design-see how the pattern of connectors repeats every five meters
down the side? We ought to be able to take it apart at those
spots."
"Maybe," Karoly said, prodding thoughtfully at one of the black
boxes with the end of her hydrospanner. "Deefour, see if you can
find a place to tie in. Might as well start pulling a technical
readoutr-we're going to want everything we can get on this thing."
"Hey!" Cai called from the cockpit area. "Shada, Karoly-you'd
better come see this."
She was hunched over the main display, fiddling with the fine-
tuning, when the other two reached her. "What is it?" Shada
demanded.
"I'm not sure," Cai said. "Hard to tell through all the sand,
but I think there's a battle going on up there. An Imperial Star
Destroyer against something about the size of a bulk freighter."
Shada leaned over the display, heart pounding. If Sileen had
been unexpectedly fast at bringing in transport for them . . .
"Can you scrub the image any more?" she asked.
"I'm at the limit already," Cai said. "It's the sandstorm-wait
a minute, there's a break. It's a Corellian Corvette."
Shada let out a quiet sigh. Not one of the Mistryl's ships,
then. "I wonder what's going on."
"I don't know," Cai said slowly. "Wait a minute. Two more Star
Destroyers coming in from hyperspace."
"That's a lot of firepower for a planet like Tatooine," Karoly
said. "They only had one Star Destroyer guarding the Hammertong."
"Unless one or more of these were supposed to have been there,
too," Shada suggested. "Could be they got pulled away to help
chase that Corellian."
"Either way, the Corellian must be pretty important to them,"
Cai said. "We could be in the middle of something really big
here."
Shada looked 'back at the Hammertong and the diminutive droid
working alongside it. Cai was right . . . and suddenly she was
feeling very short on time. "Cai, do you think we could get one of
those modules off the Hammertong?''
"We could try. Probably take a couple of days with just the
three of us and Deefour. Why?"
"I don't think we're going to be able to wait for Sileen to
bring back a ship," Shada said. "If she hasn't made it in by the
time we get one of those modules off, we'd better take what we've
got and get out of here."
"You'll never get one of those modules into the Mirage," Karoly
objected. "It's way too big."
"I know," Shada said. "That's why, if it comes to that, you and
I will go to Mos Eisley and hire ourselves a freighter. Come on,
let's get started."
"Over there," Shada said, pointing toward a dilapidated
building across the sandy Mos Eisley street and double-checking
her datapad. "That's the cantina."
"Doesn't look like much," Karoly said, swinging the Mirage's
antique speeder over toward it. "You really think we're going to
find a good pilot in there?"
"Someone in the Mistryl thought so." Shada shrugged. "It was
the top name on the contingency list for Tatooine."
"I doubt that's a really telling recommendation," Karoly
grumbled, letting the speeder coast to a stop. "I don't like this,
Shada. I really don't."
"Brea, not Shada," Shada corrected her. "And you're Senni.
Don't forget that inside or this whole thing could fall apart."
"It's got a good chance of doing that all by itself," Karoly
shot back. "Look, just because a couple of stormtroopers on
traffic duty bought this charade"- she gestured sharply at the
slinky jumpsuit and hived-hairdo wig she was wearing-"doesn't mean
anyone who actually knows the Tonnika sisters is going to fall for
it. They're not."
"Well, we certainly can't use our own names and IDs," Shada
pointed out, trying to hide her own nervousness about this
masquerade. "This place is crawling with stormtroopers already,
and if they haven't got listings on us yet, they will soon. The
Mistryl have been running this camouflage prematch system for a
the two of us can pass as Brea and Senni Tonnika, then we can."
"Looking like them and acting like them are two very different
things," Karoly countered. "Besides which, pretending to be a
couple of criminals is not my idea of keeping low."
She had a point, Shada had to admit. Brea and Senni Tonnika
were professional con artists-good ones, too-who were said to have
separated an impressive amount of wealth from an equally
impressive list of the galaxy's rich and powerful. Under normal
circumstances, borrowing their identities would indeed not be a
smart way to stay inconspicuous.
But the circumstances here were far from normal. "We don't have
any choice," she said firmly. "Complete strangers automatically
draw attention, and a place like Mos Eisley is always crawling
with informants. Especially now. Our only chance of keeping the
Imperials off us is to look as if we belong here. To everyone."
She looked out at the cantina. Karoly was right; the place didn't
look very inviting. "If you'd rather, you can stay out here and
watch the door. I can find a pilot by myself."
Karoly sighed. "We're going to have to talk someday about these
sudden surges of recklessness. Come on, we're wasting time."
