“How old is he?”
“How should I know? Grown man. I don’t wipe for him.”
Bazine sighed. Having a shadow on a top-secret mission was far from clean. She needed to focus on her goal, not teach some stuck-up kid how the ship’s toilet worked. Although…
“How good a slicer?”
Kloda nodded slowly. “If it’s a machine, he can get into it, get out of it, or transform it into a weapon without being detected. You need intel, he can find it.”
“But you also said he was Pantoran.”
“Don’t see why that should matter unless you hate the color blue.”
And it didn’t matter, not really. People were people, and they’d double-cross you or die on you no matter where they were from. But Pantora was the moon of icy Orto Plutonia, where narglatches originated, and she was supposed to be on the lookout for an adversary known as Narglatch. It was one hell of a coincidence. Then again, she didn’t have to tell Orri where she was going or why; she could simply treat the adventure as a training exercise on behalf of Kloda. And if he got too curious or aggressive, she had ten different ways to kill him using only her hands. The other alternatives were to steal a ship and make a new enemy or pay for passage on a ship and risk entangling innocent, bumbling idiots in her business. At least in this case, she had complete control over the bumbling idiot in question.
“You in?” Kloda asked. He always got impatient during negotiations.
She made him wait a few more moments, just because she could. Finally, she nodded. “I am. But tell the Pantoran that this trip was designed solely to train him. Don’t let on that I’m running my own job.”
“Pretend you’re just a teacher under my orders,” Kloda said with a chuckle. “Looking at you, nobody would believe that.”
She arched an eyebrow. “People will believe what I want them to believe. They always do.”
“You still won’t tell me your real name, will you? Bazine?”
She stood. “Not a chance. Now, where’s my student?”
Chapter 3
Orri Tenro didn’t show up until Bazine had already programmed the coordinates into Kloda’s gauntlet ship, the Sparrowhawk. As she watched her new inconvenience run up the ramp, heavy pack in hand, she realized that Kloda must’ve planned it this way on purpose. If she’d met Orri first, he never would’ve made it onto her ship.
“Sorry I’m late. I’m Orri. Kloda said—”
“I don’t care what Kloda said. Strap in.” She inclined her head toward the empty seat.
He sat, looking at her in confusion. “Kloda didn’t say you were a woman.”
In response, she fired up the boosters and pulled on the throttle hard enough to cause her new charge to fall backward and bang his head with a satisfying clunk.
“Ouch! What was that for?”
“I sensed you were getting ready to flatter me.”
He rubbed the back of his head and buckled in. First of all, he was too good looking and took no pains to hide it, as she did. Typical blue Pantoran skin, yellow eyes, lavender-white hair pulled back in a ponytail. No facial tattoos, which suggested he didn’t value his family or didn’t have one. He was dressed more nicely than most of the students who trained with Kloda, but at least his shirt, pants, boots, and vest were practical. No flowy robes and silly hats. He wore a blaster slung low on his hip, and she was curious if he knew how to use it.
“How long have you been training with Kloda?” she asked.
“A few years. They say he’s the best.”
“He is. And he says you’re a good slicer.”
That earned a lazy smile. “He’s right.”
“How do you feel about medcenter data?”
“Get me a way in, and I can give you anything you want. I can find out if your favorite senator has any social diseases. Is that what this secret training mission is about?”
Bazine stopped herself before she could chuckle. “Not quite. Now, the thing about working a job is that you have minimal guidance and don’t know the larger game being played—only your small piece. So I’m going to tell you exactly what I need you to do, and you’re going to make sure you have whatever you need to do it hidden on your person. Do you have any less noticeable clothes?”
He scoffed. “Do you?”
“Of course. I can disappear. I can be anyone. Even Kloda wouldn’t recognize me, and he raised me. That’s the foundation of any job—not being noticed.”
“With a face like yours? Sorry, but I don’t buy it.”
