Tales from the New Republic (2 page)

“Yes, if you feel up to flying it yourself,” the other said. “I was thinking I might stay around here a day or two anyway.”

“Why? To see if you can find a direct link back to Palpatine?” Bel Iblis shook his head. “I can tell you right now you’ll be wasting your time.”

“It’s my time to waste. Is there a place where you can hide out for a while?”

“There are a couple of possibilities,” Bel Iblis said. “But first I have an appointment to keep on Darkknell.”

“Darkknell?” Aach threw Bel Iblis a startled look. “You?”

“Why not?” Bel Iblis countered. “Who better to make the pickup than someone who’s supposed to be dead anyway? My schedule is now meaningless, you know. And I have no one to miss me if I’m out of sight for a few days. Not anymore.”

“But—” Aach floundered a moment. “Sir, this could be dangerous—any contact with informants has that potential. You’re not trained for this sort of fieldwork.”

“I did my stint in the military,” Bel Iblis reminded him. “I know how to handle a blaster. And I know a bit about disguise, too. I won’t be recognized.”

“But—”

“Besides,” Bel Iblis cut him off quietly, “I need to do something useful right now. Something to help take my mind off… what just happened back there.”

Aach exhaled softly in resignation. “All right, sir. Before you go, though, I’ll give you a letter of introduction to someone I know in Xakrea you can contact if you get in trouble. He doesn’t have any particular sympathy for the Rebellion, but he doesn’t much care for Palpatine’s Empire, either. He’s got a lot of contacts among smugglers and other fringe types on Darkknell, which may come in handy if you have to get off the planet in a hurry.”

“It may,” Bel Iblis agreed, noting with a somewhat grim amusement that Aach had carefully refrained from mentioning his friend’s own status within the fringe society. A smuggler himself, or perhaps a dealer of stolen goods? Or something even more unsavory?

Still, if it came to that, the Rebel Alliance certainly had its own share of unsavory characters. Some had probably been pulled in by the hope of quick profits—though those who had had most likely been disillusioned in record time on that one—but others were among the Alliance’s most tenacious and effective fighters. “Do you trust him?”

Aach shrugged, a bit uncomfortably. “I think so, provided as you don’t push him too hard or ask too much. Or tell him who you are or who you’re working for. Anyway, he owes me a couple of favors.”

“I see,” Bel Iblis murmured. “It’s always comforting to have allies.”

“I could still go with you,” Aach offered, a clear note of reluctance lurking beneath the words. “I was supposed to head back to Alderaan. Under the circumstances I know Bail would understand.”

“No,” Bel Iblis said firmly. “Bail undoubtedly needs you elsewhere, and I can do this myself. You just help me get off Anchoron, and then you’re on your own.”

Aach hesitated, then nodded. “All right, Senator. If you insist.”

Bel Iblis looked back at the rear display, his eyes drawn unwillingly to the roiling tower of black smoke behind them. The shock was starting to wear off now, and a myriad of small injuries and throbbing pains were beginning to make themselves felt across his body.

But none of it could come even close to the bitter ache in his heart. Arrianya and the children… “Yes,” he said quietly. “I insist.”

The man sitting alone at the table across the crowded tapcafe was blond and fairly short, with the darting eyes and twitching mouth of someone who was somewhere he didn’t want to be. Not much more than a kid, really, which could explain his discomfort at being in such a villainous lair of vile laxity as the Continuum Void.

On the other hand, his stiff back had an air of the Imperial military about it, and if there was one safe bet in this galaxy, it was that military types and tapcafes rarely needed to be formally introduced.

Moranda Savich sipped at her pale blue drink, wincing at the unfamiliar tang, continuing to study the kid even as she chided herself for letting her thoughts wander off target that way. The only reason she was on Darkknell in the first place, after all, was that it wasn’t Kreeling or Dorsis or Mantarran. Inspector Hal Horn of Corellian Security had already tracked her to and chased her off all those worlds, and most likely he’d continue his winning streak by tracking her here, too. The sooner she figured out a quiet way off this rock, the better her chances of staying ahead of him until he gave up and went home.

She snorted gently. Fat chance. Horn wasn’t going to give up, at least not in her lifetime. The man was one of that supremely irritating class of law enforcers who combined the menace of incorruptibility with the annoyance of not knowing when to quit.