Shada had held out the hope that, like certain other criminal
dens she'd heard of, the cantina's interior would be a marked
improvement over its exterior. But it wasn't. From the dark, smoke-
filled lobby and flickering droid detector to the curved bar and
secluded booths along the walls, the cantina was as shabby as some
of the less choice tapcafes on their own world. Karoly had been
right Being number one on Tatooine wasn't saying much.
"Watch the steps," Karoly murmured beside her.
"Thanks," Shada said, catching herself in time not to trip over
the steps leading down from the lobby to the main part of the
cantina. She hadn't realized until then just how much her eyes
were having to adjust from the bright sunlight outside to the
dimness of the interior. Probably deliberately designed to give
those already inside a chance to check out any newcomers.
But if any of the patrons were overly curious about her and
Karoly, they weren't showing it. Around the room, humans and
aliens of all sorts were sitting or squatting at the tables and
booths or leaning against the bar, drinking a dozen different
liquids and chatting. in a dozen different languages and not
paying the least bit of attention to the new arrivals. Apparently,
the Tonnika sisters were familiar enough to the clientele to be
known on sight.
Or else minding one's own business was the general rule here.
Either way, it suited Shada just fine.
"What now?" Karoly asked.
"Let's go over to the bar," Shada said, nodding to an empty
spot against one side. "We can see the room better from there than
from a table or booth. We'll get a drink and see if we c
an find
anyone from our listings."
They made their way through the general flow of bodies to the
bar. Across the room, a Bith band was belting out some bouncy but
otherwise nondescript tune, the music not quite able to drown out
the mix of conversations. Partway around the bar a tall not-quite-
human was smoking from an oddly shaped loop pipe and gazing off
broodingly into space; beyond him, an Aqualish and a badly scarred
man were drinking and glaring around at other customers; beyond
them, another tall human was holding a quiet conversation with an
even taller Wookiee.
"What'll you have?" a surly voice asked.
Shada focused on the bartender standing there in front of them.
The expression on his face matched his voice; but there seemed to
be some recognition behind the indifference in his eyes.
Enough to risk an experiment. "We'll have the usual," she told
him.
He grunted and busied himself at the bar. Shada glanced at
Karoly's suddenly aghast expression, winked reassuringly, and
turned back as the bartender put two slender glasses in front of
them. He grunted again and walked away.
Shada picked up her glass, willing the tension to flow out of
her. "Cheers," she said, lifting the glass to Karoly.
"Are you crazy?" Karoly hissed back.
"Would you rather I had ordered something way out of character
for us?" Shada asked, taking a careful sip. Some kind of Sullustan
wine, she decided. "Let's get started."
Still glowering, Karoly pulled the slender cylinder of their
spies' scanner/datapad from her jumpsuit and flicked it on. "All
right," she muttered, glancing back and forth between it and the
cantina's patrons. "The fellow with the loop pipe . . . never
mind, he's an assassin. Those two Duros over there ... no listing
here for them."
"Their flight suits look too neat for smugglers, anyway," Shada
said. Across the bar, an old man with white hair and beard and
dressed in a brown robe stepped up to the Wookiee and his tall
companion. There was a short conversation between the two humans,
and then the tall human gestured to the Wookiee and wandered away.
"What about that Aqual-ish over there?"
"I was just checking him," Karoly said, peering down at the end
of the scanner. "Name's Ponda Baba, and he's definitely a
smuggler. That scarface beside him-"
"Hey!" the bartender barked.
Shada stiffened, her hand reaching reflexively for her hidden
knife.
But the bartender wasn't looking at her. "We don't serve their
kind here," he snapped, gesturing sharply.
"What?" came a voice from behind her.
Shada turned around. At the top of the steps stood a boy about
her own age, dressed in loose white clothing and frowning in
puzzlement at the bartender. Beside him were two droids, a
protocol droid and an as-tromech unit similar to Cai's Deefour
model. "Your droids," the bartender growled. "They'll have to wait
outside-we don't want them here."
The kid spoke briefly to the droids, who turned and scurried
back out. Continuing down the steps alone, he moved over to the
bar and gingerly wedged himself in between the Aqualish and the
old man in the brown robe.
"The scarface is named Dr. Evazan," Karoly said. "I've got ten
death sentences listed here for him."
"For smuggling?" Shada asked, frowning at the brown-robed old
man. There was something about him; some sense of quiet alertness
and self-control and power that set the hairs tingling on the back
of her neck.
"No," Karoly said slowly. "Botched surgical experiments.
Yecch."
"We'll keep him in mind as a last resort," Shada said, her eyes
and thoughts still on the brown-robed man. Whoever he was, he
definitely didn't fit in with the rest of the clientele. An
Imperial spy, perhaps? "That old man over there-do a check on
him," she told Karoly. The kid was still standing on his other
side, gawking around like a tourist. Were they together?
