Tales from the New Republic (41 page)

“And I’m telling you again,” Ghitsa responded patiently. “I’ve never heard of this before.”

Culan Brasli’s blow knocked her out of the chair. Bound at the hands and ankles, Ghitsa managed to twist her body so only muscle met the unyielding ship deck.

“That’s not what we hear, Counselor,” Brasli sneered.

Ghitsa had been beaten many times before. It was an occupational hazard working for the Hutts. On a scale of one to ten, Brasli’s efforts were about an eight, maximizing pain while minimizing long-term damage.
A true
artisan
. She curled up into a ball, making a smaller target for the inevitable kick. Brasli really put his weight into it as his heavy foot slammed into her, again and again…

Dawn was less than an hour away. Fen followed the speeder’s map through Nad’Ris to the spaceport and an alley that ran along the back of the port. She maneuvered the speeder down the narrow passage, weaving back and forth between the trash and broken, pitted pavement.

They hadn’t exchanged two sentences since Kyp’s revelations on the darkened roadway. She eased the speeder into a sheltered alcove and shut it down. When he still didn’t say anything, Fen asked, “You coming?”

Kyp hopped out of the speeder but remained mute.

The back port wall loomed above them, slimy, dirty and a full five meters high. Scanning up and down the alley, Fen found the hoped-for service entrance. “I’m going to try getting it open,” she indicated with a nod. “You stand watch, okay?”

Fen pulled a palm-sized device from a pocket and set it over the door’s security lock.

“Is that what I think it is?” Kyp asked.

Fen cocked an eyebrow at his disapproving voice. “If you think it’s an Opirus Model FD Sixty-Two security descrambler, then it’s exactly what you think it is.”

“Aren’t those illegal?”

“So’s murder,” Fen scoffed.

It was several moments before Kyp asked quietly, “Did you murder everyone you thought was responsible for Jett’s death?”

Fen almost dropped the descrambler. She could tell where this was going; being on the moral high ground was a rarity she wasn’t anxious to give up.

“Did you?” Kyp repeated.

“Yes,” she finally said, as slowly as the descrambler was working.

“If more people had been responsible, would you have retaliated against them, too?”

“You killed billions!” Fen burst out. She glanced nervously around, but the alley remained deserted.

“I know,” Kyp moaned. “I relive it every day. But given the power and means, wouldn’t you have done the same to avenge Jett?”

The answer wasn’t nearly as simple as it should have been.

The sound of a slick-as-grease human voice woke her. “Brasli, please seat the Counselor.”

Ghitsa craned her neck but got only lancing agony for the trouble. Brasli roughly yanked her up from the deck and shoved her into a chair.

Across a table from her sat a young, well-dressed man. “I apologize for Brasli’s enthusiasm.” He waved his hand, fingering a datacard between his fingers. Ghitsa noticed a datapad on the table that hadn’t been there before. “Untie her, Brasli.”

Ghitsa gasped as he loosened the bonds, feeling blood rush to her feet and hands. Although he commanded even Brasli’s obedience, the man who gave the unquestioned order was too young and unpolished to have occupied the position very long. His suit indicated more wealth than taste.

“Do your Desilijic Clan masters know your Coruscantan accent is faked?” Ghitsa asked through a split and bleeding lip.

He flushed. “No one mentioned the Desilijics, or indeed the Hutts, at all.”

“Brasli and I have met before. And I’ve been aboard the
Rook
several times.” Ghitsa felt a warm trickle and impatiently wiped the blood from her chin. “Admittedly the circumstances were different.”

“No doubt during the time your Hutt clan methodically stripped my own.”

With his appropriately calm, detached response, Ghitsa conceded that the Desilijics had not sent someone completely green for this assignment. She needed more information if she was going to talk her way out of this one. “Counselor, I do not know your name.”

He continued flipping the datacard in his fingers as if it were a sabacc card.
A sabacc card
, Ghitsa mused.
He started as a gambler
.

“I am Counselor Ral,” he said decisively, sliding the card into the pad on the table. “And now, Counselor Dogder, we will discuss Durga the Hutt’s investment in the Orko Consortium.”

