Star Wars: Scoundrels (49 page)

“All set,” Zerba announced, stepping around the curve of the safe and fastening his now-bulging hip pouch around his waist. “You?”

“Ready,” Kell said, looking up at the hole in the ceiling. Bink should be up there, looking down to make sure they were still on schedule.

Only she wasn’t. She was nowhere in sight. “Bink?” he called softly.

“Don’t bother,” Zerba said with a grunt. “She’s long gone.”

Kell felt his jaw drop. “She’s
gone
?”

“Of course,” Zerba said. “Why do you think she gave Han the trigger? She was never planning to stick around once she got the safe open.”

“But—” Kell looked up again. “Where did she go?”

“Where do you think?” Zerba said sourly. “She’s charged off to rescue her sister.”

A lone woman, wearing a burglar outfit loaded with burglar tools, with no weapon except a small hold-out blaster. “She’ll never make it,” Kell murmured.

“Nope,” Zerba agreed grimly. “I just hope she doesn’t get caught in time to foul it up for the rest of us.”

Kell stared at him. “How can you—”

“Because that’s the kind of business this is, kid,” Zerba said quietly. “You can join up with someone for a job like this, but you learn not to make any long-term commitments. Not even in your own mind.”

He gestured. “Come on. Time to get ready.”

Han hadn’t tried to stop her, Bink mused as she headed across the mansion. Zerba hadn’t, either. Kell might have, except he’d probably completely missed the fact that she was running out on them.

That part of it bothered her. She’d worked with a fair number of people over the years, and she’d never failed any of them before.

She wasn’t failing Zerba and the others here, either, of course. Not really. Han had the trigger, and Han knew what he was doing. Usually.

But sometimes the perception of guilt was more important even than the guilt itself.

She set her jaw. It was her sister. If they couldn’t see that or didn’t care, then to chaos with all of them.

And especially to chaos with anyone who objected on the grounds that she’d just walk up to the door of Qazadi’s suite and get herself killed. That one was not only a misunderstanding but also a professional insult.

Directly ahead, the between-floors gap narrowed into another of the tightly framed doorways she’d already passed twice. Releasing the climbing grip clamps from the ceiling above her, she worked her head and shoulders through the gap, reconnected the clamps on the other side, and kept moving. Han at least shouldn’t have been worried on that score—from what she’d heard of his story while they were waiting in the electrical closet, it was clear he’d already looked up here and seen that there was plenty of room for her to make her way invisibly across the mansion.

Though in all fairness, maybe what he’d been worried about was how she was going to handle the vertical distance between the second and fourth floors. The elevator shafts were the obvious routes, which of course meant that Villachor’s people would have them covered.

Luckily for her, there was a route that would probably never occur to any of them.

It always amazed her how many buildings more than a hundred years old included hidden rooms or corridors somewhere. Maybe the rich and powerful in those eras had been more paranoid than their modern-day descendants, or maybe they’d just liked the old-fashioned romance and glamour of it all. Given that Villachor’s mansion had once housed a sector governor, she would bet heavily that there was a whole set of emergency passages tucked away coyly somewhere between the walls.

Unfortunately, Rachele’s schematics hadn’t included any hidden boltholes, and she didn’t have time to search them out.

Fortunately, those same schematics
had
showed the dumbwaiter.

She broke her way through the wall with little effort and even less noise. The shaft was just as narrow as she’d expected. It was also as easily passable for someone her size who knew what she was doing.

Climbing into the narrow space, she headed up.

The Zeds were heavy, bulky things, and even with the armored suits’ power assistance it took Uzior and his men nearly ten minutes to move the first row of five out of the way. Villachor watched in silence from beside Sheqoa, listening to the seconds tick away, furiously anxious to know what was happening behind that door but equally determined to keep his fears and frustration invisible to Qazadi’s men.

Uzior had started on the second row when Villachor suddenly noticed that a sixth armored guard had slipped unseen into the anteroom and was watching silently from the wall across from the vault door. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Who is he?” he repeated, glaring at Sheqoa.

“I assumed that you called him in,” Sheqoa said, sounding confused. “Earlier, when I was giving the others their instructions.”

