Star Wars - A Servant of the Empire - Unpublished (3 page)

“Docking fee. Twenty credits.”

Mace paid him. Panatic tried to look bored and tough under the gaze of the Gamorreans. One of them snorted and turned away.

They rode the slideway down one of the tubes linking the docking ring to the main body of Zahir. The center of the complex was a huge domed garden, which time and neglect were turning Into a tangled jungle. A cleared area held an open-air bazaar, where vendors at a dozen crude stalls sold everything from glow-wine to protocol droids.

“Wait here and try to blend in,” said Mace. “I see a familiar face.” He spent a few minutes chatting with a fat little Sullustan selling tanks of Tibanna gas. Panatic and Ivlik stood stiffly in the middle of the throng, looking warily about them. Mace waved goodbye to his Sullustan friend and threaded his way through the crowd to them.

“Yab’s here, all right. He’s got a whole load of new slaves down in the holding pens. There’s going to be an auction this afternoon.”

“Perfect. We can find out who his customers are.”

“Until then we’d better lie low. You two stick out like a couple of rancors at a garden party. There’s a bar near here with a pretty good band.”

Panatic let Mace lead the three of them to the saloon. It was a bit rougher than the officers’ clubs he normally frequented. But the music was good, and Sergeant Ivlik was big enough to make the other patrons give them a wide berth. The three of them sat in a corner booth with a view of the door and waited.

“And I replaced the hyperdrive flux coil with a pair of synch-tuned B-105 units, which improves the jump response time by—” Mace was droning on about his ship, and Panatic was only half paying attention. Suddenly, Mace stopped short, staring at the door. Panatic followed his gaze.

A small, thin man in the garb of an Imperial administrator had just entered the bar, followed by a pair of stormtroopers.

“Uh-oh,” Mace whispered. “Maybe if we slip out one at a time they won’t spot us.”

“Don’t worry, Mace,” said Panatic, smiling. “You’re already in the hands of the Empire, remember?”

Inwardly, Panatic wasn’t so sanguine. The presence of an Imperial official here on Zahir was a puzzle. How had he come here? And why? And why did nobody seem to care? For a gang of thieves and smugglers, the denizens of Zahir seemed remarkably calm about two Imperial stormtroopers in their midst.

“I still don’t like this, Captain,” Mace hissed. “He’s watching us.”

“Calm down. That’s just your imagination.”

The Imperial official summoned the bartender to his table and ordered quietly. His two guards remained standing on either side of him. scanning the bar for trouble.

“I’ll be in the ’fresher,” said Mace, getting to his feet.

“Stay with him,” Panatic ordered Ivlik. The sergeant hurried after Mace.

Panatic sighed in annoyance. This was no time for Mace to start getting nervous. But what could one expect from a criminal? He sipped his drink and looked at his chrono again. Still an hour before the auction.

A heavy finger tapped him on the shoulder. Panatic turned to see three Gamorreans standing behind him with drawn blasters. Before he could move, they shot him.

He woke up in an agony of pins and needles as the blaster stun wore off. A boot in the ribs helped him regain consciousness. Panatic found himself lying on the floor of an office; a clear domed ceiling gave a splendid view of the starry sky.

Two men were standing over him. One was the Imperial official he’d seen in the cantina. The other was a Rodian in a flashy suit drawing back a chrome-plated boot for another kick.

“No need for that, Yab,” said the official. “I think he’s waking up.” He smiled down at Panatic. “I do apologize for my colleague here. He’s a bit unsubtle. My name’s Varden Quil. And you, I believe, are Commander Ulan Panatic of the Imperial Navy.”

Panatic struggled to his feet and straightened his uniform. The smelly poncho was gone, as were his blaster and comlink. “That’s correct. This man is a slaver and a murderer, and I am here to arrest him.”

The official sighed. “Oh, dear. Evidently you haven’t been informed—Yab is a friend of Moff Tricus Phenge.”

“The governor of Deratus sector?”

“The same. My employer, in fact. The Moff and Yab here have an arrangement. In exchange for protection from bothersome people like you, Yab provides laborers to work the goldberry fields on the Moff’s estates, and the occasional specialty item. A perfect partnership.”

“Raiding native settlements for slaves is illegal.”

Quil laughed. “Oh, dear me. Really, Commander, you should be in a museum somewhere. Surely the Imperial Navy has better things to do than worry about the welfare of a few primitives? Besides, an intelligent officer such as yourself should know that the wishes of a Moff are more important than the letter of the law.”

“Too much talk,” hissed Yab. “What are we going to do with him?”

“A good question. Commander, I’d like your input on this. Should we kill you or let you go?”

“What?”

“You could cause my employer a great deal of inconvenience if you insist on arresting Yab. We can’t have that. So unless you agree to drop this whole business and go back to chasing Rebels. I’m afraid we’re going to have to kill you. Which will it be, Commander?”

