty stormtroopers behind me. Two, we're talking here instead of a holding cell. Three, an interrogator droid didn't take off half your fingernails before I asked.”

Wirrit frowned.

“Oh,” he said. “Right.”

The air shaft went down below Han for what looked like half a kilometer. He hung in the window frame, his fingers aching until they felt as if they were on fire. If he had pulled the window open another few centimeters, the grenade would have triggered.

Windows from the other berths and apartments lined the walls, looking out into one another or else at the bare drop. Five levels up, a catwalk stretched across the void. Han's grapnel line was like a thread of spiderweb between Hark's window and the high, empty walkway above.

He'd tried the door for almost an hour, plagued by visions of Hark inside either dead or held in silence by stormtroopers or Baasen. Or just sleeping deep enough that she didn't hear him. Going around to the back had seemed like a good idea at the time . . .

He shifted his grip on the window. He couldn't hold on much longer. Just inside, the black monofilament thread had pulled at the proton grenade's switch, tugging the little kettle-shaped device to the edge of the cheap breakfast table. He couldn't tell if it was armed, but if so, the drop to the floor would set off an explosion strong enough to breach a ship's hull. Unless it was on a timer, in which case he'd probably have been dead by now.

He pulled himself as close to the window as he could, pressing his mouth to the opening. The air inside smelled like roasted peppers.

“Hello?” he whispered urgently into the apartment. “Could use a little hand here. Hello?”

There was no reply. His knuckles hurt.

Hark was gone, then. She'd left her old place and trapped it against intrusion from the Imperials. The safe play was to go back up the line to the catwalk, but if there were any clues to where Hark had gone, they were going to be on the other side of the window. And he didn't have any other leads to follow.

“All right,” Han said to himself. “It's not that hard. I can do this.”

He couldn't keep his grip and also work, so he held on with his right hand and stretched his left through the thin gap in the window until it was all the way into the apartment. He made a fist and let his right hand go. His balled left hand was too big to fit back through the space, and the grapnel line was strong enough to support him. It still hurt like blazes, but it freed his right hand. He pulled his blaster and ejected the power cell, catching it between his little finger and the heel of his palm before it dropped into the abyss below him. Shorting out the contacts would have been a lot easier with two hands, but a few seconds later he had the case cracked and the power leads were starting to heat up past the point of comfort.

Pulling from the shoulder, he hauled himself closer to the window. The proton grenade teetered on the edge of the table as he slipped his fingers in through the open window, holding the shorting power cell against the frame just where the monofilament attached. A trickle of blood ran down his left wrist. Voices echoed above him. Someone was approaching the catwalk. He tried to push the power cell a little closer to the line. The hot smell of melting filament began to overpower the scent of peppers.

The voices came closer and clearer. The tinny voices of stormtroopers.

“Come on,” Han said. “Come
on
 . . .”

Inside the apartment, the monofilament broke, floating down like a wisp of smoke. Han shoved the window open enough to slide through, cut the grapnel line, and hauled himself over the sill. He lay on the apartment floor, curled around his protesting hand. The troopers' voices didn't rise in alarm. He sat up, trembling. The proton grenade showed armed. Gently, he pushed the switch back, and a second later the readout shifted to inactive.

Across the air shaft, a small figure looked out the opposite window, long dark hair silhouetted against the light. Han waved and gestured. The child went to open her window, paused, and then followed through. Her eyes were wide.

“Lost my keycard,” he shouted across the shaft.

“Oh,” she said.

He grinned, nodded, and closed the blinds.

All the rooms were trapped in the same way. Simple, fast, efficient. Not foolproof by any means, but effective enough. There were still clothes in the bedroom. The food in the storage unit hadn't gone bad. Scarlet Hark had been there, but she was gone, and there was no note saying where she'd gone.

He examined the bedroom, the bath, the dining area. All the small signs of occupancy, but nothing that helped. Scarlet Hark drank Surian tea. She solved math puzzles before she went to sleep. She ordered breakfast meals of eggs and roasted peppers from a nearby restaurant. Apart from the death traps on the windows and doors, she could have been anyone.

He'd been working all night. Somewhere high above where the city reached the sky, the sun would be coming up soon. Chewbacca was probably pacing the
Falcon
right now, wondering what had happened to him. Han sat at the table. His eyes felt as if someone had rubbed grit into them, and his wrists ached. The Imperial guard's uniform was cheap and uncomfortable. Start to finish, it just hadn't been his best day ever.

When he stretched his neck, the joints cracked. There had to be a way. There had to be something that would point him toward Hark. Or give her a way to find him. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands until blobs of false color danced before him. There had to be a
way
.

His stomach growled. He hadn't eaten since before the failed drop. The scent of yesterday's roasted peppers started smelling almost good.

He frowned, sat forward. The recycling bin was half full of old tea and the wire remains of a robotic project. Greasy wrapping paper had an order—#29 peppers & eggs—printed on it with a comm code, the address of Hark's apartment, and the minimalist logo of a Twi'lek female holding a plate of food. kayi's grill: best sannos plate in the empire! There was another wrapper underneath it from the day before. And another. She had a habit, then. It didn't seem like it could matter, but something tugged at his mind.

He frowned at it for a moment. Why would it have her address on it? Then he knew. She'd had it delivered. And if she'd been getting it delivered here, she
might
be getting it delivered someplace else. Han smiled and tapped his fingertip against the words.

“I ordered a number twenty-nine,” the scruffy lieutenant said, slapping the back of his hand into his palm. “It was supposed to be
delivered
. And now I have to come all the way down here.”