Across the tapcafe, the kid slipped a hand beneath the left side of his jacket as he glanced around. The second time he’d done that, Moranda noted, in the past ten minutes. Must be something he was having to reassure himself was still there…

Stop it!
she ordered herself sternly. She was on the run, and on the run was no time to be swinging for a scratch. Stirring up the locals with a score would be completely counterproductive, especially if she stirred them up enough to catch her with spice or dealies or whatever the kid was carrying that was making him so nervous.

He lifted his cup to his lips, half turning to throw a look toward the tapcafe door, his ninth such check since Moranda had been watching. As he did so, his jacket stretched momentarily against the object in his pocket, giving her a brief glimpse of its shape. It was square, slightly larger than a datacard, but considerably thicker.

A datapack? Could be. Probably with six to ten datacards, judging from the thickness, snugged together in a protective case.

Moranda swirled the blue liqueur thoughtfully in her glass. Well, now. A datapack put a very different perspective on things. Every police and security operative knew spice and other contraband items on sight or smell or taste; but a simple, innocent-looking datapack was another matter entirely. It was something anyone might be carrying, something that even the most suspicious mouth-breather would have to go to great lengths to prove wasn’t her property in the first place.

More to the point, it was something that was likely worth hard, cold money. And money was what she needed if she was going to get out of here ahead of Inspector Horn and his fistful of Corellian warrants.

Which left only one question: how to get the datapack away from its nervous owner without getting caught doing it.

The glowing sign marking the ’fresher stations was against the wall on the far side of the kid’s table. Refilling her drink from the carafe, she got up and ambled in that direction, putting a slightly tipsy hesitation into her movements. His jacket was cut Preter style, she noted with a single casual glance as she strolled past him, the sort with a deep inside pocket positioned beneath the armhole on either side. Possibly fastened at the top, but probably not seriously sealed. Still, with the youth hunched over the table the way he was, the only way to get at the datapack would be for her to get him to take the jacket at least partially off.

But that was okay. She enjoyed a challenge.

The ’fresher stations were like the rest of the Continuum Void: old and more than slightly dilapidated. Sealing herself into one, she set her drink down on the crumble-edged shelf and got to work.

The small tiles lining the station were the first target. Pulling out her knife, she pried two of them off the wall, then carefully trimmed them down to datacard size. Beneath the tiles was a layer of the low-quality honeycomb that served as a passive air filter in low-tier places like this one; a double layer of that sandwiched between her two tiles added the required thickness. One of her diaphanous black scarves wrapped tightly around the pack to hold it together and it was finished. The object didn’t look anything like a datapack, but it was the right size and shape and weight. With the proper distraction and the right moves, and maybe a little bit of luck tossed in, it should work.

After digging into her hip pack for a stray cigarra she kept around for just such occasions, she lit it and stuck it between two fingers of her right hand, picking up her glass of liqueur with the fingertips of the same hand. Then, with the decoy datapack concealed as best she could in her left hand, she unsealed the door and headed back into the main tapcafe room.

The kid hadn’t moved in the few minutes she’d been gone, nor had the contact he was obviously expecting made an appearance. Holding her decoy datapack unobtrusively at her side, putting a noticeable stagger into her walk now, she started through the crowd toward her table, this time heading for the narrow gap behind the kid. She dodged a drunk Barrckli, sent a warning glare at an unshaven nerf herder type who looked as if he might be starting to get ideas about her, and passed behind the kid—

And with a sudden lurch as if she’d been tripped, she fell heavily against the back of his chair and splashed the contents of her glass across the burning tip of her cigarra onto the back of his jacket.

The liqueur ignited with a muffled
whoosh
into a small but very satisfying fireball.

“Look out!” Moranda gasped, dropping both glass and cigarra onto the floor and grabbing over his right shoulder for the edge of the tablecloth. She yanked it toward her, scattering glasses and tableware in all directions as she hauled it past the side of his head toward the flames dancing across the back of his jacket. Simultaneously, she tugged at the left lapel with the fingertips of her left hand. Reflexively, he swung his left arm back in response, giving her the necessary slack for pulling the blazing garment away from the back of his neck.

