Honor Among Thieves

  “You may carry on with your duties,” the officer said, and for a moment Han thought he was being let go. Then he heard the whine of the retreating droid.

  “Officer, we’re—”

  “Involved in that disturbance at the docks, like as not,” the officer finished for him.

  Han took a step back and to the side, trying to get Chewbacca into the trooper’s blind spot. The officer shook his head and stepped back to keep them both in view.

  “Please stop,” the trooper said. “I have men on their way, and it really does look better on the reports if I take you alive.”

  Chewbacca roared and the officer spun toward him. He was just starting to turn back when Han hit him with a hard, straight kick in the midsection. The officer stumbled back, but he grabbed Han’s boot on the way down, pulling Han with him. The struggle was brief, and afterward Chewbacca helped him drag the dazed trooper into an alley. A few minutes later, Han emerged wearing an Imperial uniform.

  Chewbacca eyed him critically and growled.

  “Yeah, laugh it up,” Han said, straightening his sleeves and pulling on the officer’s black cap. “At least this way I can wear a blaster. You’re heading back to the ship.”

  Chewbacca growled.

  “Yeah, but we’re not going to find one of these Imperial outfits in your size, and they’re on the lookout for us right now. Not me. So head back to the ship and get it warmed up. I’ll find Hark and we’ll get the hell out of here.”

  Chewbacca gave a questioning whine

  “I got a better idea,” Han said holding up the officer’s datapad. “I’d be willing to bet our boy Japet is on the Imperial watch lists. Known associates and hangouts. I’m an Imperial now. So I’ll just look him up.”

  Chewbacca barked out another long laugh.

  “Come on,” Han said. “I can’t always be wrong.”

  Six

  Kinnel Persi, data technician fourth class, sighed, pulled up another entry on his monitor and shook his head. Around him, the data-control center was busy as a hive. At the next desk, Miki shook her head in sympathy and tried not to grin. Secretly, Kinnel was enjoying her attention.

  “How about Japet Saun, sir?” he said.

  “Maybe,” Lieutenant Hannu Sololo said, in the earpiece. “What’s his background?”

  “His NS-profile, sir?”

  “Sure. That.”

  Kinnel tapped through the screens. “Larceny. Served two years in the work camp on Mangan Three. No present known address.”

  “Any known . . . um . . . rebel associations?”

  Kinnel closed his eyes. “Would you like me to check the PF-profile, too, sir?” Miki giggled, pressing the back of her hand to her lips.

  “Yes. Do that,” Sololo said.

  Kinnel clicked through. “You know, you have access to all these files on your datapad, sir.”

  “Mine’s malfunctioning. The encryption protocol, um, needs upgrading.”

  “Maybe I can help you with that?”

  “Just read me his PF-profile.”

  “Read it to you, yes, sir,” he said for Miki’s benefit. “Just a moment. Here we are. Yes, sir. He was associated peripherally with the resistance cell they caught last year in Port Chait. Questioned but not prosecuted. No records since then.”

  “Close enough,” Sololo said. “Do we have any known associates that we do have addresses for?”

  Kinnel hunched forward, his palms over his eyes. He kept his voice bright and pleasant. “Let me check his RQ history for you, sir.” Miki was slapping her thigh now, her face dark with repressed hilarity. Kinnel hummed to himself as he worked. “His closest known associate is a Trandoshan dockworker named Cyr Hassk with a berth address of 113-624-e45.”

  “Hold on. Hold on. Six . . . two . . . four . . . What was the rest?”

  “E four five, sir.”

  “Got it. Thank you. Good work.”

  The connection dropped. Kinnel pulled off his earpiece and looked over at Miki. She was still shaking with laughter. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Where do they get these people?” Kinnel asked before the next connection request came through.

  Cyr Hassk considered himself in the mirror. The cut on his right head ridge had almost healed, but the scales there were the bright green of an adolescent. He rubbed at the spot with his thumb pad, hoping to scuff the scales to something a little nearer a mature man’s gray. He didn’t want to get cosmetic abrasives, but maybe if no one saw him—

  A knock came at the door of his berth, three strong blows. Cyr lurched back from the mirror, falling into his warning hiss automatically. The berth was tiny. It wasn’t more than four steps from his privacy corner to the door.

