I engaged the ship’s baby laser cannon and waited until I got a system go-ahead, then dived on the lateral axis toward the TIE fighters. I flipped on the deflector shields and locked on the targeting computer. One look at the ships and I knew the TIE pilots were hanging on to the orientation of the Star Destroyer from which they had deployed; they had a sense of which way was “up” and they were sticking to it, which is a limiting and even dangerous perception to hold on to in space. Up and down don’t really have a meaningful use until you’re in atmosphere. I deliberately rolled as I dived, adjusted my nose so that the leading TIE fighter was in my sights, and fired.
The Desert Jewel’s bolts turned out to be blue and shot in bursts of three. The first burst missed entirely, but the second tagged the TIE fighter and destroyed it. The second TIE rolled away to the left in an evasive maneuver and I pulled up, planning to flip a loop and dive again; the Kupohan ship was still moving, free of Imperial pursuit for a few moments.
I expected the TIE to bank around and try to acquire a firing solution on me, and for a couple of seconds it looked like it was going to, but then it veered away to reestablish an attack vector on the Kupohan ship. That struck me as very strange behavior—to ignore a mortal threat and give someone a free shot at your unshielded ship while you pursued a fleeing target. I almost didn’t believe it and checked to make sure there wasn’t another ship on my scanners that I’d missed somehow, something waiting in ambush, but there was only me, the remaining TIE, and the Kupohan in the immediate vicinity. It looked like the Star Destroyer had just launched an entire squadron of additional TIEs, but it would take them a while to catch up.
“They must want to erase that ship in the worst way,” I said, thinking aloud. The TIE pilot had probably been given an order from the Star Destroyer that amounted to “Kill the Kupohans, or don’t come back.” From my perspective, that was all the more reason to help out.
Without the danger of being fired upon, I lined up another run and pulled the trigger on the TIE fighter, even as it was doing its best to blast the Kupohan ship to pieces. The Kupohan’s shields held under the onslaught, but the TIE fighter came apart at the first touch of my lasers.
“There,” I said, and checked the position of the Star Destroyer again. It wasn’t in range yet, but it was moving full-speed to catch up, and the squadron of TIEs were still a couple of standard minutes out. “Maybe I can get some answers. Artoo, prepare the next jump and see if you can raise the Kupohan ship.”
The droid’s reply appeared on my holodisplay: JUMP READY NOW. INITIATING CONTACT.
“Good. I hope that they can still—” I cut off as the Kupohan ship jumped to hyperspace without so much as a thank-you. “Well, I guess they can still jump. We should do the same. Take us to hyperspace as soon as you’re ready, Artoo.”
The tension drained from my shoulders as I disengaged the laser cannon, but my mouth twisted in regret as the stars blurred and streamed past the cockpit window during the jump. I couldn’t help but feeling somewhat disappointed. I wondered who was on that ship and why they mattered so much to the Empire—and whether compromising my mission and putting this ship on Imperial wanted lists was worth it. It was worth it to the crew of the Kupohan ship, no doubt—they still had their lives. But I wasn’t sure if I’d done the Alliance any favors with that particular episode, and now, with the opportunity to evaluate it coolly, I saw how rash the decision had been. Now I had to skip Llanic entirely and go straight to Rodia, hopefully ahead of any Imperial alert to be on the lookout for me.
Perhaps I’d do well enough there that Leia and Admiral Ackbar would forgive me for tweaking the Empire’s nose when we were supposed to be hiding.
THE DESERT JEWEL ENTERED the atmosphere of Rodia without earning a scrambled visit from a squadron of TIE fighters. Following a route painted by Artoo, I dropped down on the coast of Betu, a continent away from the Chattza clan, the Grand Protector, and the bulk of Imperial activity. The Chekkoo clan lived there, and while they weren’t in open rebellion, lacking the resources to follow their hearts, simple geography gave them the opportunity to exercise some passive resistance and keep a few secrets.
