Star Wars: Scourge (25 page)

“And I missed out on all the fun,” she added, buttoning herself up.

“It was hardly fun,” said Mander, turning back from the wall. “I had to kill Zonnos.”

“It would have been fun for me,” she said. “And I don’t think the Tempest ends with him.”

“I agree,” said Mander. “He wasn’t smart enough to pull off such a trade himself.”

“And he would have been sampling his own stock,” said Reen.

“That is a mistake in the spice trade, I’ll admit,” noted Mander.

Reen shook her head. “No—he had someone buying the drug in Nar Shaddaa. One of his Wookiees, remember?”

“So?”

“Would you send someone out to pay street prices when you had a ready and steady flow yourself?” Reen asked.

Mander opened his mouth, and then stopped. She was right. “Vago hasn’t been seen since Popara’s death,” he managed to say.

Reen regarded him coolly. “And Vago
is
smart enough to pull this off.”

Eddey manifested at the medlab door. “Good to see you up and around,” he said to Reen. “The lieutenant commander wants to see us in her office.”

“After you,” said Reen, dropping off the examination table.

“Go ahead,” said Mander.

“Are you kidding?” said the Pantoran. “I’m not turning my back on you. You
shot
me.” Mander looked at her for a trace of amusement in her face. He saw none. Troubled, he left the medical bay ahead of the Pantoran.

The commander’s office was as bare and utilitarian as always. The holo-chess set was in idle mode once more. This time the viewscreen showed simply deep space, the distant stars drifting only slightly. Lieutenant Commander Angela Krin stood facing those stars as the three were ushered in, dressed once more in her full uniform. She waited for them to be alone. Then she turned to her desk and punched a few buttons.

“While we were in Hutt space, I had the Corporate Sector medtechs examine both the Tempest spice and Endregaad disease. Here is the disease.” She toggled the screen, and a spiral of chemical markers danced above the tabletop. Along one side of the image, lines radiated from points of interest in the molecular chain, zooming in on particular connections.

Mander and the others nodded. The lieutenant commander’s fingers stroked open another file from the desktop. It displayed next to it a bulkier, more geometric image. This one was built not on a double helix, but on a three-dimensional hex grid. Again, lines radiated from particular items the medtechs thought interesting.

Mander leaned forward, but shook his head. The two drawings seemed as widely different as a puppy and a droid.

Eddey, though, pointed at a swooping line in both drawings. “Those parts are similar.”

Angela nodded. “My techs caught it as well. They both have a similar organic structure along those root splines. There’s a link between the two.”

“The plague on Endregaad was caused by the spice?” asked Mander.

“No,” said Angela, “the spice is a mutated form of a normal spice. At its heart, it is a spice—or several spices—common to a dozen worlds, but it has undergone a modification in its treatment and manufacture that brings out its lethal nature. Wherever the spice is refined gives it its exceptional properties. We believe it to be harvested from elsewhere and then treated, and that treatment location is where this disease originally appeared.”

“All right,” said Mander, “where did this disease originally appear?”

Eddey squinted at the spinning spiral diagram of the disease. “Is that hard-radiation scarring in those molecules?”

Angela smiled. “Exactly. Hard radiation in a very narrow type of wavelengths, found among white dwarves. We knew the disease came from a highly irradiated world. Now we know what type of system our origin point is in.”

“There are hundreds of thousands of white dwarf worlds in the galaxy,” said Mander.

“But only tens of thousands within easy transport distance of Endregaad and the Corporate Sector,” said the lieutenant commander. “I can break free some resources for a methodical search for traders operating in dead systems, strange comings and goings, and other telltales.”

“Still,” said Mander, “that would mean finding a needle in a slightly smaller haystack.”

“That’s where our experienced consultants come in,” said Angela Krin.

Reen, who had been silent to this point, suddenly brought her head up. She had apparently been thinking about other things. “Us? What do you need from us?” Apparently, thought Mander, she had not decided about the CSA’s job offer quite yet.

“Information,” said Angela calmly, though Mander
could hear stress in her voice. “You know the ins and outs of spacers better than anyone under my command. Where would they hang out? If they were making a transfer of contraband, where would it be? What systems are considered the softest for smuggling operations? Who are their contacts?”