  The human man in the doorway had the uniform of an Imperial officer and the demeanor of a salesperson. Hassk disliked him immediately.

  “You’re Cyr Hassk?” the man asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Japet said I’d find you here. That you could maybe help me out.”

  “He was wrong,” Cyr hissed. He tried to close the door, but the officer had already stepped into the berth.

  “He seemed pretty certain,” the Imperial said, sweeping off his hat. His hair was a shaggy mop of brown, unlike the razor-cut Imperial style. Cyr’s pupils narrowed and he flexed his hands. “Maybe we should go talk to him.”

  “Maybe you should step back out of here,” Cyr snarled. “This is my berth.”

  The man gestured at his uniform. “Do you think I care about whether this is your berth or not?”

  Cyr flexed his pectoral muscles and bared his teeth. The man’s uniform didn’t fit right, either. Too tight at the shoulders and loose at the gut. The lopsided smile was rich with threat, but it was the kind of threat that got settled in the street outside a bar, not in an interrogation chamber.

  “Cut the crap,” Cyr said. “Who are you, what do you want, and what makes you think I can or will give it to you?”

  “I need to find Japet,” the man said, dropping the ruse without a hint of chagrin. “You’re his friend; you can tell me where to find him.”

  “If I’m his friend, I’m sure as hell not telling you where to find him. Get out.”

  “Under other circumstances, I would,” the man said. “But he made a decision, and that decision affected me and my job, and now I’m going to need him to make it right.”

  Cyr weighed a few possible responses. Japet’s a small-time creep who will never make anything right in his whole blasted life, or I don’t care about you and your problems, so get out, or How about we call security and see if they can help you. In the end, he opted for punching the man in the gut. The fake officer’s breath whooshed out, and he doubled over as Cyr brought a knee up to break his descending nose. Only the blow didn’t connect. The man wrapped an arm around Cyr’s leg and lifted. Cyr windmilled his arms, trying to keep his balance. His claws raked the walls, throwing sparks from the metal, but he went down with a clang. The world went a little quieter for a few seconds, and the universe contracted to the interior of Cyr’s body and maybe a few inches past it. The man rolled onto him, putting a forearm lock across Cyr’s throat.

  “Okay,” the man said. “I tried being nice and asking.”

  “Didn’t,” Cyr croaked past the choking arm.

  “What?”

  “Didn’t ask. Weren’t being nice.”

  “Oh. Okay. Will you please tell me where I can find Japet?”

  “No.”

  “All right then,” the man said, and punched him in the face. The blow was surprisingly strong. Cyr tasted the metallic flavor of his own blood. “Please?”

  Cyr twisted, bringing his claws up toward the man’s sides. A few more inches and he’d peel back the fake Imperial’s skin until the ribs all showed. The man broke off the hold, pushing back just far enough to drop an elbow across Cyr’s neck.

  “Pretty please?”

  The lights seemed dimmer than they’d been, and Cyr’s breath sounded close and we
t in his own ears. He rolled onto his belly, got to hands and knees. The man kicked again, trying to push him off balance, but Cyr pushed up. His punch went wide, skinning by the other’s head and leaving a dent in the metal of the berth’s wall. He pulled his arm back for an open-handed rake that would spill the man’s guts on the floor.

  The muzzle of a blaster dug into Cyr’s neck.

  “Sugar on top?”

  “You pull that trigger,” Cyr said, “and the real security force will be—”

  “Yeah, I know. But we could avoid the whole thing if you’d just tell me where to find Japet.”

  Cyr licked his bloody lips. He could feel the swelling under his scales. When he went to the docks, the one thing no one would be paying attention to was the bright scales on his right head ridge. Cyr grinned.

  Japet was an idiot, anyway.

  “He’s staying with Aminni. That’s his girlfriend.”