Set upon a high rocky cliffside with ocean waves pounding the base, the Chekkoo Enclave sported a single gray tower thrust out of a series of stone walls draped around it like skirts, each one bristling with weapons emplacements. A thriving city nestled in between the walls, but the spaceport waited outside them and we touched down there. Beyond that, the jungle awaited, humid and humming with the drone of insects and the occasional screech of something wanting to eat or something else dismayed at being eaten.
I wasn’t prepared for the smell; a diplomatic person would say it was pungent. I couldn’t muster any words, diplomatic or otherwise; it was all I could do not to gag openly as the ramp opened and the odor of bad cheese and fungal feet wafted in, hot and cloying and fat in my nostrils, much too big for the space, like a Hutt squeezed into an armchair.
A single Rodian waited for me at the bottom of the ramp and pretended not to notice my expression of disgust. She was dressed in a long blue tunic edged in gold and matching pants tucked into buckled brown boots. She had a spray of golden spines sticking up between her antennae and falling in a line down the back of her head.
“Welcome, Luke Skywalker,” she said. “I am Laneet Chekkoo. I’ll be your guide while you visit Rodia.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” I managed. “Are you only a guide, or will I be negotiating with you, as well?”
“Only a guide. I am primarily concerned with keeping your presence here unobserved by other clans. If you will follow me, we will depart for Toopil.”
“Toopil? Aren’t we going to the enclave?”
Laneet twitched her head once to the left, which I believe signaled negative among Rodians. “Too many Imperial spies there and even more from other clans. At the enclave we are meek and subservient to the Grand Protector and display very little in the way of our true wealth and power. Toopil is a different place entirely. You will see. This way, please.”
I followed Laneet out of the relatively quiet spaceport and into a teeming open-air market with labyrinthine passages and a shifting crowd of shoppers unconscious of personal space. A whole new spectrum of smells hammered my nose. Some of it was supposed to be appetizing, I think, since I spied food vendors, but it wasn’t making me hungry at all. Artoo’s dome swiveled about as he trailed behind, taking it all in, but he kept silent.
We made several turns before ducking into an electronics vendor boasting of aftermarket jamming systems and other fine accessories for the discriminating bounty hunter. The vendor’s stall turned out not to be a stall at all but its own maze of a structure with multiple levels and merchandise grouped in small rooms, each with its own resident merchant and with multiple exits to other showrooms. When we rounded a corner into a room displaying racks of neural disruptors and occupied only by a giant Ithorian, Laneet signaled with her right hand and the Ithorian lumbered forward to block the narrow passage behind us with its bulk. No one would be able to squeeze past it until it reemerged, and we took the opportunity this afforded to slip into a hallway concealed behind a wall panel filled with weapons that might have been designed to melt internal organs. Once the panel closed behind Artoo, Laneet paused in the dimly lit passage and looked back at us.
“We just want to make sure we are not followed. Our transport awaits ahead, but please move silently. We are still moving through the market, and the walls are thin. We don’t want to give away the presence of this passage to anyone.”
I nodded and trailed after our guide in near darkness, the only illumination coming from wan glow panels spaced in intervals that were farther apart than was comfortable for human eyesight. Sounds of the bazaar trickled through the walls on either side, merchants haggling with customers or bawling out specials to passersby in the hope of attracting a full purse. Eventually we reached the end of the passage, where two armed guards and a gauntlet of automati
c guns in the walls trained their weapons on us. Laneet identified herself and introduced us, and after some unseen processing behind all the weaponry, we were allowed to pass and descend a ramp to a small docking platform where a personnel speeder waited at the entrance to a subterranean tunnel. We piled in and Laneet fired up the repulsors, rocketing down the tunnel for maybe ten minutes.
“We can talk now,” she said. “Please forgive the unpleasant security measures. We welcome all business, you understand, especially that which will prove inconvenient to the Chattza clan or the Empire. But we must be careful. It is for our protection as much as yours that we go to such lengths.”
“Well, it’s impressive. I’ve never even heard of Toopil,” I said.