“I wouldn’t have done it,” Fen said. She modulated the descrambler again, but it was one year too old and the door was one year too new.

“I know,” Kyp replied from where he stood watch. “But you did think about it?”

“Yes.” She truly had. In her grief and despair over Jett’s murder, Fen acted more violently than at any other time in her life. But still, she wouldn’t have gone as far as her Jedi lookout.

“I hate what I did. There are days when I think the guilt will drive me mad,” Kyp said, his voice wavering. “It would be easier if I were locked up somewhere.”

“Or dead,” Fen offered helpfully.

“As you said, that’s the coward’s way out.”

Fen pocketed the descrambler and brushed her hands off on the front of her flight suit. “This isn’t going to work. We have to find another way in.”

Kyp slumped against the wall, hanging his head miserably. His bangs again fell over his eyes. “They didn’t lock me away, and I’m not dead.” He choked on a dry sob. “What am I supposed to do, Fen?”

“How should I know?” Fen retorted, angry that she actually felt sorry for him. Fen Nabon as judge, moralist, and confessor? If it weren’t so comical it would be grotesque. Other priorities were more pressing than a murderer’s atonement.

She cleared her throat roughly. “I guess you just make sure it never happens again.”

Kyp drew his arms protectively around himself. “What if that’s not enough?”

“You do what the rest of us do.” She lifted his chin with her forefinger, forcing him to look at her. “The best you can.”

“But if I fail…” he trailed off.

“I’ll hunt you down and kill you myself.” Their eyes met, and then Fen tore away from his grateful stare. “Come on. Time for Plan B.”

“Your sources err,” Ghitsa said, with a patience she didn’t feel. “I haven’t worked for Durga’s clan for over three years.”

The blast of a voice over a comm at the cabin door startled all of them. “Counselor?” the disembodied and deferential speaker asked.

“1 told you not to interrupt us,” Ral snapped. Striding to the comm, he adjusted the controls so Ghitsa could not overhear the apparent orders and counterorders.

“I’ll be right up,” Ral said curtly. He awarded her a dark glare. “It seems that Nad’Ris Customs refuses to lift the quarantine placed on our ship for suspected biological contagions.”

“Indeed?” Ghitsa queried blandly, heart leaping. Slicing into the Nad’Ris records to embargo the ship would be classic Fen.

“It is remarkable since the
Rook
declared no cargo,” Ral mused. He nodded to Brasli. “Clean her up. Customs will be inspecting the ship. Then lock the good Counselor in here, so she may refresh her recollections undisturbed.” She remained impassive under his thoughtful stare, but Ral was as shrewd. “And Brasli, alert your team. We must be ready for any uninvited guests.”

“We should be within a bay or two of where the
Rook
’s docked,” Fen commented. They hid behind a trash heap in the alley. The port’s back wall towered above them.

“We’re going to have to hurry,” Kyp said, turning toward her. His serious countenance suddenly changed, a smirk appearing where solemnity had been. His eyes flickered up to her face.

“What is it?” Fen growled, brushing a loose strand of hair away with her elbow.

“There’s something you should know.”

“What now?”

“There’s a big smudge of dirt on your forehead.”

Fen felt her face redden and warm. She wiped her forehead with her glove and saw a large smear of black grease. Groaning, she remembered working on the
Lady
’s drive a lifetime ago. “It’s been on there since you met me at the ship, right?”

The smirk was now a full-blown grin. “Uh-huh.”

“You could have said something,” she accused, still wiping.

“I just did.” Kyp raised his hand, touching her temple, “You missed a spot.”

Oddly, Fen didn’t shudder at his touch. “Is it gone?” she asked, rubbing her face again.

He nodded and turned back to study the wall. “We could climb it.”

Fen reached a quick decision. “Kyp, there’s something I should tell you.”

He glanced at her quizzically. “Do I have food stuck in my teeth?”

“It’s about Ghitsa.”

“I know already, Fen,” Kyp interrupted.

Rage swept through her again. “You were reading my mind!” she accused.

Kyp rolled his eyes. “I didn’t need to. I’ve been searching through the Force since I landed. I would have sensed someone with Ghitsa’s reputed skills pretty quickly, especially once she was kidnapped.”