  “Great,” the man said. “And how do I find her?”

  When he’d first come in, Aminni had thought the Imperial officer looked like trouble. Two drinks after that, he was actually starting to seem a little cute. Another drink, and she was wondering if maybe it was going to be an interesting night, after all.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said. His smile was sly and warm, and it made her feel like he was laughing at a joke that she was in on, even though he wasn’t. “You don’t have a boyfriend?”

  Aminni drew her fingertip around the lip of her glass.

  “We-ell,” she said and stuck her tongue out at him a little. Across the bar, her roommate, Khyys, made a mildly obscene gesture of encouragement. Aminni ignored her. “I used to. But he was a jerk. I broke up with him a while ago.”

  “Does he know that?” the officer asked, putting his hand on her knee.

  “You bet he does. I put him and all his crap in the hall outside my berth.”

  “Of course you did,” he said as if he was talking to himself.

  “He’d been stealing my stuff. I told him one more time, and he was out. And then it was one more time. And then he was out. I kind of miss him, though. Not him him. I just kind of . . . y’know.” She locked her gaze on his. “Miss.”

  The smile came again, long, and slow, and Aminni felt herself blush a little. She tried to count back how many drinks she’d had. It might have been more than three. Well, what the hell. Only live once. She moved forward in the seat, lost her balance a little, caught herself, and kissed his cheek. His arm curled around her, his hand against her waist as if it belonged there. She bit her lips a little and lifted an eyebrow.

  “Probably I shouldn’t have kicked him out,” she said, her voice a little lower than usual. “Probably I should have called you. You deal with things like that, don’t you?”

  “Missing, you mean?”

  “Thieves.”

  “That, too,” he agreed.

  “How long have you been in security?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Depends on how you count it.”

  She excused herself to the women’s room to check her makeup, and when she came back out he was gone. She spent the rest of the night sitting with Khyys and her friends from resource management, feeling cranky and let down. Her night didn’t hit bottom until it was almost time to go home.

  “What’s the matter?” Khyys asked.

  “My datapad,” Aminni said, pressing a hand to her belt. “I thought I brought it, but it must be back at . . .”

  Even drunk, she had the physical memory of a man’s hand around her waist, his fingers against her body.

  “Son of a bantha,” she said.

  “Baby?” Japet said, stepping into the corridor. He had a fistful of flowers he’d bought for half a credit from a vending machine on the fourth level and a splash of cologne. “Minni-baby? I got your message. You here?”

  In the shadows, something moved, and Japet smiled a little.

  “I see you back there,” he said. “I knew you were gonna call me. I told you, you remember? I told you you’d call me. You can’t go without your big Japet man, can you? No, you can’t.”

  “You might be surprised,” a man’s voice said behind him.

  Japet whirled. The man in the shadows wore an Imperial officer’s uniform, but the face was wrong. Not deformed or anything; it just belonged someplace else.

  “Who are you?” Japet demanded. “Where’s Aminni?”

  The man smiled. “Wait for it. It’ll come.”

  Japet narrowed his eyes. He knew the guy. He’d seen him before, and recently. And then with a rush of ice in his veins, he knew. He spun around, half expecting the Wookiee to be standing behind him. Fear lit his nerves and he stumbled back.

  “Please, Captain Solo, don’t kill me,” Japet said. “I’m sorry. It was Baasen. He made me.”

  Solo spread his hands, smiling without the expression ever reaching his eyes. “You know nobody ever believes that line, right? No offense taken. I’ve used it a couple of times myself. I’m just telling you it never works.”

  “I’m sorry. Please don’t shoot me,” Japet said. He tripped over his own feet, falling backward. The flowers scattered on the pristine corridor floor. The rebel pilot knelt beside him, blaster in hand.

  “So here’s the thing. I know why you did it. Baasen promised to pay you. I’m a businessman. I understand that math. But because of you, I missed my cargo. And I have to find it now. You’re going to help me.”

