Honor Among Thieves

  Scarlet started off at a brisk walk, not running but wasting no time. Han and Baasen had to trot a little to catch up with her. At the corner, Baasen caught Han’s gaze and nodded toward the woman’s back.

  “Was she joking about that?” the Mirialan asked.

  “I can never tell,” Han said.

  Twenty

  The long stone hallway outside 24-d was empty, for which Han breathed a silent sigh of relief. Baasen had his blaster in his good hand, and the bounty hunter wasn’t one for subtlety; he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a bystander if he thought it needed doing. Scarlet crouched at the door and started manipulating the locking panel. Baasen rocked on the balls of his feet while she worked.

  After a few long seconds, the door to Hunter Maas’s room snapped open. “So much for the easy part,” Scarlet said and entered, Baasen right on her heels. Han paused a moment in the corridor, looking both directions, making sure they weren’t being followed.

  “You keep saying that,” Han said. “It’s not as reassuring as you think it is.”

  When no one ran into the hall shouting at them or triggering alarms, he followed Scarlet into the room and closed the door. In the very short time he’d had the room, Hunter Maas had managed to trash it. The bed wasn’t just unmade, it was dismembered: pillows pounded into unlikely shapes, sheets half pulled off, and blankets in a lumpy pile on the floor. Wet towels lay knotted on the bathroom floor. There were articles of clothing distributed randomly around the room. The R3 that Maas had brought sat in one corner of the room with a wrinkled shirt draped across it and the rat-bird sitting on it. The rat-bird had defecated on the shirt several times, white-green streaks covering the cloth. When it saw them, it shrieked and danced angrily on the little droid’s head.

  Scarlet was already opening the closet doors and looking for the safe. Baasen poked the pile of blankets with his toe. The rat-bird squawked loudly at him, and he pointed his blaster at it.

  “Don’t,” Han said. “Might set off the hotel’s alarms.”

  “I don’t like the ugly thing.” Baasen continued to point his blaster at it, but didn’t fire.

  “If it’s scary, you can stand behind me,” Han said, smirking at him.

  “Keep pushing, boyo,” the bounty hunter replied with a smile. “Keep pushing.”

  The rat-bird screeched and shifted from foot to foot, flapping its wings at them. It noisily relieved itself again.

  “I hope Hunter wasn’t planning to wear that to the parties tonight,” Han said.

  “Filthy disgusting creature,” Baasen said. “Can you imagine what the inside of this man’s ship must look like?”

  Han chuckled, remembering a time when he and Baasen hadn’t been enemies. When they’d had a few laughs in shady cantinas across the galaxy. Han could imagine himself making the same choices Baasen had made. Reaching a point where there just wasn’t enough smuggling work to make ends meet, and the allure of fast cash for bounty hunting became too great. Could he have wound up there? Desperate enough to hold an old friend at blasterpoint for a quick payoff?

  If it weren’t for running into an old man and a dumb kid in a Tatooine backwater, maybe. Han didn’t have much use for mysticism or ancient religions like the Force, but sometimes it did seem as if something was maneuvering events behind the scenes. One chance meeting, and now here he was, working for Leia and the rebels, and not hunting old friends for money.

  “Found it,” Scarlet said. She rapped on the safe door with her knuckle. It was in the back of the room’s largest closet. She dropped to her knee and started pulling tools off her belt. “He probably wasn’t stupid enough to leave his keycard lying around, but maybe he was. See if you can find it.”

  Baasen responded by yanking the sheets off the bed and flipping the mattress over. He holstered his blaster and pulled a large knife, then started cutting the mattress open.

  “When,” Han said, “would he have had time to sew anything into it?”

  Baasen grunted in irritation, but he put the knife away and flipped the bed frame over instead. Han went into the small refresher and opened all the drawers, dumping the contents in the sink. Most were empty, but one had a few personal grooming implements in it. Nothing that looked like a keycard.

  Out in the sleeping area, Baasen was banging on the R3 unit and demanding that it speak. It had backed as far into the corner as it could and hunched down, trying to make itself as small as possible. Baasen kicked it, and it beeped forlornly at him. The rat-bird on its head hissed and snapped at Baasen’s one good hand.

