Authors: Timothy Zahn
Birtraub’s face went even whiter. “No,” be breathed. “Please. He’ll kill me if he finds out I told you about him.”
“He won’t ever know,” Mara assured him. “Where is he?”
“You don’t understand,” Birtraub said, his voice thickening with desperation. “A couple of hours after they grab you, they’ll know everything.”
“A couple of hours after they grab me, they’ll be dead,” Mara corrected. “Where is he?”
Birtraub took a deep breath and folded his arms across his chest. “No,” he said. The pleading was gone, replaced by the defiance of a man with nothing left to lose. “Whatever you’re going to do to me, it can’t possibly be as bad as what Caaldra would do.”
Mara felt her lip twist. The Emperor had often warned her that she was far too young for most people to take her threats seriously. “Fine, if that’s how you want it,” she said. “I’ll just have to find him myself.”
She gestured toward the door with her blaster. “After you.”
The look of relief that had started to cross Birtraub’s face abruptly reversed itself. “What?” he asked.
“I’m certainly not going to go wandering around this place all by myself,” Mara said reasonably. “Besides, this way when we find Caaldra, I expect he’ll be polite enough to stop and say hello and ask who your new friend is. Then he and I can be properly introduced.”
Birtraub’s face had gone white again. “You
are
insane,” he hissed. “Forget it. I won’t go.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Mara said.
“I have armed people all over the facility.”
“You had armed people in here, too,” Mara pointed out as she started walking toward him. “But we’re wasting time. Come on.”
In his eyes and body language she saw the subtle clues that he was going to try something stupid. She kept going, preparing herself; and as she came within reach, he threw a punch at her throat with everything he had.
But speed, power, and desperation were no match for Force-driven awareness and reflexes. Mara merely leaned slightly to the side, allowing the fist to shoot harmlessly past. The clean miss threw Birtraub completely off balance, and as he half lunged, half fell toward her Mara swiveled on her right foot, moving out of his way.
Some people would have figured it out at that point. Birtraub wasn’t one of them. Even as he lurched past, cursing, he snapped a kick backward toward her. Mara sidestepped it and, almost as an afterthought, swept his other leg out from under him.
He hit the floor flat; and with that, the last bit of fight was finally out of him. “Whenever you’re ready,” Mara said calmly, nudging him in the ribs with her foot.
Grimacing with pain, Birtraub pushed himself up on one hand, half turning to look up at her. “Warehouse
Fourteen,” he managed, wincing as if the words hurt to say. Considering how he’d landed, they probably did. “East side of the complex.” His gaze drifted to his unconscious men. “If they get you, tell them it was Pirtonna who told you.”
Mara smiled cynically. Typical. “Thank you,” she said, lifting her borrowed blaster. “If he’s not there, I’ll be back for another chat.”
She fired, and he collapsed beneath the blue stun blast. Retrieving her satchel, she headed back along the deserted corridors to the exit.
The driver was still waiting in the long landspeeder. Mara stunned him, dragged his unconscious form out of sight, and drove away.
Warehouse 14 was located conveniently next to Docking Bay 14, currently occupied by a nicely polished Hyrotii Crescent-class freighter, a model that mostly saw service as a rich-kid toy. But once again, appearances were deceiving. Mara studied the ship as she drove a leisurely circle along the complex’s outer drive, noting the hidden laser and torpedo ports, the forged markings, and the neatly dressed but rough-looking men walking guard duty around both the vessel and the wide cargo doors leading into the warehouse. Beside the doors, tucked out of the way, were three landspeeders with the Birtraub Brothers logo on their sides. Through the warehouse doors she could see a group of men loading crates onto repulsor carts and maneuvering them out to the ship’s ramp. The warehouse itself seemed well stocked, with multiple stacks of crates scattered throughout. She took special notice of the placement of the stacks along the back wall and continued her drive.
The back of Warehouse 14 butted up against another warehouse-sized building, this one subdivided into smaller storage units, with a narrow service corridor
running between the two. Mara found the entrance to the corridor and headed to a spot where her memory told her a stack of crates would shield her from view from inside. Stretching out to the Force, confirming there was no one nearby who might walk in on her, she opened her satchel and got to work.