Her eyes slashed sideways at him. If he was trying to flatter her, he was failing. She held out her hand and waggled black-tipped fingers. “How much would you care to wager?”
—
Thus began Orri’s introduction to spycraft—and to losing bets with Bazine Netal.
First, she slipped into goggles and a lumpy brown flight suit and told him she was Paf, the gunner. They ate an entire meal at the same table, even talked about what a hard-ass that Bazine Netal was. Then she spent a few hours playing hide-and-seek with him, calling him from the same room of the ship and disappearing before he’d turned around. He was soon out of breath and doubting his own sanity. He didn’t even seem suspicious when he found a half-dressed Twi’lek draped across his bed that evening.
“I’m the ship’s masseuse,” she purred. “Holding any…tension?”
“Does Bazine know about this?” he asked.
“Who’s Bazine?”
He held his hand to his forehead as if taking his own temperature, turned, and nearly fell down the ladder on his way back to the bridge. So much for swagger.
An hour later, Bazine took pity on him and called him down to the cockpit.
“You’re pretty stupid for a smart guy,” she began…in the Twi’lek’s voice.
Orri groaned. “We’re the only two people on this ship, aren’t we?”
She nodded. “I can see why Kloda sent you offplanet. Book-smart, street-dumb. So let’s start by discussing how to detect a disguise. Then we’ll move on to makeup, costuming, and voice modulation.” She held out her hand. “But first, pay up.”
He handed over the credits with another groan.
It was a long trip, after all, and teaching him wasn’t so horrible. He was intelligent, if naïve. In return, he helped her fix some of the nagging problems on the old Mandalorian ship. Flickering lights, sticky doors, that one panel in the cockpit that refused to light up. He had told her the truth: As much as he didn’t seem to understand people, he understood machines. Bazine lectured him on the finer points of spycraft, at least as did not relate to her current mission, and in return he taught her the basics of ship mechanics, wiring, and how to fix any common problems that might arise.
“Keeping an old ship going is all about sweet-talking her before she limps,” he said, handing Bazine a spanner, or trying to. She wouldn’t accept the oily thing until she’d found some gloves. “I worked in a garage on Coruscant for a while. Every mechanic overcharges. They know they’re the only thing between you and a cold death in the middle of nowhere, and they also know that they don’t need repeat business to thrive.”
Bored with the long journey, she learned what she could and stored the information away for later. Her first purchase with this mission’s credits would be an old but nimble ship like the Sparrowhawk, provided her employer paid her as well as they’d promised. On the bright side, when Orri was talking about wiring and datachips, he wasn’t asking about how she knew Kloda or where she was from. The chatty Pantoran couldn’t give up the idea of small talk, no matter how many times she punished him for not trying.
She had to keep her distance. Especially if Orri was really Narglatch.
“I would be of more use to you if you let me know what the real mission is,” he said as they were fine-tuning the hyperdrive, preparing for the final leg of the journey. “I mean, looking up an encrypted number in a medcenter data system is child’s play. Where’s the espionage? When do I get to go undercover? Whe
n do the secret gadgets and hidden weapons come in?”
Bazine slid out of the hatch and sat up, annoyed with his persistence. “They come in when your only choice is to use them or die. Do you really want to know what it’s like, being a spy? Never sure to whom you’re giving your allegiance, and knowing that most of your colleagues will die gruesomely, often by your hand? Fine. Let me show you. Quit fiddling, initiate the jump, and look.”
Orri clicked the hatch shut, sent the ship into hyperspace, and watched her as she gently, carefully removed the tightly fitted black skullcap she always wore. He almost did a good job of hiding his horror and pity when he saw why she wore it.
“On my first job, Kloda sent me out to steal something from one of his competitors. He told me to cover up and stay hidden, but I thought I’d have better access if I acted the vamp. I was fourteen and so proud, so vain. My mark knew what I was up to almost immediately. And then he showed me his flamethrower.” Her fingers traced over the twisted pink burn marks on the left side of her scalp, trailing over the tufts of shorn black hair. “Luckily, I had a knife in each boot, and I left his body next to what was left of my hair. I got Kloda what he wanted. But from then on, I learned to remain unseen.”