  “Unless you have a protocol droid handy, you won’t get much out of that,” Han said. “But check the bird.”

  “You’re kidding,” Baasen said, squinting back at him. “You trying to cost me the few fingers I’ve got left?”

  Han rolled his eyes and lunged across the room to swat the rat-bird off the droid. It fell on the floor with an undignified squeak and started flapping its leathery wings. Han grabbed it by the back of the neck and picked it up. It hissed and spit and soiled the carpet, but Han didn’t let go.

  “See anything?” he asked Baasen. The bounty hunter lifted the wings and poked at the wiry body.

  “It’s got a necklace or something,” Baasen said, and yanked it off the bird. Han let the miserable creature go, and it flapped back to its perch on the droid. It gave them an accusatory squawk then fell silent, huddling under its wings and peering out at them with one black eye.

  Baasen held the necklace up for Han to look at. A green gemstone in a silver setting spun slowly at the end of a thin silver chain. Han pointed at it and said, “Scarlet. Does this look like anything?”

  She looked over her shoulder for a second, then turned back to her work on the safe. “Yeah. It looks like a fake. Cheap glass. He must not love his bird that much.”

  Baasen examined the green gem closely, holding it up to the light, then tossed it across the room with a snort. “It’s a low class of criminal you find these days. No sense of style anymore. No pride.”

  “Not like us, right?” Han said.

  “Joke if you like, Solo, but no matter where we are now, I always respected you. You’re like me. You had a code.”

  “Part of it was not turning on my friends.”

  “I know it. But I work for the Hutt, so we can’t be friends now,” Baasen said sadly. “Also, you shot my hand off.”

  “I do regret that,” Han said. Baasen nodded again as if the words were sincere.

  “Hey boys,” Scarlet said. “Don’t mean to interrupt this romantic moment, but I need some help here. Baasen, I’m betting you’ve run a magnetic seal bypass once or twice in your time.”

  Baasen laughed. “Get elbow-deep in that thing so as I can’t draw with Solo at my back? Give me some credit, love. I may be stupid, but I’m not dumb.”

  “I’ll do it,” Han said and walked over to the closet. Scarlet pointed at a wire dangling from an open panel on the safe with her chin. Her own hands were inside the guts of the device.

  “I need you to keep that wire from touching the metal of the safe until I tell you to, and then I need you to do it fast. So stay ready.”

  “Got it,” Han said, grabbing the wire. His finger brushed the exposed end, and he felt a painful tingle shoot up his arm. The panel where Scarlet was working flashed and sparked, and she yelped in surprise.

  “Don’t touch the exposed end!”

  “Yeah,” Han said, “sort of figured that out.”

  Scarlet grunted at him.

  “So . . . ,” Baasen started, sitting down on the edge of the room’s one small table. Whatever he was about to say next stopped when the door to the room snapped open and Hunter Maas rushed in waving a blaster. In his other hand he carried a small plastoid case.

  “Thieves!” he screamed, pointing the pistol at Han. “Betrayers! Hunter Maas makes a fair offer and you respond to him by stealing?”

  Han raised the hand not holding the wire and smiled. Scarlet, wrists deep in the safe, could
only raise her eyebrows.

  “Hey, calm down,” Han said. “This is all a big misunderstanding.”

  Maas grunted and fell face-first on the floor. Baasen stood behind him, blaster in hand.

  “Please tell me you didn’t kill him,” Scarlet said.

  Baasen knelt by the fallen man and checked his pulse. “No, just gave him a good whack.” Maas groaned as if in agreement.

  “Up you go, boyo,” Baasen said, pulling Maas back to his feet. “Get over there in the corner and stay quiet, and maybe I won’t have to hit you again.”

  “Hunter Maas is outraged by this treatment,” Maas started.Baasen cracked him across the forehead with the barrel of his blaster, nearly knocking him to the floor again.

  “Shush now.”

  “Almost there,” Scarlet said to Han. “Get ready. Now!”