“If I’d called him in, he’d be helping,” Villachor snarled, glaring at the newcomer. “Who are you?”

“My name is Dygrig,” the other’s filtered voice came. “His Excellency Master Qazadi ordered me to come and observe.”

Villachor threw a look at Barbas and Narkan. The whole anteroom was starting to stink of Black Sun vigo. “Did he tell you to suit up in
my
armor for the occasion?”

“You already said there might be trouble inside the vault,” Dygrig reminded him. “His Excellency thought it would be a good idea if someone else came prepared.”

Villachor took a deep breath, his entire blood system feeling as if it were about to explode. For Qazadi to send one of
his
guards, fitted out in one of
Villachor’s
armored suits … “Very thoughtful of His Excellency,” he replied, fighting viciously for self-control. Going berserk in front of witnesses would be all the excuse Qazadi would need to throw him out and put someone else in his place. “As long as you’re here, you can give my men a hand.”

“I was told to stand ready for whatever we found inside,” Dygrig demurred calmly. “My orders didn’t say anything about helping with the preliminaries.”

No, of course Qazadi wouldn’t want his men to get their hands dirty. “Uzior?”

“We’ll have the area clear in eight minutes,” Uzior promised.

“I could call more men,” Sheqoa offered.

“Have the search teams found the intruder?”

Sheqoa winced. “No, sir.”

“Then we’ll make do,” Villachor said. He shot a glare at Dygrig, who was now watching with the same condescending detachment as Barbas and Narkan. If he survived this challenge, Villachor promised himself darkly, he would find a way to make Qazadi pay for his heavy-handedness, vigo or not. “Have the nearest search team go to the ready room,” he ordered Sheqoa. “If Qazadi has more of his people up there helping themselves to our equipment, I want to know about it.”

Rachele’s comlink twittered “Report,” she said.

“Trouble,” Han said, his voice so low she could hardly hear it. “Zerba, how hard did you lock the ready room after I left?”

“As hard as the lock that was there,” Zerba said. “We didn’t weld it or anything, if that’s what you’re asking. Why?”

“Villachor’s sending someone up there,” Han said. “The minute they see the hole, it’ll be all over. They’ll have ten guys down in the vault before Villachor stops screaming.”

“And that’ll be it for Zerba and Kell,” Rachele said grimly. “So we blow it now?”

“We can’t,” Han said. “Villachor hasn’t got the vault door open yet.”

“You sure we
need
it open?” Kell asked. “The magseal didn’t stop the lightsaber.”

“You’re not using a lightsaber this time,” Rachele reminded him. “I don’t know what the magseal will do, but I’d really rather not risk it.”

“If you don’t,
we
sure don’t,” Zerba agreed. “I vote we go ahead and turn Chewie and Lando loose.”

“Hold on,” Bink cut in. “They can’t go yet—I’m not in position.”

“You’ve got two minutes to
get
in position,” Han told her tartly. “Uzior says the vault will be open in eight. We need something to distract the guards from this part of the mansion, and Chewie and Lando are it.”

“Can you do it, Bink?” Kell asked.

“Do I have a choice?” Bink bit out. “Fine—go ahead. But if anything happens to Tavia, it’ll be on your head. And I mean that literally.”

“I know,” Han said. “Two minutes, Rachele.”

“Got it.” Rachele braced herself as she switched over to Chewbacca’s more secure comlink frequency. “Chewie, Eanjer: two minutes.”

Over the years, Bink had accumulated an extensive collection of words that were appropriate to this kind of situation. On her way to the top of the dumbwaiter shaft, she ran through the entire list of them.

Two minutes. She was still half a mansion away from where Tavia was being held, and Han was giving her two measly kriffing minutes to get there.

There was no way she could make it there via the between-floors gap. Her grip-clamp techniques were perfect for this kind of surreptitious travel, but the very nature of their operation put a cap on speed. And that top speed wouldn’t be enough.

Which left her only one option. An option that, like the dumbwaiter itself, the mansion’s original designers had given her.

