Star Wars_ Millennium Falcon Part 18

"He shouldn't have been able to do that," Leia said in quiet astonishment.

Chapter nineteen.

"Move to the center of the room with all your belongings and prepare to be scanned," Carcel's Codru-Ji security officer ordered over the loudspeaker.

Jadak and Poste and a mixed-species group of two dozen other visitors moved deeper into the room. Positioning marks on the metal floor indicated where each of them should stand.

"You with the leg implants," the Codru-Ji said. "Take two steps forward and raise your arms out to your sides."

"Hope they don't find the laserfile you hid in the birthday cake," Poste said as Jadak and a Gran separated themselves from the group. "Just the human male," the Codru-Ji said. "All right, you can rejoin the others," he added a moment later.

Everyone waited while a quartet of archaic gatekeeper droids performed the scanning.

"Gather your belongings and report to visitor registration," the guard said finally.

Having left their small packs in the prison's small hotel, Jadak and Poste were alone in being empty-handed; the rest of the visitors were Bringing foodstuff, clothing, holozines, smokes of a wide a.s.sortment, and refresher flimsi to friends, family members, and former accomplices. Carcel was the most miserable piece of rock Jadak had ever put down on, and perhaps the worst possible place for Poste to begin his galactic travels. Regardless, he was like a kid at an amus.e.m.e.nt park, soaking in every experience and elated to be away from Nar Shaddaa. Jadak had had himself fitted for a new ident.i.ty and thoroughly scanned for locator implants. As a further precaution, they had booked pa.s.sage on a merchant s.h.i.+p to Saleucami before hopping a pa.s.senger vessel to Roche and transferring to the dedicated shuttles that ferried visitors to and from Carcel. In their short time together, Poste had already shown himself to be a quick-thinking and amiable companion. Jadak had been mostly correct about the kid's criminal activities, but there was more to him than met the eye. Born in one of the Smugglers' Moon's deepest chasms, Poste had all but raised himself, learning the ropes of foraging, theft, and scamming early on. He had been jailed numerous times, and maintained a soft spot for kids growing up as he did, often to the point of sharing his meager pickings with them. Naturally inquisitive, he was full of questions, only some of which Jadak was able to answer, having spent the past six decades in dreamland.

The questions he couldn't answer for reasons that had nothing to do with the coma were where the treasure was hidden and precisely what part the Envoy would play in finding it. In the years he had flown for the Republic Group, Jadak had insisted on never being given the details of his missions. The less he knew, the less he could reveal if exposed as a spy and captured. But in the Senate Annex on that fateful day, the Senators had provided more than the usual information, and the phrase restore Republic honor to the galaxy was somehow a thread to unraveling their revelations.

Arrived at the visitor registration station, Jadak submitted their request.

"Rej Taunt," the Falleen guard said. "Do you have an appointment?"

"Just visiting."

"You're visitors."

Jadak swapped looks with Poste. "What, as opposed to guests?"

The Falleen regarded them for a moment, then pointed to a bench and said: "Take a seat and I'll let you know."

"Maybe they're holding him in solitary," Poste ventured.

Jadak shook his head. "Not by the sound of it."

For more than a standard hour they watched a HoloNet screen and sipped at sweet drinks purchased from a machine. Finally, the guard summoned them to the station.

"Taunt will see you now." He slid two electronic pa.s.ses forward "Hook these to your belts. Follow the floor routing lines to the west building, then follow the red line to its end. Someone there will tell you what to do next."

"Taunt will see us now?" Poste said as they set out.

Jadak shrugged. "Maybe he was busy knocking out illuminator covers."

The walk took a solid quarter hour. The doors they pa.s.sed through slid every which way-up, down, and to both sides. Sonic were barred and some were a meter thick. The guards and few prisoners moving through the sterile corridors looked as miserable as Carcel itself. Even the droids looked unhappy.

Ultimately a human guard led them to Taunt's cell, which, oddly, was sealed by a greel wood door that had to be two hundred years old. The door concealed a palatial suite of rooms covered with fine carpels and filled with furniture and antiques dating back to the late Old Re public era. An a.s.sortment of beings was busy at tasks while several human and humanoid females lounged languidly on divans and sofas, Well over a century old, Taunt was sitting like a Hutt on a huge pillow in the center of the least occupied room.

