Into the Void: Star Wars (Dawn of the Jedi) (24 page)

He was certainly one of the most unobtrusive men Lanoree had ever seen.

“Well, I’m
pretty
sure that’s him,” Tre said, frowning. They were standing in a food stall, mounds
of root vegetables and racks of curing meat all around. Across the wide walkway from
them was a water stall. That’s all it sold—water, in various container sizes. The
sign above the stall exhorted
THE FINEST WATER, IMPORTED FROM KALIMAHR, CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY AVAILABLE TO
THOSE WHO DOUBT
. The man standing behind the stall talking with a family of human workers was short
and fat, his dark skin wrinkled with laughter lines, and the few remaining tufts of
white hair on his scalp gave him a comic appearance. His eyes were filled with good
humor, and with just a few words he had the family laughing along with him.

“It is,” Lanoree said. “He has four people around him. The Noghri at the lizard-fighting
pit along the way, three stalls away, that tattooed woman selling fate readings we
passed a hundred paces back, and up in the buildings around the square one sniper
with a blast rifle and another with a rocket. All watching.”

“You Je’daii,” Tre said, but he could not hide his admiration.

“Best not use that word here. So, let’s buy some water.”

They waited behind the family, and after they left, Lanoree smiled at Maxhagan and
approached the stall. She kept herself sharp, reaching out with her Force senses to
those hidden guards she had already recognized. The last thing she would do was let
Maxhagan’s appearance deceive her.

“Ahh,” Maxhagan said when he saw Tre. “What brings you here, Tre Sana?”

Tre could not hide his surprise at being recognized. Perhaps they hadn’t dealt face-to-face,
but it seemed Maxhagan always knew who he did business with.

“He’s my guide,” Lanoree said. “And we’d like to buy some of what you’re selling.”

Maxhagan glanced back and forth between them, and never once did his smile slip, not
even from his eyes. He scratched at the corner of his mouth, and Lanoree tensed, hand
drifting a little closer to the sword hidden beneath her robe. She probed at him gently,
but before she’d even touched his mind, she flinched back. His thoughts were such
a pit of filth that she could almost taste their rot.

“Je’daii,” Maxhagan whispered.

“And so?” Lanoree asked. Tre stood frozen at her side.

Maxhagan stared at her, still smiling. He poured three cups of water from a plastoid
container without even looking, lifted one to his lips, sipped.

“Don’t see many Je’daii here.”

He’d sensed her instantly. Ready this time, Lanoree reached out to read him, but he
was closed to her now. The wall he’d thrown up was solid and vast, and it had the
feel of something enhanced. He had tech implanted somewhere in his skull—under one
of those tufts of hair, no doubt—and it was top-grade stuff, high-end military. His
protection went far deeper than simple bodyguards.

“I’m doing my best not to be seen,” she said.

“I’ve nothing against Je’daii,” he said. He put his cup down and handed one to each
of them. Lanoree took hers and nodded for Tre to do the same. “Just don’t—” he waved
his hands above his head “—you know, mess with my mind or any of that crap.”

“That might be hard,” Lanoree said.

Maxhagan laughed out loud, and it was so infectious that she actually found herself
smiling. “Well, protection is always advisable, especially in a pit like this. Eh,
Tre?” He grunted and sighed. “So. Time for my lunch break. Come with me and we’ll
talk.”

He took them beneath the square, descending one of the many staircases. There was
machinery down there that powered lights and air filtration, and also places where
less-acceptable business was conducted. Brothels, drug bars, fighting rinks, Lanoree
sensed and saw them all, built in ruins that were testament to Greenwood Station’s
past. Sometimes, it was easier to build new upon old

But Maxhagan had no interest in such underground endeavors. Through three doors, along
several corridors, and then down a secret staircase concealed behind a locked wall
panel, they emerged eventually in a room that might have impressed those Corporation
officials in their high tower.

“Nice,” Lanoree said as he led them inside. They were on their own, yet she had no
doubt Maxhagan was well protected here. She felt the weight of battle droids buried
in the walls, and suspected that his
implanted tech probably controlled everything about this room. One wrong move and
chaos would erupt.