Panatic swallowed hard, then forced his face into a smile. “I’m willing to forget about the whole thing if you are.”

Quil stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Goodness, Commander. I don’t think I’ve ever seen worse acting! It’s good to know your death won’t rob the galaxy of a great talent.”

Panatic leapt forward to grapple with Yab, trying to grab the Rodian’s blaster. He had the advantage of surprise, but the slaver was an experienced brawler. The two of them slammed into the desk, rebounded, and crashed into a drink synthesizer. Quil darted for the door.

Panatic snatched up a footstool and smashed it over Yab’s head. The Rodian staggered back for a moment, long enough for Panatic to get the blaster from his grip.

“All right, hands up, both of you!” He backed away from Quil and Yab, covering them with the blaster. The two raised their hands slowly.

“Now don’t do anything hasty, Commander,” said Quil. “We can still salvage the situation. You’re obviously an ambitious fellow— I’m sure l could arrange a promotion for you. Maybe a Star Destroyer Instead of a patrol cruiser?”

“Shut up.” Panatic moved over to the desk. “Where’s my comlink?”

“In the drawer,” said Yab. “The top one.”

When Panatic looked down to open the drawer, Quil bolted for the door. It hissed open, revealing the two stormtroopers on guard outside. “Get him!” the little official yelled.

Panatic got off one wild shot, which glanced off one trooper’s armor. Then they were on him, using their rifle butts to club him into submission.

“What shall we do with him now?” asked Quil thoughtfully. “Now he dies,” said Yab, giving Panatic another kick in the ribs. “Put him in the furnace.”

“How tidy,” said Quil approvingly.

The stormtroopers dragged Panatic from the office. “Let me go! I order you to let me go! Quil is only a civilian; he has no authority. I am an officer of the Imperial Navy! What you’re doing is a court-martial offense! Can you hear me in there? A court-martial offense!” The troopers marched on in silence.

Yab’s quarters occupied what had been built as a luxury hotel. His office was on top, and the rooms were used to house the slaver’s henchmen and bully-boys. The lower levels were kitchens, freezers, and services. For waste disposal the hotel had been equipped with a large plasma furnace. The stormtroopers shoved Panatic into the furnace and slammed the heavy door.

The furnace was a gleaming steel cylinder, dimly lit by the glow of safety lights behind thick glass. The loading hatch was at one end, and the other end was the open maw of the fusion torch. The interior was filled with bits of scrap, piles of food waste and assorted junk too worthless to keep. All of it, Panatic included, would be reduced to a cloud of ionized plasma when the fusion torch switched on.

Panatic didn’t waste time shouting or pounding on the door. He had a few seconds while the troopers unlocked the controls and started the warm-up cycle. What to do? The furnace was too solid to break out of, and there was nothing that could protect him from the heat of the fusion torch.

But scrap metal and garbage doesn’t fight back. He snatched up a bent metal rod and scrambled over the junk to the mouth of the torch. Deep inside it he could hear the whine of fuel pumps and the hum of containment coils powering up. Panatic jammed his makeshift tool deep into the torch, and was rewarded with a powerful shock that threw him into a pile of scrap and left his fingers numb. Blue light flared around the metal rod as it shorted out the containment coils. The sound of pumps faded as the fusion torch shut down.

Hampered by his useless arm, Panatic climbed back over the junk to the door, and grabbed the heaviest thing he could find—a big chunk of thick pipe. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it would have to do.

The door opened, and the dim light outside was dazzling. Panatic swung his pipe club clumsily at his attackers, catching one a solid blow on the side of the head. But the second dodged aside and grabbed Panatic’s arms.

“Sir! It’s us!” It was Sergeant Ivlik. The one he’d clubbed was Mace.

“Ow. Remind me never to go up against any Imperials armed with scrap metal! Are you all right, Captain?”

“Yes. Just a little sore. Where are the stormtroopers?” “Stunned, for the moment,” said Ivlik.

“Good. We can stow them in this furnace; they’ll be safe there. How did you find me?”

“I got chummy with one of Yab’s goons and asked him where the boss puts people he doesn’t like. To be honest, we were afraid of finding nothing but some greasy soot.”

“I was lucky.”

“Well, let’s hope your luck holds long enough for us to get off this miserable rock before they notice you haven’t been fried.”

“Leave? We’re not going anywhere. What time is it? Has the auction started?”

Mace glanced at his chrono. “It started about half an hour ago. You’re not serious about this, are you? This place is crawling with armed creeps, goons, slavers and pirates.”

Panatic finished straightening his uniform, flexed the fingers of his right hand and adjusted his cap. “In the fleet we have a saying, Mace: ‘Defeat is not in the manual.’ Worruga Yab thinks he can defy the Imperial Navy. I’m going to teach him otherwise.”