  “I can’t,” Japet said, tears welling in his eyes. Baasen had sworn that Solo would be offplanet almost as soon as they nabbed him. He didn’t want to guess what had happened to the others.

  “You should reconsider that,” Solo said, his voice getting rough.

  “I want to! It’s not that I don’t want to! I can’t. I don’t know where she is. It’s not like she told me anything.”

  “She told you enough to set a trap for me.”

  “She didn’t tell me anything,” Japet said. “I found out about the drop because two of the guys from the rebels were talking about it. I did some work for her a few times because the pay was good. Little stuff. Working lookout when the guys were carrying a couple of data disks one place to another. Getting some dirt on some Imperial somebody.”

  “Enough she started thinking you were on her side,” Solo said.

  “I’ve only ever seen Hark a few times. But there’s this place down on level eight where these guys hang out sometimes, and I was there and everyone was a little drunk, and someone was talking about how they weren’t going to have to deal with any more of Hark’s errands because she was pulling out.”

  “That’s the kind of talent she’s got to work with?” Solo said, shaking his head. “No wonder it went south.”

  “I guess. Yeah. They said she was using the fountain drop. I took it to Baasen because he can use things like that sometimes.”

  “So you didn’t mean anything against me, you were just trying to get Hark’s operation blown.”

  “Baasen pays really well,” Japet said sorrowfully.

  “Don’t ask where that money came from. All right. How do I find Hark now?”

  “I don’t know,” Japet said.

  “There has to be some way to signal her,” Solo said, looking down the corridor as if he were a hunter on a trail. “Does she know you on sight?”

  “Don’t know. Like I said, I only met her a few times. But she’s got a reputation for remembering stuff you wouldn’t think. So maybe. I don’t know.”

  “If I shot you, would it make the local news?”

  “You know what you could do?” Japet said, snapping his fingers. “You could talk to the guy who said she was setting up the fountain drop. His name’s Wirrit, and his place isn’t far from here.”

  “Maybe,” Solo said. “Doesn’t have the advantage of shooting you. I’d really like to shoot you.”

  Wirrit opened the door a fraction of an inch. He was in his underwear, his hair still wild from the pillow and all thought of sleep gone. The Imperial gua
rd had a black jersey, a black-and-gray cap, and an annoyed expression. Wirrit’s hand shook as he very carefully, quietly, pressed his blaster against the door. He’d only have one shot. He had to kill the Imperial on the first try.

  “I’m with the Rebel Alliance,” the Imperial said. “Hark’s drop was compromised, and I need to know where she’s staying.”

  Wirrit narrowed his eyes. His finger didn’t leave the trigger.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  The Imperial shrugged. “One, I didn’t come in with fifty stormtroopers behind me. Two, we’re talking here instead of a holding cell. Three, an interrogator droid didn’t take off half your fingernails before I asked.”

  Wirrit frowned.

  “Oh,” he said. “Right.”

  The air shaft went down below Han for what looked like half a kilometer. He hung in the window frame, his fingers aching until they felt as if they were on fire. If he had pulled the window open another few centimeters, the grenade would have triggered.

  Windows from the other berths and apartments lined the walls, looking out into one another or else at the bare drop. Five levels up, a catwalk stretched across the void. Han’s grapnel line was like a thread of spiderweb between Hark’s window and the high, empty walkway above.

  He’d tried the door for almost an hour, plagued by visions of Hark inside either dead or held in silence by stormtroopers or Baasen. Or just sleeping deep enough that she didn’t hear him. Going around to the back had seemed like a good idea at the time . . .

  He shifted his grip on the window. He couldn’t hold on much longer. Just inside, the black monofilament thread had pulled at the proton grenade’s switch, tugging the little kettle-shaped device to the edge of the cheap breakfast table. He couldn’t tell if it was armed, but if so, the drop to the floor would set off an explosion strong enough to breach a ship’s hull. Unless it was on a timer, in which case he’d probably have been dead by now.

  He pulled himself as close to the window as he could, pressing his mouth to the opening. The air inside smelled like roasted peppers.