“We don’t smuggle,” said Reen, her face darkening with embarrassment.

“Of course you don’t,” said Angela Krin. “No one here is saying that you do. What I am saying is that my own resources in the Corporate Sector Authority are limited, and if we can use your knowledge, perhaps even smugglers that you know among the trading community, we can save ourselves a lot of trouble.”

Reen paused for a moment, and yes, her face turned a deeper shade of blue. Mander had seen it before in Toro. Not embarrassment. Anger.

“No,” she said simply.

“No?” said Angela Krin. She seemed shocked, an officer not used to insubordination on her own command deck.

“No,” said Reen. “Sorry.” She took a deep breath. “You offered your help to find Toro’s killer, but I’m not sharing every spacer secret with you just so you can go looking.”

“I don’t think it is like that—” Mander started, but the lieutenant commander cut him off. “You don’t seem to understand how serious the situation is. This is larger than just the death of your brother.”

“And so I have to trust you,” said Reen.

“Yes,” said the CSA commander.

“No,” said the Pantoran.

“We can discuss this,” said Mander. At the same moment Angela said, “We can pay you well for your services.” Mander wished the commander would quit making matters worse.

Reen shook her head. “You don’t get it,” she said to Angela. “You have more than enough people in the CSA to pull this off. People you can trust. People you can order around. You don’t know us at all. You don’t have to take these risks.
We
don’t have to take this risk.” She moved to the door. “I’m going to head down to the
New Ambition
and, with your kind permission, sweep her from stem to stern to see if the Hutts put any bugs into the system while we were on Nar Shaddaa. Then Eddey and I are going our own way.” She turned to go.

“Captain Irana,” Angela Krin said, raising her voice to Reen’s back; the Pantoran halted before the door. “Mander Zuma did the right thing in shooting you. You would have been used as a tool against us. As a hostage. He had to take you off the board.”

Reen spun around and opened her mouth to speak, then spun back and left the conference room in a fury. Mander looked at Eddey.

“What just happened here?” asked the Jedi.

“I think we just quit before we were hired,” said Eddey. To Angela Krin he composed himself and said, “Sorry about that. The science here seems pretty interesting.” He looked at the schematics of the Endregaad plague spinning slowly over the lieutenant commander’s desk. He did not move to the door.

“Aren’t you going down to help Reen?” asked the Jedi.

“I could,” said Eddey, “but I don’t think I’m the one who has to talk to her. Besides, I’d rather stay here and talk with the lieutenant commander about her medtechs. Is it possible to download this on a datastick?” he asked, addressing Angela. “I’ve got some ‘spacer resources’ of my own that I’d like to check it against.” Angela Krin said nothing, but nodded, her mouth a noncommittal line. To Mander it seemed that she was trying to pin
down the exact moment when she’d totally lost control of the situation.

Mander left them behind and descended to the docking bay where the
New Ambition
was moored. Climbing the ship’s boarding ramp, he could hear Reen clattering around inside. She had already pulled off one of the forward avionics sections and was on her back, her head buried among the wiring.

“Make yourself useful, Eddey,” she shouted. “Hand me the reflek sculptor. I swear there are some welds that weren’t here when we got the ship.”

Mander sat down in the copilot’s seat and looked at the open toolbox. He rooted around and handed her a likely-looking suspect, a long beeping device with multiple heads. She dropped it like a live snake, and shouted “
Reflek
sculptor, Eddey. Don’t clown around with me.”

“Eddey’s still up talking to the lieutenant commander,” said Mander. “How can I help?”

Reen pulled herself out of the avionics section and scowled at Mander. “I thought I was clear on this. We’re not interested in another kriffing adventure.”

“That part was clear,” said Mander. “I’m just not sure on the
why
. I mean, I guess after what happened on Nar Shaddaa, anyone would be rattled …”

She looked at him with an expression that reminded him of her brother. “You shot me.”

“I
stunned
you,” said Mander. “And it seems to bother you more than it should. You’ve surely been shot at before. I know. I was there.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, trying to hide her irritation. Again, so much like her brother.