"I'm Sorrel, and this is Mag Frant," Jadak said, using their new ident.i.ties.

The Askajian gave them the once-over. "Do I know you gentle men from somewhere?"

"We've come from Nar Shaddaa."

Taunt glanced at Poste. "You're from Nar Shaddaa." His gaze flicked to Jadak. "You . . . you're from ..."

"All over."

"That would have been my first guess." Taunt's tone remained conversational. "So what brings you here all the way from Nar Shaddaa? Business?"

"Information," Jadak said.

Taunt smiled faintly. "That's business, isn't it?"

"This is old business. It concerns a YT-Thirteen-hundred freighter called the Stellar Envoy."

Taunt's expression changed, and he took a long moment to reply. " The Second Chance," he amended.

"That's what I meant."

Taunt studied Jadak. "Who did you say sent you?"

"No one sent us. But it was Bammy Decree who told us where to find you."

"The mechanic. How is he?"

"Still hobbling around."

"He was a young man when I first met him."

"He told us he rebuilt the Envoy for you."

"That he did." Taunt smiled with his eyes. "Did he tell you what happened?"

"Some of it."

Taunt motioned for them to grab pillows and make themselves comfortable.

"At first, the Imperials wanted to execute me for the deaths of the cruiser's crew members and clones. Instead a military court sentenced me to life. For the next couple of years, I was transferred from one penitentiary to the next-Agon Nine, Fodurant, Delrian, I saw the inside of all of them. Meanwhile, Bammy Decree learned that I'd taken a contract out on him and fled Nar Shaddaa for the stars. A bounty hunter found him hiding in Nomad City at Nkllon, and I had him turned over to the Black Sun Vigo who had paid for the cargo of buzz droids I jettisoned. Long story short, the Vigo was so impressed by my honoring the debt, he suggested a business partners.h.i.+p whereby he would furnish me with information I could feed to prison authorities in exchange for my being allowed to conduct illegal business while incarcerated-and in surroundings suited to my tastes. A kind of Black Sun franchise, you might say. All through the Imperial years, the New Republic years, and through all the wars since, I've been sitting pretty while the rest of the galaxy has gone to rot. But in all that time, I've never forgotten that first run I made, jinxed as it was. I had high hopes for that s.h.i.+p."

"Maybe you should have named her High Hopes instead of Second Chance,'" Jadak said.

Taunt gazed at him. "Have we met before? Because you seem familiar. Ever been in lockup?"

Jadak shook his head. "I would remember."

"What's your interest in the Second Chance? You don't look like the historian type."

"My uncle was one of the pilots who died in the collision at Nar Shaddaa. His name was Reeze Duurmun."

Taunt flicked his big head in a nod of recognition. "You get to be my age, you forget faces. But I never forget a name. I knew Reeze when he was flying contraband for the Ilk family. He and I ran into some problems on Nar Shaddaa, but we managed to work them out." He paused briefly. "Fancy that, Reeze dying in the s.h.i.+p I wound up with. I never knew . . . but Reeze being your uncle still doesn't explain why you'd come all the way to Carcel looking for the freighter."

"If she still exists, I want to own her."

"That's an if of major magnitude considering how much time has pa.s.sed."

"We know that."

Taunt appraised them. "Kind of a fling, is that it, your looking for the s.h.i.+p? You don't have jobs? You're independently wealthy?"

"I lost my legs in an industrial accident. I'm blowing the insurance settlement pursuing a lifelong dream."

"And I'm supposed to help you make your dream come true?"

"We just want to know what became of the freighter after your arrest."

Taunt considered it. "I could tell you straight-out, I suppose. But I have to ask what you're bringing to the table."

"I won't insult you by saying credits, since it doesn't look like you lack for anything."

"Nice of you to notice."

"How about we reframe the question by asking if there's something we can do for you in exchange for the information we're after."

Taunt nibbed his chins. "I do have something in the works. My employees are already on it, but they could use a couple of human hands. You'd have to be willing to jump your way to Holess. Are you flush enough to do that?"