As if sensing the delicacy of the situation, and how harshly she would punish him for pity, Orri looked away. “You know, if you want to be unseen, I heard about this new sensor-jamming baffleweave fabric that will make you virtually undetectable. It’s still in test phase, but it should be pretty easy to find on the black market. Does wherever we’re going have one of those?”
She rolled her eyes. “Every planet has a black market of some kind. Did Kloda teach you nothing?”
He blushed indigo and fiddled with his wrist comlink. “He tried. And then he concluded that I have a bad head for anything that doesn’t have a dataport. That’s why he sent me to you. He said you’d be harsh. And blunt. But I wasn’t quite prepared for this reality. So he raised you, huh?”
She turned away to replace her skullcap. “If you could call it that. My bedtime stories were tales of bloody pirate raids. My friends were grizzled murderers who taught me how to punch. My jump rope was a garrote. But it was better than the orphanage.”
“Sounds rough.”
Bazine flopped into the pilot’s chair and slung her legs over the armrest. In that moment, she decided to kill Orri and leave his body in the wilds of Vashka. That made it easier to talk to him, to accept that she’d already told him secrets she’d never told anyone before. It was like bleeding poison from a wound, really, answering his questions—so long as she didn’t look him in the eyes and see herself reflected there.
“It’s funny. I grew up in Kloda’s combat school. My first year, all I saw were boots and hairy knees. He taught me to fight, sneak, hunt, hurt, and kill. I can steal food, but I don’t know how to prepare it. I can’t even keep a plant alive.” She held up her hand, showing black fingers she repainted every morning. “I don’t just have a black thumb—I’ve got black hands. But I’m good at what I do because of Kloda, and that’s all that really matters.”
“But don’t you have anyone you care about—besides Kloda? People matter, too.”
She watched the stars skim past outside the viewport, feeling as empty as the spaces between them. “No people. You get close to them, and they die or disappear. You kiss them, just for fun, and they tie you to the bed and steal your creds. They’re messy. Stupid. Foolish.” Her head swiveled to focus on Orri, as if she’d just come up out of a dream. “Hmm. Clever, you are. Getting all that out of me. Not that it’ll do you any good.”
“Not everyone you kiss will tie you to the bed and steal your stuff. Unless you’re into that,” he said softly, with just the slightest smolder.
Bazine slipped out of her chair, got on her knees, and leaned very, very close. So close that she knew he could feel her breath on his lips.
“People who kiss me,” she purred, all breathy, “end up on the floor. Some for a few hours, some for a few days. Some never recover. This isn’t black lipstick I’m wearing. So don’t even think about it.”
Before he could respond, before he could even blink, she stood smoothly, brushed hands down her pants, and walked out the cockpit door right as the ship completed the jump and reality descended.
“If it’s any comfort to you,” he called to her back, “I’m terrified of you.”
At that, Bazine actually smiled.
Only later did she realize that she’d revealed more than she’d planned, and he’d revealed…nothing. Nothing about his background, his home, his hang-ups. Kloda told her Orri had no training, outside of slicing and fighting. And yet he was unnaturally deft at manipulating feelings. But was it an inborn talent or one that had been carefully taught and purposefully hidden?
She’d find out soon. Vashka hovered through the viewport. Waiting.
Chapter 4
Before she’d docked the ship at Vashka Station, Orri was ready. And fidgeting. He sat in his chair, leaning forward and dripping sweat, fingers tapping against his bag. Even though he hadn’t known where they were headed until the planet was impossible to avoid seeing, now it was clear that he didn’t want to go at all.