“It doesn’t exist officially,” Laneet replied. “It’s simply a cantina, a few meeting rooms, and some sleeping arrangements underneath Utheel Outfitters. Utheel makes everything from stealth armor to big-game grenade launchers, and they test their products in the surrounding jungle. They invite prospective customers out for hunts, and thus they have dormitories on site for the purpose. But underneath those are secret dormitories accessible only through a few well-guarded entry points like the one we used. Energy usage is thereby concealed. We also have a private docking bay and smugglers’ den with an entrance camouflaged from the air. Most light freighters would fit in there. We do plenty of business in that bay, all of it hidden from the Empire and other clans, and the money is laundered through Utheel Outfitters.”
I thought Han would be impressed with their setup; I sure was. “And the Empire truly has no clue you’re doing this?”
Laneet snorted in derision, which sounded like a phlegmy sneeze through the Rodian snout. “I’m sure they have their suspicions. We suspect every other clan of similar practices.”
We arrived at a dock that appeared at first to be unguarded, but I sensed somehow that wasn’t the case. After all the security I saw getting this far, I couldn’t imagine they’d leave this wide open. Laneet caught my expression and interpreted it correctly. “There are guards. They’re in stealth armor.”
“Oh, really? I’ve never seen stealth armor.”
Laneet made a noise similar to a chortle but closer to a digestive problem. “Hence the name.”
It reminded me of Ben’s assertion that your eyes can deceive you. The Force would help me pierce through such illusions if I could learn how. “Do you manufacture the stealth armor yourself?”
“Yes, Utheel is quite diversified. It doesn’t have shipyards or produce heavy artillery, but almost anything smaller can be found here, save perhaps blasters. Other manufacturers are more efficient at producing such basic weapons. We produce a broad range of higher-quality items in smaller batches. You will see more inside. Come.”
We stepped out of the speeder and onto an empty concrete dock with a single door waiting at the back of a concavity lined with automatic blaster turrets and presumably the aforementioned guards in stealth armor. With so much firepower concentrated here, I wondered if even a Jedi could make it to the door unscathed. No one would penetrate it without fully committing to heavy assault. Laneet paused at the door, spoke some words at a console, had her hands and eyes scanned, and then the door chimed as it opened. I followed after. Once through the door, we found ourselves in a small magnetically sealed room. Laneet pointed first at the floor, where there was some discoloration, and then at the ceiling, where there were matching stains. “If anyone were to get this far without receiving a go-ahead from the door outside, the weighted ceiling drops down quite fast. Squashed at least one Chattza spy.”
The inner door chimed before opening, and a narrow hall provided more opportunities for defense before finally leading us to a rather luxurious meeting room sporting tables surrounded by thickly upholstered chairs. The room was carpeted and chandeliered and attended by liveried servants rather than droids; even the tablecloths looked posh. I got the impression the Rodians had gone to some effort to make it smell pleasant to humans, but the competing scents of Rodians and florals made the air difficult to breathe.
Several Rodians waited to be introduced, all employees from different divisions of Utheel Outfitters, ready to discuss what business they could with the representative of the Rebel Alliance, and I admit I found that thought enjoyable. Leaving aside the odor, this sort of work was much more entertaining than moisture farming.
Long tables lined the perimeter of the room, laid out with weapons instead of a buffet. After a drink and a brief chat during which I complimented the Chekkoo security arrangements I’d seen thus far, they gave me a tour of the weapons, some of them prototypes, and several of these were presented as gifts. I got a proximity stun mine, a handheld EMP detonator, and a needle gun I never intended to use. Thinking of Nakari’s slug gun, however, and her assertion that it would work in situations where blasters might not, I asked if they might have anything with that kind of punch behind it, something with high-velocity armor-piercing rounds. One of the weapons engineers said he could secure something for me to look at the next day.
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I’d like to see the smuggling bay that Laneet mentioned earlier before we make any deals. Your equipment is fine, but it will be useless if we can’t get it offplanet safely.”