"Providing you don't mind us taking the local."

"Even the local will get you there in time for the job."

"What's involved?" Jadak asked cautiously.

"Revenge."

"We're not muscle."

"Clearly. But this job isn't revenge of that sort."

"Who's the target?" Poste asked.

"The Colicoids."

Jadak was caught by surprise. "I didn't know they were still around."

Taunt sneered. "Like any pest, they're hard to eradicate."

"Revenge on an individual Colicoid or the entire species?"

"I don't overreach," Taunt said. "Here's the way it lays out. Though things turned out well enough for me, I've never forgiven them for what they did to some of the members of my crew, and for what those karking buzz droids did to my future. I've waited a long time to even the score, and the chance is finally at hand."

"What part do we play in this?" Jadak said.

Taunt leaned forward on the pillow. "Ever hear of a creature called a hueche?"

"An extraordinary creature," Vistal Purn was telling Han, Leia, Allana, and C-3PO in his office on the upper tier of the arena. "Certainly the finest example of a marsupial ever entered into compet.i.tion. His name is Tamac's Zantay Aura. The radiance of the orange stripes is what won him the prize. And so well behaved. You know, the female produces a salubrious milk called kista."

"I didn't know," Leia said politely.

After the previous day's events it was difficult to care much about the pet who had won most placid in show, and she and Han might have postponed the meeting with Vistal Purn had Allana not insisted on honoring the appointment they had made. She gave all appearances of having put the brief abduction behind her, but Leia knew that wasn't the case. She had the ability lo compartmentalize experiences and lock the painful ones away, a knack she had inherited from Tenel Ka rather than Jacen.

"What will happen to Tamac's Zantay Aura?" Allana asked.

Purn was only too happy to answer it. Ten years or so younger than Han, he was tall and elegantly dressed and charming in a way Leia guessed would be required to deal with the sort of beings who entered pets into compet.i.tion.

"He will father many chitliks that will be sold for obscene amounts of credits. Also, chitliks will become the must-have pets until some other species wins next year's compet.i.tion. There's always a bit of politics involved," Purn added, almost as an aside to Han and Leia. "An adviser to Chief of State Daala is said to have a pair of chitliks. Still, the shows can be fun. I'm so sorry that your introduction to them had to be spoiled ..."

"Sorry about the pets that got flattened," Han said.

"No need to apologize," Purn said. "From what I understand, the group that attempted to force your hand was smuggling weapons onto Taris inside false-bottomed cages. Galactic Alliance agents discovered a recent s.h.i.+pment of arms cached in the arena's sub-bas.e.m.e.nt. Between us, I think this conspiracy may go all the way to the top. My hope is that it doesn't completely tarnish the reputation of the show. Next year is shaping up to be an extraordinary year for insectoids and avians. If you have time I can show you some of the holoimages we've received." Purn fell silent for a moment, then said to Leia: "Captain Solo's eyes look as if they're glazing over."

"They have closed completely on three occasions in the past four cycles," C-3PO said.

Playfully, Leia patted Han on the hand. "He missed his afternoon nap. He might wake up if you'd tell us about the years you flew the Millennium Falcon. We know you sold it to Cix Trouvee, but Cix's children weren't able to shed any light on where you acquired the s.h.i.+p, or what it was being used for."

Purn sat back in his chair and grinned. "The Falcon. Just thinking about it brings me back ..." He sat forward. "You see, I was young and in love . . ."

Chapter twenty.

I was young and in love and the manager of Molpol's Traveling Circus.

But perhaps I should start at the beginning.

I grew up on Generis, where my parents owned and operated a wilderness ranch on a white-water stretch of the Atrivis River. The ranch was a four-day walk from the closest population center, but most guests opted to pay extra to be delivered by airspeeder, which could make the trip in a little under a standard hour. My parents eventually purchased an airspeeder of their own and taught me to pilot it. By the time I was twelve, it was my job to ferry guests in and out of the ranch and to oversee all routine maintenance and upkeep of the speeder. When I wasn't flying I did whatever needed doing at the ranch, where life was pleasant if somewhat boring for a young man who had his sights set on seeing the stars.