Bazine pointed at his hands. “Rule one: Don’t act worried. People only look worried when they’re scared or doing something wrong.” He swallowed audibly, nodded, and stopped the tapping. “That’s better. At least, considering where we’re going and what we’re doing, they’ll expect you to seem a little scared.”
Still, at this rate, he was never going to be spy material for Kloda’s purposes. He might have the fists and the brains, but he didn’t have the confidence and self-control. On her first mission, Bazine had been cool as ice—and, yes, well, that one had gotten out of hand and ended up with her on fire and covered in blood. But she’d succeeded. And by her second mission, once she’d healed, she’d been even colder.
Orri, on the other hand, was sweating like they were back on Chaaktil, and it wasn’t just because he was from Pantora and accustomed to freezing temperatures.
“Let’s go over it again,” she said, calmly entering in fake docking codes.
As he recited the plan, she brought the Sparrowhawk down with steady hands. Vashka was a boring but lovely planet, a temperate place of lush green valleys, misty purple mountains, quiet, seaside towns, and this one big, disturbingly tidy city. It was where people both rich and poor went to retire in relative ease—and where folks were sent to convalesce so their employers or family could feel they were recovering or dying in peace and comfort, out of sight and out of mind. The New Republic offered privatized care for their old or injured troopers in the Outer Rim, and one of those firms had purchased wide swaths of Vashka for treatment centers. And that’s why they were headed to…
“There it is. Vashka City Medcenter One. Biggest medcenter on the planet and site of the main server room,” Orri said, pointing at the tall white spire. “I know. That part’s easy. It’s the getting in and getting out that worries me.”
“You do your part, and I’ll do mine.” Bazine held up a syringe and gave him a too-bright smile to match her disguise: a bouncy blond wig, gold lips and eyeshadow, and the kind of outfit girls wore in safe, New Republic–controlled cities when they wanted to show off.
“You’re even more terrifying now,” Orri said, wiping his palms on his pants. “Can we please get this over with?”
“We’re going to make a minor detour first. Just act normal.” She watched him for a moment, noticing his dilated eyes and shaking hands. “Normal for someone not about to have a heart attack, that is.”
They headed down the ramp, and Bazine put an extra bounce in her step. Orri stopped to watch the ramp close behind them and had to jog to catch up with her.
“Walk casual,” she whispered. “We’re just in town to visit my grandmother. She was a fearsome stormtrooper. She doesn’t approve of our relationship.”
Orri hiccuped a laugh, and Bazine wound her arm through his and
turned a sharp corner.
“The medcenter is over there,” Orri said, pointing.
“But we’re looking for people dealing in the black market, remember? This way,” she answered, guiding him down a series of increasingly darker alleys. “See those graffiti symbols?”
As they walked, she explained what the different symbols meant and how to avoid areas under control of street gangs in favor of common ground. She gave him pointers on posture and what to say to anyone who challenged him, how to ride that fine line between belonging on the streets and asking for a fight. He nodded along, asked the right questions, and listened carefully as she inquired about the new baffleweave technology with a shady Toydarian and drove a tough bargain on a slightly ripped shirt patterned in gray and black. She couldn’t help noticing his smirk as she threatened to gut the merchant if his goods proved to be counterfeit.
“That was thoroughly informative,” he said as they returned to the main roads of Vashka City. “And impressive.”
Bazine tugged on the sleeves of her new shirt and grinned. “That’s the only compliment I’ll accept.”
The main medcenter was easy to find—it was one of the tallest and most prominent buildings in the city, painted gleaming white with the universal red sigil beaming from the top in neon. Orri was walking too purposefully and quickly toward it, though, and Bazine had to constantly stop to window-shop or arrange her hair as a ploy to slow him down. She was pleased to find that the baffleweave did its job—each time she stood in front of a shop’s cam, the feed showed Orri…and a slight waver where she should’ve appeared. But first, she needed to be seen and recorded, so she pulled the shirt off over her head, folded it down to a tiny square, and stuffed it in her purse.