  Something popped inside the panel where Scarlet was working, and Han touched the exposed wire to the side of the safe. There was a flash of light and the smell of cooking electronics. An arc of electricity shot off the safe to Han’s wrist, and he danced away with a yelp.

  “Hey, warn me next time!”

  Scarlet smiled and said, “That got the first fail-safe. Two more to go.”

  “Speaking of which,” Baasen said conversationally. “Is there a reason you’re still playing with that? This fellow has the key and the passcode, yes?” When no one replied, Baasen gestured at Maas and said, “Give me the key, friend.”

  “Hunter Maas will not give in to—”

  “Or,” Baasen continued, his tone light and conversational, “I can shoot you in the leg. Is it in that case there?”

  “No,” Maas said, and pulled the keycard out of his pocket. He tossed it to Han. “But without the security code, this is useless!”

  “Is that true?” Han asked Scarlet, then bent to pick up the key.

  She nodded and did something else to the safe that resulted in a shower of sparks and a scorched-metal smell.

  “Suppose then you tell us the code,” Baasen said.

  “Hunter Maas will never tell!” the thief yelled, which earned him a crack across the mouth from Baasen’s blaster. Maas’s lip split, and a trickle of blood ran down his chin.

  “Given time,” Baasen said, raising his weapon again, “I really think you will.”

  “Stop it,” Scarlet said, her voice muffled and distorted by the tool she was clenching between her teeth. “These safes have a self-destruct. Punch in the fail-safe code and it destroys the contents.”

  “You wouldn’t give us the wrong one, would you?” Baasen said, voice filled with mock concern. “Not to your pals? Because then I’d have to shoot you, oh, just a lot.”

  “Maybe he thinks you’re going to shoot him anyway,” Han said.

  “You can be a very rich man,” Hunter Maas said through his swollen mouth. “The richest man in the galaxy.”

  “People keep telling me about these riches,” Baasen said.

  “Kill them both,” Maas said. “Kill them, and Hunter Maas will share this wealth and power with you. All of space will be ours to command.”

  “Han,” Scarlet said, “I need you to keep your eyes on the job here. Pull on this until it resists, then hold it steady.”

  Han grabbed the wire and did as she asked, though putting his back to Baasen while Maas asked him to switch sides made the spot between his shoulder blades itch.

  “I know this play, friend Hunter,” Baasen said. “We’re bestest pals right up until the next fool comes along and you offer him the universe on a platter to put a plasma bolt through my skull.”

  “No! Hunter Maas’s word is his bond! We will be partners in ruling the galaxy!”

  “And if you buy that,” Han said, keeping his tone light and mocking, “I’ve got some fabulous property at the Core I can sell you.”

  “You got a ship?” Baasen asked Maas.

  “We will procure a thousand ships! Armadas to darken the sky!”

  “No,” Baasen said slowly, as though speaking to a child. “Do you have a ship right now? To leave this planet with?”

  “Hunter Maas’s ship has taken some damage, but we can find transport if need be . . .”

  “Pity that,” Baasen said, then laughed. “Maybe you should be quiet now, let the lady work.”

  “He does wear on a person with all that Hunter Maas this and Hunter Maas that,” Han said, forcing a chuckle. He had the uncomfortable feeling a negotiation for his life had just happened behind his back and the fact that the Falcon was flight-worthy was the only reason he was still breathing.

  “Now,” Scarlet said, practically holding her breath while she spoke. “Let go now.”

  Han released the wire he was holding, and the door to the safe opened with a quiet click.

  “Gotcha,” Scarlet said in triumph.

  “Good work,” Han said, slapping her on the shoulder. “I see why Leia likes you.”

  Baasen drifted their direction, trying to look past them into the safe. Maas said nothing, huddling miserably in the corner. Scarlet pulled the door of the safe open the rest of the way and looked inside.

  “Huh,” she said. “It’s empty.”

  Han reached inside, patting the walls of the safe with his hand, looking for a false wall or bottom, or something taped to the sides. Nothing but bare metal. The rat-bird screeched at them with what almost sounded like a laugh.