They agreed that would be best, and as it was getting on toward planetary nightfall and the end of their shift, they said Laneet would take me to the bay and they’d continue with me the next day.
Artoo and I followed Laneet into a busy cargo bay located underneath Utheel Outfitters but on the opposite side of the dock from where we had entered. There we took another speeder a few klicks down a much wider tunnel until we reached a giant lift suitable for loading large pallets or even vehicles. Laneet drove the speeder directly into the lift and we took it up to a large cavern carved out of the rock. Laneet pressed a single button to activate a sliding door, which opened up a slice of cliffside in a narrow canyon. The other side loomed above, already cast in shadow under clouds painted pink from the setting sun, and Laneet led us to the edge and pointed up. “We are low enough that the lip of the other side provides a shadow from satellite surveillance. You would enter and exit the canyon from that direction,” she said, gesturing to the left. “Follow it to the end and you will emerge at a waterfall that is something of a tourist destination just ten klicks from the spaceport near the enclave. Its beauty is reason enough for ships to visit, and no one thinks anything of the occasional traffic coming in and out.”
“Huh. Not much here,” I said, looking around at the empty cavern.
“It’s for loading and unloading cargo only. We keep it powered off during downtime to prevent it being scanned,” Laneet said, “and we patrol the perimeter during operations to make sure no one can do a fly-by and see it. Should you need rest and relaxation or refueling, all those facilities await at the spaceport. This was designed for discretion.”
I gave a nod of appreciation. “Yeah. I think this will work for us. All right, we can go back and start thinking about doing some business.”
“Excellent. I will inform Soonta. May I tell her you will join her for breakfast in the morning?”
“Sure.” Laneet referred to Taneetch Soonta, one of the Rodians I’d met earlier. I believe she’d introduced herself as a sales executive for Utheel Outfitters.
As we walked back to the lift and Laneet closed the cavern wall with another push of the button, she said, “I’ll take you to your room now in Toopil. Do you have all you require?”
“Almost. Just need a powerfeed for my droid and maybe some dinner.”
“Of course. And your droid can download our inventory and pricing for you to peruse at your leisure.”
My room in the secret complex of Toopil proved to be my favorite place so far on Rodia, for it had been scrubbed of smells as much as possible rather than doused with a surplus of perfumes. Artoo displayed the weapons and armor inventory after he downloaded it, and I frowned at the prices. I didn’t precisely know t
he state of Alliance funding, but I wasn’t sure we’d be able to afford any large orders. War was expensive—and not just in lives lost. I’d make a point of testing out the weapons tomorrow to make sure they deserved such a steep price.
I left Artoo in the room when it was time to meet with Soonta for breakfast. Laneet knocked softly on my door and led me upstairs to a special chamber of the Utheel Outfitters complex. It was a solarium that also functioned as a café, though there weren’t any families dining there. It appeared reserved for an exclusive clientele. Richly dressed Rodians and an assortment of other species held quiet conversations barely audible against the notes of a Bith symphony floating above them via hidden speakers. Sunlight filtered through a huge stained-glass window that reached from floor to ceiling, bathing all the diners in colored light. White porcelain cups and saucers rested in front of us on a small round bistro table, each cup tinted a different hue thanks to the windows. I was wearing white also, but Soonta had dressed herself in an ensemble of dark greens highlighted with glints of silver thread. Diners at other tables kept their voices low, their conversations amounting to no more than a soft hum over the Bith music, and I wondered if maybe that incredible window was responsible for creating the strange atmosphere of reverence. The other visitors sitting with Rodians were no doubt as interested in Chekkoo weapons as the Alliance was, and it struck me as weird for everyone to be negotiating the purchase of deadly weapons in such a serene setting. This kind of commerce normally involved a certain seediness that the Rodians were deliberately refusing to provide.
After our server departed with our orders and Soonta inquired politely about my sleep, I expected her to ask if I’d had the opportunity to review their catalog and suggest a discounted selection or something of that nature. She surprised me.