“You’ve known all along?” she stammered. “And you were still gonna help me spring a cheap con who finally got what she had coming to her?”

“I know you don’t like to hear it, but the Force guided me here.” He took a deep breath. “I think I’m beginning to see why.”

Fen digested that fact and finally felt an easier truce settle between them. She scrambled to her feet. “Why don’t you try using the Force to throw the rope and grappling hook over the wall?”

Kyp nodded and rose with the rope they brought from the speeder. He swung the hook up in a smooth arc. They heard a gentle clatter. Kyp tested his weight on the line, then clambered up the wall as easily as an insect.

Fen’s ascent was not nearly as graceful. She was grunting with the effort when something suddenly scooped her up and deposited her on the top of the wall.

“Easy,” Kyp muttered, lending a steadying hand as Fen teetered on the narrow ledge.

To her annoyance, he seemed perfectly balanced five meters above the ground. Fen glared at him, but Kyp was neither intimidated, nor apologetic. He only shrugged. “Force grip.”

“Oh. Thanks,” Fen managed. She quickly scanned the port. “There.” She pointed at a hulking Ghtroc freighter two docking bays over.

They ran lightly across the top of the wall, a race against the coming dawn and prying eyes. From the wall Kyp leaped to a rung on the ship’s hull and climbed up to the
Rook
’s top hatch. Fen was right behind him.

Kyp gave the hatch lever a strong pull. It didn’t move. “It’s locked!”

“Of course it is.” Fen withdrew another device from her pockets of tricks.

“Let me guess,” Kyp asked. “An illegal shipjacking kit?”

She set the decoder over the hatch lock, and it began rapidly scrolling through security combinations, one digit at a time. “I bet you keep all your ships unlocked on Yavin Four, don’t you?” Fen swallowed the remainder when she saw his stricken expression and remembered why he might be sensitive to ship thieving. “Forget it. Sorry.”

Fen heard the gentle whirring of gears, then a soft snap. “Are we clear down there?” she demanded, returning the device to her pocket.

Kyp nodded. With her left hand on the hatch, Fen drew her blaster with her right.

“Wait,” Kyp ordered.

Now she was really angry. “What?”

“Your blaster,” Kyp said, very earnestly.

“If you think I’m going in there without my blaster…”

Kyp shook his head vigorously. “No, of course you should. But, Fen, you’ve got to put it on a stun setting.”

“Don’t go getting all Jedi on me.”

“Fen, killing them won’t bring Jett back.”

He said it so gently she had to fight through a bantha-sized lump in her throat to respond. “And not killing them won’t bring your brother back.”

Kyp looked at the lightsaber clutched in his hand. “I know. And I’ll help you, Fen, regardless. But don’t make me go down there knowing that more might die when I could have done something to prevent it.”

He had found her vulnerability and twisted it for all it was worth. “Stun may not stop what they throw at us,” she warned.

“I know,” Kyp said. “But it’s the right thing to do.”

“No good being right if you’re dead,” Fen retorted. They’d wasted enough time, she told herself, as she thumbed her blaster to a stun setting. She popped the hatch open; warm, yellow light poured out.

Kyp dropped down. Fen was less adroit, grabbing the sides of the hatch and hoisting herself into the hole. What should have been a fall felt like a slide through feathers, and she landed lightly and soundless.
Convenient thing, that Force grip
.

Kyp glanced around quickly, then pushed a pressure plate on the wall. A door slid open and they scurried into the dark cabin. “How should we look for her?” he asked.

“Can’t you just sense her, or something?” Fen said, as she quickly studied the room.

“No, I’ve tried. There are a lot of fearful humans on this ship.” Kyp suddenly moved back to the door. “Someone’s coming!” he announced.

“Really? Well, I’ve never been afraid to ask for directions.”

Kyp eased the cabin door open as heavy footfalls moved passed. They slipped out silently and Fen exulted in the reunion.

“Hello, Brasli.” Fen underscored her cheery greeting by ramming her blaster muzzle into the thug’s back.

Brasli stopped abruptly.

“That’s right,” Fen cooed. “Put your hands up and away from that nice blaster at your side.”