  “Hunter Maas told you,” the pirate said. “You will never find the data without him. The price will now be very high, after these many insults and indignities!”

  Han frowned a question at Scarlet, and she shook her head. For the first time, she looked lost.

  “Okay,” Han said, “I guess we—”

  From behind came the sound of a blaster shot. Han spun around to face the room, his own blaster already in his hand. Maas was staring down at the smoking hole in his sternum with a look of puzzlement on his face, and then he crumpled gently to the floor.

  Twenty-One

  “Um,” Scarlet said. Hunter Maas lay on the floor at Baasen’s feet. The thief blinked twice, then fell into the absolute stillness of death. Han realized he was holding his breath and let it go with an effort.

  “That shirtless little gentleman was a bit annoying,” Baasen said, poking his blaster at the corpse on the floor.

  “So you shot him?” Han asked. “Now we’ll never know where that data is. You’ve lost your mind, Baasen, and I—”

  “We’ll know where it is because I know where it is,” Baasen said, his voice as calm as if he were discussing the weather.

  Scarlet nodded at him. “Okay.” Her blaster was in her hand and she drifted away from Han, the three of them turning into a triangle where every angle was a weapon.

  Baasen smiled and slipped the stump of his shortened arm into the handle of the carrying case. He lifted it until it slid down to his elbow and hung there, swaying. “So, let’s go on back to your ship now, eh? We have what we came for.”

  “Or maybe I leave you here with Maas,” Han said. “And we just take what we need.”

  Scarlet said nothing but kept drifting to Baasen’s left. “You’ll want to stop there,” the Mirialan bounty hunter said to her. “Makes me nervous you trying to get to my blind side. It’s a sad world when there’s no trust.”

  “So what now?” Scarlet asked. Han wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to Baasen.

  “I think we—” Han started, but his next words were drowned out by a rising high-pitched wail that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

  “Out of time, boyo,” Baasen yelled at him. “We should have the rest of this conversation elsewhere.”

  The planetary defense alarms had sounded. The Star Destroyers were in orbit. The Empire didn’t need the data Maas had stolen; they just needed to make sure no one else had it. They wouldn’t bother landing troops, they’d just bomb the planet to dust and make sure nothing lived to interfere with their plans.

  “To the Falcon,” Han said to Baasen. The b
ounty hunter nodded and smiled. He tapped his comlink, trying to reach Leia, but the connection didn’t go through. The relays were already down.

  Scarlet darted out the door and waved an impatient hand for them to follow. Baasen started toward her, then stopped and turned to look at the R3 and the rat-bird.

  “You two can come along if you like,” he said.

  The rat-bird hopped down off the droid’s head and flapped over to sit next to its dead master. The droid burbled to itself for a second, then lowered its wheels and followed after the bounty hunter. When they left the room, Han looked back and saw that the rat-bird was gnawing on Hunter Maas’s leg. No loyalty among thieves.

  The defense alert still sounded, nearly deafening, but a new noise was starting to eclipse it. A distant, heavy booming, like thunder.

  The orbital bombardment had begun.

  People were streaming into the corridor from the occupied rooms, shouting into comlinks and carrying hastily packed luggage. Han saw a diminutive Ugnaught trip over its own bags and fall to the ground, where a passing human stepped on it.

  Han gripped Scarlet and Baasen by the back of their shirts so he didn’t lose them in the crush of bodies, and dragged them toward the main assembly hall. He could see that the street outside was quickly becoming packed with ground transport and fleeing people. By cutting through the gardens and then the conference halls, he could get to the spaceport without fighting the traffic.

  Scarlet seemed to understand and agree. As soon as she realized where he was leading her, she took point, grabbing his hand in her own and pushing her way through the crowd. Baasen stumbled along behind, content to let them lead.

  A burly alien with gray-green skin and tusks the size of daggers ran into them and howled in anger, but before Han could even apologize the air around them compressed in a massive blast wave and knocked down everyone in the corridor. The shock was followed by the loudest noise Han had ever heard. The stone walls all around cracked like overstressed glass, and he felt sure his teeth would vibrate apart in his jaw.