“Try to make me understand,” he said, remembering old conversations he had with Toro. He had been younger than Reen when Mander had taken him on as an apprentice, but no less stubborn.

“You shot me,” she said, “And I didn’t
expect
it.”

Mander leaned back in the copilot’s chair and let out a deep breath. “So you’re angry that I
surprised
you?”

Reen leaned back against one of the consoles, trying not to look at the Jedi. “I thought I had figured out how you thought. I mean, you’re a
librarian
.”

“Archivist,” corrected Mander, but she ignored him.

“You’ve been the one to recommend talking things over first,” she said. “Careful planning. Knowing your opponent. Waiting for someone else to make their move.”

“I think we knew Zonnos pretty well by that point,” Mander noted. “And I thought we planned pretty well for the situation.”

“And your solution was to ram an aircar into the building and shoot me?” Her voice climbed as she spoke.

“We were pressed for time,” Mander said, “and shooting you was only an option if Zonnos took you hostage. Which he did.”

“You were just …” Her voice trailed off.

“Acting more like a Jedi?” suggested Mander Zuma.

“Yes!” she said, slapping her knee.

Mander was silent for a moment. Finally he said, “Sometimes adventure leaps onto us. It is not like we had a choice in the matter.”

Reen started to protest, but Mander shushed her, continuing. “I think I know what you mean. Part of a Jedi is the ability to process all manner of threats and situations, analyze them, choose the best option, and then act. It is supposed to happen very quickly for us. We inherently know the best action. It is part of being connected with the Force, and our training enhances it.”

He let out a deep sigh. “I’ve always been good at processing and analyzing a situation. I’ve never been so good at acting on what I learn. Acting instinctively and immediately. Until that fight in the depths of Nar
Shaddaa, with the vrblthers. Suddenly I knew what had to be done and I did it. And when I had to deal with Zonnos, I had the same feeling.” He looked at Reen and added, “Sorry to have surprised you.”

The two of them sat in silence on the flight deck of the
New Ambition
.

“So where do we go from here?” said Mander Zuma.

It was Reen’s turn to sigh. “You’re still my best lead. Particularly since I upset the lord high commander up in her briefing room by not ratting out my fellow spacers.”

“All right then,” Mander said, and thought for a moment. “Bomu clan.”

“They’ve been hunting us throughout this,” said Reen.

“On someone else’s orders,” said Mander. “You said it yourself—they are basically small-time. But if we shake them up enough, maybe they can tell us who they are working for.”

“Some other small fry,” said Reen, frustrated.

“Who is working for someone else who is working for someone else,” said Mander. “And eventually we get to the one who
isn’t
working for anyone else, and he, or she, is the one we’re looking for.”

Reen thought about it a moment, then said, “It sounds like more fun than spilling what I know about smuggling to a CSA agent.”

“Or searching a thousand dead systems filled with hard radiation,” noted Mander.

“And it’s not like the Bomu clan is going to be any
less
angry at us,” said Reen with a smile. It was an easy smile. The storm had passed.

“I am sorry I had to shoot you,” said Mander. “But it was the right thing to do at the time.”

“Warn me next time,” said Reen, then paused for a moment. “Why are
you
still here?” she asked. “You’ve gotten the coordinates and finished Toro’s last mission, rescued your traveling companion, and killed a Hutt
and lived. I know why I need to go forward, and even Angela’s reasoning. Why are you still here?”

“I want to find the origin point of the Tempest,” said Mander. “I want to put an end to it.”

“For Toro?” asked Reen.

“In part,” said Mander. “And for you.”
And for Mika
, he added to himself. For an odd little Hutt who lost his family because of the Tempest trade.

“And for yourself?” asked Reen. “Are you sure that you’re not dealing with your own personal Tempest? Is the excitement, the chance of playing the hero, clouding your better judgment?”

“I don’t know,” Mander Zuma said. “Do you want to come along and make sure my judgment doesn’t get clouded?”

Reen made a noise and disappeared back under the avionics console. “Sure. Regardless, I still have to check out everything on this boat. Go tell Eddey it’s safe to come down here and help.”