“I figured you’d show up for that Sithin’ partner of yours, Nabon,” Brasli sneered, slowly turning around to face her.

“No swearing around Jedi,” Fen remonstrated as Kyp relieved Brasli of his weapon. “Now, are you going to tell me where she is, or is this Jedi going to have to go into that mass of pathetic neurons you call a brain and pull it out?”

When she and Kyp burst into the cabin, with Brasli at the end of a blaster muzzle, Ghitsa’s exclamation of “Fen!” encompassed relief and a question, all in a single word.

Fen roughly shoved Brasli into a chair. “Sit.” To Ghitsa she said, “Got anything to tie him up?”

“What Brasli used on me will work admirably on him,” Ghitsa said, snapping a length of cord in her hands.

There was an ugly bruise across Ghitsa’s face, but she was mobile. “You okay?” Fen blurted as she let go of the mental image of another partner’s blood staining the floor.

“Nothing that a week in a spa won’t cure.” As Ghitsa trussed and gagged Brasli, the man’s grunts reflected her enthusiasm for the task. Ghitsa let the moments beat by, then, as her cunning eyes slid over Kyp, added, “So Fen, you’ve found a real Jedi.”

Reluctant to disclose his secret, Fen was relieved when Kyp stepped forward. “I’m Kyp Durron.”

Ghitsa started. “Durron? Jedi Kyp Durron?”

“Save it for later,” Fen broke in. Ghitsa had worked for Hutts; she’d be able to handle rescue by a mass murderer.

“I sealed the door,” Kyp offered.

“Then how will we get out?” Fen countered.

They all jumped as a new, commanding voice burst into the cabin. “Brasli, report!”

Ghitsa pointed at the comlink affixed to Brasli’s collar. “It’s Counselor Ral. He’s running this operation.”

Fen strode to the bound man, tore the gag from his mouth and aimed her blaster squarely between his eyes. “You are going to answer your comlink. You try being cute and I’ll blow you apart.”

Brasli nodded. “What is it, Ral?” His voice was rough but otherwise normal.

“Where are you?”

“Tell him you’re here,” Fen mouthed.

“I’m with Counselor Dogder,” Brasli rasped.

“Good,” the other voice barked. “Stay there. We may have been boarded. We’re searching the ship now.”

The other voice clicked off. As Fen crammed the gag back in Brasli’s mouth, Ghitsa plucked the comlink from his uniform and affixed it to her own collar.

“Fen,” Kyp called.

“Yeah?”

He was studying the cabin wall. “This is an exterior bulkhead, right?”

“There’s about a half meter of reinforced hull between you and the big, bad galaxy, if that’s what you mean. What are you…”

Fen’s words died in her throat and Ghitsa’s sharp gasp was abruptly drowned out by the low hum of the bright violet blade in Kyp’s hand.

A Jedi Knight and a lightsaber
. It was almost holy, harkening back to an era long gone in her lifetime. Impossibly it lived again in the cramped cabin of a Hutt freighter.

Kyp laughed. “Now, Fen, don’t you start. I’ll just cut through and we’ll be out of here.” He pivoted to Ghitsa and offered her the shimmering lightsaber. “Unless you would like to do it?”

“No, wait!” Fen cried as Kyp raised his lightsaber. “If you cut through there, it’ll set off the hull breach alarms. They’ll be on top of us before we can get out of here.”

“I could cover you,” Kyp asserted.

“Both of us? For how long?” Fen responded.
And with how many dead
? she added silently for Kyp. When he nodded slightly, Fen knew he understood. “It’s still a good idea though.” She strode over to the cabin’s control panel and tore off the cover.

Her partner was already anticipating Fen’s plan. “Do you have something that can generate a continuous loop?” Ghitsa asked.

“Yeah. I think we can rig one of the no-shows I brought.” Fen reached into a pocket at her thigh and pulled out the device. She handed it to Ghitsa. “See what you can do with it.”

“What’s a no-show?” Kyp asked over her shoulder. He had, Fen noticed, shut down the lightsaber.

“Something else you wouldn’t approve of,” Fen said lightly.