The horizontal conduits were right at the top of the shaft, heading off in opposite directions: one each to the southeast wing and the northeast wing. With a fully enclosed conduit, even one as cozy as this, there would be no need for grip clamps. Her standard nonslip friction gloves were the only tools she needed, and she could easily cover the distance in half the time the between-floors route would take. Maybe even within the two-minute window Han had allotted her.

The problem was that the between-floors route allowed her to choose where she came out at the other end. With the food delivery conduit, unfortunately, there was exactly one exit. If Qazadi or his guards happened to be looking the wrong way at the wrong time, she’d never even see the shot coming.

But she had to try. It was Tavia. It was her sister.

She twisted her body around the bend at the top of the dumbwaiter shaft and worked her way into the conduit, angling her shoulders along the diagonal to take best advantage of the limited space. Pulling at the metal sides with her gloves, starting again at the top of her list of curses, she headed into the darkness.

Kastoni was starting to get dangerously impatient, and Lando was down to his second-to-last stalling technique, when the whole wing seemed to explode in a cacophony of shattered ceramic, wood, and stone.

And as he and Kastoni spun toward the door, an airspeeder roared past down the corridor, bouncing back and forth into the walls on either side. Kastoni had just enough time to bark a startled curse before a second vehicle went shooting past behind it.

And right behind the vehicles, running for all they were worth, were Chewbacca and Eanjer.

Lando puffed out a sigh of relief. Finally. “What in the name of—” he began. He broke off as the racket of the bouncing airspeeders was replaced by the bellowing of alarms.

“Emergency!” Kastoni shouted into his comlink clip as he snatched out his blaster. “Garage has been breached. Two airspeeders are running loose in the north wing heading for central—I say again, two airspeeders are moving through the north wing headed for central.”

He got an acknowledgment and headed for the door.

“What can I do?” Lando asked, coming up behind him.

“You can get your rear back outside,” Kastoni snarled. “You’re done here.” He stopped at the doorway, eased his head out for a quick look—

And crumpled to the floor as Lando rammed his fist directly behind Kastoni’s left ear.

Shaking the sudden throbbing out of his hand, Lando dropped to one knee beside the unconscious man and scooped up his blaster. For a moment he considered checking in with Rachele, decided he didn’t have the time, and headed off after Chewbacca.

He’d assumed earlier that the interior of the mansion was essentially deserted except for the kitchen staff crafting the refreshments for the Festival visitors outside. Certainly most of the security force had been outside, riding herd on the crowd and trying to chase down the last of the out-of-control droids. But as he followed in the wake of Chewbacca, Eanjer, and the airspeeders, he found a surprising number of people peering fearfully, cautiously, or disbelievingly through the various doorways. Most of them seemed to be techs of some sort, which wasn’t surprising this close to the garage and droid repair facilities.

A couple of them helpfully pointed the way to the uniformed police sergeant charging after the intruders. None of them made any move to stop or challenge him.

He’d left the north wing and was heading up the wide staircase leading to the central section and the northeast wing beyond when he heard the first sounds of blasterfire.

The comlink built into Han’s armor was locked into the Marblewood security channel, which meant he got the news about the rampaging airspeeders at the same time as Sheqoa, and a few seconds before Villachor.

He’d expected Villachor to go ballistic with the report of something else going wrong. But instead of dissolving into fire, the crime lord’s attitude turned into ice. “Inform His Excellency that he may have intruders on the way,” he told Sheqoa evenly. He gestured to Barbas and Narkan. “You might want to go assist in your master’s defense,” he added.

The two men exchanged looks. Barbas nodded silently, and they headed at a fast jog across the anteroom and out the north door.

Han grimaced. Hopefully, Chewbacca and Lando would know to watch for trouble coming up from behind.

“You can go with them,” Villachor added.

Han blinked away his tactical visualizations. Villachor was gazing at him, the same deadly ice in his eyes. “I was ordered here,” Han said. “I’ll leave if and when I receive new orders.”

“You’ll leave when
I
order you to leave,” Villachor said calmly. “This is still my territory.
My
word is the law here, not Master Qazadi’s.”

“I understand, Master Villachor,” Han said, trying for the right mix of respect and arrogance that so many midlevel Fleet officers had mastered. “And I have no intention of violating that command. But—”