“I do enjoy some comforts,” he said. “Oh, and don’t think for a moment that I’m imparting
any sense of trust by bringing you here. I have dozens of these rooms all over the
dome. I haven’t been to this particular one in a long time, as can be witnessed by—”
he picked up several bottles from a table and threw them into a corner “—the bad drinks
selection. Apologies.”

“Not here to drink,” Tre said.

“Here to buy more mercenaries, Tre?” Maxhagan’s eyes twinkled as Tre squirmed uncomfortably.
But Lanoree did not take the bait.

“I’m looking for someone, and Tre says you can help,” she said. “He might have arrived
already, or his ship might be incoming. He’ll have people with him. They call themselves
Stargazers.”

“Looking in your Je’daii capacity?”

“He’s my brother,” Lanoree said. It was no answer, but it seemed to satisfy Maxhagan.

“It’ll cost you. But I’m a fair man in business, so I’ll let you make me an offer.”

“Half a million credits,” Tre said. Lanoree held in her surprise, and was pleased
to see Maxhagan’s eyes go wide.

“A generous offer,” he said.

Tre smiled. “I’m a fair man in business.”

Maxhagan strolled around his opulent room, running his fingers along surfaces and
tutting at the buildup of dust.

“His name’s Dalien Brock,” Lanoree said. “I need to know where he is. And he mustn’t
know I’m here.”

“Are you going to kill him?” Maxhagan asked.

“That’s none of your business.”

“True. But every time I use my Network, I put it at risk. And as I’m in business for
pleasure, there’s always a price over and above money. Generous though your offer
is, Tre.”

Lanoree did not respond.

“Added to that,” Maxhagan continued, “do you have any idea how much business would
suffer if anyone knew I was helping a Je’daii?”

“We won’t tell anyone,” Lanoree said.

“Oh, I know that.” He spoke with such assurance, such confident
control, that Lanoree felt a shiver down her spine. Only one other person had ever
made her feel like this—Daegen Lok, the one time she’d seen him during her short retreat
on Bogan. None of the others with her party had seen him, and the Master supervising
them had told her that it was impossible, that prisoners were kept separated by force
fields. But though he had been little more than a shadow on a distant hillside, she
had felt his eyes upon her and the weight of his regard. Heavy. Dark.

“So,” Maxhagan continued, “an answer to my question is also part of the price. Will
you kill your brother?”

Lanoree considered the question. It was one she had confronted and struggled with
already, and it had caused more distress in her than finding Dal’s bloodied, torn
clothing nine years before. But the answer was already firm in her mind. “Only if
I absolutely have to.”

Maxhagan nodded. His eyes were on fire.

“My stall, dusk,” he said. “If he’s in Greenwood Station I’ll know by then.” He plucked
an electronic device from his belt and held it out to Tre. “I’d appreciate untraceable
bonds, if you will. And the transfer should be the full amount.”

“Half now, half—” Tre began.

“The full amount is fine,” Lanoree said. “I can see you’re a man of honor.”

Maxhagan frowned for a moment, trying to make out whether Lanoree was playing him.
Then he laughed out loud again, head back, hand pressing his side.

This time she felt no urge to laugh with him.

“I need a shower,” she said. “I want to change my skin. Buy new clothes. The man’s
a disease.”

“I did warn you.”

“And where do you get so much money?”

“You don’t want to know.”

I do
, Lanoree thought as they walked as quickly as they could out of District Six.
I do want to know
. She made sure they weren’t followed. Maxhagan would have his eyes on them somehow,
she knew,
and his attention was something they had bought along with his help. But someone following
them would be too much of a threat to ignore.

And she
did
want to know about Tre, and where his money came from, and dusk was a while away.

“I know a place we can go to—” Tre began.

“No. We’ll walk. I don’t like his knowing I’m here. He’ll have a trace on us somehow,
but I’ll feel more comfortable on the move. Beside … I need to know this place more.”

“Why?” Tre asked.

“Useful if it comes to a fight.” She nudged Tre’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s buy a
couple of tankards, drink while we’re walking. We’ll fit right in. And you can tell
me something about yourself.”

They bought drinks and walked, and all the time Tre was talking, Lanoree was taking
in their surroundings. Getting the lay of the land. Locating herself in relation to
the rest of the dome and the damaged sector and possible exit routes to the outside,
if the need arose.