“It’s a passive field generator,” Ghitsa explained. Fen heard a snap as the no-show split in Ghitsa’s hands. “Wearing one makes you invisible to most detection technologies.”

“The cabin’s sensors for things like hull integrity all run through this circuit,” Fen said, working a pair of cutters out of another pocket with one hand and pointing to the wiring in the wall. “From here it feeds into the ship’s computer.”

“So you are going to slice into it and use the no-show to create an uninterrupted feed from here to the computer?” Kyp’s voice indicated he wasn’t quite cut out for this sort of skullduggery.

“More or less,” Fen responded, sorting through the multicolored wires in the panel.
Which one was for hull integrity again
? She shrugged the doubt away, jammed the cutters between her teeth, and began teasing green wire out of the panel. “Ghits,” she mumbled through a mouthful of tool, “you got that gen rigged yet?”

“Yes.”

As her partner clamped the generator onto the wire, Fen commented, “I’ve never seen a hairpin used like that before.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Fen.”

Fen spit out the cutters and sliced into the circuit. She held a ragged breath, but no alarms sounded. “That should keep them off our backs.”

They both pivoted about on hearing the hum as Kyp again ignited his lightsaber. He swung the blade over his head and began slicing through half a meter of metal like a boot through mud.

“You know, Fen,” Ghitsa commented, staring at the young Jedi now deliberately sawing through ship hull. “I don’t want to see a lightsaber on the black market. Ever.”

Kyp was through in a few edgy minutes and closed down the lightsaber. “There’s a skin of metal still holding it on. We’ll have to push our way out.”

Fen put a shoulder to the makeshift door.

As Ghitsa hesitated, Fen chided her, “Come on. Here’s a use for those shoulder pads.”

“I was just wondering what we do once we break out of the ship?”

Fen looked at Kyp. He shrugged. “Run?”

Chuckling, Fen started the count. On her “Three!” the hull plate buckled, then clattered to the ground. Fresh air and light streamed in. “Anyone around?” she asked Kyp.

He shook his head. “For now, no. But we don’t have much time.”

“One more thing,” Ghitsa injected, with a nod toward the wide-eyed Brasli, still tied to the chair. “Shouldn’t we dispose of him?”

Fen understood from where that desire for revenge came. Brasli obviously worked over her partner pretty hard, judging from the bruises and busted lip.

Kyp solved the problem by jumping out the door to the ground some two meters below. “Come on,” he gestured.

She jumped down and Ghitsa followed. They landed in the shadow of the
Rook
’s underbelly, concealed by a landing skid.

Kyp gestured to the docking bay’s entrance on the other side of the landing pad. “I think that’s the only way out.”

“And it’s in the line of their laser cannons,” Fen noted, heart sinking.

Ghitsa pursed her lips. “I bet they’ve security coded the door, too.”

Kyp pushed the hair out of his face again, a gesture that was part need and part unconscious habit. “Fen, if you can take whatever comes out of the ship, and Ghitsa, you work the door, I’ll handle the rest.”

“Just like that?” Fen challenged.

The Jedi Knight nodded. “Just stay behind me.”

They had covered half the distance between the ship’s bow and the docking bay exit. Fen was beginning to think maybe no one would notice when Kyp started yelling.

“Get to the door,” he called.

Behind them, Fen heard the earsplitting whine of laserfire. She instinctively ducked and pushed Ghitsa forward to the entrance, but couldn’t place what the ricochet sound was.

Fen whirled around and, for a second, reflexes honed by years of dodging and answering blasterfire failed her.

Kyp, the kid of a Jedi, was standing alone in the middle of the docking bay. Laserfire poured from the
Rook
’s forward guns. And like some weird children’s toy, Kyp caught the green killing bolts on his lightsaber and tossed them away.

“Fen!” she heard Ghitsa shout. She spun about. Her partner was under the entrance’s marginal cover. “It is locked. You’ll need to hold them off a few minutes.”

A few minutes
. It was a lifetime in moments like this. She ran back to Kyp. Methodically, even calmly, he deflected each burst of fire. The blasts bounced off the lightsaber, ricocheting at crazy angles.