Her first task was to retrieve her lightsaber, hidden inside a long data analysis unit. The unit had three hidden catches, positioned far enough apart that a single person couldn’t hit all three. Mara squeezed two with her hands and used the Force to pop the third. Pulling out the lightsaber, she tucked it into her belt, then freed the sleeve gun and holster from one of her two datapads and strapped the weapon to her left forearm. Checking a final time for possible observers, she stepped back from the warehouse wall and ignited her lightsaber.
With a
snap-hiss
the magenta blade flashed into existence. It was a unique color, the Emperor had told her when he’d given her the bit of starter she’d used to grow the crystal for the weapon, one that had been seen only once in the last hundred years. He hadn’t said where he’d gotten the crystal; probably it was from one of the collections of weapons and artwork and historical artifacts he had scattered around the Empire.
For a moment she held the lightsaber motionless, gazing at the blade and letting the feel of the weapon flow into her mind and back again into her hands. Then, setting her feet, she lowered the blade and eased its tip delicately into the wall in front of her.
The wall was thick and heavily armored, and it took three careful cuts to establish its actual thickness. But once she did that the rest of the task went quickly. Positioning the blade so that it would slice completely through the wall without letting through any of the telltale glow that might be noticed among the shadows, she carved out a narrow upside-down triangle just big
enough for her to slip through. Closing down the lightsaber, she got a Force grip on the cut section and pushed.
It broke free with a muffled crunch. Straining with the effort—the section was even heavier than it looked—Mara floated it forward half a meter and cautiously looked in.
Once again, the Emperor’s memory training had served her well. Her new private entrance was behind the exact center of the stack of crates she’d been aiming for.
She retrieved her satchel as she pushed the triangular plug another half a meter forward. Making sure she was unobserved, she slipped through the opening, then used the Force to slide the plug back in place. She tucked her satchel out of sight between two of the crates, returned the lightsaber to her belt, and made her way to the edge of the stack.
Her first thought when she’d seen all the cartloads of crates being delivered to the ship was that the pirates had gotten wind of her investigation and were pulling out. But now she realized that wasn’t the case. The men and aliens with the carts weren’t simply loading at random, but were taking crates only from two specific stacks near the doors, stacks that were by now nearly depleted. Even more interestingly, there were two different styles and classes of clothing being worn: one set by those handling the carts, the other by half a dozen men and aliens who were mostly lounging around keeping a watchful eye on the first batch. Apparently some kind of goods redistribution was going on.
She stretched out to the Force, trying to get a feel for the two groups. The ones with the carts had the low-level rebelliousness and slight paranoia of career criminals, but none of the underlying viciousness she could
usually sense in habitual killers. Smugglers, she tentatively identified them, or else receivers of stolen goods.
The loungers, in contrast, not only had the killer edge but were insolently proud of it. Each of them also had a long, prominent scar along his left cheek, or whatever passed for a cheek in the case of the nonhumans. That, combined with their shoulder patches and a warehouse full of loot, tagged them as the pirates Birtraub had mentioned.
But one figure was still missing from the mix. Mara continued her visual and mental sweep of the room; and there, standing alone by a stack of crates off to her left, she saw him.
He wasn’t much to look at, at least not on the surface. A human of medium height and build, he was dressed in a plain dark red tunic, with black trousers and boots. He carried no obvious weapon and had a bland, utterly forgettable face.
But Mara’s training and Force sensitivity told a different story. The eyes in that bland face were alert and probing, the tunic and boots concealed weaponry exotic and deadly, and even in a relaxed state his unremarkable build had the sense of a watchful predator. Unlike Pirtonna and his thugs, unlike even the brutal pirates around him, this man was a warrior.
Caaldra.
She studied him another minute, watching the way his eyes moved around the room, noting how his hands stayed close to the weapons whose positions she could read in the subtle folds of cloth and slight bulges of boot leather, sensing the automatic flow of contingency combat plans through his mind as the other inhabitants of the warehouse moved about their tasks.
One of the pirates watching the procedure turned and started in Caaldra’s direction. From his age and the number of souvenir trinkets Mara could see glittering on
his chest, she guessed he was high up in the organization. Keeping a wary eye on the rest of the room, staying in the shadows behind the stacks of crates, she moved closer.