Grandfather and grandson, maybe, in from the countryside to see
the big city?
And then, abruptly, the Aqualish gave the kid a shove and
snarled something at him. The kid looked at him blankly, then
turned back to the bar. Stepping away from the bar, smiling rather
like a predator preparing himself for lunch, Dr. Evazan tapped the
kid on the shoulder. "He doesn't like you," he said.
"Sorry," the kid breathed, starting to turn away again.
Evazan grabbed a handful of the kid's clothing and yanked him
back around, "I don't like you, either," he snarled, shoving his
mangled face close to the kid's. Around them, conversations came
to a halt as heads turned to look. "You just watch yourself,"
Evazan continued. "We're wanted men."
"Uh-oh," Karoly said quietly.
Shada nodded silently. The kid was in for it now - she'd seen
enough tapcafe fights to know a setup when she saw one. "We're
staying out of it," she reminded Karoly.
"But if they get arrested - "
Shada cut her off with a sharp gesture. Smoothly, gracefully,
as if he'd been fully aware of the situation from the start, the
old man had turned away from his conversation with the Wookiee.
"This little one's not worth the effort," he said soothingly to
Evazan. "Come, let me get you something."
It was, Shada realized, as neat a face-saving gesture as she'd
ever seen. Evazan and the Aqualish could now accept a drink, maybe
snarl and posture a little more, and then move on with whatever
passed for personal honor intact.
But unfortunately for the old man, Evazan wasn't interested in
a peaceful setdement. For a split second he glared at the old man,
his predator look hardening into something ugly and vicious.
Conversation at the bar had all but ceased now, every eye turned
toward the -violence about to break. From their alcove the band
played on, oblivious to what was happening.
And then, with a roar, Evazan shoved the kid violently to the
side to crash into one of the tables. His hand swung up, a blaster
gripped in it. Beside him, the Aqualish also had his blaster out,
an urgent "No blasters - no blasters!" from the bartender going
completely unnoticed. The weapons swung up, targeting the old man.
They never got there. Abruptly, the old man's hand exploded
into brilliant blue-white light, a flickering hard-edged fire that
slashed with surgical precision across his two attackers. There
was a blaster shot that ricocheted into the ceiling, a scream and
gurgling roar -
And then, as abruptly as it had begun, it was over. Evazan and
the Aqualish collapsed out of sight beyond the bar, their moans
showing they were at least temporarily still alive. From where she
stood, Shada could see the Aqualish's blaster lying on the floor,
still clutched in a hand no longer attached to its owner.
For another moment the old man remained as he was, his glowing
weapon humming, his eyes flicking around the c
antina as if
assessing the possibility of more trouble. He could have saved
himself the effort. From the casual way the other patrons were
turning back to their drinks, it was obvious that no one here had
any particular affection for the downed smugglers. At least not
enough to take on the old man over it.
And it was in that second's worth of pause that Shada was
finally able to identify the weapon the old man had used against
his attackers.
A lightsaber.
"You still want to know who he is?" Karoly asked dryly from
beside her.
Shada licked at her lips, a fresh tingle running dirough her as
die old man closed down his weapon and helped the kid back to his
feet. A Jedi Knight. A real, living Jedi Knight. No wonder she'd
sensed something odd about him. "I doubt he's for hire," she told
Karoly, taking a deep breath and forcing her mind back to die
business at hand. If the Jedi Knights of the Old Republic had
still been in power when their world was destroyed ... "Well, that
eliminates Evazan and the Aqualish," she said to Karoly. "Keep
looking."
They spent the next few minutes sipping their drinks and
surreptitiously scanning the room, then spent a few minutes more
talking to three of the most likely prospects. But to no avail.
Two of the smugglers were already under contract, though one of
them offered with a leer to take them along as passengers if they
were nice to him. The third smuggler, an independent, was willing
to talk, but made it clear that he wasn't planning to move his
ship until this sudden Imperial focus on Tatooine had calmed down.
"Great," Karoly grumbled as they returned to their previous
spots at the bar. "Now what?"
Shada looked around. A few new faces had come into the cantina
since they'd begun their search, but most of them had the look
about them of men who didn't want to be disturbed. She looked in
turn at each of the booths lining the walls, wondering if they
might have missed someone.
And paused. There, right behind them, were the Jedi Knight and
the kid. Talking to the Wookiee and a man she hadn't seen come in.
"Check him out," she said, nodding toward the latter.
Karoly peered at the scanner readout. "Name's Han Solo," she
said. "Smuggler. Does a lot of business with Jabba the Hutt- "
"Put it away," Shada interrupted her, looking toward the