Out of the corner of her vision, Fen saw movement, flickers at the top of the
Rook
’s ramp, inside the ship. From behind Kyp’s protective cover she crouched down, steadied her blaster on her knee and caught each of the Hutt henchmen in a blue wave of stun blasts as they emerged from the ship.

Her mind had been ticking off the seconds. She knew, rationally, they had not been under fire for more than a minute. It seemed an eternity. Ghitsa was good at locks, but they were only two people against an entire ship. If Kyp started to get tired, or faltered just once…

The wail of repulsors suddenly filled the docking bay.
What the…
Fen glanced up, wondering why it had gone so dark. A freighter hovered overhead. It was obviously piloted by someone who was really angry, and a friend, Fen concluded with surprise, as the ship poured cannon fire into the
Rook
.

The
Rook
shuddered, helpless on the ground. Fen stared again at the ship, noticing the distinctive bow markings, the equipment standard on no other YT. The
Star Lady
? What was her ship doing here?

Fen’s personal comlink burst to life. “Cap’n, this is Gibb. I figured you might need some help.” He underscored the point with another deafening volley into the grounded ship.

The roar of the
Rook
coming to life drowned out Fen’s shrieking invective at the reckless mechanic. The
Rook
’s repulsors screamed, blowing dust in the landing bay. Threatened from above, the ship abandoned her victims on the ground and surged up. Fen felt her heart stop as the
Rook
swerved and narrowly missed the hovering
Star Lady
. Free of the docking bay, the
Rook
shot into the sky.

“Gibb!” she screeched into the comlink. “You bring my ship back! Don’t you dare…” But Gibb did dare, darting after the retreating
Rook
.

“It’s all right Cap’n. She’s running now. I’ve called Nad’Ris Customs. They’ll intercept.”

Fen yanked a pair of macrobinoculars out of another pocket and glued her eyes to the scene.

“Who’s that piloting the
Star Lady
?” she heard Ghitsa ask.

“Gibb,” came Kyp’s weary voice.

With a supreme effort Fen tore herself away from the vision of the
Lady
chasing the much bigger, and better armed, Ghtroc.

In a tone full of disbelieving admiration, Ghitsa added, “It really was good of you to let Gibb fly the
Lady
here.”

Fen could only nod weakly. To Kyp, she managed, “You did great.”

Kyp smiled back and pushed sweaty hair off his forehead. “I’m just glad we didn’t have to kill any of them.”

“Actually…” Ghitsa began.

Frowning, Fen asked, “What?”

“Well, they have no way of knowing about that hole Kyp cut in the hull. If they get too high up.”

Kyp turned gray. “Gibb!” Fen yelled into the comlink. “Back off! Tell Nad’Ris Customs not to chase them. That ship’s not spaceworthy. She’ll blow if she goes much higher.”

Ghitsa looked bewildered. “What’s the problem?”

“Later, Ghits.” To Kyp she said, “Can’t you do something so they turn back?”

Kyp was looking up, into the space of sky the ships were heading. “Even if I could, the Force shouldn’t be used that way.”

His piercing sorrow made Fen ache.

Ghitsa humphed, then unclipped the comlink she’d taken from Brasli and thumbed it on. “I’m warning you though, it won’t work.”

“Try!” Fen demanded.

“Counselor Ral, this is Dogder.” She smoothly cut off his sputtering rage. “Yes, as you have surmised, I have Brasli’s comlink. Now, Ral, I am quite serious here. You have a hull breach. You’ll never clear the lower atmosphere. You have to come back.”

They heard laughter. “He’s a gambler,” Ghitsa explained. “He thinks I’m bluffing.”

“Try again,” Fen urged.

Staring into the sky, Kyp murmured, “Customs still thinks the ship is under quarantine. They’ll try to stop it.”

Fen brought the macrobinocs back up to her face. She could just make out the
Rook
. Per her orders, Gibb had not pursued. But Fen could see two smaller ships moving fast and firing wildly at the retreating
Rook
.

“Ral, this is Counselor’s oath,” Fen heard Ghitsa say. “I swear you have a hull breach.”

“Too late,” Kyp whispered.

From the comlink they heard a scream, then a burst of static. Through the macrobinocs, Fen saw a flash. And the
Rook
was gone.