And as she slapped vigorously at the already dying flames with the tablecloth, her left hand dipped down into the inside jacket pocket, lifting out the datapack and leaving her decoy behind in its place.

“I’m so sorry,” she repeated over and over in her best embarrassed voice, still pounding the tablecloth across his shoulders even though the fire was already out as she slipped her prize into her hip pack behind her datapad. “So terribly sorry. My ankle went and—are you all right?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” the kid growled, twisting half around to his right and grabbing at the tablecloth. “It’s out now, right?”

“Oh yes,” she said, giving his back one final slap before letting him pull the now wadded tablecloth away from her. “I’m so sorry. Can I buy you a drink?”

“No, forget it,” he said, waving her away and trying to turn a little farther around. Trying for a clearer look at her? “Just go away and leave me alone.”

“Sure, of course,” Moranda said, easing around as she pretended to resettle his jacket back onto his shoulders, staying just out of his sight. Out of the corner of his eye she saw his hand steal beneath his jacket to the pocket. The fingers probed the shape of her decoy and fell away, apparently reassured. “I’m so sorry.”

“Go away,” he repeated, starting to sound a little angry now. Clearly he wasn’t happy at having all this attention focused his way.

“Yeah, sure.” Moranda stepped away to his left, and as he twisted his head in that direction, still trying for a clear look at her face, she turned her back to him and worked her way through the crowd toward her table.

She reached it but didn’t sit down. The kid’s buyer could be here any time now, and she had no intention of being anywhere in the vicinity when he hauled her decoy triumphantly out of his pocket. Leaving the price of her drink on the table, she slouched her way to the door and out into the tangy Darkknell air. Time to find a nice, quiet place to go to ground for a while and see just what it was she’d scored.

Bel Iblis stared across the tapcafe table at the young blond man, a sense of unreality thudding through his brain in time with the pulse pounding in his neck. “What do you mean, you lost it?” he demanded in a low voice. “How do you
lose
an entire datapack? Especially from within your own coat pocket?”

“Don’t use that tone with
me
, friend,” the other growled back, his eyes darting nervously around the half-empty room. “And if you’re hinting that I’m trying to repulsorlift my price, you’d better think again. I took a huge risk getting that stuff and bringing it here. A
huge
risk. I’m not any happier than you are that it got lifted.”

Bel Iblis took a careful breath, trying to throttle back his growing anger. He might not be a Rebel field operative like Aach, but he knew how to read people, and the youth’s face and voice had the ring of truth in them.

Which meant they were both now squarely in the middle of an incredibly dangerous position. The minute the thief realized what it was she’d found… “Is there any way they can trace it back to you?” He asked quietly.

The young man snorted into his cup. “Sure, if they really want to go to that much effort. Knowing Tarkin’s reputation, they probably will.”

“Then we’ll just have to get it back.”

The kid snorted again. “
You
can go looking under rocks for it if you want. Me, I’m heading for the tall weeds while I still can.”

“You run now and they’ll know for sure you were the one who lifted the data,” Bel Iblis warned.

“Like that’s going to matter any,” the other countered harshly, draining his cup and bringing it back down onto the table with an unnecessarily loud thud. “She’s not going to sit on this long, you know. And the minute she turns it in, the spaceport’s going to be locked down solid while Tarkin’s people fan out across the planet. You want to wait for that to happen, you be my guest.”

He stood up. “So long, have fun, and forget you ever saw me.”

He strode across the room and vanished out the door. “I’ll try,” Bel Iblis murmured after him. Taking a sip from his mug, he tried to think.

Because his erstwhile drinking companion was wrong. The thief wouldn’t hand her prize over to the authorities just like that. Someone cool enough to lift a datapack in the middle of a crowded tapcafe would also be cool enough to try to turn a profit from her acquisition. And that meant selling the datapack.

Which left only the question of how to persuade her to sell to the Rebel Alliance instead of the Empire.

Fishing in his pocket for some coins, he dropped them onto the table beside his mug and headed for the door. One thing that
was
certain was that he wasn’t going to be able to track her down in a city the size of Xakrea by himself. That meant someone with connections in the planet’s fringe population; and
that
meant getting in touch with Aach’s local contact.

He hoped the man owed Aach a
lot
of favors.