She had reached a spot two stacks away from Caaldra when the pirate arrived. Sinking into a crouch, she eased an eye around the edge of the lowest crate and stretched out with her sensory enhancement techniques.
“—almost done,” the pirate was saying. “Be glad to get those furs out of here.”
“Not much profit in it,” Caaldra commented.
“Any profit’s fine with me,” the pirate countered. “Floogy things take up way more room than they’re worth.” He gestured to Caaldra. “So you got our next targets?”
“Right here,” Caaldra said, pulling out a data card and handing it over. “Ten ships, the first and third for me.” He paused. “That’s
everything
in the first and third, Shakko. Make sure the Commodore explains to your people what’ll happen if there’s any, shall we say, leakage this time.”
Commodore
. Mara’s lip twisted in contempt. Pirate chieftains did so enjoy taking on pseudo-military titles and airs.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell him,” Shakko growled. “Don’t worry—I’ll take the first target myself.”
“Fine,” Caaldra said. “It leaves port in three days, with your optimal ambush point in five. Plenty of time. And the other targets should be in easy range of your other ships.”
“Plenty of time if we can get these flanked smugglers hoofing, anyway,” Shakko muttered, turning back. “Hey! Tannis!”
One of the other pirates detached himself from the section of wall he’d been leaning on and strode over. “Yes?”
“Take Vickers and one of the speeders back to the ship and send this list to the Commodore,” Shakko ordered, handing him the data card. “Then comm Bisc and tell him he’s got half an hour to finish picking up the supplies and get them stowed.”
“Want me to start engine prep?”
“Might as well wait till we’re finished here,” Shakko said. “I’ll comm and tell you when.”
“Okay.” Tannis headed for the warehouse door, grabbing one of the other men along the way.
Mara didn’t wait to hear any more but quickly retraced her steps through the shadows toward her satchel and her private entrance. It was clear that the smugglers, the pirates, and Caaldra would soon be going their separate ways, and even the Emperor’s Hand couldn’t follow three quarries at once.
She could, of course, return to her ship and call it in. But even if there were Imperial forces in the area who could react quickly enough, it was unlikely they would be set up for the kind of subtle tracking and surveillance work that was called for here. For all intents and purposes, Mara was on her own.
Fortunately, there wasn’t any real question about which way she should go on this one. Intriguing though Caaldra might be, it was clear the pirates were about to head off on a frenzy of attack and murder. That was where the immediate danger to the Empire and its citizens lay, so that was where Mara would go.
Besides, Caaldra had told Shakko that the first and third targets were his. It would be interesting to find out what those targets were.
Three minutes later she was back in her borrowed landspeeder, following the two pirates at a discreet distance as they drove along the storage facility’s outer drive.
Shakko’s ship was parked in a docking bay on the
west side of the storage complex, close enough to the warehouse for easy access but far enough away that a casual observer wouldn’t immediately make the connection between it and the smugglers. It was a Corellian HT-2200 medium freighter: almost sixty meters long with four climate-adjustable cargo holds, a solid pack beast of a ship. As with the smugglers’ vehicle, though, appearances were undoubtedly not to be trusted.
The pirates hadn’t left any guards on outside duty, but it was quickly clear that there was at least one man still inside. Even before Tannis coasted the landspeeder to a stop by the leftmost of the two forward-jutting cargo arms a boarding ramp had lowered to meet them. Parking the landspeeder, the two pirates hopped out and trotted up the ramp, which immediately lifted shut behind them. There was another ramp on this model, Mara knew, over on the right cargo arm, probably as vigilantly watched as the other one.
But then, she hadn’t really planned on using any of the usual entrances.
Her landspeeder’s present vector would take her past the ship’s stern, with her nearest approach being about twenty meters away. Adjusting her direction slightly, she aimed the vehicle past the edge of the next section of the storage complex, where it would be out of view of the pirate ship when it either coasted to a halt or crashed. Getting a grip on her satchel, she gunned the vehicle; as it passed directly behind the freighter she tossed out the satchel and leapt out after it.