She tried hard to make herself believe she wasn’t being helplessly fooled by Maxhagan.

“I made my name in violence and my money in secrets.” Lanoree’s own silence had encouraged
Tre to speak, and she was not about to interrupt his flow with questions.

“My third lekku set me aside, even among the Twi’lek community on Kalimahr. It invited
ridicule. You wouldn’t think that, would you? That in a society filled with so many
shapes, species, and creeds, a simple
extra
something would set me apart?” He snorted. “I suffered as a child, and that set me
on the course I took all through my young adult years.”

He fell silent, and they passed a square where small, sick-looking creatures were
kept in metal-fenced stalls. The animals were completely silent, and it was the humans
and other species who made the most noise as individual subjects were hoisted up on
an apparatus, hung from their back legs, and butchered. Meat and money changed hands.
The cattle watched, eyes heavy with knowledge.

“What course?” she asked.

“The path of violence. I killed my first man when I was seventeen. A street fight
outside a tavern on one of Kalimahr’s less-salubrious islands. No one cared that he
was dead, and after a day neither did I. It had helped me. His mocking, his violence
against me, were washed away.” He looked down at his palms as he walked. “By his blood
on my hands.”

“Killing should never be easy.”

“But it was. And I became really good at it. Defending my honor, I’d discovered that
I was a fighter. Others soon noticed. I slipped into crime. There was always a part
of me that resisted, but the rewards easily helped me fight back. I drove down the
doubt and embraced the new worlds opening up for me. Wealth, power, status. I became
feared and revered in equal measure. A name. I gathered others around me and formed
my own criminal organization from the bottom up. It was unintentional, really, that
creation of a gang. But it just happened, and I relished every moment.”

They left the square with the doomed cattle and entered a warren of narrow alleys
between low buildings. The sounds of life flowed from open windows—screaming infants,
arguing parents, entertainment channels, music. Lanoree felt apart from all that,
and the weight of her mission bore down on her even more. Her heart beat with its
urgency. She should have found Dal by now.

“You don’t look like a crime lord,” Lanoree said. “You don’t seem like one now.”

“Now, I’m not. Like I said, I made my name in violence. Once that name was made, and
I’d moved my operations to Shikaakwa, I became … one of many. I was lost. On Kalimahr
I’d had an empire, on Shikaakwa I was just another upstart. The real crime lords there
looked down on us, picked those who they thought could help them, sometimes slaughtered
those who looked beyond their station. And that was something I could not help doing.
I expanded too quickly, reached too far and too fast. I was noticed.”

“And?” Lanoree asked. Tre’s lekku betrayed his nervousness and how uncomfortable he
was with his memories.

“And they gave me a chance. Killed many of my lieutenants but saw something in me
that they thought might be of use. They were …” He shook his head as if finding it
difficult to explain.

“Like Maxhagan,” Lanoree said.

“Only the very least of them were like him,” Tre said. “The worst … monsters. Beyond
anything I could ever want to be. They repulsed me. But they gave me a chance to live,
and I took it.”

“What chance?”

“To make money by keeping secrets. I was on my own once again, and lonely. Two of
the Nine Houses employed me to be their messenger. They gave me secrets that could
not be entrusted to the written word or technology, could not be transmitted or relayed
by unreliable droids. I carried such secrets for them, and if any ever escaped, I
would die. I still would. I could tell you such things, Lanoree.…”

“But you won’t.”

“No. And even the greatest Je’daii could not pick them from my mind after what Dam-Powl
has done to me.”

“She’s protected you,” Lanoree said, understanding at last. By making Tre Sana impenetrable
even to Je’daii probings, she had given him the perfect mind in which to maintain
those secrets from the past that could be the death of him.

“It’s a small part of what she promised,” Tre said, his voice dropping. “Because I
want my life back. The gangsters haven’t called on me for almost a whole Tythan year,
but they will soon. I don’t want it anymore. I want everything that Dam-Powl promised—a
new identity, new face, new home. And to forget everything I’ve done.” He laughed
softly, touching his third lekku. “Surgery. I want to fade into the crowd instead
of stand out. I want to be … normal.”